San Andreas. Alistair MacLean

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СКАЧАТЬ hundred feet into the sky and then slowly subsided. When it finally disappeared the Andover was on its beam ends and deep in the water. Within twenty seconds, with only a faint hissing as the water flooded the engine-room and with curiously little in the way of bubbles, the Andover slid beneath the surface of the sea.

      ‘My God, my God, my God!’ Dr Sinclair, swaying slightly, was on his feet. As a doctor, he was acquainted with death, but not in this shocking form: he was still dazed, not quite aware of what was going on around him. ‘Good God, that big plane is coming back again!’

      The big plane, the Condor, was indeed coming back again, but it offered no threat to them. Dense smoke pouring from all four engines, it completed a half circle and was approaching the San Andreas. Less than half a mile away it touched the surface of the sea, momentarily dipped beneath it, then came into sight again. There was no more smoke.

      ‘God rest them,’ Patterson said. He was almost abnormally calm. ‘Damage control party first, see if we’re making water, although I shouldn’t have thought so.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’ The Bo’sun looked at what was left of the superstructure. ‘Perhaps a fire-control party. Lots of blankets, mattresses, clothes, papers in there—God only knows what’s smouldering away already.’

      ‘Do you think there will be any survivors in there?’

      ‘I wouldn’t even guess, sir. If there are, thank heavens we’re a hospital ship.’

      Patterson turned to Dr Sinclair and shook him gently. ‘Doctor, we need your help.’ He nodded towards the superstructure. ‘You and Dr Singh—and the ward orderlies. I’ll send some men with sledges and crowbars.’

      ‘An oxy-acetylene torch?’ said the Bo’sun.

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘We’ve got enough medical equipment and stores aboard to equip a small town hospital,’ Sinclair said. ‘If there are any survivors all we’ll require is a few hypodermic syringes.’ He seemed back on balance again. ‘We don’t take in the nurses?’

      ‘Good God, no.’ Patterson shook his head vehemently. ‘I tell you, I wouldn’t like to go in there. If there are any survivors they’ll have their share of horrors later.’

      McKinnon said: ‘Permission to take away the lifeboat, sir?’

      ‘Whatever for?’

      ‘There could be survivors from the Andover.’

      ‘Survivors! She went down in thirty seconds.’

      ‘The Hood blew apart in one second. There were three survivors.’

      ‘Of course, of course. I’m not a seaman, Bo’sun. You don’t need permission from me.’

      ‘Yes, I do, sir.’ The Bo’sun gestured towards the superstructure. ‘All the deck officers are there. You’re in command.’

      ‘Good God!’ The thought, the realization had never struck Patterson. ‘What a way to assume command!’

      ‘And speaking of command, sir, the San Andreas is no longer under command. She’s slewing rapidly to port. Steering mechanism on the bridge must have been wrecked.’

      ‘Steering can wait. I’ll stop the engines.’

      Three minutes later the Bo’sun eased the throttle and edged the lifeboat towards an inflatable life raft which was roller-coasting heavily near the spot where the now vanished Condor had been. There were only two men in the raft—the rest of the aircrew, the Bo’sun assumed, had gone to the bottom with the Focke-Wulf. They had probably been dead anyway. One of the men, no more than a youngster, very seasick and looking highly apprehensive—he had every right, the Bo’sun thought, to be apprehensive—was sitting upright and clinging to a lifeline. The other lay on his back in the bottom of the raft: in the regions of his left upper chest, left upper arm and right thigh his flying overalls were saturated with blood. His eyes were closed.

      ‘Jesus’ sake!’ Able Seaman Ferguson, who had a powerful Liverpool accent and whose scarred face spoke eloquently of battles lost and won, mainly in bar-rooms, looked at the Bo’sun with a mixture of disbelief and outrage. ‘Jesus, Bo’sun, you’re not going to pick those bastards up? They just tried to send us to the bottom. Us! A hospital ship!’

      ‘Wouldn’t you like to know why they bombed a hospital ship?’

      ‘There’s that, there’s that.’ Ferguson reached out with a boathook and brought the raft alongside.

      ‘Either of you speak English?’

      The wounded man opened his eyes: they, too, seemed to be filled with blood. ‘I do.’

      ‘You look badly hurt. I want to know where before we try to bring you aboard.’

      ‘Left arm, left shoulder, I think, right thigh. And I believe there’s something wrong with my right foot.’ His English was completely fluent and if there was any accent at all it was a hint of southern standard English, not German.

      ‘You’re the Condor Captain, of course.’

      ‘Yes. Still want to bring me aboard?’

      The Bo’sun nodded to Ferguson and the two other seamen he had along with him. The three men brought the injured pilot aboard as carefully as they could but with both lifeboat and raft rolling heavily in the beam seas it was impossible to be too careful. They laid him in the thwarts close to where the Bo’sun was sitting by the controls. The other survivor huddled miserably amidships. The Bo’sun opened the throttle and headed for the position where he estimated the Andover had gone down.

      Ferguson looked down at the injured man who was lying motionless on his back, arms spread-eagled. The red stains were spreading. It could have been that he was still bleeding quite heavily: but it could have been the effect of sea-water.

      ‘Reckon he’s a goner, Bo’sun?’

      McKinnon reached down and touched the side of the pilot’s neck and after a few seconds he located the pulse, fast, faint and erratic, but still a pulse.

      ‘Unconscious. Fainted. Couldn’t have been an easy passage for him.’

      Ferguson regarded the pilot with a certain grudging respect. ‘He may be a bloody murderer, but he’s a bloody tough bloody murderer. Must have been in agony, but never a squawk. Shouldn’t we take him back to the ship first? Give him a chance, like?’

      ‘I thought of it. No. There just may be survivors from the Andover and if there are they won’t last long. Sea temperature is about freezing or just below it. A man’s usually dead inside a minute. If there’s anyone at all, a minute’s delay may be a minute too late. We owe them that chance. Besides it’s going to be a very quick trip back to the ship.’

      The San Andreas, slewing to port, had come around in a full half-circle and, under reverse thrust, was slowing to a stop. Patterson had almost certainly done this so as to manoeuvre the temporarily rudderless ship as near as possible to the spot where the Andover had been torpedoed.

      Only a pathetic scattering of flotsam and jetsam showed СКАЧАТЬ