The Eye of the Tiger

by Wilbur Smith

  “Sure, you could see a long way from the tops of the hills,” I pointed out as he tore the sheet from the pad and carefully ripped it to shreds, and dropped them into the harbour.

  “How far north of the river?” He turned back to face me.

  “Offhand I’d say sixty or seventy miles,” and he looked thoughtful.

  “Yes, it could be that far north. It could fit, it depends on how long it would take ” He did not finish, he was taking my advice about playing it cool. “Can you take us there, skip? I nodded. “But it’s a long run and best come prepared to sleep on the boat overnight.” “I’ll fetch the others,” he said, eager and excited once more.

  But on the wharf he looked back at the bridge.

  “About the island, what it looks like and all that, don’t discuss it with the others, okay?”

  “Okay, Jim,” I smiled back at him. “Off you go.” I went down to have a look at the admiralty chart. The Old Men were the highest point on a ridge of basalt, a long hard reef that ran parallel to the mainland for two hundred miles. It disappeared below the water, but reappeared at intervals, formirig a regular feature amongst the haphazard sprinkling of coral and sand islands and shoals.

  It was marked as uninhabited and waterless, and the soundings showed a number of deep channels through the reefs around it. Although it was far north of my regular grounds, yet I had visited the area the previous year as host to a marine biology expedition from UCLA who were studying the breeding habits of the green turtles that abounded there.

  We had camped for three days on another island across the tide channel from the Old Men, where there was an all-weather anchorage in an enclosed lagoon, and brackish but just drinkable water in a fisherman’s well amongst the palms. Looking across from the anchorage, the Old Men showed exactly the outline that Jimmy had sketched for me, that was how I had recognized it so readily.

  Half an hour later, the whole party arrived; strapped on the roof of the taxi was a bulky piece of equipment covered with a green canvas dust sheet. They hired a couple of lounging islanders to carry this, and the overnight bags they had with them, down the wharf to where I was waiting.

  They stowed the canvas package on the foredeck without unwrapping it and I asked no questions. Guthrie’s face was starting to fall off in layers of sun-scorched skin, leaving wet red flesh exposed. He had smeared white cream over it. I thought of him slapping little Marion around his suite at the Hilton, and I smiled at him.

  “You look so good, have you ever thought of running for Miss. Universe?” and he glowered at me from beneath the brim of his hat as he took his seat in the fighting chair. During the run northwards he drank beer straight from the can and used the empties as targets. Firing the big pistol at them as they tumbled and bobbed in Dancer’s wake.

  A little before noon, I gave Jimmy the wheel and went down to use the heads below deck. I found that Materson had the bar open and the gin bottle out.

  “How much longer?” he asked, sweaty and flushed despite the air-conditioning.

  “Another hour or so,” I told him, and thought that Materson was going to find himself with a drinking problem the way he handled spirits at midday. However, the gin had mellowed him a little and - always the opportunist - I loosened another three hundred pounds from his wallet as an advance against my fees before going up to take Dancer in on the last leg through the northern tide channel that led to the Old Men.

  The triple peaks came up through the heat haze, ghostly grey and ominous, seeming to hang disembodied above the channel.

  Jimmy was examining the peaks through his binoculars, and then he lowered them and turned delightedly to me. “That looks like it, skipper,” and he clambered down into the cockpit. The three of them went up on to the foredeck, passed the canvas-wrapped deck cargo, and stood shoulder to shoulder at the rail staring through the sea fret at the island as I crept cautiously up the channel.

  We had a rising tide pushing us up the channel, and I agreed to use it to approach the eastern tip of the Old Men, and make a landing on the beach below the nearest peak. This coast has a tidal fall of seventeen feet at full springs, and it is unwise to go into shallow water on the ebb. It is easy to find yourself stranded high and dry as the water falls away beneath your keel.

  Jimmy borrowed my hand-bearing compass and packed it with his chart, a Thermos of iced water and a bottle of salt tablets from the medicine chest into his haversack. While I crept cautiously in towards the beach, Jimmy and Materson stripped off their footwear and trousers.

  When Dancer bumped her keel softly on the hard white sand of the beach I shouted to them.

  “Okay - over you go,” and with Jimmy leading, they went down the ladder I had rigged from Dancer’s side. The water came to their armpits, and James held the haversack above his head as they waded towards the beach.

  “Two hours” I called after them. “If you’re longer than that you can sleep ashore. I’m not coming in to pick you up on the ebb.”

  Jimmy waved and grinned. I put Dancer into reverse and backed off cautiously, while the two of them reached the beach and hopped around awkwardly as they donned their trousers and shoes and then set off into the palm groves and disappeared from view.

  After circling for ten minutes and peering down through the water that was clear as a trout stream, I picked up the dark shadow across the bottom that I was seeking and dropped a light head anchor.

  While Guthrie watched with interest I put on a faceplate and gloves and went over the side with a small oyster net and a heavy tyre lever. There was forty feet of water under us, and I was pleased to find my wind was still sufficient to allow me to go down and prise loose a netful of the big double-shelled sun clams in one dive. I shucked them on the foredeck, and then, mindful of Chubby’s admonitions, I threw the empty shells overboard and swabbed the deck carefully before taking a pailful of the sweet flesh down to the galley. They went into a casserole pot with wine and garlic, salt and ground pepper and just a bite of chilli. I set the gas-plate to simmer and put the lid on the pot.

  When I went back on deck, Guthrie was still in the fighting chair.

  “What’s wrong, big shot, are you bored?” I asked solicitously.

  “No little girls to kick around?” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. I could see him checking out my source of information.

  “You’ve got a big mouth, Bruce. Somebody is going to close it for you one day.” We exchanged a few more pleasantries, none of them much above this level, but it served to pass the time until the two distant figures appeared on the beach and waved and halloed. I pulled up the hook, and went in to pick them up.

  Immediately they were aboard, they called Guthrie to them and assembled on the foredeck for one of their group sessions. They were all excited, Jimmy the most so, and he gesticulated and pointed out into the channel, talking quietly but vehemently. For once they seemed all to be in agreement, but by the time they had finished talking there was an hour of sunlight left and I refused to agree to Materson’s demands that I should continue our explorations that evening. I had no wish to creep around in the darkness on an ebb tide.

  Firmly I took Dancer across to the safe anchorage in the lagoon across the channel, and by the time the sun went down below a blazing horizon I had Dancer riding peacefully on two heavy anchors, and I was sitting up on the bridge enjoying the last of the day and the first Scotch of the evening. In the saloon below me there was the interminable murmur of discussion and speculation. I ignored it, not even bothering to use the ventilator, until the first mosquitoes found their way across the lagoon and began whining around my ears. I went below and the conversation dried up at my entry.

  I thickened the juice and served my clam casserole with baked yams and pineapple salad and they ate in dedicated silence.

  “My God, that is even better than my sister’s cooking,” Jimmy gasped finally. I grinned at him. I am rather vain about my culinary skills and young James was clearly a gourmet.

  I woke after mi
dnight and went up on deck to check Dancer’s moorings. She was all secure and I paused to enjoy the moonlight.

  A great stillness lay upon the night, disturbed only by the soft chuckle of the tide against Dancer’s side - and far off the boom of the surf on the outer reef. It was coming in big and tall from the open ocean, and breaking in thunder and white upon the coral of Gunfire Reef The name was well chosen, and the deep belly-shaking thump of it sounded exactly like the regular salute of a minute gun.

  The moonlight washed the channel with shimmering silver and highlighted the bald domes of the peaks of the Old Men so they shone like ivory. Below them the night mists rising from the lagoon writhed and twisted like tormented souls.

  Suddenly I caught the whisper of movement behind me and I whirled to face it. Guthrie had followed me as silently as a hunting leopard. He wore only a pair of jockey shorts and his body was white and muscled and lean in the moonlight. He carried the big black .45, dangling at arm’s length by his right thigh. We stared at each other for a moment before I relaxed.

  “You know, luv, you’ve just got to give up now. You really aren’t my type at all,” I told him, but there was adrenalin in my blood and my voice rasped.

  “When the time comes to rim you, Fletcher, I’ll be using this,“he said, and lifted the automatic, “all the way up, boy,” and he grinned.

  We ate breakfast before sun-up and I took my mug of coffee to the bridge to drink as we ran up the channel towards the open sea. Materson was below, and Guthrie lolled in the fighting chair. Jimmy stood beside me and explained his requirements for this day.

  He was tense with excitement, seeming to quiver with it like a young gundog with the first scent of the bird in his nostrils.

  “I want to get some shots off the peaks of the Old Men,” he explained. “I want to use your hand-bearing compass, and I’ll call you in.”

  “Give me your bearings, Jim, and I’ll plot it and put you on the spot,” I suggested.

  “Let’s do it my way, skipper,” he replied awkwardly, and I could not prevent a flare of irritation in my reply.

  “All right, then, eagle scout.” He flushed and went to the port rail to sight the peaks through the lens of the compass. It was ten minutes or so before he spoke again.

  “Can we turn about two points to port now, skipper?”

  “Sure we can,” I grinned at him, “but, of course, that would pile us on to the end of Gunfire Reef - and we’d tear her belly out.”

  it took another two hours of groping about through the maze of reefs before I had worked Dancer out through the channel into the open sea and circled back to approach Gunfire Reef from the east.

  it was like the child’s game of hunt the thimble; Jimmy called “hotter” and “colder” without supplying me with the two references that would enable me to place Dancer on the precise spot he was seeking.

  Out here the swells marched in majestic procession towards the land, growing taller and more powerful as they felt the shelving bottom. Dancer rolled and swung to them as we edged in towards the outer reef.

  Where the swells met the barrier of coral their dignity turned to sudden fury, and they boiled up and burst in leviathan spouts of spray, pouring wildly over the coral with the explosive shock of impact. “Then they sucked back, exposing the evil black fangs, white water cascading and creaming from the barrier, while the next swell moved UP, humping its great slick back for the next assault.

  Jimmy was directing me steadily southwards in a gradual converging course with the reef, and I could tell we were very close to his marks. Through the compass he squinted eagerly, first at one and then the other peak of the Old Men.

  “Steady as you go, skipper,” he called. “Just ease her down on that heading.”

  I looked ahead, tearing my eyes away from the menacing coral for a few seconds, and I watched the next swell charge in and break - except at a narrow point five hundred yards ahead. Here the swell kept its shape and ran on uninterrupted towards the land. On each side, the swell broke on coral, but just at that one point it was open.

  Suddenly I remembered Chubby’s boast.

  “I was just nineteen when I pulled my first jewfish out of the hole at Gunfire Break. Weren’t no other would fish with me - don’t say as I blame them. Wouldn’t go into the Break again - got a little more brains now.”

  Gunfire Break, suddenly I knew that was where we were heading. I tried to remember exactly what Chubby had told me about it.

  “If you come in from the sea about two hours before high water, steer for the oentre of the gap until you come up level with a big old head of brain coral on your starboard side, you’ll know it when you see it, pass it close as you can and then come round hard to starboard and you’ll be sitting in a big hole tucked in neatly behind the main reef. Closer you are on the back of the reef the better, man-” I remembered it clearly then, Chubby in his talkative phase in the public bar of the Lord Nelson, boastful as one of the very few men who had been through the Gunfire Break. No anchor going to hold you there, you got to lean on the oars to hold station in the gap - the hole at Gunfire Break is deep, man, deep, but the jewfish in there are big, man, big. One day I took four fish, and the smallest was three hundred pounds. Could have took more - but time was up. You can’t stay in Gunfire Break more than an hour after high water - she sucks out through the Break like they pulled the chain on the whole damned sea. You come out the same way you went in, only you pray just a little harder on the way out —,“cos you got a ton of fish on board, and ten feet less water under your keel. There is another way out through a channel in the back of the reef But I don’t even like to talk about that one. Only tried it once.”

  Now we were bearing down directly on the Break, Jimmy was going to run us right into the eye of it.

  “Okay, Jim,” I called. “That’s as far as we go.” I opened the throttle and sheered off, making a good offing before turning back to face Jimmy’s wrath.

  “We were almost there, damn you,” he blustered. “We could have gone in a little closer.”

  “You having trouble up there, boy?” Guthrie shouted up from the cockpit.

  “No, it’s all right,” Jimmy called back, and then turned furiously to me. “You are under contract, Mr. Fletcher!

  “I want to show you something, James, and I took him to the chart table. The Break was marked on the admiralty chart by a single laconic sounding of thirty fathoms, there was no name or sailing instruction for it. Quickly I pencilled in the bearings of the two extreme peaks of the Old Men from the break, and then used the protractor to measure the angle they subtended.

  “That right?” I asked him, and he stared at my figures.

  “It’s right, isn’t it?” I insisted and then reluctantly he nodded.. ”

  “Yes, that’s the spot,” he agreed, and I went on to tell him about Gunfire Break in every detail.

  “But we have to get in there,” he said at the end of my speech, as though he had not heard a word of it.

  “No way,” I told him. “The only place I’m interested in now is Grand Harbour, St. Mary’s Island,” and I laid Dancer on that course. As far as I was concerned the charter was over.

  Jimmy disappeared down the ladder, and returned within minutes with reinforcements - Materson and Guthrie, both of them looking angry and outraged.

  “Say the word, and I’ll tear the bastard’s arm off and beat him to death with the wet end,” Mike Guthrie said with relish.

  “The kid says you pulling out?” Materson wanted to know. “Now that’s not right - is it?” I explained once more about the hazards of Gunfire Break and they sobered immediately.

  “Take me close as you can - I’ll swim in the rest of the way,” Jimmy asked me, but I replied directly to Materson. “You’d lose him, for certain sure. Do you want to risk that?”

  He didn’t answer, but I could see that Jimmy was much too valuable for them to take the chance.

  “Let me try,” Jimmy insisted, but Materson shook his h
ead irritably.

  “If we can’t get into the Break, at least let me take a run along the reef with the sledge,” Jimmy went on, and I knew then what we were carrying under the canvas wrapping on the foredeck.

  “Just a couple of passes” along the front edge of the reef, past the entrance to the break.” He was pleading now, and Materson looked questioningly at me. You don’t often have opportunities like this offered you on a silver tray. I knew I could run Dancer within spitting distance of the coral without risk, but I frowned worriedly.

  “I’d be taking a hell of a chance - but if we could agree on a bit of old danger money” I had Materson over the arm of the chair and I caned him for an extra day’s hire - five hundred dollars, payable in advance.

  While we did the business, Guthrie helped Jimmy unwrap the sledge and carry it back to the cockpit.

  I tucked the sheath of bank notes away and went back to rig the tow lines. The sledge was a beautifully constructed toboggan of stainless steel and plastic. In place of snow runners, it had stubby fin controls, rudder and hydrofoils, operated by a short joystick below the Perspex pilot’s shield.

  There was a ring bolt in the nose to take the tow line by which I would drag the sledge in Dancer’s wake. Jimmy would lie on his belly behind the transparent shield, breathing compressed air from the twin tanks that were built into the chassis of the sledge. On the dashboard were depth and pressure gauges, directional compass and time elapse clock. With the joystick Jimmy could control the depth of the sledge’s dive, and yaw left or right across Dancer’s stern.

  “Lovely piece of work,” I remarked, and he flushed with pleasure.

  “Thanks, skipper, built it myself.” He was pulling on the wet suit of thick black Neoprene rubber and while his head was in the clinging hood I stooped and examined the maker’s plate that was riveted to the sledge’s chassis, memorizing the legend.

  Built by North’s Underwater World.

  5, Pavilion Arcade. BRIGHTON. SUSSEX.

  I straightened up as his face appeared in the opening of the hood.

  “Five knots is a good tow speed, skipper. If you keep a hundred yards off the reef, I’ll be able to deflect outwards and follow the contour of the coral.”