03 Underwater Adventure

by Willard Price

  He circled to a spot where a crossing would naturally begin. Then he shut off the motor and told Roger to row, slowly.

  In spite of the lack of evidence on Skink’s blade, he still half expected to come upon the drowned body of Blake with a knife wound between the shoulders.

  He fished a mask out of a locker, put it on, and lowered his face into the water so that he could clearly see everything below.

  The boat passed over a giant clam, its great jaws open. Then, ahead, he could make out another giant, its jaws closed upon some object, probably a large fish. Coming nearer, he could see plainly what the object was, and his heart sank.

  ‘Stop rowing,’ he said to Roger. ‘Here he is.’

  He dived in, plunged his knife between the slightly separated edges of the shell and worked until he had made an opening large enough to admit his arm. He reached in and sank his knife into the powerful hinge. The huge valves eased apart.

  Hal raised the limp body to the surface and the others helped lift it into the boat.

  Hal climbed in and stripped off Blake’s sodden shirt. There was no mark on the back or chest. The ankle was deeply cut. Hal thought he could see just what had

  happened.

  ‘He was swimming across and got caught in the clam. He tried to saw off his foot but a knife isn’t much good for that purpose. Before he could finish the tide rose and drowned him.’

  One thing was as clear as the sun. Blake’s death had been an accident. Skink was innocent. A fellow of idle boasts and mean tricks, but no murderer. Hal was glad, for he had never wanted to think the worst of Skink.

  The three sat silent, each engaged in his own unhappy thoughts, while the dinghy bore its mournful burden to the schooner.

  Chapter 13

  Burial beneath the sea

  Blake had loved the colourful lands beneath the sea. He had spent much of his life studying their mysteries. Twice he had expressed the wish to be buried, like the seaman in the Jules Verne story, amid the loveliness and peace of the coral gardens.

  His wish was respected. Hal and Roger selected the spot.

  In a coral garden of surpassing beauty not far from the wreck of the Santa Cruz they came upon a splendid elkhorn coral in the form of a cross. Its erect column stood fifteen feet high and its two arms spanned five feet. But not only in its great size was it superior to the ordinary graveyard cross. It was not built of dead granite or marble. It was a living and glowing cross, the work of millions of Blake’s small friends, the coral architects.

  Its surface seemed inlaid with countless jewels of every colour that glowed softly in the light of the sun reaching down through ten fathoms of sea. It was a cross fit for the grave of a king - and the boys felt it was none too good for Blake. With pick-axe and shovel they dug a grave at the foot of the cross.

  Returning to the deck, they joined in the service for burial at sea conducted by Captain Ike.

  Then the body of the scientist, wrapped first in sailcloth and then in the flag of his country, was lowered over the side. Five pall-bearers, including Captain Ike and Omo who had insisted upon coming along although this was the captain’s first experience with an aqualung, bore the shrouded form down into the depths.

  Perhaps there had never been so strange a funeral procession as this. The grotesque masked and tanked figures that looked as if they might have come from Mars proceeded, head downward, pushing towards the bottom by thrusts of their enormous webbed feet.

  Reaching the ocean floor, they walked with slow steps through an undersea paradise of great chrysanthemum’ like anemones, stately fans and plumes, clouds of tiny rainbow-coloured fish, to the foot of the jewelled cross.

  Reverently they laid the lover of the sea in his coral tomb, filled the grave with pure white sand, and paved it securely with masses of coral.

  There were even flowers on the grave, for in the holes of the coral blocks brilliant sea anemones and gorgonias flourished.

  These were flowers that would never fade, that would constantly renew themselves through the years and the centuries.

  And so, under this carpet at the foot of the living cross in a garden that no building would ever violate, they left their friend to his long rest.

  Chapter 14

  Kidnapped

  Sadly the mourners returned to the deck of the Lively Lady.

  But they could not sit and grieve. There was work to be done. Omo had made frequent inspections of the wreck during the day; now watches must be set for the

  night.

  ‘You take the first, Roger, while there’s still a little light,’ Hal directed. ‘Then I’ll take an hour, then Omo. Then you again. Tomorrow we’ll begin bringing up the cargo.’

  ‘And who are you to be giving orders?’ inquired Skink coolly. Hal was surprised. ‘Who else? ‘You don’t think you?’

  ‘Have you forgotten that I was Blake’s second in command?’

  ‘He never said so.’

  ‘Perhaps not in so many words. But didn’t he bring me on because I was an experienced diver and you weren’t? Didn’t he give me the job of teaching you and your kid brother how to dive with the aqualung?’

  Hal faced him angrily. ‘That was before he found out you were a crook and a coward. Then he put you down to leave on the next plane. And that still holds.’

  Skink smiled with tolerant insolence. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve changed my plans. I’m staying right here and you’re going to take my orders.’ He heard a snort from Captain Ike and turned upon him viciously. ‘And so are you, you rickety old bag of leather and bones!’

  A long arm attached to the bag of leather and bones began to swing, and when the open palm slapped Skink’s face the force was sufficient to knock him clear across the deck in a heap under the gunwale.

  ‘Mutiny! Mutiny!’ screamed Skink. ‘By the Holy Harry, I’ll show you who’s master here!’

  He leaped below and came up at once with a revolver.

  ‘Now, line up against that rail. I’ll give each of you just one second to say who’s boss. If you can’t decide in that time I’ll put you where you won’t have to decide anything any more. Get going! Line up!’ He brandished the revolver.

  There was no rush to the rail. Instead, Hal began to move towards Skink.

  ‘Get back!’ yelled Skink, hopping up and down like a madman while his revolver wobbled wildly. ‘Get back or I’ll slug you!’

  ‘Careful, Hunt,’ advised Captain Ike. ‘He’s gone crazy. He’s apt to do anything.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Hal said. ‘He hasn’t the nerve to shoot. When he kills he goes round about - with a sidewinder in a pocket, a scorpion in a helmet, a stonefish to do his killing for him …’ He stopped and stared at Captain Ike. ‘Or a giant clam!’

  It came to him like a blinding flash of light. He did not know how, but somehow Skink had used the giant clam to accomplish the death of Dr Blake. It was exactly the sort of thing he would do - the sort of thing he had done with the sidewinder, the scorpion, and the stonefish. And when he had failed to warn Roger of the shark, when he had pretended the winch was out of order - it was all in the same pattern. His mind could not move except through sneaking, underhanded trickery. He lacked the courage to do anything straight out. He would not shoot

  Hal moved closer.

  ‘One more step and you get it!’ screamed Skink. His face was black with fury and his eyes bulged.

  Hal made not only one more step, but a swift half-dozen. He struck the revolver out of Skink’s hand and it flew over the gunwale into the sea. He gripped Skink by the throat and bore him down to the deck.

  But Skink was as muscular and slippery as an eel. He slid out from under, leaped up, and kicked Hal in the face - or where Hal’s face would have been had he not lifted it at just the right moment so that his opponent kicked an iron stanchion instead. Skink howled with pain.

  The general laughter made him more furious. He pulled off his weighted belt. It was loaded with six lead discs each weighing a pound.r />
  He swung the belt with all his force at Hal who retreated behind a mast. The belt whipped around the mast, the end of it slapping back towards Skink, and two pounds of solid metal caught him squarely on the side of the head, nearly knocking him out.

  First the stanchion and now the mast - it seemed to the onlookers that the ship itself was fighting Skink. The Lively Lady was up in arms against him.

  He tore the boom crutch from under the boom. It was a scissor-like support of very heavy wood, designed to keep the boom from swinging. Skink leaped up on to the rail in order to bring this weapon down like a club upon Hal’s head.

  A fresh breeze was blowing and at this instant the heavy boom swung to leeward. It swiped Skink from the rail and dropped him into the sea.

  The Lively Lady had had the final word. She seemed to have said, ‘Get off my clean decks and never come back.’

  Skink put his hand on the ladder. Then he heard Hal’s warning voice:

  ‘If you come back on this ship you will be put in irons and held for the murder of Dr Blake.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous …’ began Skink.

  But when he glanced up at the row of angry faces looking down at him over the rail he knew it was useless to go on. His shipmates and his ship didn’t want him. He had fooled them for the last time.

  Well, almost the last time. He looked towards the island. It was a mile away, an easy pull for a good swimmer. He turned his back on the Lively Lady and struck out.

  Hal was distressed and looked to Captain Ike for counsel.

  ‘Should we have held him? We could overtake him in the dinghy and bring him back.’

  Captain Ike shook his head.

  ‘Let him go, lad, and good riddance. You couldn’t have proved anything against him in court. There was no witness. There was no evidence that he laid a finger on Blake. No, you’ll have to leave his punishment to the sky and the sea. And if I’m not mistaken …’ He peered at a rolling formation of white and black clouds in the west, ‘the sea and sky are getting ready to punish somebody.’

  The expected turn in the weather did not come at once; the sea remained calm and the sky clear during the night. Roger took the first undersea watch, thankful that the ocean depths were not yet completely dark. After what had happened to Blake his nerves all leaped up on end like a porcupine’s quills every time a big fish approached or a strange sound struck his

  ears.

  For a time he hovered like a helicopter above the deck of the Santa Cruz-Then, for something to do, he swam down into the hold and turned on his torch.

  At once he saw that there had been a change. Several of the chests of treasure had disappeared.

  It could not be Skink’s doing this time because Skink had been on the island, and then with the funeral procession.

  Anyone who didn’t know Omo might suspect him, for he had been left alone to guard the wreck during the day. But Roger would as soon suspect his own brother as distrust their Polynesian friend.

  At some time when Omo was not watching, the invisible man had made off with more of the loot.

  Omo could hardly be blamed for this. He had made frequent visits to the wreck, and that was all that could be expected of him. No man could stay down continually because of the injurious effect of water pressure upon the body. The unseen smuggler had watched his chance and crept in while the wreck lay unprotected.

  Certainly he would come back for more. He might even come back at this moment while no one was in sight and the ship appeared to be unguarded.

  In a panic, Roger shot up out of the hold into the open and tried to look dangerous. He did not feel dangerous -only scared. Hie dusk was deepening and the moving

  objects in the sea were indistinct blobs. They could be fish, or they might all be smugglers, no matter how he strained his eyes he could not be sure which. His hour seemed five hours long, but at last he was relieved by Hal. Before surfacing he took Hal into the hold and showed him the gaps in the cargo.

  He was surprised to have Hal accompany him to the surface and on board the Lively Lady.

  Hal tore the breathing tube from his mouth and gave vent to his anger.

  ‘Omo! Get up out of that bunk! Captain Dee! No more sleep tonight! We’re going to start salvaging, right now.’

  Omo and the captain crawled out, blinking. ‘Night is no time …’ began the captain.

  ‘They’re looting the cargo. We won’t give them a chance to take one more doubloon. The small stuff we can bring up in baskets and buckets. The big stuff the Iron Man can handle. Rig him up.’

  Everyone hopped to with a will. Captain Ike took charge of deck operations while the others prepared to go below.

  The Iron Man rose out of the hold, received Hal as its passenger, and sank into the sea. Two powerful searchlights attached to the chest of the monster were turned on. Hal gave instructions over the telephone, and Captain Ike regulated the cargo boom until the Iron Man was in position to sink-through the open hatch into the hold. There the great arms embraced a huge chest and the signal was given to hoist away.

  In the meantime Roger and Omo made a selection from the various baskets, buckets and nets that the ship could offer and descended to fill these containers with small articles. Up and down they went, steadily transferring the treasure of the Santa Cruz to the hold of the lively Lady.

  Hour after hour, with occasional rests, and intervals for recharging the tanks, the work went on.

  Shortly before midnight Roger found himself alone in the hold. Hal and the Iron Man had gone up to deliver a bronze urn, and Omo had followed a moment later to recharge his aqualung.

  Roger was occupied in filling a close-meshed net with gold bullion when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Had Omo returned - or was it the touch of a fish or the tentacle of an octopus?

  He swung the beam of his light around and up full into the faces of two masked men. He sprang to his feet and clapped his hand to his side, but his knife had been stolen from its sheath.

  He struck out with his fists and had the satisfaction of knocking the aqualung mouthpiece from one man’s mouth so that he must choke and swallow some water before he could recover it. Then he felt his arms gripped firmly and he was pushed up out of the hold and carried away swiftly, his kidnappers, one on either side of him, swimming with powerful strokes of their rubber fins.

  Around them sparkled the million lights of the deep-sea fish that had come to feed in the upper waters during the night. The glow faintly illuminated the coral gardens and the lone cross over the scientist’s grave. Then they passed over the labyrinth of rocks.

  A little beyond it they came down on the ocean floor beside what appeared to be an enormous boulder. But when the light of the torches picked it up he realized

  that it was a Japanese submarine like those he had seen manoeuvring in Truk lagoon.

  On the near side was the bulge of the escape chamber. One of the men pulled open the trapdoor and Roger was pushed inside, the door closing behind him.

  He heard a rushing sound as the water was forced out of the chamber by an intake of air. Then the trapdoor opened under his feet and he tumbled into the hold of the submarine.

  Automatically the trapdoor closed and again he heard the rushing sound as the air in the escape chamber was displaced by water. Then the process was reversed and presently the inside trapdoor opened to spill one of his captors into the hold. The other soon followed.

  They spat out their mouthpieces and whipped off their masks to reveal faces that Roger didn’t like to look at. If his fate depended upon these thugs, his luck was out for sure. Their faces were twisted into permanent scowls and their eyes were as unfriendly as a moray eel’s.

  But apparently they were familiar with submarines -at least they began to push and pull a dozen gadgets as if they knew what they were about. They were too intent upon making a quick getaway to pay any attention to Roger. There was the whoosh of water from the ballast tanks to give the craft positive buoyancy, raising it from the b
ottom, and the purr of an electric motor, to start the propeller. One man sat at the wheel with his eye on the compass while the other watched the fathometer, showing the clearance between the submarine and the bottom.

  Presently the deck under Roger’s feet tilted upward more steeply as if the submarine were coming to the surface and the man who was steering glued his eye to the periscope. After a time the motor stopped, an overhead hatch was opened and the fresh night air flooded in.

  One of the men, the one with an ugly scar over his left eye, said in a rasping voice, ‘All right, buddy. End of the line.’

  Roger climbed up through the hatch. The men followed, lugging a heavy chest, evidently stolen from the wreck.

  ‘Just hop off and swim ashore,’ instructed Scarface. ‘Reception committee waiting for you on the beach.’ Roger swam and waded ashore. A dark form stood on the beach. Roger heard a low laugh - it was Skink’s laugh.

  ‘So nice of you to join us,’ Skink said. ‘We haven’t much to offer, but you may be sure we’ll do our best to make you uncomfortable.’ Scarface waded ashore. ‘Did you leave my note?’ Skink asked. ‘Sure, boss. Tied it to the mast, just like you said.’ Roger’s mind buzzed with questions, but he refused to ask them, knowing he would not get honest answers.

  ‘Now, if you’ll just follow me,’ said Skink, keeping up his show of mock courtesy, ‘and pardon me for going first, but I happen to know the way.’

  He struck off into the thicket, lighting his way with his torch. The two thugs stuck unpleasantly close to Roger and any thought of escaping into the jungle had to be dismissed.

  For fifteen or twenty minutes they wormed their way through the brush, then came out before a tent in a small clearing. ‘Be it ever so humble,’ said Skink, ‘it’s home, sweet

  home. Make a fire, Chubb. Time for a midnight snack before you get back to the wreck.’

  Roger, with a boy’s eternal interest in food, pricked up his ears at mention of a snack.