The four Sunker children stood well away from the Hungry Ghost, studying her warily. They half expected her to leap to her feet and attack them, but once she’d finished puking, she just lay curled up on the deck, with her eyes closed and her fists clamped under her chin.
Which was a nuisance.
The Claw was basically a metal tube, no more than twenty-five paces from one end to the other, and every inch of her was packed with instruments, valves, pipes and pumps. Her control room, in the bow, was really just a stool set in front of an array of dials and switches. Her engine room, in the stern, was hot and cramped, and so was her little workshop. Her batteries, with a single bunk perched on top of them, butted up against the dive wheels, which in turn nudged the tiny galley and the chart table. And in the middle of it all, so that everyone had to breathe in as they edged past, were the periscope station and the ladder that led up to the conning tower.
Even without a Ghost on board, there was hardly room to move.
“Maybe the salt water hurt her,” whispered Gilly. “Maybe she’s dying.”
“Ghosts can’t die,” said Sharkey.
He wasn’t sure if that was true, but Gilly nodded seriously and said, “She might sort of melt, though, sir. If we leave her alone. She might disappear.”
Sharkey hoped his cousin was right. He had no idea what to do with the Ghost. Granfer Trout had been wrong about “bellies as big as mountains.” Apart from her white hair and pinky-brown skin, the girl looked almost human, and Sharkey had to keep reminding himself that she wasn’t.
I should shove her back out the air lock, he thought. But he didn’t want to touch her again. Didn’t dare touch her, if he was being truthful with himself. No matter what she looked like, she was a Ghost, and Ghosts were dangerous.
So in the end, he left her where she was, with Gilly standing guard.
Early next morning, they returned to the scene of the Rampart’s sinking. Sharkey didn’t want to go, but he gave the order all the same. If it’d been the Claw down there on the seabed instead of the Rampart, Admiral Deeps would’ve gone back to check. It’d look bad if Sharkey did anything else.
They surfaced forty-five minutes before sunclimb, with the periscope showing a dark, overcast sky and no sign of skimmers or giant bubbles. Sharkey ordered the diesels started, to recharge the batteries and air. Then he edged past the Ghost.
Right up to that moment, he hadn’t been sure about leaving the middies alone while he went to check on the Rampart. But apart from flinching when the diesels roared to life, the Ghost still hadn’t moved. Maybe she is dying, thought Sharkey. Or maybe she’s just too sick to hurt us. Wish Surgeon Blue was here; I bet he’d know.
He beckoned Cuttle and Poddy. “Watch her carefully,” he said over the clatter of the diesels.
“Aye, sir!”
“If she moves, call Gilly—she’ll be up on deck, keeping watch.”
The two middies saluted and took up guard positions.
With a weight belt and a waterproof lantern slung over his arm, Sharkey climbed the ladder inside the conning tower. Then he unsealed the two hatches and stepped out onto the small, flat deck, just two feet above the waterline. Gilly followed him.
The sea was calm, and the horizon was a dark line. Sharkey screwed up his good eye and said, “You’ve got the conn while I’m gone.”
Gilly saluted. “I’ve got the conn. Aye, sir!”
“Keep an eye on Poddy and Cuttle. Make sure the Ghost doesn’t try anything. And watch out for skimmers and bubbles.”
“Aye, sir.”
Sharkey took off his sea-silk pants and jerkin and hung them over one of the stay wires. He undid his eye patch and tucked it into the pocket of his pants. Then, with his back to his cousin, he strapped on the weight belt with the waterproof lantern attached, slipped out of his smallclothes and jumped over the side.
The water was so cold it made his teeth hurt, but he’d been swimming in temperatures like this since before he could walk, and thought nothing of it. He hung on to a porthole, taking in lungfuls of air and letting them out again. Then he took a deep breath—and dived into the darkness.
His strong legs drove him down and down and down. Fish darted across his path. Strings of kelp brushed against his hands. When his ears felt as if they were going to burst, he held his nose and blew, to even the pressure.
On that first dive, he found nothing except the rough seabed. On the second, he thought he saw something to the east—something gray and silent—but when he brought the lantern closer, it turned out to be an outcrop of rock.
He went up again, for another breath. He felt sick and angry, and the rumble of the diesels seemed to drag on him like an anchor chain.
It took him another ten minutes to find the Rampart. By then the horizon was growing light, and Sharkey was so cold he could barely think. One more try, he told himself. And he drew the air into his aching lungs and dived.
The Rampart was lying on her side, some way west of where Sharkey had been looking for her. Even in the semidarkness, he could see the battering she’d taken. There was an enormous, jagged hole just behind the conning tower, and another two farther for’ard. The water must have rushed in like a king tide. It was a wonder Admiral Deeps had managed to get a message sent. It was a wonder anyone had got out.
If they had got out.
Sharkey picked up a rock and banged on the bow hatch, in case someone was still alive in one of the watertight compartments. There was no answer. He banged again on the stern hatch, trying to remain hopeful. But he couldn’t ignore what he knew in his heart. The holes in the hull were too big. The watertight compartments weren’t watertight, not anymore. Anyone who was left on the Rampart was dead.
He dropped the rock and swam for the surface. His fingers and toes were numb, but he didn’t feel cold. He’d lost his fear of the dying Ghost girl too. There was a ball of rage inside him, and he wanted to grab hold of the girl and shake her until she rattled.
It wasn’t until he had dragged himself back onto the deck of the Claw, with the diesel engines thumping away under his bare feet, that he realized Gilly was no longer there.
Sharkey hated it when crew weren’t where they were supposed to be. Life on the submersibles was dangerous enough as it was. There were so many things that could go wrong—a stuck valve, a hot bearing, a loose connection. There was no room for half measures, no room for inattention. For the Sunkers, it was all or nothing. Watertight or holed. Alive or dead.
Which meant that Gilly wouldn’t have left her post unless there was some sort of emergency.
The Ghost! thought Sharkey.
And with murder in his heart, he threw on his smallclothes and leaped for the conning tower.