Читать книгу Deeper into the Darkness онлайн

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One of the three anchor capstans was sticking up out of the deck, exposing its axle – the collapsing of the deck from the stem aft has thrust it upwards from its original position on the deck. There are empty holes in the deck where the other two capstans have been blasted out of the ship as she blew up. Thick teak deck planks still lined the fo’c’sle deck above what was the officer’s accommodation lit by a large centreline deck skylight that was still in place. A very different arrangement for officer accommodation from latter classes.

Just aft of the anchor hawse pipes, the sides of the ship flared out from the fo’c’sle, and one deck level down the upper deck begins, widening out to the full beam of the ship as you go aft. The sides of the ship here at the beginning of the upper deck, although still present, have been blown outwards and separated from the inner ship – the vertical armour belt plates on the starboard side are smoothly bent outwards by an incredible force.

The bow section just ends abruptly as the sloping deck reaches the seabed. The very end of the decking has a lip that angles abruptly downwards as a result of the centre of the ship lifting as she exploded. It appears that the bottom of the ship here at the bow has been blown out – and that the uppermost section of the bow has been detached and moved to end up sitting on the sand. The base of the stem is blown out allowing views inside through a sizeable hole.