by Wilbur Smith
The older woman chuckled. “After reading Slaves of the Mahdi, my dear, I can understand why you see disaster in every little thing, but you’ll feel foolish in the morning, Miss Benbrook, I promise you.”
Amber tried again. “Please do come, Mrs. Cobbett!” Saffron gave a hard yank on Amber’s wrist. Mrs. Cobbett only waved and turned back into her stateroom.
Amber allowed herself to be dragged through the saloon and out into the chill night air. Several of the male first-class passengers were on deck, taking the opportunity for a smoke and a little conversation. The scene seemed so at odds with the sense of rising urgency in her own blood. None of the gentlemen appeared alarmed, but Amber was watching the faces of the crew as they moved around them. They looked serious.
“Look!” Saffron said, and pointed. One of the double-ended lifeboats on the starboard side was almost ready to be lowered. The canvas cover had been removed and stowed, supplies from the lock-box on the deck were being handed in and, as they watched, four of the lascar crew climbed in, while four others manned the ropes, ready to lower it into the water from its cast-iron davits.
Even in this dark corner of the deck, they could see the lifeboat was half empty, but the crew was already preparing to swing it free. One of the officers saw the two girls hurrying toward them.
“Hold!” he shouted to the crewmen on the ropes, then offered his hand to Amber and Saffron as if he were helping them into their carriage in St. James’s Park.
“It isn’t full!” Saffron said.
The officer spoke quickly. “If the boiler blows, the ship could go down in minutes, Mrs. Courtney. Best to get some boats in the water as fast as possible. If you need to pick up survivors you can. Ready!”
The crewmen on deck started working cranking handles at the base of the davits from which the lifeboat was hanging. The boat swayed as the metal arms clanked and rattled into position until the lifeboat was over the water.
A shadow passed over the full moon and Saffron’s knuckles whitened as she clung to the swaying sides of the boat. For a moment it was strangely quiet, but the night did not seem so beautiful anymore.
“That’s enough!” the officer on deck shouted. “Lower away!”
•••
Ryder reached the boiler room within minutes of the initial explosions. One of the crew tried to hold him at the door but he shouldered his way forward without even slowing down. The bells on the telegraph were still ringing. As Ryder pushed his way in, one of the engineers shoved the wooden handle into position and shouted the “Stop Engines” order. From above Ryder heard the clatter of boots on the metal gangway, and the chief engineer, his uniform jacket half on and his face still creased with sleep, slid down the companionway.
“What in hell’s name?” he shouted before he had even hit the deck.
“Explosion in fireboxes of boilers three and four, sir.”
Ryder looked around him. It was hot and dark as hell. The door of the middle firebox on the stern side had been ripped open, and the narrow opening through which the beast of the ship was fed with coal had been torn wide. The explosion had been enough to rip the metal back and apart. The floor on which he stood was slippery with blood and the air stank of coal dust and hot metal.
The chief engineer grabbed the man who had spoken by his collar. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘explosions’?”
Someone was screaming. A metal fragment flung from the door of the firebox had sliced through the arm of one of the stokers at the elbow. Senseless with pain and shock, the man was sitting in a lake of his own blood and staring at his severed limb that lay, its fingers gently curled upward, a yard to his left. He wailed and babbled. One of his crewmates in a sky-blue turban was trying to tie up the gushing stump with an oily rag, but he was already soaked in gore.
“They exploded!” the man said into the engineer’s furious scowl. “Trimmer Khan brought in a load from the bunker and tipped it between boxes three and four, where it was wanted, then two minutes later, boom boom!”
One of the crew shouted over from the speaking tube. “Boss, Captain wants to know what’s happening!”
“Tell him I want to know that too.” Ryder felt a tug at his sleeve and looked down into the face of a boy of about twelve years old. His skin was much darker than the lascars; he could be Zulu, Ryder thought.
“Sir,” he whispered in English. “Sir, look . . .”
“Where’s bloody trimmer Khan, then?” the engineer bellowed. “What did he shovel into my fireboxes?” The man who had lost his arm screamed again. “And get him out of here!”
“That’s trimmer Khan,” the man answered, nodding toward a body on the floor. The face had been blasted by red-hot coals. You could hardly tell the smoking flesh had once been a man.
“Please, sir!” The boy pulled on Ryder’s arm again and he glanced in the direction the boy was pointing. It was the water gauge on the side of the second boiler and the arrow was sinking fast.
“Chief!” Ryder yelled. “Check the gauge!”
The engineer flung the man he had been questioning away from him, and he stumbled to his knees near the trimmer’s smoking corpse. He began to retch. The chief saw the gauge and his face went stone white.
“Christ save us, the shell must be cracked. Open the valves! Flood the boilers now.”
“It’s too late, man!” Ryder shouted. “It’s going to blow whatever you do. You have to run.”
“I said open the valves. We have to try. You can do nothing here, Courtney! Get out, save as many as you can. The rest of you too! Get out!”
The surviving stokers began to crowd up the companionway. The man in the blue turban was trying to lift the stoker with the severed arm. Ryder ran the few strides toward him and felt for the injured man’s pulse. Nothing, and his eyes were fixed and staring.
“He’s dead—save yourself.”
The man mumbled something, it might have been thanks or a word of prayer in his own language, then ran for the companionway.
Ryder lowered his head and squared his shoulders, then he remembered the boy. He was frozen where Ryder had left him, among the blood and cinders, the hissing of steam and the ghastly light pouring from the torn fireboxes, the last angel in hell.
“Come here!” The boy blinked at him, startled, then obeyed. Ryder crouched down. “Get on my back, kid.”
The boy had instincts enough left to wrap his arms around Ryder’s neck and legs around his waist. Ryder stood, the boy feather-light, and ran up the cast-iron stairs. Behind him he heard the engineer still shouting orders, then a great clang and rattle as the valve wheel was forced, a groan from the boiler, as well as the sucking roar of the flames. He could picture the arrow and the gauge in front of him. One minute, two at the most. The men remaining below would be killed instantly, but the explosion would do more than that—it would rip the ship apart. He didn’t look back.
When he reached the lower passenger decks on the starboard side of the ship, he yelled the order to abandon ship as he ran along the narrow passageway. The sound bounced off the plain whitewashed walls. Nervous families of all colors and creeds stared at him and the fleeing stokers with blank-eyed confusion. He shouted the order in every language he knew and flung himself up the next ladder-like stairs. He was smothered in the stink of blood and coal, but he caught the scent of the night air. He was counting the seconds, imagining that arrow juddering lower as each one passed. His muscles burned and cramped but he only pushed harder, as if trying to outrun the devil himself. Under him the ship shuddered and shook. He hauled himself up the last steps. Ahead he could see the first-class saloon, its doors standing open, and beyond that the moonlit forward deck.
•••
Saffron was twisting around trying to catch sight of Ryder in the darkness and confusion on deck. The lifeboat swung wildly as the ship shuddered and the engines stopped. She shot out a hand to save herself, then she felt a strong grip holding her shoulder, stopping her full weight being flung forward.
“Dan!” She peered into the swaying shadows. “Are Patch and Rusty with you?”
“Sure are. We were playing cards in the saloon. Thought we’d take a little jaunt.”
“You don’t think we’re in any danger then?”
She watched him shake his head. “Think the danger is how these boys handle getting this thing in the water. Certainly ain’t nothing but a blown pipe in the engine. Can you swim, Mrs. C?”
Saffron half nodded. She had swum for her life when escaping Khartoum, but that was more splashing around, keeping her head above water and hoping Ryder would pluck her out before the Nile crocodiles or the rifle shots of the dervish got her first.
“Well, I was built to sink like a stone, so if we go into the drink, don’t hang on to me.”
Someone shouted on deck and the prow of the lifeboat suddenly dropped down heavily. Saffron gasped and found herself staring straight into the darkness of the midnight waters. Her stomach twisted sickly and her head swam. Amber screamed. She was slipping away from her. Saffron took a hard hold of a grab rope hanging from the gunwale, at the same moment shooting out her right hand to her twin. Amber seized her forearm, and Saffron gasped as her shoulder took her sister’s weight. Amber scrambled for a footing and found it pushing against the brass-rimmed ribs of the lifeboat. The Gladstone bag of one of the other passengers tumbled toward them. Amber swung to the right as it plummeted by, an inch from her head, then plunged the last thirty feet into the water and disappeared with a heavy splash.
Above them orders were being shouted, sharp and rapid. The boat was righted and immediately lowered again in one, two, three lurches, dropping them with a hard percussive smack onto the gently rolling waters of the sea. Saffron felt baby Leon stir against her chest. She put her arm around him and tried to control the sick fear rising in her head and brain. Her attention sharpened to a knife-like brilliance. The crewmen who had boarded the lifeboat were unshipping the oars—four lascars, wearing royal blue turbans, and a European in the white uniform of a deck officer. The lascars fitted the rowlocks into place. Saffron noticed they were of polished brass and shone in the moonlight. The lascars slid the oars into place and looked to the deck officer for orders.
“Pull away!”
It took all of Saffron’s self-control to stop herself shouting at them not to, that she needed to be near to Ryder. She looked over her shoulder at the ship. It looked perfect and unharmed, four yards away, six, ten. With the ship engines stopped, the night was silent apart from the chatter and creak of the rowlocks as the lascars pulled in easy, perfectly coordinated strokes. The air was salty and chill. She pulled the thick leather coat around Leon to keep the damp away from him, then twisted around again to look at the ship. She could see more passengers coming out on deck and strained to see if Ryder was among them. Another boat had been lowered; the sound of it hitting the water carried over to them clearly. It followed their line away from the ship. Saffron’s heart was beating fast, the dread running through her veins making it difficult to breathe. She tried to calm herself before the baby sensed her fear.
Why are we going away? Saffron thought in confusion. They are waving at us. We should go back. I might have dropped all our money in the sea, or Amber might have been hurt, and all because we did not stay on the ship with the sensible people like Mrs. Cobbett. She breathed as slowly as she could, but her mind felt heavy. Perhaps I have been in danger too much, she thought. Now I see it everywhere. She heard Amber gasp.
“What is it?”
Amber pointed back toward the ship. Saffron could just make out shapes falling from the side. People. People were jumping into the water.
Saffron felt dizzy. “Why are they doing that?” she said. “That must be terribly dangerous.”
A deep ear-splitting blast tore through the air and the rear of the ship exploded. The force half lifted their boat out of the water and for a moment it seemed she would flounder. Saffron heard wreckage crashing into the sea around them and the salt spray soaked her hair and skin. She felt a sharp pain and nausea that seemed to come from within and without her at the same time.
“Ryder!” she gasped, then the world went dark.
•••
Amber felt the blast rather than heard it, and her first instinct was to shield Saffron and baby Leon, wrapping her arms around her twin and pulling her sideways, trying to put her own body between them and the ship. The explosion blinded her. The lifeboat crashed back into the waves, rocking so violently the starboard gunwale dipped under the water. The passengers shrieked and scrambled to port, and it seemed the boat would overturn.
“Hold hard!” the deck officer roared as a burst of cold salt water washed down Amber’s back.
The lascars shoved the panicked passengers back into place and lowered their oars into the water to steady the craft.
“Balers!” the officer said. “Buckets under the thwarts!”
Amber heard Patch, Dan and Rusty exchanging grunts as they untied the shallow wooden buckets and began scooping the cold water out of the boat and back into the sea where it belonged. They worked fast.
Amber held her sister close. She was heavy in her arms. She must have fainted, Amber thought, and she was glad of it. It was better, much better, for Saffron not to see the catastrophe and chaos behind them.
The ship’s stern was on fire and the first great blast had been followed by other, smaller explosions. The flames climbed thirty feet into the air, and the moon and stars seemed to disappear, wiped out of the sky by the sudden light. The prow of the ship began to lift. Bodies were falling from the decks; some figures were leaping, others tumbled. In the confusion of flames at the stern, Amber saw people moving, their clothes and hair on fire as they stumbled and spiraled into the water. Their terrible screams carried across to them only too clearly. In the lifeboat one of the passengers began to pray out loud, while another turned and vomited into the water as the smell of burning flesh and timber reached them.
“We must go back!” Amber shouted at the officer. “The people!”
She could see his face, made horrible by the light of the inferno on the ship casting shadows on his drawn features.
“We can’t. She’s going down and if we don’t get further away we’ll go down with her.”
“But . . .”
“God, you think I don’t want to?” His voice was almost a wail. “It won’t be long now and we’ll go and pick up survivors as soon as we can.” He took off his cap and ran his hand through his shaggy blond hair. Amber realized he was probably only a year or two older than she was. The mask of the English officer slipped for a moment and he looked very young. “I have friends on that ship.”
Amber felt tears sting her eyes and wiped them away with the back of her hand. Behind them Rusty cursed as a corpse floated by them in the water, the face smashed into a grinning pulp. Amber gasped but she managed not to cry out. “Oh, Ryder,” she whispered. “Please be alive.”
She squeezed Saffron’s unconscious body to her, feeling Leon kick his little limbs between them. The shoulders of the coat Saffron was wearing were soaked. Amber felt the water seeping through her fingers. A cold dread washed over her; something about the feel of the liquid wasn’t quite right. She shook her sister’s shoulder.
“Saffy? Saffy, open your eyes!” Behind her came another dull explosion and a burst of light. Amber looked down at her palm. It was covered in blood.
“Saffy! Saffron! Oh God, Rusty! Something has hit her, she’s bleeding.”
A match flared.
“Hold her, Miss Benbrook. I see it, top of her arm. Damn!” The flame was shaken out as it burned his fingers. “I need a light. Get a lantern, someone. You in the back, break open that locker. Look for a lantern and something for bandages. Come on, folks, stop staring and move your arses!” Amber felt his hand close around her own. “Now, Miss B. You press down here, and hard.”
Amber squeezed where Rusty had laid her hand
on her sister’s upper arm and felt the blood bubble up between her fingers. A bustle of activity took place in the shadows as someone found and lit the boat’s lanterns. The passenger praying in the darkness lapsed into silence. Amber almost wished the praying would start again, for now she could hear the screams and cries coming from the darkness around them all the more distinctly. Rusty leaned forward again, holding the light over his head. Amber looked away toward the ship. The prow was rearing high out of the water, the final lights on the deck flickered out and she was lit only by the flaming wreckage that surrounded her. Figures were in the water, bodies, others who seemed to be swimming away from the floundering steamer. With a thunderous roar of water, the stern sank completely into the darkness. The rest of the ship was dragged down behind it in seconds with such sudden violence it seemed some sea monster had reached up and pulled it down into the depths. The waves foamed around Amber in a great sucking rush and the lifeboat rocked hard. Helplessly she watched as the floating bodies, the wreckage, the swimmers nearest the ship were dragged back toward her. They lifted their arms, calling out, crying for help, then disappeared like the damned into hell. Amber lowered her head and began to cry.
She heard the sound of ripping fabric and blinked as a lantern, now held by Patch, half standing, half crouching behind Rusty, stung her eyes.
“Miss B, you need to take your hand away now, and we’ll get her arm out of the sleeve so we can see what’s happening,” he said calmly, ignoring her sobs. “Let’s move quickly. She’s losing a lot of blood. Count of three. One, two, three.”
Amber lifted away her hand and pushed the heavy leather sleeve of Ryder’s leather coat down, lifting Saffron’s arm free. Saffron yelped, but did not seem to wake. Leon began to cry and Amber put her hand across his head to shield and comfort him. Rusty leaned in close. The shirt Saffron was wearing was scarlet. Rusty ripped it away at the shoulder seam. Amber supported her sister against her chest. She could feel the silk scarf around Saffron’s neck soaked and stiffening as the blood began to thicken in the cold air.