"Alistair MacLean - San Andreas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)Second Officer Rawlings was lying beside the wheel and there was no mystery as to how he had died: what must have been a flying shard of metal had all but decapitated him. 'Where's the helmsman?' the Bo'sun asked. 'Was he a survivor, then?' 'I don't know. I don't know who was on. Maybe Rawlings had sent him to get something. But there were two survivors up here, apart from the Captain and Chief Officer -McGuigan and Jones.' 'McGuigan and Jones? What were they doing up here?' 'It seems Mr Kennet had called them up and posted them as look-outs, one on either wing. I suppose that's why they survived, just as Captain Bowen and Mr Kennel survived. They're in the hospital, too.' 'Badly hurt?' 'Unharmed, I believe. Shock, that's all.' The Bo'sun moved out to the port wing and Patterson followed. The wing was wholly undamaged, no signs of metal buckling anywhere. The Bo'sun indicated a once grey but now badly scorched metal box which was attached just below the wind-breaker: its top and one side had been blown off. 'That's where they kept the Wessex rockets,' the Bo'sun said. They went back inside and the Bo'sun moved towards the wireless office hatchway: the sliding wooden door was no longer there. 'I wouldn't look, if I were you,' Patterson said. 'The men have got to, haven't they?' 'The first bomb must have gone off directly beneath him,' the Bo'sun said. 'God, I've never seen anything like it. I'll attend to him myself. Third Officer Batesman. I know he was the officer of the watch. Any idea where he is, sir?' 'In the chart room. I don't advise you to go there either.' Batesman was recognizable but only just. He was still on his chair, half-leaning, half-lying on the table, what was left of his head pillowed on a blood-stained chart. McKinnon returned to the bridge. 'I don't suppose it will be any comfort to their relatives to know that they died without knowing. I'll fix him up myself, too. I couldn't ask the men.' He looked ahead through the totally shattered windscreens. At least, he thought, they wouldn't be needing a Kent clear-view screen any more. 'Wind's backing to the east,' he said absently. 'Bound to bring more snow. At least it might help to hide us from the wolves - if there are any wolves around.' 'You think, perhaps, they might come back to finish us off?' The Chief was shivering violently but that was only because he was accustomed to the warmth of the engine-room: the temperature on the bridge was about 6?F -twenty-six degrees of frost - and the wind held steady at twenty knots. 'Who can be sure, sir? But I really don't think so. Even one of those Heinkel torpedo-bombers could have finished us off if they had had a mind to. Come to that, the Condor could have done the same thing.' 'It did pretty well as it was, if you ask me.' 'Not nearly as well as it could have done. I know that a Condor normally carries 250-kilo bombs - that's about 550 Ibs. A stick of those bombs - say three or four - would have sent us to the bottom. Even two might have been enough - they'd have certainly blown the superstructure out of existence, not just crippled it.' 'The Royal Navy again, is that it, Bo'sun?' 'I know explosives, sir. Those bombs couldn't have been any more than fifty kilos each. Don't you think, sir, that we might have some interesting questions to ask that Condor captain when he regains consciousness?' 'In the hope of getting some interesting answers, is that it? Including the answer to the question why he bombed a hospital ship in the first place.' 'Well, yes, perhaps.' |
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