Secret sea; (24 page)

stopped. He whirled around to face Pete. "Listen, Mac," he said, "where's the stuff?" For the deck of the hidra had been cleared, all evidence of the treasure had disappeared, and the deck had been swabbed down.

Pete pointed down with one finger.

Mike went to the companion hatch and peered

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down into the cabin. He whirled around again. "No tricks. Where is it?"

Pete beckoned with his finger and grinned. Mike walked slowly forward.

Pete pointed down into the shallow water. "Right down there," he said.

Mike stared into the water. He could see fish swimming around and a shell crawling along the smooth, sandy bottom—but that was all. "I don't see it, Mac," he said.

"See those four conch shells? They mark the square," Pete said. "I don't want to be boastin' an' braggin', but I think that's a good job of hiding."

"Yeh. It is if it's really down there."

"It's there, Mike," Pete said quietly. "All of it."

Mike looked at him for a long time. Then he looked away. In a low voice he said, "I guess I went to school too long. That school with the wall around it."

Pete didn't answer as he went forward to get the anchor up.

Over the Santa Ybel again, Mike dropped anchor. When he came aft, Pete was bringing the heavy suit up out of the cabin. Mike went over and started the air pump. "Pete," he said, "how's chances of letting me go down once? All I've done is stand around."

"You want to?"

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Mike nodded. ''Yd just like to see what it looks like. I don't want to stay very long. How's about it, Skipper?"

*'Climb in," Pete said, holding the suit open. As he laced Mike into the suit, he gave him instructions, and when he finished and lowered the helmet, Pete said, *'Good-by."

Mike pushed the helmet away. ''What do you mean, 'good-by'?"

"Nice knowing you," Pete said, and put the helmet on.

He connected the phone and said, ''One, two, three . . ."

"Five by five." Mike's voice sounded a little shaky, Pete thought.

"Don't forget that outlet valve as soon as you get in the water, Mike," Pete said.

"What do you think I am, a dope, dope?"

"Pardon me," Pete said. "Plenty of air? Feel okay?"

"Fine! Let her go."

"If you see any sharks, rip loose that shark chaser at your belt."

"Roger. How do I look?" Mike tried to walk and almost toppled over as the lead weights held his feet planted on the deck.

"Sharp. Like a sack half full of potatoes. Okay, here you go."

Pete lowered him down to the surface of the water.

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"Think I'll just lie here a while and get used to it," Mike said, lying on his back and looking up through the faceplate at Pete.

"If you're going down, go on."

"Look, who's running this operation?"

"Nobody. How about that outlet valve?"

"I'll take care of the outlet valve. You just stick to your tatting, bub."

Pete waited, watching for bubbles to come out of the helmet, but none did. Slowly, as Mike failed to open the valve, the air inside the suit began to blow it up. The wrinkles unfolded out of the rubbery legs, then the back began to puff out.

"What's the matter?" Pete asked. "Scared?"

"Who, me?"

Pete could see Mike's face glaring up at him from the helmet.

Then the air filled out the suit completely, snapping the arms straight out so that the whole suit was stiff and round. Pete began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Mike asked.

"You. How about that outlet valve, friend?"

"Okay."

Pete watched as Mike struggled. It was useless. The air inside the suit kept the arms stretched straight out so that Mike was helpless.

"What's got me?" Mike asked, his voice shaking a little.

"Nothing. Now you know what the inside of a balloon feels like."

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"Say, what's going on? I can't move!"

Pete hauled him up until he could reach down and turn the valve. Air gushed out, the suit collapsed, and he let Mike sink straight down for about fifteen feet. Mike began to yell, and Pete hauled him up again.

"Do you or don't you want to go down?"

He could hear Mike gulping, but then he said, "Yeah. I guess so. Yeah, go ahead, Pete."

Pete let the life line go on the run and Mike plummeted down, leaving a trail of bubbles.

"Whoops! Where am I?"

"Halfway."

"You're not dropping me into that thousand-foot hole, are you? It's awful deep down here."

"It gets deeper."

"Hey!" Mike yelled. "Lookit the fish. He swam right past me, Pete. I could've caught him with my bare hand."

"Try it."

"How much further?" Then Mike grunted as he hit bottom. Pete waited for him to say something but all he could hear was Mike's breathing.

After a while Pete said, "Mike? You okay?"

Mike's voice was almost a whisper. "Yeah. Yeah, Pete. . . . Boy, it's sure pretty down here. Looks like walkin' around in the middle of moonlight. And the fishes and flowers and everything. I never saw anything like this. . . . Well, look at

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that. When I reached for that flower, it just went back inside itself, Pete."

"Sea anemone. It's alive."

"Well, blow me down. ... Is that big gray-thing the Santa Ybel? . . . Yeah, I can see the frames now. She looks sort of grand, doesn't she, Pete? Sort of lonesome, too. Okay to go inside her?"

"Watch your hose and line—keep 'em clear of stuff."

"Dark in here," Mike said. "Gloomy. Where was the octopus?"

"See the skeleton? Over to the left of that."

Pete watched the second hand of the stop watch clicking steadily around the dial. A sea gull flew over the ship, and Pete looked up at it. It had a broken leg which hung down, while the other one stayed tucked up. It hovered above Pete, looking down at him with its hard, bright little eyes.

"Pete," Mike said after a while.

"What?"

"Let's leave her alone."

"Leave what?"

"The Santa Ybel. Let's don't cut her all up, Pete. We've got plenty, don't you think?"

"Yes," Pete said.

"No use cutting holes all in her, is there, Pete?"

"I don't think so, if you don't."

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"Let's leave her alone."

"Okay."

"You suppose she'll last another four hundred years?"

"Easy."

"Boy, it sure is lonesome down here."

Pete caught the flash of the sea gull's wing out of the corner of his eye and turned to look at it.

Below the sea gull, resting on the sharp blue curve of the horizon, was a narrow white triangle. Pete grabbed the binoculars out of the compartment and swept the sea with them.

Then he stood perfectly still, the binoculars dangling from the neck strap, the stop watch dangling from its chain. Slowly the muscles along his jawbones began to stand out, and then he clamped his lips shut.

Stooping, he took a bearing across the compass on the triangle of sail and checked the time on the stop watch. Mike was talking about a red-and-yellow fish he was looking at, but Pete didn't hear him.

Pete stooped and took another bearing. There was no change; the sail was coming straight toward the Indra.

"Mike. Here they come."

"Who?"

"Weber."

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Mike yelled, **Get me up out of here. Get me up!"

"Take it easy. I think it's Weber. It's a Marconi-rigged sail. I can see the top of it, and it's coming straight for us."

"I want to come up," Mike almost wailed.

"First find the grapnel. It's over behind that big chunk of coral. Unshackle the wire from it and let the coconut go adrift. Bear a hand."

"I'm standing right beside it. . . . It's free."

Pete looked forward and saw the coconut begin to drift slowly southward.

He ran forward, weighed anchor, and left it dangling as he ran aft again and got the engine started. Shifting into reverse and taking the becket off the wheel, he steered the Indra backward straight down toward the growing triangle of sail.

"I'm under way, going astern slowly. Stand by to come up to thirty."

"Stand by! I'm waiting."

Steering with both bare feet, Pete hoisted Mike up to thirty feet and left him there for one minute, then pulled him to twenty.

"Do you itch anywhere?" he asked.

"I take a bath every Saturday, bub."

"Let me know if you itch. Around finger or toe joints. This is no time to get the bends."

"I don't itch," Mike said.

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After five minutes Pete hauled him up to ten feet and could see him streaming out forward as the ship moved steadily astern.

Pete put the binoculars down and said quietly, "It's the black sloop, Mike."

"What do you think's going to happen, Pete?"

"They'll get rough," Pete said. "Time's up." He shifted into neutral and hoisted Mike on board and helped him out of the suit.

Mike stood for a moment looking at the sloop. "If I hadn't been such a jerk and gone down to see the sights we could have slipped away early this morning."

Pete shook his head. "No. I think Weber picked us up last night."

Mike went over, turned off the air pump, and carefully put the tarpaulin on it. When he came back to stand beside Pete, they could see the figures of people moving on the black sloop.

"You've got to hand it to Weber," Mike said. "He's a plenty smart cooky."

"He's still got a piece of work to do, though."

Mike grunted. "How about the carbine?"

Pete shook his head. "First place, they've probably got machine guns. In the second, they can't find anything aboard the Indra, So let 'em come."

"Nice day for a kicking around," Mike said.

"Couldn't be better. What time is it?"

Mike went over and looked at the clock. "Seven bells."

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Pete stopped the engine and went below. When he came topside, he had a cloth bundle wrapped with light twine stops. He snapped it to the flag hoist and hauled it up to the main topmast peak. Then he secured the downhaul to a cleat beside the companion hatch.

"What's that? The laundry?"

"Another message. If we get a chance to use it."

"I hope it makes more sense than the first one."

Pete looked aft at the sloop. "We've got about twenty minutes before things start popping. How about a little chow, Mike? I think we'll need it before the afternoon is over."

"My throat's so dry now I couldn't eat," Mike said. "But I might as well try."

Mike came up in a few minutes with some of his dripping sandwiches and a pot of warmed-over coffee.

As Pete ate and watched the sloop, he said, "Mike, this is going to be a rugged affair. The Nazis learned how to get pretty nasty."

Mike looked over the edge of his sandwich and nodded.

"But it isn't going to last forever—I hope. So take it if you can."

Mike swallowed a hunk of sandwich and looked at Pete. "The Nazis don't know a thing we didn't know in the reform school," he said belligerently.

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"Remember, Mike. Weber doesn't know where the stuff is. We do. As long as we can keep it that way, he can get just so rough and no rougher."

"Brother," Mike said, "I wish I was home in bed. If I had a home, and it had a bed."

"I've been in pleasanter spots than this myself. But just remember—if things get sort of vague and bloody, Mike—that all Weber wants is to know where the stuff is."

"Okay. What's the pitch when he comes aboard?"

"We haven't found the Suitta Ybel yet. We've been looking for it, but we haven't found it yet."

"Why don't you just give him a fake position, Pete? Then he'll go highballing off and leave us alone. Let him kick us around a little and then give him the fake."

Pete looked up slowly at Mike. "Because if he believed us, if he thought he had really beaten the position out of us, there would be no reason for him not to shoot us, sink the Indra, and go on about his business. This is a big ocean."

"Oh," Mike said softly.

"That's why we've got to keep it the way it is," Pete said quietly. "As long as Weber doesn't know, he—won't kill us."

Mike nodded slowly. "That sort of stretches out the beating, doesn't it?"

"Yep."

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Then a loud, harsh voice floated across the water from the sloop.

"Aho-o-oy, Indra."

Pete turned, looked at the man, his face covered by the black ring of the megaphone, and then idly lifted his arm and waved it in answer to the hail.

The voice said, "I would like to come aboard. Will you anchor your ship?"

Pete waved again. 'Tet her go," he said to Mike.

Mike walked slowly forward, kicked the trigger on the capstan, and the anchor dropped down to the bottom again. He let out scope and then came back to sit down in the cockpit.

Men on the sloop put over a boat, and Pete suddenly grinned. **That's our dinghy."

**One . . . two . . . and Weber makes three," Mike said, counting the men climbing down into the dinghy.

"I don't see but one left aboard the sloop."

"Just one."

The dinghy began to move toward them, the short oars kicking up bright sparkles of spray.

Pete said slowly, "When I was in the Navy, I found that when you're taking a beating you've got to fix your mind on a few simple little thoughts, Mike. If you don't, and the beating is bad, you forget what you're supposed to do. We've got two simple things to remember. First,

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no matter what happens, we mustn't let our minds go adrift. If we get to the point where we don't know what we're thinking any more, there's no telHng what we'll say or do. Second, we —do—not—know—where the Santa Ybel is."

"Five by five, Cap'n," Mike said. "Hold your hat."