The sewer was widening almost the size of a subway tunnel. Trying to guess where they were being led, Lanyon suddenly noticed a second odor, sharp and tangy, overlaying that of the sewer. Brine! They were nearing the sea. Then he remembered that, as he berthed the _Terrapin_, he had seen the vents of half a dozen sewer pipes just below the harbor wall some two hundred yards from the sub-pens. A long concrete breakwater, topped with double wave barriers and guard towers, had reached out into the harbor, separating the pens from the rest of the basin. He racked his brains wondering how they could surmount it.
"Steve! Look out!"
He stopped and glanced back at Patricia, who was pointing into the tunnel ahead. Luigi and the others had halted, watching a powerful torrent of water sweep through the tunnel, sluicing in from the sea outside. It swilled past, ten feet deep, only a few inches from the ledge on which they were standing, and then slowly slacked off and was sucked out again.
"Looks as if something just caved in and let the sea back for a moment," Lanyon told Patricia. "These sewers are slightly below water level, but with luck the wind will have lowered the surface enough for us to get out."
The speed of the air moving past them increased sharply. They rounded a bend and suddenly saw daylight 50 yards ahead, the ragged end of the sewer mouth. Beyond, the sea rose up like a range of massive gray mountains, flecked with huge whitecaps, driving offshore into the distant blur of spray.
Cautiously they edged toward the sewer's mouth, Luigi waving them on. Ten yards or so of brickwork had collapsed, recessing the mouth below the overhanging ledge of the jetty above. The heavy caissons of the concrete pier rooted down through the now exposed mud flats. Luigi pointed to the right toward the sub-pens, and Lanyon saw that the breakwater had been smashed and lay on its side in huge battered sections a hundred yards out in the harbor.
"We leave you here," the interpreter told him. "To the right, one hundred meters, you get into the dock. Then O.K."
Lanyon nodded, took Patricia's arm. Leaning over the edge of the sewer, where the last of the seawater was dripping out, he lowered her down to the mud flat ten feet below, letting her drop when she was a few feet off the ground. She sank to her knees in the slimy ooze, paddled slowly through the mud toward the firmer ground under the sewer, supporting herself against the concrete pillars.
Lanyon turned to Luigi, held his square hand firmly and patted his shoulder.
The big man smiled back then pulled the.45 out of his belt and passed it to Lanyon.
Lanyon turned to the interpreter. "Tell him I'll vote for him if he'll run as next mayor of Genoa."
Luigi roared, slapped Lanyon on the shoulder and helped him down over the edge of the sewer.
Lanyon dropped up to his thighs in the soft black mud, waved to the figures above for the last time and waded siowly between the pillars to where Patricia was sheltering on a narrow flat against the rear wall of the pier. He took her arm and they edged along the wall, straddling the tangle of twisted girders that were all that remained of the breakwater. Inside the submarine base they were still sheltered by the overhang of the pier, but the air roaring past sucked at them like a giant vacuum.
They clung to the tangled seaweed fronds and barnacles encrusted to the pillars, and Lanyon pointed out the jutting roof of the first sub-pen 50 yards away. With a jolt of fear he realized that the receding sea had exposed the floor of the pen, and that although this would enable them to get into the pens it meant that there might be insufficient water to float out the _Terrapin_. Fortunately the sub was berthed in the farthest of the semicircle of pens, and the wind would be driving the sea across it.
They reached the first pen and pulled themselves around the lip into the gateway, their feet gripping the concrete floor. Ahead of them the steel shutters towered up to the roof. They ran over to the grille, and through the slits Lanyon could see the stranded hull of one of the K-class subs, lying on its side in the dim gray light.
The vanes of the grille were open, leaving two-foot gaps. Lanyon lifted Patricia up onto the lowest gap, and she clambered through into the great hall of the pen. Lanyon followed her and they ran under the towering underbelly of the stranded submarine, its moorings snapped and hanging loose, conning tower tilted at a 450 angle.
They reached the stairway to the cargo pier, climbed up past the submarine, and then turned into the corridor that led to the control deck at the far end of the pen.
"Well, Pat, we've got this far," Lanyon said, as they paused in the corridor to regain their breath. He pulled the torch from his jacket, switched it on.
"Doesn't look as if there's anyone around, Steve. Do you think the _Terrapin_ will still be here?"
"God knows. If not, we'll come back and sit the storm out in the big K-boat."
They reached the control deck, peered into the abandoned offices. The heavy concrete walls of the base were still holding without any difficulty, but somewhere a ventilator had collapsed and air poured through the vents, blowing the papers off the desks and shelves. Litter lay everywhere, drawers pulled out, water dispensers smashed, broken suitcases strewn about the floor.
"Left in a hurry," Lanyon commented. "Seems to me that this is a pretty good place to sit tight. Where the hell have they all gone?"
They hurried along the dark communications corridor, crossing the control decks of the next three pens. As they passed the fifth the floor suddenly shifted slightly, and Lanyon tripped and collided with the wall.
"Good God, don't tell me it can move even this place! The sea must be breaking over the entrance to the pen, driving the whole unit back into the shore."
"Come on, Steve, let's hurry," Patricia said. She held onto his arm as they ran down the corridor. They stumbled into the last control deck, dived down the stairway into the cargo depot. As they reached the bottom the door out into the jetty opened, lights flooded on and two sailors peered round. They gaped at Lanyon and Patricia, clothes ripped to shreds, covered with thick mud up to their waists, Lanyon's bruised face barely recognizable under his beard. Their hands moved to the revolvers in their holsters, and then one of them jumped to attention and snapped out a salute.
He swung his head through the doorway, shouted out:
"Attention there! Commander Lanyon to come aboard!"
Lanyon put a hand out and squeezed the man's shoulder gratefully, then stepped through onto the narrow pier.
Deep water boiled and swirled into the sub-pen through the open gates, surging down to the far wall 200 yards away.
Riding high on it, deckwork trim, periscopes aligned, was the _Terrapin!_
Paul Matheson waited while Lanyon toweled himself down after the shower and climbed into a clean uniform.
"We're all set to move off, Steve. We've had a last check around the base; there's no one here."
Lanyon nodded. "Fine, Paul. By the way, how's the girl who came aboard with me?"
"Miss Olsen? She's O.K., a little shocked but she'll come to. Looks as if you had quite a job getting back here. She's sharing a cabin with the three WAC nurses. Tight squeeze. We've got about sixty extra passengers."
"Sorry to bring another, Paul. Still, she can have Van Damm's vacancy. If it's any consolation, she's with NBC; she's probably taking all this down in cinemascope. Remember, it's not enough to make history-you've got to arrange for someone to record it for you."
Lanyon buttoned his shirt up, glancing at the movement signal from Tunis lying on the table.
" Portsmouth, England, eh? Do you think they've got any more corpses for us to collect?"
Matheson shook his head. "No, I gather they're top air force and embassy VIP's. May even be the ambassador and his family. Where we'll put them I don't know."