The floor of the temporary sick room shed smelled of cold sweat, vinegar, and fear.
On eight canvas cots arranged in two rows beneath the electric glow-tubes, the salvage divers lay twisting beneath coarse grey blankets.
Their breathing was ragged, wet, and labored, like the sound of gravel being stirred in a bucket of grease.
Giles Croft stood at the center of the aisle with a freshly printed broadsheet held flat against his clipboard.
His coat was buttoned tight, his pencil making quick, sharp notations beside each man’s name.
“Patient One, Bram,” Giles read aloud.
“Ascent from forty deep-water lengths in six minutes following an umbilical foul. Total elapsed pressure drop time: zero.
Presentation: acute bilateral shoulder and knee arthralgia, under-skin emphysema along the collar bone, and severe cyanosis.”
