Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean
‘And who was ten feet below?’
‘He couldn’t tell. Don’t forget how black it was out there on the ice-cap and that the moment Patterson had dropped into the brightly lit bridge he’d lost whatever night-sight he’d built up. Besides, he didn’t wait for more than a glance. He was off for a stretcher even before you or Hansen got to Benson. Patterson is not the sort of man who has to be told what to do.’
‘So it’s a dead end there?’
‘A dead end.’
I nodded, crossed to a cupboard and brought back the two X-rays, still wet, held in their metal clips. I held them up to the light for Swanson’s inspection.
‘Benson?’ he asked, and when I nodded peered at them more closely and finally said: ‘That line there — a fracture?’
‘A fracture. And not a hair-line one either, as you can see. He really caught a wallop.’
‘How bad is it? How long before he comes out of this coma — he is in a coma?’
‘He’s all that. How long? If I were a lad fresh out of medical school I’d let you have a pretty confident estimate. If I were a top-flight brain surgeon I’d say anything from half an hour to a year or two, because people who really know what they are talking about are only too aware that we know next to nothing about the brain. Being neither, I’d guess at two or three days — and my guess could be hopelessly wrong. There may be cerebral bleeding. I don’t know. I don’t think so. Blood-pressure, respiration and temperature show no evidence of organic damage. And now you know as much about it as I do.’
‘Your colleagues wouldn’t like that.’ Swanson smiled faintly. ‘This cheerful confession of ignorance does nothing to enhance the mystique of your profession. How about your other patients — the two men still out in Zebra?’
‘I’ll see them after supper. Maybe they’ll be fit enough to be brought here to-morrow. Meanwhile, I’d like to ask a favour of you. Could you lend me the services of your Torpedoman Rawlings? And would you have any objections to his being taken into our confidence?’
‘Rawlings? I don’t know why you want him, but why Rawlings? The officers and petty officers aboard this ship are the pick of the United States Navy. Why not one of them? Besides, I’m not sure that I like the idea of passing on to an enlisted man secrets denied to my officers.’
‘They’re strictly non-naval secrets. The question of hierarchy doesn’t enter into it. Rawlings is the man I want. He’s got a quick mind, quick reflexes, and a dead-pan give-away-nothing expression that is invaluable in a game like this. Besides, in the event — the unlikely event, I hope — of the killer suspecting that we’re on to him, he wouldn’t look for any danger from one of your enlisted men because he’d be certain that we wouldn’t let them in on it.’
‘What do you want him for?’
‘To keep a night guard on Benson here.’
‘On Benson?’ A fractional narrowing of the eyes, that could have been as imagined as real, was the only change in Swanson’s impassive face. ‘So you don’t think it was an accident, do you?’ ‘I don’t honestly know. But I’m like yourself when you carry out a hundred and one different checks, most of which you know to be unnecessary, before you take your ship to sea — I’m taking no chances. If it wasn’t an accident — then someone might have an interest in doing a really permanent job next time.’
‘But how can Benson represent a danger to anyone?’ Swanson argued. ‘I’ll wager anything you like, Carpenter, that Benson doesn’t — or didn’t — know a thing about them that could point a finger at anyone. If he did, he’d have told me straight away. He was like that.’
‘Maybe he saw or heard something the significance of which he didn’t then realise. Maybe the killer is frightened that if Benson has time enough to think about it the significance will dawn on him. Or maybe it’s all a figment of my overheated imagination: maybe he just fell. But I’d still like to have Rawlings.’
‘You shall have him.’ Swanson rose to his feet and smiled. ‘I don’t want you quoting that Washington directive at me again.’
Two minutes later Rawlings arrived. He was dressed in a light brown shirt and overall pants, obviously his own conception of what constituted the well-dressed submariner’s uniform, and for the first time in our acquaintance he didn’t smile a greeting. He didn’t even glance at Benson on his cot. His face was still and composed, without any expression.
‘You sent for me, sir?’ ‘Sir,’ not ‘Doc’
‘Take a seat, Rawlings.’ He sat, and as he did I noticed the heavy bulge in the twelve-inch thigh pocket on the side of his overall pants. I nodded and said: ‘What have you got there? Doesn’t do much for the cut of your natty suiting, does it?’
He didn’t smile. He said, ‘I always carry one or two tools around with me. That’s what the pocket is for.’
‘Let’s see this particular tool,’ I said.
He hesitated briefly, shrugged and, not without some difficulty, pulled a heavy gleaming drop-forged steel pipe-wrench from the pocket. I hefted it in my hand.
‘I’m surprised at you, Rawlings,’ I said. ‘What do you think the average human skull is made of — concrete? One little tap with this thing and you’re up on a murder or manslaughter charge.’ I picked up a roll of bandage. Ten yards of this wrapped round the business end will automatically reduce the charge to one of assault and battery.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said mechanically.
‘I’m talking about the fact that when Commander Swanson, Lieutenant Hansen and I were inside the laboratory this afternoon and you and Murphy were outside, you must have kind of leaned your ear against the door and heard more than was good for you. You know there’s something far wrong and though you don’t know what, your motto is “be prepared”. Hence the cosh. Correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘Does Murphy know?’
‘No.’
‘I’m a naval intelligence officer. Washington know all about me. Want the captain to vouch for me?’
‘Well, no.’ The first faint signs of a grin. ‘I heard you pull a gun on the skipper, but you’re still walking about loose. You must be in the clear.’
‘You heard me threaten the captain and Lieutenant Hansen with a gun. But then you were sent away. You heard nothing after that?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Three men have been murdered on Zebra. Two shot, one knifed. Their bodies were burned to conceal traces of the crime. Four others died in the fire. The killer is aboard this ship.’
Rawlings said nothing. His eyes were wide, his face pale and shocked. I told him everything I’d told Swanson and Hansen and emphasised that he was to keep it all to himself. Then I finished: ‘Dr Benson here has been seriously hurt. A deliberate attempt for God knows what reason, may have been made on his life. We don’t know. But if it was a deliberate attempt, then it’s failed — so far.’
Rawlings had brought himself under control. He said, his voice as empty of expression as his face: ‘Our little pal might come calling again?’
‘He may. No member of the crew except the captain, the executive officer or I will come here. Anyone else — well, you can start asking him questions when he recovers consciousness.’
‘You recommended ten yards of this bandage, Doc?’
‘It should be enough. And only a gentle tap, for God’s sake. Above and behind the ear. You might sit behind that curtain there where no one can see you.’
‘I’m feeling lonesome to-night,’ Rawlings murmured. He broke open the bandage, started winding it around the head of the wrench and glanced at the cartoon-decorated bulkhead beside him. ‘Even old Yogi Bear ain’t no fit companion for me to-night. I hope I have some other company calling.’
I left him there. I felt vaguely sorry for anyone who should come calling, killer or not. I felt, too, that I had taken every possible precaution. But when I left Rawlings there guarding Benson I did make one little mistake. Just one. I left him guarding the wrong man.
The
At supper that evening I suggested that, with Commander Swanson’s permission, I’d have a surgery at nine next morning; because of enforced neglect most of the burn wounds were suppurating fairly badly, requiring constant cleaning and changing of coverings: I also thought it about time that an X-ray inspection be made of Zabrinski’s broken ankle. Medical supplies in the sick-bay were running short. Where did Benson keep his main supplies? Swanson told me and detailed Henry, the steward, to show me where it was.
About ten that night, after I’d returned from seeing the two men out on Zebra, Henry led me through the now deserted control room and down the ladder which led to the inertial navigation room and the electronics space, which abutted on it. He undid the strong-back clamp on the square heavy steel hatch in a corner of the electronics room and with an assist from me — the hatch must have weighed about 150 pounds — swung it up and back until the hatch clicked home on its standing latch.
Three rungs on the inside of the hatch-cover led on to the vertical steel ladder that reached down to the deck below. Henry went down first, snapping on the light as he went, and I followed.
The medical storage room, though tiny, was equipped on the same superbly lavish scale as was everything else on the Dolphin. Benson, as thoroughly meticulous in this as he had been in his outlining of X-ray procedure, had everything neatly and logically labelled so that it took me less than three minutes to find everything I wanted. I went up the ladder first, stopped near the top, stretched down and took the bag of supplies from Henry, swung it up on the deck above, then reached up quickly with my free hand to grab the middle of the three rungs welded on the lower side of the hatch cover to haul myself up on to the deck of the electronics space. But I didn’t haul myself up. What happened was that I hauled the hatch cover down. The retaining latch had become disengaged, and the 150-pound dead weight of that massive cover was swinging down on top of me before I could even begin to realise what was happening.
I fell half-sideways, half-backwards, pulling the hatch cover with me. My head struck against the hatch coaming. Desperately I ducked my head forward — if it had been crushed between the coaming and the falling cover the two sides of my skull would just about have met in the middle -and tried to snatch my left arm back inside. I was more or less successful with my head — I had it clear of the coaming and was ducking so quickly that the impact of the cover was no more than enough to give me a slight headache afterwards; but my left arm was a different matter altogether. I almost got it clear — but only almost. If my left hand and wrist had been strapped to a steel block and a gorilla had had a go at it with a sledgehammer, the effect couldn’t have been more agonising. For a moment or two I hung there, trapped, dangling by my left wrist, then the weight of my body tore the mangled wrist and hand through the gap and I crashed down to the deck beneath. Then the gorilla seemed to have another go with the sledge-hammer and consciousness went.
‘I won’t beat about the bush, old lad,’ Jolly said. ‘No point in it with a fellow pill-roller. Your wrist is a mess — I had to dig half your watch out of it. The middle and little fingers are broken, the middle in two places. But the permanent damage, I’m afraid, is to the back of your hand — the little and ring finger tendons have been sliced.’
‘What does that mean?’ Swanson asked.
‘It means that in his left hand he’ll have to get by with two fingers and a thumb for the rest of his life,’ Jolly said bluntly.
Swanson swore softly and turned to Henry. ‘How in God’s name could you have been so damnably careless? An experienced submariner like you? You know perfectly well that you are required to make a visual check every time a hatch cover engages in a standing latch. Why didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t need to, sir.’ Henry was looking more dyspeptic and forlorn than ever. ‘I heard it click and I gave a tug. It was fixed, all right. I can swear to it, sir.’
‘How could it have been fixed? Look at Dr Carpenter’s hand. Just a hair-line engagement and the slightest extra pressure — my God, why can’t you people obey regulations?’
Henry stared at the deck in silence. Jolly, who was understandably looking about as washed-out as I felt, packed away the tools of his trade, advised me to take a couple of days off, gave me a handful of pills to take, said a weary good-night and climbed up the ladder leading from the electronics space, where he had been fixing my hand. Swanson said to Henry: ‘You can go now, Baker.’ It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone address Henry by his surname, a sufficient enough token of what Swanson regarded as the enormity of his crime. ‘I’ll decide what to do about this in the morning.’
‘I don’t know about the morning,’ I said after Henry was gone. ‘Maybe the next morning. Or the one after that. Then you can apologise to him. You and me both. That cover was locked on its standing latch. I checked it visually, Commander Swanson.’
Swanson gave me his cool impassive look. After a moment he said quietly: ‘Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?’
‘Someone took a risk,’ I said. ‘Not all that much of a risk, though — most people are asleep now and the control room was deserted at the moment that mattered. Some one in the wardroom tonight heard me ask your permission to go down to the medical store and heard you giving your okay. Shortly after that nearly everyone turned in. One man didn’t-he kept awake and hung around patiently until I came back from the Drift Station. He followed us down below — he was lucky, Lieutenant Sims, your officer on deck, was taking star-sights up on the bridge and the control room was empty — and he unhooked the latch but left the hatch cover in a standing position. There was a slight element of gambling as to whether I would come up first, but not all that much, it would have been a matter of elementary courtesy, he would have thought, for Henry to see me up first. Anyway, he won his gamble, slight though it was. After that our unknown friend wasn’t quite so lucky — I think he expected the damage to be a bit more permanent.’
‘I’ll get inquiries under way immediately,’ Swanson said. ‘Whoever was responsible, someone must have seen him. Someone must have heard him leaving his cot —’
‘Don’t waste your time, Commander. We’re up against a highly intelligent character who doesn’t overlook the obvious. Not only that but word of your inquiries is bound to get around and you’d scare him under cover where I’d never get at him.’
‘Then I’ll just keep the whole damned lot under lock and key until we get back to Scotland,’ Swanson said grimly. ‘That way there’ll be no more trouble.’
‘That way we’ll never find out who the murderer of my brother and the six — seven now — others are. Whoever it is has to be given sufficient rope to trip himself up.’
‘Good lord, man, we can’t just sit back and let things be done to us.’ A hint of testiness in the commander’s voice and I couldn’t blame him. ‘What do we — what do you propose to do now?’
‘Start at the beginning. To-morrow morning we’ll hold a court of inquiry among the survivors. Let’s find out all we can about that fire. Just an innocent above-board fact-finding inquiry — for the Ministry of Supply, let us say. I’ve an idea we might turn up something very interesting indeed.’
‘You think so?’ Swanson shook his head. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for a moment. Look what’s happened to you. It’s obvious, man, that someone knows or suspects that you’re on to them. They’ll take damned good care to give nothing away.’
‘You think that’s why I was clouted to-night?’
‘What other reason could there be?’
‘Was that why Benson was hurt?’
‘We don’t know that he was. Deliberately, I mean. May have been pure coincidence.’
‘Maybe it was,’ I agreed. ‘And again maybe it wasn’t. My guess, for what it’s worth, is that the accident or accidents have nothing at all to do with any suspicions
It was midnight when I got back to my cabin. The engineer officer was on watch and Hansen was asleep so I didn’t put on any light lest I disturb him. I didn’t undress, just removed my shoes, lay down on the cot and pulled a cover over me.
I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. My left arm from the elbow downwards still felt as if it were caught in a bear-trap. Twice I pulled from my pocket the pain-killers and sleeping-tablets that Jolly had given me and twice I put them away.
Instead I just lay there and thought and the first and most obvious conclusion I came up with was that there was someone aboard the Dolphin who didn’t care any too much for the members of the medical profession. Then I got to wondering why the profession was so unpopular and after half an hour of beating my weary brain-cells around I got silently to my feet and made my way on stockinged soles to the sick-bay.
I passed inside and closed the door softly behind me. A red nightlight burnt dully in one corner of the bay, just enough to let me see the huddled form of Benson lying on a cot. I switched on the overhead light, blinked in the sudden fierce wash of light and looked at the curtain at the other end of the bay. Nothing stirred behind it. I said: ‘Just kind of take your itching fingers away from that pipe-wrench, Rawlings. It’s me, Carpenter.’
The curtain was pulled to one side and Rawlings appeared, the pipe-wrench, with its bandage-wrapped head, dangling from one hand. He had a disappointed look on his face.
‘I was expecting someone else,’ he said reproachfully. ‘I was kinda hoping — my God, Doc, what’s happened to your arm?’
‘Well may you ask, Rawlings. Our little pal had a go at me tonight. I think he wanted me out of the way. Whether he wanted me out of the way permanently or not I don’t know, but he near as a toucher succeeded.’ I told him what had happened, then asked him: ‘Is there any man aboard you can trust absolutely?’ I knew the answer before I had asked the question.