Jamie Reign

by P J Tierney

  Lucy smiled. ‘I’m a big tipper,’ then she double-tapped the tabletop as her teacup was filled again.

  Jamie pointed, astounded. ‘What was that? The tap?’ He’d never seen a girl do it before.

  ‘Oh, it’s a bit silly really,’ she said. ‘It’s an old story and I’m not sure there’s much truth to it.’

  Jamie waited. ‘And …?’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Lucy said. ‘A long time ago the Emperor was out reviewing his lands, and because he was in disguise his minders couldn’t bow down to him. So whenever the Emperor poured for them, they “bowed” with their two fingers.’ She held up her fingers, rolled them into an imitation of a bow, then tapped them on the table.

  ‘Oh,’ said Jamie, ‘is that all?’

  ‘What were you expecting?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, some sort of secret-society handshake or something.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Lucy said, ‘they’re much more complicated.’ Then she seemed to realise she’d said too much and stopped talking.

  Jamie’s curiosity was piqued. ‘What do you know about secret societies?’

  ‘Me? Nothing. Why would you ask?’ she said very quickly, then shoved a whole dumpling into her mouth. Jamie thought it polite to avert his eyes while Lucy struggled with the overflowing mouthful. He looked out to the marketplace and spotted the boy with the trolley.

  ‘Who’s that boy?’ Jamie asked, pointing him out. ‘Do you know him?’

  Lucy made a muffled sound.

  Jamie chuckled. ‘Um, you might have to repeat that.’

  Lucy swallowed and dabbed her face with her napkin. ‘It’s Wing,’ she said, ‘Wing Choo. Everyone knows Wing.’ She waved Wing over and Jamie stood to greet him, a little wary due to the earlier reading comment.

  ‘Nice headband, Luce,’ Wing said and held his hand out to Jamie. ‘Sorry about earlier. It was pretty funny though.’ He reached for a dumpling. ‘It would have been pretty cruel if you really couldn’t read.’

  Jamie gave a slight laugh that sounded more like a cough and Wing stopped dead, the dumpling suspended halfway between the table and his mouth.

  ‘Oh man, you can’t read?’ Wing flushed bright red. ‘I’m so sorry, I was just joking. I thought he was teasing you. I would never have said that if I’d known. Oh man, I’m so sorry.’

  Jamie saw a way out. He laughed and patted Wing on the back. Wing realised he was being fooled.

  ‘Oh, nice one. I really thought you …’ He punched Jamie on the arm. ‘You made me feel so mean.’

  Jamie picked up the menu, pretended the scribble meant something to him and said, ‘I can recommend the cha siu bao here, it’s really good.’

  ‘Cha siu bao for us all,’ Wing said in a flamboyant manner, then caught himself. ‘You do have money, don’t you, Luce?’

  Lucy gave him a look that said, You know who I am, right?

  ‘Good.’ Wing reached for the teapot, waved away the hovering staff and poured for them all.

  Jamie sipped on his tea while the other two ate. He said to Wing, ‘I’ve seen you around, on that sampan.’

  Wing nodded. ‘She’s a good little vessel, that one.’

  ‘It’s still going then?’ Lucy asked.

  Wing responded with a sarcastic and laconic, ‘Ha.’

  Jamie double-tapped his thanks to Wing’s pouring and he and Lucy exchanged a conspiratorial grin.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he asked Wing.

  Wing was helping himself to noodles. ‘Nor’-nor’-east of here,’ he said without thinking, then his expression suddenly changed. ‘Um, more north than north-east … well, north really.’

  ‘Nor’-nor’-east?’ Jamie said, seizing on his first direction. ‘But there’s only the Penglai Islands that way.’

  Lucy made a sudden movement and Wing’s body jerked. Jamie suspected she’d just kicked him under the table. He stared at Lucy, who became intent on waving at the staff to bring the food trolleys over. Wing appeared to be fascinated by something at the bottom of his noodle bowl. It was clear Wing had said something he shouldn’t have.

  Jamie let his new friends finish their meal, then said his farewells. He waited in the shadows until Wing got up from the table and followed the barefoot boy along the rough concrete path to the jetty. He watched as Wing bounced the trolley down the long rows of stairs, lifted it aboard his little sampan and started the engine. Jamie could tell by the drone that it was a very powerful engine for such a little craft. He suspected it could go all the way to the Penglai Islands if it had to.

  Jamie shielded his eyes from the glare and watched the sampan chug away from the wharf. At the breakwall, the little boat altered course and the pitch of the engine changed. Jamie watched carefully and checked the position from the sun. Wing’s bearing was nor’-nor’-east. His new friends, if that was what they were, were not being entirely honest with him.

  Chapter 8

  That night Jamie checked The Swift’s hatches and tie-downs while Hector went to the bridge and started the engines. Mr Fan watched Hector and Jamie at work, and paid particular attention to the passing of the Gate. He stared intently at both Jamie and the rocks as they went through.

  ‘You don’t carry a pole, just in case?’ he asked once the tug was clear of the danger.

  Jamie shook his head. ‘Dad says it would make me sloppy.’

  ‘How do you know where the rocks are?’

  ‘If I concentrate really hard, I just sort of feel them,’ Jamie said. He didn’t have a better way to describe it.

  Mr Fan nodded slowly and scrutinised Jamie again. He looked like he was trying to make sense of something.

  ‘Um, I’d better go and help Dad,’ Jamie said, keen to get away.

  It was just before dawn when they finally approached the area where the reef was meant to be. Hector checked the GPS coordinates and then scanned the ocean.

  ‘Old fool,’ he muttered. ‘Nothing here but open sea.’ He tapped the ancient chart and cross-referenced it with his own modern one. ‘Complete waste of time,’ he said and felt in his pocket for the small dragon figurine. He added with a shrug, ‘His money though.’

  Jamie looked from the compass to the chart and then to the water. There was something about the old man that made Jamie sure there would be a reef where he’d said it was.

  ‘Should we put the depth sonar on just to make sure?’ he said.

  ‘Look around, boy.’ Hector gestured to the waves. ‘See any shadow? See any change in the swell? No. What does that tell you?’

  Jamie had had this lesson many times before. ‘That it’s open water.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Mr Fan came to the bridge. ‘We are close,’ he said.

  Hector scoffed. ‘To what?’

  Mr Fan saw the depth sonar on the control panel. ‘Should we turn that on?’

  Jamie flicked it on. The monitor showed an empty screen with the text 9500 feet.

  ‘Must be a deep reef,’ Hector mumbled and reached under the control panel for a bottle of whisky, all semblance of professionalism gone.

  Mr Fan closed his eyes and breathed slowly and deeply. When Hector asked, ‘So what now?’, he waved his hand for silence.

  When Mr Fan finally opened his eyes, he said, ‘To the east just slightly, not more than a mile.’

  Hector shrugged and gulped his whisky. ‘Your money,’ he said, altering course.

  He smirked when the sonar changed to 10,200 feet. Then it went to 6300 feet, then 2300. Hector stopped smiling when the sonar read 400 feet, and he killed the engines when it flashed to 14 feet.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ he said.

  They all looked at the water. Choppy white curls gave way to an area of glassy blackness — the indication of something just under the surface. Jamie ran to the bow. Nothing was breaking the waterline so he gestured for Hector to get underway again. Slowly, with Jamie signalling to the bridge and Hector checking the sonar, they managed to plot a rough outline of the submerged
reef.

  Hector dropped anchor at the reef’s shallowest part and let it drag until it caught. ‘What now, old man?’

  ‘There is something I need retrieved,’ Mr Fan said.

  ‘Any hints on what we’re looking for?’ Hector asked.

  ‘I will know when I see it.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that grand,’ Hector said. ‘Shall we drag up the entire ocean, Jamie, and let our guest make a selection?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr Fan, acknowledging the comment but not the sarcasm.

  Jamie removed his outer clothes to get into his wetsuit.

  ‘You’re sending the boy?’ Mr Fan asked. ‘You don’t know what’s down there.’

  Hector waved away Mr Fan’s protests. ‘Jamie’s been in worse fixes than this.’

  Jamie wasn’t so sure. With the sun still low in the sky, he knew it was going to be very dark down there.

  ‘I’m happy to wait until sunlight,’ Mr Fan said to Hector, as if he could read Jamie’s mind.

  ‘You didn’t pay for all day,’ Hector said.

  Jamie shrugged. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he told Mr Fan. ‘He’s right, I’ve been in worse.’ Still, he had a very uneasy feeling about this reef.

  He checked his mouthpiece, and Hector gave him a pat on the back as he went to the side. Quietly Hector said, ‘Have a good look around, but be selective with what you bring up.’

  Jamie knew what he meant. Leave the good stuff till we come back without the old man.

  Jamie put his mouthpiece in, gave Hector the thumbs up and went over the side, his yellow trace line following.

  Jamie felt his wetsuit constrict from the water pressure; it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation. His eyes quickly scanned the reef. It was all dark shadows and sharp angles: the telltale signs of man-made wrecks. He followed the lines of the reef’s latest victim — a cruiser, still white. It was resting on its side, cradled in the collapsed hull of a large fishing trawler. The trawler’s reels had been ripped from the deck and its nets flapped in the soft current.

  Jamie followed the concertina shape of the fishing boat down through a row of timbers that jutted out like broken bones. Further down was the rusted steel of a navy vessel, too decayed and covered with algae for Jamie to see what country it had once belonged to. He shivered as he thought of all the dead sailors who must be lying in this cold grave.

  Some boats had kept their shape; others had become part of the mass of intertwined steel and fibreglass and wood. If Jamie followed the debris to the bottom of the reef, he suspected he would see how boat design had developed through history, from when man had first stood on a raft. This unmarked reef had been claiming victims for centuries.

  It was an eerie place, with sudden cold patches and moving shadows. Jamie kept one hand on his dive knife in case any of the shadows turned out to be a predator. He didn’t like to think of the flesh they were used to feeding on.

  Jamie stopped at a gap in the crushed mass. One enormously thick timber was bracing the load, creating an opening on either side. He shone his torch at the massive beam. It was still smooth; the years of salt water and crustaceans seemed to have done little to damage it. It had a slight curve, and Jamie guessed it was part of the frame of a massive timber hull. He shone his torch into one of the tunnels either side of it and saw a tantalising scattering of treasures.

  Jamie marked the opening with a pink plastic ribbon, so he knew where to come back to, then squeezed inside. It was a dark and narrow passage, with sharp pieces of timber jutting out that Jamie had to scramble over, and dark black voids where cabins may have once been. Jamie kept to the main tunnel, conscious of maintaining a straight line so he could find his way out. It would be easy to become disoriented in a place like this. The beam from his torch gave a narrow field of vision and he felt tiny and vulnerable within the bowels of this decaying mass.

  Jamie reached for some coins that were scattered around the timbers and put them in his net bag. He turned a metal chalice over in his hand, but remembered his father’s words and placed it to one side. He went further in, using his hands to pull himself along, following the treasures like a pigeon following breadcrumbs. Each piece seemed ancient and valuable and, he suspected, had a story to tell. It was treasure like this that itched in the minds of adventurers.

  Jamie continued to explore, placing the best pieces to one side and tying pink markers to come back to. He found a large chest that was corroded shut, but it was too big and too heavy to carry so he settled on a smaller box beside it. As he reached for the box, a rush of frigid water crossed his hand. Jamie flinched and pulled his hand back. He reached out again, this time snatching the box from the cold stream. The icy water enveloped him. He shivered and turned back.

  He expected to see a flapping line of pink ribbons and his yellow trace line marking his route. But his line was tangled in the crushed mass and there was not a single pink ribbon to be seen.

  Jamie flicked his torch from side to side. He couldn’t find the tunnel. He ran his hands up and down the walls but couldn’t feel the gap. He reached for his trace line and hauled on it, hand over desperate hand. There was no resistance. He kept pulling until its frayed end flicked through his fingers.

  Jamie pushed, then kicked at the debris. It didn’t move. He tried another angle. He found a length of timber jutting out, put his shoulder underneath it and pushed up. Nothing. He placed a foot either side of the timber and pulled until his body was perpendicular, but his grip slid from the wood. He rammed and shoved and pleaded, but nothing budged, not even a millimetre. Jamie was trapped.

  He checked his gauge. His air was low, very low: he only had a couple of minutes left. Look for the light, he told himself. Look for the light and take small breaths. Make the air last.

  Jamie trained the torch on his watch, counted the seconds down, then the torch went out.

  No.

  Panic rose like bile in his throat. He thumped and bashed at the walls. He did everything he was trained not to do and used up valuable air.

  Then something brushed against his leg. He screamed through his mouthpiece and tasted salt water. There was something down here with him. His eyes burned as he willed them to see through the dark. His heart pounded in his ears, making it impossible to hear. What was that?

  Jamie felt something close around his ankle. He yanked his foot away, but he was caught like prey in a trap. He kicked at whatever was holding him and thrashed around his ankle with his knife. The only thing his blade hit was his own leg. He felt it slice open the skin. Now there was blood to draw the predators too.

  The grip around Jamie’s ankle tightened and dug into his flesh. He was being dragged down. His eardrums felt close to bursting as he was pulled deeper and deeper.

  Jamie was gulping, thrashing and running out of air.

  Chapter 9

  On deck, Hector kept a close eye on his dive watch. He paced up and down, scanning the surface of the water. ‘Dumb kid, check your gauge,’ he muttered. Eventually he went to the yellow trace line and pulled. He realised there was no resistance, and the frayed end flicked up and skipped across the water.

  ‘Damn!’ Hector spat. As he yanked his boots off and grabbed the air tank, his watch sounded an alarm. He fumbled with the straps of the tank, dropped it and yelled at Mr Fan, ‘You could help!’

  Mr Fan didn’t react. Instead, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  Hector roared, ‘He’s in trouble!’

  When Mr Fan ignored him, Hector threw the tank at his head. Although the old man didn’t open his eyes, he moved his arm in a perfect defensive block and the tank bounced harmlessly away.

  In the murky depths, it was cold and dark. Jamie had sucked his air dry. He closed his eyes and removed his mouthpiece. Every instinct told him to inhale. Every cell of his body screamed at him to open his mouth and fill his lungs. Jamie held his nose shut with his fingers, trying to overcome the instinct. He shook the tank off and released his weight belt, but still he was pu
lled further and further down. His trapped foot was numb now. His body bounced off sharp bits of the reef, then something hit his head. Instinct won out and Jamie gulped in.

  There was a brief and tantalising moment of relief until the water hit his lungs. Then there was only pain. No need to wonder now how he might die. He thought of his father and the safety of the boat.

  It’s so close, he thought. If only I could get to it.

  On deck, Mr Fan had started muttering. Hector got the tank on and fitted the mouthpiece. He was about to go over the side when Mr Fan said, ‘Wait, I’ve got him.’

  Hector looked around and spotted something bob up through the surface — Jamie. He dived in and hauled the boy back to the boat. Mr Fan reached over and pulled the lifeless body aboard. He positioned Jamie on his side, pulled his head back and let the water run from his mouth and nose.

  Hector scrambled aboard, rolled Jamie on his back and pressed hard onto his chest.

  Mr Fan stopped him. ‘He is all right, you will only do more harm,’ and Jamie coughed to prove him right.

  Jamie sucked in great gulps of air and vomited more salt water. His throat burned and his head pounded.

  ‘You came to me, Jamie,’ Mr Fan said. ‘You came to me.’

  Jamie suddenly remembered his trapped foot and grabbed at it. For a terrifying second, he thought that maybe it had been left below, still in the grip of whatever had grabbed him. The flesh and bone were still there, bruised and numb but where they should be.

  Hector’s concern vanished when he realised Jamie had surfaced without his dive gear. ‘Where’s your tank?’ he demanded.

  Jamie gaped at his father. ‘But I nearly died.’

  Hector yelled, ‘Well, you’re alive, so you can go back and get it!’

  He dragged Jamie to his feet and towards the side of the boat. Jamie’s numb foot gave way and he stumbled.

  Mr Fan thrust his palm at Hector’s chest and stopped him dead, possibly even dislodging a rib. Hector rubbed at the dent in his chest.

  ‘You can pay for that tank then,’ he told Mr Fan angrily.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mr Fan, ‘but right now we must be on our way.’