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Had he tried to walk across it, the glutinous mud would have sucked so loudly around his feet that every guard within a hundred yards would have heard him.
The mud coated his chest and belly and legs with its coldly loathsome, clinging oiliness, and the reek of it filled his nostrils so he gagged. Then he was into the water. The water was blood warm, he felt the tug of the current and the bottom dropped away beneath him.
He swam on his side, careful that neither legs nor arms should break the surface. His head alone showed, like the head of a swimming otter,
and he felt the mud washing off his body.
He swam across the current, guided by the distant glimmer of Blucher's deck lights. He swam slowly, husbanding his strength, for he knew he would need all of it later.
His mind was filled with layers of awareness. The lowest layer was a lurking undirected terror of the dark water in which he swam, his dangling legs were vulnerable to the scaly predators which infested the
Rufiji river. The current Must be carrying his scent down to them.
Soon they would come hunting up to find him. But he kept up the easy stroke of arms and legs. It was a chance, one chance of the many He was taking and he tried to ignore it and grapple with the practical problems of his attempt. When he reached Blitcher, how was he to get aboard her? Her sides were fifty feet high, and the catwalks were the only means of access. These were both heavily guarded. It was a problem without solution, and yet he harried it.
Over this was a thick layer of hopeless sorrow. Sorrow for Fly
But the uppermost layer was thickest, strongest. Rosa, Rosa and
Rosa.
He found with surprise that he was saying it aloud.
"Rosa!" with each forward thrust of his body through the water.
"Rosa!" each time he drew breath.
"Rosa!" as his legs kicked out and Pushed him towards the
Blitcher.
He did not know what he would do if he reached her.
Perhaps there was some-half-fort ned idea of escaping with her, of fighting his way out of Blucher with his woman.
Getting her away before that moment when the ship would vanish in a holocaust of flame. He did not know, but he swam on quietly.
Then he was under Blitcher's side. The towering mass of steel blotted out the starry night sky, and he stopped swimming and hung in the warm water looking up at her.
There were small sounds. The hum of machinery within her, the faint clang' of metal struck against metal, the low guttural murmur of voices at her gangway, the thump of a rifle butt against the wooden deck, the soft wash of water around the hull -and then a closer,
clearer sound, a regular creak and tap, creak and tap.
He swam in towards the hull, searching for the source of this new sound. It came from near the bows, creak and tap.
The creak of rope, and the tap of wood against the steel hull. He saw it then, just above his head. He almost cried out with joy.
The cradles! The platforms still suspended above the water on which the welders and the painters had worked.
He reached up and gripped the wooden edge and drew himself on to the platform. He rested a few seconds and then began to climb the rope. Hand over hand, gripping the rope between the insides of his bare feet, he went up.
His head came level with the deck and he hung there, searching carefully. Fifty yards away he saw two seamen at the gangway. Neither was looking his way.
At intervals the hooded lanterns threw puddles of yellow light upon the deck, but there were concealing shadows beyond them. It was dark around the base of the forward gun-turrets, and there were piles of material, abandoned welding equipment, heaps of rope and canvas in the shadows which would hide him when he had crossed the deck.
Once more he checked the two guards at the gangway, their backs were turned to him.
Sebastian filled his lungs and steeled himself to act. Then with one fluid movement he drew himself up and rolled over the side. He landed lightly on his feet and darted across the exposed deck into the shadows. He ducked down behind a pile of canvas and rope netting, and struggled to control his breathing. He could feel his legs trembling violently under him, so he sat down on the planking and huddled against the protecting pile of canvas. River water trickled from his shaven pate over his forehead and into his eyes.
He wiped it away.
Now what?" He was aboard Blitcher, but what should he do next?
Where would they hold Rosa? Was there some sort of guard-room for prisoners? Would they put her in one of the officer's cabins? The sick-bay?
He knew roughly where the sick-bay was located. While he was working in the magazine he had heard the one German guard say, "He has gone down the companion-way to the sick-bay." It must be somewhere just below the forward magazine oh, God! If they had her there she would be almost at the centre of the explosion.
He came up on his knees, and peered over the pile of canvas. It was lighter now. Through the screen of netting, he could see the night sky had paled a little in the east. Dawn was not far off. The night had passed so swiftly, morning was on its way and there were but a few scant hours before the hands of the travelling-clock completed their journey, and made the electrical co
He must move. He rose slowly and then froze. The guards at the gangway had come to attention. They stood stiffly with their rifles at the slope, and into the light stepped a tall, white-clad figure.