Alistair MacLean Sea Thrillers 4-Book Collection: San Andreas, The Golden Rendezvous, Seawitch, Santorini - Alistair MacLean

Скачать книгу

aboard.’

      ‘I know, sir. He may just be suffering from the effects of having surfaced from a great depth. I don’t know, all I know is he’s suffering pretty badly. The rest are well enough, all they need is dry clothing.’ He turned to Jamieson who had just joined him on deck. ‘Perhaps, sir, you would be kind enough to supervise their change of clothing?’

      ‘You mean to make sure that they’re not carrying anything they shouldn’t be carrying?’

      McKinnon smiled and turned to Patterson. ‘How are the for’ard watertight bulkheads, sir?’

      ‘Holding. I’ve had a look myself. Bent and buckled but holding.’

      ‘With your permission, sir, I’ll get a diving suit and have a look.’

      ‘Now? Couldn’t that wait a bit?’

      ‘I’m afraid waiting is the one thing we can’t afford. We can be reasonably certain that the U-boat was in contact with Trondheim right up to the moment that he signalled us to stop – I think it would be very silly of us to assume otherwise. Flannelfoot is still with us. The Germans know exactly where we are. Till now, for reasons best known to themselves, they have been treating us with kid gloves. Maybe now they’ll be feeling like taking those gloves off, I shouldn’t imagine that Admiral Doenitz will take too kindly to the idea of one of his U-boats having been sunk by a hospital ship. I think it behoves us, sir, to get out of here and with all speed. Trouble is, we’ve got to make up our minds whether to go full speed ahead or full speed astern.’

      ‘Ah. Yes. I see. You have a point.’

      ‘Yes, sir. If the hole in our bows is big enough, then if we make any speed at all I don’t see the watertight bulkheads standing up to the pressure for very long. In that case we’d have to go astern. I don’t much fancy that. It not only slows us down but it makes steering damn difficult. But it can be done. I knew of a tanker that hit a German U-boat about seven hundred miles from its port of destination. It made it – going astern all the way. But I don’t much care for the idea of going stern first all the way to Aberdeen, especially if the weather breaks up.’

      ‘You make me feel downright nervous, Bo’sun. With all speed, Bo’sun, as you say, with all speed. How long will this take?’

      ‘Just as long as it takes me to collect a rubber suit, mask and torch, then get there and back again. At the most, twenty minutes.’

      McKinnon was back in fifteen minutes. Mask in one hand, torch in the other, he climbed up the gangway to where Patterson was awaiting him at the top.

      ‘We can go ahead, sir,’ McKinnon said. ‘Full ahead, I should think.’

      ‘Good, good, good. Damage relatively slight, I take it. How small is the hole?’

      ‘It’s not a small hole. It’s a bloody great hole, big as a barn door. There’s a ragged piece of that U-boat, about eight foot by six, embedded in our bows. Seems to be forming a pretty secure plug and I should imagine that the faster we go the more securely it will be lodged.’

      ‘And if we stop, or have to go astern, or run into heavy weather – I mean, what if the plug falls off?’

      ‘I’d be glad, sir, if you didn’t talk about such things.’

       Chapter Eight

      ‘And what are you doing there?’ McKinnon looked down on the recumbent form of Janet Magnusson who, her face very pale, was lying on, not in, the bed nearest the desk where she normally sat.

      ‘I normally have a rest at this time of the morning.’ She tried to inject an acid tone into her voice but her heart wasn’t in it and she smiled, albeit wanly. ‘I have been badly wounded, Archie McKinnon. Thanks to you.’

      ‘Oh dear.’ McKinnon sat on her bedside and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I am sorry. How –’

      ‘Not there.’ She pushed his hand away. ‘That’s where I’ve been wounded.’

      ‘Sorry again.’ He looked up at Dr Sinclair. ‘How bad is badly?’

      ‘Nurse Magnusson has a very slight graze on her right shoulder. Piece of shrapnel.’ Sinclair pointed to a jagged hole in the bulkhead about six feet above deck level, then indicated the scarred and pock-marked deckhead. ‘That’s where the rest of the shrapnel appears to have gone. But Nurse Magnusson was standing at the time and caught quite a bit of the blast effect. She was thrown across the bed she’s on now – it was, providentially, empty at the time – and it took us ten minutes to bring her round. Shock, that’s all.’

      ‘Layabout.’ McKinnon stood. ‘I’ll be back. Anybody else hurt here, Doctor?’

      ‘Two. At the far end of the ward. Seamen from the Argos. One in the chest, the other in the leg. Shrapnel ricocheting from the ceiling and pretty spent shrapnel at that. Didn’t even have to dig it out. Not even bandages – cotton wool and plaster.’

      McKinnon looked at the man, restless and muttering, in the bed opposite. ‘Oberleutnant Klaussen – the U-boat commander. How is he?’

      ‘Delirious, as you can see. The trouble with him – I’ve no idea. I tend to go along with your suggestion that he must have come up from a very great depth. If that’s the case, I’m dealing with the unknown. Sorry and all that.’

      ‘I hardly think there’s any need to be sorry, sir. Every other doctor would be in the same boat. I don’t think anyone has ever escaped from a depth greater than two hundred and fifty feet before. If Klaussen did – well, it’s uncharted territory. There simply can’t be any literature on it.’

      ‘Archie.’

      McKinnon turned round. Janet Magnusson was propped up on an elbow.

      ‘You’re supposed to be resting.’

      ‘I’m getting up. What are you doing with that sledgehammer and chisel in your hand?’

      ‘I’m going to try to open a jammed door.’

      ‘I see.’ She was silent for some moments while she bit her lower lip. ‘The recovery room, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Dr Singh and the two men from the Argos – the one with the multiple burns and the other with the fractured pelvis – they’re in there, aren’t they?’

      ‘So I’m told.’

      ‘Well, why don’t you go to them?’ She sounded almost angry. ‘Why stand around here blethering and doing nothing?’

      ‘I hardly think that’s quite fair, Nurse Magnusson.’ Jamieson, who was accompanying McKinnon and Sinclair, spoke in tones of gentle reproof. ‘Doing nothing? The Bo’sun does more than the whole lot of us put together.’

      ‘I’m thinking perhaps there’s no great hurry, Janet,’ McKinnon said. ‘People have been banging on that door for the past fifteen minutes and there’s been no reply. Could mean anything or nothing. Point is, there was no point in trying to force that door till there was a doctor at hand and Dr Sinclair has just finished in the wards.’

      ‘What you mean – what you really mean, Archie – is that you don’t think the people inside the recovery room will be requiring the services of a doctor.’

      ‘I hope I’m wrong but, yes, that’s what I’m afraid of.’

      She sank back in her bed. ‘As Mr Jamieson didn’t say, I was talking out of turn. I’m sorry.’

      ‘There’s really nothing to be sorry about.’ McKinnon turned away and went into Ward A. The first person to catch his attention was Margaret Morrison. Even paler than Janet Magnusson had been, she was sitting in her chair behind her desk while Sister

Скачать книгу