by Morris West
“Ready, Johnny.”
He grinned and nodded. I slipped the mask over my eyes and nostrils, moulded it once more to my skin, clamped the mouthpiece between my teeth, tested the airflow, and lowered myself over the stem into the pool. The weighted belt took me down instantly. I sank to a depth of four or five feet and hung suspended in a liquid world.
My first sensation was one of utter panic.
I was surrounded by monsters. Magnified by the mask and the water, the waving grasses were primeval forests. The anemones were gaping mouths. The corals were trees in an antediluvian forest. The shoals of fish were armies from another planet. The hermit crab was a huge and horrible deformity. I gasped and gagged and spat out the mask and kicked myself to the surface to find Johnny Akimoto leaning over the gunwale laughing at me.
He gave me his hand and pulled me up until I got a grip on the timber, and I hung there, gasping and spluttering.
“What happened, Renboss?” said Johnny Akimoto, his white teeth flashing in a broad grin.
“I got scared. That’s what happened. Everything’s different when you get down there.”
Johnny nodded. “It is always like that, Renboss, the first time. Now look again.”
I looked down into the pool. There were no monsters. It was the same narrow world of rare Lilliputian beauty that I had seen the first time.
“Go down again, Renboss,” said Johnny. “Take it easy this time. Breathe slow and even. Swim a little. Dive to the bottom. Take a good look at the things that frightened you the first time.”
I nodded agreement, slipped the mask back over my face, clamped on the mouthpiece and let myself slide back into the pool.
For a long minute I hung suspended below the surface, forcing myself to concentrate on the simple involuntary act of breathing. After a while the rhythm returned to me. The air flowed freely from the cylinders. The bubbles from the regulator rose to the surface in a steady stream, with a soft palpitating hiss that matched the rhythm of my breathing.
My courage returned to me. I kicked gently with the flippers and found myself floating easily towards the coral wall.
Then I stopped short. A new terror confronted me. Naked hands, big as the branches of a tree, reached out to grasp me. From a shadowy recess between waving seagrasses a great mouth gaped to devour me and a pair of eyes big as oysters surveyed me with calm malevolence. For a moment I was petrified. I wanted to do as I had done before, spit out the gag and kick myself to the surface. Then reason returned and self-control with it. The hands were staghorn corals. The eyes and mouth belonged to a small coral trout, which turned and flickered away with a flash of princely scarlet when I reached out my hand to touch it.
I kicked more strongly now. I found myself moving with a fabulous ease. The corals and the grasses slid past me with surprising speed. The labour of breathing at increased pressure was no longer apparent. I was seized with the illusion that I was a bird suspended between earth and heaven, that my arms were spreading wings and that the element surrounding me was air instead of water. I emptied my lungs and saw the air-bubbles stream upwards as I dived downwards in steep trajectory. There was a sudden pressure in my ears, a sharp pain in the sinus cavities. I swallowed as one does in a landing aircraft. The tubes cleared themselves and the pressure and the pain were gone. My hands clutched the sandy bottom.
With a series of movements that made me think, irrelevantly, of an acrobat on the high trapeze, I stood upright. There was no weight in my body, no hint of labour in the liquid motions of my limbs. When I walked it was as if I floated. When I floated it was as if I walked. Happiness took hold of me. A great goodwill pervaded me. I walked to the coral walls and swam along feeling the sea-grass brush my face, reaching out to touch the branches, gingerly at first, then with more confidence, as if they were trees on my own land. I touched the anemones with my finger and saw the bright tentacles withdraw in fright. I hung motionless while the striped fish swam round my body and flashed away in terror at the slightest movement.
I don’t know how long I stayed there, tasting the pleasures of my new citizenship in a new world. Then suddenly I was cold. I looked down at my body. It was covered with goose-pimples. The skin of my fingers was white and crapy. It was time to go. With a flurry of hands and flippers I shot to the surface and hauled myself into the dinghy. Johnny told me I had been underwater for twenty-five minutes.
I shed my gear and sat quietly for a while, feeling the warmth flow out again from the core of my body to meet the warmth of the sun on my naked skin. Johnny questioned me intently.
“You did not find it hard this time, Renboss?”
“Not hard at all, Johnny. Once the first fear left me it was easy—child’s play.”
“The first part is always easy,” said Johnny soberly. “The pool is shallow and enclosed. There is no work to do. There is no danger to think of, so you enjoy yourself. But this”—he reached forward and ran his finger along the seams of my shrunken hands—“this is the first danger—cold. You think you are not working, because you move easily. But your body is working all the time. It burns itself up to keep you warm. And when you go into deep water it is colder still . . . suddenly cold, as if you had crossed a fence from summer into winter. That is why a man cannot stay down too long in deep water. For a naked diver like me it is not so bad. I stay down only for a short while, so long as my lungs can hold the last mouthfuls of air, but you breathe down there and the cold creeps on you, makes you tired without your knowing it.”
I nodded, remembering that Nino Ferrari had told me the same thing in other words, remembering his advice to wear a woollen jerkin for underwater work.
“We should go in now,” said Johnny. “For the first time, you have done enough. This afternoon we will try again. When you are not diving you should eat well and exercise yourself. When we come to work you will find that your strength spends itself quickly.”
We unhitched the dinghy from the niggerhead and pushed off. The tide was running out fast now and in an hour the lagoon would be a naked stretch of sand and the reefs would be exposed, dead and ugly in the sun, save where the pools remained guardians of the multitude of lives which spawn in its coral reaches.
As Johnny sculled steadily back to the shore my eyes were fixed on the beach where Pat Mitchell lay under the canvas awning. I asked myself what I was going to say to her. I wondered what words would bridge the gap that I myself had cut between us. My decision was unchanged. I wanted her gone. But we would be together for days yet; and a tropic island may be a paradise, but it may also be a hell, if the people on it cannot live in harmony.
Johnny Akimoto sent the dinghy forward with one long powerful stroke; then he shipped his oars and spoke to me. “Miss Pat is sorry for what she said, Renboss. She wants to tell you but she does not know how.”
“Neither do I, Johnny, that’s the trouble.”
Johnny smiled gently. “She is a good one, that; what she promises she will do. When the time comes she will go and she will leave you in peace. She has told you that, and she has told me, too.”
I grinned at him then. I couldn’t argue with Johnny.
“All right, Johnny. I’ll talk to her. You get something to eat and leave me alone with her. I’ll find something to say, though God knows what.”
He dipped his oars again without saying another word. And when we came to the beach there was peace between us.
Chapter 9
THE noon sun was blazing on the canvas canopy; so we carried Pat Mitchell up to the big tent in the shade of the trees. Leaving Johnny to settle her, I walked outside to change into dry clothes—and to prepare my opening gambit.
When I came back she was alone, propped up on the stretcher with a small vanity-case in her hand. I looked at her and saw that she was beautiful. Her cheeks were no longer yellow with sickness but tinged with brown from the sun, and lit from within with the growing fire of health Her hair was no longer lank and matted but brushed soft and shining, drawn away from
the face so that you could see the fine bones of the cheek and the small proud lift of the firm chin. Her eyes were dark but veiled in shyness. Her hands were capable and controlled on the coverlet.
She was all woman, this one, small, rounded and perfect like those statuettes of golden girls out of antique times. The stretcher creaked as I sat down on the foot of it. I took out a cigarette and offered her one, but she refused with a gesture. I lit up, smoked for a few moments to steady myself, then started to speak.
“Miss Mitchell . . . Pat. . .”
“No, Mr Lundigan, let me say it.”
She bent forward and spoke earnestly, carefully, as if she were afraid to forget the lines she had rehearsed, as if the lines once spoken should fail to convey their meaning.
“What I said to you this morning was unpardonable. It was unnecessary and cruel, and I don’t know why I said it. Or rather I do. It was because . . . because you had seen me with my clothes off, and you hadn’t any right and . . . well . . . that’s it and I’m sorry and I’ll go away when ever you want me to and nobody will ever know that I have been here . . . nobody.”
Then she lay back on the pillows as if exhausted. She looked at me as if afraid of what I might say or do. I tried to smile but it wasn’t a very successful effort. The smile is a sign of confidence. I was far from confident. I said, “I’m sorry, too. This is the first time I have been back to this island since. . . since my wife and I were here together. I can’t explain how I felt about it. It was like—like a homecoming. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else. . . .”
“Intruding?”
“Yes—I must say it—intruding. But it wasn’t your fault —it was mine. You couldn’t know, even, that the island was mine. You were ill. You. . . . Oh, to hell with it! I was a bloody boor. I’m sorry. Now can we talk about something else?”
She was smiling now, the breach was healed. She asked me for a cigarette. I gave it to her, lit it and our talk led us away from the old dangerous grounds.
I told her how I had heard about her on the mainland. I told her of the young chemist who had lost his heart to her. I told her how she had impressed the islanders—a solitary girl putt-putting between the islands in a tiny work-boat. She laughed at that.
“Impressed? They thought I was crazy.”
“I think you are, too. That’s no sort of a boat for deep waters.”
She shrugged. “It’s all right if you’re careful and wait for the weather. I’ve been lucky most of the time.”
“Most of the time?”
She nodded. “I had my worst moment when I came here. The wind was high and the sea was freshening. I wasn’t particularly worried. I was so dose inshore. Then I couldn’t find a channel.”
“What did you do?”
“Rode up and down the reef until I found it.”
“Dangerous.”
“Yes, very. There was nothing else to do. Even when I got into the tide-rip it was like trying to ride a bucking horse, but we got through all right.”
I looked at the small firm hands on the sheet. Her mouth was firm, too—firm and smiling. A girl with heart and courage. I found myself beginning to warm to her. I thought that could be dangerous, too. I asked her some more questions.
“You’re a naturalist. That’s an odd job for a woman, isn’t it?”
Her chin went up at that.
“I don’t see why. I like it. I’m good at it. It pays fairly well, and leaves me free to do the things I like.”
“Such as—this?”
“That’s right.”
“What are you working at now?”
“A doctor’s thesis. The ecology of Haliotis asinina—mutton-fish to you, Renn Lundigan.”
She had popped me back in my box and closed the lid with a bang. I couldn’t help but be amused. Then it was my turn to be questioned.
“What about you, Renn? What are you doing now?”
“Johnny told you. Learning to dive.”
“For pleasure?”
“For pleasure. Anything against it?”
“No. It makes a fascinating holiday, but what are you going to do afterwards, Renn? For a living, I mean. You can’t beachcomb here all your life.”
I needed notice of that question. This was no playtime girl to be put off with fatuous back-chat. I shrugged and made my little rueful mouth, and said, “Well, I can’t teach any more. No university would have me. But I’m not a bad historian and there is enough material around this reef to make a book or two. You know”—I waved my hands in a vague all-embracing gesture—“you know, the early navigators, the blackbirders, the pearling days . . . none of it’s ever been properly documented.”
Her eyes brightened, she leant forward with eager professional interest.
“That’s good, Renn, That’s very good indeed. This is the Barbary Coast of Australia, you know. There’s all sorts of material here—piracy, violence, romance . . . everything. If I could write, that’s what I’d like to do. Look, I’ll show you something.”
She snapped open her vanity-case, tilted the lid back, lifted out a small tray and took out a small round object which she laid in the palm of my hand. For a long moment I stared at it, not daring to raise my eyes.
It was an exact replica of the old Spanish coin which Jeannette and I had found on the reef. I felt the blood drain from my face. My lips were dry. My tongue was too big for my mouth. I closed my eyes and saw my dreams blown down like a house of cards. I opened them again. The coin stared up at me from my palm, a golden eye, unblinking. I looked at Pat Mitchell. I asked her softly, “Where did you get this?”
Her explanation was eager and guileless. “Here, Renn. On the reef. It was the second day. I was poking round in a rock-pool when I saw what looked like a piece of dead coral, fiat and round. I don’t know why I picked it up, except perhaps that its shape was a little unusual. When I did, I saw that there was metal underneath—tarnished, of course, and overgrown. I brought it back to the tent, cleaned it up and . . . that’s the result.”
“I see.”
“But you don’t seem to understand, Renn.” She was puzzled by my sudden change of manner. “You don’t seem to realize what that coin means. It confirms the theories that the old Spanish navigators came down this way and that some of them were wrecked on the reef islands. You’re a historian, Renn, surely you see the significance of it?”
I saw it all right. I couldn’t fail to see it. I saw that this girl would go back to the mainland and tell her little story and flourish her antique coin until some bright press-man saw it and made a filler paragraph out of it, and then the jig would be up. Every damned holiday-maker on the coast would descend on my island in search of buried treasure, unless. . . .
I must have spoked the word aloud, because Pat Mitchell laid her hand on mine and quizzed me with anxious puzzlement.
“Unless what, Renn?”
I was caught between the devil and the deep. To fob her off with a story would bring the world to my doorstep. To tell her the truth would make her an unwanted partner in my enterprise—an arbiter of my fortunes and my destiny.
Involuntarily I closed my fingers on the coin. I felt the edges of it biting into my palm. Then I thought of Johnny Akimoto and what he had said to me. “She is a good one, that; what she promises she will do.” If I trusted Johnny, I should trust Pat Mitchell also. My fingers relaxed. I looked at her again. Her eyes were full of grave concern. She said quietly, “Have I said something wrong, Renn?”
I shook my head. “No, nothing wrong. I want to show you something.
I walked over to my bed, pulled my bag from underneath it and took out the bracelet I had bought from the girl in Lennon’s Hotel. Then I laid it in Pat Mitchell’s hand.
“There’s the mate to your gold piece.”
Her eyes widened. She held the two pieces together, examining them closely. When she spoke again her voice was a small breath of wonder.
“Is this yours, Renn?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get it?”
“My wife and I found it on the reef, years ago. Probably in the same place that you found yours.” “What—what does it mean?”
The words came out slowly and deliberately, like coins dropping into a pool.
“It means, my dear, that the treasure-ship Dona Lucia, bound from Acapulco to the Philippines, was wrecked on this island in 1732. And Johnny Akimoto and I have come here to find it.”
There was a long, long silence. The two coins lay unnoticed on the white sheet between us. Neither of us looked at them. We were looking at each other. Then Pat Mitchell spoke, quite calmly.
“Thank you for telling me, Renn. You did me a great honour. You have nothing to fear from me. When I am better I shall go away as I promised. I’ll leave my coin with you. Nobody else will ever know.”
I said nothing. On the face of it, what was there to be said? I felt tired and spent. My eyes ached. I buried my face in my hands and pressed the palms hard against the lids . . . in the old familiar gesture of the harassed student working by night-light. Pat Mitchell reached out, took my hands away and tilted my face up towards her.
“Does it mean so much to you, Renn?”
“Everything, I think.”
“The ship went down two hundred years ago, Renn. You may never find her.”
“I know that.”
“What then?”
“I don’t care to think about it.”
“One day,” she said softly, “one day you may have to think about it. I hope for your sake you will not be too unhappy.”
She lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes. She looked very small and very tired and very, very desirable.
I brushed her cheek with my fingertips and left her.