by Della Galton
Several people were already carrying gear from the quay to the boat and Olivia and Phil joined them. It was the kind of sport where everyone lent a hand and it gave them the chance to get acquainted with the other divers, most of whom seemed younger than them, Olivia observed, although there was one guy who looked a bit like Captain Birdseye, with white hair and bushy eyebrows, who Olivia decided must be the instructor Phil had mentioned. Until he put her right and pointed out a younger guy called Stephen, who couldn’t have been more than thirty. Phil also introduced her to Dan, the skipper, who asked to see her dive qualification.
‘Unbelievable health and safety these days,’ he said, with an apologetic glance at Phil. ‘And in our litigious society, I like to know who’s jumping off my boat.’
‘Absolutely,’ Olivia said. She felt a little thrill of excitement in her stomach. It had been a few years since she’d last dived with Tom, but the familiar smells of sea water and neoprene, and the rocking of the boat as they went to and fro, carrying stuff on to it, with the cries of the gulls overhead – all of it whisked her back in an instant. Unlike many relatively new divers, she’d dived a lot more in England than she had abroad.
They’d almost finished packing the dive kit safely onto the boat – Phil was just helping a latecomer get the last of the heavy bits on – when Olivia saw a familiar figure striding along the quay. It was Tom.
She didn’t know why she was so surprised. Her ex was a keen sailor and today was perfect for boating. And, of course, this would still be his closest harbour. Her first instinct was to hide so she didn’t have to speak to him. This was difficult on a dive boat. There was a cabin, but it was quite small and it would look a bit odd if she suddenly ducked inside it.
With a bit of luck, Tom wouldn’t spot her. He certainly wouldn’t be expecting to see her here. Hopefully he wouldn’t recognise Phil, who was in full view on the quay, chatting. Tom had only met him once, but then Phil was pretty recognisable. His darkly handsome brooding looks were head-turning and he had the kind of presence that men often looked at too.
But it did look as though Tom was on a mission. He was peering at the names of boats, stopping and starting as if he was searching for one. He had almost reached The Katherine – he glanced at a heap of weight belts and then at the boat, and Olivia found herself looking straight into his eyes.
Damn it.
He was about to head in her direction when she saw that Phil had seen him and was greeting him politely. Well done, Phil.
Both men turned slightly out of her view to speak to each other. She was too far away to hear what they were saying and could no longer see their faces, but she saw the body language suddenly change.
Tom was saying something and it wasn’t friendly. He was gesticulating with his hands. Cross, impatient little gestures that Olivia knew so well. He was clearly pissed off about something. She saw Phil’s shoulders stiffen and his back straighten. He and Tom were about the same height. Both of them were over six foot and there now seemed to be some kind of altercation going on. Phil was shaking his head.
Olivia was severely tempted to jump out of the boat and go and see what the hell it was about, but the skipper had just started the engines. The smell of marine diesel filled the air as they thrummed into life.
Phil was now the last person on the quay and Stephen was calling across, ‘Come on, mate, or we’ll be leaving you behind.’
Phil acknowledged this and shouted something in response, before he finally turned his back on Tom and headed for the boat. He was frowning, Olivia saw, and he looked pretty stressed out when he got to the boat.
‘Sorry about that.’ He hopped aboard as one of the divers cast off and they motored slowly through the calm waters of the harbour.
Including Stephen, the instructor, there were only four other divers, besides them, so three pairs of divers. Each of them sitting with their buddies. Olivia had saved Phil a seat on the bench and as he sat beside her, she said, ‘What was that about? Did he have a go at you?’
‘No. Not really.’ Phil shrugged. ‘I’ll tell you later.’ He gave her a slightly forced smile and she was aware of a tension in him that hadn’t been there before Tom had rocked up. Whatever Tom had said had clearly jolted him.
They’d been going for about twenty-five minutes and were out on the open sea, along with dozens of other boats, clearly with the same idea, when Stephen, who was on the other side of Phil, leaned closer to say something to him.
Phil looked surprised, but then nodded.
‘There’s been a slight change of plan,’ he said, leaning close to Olivia as the boat began to slow to a speed at which they could hear themselves more easily. ‘They’re not actually doing a drift dive today. Which is what I thought we’d be doing. It seems we’re not very far off slack water, so they’ve decided to do a wreck dive instead. It’s not very deep. Just over eighteen metres. It’s a new shipwreck, but Dan has the co-ordinates so he’s going to try and find it. Are you OK with that? Apparently, it’s the perfect wreck dive for beginners.’
‘I’m OK with that,’ she said, feeling her stomach tighten. The other divers were clearly excited about the prospect and she didn’t want to be a party pooper, although a wreck dive was a little more daunting than a drift dive – there were more opportunities to make mistakes when you were poking about amongst bits of old metal. ‘Actually,’ she continued, ‘I did do a wreck dive once before. There are some old Valentine tanks that are sunk off Boscombe Pier. They were experimental flotation tanks but they sank.’
‘Wow,’ Phil said, looking at her with respect.
One of the other divers caught the word Valentine. ‘I’ve dived those before,’ he said, giving her a thumbs up sign. ‘Brilliant, aren’t they?’
The atmosphere had changed on the boat. There was a buzz of excitement at the prospect of exploring a wreck.
‘I’ve never been on a wreck,’ Phil said, ‘But I’m up for giving it a go. And it makes sense if it’s slack water anyway.’
Slack water was the point at which the tide turned and it was the best time to dive on stationary objects like shipwrecks because the current wasn’t trying to sweep you off.
The skipper had now slowed and was circling around a patch of water – clearly, they had roughly the right co-ordinates – or marks, as divers called them – and was checking his echo sounder to find the wreck.
Stephen began to brief his divers.
‘Right, guys, I know this isn’t the first time most of you have been on a wreck.’ He glanced at Phil. ‘But I just want to run through the dive plan one more time. You don’t separate. You always stay in sight of your buddy.’ He checked over the side of the boat. ‘It looks to be about four or five metres visibility down there so that shouldn’t be too tricky. If you’re not comfortable with anything, you let your buddy know and you both come up. You do not separate. We’ll have about twenty minutes to mooch about on the wreck, which is mostly broken up, but there are one or two places where you can go right in. If you’re not confident, steer clear. Got it?’
There were nods and grunts of affirmation.
Olivia wasn’t the only woman on board. She caught the gaze of the other girl and they smiled at each other.
‘Remember the incident pit,’ Stephen continued. ‘Who can tell me what the incident pit is?’
It was the girl who replied. Her clear voice carrying across the fresh sea air and the low rumbling of the engine. ‘It’s when one tiny incident leads to another, then that leads to another and so on and then, before you know it, you’ve got a major life-threatening incident.’
‘Precisely,’ said the instructor. ‘It’s not usually one big thing that catches divers out. It’s a build-up of several small things. Not that we should have any problems today. We have almost perfect diving conditions.’
26
The skipper dropped anchor. ‘We’re pretty much on slack water now,’ he called. ‘And we’re just south of the wreck. Have fun, you guys.’
/> Two by two, the divers entered the water. Each pair bobbing on the surface fleetingly before making their descent. Phil and Olivia were the last pair to go in. This boat was easier than some because it had a purpose-built platform on the stern which made the whole process much easier. Especially when it came to getting back on. There was none of the undignified scramble you had when you got back into a rib.
Traditionally, divers went into the sea backwards. It was easier to hit the water with your back because then you could protect your mask and regulator with your hands and make sure they stayed in place. Even so, it was always weird, stepping off a boat, into the water. One moment the sun was hot on Olivia’s face, which was about the only exposed bit of skin there was in a dry suit, and the next there was the slight shock of cold water closing over her head. It was also odd making the transition from breathing air above land to breathing air from a regulator below the water.
Like the divers before them, she and Phil bobbed back up and stayed on the surface just long enough to gather themselves before agreeing they were ready to go down.
It was amazing how quickly it all came back to her, Olivia thought as they controlled their descent to the seabed, both of them taking it steady, keeping an eye on their dive computers, clearing their ears by gently blowing out through pinched nostrils, as they went.
It was ironic, she thought, that today had been the longest time she’d spent with Phil for ages. She was itching to talk to him, and now they still wouldn’t get the chance because they’d be underwater for the next thirty-five minutes.
The instructor had been right about the visibility. She and Phil were face to face as they dropped down and she could see Phil’s eyes clearly through this mask. He looked a little tense and she guessed he was still on edge because of whatever Tom had said to him. She wished they’d had a chance to speak about it before they’d left the boat. Being tense was not a good way to begin a dive. The episode had left her feeling uneasy and it had clearly unsettled Phil. Her mind flicked back to what the instructor had been saying earlier about the incident pit. It was so true. You needed to be totally on your game, not distracted, when you were about to slip down almost twenty metres in the sea.
Then, with a little thud, her dive boots touched the sandy seabed. She checked her computer – eighteen and a half metres.
Phil signalled to ask her if she was OK and she signalled back yes and returned the question to him. He patted the holster on his leg that was standard kit because it carried a dive knife which could come in useful if there was a problem and she saw that it was empty. He made gesturing motions to tell her it hadn’t been in properly and must have come out when they’d hit the water.
She shielded her eyes with one hand and did peering motions around them and then opened her arms in a question – did he want to look for it? There was certainly no sign of it anywhere nearby, but they’d stirred up the sand quite a bit when they’d landed so that wasn’t surprising.
He shook his head. His eyes were smiling. Olivia took this to be a no.
It was surprising, she mused, just how much conversation you could actually have underwater. Although, when she looked back on it later, she wondered whether the loss of his dive knife had been incident number two of the chain of mishaps that sent them hurtling into the incident pit.
There was no sign of the other divers. They must have already headed for the wreck. Technically, she and Phil weren’t part of the group. So, the dive instructor wasn’t responsible for them.
Olivia checked her compass and then headed south. Phil followed her. Both of them finning easily through the cool water. It was easier to see around once they got going and were out of the sandstorm they’d kicked up. The seabed was scattered with rocks and plant life, fat dark fronds of seaweed in clumps, and the occasional small fish swimming past. Very soon, they saw the dark shape of what must be the wreck looming up in front of them, and Olivia felt the tingle of excitement of imagining they were the first people to set foot on it since it had left the land of air. Apart from all the other dozens of divers that had been here lately, of course.
This particular shipwreck really deserved its title. It had broken into several pieces, so it was hard to even see it had once been a cargo vessel. Chunks of rusting twisted metal were strewn about over quite a large area. In the distance, she could see one of the other diving pairs looking at something.
For a while, Olivia and Phil finned in and out of the various chunks of metal, taking care not to get caught on any of the sharp edges. Every so often, Olivia was aware of another diver’s fin flicking in the distance, or they would drift over a piece of metal and she would see the trail of their air bubbles, so it didn’t feel as though it were just the two of them, which was reassuring.
It looked as though one pair had ventured into the only closed-up section of the wreck that the instructor had mentioned, but she had no desire to follow them. And neither, it seemed, did Phil. It was nice to just mooch about and get her confidence back. Find her sea legs, if that was the right term when you were underwater.
About three quarters of the way through the dive, Phil gestured to her and she finned across to see what he was pointing at. As she reached him, she saw that he’d found a lobster. It was a big one, made even bigger by the magnifying effect water had on everything, tucked into a hole knocked out of the side of the vessel about a metre up from the seabed. One graceful blue claw was clearly visible, waving in the water.
Phil was now laying horizontally, his body tucked close to the wreck, to get a better view and Olivia manoeuvred herself into position beside him.
For a while, they stayed and just watched the graceful crustacean, anchoring themselves in the peace of the deep, which was silent but for the sounds of their breathing amplified in their ears. She was so glad they’d had the chance to see this. It was such a bonding moment.
Olivia glanced at her computer and it was almost time to go up. She was about to tap Phil’s shoulder and tell him, when suddenly he backed away from the lobster so fast, he bumped into her. At first, she wasn’t sure what he’d seen or what had happened, but when she moved around him, she caught the edge of something grey and undulating on the edge of her vision. For a few moments, she wasn’t sure what it was. A sea snake – were there such things?
A distant memory was stirring.
Not a snake. An eel. A conger eel possibly. She’d never seen one in real life, but Tom had once shown her a picture and followed it up with a dire warning. ‘If you see one of these, keep well clear. They’re vicious critters. Their teeth slant backwards. I once knew a guy who lost a finger. He got bitten and he couldn’t get the damn thing off.’
No wonder Phil had been startled. The conger must have been in the same hole as the lobster. It was a big one too. Rather bizarrely Phil hadn’t moved that far away though. He was still close to the side of the wreck and she realised in the next, gut-wrenching moment that he wasn’t just gesturing to the conger but at his foot which now looked trapped. How was that even possible?
Olivia swam down for a closer look. His fin and foot had disappeared inside the wreck. She couldn’t see what had happened. There was too much sand swirling about. He must have kicked out so hard when he’d glimpsed the conger that he’d dislodged something. He was aware of it too – his breathing was much faster than it had been a few moments earlier. Above her head, she could hear the frantic bubbles of his panic.
The first stirrings of fear trickled through her. She couldn’t see a thing, but she did know that having a full-on panic attack underwater could be lethal. Making a split-second decision, she moved into his line of vision until they were face to face and held tight to his arm. How did you tell someone to calm down when you were underwater and the situation was actually quite bloody terrifying? Through his mask, she could see that he was fighting to control his fear. His pupils were huge.
Thanking God that she’d been trained in the chilly waters of this sea and not in some Caribbean tropical ocea
n like he had, Olivia took her regulator briefly out of her mouth and mouthed the words, ‘It’s OK. It will be OK. Stay calm.’
He seemed to understand. He gave her the OK signal with finger and thumb and his breathing slowed a fraction. That was a relief. He certainly wouldn’t have air to waste. They were too close to the end of the dive. She moved away from him slightly so she could look around. It would be very handy if they could alert the other divers.
There was no one in sight. Shit.
Another glance at her computer told her that they were now bang on the time to make their ascent. And as they’d been last into the sea, the other divers were probably already on their way up.
They were alone. Whatever needed to be done, it was down to her.
She swam back down to where his fin was trapped inside the wreck. They had a quick-release clip. All fins had them for exactly this kind of eventuality. The only problem was the quick-release bit was inside. She unclipped her torch and had a closer look. The gap in the plates by the lobster hole had closed up. Something had definitely slipped. Phil was well and truly stuck.
After twenty or thirty seconds of trying to shift the heavy metal back a few inches, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. God knows what they were made of, but they were too heavy to move. Phil had now regained sufficient control over his panic attack to try to help her, but even with two of them lifting, she knew it wasn’t enough.
Olivia’s computer began to beep – the audible alarm warning to tell her they were going into decompression time. They needed to go up. Fear hit her again, but this time it came in a wave, not a trickle. The most important thing was to keep calm. Once again, her training kicked in through the adrenaline.
Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm. She repeated the words in her head like a mantra. And suddenly there was an ice-cold part of her that knew what to do. If they couldn’t get the fin off Phil’s foot, she would just have to cut off the boot from his dry suit, then he could slip his foot out of both boot and fin. It was a risky strategy as he’d instantly fill up with water which would be freezing, not to mention weigh him down. The drysuit was part of their buoyancy. If she filled it up with water, they might have some trouble getting back up to the surface.
