Then, for one instant, a sudden cessation of the great noises—and, as a dreadful echo to them, the thin, sharp cries of children. . . .
Then the second shell came. The submarine’s gunner was in form: it landed within two feet of the first and, consequently, dropped two decks before it struck and exploded—this time right in the saloon-dormitory. It blasted a downward breach through which its quick successor fell almost plumb—to explode in the engine-room itself. . . .
All the din-demons were loose now; but the demon of steam raised his cry above all the others—and the Vulcania wallowed to a standstill and swung helpless and rose and dropped with the slow heavy swell of the sea while, a bare six hundred land-yards away, the gunner whose eye was in kept up his target practice.
In fifteen minutes the four hundred and fifty-three items of quick human freight aboard the Vulcania had been reduced by the considerable number of eighty-four. And of the remaining three hundred and sixty-nine, many were twitching, reddened lumps of uselessness. . . .
“Lieber Gott!” said Otto beneath his breath—and staggered and fell as a bulkhead bulged out in his path and split suddenly and fell.
A baulk of timber fell upon his back as he tripped over debris. His spine was saved by the thick cork of the lifebelt which he wore—but he was knocked flat and all the breath was driven from his body and his face was smashed into the litter.
His forehead struck painfully as he fell. He writhed and struggled, his emptied lungs seeming to resist his whistling efforts to refill them. . . . His head swam and blood ran stickily from his nostrils. . . .
He could breathe again. But his vision was hazy and his head rang with the infernal chorus of noises. He pulled himself somehow to his feet and staggered on. He was making his way along the main port gangway on B deck. He had to find an unobstructed companion which would allow him to descend. He had to get to his quarters—and the duffel bag and the box which was inside it, for he had to have—he must have—the oilskin packet. After all, there was a chance that some would be saved, and he might be among them. It was his duty to be among them if he could—and if he were, it was also his duty to be able to keep up the character of Nils. . . .
There was an agonizing lull in the fury of sound and movement which had been shaking the ship. Nils, his head swimming, moved faster. He could see the companionway now, ahead of him, where the gangway ended—and he could see that, although debris strewed the space before it, the companion itself was clear.
He staggered as another shell struck the ship, this time further aft: the gunner must have been traversing now, and doing a very thorough job.
Otto did not fall this time—but from the last cabin—immediately ahead of him—came a high-pitched, vibrating crackle of tortured wood and metal, loud enough and near enough to be vivid through the other, greater noises. It was followed at once by a sort of slithering crash—and the door of the cabin, torn from hinges and fastenings, fell outwards across his path. He jumped back—and then was hurled from his feet as a bathtub slid through the open, splintered doorway and caught his legs and thrust them from underneath him.
He shook his head to clear it, and pulled himself upright, his hands upon the edge of the tub. The Vulcania, now momentarily beam-on to the swelling seas, rolled heavily—and Otto, his head reeling, slipped and almost tell again.
He thrust his hands down to save himself—and they lighted on something within the tub; something which half-floated in tepid water and was clammily warm to the touch. He caught at the edge of the tub and reared upright and found himself staring down at the body of a woman. It was a young body, and by no means without beauty. It lay upon its back in an attitude astonishingly lifelike; indeed, Otto thought that she was alive, until he saw the jagged piece of incongruously shining metal—some part, no doubt, of a toilet fitting—which stuck rigidly out from the dark hole where one of her eyes had been.
Above there was indescribable chaos—and incredible discipline. Upon the already tilting decks, as near to their allotted boat stations as they were allowed to go, were miraculously orderly groups of women and children. Two boats, full-laden, were down and afloat already, and pulling away to the starboard for safety. Another, full, was being lowered from its davits when a shell fragment tore the right arm from a member of the lowering crew and the sheet screamed over its blocks and the boat tilted nose down in mid-air, and little, sprawling, armed and legged specks fell from it and hurtled down to the grey water.
The gunner fired again—and a flickering dart of flame sprang up from the Vulcania and licked a purple tongue at the cold dark sky. . . .
Otto had reached his quarters. The oilskin packet was safe in an inner pocket, and he was trying to make his way above decks again.
It had been a difficult journey down: to get up again was even harder. The Vulcania was listing badly to port, and the shells continued to drop. Worse by far, there was fire somewhere. The heat was growing oppressive and in Otto’s nostrils was the acrid smell of melting metal.
The companion down which he had come was irretrievably blocked. So was the next, which was the sternmost—so that he was forced to retrace his steps and desperately try his luck amidships. Clambering over debris, fighting against the shuddering and rolling of the ship, choking with the acrid, almost invisible smoke which was now tearing at his lungs, he fought his way along. He found a companion which was clear as far up as B deck, but thereafter was impassable. He worked forward again, clambered over the worst pile of debris he had yet happened upon—and saw the first fellow-human he had met on this nightmare journey.
It was a dark-haired, squarely built boy of ten. He was clad in life-belt, pyjamas and a brown woolly bath-robe—and he was working with all his strength to clear from the doorway of a cabin the jammed wreckage of the opposite bulkhead. He was silent and self-possessed and extremely busy. He was doubled over, with his arms around the main timber which was jamming the rest. He turned a contorted face up to Otto, but did not relax his effort. He said:
“I say, could you help me get this stuff away?” His accent was precise but his voice was thickened by the strain. He jerked his head towards the cabin door. “My mother’s in there,” he said.
Immediately he had spoken he turned back to his task again, heaving and straining until it seemed that the muscles must tear in his sturdy small back. For him it was certain that, having been asked, this man would help him.
And, curiously, that was the way too in which it struck Otto. It is perhaps to his discredit that there was no struggle in his mind between duty and humanity; but the question of whether Nils Jorgensen should or should not delay his search for safety did not so much as pose itself in his mind. He stood beside the boy and ran his eye over the tangled web of splintered lath and timber and bent down to see what must be done to clear it quickly.
There was a strange silence now; the lull since the striking of the last shell was much longer than its predecessors. The Vulcania wallowed unevenly, and the heat and the sharp smell of burning were fiercer.
Otto saw that the boy was right in what he was trying so stoutly to do—and stooped beside the little figure and wrapped his arms about the same baulk with which it was struggling and lent all his strength.