At sixty feet I stopped for a minute to begin decompressing. A fat old Albacore shark swam past us, blotched and piebald like a pig, but he paid us no attention and I lowered the spear as he drifted away into the hazy distance.
Slowly we rose to the next decompression stop at forty feet, where we stay6d for two minutes, allowing the nitrogen in our blood to evaporate out through our lungs gradually. Then up to twenty feet for the next stop.
I peered into Sherry"s face-mask and she rolled her eyes at me, clearly she was regaining her courage and cheek. It was all going smoothly now. We were as good as home, and drinking whisky - just another twelve minutes.
The whaleboat was so close it seemed that I could touch it with the spear. I could quite clearly see Chubby"s and Angelo"s brown faces hanging over the side as they waited anxiously for us to emerge.
I looked away from them, making another careful search of the water about us. At the extreme range of my vision, where the haze of water shaded away to solid blue, I saw something move. It was just a suspicion of a shadow that had come and gone before I had really seen it, but I felt the returning p.r.i.c.kle of fear and apprehension.
I hung in the water, completely alert once more, searching and waiting while the last few slow minutes dragged by like crippled insects.
The shadow pa.s.sed again, this time clearly seen, a swift and deadly movement that left me in no doubt that it was not an Albacore shark. It was the difference between the shape of the prowling hyena in the shadows around the campfire and that of the lion when he hunts.
Suddenly, through the misty blue curtains of water, came the second white death shark. He came swiftly and silently, pa.s.sing fifty feet away, seeming to ignore us and going on almost to the range of our vision and then turning steeply and returning to pa.s.s us again, like a caged animal back and forth along the bars.
Sherry cowered close to me and I disengaged my hand from the death grip in which she had it. I needed both hands now.
On the next pa.s.s the shark broke the pattern of its movements and went into the great sweeping circles which always precede attack. Around and around it went, with that pale yellow eye fastened hungrily upon us.
Suddenly my attention was distracted by the slow descent from above of a dozen of the blue plastic shark repellent containers. Seeing our predicament Chubby must have emptied the entire. boxful over the side. One of them pa.s.sed closely enough for me to s.n.a.t.c.h it up and hand it to sherry.
It smoked blue dye in her hand, and I transferred my attention back to the shark. It had sheered off a little from the blue dye, but it was still circling swiftly and grinning loathsomely at us.
I glanced at my watch, three minutes more to be safe, but I could risk sending Sherry out ahead of me. Unlike myself she had not already had a nitrogen fizz in her blood, she would probably be safe in another minute.
The shark tightened its circle, boring in relentlessly on us.
Close - so very close that I looked deep into the black spear-headed pupil of his eye, and read his intention there.
I glanced at the watch. It was cutting it fine - very fine, but I decided to send Sherry up. I slapped her shoulder and pointed urgently to the surface. She hesitated, but I slapped her again and repeated my instruction.
She began to rise, going up slowly, the right way, but her legs dangled invitingly. The shark left me and rose slowly in time with her, following her.
She saw it and began to rise faster, smoothly the shark closed in on her. Now I was under them both, and I finned out fast to one side just as the shark went into the stiff, tailed att.i.tude which signalled the instant of his attack.
I was directly under him, as he turned to maul Sherry. I reached up and pressed the spear-head into the softly obscene throat, and I hit the trigger.
I saw the shock kick into the bloated white flesh, and the shark reared away with a convulsive beat of its tail. It shot upwards and went out through the surface, leaping out high and clear, and falling back heavily in a creaming froth of bubbles.
Immediately it began to spin and fly in maddened, crazy circles, as though beset by a swarm of bees. Repeatedly its jaws opened and snapped closed.
Torn with terrible anxiety, I watched Sherry maintain her mental discipline and rise leisurely towards the whale, boat. A pair of huge brown paws were thrust down through the surface to welcome her. As I watched, she came within reach of them. The brown fingers closed on her like steel grabhooks and she was plucked with miraculous strength from the water.
I could now employ all my attention on the problem of staying alive through the next few minutes before I could follow her. -The shark seemed to recover from the shock of the charge, and it exchanged its mindless crazy gyrations for the terrible familiar circling.
It began again on the wide circ.u.mference, closing in steadily with each circuit. I glanced at my wrist.w.a.tch and saw that at last I could begin to rise through the final stage.
I drifted upwards slowly. The agony of the bends was fresh in my memory - but the white death shark was pressing closer and closer.
Ten feet below the whaleboat, I paused again and the shark was suspicious, probably remembering the recent violent explosion in its throat. It ceased its circling and hung motionless in the pale water on the wide pointed wings of his pectoral fins. We stared at each other across a distance of fifteen feet, and I could sense that the great blue beast was gathering himself for the final rush.
I extended the spear to the full reach of my arm, and gently, so as not to trigger him, I finned towards him until the explosive charge was an inch from the nostril slits below the snout.
I hit the trigger and he reared back in shock as the explosive cracked. He whirled away in a wide angry turn and I dropped the spear and shot for the surface.
He was angry as a wounded lion, goaded by the hurts he had received, and he charged for me with his humped back large as a blue mountain and his wide jaws gaping open. I knew there was no turning him this time, nothing short of death would stop him.
As I shot for the surface I saw Chubby"s hands waiting for me, the fingers like a bunch of brown bananas, and I loved him at that moment. I lifted my right arm above my head, offering it to Chubby and as the shark flashed across the last few feet that separated us I felt Chubby"s fingers close on my wrist.
Then the water exploded about me. I felt the enormous drag on my arm and the powerful disruption of the water as the shark"s bulk tore it apart. Then I was lying on my back upon the deck of the whaleboat, dragged from the very jaws of that dreadful animal.
"You got some nice pets, Harry," said Chubby in a disinterested tone that I knew was forced, and I looked about quickly for Sherry.
"You okay?" I called, as I saw her wet and pale-faced in the stern. She nodded; I doubted she could speak.
I jerked out the quick release pin on my harness, freeing myself of the weight of the scuba.
"Chubby, set up a stick of gelly ready to shoot," I called, as I rid myself of mask and fins and peered over the side of the whaleboat.
The shark was still with us, circling the whaleboat in a it" of hurt and frustration. He came up to-show the full length of his dorsal fin above the surface. I knew he could easily attack and stove in the planking of the whaleboat.
"Oh G.o.d, Harry, he"s horrible! Sherry found her voice at last, and I knew how she felt. I hated that loathsome fish with the full force of my recent terror - but I had to distract it from direct attack.
"Angelo, give me that Moray and a bait-knife," I shouted and he handed me the cold slimy body. I hacked off a tenpound lump of the dead eel and tossed it into the pool.
The shark swirled and raced for the sc.r.a.p, gulping it down and sc.r.a.ping the hull of the whaleboat as it pa.s.sed so close. We rocked violently at its pa.s.sing.
"Hurry up, Chubby," I shouted, and fed the shark another lump. It took it as readily as a hungry dog, dashing past under the hull and again b.u.mping thie- boat so that it swayed unpleasantly and Sherry squeaked and grabbed the gunwale.
"Ready," said Chubby, and I pa.s.sed him a two-foot section of the eel with its empty belly cavity hanging open like a pouch.
"Put the stick in there, and tie it up," I instructed him, and he began to grin.
"Hey, Harry," he chortled, "I like it."
While I fed the monster with sc.r.a.ps of eel, Chubby trussed up the stick of gelignite in a neat parcel of eel flesh, with the insulated copper wire protruding from it. He pa.s.sed it to me.
"Connect her up," I instructed, as I coiled a dozen loops of the wire into my left hand.
"Ready to shoot," grinned Chubby, and I threw the bundle of meat and explosive into the path of the circling shark.
It raced for it, and its glistening blue back broke the surface as it swallowed the offering. Immediately the wire began to stream away over the side and I paid out more from the reel.
"Let him eat it down," I said and Chubby nodded happily. "Okay, Chubby, blow the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to h.e.l.l," I snarled as the fish came to the surface, fin up, and swung around us in another circle, with the copper wire trailing from the corner of the sickle-moon mouth.
Chubby hit the switch, and the shark erupted in a tall burst of pink spray, like a bursting water melon, as his pale blood mingled with the paler flesh and purple contents of the belly cavity, sputtirig fifty feet into the air and splattering the pool and whaleboat. The shattered carca.s.s wallowed like a bleeding log upon the surface, then rolled over and began to sink.
"Goodbye, Johnny Uptail," hooted Angelo, and Chubby grinned like a cherub.
"Let"s go home," I said, for already the oceanic surf was breaking over the reef, and I thought I was going to throw up.
However, my indisposition responded miraculously to a treatment of Chivas Regal whisky, even though taken from an enamel mug, and much later in the cave Sherry said: "I suppose you want me to thank you for saving my life, and all that c.r.a.p?"
I grinned at her and opened my arms. "No, my sweeting, just show me how grateful you are," which she did, and afterwards there were no ugly dreams to spoil my sleep for I was exhausted in body and spirit.
think all of us were coming to regard the pool at Gunfire Break with a superst.i.tious dread. The series of accidents and mishaps to which we had been subject appeared to be the result of some deliberate malevolent scheme.
It seemed as though each time we returned to the pool it had grown more sinister in its aspect and that an aura of menace was growing about it.
"You know what I think," Sherry said laughingly, but not completely as a joke. "I think the spirits of the murdered Mogul princes have followed the treasure to act as guardians. -" Even in the bright sunshine of a glorious morning I saw the expressions on the faces of Angelo and Chubby. "I think the spirits were in those two big Johnny Uptails; that we killed yesterday." Chubby looked as though he had breakfasted off a dozen rotten oysters, he blanched to a waxy golden brown and I saw him make the sign with his right hand.
"Miss. Sherry," said Angelo severely, "you must never talk like that." I could see gooseflesh on his forearms. Both he and Chubby had an attack of the ghostlies.
"Yes, cut it out," I agreed.
"I was joking," protested Sherry.
"Good joke," I said, "you really slayed us." And we were all silent during the pa.s.sage of the channel and until we had taken station in the shelter of the reef.
I was sitting in the bows, and when all three of them looked at me I saw by the expressions on their faces that I had a crisis of morale on my hands.
I will go down alone" I announced, and there was a small stir of relief.
"I"ll go with you," Sherry volunteered halfheartedly. "Later," I agreed, "but first I want to check for Johnnies, and recover the equipment we lost yesterday." I went down cautiously, hanging just under the boat for five minutes while I scrutinized the depths of the pool for those evil dark shapes, and then finning down quietly.
It was cold and eerie in the deeper shades, but I saw that the night tide had scoured the pool and sucked out to sea all the carrion and blood that had attracted the shark pack the previous day.
There was no sign of the huge white death carca.s.ses, and the only fish I saw were the mult.i.tudinous shoals of brilliant coral dwellers. A glint of silver from below led me to the spear I had abandoned in my rush for the boat, and I found the empty scubas and the damaged demand valve where we had left them in the gunport.
I surfaced with my load, and there were smiles amongst my crew for the first time that day when I reported the pool clear.
"All right," I capitalized on the rise of their spirits, "today we are going to open up the hold."
"You going in through the hull?" Chubby asked.
"I thought about that, Chubby, but I reckoned that it would need a couple of heavy charges to get in that way. I"ve decided to go in through the pa.s.senger deck into the well." I sketched it on my slate for them as I explained. "The cargo will have shifted, it will be lying in a jumble just beyond that bulkhead and once we pop her open here, we can drag it out item by item into the companionway."
"It"s a long haul from there to the gunport." Chubby lifted his cap and ma.s.saged his bald dome thoughtfully.
"I"ll rig a light block and tackle at the gun-deck ladder and another at the gunport."
"A lot of work," Chubby looked sad.
"The first time you agree with me - I"m going to begin worrying that I may be wrong." "I didn"t say you were wrong," said Chubby stiffly, "I just said it was a lot of work. You can"t let Miss. Sherry haul on a block and tackle, can you now? "No," I agreed. "We need somebody with beef," and I prodded his bulging rock-hard gut.
That"s what I thought," said Chubby mournfully. "You want me to get geared up?"
"No." I stopped him. "Sherry can come down with me to set the charges now." I wanted her to test her nerves after the previous day"s horrors. "We will blast the well open and then go home. We aren"t going to work again immediately after blasting. We are going to let the tide clean the pool of dead fish before going down. I don"t want an action replay of yesterday."
We crept in through the gunport and followed the nylon guide line we had placed on our first visit, along the gundeck, up through the companion ladder to the pa.s.senger deck, and then along the dark forbidding tunnel to the dead-end bulkhead of the forward well.
While Sherry held the torch for me, I began to drill a hole through the part.i.tion with the brace and bit that I had brought from the surface. It was awkward working without a really firm stance on which to anchor myself, but the first inch and a half was easy going. This layer of wood had rotted to a soft corky consistency, but beyond that I encountered iron hard oak"planking and I had to abandon my efforts. I would have been a week at the task.
Unable to place my explosive in prepared shot holes, I would now have to use a larger charge than I really wanted and rely on the tunnel effect of the pa.s.sageway for a secondary shock to drive the panel inwards. I used six half sticks of gelignite, placed on the corners and in the centre of the bulkhead, and I secured them to bolts driven into the woodwork with a slap hammer.
It took almost half an hour to set up the blast, and afterwards it was a relief to leave the claustrophobic confines of the ancient hull and to rise up through clean clear water to the silver surface, trailing the insulated wires behind us.
Chubby fired the shots while we stripped off our equipment. The shock was cushioned by the hull of the wreck so that it was hardly noticeable to us on the surface.
We left the pool immediately afterwards and ran home with rising spirits to the prospect of a lazy day while we waited for the tide to clean the pool of carrion.
In the afternoon Sherry and I went on a picnic down to the south tip of the island. For provisions we took a wickercovered two-litre bottle of Portuguese virws verde, but to supplement this we dug out a batch of big sand clams which I wrapped in seaweed and reburied in the sand. Over them I built an open fire of driftwood.
By the time we had almost finished the wine, the sun was setting and the clams were ready to eat. The wine and the food and the glorious sunset had a softening effect on Sherry North. She became doe-eyed and melting, and when the sunset faded at last and made way for a fat yellow lovers" moon, we walked home barefooted on the wet sand.
The next morning Chubby and I worked for half an hour bringing down the equipment we needed from the whaleboat and stacking it on the gun-deck of the wreck before we were able to penetrate deeper into the hull.
The heavy charges I had set against the well had wrought the sort of havoc I feared. They had torn out the decking and smashed in the bulkheads of the pa.s.senger cabins, blocking the pa.s.sage for a quarter of its length.
We found a good anchor point for our block and tackle and while Chubby rigged it, I left him and floated back to the nearest cabin. I played my torch through the shattered panelling. The interior was, like everything else, smothered in a thick furring of marine growth but I could make out the shape of the simple furniture beneath it.
I eased myself through the gap, and moved slowly across the cluttered deck, fascinated by the objects which I found scattered and heaped about the cabin. There were items of porcelain and china, a shattered washbasin and a magnificent chamber pot with a pink floral design showing through the film of acc.u.mulated sediment. There were cosmetic pots and scent bottles, smaller indefinable metal objects and mounds of rotted and amorphous material which may have been clothing, curtaining or mattresses and bedclothing.
I glanced at my watch and saw that it was time to leave and surface for a change of air bottles. As I turned, a small square object caught my attention and I played the torch. beam upon it while I gently brushed it clear of the thick layer of muddy filth. It Was a wooden box, the size of a Portable transistor radio, but the lid was beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoisesh.e.l.l. I picked it up and tucked it under my arm. Chubby had finished rigging the block and tackle -and he was waiting for me beside the gunk deck ladder. When we surfaced beside the whaleboat I pa.s.sed the box up to Angelo before climbing aboard.
While Sherry poured coffee for us and Angelo changed the demand valves to the fresh scuba bottles, I lit a cheroot and examined the box.
It was in a sorry state of deterioration, I saw at once. The inlay was rotten and falling out of its seating, the rosewood was swollen and distorted and the lock and hinges half eaten away.
Sherry came to sit beside me on the thwart and examined my prize with me. She recognized it immediately.
"It"s a ladies" jewel box," she exclaimed. "Open it, Harry.
Let"s see what"s inside."
I slipped the blade of a screwdriver under the lock and at the first pressure the hinges snapped and the lid flew off. "Oh, Harry!" Sherry was first into it, and she came out with a thick gold chain and a heavy locket of the same material. "This stuff is so in fashion, you"d never believe it." Everyone was dipping into the box now. Angelo ripped off a pair of gold and sapphire earrings which immediately replaced the bra.s.s pair he habitually wore, while Chubby picked an enormous necklace of garnets which he hung around his neck and preened like a teenage girl.
"For my missus,"he explained.
It was the personal jewellery -of a middle-cla.s.s wife, probably some minor official or civil servant - none of it of great value, but in its context it was a fascinating collection. Inevitably Miss. North acquired the lion"s share - but I managed to s.n.a.t.c.h away a thick plain gold wedding band.
"What do you want with that?" she challenged me, reluctant to yield a single item.
"I"ll find a use for it," I told her, and gave her one of my looks of deep significance, which was completely wasted for she had returned to ransacking the jewel box.
Nevertheless I tucked the ring safely away in the small zip pocket of my canvas gear bag. Chubby by this stage was bedecked with chunky jewellery like a Hindu bride.
"My G.o.d, Chubby, you"re a dead ringer for Liz Taylor," I told him and he accepted the compliment with a graceful inclination of his head.