| Chapter Fourteen - Repairs & Salvage |
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The wheel steadfastly refused to budge. I moved my lantern around so as to better illuminate the source of my frustration. Its light was beginning to flicker; I needed to finish this quickly. Wiping my hands clean, I wedged an iron bar into the handle of the stopcock and lifted my hammer. In the cramped confines amongst the gears of the starboard wing compartment, this felt like an achievement in itself. I brought the hammer down with all my strength on the bar, cursing the wheel's existence. Finally, the seal broke with an ill-tempered hiss and the wheel rotated slightly, releasing the remaining pressure. Now I could repair the pipe and get us back underway. I had spent what seemed like hours effecting repairs to the outer skin, which had been fractured by an alien blast. It had in reality been minutes rather than hours, for we had designed the external scales in such a way that fresh plates could be slid in, clipped and sealed. Our craft could still not retain enough pressure to fully propel us and I had tracked this down to the split pipe before me. I pulled the darkened goggles down over my eyes and nervously turned one of two dials on the metallic vessel in my hands, which no emitted a whisper of released gas. Turning the dial next to it sent out a spark that ignited the gas with a brilliant blue flame. I wasn’t entirely sure the captain's directions would work but I held the flame at the specified distance and melted the length of modified brass, which I held in my other hand into the split. This done, I reversed the dials and put out the flame, watching in amazement as the mixture cooled, hardened and formed a seamless repair. Whistling with pleasure, I wiggled back along the wing and emerged into the fuselage of our craft, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the brighter surroundings.
I glanced to the left and saw an illuminated display on the bridge. The captain had finished his underwater excursion it seemed. He had insisted upon searching for debris from the alien vessel for scrutiny and I was unable to persuade him otherwise. I was very keen to witness foreign shores and to follow the path revealed to me by that small pile of documents that had been pushed under my door. The captain, bemused but pleased by my enthusiasm had patiently explained the importance of gathering as much information as possible of our would-be invaders, and I had to eventually concede that he was right - the cause of humanity would have to take precedence over my own concerns. I walked to the port wall and lifted the lever, feeling the mechanism strain and begin winding up the heavy cord to which the captain was attached and its accompanying airline. I manually pushed open the floor hatch to view its progress. The waves were thankfully calm and eventually the shining brass helmet of the captain’s diving suit broke through the murky waters below. He gestured happily towards me and I observed that the pack he had taken to store his findings was positively bulging with artifacts. I grasped his hand and helped him back into the craft, water still running from his artificial skin to pool briefly on the brass floor before running off and falling from the open hatchway. The maiden use of his self designed and crafted diving suit had been a success, with only a small dribble of water having seeped inside the helmet. I grasped it with both hands and twisted, removing it from the captain’s head. "Have a nice swim old chap?" I enquired with a grin. "Now that my boy, was a journey worth making - you must try it next time!" he exclaimed. He hurriedly imparted the tale of his dive. He had been delighted as much by the natural wonders he had witnessed as by the salvage he had recovered from the seabed. I noted once more just how boyish and genial he could be made by the fruition of one of his many ideas. We moved the recovered items onto the workbench in his cabin study and returned to the bridge were I informed him of the rather more mundane but no less satisfying events of my repairs. Back at the controls, we slowly built up the pressure from the engine, gently testing my repairs. When we were satisfied, the captain collapsed the great balloon above us, which slid back into its storage area, and we sped off, darting once towards the destination, which the Captain now revealed - Calcutta. |
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