Free Maddon's Rock by Hammond Innes

called out to the Welshman, “Hey, Evans—didn’t you go down with Mr. Hendrik?”
    “Yes, I did,” he called back.
    “How bad is it?”
    “Bad as it could be, man,” he called back. “It caught that weak plate we had strengthened at Murmansk.There’s a hole about a mile wide in Number One and the water’s pouring through like Niagara Falls.” His excitable high-pitched voice carried round the deck.
    Hendrik ran up the bridge ladder. Everyone was watching as he reported to the Captain. Then Halsey turned with the megaphone to his lips. “Mr Cousins! Get the men embarked in the boats. Call a roll. Report when each boat’s complement is complete. The ship’s settling by the head. We’ve got about ten minutes before she goes down.”
    A shocked murmur ran through the crew. “Cor lumme!” Bert said in my ear. “Bang goes ’alf a million quid’s worf o’ the old bright an’ shinin’.”
    We were just under the bridge now, by our boat station. I heard Captain Halsey call to Hendrik to see that all hands were out of the engine-room. “Mr. Cousins!” he shouted, cupping his hands and leaning over the side of the bridge, “get Number Two boat swung out. Look sharp there!”
    “Are the bulkheads holding, sir?” Cousins asked.
    “Number Two bulkhead’s gone,” the Captain shouted down at him. “Mr. Hendrik expects Number Three to go any minute. Come on, jump to it.”
    “Aye, aye, sir,” Cousins answered.
    A sailor standing near me said, “That’s funny. Number Two were still ’olding when I come up.”
    “Ain’t yer goin’ ter do nuffink, Corp?” Bert asked me. “I mean, them poor devils oughter be told ab’t that boat.”
    “What’s the use, Bert?” I answered. “It’s the boat or nothing for them now.”
    “Wot aba’t them rafts,?” he asked.
    “There are only two,” I pointed out. “They’d hold about four men apiece.”
    “They could ’ang on to ’em.”
    “And die in an hour from the cold,” I said. “This is the Arctic, you know. Those planks may hold.”
    “You three soldiers,” Cousins called out to us,” come and help swing this boat out.”
    We stumbled forward to where several of the crewwere trying to force the boat out on its davits. The Trikkala rolled and we were flung in amongst them. Rankin was there. So was my friend the cook. I remember he had the tortoise-shell cat in his arms. The ship rolled, the davits creaked and the boat swung out. A broken wave top thundered against the ship’s side, blinding us with spray. For an instant we seemed almost submerged in water. Then the side of the ship shook clear of the wave. The sea spouted outboard, dragging at our feet, as she rolled away to starboard. And in all this din of wind and roaring water, I heard Halsey’s voice; “ Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cater acts and hurricanoes, spout till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks! ” He laughed wildly in the teeth of the gale and then shouted down at us, “Come on—man that boat. Mr. Rankin! You and your men in Number Two boat.”
    “Aye, aye, sir,” said Rankin.
    “All clear below, Mr. Hendrik?”
    “All clear, sir,” Hendrik replied.
    “Put Miss Sorrel in Number Two, Mr. Hendrik.”
    “Aye, aye, sir.”
    Rankin gripped me by the arm. “In you get, Corporal. Sills, Cook—up you go.”
    I hesitated. The crew were piling into the boat. Oars were being unshipped. It looked crowded and frail. I thought of the planks that had shifted under the pressure of my fingers. I looked aft to where the two rafts still hung in their fixtures above the after-deckhousing. “I’ll take a chance on one of the rafts,” I told Rankin.
    “You’ll do as you’re told, Corporal,” he replied sharply. Give him his due, he didn’t seem scared.
    And almost I obeyed. The habit of obedience was not easily shaken off. But the sound of the sea was all about me. And suddenly my mind was made up. “Remember what I told you about the