Doctor Who_ The Sea-Devils - Malcolm Hulke [0]
AND THE SEA-DEVILS
By MALCOLM HULKE
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Based on the BBC television serial The Sea-Devils by Malcolm Hulke by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation
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1 ‘Abandon Ship!’
‘Abandon ship! Abandon ship!’
Second Officer Mason could hear the Captain’s voice coming from every loudspeaker on the ship as he worked his way along the upper deck. A huge sea was sending waves and spray over the decks: a Force Nine gale was blowing in from the south west, and now, almost unbelievably, it seemed the bottom had been ripped out of the ship. She was lurching badly to port, poised to vanish any moment beneath the huge waves. Mason pulled his way along a handrail until he came across some of the engine-room crew; they were desperately trying to lower one of the lifeboats.
‘Where’s Jock?!’ he called, yelling above the noise of the crashing waves. ‘And where’s the Jamaican?’
One of the engine-room men, nicknamed The Scouse, yelled back to Mason: ‘They’re dead! They’re both dead!’
Mason could not believe the men were dead. Only two hours ago, before he turned in for the night, he had been drinking cocoa with the Jamaican. The Jamaican, who really came from Trinidad and had never been to Jamaica in his life, had shown Mason a letter from his mother who lived in a town called St. James. ‘It’s carnival next month,’ said the Jamaican, ‘and she wants her best-looking son back home for Carnival—and that’s me!’ He had saved his air fare, and was booked on a flight from London Airport three days after the s.s. Pevensey Castle got into the Port of London, where she was bound. And now the Jamaican, and Jock, and goodness knew how many others, were all dead.
Mason struggled over to help the men from the engine-room lower the lifeboat. He had the greatest respect for engineers when they were in the engine-rooms, but he was not impressed with their upperdeck seamanship.
‘Steady there!’ he shouted, and took one of the winches himself. There were four men on the winches, and five men huddled in the boat. Under Mason’s guidance, the lifeboat was evenly lowered into the boiling sea.
‘Abandon ship! Abandon ship!’
The Captain’s voice again boomed out over the loudspeakers. Mason wondered whether the Captain intended to stay on his bridge giving out the order to abandon ship until there was no ship left to abandon. Traditionally a ship’s captain was supposed to be the last man on board if the ship was sinking, and some captains had been known to stay on the bridge beyond the margin of safety, and to die as a result. Mason hoped his captain would be sensible, and get into one of the lifeboats while there was still a chance.
The Scouse called into Mason’s ear: ‘She’s hit water!’
Mason looked down. The lifeboat was now riding on the sea, and the men down there were letting loose the davit ropes. He cupped his hands to his mouth and called down to them, ‘Get rowing—pull away! Pull away!’
But the men in the lifeboat did not need to be told. They all knew that when a big ship finally sinks, she will drag with her any small craft standing close by. They had their oars out, and they were rowing frantically. Then the smoke started to rise from their little boat. Mason stared in horror as thick black smoke burst from the woodwork by the men’s feet. Within moments the whole bottom of the inside of the lifeboat started to glow with the redness of fire that was coming up from the sea beneath the little boat!
The Scouse and the other engine-room men looked down at the stricken lifeboat. ‘It must have had petrol in its bottom,’ said the Scouse, his voice choking and barely audible against the gale, ‘and one of them’s dropped a lighted cigarette.’
Mason did not believe this, but said nothing. With the spray and the waves it would be impossible for any man to smoke a cigarette, or even for loose petrol to ignite. He sensed that what he was witnessing had no explanation that would ever be known to himself or to the men around him. The whole lifeboat had by now burst into flames, that defied all the seawater, and the five