Alistair Maclean - Guns Of Navarone - bzelbublive.info

for'ard cabin. As always in an emergency, his mind was racing ahead with that abnormal sureness and clarity ofthought for which he could never afterwards account.Grasping spikes, mallet and a wire-cored rope, he was back on deck in seconds. He stood stock still, rooted in analmost intolerable tension as he saw the towering, jagged rock bearing down upon them, fine on the starboard bow, arock that reached half-way up the wheelhouse. It struck the boat with a crash that sent him to his knees, rasped andgrated along half the length of the buckled, splintered gunwales: and then the caique had rolled over to port and shewas through, Stevens frantically spinning the wheel and shouting for full astern.Mallory's breath escaped in a long, heavy sigh of relief--he had been quite unaware that he had stoppedbreathing--and he hurriedly looped the coil of rope round his neck and under his left shoulder and stuck spikes andhammer in his belt. The caique was slewing heavily round now, port side to, plunging and corkscrewing violently asshe began to fall broadside into the troughs of the waves, waves shorter and steeper than ever under the doublethrust of the wind and the waves and the backwash recoiling from the cliffs: but she was still in the grip of the sea andher own momentum, and the distance was closing with frightening speed. It's a chance I have to take, Mallory repeatedto himself over and over again; it's a chance I have to take. But that little ledge, remote and just inaccessible, was fate'slast refinement of cruelty, the salt in the wound of extinction, and he knew in his heart of hearts that it wasn't a chanceat all, but just a suicidal gesture. And then Andrea had heaved the last of the fenders--worn truck tyres--out board,and was towering above him, grinning down hugely into his face: and suddenly Mallory wasn't so sure any more."The ledge?" Andrea's vast, reassuring hand was on his shoulder.Mallory nodded, knees bent in readiness, feet braced on the plunging, slippery deck."Jump for it," Andrea boomed. "Then keep your legs stiff."There was no time for any more. The caique was swinging in broadside to, teetering on the crest of a wave, as highup the cliff as she would ever be, and Mallory knew it was now or never. His hands swung back behind his body, hisknees bent farther, and then, in one convulsive leap he had flung himself upwards, fingers scrabbling on the wet rockof the cliff, then hooking over the rim of the ledge. For an instant he hung there at the length of his arms, unable tomove, wincing as he heard the foremast crash against the ledge and snap in two, then his fingers left the ledge withouttheir own volition, and he was almost half-way over, propelled by one gigantic heave from below.He was not up yet. He was held only by the buckle of his belt, caught on the edge of the rock, a buckle nowdragged up to his breastbone by the weight of his body. But he did not paw frantically for a handhold, or wriggle hisbody or flail his legs in the air--and any of these actions would have sent him crashing down again. At last, and onceagain, he was a man utterly at home in his own element. The greatest rock climber of his time, men called him, and thiswas what he had been born for.Slowly, methodically, he felt the surface of the ledge, and almost at once he discovered a crack running back fromthe face. It would have been better had it been parallel to the face--and more than the width of a matchstick. But it wasenough for Mallory. With infinite care he eased the hammer and a couple of spikes from his belt, worked a spike intothe crack to obtain a minimal purchase, slid the other in some inches nearer, hooked his left wrist round the first, heldthe second spike with the fingers of the same hand and brought up the hammer in his free hand. Fifteen seconds laterhe was standing on the ledge.Working quickly and surely, catlike in his balance on the slippery, shelving rock, he hammered a spike into the faceof the cliff, securely and at a downward angle, about three feet above the ledge, dropped a clove hitch over the topand kicked the rest of the coil over the ledge. Then, and only then, he turned round and looked below him.Less than a minute had passed since the caique had struck, but already she was a broken-masted, splinteredshambles, sides caving in and visibly disintegrating as he watched. Every seven or eight seconds a giant comberwould pick her up and fling her bodily against the cliff, the heavy truck tyres taking up only a fraction of the impactthat followed, the sickening, rending crash that reduced the gunwales to matchwood, holed and split the sides andcracked the oaken timber: and then she would roll clear, port side showing, the hungry sea pouring in through the tornand ruptured planking.Three men were standing by what was left of the wheelhouse. _Three_ men--suddenly, he realised that CaseyBrown was missing, realised, too, that the engine was still running, its clamour rising and falling then rising again, atirregular intervals. Brown was edging the caique backwards and forwards along the cliff, keeping her as nearly ashumanly possible in the same position, for he knew their lives depended on Mallory--and on himself. "The fool!"Mallory swore. "The crazy fool!"The caique surged back in a receding trough, steadied, then swept in against the cliff again, heeling over so wildlythat the roof of the wheelhouse smashed and telescoped against the wall of the cliff. The impact was so fierce, theshock so sudden, that Stevens lost both hand-grip and footing and was catapulted into the rock face, upflung armsraised for protection. For a moment he hung there, as if pinned against the wall, then fell back into the sea, limbs andhead relaxed, lifeless in his limp quiescence. He should have died then, drowned under the hammer-blows of the sea orcrushed by the next battering-ram collision of caique and cliff. He should have died and he would have died but for thegreat arm that hooked down and plucked him out of the water like a limp and sodden rag doll and heaved him inboard abare second before the next bludgeoning impact of the boat against the rock would have crushed the life out of him."Come on, for God's sake!" Mallory shouted desperately. "Shell be gone in a minute! The rope--use the rope!" Hesaw Andrea and Miller exchange a few quick words, saw them shake and pummel Stevens and stand him on his feet,dazed and retching sea-water, but conscious. Andrea was speaking in his ear, emphasising something and guiding therope into his hands, and then the caique was swinging in again, Stevens automatically shortening his grip on the rope.A tremendous boost from below by Andrea, Mallory's long arm reaching out and Stevens was on the ledge, sittingPage 26