"I plan to set up our base camp on the island, and we will use the gap to reach the area of the wreck."
"It looks a little risky." She eyed the narrow channel with reserve.
"It will save us a round journey of nearly twenty miles each day - and it isn"t as bad as it looks. Once I took my big fifty-foot cruiser through there at full throttle!
"You must be crazy." She pushed her dark gla.s.ses up on top of her head to look at me.
"By now you should be a good judge of that." I grinned at her, and she grinned back.
"I am an expert already," she boasted. The sun had darkened the freckles on her nose and cheeks and given her skin a glow. She had one of those rare skins that do not redden and become angry when exposed to sunlight. Instead it was the kind that quickly turned a golden honey brown.
It was high tide when we rounded the northern tip of the island into a protected cove and Chubby ran the whaleboat on to the sand only twenty yards from the first line of palm trees.
We off-loaded the cargo, carrying it up amongst the palms well above-the high-water mark and once again covered it with tarpaulins to protect it from the ubiquitous sea salt.
It was late by the time we had finished. The heat had gone out of the sun, and the long shadows of the palms barred the earth as we trudged inland, carrying only our personal gear and a fivegallon container of fresh water. In the back of the most northerly peak, generations of visiting fishermen had scratched out a series of shallow caves in the steep slope.
I selected a large cave to act as our equipment store, and a smaller one as living quarters for Sherry and me. Chubby and Angelo chose another for themselves, about a hundred yards along the slope and screened from us by a patch of scrub.
I left Sherry to sweep out our new quarters with a brush improvised from a palm frond, and to lay out our sleeping bags on the inflatable mattress while I took my cast net and went back to the cove.
It was dark when I returned with a string of a dozen big striped mullet. Angelo had the fire burning and the kettle bubbling. We ate in contented silence, and afterwards Sherry and I lay together in our cave and listened to the big fiddler crabs clicking and scratching amongst the palms.
"It"s primeval," Sherry whispered, "as though we are the first man and woman in the world."
"Me Tarzan, you Jane," I agreed, and she chuckled and drew closer to me.
In the dawn Chubby set off alone in the whaleboat on the long return journey to St. Mary"s. He would return next day with a full load of petrol and fresh water in jerry-cans. Sufficient to last us for two weeks or so.
While we waited for him to return, Angelo and I took on the wearying task of carrying all the equipment and stores up to the caves. I set up the compressor, charged the empty air bottles and checked the diving gear, and Sherry arranged hanging s.p.a.ce for our clothes and generally made our quarters comfortable.
The next day, she and I roamed the island, climbing the peaks and exploring the valleys and beaches between. I had hoped to find water, a spring or well overlooked by the other visitors - but naturally there was none. Those canny old fishermen overlooked nothing.
The south end of the island, farthest from our camp, was impenetrable with salt marsh between the peak and the sea. We skirted the acres of evil-smelling mud and thick swamp gra.s.s. The air was rank and heavy with rotted vegetation and dead fish.
Colonies of red and purple crabs had covered the mudflats with their holes from which they peered stalk-eyed as we pa.s.sed. In the mangroves, the herons were breeding, perched long4egged upon their huge s.h.a.ggy nests, and once I heard a splash and saw the swirl of something in one of the swamp pools that could only have been a crocodile. We left the fever swamps and we climbed to the higher ground, then we picked our way through the thickets of shrub growth towards the southerrunost peak.
Sherry decided we must climb this one also. I tried to dissuade her for it was the tallest and steepest. My protests went completely unnoticed, and even after we had made our way on to a narrow ledge below the southern cliff of the peak, she pressed on detqminedly.
"If the mate of the Dawn Ught found a way to the top then I"m going up there too," she announced.
"You"ll get the same view from there as from the other peaks," I pointed out.
"That"s not the point."
"What is the point, then?" I asked, and she gave me the pitying took usually reserved for small children and half-wits, refused to dignify the question with an answer, and continued her cautious sideways shuffle along the edge.
There was a drop of at least two hundred feet below us, and if there is one deficiency in my formidable a.r.s.enal of talent and courage, it is that I have no head for heights. However, I would rather have balanced on one leg atop St. Paul"s Cathedral than admit this to Miss. North, and so with great reluctance I followed her.
Fortunately it was only a few paces farther that she uttered a cry of triumph and turned off the ledge into a narrow vertical crack that split the cliff-face. The fracturing of the rock had formed a stepped and readily climbable chimney to the summit, into which I followed her with relief. Almost immediately Sherry cried out again.
"Oh dear G.o.d, Harry, look!" and she pointed to a protected area of the wall, in the back of the dark recess. Somebody long ago had patiently chipped an inscription into the flat stone surface.
A. BARLOW. WRECKED ON THIS PLACE 14th OCT. 1858.
As we stared at it, I felt her hand grope for mine and squeeze for comfort. No longer the intrepid mountaineer, her expression was half fearful as she studied the writing.
"It"s creepy," she whispered. "It looks as though it was written yesterday - not all those years ago."
Indeed, the letters had been protected from weathering so that they seemed fresh cut and I glanced around almost as though I expected to see the old seaman watching us.
When at last we climbed the steep chitnney to the summit we were still subdued by that message from the remote past. We sat there for almost two hours watching the surf break in long white lines upon Gunfire Reef. The gap in the reef and the great dark pool of the Break showed very clearly from our vantage point, while it was just possible to make out the course of the narrow channel through the coral. From here Andrew Barlow had watched the Dawn light in her death throes, watched her broken up by the high surf.
"Time is running against us now, Sherry," I told her, as the holiday mood of the last few days evaporated. "It"s fourteen days since Manny Resnick sailed in the Mandrake. He will not be far from Cape Town by now. We will know when he reaches there."
"How?"
"I have an old friend who lives there. He is a member of the Yacht Club - and he will watch the traffic and cable me the moment Mandrake docks."
I looked down the back slope of the peak, and for the first time noticed the blue haze of smoke spreading through the tops of the palms from Angelo"s cooking fire.
"I have been a little halfa.r.s.ed on this trip," I muttered, we have been behaving like a group of school kids on a picnic. From now on we will have to tighten up the security - just across the channel there is my old friend Suleiman Dada, and Mandrake will be in these waters sooner than I"d like. We will have to keep a nice low silhouette from now on "How long will we need, do you think?" Sherry asked.
"I don"t know, my sweeting - but be sure that it will be longer than we think possible. We are shackled by the need to ferry all our water and petrol from St. Mary"s - we will only be able to work in the pool during a few hours of each tide when the condition and the height of the water will let us. Who knows what we are going to find in there once we start, and finally we may discover that the Colonel"s parcels were stowed in the rear hold of the Dawn Light that part of the ship that was carried out into the open water. If it was, then you can kiss it all goodbye."
"We"ve been over that part of it before, you dreadful old pessimist," Sherry rebuked me. "Think happy thoughts."
So we thought happy thoughts and did happy things until at last I made out the tiny dark speck, like a water beetle on the brazen surface of the sea, as Chubby returned from St. Mary"s in the whaleboat.
We climbed down the peak and hurried back through the palm groves to meet him. He was just rounding the point and entering the cove as we came out on the beach. The whaleboat was low in the water under her heavy cargo of fuel and drinking water. And Chubby stood in the stern as big and solid and as eternal as a great rock. When we waved and shouted he inclined his head gravely in acknowledgement.
Mrs. Chubby had sent a banana cake for me and for Sherry a large sunhat of woven palm fronds. Chubby had obviously reported Sherry"s behaviour, and his expression was more than normally lugubrious when he saw that the damage was already being done. Sherry was toasted to an edible medium rare.
t was after dark by the time we had carried fifty jerrycans up to the cave. Then we gathered about the fire I where Angelo was cooking an island chowder of clams - he had gathered from the lagoon that afternoon. It was time to tell my crew the true reason for our expedition. Chubby I could trust to say nothing, even under torture but I had waited to get Angelo into the isolation of the island before telling him. He has been known to commit the most monstrous indiscretions - usually in an attempt to impress one of his young ladies.
They listened in silence to my explanation, and remained silent after I had finished. Angelo was waiting for a lead from Chubby - and that gentleman was not one to charge his fences. He sat scowling into the fire, and his face looked like one of those copper masks from an Aztec temple. When he had created the correct atmosphere of theatrical suspense he reached into his back pocket and produced a purse, so old and well handled that the leather was almost worn through.
"When I was a boy and fished the pool at Gunfire Break, I took a big old Daddy grouper fish. When I open his belly pouch I found this in him." From the purse he took out a round disc. "I kept it since then, like a good luck charm, even though I was offered ten pounds for it by an officer on one of my ships."
He handed me the disc and I examined it in the firelight. It was a gold coin, the size of a shilling. The reverse side was covered with oriental characters which I could not read - but the obverse face bore a crest of two rampant lions supporting a shield and an armoured head. The same design as I had last seen on the bronze ship"s bell at Big Gull Island. The legend below the shield read: "AUS: REGIS & SENAT: ANGLIA". while the rim was struck with the bold t.i.tle"ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY".
"I always promised me that I would go back to Gunfire Break - looks like this is the time," Chubby went on, as I examined the coin minutely. There was no date on it, but I had no doubt that it was a gold mohur of the company. I had read of the coin but never seen one before.
"You got this out of a fish"s gut, Chubby?" I asked, and he nodded.
"Guess that old grouper seen it shine and took a snap at it. Must have stuck in his belly until I pulled him out."
I handed the coin back to him. "Well then, Chubby, that goes to show there is some truth in my story." "Guess it does, Harry," he admitted, and I went to the cave to fetch the drawings of the Dawn Light and a gas lantern. We pored over the drawings. Chubby"s grandfather had sailed as a topmastman in an East Indianian, which made Chubby something of an expert. He was of the opinion that all pa.s.sengers" luggage and other small pieces would be stowed in the forehold beside the forecastle - I wasn"t going to argue with him. Never hex yourself, as Chubby had warned me so often.
When I produced my tide tables and began calculating the time differences for our lat.i.tude, Chubby actually smiled, although it was hard to recognize it as such. It looked much more like a sneer, for Chubby had no faith in rows of printed figures in pamphlets. He preferred to judge the tides by the sea clock in his own head. I have known him to call the tides accurately for a week ahead without reference to any other source.
"I reckon we will have a high tide at one-forty tomorrow," I announced.
"Man, you got it right for once," Chubby agreed.
Without the enormous loads that had been forced on her recently, the whaleboat seemed to run Wwith a new lightness and eagerness. The two Evinrudes put her up on the plane, and she flew at the narrow channel through the reef like a ferret into a rabbithole.
Angelo stood in the bows, using hand signals to indicate underwater snags to Chubby in the stern. We had picked good water to come in on, and Chubby met the dying surf with confidence. The little whaleboat tossed up her head and kicked her heels over the swells, splattering us with spray.
The pa.s.sage was more exhilarating than dangerous, and Sherry whooped and laughed with the thrill of it.
Chubby shot us through the narrow neck between the coral cliffs with feet to spare on either side, for the whaleboat had half of Wave Dancer"s beam, then we zigzagged through the twisted gut of the channel beyond and at last burst out into the pool.
"No good trying to anchor," Chubby growled, "it"s deep here. The reef goes down sheer. We got twenty fathoms under us here and the bottom is foul." "How you going to hold?" I asked.
"Somebody got to sit at the motor and keep her there with power."
"That"s going to chew fuel, Chubby."
"Don"t I know it,"he growled.
With a tide only half made, the occasional wave was coming in over the reef. Not yet with much force, just a frothing spill that cascaded into the pool, turning the surface to ginger beer with bubbles. However, as the tide mounted so the surf would come over stronger. Soon it would be unsafe in the pool and we would have to run for it. We had about two hours in which to work, depending on the stage of neap and spring tides. It was a cycle of too little or too much. At low tide there was insufficient water to negotiate the entrance channel - and at high tide the surf breaking over the reef might overwhelm the open whaleboat. Each of our moves had to be finely judged.
Now every minute was precious. Sherry and I were already dressed in our wet suits with face-plates on our foreheads, and it was necessary only for Angelo to lift the heavy scuba sets on to our backs and to clinch the webbing harness.
"Ready, Sherry?" I asked, and she nodded, the ungainly mouthpiece already stuffed into her pretty mouth.
"Let"s go. We dropped over the side, and sank down together beneath the cigar-shaped hull of the whaleboat. The surface was a moving sheet of quicksilver above us, and the spill over the reef charged the upper layer of water with a rash of champagne bubbles.
I checked with Sherry. She was comfortable, and breathing in the slow rhythm of the experienced diver that conserves air and ventilates the body effectively. She grinned at me, her lips distorted by the mouthpiece and her eyes enormously enlarged by the gla.s.s faceplate, and she gave me the high sign with both thumbs.
I pointed my head straight for the bottom and began pedalling with my swimming fins, going down fast, reluctant to waste air on a slow descent.
The pool was a dark hole below us. The surrounding walls of coral shut out much of the light, and gave it an ominous appearance. The water was cold and gloomy, I felt a p.r.i.c.kle of almost superst.i.tious awe. There was something sinister about this place, as though some evil and malignant force lurked in the sombre depths.
I crossed my fingers at my sides, and went on down, following the sheer coral cliff. The coral was riddled with dark caves and ledges that overhung the lower walls. Coral of a hundred different sorts, outcropped in weird and lovely shapes, tinted with the complete spectrum of colour. Weeds and marine growth waved and tossed in the movement of the water, like the hands of supplicating beggars, or the dark manes of wild horses.
I looked back at Sherry. She was close behind me and she smiled again. Clearly she felt nothing of my own sense of awe. We went on down.
From secret ledges protruded the long yellow antennae of giant crayfish, gently they moved, sensing our presence in the disturbed water. Clouds of multi-coloured coral fish floated along the cliffface; they sparkled like gemstones in the fading blue light that penetrated into the depths of the pool.
Sherry tapped my shoulder and we paused to peer into a deep black cave. Two great owl eyes peered back at us, and as my eyes became accustomed to the light I made out the gargantuan head of a grouper. It was speckled like a plover"s egg, splotches of brown and black on a beige-grey ground and the mouth was a wide slash between thick rubbery lips. As we watched, the huge fish a.s.sumed a defensive att.i.tude. It blew itself out, increasing its already impressive girth, spread the gill covers, enlarged the head and finally it opened its mouth in a gape that could have swallowed a man whole - a cavernous maw, lined with spiked teeth. Sherry seized my hand. We drew away from the cave, and the fish closed its mouth and subsided. Any time I wanted to claim a world record grouper I knew where to come looking. Even allowing for the magniffing effect of water I judged that he was close to a thousand pounds in weight.
We went on down the coral wall, and all around us was the wondrous marine world seething with life and beauty, death and danger. Lovely little damsel fish nestled in the venomous arms of giant sea anemone, immune to the deadly darts; a moray eel slid like a long black battle pennant along the coral wall, reached its lair and turned to threaten us with dreadful ragged teeth and glittering snakelike eyes.
Down we went, pedalling with our fins, and now at last I saw the bottom. It was a dark jungle of sea growth, dense stands of sea bamboo and petrified coral trees thrust out of the smothering marine foliage, while mounds and hillocks of coral were worked and riven into shapes that teased the imagination and covered I knew not what.
We hung above this impenetrable jungle and I checked my time-elapse wrist.w.a.tch and depth gauge. I had one hundred and twenty-eight feet, and time elapsed was five minutes forty seconds.
I gave Sherry the hand signal to remain where she was and I sank down to the tops of the marine jungle and gingerly parted the cold slimy foliage. I worked my way down through it and emerged into a relatively open area below. It was a twilight area roofed in by the bamboo and peopled with strange new tribes of fish and marine animals.
I knew at once that it would not be a simple task to search the floor of the pool. Visibility here was ten feet or less, and the total area we must cover was two or three acres in extent.
I decided to bring Sherry down with me and for a start we would make a sweep along the base of the cliff, keeping in line abreast and within sight of each other.
I a-dated my lungs and used the buoyancy to rise from the bottom, out through the thick belt of foliage into the clear.
I did not see Sherry at first, and I felt a quick dart of concern stab me. Then I saw the silver stream of her bubbles rising against the black wall of coral. She had moved away, ignoring my instruction, and I was annoyed. I finned towards her and was twenty feet from her when I saw what she was doing. My annoyance gave way instantly to shock and horror.
The long series of accidents and mishaps that were to haunt us in Gunfire Break had begun.
Growing out of the coral cliff was a lovely fernlike structure, graceful sweeps, branching and rebranching, pale pink shading to crimson.
Sherry had broken off a large branch of it. She held it in her bare hands and even as I raced towards her I saw her legs brush lightly against the red arms of the dreaded fire coral.
I seized her wrists and dragged her off the cruel and beautiful plant. I dug my thumbs into her flesh, shaking her hands viciously, forcing her to drop her fearsome burden. I was frantic in the knowledge that ftorn their cells in the coral branches tens of thousands of minute polyps were firing their barbed poison darts into her flesh.
She was staring at me with great stricken eyes, aware that something bad had happened, but not yet sure what it was. I held her and began the ascent immediately. Even in my anxiety I was careful to obey the elementary rules of ascent, never overtaking my own bubbles but rising steadily with them.
I checked my watch - eight minutes thirty seconds elapsed. That was three minutes at one hundred and thirty feet. Quickly I calculated my decompre sion stops, but I was caught between the devil of diver"s bends and the deep blue sea of Sherry"s coming agony.
It hit her before we were halfway to the surface, her face contorted and her breathing went into the shallow ragged panting of deep distress until I feared she. might beat the mechanical efficiency of her demand valve, jamming it so that it could no longer feed her with air.
She began to writhe in my grip and the palms of her hands blushed angrily, the livid red weals rose like whiplashes across her thighs and I thanked G.o.d for the protection her suit had given to her torso.
When I held her at a decompression stop fifteen feet below the surface she fought me wildly, kicking and twisting in my grip. I cut the stop fine as I dared, and took her to the surface.
The instant our heads broke clear I spat out my mouthpiece and yelled: "Chubby! Quick!"
The whaleboat was fifty yards away, but the motor was ticking over steadily and Chubby spun her on her own tail. The instant she was pointed at us, he gave the con to Angelo and scrambled up into the bows. Coming down on us like a great brown colossus.
"It"s fire coral, Chubby," I shouted. "She"s. .h.i.t hard. Get her outv Chubby leaned out and took hold of the webbing harness at the back of her neck and he lifted her bodily from the water; she dangled from his big brown fists like a drowning kitten.
I ditched my scuba set in the water for Angelo to recover, shrugging out of the harness, and when I scrambled over the side, Chubby had laid her on the floorboards and he was leaning over her, folding her in his arms to quieten her struggles and still her moans and sobs of agony.
I found my medical kit under a pile of loose equipment in the bows, and my fingers were clumsy with haste as I heard Sherry"s sobs behind me. I snapped the head of an ampoule of morphine and filled a disposable syringe with the clear fluid. Now I was angry as well as concerned.
"You stupid broad," I snarled at her. "What made you do a crazy, half-witted thing like that?"
She could not answer me, her lips were shaking and blue, flecked with spittle. I took a pinch of skin on her thigh and thrust the needle into it as I expelled the fluid into her flesh. I went on angrily.
"Fire coral - my G.o.d, you aren"t an erring conchologist"s backside. Isn"t a kid on the island that stupid."
"I didn"t think, Harry," she panted wildly.
"Didn"t think-" I repeated, her pain was goading me to new excesses of anger. "I don"t think you"ve got anything in your head to think with, you stupid little birdbrain."
I withdrew the needle, and ransacked the medicine box for the anti-histamine spray.