by Wilbur Smith
“Fine, Jim.”
“If I put up a yellow marker, ignore it, it’s only a find, and we will go back to it later - but if I send up a red, it’s trouble, try and get me off the reef and haul me in.” I nodded. “You have three hours,” I warned him. “Then she will begin the ebb up through the break and we’ll have to haul off.”
“That should be long enough,” he agreed.
Guthrie and I lifted the sledge over the side, and it wallowed low in the water. Jimmy clambered down to it and settled himself behind the screen, testing the controls, adjusting his faceplate and cramming the mouthpiece of the breathing device into his mouth. He breathed noisily and then gave me the thumbs up.
I climbed quickly to the bridge and opened the throttles. Dancer picked up speed and Guthrie paid out the thick nylon rope over the stern as the sledge fell away behind us. One hundred and fifty yards of rope went over, before the sledge jerked up and began to tow.
Jimmy waved, and I pushed Dancer up to a steady five knots. I circled wide, then edged in towards the reef, taking the big swells on Dancer’s beam so she rolled appallingly.
Again Jimmy waved, and I saw him push the control column of the sledge forwards. There was a turmoil of white water along her control fins and then suddenly she put her nose down and ducked below the surface. The angle of the nylon rope altered rapidly as the sledge went down, and then swung away towards the reef.
The strain on the rope made it quiver like an arrow as it strikes, and the water squirted from the fibres.
Slowly we ran parallel to the reef, closing the break. I watched the coral respectfully, taking no chances, and I imagined Jimmy far below the surface flying silently along the bottom, cutting in to skim the tall wall of underwater coral. It must have been an exhilarating sensation, and I envied him, deciding to hitch a ride on the sledge when I got the opportunity.
We came opposite the Break, passed it and just then I heard Guthrie shout. I glanced quickly over the stern and saw the big yellow balloon bobbing in our wake.
“He found something,” Guthrie shouted.
Jimmy had dropped a light leaded line, and a sparkler bulb had automatically inflated the yellow balloon with carbon dioxide gas to mark the spot.
I kept going steadily along the reef, and a quarter of a mile farther the angle of the tow line flattened and the sledge popped to the surface in a welter of water.
I swung away from the reef to a safe distance, and then went down to help Guthrie recover the sledge. Jimmy clambered into the cockpit, and when he pulled off his faceplate his lips were trembling and his grey eyes blazed. He took Materson’s arm and dragged him into the cabin, splashing sea water all over Chubby’s beloved deck..
Guthrie and I coiled the rope then lifted the sledge into the cockpit. I went back to the bridge, and took Dancer on a slow return to the entrance of Gunfire Break.
Materson and Jimmy came up on to the bridge before we reached it.
Materson was affected by Jimmy’s excitement. “The kid wants to try for a pick up.” I knew better than to ask what it was.
“What size?” I asked instead, and glanced at my wristwatch. We had an hour and a half before the rip tide began to run out through the break.
Not very big-” Jimmy assured me. “Fifty pounds maximum.”
“You sure, James? Not bigger?” I didn’t trust his enthusiasm not to minimize the effort involved.
“I swear it.”
“You want to put an airbag on it?”
“Yes, I’ll lift it with an airbag and then tow it away from the reef.”
I reversed Dancer in gingerly towards the yellow balloon that played lightly in the angry coral jaws of the Break. “That’s as close as I’ll go,” I shouted down into the cockpit, and Jimmy acknowledged with a wave.
He waddled duck-footed to the stern and adjusted his equipment. He had taken two airbags as well as the canvas cover from the sledge, and was roped up to the coil of nylon rope.
I saw him take a bearing on the yellow marker with the compass on his wrist, then once again he glanced up at me on the bridge before he flipped backwards over the stern and disappeared.
His regular breathing burst in a white rash below the stern, then began to move off towards the reef Guthrie paid out the bodyline after him.
I kept Dancer on station by using bursts of forward and reverse, holding her a hundred yards from the southern tip of the Break.
Slowly Jimmy’s bubbles approached the yellow marker, and then broke steadily beside it. He was working below it, and I imagined him fixing the empty airbags to the object with the nylon slings. It would be hard work with the suck and drag of the current worrying the bulky bags. Once he had fitted the slings he could begin to fill the bags with compressed air from his scuba bottles.
If Jimmy’s estimate of size was correct it would need very little inflation to pull the mysterious object off the bottom, and once it dangled free we could tow it into a safer area before bringing it aboard.
For forty minutes I held Dancer steady, then quite suddenly two swollen green shiny mounds broke the surface astern. The airbags were up - Jimmy had lifted his prize.
Immediately his hooded head surfaced beside the filled bags, and he held his right arm straight up. The signal to begin the tow.
“Ready?” I shouted at Guthrie in the cockpit.
“Ready!” He had secured the line, and I crept away from the reef, slowly and carefully to avoid up-ending the bags and spilling out the air that gave them lift.
Five hundred yards off the reef, I kicked Dancer into neutral and went to help haul in the swimmer and his fat green airbags.
“Stay where you are,” Materson snarled at me as I approached the ladder and I shrugged and went back to the wheel.
“The hell with them all, I thought, and lit a cheroot but I couldn’t prevent the tickle of excitement as they worked the bags alongside, and then walked them forward to the bows.
They helped Jimmy aboard, and he shrugged off the heavy compressed air bottles, dropping them to the deck while he pushed his faceplate on to his forehead.
His voice, ragged and high-pitched, carried clearly to me as I leaned on the bridge rail.
“Jackpod” he cried. “It’s the-‘ “Watch id” Materson. cautioned him, and James cut himself off and they all looked at me, lifting their faces to the bridge.
“Don’t mind me, boys,” I grinned and waved the cheroot cheerily.
They turned away and huddled. Jimmy whispered, and Guthrie said, “Jesus Christ!” loudly and slapped Materson’s back, and then they were all exclaiming and laughing as they crowded to the rail and began to lift the airbags and their burden aboard. They were clumsy with it, Dancer was rolling heavily, and I leaned forward with curiosity eating a hole in my belly.
My disappointment and chagrin were intense when I realized that Jimmy had taken the precaution of wrapping his prize in the canvas sledge cover. It came aboard as a sodden, untidy bundle of canvas, swathed in coils of nylon rope.
It was heavy, I could see by the manner in which they handled it - but it was not bulky, the size of a small suitcase. They laid it on the deck and stood around it happily. Materson smiled up at me.
“Okay, Fletcher. Come take a look.”
It was beautifully done, he played like a concert pianist on my curiosity. Suddenly I wanted very badly to know what they had pulled from the sea. I clamped the cheroot in my teeth as I swarmed down the ladder, and hurried towards the group in the bows. I was halfway across the foredeck, right out in the open, and Materson. was still smiling as he said softly. “Now!”
Only then did I know it was a set-up, and my mind began to move so fast that it all seemed to go by in extreme slow motion.
I saw the evil black bulk of the .45 in Guthrie’s fist, and it coming up slowly to aim into my belly. Mike Guthrie was in the marksman’s crouch, right arm fully extended, and he was grinning as he screwed up those speckled eyes and sighted along the thick-jacketed barrel.
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br /> I saw Jimmy North’s handsome young face contort with horror, saw him reach out to grip the pistol arm but Materson, still grinning, shoved him roughly aside and he staggered away with Dancer’s next roll.
I was thinking quite clearly and rapidly, it was not a procession of thought but a set of simultaneous images. I thought how neatly they had dropped the boom on me, a really professional hit.
I thought how presumptuous I had been in trying to make a deal with the wolf pack. For them it was easier to hit than to negotiate.
I thought that they would take out Jimmy now that he had watched this. That must have been their intention from the start. I was sorry for that. I had come to like the kid.
I thought about the heavy soft explosive lead slug that the .45 threw, about how’it would tear up the target, hitting with the shock of two thousand foot pounds.
Guthrie’s forefinger curled on the trigger and I began to throw myself at the rail beside me with the cheroot still in my mouth, but I knew it was too late.
The pistol in Guthrie’s hand kicked up head high, and I saw the muzzle flash palely in the sunlight. The cannon roar of the blast and the heavy lead bullet hit me together. The din deafened me and snapped my head back and the cheroot flipped up high in the air leaving a’trail of sparks. Then the impact of the bullet doubled me over, driving the air from my lungs, and lifted me off my feet, hurling me backwards until the deck rail caught me in the small of the back.
There was no pain, just that huge numbing shock. It was in the chest, I was sure of that, and I knew that it must have blown me open. It was a mortal wound, I was sure of that also and I expected my mind to go now. I expected to fade, going out into blackness.
Instead the rail caught me in the back and I somersaulted, going over the side head-first and the quick cold embrace of the sea covered me. It steadied me, and I opened MY eyes to the silver clouds of bubbles and the soft green of sunlight through the surface.
My lungs were empty, the air driven out by the impact of the bullet, and my instinct told me to claw to the surface for air, but surprisingly my mind was still clear and I knew that Mike Guthrie would blow the top off my skull the moment I surfaced. I rolled and dived, kicking clumsily, and went down under Dancer’s hull.
On empty lungs it was a long journey, Dancer’s smooth white belly passed slowly above me, and I drove on desperately, amazed that there was strength in my legs still.
Suddenly darkness engulfed me, a soft dark red cloud, and I nearly panicked, thinking my vision had gone — until suddenly I realized it was my own blood. Huge billowing clouds of my own blood staining the water. Tiny zebrastriped fish darted wildly through the cloud, gulping greedily at it.
I struck out, but my left arm would not respond. It trailed limply at my side, and blood blew like smoke about me.
There was strength in my right arm and I forged on under Dancer, passed under her keel and rose thankfully towards her far waterline.
As I came up I saw the nylon tow rope trailing over her stern, a hight of it hanging down below the surface and I snatched at it thankfully.
I broke the surface under Dancer’s stern, and I sucked painfully for air, my lungs felt bruised and numb, the air tasted like old copper in my mouth but I gulped it down.
My mind was still clear. I was under the stern, the wolf pack was in the bows, the carbine was under the engine hatch in the main cabin.
I reached up as high as I could and took a twist of the nylon rope around my right wrist, lifted my knees and got my toes on to the rubbing strake along Dancer’s waterline.
I knew I had enough strength for one attempt, no more. It would have to be good. I heard their voices from up in the bows, raised angrily, shouting at each other, but I ignored them and gathered all my reserve.
I heaved upwards, with both legs and the one good arm. My vision starred with the effort, and my chest was a numbed mass, but I came clear of the water and fell half across the stern rail, hanging there like an empty sack on a barbed-wire fence.
For seconds I lay there, while my vision cleared and I felt the slick warm outpouring of blood along my flank and belly. The flow of blood galvanized me. I realized how little time I had before the loss of it sent me plunging into blackness. I kicked wildly and tumbled headlong on to the cockpit floor, striking my head on the edge of the fighting chair, and grunting with the new pain of it.
I lay on my side and glanced down at my body. What I saw terrified me, I was streaming great gouts of thick blood, it was forming a puddle under me.
I clawed at the deck, dragging myself towards the cabin, and reached the combing beside the entrance. With another wild effort I pulled myself upright, hanging on one arm, supported by legs already weak and rubbery.
I glanced quickly around the angle of the cabin, down along the foredeck to where the three men were still grouped in the bows.
Jimmy North was struggling to strap his compressed air bottles on to his back again, his face was a mask of horror and outrage and his voice was strident as he screamed at Materson.
“You filthy bloody murderers. I’m-going down to find him. I’m going to get his body - and, so help me Christ, I’ll see you both hanged,” Even in my own distress I felt a sudden flare of admiration for the kid’s courage. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that he was also on the list. “It was murder, cold-blooded murder,” he shouted, and turned to the rail, settling the faceplate over his eyes and nose.
Materson looked across at Guthrie, the kid’s back was turned to them, and Materson nodded.
I tried to shout a warning, but it croaked hollowly in my throat, and Guthrie stepped up behind Jimmy. This time he made no mistake. He touched the muzzle of the big .45 to the base of Jimmy’s skull, and the shot was muffled by the neoprene rubber hood of the diving-suit.
Jimmy’s skull collapsed, shattered by the passage of the heavy bullet. It came out through the glass plate of the diving mask in a cloud of glass fragments. The force of it clubbed him over the side, and his body splashed alongside. Then there was silence in which the memory of gunfire seemed to echo with the sound of wind and water.
“He’ll sink,” said Materson. calmly. “He had on a weight belt - but we had better try and find Fletcher. We don’t want him washed up with that bullet hole in his chest.”
“He ducked - the bastard ducked - I didn’t hit him squarely-“
Guthrie protested, and I heard no more. My legs collapsed and I sprawled on the deck of the cockpit. I was sick with shock and horror and the quick flooding flow of my blood.
I have seen violent death in many guises, but Jimmy’s had moved me as never before. Suddenly there was only one thing I wanted to do before my own violent death overwhelmed me.
I began to crawl towards the engine-room hatch. The white deck seemed to stretch before me like the Sahara desert, and I was beginning to feel the leaden hand of a great weariness upon my shoulder.
I heard their footsteps on the deck above me, and the murmur of their voices. They were coming back to the cockpit.
“Ten seconds, please God,” I whispered. “That’s all I need,” but I knew it was futile. They would be into the cabin long before I reached the hatch - but I dragged myself desperately towards it.
“Then suddenly their footsteps paused, but the voices continued.
They had stopped to talk out on the deck, and I felt a lift of relief for I had reached the engine hatch.
Now I struggled with the toggles. They seemed to have jammed immovably, and I realized how weak I was, but I felt the revitalizing stir of anger through the weariness.
I wriggled around and kicked at the toggles and they flew back. I fought my weakness aside and got on to my knees. As I leaned over the hatch a fresh splattering of bright blood fell on the white deck.
“Eat your liver, Chubby,” I thought irrelevantly, and prised up the hatch. It came up achingly slowly, heavy as all the earth, and now I felt the first lances of pain in my chest as bruised tissue tore.
I fell on my belly and groped desperately under the decking and my right hand closed on the stock of the carbine.
“Come on!” There was a loud exclamation, and I recognized Materson’s voice, and immediately the pounding of running footsteps along the deck towards the cockpit.
I tugged wearily at the carbine, but it seemed to be caught in the slings and resisted my efforts..
“Christ! There’s blood all over the deck,” Materson shouted.
“It’s Fletcher,” Guthrie yelled. “He came in over the stern.”
just then the carbine came free and I almost dropped it down into the engine-room, but managed to hold it long enough to roll clear.
I sat up with the carbine in my lap, and pushed the safety catch across with my thumb, sweat and salt water streamed into my eyes blurring my vision as I peered up at the entrance to the cabin.
Materson ran into the cabin three paces before he saw me, then he stopped and gaped at me. His face was red with effort and agitation and he lifted his hands, spreading them in a protective gesture before him as I brought up the carbine. The diamond on his little finger winked merrily at me.
I lifted the carbine onehanded from my lap, and its immense weight appalled me. When the muzzle was pointed at Materson’s knees I pressed the trigger.
With a continuous shattering roar the carbine spewed out a solid blast of bullets, and the recoil flung the barrel upwards, riding the stream of fire from Materson’s crotch up across his belly and chest. It flung him backwards against the cabin bulkhead, and split him like the knife-stroke that guts a fish while he danced a grotesque and jerky little death jig.
I knew that I should not empty the carbine, there was still Mike Guthrie to deal with, but somehow I seemed unable to release my grip on the trigger and the bullets tore through Materson’s body, smashing and splintering the woodwork of the bulkhead.