100 Fathoms Under

by John Blaine

  There was silence as they waited,then the trawler shuddered. Over the Asamo, huge bubbles broke the surface.

  “Now,” Hartson Brant said, smiling, “we run for the open sea to spend the night, since we don’t dare anchor off either of these islands-thanks to our enemies. During the night the turmoil down below will settle. And tomorrow . . . well, we’ll just have to go down and see what’s happened.”

  It was still dark when Rick awoke. In spite of a small amount of sleep-he had taken his two-hour watch atmidnight -the excitement of the treasure hunt had wakened him before dawn. Scotty was on watch, but Chahda was in his bunk.

  “You wake, too?” Chahda asked.

  “Yes,” Rick said. “Go on back to sleep. It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Look who talks.” Chahda chuckled. “Go back to sleep yourself.”

  “I can’t,” Rick said. “Let’s go topside. It’s almost time to get up anyway.”

  Hartson Brant was having coffee in the galley. He looked at them in surprise,then laughed. “You two got the get-up urge, too, I see. Well, you’re the last. Gordon and Zircon are in the pilothouse with Scotty. Otera is the only sleepyhead.”

  They had a quick breakfast then went forward. To the east, a thin sliver of salmon-pink sky heralded the dawn. Scotty, Zircon, and Gordon were lazily watching it.

  “Who goes down?” Chahda asked.

  “Gordon and I reached a decision by the unscientific method of flipping a coin,” Zircon boomed. “He won. Scotty will go with him.”

  Rick felt a stir of disappointment. He had hoped to go again himself.

  Gordon saw his disgruntled expression. “You stay on deck, Rick.And your father, too.

  We’re splitting the risks as evenly as possible. Hobart and Chahda will make the second dive of the day. If there’s a third, you can go again.”

  It was the fairest way, of course. But Rick would have liked to continue the work they had started yesterday.

  They chatted until the daylight had spread in a wide fan over the eastern half of the sky,then Scotty swung the trawler around and headed back to Kwangara. The others went aft and began getting the Submobile ready.

  It was full daylight before they were finished. Hobart Zircon manned the sound gear and located them as close to yesterday’s position as possible, calling out directions to Gordon, who had taken the wheel. When the trawler finally rode over the selected spot, Zircon took the wheel, while Hartson Brant handled the winch. Rick put on the earphones, and Chahda stood by to clamp cable.

  The Submobile with Gordon andScotty, went over the side and came to rest at 700 feet.

  Scotty reported as Gordon turned on the Sonoscope and requested additional depth.

  “What’s happening?” Rick asked.

  “We’re taking a look,” Scotty answered. “The bottom of the superstructure opened up like a sardine can. Wait. . . . Take us down five feet.”

  “Five feet down,” Rick called to his father, who was handling the winch.

  “It’s murky,” Scotty’s voice came up the phone line. “The bottom is still stirred up.

  We’re depending on the Sonoscope. Stand by.”

  The minutes ticked away, then Scotty’s voice came again, but it didn’t sound like Scotty. He was breathless with excitement.“Two chests lying on the turret!”

  Chahda ran to tell Zircon. Rick held tight to the mouthpiece and waited. Far below, Gordon and Scotty were looking around, trying to locate other chests that might have fallen. Once they asked for more cable and brought the Submobile to rest on the bottom.

  “Only the two,” Scotty reported. “Getting them is going to be tough. Stand by.”

  The minutes dragged. Now and then the whine of the generator indicated the use of power down below. Rick looked over the side into the green depths and started biting his nails. He wanted to open the circuit and demand information, but he knew he shouldn’t disturb the work on the bottom.

  “Okay,” Scotty reported at last. “We snared one chest in the salvage cable, and we got a grip on it with the scoop. Reel in the salvage cable while you bring us up, but be careful not to put too much tension on it.”

  Rick relayed the orders to Hartson Brant. The scientist shook his head. “This is going to be tough.Chahda, put the phones on and plug in the extension. You’ll have to listen while you unclamp the cable. Rick, take over the salvage cable winch. Watch your footage meter. I’ll read mine aloud, and it’s up to you to keep them together. Too much tension on yours will pull the chest loose.Too little will put its entire weight on the scoop. So keep on your toes.”

  Rick took a grip on the handle that controlled the electric winch motor. “Ready,” he said.

  It was delicate work, keeping the two cables coming at the same rate of speed. By the time the Submobile broke the surface, he was limp. They brought the undersea craft up almost to the booms, then locked the winches and hurried to help with the boom ropes.

  The Submobile was swung inboard,then they hurried back to the winches and lowered it to the deck. Clasped firmly in the jaws of the scoop, the salvage cable tight aroundit, was a rusted steel chest!

  Gordon and Scotty dropped to the deck as Rick swung the hatch away, then they all gathered around the chest. Zircon set a course for the open sea, so that he need not watch

  the wheel, and hurried back. The chest was released from the Submobile and lowered to the deck.

  “What’s in it?” Rick asked breathlessly.

  “We’ll soon find out,” Gordon stated. He and Chahda hurried below decks and came up with cold chisels and heavy hammers. In a moment the deck rang with the pounding as the rusted hinges were cut away.

  “Now,” Hartson Brant said. He took a pinch bar and inserted it under the lid. He threw his weight on it, and water poured out. The cover flew off.

  They bent over a mass of soggy, bleached paper!

  Rick looked at the others, his disappointment plain on his face.“Nothing!Nothing but a lot of wet paper!”

  Hartson Brant peeled off a thin sheet of the soggy stuff and held it to the light. “Wet paper, eh? This piece I have is an English ten-pound note! This is the paper money chest!”

  “But is all spoiled,” Chahda declared.

  “The experts won’t think so,” Gordon said solemnly. “They’ll go through this stuff with their special equipment, and they’ll get the number and amount and country of each bill, and their findings will be accepted at face value.”

  Even Zircon’s booming voice was hushed. “It’s impossible to make an estimate, but I’ll wager that chest represents more than a million dollars!”

  Rick stared at the soggy mass in disbelief. It had to be true if the scientists said it was, but it was hard to believe. “I hope there’s something that looks more like treasure in the other box,” he declared.

  Gordon nodded. “Because that other one is the last one we’ll get.”

  Rick looked up in surprise. “Aren’t we going after the rest?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Gordon said. “The blast curled the steel down like a sharp blade. We couldn’t get close enough to plant charges. We’ll have to be content with the two chests.”

  “What we wait for?” Chahda asked eagerly. “Why we not go now for the other?”

  “Why not?”Zircon echoed. “Let’s stow this one below decks and go after that other chest!”

  Willing hands busied themselves with the details of the dive and the Submobile was on its way to the bottom again within a half hour. This time Zircon and Chahda were in the undersea craft. Rick was at the phones, his father at the winch, and Scotty stood by to clamp cable with the aid of Otera. Gordon was at the wheel.

  “You’re at 700,” Rick told Chahda, at his father’s signal. He looked past the winch toward Little Kwangara and noticed a drifting tree, green branches in the air.

  “Take them down ten feet,” he repeated as Chahda phoned instructions. He turned and watched Scotty put on another clamp, securing the power line to the mai
n cable.

  Suddenly he whirled. Something had just registered. The tree Ithad been moving against the swell!

  He started to jerk off the phones,then realized that he shouldn’t. “Scotty!” he yelled.

  “That tree!Turk!”

  Scotty’s quick wits needed no detailed picture. He dropped the last clamp and jumped for his rifle. Another leap took him to the rail, the rifle already at his shoulder.

  The eight rounds of the clip went off like a machine gun as Scotty triggered. Rick, holding his position but straining to see, saw the foliage fly and the smaller branches droop. Suddenly three heads were bobbing in the water, heading for Little Kwangara as fast as arms could pull them through the swell.

  Scottyskpped another clip into his rifle.He took careful aim this time. The rifle barked and a spurt of water shot up not more than two inches from the nearest head. Scotty triggered again and again, the shots landing so close that water sometimes spurted into the faces of the swimmers. Not until they had reached the reef of the little island did he reload and put his rifle down.

  “I didn’t try to hit them,” he said, laughing. “I just tried to make good citizens out of

  ‘em. They won’t be back for a while.”

  “Turk, Hashimo, and Sears,” Rick said. “Gosh! I almost didn’t notice.”

  “But you did,” Hartson Brant said. “That’s the important thing. Good shooting, Scotty.

  They’ll think twice about trying that again.”

  “They must have figured we’d be too busy with the dive to notice,” Rick said. “They figured right, too. It was just luck that I saw them.” He broke off suddenly as Chahda phoned up.“Right. Give them ten feet more, Dad.”

  Gordon and Scotty had taken the larger and more difficult chest first. The one Zircon and Chahda snared had two brass handles that gave a purchase to the salvage cable.

  There was no difficulty in bringing it to the surface.

  In a short while the hammers and chisels were at work again, breaking the hinges from the chest.

  Chahda broke the cover off and exposed a number of soggy boxes made of what had once been pressed board. He picked one up, and it fell apart in his hands.

  The others gasped in unison as crimson fire flashed from the pebbles that fell to the deck. Rubies, A fortune in rubies,They were damaged somewhat, but the surfaces could be polished, restoring them to full luster. In silence they opened another of the soggy boxes and exposed a mound of golden rings, from which diamonds sparkled.

  Before them lay the loot of theIndies,Singapore, andHong Kong; valuables taken from prisoners and refugees, found in vaults, or stolen from private homes by the conquerors.The Spindrift party gazed in silence as Chahda uncovered fortune after fortune in brooches, unset stones, uncut emeralds, pearls, and necklaces.

  It was Scotty who finally put into words what was in all their minds.

  “Let the fish have the other chests. Why, we’ve got half the treasure in the whole world right here!”

  CHAPTER XX

  Homeward Bound

  Scotty, Rick, and his sister Barby were stretched out on the sand in front of theLehua Hotel. Chahda, who was determined to become the world’s best swimmer if he drowned in the attempt, was making the water foam a few feet offshore.

  Barby, a slim, brown water sprite after a month in the Hawaiian sun, remarked, “That dragon you brought back is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t see why Dr. Warren

  got so excited.”

  “Neither doI ,” Scotty agreed. “But I wish we could have brought back the other one. It would have looked nice on the Spindrift boat landing. Salesmen would run a mile when they saw it.”

  The dragon was a souvenir of their last days at Kwangara. A few more days of diving at the temple had netted two dragons, almost three. Gordon thought that there had been four, originally, one at each corner of the temple. The first had been destroyed by Sears and Turk. The second was safely delivered to the Pacific Ethnographic Society. The third had slipped from the salvage cable and had fallen to the bottom. The fourth -that had been Chahda’s idea. They had taken it toCampSpindrift , and Otera had made a speech to the unseen watchers.

  “We are your friends,” he declared in the Polynesian dialect of the island. “All strangers who come to your island from now on must be treated as friends. See, we have returned your dragon god. The tabu is lifted!”

  More of the temple frieze had been brought up, and added to the pieces they already had. Dr. Warren, delighted beyond words, had already put his staff to work.

  “It was rough going for a while,” Rick said lazily, “but I guess the expedition was worth it.”

  “You guess!” Barby said indignantly.“After finding all that treasure!” Her voice got wistful. “I sort of wish you could have kept just one little tiny emerald for me. I love emeralds.”

  “Wait until we get the Spindrift share,” Scotty smiled. “We’ll buy you a dozen of ‘em.”

  “That won’t be for a long while,” Rick said. The treasure was an international problem, since Dutch, French, English, Australian, Chinese, and American ports or persons had been robbed to accumulate it. It had been turned over to the Navy atGuam for safekeeping while the governments got together. But international salvage agreements insured a good share for the scientific groups.

  The Navy had been most cooperative. A destroyer had been sent for Turk and his gang, and the Guam base commander had found a way around service regulations to lend the Spindrift party an officer and four sailors to see the trawler safely back to Honolulu.

  “Turk and the rest must be in the States by now,” Rick said, a little enviously. He was anxious to get back to Spindrift again.

  “Must be,” Scotty agreed. “The Navy commander said he’d put them on a service plane, under guard, and turn them over to the Federal authorities atSan Francisco .”

  “There’s a lot you’ve never told me,” Barby said resentfully. “I can tell when you’re holding out! What really happened, Rick?”

  “Not much,” Rick said carelessly. “Turk Mallane tried to take over the ship and we wouldn’t let him. Then we put him and his pals ashore so we wouldn’t have any trouble with them. That’s all.”

  “Never mind,” Barby said. “I’ll get it out of you one of these days.”

  “You probably will,” Rick agreed. “You can wheedle the flowers off the wallpaper when you put your mind to it. But if Mom ever finds out . . . she’d never let us out of her sight again.”

  Chahda stood over them dripping wet. He said, “You want to know what happens, Barby? Ask Chahda. He tells all.”

  Barby sat up eagerly. “Will you? What happened, Chahda?”

  Chahda looked around to make sure no one was within hearing distance. He leaned close and his voice got confidential. “Wewas captured by cannibals.”

  Barby’s eyes got round and horrified. “No!”

  “Yes,” Chahda said solemnly.“And is not all.” His voice sank still lower. “Wewas boiled and eaten-with ketchup.”

  Barby’s retaliation was swift. She grabbed Chahda’s ankles and pulled. The Hindu boy went over backward and landed with his head in the foam.

  Rick and Scotty laughed as he came up spluttering.

  Mrs. Brant came down the path and smiled down at them. “Isn’t it time you started dressing? Be sure to wear your white suits, boys. Remember this dinner is as much in your honor as anyone’s.”

  “That’s the trouble with being famous,” Rick groaned. “You always have to dress up for it.”

  “Your father got a letter,” Mrs. Brant said.“From Julius Weiss.”

  Rick sat upright. “Honest? What did he say?” He knew his mother wouldn’t have mentioned it unless itwere important.

  “I think we’ll be leaving for home shortly,” Mrs. Brant said. “He mentioned something about a new experiment.”

  “Where is Dad?” Rick asked eagerly.

  “In the cottage,” Mrs. Brant replied.

  Rick
was on the sea wall in one leap, Scotty right beside him. “Mom, do you remember anything about the experiment? What kind? Is it another expedition, or is it at home?”

  Mrs. Brant shook her head, laughing. “You’d better talk to your father.”

  Rick and Scotty didn’t even wait for her to finish. They were sprinting up the path as fast as they could run!

  THE END

  100 Fathoms Under

  A Rick Brant Science Adventure Story, No. 4

  By John Blaine

  RICK BRANT continues his exciting adventures in the next volume, THE

  WHISPERING BOX. Don’t miss this rapid-fire mystery-adventure story in which Rick and Scotty break up a desperate gang of spies.