“I would advise any man,” Mr. Lillibulero had said with kindling eye to Robby in that desperate moment, “when in a tight spot, t’think first, and act afterwards, because there is no telling what he may think of if he gives himself the chance.”
Accordingly, in this tight spot, Robby closed his eyes against the darkness, his mind against the fear that threatened him, and tried hard to think.
The first thought that came to him was no use at all. It was a memory of something he had read—about how the women and children captured by Huron Indians during the French and Indian War had left trails of tom cloth for their husbands and fathers to follow. But, thought Robby in despair, how can you leave a trail through the moving waters of the ocean—particularly when you are wearing nothing but swimming trunks, weight belt, and water lung?
For a moment, fear and hopelessness rose in Robby like a dark tide and he felt the grip of panic tightly squeezing his throat. He squeezed his eyes tighter shut in answer, and tried to concentrate on something or someone courageous.
Unexpectedly, like a sudden little light in the darkness came the thought of Sir Bleoberis. For a moment Robby saw him clearly in full armor, helmet thrown back, mustaches bristling. He had his hand on the hilt of his sword, and his jaw outthrust, confronting the white-faced, black-mustached figure standing this moment on the deck of La Floridana. “I dread no Spanish Ghost!” the knight was snapping. And the white-faced Captain was cringing and drawing back. Robby smiled to himself.
All of a sudden, Robby’s fear was gone. The moment he smiled it drained out of him like water from a tub when the plug is pulled. Immediately, he could think clearly and sensibly, and remembered that he was still wearing the rapport cap. And that the cap was, as always, transmitting its radio signal to the cap Mac was wearing—wherever Mac was. That Mac should go on receiving the signal was not important. What was important was that anyone with the proper radio equipment could receive it also. What was more, with this equipment they could find Robby, no matter how lost he was.
It was too bad, thought Robby, almost light-headedly now that his fear was gone, that he could not use the cap to send a regular, telegram sort of message. For a moment he imagined it, printed on yellow paper all in the sort of capital letters found on telegrams, “HELP EXCLAMATION POINT,” he imagined it reading. “CLINGING TO SUNKEN SHIP STOP PROCEEDING UNDERWATER IN UNKNOWN DIRECTION STOP AT UNKNOWN RATE OF SPEED STOP GHOST OF SPANISH SEA CAPTAIN RUNNING SHIP STOP PLEASE RESCUE ME AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE STOP REPEAT HELP EXCLAMATION POINT HELP EXCLAMATION POINT ROBERTSON ALAN HOENIG"
But the cap was not capable of being used to send such a message. Would that it was!
However, the fact remained that as long as Robby held onto the cap, he would eventually be located. Just as soon as he was missed, someone like Coast Guard Rescue Nine, which would certainly have radio-locating equipment among its rescue devices, could track down the signal and find him.
By the time Robby managed to think all this out, he noticed that La Floridana was changing direction again, because now his body trailed at an angle to the ship, the way a car trailer trails at an angle when the car pulling it goes around a comer. Also, he could hear that one of the electric motors had almost stopped, so that the one-sided push from the other motor was turning the ship to Robby’s right. To Robby it seemed as if in a moment they would be heading back the way they had come, down the outside of the reef.
Before that point was reached, however, Robby sensed a heavier darkness in the moonlit waters, which he identified as the rocks of the reef. A few seconds later, La Floridanaturned in through another gap between two black, cliff-like walls of those rocks, and once more Robby saw a moonlit, white sand bottom beneath him.
The drowned ship swung sideways, slowly. For the first time then Robby saw that it was not alone here inside the reef. In the shallow water, less than forty feet deep, was what looked like a string of great sausage-shaped bags, connected in a line by short lengths of thick wire cable, which stretched out of sight in the darkness as the sloop passed them. Robby could not see more than one and part of another at a time, but he thought there must be at least five or six of the bags. La Floridana came level with the last of these, and Robby, looking ahead, saw a strange, stubby-looking ship.
It was like an enormous raindrop made of metal, fully thirty feet at its thickest. Metal shutters had been raised above portholes in its side, and light shone out through the thick glass of a number of these portholes.
Robby, who was familiar with most kinds of underseas craft, recognized this type of ship at a glance, though he had never seen one before. It was one of the deep-sea tugs that towed bags of oil, gasoline, and other liquid substances half-way across the world, to deliver them to markets needing these goods.
Robby had learned about such ships from research for a school project. He knew that the teardrop shape of the submarine tug was the result of research by the U.S. Navy into the way the streamlined form of dolphins helped the dolphins avoid the drag of turbulence. Dolphins, as Robby already knew, could swim several times faster than they ought to be able to with their strength, because of their shape. And unlike all other sea creatures, and all man-made ships, they left no wake in the water when they swam.
The bags were simply cargo containers. In them, explosive or inflammable materials could be transported much more safely under the water, free from storms, than they could in the old-fashioned, metal, surface-going tanker ships. But what, wondered Robby now, was a tug doing here inside the reef, far off the normal sailing routes for such craft?
Then he saw the answer. For as La Floridana swung in toward the cargo bag just behind the tug, Robby saw the bag slowly begin to open in a way no cargo bag had ever been designed to open. The whole side of it was rolling up like a window shade, leaving an opening wider than it was high—wide enough to take the full length of La Floridana, Inside, the bag was lighted up and men in water lungs and black underwater suits like Mr. Lillibulero’s were working.
Something clunked against the far side of La Floridana. Then, slowly, the sloop began to slide sideways through the water into the bag and Robby realized what was happening.Once inside the bag, with the opening rolled down again, the ancient Spanish ship could be transported secretly anywhere in the world without suspicion.
This sudden understanding struck Robby like the shock of chill water, driving away his optimism and he knew that he was caught up in an expensive and complicated robbery, directed and managed by desperate men. If he should be caught by those men, it would be far worse than being captured by show-off Vandals, or misdirected Tropicans.
Even as he thought this, Robby saw that La Floridana was almost into the cargo bag. In a moment he would be therewith the sloop, exposed to the glare of the lights and the sight of the men moving the ship. Quickly, Robby let go of the rough wood of the stern, ready to make a break for it and take his chances alone in the night waters.
But he did not make it, for at that moment he felt his right wrist caught in a hard grip.
There is a danger that follows the conquering of fear; the danger of going to the opposite extreme and becoming care-less, so that disaster occurs.
This is what happened to Robby. He forgot his danger and ran headlong into disaster. Jerking his head up to see what was holding his wrist, Robby felt his throat close with fright.and his body go rigid.
The mask-like white face and black mustache of the ghost of the Spanish captain was staring down into the face of Robby. The mustache was only a foot away from Robby’s eyes. And the gloved right hand of the ghost was clamped around Robby’s wrist.
Locked in the Strong Room
A moment later, La Floridana slid into the cargo bag and into a structure of metal rods that waited to hold it firmly in the bag’s center. The light fell on Robby briefly. Immediately the ghost captain stepped over the railing of the stem and swam off into the darkness of outside water, dragging Robby behind him.
Evidently weighed down by hi
s costume, the ghost jerked along, as Robby swam numbly with him, dazed and sick with the shock of being captured. They crossed a little space of open water to the side of the tug, where the ghost felt about and finally struck a large, flat bottom.
At once, a metal flap swung down before them and Robby saw a small, bright water-filled room with lockers along one wall to his right, and a door in the inner wall directly before him. The end of a rope, like the rope that had been tied around Mac’s neck, was knotted to the handle of one of the lockers. Pulling Robby roughly after him, the ghost swam into the room, and punched the uppermost of two buttons to the right of the door in the inner wall.
Robby heard a faint, whining noise as the ghost released his wrist. Turning about quickly, Robby saw that the flap of the entrance was already closing. As he looked, it clicked shut and the whining noise stopped.
A new, rushing sound began as the water started to drain out of the room where they stood. In seconds the water level dropped below Robby’s chin and he was able to pull down the face plate of his water lung. It was clear that this was the airlock of the tug, and the lockers probably contained water lungs and other underwater equipment.
Robby turned to look at the ghost, who was taking off his costume, which apparently unsealed down the front, so that it could be stepped into or out of in a single motion. The breeches, coat, sword, and the rest were all connected together. The man underneath stepped out of all this and stood up in slacks and shirt, with soft-soled slippers on his feet. He took off the high-crowned hat, revealing himself as hardly taller than Mr. Lillibulero—or not much taller than Robby.Above this short and slender body the big white, black-mustached face and head looked more than ever too big for the rest of him.
Then, however, the man reached for the chin of this face and pulled upward. To Robby’s amazement, the whole face and head crumpled upward and pulled off. Underneath, the man was wearing a regular face plate and water lung collar, which he also removed. Robby found himself looking into a familiar face.
It was the cold face of Cal, the power engineer.
As if this was not enough of a shock, Cal’s hand went to his head again and lifted the mousy hair, to reveal bright, reddish hair, cropped short and bristly. Robby shrunk up inside.
It was his first experience with the fact that a fine actor does not have to cover himself with makeup to appear as an entirely different person. It is enough to change one feature and “play to it” as they say in the theater. This, the man who was obviously Red Carswell, had done.
With the wig of mousy hair, Red Carswell had appeared mean and unfriendly—but not frightening. Now, under the stiff crop of his own reddish pelt, not a line of his features was changed. But each feature took on a new meaning. Now Robby saw why Mr. Lillibulero had compared Red Carswell to a weasel, or a ferret. His hair had the red tinge of a ferret’s hair and his face had the same sharp, pointed expression. His bright, cold eyes showed a gleam of cold and murderous joy.
The shrinking feeling began in the region of Robby’s stomach, as those eyes looked toward him. Would Carswell turn on him now, with no respect for the fact that Robby was only a boy and smaller than he was, as Mr. Lillibulero had said the art thief was capable of doing? Maybe if he knocks me outright away, I won’t feel anything at all, thought Robby, seeing Carswell start toward him.
But the red-haired man was apparently only feeling impatient at the moment, not cruel. He reached out, unbuckled Robby’s water lung, jerked it off and then threw it, with his costume, into a locker, closed the door on them and shook his head at Robby.
Robby followed him through the inner door of the airlock down a long, echoing, white-painted metal corridor and around a corner. Here Carswell opened one of the solid metal doors set in the corridor walls and led Robby into a very large room fitted up like a gymnasium. In the far comer was a lounge area, where a towering old man who was nothing but skin and bones sat, a tall, half-filled tumbler on a small round table beside his chair. He had a steamer rug wrapped around him,and from across the room he seemed to be dozing.
In the rest of the room a number of large young men were climbing ropes hung from the ceiling, doing exercises, and two of them, wearing sweatsuits, were being instructed in something like judo or karate on a thick mat, by an ordinary-sized, but slightly older man, who was nearly bald and was bulging with muscles in his shoulders and arms.
"You aren’t trying, Samuels,” the instructor was saying grimly to one of the men on the mat. Abruptly, Red Carswell left Robby, went swiftly across the floor and onto the mat. The red-haired art thief pushed his way into the group and smiled up at the young man in the sweatsuit. The top of Carswell’s head, Robby saw, barely came to the young man’s chin.
“Not trying, Samuels?” said Carswell, softly. His voice was different now from the voice he had assumed when he was acting the part of a mechanic aboard the barge. Now Carswell spoke from behind his small, chill smile, his lips almost touching, his teeth close together, so that the words came out thin, and flat.
“I am! I am trying.” The big young man’s face was pale.
His eyes were ringed with white and large drops of perspiration stood out on his forehead. “I just can’t bounce around so quick!”
“No...” said Carswell, whispering between his teeth, “You’re clumsy, aren’t you? You’re a big, lumbering ox, aren’t you, Samuels? But when you’re on my team you have to learn anyway, don't you? So you can protect yourself, in case someone half your size comes along, and does this andthis!”
Suddenly and so quickly that Robby could hardly follow the motion of his hand, he chopped hard with the outer edge of it, into Samuels’ stomach, then chopped again behind Samuels’ ear as the big man doubled up, fell onto the mat and then lay there, huddled up and still.
“Make them learn, Hice!” said Carswell thinly to the bald man, who gave a little half salute in answer, with the stubby fingers of his right hand. Carswell turned, came back to Robby and led him to the old man in the comer.
He woke up at the sound of their feet approaching and lifted his head. His wrinkled eyelids raised, to reveal faded,but still surprisingly blue eyes.
“What’s this? What’ve you done now, Carswell?” he muttered, in a deep voice that rattled with the feebleness of old age. “What kind of dirty trick is it, this time?” His accent was faintly Irish.
As Carswell stopped in front of the man he reached back,took hold of Robby’s shoulder with a hard hand and shoved him forward.
“He was hanging onto the sunken ship when I brought it back—your ship, Millen!” said Carswell waspishly. “What’llI do with him? Cut him a little and leave him outside for the sharks? Or just push him out the airlock under twenty feet of water? Or what?” He let go of Robby’s shoulder. “You decide!”
“I’ll not decide!” The old man glared up at the thin face of Carswell. “I’ll have nothing to do with it. You and your—”he was interrupted by a cough, and he coughed for some little time, after which he seemed to be out of breath. He sat there, wheezing. But his blue eyes stared furiously, if helplessly, at Carswell.
“But it’s your sunken ship, Millen,” said Carswell. His voice was venomous. “You just hired me to get it for you. You’re the employer.”
“Yes,” wheezed Millen, getting his breath back enough to talk a little, “I hired you—and I should’ve known better. I’m as much at your orders as these young overgrown louts you browbeat and bully and punch about. But I’ll make none of your black decisions for you. ”
“No, that’s right,” whispered Carswell. “You won’t. And you never would have. Did you think a million dollars worth of old coin and bar silver bought me? I’ve lifted sculptures from the deep waters of the Mediterranean worth three times that!”
“Oh, you’re a great thief, I’ve no doubt,” gasped Millen.“You and this shabby lot you’ve got working for you. And I,helpless here in the midst of you—like this poor boy, whoever he is.” Millen glanced at Robby sympathetically for a
second. “He’ll try to break you, Sonny. He’ll try to make you show how afraid you are of him. But don’t you do it.”
“That’s right,” purred Carswell. “You stand up to me, young Hoenig. You stand right up to me, no matter what I do.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Millen. “He’s been trying to break me ever since he got me aboard here—fool that I was to come in the first place! It was a whim—the whim of an old fool with too much money and never a living relative—to own for the few years left to me the ship on which the one ancestor I honor was drowned, to end the noble Millen line. Hugh Millen, Sir Hugh Millen, boy—he was one of those of the gentry hounded out of Ireland in the early eighteenth century, who took service with the King of Spain—”
“Let’s not go through that again!” Carswell snapped. “Don’t wear me out with your jabbering, Millen, or I won’t turn the Floridana over to you, after all. I’ll tow it north to the Mediterranean, and sell it to the highest bidder.”
“You won’t!” shouted Millen, with sudden strength in his voice. “I’ve taken a deal from you, Carswell, but don’t think you can cheat me! If I don’t get that ship, nobody does. I warn you!”
He laid his huge, bony old hands on the arms of the chair and tried to push himself to his feet.
Carswell laughed.
“Help me up!” Millen cried.
Carswell stood laughing and did not move.
“You!” called Millen, swinging about to look at Robby. “Help me up!”
Robby had had no intention of getting mixed up in the argument. But just then, for a second, his eyes met with the old, blue, but still fierce eyes of the helpless Millen. And suddenly he found himself taking two strides forward to the chair. Millen reached up, clamped a hand on Robby’s right shoulder and hauled himself erect, turning Robby around as he did so that they both faced Red Carswell. Millen stood there, his weight bearing heavily on Robby, his big hand crushing painfully into Robby’s shoulder. He did not thank Robby for helping him, but Robby, looking up, saw him glaring triumphantly at Carswell.
Secrets of the Deep Page 22
