Seas of South Africa (3 page)

I raced up the ladder and grabbed the hatch just as water started to spray inside. With my feet against the sides, I hung upside down and pulled down with all my might as he pulled up. He was so strong! The hatch opened an inch, and water poured in. I held on with all that I had. He was holding his breath under water. How long could he keep doing that?

He was too strong for me. The hatch opened two inches, and water flooded in. We were going to sink. And then, finally,
the sub struck bottom and the jolt knocked him off his grip and I pulled the hatch shut. I spun it quickly, sealed it, then waited to see if he would turn it again. He didn't. He had gone to the surface for air. I jumped back inside, let enough air inside the tanks to rise off the bottom, engaged the batteries, and headed out to sea.

There was a foot of water on the floor, but the sump pumps were running and would clear the water in a few minutes. Hollie had jumped onto my hanging cot, where it was dry. He was chewing on a piece of rope as if nothing had happened. He had seen water flood into the sub before. Seaweed was still out, up in the sky somewhere, so we couldn't leave yet.

A quarter of a mile out, I shut off the power, raised the periscope, and looked back. The crazy pirate had swum to shore. I saw him stagger out of the water. I surfaced, climbed the portal, opened the hatch, and took a closer look with binoculars. He went straight to an orange, rubberized dinghy with a small outboard motor. He pushed it into the water, pulled the motor's cord, sat down, and sped off towards the small sailboat sitting a couple of hundred feet from the pier. It took him only a few minutes. He tied the dinghy to the boat, pulled up anchor and went inside the cabin. I scanned the stern of the boat for a name.
Maggie's Delight
. There were flowers painted around the name and on the sides of the boat. That wasn't his boat. There was no way that was his boat. He must have stolen it. I wondered what had happened to the crew. Did he kill them? He wasn't a treasure hunter at
all; he was nothing but a pirate—greedy and cruel.

When he came out, he started bringing her around. Was he planning to chase us? That would be ridiculous. That would be like a turtle trying to catch a bat. And yet, he made me nervous. He was the nastiest person I had ever met. I bet he would rather die than give up chasing somebody. I sure hoped we'd never run into him again.

But we couldn't leave until we had picked up our first mate. I shut the hatch, submerged, sat down at the control panel, and turned on the sonar screen. There he was in the sailboat, coming towards us. He was dreaming if he thought he could catch us. I engaged the batteries and sailed in an arc around him, so that by the time he reached where we had been, we were back in the bay where we had started. I raised the periscope and watched him sail away, searching for us. When the little sailboat disappeared around the point, I surfaced, opened the hatch, and waited for my first mate to return. Finally he dropped out of the sky with a noisy flapping of his wings. Instead of jumping inside and looking for something to eat right away, as he would normally do, he paused on the hatch for a moment, and stared at me as if I were a stranger. “What? . . . Oh yah.” I reached up and felt my head. “It's me, Seaweed. I just had a haircut.” He twisted his head and stared at me as if I were from another planet. “I got skinned. So what?”

At least I didn't have a knife in my back.

Chapter Three

THE INDIAN OCEAN
flows gently and warmly down the southeast coast of Africa. It's a sleepy part of the world. The grass and palm trees are yellow and green, and the earth is brown and red. There are no mountains close to the water, but there are lots of beaches and lagoons and swampy areas along the shore. The coast is unbelievably shallow, the shallowest I have ever seen. In some places the drop-off is so far from the beach, you can walk out a mile in water up to your knees. Where we couldn't bring the sub close to shore—when we wanted to get out and walk on the beach—I'd inflate the rubber kayak and we'd paddle in. Then Hollie would run
around on the sand, collect sticks and bits of rope, and chase crabs into the water. But sometimes the crabs would raise their claws and stare him down. Then Seaweed would attack them and eat them. I don't think those crabs had ever seen such a ferocious seagull before.

I always searched for secluded beaches. It wasn't that I didn't like meeting people. I did. I just worried that they might report us to local authorities when they saw the submarine, although I hadn't seen a single coastguard ship or police boat. There must have been some somewhere; I just hadn't seen them.

The people on shore were very poor, even poorer than in India. Sometimes I would sail close enough to watch them with the binoculars. Most lived in thatched bamboo huts. I saw old people sitting on the sand, staring at the water. I saw kids kicking soccer balls. The men fished in open boats they hauled up on the sand by hand, just as they did in India. But here, the boats were smaller; not much bigger than canoes. There were resorts here, too, for rich people and tourists, as in India, but fewer of them. And they were smaller, and not as fancy.

I kept a lookout for
Maggie's Delight
, but for three days never caught sight of her, although we were sailing as slowly as a sea turtle and spending more time on the beach than in the sub. I kept the hatch open the whole time, and Seaweed climbed in and out like a cat changing his mind. He flew quite a bit in the daytime, soaring above us like a kite. At
night, he sat on the hull, keeping an eye open for trouble. Hollie created a salty pile of the loose bits of rope and sticks he had collected from the beach, and slowly chewed them into a frothy mulch. He liked the salty taste. The days were hot and muggy; the nights were warm and filled with stars. You would have thought we were sailing on a magical sea.

Then, on the fourth day, I detected a vessel on radar about fifteen miles offshore. We were approaching Mozambique Island, a tiny island with an old Portuguese port from the days of tall ships, just like Fort Kochi in India, across the sea. But Mozambique Island had an imposing fortress, with cannons still pointing at passing ships. It was also connected to the mainland by a narrow bridge. I had read about it in my guidebook, and it sounded really cool. I wanted to see it. I just hoped I wouldn't see that pirate there.

The vessel on radar was sailing slowly, like a sailboat. And then, it stopped. That made me curious. I wanted to check it out anyway, just to make sure it wasn't
Maggie's Delight
, so I followed it. Raising the periscope a quarter of a mile away, I spotted the flowery hull. It was her all right. She had the orange dinghy in tow. It didn't look like the pirate was intending to sail into Mozambique Island, being so far offshore at this point. But why had he stopped? Then, I saw why, though I could hardly believe it.

He climbed the mast with a rope. The little boat tossed side to side with his weight. He reached up and tied the rope as close to the top of the mast as he could, and shimmied
down. Then, he climbed into the dinghy, tied down the other end of the rope, pulled the engine cord, motored to the port side . . . then sped away! As the dinghy motored away, it pulled the mast of the sailboat down and swamped the boat. He was sinking her! She was too slow for him, and he was hiding the evidence of his theft.

Once the boat was down, he untied the rope, coiled it up in the dinghy, and sped off towards Mozambique Island.

I waited until he was out of sight, surfaced, and motored over to the boat. She hadn't sunk yet. But she had rolled completely around, and her mast was pointing to the bottom. I always found it sad when a boat sank. I didn't know why; it wasn't a person. It still felt like a death to me.

I opened the hatch, climbed out of the portal and, grabbing a handle on the side of the sub, I reached over with my foot and touched the hull of the sailboat. She would sink soon. I didn't really want to see that, so I stood up and turned around. And then, I heard it. At least I thought I heard it. I wasn't sure. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn I heard a weak voice say “Maggie.” It was very faint. I stood still, closed my eyes, and listened carefully. There was a little wind, but no sound from the water. No, I didn't hear anything. It was just my imagination. It bugged me, though. I reached over and tapped the hull again. Maybe one push was all it would take to send her to the bottom. I turned around, and then I heard it again. “Maggie.” Good Lord! There was someone inside the boat!

I had to act fast; the boat was going to sink. But if someone was inside, why didn't they climb out? Were they locked inside? Were they tied up? How horrible! Would that pirate do such a thing? I guess he would. “Act!” I said to myself.

I jumped into the water, beat against the side of the boat with my fist and yelled, “I'm coming to help you!” Then I took a breath, and went under.

I found the base of the mast where the keel should have been. The door to the cabin was behind it, near the stern. I swam over and pulled on the door. It was locked! It would take a screwdriver to pry it open. I had to return to the sub.

If I were going inside the boat, I would have to go on a rope. Then, if it started to sink, I could pull myself out, so long as the rope didn't get hung up. It would be dark inside, so I'd have to carry a flashlight. I'd also need both hands free. I stripped down to my shorts. I didn't want any clothing to get caught on a hook or nail. I cut a piece of twine, tied it to the hook on the bottom of the flashlight, and hung it around my neck. Then I grabbed a long screwdriver. I took a fifty-foot coil of rope, climbed the portal, tied one end of the rope to the harness, and the other end to a handle on the hull of the sub, strapped the harness on, climbed out, and shut the hatch.

I jumped into the water, took a breath, and went under again. There were windows in the cabin, but they were under-water. I couldn't see inside them. I found the door, shoved the screwdriver into the jamb, and pulled as hard as I could.
If the door opened, it was going to let a whole lot of water into the boat in a hurry. I would have to find whoever was inside, and get them out. But what if they were tied up? Or what if they were injured? What if I couldn't save them?

The door gave a little. Bubbles blew into my face. I kept at it, but was using up my air. I had to surface again. The boat had sunk deeper. It was going to plunge to the bottom any moment. I took a breath and went under again, found the door, jammed the screwdriver in, and pulled with all my might. The door burst open. Air rushed out and water rushed in. I clicked on the flashlight and swung it around the cabin. There was nobody here! And it was filling with water. I had to get out. I looked one last time. No, there was no one here. Strange, I was so sure I had heard someone. It must have been my imagination. I took a breath of the cabin air and got ready to leave. Then, I heard the voice coming from a small compartment in the bow. “Maggie!”

There was someone locked inside a very small space. “I'm coming!” I yelled. “I will help you!”

“Maggie!” came the voice again. But it was very weak. And it was strange. It almost sounded like a recording.

“Hold on! I'm coming!”

I moved towards the door, but the rope went taut and held me back. The boat was sinking now. No! I pulled hard, but the rope wouldn't budge. Then, it pulled me back a few feet. The cabin was more than half full of water. The boat was going down.

“Open the door!” I yelled. “I can't reach!”

There was no answer, and no sound from inside the compartment. Maybe it was filling with water, too.

“Open the door!”

No one answered. I tried with all my might to reach, but the rope just kept pulling me back. We were both going to drown if we didn't get out now.

“Maggie!”

The rope pulled me back even further. There was no fighting it. I had to take the harness off. I knew I shouldn't do that, but what choice did I have? Could I sail away from this boat knowing someone had drowned, but that maybe I could have saved them? Would I be able to live with that? No. I thought of Hollie and Seaweed. I was risking their lives, too, if I didn't make it back. But what else could I do?

I unbuckled the harness and felt it slip away. The cabin was two-thirds full, and the boat was tilting. It was sinking. I rushed at the door, shoved the screwdriver into the jamb, and twisted it open. There was no one there! “Maggie!” came the voice again, louder this time. I stuck my head inside the compartment and finally saw who it was.

It was a bird in a cage. The cage was upside-down and the bird was clinging to the bars. It looked like a small parrot. The cage was attached to a hook. Water was flooding the compartment. How could I get the bird out without drowning it?

I dropped the screwdriver, grabbed the cage, and pulled it free from the hook. There was a vinyl tablecloth floating on
the water. I picked it up and wrapped it around the cage, held the cage above water, and started back through the cabin. The boat was almost vertical now. I took a deep breath and peeked into the cage. The bird stared back at me, and I had the strangest thought that it knew what we were about to do. “Good luck!” I said. I had such a bad feeling inside. I didn't think it was going to make it. I pulled the tablecloth tight, gripped it hard with one hand, took another breath, and went under the water and out of the boat.