DAVEY JONES’S LOCKER
THE NAVY CADETS
BOOK 1
© Copyright C. R. Cummings 2004
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealings for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. The right of C. R. Cummings to be identified as the moral rights author has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 (Commonwealth).
Seaview Press Edition
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Cummings, C. R.
Davy Jones’s locker: a north Queensland story about navy cadets.
ISBN: 1 74008 297 4.
1. Scuba diving- Queensland - Great Barrier Reef - Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
A823.3
This eEdition published by DoctorZed Publishing
www.doctorzed.com
eISBN: 978-0-9872061-2-1
Cover photos- Top left- HW Cummings collection- Wewak at Thursday Island 1956; Top right- HW Cummings collection- Tully Falls in Cairns 1956; Bottom right- C. R. Cummings collection- Wheeler Reef 2004; Bottom left- HW Cummings Collection- Lugger at Cairns; Centre- from Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge, Volume 5, facing Page 49.
C.R. CUMMINGS
DAVEY JONES’S LOCKER
The Navy Cadets
DOCTORZED PUBLISHING
www.doctorzed.com
Dedication
This book is respectfully dedicated to my late father
Captain Herbert (Bert) William Cummings
Master Mariner
1912- 1993
With particular thanks to LT(ANC) Geoff Brown
CO of TS ‘Coral Sea’, Townsville Australian Navy Cadets who provided me with inspiration and assistance in the preparation of this book.
Thanks also to the very professional and friendly instructors of ‘Diving Dreams’, Townsville, for their excellent training and encouragement
ALSO BY
C. R. CUMMINGS
THE GREEN IDOL OF KANAKA CREEK
ROSS RIVER FEVER
TRAIN TO KURANDA
THE MUDSKIPPER CUP
* DAVY JONES’S LOCKER
BELOW BARTLE FRERE
AIRSHIP OVER ATHERTON
THE CADET CORPORAL
STANNARY HILLS
COASTS OF CAPE YORK
KYLIE AND THE KELLY GANG
BEHIND MT BALDY
THE CADET SERGEANT MAJOR
COOKTOWN CHRISTMAS
THE SECRET IN THE CLOUDS
THE WORD OF GOD
THE CADET UNDER-OFFICER
THE SMILEY PEOPLE
Map 1: The Coral Sea
CHAPTER 1
ANDREW
Andrew strove to master rising panic as he peered through his face mask into the murky green water. The rasping sound of his own breathing coming through the ‘second stage’ regulator and air pipes of his SCUBA equipment didn't help either. It sounded very loud and seemed to be quite inadequate for what he needed to stay alive. His rational mind told him not to be silly, that he was only a few metres below the surface, but that was little help. It wasn’t just the awful feeling of being crushed and trapped that was causing his heart rate to shoot up, but the imagined fears of what might lurk in the water.
The list of what might be lurking was long and cataloguing it was the wrong mental approach for peace of mind. Andrew knew that but had trouble controlling his thoughts. He was well aware that he was swimming in the Coral Sea which was home to all sorts of aquatic ‘nasties’: sharks, crocodiles, deadly jelly fish, sea snakes, poisonous octopuses, stone fish.....
What made these fears particularly strong was the memory of the shark attack on one of his friends only three weeks earlier. It had happened just after one of the sailing races. Max Pulford, a boy from the same school, had dived overboard and been fooling around in the water when a shark had taken off his leg below the knee. Another friend, Graham Kirk, had rescued him. Andrew had helped carry Max ashore and the sight of the blood soaked bandages wrapped around the stump was an image that made him nauseous to think about and which filled him with fear.
‘Stop thinking about it you idiot,’ he chided himself, but he found it very hard to resist the urge to keep looking over his shoulder to where the water faded into gloomy green depths. Where Andrew was swimming was only a bit over his head if he stood on the bottom. Actually it was a fairly boring bit of seabed, mostly sand, with the odd rock and hardly any fish. The most interesting thing he had seen was an old rubber car tyre.
In spite of his efforts to push the fear out it kept coming back and Andrew had to battle with himself. ‘Stay calm! Breathe normally! Stop worrying,’ he told himself. A glance upward showed him the rippling effect of the gentle waves that were lapping into the bay. They were just large enough to cause movement in the water. This was stirring up the fine silt, making the water cloudy and lowering visibility to about ten metres.
Andrew knew that the whole idea of taking the diving course was probably a mistake, one that he had allowed himself to be talked into. He admitted to himself that he had agreed rather than let others think he was scared. But it was not only his own self-discipline that held him under water. There was the even stronger desire not to let Muriel think he was a coward. Muriel was the new love of his life. She was the same age, 14, but went to a different school, so he had not met her until a few weeks earlier when she had joined the Navy Cadets.
Andrew was a navy cadet and very proud of it. He had been a cadet for over a year now and was rated as a Seaman. He had strong hopes of being promoted to Able Seaman, having done the promotion training and exams during the recent June camp. This was strengthened by his ambition to be a naval officer, as both his father and grandfather had been.
It was through navy cadets that Andrew came to be swimming along in Bosuns Bay, just past Giangurra on the eastern side of Trinity Inlet near Cairns. Two of the adult staff, Sub Lt Sheldon and Petty Officer Walker, were both keen SCUBA divers and were qualified dive instructors. A weekend expedition had been organized to build on the basic training lessons carried out in the swimming pool. Bosuns Bay had been chosen because it was the closest coral reef to Cairns, although it wasn’t particularly clear water and it was a sad little reef really- more rocks and mud than the pretty coral of the tourist brochures.
But now Andrew was having forcibly brought home to him something he had known but tried to ignore- he was scared of swimming underwater. It was a real shock as he had always considered himself to be brave. ‘I should have known,’ he told himself, remembering several other experiences, such as rescuing Martin Schipholl from the weeds and lilies of Ross River the previous January. In that incident he had almost been drowned in the murky water. A later experience of searching for a boy who had slipped under while trying to swim the river added to this sense of horror. The boy had drowned and the incident had made Andrew very aware of his own mortality.
The particular dive they were now doing was listed in the manual as ‘Open Water Dive Number 1’. This had so far involved a 200 metre open water swim (which Andrew had managed but which left him puffed and feeling weak), cramp removal practice, and a 25 metre tired diver tow. All of those had been on the surface and had made Andrew very conscious of how useful the snorkel was, even in such small waves, and of what a vital piece of equipment the BCD (buoyancy control device) was.
Now the class was under water doing a very gentle swim along the bottom after having completed a controlled descent to a depth of 12 metres. That had not sounded much during the theory lessons in the classroom but the reality of swimming hundreds of metres out fr
om the shore and then sinking down into the murky green water had taken some courage on Andrew’s part. The group were swimming at a leisurely pace back towards the shore, their depth decreasing slowly as they followed the gently shelving seabed.
What was really nagging at Andrew’s courage was the knowledge that soon he would have to face the challenge of deliberately flooding his face mask and then clearing it under water. Even in the swimming pool in waist deep water he had found that a challenge, causing fluster and near panic. The thought of having to do it on the seabed was enough to raise his anxiety level so that his heart rate and breathing were all much faster than normal. The situation was made worse by him feeling that he was not able to suck in enough air through the regulator. He knew that the instructor had stressed the need to breathe normally and not too deeply. But just knowing that he was under water and dependent on the gadget to keep him alive made Andrew stressed. The thought of swimming up to the surface while he still could was very appealing!
With an effort of will Andrew made himself stay under, all the while glancing anxiously around for a glimpse of the flitting shadow which might warn him that fangs or teeth were about to rip him apart. It was only the closeness of his companions that helped keep the fear to a manageable level- and the thought of what Muriel might think.
He found out what she did think within minutes of surfacing. The group splashed up into the shallows near the beach, pulling down their face masks, or taking them off altogether. As Andrew removed his and flicked water off his face his eyes met Muriel’s. She had swum over beside him and now sat in the shallows close to him.
“Oh Andrew, that was fun!” she cried.
Andrew managed a smile and actually did feel glad, though it mostly relief that they had finished the dive. Still marvelling at the wonderful chance that had brought Muriel into his life, he pulled off his swim fins and stood up. Muriel did the same. As she began wading ashore she turned her head and their eyes met. For a fraction longer than normal Andrew held her gaze. A smile was his reward before she looked away and began chattering about how good the dive had been.
‘She is beautiful!’ Andrew thought, taking in her sparkling hazel eyes, lovely smooth, tanned skin and dark hair. ‘I would love her to be my girlfriend. I wonder if I have a chance?’ He had never had a ‘proper’ girlfriend so wasn’t quite sure how to go about this. Anxious lest he make a mistake and scare her off he kept the conversation on diving and tried to sound casual.
Up under the trees lining the back of the beach was a tarpaulin. On this lay a row of air bottles and plastic carry boxes. After placing his facemask and fins in one box and his weight belt in another Andrew offered to help Muriel remove her SCUBA equipment. To his relief she smiled and said yes so he stood behind her and took the weight while she undid the straps on her BCD. He then lowered the set to the ground. Muriel thanked him, then turned to him. “I’ll help you,” she offered. As Andrew’s ‘dive buddy’ was actually Blake, and hers was Shona, he was more than happy. Muriel took the weight and he undid the clips, then turned and grasped the handle on the BCD and lowered the set to the ground. Once again their eyes met. ‘I definitely have a chance,’ he decided.
While he dismantled the gear, screwed valves closed, expelled air and water from his BCD and tidied up, Andrew found his gaze continually drawn to Muriel. As she peeled off her wet suit he found he just had to look. She was, he noted, quite slim but still nicely shaped. Her bathing costume was a dark green, one-piece lycra which hugged her body in a tantalising way. The material moulded itself to every contour of her body and he was very aware of the outline of her nipples, made erect by the cold water. The sight of the lovely soft swelling of her bosom caused his mouth to go dry with desire.
To his adolescent eyes her breasts were perfection, even though they were only quite small, being a pointy shape rather than the more rounded variety which the only other girl he had any real experience of, Letitia Schipholl, had been wont to display. Not that he had much experience at all, and certainly not with Muriel. Until the previous Friday night he had not even been aware she existed.
Muriel was so attractive that Andrew began to get aroused. That was both enjoyable and potentially embarrassing as he began peeling off is wet suit as he wore only his bathers underneath. It also bothered him as he believed in true love and was vaguely disturbed to find that lust was lurking in his own thoughts. With an effort he concentrated on packing up and then went to dry himself with his towel. But his eyes kept being drawn back to Muriel as though by a magnetic force. Not wanting her to notice this made him keep looking away.
It was the presence of Andrew’s big sister Carmen that most inhibited him. She turned from loading her gear into the van and saw him looking. That caused Andrew to blush and look away, hoping she had not really noticed. To add to his discomfiture his friend Arthur Blake, a navy cadet Seaman like himself, came and stood beside him.
Blake raised an eyebrow. “You doing a line for Muriel, or is she doing a line for you?” he asked.
Andrew blushed again. “Neither. She’s just friendly,” he replied, peeved that his secret admiration had been noticed by others, and angry at himself for lacking the courage to admit the truth.
Blake grinned and winked as he helped Andrew hoist his SCUBA tank into the back of the ute. “Well it looks like it,” he commented, adding in a murmur, “Good luck to you. She looks like a real goer.”
“Bite your bum! It’s not like that,” Andrew hissed back defensively, but he blushed fiercely as he said it
Blake laughed and said, “Isn’t it?”
“What about Shona then?” Andrew counter-attacked. Blake had confessed to him the day before that the only reason he was taking on the diving course was because of the pretty, black-haired Shona Wellings.
The dart went home and Blake glanced around to where Shona was talking to PO Walker. “Not doing as well as you seem to be,” he admitted.
While they talked the boys towelled themselves dry. Then Andrew pulled on an old shirt and pair of shorts. Muriel slipped a loose cotton shift over her bathers then walked past, indicating the nearby house. “Come on, time for lunch,” she called.
Sub Lt Sheldon looked up from the gear he was checking. “You sure your grandparents won’t mind?” he asked.
Muriel nodded. “Positive! They don’t get many visitors over here,” she replied. “It is too far from town for causal visits.”
The thought of meeting Muriel’s parents and grandparents caused Andrew’s heart to flutter with anxiety, although they did not know he liked her (‘Or do I love her?’ he wondered). He followed her out onto the driveway and moved up beside her.
As they walked up the driveway Andrew took in the details of the house. He was already familiar with the outside layout from seeing it for much of the morning. The house was built on a fairly steep hillside above the small bay. It was a big house with a steep concrete retaining wall on the side where the driveway led down past it to the beach. Wide doors led in from the driveway to under the house, suggesting a cellar, or downstairs area.
Leading up from the beach beside the driveway was a solid, concrete-walled boatshed. This was set well above the high-tide mark and two pairs of rusty steel rails led up under the two large wooden doors. These were obviously for launching boats. Equally obvious, from the rust, sand and drift wood piled across the lower end of the tracks, no boats had been launched for a long time. Paint was flaking off the white timber doors and the boatshed had an air of neglect.
A set of concrete steps led up between the side of the boathouse and the driveway to a flat area. This turned out to be a very pleasant garden, built on a terrace about twenty metres square and surrounded by flowering shrubs and trees. The scent of frangipani filled the air, adding a spicy hint of exotic romance. On the far side of the lawn was another concrete retaining wall. A door and several windows were set in the wall, almost obscured by the garden shrubbery.
The group passed across the lawn to a second
set of steps, which led up to a covered patio at the rear of the house. The house was a lovely old ‘Colonial’ bungalow style, with wide verandas all around and many open doors and windows.
Seated around tables on the back patio were four adults. Two were clearly Muriel’s grandparents, marked out by their grey hair and age. The other two were middle-aged; a man and a woman. Andrew looked at them curiously, and not without a twinge of apprehension.
‘These are Muriel’s parents,’ Andrew thought, curious to see the family resemblance, and a little disappointed to note that Muriel’s mother had quite a stout body. A comment by his dad about looking at the mother before deciding to marry a girl crossed Andrew’s mind- not that he had any thoughts of marriage at his age. It was just pure romance that was setting him all a-tingle.
Andrew’s gaze shifted to Muriel’s grandparents. He was able to stand back and study them while the adults were introduced. Muriel’s grandfather was a solid, square faced man with deep brown eyes, set wide apart. His face had a flattish appearance and his hair was grizzled and grey.
“Joshua Murchison,” the old man said as he shook Sub Lt Sheldon’s hand. He then gestured to Muriel’s grandmother. “My wife Violet.”
Andrew shifted his attention to her and was surprised to note that she was a tiny little woman with a slim build. Then he was looking at Muriel’s father, Basil Murchison. He was obviously his father’s son, the same wide eyes and flattish face, which Andrew now noted was also a characteristic of Muriel’s face, not that it marred her attractiveness. Muriel’s mother was introduced as being Ivy.
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