Authors: David Poyer
He turned, to find Caffey watching him from across the compartment. He motioned him back, not smiling.
"How dependable are they?" Keyes shouted.
"They need an overhaul. But they've been getting us out and back." Caffey turned and led the way forward through a second hatch into a space that allowed them to stand upright. He clicked on another naked bulb. "The crew berthed here," he said. "Tiller tore most of the bunks out when he bought her. Now it's a dive locker. That machine in the corner's an air compressor, for charging tanks. That's a cutting-and-welding torch beside it. This rack holds ten bottles of gas and there's room for more in that old ammo locker."
"Anything forward of this?"
"Tiller's bunkroom, then a smaller space—cable locker for the anchor, a whole bunch of crap." Caffey hesitated. "I mean, gear. The boat may not look so hot, she hasn't been kept up since he—since he went away. But we can do a lot with what we have aboard. Any kind of diving, salvage you want done." His voice lowered. "Mr. Keyes, let me say something. Tiller Galloway's top of the line. He really is. Don't judge him by what you've seen so far today."
"I see." Keyes turned. "Topside, then?"
"Sure."
An hour later a gray arch grew ahead of them, rising from the sound and the low dunes. They passed only one other boat, a small trawler heading in from seaward. Galloway poked
Victory
like thread through a succession of needles between low islands covered with sea oats and scrub brush, past shallows where egrets and avocets hunted knee-deep. At intervals kitti-wakes whirled up, their shadows flickering across the water, now growing a translucent greenish-blue.
"Oregon Inlet Bridge," said Hirsch. She had come up from below in shorts and a "Virginia is for Lovers" T-shirt. She smiled at Galloway and Keyes, then flushed a little, and her dark eyes dropped. Barefoot, with long brown hair twisted back, she looked younger than Caffey.
"The way to the Atlantic?"
"That's right. North of it, Nags Head, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills; south of it is all Hatteras Island, down to Ocracoke."
"It looks like it's built over land, not water."
"That's the problem," said Caffey. "That's new land. The whole Banks, all the islands are movin' south."
"Moving?" Keyes looked disturbed. "What do you mean?"
"This is all sand," said Caffey, waving his hand at the low dunes they were passing. "Just a ribbon of sand, couple thousand feet across—and the Atlantic on the other side. No one knows how it keeps resisting the sea. This inlet opened one night in a storm, a hundred years ago, and now it's closing up. Corps of Engineers been running dredges, but the sand stays ahead. It's driving the trawlers out of business."
The bridge gradually darkened the sky, the whir of tires coming distant through the concrete, and then fell behind. The channel twisted. Shoals thrust out from the shore, and along their margins tiny figures wielded poles: surf fishermen. A patch of choppy, disturbed water appeared between them and the sea. Galloway eyed it and throttled back. A moment later they saw his hands tense on the wheel as a whisper came from beneath the hull. He held course. The boat slowed, seemed to drop her head for a moment, then raised it and pushed forward again. They were over.
"There she is," said Hirsch.
The trawler lay where the channel opened to the sea. Only mast and booms showed above the chop, trailing cables in the tidal current.
"A real menace to navigation," Caffey said. "Tiller, how'd she get there? I thought she'd be up on one of the shoal patches."
"She was," said Galloway, unbending enough to turn his head. "Something grabbed her hull when the Guard towed her off. Lot of old wrecks in this sand. Got this far, then went down. Okay—let's get clear to seaward. I'll take the anchor."
He throttled back and went forward. Jack took the wheel, keeping the boat's head into three-foot swells that came in steadily from the open sea. The sun was intensely hot.
"Ready to drop," Galloway called back. Caffey gunned the engines a little, watching the wreck. "Leave her room to swing."
"Okay, Tiller." He aimed the bow a little farther to seaward. The booms poked up like dying trees a hundred yards astern, the breaking surf a white line beyond. "How's this?"
"Good. Back her."
The engines hesitated, then rumbled again;
Victory
began to drift backward. A moment later chain rattled, followed by a splash. Caffey slammed the shift several times before it went into neutral. Galloway stood waiting, watching the line come taut, then made a chopping motion.
The diesels died. "Tiller," said Bernie, in the sudden silence. "Is it my imagination, or are your engines getting louder?"
"Mufflers are shot," said Galloway, pulling himself up into the tuna tower. A moment later a red-and-white diving flag was flapping in the sea breeze.
"Bern, you coming in? Looks like good visibility today."
"I think 111 stay with the boat this time, Jack."
The three men began dressing out. Keyes stripped off a starched white shirt, revealing a pale long-muscled torso without a trace of fat. Over shorts and T-shirts they pulled heavy, buoyant rubber. The suits were hot and tight-fitting, making it hard to bend a leg or raise an arm, and in the sun a wearer soon found himself literally bathed in sweat. The blond man said suddenly, "Are these necessary? Isn't this water warm?"
"Sure, it's warm," said Galloway, working the pants over his legs. "You can go down bare-assed for all I cafre. But don't complain when a jellyfish makes love to you, or you tear your guts open on a piece of junk."
Keyes shook his head, but complied. They finished dressing. Over the wet suit went a buoyancy compensator, like an old Mae West life vest; lead weights strung on a web belt; a diving knife. Galloway selected a regulator, screwed it onto a tank, twisted the valve. Air
phutted
into it, tautening the rubber hose. He bit into the mouthpiece and took a deep breath.
Bernie helped Keyes and Caffey lift the tanks to their backs. Galloway put his twin eighties on the deck, bent, and with one smooth motion swung them up and over his head. The straps slid into position on his shoulders and he cinched them tight without looking. He pulled the tote bag from under the seat and unzipped it. The waxy blocks of explosive, box of fuzes, coil of prima-cord went into a net bag, ready to clip to his belt.
'You two ready? Okay, listen up. These old wooden trawlers don't take much demolition, but you got to place your charges right. I'm going to put three pounds, the main charge, right under the keel. Another two pounds goes back aft, to break up the engine foundations. Last pound I'll put in the deckhouse. Any questions?"
"I got one," said Caffey. His hair was already wet with sea. "What about me? What do I do?"
"Sorry, Jack, I keep forgetting you're the boss." Galloway said it without resentment, in fact without much expression at all. "Tell you what—you do the placement aft. You know where the engines are, don't you?"
"Come
on,
Tiller! I was trawlin' out of Wanchese all last summer."
"Okay. I'll give you your charge when we're down there."
Keyes had been listening. He pulled out one of the blocks, turned it over in his hand. "This stuff. Is it safe to handle down there?"
"Pentatriethylene?" said Galloway. In a smooth movement he drew a heavy knife from a sheath on his leg. The point went through the packet and chunked into wood. "Satisfied?"
"Very."
"Good. Now listen up. Watch yourselves down there. Keep away from jagged edges, loose lines and cables. Don't go inside the hull. It's been weakened already by the grounding and being pounded by surf for a week. This is just a job, a hundred an hour and expenses. No unnecessary risks. For you, Keyes, that goes double." Galloway stepped over the gunwale to the diving platform. He slipped on fins, standing on one leg as if the hundred pounds of gear was a summer suit, then gestured brusquely to the others. Caffey sat on the gunwale and rolled over the port side. When he bobbed up he beckoned to Keyes with a gloved hand. The older man hesitated, then tucked the regulator in his mouth and stepped in feet first.
Tiller Galloway lifted his face to the sun for a moment, then lowered it to look round the boat a last time. Hirsch raised her hand an inch or two, palm out. He nodded shortly, put his hand to his mask, and bent forward. The surface shattered beneath him, and he was received by the sea.
three
T
here was a peaceful interval as he sank,
watching his bubbles stream upward to crash and shatter against the silvery undersides of the waves.
Galloway dropped slowly on his back, arms outstretched, looking up at the world he was leaving. Back there, up there, were the regret and self-hatred that tortured him every moment he was sober. It was like seasickness. Everyone felt it, if the sea was rough enough. He'd felt a touch of it himself his first time out after four years ashore. But the moment you left the pitching boat, the moment you hit the water, it disappeared like magic.
His regret and self-hatred were like that. Ashore only one thing helped. He knew he was drinking too much. But it was the only way he could go on. Though even then, no matter how drunk he was a still small self within looked on unaffected, accusing, full of ineradicable grief.
But beneath the surface, under the sea ... life was elemental here. Past and future were alike nonexistent. Here there was only now. Submerged in it, a man became less human. He left his guilts and furies behind, hovering back in the sunlight. Surrounded by the sea, in a strange way he could become an animal again, could return to the slow instinctive unconsciousness his kind had left behind a hundred million years too soon.
Good visibility today, too. This close to shore he'd expected murk, but he could make out the bottom of the old PT. The sea was light green above, a deeper green-blue below. Diaphanous coelenterates, gauzy and shimmering as if woven of fog, drifted past as he sank. He looked around. Caffey, swimming downward, was several yards below him, and the stranger, Keyes, several yards above. He wondered briefly what the man wanted, what sort of work he had in mind; then dismissed it. He'd find out soon enough.
The bottom came into sight. Coarse white sand, rippled by current. It was nice to work in shallow water once in a while. He paused to valve air into his vest, then finned slowly west with the tide.
A shadow ahead slowly became the wreck. He eyed it critically as they neared. It had settled on its starboard side. The hull was clean of barnacles and weed, as if it had just been hauled. Too bad old McOwen had to lose his trawler, Galloway mused. But his loss is my gain. I sure as hell need the income.
He turned, to find the others close behind. He led them along the hull. A sinuous shadow drifted over him: a loose cable, part of the trawler's drift gear, moving in the inshore current. The stern was ground into the sand. The lower blades of the propeller were buried, but part of the shaft was exposed. He pointed to it; Caffey nodded.
Rounding the stern, he continued up the starboard side. The hole in the hull came into view. He could see where one of the strakes had pulled free. She must have gone down fast. The deckhouse, hatches open, loomed above them as if ready to topple. Portholes stared out, dark and blank as the eyes of
dead
fish. He saw Jack reach out to one as
they passed. It creaked
shut under his touch, then swung open again lazily. A hatch or cable banged somewhere. They swam beneath the blunt bow, reaching the port side again.
Okay, enough rubbernecking. Galloway checked the bag at his waist, then exhaled a stream of bubbles. With his lungs empty, he sank toward the bottom. He pointed upward to the wreck, and made a warning sign to the others. Canted like this, in a strong current, it could shift at any time.
He reached the bottom and began breathing again. He dug busily for a moment with one hand, shoving sand aside. Keyes and Caffey sank to the bottom nearby, watching. Sand drifted up, dispersing in the current like beige smoke. A shadow flitted over them, and all three looked up. A great barracuda, attracted by the bubbles, was patrolling between them and the sun. It hung motionless a few yards away, five feet of torpedo-shaped silver, jaws agape as one black eye studied them.
Galloway watched it for a moment. Barracuda seldom bothered divers, though the big fish, fascinated by humans, would tag along wherever they swam. It seemed to be watching Caffey, who was examining a spiral shell before tucking it into a pocket of his vest.
Dig, dig ... sand caved in nearly as rapidly as he scooped it out. Vision contracted to the inside of his mask He closed his eyes and mined on. In Vietnam you learned to work at night, like an octopus. Your fingers grew eyes. At last his outthrust glove touched the ridge of the keel. He paused then, his body half under the hull, pulled his right glove off, and snapped the bag open. He found the end of the primacord. Working by feel, he pressed it into a block, sandwiched it between two others, and bound all three together with the explosive line. Then he thrust the whole charge as far as he could reach under the keel.
One down. He pushed himself free, unreeling the plastic-sheathed cord. The water cleared somewhat.