by Julian Noyce
“Good morning lady and gentlemen,” he said introducing himself in heavily accented English, “I am Captain Ali Hakan. Please call me Ali. I am from North Cyprus,” he continued looking at George, “I would be interested in learning where you are from my friend.”
George nodded the minimal of politeness. The Greeks loathed the Turks and Northern Cypriots. He could never conceive of being friends with any of them. He or any of his people.
“My crew,“ Ali continued, “Are mainly Turkish, two Russians, an American and Greeks. We’ll be sailing approximately two miles, to this location.”
Ali pointed on a map, outspread on some oil drums. He gestured for Hutchinson to take over.
“Yes. The island you see here is Djerba. This is Gabes,” Hutchinson pointed back to the port they’d left earlier that day, now on the horizon, “That is Djerba ahead. Somewhere on the line we are following is our prize. It’s up to us to find it.”
“In this area are a dozen shipwrecks,” Ali cut in.
“Nine of which are from world war two,” Hutchinson continued, “We are lucky that the water is shallow here. Sometimes reaching depths of only one hundred feet. It is shallower near the island, naturally. There are two wrecks here. We will search those first,” Hutchinson rummaged amongst the papers in front of him until he found what he was looking for. He held it up. It was a large black and white photograph.
“This is what we’re looking for. This is the freighter ’Tangipito’ This picture was probably taken before the war because she appears to be in pristine condition. One torpedo and sixty years at the bottom of the Mediterranean will have taken their toll on her. Take a good look though. There may still be something recognisable down there. Pass that picture around,” Hutchinson handed it to Alex, “Natalie.”
“Thank you Jim.”
Natalie moved forward from her place in the group.
“We’ll be diving in pairs. Alex and George. Tom and Jack. Myself and Peter. Mr Dennis is a novice diver which is why I’m accompanying him. It was Jim’s idea,” she said when she saw the look from George.
“Yeah I dived many years ago on a family holiday in Jamaica. I’m sure it will all come back to me,” Dennis said.
There were a few chuckles from the team. Natalie smiled at Ali.
“The water is not so calm today,” the Turkish Captain said, “It will be quite murky down there for you. The current pulls quite strongly around the island and you can drift. This is especially dangerous for divers if you get separated. Even in depths of sixty feet you may not be able to see the ship on the surface. If anyone gets into difficulty my crew will be circling in the dinghy. Make it to the surface and wave your arms and they will pick you up. Any questions? No. Good. We’ll arrive at the first wreck site in….” Ali turned to his first mate.
“About thirty minutes Captain.”
“Right people if there is nothing else let’s get suited up,” Hutchinson said.
The team broke into their pairs. Dennis looked over the side at the turbulent waters. It was a fairly calm day.
“There is nothing to worry about,” Natalie said joining him.
“I’m not worried. It’s just not as I remembered it.”
“You mean the warm, clear waters of the Caribbean. Jamaica wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“The water here will be warm. You just won’t be able to see much until you’re at the bottom, but don’t worry,” she flashed him her best smile, “I’ll be with you the whole way.”
“What are those?” he asked sitting down on a seat.
“Shark cages.”
“Shark cages! Are there sharks in the Med?”
“Some. But nothing to worry us much. Trust me.”
“That’s the trouble. I do.”
Once in the water Dennis felt more afraid than he’d thought he would. The accomplished divers had rolled off the dinghy backwards. Natalie told Dennis to stand and jump in feet first. He felt himself reaching out to try to steady himself, completely kitted out as he was, with tank, breathing apparatus, weighted belt, flippers. He felt ridiculous. He was sure he looked ridiculous. Natalie was sitting at the edge of the small boat.
“Just remember to breathe normally.”
He nodded and took two short breaths. Then thinking he was ready he wobbled to the little boat’s edge and nearly capsized it as he jumped into the sea. The fear reached him first and then the cold of the water. Bubbles raced past his mask and for a moment he felt himself begin to panic. He’d stopped his descent. That much he knew. But then he wasn’t rising either. His immediate instinct was to bolt for the surface. Then he remembered her words.
“Breathe normally.”
He took a few deep breaths and felt himself begin to calm. Underwater sounds were different. He heard the bubbles. A sound which registered in his mind as something similar to a splash. He glanced up at the surface and realised the sound had been made by Natalie entering the water. He could see the small dinghy. Foam appeared to be coming from its propellers. Then is sped off. The two crew members in it circling to lay buoys to warn of divers in the water. Natalie straightened up in front of him. She waved at him and spoke. He couldn’t understand the words but took them to be.
“Are you all right?”
He gave her the thumbs up.
He wasn’t all right. He was hating every moment of it but he didn’t want her to know that. He took another deep breath. When he looked up at the surface again he realised they were deeper. They had been slowly sinking. Dennis glanced down at his feet. He couldn’t see much past them and the panic began to return. Natalie caught his arm and they slowly descended. Then at thirty feet he could see the sea bed. At forty feet the pressure began to hurt his head. He stopped again and put his hands either side of his head and rubbed his temples. It didn’t take the pain away. His ears were also hurting. Natalie swam over. Dennis opened and closed his mouth a few times, champing on his teeth. It did ease the pressure a little. Natalie pointed upwards at the surface.
“Do you want to return to the dinghy?”
Dennis shook his head. She asked again, realising his holding his head probably meant that the pressure was hurting him. She asked him again if he wished to return. He shook his head more firmly this time and to prove the point he turned and began kicking downwards. At sixty feet they touched the sea bed. Natalie went into a kneeling position, motioning Dennis to do the same. She checked her watch and the gauge on her tank. It had taken five minutes to cover the sixty foot dive. This would normally be unacceptable. It should have taken less than a minute. But knowing it was Dennis’ first dive and he didn’t actually have a PADI licence which meant that she probably shouldn’t have let him come, five minutes seemed reasonable.
’At least he made it safely to the ocean floor,’ she said to herself.
They were taking one hell of a risk. Checking once more that he was ok, they set off, swimming along the sea bed.
Always looking ahead Dennis realised for the first time in his life that there wasn’t really much life at all in the open sea. He saw no fish. No man eating sharks. Nothing. He laughed. Earlier he’d been afraid at the thought of sharks. Now he knew they didn’t exist. How could they? After all there was nothing to eat down here.
They glided towards what looked to be grass. Long thick blades of grass that were evenly spaced apart. Just as he thought it was strange the ’grass’ disappeared one by one in front of him and he realised it was in fact eels. They were using the flow to catch and feed on the rich nutrients of the currents. The current was strong down here just as Ali had said it would be. The silt stirred up in the current kept visibility down to five metres. Dennis found this reassuring, almost as if they were closed in, safe. Natalie pointed ahead and following her finger Dennis could see the other divers. The side of a ship loomed up from the seabed. His excitement quickened. This was it. As they got nearer Natalie flicked on her helmet’s lights. Dennis remembered his now and flicked the switch. The lights
revealed more of the ship.
’It looks like a trawler’ he said to himself.
George was at the bow with Alex. Tom and Jack at the stern. Natalie took Dennis over the side and onto the deck. Dennis felt his flippers touching rope netting and he imagined himself getting tangled in it. He kicked with his feet, looking nervously down at the age old ropes, his flippers kicking up sediment. Crabs darted out from the tangle. Plastic buoys attached to the nets bobbed in the current. Starfish crawled over the deck, moving incredibly slowly. They all knew now that this was a fishing trawler and not the small freighter they were looking for. At the bow George rubbed away some of the slime covering the ships painted name. The letters S….H….A….H, some more rubbing, O….F….P….E….R….S….I….A.
The Shah of Persia, and beneath the name, Gabes. The ship’s home port.
Natalie peered in through the windows of the bridge. Two were still intact. The other had been smashed. Large shards of glass covered in sediment where they had fallen. There was nothing of interest in the bridge. The ship’s wheel looked as slimy as the rest of the boat. The other divers joined her in a group. They all faced her. She got Dennis into the middle of them and checked her watch. They still had fifteen minutes of air left but there was nothing more to be seen. It was an old trawler. It could have been on the bottom, ten years, twenty, thirty. It was a job to tell. She checked that Dennis could remember how to ascend. He gave her the thumbs up.
Slowly they began to rise. Dennis’ head still hurt with the pressure but he had got used to it. He was only reminded of it as they ascended and the pressure changed. At the surface six heads bobbed in the waves. Dennis spat his mouthpiece out, glad to be rid of it. His jaw ached, unaccustomed to the regulator. He opened his mouth to speak and a small wave lapped at his face and he involuntarily gulped a mouthful of water which made him gag. The two engined dinghy powered down as it reached them. One of the crew reached out a hand to Natalie.
“I think you’d better help Mr Dennis first,” she said.
The crewman reached out to the journalist who was still coughing.
“Throw me your mask first then undo your harness and I’ll pull the tank up.”
Dennis threw his mask into the boat. The crewman reached out with a pole with a hook on the end, caught hold of the scuba tank and pulled it aboard. Dennis held onto the rope that ran around the entire boat. The crewman positioned himself, reached out his hand and with amazing strength pulled Dennis out of the sea and into the dinghy. Dennis instantly turned around to help Natalie then stopped and smiled at her. She was floating on her back staring up at him. Her tank bobbing upended nearby.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“Oh yes.”
“You look like you belong there.”
“I do. This is my home.”
She was the last to get back into the dinghy.
Back on the main ship Hutchinson saw them climbing the steps to the deck. He left the bridge and descended to join them.
“What did you find down there?” he called to Natalie before he was even halfway to them. She was pulling on her hair to ring it out. Dennis made a comment and she playfully flicked the water from her hand at him.
“It was just an old trawler. The Shah of Persia out of Gabes.”
Hutchinson was carrying a laptop and he placed it on top of an oil drum and opened it. He tapped the left button and the screen came on instantly. He scrolled on the pad and clicked on ’Internet explorer’ He typed ’Shah of Persia’ into a search engine and viewed the results. Over two billion links for Gabes and Shah of Persia. He then defined his search adding ’fishing trawler’ and narrowed it down. Finally on the third page he found the link he wanted.
“Ah here we are. The ’Shah of Persia’ a 100ton fishing trawler. Built 1964, Nantucket island, U.S.A. Re-registered 1982, Gabes, Tunisia. Sank in mysterious circumstances with all hands lost, July 1983.”
Hutchinson clicked on another link. It brought up a free encyclopedia. He scanned the home page. There was a brief history of the ship originally named ’Wilhelmina’.
“It says here,” Hutchinson read from the page as his group formed a circle around him, “That the ship may have sunk in a storm. Although other reports, unconfirmed, state that it was involved in an accident with an Italian navy submarine. An incident the Italian navy deny happened.”
“There have been similar cases in Scotland where Royal navy submarines have snagged trawler nets and dragged the vessels to their doom,” Dennis added.
“Are they not aware of it?” Natalie asked, “The submarines I mean.”
“They wouldn’t even feel it. Imagine a 6000 ton nuclear submarine against a small diesel engined trawler. No contest. Submarines today are almost the size of a world war two aircraft carrier.”
“I didn’t realise they were so big. I guess you’re right.”
“Well whatever sank it,” Hutchinson said, “It’s not the ’Tangipito’
“No,” Dennis answered.
“That’s interesting,” Hutchinson said.
“What?” Natalie craned her neck to see better.
“The trawler’s last known position is given as almost three miles from here.”
Captain Ali was standing nearby. Hutchinson showed him the co-ordinates. Ali used his walkie talkie to speak to the bridge.
“Our position is correct,” he said, “I would trust more the global positioning satellites of today, this,” he said pointing at the laptops screen would explain why this shipwreck has never been named.”
“Is it possible that it was dragged three miles by a submarine?” Natalie asked.
“It’s possible but unlikely,” Dennis told her, “Dragging it any distance would surely have ripped the rope nets.”
“I would think so,” Hutchinson replied, “Well no matter. We can now mark the exact position of the ‘Shah of Persia’ and inform the authorities. Now are you up for another dive?” he asked the team, “Good. Let us move to the next wreck on the chart,” he instructed Ali.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
“This is the last shipwreck plotted on the chart,” Hutchinson told them.
“The sea is one hundred and twenty feet here,” Ali spoke up.
The Volante was now positioned four miles off the coast of Tunisia. Three miles from Djerba.
“The water is a lot more….” Ali paused and glanced at Hutchinson, “I don’t know the words.”
Hutchinson waited politely.
“….You cannot see very far.”
“Murky,” the American interjected.
“Yes. Murky. Thank you,” Ali said in his accent, finding the new words difficult to pronounce.
“That’s all for now,” Hutchinson said, “Any questions? No. Good! Let‘s get suited up,” he raised his voice as his team began to disperse, “Remain optimistic people. It’s out here somewhere. This has got to be it.”
Natalie joined Dennis who was standing alone, feeling awkward.
“Peter I think once again it might be better if you don’t join us on this dive.”
Dennis nodded. He’d only dived with them on the first two and he’d found that he hated it, really hated it.
“I must admit I feel much happier on the ship and besides there’s lots I can do for Jim.”
He watched her squeezing into a wetsuit.
“I don’t know how you do it.”
“Do what?”
“Feel at home in the water like you do. I hate it. All my ancestors were sailors, naval people but I can’t stand it.”
“It used to be my job but now it’s my life. I could never be anything else.”
“I guess for me, I’m just afraid of the unknown. Of what may be swimming about down there.”
“I told you there’s nothing to worry about.”
Then after a thought she said.
“Isn’t that what keeps you journalists going. The unknown. Isn’t that what brought you out here.”
“Journalism is
about bringing the facts to the audience, to the viewers or readers, to the people. The facts after an event has happened or is taking place.”
“Like the September 11th attacks. Didn’t some people say that just aided the terrorists.”
“Yes that’s a perfect example. Everyone reporting on that would have had a clear conscience. While some say viewing the scenes was sensationalising the attacks others would argue that it was a news story that had to be told. There is a fine line there.”
“I can see there is a difference, if you put it that way. Is that why most journalists are hated?”
“Most journalists have at some point in their career upset someone or something.”
“Including you?”
“I have had my threats, even death threats.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Not any more. The only people reading my articles these days are sitting in the sun in Cyprus or Spain.”
Natalie thought about this as she descended to the last wreck on the chart. They had made five dives in two days, spending the previous night on the ship at sea to get the earliest possible start in the morning. None of the wrecks had been big enough to be a freighter. The trawler had been the largest so far.
Dennis waited until Natalie had disappeared from view. He watched her bubbles as they popped on the surface. He turned and walked up the steps for the bridge. Halfway up he stopped and looked eastward. Apart from the many different boats in the area this one had caught his attention when the sun had flashed off its windows. Dennis watched for another half a minute then mounted the steps and went inside to join Ali and Jim Hutchinson on the bridge. They were watching various screens. Dennis stood with them for a moment. It was too soon yet for the divers to report in. Dennis looked out again at the vessel that had attracted his attention again. It had changed direction and was now broadside. Dennis picked up a pair of binoculars and put them to his face. The image was blurred so he adjusted them. The ship came into focus. It was big and looked to be new. Dennis could see people moving about on deck. He trained the binoculars further along and whistled when he saw the gleaming Lynx helicopter at the stern. Hutchinson and Ali turned their attention away from the monitors.