by Eric Murphy
Table of Contents
1 Paradise Lost
2 Dive or Die
3 A Watery Grave
4 The Escape
5 The Stone cutter
6 The Blockade Runner
7 A Nocturnal Outing
8 Windy Farm
9 The Archives
10 Papineau Benoit
11 A Confederate Town
12 St. George
13 Lily's Lament
14 The Admiralty House
15 Spreading Manure
16 The Banyan Tree
17 The Fish That Got Away
18 A Moving Disguise
19 Go Karts
20 Dead Men Tell No Tales
21 Papineaus Last Letter
22 Night Dive
23 A Graveyard Crawl
24 Trotters Trail
25 Amazing Grace
Historical Notes
Acknowledgements
THE
BERMUDA
SHIPWRECK
ERIC
MURPHY
Copyright © 2016 Eric Murphy
This edition copyright © 2016 Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.
First published in the United States of America in 2017.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (cbf) for our publishing activities, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, and the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit Program.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Murphy, Eric, 1952–, author
The Bermuda shipwreck / Eric Murphy.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77086-479-5 (paperback). — ISBN 978-1-77086-484-9 (html)
i. Title.
PS8626.U754b47 2016 JC813’6 C2016-904408-4 C2016-904409-2
United States Library of Congress Control Number: 2016945344
Cover design: angeljohnguerra.com
Interior text design: Tannice Goddard, bookstopress.com
Printed and bound in Canada.
Manufactured by Friesens in Altona, Manitoba, Canada in October, 2016.
This book is printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper.
DANCING CAT BOOKS
An imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.
10 St. Mary Street, Suite 615, Toronto, Ontario, M4Y 1P9
www.dancingcatbooks.com
www.cormorantbooks.com
Chapter One
Paradise Lost
Motorsailer: A boat that relies equally on motor and sail for propulsion, often over long distances.
Will couldn’t tell if the person sitting in the open boat was alive or dead. Will treaded water as he stared at the face covered in gauze, sunglasses, and a floppy hat tied under their chin. To Will’s right was an equally strange sight. A man in a black suit appeared to be sitting on the water, his dark skin contrasting with his long blond curls. He pulled a wedge of orange from a basket and held it out for Will. His sad expression grew concerned as he looked to the figure in the boat who sat still as death. The hands didn’t tell Will if it was a man or a woman because they were covered in gauze gloves. Suddenly, the gauzed left hand rose toward Will, who jerked back in surprise. The covered hand held out four old-fashioned envelopes, letting the first three blank ones fall away till only the last one, which had “H.M.S. Lily” written on it, remained. Just as the ink on the envelope started to run, as if it was wet, the person’s right hand pointed a gun at Will and fired.
Bang! The sound pulled Will from his dream. His cousin, Harley, reacted to the explosive sound by throwing the helm over hard. The change in course hurled Will from Wavelength’s banquette where he had been sleeping. He whipped his arms up defensively as he sailed out of the cockpit and plowed into the warm Bermuda water. Now fully awake, he whipped the salt water from his face with a double headshake. The life ring Harley threw at him scythed through the air and splashed within reach behind him.
“Will! Are you all right?” she screamed, her face scrunched with concern.
Will arced his right arm over and touched his head in the scuba divers’ signal that said he was okay. Harley’s look of concern told him she hadn’t done it as a joke. He also knew that, for a seventeen-year-old, she was both serious and safety-conscious when it came to boating.
To show her he really was okay, he ignored the life ring and got back to the motorsailer with a few strokes of Australian crawl. Harley flipped the ladder over the stern and he clambered aboard, then hauled the life ring back in.
“What happened?” he asked, wiping his face and hands with the towel she handed him.
“Don’t know. I heard the crack and I turned her into the wind in case it was the rigging. Never imagined you’d be thrown clear. But I think it came from below deck. Here, take the wheel and I’ll have a look.”
She started up the diesel and slipped it into gear, giving it just enough throttle to stop the wind from pushing them off course. The shoals and reefs in Bermuda had claimed ships for centuries. It wouldn’t do to let your ship drift off course when your depth gauge fluctuated between thirty and twelve feet.
Harley spun around and skipped down the companionway backward. She lifted the floorboard grate on the starboard side to stare at the water tank. That one hadn’t worked since before they’d sailed from Nova Scotia. The owner, a Mr. Bennett, had told Harley that it leaked but that he was sure the port-side water tank would be all two people would need for the short sail to Bermuda, especially as they could refill it as they moored in ports along the way to their final destination.
Harley’s face was scrunched in surprise as she ran a finger along the edge of the tank before lifting the top, which hinged backward.
“Somebody cut it open and put a hinge on it,” she said, staring inside.
The light from the portholes showed a piece of equipment the size of a small ottoman sitting on the bottom of the tank. She held up the frayed end of a red ratchet strap.
“This wore through till it snapped from the tension exerted on it by this, whatever this is,” she said, peering at it more closely.
“Well what is it?” asked Will.
“Some kind of pump, and there are coils of hose here too.” She shook her head before adding, “Weird. Why did Bennett tell us the tank had a leak?”
“Maybe it had a leak so he used it to store stuff,” offered Will.
“No. Tanks are supposed to be sealed. Somebody deliberately cut into this tank. There’s something fishy about this.”
Harley scampered back topside and dropped the sails in order to motor the remaining distance. Harley called Bennett with the cell he’d given her, to say that they were close to the rendezvous point and to inform him about the broken strap in the water tank. A man called Drury answered and said Bennett was out but that he’d relay the message.
An hour later, they dropped anchor about a mile off shore. Their gear was packed and ready to leave when Drury roared across the water in his sixteen-foot Zodiac, which was rigged like a dive boat. After tying up in the lee of the motorsailer, he introduced himself as a friend of the owner’s.
“That’s nice gear you have there,” said Wi
ll, nodding to the new-looking wetsuits and dive gear in the Zodiac.
“You dive?” asked Drury.
Will grinned. “I got my license three days before we set sail from Nova Scotia so we could dive while we’re here.”
“So what is that gear we found in the water tank?” asked Harley.
Harley’s tone was neutral but the question made Drury look away.
“It’s some kind of pump, isn’t it?” she pressed.
“It’s a backup bilge pump,” said Drury.
“What? No it’s not. Way too big. It’s a pump and with all those lengths of hose, it’s for a lot more than a bilge,” said Will smiling, thinking Drury was kidding.
“Well, I’m not much of a boat guy, I just assumed it was,” said Drury, not looking them in the eye. He asked if they’d reported the hoses to the customs officials when they had stopped in at St. George to sign the papers.
“We just found them so we couldn’t have reported them. But why are you concerned about what we reported to customs. Is this some kind of contraband?” asked Harley, her eyes narrowing.
Drury pulled a pistol from his backpack, and pointed it at the cousins. “It’s too bad you found that equipment, because now it changes everything.”
Chapter Two
Dive or Die
BCD: A buoyancy-compensating device in the shape of a vest, secured to an air tank and which can be inflated or deflated to give scuba divers neutral buoyancy.
Drury locked them in the front cabin where Will had slept. After motoring for an hour, he dropped anchor. They heard a splash. For twenty minutes, the quiet was only disturbed by the wind in the rigging, and then they heard him climb aboard. He opened the cabin door, pointed to the water tank with his gun, and ordered them to carry the pump and the hoses to the cockpit. Then they secured a screen off of Wavelength’s stern.
His diving gear was wet and he pointed to an inflated marker that bobbed at the surface about thirty yards from where they had anchored.
“You’re right, it’s not a bilge pump. It’s an underwater vacuum and you’re going to use it on the wreck that’s at the end of that diving marker. That screen we’ve just set up will allow me to see what’s been sucked up from the ocean floor. You’re looking to find an opening in the hull so you can get in and bring up a wooden box that sank with her. Box’s about two feet by two feet. The initials P.B. are carved on the front. Got that? P.B.? Two tugs on the line and I start the pump. Two more and I stop. You get me the box and I’ll let you go. Got that?”
“What’s the wreck? And what’s in the box?” asked Will.
“You don’t need to know that. The less you know, the better,” said Drury.
Harley shook her head. “Will’s had no diving experience beyond his certification so there’s no way he’s ready for wreck diving. I’ll go down alone and check it out.”
“Best if you alternate using the vacuum so you don’t get tired. And I bet that box will need two people to pull it free,” said Drury. “Besides,” he added with a crooked smile, “it’s not safe to dive without a buddy.”
“It’s not safe for a thirteen-year-old novice diver to go into a wreck. I’m not going to let this happen,” said Harley, crossing her arms.
“It’s dive or die,” said Drury, swinging his pistol from Will to Harley.
The warm Bermuda breeze tugged at the checkered shirt’s rolled-up sleeve as if trying to entice Drury to put down his weapon.
Drury tossed an empty juice bottle over the side, raised his automatic, and pointed it at the quart-sized container. Pulled along by an incoming tide, it bobbed twenty feet from their sailboat. He squeezed off two shots that kicked up a little spray on either side of the bottle — close enough. Arguing with Drury was more dangerous than wreck diving.
The ejected bullet casings clattered into the cockpit.
“Hey,” yelped Will as one of the hot casings ricocheted and singed his bare foot. Drury grinned as he retrieved the shells.
Will and Harley zipped up their wetsuit jackets and the zippers that ran up their calves, making it easier to get into and out of the black neoprene. Harley clambered down the ladder to the Zodiac Drury had tethered in the lee of the sixty-foot motorsailer.
Drury helped Will with his gear. He retrieved air tanks from the plywood tank holder strapped to the steering console. Although just seventeen, Harley had been diving since she was Will’s age, which explained why she was so at ease with all the gear.
As Will wiggled into his buoyancy compensator, Harley draped his regulator hose over his chest, and tucked the emergency regulator into the pocket of his BCD — his “buoyancy-compensating device.” She opened the valves on both their air tanks, which hissed as the pressure was released to the mouthpiece on their regulators. With his weight belt secured, Will sat on the Zodiac’s rubber bumper.
Harley dipped their fins into the ocean — wet fins were easier to pull on. Will winced as he slipped his over the little red dot the hot bullet casing had left on the top of his left foot.
They sprayed and rubbed anti-fog liquid into their masks, rinsed, then snugged them on. They clamped their regulators between their teeth and took a breath. Harley picked up the net bag and on her nod, they held on to their masks with their right hands, then toppled backwards into the ocean warmed by the bright island sun. To anybody on the distant shore, they looked like tourists on a leisurely dive.
When they popped their heads above the surface, Will gave his inflator tube two blasts. That swelled the BCD’s air bladder so he could float effortlessly, and he switched to his snorkel to save air. Harley reached over and double-checked the air pressure on his gauge — just below three thousand pounds per square inch, or psi. Harley was adamant that every dive end at seven hundred psi so that they would reach the Zodiac with five hundred psi in reserve. This three-in-one gauge also told you how deep you were, while the compass helped you navigate in deep water or in an enclosed space like a cave or a wreck.
Drury stood on the deck with his hands on his hips as they swam out to the big, red flotation ball that held their dive line in place. With her back to Drury, Harley pulled the snorkel from her mouth and said, “So let’s see if we can find that box to keep our jailer happy and maybe find out what this is really about, okay?” Her tone was upbeat but Will knew she was grinning to keep his morale up.
They put their index fingers to their thumbs to create an “O,” the divers’ sign that everything was okay. They thumbed the button that let the air out of their BCDs, then sank beneath the swells. A red hind, about two feet in length, swam up to investigate, hovering at mask height.
The blurbing sound of escaping bubbles accompanied them down to where the dive rope was tied to a coral-encrusted iron railing on the wreck that rested on the ocean floor. They also heard the muffled sound of gunshots. The bullets fizzed harmlessly away as Drury continued his target shooting.
Will’s flippers released a small cloud of dust as they touched the bottom. He tilted his head back, pressed the top of his mask against his forehead and exhaled through his nose to rid his mask of water that had seeped in. That small act of controlling his environment calmed him.
Moments after they tugged on the rope, they heard the compressor vibrating as it vacuumed the ocean floor and brought its contents up to Drury. The sediment released through the screen was carried by the current, well past Wavelength’s stern, where it fell back to the ocean floor, spreading out in a cone shape too murky to see through.
Will marveled at how clear the water in front of him was in the bright, midday sun as they took turns holding the two handles on the vacuum. Harley was handling the hose on her own when she suddenly exposed a rusted steel hull about eight inches below the sand.
Harley looked up long enough to point a finger at him then at the hose to indicate she’d like him to take over.
He took over the vacuum hose and pointed it at the front end of the trough Harley had created along the periphery of whatever boat was lying h
ere. The decades of sand that had been piled up over the steel structure from current, tide and storms suddenly gave way to an opening. It was a gash in the metal. Will gave the cord a double tug so Drury turned off the compressor, whose humming died away.
Will and Harley peered into the hull’s gaping wound. She pulled their underwater writing tablets out of the net bag so they could use them to fan the sand away in a gentler manner than the vacuum could. A moment later, she held her left hand up for him to stop, reached into the sand, and pulled up a small, encrusted, rectangular box that looked big enough to hold reading glasses. When she tried to open it, the box broke and they saw it held a gold necklace with a thumbnail-sized emerald pendant that was framed by what looked to be golden lobster claws. Harley’s eyes were wide with delight as she showed it to him.
They tucked the necklace into the net bag, gave the rope two tugs and resumed vacuuming the sand from the four-foot-wide furrow that ran quite a length along the steel hull. The coral reef had probably sliced into the boat, causing it to sink, thought Will as he turned the vibrating vacuum hose head to the task at hand.
A moment later, they bumped into a steel box which they wrestled out of the opening, careful not to rub up against the steel edges that might inflict a nasty cut. Time and rust had welded the box shut tight. It resisted their attempts to pry it open. When they turned back to the opening they froze. Inches from where the box had lain, was a skeleton’s hand reaching out to them.
Chapter Three
A Watery Grave
Bimini: An open-front, detachable fabric cover for a boat’s cockpit.
Will and Harley stared at the skeleton hand. Had its owner tried to get the box off the boat before it sank? wondered Will, who gave a little shudder at the sight of the bones.
As they vacuumed up more sand, the arms, chest, legs, and skull revealed themselves. They were careful not to suck up pieces of bone.
