‘What is the FBI?’ he asked.
But Hans didn’t hear him. He had just seen the spaceship.
The Man Who Ploughed the Sea
First published in Satellite, June 1957
Collected in Tales from the White Hart
This story was written in Miami, in 1954. Despite the lapse of time, many of the themes of this story are surprisingly up-to-date, and a few years ago I was amazed to read a description in a scientific journal of a ship-borne device to extract uranium from sea water! I sent a copy of the story to the inventors, and apologised for invalidating their patent.
The adventures of Harry Purvis have a kind of mad logic that makes them convincing by their very improbability. As his complicated but neatly dovetailed stories emerge, one becomes lost in a sort of baffled wonder. Surely, you say to yourself, no one would have the nerve to make that up—such absurdities only occur in real life, not in fiction. And so criticism is disarmed, or at any rate discomfited, until Drew shouts, ‘Time gentlemen, pleeze!’ and throws us all out into the cold hard world.
Consider, for example, the unlikely chain of events which involved Harry in the following adventure. If he’d wanted to invent the whole thing, surely he could have managed it a lot more simply. There was not the slightest need, from the artistic point of view, to have started at Boston to make an appointment off the coast of Florida…
Harry seems to have spent a good deal of time in the United States, and to have quite as many friends there as he has in England. Sometimes he brings them to the ‘White Hart’, and sometimes they leave again under their own power. Often, however, they succumb to the illusion that beer which is tepid is also innocuous. (I am being unjust to Drew: his beer is not tepid. And if you insist, he will give you, for no extra charge, a piece of ice every bit as large as a postage stamp.)
This particular saga of Harry’s began, as I have indicated, at Boston, Mass. He was staying as a house guest of a successful New England lawyer when one morning his host said, in the casual way Americans have: ‘Let’s go down to my place in Florida. I want to get some sun.’
‘Fine,’ said Harry, who’d never been to Florida. Thirty minutes later, to his considerable surprise, he found himself moving south in a red Jaguar saloon at a formidable speed.
The drive in itself was an epic worthy of a complete story. From Boston to Miami is a little matter of 1,568 miles—a figure which, according to Harry, is now engraved on his heart. They covered the distance in thirty hours, frequently to the sound of ever-receding police sirens as frustrated squad cars dwindled astern. From time to time considerations of tactics involved them in evasive manoeuvres and they had to shoot off into secondary roads. The Jaguar’s radio tuned in to all the police frequencies, so they always had plenty of warning if an interception was being arranged. Once or twice they just managed to reach a state line in time, and Harry couldn’t help wondering what his host’s clients would have thought had they known the strength of the psychological urge which was obviously getting him away from them. He also wondered if he was going to see anything of Florida at all, or whether they would continue at this velocity down US I until they shot into the ocean at Key West.
They finally came to a halt sixty miles south of Miami, down on the Keys—that long, thin line of islands hooked on to the lower end of Florida. The Jaguar angled suddenly off the road and weaved a way through a rough track cut in the mangroves. The road ended in a wide clearing at the edge of the sea, complete with dock, thirty-five-foot cabin cruiser, swimming pool, and modern ranch-type house. It was quite a nice little hideaway, and Harry estimated that it must have cost the best part of a hundred thousand dollars.
He didn’t see much of the place until the next day, as he collapsed straight into bed. After what seemed far too short a time, he was awakened by a sound like a boiler factory in action. He showered and dressed in slow motion, and was reasonably back to normal by the time he had left his room. There seemed to be no one in the house, so he went outside to explore.
By this time he had learned not to be surprised at anything so he barely raised his eyebrows when he found his host working down at the dock, straightening out the rudder on a tiny and obviously homemade submarine. The little craft was about twenty feet long, had a conning tower with large observation windows, and bore the name Pompano stencilled on her prow.
After some reflection, Harry decided that there was nothing really very unusual about all this. About five million visitors come to Florida every year, most of them determined to get on or into the sea. His host happened to be one of those fortunate enough to indulge in his hobby in a big way.
Harry looked at the Pompano for some time, and then a disturbing thought struck him. ‘George,’ he said, ‘do you expect me to go down in that thing?’
‘Why, sure,’ answered George, giving a final bash at the rudder. ‘What are you worried about? I’ve taken her out lots of times—she’s safe as houses. We won’t be going deeper than twenty feet.’
‘There are circumstances,’ retorted Harry, ‘when I should find a mere six feet of water more than adequate. And didn’t I mention my claustrophobia? It always comes on badly at this time of year.’
‘Nonsense!’ said George. ‘You’ll forget all about that when we’re out on the reef.’ He stood back and surveyed his handiwork, then said with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Looks OK now. Let’s have some breakfast.’
During the next thirty minutes, Harry learned a good deal about the Pompano. George had designed and built her himself, and her powerful little diesel could drive her at five knots when she was fully submerged. Both crew and engine breathed through a snorkel tube, so there was no need to bother about electric motors and an independent air supply. The length of the snorkel limited dives to twenty-five feet, but in these shallow waters this was no great handicap.
‘I’ve put a lot of novel ideas into her,’ said George enthusiastically. ‘Those windows, for instance—look at their size. They’ll give you a perfect view, yet they’re quite safe. I use the old aqualung principle to keep the air pressure in the Pompano exactly the same as the water pressure outside, so there’s no strain on the hull or the ports.’
‘And what happens,’ asked Harry, ‘if you get stuck on the bottom?’
‘I open the door and get out, of course. There are a couple of spare aqualungs in the cabin, as well as a life raft with a waterproof radio, so that we can always yell for help if we get in trouble. Don’t worry—I’ve thought of everything.’
‘Famous last words,’ muttered Harry. But he decided that after the ride down from Boston he undoubtedly had charmed life: the sea was probably a safer place than US I with George at the wheel.
He made himself thoroughly familiar with the escape arrangements before they set out, and was fairly happy when he saw how well designed and constructed the little craft appeared to be. The fact that a lawyer had produced such a neat piece of marine engineering in his spare time was not in the least unusual. Harry had long ago discovered that a considerable number of Americans put quite as much effort into their hobbies as into their professions.
They chugged out of the little harbour, keeping to the marked channel until they were well clear of the coast. The sea was calm and as the shore receded the water became steadily more and more transparent. They were leaving behind the fog of pulverised coral which clouded the coastal waters, where the waves were incessantly tearing at the land. After thirty minutes they had come to the reef, visible below them as a kind of patchwork quilt above which multicoloured fish pirouetted to and fro. George closed the hatches, opened the valve of the buoyancy tanks, and said gaily, ‘Here we go!’
The wrinkled silk veil lifted, crept past the window, distorting all vision for a moment—and then they were through, no longer aliens looking into the world of waters, but denizens of that world themselves. They were floating above a valley carpeted with white sand, and surrounded by low hills of coral. The valley itself was barren but the hills around
it were alive with things that grew, things that crawled and things that swam. Fish as dazzling as neon signs wandered lazily among the animals that looked like trees. It seemed not only a breathtakingly lovely but also a peaceful world. There was no haste, no sign of the struggle for existence. Harry knew very well that this was an illusion, but during all the time they were submerged he never saw one fish attack another. He mentioned this to George, who commented: ‘Yes, that’s a funny thing about fish. They seem to have definite feeding times. You can see barracuda swimming around and if the dinner gong hasn’t gone the other fish won’t take any notice of them.’
A ray, looking like some fantastic black butterfly, flapped its way across the sand, balancing itself with its long, whiplike tail. The sensitive feelers of a crayfish waved cautiously from a crack in the coral; the exploring gestures reminded Harry of a soldier testing for snipers with his hat on a stick. There was so much life, of so many kinds, crammed in this single spot that it would take years of study to recognise it all.
The Pompano cruised very slowly along the valley, while George gave a running commentary.
‘I used to do this sort of thing with the aqualung,’ he said, ‘but then I decided how nice it would be to sit in comfort and have an engine to push me around. Then I could stay out all day, take a meal along, use my cameras and not give a damn if a shark was sneaking up on me. There goes a tang—did you ever see such a brilliant blue in your life? Besides, I could show my friends around down here while still being able to talk to them. That’s one big handicap with ordinary diving gear—you’re deaf and dumb and have to talk in signs. Look at those angelfish—one day I’m going to fix up a net to catch some of them. See the way they vanish when they’re edge on! Another reason why I built the Pompano was so that I could look for wrecks. There are hundreds in this area—it’s an absolute graveyard. The Santa Margarita is only about fifty miles from here, in Biscayne Bay. She went down in 1595 with seven million dollars of bullion aboard. And there’s a little matter of sixty-five million off Long Cay, where fourteen galleons sank in 1715. The trouble is, of course, that most of these wrecks have been smashed up and overgrown with coral so it wouldn’t do you a lot of good even if you did locate them. But it’s fun to try.’
By this time Harry had begun to appreciate his friend’s psychology. He could think of few better ways of escaping from a New England law practice. George was a repressed romantic—and not such a repressed one, either, now that he came to think of it.
They cruised along happily for a couple of hours, keeping in water that was never more than forty feet deep. Once they grounded on a dazzling stretch of broken coral, and took time off for liverwurst sandwiches and glasses of beer. ‘I drank some ginger beer down here once,’ said George. ‘When I came up the gas inside me expanded and it was a very odd sort of feeling. Must try it with champagne some day.’
Harry was just wondering what to do with the empties when the Pompano seemed to go into eclipse as a dark shadow drifted overhead. Looking up through the observation window, he saw that a ship was moving slowly past twenty feet above their heads. There was no danger of a collision, as they had pulled down their snort for just this reason and were subsisting for the moment on their capital as far as air was concerned. Harry had never seen a ship from underneath and began to add another novel experience to the many he had acquired today.
He was quite proud of the fact that, despite his ignorance of matters nautical, he was just as quick as George at spotting what was wrong with the vessel sailing overhead. Instead of the normal shaft and screw, this ship had a long tunnel running the length of its keel. As it passed above them, the Pompano was rocked by the sudden rush of water.
‘I’ll be damned!’ said George, grabbing the controls. ‘That looks like some kind of jet-propulsion system. It’s about time somebody tried one out. Let’s have a look.’
He pushed up the periscope, and discovered that the ship slowly cruising past them was the Valency, of New Orleans. ‘That’s a funny name,’ he said. ‘What does it mean?’
‘I would say,’ answered Harry, ‘that it means the owner is a chemist—except for the fact that no chemist would ever make enough money to buy a ship like that.’
‘I’m going to follow her,’ decided George. ‘She’s only making five knots, and I’d like to see how that dingus works.’
He elevated the snort, got the diesel running, and started in pursuit. After a brief chase, the Pompano drew within fifty feet of the Valency, and Harry felt rather like a submarine commander about to launch a torpedo. They couldn’t miss from this distance.
In fact, they nearly made a direct hit. For the Valency suddenly slowed to a halt, and before George realised what had happened, he was alongside her. ‘No signals!’ he complained, without much logic. A minute later, it was clear that the manoeuvre was no accident. A lasso dropped neatly over the Pompano’s snorkel and they were efficiently gaffed. There was nothing to do but emerge, rather sheepishly, and make the best of it.
Fortunately, their captors were reasonable men and could recognise the truth when they heard it. Fifteen minutes after coming aboard the Valency, George and Harry were sitting on the bridge while a uniformed steward brought them highballs and they listened attentively to the theories of Dr Gilbert Romano.
They were still both a little overawed at being in Dr Romano’s presence: it was rather like meeting a live Rockefeller or a reigning du Pont. The Doctor was a phenomenon virtually unknown in Europe and unusual even in the United States—the big scientist who had become a bigger businessman. He was now in his late seventies and had just been retired—after a considerable tussle—from the chairmanship of the vast chemical-engineering firm he had founded.
It is rather amusing, Harry told us, to notice the subtle social distinctions which differences in wealth can produce even in the most democratic country. By Harry’s standards, George was a very rich man: his income was around a hundred thousand dollars a year. But Dr Romano was in another price range altogether, and had to be treated accordingly with a kind of friendly respect which had nothing to do with obsequiousness. On his side, the Doctor was perfectly free and easy; there was nothing about him that gave any impression of wealth, if one ignored such trivia as hundred-and-fifty-foot ocean-going yachts.
The fact that George was on first-name terms with most of the Doctor’s business acquaintances helped to break the ice and to establish the purity of their motives. Harry spent a boring half hour while business deals ranging over half the United States were discussed in terms of what Bill So-and-So did in Pittsburgh, who Joe Somebody Else ran into at the Bankers’ Club in Houston, how Clyde Thingummy happened to be playing golf at Augusta while Ike was there. It was a glimpse of a mysterious world where immense power was wielded by men who all seemed to have gone to the same colleges, or who at any rate belonged to the same clubs. Harry soon became aware of the fact that George was not merely paying court to Dr Romano because that was the polite thing to do. George was too shrewd a lawyer to miss the chance of building up some good will, and appeared to have forgotten all about the original purpose of their expedition.
Harry had to wait for a suitable gap in the conversation before he could raise the subject which really interested him. When it dawned on Dr Romano that he was talking to another scientist, he promptly abandoned finance and George was the one who was left out in the cold.
The thing that puzzled Harry was why a distinguished chemist should be interested in marine propulsion. Being a man of direct action, he challenged the Doctor on this point. For a moment the scientist appeared a little embarrassed and Harry was about to apologise for his inquisitiveness—a feat that would have required real effort on his part. But before he could do this, Dr Romano had excused himself and disappeared into the bridge.
He came back five minutes later with a rather satisfied expression, and continued as if nothing had happened.
‘A very natural question, Mr Purvis,’ he chuckled. ‘I’d have aske
d it myself. But do you really expect me to tell you?’
‘Er—it was just a vague sort of hope,’ confessed Harry.
‘Then I’m going to surprise you—surprise you twice, in fact. I’m going to answer you, and I’m going to show you that I’m not passionately interested in marine propulsion. Those bulges on the bottom of my ship which you were inspecting with such great interest do contain the screws, but they also contain a good deal else as well.
‘Let me give you,’ continued Dr Romano, now obviously warming up to his subject, ‘a few elementary statistics about the ocean. We can see a lot of it from here—quite a few square miles. Did you know that every cubic mile of sea water contains a hundred and fifty million tons of minerals?’
‘Frankly, no,’ said George. ‘It’s an impressive thought.’
‘It’s impressed me for a long time,’ said the Doctor. ‘Here we go grubbing about in the earth for our metals and chemicals, while every element that exists can be found in sea water. The ocean, in fact, is a kind of universal mine which can never be exhausted. We may plunder the land, but we’ll never empty the sea.
‘Men have already started to mine the sea, you know. Dow Chemical has been taking out bromine for years: every cubic mile contains about three hundred thousand tons. More recently, we’ve started to do something about the five million tons of magnesium per cubic mile. But that sort of thing is merely a beginning.
‘The great practical problem is that most of the elements present in sea water are in such low concentrations. The first seven elements make up about ninety-nine per cent of the total, and it’s the remaining one per cent that contains all the useful metals except magnesium.
‘All my life I’ve wondered how we could do something about this, and the answer came during the war. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the techniques used in the atomic-energy field to remove minute quantities of isotopes from solutions: some of those methods are still pretty much under wraps.’
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