I lit the newspaper.
There were voices outside. A lot of shouting. Time I went.
It wasn't really a refinement. The thing had to be credible and if I'd just started a fire in here and banged on the door they'd see what I was doing, trying to get out. But if the alarm system went off they'd take it seriously. So I broke the window and shouted and went to the door and started hammering and the place filled up with smoke and the heat was on my back and I began wondering if he'd get here and open up before the fumes knocked me out. I didn't want to try the window till there was nothing else for it, because it was so bloody narrow that I might get stuck halfway and the whole thing would turn into a barbecue.
Eyes running and the fumes burning in my throat, table was crackling, some sparks flying off. I kept on hammering but I couldn't shout any more, couldn't breathe. Everything red behind me now and roaring.
Then the door fell down and I went on top of it and the flames came blowing in the air rush as he got me by the wrists and dragged me across the deck. Hands beating at my back, slapping my shoulders, got me there I suppose, the flames had got me there. Bells.
Bells and feet running and the clang of a fire bucket Shouting.
They dropped me against the bulkhead below the derrick and I let my head sag. One of them had got the hose from the nearest point and they were in business now and I watched them but you haven't got time to watch them, couldn't see too well because eyes streaming and everything blurred but come on for Christ sake come on!
They were forming a group, watching the blaze, some of them bringing another hose, and I crawled as far as the iron ladder and got on my feet and knew I couldn't do it and then did it, still there where I'd left it but sweet Jesus be careful, be careful.
Thing weighed a ton.
One of them was coming now and when he saw I was on my feet he pulled his gun and I brought my arms up high, lifting the thing above my head, ready to throw it.
He stopped.
And the man behind him stopped.
The man behind him was naked to the waist, just out of bed.
He was my interrogator.
'Tell the guard,' I said, 'to drop his gun.'
He stood still, staring above my head.
The thing weighed a ton but only because I was so bloody tired. Normally it wouldn't take a lot of lifting, a lot of holding up.
'Tell him — ' but my throat was too sore.
So I brought it forward suddenly and he made a shrill sound to the guard and repeated it and the guard dropped his gun. I raised my arms again to make it easier to hold there. The big deck lamp was behind me and I could see the shadow, enormous, with the horns sticking out from its sphere. They'd be gleaming quietly in the light above my head, copper coloured, copper red. I couldn't see them.
The shouting had died away.
It sounded as if they'd got the fire under controclass="underline" there wasn't much in there that'd burn. The walls and ceiling and floor were iron. This whole thing was iron. The deck here was iron, and the gun had made a dull ringing when it fell. Even if I couldn't make it, even if it got too heavy, even if my legs just crumpled and I fell forward, the thing would detonate on the iron deck.
He knew that. And he didn't want to die.
'Bring Colonel T'ang here,' I told him. 'No!' as he moved. 'I want him brought here. Send someone. And be quick because I don't know how long I can hold this.'
He didn't do anything right away so I let one leg buckle at the knee and the big round shadow moved on the deck, the horns swinging. He spoke sharply to the guard and the guard began running.
I'd asked Tewson who was in charge of the rig. T'ang, he'd told me. I wanted to know about him. Army colonel, honorary rank, actually a physicist, their top missile man, big in Pekin. He'd do. That was what had changed my mind. I'd unscrewed this thing from the turnbuckle and brought it up here last night in case I could use it for a last-ditch get-out, chuck it at the fuel tanks and drop overboard while everyone was busy, swim to the island and make the rendezvous. But Tewson might not have been game, didn't look like a swimmer.
With a man like T'ang on the hook we could do it with a bit more style provided I didn't drop this bloody mine and someone didn't shoot me.
Back on fire. I could swear those bastards hadn't got the flames out. They were just standing there gawping, stink of wet charred bedclothes coming out of the cabin, water all over the place. I could hear the rest of the crew coming on deck, some of them asking what was going on, three fast shots banging into the girders behind me and a shrill voice but not in time to stop the fourth one and it bit into my ribs and I staggered and the voice of the interrogator shrilled out again and they started dropping their guns where they stood.
Then he was staring above me again.
I think he was praying.
Been a shock and I brought the mine down, holding it against my chest like a medicine ball, ready to throw, I suppose some stupid prick had panicked, well, this wasn't the most stable situation, anything could happen.
'Listen,' I said, 'get T'ang here!'
Could feel the blood under my tunic, warm on the skin. No particular pain and nothing coming into my mouth, smashed a rib with any luck but oh Jesus Christ I was tired, I was tired.
The Colonel was a short man, very straight-backed, epaulettes on his white tunic, pyjama pants, comic opera if it hadn't been so bloody deadly, I said what I wanted him to do.
He looked at me for a long time.
It was incredibly quiet. Thirty or forty men on deck in a semi-circle and the big lamp throwing shadows.
The bells had stopped and the hydrants were shut off and all I could hear was someone whispering and someone telling him to shut up.
Colonel T'ang stood in front of me.
He hadn't said anything yet.
My eyes were still watering and he looked blurred. I couldn't see what he was thinking and I didn't really care because I was going to tell him what to think and if he didn't like it I was going to lob this bloody lollipop right in his face, getting fed up with holding -
Come on, get a grip.
Drifting away again.
'Colonel.' He was like a statue. 'I'm ready to die for my beliefs. You have five seconds.'
If I could only stay on my feet another five seconds.
One.
He didn't move.
I'd spoken in English: he was an educated man and more likely to know English than Cantonese.
Two.
I thought my hand was bleeding. My left hand. Must take great care of it, little Chih-chi had said. Fat lot of chance.
The interrogator was standing next to the colonel, a step to the rear. He was watching the mine, fascinated. Conceivably he was thinking in terms of a flying leap, catch it before it hit the deck. I'd stop that lark.
Three.
Thing of course was that nobody could really do anything without this man getting killed, and if they let that happen Pekin would have their balls off.
Four.
Possibly he was wondering if he could talk me out of it but I'd pre-empted that one: tell these people you're ready to die for your beliefs and they won't question it, terribly keen on ideology, there's a species of ant that fights fires, they throw themselves bodily on to the flames till the sheer weight of numbers puts them out, I suppose it takes all sorts.
Five.
He was still watching me and I got the thing above my head and lurched forward with it and an enormous hiss went up from the crowd of men and T'ang threw his hands out but I managed to keep my balance in time when he just said: