'Reduce the oxygen supply to half. Show a light on the bottom, and give me a screw driver,' ordered the McKay.
'It is useless, Herr Kapitan,' the Doctor's voice was apathetic. 'If we had six and a half hours oxygen as when we were first cut off it might be done. But now—no. You will tear your fingers for nothing. The hundreds of screws and joints to be-'
'Do as I tell you—I'm taking charge here now.' The McKay pulled another torch from his pocket and thrust it into Sally's hand. 'Take that. I brought it on the off chance the lights might fail. The more light we have now the better.
The Doctor shrugged. 'I have a dozen torches here in case of need but this attempt is useless. We shall be dead before-'
'Stop talking, damn you. It uses oxygen and every ounce of that is precious now. Issue four torches and keep the rest in reserve. Everyone's to remain silent till we're out. Nicky! Axel! Bozo! you're to remain in the back of the sphere, away from its bottom. You two girls hold the torches—give you something to think about. Vladimir, you're the strong man. Come and help move the plates as we get them up. Doctor, how many screwdrivers have you got in your chest?
'One large—one small.'
'Good, give me the large one then—thanks. Use the other yourself. You know the machinery. Silence now—get busy.'
They obeyed him without questioning his commands. He stripped off his coat, flung it down to kneel on and began to attack the screws in the sphere's wooden floor.
In five minutes they had torn away the central floor boards but it took ten to remove the first layer of steel plates which was immediately beneath and only then did the McKay realise that the Doctor had real reason for his pessimism. They were faced with literally hundreds of small girders and slender rods all criss-crossed and mixed up with wheels. It looked a sheer impossibility to get them out under two hours at least and there were two more similar barriers to cross before they could reach the outer air.
The Doctor had already produced his whole set of tools and spread them out on the underside of the sphere. With these and frantic fingers they attacked the jungle of steel mechanism.
After twenty minutes the McKay was streaming with sweat and the Doctor blowing like a grampus. The air was already beginning to get thick and stuffy owing to the reduced supply of oxygen.
'Axel! Nicky! take over,' ordered the McKay when half an hour had passed and he sank back panting against the side of the sphere.
Nicky was quick and efficient at the job, but Axel's beautiful slim hands had never been created for such work. When he had watched the Count for two minutes the McKay called out, 'Bozo—did you ever run a car?'
'Sure boss—I've known the inside of a flivver since I was ten.'
'Take over from Count Axel then.'
The big gunman shambled forward and flung himself eagerly upon the floor, but his hands were large and clumsy. He was painfully slow at unscrewing the complicated joints.
'Let me have a go,' whispered Camilla. 'I'm good at screws. Meccano was my favourite nursery game.'
'Good girl! Take over from Bozo then.' The McKay wiped the dripping perspiration from his face.
Camilla proved a real asset. Her quick fingers slid in and out among the rods and Vladimir, just behind her, had all his work cut out to hand her spanners and pass the pieces she and Nicky freed into the back of the sphere where they were making a dump.
The whole of the work had to be carried out under the greatest difficulties. The sphere was only built to accommodate eight persons—the number in it at the present time— and each was supposed to sit in an allotted space which gave little play for movement. Its bulging sides allowed no additional freedom as these concave surfaces held all the instruments, the searchlight, the oxygen tanks, the fans, the trays of calcium chloride for absorbing moisture, and the even more important ones with soda lime in them for removing the poisonous excess of carbon dioxide from the air.
Now that the sphere lay on its side the broken chairs occupied valuable floor space despite the fact that Vladimir had smashed their slender wooden frames to matchwood to reduce their bulk. The members of the party who, in turn, were fighting so desperately to get at the mechanism under the floor had to be given elbow room as they knelt at their work. The torch-holders bent in cramped attitudes, shining the lights over their shoulders. Behind, the rest crouched or stood in strained positions, helpless but frantically anxious to glimpse what progress was being made.
Each time the workers were changed it necessitated their reliefs forcing their way through a crush that resembled a small section of the Black Hole of Calcutta. As the floor plates and pieces of machinery were passed back the press became even greater for, while the workers were unable to get more than their heads and their hands into the space which they had cleared, the awkward spiky dump of steel in the back of the sphere continued to occupy more room nearly every moment.
It took an hour to clear the first space between the quadruple floors of machinery. Then the McKay and Doctor Tisch attacked the second lining of steel plates.
Their fingers were no longer as supple as when they started, and their hands were bruised and torn. The air was stale and foul so that they panted and gasped as they twisted and jerked at the screws. In consequence it took them nearly twenty minutes to get up the second floor.
Another mass of levers now barred their passage. Not so many but larger this time and more difficult to get at. In addition there was a square steel box in the centre of their path. It contained the dynamite and, immediately the lid was off, the slabs were passed carefully back. The Doctor and the McKay got the box out but when they had done so they both had to give up, and lay gasping for breath on the floor.
At the McKay's order Sally and Vladimir tried their hands while Count Axel passed the freed material to the dump. Sally was nothing like as quick as Camilla and Vladimir was tempted into trying his strength instead of skill. He wrenched out two small rods with the assistance of a spanner, but the third only bent and caused them more trouble than they had experienced with half a dozen others put together, so the McKay put Camilla and Nicky on again, since they had done so well before.
Their partnership was not so successful this time. Nicky stuck to it gamely and did yeoman service but Camilla was so overcome now by the heavy atmosphere that she could hardly move her hands. The Doctor too seemed pretty done as he lolled uncomfortably, almost comatose, against the side of the sphere.
The McKay pushed Camilla aside and took her place. As he did so he called out to ask the time and, when Count Axel gave it to him, ordered the supply of oxygen to be reduced again by half. It seemed impossible that they could carry on at all with only a quarter of the normal allowance but he knew now for certain that they would never be able to free themselves in the three hours which was all that a half ration allowed them.
Count Axel, who felt his uselessness acutely, had secured another torch and, standing on tiptoe, took a look out of one of the ports. 'These people,' he said slowly, with laboured breath, 'are eating the fish raw—now.'
'Silence,' snapped the McKay angrily. He knew how infinitely precious every ounce of oxygen must be. As matters stood at present there seemed little enough chance of the supply holding out. Sally, lighting him at his work, felt too exhausted to be more than faintly disgusted at the mental picture which came into her mind that showed the host of blind grey ghouls greedily devouring the freshly killed fish.
Nicky's brain conjured up a memory of some shots from an Eskimo film—Mala the Magnificent—in which the native actors had fed with gluttonous delight on handfuls of warm blubber torn from the body of a captured seal; but his fingers never paused in their frantic efforts to loosen the joints of the machinery.