“Okay!” Henry shouted. “We’re coming.”
They jumped out and I dropped the lid. We raced to get the four locking nuts on to their bolts, screwing them down tight. Struggling back to the safety of the saloon was a battle in itself as we pushed our way along the slippery deck, holding on to each other against the rising wind. I slammed the door and rammed the bolt home.
“Jesus!” Rick exclaimed, eyes wide. “The bitch didn’t waste any time returning, did she!”
“She hadn’t really gone anywhere,” Henry replied. “Except a mile or two further south, dragging the other side of the empty centre towards us.”
It was even more terrifying than when Bebe had first started, for whereas then the wind-speed had risen knot by knot until it reached its peak, it now whipped straight into its former screaming fury with a rapidity that would have been unbelievable had we not been there to bear witness; but this time the wind was rushing in at us from the other direction, from the east, pushing us towards the bottom tip of Ovalau, towards the great spread of reef almost joining the two islands together.
The hurricane was like a huge spreading wheel, a cart wheel: the centre being the open hub where the axle fits. In that open space there was no wind, a strange void, and hardly any air. From the hub outwards was nothing but ceaseless wind; and the closer to the central hub, the higher the speed of that wind. Above that empty hub the wind pushed to the east, below, to the west.
This time we had the engines working against any drift before it had a chance to start, and the anchors stayed buried in the sand. We knew that if we could ride out those first few hours we could ride out the whole of the fury engendered by this vicious demonic witch that was trying to destroy not just us, but the whole land.
And this time we had a much greater margin of safety, for during the earlier hours of madness the winds had thrust us three-quarters of a mile across the water to within two hundred yards of the coast of Moturiki. Before it could ram us on to the reefs at the base of Ovalau it would now have to move us over a mile and a half in the other direction.
The Gardners were on full emergency ahead for that first hour; then to half-speed; and two hours later we shut them down entirely; and waited, for hurricanes can be unpredictable creatures, as unpredictable as some of the ladies for whom they are named. This one could turn on herself and come racing back down on us again with an even greater vengeance than before. I doubted our chances a second time around.
The radar told us that we hadn’t moved more than a hundred yards since the eye had passed. We left it swinging through its restless arc, not wanting to turn it off, our only lifeline to the outside world that existed beyond our tiny coffin-like cocoon.
We sat and waited, listening to the wind, telling each other every fifteen minutes that it had definitely dropped another five knots; and gradually it did; and with the wind subsiding, so did my two partners. I watched, only half awake myself, as their eyes drooped and they both fell into a deep sleep. I looked at my watch: five-ten in the morning, still black outside, but perhaps a faint glimmer of light towards the east.
I let them sleep on, keeping a watch of sorts, my mind more exhausted than my body. None of us had slept for the past two nights; and the night before those we had wandered the trawler, excited about the treasure, anxious for the dawn.
Would it still be there? Or would those huge waves thrown up by Bebe have broken the iron chest free from supports already weakened by our efforts, and smashed it up against what was left of the begging hound?
They were still asleep at seven when I opened the salon door to let fresh air into the staleness. The wind had dropped to twenty knots. The sideways falling rain had disappeared far to the south, and the dark clouds had vanished with that rain; the sky already breaking into a pale fresh blueness.
But where was that daughter of Satan? Was she even now turning on her tracks, preparing to take us on again? I didn’t think so, not with the blue skies above; and the barometer had risen almost as dramatically as it had fallen; but we had no radio for confirmation. We would have to wait until we could rig an aerial before receiving news from the outside world.
There was a stirring from one of the two swollen life-jacketed bodies in the corner of the room: one eye opening cautiously.
“Are we still alive?” Rick asked, rubbing his eyes.
“Yeah,” I replied, my yawning mouth stretched wide. “And it’s a beautiful day.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“See for yourself.”
He stepped over Henry’s sprawled body, and stuck his head cautiously out of the saloon doorway, peering up at the white fluffy clouds. “Bloody unbelievable! Did it all really happen, or did we fall asleep and dream it? God, my head feels terrible. How long have I been asleep?”
“Bit under two hours. Same as Henry.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Shit, you must be buggered.”
“Yes, I am; but I’ll get my head down later. Feel like a cup of coffee?”
“Bloody good idea. I’ll get it.”
“Great. Take the whistle off the bloody thing though. We don’t want to wake Henry.”
“Who’s asleep?” a drowsy voice asked.
“Welcome to the land of the living, Henry,” I said. “How about knocking up some breakfast while we have a look at the radio aerial?”
“Yeah, okay. Give me a few minutes for a shower and a shave first.”
He stepped out of the doorway and stopped dead in his tracks. “Bloody hell! Will you come and look at this!”
We burst out on to the deck.
The whole of Moturiki had been flattened, hardly a coconut palm still wearing its crown. It seemed as if every single scrap of foliage had been stripped from the trees and scattered over the land and sea, the beach a mass of debris cast back up on to the island by the waves: broken branches, palm leaves, coconuts, twisted carpets of grasses and leaves.
“By God, we were lucky,” Henry said softly.
“You can bloody well say that again,” Rick replied.
“Come on, Rick,” I said. “Let’s fix the aerial and find out whether we’re the only ones left in this godforsaken country.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Reckon you can fix it?” I asked a few minutes later, looking down at the broken spur and the single piece of stripped wire.
“Probably rig it up good enough to receive,” he replied. “But I doubt whether it’ll be any good for transmitting without a new aerial, unless we string a di-pole from one end of the boat to the other. It’d be a bit Mickey Mouse, but we can do it if you want.”
“No, just as long as we can receive. We can fool around with a di-pole later if we need it.”
“Hey, you guys!” Henry called. “Want your coffee up there?”
“Yes thanks, mate,” Rick called back.
“I wonder how Sekove and his mates fared on Wakaya,” I mused.
“Probably worse than we did,” Rick replied, and cursed as he nicked his finger on a sharp piece of wire.
“Henry seemed pretty friendly with them,” I murmured. “I wonder what he was up to.”
“Don’t ask me, mate. Ask him when he comes with the coffee.”
“No, maybe later.”
Between us we had the make-shift aerial rigged and ready to receive by the time breakfast was on the table. Henry had toasted the few sandwiches we hadn’t got round to eating, and we followed those with fried ham and tomatoes, both from tins. The radio crackled and spurted as the news came in, telling of damage in the island group: a number of ships aground, severe flooding of low-lying land, hundreds of houses destroyed, and bridges washed away. Lautoka, the second largest town in Fiji, on the western side of Viti Levu; had been lashed by winds of one hundred and eighty miles an hour.
“Did he say miles, or kilometres?” Henry asked in amazement.
“Miles, mate,” Rick replied. “Bloody miles per hour.”
The land mass of the main island had broken Bebe’s power, and Suva had been hit by winds of not much above one hundred miles per hour. We had probably got the same.
“Thank God we weren’t at Lautoka,” Henry mumbled.
“Amen,” Rick replied, helping himself to more tinned ham.
If another eighty miles per hour of wind speed had hit the Sally May we would now either be dead, or boatless, or probably both. Even ten miles per hour might have done it.
The only good news told us that Bebe had moved on south and was already blowing herself out. Mopping-up operations had begun throughout the country.
******
“Well?” I asked, my stomach at last feeling satisfied. “What’s it to be guys? Back to Wakaya, or lick our wounds and head for home?”
“You know bloody well what it’s going to be,” Rick laughed. “I want that iron chest more than ever!”
“Henry?” I asked.
“Wakaya!”
“Okay, let’s get the storm anchor up, change the engine oil, and get going. We can clean the trawler up as we go along, or rather you guys can. I’m going to catch up on the sleep you two buggers got this morning.” They both grinned.
Two hours later we had the storm anchor back down into the storage hold together with the chain and one very damaged length of polypropylene rope. Snagging on rocks and coral outcrops as we swung and were pushed back by the wind had taken its toll; but it hadn’t snapped. I wondered just how close we had come. The looks on two other faces asked the same silent question.
The trip back out through the two passages was almost a Sunday cruise. We sailed through millions upon millions of leaves, the channels an endless green carpet; passing great rafts of smashed tangled branches torn from a hundred thousand trees; and here and there a dead bird that had been unable to outrun the raging storm.
The wind had dropped to a brisk breeze, making it pleasant to be out in the open sea again. Radio reports put Bebe even further to the south, with its wind speed gusting to no more than fifty miles an hour.
******
We had lost almost three days.
“Might be time for another dive when we get there,” Rick suggested hopefully.
“Who for?” I asked. “You’re almost dead on your feet. I’m knackered; and Henry looks like he could sleep for a week.”
“Make that a fortnight,” Henry mumbled from the saloon, head on arms spread out across the table.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Rick admitted. “Why don’t you two put your heads down for a few hours and I’ll wake you when we get closer to Wakaya. Where do you want to anchor for the night? Inside the reef or back round at the point?”
“The point, I reckon,” I replied. “Unless there’s any news to say that the bitch might be coming back.”
“Doesn’t seem likely,” he replied.
“Round at the point then. We can get an early start in the morning.”
******
It only seemed like a minute later that Rick was shaking me by the shoulder.
“Better come and have a look,” he said frowning.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Where are we?”
“Back at Wakaya. Just off the Sea Devil’s bay. It’s a real bloody mess!”
I staggered out on to the deck and took the binoculars he handed across. We were still five hundred yards from the narrow beach, a beach littered with the same debris we had seen on Moturiki, but here there was more. Where before there had been the heap of boulders that had once been the begging hound, and a scattering of red rocks strewn about the crushed coral beach – rocks that had fallen from the cliff – there was now a conglomeration of large chunks of coral-covered reef torn up from the sea bed, littering the shore.
“Is the chest up on the beach?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Can you see it?”
“I haven’t been able to spot it.”
“My god,” I moaned. Had the storm smashed the chest from its massive columns, driving it to shore and grinding it to a pulp? Or had the living coral not yet cracked apart by our chisels held it back?
“Take her in!” I yelled.
Seventeen
“Henry!” I shouted, poking my head in through the saloon doorway. “Get yourself up here! On the double!”
He came stumbling up out of the fo’c’sle, half asleep, not really knowing where he was, nor even quite even who he was.
“Wha...what...? Andy? What’s up?”
“Come out here!” I yelled. “Out on the bow. Look!”
Wiping sleep from his eyes he staggered out to the deck and up on to the bow, almost falling over the anchor windlass as he floundered his way forward, his eyes all but closed against the sudden glare after the darkness of the fo’c’sle.
I grabbed him by the arm. “Careful, Henry.”
“Hang on,” he said. “Back in a moment.”
I heard the pump start up and he returned half a minute later, water running down his face, hair soaked, sun-glasses pushed hard against his eyes. “God, you gave me a fright,” he mumbled. “I thought for a minute we were back in that bloody hurricane. I thought we’d hit the reef.”
“Sorry, mate,” I said. “But have a look at the beach.”
“Yes, it’s a mess alright.”
“Henry! For Christ’s sake! Can’t you see all the lumps of bloody coral?”
He stood peering towards the beach and the penny finally dropped. “Bloody hell! Do you reckon the chest has been thrown up as well?”
“I don’t know. I’m going down to check. I’ll need you to come out in the dinghy, but there’s no sense in both of us going down. Rick had better stay with the trawler.” I turned and went striding back along the alleyway towards the back deck. “Come on, let’s get the dinghy unlashed and haul my diving gear out.”
We dropped the anchor in the same stretch of water from where we had made our earlier rapid departure; and spent an anxious fifteen minutes unlashing the dinghy and lifting the outboard and other gear up from the storage hold.
The hold was a shambles: tools lying on the floor, boxes of fittings tossed from their shelves. The outboard had jumped from its bracket and lay in a tangle of rope in one corner; drums of oil and petrol were on their sides, rolling from side to side in the slight swell. The lid of one of the drums of outboard fuel had come loose, filling the hold with the stench of petrol fumes.
“Jesus!” Rick exclaimed. “I’m not too keen on that.”
“No,” I replied. “Neither am I, but until we clear everything out, there’s not much we can do. The lid’s only moved half a turn so I don’t reckon we’ve lost much. Leave the hatch open. It’ll blow away in a day or so. Just don’t throw any tools around. One spark could set her off.”
“Don’t worry about me, mate,” he replied. “I’ll be giving it a wide berth, just as soon as we get those other three fuel drums out. Here, give me a hand.”
I reached in and took the drums he passed up, and stowed them down by the stern.
“How about putting a fan down there and blowing the fumes out?” Henry suggested as Rick jumped out, taking deep breaths of fresh air.
“Not a good idea,” Rick replied. “Electric motors and sparks? Right?”
“Right,” Henry replied, yawning for the fiftieth time.
“Come on you two!” I snapped. “Are we going to see if the bloody chest is still there, or what?”
“Okay, mate,” Rick said, smiling. “Keep your shirt on.”
******
We sped across the bay, Henry gunning the outboard while I pulled my wetsuit on and strapped the diving knife to my leg. There was still no sign of the familiar square-shaped, coral-encrusted chest lying on the beach.
“Do you think the buoy will still be there?” he asked.
“I doubt it,” I replied. “But we’ll have a look just the same.”
We lined up the bearings as best we could. Rick’s pile of rocks on the northern arm of the bay had been swept away by the storm, bu
t I knew where it had stood. The large boulder that had formed part of the hound’s hindquarters was still there, almost hidden by a pile of broken coral. I put my mask on and leaned over the side of the dinghy.
“Is it still there?” Henry asked as I pulled my head out of the water for the second time.
“Can’t see it. If the sea was strong enough to throw those lumps of coral up on to the beach, I don’t reckon the buoy would have stood a chance.” I slung the weight-belt around my waist. “Pass me the line and keep your fingers crossed.”
I thrust the coil of rope inside my wetsuit jacket and pulled my flippers on, and rolled over the side. Henry passed the tank down into the water.
“Okay, Henry,” I said as I tested the regulator. “Take the dingy back to the trawler and I’ll give you a yell when I need you.”
I waited until he had moved away and then swam around on the surface, making certain I was right in the centre of the lines joining up our old marks before starting to go down.
If the chest had gone, the whole enterprise was wasted. We would have risked our lives and the trawler for nothing. The two Indians would have died on a fool’s errand; and I had become a killer over an old man’s dreams.
The water was a thick cloud, full of silt, crowded with particles of crushed vegetation and powdered coral; but I kicked hard, the urgency sending me down fast. I had to know whether the Sea Devil had won.
Where before the visibility had been twenty-five to thirty feet, it was now down to ten at the most; almost an impossible task, but still I went barrelling straight for the bottom, hoping against hope. It had taken powerful seas to smash those massive chunks of coral from the reef. The whole of the sea floor would have changed, become totally unfamiliar.
The deeper I got, the hazier the water became, the silt slowly settling to the bottom, the murkiness filtering out the sunlight. Visibility dropped to five feet; and then I saw the bottom: battle-scared coral; a dead fish floating amongst the rocks; everything tossed and jumbled together.
But one thing caught my eye: the frayed end of a piece of white cord, caught up in the crack of a rock, three feet away from my hand. Giving one savage kick, I grabbed it before the current took me back into the gloom, and wrenched the frayed line from the jagged rock, looked at it, then pulled it gently, taking in the slack. There was no doubt it was ours, or at least part of the one that had been tied to the buoy; and still fixed to something, something lying somewhere out ahead in the haze.
The Stone Dog Page 22