by Hep Aldridge
Doc was the first to speak, “There’s a pattern.”
Joe picked up a grease pencil and inscribed a half circle, starting at the base of the shoal and encompassing all our finds, terminating back at the base of the shoal.
Dimitri jumped in, “All our finds have been in this area,” he said as he pointed to the half circle on the map. “Where we started at the south end of the shoal, we found nothing till here, where we found the first crates, then more up through this area,” as he traced his finger along the base of the shoal. “Now, we’ve covered another 75 yards beyond Smitty’s find this morning with nothing more than a small fishing boat anchor and a piece of an old metal ice chest.”
Doc had been studying the map and spoke up, “I think we have made an erroneous assumption.”
I said, “Go on, Doc.”
He pointed to the center of the half circle and said, “I believe we have assumed the longboat hit the shoal broadside, broke up, and sank here.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“That may have been our mistake,” Doc replied.
I was looking intently at Doc now and said, “I think we may have the same idea; go ahead.”
“We know the longboat was somewhere in the 35-foot-in-length range, possibly longer. If one end of it was pointing almost due east when she hit the shoal instead of broadside, it’s possible that when her keel hit the coral, it broke her back, in essence breaking her in half and very possibly dumping half her contents on the east side of the shoal and the next wave along may have picked up the other half and deposited it on the western side.”
That was what I had thought as I looked at the distribution of our finds on the map. That could account for the concentration of bars in this area and nothing north or south of it. Now, the buzz started again. Once it settled down, Doc suggested we go back to the center of our half circle and start working our way over the shoal and down the other side. We should be able to determine the validity of our new hypothesis fairly quickly. If we found nothing, then it would truly be back to square one. It was decided the next dive team would work their way up the side of the shoal, starting from the center point of the half circle, checking out the crevice’s and cracks, then across the top, which was only about 10 to 12 feet below the surface and 30 to 40 feet wide, and then back down to the bottom on its western side. Doc and I would move the Lisa B to the other side of the shoal to be the tender for the divers, and Smitty would have the inflatable in the water between us and the shoal.
The excitement had returned as the divers donned their gear and Gus repositioned the Falcon. The same dive team hit the water and made a four-man line moving up the face of the shoal, peeking and poking every crevice with detectors and hands.
They were a few feet below the crest of the shoal when Joe came over the Coms, “I’ve got something,”…a couple of minutes later, “It’s another bar,” he shouted.
I looked at Doc and said, “Damn, you may have figured this one out,” and slapped him on the back.
He smiled and said, “I hope so.”
As the divers crested the shoal, Dimitri sang out, “Got another one!” Now, the excitement of our earlier discoveries had returned, and there was a constant flow of chatter between the divers as they crossed the top of the shoal and began their descent down its other side.
Wild Bill chimed in next, “I need a pry bar. I’ve got two wedged in a crevice and can’t budge them.” Tony replied he had a small pry bar and would bring it to him. Together, they worked for about ten minutes, finally freeing both bars. That only left ten bars out there from the broken crate, that is if only one crate broke. They found one more bar on their way to the bottom, down to nine now.
Once on the bottom, they used the same search pattern as we had on the other side, two divers close to the base and two 10 to 12 feet out. We had sent them over in the middle of our eastern search area and told them to move south first till they got to the edge of our half circle, which we know continued to the other side to make a full circle; they would then return to the center and search north. Getting close to the end of the second dive, Dimitri said he had a hit, much stronger than the single bar hits they had been getting. A few minutes later, he called for the lift to be sent down.
He had hand-fanned his way down about a foot or so and the signal was getting stronger but he needed to move more sand. Gus loaded the lift gear and a couple of lift bags into the Zodiac that we had sent around to the Falcon and brought them to our side of the shoal just as Joe was surfacing to take delivery.
As Joe dropped below the surface with the lift, I could sense Doc’s excitement; it was looking like our broken in half theory may have been right! Twenty minutes and a large brown cloud of dredged sand covering the area, Dimitri exclaimed, “Two more crates, one almost directly on top of the other.”
“Son of a bitch, we were right,” I said to Doc.
He had a Cheshire cat grin on his face as he said, “We’re back in business!”
As the crates were brought to the surface by the lift bags, one at a time they were slowly herded over the shoal to the Falcon and its winch and pulled on board. The guys were running low on air, and no additional discoveries had been made, so all divers surfaced. Once they swam over to the Falcon we maneuvered the Lisa B back into a rafting position. Tying the Falcon right up against the B with only large fenders between us made our going from one vessel to the other much easier, and in these calm seas, not the least bit dangerous.
Once on board, we examined the crates and found them to be identical to the ones we had previously found. When we opened them, we saw the same bar configuration as in the others. Three layers of 12 ingots each for 36 bars in each crate. We unloaded the crates and placed the bars on deck. I tried to do the mental math for our find thus far, and it totally escaped me. I’m sorry; I just have a hard time dealing with numbers that large in my head, not to mention I kept thinking, “We’re multi-millionaires, every one of us, Freaking multi-millionaires!”
We agreed to call it a day and get a fresh start in the morning. According to the weather reports and radar scans, we had good weather for at least two to three more days. The routine kicked in, gear cleaned, checked, and stowed. Ingots hidden under cover and music rocking out of the boat’s exterior speakers made for a very festive atmosphere. Beverages were passed all around, and the toasting started again. From the lows I saw on the crews’ faces this morning to the high- pitched level of excitement now, I figured tonight would be one hell of a celebration on the Falcon, and I had no intention of putting a damper on it! As the afternoon progressed and everyone started to relax some, I noticed Gus had moved to the gunwale of the boat and was staring into the distance. I really had kept this morning’s incident with the Dizzy D at bay, but it was like an itch that couldn’t be scratched, and I really needed to scratch it. I walked over to Gus and leaned on the rail next to him, handing him a fresh cold beer.
He accepted it without looking at me, took a long swig, and said, “Okay, Colt, we might as well get this over with.”
Without looking at him, I asked point blank, “the Dizzy D, was that you?”
He took another long hit on his beer and said, “Yep.”
I said, “Jesus, Gus, you could have killed someone!”
He turned to look at me and said, “No, I couldn’t have.”
I said, “What the hell do you mean you couldn’t have? You sank the freaking boat.”
“I know,” he replied.
I said, “Someone could have died.”
He turned and looked at me with a face I had never seen before, anger, strength, and disdain all in one. “No one dies unless I want them to.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” I said.
“Yes, I can,” he replied.
“How so?” I asked.”
He said through clenched teeth, “I have been blowing up shit all my life Colt, big shit, little shit; been trained by the very best. I know what I’m doing and I’m VERY good at it!
Like I said earlier, my boat, my crew, my problem…My Solution! This conversation is over; don’t bring it up again,” he said as he turned and walked to the guys sitting around the table on the rear deck and immediately joined in the jovial conversation as if nothing had just happened.
I just stood there. Holy shit, I thought, this is one tough, dangerous son of a bitch, talented, but dangerous. I’m sure as hell glad he’s on my team I thought as I filed away the, “never mention the Dizzy D incident to him again,” note to self. I hoped I hadn’t screwed up our relationship with my questioning. I really liked and respected Gus; screwing up now could be disastrous for the team and the work ahead of us. After a few more minutes, I joined the group and put a smile on my face. Dimitri looked at me with that, “What’s going on?” look. I almost imperceptibly shook my head, and he nodded slightly, put his smile back on, and went back to the celebration.
As I stood there with a thousand things swirling in my mind, Gus walked up and slapped me on the back with a huge grin on his face and said, “Damn, Colt, in all the excitement, I haven’t even said Congratulations,” and stuck out his hand.
I took that firm grasp and returned it, saying “Thanks, Gus,” with a real smile making its way to my face.
He said, “Since we’ve hit it big again, I don’t suppose me and the boys could talk you into another one of those raises?”
I looked at him still, grinning, and said, “We’ll talk.”
He broke out in a big laugh, slapped me on the back again, and said, “That’s good enough for me, Colt.” He turned and walked away, singing some sea shanty something or other, and I thought, well, I guess Gus and I are okay. What a freaking relief!
The next morning dawned bright and clear with a few Cirrus clouds spreading the golden glow of the sunrise across the horizon and a light salty breeze the parfum de jour. I had slept better than I had in weeks and awoke refreshed and ready to seize the day. I was energized and anxious to get divers in the water, but the smells coming from the galley of the Falcon soon sidetracked me, and I realized a good breakfast was the best way to start the day.
I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I sat down with the rest of the guys and had my second helping of Smitty’s pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and coffee. Smitty was an exceptional ship’s cook, but for some reason, today everything tasted better than any I’d had before, and I savored every bite. Within an hour, we had divers ready to hit the water and continue our search.
As they swam across the top of the shoal, Doc and I once again maneuvered the Lisa B into position on the west side of the shoal. We had secured the lift to the bottom last night, figuring we would be using it again today, and the seas and weather posed no threat to us losing it during the night.
They found it where it was left, and the two teams started their sweep south toward the edge of the search perimeter we had laid out on the chart. Nothing new came up by the time they reached the edge of the search area, and I told them to go back to the center point and now work north. Once there, they started moving along the base of the shoal; they got a couple of minor hits which turned out to be bottom junk but continued on.
Halfway through the morning search, Joe said he had a hit. He and Dimitri were working the outer area of the search grid as Tony and Wild Bill worked close to the shoal base. The lift was employed, and the first gold bar of the day came to light under three feet of sand. Fifteen minutes later, I heard Wild Bill calling Tony to come to his location about ten feet away from the shoal base. He said he was getting a strange reading on his detector.
Tony replied, “On my way,” and all was quiet for another ten minutes.
I picked up the mic, keyed it, and asked Tony what was going on. In a minute, he replied, “Bill has got a pretty strange reading down here, it’s varied in depth and strength, and the area where we’re getting it is about 10 to 12 feet long.”
Tony said “We’re bringing the lift in and going to start moving sand.” Soon after, I saw the brown cloud forming in the water. Twenty minutes later, Tony reported they were down about two feet and still getting strong readings. After another ten minutes, Tony said they were down about three feet, and he’d found broken pieces of wood that looked like part of another crate. Dimitri came on and said he and Joe were there and helping with the sand removal. The brown cloud was getting much larger and spreading; it was obvious these guys were excavating with their hands as well as the lift and really stirring up the sand.
“Holy shit,” I heard Dimitri exclaim.
Then Tony added, “Son of a bitch, Colt, you better get down here. We’ve found another crate that’s busted up.”
“Great,” I replied.
“Yeah, I mean, No,” Tony said.
“Say again,” I said.
“Colt, get your ass down here. The crate and gold ingots are laying on part of a skeleton; you’ve got to see this!” I don’t think the entire message had a chance to register in my mind as I threw on the third rebreather and grabbed my fins. I was putting my mask on as I flipped myself backwards over the side. The last thing I saw was Doc’s hand signal for me to turn on my radio. I slipped on my fins as I headed down; visibility was marginal with all the sand in the water, but I found the guys huddled around the end of the lift pipe.
I heard Doc say over my radio, “Colt, Com check.”
“Five by five,” I said.
“Roger that,” came the reply. As I swam up, I saw where the sand had been cleared, revealing a broken crate with gold bars scattered around on top of what appeared to be white sticks protruding from the sand. When I got closer, the white sticks turned into the femurs and tibias of two legs of a skeleton. I couldn’t believe my eyes. In all our searching and recovery, we had never come across anything this sobering. It had been easy to accept the fact that lives had been lost trying to save what we had been finding. The only direct contact we had to those individuals had been the gold. No faces, only names on paper 300 years removed from us. And now, right before our very eyes, was the remains of a person who had been on that ship, who had tried to save his life and given it in the name of king and country. The excitement drained away, and I felt like I had just become a grave robber, and it sent chills down my spine. No one spoke for the longest time till Docs voice came over the Coms asking what the hell was going on down there and was everyone all right?
“Yeah,” Joe replied, “we’re all okay just a little freaked out by what we found, an actual member of the crew of a 1715 treasure ship; that’s all.”
Chapter Fourteen
Once the shock of our discovery wore off, I picked up the lift tube, Tony had dropped and removed more sand from the area around the crate. It was then we saw that both legs were broken where the crate was resting. There was no way to know if this had happened in the original accident, or over time as the body deteriorated. I moved up the skeleton, revealing the pelvic, area and then the corner of another crate. The skeleton was lying face up, and, once we removed more of the sand, we found his chest had been crushed by the weight of a second crate. The skeleton’s left arm was wrapped around the crate, its boney fingers grasping its edge, as if in an embrace. But it was a deadly embrace. The only way this could have happened was while the person was still alive. He must have been trying to move the 500-pound crate off his chest with one arm while being pinned to the bottom by its weight. Once again, silence.
I heard Dimitri say, “What should we do, Colt?” I knew there were strict legal protocols that went into effect when human remains are found at a traditional archaeological site, but this excavation was neither traditional nor an archaeological dig. After a few minutes, I told the guys to remove the scattered gold bars from the skeleton and the area around it but not to disturb the remains.
No one questioned the order and began the removal. I told Dimitri and Joe to remove the contents of the broken crate until they could lift it off the legs.
“I’ll continue removing sand around the torso rib cage area, and when it’s
cleared, we’ll attach a lift bag to the crate on his chest and lift it off.”
Work was progressing at a good pace but with caution and reverence. I had the area of the chest cleared and had backed away while the lift bag was being attached to the crate sitting there. The left arm was moved and placed alongside the skeleton. All the gold and debris had been removed from the legs, and Wild Bill had Come over to help with the crate on the chest. He laid his metal detector next to me on the bottom as he helped with the delicate operation. The lifting bag was filled with air ever so slowly, so that, as it rose, its movements could be controlled by Dimitri and Joe. The bag lifted the crate two inches, four, then ten inches; when it got to about 12 inches and cleared the remains, they guided it away from the skeleton until it was clear and moved out of the way.
We looked at the white bones, and for the first time noticed that where the crates had been sitting on the legs and the chest, there were scraps of cloth lying in place remnants of trousers and shirt I guessed. As the crate on his chest was moved, the unmistakable glint of gold was revealed. A heavy gold chain with a large gold crucifix on it encircled the skeleton’s neck. The crucifix was jewel encrusted and glittered even in these silty waters. Wild Bill moved forward hand outstretched, toward the necklace.
As I grabbed his wrist, I said, “No, leave it there.”
“But it’s worth a fortune,” I heard him say.
“I know, but I believe it needs to stay right where it is.” Call it superstition, respect, intuition, whatever you want, but I knew we had to leave it.
Dimitri’s nodding head was followed by, “I agree.” As I looked around, I saw they had removed the gold and it had been placed in the net bags of the lifts waiting to head for the surface.