The Golden Reef (1969) (4 page)

The breech-worker swung the handle and the breech clanged shut, the threads of the metal twisting together to seal it. The cartridge was inserted.

‘Ready!’

‘Fire!’

And this was something else you never learned at school, something the training ship instructor never taught you: this confusion of battle, the half-seen enemy, the moving gun-deck, the human weakness that could make a man put the wrong setting on the sights and throw the whole operation out of line. The target was so small, so indistinct, no more than a shadow on the water, and night coming swiftly. And it could not come too swiftly, for in darkness the
Valparaiso
might find salvation.

And then he saw the funnel of the ship burst open like a blossoming flower, and the red petals of flame thrust out on every side before a black cloud of smoke gushed up and smothered them. In that moment he knew that the ship was dead, even before the propeller ceased revolving. They had put a shell into the
Valparaiso’s
heart and the heart had stopped beating for ever.

Mechanically he stooped for another shell and found that the racks were empty. Smoke was drifting aft and it seemed to clog his brain. He stood there with his hands hanging idly, unable to decide what he had to do now. He saw another flash of red fire in the distance and heard the high, angry screech of the shell. It went over like an express train and fell beyond the ship. A fountain of water spouted up and splashed on the decks; the ship, already stricken, reeled again.

Keeton felt a hand gripping his shoulder and found Hagan’s face glaring into his own. Hagan looked mad, and something had happened to his right ear; it was joined to his head by no more than a thin strip of skin. Blood was oozing from the place where the ear should have been and flowing down Hagan’s neck in a thick, dark stream.

‘Something’s happened to your ear‚’ Keeton said. He had a vague feeling that he had to make Hagan aware of this fact, because the petty officer himself was ignoring it, and the blood
was there on his neck like the mark of a painter’s brush. ‘It’s bleeding.’

‘You’ll be bleeding‚’ Hagan yelled; and his breath was on Keeton’s face and his fingers were digging more cruelly into Keeton’s shoulder. ‘You’ll be bleeding dead if you don’t get some more ammo out of the magazine. Get down there. Move, boy, move.’

Keeton came out of his stupor and moved. He stepped over the edge of the gun-deck and went down the ladder. The ladder was leaning over to port and was not coming back to the vertical. This fact registered on Keeton’s brain and told him that the ship was listing. Probably the sea was coming in somewhere; perhaps they were already sinking.

Another billow of smoke came drifting back from the broken funnel, half-choking him as he left the ladder and braced himself against the erratic movement of the deck. The wind seemed to be stronger, and a flurry of spray dashed across the poop, flicking the stinging salt into Keeton’s eyes. He groped his way towards the steel-sided deck-house that was used as a magazine and found that the door was already open and that Bristow was inside.

Bristow had a shell in his hands. There was no helmet on his head and his red hair was drenched with water. Bristow looked scared. He was resentful too.

‘About time I had a hand. Expect me to do this all on my Jack? Where’s the others?’

Keeton stepped inside the magazine and removed his own steel helmet and put it on one side because it bothered him. He began to pull a 4-inch shell from the rack in which it was stowed. It was almost dark in the magazine; there were no windows, and the electric bulb that should have illuminated the interior was not working, either because it had burnt out or, more probably, because the ship’s electricity supply had been cut off by the explosion that had demolished the funnel. There was not a great deal of room for movement, for besides the 4-inch shells and cordite there were boxes of 20-millimetre ammunition for the Oerlikons, tins of small-arms cartridges, rockets of various kinds, a Lewis machine-gun, two Lee-Enfield rifles and a variety of tools and spare parts.

Some more men had now arrived and a chain was formed to
pass the shells up to the gun-deck. Keeton could hear Hagan shouting: ‘Put a jerk in it. Come on, you lousy cripples. Get a move on.’

Hagan had a penetrating voice; it could be heard even through the wind and the lashing of the rain and the beating of the waves against the ship’s sides. Hagan, with his ear hanging by a thread, was a man possessed by a devil, and the devil was articulate in his voice as he drove his men to action.

Bristow got rid of his shell and came back into the magazine, still grumbling in a monotonous undertone. It was the way his fear showed through.

‘Damn Hagan. Damn the lot of ‘em. Can’t see a thing.’ The ship gave another lurch and flung him against Keeton, nearly knocking the shell out of Keeton’s hands.

‘Here we go‚’ Bristow muttered. ‘We oughter be in them boats. This crate’s had it. She’s had it sure enough. Five minutes more and we’ll be down among the dead men. You can feel her going.’

Listing to port and no longer urged forward by the restless thrusting of the propeller, the
Valparaiso
was moving at the will of the sea and the wind, now rising, now falling, see-sawing on the backs of the waves, floundering in the troughs.

Suddenly the heavy steel door of the magazine broke from its hook and swung shut with a clang that made Bristow jump and give an involuntary cry.

‘Now what? Who shut that door?’

Keeton, now in complete darkness, put his shoulder to the door and heaved. The door opened a little way, then the wind caught it and slammed it shut again.

The door struck Keeton’s shoulder and sent him sprawling. The shell slipped from his hands and hit Bristow on the knee before clattering to the deck. Bristow yelled with pain, but in the same instant his yell was drowned by something altogether louder – the tremendous blast of an explosion.

Keeton felt the deck lift under his feet; he seemed to be whirling in space, helpless, unable to save himself; and then he was falling into a deep pit and something burst between his eyes in a cascade of stars. And after that blackness dropped over him as a snuffer might drop over the flame of a candle.

Keeton came to his senses with the impression of being suffocated. There was no light, and the air around him was close and heavy, impregnated with the distinctive odour of ammunition. Where he lay there was an inch or two of water and he seemed to be wedged in a kind of trough. It took him some minutes to reach the conclusion that the sides of this trough were in fact the steeply sloping floor of the magazine and the steel wall that rose from it at right-angles.

Keeton’s head throbbed with pain. He put a hand to his forehead and discovered a gash there, the blood still wet. He supposed that in falling he must have been struck by some sharp projection, possibly the corner of an ammunition box, and that it was this that had knocked him unconscious. He wondered how long he had lain there. He listened for sounds of gunfire and could hear none. He could hear no shouting either. From outside came only the sound of waves beating against the ship and of wind blowing rain and spray against the sides of the magazine. Lying there in the darkness he was seized by a feeling of panic that for a moment posssessed him utterly. Then he thought of Bristow. Bristow had been in the magazine with him at the time of the explosion; perhaps he was still there.

His voice sounded strange even to himself; it was little more than a croaking whisper.

‘Johnnie!’

He heard Bristow’s voice answering him at once, only a few
inches away. It was sharp, high-pitched, but there was unmistakable relief in it.

‘God, Charlie, I thought you weren’t ever going to wake up. I been trying to wake you. I thought you must be dead.’

Keeton sat up with his head resting against the wall of the magazine. His head made a clamour of protest and there was a pain in his shoulder where the door had struck it. He felt Bristow’s groping hand touch his cheek.

‘I thought you must be dead‚’ Bristow said again.

‘How long have I been out?’

‘How long? I don’t know. How could I? Long enough. The door’s jammed. I been shouting. Nobody came. Nobody answered. I never heard nobody after that last shell hit us.’ The note of hysteria had crept into Bristow’s voice again. He clawed at Keeton’s shoulder as if to convince himself that he was not alone. ‘I believe they’re all gone. I believe they’ve left us.’

‘What do you mean – gone?’

‘Abandoned ship. Saving their own rotten skins. She’s sinking, ain’t she? And there’s been no firing for a long time now. That sub must’ve known we was finished, or maybe it got too dark for him to see us any more.’ Bristow’s fingers kneaded Keeton’s shoulder. ‘We been left behind. We can’t get out and we’ll go down with this filthy crate.’ He was almost sobbing. ‘The bastards! The slimy, rotten bastards!’

Keeton knocked Bristow’s hand away and struggled to his feet. There was an acute slope to the deck; the angle changed as the ship wallowed, but the deck never became level even for a moment; the list to port was permanent. Keeton leaned against the steel wall of the magazine until his head stopped whirling.

He said: ‘Have you tried the door?’

‘Of course I’ve tried it. Can’t budge it. It’s like as if something was piled up against it outside.’

‘Let’s have another go‚’ Keeton said. ‘The two of us might manage it.’

And then he realized that he had lost his bearings. He had no idea where the door was. There was no light at all, not a glimmer.

‘Where is the door, Johnnie?’

‘Over here. You can feel it.’ Bristow’s voice came from the left. Keeton groped his way along the wall until his shoulder touched the other man’s.

‘Here’s the catches‚’ Bristow said. ‘I’ve made sure they’re turned back. They aren’t holding it.’

Keeton leaned against the door; it was like a continuation of the steel wall, hard and unyielding.

‘Let’s give a heave together when I give the word.’

‘All right‚’ Bristow said without enthusiasm. ‘But it won’t budge. You’ll see.’

‘Now!’

They both pressed against it. The door did not move.

‘Again! Put all you’ve got into it. Now!’

The door gave no hint of opening. It seemed to be as fixed and immovable as the riveted plates of the ship’s hull. Bristow was panting.

‘I told you. It’s no good. It’d take a charge of dynamite to shift that door.’

Keeton had the feeling that Bristow was right. Something really heavy must be holding the door.

‘We’re trapped,’ Bristow said. ‘Even if the ship doesn’t go down, we’re trapped. We can’t never get out – never. If she goes down we’ll be drowned and if she doesn’t go down we’ll starve to death.’ He gave a cackling laugh, and the hysteria was there ready to take control. ‘It’s a sweet choice, ain’t it? Either way we’ve had it.’

‘Stow that‚’ Keeton said. He moved away from the door, away from Bristow. He could hear the ammunition boxes creaking as the ship rolled and floundered. It was as though a hundred different voices were complaining in that tiny space, a hundred voices communicating their fear of death.

‘Them rotten bastards‚’ Bristow said, his voice rising to a whine. ‘They never ought to have gone and left us here. Just looking after their own skins. It was that Rains, you bet. I said what would happen with him in charge. And I was right. My God, wasn’t I just right and all.’

‘So you were right‚’ Keeton said. ‘Where does that get you? How does that help us now?’

‘It was the shell.’ Bristow seemed unable to stop talking. ‘That last shell. It must’ve landed on the poop or near to. Maybe it killed the other lads. Of course – that’s what it must’ve done. Don’t you see?’

‘See what? I can’t see anything in here.’

They thought we was dead too – with the rest of ‘em. That’s why they didn’t come for us. That’s why they left us in here. They didn’t know we was alive and they didn’t even trouble to make sure.’

‘We’ve got to think‚’ Keeton said. ‘Just shut up, will you, Johnnie, and let me think.’

Thinking won’t get you out. It’ll take more than sweet thoughts to bust that door down, and there ain’t no other way out.’

‘Stow it, Johnnie, stow it.’ Keeton was trying to think, but there was a hammering in his brain, and the warm darkness pressed upon him like an oily blanket. And Bristow was right: no amount of thinking would get them out of the magazine; it was a trap and there was no way of springing it.

The ship trembled as the sea pounded it. It rolled to port and recovered sluggishly. The shell that Keeton had dropped was rolling about on the floor of the magazine; he felt it strike his right ankle, jarring the bone. He bent down and felt the cold cylindrical and deadly shape under his fingers. He lifted it and staggered in what he judged was the direction of the rack from which the shell had come. He found an empty space and wedged the shell into it.

‘What are you doing?’ Bristow demanded querulously.

‘Housework‚’ Keeton said.

He heard Bristow swearing softly. ‘You’re cracked.’

The wind was like a blustering marauder seeking a way in. Sea-water dashed against the magazine as against a rock.

‘Listen to that,’ Bristow said. ‘Just listen to that, will you? It’s getting worse out there. How long do you reckon this old tub will stay afloat?’

Keeton made no answer. Since there was nothing to be done, he resigned himself; and since it was difficult to stand, he decided to lie down and find what little comfort he could. The
noise of the storm continued outside, while inside there were the boxes creaking and Bristow’s voice, querulous, complaining, fearful, mumbling on. Keeton listened to all these sounds for a long time, but at last they faded out of his consciousness and in spite of everything he fell asleep.

He awoke with bleared eyes and a dry, scummy taste in his mouth. His head still ached; it was like the worst of all hangovers without the memory of enjoyment. A sound that alternated between a snort and a whistle was audible, and Keeton knew that this was Bristow snoring. But there was not so much noise outside the magazine; the wind seemed to have slackened, and though the ship was still listing to port and moving uneasily, there was no violent motion such as there had been earlier. And, greatest miracle of all, the
Valparaiso
was still afloat.

And then Keeton noticed something else – a thin, vertical line of light.

He got up painfully, his limbs stiff and sore from the hammering they had received and the cramped position in which he had slept. He moved towards the light and found that it was a thread of yellow sunshine which was pushing its way past the edge of the door.

Keeton’s brain ticked over slowly, still clogged by sleep and the heavy, oppressive atmosphere. He began to reason things out. If light could penetrate, then there must be a gap, however small; and if there was a gap the door could not be fully closed. These elementary deductions leaked into Keeton’s brain like water dripping from a faulty tap, a drop at a time. A flicker of hope leaped up in him, but he suppressed it, not daring to hope that here was the possibility of escape. Reason told him that the gap must have been there when Bristow and he had tried to force the door open; it had not been visible simply because of the gloom outside. The fact that the sun was now shining through it made it no bigger; sunlight merely traced it out and made it visible. Nevertheless, there might be a way.

Keeton reached towards the light with his fingers and felt the gap. It was perhaps a quarter of an inch wide, maybe more, maybe less. He allowed his fingers to travel down the gap and at
the bottom he found the reason why the door had not shut completely: a spanner was wedged tightly between door and frame. There was no possibility of moving it even if he had wished to do so.

Keeton straightened up and called: ‘Johnnie!’

The snoring continued without pause and he could see Bristow at the far end of the magazine, a bulky outline in the gloom that was now slightly relieved by the light shining through the crack. He moved towards Bristow and stirred him with his foot. Bristow awoke suddenly and began to lash out with arms and legs, yelling wildly, apparently still in the grip of some nightmare. Keeton drew back out of range.

‘Stop that noise, you idiot. I want your help.’

Bristow suddenly noticed what Keeton had noticed a few minutes earlier. ‘There’s some light coming in.’

‘You’re observant, Johnnie, very observant indeed. Can you observe where it’s coming from?’

‘The door. It must be open. We’ll be able to get out.’

Keeton damped his hopes. ‘Not so fast, Johnnie. The door’s still jammed. There’s a little gap because there’s a spanner in the works, but we aren’t out yet. We’ll need a lever.’

‘What about a rifle?’

‘Could try it. But I doubt whether a rifle barrel would go into that crack.’

The rifles were clipped up against the side of the magazine. Keeton took one of them and tried to push the muzzle into the crack. As he had feared, it was too thick to go in.

‘We shall have to make a start with something thinner.’

‘I saw a marlinespike in here the other day‚’ Bristow said. ‘The P.O. was using it to open an ammo box.’

‘That could be the tool – if it’s still here.’

It took them nearly half an hour to find it; it had rolled between two of the boxes. In fact it was Keeton who found it, Bristow having already given up in despair. Keeton prodded him with the sharp end of the spike.

‘Here it is, Johnnie. Now we’ll get to work.’

He pushed the spike into the crack and tried to lever the door open. There was no apparent movement. He turned to Bristow.
‘Lend a hand, can’t you?’

Bristow came with his soft body and his fat hands and together they hauled on the lever. The door opened slightly, but as soon as they released the pressure it moved back into its former position.

‘We’ve got to get the rifle in‚’ Keeton said. He could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead, and already Bristow was dripping. ‘We can get more leverage with the rifle.’

‘Anyway‚’ Bristow said, with hope in his voice again, ‘we shifted it.’

Keeton picked up the rifle and leaned it against the door with the muzzle resting on the gap just below the marlinespike.

‘Now then. Again. Heave.’

Again they hauled on the spike. Again the door opened slightly. The rifle barrel went a short distance into the gap, but then the door closed and squeezed it out.

‘Take a breather‚’ Keeton said. ‘We’ll do it next time.’

He was the younger man but he had taken command as though by right. Bristow conceded him that right. Bristow was panting.

‘Lord, I could do with a drink. I’m parched.’

‘You’ll get one when we’ve done this job. Now.’

This time the rifle slid fully into the gap and was gripped there as in a vice. Keeton dropped the spike and took hold of the butt of the rifle.

‘We’ll need wedges or we’ll lose what we gain. Got any ideas?’

‘There’s the Lewis gun and the other rifle. We could take the butt off the Lewis.’

‘Get it,’ Keeton said.

The Lewis gun was in a wooden case. Bristow lifted it out and released the butt. He carried the butt and the second rifle to the door.

‘Put them down there‚’ Keeton said, ‘where I can push them in with my foot.’

Bristow obeyed, laying the improvised wedges in position at the bottom of the door.

‘All right. Now heave again.’

The rifle was a much more efficient lever than the spike because it was longer. The door shifted appreciably when they put their weight on it. There was a grinding sound of metal on metal. The resistance was still there, trying to force the door shut again, but Keeton managed to push the Lewis butt into the opening and they had consolidated their gain. A flow of clean air came through this wider gap and they sucked it gratefully into their lungs.

Another heave and the rifle butt was lying beside the butt of the Lewis gun. The gap had been doubled. Keeton leaned against the door, breathing heavily.

‘We need another wedge, Johnnie.’

‘No more guns.’

‘Bring one of those shells then.’

Bristow brought the shell and they levered it into the gap. And so they fought the door, sweating and panting; and in the end the door defeated them.