11 Diving Adventure

by Willard Price

  It was not all so lovely. On one of the stone branches Jay a horrible-looking creature which Hal identified as a sea centipede. It looked as unpleasant as the land centipede, so unpleasant that even an animal lover could not like it. It had perhaps a hundred legs - the boys didn’t attempt to count them. The most frightening thing about it was its size. The centipede one sees on land may be only two or three inches long. This watery cousin was a good two feet. Another one crawled along near by.

  ‘I think we want both of those,’ Hal said, ‘one to send to a lab and the other to eat.’

  Roger’s face crinkled in disgust. ‘Who could ever eat that thing?’

  ‘You and I could,’ said Hal. ‘And will. You’ll like it It’s even better than lobster. It is called a varo and the Polynesians like it so much that they frequently name a son Varo. Then every time they look at him they think of the delicious sea centipede.’

  ‘What good is one to a lab?’

  ‘Every one of those feet is full of poison. The centipede will tackle even a large fish, dig its claws into it, paralyse it with poison and then eat it.’

  Here again the iron claw was useful. It clutched one of the centipedes, tore it loose from its hundred-foot grip on the coral branch, and dropped it into the bag that was this time held by Roger. In the same way, the other joined its mate in the bag.

  ‘We’ll have to be careful when we cook it,’ Hal said. ‘Those claws cut like scissors and the poison makes wounds that will fester and swell for weeks.’

  ‘How nice,’ Roger said. ‘I think I’ll leave the cooking to you, and the eating too.’

  ‘How generous you are,’ said Hal.

  Roger dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘Don’t mention it. Just call it brotherly love.’

  The climax of the poison hunt was ‘the floating death’ as it is called by some Australians. Elsewhere it is known as the Portuguese man-of-war.

  The boys noticed first that the water had turned light blue. Then they saw that the colour came from dozens of tentacles trailing down from the surface. They were attached to what looked like a bright blue boat. The tentacles were at least thirty feet long.

  There’s the best prize of the day,’ said Hal, ‘if we can just get it. Those tentacles carry a lot of poison and, believe it or not, electric batteries. The thing up there that looks like a boat is really a big blue bag filled with gas.’

  ‘It seems to be moving away,’ Roger said.

  ‘Put on low power and follow it It has a sail on top of the bag and the wind moves it slowly along.’

  Those tentacles can’t be so bad,’ said Roger. ‘I see some little blue-black fish swimming in among them.’

  Hal said, Those little fish are the man-of-war’s buddies. It leaves them alone. Other fish see them there and are fooled into thinking the tentacles are harmless. They plunge in after the little fellows, get tangled up in the

  tentacles and get both electric shock and poison. Then they are gathered up to the hungry mouth of the man-of-war.’

  Roger was puzzled. ‘I don’t see how you’re going to take it. If it were near the ship the captain might snare it and pull it aboard. But the wind has carried it a good distance and we’ve gone with it. Besides, it’s such a sprawly thing, and all those long tentacles! I think we can find something that will be easier to get.’

  ‘We’re going to get this,’ Hal said. ‘But it’s a job for two men - one to hold a coil of rope and the other to pass the end of the rope around the bunch of tentacles. Then Bottle can tow it to the ship.’

  ‘I’ll bet it won’t be as simple as it sounds,’ said Roger. But he took up a coil of rope and both adventurers left the jeep and swam close to the dangerous dangle of blue tentacles. Roger held the coil while Hal looped the end around the stringy mass and tied it.

  So far, so good. The faithful Bottle, as usual, was close at hand. Hal gave the free end of the rope to Bottle who at once understood what he was supposed to do.

  He swam off towards the ship. But even a dolphin can make mistakes. In his eagerness to carry out his errand he drew the twitching ends of the tentacles straight over Hal’s body.

  The tentacles at once wrapped themselves around the naturalist’s back and chest. Hal felt a series of quick electric jolts. He knew that thousands of tiny darts were pouring poison into him. He struggled to get away but was firmly held.

  Roger ventured close and at the risk of getting stung himself seized Hal’s foot and tried to pull him loose. It didn’t work.

  What to do now? As fast as he could he swam back to the jeep, powered it up, and brought it near enough so that the iron claw could grip Hal’s arm. Then he backed away.

  With the dolphin pulling in one direction and the iron claw in the opposite direction, Hal felt as if he were about to be pulled apart. But the powerful engine succeeded in pulling him free of the strings of death. In doing so, the ends of the tentacles were broken and stuck to the boy’s body with their darts penetrating the skin and administering more poison.

  At first there had been terrifying pains. Now the pains were dying down. This was a bad sign. Hal knew it meant that he was being paralysed. The paralysis was numbing his nerves so that he could no longer feel.

  He could hardly make it back to the jeep. Roger hauled him in. Hal muttered, ‘Phone the captain to watch for Bottle.’

  Roger did so. ‘Now,’ Hal said, ‘get these things off me.’

  Roger slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and tried to strip off the blue strings of poison. They stuck so tightly to the flesh that he could not get them loose. ‘Can’t do it,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve got to. If they don’t come off, I’m dead. Dig them off with your knife.’

  This was not a job to Roger’s liking, but he went to work. With the sharp end of his knife he cut into the flesh below a tentacle and managed to prise it loose, pulling out of the skin the hundreds of little barbed hooks. Of course the flesh came with them and as each tentacle was dug away it left a track of blood.

  Hal was hopelessly dizzy and nauseated. His mind began fogging over. His eyes were glazed and his teeth clenched. His chest tightened up until it was as hard as a board. That meant his lungs were being paralysed. His breath came in gasps.

  ‘What else can I do?’ Roger said in despair.

  ‘Nothing. Get me back to the house.’

  Returning home. Roger somehow got him out of the jeep, up into the house, where he lay on the floor while Roger sponged away the blood trails and applied some antiseptic. He wrapped a towel around his brother and helped him struggle into bed.

  The patient was still conscious, but it was so hard to breathe that he feared he would suffocate.

  ‘Be ready,’ he managed to mumble, ‘to give me artificial respiration.’

  Dr Roger Hunt was at his wit’s end. His medical knowledge was too slight and he was painfully aware of his own ignorance. His brother was feverish, so he laid a wet rag over the hot forehead.

  What would he do if his brother died? He knew that death was possible. He remembered the news report of the Australian boy who had been attacked, managed to pull himself loose, swam fifty yards to shore, then collapsed and died. A fourteen-year-old girl at Kissing Point Baths, Australia, made it to the hospital but died a day later. Just the electric shock alone was serious, without counting the poison. It was like being wrapped in high-powered electric lines.

  The phone rang. It was the captain. He said, ‘Bottle is alongside with the man-of-war. What will I do with it?’

  ‘Hoist it aboard with the derrick.’ Roger said. ‘Give it a tank all to itself.’

  ‘But its tentacles hang down thirty feet,’ objected the captain. ‘And our tanks are only ten feet deep.’

  ‘Can’t help that,’ Roger said. ‘It will just have to spread its tentacles out over the floor of the tank.’

  ‘But that’s not natural for a man-of-war. It will be mighty uncomfortable.’

  ‘I don’t give a hoot if it’s uncomfortable,’
exclaimed Roger. ‘It nearly killed my brother.’ And he told the captain what had happened.

  ‘That’s bad,’ said Captain Ted. ‘Did you put on the shaving cream?’

  ‘Shaving cream!’ exploded Roger. ‘I don’t think that’s funny.’

  ‘I didn’t intend it to be. Shaving cream is the old remedy for man-of-war stings.’

  ‘Well, ‘I’ll do it,’ said Roger doubtfully. ‘But do you think I’d better get him to the hospital?’

  ‘No, He shouldn’t be moved. You’ve done everything they could do - except the shaving cream. In fact I think you’re a pretty good doctor. But get the cream on right away. Then keep him quiet. He’ll come out of it’

  Roger got the tube of shaving cream and rubbed in a streak of it along every cut.

  He could only hope that the captain knew what he was talking about. He should know - for he had spent his life along this coast where the man-of-war was a well-known pest.

  Kaggs came in. ‘What’s the matter with your brother?’

  ‘Tangled with a man-of-war,’ Roger said.

  ‘Oh, now, isn’t that just too bad?’ But somehow Kaggs didn’t look too sorry. In fact there was something that seemed like a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. ‘Suppose I take over. What he needs is some exercise.’

  Hal’s eyes were closed. He was either unconscious or asleep. The captain had said to keep him still.

  Kaggs started towards the bed. ‘Leave him alone,’ Roger said.

  Kaggs looked astonished. ‘Now my boy, don’t tell me what to do. Remember. I’m a bit older than you, and perhaps a little wiser. We should wake him up and give him a workout.’

  ‘Don’t touch him,’ said Roger angrily. If you do I’ll knock your head off.’

  Kaggs stared. ‘Well, of all the impudence!’ Then he adopted his most oily manner. ‘I’ll have to excuse you for your impertinence. I understand how disturbed you must be.’ He started again towards the bed.

  Suddenly Hal’s eyes opened and he sat up. Except for a little stiffness, his paralysis was gone. He almost sang, he was so happy to be alive. He ached all over his chest and back as if he had had a first-degree burn. But he could breathe and he could move. Seeing Kaggs, he said, ‘Thanks for all you did. Whatever it was, it was the right thing. I feel fine.’

  Kaggs smiled. ‘I’m glad I got here just in time. I’m sure you’ll be all right now.’ He went to his room.

  ‘Well, of all the nerve!’ said Roger. But he was so grateful for his brother’s recovery that he didn’t bother to tell him Kaggs had done nothing.

  Chapter 13

  How to make an enemy

  Hal was reporting to Dr Dick.

  ‘Some of my experiments worked out,’ he said. ‘Some didn’t We tried underwater fishing. Our bottlenose dolphin - we called him Bottle - learned very quickly to run errands for us to our ship, Flying Cloud. My brother made friends with a killer whale and he hauls up loads that would be too heavy for the dolphin. Other dolphins have joined in, so now we have a team of twenty of them and I believe they can be trained to serve as cowboys to guard the animal farms, fish farms, oyster beds, lobster fields and this and that that we’re planning.’

  If you can do that,’ Dr Dick said, ‘it will be a long step ahead. Single dolphins have been used before this -but I don’t recall any experiment with a team of dolphins.’

  ‘Well,’ Hal said, ‘we may fail - just as we failed with the electric shock.’

  ‘Electric shock? What was that?’

  ‘Not an original idea,’ Hal replied. ‘As you know, for some years whalers have been using the electric harpoon to kill whales painlessly. Of course they do that from a surface ship. Whales come to the surface to breathe, but big fish don’t usually come up; so they were safe from the electric harpoon. But if you could go down where they are, the electric harpoon could be used. We tried it, and it failed. I’m sorry we wasted so much time on an experiment that we should have known wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Why didn’t it work?’

  ‘It worked if a big fish came around. But we might wait for half an hour or an hour before a big fellow happened to come by. That was no better than a fishing boat could do with a hook and line or a net. So we tried laser.’

  Dr Dick looked worried. ‘But a laser machine costs five or ten thousand dollars. I’m not sure that we could afford such an expense.’

  ‘A new one has been invented,’ Hal said. ‘It cost only fifty dollars. And John Hunt and Sons paid for it, because we can use it in our own work.’

  ‘But how can you use laser for fishing?’

  ‘The laser beam carries a clicking sound along with it and when it strikes a big object such as a large fish the fish comes out of curiosity to see what is making the noise. When the fish came close we finished him off with the electric shock. We got more fish that way in half an hour than fishermen up on top would be apt to get in a day or perhaps even a week.’

  ‘Great,’ smiled Dr Dick. ‘Any fishing smack could afford to buy a laser at that price. But suppose it didn’t have the electric harpoon apparatus and no trained dolphin or killer whale to bring up the fish?’

  Hal admired Dr Dick’s quick mind. ‘You’re quite right. So we tried laser alone - no electric business and no finny errand boys. We brought in the fish by low-power laser and when they came close we finished them off by turning on high-power. Then we sent them up by balloon instead of by dolphin or whale.’

  Dr Dick grinned. ‘Very ingenious!’ he said. ‘What other magic have you been practising?’

  ‘Nothing really magical,’ Hal said modestly. ‘We’ve been picking up some poisons to send to laboratories that use them in making medicines.’

  ‘You mean poisonous fish?’

  ‘Yes - like the sea snake, lionfish, sea scorpion, cone shell, sea wasp, stonefish, sea centipede, and man-of-war.’

  ‘But isn’t that pretty dangerous work?’

  ‘Not too bad,’ Hal said, thinking it unnecessary to relate how both he and Roger had nearly lost their lives.

  A head bobbed up through a hole in the other room. It was followed by the body of a young man who stood dripping while he gazed around until his eyes rested upon the two men in the study.

  He removed the scuba mouthpiece from his mouth and said, ‘Is Dr Dick here?’

  ‘I’m Dr Dick,’ said the director.

  ‘May I speak to you for a few moments?’

  ‘Come right in.’

  Hal disliked the face. The eyes were shifty and too close together, the chin was weak and flabby, the mouth had a mean twist at the corners.

  ‘My name is Oscar Roach,’ he said. ‘I came to see about getting a job.’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘Naturalist,’ said Roach.

  Dr Dick rose and shook hands. ‘Meet our present naturalist, Hal Hunt,’ he said.

  Hal shook hands. ‘Glad to know you,’ he said.

  Roach did not reply. Instead, he seemed highly displeased.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen,’ Hal said, ‘I must be running along.’

  After he had gone, Roach said, ‘So - you already have a naturalist. Guess I’m here on a wild goose chase.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Dr Dick, ‘but the job is filled. Pretty well filled.’ And he went on to tell Roach of some of Hal’s experiments.

  Then I suppose you have no opening for me?’

  ‘Not as naturalist. But I might find some other assignment for you. Do you have any references?’

  Roach looked flustered by the question. His face went red. ‘I don’t have any with me,’ he admitted.

  ‘But you have had other jobs?’

  ‘Lots of them.’

  That didn’t sound too good to Dr Dick. If a man has had lots of jobs it means that he wasn’t able to hold one very long.

  ‘I can fit you in,’ he said. ‘But it would be a minor job.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘They need a dishwasher over at the hotel,’

>   Roach looked angry but he said nothing. ‘Of course,’ Dr Dick went on, ‘it would be just temporary. If Hunt should drop out for any reason, you would be considered next in line to take his place.’

  If Hunt should drop out. If Hunt should drop out. Dr Dick should have been able to see it going round and round in Roach’s mind.

  ‘I’ll take the dishwashing job,’ he said.

  If Hunt should drop out. Perhaps there would be a way to help him drop out.

  Chapter 14

  Roger’s little joke

  They had never seen a shark as big as this one.

  First it passed over the jeep like a black cloud. Then circled and came down to study this strange glass thing more closely. It was a good fifty feet long. Its open mouth was six feet wide.

  That’s a whale shark,’ said Hal excitedly. ‘Greatest of all the sharks. You can tell it by the white spots on its hide. And by the croaks - hear it?’

  The croaking sounds of the monster were quite audible. It’s the only talking shark,’ Hal said.

  ‘There don’t seem to be any teeth in that mouth,’ said Roger.

  ‘No, it doesn’t bite or chew its food. It just inhales it. It goes along with its mouth open and anything in the way goes down the hatch. Mainly it lives on plankton -those tiny bits of animal life in the sea. It’s not supposed to be vicious like most sharks. It even allows a man to ride on its back. Or so they say - I wouldn’t like to chance it.’

  ‘I would,’ said the venturesome Roger, and before Hal could stop him he slipped out of the jeep. The monster lay still, evidently much interested in this big glass bubble. Roger swam up beside it.

  What a whale of a shark! No wonder they called it the whale shark. Paste three elephants together and they would not be as big as this brute.

  Roger touched its rough flank but it did not seem to lim. He mustered up the courage to tickle it under the chin. It seemed to like it.

  He swam up to the top of the back, like the roof of a house. He sat down. You couldn’t straddle this thing -you had to sit Turkish fashion. It was like sitting on the deck of a ship.