Death on a Pale Horse - By Donald Thomas Page 0,128

address to an ambassador in precise and correct English.

“We shall not sink, I do not believe so, doctor,” he said primly. “I know steam paddle vessels. They are flat-bottomed boats. They are like a wooden box. They float a very long time after an exchange of blows. I was in the Crimea, you know, in the war against the Tsar. Our monitor Rochefort was engaged and suffered an unlucky hit. Much of her side was blown away. She was disabled, but she did not sink. She floated until she became a nuisance to navigation and had to be sunk by our own gunfire.”

To dispute with royalty, even if it has neither a throne nor a crown, is not easy. I tried to think how Sherlock Holmes would have put it to him. It was no good.

“Sir, I must go below and search for my colleague. The sea is coming in by the paddle sponson. It may not yet be flooding beneath the waterline, but it is very close. You can see from the steam outside that it has already filled the stoke-hold sufficiently to put out the fires. The boilers have cracked and steam is escaping from them as well. There is no pressure left to work the pumps, and the ship will fill with water below the Plimsoll line. That will sink her.”

Lieutenant Cabell was blunter. “You must go now, Your Majesty. There is a boat just outside which we are attempting to lower.”

The prince waved his hand side to side.

“They will come from the other ship and fetch us. I think they have boats enough. I will not have it said that I was rescued and that all the other people on this steamer were left to take their chance. We shall all go in the proper manner. I do not care a lot to be seen scrambling down the side of a ship to save myself. I fear every chance of an accident in such weather as this, and being myself in the water. I shall remain for a time.”

I made one more effort and wished afterwards that I had not. “I too know something of ships, sir. This vessel is listing. The movement is gradual. But when the moment comes, she will go over without warning. You will not get as far as the door of this saloon. Whatever your decision, I am going down below at once.”

“You will go down below to look for your colleague, Doctor Vastson?”

“At once, sir. I can do no more here. Please take the advice of Lieutenant Cabell.”

Plon-Plon waved his hand side to side, rather like a fan.

“If you are going anyway, monsieur, there is a box belonging to me which I should like, if it is still there. It lies in the coffresforts of the Messageries Impériales. It is consigned to myself at Lancaster Gate. There is an armed guard, but I expect they will have run away. It is marked with a crown.”

General Boulanger intervened before I could reply. There was a chain at the belt of his morning dress, and from it he unhooked two keys on a ring.

“This, monsieur, is all the authority you require. I have an oil-lamp at my disposal. You will please take that for your safety.”

Safety! There is a French phrase—un mauvais quart d’heure—which refers to an anticipation of disagreeable experiences. It describes precisely my feelings as I felt my way down the half-lit steps of the companionway. The fog had shown no sign of lifting, and no lifeboat had yet reached the stricken Comtesse from the vessel that had run her down. But the rush of passengers from the lower saloons to the upper deck had ceased and I had the lower deck pretty much to myself. Below-decks, the stricken steamer was silent now except for the wash of water that swilled to and fro across the planking. Only the echo of distant voices above indicated the turmoil and panic there. I found my way by a glimmer of mounted oil-lights overhead which the water had not yet reached and which showed me the way dimly.

The worst thing belowdecks was a fetid stench from the bilges of the sinking vessel, as the contaminated water ran erratically about the sloping deck. The engine-room passage stretching aft was more than ankle-deep in it. My lamp shone upon the heavy pistons of the ship’s engines, now silent and motionless in mid-stride. There was a creaking of the hull as it seemed to heel over