The Poseidon Adventure

331 Pages·2016·1.44 MB·English

by  Gallico Paul

"Not since
AIRPORT,
such a shattering story
of drama and suspense"
Paul Gallico
THE
POSEIDON
ADVENTURE
The Huge Bestseller
Now a Spectacular Motion Picture
"A TRIUMPH FOR GALLICO THE
STORYTELLER... THE ACTION
IS SUPERB!" -- St. Louis Post Dispatch
"Heroism, depravity, tragedy, breakdown
emerge as the facades are stripped away
. . . keeps the reader breathless!"
-- Publishers' Weekly
"Love and hate and desperation . . .
tense and dramatic . . . All the humanity
and understanding that have made Paul
Gallico's novels beloved have been
poured into this one!" -- Southwest Times-Record
"The almost unbearable suspense to
which the story builds ranks in intensity
with a moon landing. Galileo is a mas-
ter. He has written an extraordinary
novel!" -- Chattanooga Times
20TH CENTURY-FOX
Presents
Irwin Allen's Production of
The Poseidon Adventure
Starring
GENE HACKMAN
ERNEST BORGNINE
RED BUTTONS
CAROL LYNLEY
RODDY McDOWALL
STELLA STEVENS
SHELLEY WINTERS
Co-starring
JACK ALBERTSON
PAMELA SUE MARTIN
ARTHUR O'CONNELL
ERIC SHEA
and
LESLIE NIELSEN
as The Captain
A Ronald Neame Film
Produced by IRWIN ALLEN
Directed by RONALD NEAME
Screenplay by STIRLING SILLIPHANT
and WENDELL MAYES
From the novel by PAUL GALLICO
PANAVISION (R)
COLOR BY DELUXE (R)
THE
POSEIDON
ADVENTURE
------------
PAUL GALLICO
------------
A DELL BOOK
Published by
DELL PUBLISHING CO., INC.
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
New York, New York 10017
Copyright © 1969 by Paul Gallico and Mathemata Anstalt
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof
may not be reproduced in any form without permission
in writing from Coward-McCann, Inc.
Dell® TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
Reprinted by arrangement with
Coward-McCann, Inc.
New York, New York 10016
Printed in the United States of America
Previous Dell Edition #7006
New Dell Edition
First priting -- December 1972
Second printing -- December 1972
Third printing -- January 1973
Fourth printing -- March 1973
Fifth printing -- April 1973
Sixth printing -- May 1973
Seventh printing -- July 1973
FOR JOHN TUCKER HAYWARD
YANKEE BAT-BOY;
ADMIRAL U.S.N.;
FRIEND
Contents
I Rehearsal for Disaster 1
II Disaster 18
III Reprieve 28
IV The Adventurers 37
V The Christmas Tree 51
VI Nonnie Joins Up 70
VII The Adventure of the First Staircase 80
VIII Madam Must Have Her Postiche 90
IX The Adventure of the Second Staircase 101
X Broadway 115
XI What about the Reverend Dr Scott? 128
XII Broadway after Dark 139
XIII Susan 148
XIV A Rattling of Bones 162
XV Belle Zimmerman of the W.S.A. 174
XVI Welcome to Hell 189
XVII Mount Poseidon 204
XVIII And Then There Were Twelve 217
XIX 'You Can't Win 'Em All' 225
XX The Top Sarge Takes Over 237
XXI Under the Skin 254
XXII 'We Were Intimate' 267
XXIII Everything Goes in Threes 279
XXIV 'Say Goodbye' 290
XXV L'Envoi 302
CHAPTER I
Rehearsal for Disaster
At seven o'clock, the morning of the 26th day of December, the S.S. Poseidon,
81,000 tons, homeward bound for Lisbon after a month-long Christmas cruise to
African and South American ports, suddenly found herself in the midst of an
unaccountable swell, 400 miles south-west of the Azores, and began to roll like a
pig.
The Poseidon, formerly the R.M.S. Atlantis, the first of the giant transatlantic
liners to become outmoded, sold and converted to a combination of cargo and
cruise trade, entered the area with her fuel tanks two-thirds empty and no water
ballast replacement. The curiously long, low waves she was encountering came
at intervals just too far apart to be caught by the lagging synchronization of her
out-of-date and partially damaged stabilizers. Thus, she reeled drunkenly from
side to side with the result that the motion combined with the hangover from the
practically all-night, gala Christmas party and dance made the bulk of her five
hundred odd, one-class Travel Consortium Limited passengers miserably and
uncompromisingly ill.
The big switchboard serving the cabin telephones began to light up like the
Christmas tree decorating the grand dining-saloon. Calls for help swamped the
office of the ship's medico, Dr Caravello, a seventy-five-year-old Italian dragged
from retirement by the International Syndicate operating the trip, and his
assistant Marco, an intern just out of medical school. There were also a head
nurse and two sisters. The telephone in the surgery never stopped ringing.
Unable to cope personally, the Doctor simply sent around pills and instructions
to remain in bed. All this took place in bright tropical sunlight on a sea which,
except for the interminable swells, was barely ruffled.
To add to the unhappiness of the retching passengers, things in the cabins came
alive. Everything unattached -- trunks, hand luggage, bottles -- slid from side to
side; clothing hung upon pegs took on animation, swaying outwards and back
again. Nerves were further jangled by the protesting creaks and groans of the old
ship's joints and the distant crashes of breaking crockery. Seasick remedies
eventually lost both their potency and psychological magic. By mid-morning as
far as the travellers were concerned, their happy home throughout an otherwise
gay and uneventful voyage had become a hell.
As always, however, there were a few hardy exceptions, that small percentage of
good sailors to be found on every liner which says, 'I never get sick' and don't.
Thus, shortly before noon Mr James Martin, proprietor of a men's haberdashery
shop in Evanston, Illinois, travelling alone and unaffected by the movement,
telephoned to Mrs Wilma Lewis, a widow from Chicago. Mrs Lewis was not
amongst the fortunate and said, 'For God's sake don't bother me! Just let me die
quietly.' And when he asked, 'Mayn't I come and see you?' groaned, 'No!' and
hung up.
In another cabin Mrs Linda Rogo was abusing her husband, between bouts of
being sick, with every obscenity of an experienced vocabulary. Mrs Rogo was an
ex-Hollywood starlet and briefly a Broadway actress, convinced that she had
lowered herself and sacrificed her career when she married Mike Rogo, plain-
clothes detective of the Broadway Strong Arm squad. Between calling him every
gutter name she could muster, she developed the theme that he had made her
come upon this voyage of which she had hated every minute, and now had not
even the grace to be ill. Mike Rogo, unable to placate his wife, eventually fled
the cabin followed by her curses.
Dr Frank Scott -- the Doctor was not an M.D. but a Doctor of Divinity --
telephoned Mr Richard Shelby of Detroit and said, 'Hi, Dick!' and got back, 'Hi,
Frank!'
'How's the family standing up?'
'Okay, up to now.'
Scott said, 'There goes our squash game.'
'I'll say!'
'If this stops, we might have a try this afternoon.'
'Right!'
'See you at lunch.'
'Okay, Buzz.'
The two men had been drawn together during the cruise by common interest in
football and athletics. The Reverend Doctor Scott no more than five years ago
had been Frank 'Buzz' Scott, Princeton's All-America fullback, all-around
athlete, two-time Olympic decathlon champion and mountain climber.
Richard. Shelby, Scott's senior by some twenty years, travelling with his family,
Vice-President of Cranborne Motors of Detroit, in charge of commercial vehicle
de-sign, had been a useful end at Michigan in his day.
Mrs Timker, director of the Gresham Girls, the dancing troupe connected with
the floating cabaret which had been entertaining thrice weekly throughout the
voyage, though considering herself in the last throes, still had the strength to
send around a message to the members of her company, 'No show tonight.' One
of the dancers, a thin girl from Bristol, Nona Parry, with red hair and a pale,
somewhat too-small face who should have been sick but was not, said, 'Oh
goody! I can wash my hair.'
At eleven-thirty the only three passengers visible in the smoke-room were an
English alcoholic called Tony Bates, his girl friend Pamela Reid and Hubie
Muller, a lone American from San Francisco.
The Englishman, who had been nicknamed The Beamer, and Pamela had their
legs coiled around bar stools which had been firmly screwed to the floor, while
the barman served them their double martinis in deep whisky tumblers to keep
them from slopping over as the ship canted. Neither of them were suffering from
hangovers or mal de mer, as they were both amiably and hazily drunk and had
been since the night before and on through the morning, not having been to bed
at all.
Muller, a wealthy bachelor of no occupation, in his early forties, man about
Europe and darling of every Mama with an eligible daughter on two continents,
had wedged himself, feet up, into one of the leather corners of the smoke-room
with a book and a half bottle of champagne. He was not ill but the book was bad,
the champagne would not stay in the glass, the cruise had not been particularly
successful for him and he was bored stiff. The ceaseless swooning of the ship he
took as a personal affront.
In his cabin Mr Rosen, a retired delicatessen owner, queried his wife, 'Are you
all right, Mamma? You feeling all right?'
Belle Rosen replied, 'Certainly. Why shouldn't I be feeling all right?'
Mr Rosen, who in his striped pyjamas and hair mussed managed to look like a
small, plump child, said, 'I hear everybody is pretty sick.'
'Well, I'm not sick,' said Belle. She was a fat woman whose bulk almost filled
her bed and she had so managed to plug the remaining space with pillows and a
suitcase that she was fairly well immobilized against the motion.
Down in the ladies' hairdressing saloon on 'D' deck the hairdresser struggled to
work on a blonde, shoulder-length wig that had been sent down to her by Mrs
Gleeson of cabin M. 119, to be washed and set, with instructions that it be
delivered to her no later than nine o'clock that evening. Marie, the hairdresser,
was wondering when and where Mrs Gleeson was going to wear it if this kept
up. In cabin M. 119 five decks up, Mrs Gleeson was beyond caring about
anything.
Another widow, Mrs Reid, was not only desperately sick but suffering mental
anguish as well over the disastrous turn the voyage had taken for her. In part its
purpose. had been in the hopes of finding a husband for her rather dowdy
daughter. Pamela had had the bad taste to become appallingly infatuated with the
most unsuitable man on the ship and with whom she was now no doubt drinking
at one of the too many available bars.
Completely unaffected by the nauseating motion was Miss Mary Kinsale,
spinster, head bookkeeper of the branch of Browne's Bank in Camberley, near
London, a reticent, tidy little woman whose outstanding feature was a huge
length of glossy brown hair which she wore drawn tightly back from her face
and coiled into a tremendous bun at the back of her head and descending to the
nape of her neck. She had a small prim mouth but her eyes were alert and
ingenuously interested.