Green coughed and wiped soot from his eyes, then straightened and faced his captain. ‘Beaten back, sir. We’ve closed all the hatches we can, but it’s spread to the starboard engine room. Drenching system hasn’t worked.’ He coughed black phlegm on to the floor, then looked up again, eyes white in his sooty face. ‘I don’t think it’s reached the main feed tank, because it would have blown out the machine control room.’
‘Foamite?’ said the captain.
‘Too late for that, sir. It’s no longer just a fuel fire.’
Around him the team of marines and stokers, the naval firefighters, stood ready, clutching hoses and fire extinguishers, waiting for the orders that would send them in.
It had often been said of Highfield, on Indomitable, that he knew the location of every room, every compartment, every hold in his floating city without ever having to examine a map. Now he mentally traced the possible route of the fire through her sister ship. ‘Do we know which way it’s headed?’
‘We can only hope it spreads to starboard. That way we might lose the starboard engine, sir, but it will hit the air space. Above it we’ve got the lub oil tank and turbo-generator.’
‘So the worst that could happen is we’re immobilised.’ Around him, the fire siren continued to wail in the cramped passageway. In the distance, he could hear the women being mustered.
‘Sir.’
‘But?’
‘But I can’t guarantee it’s spreading in that direction, sir.’
Caught early enough, an engine-room fire could have been put out with extinguishers and, at worst, a hose. Even caught late, it could usually be contained with boundary hosing – spraying water on the outside walls to keep the temperature of the room down. But this fire – God only knew how – had already gone too far. Where were the men? he wanted to shout. Where were the extinguishers? The bloody drenchers? But it was too late for any of that. ‘You think it might be heading towards the machine control room?’
The man nodded.
‘If it blows out the machine control room, it will reach the warhead and bomb rooms.’
‘Sir.’
That plane. That face. Highfield forced himself to push away the image.
‘Get the women off the ship.’
‘What?’
‘Lower the lifeboats.’
Dobson glanced out of the bridge at the rough seas. ‘Sir, I—’
‘I’m not taking any chances. Lower the lifeboats. Take a bloody order, man. Green, grab your men and equipment. Dobson, I need at least ten men. We’re going to empty the bomb rooms as far as possible, then flood the bloody thing. Tennant, I want you and a couple of others to see if you can get to the passage below the mast pump room. Get the hatches open on the lub oil store and flood it. Flood as many of the compartments around both engine rooms as you can.’
‘But it’s above water level, sir.’
‘Look at the waves, man. We’ll make the bloody seas work for us for a change.’
On the boat deck, Nicol was trying to persuade a weeping girl, her arms wrapped round her lifejacket, to climb into the lifeboat. ‘I can’t,’ she shrieked, pointing at the churning black seas below. ‘Look at it! Just look at it!’
Around them, the marines struggled to keep order and calm, despite the sirens and piped instructions emanating from other parts of the ship. Occasionally a woman would cry out that she could see or smell smoke, and a ripple of fear would travel through the others. Despite this, the weeping girl was not the only one unwilling to climb into the boats, which, after the solidity of Victoria, bobbed precariously like corks in the foaming waters below.
‘You’ve got to get in,’ he yelled, his tone becoming firmer.
‘But all my things! What will happen to them?’
‘They’ll be fine. Fire will be out in no time and then you can re-embark. Come on, now. There’s a queue building up behind you.’
With a sob of reluctance, the girl allowed herself to be handed into the boat and the queue shuffled forward a few inches. Behind him the crowd of several hundred women waited, having been marshalled out of the hangar deck towards the lifeboats, most still in their evening dresses. The wind whistled around them, goosepimpling the girls’ arms; they clutched themselves and shivered. Some wept, others wore bright, nervous smiles as if trying to persuade themselves that this was all some jolly adventure. One in three refused point-blank to get in and had to be ordered or even manhandled. He didn’t blame them – he didn’t want to get into a lifeboat either.
In the floodlit dark, he could see men who remembered Indomitable; they eyed each other while trying not to reveal it in their expressions, kept their attention focused on getting the women down into the relative safety of the waters below.
The next female hand was in his. It was Margaret, her moon face pale. ‘I can’t leave Maudie,’ she said.
It took him several seconds to understand what she was saying. ‘Frances is down there,’ he said. ‘She’ll bring her. Come on, you can’t wait.’
‘But how do you know?’
‘Margaret, you have to get into the boat.’ He could see the anxious faces of those swaying in the suspended cutter. ‘C’mon, now. Don’t make everyone else wait.’
Her grip was surprisingly strong. ‘You’ve got to tell her to get Maudie.’
Nicol peered back through the smoke and chaos below the bridge. His own fears were not for the dog.
‘You get into that one, Nicol.’ His marine captain appeared behind him, pointing to the one alongside. ‘Make sure they’ve all got their jackets on.’
‘Sir, I’d rather wait on deck, if that’s—’
‘I want you in the boat.’
‘Sir, if it’s all the same I’ll—’
‘Nicol, in the boat. That’s an order.’ The marine captain nodded him towards the little vessel, as Margaret’s lifeboat disappeared down the side of the ship, then did a double-take. ‘What the bloody hell has happened to your face?’
Several minutes later, Nicol’s boat hit the waters with a flat wet thud that made several girls shriek. Fumbling with safety straps and the problem of getting a lifejacket round a particularly hysterical bride, Nicol scanned the boats already on the water until he spotted Emmett. The young marine was gesturing at his single oar. ‘There’s no bloody ropes,’ he was shouting, ‘and half the oars are missing. Bloody ship’s a floating scrapyard.’
‘They were half-way through replacing them. Denholm ordered it after the last drill,’ said another voice.
Nicol searched for and found his own oars – he was lucky. They were safe. They could float all night for all it mattered. Around them, the sea churned dark grey, the waves not high enough to induce real fear, but sizeable enough to keep the women’s hold firm on the sides of the little boats. Above, through the whistling in his ears, he could hear the increasingly rapid piped instructions, now joined by the siren. He stared at the creaking ship; the faint but distinct plume of smoke that had emerged from the space below the women’s cabins.
Get out, he told her silently. Get to somewhere I can see you.
‘I can’t keep close to you,’ shouted Emmett. ‘How are we going to keep the boats together?’
‘Get out. Get out now,’ he said aloud.
‘Here,’ said a woman behind him, ‘I know what we can do. Come on, girls . . .’
‘I’m not going.’
Frances had hold of Avice now, no longer caring what the girl thought of her, no longer caring how any physical contact would be received. She could hear the sound of the lifeboats hitting the water, the shouts of those leaving the ship, and was filled by the blind fear that they would not get out.
She tried to convey none of this to Avice who, she suspected, was beyond sensible thought. She hated the stupid girl, too shallow even to recognise the threat to their lives.
‘I know it’s hard but you’ve got to go now.’ She had kept her voice sing-song light for the past ten minutes. Sweet, reassuring, detached, the way she used to talk to the worst-injured men.
‘There’s nothing for me now,’ said Avice, and her voice rasped like sandpaper. ‘You hear me? Everything’s ruined. I’m ruined.’
‘I’m sure it can be sorted out—’
‘Sorted out? What do I do? Unmarry myself? Row myself back to Australia?’
‘Avice, this is not the time—’ She could smell smoke now. It made all the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
‘Oh, how could you possibly understand? You, with the morals of an alleycat.’
‘We’ve got to get out.’
‘I don’t care. My life is over. I may as well stay here—’ She broke off as, above them, something crashed on to the deck. The shudder it sent through the little room seemed to knock Avice out of her trance.
A man’s face appeared round their door. ‘You shouldn’t still be in here,’ he said. ‘Leave your things and go.’ It seemed as if he were about to come in, but he was distracted by a shout from the other end of the passageway. ‘Now!’ he said, and vanished.
Frances stared in horror at the door, just long enough to see the back legs of the little dog disappear through it. She toyed with the idea of going after her, but a glance at Avice’s wild expression told her where her priorities lay.
There was another crash and a man’s voice at the end of the hangar deck yelling, ‘Secure hatches! Secure hatches now!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Frances’s grip was strong. She grabbed an arm and a handful of Avice’s dress and pulled her out of the cabin, conscious that she was at last movable. The corridor was full of smoke. Frances tried to duck below it, a hand over her mouth and nose. ‘Gun turret,’ she yelled, pointing, and they stumbled, half blinded, their lungs scorched and protesting, towards it.
They fumbled with the hatch door, and fell outside, gasping and retching. Frances made her way to the edge and leant over, so relishing the clearer air that it took her a minute to register the scene below: a web of boats spanning beneath them, linked by knotty brown lengths. She glanced up at the empty gantries and saw that all the boats were in the water. She knew there must still be men on deck – she could hear their voices filtering downwards. But she could not work out how to get to them.
Someone saw them and shouted. Arms gesticulated from below. ‘Get out!’ someone was shouting. ‘Get out now!’
Frances stared at the water, then at the girl beside her, still in her best dress. Frances was a strong swimmer: she could dive down, emerge among the lifeboats. She owed Avice nothing. Less than nothing. ‘We can’t head up to the flight deck. There’s too much smoke in the corridor,’ she said. ‘We’re going to have to jump.’
‘I can’t,’ said Avice.
‘It’s not that far. Look – I’ll hold on to you.’
‘I can’t swim.’
Frances heard the crack of something giving outside, the hint of an inferno she did not want to face. She grabbed Avice and they struggled, Frances trying desperately to drag her towards the edge.
‘Get off me!’ Avice screamed. ‘Don’t touch me!’ She was wild, scratching and pounding at Frances’s arms, her shoulders. Smoke was seeping under the hatch. From somewhere far below, Frances could hear women’s voices calling up to them. She smelt something acrid and her heart was filled with fear. She grabbed a handful of Avice’s silk dress and dragged her on to the gun turret. Her foot slipped, the rubber sole of her shoe sliding off metal, and she thought suddenly: What if no one rescues me? Then she heard a scream and, entangled, they were falling, arms and legs flailing, towards the inky black below.