Alistair MacLean - HMS Ulysses

The Ulysses was heavily on fire aft-a deck and mess-deck fire, admittedly, but potentially fatal for all that, 'X' nd 'Y' magazines were directly below. Already, dozens of men from the damage control parties were running aft, stumbling and falling on the rolling ice-covered deck, unwinding the hose drums behind them, occasionally falling flat on their faces as two ice-bound coils locked together, the abruptly tightening hose jerking them off their feet. Others stumbled past them, carrying the big, red foam-extinguishers on their shoulders or under their arms. One unfortunate seaman-A.B. Ferry, who had left the Sick Bay in defiance of strict orders--running down the port alley past the shattered Canteen, slipped and fell abreast 'X' turret: the port wing of the Condor, even as it had sheared off and plunged into the sea, had torn away the guard-rails here, and Ferry, hands and feet scrabbling frantically at the smooth ice of the deck, his broken arm clawing uselessly at one of the remaining stanchions, slid slowly, inevitably over the side and was gone. For a second, the high-pitched, fear-stricken shriek rose thin and clear above the roaring of the flames, died abruptly as the water closed over him. The propellers were almost immediately below.

The men with the extinguishers were the first into action, as, indeed, they had to be when fighting a petrol fire-water would only have made matters worse, have increased the area of the fire by washing the petrol in all directions, and the petrol, being lighter than water, immiscible and so floating to the top, would have burned as furiously as ever. But the foam-extinguishers were of only limited efficiency, not so much because several release valves had jammed solid in the intense cold as because of the intense white heat which made close approach almost impossible, while the smaller carbon-tet. extinguishers, directed against electrical fires below, were shockingly ineffective: these extinguishers had never been in action before and the crew of the Ulysses had known for a long time of the almost magical properties of the extinguisher liquid for removing the most obstinate stains and marks in clothes. You may convince a W.T. rating of the lethal nature of 2.000 volts: you may convince a gunner of the madness of matches in a magazine: you may convince a torpedoman of the insanity of juggling with fulminate of mercury: but you will never convince any of them of the criminal folly of draining off just a few drops of carbon-tetrachloride... Despite stringent periodical checks, most of the extinguishers were only half-full. Some were completely empty.

The hoses were little more effective. Two were coupled up to the starboard mains and the valves turned: the hoses remained lifeless, empty. The starboard salt-water line had frozen solid-common enough with fresh-water systems, this, but not with salt. A third hose on the port side was coupled up, but the release valve refused to turn: attacked with hammers and crowbars, it sheered off at the base-at extremely low temperatures, molecular changes occur in metals, cut tensile strength to a fraction-the high-pressure water drenching everyone in the vicinity.

Spicer, the dead Admiral's pantry-boy, a stricken-eyed shadow of his former cheerful self, flung away his hammer and wept in anger and frustration. The other port valve worked, but it took an eternity for the water to force its way through the flattened frozen hose.

Gradually, the deck fire was brought under control-less through the efforts of the firefighters than the fact that there was little inflammable material left after the petrol had burnt off. Hoses and extinguishers were then directed through the great jagged rents on the poop to the fires roaring in the mess-deck below, while two asbestos-suited figures clambered over and struggled through the red-hot, jangled mass of smoking wreckage on the poop. Nicholls had one of the suits, Leading Telegraphist Brown, a specialist in rescue work, the other.

Brown was the first on the scene. Picking his way gingerly, he climbed up to the entrance of 'Y' turret. Watchers in the port and starboard alleyways saw him pause there, fighting to tie back the heavy steel door-it had been crashing monotonously backwards and forwards with the rolling of. the cruiser. Then they saw him step inside. Less than ten seconds later they saw him appear at the door again, on his knees and clutching desperately at the side for support. His entire body was arching convulsively and he was being violently sick into his oxygen mask.

Nicholls saw this, wasted time neither on 'Y' turret nor on the charred skeltons still trapped in the incinerated fuselage of the Condor. He climbed quickly up the vertical steel ladders to 'X' gun-deck, moved round to the back and tried to open the door. The clips were jammed, immovable, whether from cold or metal distortion he did not know. He looked round for some lever, stepped aside as he saw Doyle, duffel coat smouldering, haggard face set and purposeful under the beard, approaching with a sledge in his hand. A dozen heavy, well-directed blows-the clanging, Nicholls thought, must be almost intolerable inside the hollow amplifier of the turret-and the door was open. Doyle secured it, stepped aside to let Nicholls enter.

Nicholls climbed inside. There had been no need to worry about that racket outside, he thought wryly. Every man in the turret was stone dead. Colour-Sergeant Evans was sitting bolt upright in his seat, rigid and alert in death as he had been in life: beside him lay Foster, the dashing, fiery Captain of Marines, whom death became so ill. The rest were all sitting or lying quietly at their stations, apparently unharmed and quite unmarked except for an occasional tiny trickle of blood from ear and mouth, trickles already coagulated in the intense cold-the speed of the Ulysses had carried the flames aft, away from the turret. The concussion must have been tremendous, death instantaneous. Heavily, Nicholls bent over the communications number, gently detached his headset, and called the bridge.

Vallery himself took the message, turned back to Turner. He looked old, defeated.

"That was Nicholls," he said. Despite all he could do, the shock and sorrow showed clearly in every deeply-etched line in that pitiably wasted face. "'Y' turret is gone, no survivors. 'X' turret seems intact, but everyone inside is dead. Concussion, he says. Fires in the after mess-deck still not under control... Yes, boy, what is it?"

"'Y' magazine, sir," the seaman said uncertainly. "They want to speak to the gunnery officer."

"Tell them he's not available," Vallery said shortly. "We haven't time..." He broke off, looked up sharply. "Did you say 'Y' magazine?

Here, let me have that phone."

He took the receiver, pushed back the hood of his duffel coat.

"Captain speaking, 'Y' magazine. What is it?... What? Speak up man, I can't hear you... Oh, damn!" He swung round on the bridge L.T.O.

"Can you switch this receiver on to the relay amplifier? I can't hear a... Ah, that's better."

The amplifier above the chart-house crackled into life-a peculiarly throaty, husky life, doubly difficult to understand under the heavy overlay of a slurred Glasgow accent. j "Can ye hear me now?" the speaker boomed. !

"I can hear you." Vallery's own voice echoed loudly over the amplifier.

"McQuater, isn't it?"

"Aye, it's me, sir. How did ye ken?" Even through the 'speaker the surprise was unmistakable. Shocked and exhausted though he was, Vallery found himself smiling.

"Never mind that now, McQuater. Who's in charge down : there-Gardiner, isn't it?" !

"Yes, sir. Gardiner."

"Put him on, will you?" There was a pause.

"Ah canna, sir. Gardiner's deid."

"Dead!" Vallery was incredulous. "Did you say' dead,' McQuater?"

"Aye, and he's no' the only one." The voice was almost truculent, but Vallery's ear caught the faint tremor below. "Ah was knocked oot masel', but Ah'm fine now."