Yamashita's Gold

by Phillip Gwynne

  I guess what he was saying was that his family life wasn’t a big factor.

  ‘In the end, I just stay here, live off the land. Only go back to Reverie to get fuel and supplies. I don’t take any customers out – why bother, I know where the treasure is. And of course, over the years, I’ve begun to question whether those Sydney smart alecs really did find Yamashita’s Gold.’

  Again, he finished his drink and tossed it onto the sand alongside the other one.

  ‘What you’ve got to understand,’ he said, ‘is that treasure does things to people – they change, become different.’

  ‘But what happened?’ I said.

  ‘I got sick,’ he said. ‘Back then, we didn’t know what we know now about decompression, about ascent times. In fact, I didn’t really take much notice of that stuff. I started having ear problems. Then chest problems. It got so I couldn’t dive deep any more. In fact, the doctor said that diving would kill me. But as Long John used to say, ‘doctors is all swabs!’ I went out again. And I found Yamashita’s Gold. Well, some of it anyway.’

  ‘The Double Eagle?’ I said.

  Bones threw a crooked smile towards Otto and Zoe. ‘You kids told me he was smart, but not this smart!’

  I might’ve even blushed.

  Bones continued, ‘I was scouring this piece of reef, but feeling terrible. Headache like you wouldn’t believe. And then I saw it. It was encrusted in coral, but I knew it was a coin. I kept looking for other treasure. Stayed down too long. And I must’ve blacked out. Only for a second or two. But that was enough. Somehow I managed to get to the surface. Then back on the boat, into shore. Six weeks in hospital. I knew I couldn’t dive again.’

  ‘But you had the coin, now. Why didn’t you find a partner to work with?’ I said.

  ‘Greed,’ said Bones.

  The way he said it was so matter-of-fact, like it wasn’t a bad thing, or an evil thing, it was just what it was.

  ‘I wasn’t going to share my treasure with anybody. But more to the point, I couldn’t trust anybody. Well, I could, but he wasn’t old enough, yet.’

  He shot a look at his son.

  Now this story, far-fetched as it was, and if you fetched it any further it would become fantasy, was starting to have the smell of truth.

  ‘You had to wait until Otto was old enough?’

  Bones nodded.

  ‘So you staged your own death?’

  ‘Well, that was more accident than design – my dinghy got loose one night, somebody found it, and suddenly I’m dead. But it suited my purposes to be off the scene, to have the whole Yamashita’s Gold thing go off the boil for a while.’

  ‘But why did you take so long to come back?’

  ‘I had my own issues,’ he said. ‘Who hasn’t? But that’s water under the bridge, because what we’ve got here is a crack team. Especially now you’re on board, Dom.’

  Again, it was flattering. Again, I couldn’t help but feel a flush of pride. But, again, there was doubt – what could I bring to this enterprise?

  I had no knowledge of where the treasure was. I wasn’t a crack diver.

  I was just a pretty resourceful kid, that was all.

  But then I remembered something Zoe had said about me a long time ago.

  When I was around, stuff seemed to happen.

  Was that it? Something as wishy-washy as that?

  After that, there was a general discussion about the search for the treasure, everybody chipping in.

  In the beginning it was obviously for my benefit, so that I could get up to speed. But as the night wore on, as my eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and the number of empty stubbies on the sand increased, it became obvious that it was more about where the search was headed.

  Even in my half-asleep state I realised that there actually didn’t seem to be a master plan.

  Still, I couldn’t quite believe that I was part of this – it was only this morning that I’d been setting out to go on my fourth ever open-water dive.

  Apparently, we would be getting up at four in the morning.

  I couldn’t concentrate any more; I just had to go to bed.

  So when Brett said, ‘Time for some shut-eye,’ and the others agreed, I breathed a weary sigh of relief.

  As we left, Bones opened yet another stubby.

  ‘I don’t know when the old buccaneer ever sleeps,’ said Brett as we made our way to the tent we were sharing.

  As soon as I crawled inside, and into my sleeping bag, I was ready for sleep.

  But, remembering the call Zoe had made to Gus, I had one more thought. I rummaged in my bag until I found my iPhone.

  It was off.

  I tried to turn it on.

  The battery was flat. That didn’t make sense – it had been fully charged when I’d left this morning.

  There was only one explanation – somebody had deliberately sucked the juice out of it.

  I wasn’t sure how you did this, but there was no doubt that’s what had happened.

  But my brain refused to go any further with this line of questioning.

  My brain demanded sleep.

  Wednesday

  You Gotta Have Faith

  I woke. Brett was gently shaking me, the light from his headlamp in my eyes.

  ‘The quest continues,’ he said in a sort of mock-heroic tone.

  ‘Oh, my arms,’ I moaned.

  But now that the complaints line was open, there were other disgruntled customers queuing up. I hurt, complained my throat. We also hurt, complained my legs. We hurt even more, complained my armpits.

  Brett handed me another headlamp. ‘We use these a lot around here.’

  I didn’t need any more prompting; putting the headlamp on, I was quickly out of bed – or sleeping bag – and into the rest of my clothes.

  I hurt, complained my throat.

  There was only one thing to do – I closed down the complaints line. Deal with it, body parts, we’re hunting for treasure!

  Something occurred to me.

  ‘Who used to sleep here?’ I asked Brett.

  ‘Dive bum by the name of Gunn,’ said Brett. ‘He got sacked, he quit – not sure. Had a few cycle through here already.’

  ‘But what stops them from blabbing about the treasure?’ I said.

  ‘For a start, I don’t think a lot of them actually believe in it. As George Michael once sang, “You gotta have faith!” And don’t underestimate our Bones. He may look like a bit of a fool, but he’s got a dark side, a real dark side. You wait until he starts on some of his stories.’

  I thought again of the ‘car accident’, the one that had killed the two Sydney smart alecs who had, supposedly, found the treasure.

  Something else occurred to me.

  ‘What does he look like, this Gunn fellow?’ I said.

  ‘Gunny?’ said Brett. ‘Pretty normal-looking guy, but he had an argument with a shark in the Bahamas a few years ago and lost half his foot, so he doesn’t walk so great any more. In the water, he’s a fish, but on land …’

  The Zodiac was already afloat, and I could see the marks in the sand where they’d dragged it down. We got onboard; Maxine, Bones on one side, Brett and me on the other, Otto steering.

  Zoe stayed behind with Balaclava to man the communications.

  ‘Headlamps off,’ said Maxine, in her divemaster voice. ‘We’re already using too much battery power.’

  Not for the first time, I wondered how in the hell somebody as nice as Maxine had got involved with this lot.

  But I already knew the answer to this, because I was feeling it. All the doubts I’d had earlier had been replaced by this amazing sense of shared endeavour – we were all after one thing: the treasure – and excitement: we could very well find it today!

  As we left the protection of the bay and moved into the open water, the Zodiac started bouncing around and I could feel the wind, fresh on my cheek.

  ‘Weather’s pretty ugly,’ said Maxine, and it wasn’t difficult to detect th
e concern in her voice.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, girlie,’ said Bones.

  Maxine said nothing in reply, but I could see the tension around her jaw.

  In front of us the sun was coming up, the eastern horizon slashed with pink and red. Now that I could see the waves I understood Maxine’s concern – they were quite big. Out further I could see whitecaps.

  If these were the conditions at dawn, what would they be like later?

  As we tied up to the Hispaniola I could smell bacon.

  Sure enough, breakfast was ready for us – the afore-smelled bacon, and scrambled eggs, and sausages. There was even plunger coffee. Nobody said much as they hoed in, but when we’d finished Maxine said, ‘What’s the latest weather report, Skip?’

  Skip looked at Bones before he said, ‘Might get a bit bumpy, but not enough to be too worried about.’

  Dogger, the other Balaclava, pulled up the anchor and we were off.

  A bit bumpy?

  I was soon wishing I hadn’t eaten so much breakfast, especially all that dead pig.

  Otto was in the wheelhouse, at the chart table, poring over a chart, so I decided to join him.

  To the uninitiated, which I guess I was, it looked like some kid had scribbled all over the paper, maybe even a couple of kids. There were all sorts of weird hieroglyphics everywhere. Immediately I was reminded of the map I’d found in the cave, the one with Dane G Zolton written on the back.

  ‘You understand this?’ I said to Otto.

  ‘More or less,’ he said. He stabbed at the map with his forefinger. ‘I reckon we should check out this area today.’

  ‘You reckon?’ I said, remembering a phrase from all the reading I’d done about treasure hunting. ‘Is that what your search algorithm is telling you?’

  ‘Search algorithm?’ said Zolt, pronouncing it like it was something that was leaving a dirty taste in his mouth. ‘No, I’ve just got a hunch about this place, and Bones does too.’

  A hunch?

  Brett joined us at the chart table then. His presence was reassuring; I’d dived with him, I knew what an absolute pro he was.

  ‘So what sort of sensing equipment are you using?’ I said.

  ‘State-of-the-art,’ said Otto, and I breathed a sigh of relief, because even to my inexperienced eyes they were starting to look like a pretty dodgy outfit.

  He quickly added, ‘Two Pulse Fours.’

  ‘Otto, we need you out here,’ said Bones, through the door that led onto the stern area.

  When Otto had gone, Brett said, ‘Did I really hear him say state-of-the-art?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Let me tell you, Pulse Fours are not state of-the-art, not even close. Even when they were state-of-the-art they weren’t really, because they always had issues with false readings that no number of software upgrades were able to rectify,’ said Brett.

  I couldn’t help but think of Cerberus, or the re-architectured Cerberus, supposedly the new paradigm in marine-sensing devices.

  How right now it was probably being used at Diablo Bay.

  Where the only metals it would detect would be old fishing hooks. Rusty anchors. And beer cans.

  ‘Okay, we’re here,’ said Skip. And then, to nobody in particular, ‘Let’s get that pick down.’

  Nobody moved.

  I knew nothing about dropping anchors – except that if you’re tied to one you descend very quickly – but I figured this was as good a time as any to learn.

  I moved out onto the deck, a deck that was moving around a bit too much for my liking, or my safety for that matter. I skirted around the wheelhouse until I got to the bow.

  I undid the pin, and the anchor dropped, the chain rattling behind it. More chain and more chain and more chain – I knew it was deep here, but not this deep.

  After what seemed like ages the chain finally stopped and I put the pin back into place.

  ‘Good job!’ said Skip, as I hurried back into the wheelhouse.

  ‘Skip, we need you out here!’ came Bones’s voice from the stern deck.

  Skip swore, and stomped off in that direction, giving me an ideal opportunity.

  Firstly, I scanned the echo sounder, but I couldn’t see what I was after there.

  I was starting to realise just how naked I felt without my iPhone.

  My eyes moved to the next instrument, a Garmin GPS Marine.

  Perfect!

  There it was, in neon blue: the latitude and the longitude.

  There was a pen on the chart table. I used it to scribble these coordinates on a scrap of paper I – shh, don’t tell anybody – tore off the corner of a chart. With the paper in my pocket, I hurried out on the stern deck to join all the divers.

  ‘Okay, let’s get in there!’ said Bones, who seemed to have snapped into command mode.

  Otto already had his wetsuit on and Brett had started donning his.

  ‘Maxine?’ said Bones.

  ‘I’m not diving in that slop,’ she said. ‘Vis will be zero.’

  Once again I wondered what she was doing here, but then it occurred to me that there was a very simple way to counter that question: what was a fifteen-year-old private-school boy doing here?

  Bones muttered something under his breath that sounded like, ‘Arrr, females.’ He turned to his other divers. ‘Dogger?’

  ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Brett?’

  ‘Let’s see what it’s like down there,’ Brett said, but just then a wave hit the boat side-on. The boat pitched and Brett went sprawling. He quickly picked himself up again, though.

  Bones turned his attention to me. ‘What about you, Dom? You don’t seem the timid type.’

  I looked across at Maxine.

  Her eyes said it all – Don’t go!

  I looked across at Brett – his face was neutral.

  ‘Dom’s buddying up with me,’ said Otto. ‘We’re getting the band back together.’

  I got the Blue Brothers reference, of course. Even though it was a pretty retro film, I didn’t know anybody who hadn’t seen it. Several times.

  And I got what he was saying, too.

  That time we’d had together, stealing the plane, flying the plane, landing the plane, although not long – only a couple of hours – had been intense. INTENSE.

  Obviously, Otto felt the same way as I did.

  He was Jake. I was Elwood. We had to get the band back together. But go diving in these crap conditions? Maybe we weren’t on a mission from God exactly, but we on a mission nonetheless.

  As I got changed into a wetsuit Maxine appeared at my side.

  ‘Dom, one day you’re going to be a great diver. But right now you’ve only got four shallow-water dives under your belt. My advice is: don’t do this.’

  ‘And one rocket to the bottom,’ I said.

  ‘That was never my idea,’ she said. ‘Don’t do this.’

  In retrospect, it was great advice, but I was too busy getting the band back together to take it.

  ‘I’m going to dive,’ I said.

  Maxine sighed, and said, ‘In that case, make sure you wear this.’ She handed me a dive knife in its sheath. ‘And listen very carefully as I take you through your times.’

  As I strapped the knife to my leg, I listened very carefully.

  Then I asked her to tell me again.

  Again, I listened very carefully.

  ‘It’s all on your computer,’ she said, indicating the watch/tracking device that was still strapped to my wrist.

  And then we were ready to dive.

  Riding the anchor, the boat pitched and reared in a much more unpredictable way than before.

  Even walking across the deck was hard work.

  Eventually I got to the stern.

  Brett was first into the water, then Otto, each of them holding one of the yellow Pulse Four metal detectors. Then it was my turn.

  ‘Let’s do it.’ I said, and I jumped.

  As soon as I hit the water I knew Maxine was right: I was a
very inexperienced diver, and this was a very bad idea. The band could wait, there was plenty of time to get it back together.

  The water was soupy, and swirly, and even underwater I was getting smacked about.

  Through the muck I could see Brett give the descend sign.

  As for Otto, it soon became obvious that signs weren’t really his thing, but I guessed he’d done as many PADI courses as he’d done flying courses. None.

  Despite this, he, like Brett, was a very smooth diver – not a wasted movement or gesture.

  I concentrated on following them, keeping one eye on Brett, one eye on Otto.

  Through the soup, through the swirl. Towards the bottom.

  Even reading my depth gauge wasn’t easy: I had to bring it all the way up to my mask in order to make out the numbers.

  Thirty metres now.

  Although I wasn’t getting quite as buffeted down here, there was something really eerie about the water.

  I went deeper.

  Forty metres.

  I was starting to freak out now, thinking of all that water above me, all that water pressing down on me.

  Get it together, Dom.

  Maxine had been so right: I was too young, too inexperienced to dive in these conditions.

  It’s so easy to sit on the deck and mouth some slogan you’ve picked up from a sporting-goods manufacturer, but the reality is always very different.

  And then we were there, on the bottom.

  Or what I could see of the bottom.

  My plan to keep within eye contact of both my fellow divers soon went awry – Otto sped off in one direction, Brett in the other.

  Buddies? Who needed them?

  I followed after Otto. But it didn’t much feel like we were getting the band back together.

  I wasn’t even sure whether Otto realised I was there. If he did, he certainly gave no indication of it.

  Last night, listening to Bones’s, story, I’d wondered why he hadn’t found the treasure – I mean, he knew the general area, didn’t he? It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

  But now I so got it.

  It seemed to me there was even more reason to approach it methodically, scientifically, not randomly.