The Steel Tsar Read Free Page B

neat rice paddies, rows of tamarind trees and fields of tall sugar cane. We were so low that I could make out the heads of peasants looking up at us as our shadow moved across their fields. Then I was thrown against the rail as a fresh gust of wind caught the ship and slewed round again, revealing the kapok plantations on the slopes of Java’s grim volcanic hillsides.
    I thought we were bound to crash into the hills, for they were rising steeply and were beginning to turn into the grey flanks of mountains. From some of these drifted wisps of yellowish white smoke. Instinctively I braced myself, but we just managed to cross the first line of mountains. And ahead I could see denser clouds of pale grey smoke, coiling and boiling like a tangle of lazy serpents.
    The ship jerked her nose up again and we ascended a few feet. The damaged tailplanes caused us to make a crazy zigzag over the landscape and I could see our elongated shadow moving erratically below. Then our motion steadied, but it seemed inevitable to me that we must soon crash into one of the many semi-active volcanoes which dominated Java’s interior.
    I was unprepared for the next lurch and I lost my grip on the rail as we started to go up rapidly. Clambering to my feet I saw that the ship had released her water ballast. It sprayed like a sudden rainstorm over the dusty slopes of the mountains. Perhaps, after all, we would make the sea on the other side.
    But a few moments later the captain’s voice came through the loudspeakers. It was calm enough under the circumstances. It told us that we were going to have to lighten the ship as much as possible. We were to make ready all non-essential materials and the crew would collect them from us in a couple of minutes.
    Frantically we stumbled about the ward gathering up everything which could be thrown overboard. Eventually we had handed to the airshipmen a great pile of books, food, medical supplies, clothing, bedding, oxygen cylinders and more. All went overboard.
    And the ship rose barely enough to clear the next range of mountains.
    I wondered if the captain would ask for volunteers to jump from the ship next. We were by this time flying over a bleak and barren wasteland of cold lava ridges, with not so much as a clump of palms to break our descent should we crash. The tension in the wards had increased again and those patients not still asleep were talking in high, panicky voices.
    Some of the questions were difficult to answer. Among the “non-essential” materials taken from us had been the bodies of those who had died in transit.
    But even this act of desperate callousness had bought us very little time.
    The intercom crackled again. The first officer began to speak.
    “Please ready yourselves for—Oh, God!”
    The next moment I saw the grey mountainside rushing towards us and before we fully realized it, we were engulfed in clouds of grey-white smoke and our keel was making a frightful screaming sound as it scraped the sides of the cliff.
    The screams of the patients joined the scream of the ship itself. I heard a monstrous creaking noise and then I was flung away from the rail and felt myself sliding towards the bunks.
    The vessel bounced and juddered, seemed to gain height for a moment and then came down with a horrifying crack which sent the bunks crashing loose from their moorings. I had the impression of waving arms and legs, of terrified faces. I heard trays of instruments clattering and saw bodies flying about like rag dolls. A great wail filled my ears and then the ship rolled, went up again and came down for the last time. In a flailing mass of bodies I was flung towards the starboard side. I saw my head rushing towards a fibreglass strut near the observation ports. I tried to put out my hands to stop the impact, but they were trapped by the bodies and objects on top of me. There came the final crash of impact and I remember being filled with an almost cheerful sense of relief that I had been killed