Thirty Fathoms Deep

by Ellsberg, Edward

  He pushed through the trap in the bottom of the crow’s nest, unslung his rifle, shoved it out over the top of the little metal windscreen. He glanced down with fierce satisfaction. From his lofty station he commanded a clear view of El Fuego’s forecastle only fifty yards off. He looked down on the heads and shoulders of the struggling gun crew. A shell slid home, the gun captain started to close the breech.

  The boatswain’s mate leaned against his rifle, carefully sighted downward. A crack, the gun captain below crumpled over the trail of his gun, the breech plug swung wide open. The swarthy pirates at the gun dragged him clear; one of them shook his fist aloft, sprang for the plug. Again Clark fired; the bullet ripped downward through the pirate’s chest, tore him wide open. Blood spurted over the deck as he dropped across the swinging plug, hung there a moment, then fell backward against the gun carriage and lay with sightless eyes staring skyward.

  A hail of bullets swept by the crow’s nest, ricocheted from the round sides of the little steel cylinder.

  “Lucky for me the Navy built this tub,” thought Clark. “If this was a regular canvas crow’s nest, I’d be a sieve!”

  He kept his head low, reloaded his rifle. The terrified gun’s crew started to seek cover. He drew a bead on one of the pirates, then caught a gleam below and held his fire. Beside the gun lay a box of three-inch cartridges, the brass powder cases flashing in the sunlight. Clark swung his muzzle over and opened fire on the ammunition box.

  There was a loud roar below, flames burst out, a column of smoke higher than the crow’s nest shot up, enveloping the enemy’s forecastle. When the smoke drifted clear, Clark heard a roar of triumph from the Lapwing’s crew. He peered down. The field gun had blown overboard, El Fuego’s forecastle deck was torn apart. Scattered over it lay the motionless forms of the gun crew, their clothes still smouldering.

  The boatswain’s mate watched the swarm of pirates excitedly scrambling for shelter on the stern of El Fuego. He patted his rifle affectionately.

  “Only three shots, old girl,” he muttered. “I’ll bet none o’ them sharpshooters ever done better!”

  The echoes of the explosion died away and silence reigned for a moment on both ships. With her stern only a hundred feet away, El Fuego drifted aimlessly, her bridge deserted, her crew out of sight behind her deckhouse or lying close against her bulwarks. Firing ceased on both sides.

  A bullet whizzed by Clark’s head, burying itself in the mast beside him. He ducked in surprise and looked at the hole. A second bullet skimmed across the crow’s nest, ricocheted from the steel inside, hit him behind the left shoulder and staggered him as if a sledge hammer had struck. Clark peered cautiously up over the windscreen. Those shots were coming from aloft!

  Carefully he watched the masts of the pirate vessel. A puff of smoke, another bullet whistled past his head. Behind the main-topmast, just above the cross-trees, he could see part of the wide trousers of a sailor flapping in the wind.

  Slowly Bill Clark shoved his rifle over the rim of the crow’s nest, swung it aft. He raised his head until his eyes just showed above his shelter, and waited. In a moment, he saw a rifle swing out from behind El Fuego’s mast, rise gradually. Part of a sailor’s shoulders came into view, then his head, as the rifle levelled off towards the crow’s nest, waiting for its target to show.

  The boatswain’s mate drew his knife, placed his white hat on the blade, and slowly raised it above the edge of the crow’s nest. There came the crackle of a rifle, his hat went flying off the knife-blade. Like a flash, Clark rose, clapping his rifle to his shoulder. His enemy, triumphant at his success, stood out clearly on the cross-trees. Tom Carley!

  Clark pressed the trigger.

  Carley staggered, clutched at the rigging, missed it. His rifle clattered down on deck as he lost his footing, toppled from the mast, and went spinning down a hundred feet into the sea, his arms wildly clawing the air as he fell. He struck with a tremendous splash and vanished in the waves.

  On the bridge, Carroll, who had taken shelter behind the mast, breathed a little more freely. The pirates would have to fight it out with small arms; as long as Bill Clark kept them off their bridge, they would not be able to manoeuvre alongside and board.

  But his relief was short-lived. The water started to foam up astern El Fuego; slowly her counter backed down on the Lapwing. The pirates were operating their rudder from aft, going astern with their engine, and preparing to board!

  Silently Carroll cursed the loss of his machine-gun. That villainous mob would never get across his rail if only Martin and the Browning were still in action!

  El Fuego drew closer to their fantail. Hastily Carroll withdrew his men farther forward behind the deckhouse, into the superstructure, up the port passageway. In a hand-to-hand fight his crew would be no match for the knives of that mob of cut-throats; he must keep at longer range where his firearms would count.

  For a second, as the towering stern of the pirate loomed over his low rail, there flashed through his mind a thought of Bob Porter still dangling in the ocean, decompressing. His plight would be serious if the fight raged up the starboard side and Bob’s tender had to flee. He drove the fear from his mind; if they lost, it would be the same death for all. The pirates would leave no witnesses.

  A grappling-hook shot from El Fuego’s rail, caught the Lapwing, stretched taut as it was heaved in by invisible hands above. A seaman leapt from behind the Lapwing’s rail, a knife flashed against the hemp. The line parted. He jumped back hurriedly. A volley of shots poured from the pirate ship. The sailor crumpled up, blood oozing from a dozen wounds.

  More hooks flew out, gripped their rail, the grappling lines hauled taut. The little strip of water between the two ships vanished.

  With a wild yell, an avalanche of pirates suddenly swept over El Fuego’s counter and poured down on the Lapwing’s fantail. Carroll, looking over one of the huge manila coils with which he had blocked off both passageways and behind which his deck force lay, gazed upward an instant at the brutal faces, the snarling teeth, the bloodthirsty eyes of the pack of human tigers leaping down. There would be no mercy.

  He raised his Colt.

  “Rapid fire!”

  From behind his manila bulwarks, from the portholes in the deckhouse, from the motorboat in the superstructure, the crackling of rifles and the barking of automatics cut through the fierce chorus of yells on his stern. A wave of yelling fiends rushed up the deck; many dropped under the hail of bullets which swept the fantail, but those behind leapt over their dying comrades, covered the few feet to the deckhouse, and in a trice were struggling to break across the heaps of rope, to scale the superstructure.

  Knives flashed, pistols roared. There was no room to aim rifles; instead the heavy butts swung wildly round as clubs as the fight raged hand to hand. The crash of broken heads, the sickening thuds as knives drove home, the wild cries of wounded pirates as they were flung from the superstructure, rang over the gently heaving sea.

  Meanwhile Bob Porter, now only fifty feet down, was puzzled over the lack of the stage. Why were they letting him hang on his lifeline, with nothing but the descending-line to cling to and no way of exercising to decompress?

  He had heard nothing from above; the tender, hanging to his line while the ships fought, saw no reason to alarm Bob by telling him what was going on. But now they were boarded. Abaft him he saw his shipmates crouching behind the hawsers firing madly. If the attackers cleared the breastworks and rushed up the deck, he would be quickly done for and so would Bob. Decompressed or not, he must bring his diver up before it was too late.

  He jerked ‘One’ on Bob’s line, lifted the telephone transmitter. He heard Bob turn off his air.

  “Mr Porter, we’re fightin’ on deck with a bunch o’ pirates! I gotta bring you up. Stand by!”

  Over his telephone, Bob caught faintly a part of the wild din above. He sensed the situation. So Pedro had turned pirate, hadn’t bothered with the Peruvians! He wondered how his shipmates were
faring.

  His lifeline strained, he lightened himself so the solitary tender could lift him. He went up the descending-line foot by foot, then noticed that his lifeline was leading at a sharper and sharper angle away from the descending-line, tending to tear it away from him. He looked out through the top of his helmet. He made out the familiar hull of the Lapwing overhead, his lifeline leading towards one side of it while the descending-line led upward to the other side. And there alongside the Lapwing, he saw the deep stern and the propeller of a strange vessel. He clung to the descending-line, scanning it closely. The descending-line led up between the two hulls.

  He gazed at the strange hull overhead. So Pedro and Carley had come back to rob them of their hard won treasure! He clenched his teeth. He’d show them!

  His lifeline tautened, and the descending-line started to swing under the Lapwing’s keel to starboard as his tender heaved in. Bob clung tightly to the line and shut off his air.

  “On deck. Vast heaving! Give me some slack!”

  The tender, astounded at the request, kept trying to heave in, but Bob jerked his line viciously three times to emphasise the message. The sailor quit hauling and slacked out slowly.

  The descending-line swung back until it hung vertically between the two ships. Laboriously Bob, who did not dare to get too light, dragged himself up the descending-line until he clung just under the bilge of the strange ship, while the Lapwing’s hull glimmered darkly through the water a few feet farther up. Occasionally a flash of sunlight brightened the sea as the ships rolled apart, then faded out as they touched again.

  Bob dragged himself up another fathom, touched the side of the pirate vessel. Steel. Fine! Tough luck if it had been wood, he thought.

  He wound his legs tightly round the descending-line, twisted a turn round his foot to help him to hang on. He dragged up the torch which had been dangling by a lanyard from his wrists. Hastily he turned on the gases, adjusted his valves. He swung up the igniter, flashed a spark across the torch. The flame leapt out, brilliantly orange.

  Balancing himself on the swaying descending-line, Bob shoved the flame through the water and pressed it against the pirate’s shell. A few flakes of paint dropped off, the metal underneath glowed red, then flashed to white in a crater under the jet of oxygen. A small hole punched through the plate; rapidly Bob drew his torch downward and swept it round in a flaming circle two feet across. As he approached his starting-point, the steel disk inside his cut started to bend inward as the water pressed against it; with an inch to go, the disk suddenly shot inward and a heavy stream of water poured through the hole into the ship. Bob dropped quickly several feet as he fought to keep from being swept into the ship by the rush of water; the sudden current sucked him upward. In desperation, he let go of the torch, released his grip on the descending-line, and fell wildly away as his lifeline swung through the water under the Lapwing and finally brought him to with a jerk hanging up and down on the opposite side of his own ship.

  On deck the battle raged. The manila bulwarks were soaked in blood; a heap of pirate dead had built them several feet higher. Blood-stained, burned with powder, worn, and wounded, the Lapwing’s crew fought desperately to keep their enemy from sweeping over the last defences. One by one they dropped. Carroll counted his men quickly. Only fifteen left on their feet. It was just a question of time until the wave of desperadoes swept over the few remaining defenders. Had it not been that the deck passages were so narrow that but few attackers at a time could press forward, nothing would have saved them from quick annihilation. Every man on the Lapwing had long since been pressed into the fray; below, the fires in the boilers were out while the black gang struggled side by side with the deck force to beat back the murderous attacks. Even Joe Hawkins, his bandaged leg stretched uselessly behind him, lay abaft a coil of line halfway down the passage where he had finally managed to drag himself, and coolly took pot shots with a rifle whenever a pirate’s head showed above the breastworks.

  An unearthly yell came from the pirate ship. Carroll, startled, took his eyes from the fight for a fraction of a second and glanced towards her.

  El Fuego’s stern took a sudden lurch and dropped heavily beneath the sea. The amazed combatants stopped fighting for a moment, watched petrified, while the bow of the stricken ship rose high in air, then as men poured up from below and leapt frantically into the sea, slid smoothly through the surface and disappeared stern first in a cloud of foam and steam!

  With a cry of rage, a pirate hurtled over the manila bulwark, knocking the astonished captain off his feet. He struggled to rise as he felt a tangle of pounding feet scrambling over him, a body pressing him down. Carroll looked up. A half-naked figure leaned over him, a bloody knife was poised above his heart. Carroll looked up into a swarthy face, teeth drawn back in a snarl, a light of unholy triumph gleaming in the eyes. Pedro!

  The knife flashed down; Carroll’s pistol barked from his hip at the same instant. The bullet struck first. Carroll saw Pedro’s face spatter out, his features vanish in a welter of blood. The fighting mob above him kicked the quivering corpse into the scuppers.

  Lieutenant Carroll crawled out of the wilderness of twisting feet, painfully hauling himself up on his one good arm. Three pirates who had leapt across the barrier with Pedro lay silently behind it. His little force still held their position. The fight lulled. The panic-stricken pirates, their leaders gone, their ship sunk, retreated from the deckhouse, sought shelter on the fantail. Some thirty of them still lay there, crouching behind the bodies of their slain companions, sheltered by the capstan, by a few hawsers which they had hastily flung into a heap for protection.

  Over the side, some broken hatches and bits of wreckage floated nearby, supporting the few of El Fuego’s crew who had not been sucked down with her.

  Firing ceased. Lieutenant Carroll and his men hastily reloaded their smoking guns and prepared for the next rush.

  It never came. Instead, one by one, the beaten pirates on the stern raised their hands high over their heads, dropped their weapons, and surrendered. The battle was over.

  Bill Clark, gory from a shot through his left leg, crawled over the heaps of dead in front of him, staggered to the fantail, and tossed their abandoned arms overboard — knives, pistols, rifles splashed in armfuls into the sea. From the superstructure, half a dozen rifles were trained on the bleeding pirates as Clark searched them to make sure no weapons remained.

  Lines were heaved over the side, the few pirates in the water were dragged on board and herded aft with their companions. Only thirty-one were left of El Fuego’s crew of a hundred men!

  Under the boatswain’s mate’s sharp directions, the surf-boat trailing astern was hauled up by one of the dripping pirates; one by one they dropped into the boat until it floated gunwales nearly awash under the load of prisoners. Clark paid out on the painter until the boat dropped back some twenty fathoms, then made it fast. He posted two sentries with rifles to see that the men in it tried nothing desperate.

  Carroll walked stiffly across the deck to the starboard side, and looked over the rail. Bob’s tender clung to his lifeline, holding him at thirty feet.

  The captain took the diving-telephone: “Hello, Bob!”

  Below Bob turned off his air, replied: “Hello, on deck!”

  “Say, Bob, did you see that ship sink?”

  “Did I!” shouted Bob, “I sank her!”

  Carroll’s eye fell on the torch hoses. A sudden light flooded his brain. So Bob’s quick wit had saved everything!

  He let Bob rest a moment to catch his breath, then called him again: “Bob, the fight’s over. You were down only twenty minutes before. Mind going down again to see how things are on the bottom?”

  “Surest thing you know!” answered Bob. “Lower away any time!”

  Two tenders dragged Bob round the stern, dipped his lines under the painter to the surf-boat, hauled him forward to the descending-line. Down he went.

  It seemed as if the whole sea was a m
ass of milky water as he descended. Fine streams of bubbles were rising everywhere from below, escaping from El Fuego.

  An unfamiliar scene met him near the bottom. The descending-line sloped down past the rounded hull of the pirate ship, which lay bottom up, the bow still a little buoyant and off the sand perhaps thirty feet. Bob slid down near her stern, saw the bronze propeller gleaming brightly out against the dull red hull, then found his descending-line rubbing against the shell of the sunken ship. A few more fathoms, and he landed on the bottom. The descending-line, pressed into the mud, disappeared under the capsized stern.

  Slowly Bob circled the rounded stern, looking for the Santa Cruz. She was gone!

  The hulk of El Fuego, hurtling downward through the sea, had landed on the poop of the treasure ship, crushed in the ancient wooden hull, and driven the wreckage into the bed of the ocean! Their treasure hunt was over!

  Slowly Bob dragged his leaden feet over the ocean floor, looked his last at the grave of the Santa Cruz. What Drake and the Golden Hind had left unfinished, the silent hulk of El Fuego had completed. The Santa Cruz at last had vanished from the sight of men!

  Chapter 23

  Far to the southward, the pinnacle of El Morro Island was just disappearing astern in the twilight. On the Lapwing, a few sailors strove to straighten up the decks and wash away the stains which splashed the whole aft part of the vessel.

  Lieutenant Carroll, head bandaged, arm bandaged, stiff and worn, leaned against the mast and looked forward through his missing bridge-curtains down to his shattered forecastle. The helmsman, one arm in a sling, steered north towards Panama as best he could.

  Bob Porter climbed the ladder to the bridge and saluted the haggard skipper.

  “I think they’ll all pull through, Captain. Every one of ’em’s conscious except poor Martin; he’s got a couple of holes in him but none through the body and his head is only scratched. Fitz is working over him yet.”