The Deep

by Peter Benchley

  He opened the kitchen door. There was no movement outside, no sound except the wind. He closed the door and locked it, then locked both windows. Now, he told himself, if somebody tries to get in, we’ll hear the sound of breaking glass. He went back to the front hall—pleased with himself—and stood beside Gail, his left hand resting on the hilt of the knife.

  “. . . a mystery to me,” Cloche was saying. “Why you should be willing to help the British swine. After what they did to you.”

  “That’s not your affair!” Treece snapped.

  “Yes, it is. You have as much reason as I to hate them. Look what you lost.”

  Sanders saw Treece glance quickly at him and Gail. Treece looked uncomfortable, eager to change the subject.

  “Leave it be, Cloche. All you need know is that I’ll not let you get those drugs.”

  “What a pity,” Cloche said. “The enemy is there and you will not fight him. Are you worried about your little kingdom on St. David’s? I have no designs on that.”

  Treece said nothing.

  “Very well,” Cloche said at last. “With you or without you, the result will be the same.”

  Two men moved out of the darkness and stood behind Cloche. Each carried a crossbow, loaded and cocked and pointed at the door. Cloche took a small bag from one of the men behind him. He held the bag by the bottom and flung its contents toward the door. Three linen dolls, each with a steel feather-dart in its chest, rolled in the dust.

  Treece did not look down.

  The crossbowmen fired.

  Sanders slammed Gail against the wall and shielded her with his body. Treece dropped onto one knee and, in the same motion, reached for the shotgun. Sanders heard the arrows buzz through the doorway and clatter against the stone fireplace.

  Treece fired three times, holding the trigger down and pumping the action. In the narrow hallway, the sound of the explosions was thunderous and painful.

  When the echo of the last explosion had died, and all that remained was a ringing in Sanders’ ears, he turned and looked at Treece. He was still on his knee, the gun cocked and ready to fire.

  Where Cloche and his men had stood, now there was nothing but the two torches—abandoned, burning scattered pools of spilled oil.

  “Hit anybody?” Sanders asked.

  “I doubt it. They broke and ran when they saw this.” Treece patted the gun. “I don’t think they expected it.”

  Sanders felt Gail trembling and heard her teeth chattering. “Cold?” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders.

  “Cold? Terrified! Aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” Sanders said honestly. “I didn’t have time to think about it.”

  Gail touched the knife in Sanders’ undershorts. “What’s that for?”

  “I had it . . . just in case.”

  Gail said to Treece, “Will the police come?”

  “The Bermuda police?” Treece stood up. “Hardly. I told you, they don’t muck about with St. David’s. If they heard anything—and I don’t imagine they did—they’ll pay it no mind. Just the half-breeds shooting each other up. It’s the Islanders that concern me.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ll have seen, and heard. They’re a superstitious lot. I venture that was part of the purpose of Cloche’s visit, to throw the fear into them.”

  “Fear of what?”

  “Of him. They see a coal-black man, dressed all in white—that’s what they dress ’em in when they die—coming up a hill in the dark of night with two torchbearers and two crossbowmen: that’s powerful bush. If he comes again, there’s nothing short of holocaust that’ll bring people out of their houses.”

  Sanders said, “Should we set watches?”

  Treece looked at him. “Watches?”

  “You know: four hours on, four hours off . . . in case he comes back.”

  “He won’t be back tonight.”

  “How do you know? Christ, you didn’t think he’d dare come up here in the first place!” Sanders was surprised at the harsh sound of his own words. He was challenging Treece, which was not what he had intended, and from the look on Treece’s face, a challenge was not what he had expected. Sanders knew he was right, but he didn’t care. He wanted to expunge his words. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “If he comes back,” Treece said evenly, “I’ll hear him. Or Charlotte will.”

  “Fine.”

  “It’s late. There’s a lot to be done tomorrow.” Treece nodded to Gail, turned, and walked down the hall toward the living room.

  David and Gail went into the bedroom and closed the door.

  “Bite your tongue,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Never mind. There’s no harm in letting him know we’re scared.”

  “It wasn’t that. It’s just better to be prepared.” Sanders pulled off his shorts and climbed into bed.

  Gail sat on the edge of the bed and hugged her bathrobe around her. “I can’t go back to sleep.”

  “Sure you can.” Sanders stroked her back. He smiled, wondering if the sudden, surprising flood of ardor had anything to do with the danger they had just been through.

  When they awoke in the morning, they heard voices in the kitchen. Sanders put on a pair of trousers and left the room.

  Treece was sitting at the kitchen table, cradling a cup of tea. Across from him, dressed in a stained sleeveless T-shirt, his mouth full of dark bread, was Kevin. They looked up when Sanders entered the kitchen. Kevin’s face conveyed no sign of recognition, even when Treece said, “You’ve met.”

  “Sure,” Sanders said. “Hello.”

  Kevin said nothing, but Sanders thought he saw him blink in his direction. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table.

  Treece said to Kevin, “Does he have anybody who can use the equipment?”

  Kevin shrugged.

  “Does he have an air lift?”

  “Papers didn’t say.”

  “What’s this?” Sanders asked.

  “You remember Basil Tupper, the jewelry-store fellow who paid you a visit? Two crates of diving gear came in on the Eastern flight from Kennedy this morning, addressed to him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A friend in customs. There were bottles, regulators, suits—six of everything.”

  “Didn’t the government ask questions?”

  “Nothing illegal about it. He paid the duty—in cash. Besides, he imports so much crap for his jewelry business that most of the customs people are his chums. He could say he was starting a dive shop.”

  Treece cocked his head, listening, and for the first time Sanders noticed the low, muffled chugging sound of an engine, coming from somewhere outside the kitchen.

  “Compressor’s running out of juice.” Treece stood and said to Kevin, “Call Adam Coffin for me. Tell him to be on the beach at high noon.” Then he said to Sanders, “You better rouse your lady. If Cloche is training divers, we’ve just lost our practice time. You’ll have to settle for on-the-job training.”

  “She’s up,” Sanders said.

  They went outside. Kevin left, and Sanders followed Treece to a small shed behind the house. Inside the shed, a gasoline-powered air compressor was coughing and sputtering as it used up the last of its fuel. Two scuba tanks were connected by hoses to the compressor. Treece checked the gauges atop each tank. “Twenty-two hundred,” he said. “Want to top them off at twenty-five.” He stopped the compressor, filled it with gasoline from a jerry can, and restarted it. “Gonna get me an electric system one of these days. Gasoline’s a mean hazard.”

  “Fumes?”

  “Aye. That’s why you see that hose there.” He pointed to a metal exhaust pipe that led from the compressor down to the dirt floor and out through a hole in the wall of the shed. “When I first got the thing, I left it outside, just covered over by a lean-to affair. The wind swirled all around it, but I paid it no mind—till one day it swirled the exhaust fumes right back into the air intake.
That was a memorable dive; almost bought me a one-way ticket to the glooms.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Started to doze off at fifteen fathoms. I figured pretty quick that was what was happening, so I chucked the tank and let her rip for the surface. I made it, but barely.”

  Gail appeared at the door of the shed, a piece of toast in her hand. “Good morning,” she said.

  “That’s about all I’d eat if I was you,” Treece said. “Got a hell of a lot of work to do, and you don’t want to be puking in your mask.”

  They left Treece’s dock a few minutes before eleven. In the cockpit of Corsair there were three coils of yellow rubber hose. One end of each hose was screwed into the compressor; the other was attached to a full-face mask. Six scuba tanks were arranged in the racks along the gunwales. The aluminum tube lashed to the starboard gunwale had been rigged to a coil of pink rubber tubing, and it, too, was connected to the compressor. On a ledge in front of the steering wheel Treece had placed the sawed-off shotgun. The dog rode on the pulpit, swaying slightly with each swell but never stumbling. David and Gail flanked Treece at the steering console.

  “You really think they’ll come for us?” Sanders said, gesturing at the shotgun.

  “Never know.” He looked at Gail. “Ever use a gun?”

  “No.”

  “Adam’ll take the first shift aboard, then. It’s better, anyway. He knows how to turn off the compressor, and he won’t have any second thoughts.”

  “Turn it off?”

  “Aye. That’s the only way to let us know if something’s cooking topside. We’ll get the message pretty quick when we start sucking nothing. Long as you don’t hold your breath on the way up, there’s no problem. Of course,” Treece smiled, “if things are really hopping up here, we might be better off staying down there breathing sand.”

  Treece throttled back and began to pick his way through the reefs. The offshore breeze was strong enough to cause foam to roil around the rocks, so he had no trouble finding the slim passages between the reefs. As they neared the Orange Grove beach, they could see Coffin standing in the wave wash, a rawhide figure in torn denim shorts.

  There were no swimmers in the water, so, once inside the reefs, Treece opened the throttle and sped toward shore. When the boat was within ten yards of the line of gentle surf, he shifted into neutral, and the boat glided to a stop. Coffin ducked under a wave and swam to the boat. Treece put a hand over the side and, with one heave, brought Coffin into the cockpit.

  “I’m glad you dressed formal for your trip to Orange Grove,” Treece said.

  Coffin spat sea water over the side and wiped his nose. “Buggers. Told me not to use their elevator; told me it was private property. I told ’em to call my solicitor.” He laughed. “Rode down with the nicest piece of flesh I’ve seen in years. I fell deeply in love; almost got engaged.”

  Treece swung the boat seaward. On the way to the reef, he briefed Coffin about Cloche’s threat and about the diving gear that had cleared customs that morning. When he told Coffin that he wanted him to stay aboard, Coffin protested, but Treece convinced him, praising his supposed skills with firearms and his rapport with complex machinery.

  They anchored behind the second line of reef. “Once we get everything fired up,” Treece said to the Sanderses, “we’ll go down. I’ll take the air gun. David, stay on my left. You ever see an air lift work?”

  “No.”

  “There’s a tube alongside it that forces compressed air up through it. Creates a kind of vacuum and sucks up the sand. It can buck like a bastard, so stay clear, and don’t get your hands too close to the mouth or it could drag your fingers up inside and cut the crap out of them. It’ll clean sand off the bottom faster’n you can believe. When we uncover ampules, you pick them out as quick as you see them. I’ll have to be bloody careful not to let ’em get sucked up with the sand, or they’ll smash in the gun. And you,” he said to Gail, “stay on his left. You won’t be able to see a damn thing down there beyond about two feet, so don’t wander. Here.” He gave her a canvas tote bag. “He’ll pass you the ampules as he gathers them; you put ’em in there. When the bag’s full, you tap him, he’ll tap me, and you’ll lug it up. Don’t come up without telling me; I need time to move the gun. If I get too far ahead of you, the sand’ll cover the ampules before you can gather ’em. If anything goes wrong, Adam’ll shut off the compressor. It’ll get hard to breathe right away, but you can probably get one more breath out of it. Come up as close to the bow as you can and hug the boat. You’re hard to see up there, and if there’s anybody aboard wants to do you dirt, you’ll have at least a couple breaths before you have to go down again. Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Sanders.

  “I . . .” Gail hesitated.

  “Say it,” Treece told her. “Get it out now. I don’t want you springing surprises on me.”

  “I don’t like that . . .” She pointed at the Desco masks and coils of yellow tubing. “It scares me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Claustrophobia, I guess. I can’t stand the thought of being . . . tethered. If someone turned off the compressor, I think I’d have a stroke.”

  “C’mon,” Sanders said.

  “It’s the truth,” she said. “I can’t help it.”

  Treece said, “No problem. Rather have you comfortable than all jeebly and upset. Use a tank. We’ve got plenty.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anybody got anything else to say, say it now. Once I fire up that beast, you won’t be able to hear yourselves think.”

  “You want wet suits?” Sanders asked.

  “Aye. We’ll be down a long time. The water’s warm, but not that warm. After an hour, you’ll be shedding body heat like feathers.” Treece took a screw driver from a tool box, primed the compressor, and touched the screw driver to two contact points on the starter motor. Sparks jumped from the contacts, and the compressor roared to life.

  Sanders went below. The cabin of Corsair looked like a divers’ flea market. Coils of rope and chain hung from the overhead. Two salt-spotted fishing rods rested on bulkhead brackets. In one corner there was a tangle of old regulator hoses, the rubber cracked and rotten. Tools—hammers, chisels, screw drivers, wrenches—littered the bunks. There was no door on the compartment that housed the head; for toilet paper, a Sunday newspaper supplement had been shredded and tacked to the bulkhead. Sanders found a heap of wet suits, masks, and flippers. He sorted wet-suit tops and bottoms, trying to make matches for himself and Gail. Beneath the pile, he saw a rusty knife and a rubber sheath with straps designed to bind it to a diver’s calf. He put the knife in the sheath and took it and the wet suits topside.

  Gail was threading two-pound weights onto her belt. He gave her a wet suit and said, “What do you normally use, six pounds?”

  “Yes.”

  “The suit’ll double your buoyancy. You might dump those twos and load up with three or four fours.”

  Gail nodded. She saw the knife in his hand. “What’re you planning to do with that?”

  “I don’t know. Dig in the sand. I found it below.”

  Treece threw the aluminum tube overboard. It lay on the water for a moment, churning the surface, then slowly sank, trailing the coil of pink tubing behind it. A stream of bubbles popped to the surface.

  Treece yelled to Sanders. “Throw that coil over to port. I’ll put mine over starboard. Keep ’em from snarling right off.”

  Sanders threw the yellow coil over. It floated, and air bubbled from the face mask. He mounted a harness on a scuba tank, checked the regulator, and helped Gail into the straps. Then he strapped the knife onto his right leg, added ten pounds to his own weight belt, and buckled it around his middle. He wiggled his feet into his flippers and said, “I guess I’m ready. It feels strange: no tank, no mask.”

  Gail said, “Throw me the sack when I get myself together, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Gail rolled backward off the gu
nwale. She cleared her mask and held up a hand. Sanders leaned over the side, gave her the handles of the canvas bag; she waved and dove toward the bottom.

  Treece went over next, then Sanders—jumping beside the coil of hose, retrieving the mask, and slipping it over his head.

  As Sanders kicked downward, he sorted out his feelings about diving with the Desco apparatus. His field of vision was much greater than with an ordinary mask; he could see his nose. The air hissing in front of the opening above his right eye felt cool. It was nice not to have a rubber mouthpiece in his mouth; he found he could talk to himself. But he was also aware of a faint tug at his head. He looked up and saw the rubber coil snaking down behind him. He saw Treece’s air hose leading across the bottom toward the reef, and he followed it.

  Treece was waiting at the mouth of the cave, holding the aluminum air lift well above the bottom. Even underwater, it emitted a loud noise, like a strong wind rushing between buildings.

  When David and Gail joined him, Treece positioned them beside the cave. He made a circle of thumb and forefinger and looked at them. He said, “Okay?” The word was thick and indistinct, but the meaning was clear. They responded with the “okay” sign. Treece touched the mouth of the air lift to the sand.

  Instantly, sand vanished from the bottom. It looked to Sanders like a speeded-up film of a vacuum cleaner working on a pile of cigar ashes. In seconds there was a hole a foot wide and half a foot deep. Sand and pebbles were blown out the back end of the tube, causing a dense, blossoming cloud. The tide was running to the right, tending to carry the cloud away from them, but the wave action on the reef fought the tide, and soon Sanders found he had to lie on the sand to see the hole.

  The tip of an ampule showed through the sand, quivering against the force of the suction. Sanders grabbed the ampule and passed it to Gail. She set it on the bottom of the bag.

  The hole was deeper now, and suddenly a side gave way. Sand rose in Sanders’ face. Through the fog he saw a shower of glimmers; he reached into the hole and closed his hand around several ampules. Treece raised the air lift, letting the sand settle so Sanders could see to collect the ampules. Then Treece moved the tube a few feet to the right and started another hole. Right away, he was in a field of ampules, some clear, some yellow, and a few amber.