Thirty Fathoms Deep

by Ellsberg, Edward

  “On the bottom!” he reported, and while the tenders fished his lines out more slowly, he dropped down the tunnel, stirring up a cloud of mud in the water as his bubbles streamed out, then squeezed through into the hold and wormed through the water, dragging his bag and shoving the lamp ahead of him each time he jerked along.

  He crawled over the shattered bulkhead and came to the hole in the iron that Frank Martin had burned out. He shoved his helmet over the opening, dangled the lamp in it, and strained his eyes downward. Only a dull glow quickly fading into the water met his gaze. He threw his canvas bag into the hole.

  The boatswain’s mate untied the line secured to his left wrist, jerked it sharply for more slack, then hauled it down until some six fathoms lay coiled beside him. He took a clove hitch round the beam which had once trapped Hawkins, tested the line to make sure it was safely fast, and then tossed the slack end into the opening. He lowered the lamp down after it, leaving himself in darkness.

  Gripping the manila line, he swung his lead shoes into the hole, cautiously eased his diving-suit over the rough edges of the burned plates, and hand over hand slid down into the strong-room of the Santa Cruz.

  A glow from the lamp filtered up from below, brightening as he descended. With a dull ring, his feet touched bottom. He let go of the line, stooped over and grasped the lamp. He swung it round in the clear water of the strong-room.

  He gasped. In every direction the bright gleam of gold danced through the water at his feet. He was standing on a floor paved with pigs of gold, with yellow idols stripped from Inca temples, piled in tumbled heaps where they had fallen when the Santa Cruz took her last plunge.

  He flashed his light round. Gold everywhere! Bright yellow in strange shapes, the centuries and the sea had not dulled its lustre! And against the black background of the strong-room walls, the shining mounds of precious metal stood out sharply.

  A weird scene. The diver in his clumsy rig, air bubbling out in gusts from his helmet and surging upward past his lifelines to the hole ripped overhead, his searchlight flashing through the water, while beneath his lead-soled shoes gleamed the treasure of the Incas, the booty of the Spaniards, the prize snatched from Drake’s grip when the Santa Cruz had vanished in a burst of flame!

  Even Clark, phlegmatic like all divers, gazed in awe at the wealth strewn haphazard at his feet. Not for several minutes did he recall his mission.

  At last the spell was broken. He stooped, seized the nearest bar. It slipped from his hand and landed heavily on his foot, crushing in the copper toe-cap.

  “I should ’ave known better,” he mumbled to himself, “this stuff’s heavy. Lucky the water cushioned that wallop.”

  He looked round, spied his bag, spread it wide open in the water and dragged four pigs into it. Lightening up his suit, he climbed the line to the passage above, then heaved up the bag with its precious load. He could barely haul it up. He dumped the bars into the passage and dropped again into the strong-room, to load in four more bars.

  Martin managed to bring up sixteen pigs all told and get them to the tunnel bottom when there came the four jerks on his lifeline that warned him to come out. He cut the line to the surface behind the beam, leaving the lower end hanging down the strong-room. The other end he tied carefully round the neck of his bag as it lay in the mud at the bottom of the tunnel; then he signalled to heave in. On the Lapwing, two tenders straining on the line failed to budge it; the line had to go round the capstan to lift the eight-hundred-pound mass of gold out of the tunnel.

  Clark followed it out, guiding the line and the canvas bag clear of the poop and making sure he was himself not foul of it. Then he ordered: “On deck! Take up the line!”

  He leaned against the wreck, looked up through the top port in his helmet, saw the line stretch, and watched the first load of the treasure of the Santa Cruz start from the depth which had gripped it so long and vanish in the water above. A quarter of a million dollars in gold! Bill Clark stared after it until the canvas bag rose over the poop and disappeared. His gaze dropped to the tunnel in which he had once nearly perished, fighting his way to the treasure room. He shuddered at the recollection.

  Clark strode to the descending-line, signalling vigorously to be hauled up.

  Chapter 19

  Tom Williams and Frank Martin followed Clark, and when the latter finally rose to the surface, forty-five bars of gold, nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, rested under lock and key in the Lapwing’s fore-hold.

  Bob Porter, wild with excitement at the fulfilment of his dream, wanted to radio Major Houghton of their success, but Carroll calmed him down.

  “We’re not broadcasting anything, Bob — least of all that. Our radio hasn’t let out a peep since we got here, and it’s not going to. You never know where even a code message gets picked up. We’ll have to keep our secret a few more days. We can’t take any chances now.”

  Bob took a bar of gold down to the divers’ quarters, where he proudly exhibited it to Joe, who lay with his bandaged leg in a lower bunk. Both of them listened fascinated long into the night while Tom, Bill, and Frank for the hundredth time described their adventures in the strong-room, and the wealth strewn round it. They estimated it would take at least a week for the three of them to lift the treasure out.

  Early next morning, with the sea still calm, Tom Williams came to the dressing bench. His suit was on, his breastplate bolted up, and the dressers were lacing on his shoes, when Bill Clark, who was supervising, looked casually out at the after mooring-lines. He straightened up with a start, stared over the stern a second, then ran forward and burst into the cabin, nearly knocking over Fitz who spilled a pot of coffee over the tablecloth.

  Lieutenant Carroll looked up startled.

  “Captain, the surf-boat’s gone!” cried the boatswain’s mate.

  Carroll calmed down. “Is that all?” he asked. “By the way you knocked over Fitz, I thought somebody’d been killed! Well, how’d it carry away? Wasn’t the painter strong enough?”

  “Nuthin’s carried away, Captain. She’s gone, painter ’n’ all!”

  A sudden dread seized Carroll. He leapt up, ran aft to look. Yes, there was the cleat the painter had been secured to, but no frayed end of line remained. He turned sharply to Clark.

  “Belay diving! Muster all hands!”

  The shrilling of the boatswain’s pipe rang through the ship, followed by the hoarse cry: “All hands on deck!”

  From mess room, bunks, and holds the men poured out, fell in at quarters. The boatswain’s mate mustered the deck force, the engineer officer checked up the black gang.

  Clark saluted his captain and reported:

  “Two men missin’, sir. Tom Carley an’ Pedro Gomez’ve jumped ship!”

  A hasty examination showed that three drums of petrol were gone as well as the boat and the two men.

  Carroll’s orders were brief and sharp. He called the engineer.

  “Full power on both boilers, chief. We’re getting underway at once!” And to Clark he shouted, “Get an axe! We haven’t time to hoist over the motorboat and unmoor. Cut those hawsers!” Carroll ran for the bridge, nearly falling over Tom Williams who, sagging under his breastplate, still sat on the dressing bench, blocking the starboard passage.

  “No diving today, Tom,” he called as he untangled himself and continued forward.

  An axe flashed down on the rail, burying itself in the hemp strands of the thick mooring-line. The hawser splashed overboard. Clark ran across the fantail, cut the line there, then hurried to the forecastle and with two more blows of the axe, freed the ship. The slack hawsers drifted lazily down to leeward from the spars, which, with the strains released, floated high out of water.

  On the bridge, Carroll swung the engine telegraph to “Full speed ahead.” The sea churned up under their stern, the ship gathered headway.

  The quartermaster looked inquiringly at the captain.

  “Course East by North,” called Carroll. “Full right rudd
er!”

  “Full right rudder, sir!” echoed the helmsman.

  A heavy cloud of black smoke poured from the Lapwing’s funnel. From the boiler rooms came the roar of the blowers as the forced-draught fans raced, and the firemen opened their burners wide. Quickly the main engine sped up; within five minutes the screw was making a hundred revolutions, its maximum, and the Lapwing was racing towards Guayaquil. El Morro Island dropped from sight astern.

  On the bridge, Lieutenant Carroll searched the horizon through his binoculars. There was nothing in sight.

  “Well, Bob,” he said, at last, “I’ll bet I can tell you now who stole your book that night.”

  “Yes, Captain, I guess you can. Pedro. And I suppose Carley’s just as bad. Now we’ve got at the gold, they’re off. What’s their game, do you think?”

  “It’s hard to say, but nothing that’ll help us, you can bet. Get the Peruvian government to seize the gold perhaps. It came from Callao originally, and El Morro belongs to Peru, but we’re lucky on that. The Santa Cruz is on the high seas, a hundred yards outside the three-mile limit. Still they might grab us first and argue about it afterwards. And I suppose those two wharf-rats’d get paid handsomely for the information.”

  The ship swept on. An hour went by, two hours, eight bells struck. They had been underway six hours. Nothing was sighted.

  Carroll became a little anxious.

  “They’d head for Guayaquil, that’s nearest, and the petrol they stole would just about take ’em that far.”

  “How fast can that surf-boat go?” asked Bob.

  “About eight knots. They couldn’t have had more than ten hours’ start on us. Queer nobody heard the engine when they shoved off. I guess they must have rowed the boat until they got half a mile away, then started up the motor.”

  Bob calculated for a moment, “We’re making fifteen knots. At that rate, it’ll take us twelve hours to cover the hundred and eighty miles to Guayaquil. At eight knots, it’ll take the surf-boat nearly twenty-three hours. If they haven’t more than a ten-hour start, we’ll catch them an hour’s run off the coast.”

  “We shall if I’m right about their course. And if I’m not, we’re in for trouble!”

  The propeller throbbed steadily, and the Lapwing surged across the waves.

  In the crow’s nest, a double look-out, changed every hour, scanned the far horizon, while the deck force manned the rail and searched the sea in every direction for signs of the missing boat.

  The boatswain’s mate swore profusely as the hours went by without bringing the surf-boat over the horizon.

  “Never cared much for that Pedro. An’ that Tom Carley was alluz takin’ too much interest in the wreck, blast his tarry hide!”

  The sun sank low in the west. Far ahead the mountains on the coast rose above the sea off the starboard bow as the ship headed in for the Gulf of Guayaquil. Still no boat.

  Carroll searched ahead anxiously.

  “Another hour and it’ll be too dark. And I was so particular about picking the crew. A lot of good an interpreter’s been to us so far. And now Pedro and Tom’ll probably cook our goose. If a Peruvian warship ropes us in, it’ll be a case that international sea lawyers’ll fight over until we’re all dead. We’ll probably win on about the tenth appeal forty years from now, but a lot of good that’ll do us. I’d rather fight the sea. I’ve had enough of law testifying in that S-51 case. The ship sank four years ago, and the case has only got to first base, so to speak. The last I heard of it, the first appeal was pending, and the Lord knows when that’ll be heard so that it can be appealed the second time.”

  “I hope we catch ’em, Captain,” replied Bob, “but it might be worse. Just think, you could resign from the Navy, marry a señorita in Calloa, and spend the rest of your life testifying before these courts. By the way, how’s your Spanish?”

  Carroll laughed. “Only fair. I don’t know that it’s good enough to make any señoritas fall for me. But I’ll be hanged if I want to try. If we don’t catch ’em, I’ve half a mind to take what we’ve got and beat it north.”

  For the hundredth time, they searched the waves ahead. The dark coast-line to the north and south obscured the horizon, but in between where the broad Gulf of Guayaquil ran inland, nothing was visible.

  “Boat ahoy!” shouted the lookout.

  Carroll raced up the mast. Far to the southward, in against the mountainous background off Tumbez, a white speck stood out in the gathering darkness.

  “Hard right!” ordered Carroll. He clung to the Jacob’s ladder as the bow of the Lapwing swung round, conned the ship until the distant object came dead ahead, then dropped back to the bridge and ran to the engine room voice tube. He punched the bell, pressed his ear against the tube and heard a voice: “Engine-room, chief talking.”

  “The boat’s in sight, chief. Crowd on everything you’ve got!” He closed the tube.

  The blowers sang at a higher pitch and smoke poured out thickly as more oil was sprayed into the roaring fires. The hull quivered as the engine with flying cranks and huge connecting rods pounding, squeezed out a few more revolutions on the screw.

  The sun set, the brief twilight disappeared, darkness fell. The electrician manned the searchlight and turned it on. A sharp blue beam cut through the night, a long finger of light searching along the crests of the waves, now on the starboard bow, now to port; first close in, then in widening circles far ahead.

  They raced along. The boat had vanished in the night while still five miles off, but fifteen minutes later the circling beam swept over it, then steadied as the electrician trained back.

  Brightly illuminated in a circle of light against the dark sea, the surf-boat stood out a mile away. Carley at the tiller jammed it down and changed course to shoot away in the darkness. The relentless finger of light followed the twisting boat as it swung first to starboard and then to port, seeking the cover of the night. Pedro was bent over the engine, Carley clung to the tiller as the little boat danced up and down in the bright glare on the water.

  The Lapwing swept up. Clark, Williams, and Martin, with Springfield rifles at their shoulders, leaned over the starboard rail and covered the men in the boat.

  Lieutenant Carroll stopped his racing engine. A cloud of steam whistled up the stack as the safety-valves on the boilers blew off violently.

  Carroll lifted a megaphone and above the din of escaping steam roared out: “Surf-boat there! Come alongside!”

  Tom Carley, half blinded by the glare of the searchlight, looked towards the Lapwing straight into the muzzles of two rifles. Behind them he could make out the faces of two expert Navy marksmen, one eye shut, the other eye squinting along the sights. Pedro, crouching behind the motor, stared down the barrel of a third rifle. There was no escape.

  “Ay, ay, sir!” answered Carley. Then in a lower voice to his companion, “The jig’s up, Pedro, but you lemme do the talkin’. Remember, we wuz just jumpin’ ship; we didn’t wanter go back to the States!”

  He put his tiller over, circled to starboard, and in another moment was heaving up and down against the Lapwing’s side. Two seamen leapt into the surf-boat; still covered by the rifles, Pedro and Carley crawled over the side; dirty, bloodshot from the spray which had swept them in the frail boat for twenty hours, and sullen at their failure, they faced Lieutenant Carroll on the bridge.

  “Got anything to say?” asked Carroll.

  Carley shifted his weight from one leg to the other, uneasily; Pedro muttered a string of oaths.

  “Put ’em in irons, Bill,” ordered the captain. The boatswain’s mate slipped a pair of manacles over Carley’s wrists, clicked them shut. He drew out a second set and turned towards the other prisoner.

  Pedro, at the sight of the heavy irons, became suddenly livid.

  “Diablo!” He ripped a knife from inside his jumper and leapt at Carroll. The blade flashed up, came down. Bob shot through the air, made a long flying tackle, and knocked Pedro to the deck. As they struck, Bob saw th
e shining blade rise over his own back and instinctively closed his eyes as Pedro’s arm swung downward. Bob, lurching sideways desperately to avoid the thrust, felt a marlinspike whiz by his cheek and crash against Pedro’s head. The struggling legs he gripped went suddenly limp, the knife clattered harmlessly to the deck as Bob rolled away.

  “Good shot, Bill!” cried Carroll as the boatswain’s mate slipped the irons on the unconscious Spaniard.

  Bob picked himself up slowly and stared at the captain, whose left sleeve was ripped open, while blood streamed from a deep gash in his shoulder where Pedro’s deflected blow had caught him. Carroll was holding the cut closed with his right hand.

  Several seamen rushed up on the bridge.

  “Take these deserters below,” ordered Clark. He seized Carley; the sailors lifted Pedro. They started down the ladder.

  Carroll called to Tom Williams, who stood on the deck below: “Secure the surf-boat aft on a long painter, Tom; we’ll tow it.” He turned to the quartermaster. “When the boat’s made fast, head due west for El Morro, standard speed.”

  He clutched his wound tightly and motioned to Bob with his head.

  “Let’s go below, Bob, I guess the excitement’s over!”

  The captain’s state-room soon resembled a sickbay. Bob, glad of his first-aid knowledge, spread iodine lavishly over the cut in the skipper’s shoulder, while Fitz stood by, holding bandages, scissors, and tape. Carefully Bob covered the wound with gauze, wiped away the blood, wrapped the long rolls of linen over and under the arm and back and forth round his patient’s body to hold the gauze in place. At last he was done; Carroll’s arm was firmly bandaged to his side.

  Fitz gazed proudly at the job.

  “You shuah makes a gran’ surgeon, Mistah Bob; de cap’n can’t wiggle his fingahs nohow.”

  “You’ll have to feed him with a spoon, I guess, Fitz,” replied Bob, as Fitz went out, taking the medicine kit with him. He looked anxiously at the captain, whose blood-soaked shirt and blouse lay on the deck nearby. “How d’ye feel, skipper?”