And then the ship seemed to poise, to stop and hold itself immobile while time flashed by, and I struggled to my feet, hearing the hum of absolute silence, of a broken world suddenly without time or movement.
I turned toward the main door, leading out to the deck, and saw there, staring in, a wild and terrified face, a woman, still in her nightgown, whose mouth was open and who was screaming. I started toward her, staring at her through the glass in the door, and time began again. The ship lurched, bent, and as I struggled to keep my balance, I saw her torn away, out to the emptiness, and eager waves dashed against the window panes.
It was like an elevator gone mad, hurtling down from the uppermost story. The water boiled and fumed outside the window, and I clung to the wall, sick and terrified, knowing that we were sinking, and in a matter of seconds I would surely be dead.
A final jolt, and all movement stopped. The ship lay at a slight angle, the floor was at a slant, and we were at the bottom of the sea.
A part of my mind screamed in horror and fear, but another part of me was calm, as though outside myself, separate, a brain not dependent upon this frail and doomed body. It — this part of my mind that I had never known before — it thought, it conjectured, it reasoned. The ship was lying on the sea floor, that much was obvious. But how far down, how far from the surface? Not too far, surely, or the pressure of the water would have burst the glass of the windows. Was the surface close enough for me to dare to leave the ship, this room, this pocket of trapped air? Could I hope to fight my way to the surface before my lungs burst, before my need for air drove open my mouth and let the water in to kill me?
I couldn’t take the chance. We had fallen for so long, and I was not a young man. I couldn’t take the chance.
A groan reminded me of Crowley. I turned and saw him lying on the floor against one wall, apparently rolled there when the ship sank. He moved now, feebly, and touched his hand to his head.
I hurried to him and helped him to his feet. At first, he had no idea what had happened. He had heard the explosion, had stumbled, his head had hit the edge of a billiard table, that was all he knew. I told him of our situation, and he stared at me, unbelieving.
“Underwater?” His face was pale with shock, pale and stiff as dry clay. He turned and hurried to the nearest window. Outside, the feeble light from our prison faintly illuminated the swirling waters around us. Cowley faced me again. “The lights—” he said.
I shrugged. “Perhaps there are other rooms still sealed off,” I said, and as I finished speaking, the lights flickered and grew dim.
I had expected Cowley to panic, as I had done, but he smiled instead, sardonically, and said, “What a way to die.”
“We may not die,” I told him. “If there were survivors—”
“Survivors? What if there were? We aren’t among them.”
“They’ll be rescued,” I said, suddenly full of hope. They’ll know where the ship went down. And divers will come.”
“Divers? Why?”
“They always do. At once. To salvage what they can, to determine the cause of sinking. They’ll send divers. We may yet be saved.”
“If there were survivors,” said Cowley. “And, if not?”
I sat down, heavily. “Then we are dead men.”
“You suggest we wait, is that it?”
I looked at him, surprised. “What else can we do?”
“We can get it over with. We can open the door.”
I stared at him. He seemed calm, the faint smile was still on his lips. “Can you give up so easily?”
The smile broadened. “I suppose not,” he said, and once more the lights flickered. We looked up, staring at the dimming bulbs. Yet a third time they flickered, and all at once they went out. We were in the dark, in pitch blackness, alone beneath the sea.
In the blackness, Cowley said, “I suppose you’re right. There’s nothing to lose but our sanity. We’ll wait.”
I didn’t answer him. I was lost in my own thoughts, of my wife, of my children and their families, of my friends on both continents, of land and air and life. We were both silent. Unable to see one another, unable to see anything at all, it seemed impossible to converse.
How long we sat there I don’t know, but suddenly I realized that it was not quite so dark any more. Vaguely, I could make out shapes within the room, I could see the form of Cowley sitting in another chair.
He stirred. “It must be daylight,” he said. “A sunny day. On the surface.”
“How long,” I asked him, “how long do you suppose the air will last?”
“I don’t know. It’s a large room, there’s only two of us. Long enough for us to starve to death, I suppose.”
“Starve?” I realized, all at once, just how hungry I was. This was a danger I hadn’t thought about. Keeping the water out, yes. The amount of air we had, yes. But it hadn’t occurred to me, until just now, that we were completely without food.
Cowley got to his feet and paced about the dim room, stretching and roaming restlessly. “Assuming survivors,” he said, as though our earlier conversation were still going on, as though there had been no intervening silence, “assuming survivors, and assuming divers, how long do you suppose it will take? Perhaps the survivors will be rescued to day. When will the divers come? Tomorrow? Next week? Two months from now?”
“I don’t know.”
Cowley laughed suddenly, a shrill and harsh sound in the closed room, and I realized that he wasn’t as calm as he had seemed. “If this were fiction,” he said, “they would come at the last minute. In the nick of time. Fiction is wonderful that way. It is full of last minutes. But in life there is online last minute. The minute before death.”
“Let’s talk about other things,” I said.
“Let’s not talk at all,” said Cowley. He stopped by one of the tables and picked up a billiard ball. IN the gloom, I saw him toss the ball into the air, catch it, toss it and catch it,and then he said, “I could solve all our problems easily. Merely throw this ball through the window there.”
I jumped to my feet. “Put it down!” If you care nothing for your own life, at least remember that I want to live!”
Again he laughed, and dropped the ball onto the table. He paced again for a while, then sank at last into a chair. “I’m tired,” he said. “The ship is very still now. I think I could sleep.”
I was afraid to go to sleep, afraid that Cowley would wait until I was dozing and would then open the door after all, or throw the billiard ball through the window. I sat and watched him for as long as I could, but my eyelids grew heavy and at last, in spite of my fears, my eyes closed and I slept.
When I awoke, it was dark again, the dark of a clouded midnight, the dark of blindness. I stirred, stretched my cramped limbs, then subsided. I could hear Cowley’s measured breathing. He slumbered on.
He awoke as it was again growing light, as the absolute blackness was once again dispelled by a gray and murky gloom, the look of late evening, a frustrating halflight that made my eyes strain to see details where there were only shapes and vague forms and half-seen mounds.
Cowley grumbled and stirred and came slowly to consciousness. He got to his feet and moved his arms in undefined and meaningless arcs. I’m hungry,” he muttered. “The walls are closing in on me.”
“Maybe they’ll come today,” I said.
“And maybe they’ll never come.” Once more, he paced around the room. At length, he stopped. “I once read,” he said, as though to himself, “that hunger is always the greatest after the first meal missed. That after a day or two without food, the hunger pains grow less.”