by Morris West
“Everybody needs money. Renn. Most people would like to have more of it than they have. But not everybody makes a lifetime hobby of it.”
I couldn’t quarrel with that. I couldn’t but admire the shrewd probing of my small dark lady.
“Would it matter to you whether I were interested in money or not?”
“Yes, Renn. it would.” She was earnest now, almost pleading. “I know what you want to do. I know what you think: if you can raise the treasure it will buy you freedom from a life you hate. It may—I doubt it.”
“What then?”
“I think it will put gyves on your hands and chains round your heart.”
Her voice was so bitter, there was so much pain in her eyes, that I was shocked. I drew her down on the bank beside me. I tried to jolly her.
“Here now, sweetheart. What is this? A sermon on the seven deadly sins?”
She blazed at me, “Yes! If you look at it that way. Look at it my way, and it isn’t a sermon at all. It’s—it’s something I hate and fear.”
“What? Money? The thing we work fifty weeks of the year for?”
“No, Renn. Not money. But the greed for it. The horrible, twisted yearning. The fear and hate I saw in your eyes this morning when you looked up at that place and thought of Manny Mannix.”
The blade was out of the velvet now. I felt it prick painfully against my heart. I didn’t relish the feeling. I said. curtly, “Greed? Hate’ Fear? What the hell do you know about these things?”
“A great deal, Renn,” she said simply. “I lived with them for twenty years. My father’s a very rich man, and he’s never had a happy moment in his life.”
There was nothing to say to that. My irritation died. I said gently, “Is that all?”
She faced me, eyes bright, chin tilted proudly.
“No, Renn, not all. For the first time in my life I’ve met a man I can respect and admire—even love, if he would let me. I want him to fight, to stretch out his strength for a prize. But if he loses it I’d like to see him smile, so that I could still be proud of him. It’s out now, Renn. Shall we go?”
“Damned if we’ll go!”
I caught her in my arms and crushed her to me. I kissed her and her lips were willing. She clung to me and her body leapt and her brown arms were strong.
The sea was suddenly dumb. The stars were blotted out. And if the moon tumbled over the rim of chaos, we did not see it.
Next morning Johnny took us across to Bowen in the Wahine. A light wind was blowing offshore and Johnny nursed the Wahine into it with skill and a naive pride in himself and his boat. It was picnic sailing on an easy sea under a clear sky. But when we came to Bowen the town was sweltering in the midday heat and the dust rose in little puffs about our feet as we walked from the jetty into the main street.
Johnny strode over to the garage, swinging a pair of oil-cans, to buy diesel fuel. Pat had purchases of her own to make and she left me to walk over to the post-office and telephone Nino Ferrari in Sydney.
The trunk service was better this morning and twenty minutes after I had lodged my call I was talking, cautiously, to Nino Ferrari.
“Nino, this is Renn Lundigan.”
“Trouble, Renn? So early?”
Nino’s voice sputtered over the cables, but I caught the tension in it.
“No, Nino. No trouble yet. That comes later, possibly. I don’t want to say too much. You ask the questions, I’ll answer them. We’ve found her, Nino.”
“Found her? The ship?”
Nino’s voice was a high, distorted squeak.
“That’s right.”
“How deep?”
“Ten fathoms.”
“How much of her?”
“About half. The stem half.”
“Sand or coral?”
“Sand.”
“Much?”
“Lots of it, Nino. Lots and lots of it.” I could almost hear the cogs whirring in Nino’s methodical brain.
“I get it, my friend. I get it. You want me to come up?”
“Yes, as soon as you can. Bring whatever gear you want with you. I’ll pay the air-freight.”
“There’s a little gear—not much. If we cannot do it with that, then we cannot handle it without a big operation. Understand?”
“I understand. Could you get up here this evening?”
Nino hesitated a moment. Then he chuckled and said crisply, “Where is ‘here’?”
“Bowen, there’s an evening plane out of Sydney. Can you make it?”
Nino chuckled again.
“You work fast, my friend.”
“I have to, Nino. We may have . . . er . . . interruptions.”
“Then I had better come prepared, eh?”
“It might be a good idea at that. We’ll pick you up with your gear at the airport. We’ll go straight down to the ship. That’s all, Nino. If you miss the plane send me a telegram at the airport.”
“I’ll do that,” said Nino, “Arrivederci”
“Good bye, Nino. Make it snappy.”
I hung up. As I walked out of the booth I jostled a man in a white tropic suit who was leaning against the wall of the next box. When I turned to apologize he took the cigar out of his mouth and grinned at me.
“Nice work, Commander,” said Manny Mannix.
Chapter 12
MANNY stuck the cigar back in his mouth and blew a cloud of smoke full in my face. Then he took it out again. His lips were smiling, but his cold eyes measured me with the familiar veiled huckster’s stare. He was still lounging back against the door of the empty phone-booth. He was relaxed and watchful as a cat.
“So you found her, eh, Commander?” he said softly.
“I tell you, Manny. . . .”
He waved his cigar. “Save it, Commander. Save it. This is business. You’ve found her. I saw you yesterday working outside the reef. You were just telephoning to a friend to bring some gear up from Sydney. Check?”
“Check, Manny,” I said quietly. “Check something else, too. If you try to move in on this deal I’ll kill you.”
“Nuts!” said Manny Mannix. “Why don’t you get wise to yourself, Commander. We could make a split.”
“No, Manny.”
Manny shrugged indifferently and blew out another cloud of smoke.
“O.K.! I buy you out. Two thousand. Cash on the barrelhead. Plus your expenses to date. Take it or leave it. If you don’t, I move in and move you out. Well, Commander?”
Out of the comer of my eye I saw Johnny Akimoto mount the steps in front of the post-office. I heard him put down the oil-cans with a clatter. I beckoned him and he came and stood beside me.
“Look at this man, Johnny,” I said gently. “Look at him and remember his face. You may possibly meet him again. His name is Manny Mannix.”
There was a deadly hate in Johnny’s dark eyes as he towered over Manny Mannix and looked down at him as if he were some noxious animal. When he spoke his voice was like silk.
“Stay out of this, Mr Mannix. Stay out of this.”
Manny shifted his feet a little and tossed his cigar on to the sidewalk.
“Back to the kitchen, black boy,” he said easily, and put one hand on Johnny’s chest to thrust him away.
Johnny caught his wrist with one hand in a grip that made Manny’s eyes pop and his mouth drop open, and great beads of sweat start out on his sallow cheeks. “I have never yet killed a man,” said Johnny precisely, “but I think it very possible that I shall have to kill you, Mr Mannix.”
His hold relaxed and Manny’s hand dropped at his side, nerveless. Then we left, him Johnny picked up his oil-cans and we walked down the street to meet Pat Mitchell. Our thoughts were written on our faces and she questioned us with instant concern.
“Renn! Johnny! What’s happened?”
We told her.
“But what can he do?”
“He can do a lot of things, sweetheart. We have no water rights. We have no salvage rights, either, because we haven’t registered a c
laim. He can do just what he threatens —move in and move us out.”
“By force?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not doing anything wrong. Can’t you claim police protection?”
“From what? Manny hasn’t done anything wrong either —yet. We’d only make fools of ourselves. More than that, we could find ourselves in a legal tangle that might take years to unravel. . . . The laws of salvage and treasure-trove have kept the lawyers in pin-money for centuries. You see?”
“Yes, Renn, I see.”
There was a sadness in her voice that made me remember our talk of the evening before. I turned to Johnny. “Any thoughts, Johnny?”
“No thoughts, Renboss. Only this. Your friend arrives tonight with his equipment. We meet him. We take him back to the island and start work.”
“And after that?”
“We wait and see, Renboss . . . we wait and see.”
Fear and depression lay over us as the heat lay over the sleepy tropic town. We walked slowly back to the jetty, unmoored the dinghy and rowed out to the Wahine, riding sleepily at anchor.
Johnny spread an awning over the forward hatch-cover and we lay under it, sipping iced beer, eating sandwiches, talking, smoking, dozing, as the afternoon wore itself out into the slackness of evening. Always the subject of our thoughts was the same—Manny Mannix.
“I don’t understand how he found us so easily,” said Pat.
“Very simple, Miss Pat,” said Johnny. “He knows in Sydney that Renboss has won enough money to begin his search. He knows there is an island. So far he does not know where it is. But the airlines tell him when a passenger named Lundigan leaves for Brisbane. The Lands Department in Brisbane collects a fee of two shillings and sixpence and tells him Renn Lundigan, Esq., has bought the lease of an island latitude this and longitude that. The rest is a matter of common sense. He knows Renboss must have a boat. He knows the boat can put in at one of the ports convenient to the island. He comes to Bowen because there . is an airfield and he can charter a plane and begin his inquiries. It is just unfortunate that he should have come to the post-office at the same time as Renboss was making his telephone-call.”
“Put it that way, it’s easy, isn’t it?”
“Too easy,” I growled. “Too damned easy for a smart operator like Manny.”
“I am trying to think, Renboss, what he will do next.”
“So am I, Johnny. There are a dozen things he could do. But what he will do is something else again. Manny knows too many people—can buy too many people. He doesn’t have to bid till he’s stacked the deck just the way he wants it.”
“So we just wait,” sighed Pat.
“We wait,” said Johnny.
“Damned if we wait!” I snapped. “Johnny, can you make the channel at night?”
Johnny gave me a sharp look, thought a moment and then nodded.
“Yes, Renboss, I can make it. The moon is later tonight.”
“Good. Then, we pick up Nino Ferrari at the airport, come back on board and raise anchor straight away. We start work first thing in the morning. Even Manny Mannix can’t work that fast.”
The plane landed at twenty past ten. Nino Ferrari stepped off it—a small, compact eager man in a light suit and an open-necked shirt. We collected his luggage—a small suitcase and three wooden crates. We lashed the crates on the carrier of an ancient taxi which rushed us down to the jetty at breakneck speed over the broken and rutted roads.
By midnight we were in open water, with Johnny at the helm and the rest of us dangling our legs in the cockpit beside him, while we discussed the situation.
Pat’s dark eyes flashed approval of Nino’s crisp, professional exposition.
“First, you must understand, there will be no miracles. You have a whole ship full of sand. Even a salvage vessel with heavy pumping equipment could not shift so much.”
“We understand that, Nino.”
“Good. Our best hope is that the treasure-chests are in the exposed stern of the ship, near enough to the surface of the sand for us to dig them out with our hands.”
This was disappointing. I said as much.
Nino answered trenchantly.
“You thought I would come up here with a little box of tricks that would blow away a hundred tons of sand when I pressed a button. No. That is a schoolboy dream. This is what I have brought. Extra air-bottles, because we must work long hours, two at a time, below water. Electric torches with battery replacements. And limpet mines and fuses.”
“Limpet mines?” Pat was wide-eyed.
“Those I will explain in a moment. First, you will tell me, Renn, is there a current down there by the ship?”
“Yes, there is. It sets along the direction of the reef and crosswise to the way the ship is lying.’’
“Strong?”
“Moderate.”
“Ebene. . . . Now I will tell you. Your friend, Johnny here, will understand better than you what I try to explain.”
Johnny turned his head and acknowledged the compliment with a wide smile. They would work well together these two. Nino Ferrari went on. . . .
“You will remember that when you first saw this ship you saw that the sand was piled about its sides. You did not go into the hold because the water was too dark. But when you do go into it, with the lamps, you will see that the sand is piled up there also—but it is continually in motion. You understand that?”
I nodded.
“Now, this is how we work. We explore first the area that is out of the sand. If we find nothing, we go down into the hold. We dig there—ail over it. . . .
“With our hands?”
“With our hands. We are underwater, you see. We raise too much sand, it floats about us and obscures our view. Best then to work quietly.”
“And if we don’t find anything in the hold, Nino, what then?”
“Then,” said Nino, “we use the mines. They are small, because we are dealing with an old wooden ship and we don’t want to blow her to pieces. We fix the mines, one on either side of the hull, and detonate them with a timefuse. They will blow holes in the side of the hull and the current will remove at least part of the sand inside. You see?”
It was not hard to see. Nino’s trenchant phrases spoke of confidence and experience. Our courage, sadly shrunken after our meeting with Manny Mannix, grew again to man size, but Nino wasn’t finished yet.
“This I want you to understand clearly. This is the last stage of the operation. If, after the mines, we go down and find nothing, we ourselves can do no more. If you want to go farther you must think, of a salvage expedition with heavy equipment. I tell you this because you must not have false hopes. They are costly and dangerous.”
I told him that we understood. I told him that so far as diving operations were concerned we would work to his orders. Then I told him about Manny Mannix.
Nino’s eyes dark eyes snapped fire and he snorted contemptuously. “This I have seen often before. There is a smell of gold and all the vultures come flapping as if to a dead body. Sometimes there are dead bodies. So, I brought this.”
He fished in his pocket and brought out a small blue Biretta that gleamed dully in the starlight. He sighed.
“I hope I never have to use it. I came to this country to find peace. But where gold is, there is never peace.”
I knew Pat was looking at me from the other side of the cockpit; but I dared not meet her level eyes.
It was after midnight and we had a three-hour run ahead of us. If we wanted to make an early start in the morning we would have to snatch what sleep we could. I took the wheel from Johnny and sent the three of them below to rest. When I raised the island I would wake Johnny and he would make the tricky passage through the reef.
Before she went, Pat put her arms round my neck and kissed me.
“Good night, sailorman.”
“Good night, sweetheart.”
Then I was alone. I heard the brief murmur of their voices as my friends an
d my lover settled themselves to sleep. I saw the cabin-light extinguished, and caught, through the open door, the small red glow of Nino’s cigarette. Then that, too, went out and the night was mine and all the wonder of wind and stars and bellying white sail.
In the morning Nino Ferrari took command of our small company. He squatted on the sand in front of the big tent, the sun gleaming on his small muscular body. He gave his orders simply and bluntly.
“First we must dive from the Wahine. The work-boat is too small.”
I looked across at Johnny. He nodded agreement. “All right with me, Renboss. I run her wherever you want.”
Nino went on, “We keep all our stores on board—lungs, bottles, lamps—all of it. We keep a day’s food and water on board and the medicine-chest, in case there are accidents.”
“I’ll look after that part of it,” said Pat.
Nino nodded briefly and continued, “We are working in ten fathoms. That is not too bad. We will work for half an hour at a time, then come up and rest for two hours before going down again.”
This sounded like an expensive waste of time. I queried the point. Nino answered me without rancour. “If we were working in deeper water I should say only fifteen minutes’ work and three hours of rest.”
“But why?”
“Because to this point you have been diving only. You have not been working. When you work under water the exertion causes a greater and a quicker discharge of nitrogen into the bloodstream. The danger of the bends is therefore greater. This way we diminish risk and fatigue.”
“We’ll do as you say, of course. I just wanted to know. But couldn’t we save time if we went down singly and worked that way? One man resting—the other working?”
Nino’s bright eyes twinkled ironically.
“If you were an experienced diver I would say yes by all means. But you are not. It is better that we work together—better and safer.”
I grinned submission. Then asked another question, “How do we tell the time?”
“I have a watch,” said Nino, “a watch that the makers say will work under water. But when one is busy it is easy —and dangerous—to forget time. So Johnny here will fire a bullet into the water for a signal. The noise when it strikes the water will be very clear down below. When we hear it we come up.”