We geared up into the diving equipment. Duffy and Dunne helped Smith and I with our air bottles, flippers and weight belts, whilst McElroy lowered the sea boat to deck level from the big gray winches overhead.
“Just be careful down there, you guys,” Sarah Wingate called out from the crowd.
Smith winked at her in reply. “We’re always frosty, babe.”
I glanced at Batfish, she immediately averted my gaze and looked down at the deck. No ‘
good luck, Brett
,’ rally call like the old days.
I suddenly felt exactly like who I was. A small town dickhead totally out of his depth, going into a dangerous situation using equipment I knew nothing about.
The sea boat shook slightly when McElroy stopped the winch. The boat was around a foot from the deck.
“All aboard,” Smith said.
Smith clambered into the boat with ease, followed by McPherson and Hannigen, who immediately took up his position behind the steering wheel and the central control panel. I struggled to make it over the side, weighted down by the heavy belt and air tanks. Duffy and Dunne assisted me, roughly shoving me over the spongy rubber boat’s side.
I tumbled inside the small craft and righted myself, sitting at the back of the boat on a wooden board. Smith glanced at me from the opposite side of the vessel.
“You okay, kid?”
I nodded, my facemask bobbing around while dangling around my neck. My mouth was dry and I felt incredibly nervous. Talking about diving was one thing but actually carrying out the procedure was something else entirely. Once again, I had the bad feeling I was going to let Smith down. He trusted me and I always felt as though he was testing my limits. Maybe he saw something in me I hadn’t recognized. Perhaps he always thought I was actually a better human being than I thought I was. I knew in the military they liked to bust you down to build you back up. Conceivably, that was what Smith was doing with me. He was a former U.S. Marine and during some of our drunken, late night sessions, he’d spilled the beans about his experiences in several combat zones. From what I remembered him telling me, I wouldn’t like to be the guy on the receiving end of Smith’s wrath.
Smith made a whirring motion with a raised finger and McElroy hit the winch lever, lifting us in the boat and outboard from the ship. I clung on to the side as the boat rocked under the motion. McElroy lowered us down to sea level. I felt a little sick but stopped myself from vomiting, swallowing down the stomach bile infiltrating my mouth.
The bright sun glinted across the clear sea and as the boat lowered, I could see the hulk of the warship’s side, wedged firmly against a black mass below the surface. What the hell had we done? A bunch of amateurs trying to coast around islands surrounded by reefs and rocks. It had taken the Europeans centuries to navigate the Caribbean Islands and we thought we could do it in one attempt. It was almost laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
“Got a smoke?” Smith asked McPherson.
McPherson nodded and offered his pack. Smith lit up and we shared the cigarette as the boat hit the water.
“What was it they said during World War Two?” I said, tossing the butt into the sea. “A last smoke before they got shot by the Nazi firing squads.”
Smith grinned and pointed at me. “The bad guys in that war had the best equipment and the best uniforms. Tough on them they had a complete asshole directing the field operations.”
“Adolf Hitler would have won that war if he hadn’t invaded Russia,” Hannigen interjected, turning his head. “That was his big mistake.”
Smith laughed. “Weren’t you guys neutral during that war?”
Hannigen grimaced, gritting his teeth as he glowered over his shoulder. “You should breeze up on your history, Smith. Belfast took its fair share of bombing during the Blitz, so it did. I think you’ll find the Republic was neutral, not the North. We stood alone as one until you American boys joined the party, very late on. 1941 was it?”
Smith smirked. “Discussion to be continued, Hannigen.” He waved up to McElroy then pointed to McPherson. “Release the strops, dude.”
McPherson nodded and leaned forward across the boat. He unhooked a big yellow clasp that held together four sturdy straps connecting the boat to the winch. The straps fell inside the boat and McPherson brushed them to the sides.
“Good to go, Hannigen,” Smith said.
Hannigen fired up the boat’s outboard motor and moved us forward and slightly away from the ship’s side. The boat’s propeller churned up the sea behind us as we moved slowly forward. The boat wasn’t going to have to move very far to reach the warship’s bows.
I turned my head away from the glistening sea to study the island in the distance. The green trees swayed in the breeze above the rocky cliff face and I thought I saw a building slightly set back from the coastline. The structure was built in what looked like old, yellowish stone from a bygone age, almost like a medieval Spanish castle.
“See that?” I asked Smith, nodding to the land.
Smith’s expression suddenly turned serious. “I clocked that building a while ago, kid. That’s the whole reason why we’re going down under the water.”
Chapter Seven
“Why, what do mean by that?” I asked, now more concerned than I ever was before this damn dive.
Smith shrugged. “Forget about it for now.”
I rubbed my face and studied the building across the sea. What the fuck was Smith talking about now? There always seemed to be some hidden agenda to what he was doing. Was I supposed to be worried about what lay on the shore? There was never any let up to what was going on in Smith’s mind.
Hannigen slowed the boat and stopped beside the bows. I glanced up at the huge gray bulk and saw the colossal starboard anchor, housed in a recess below the ship’s side. An orange line of rust followed the Y shaped anchor down the side to the water’s surface. I didn’t know how bad rust was in a warship but guessed they could go on sailing for a while before they needed some serious repair work.
“Okay, you ready, kid?” Smith asked.
I nodded, trying hard not to quiver in my seat.
Smith spat into his facemask and rubbed the saliva around the transparent eye pieces. I did the same, trying to pretend I knew what I was doing. Smith turned a valve on his air tank behind his back and whirled his finger, instructing me to follow suit. I reached behind my back and turned the valve. I heard a hiss of air from the mouthpiece hanging below my chin.
Smith pulled his mask up over his eyes and inserted his breathing tube between his lips. He gave me a thumbs up, looking almost alien-like in the diving gear. I followed his lead, placing on the mask and inserting the mouthpiece. Instead of a thumbs up, I gave him the middle finger. I saw by the expression in his eyes he found the gesture amusing. The weird air I inhaled made me feel a little light headed for a few seconds and the rubber mouthpiece tasted like a sweaty armpit. The mask limited my view from all sides, making me feel increasingly claustrophobic.
To my surprise, McPherson reached into a locker at the back of the boat and took out two spear guns with several more barbed lances, almost like an archers quiver rolled in a long lightweight, black holder. He handed the armaments to me and Smith. I nearly spat out my mouthpiece, asking what the fuck we needed weapons for.
Smith held up the spear gun, giving me an encouraging nod. I wasn’t so enthusiastic. Why did we need weapons down there? What the hell lay below us?
Smith slung the container with the spare barbs around his back and I did the same with my own package. I looked down at the spear gun in my hands, without any prior knowledge how to operate the weapon. I presumed it worked like a normal firearm only underwater. The stock was the same length as an assault rifle but with a barbed spear protruding from the end where a barrel would normally be.
I glanced at Smith and pointed at the spear gun, shaking my head and making audible noises to indicate my lack of knowledge towards the weapon.
McPherson picked up on my reservations. He pointed at the gun in my hands.
“It’s a pneumatic powered gun. Just point the trigger and fire if you need to. Then reload the spears by pulling it back on the mechanism,” he said. “Just like firing a pop gun at the fairground.” McPherson pointed to his head and made a trigger indication with his thumb. “Like shooting fish in a barrel. You’ll be all right down there, so you will Brett.” He pointed towards the sky. “You got the man upstairs looking after you, so you have.” He crossed himself, dipped his hand beyond the boat and flicked seawater over Smith and I.
I took a long blow on my mouthpiece. These Irish guys had an unshakeable belief in a higher entity. Although I couldn’t believe in any type of religion, I didn’t doubt these people’s conviction in their faith. These were tough, war torn guys and absolutely inspired and motivated by their loyalty. I disagreed with Smith. These Irish guys were like a pack of attack dogs, one word and they’d be tearing out the opposition’s throat, even though they had a deep seated sense of Christianity.
Smith flipped his head backwards and dive-bombed over the side of the boat, disappearing into the sea below.
Shit, it was time for me to go down with him. I hadn’t said the word for a long while, probably since I was a kid in London when I shouldn’t have been uttering such obscenities. But through the mouthpiece I managed to squeeze out “
Oh, bollocks
,” before I leaned backwards and stupidly and voluntarily fell out of a perfectly good boat.
After the splash of the water’s surface, I couldn’t hear anything apart from my own breathing, sucking in and out of the air tank on my back. I panicked at first, flapping around in an unfamiliar environment. The salt water stung the cut on my lip.
Water, lightweight but I sunk. The weight belt. What the hell
? Everything was blue. I settled, I could breath.
Wow
!
Another world
. It was fucking beautiful. Crystal clear sea and everything moved in slow motion. It was like some kind of weird dream.
Shoals of colorful fish breezed by me like I was an alien inhabitant in their environment. The reef in front of me opened in amazing expanse. Acres of sea vegetation fluttered in the underwater tide across the rocky surface. I saw Smith examining the ship’s hull a few yards to my right. He was flipping his legs, keeping himself level to the point of impact where the ship had hit the reef. I kicked my legs and moved further towards him.
Smith pointed to the bottom of the ship, something I’d never seen before. The tapered end of the front of the warship was wedged into a crevice in the gray, rocky reef’s surface. The whole steel structure had been bent around the gap in the reef, almost like a giant pair of snippets had pulled the entire front of the ship around to the right. The rippled, sandy sea bed sat around twenty yards below and to the rear of the rest of the vessel.
Even I could see that if the warship was put in reverse gear the whole of the front hull would be ripped out and the ship would sink. We couldn’t move. We were stuck where we were.
Instead of arguing about the whereabouts of our location, the men who stood around that table on the ship’s bridge should have made the decision to anchor out at sea and taken the smaller sea boat to investigate the island. The result of their indecisiveness had cost us dearly.
I looked at Smith and gave a cut throat signal. The ship was unmovable. He nodded.
Movement over his shoulder caught my attention. At first, I thought it was another shoal of fish swimming by. Then I noticed the ragged form was human sized and shaped. The emaciated creature, who had once been a living male person, clawed its way through the sea towards us. The flesh around this thing’s face was gray and rotten, presumably eroded by time below the water’s surface. The scowl was unmistakable, lips gone and protruding teeth snapping in anticipation. Medium length sandy hair billowed around the partially visible skull. The remains of a pair of beige shorts and a brightly colored yellow shirt flapped around the zombie’s gaunt body.
I flapped my hand and pointed behind Smith at the approaching ghoul. Smith picked up on my signal and the terrified look in my eyes. He immediately spun around and saw the floating dead guy drawing nearer.
As usual, Smith didn’t panic. He raised his spear gun and waited until the zombie was around ten feet away from us. Smith aimed and released the trigger. The spear shot from the gun and whizzed through the water at an incredible speed I never thought possible below sea level.
The spiked barb penetrated the undead man’s head with an overwhelming impact. The guy’s head rocked backwards and he immediately ceased his movement towards us. His body went completely limp, drifting up to the surface and his eyes rolled upwards, almost as though he was looking at the heavens above the sea. The spear was lodged firmly in his forehead and a plume of reddish brown blood drifted out through the wound into the sea.
Smith took out another spear from his quiver and reloaded the gun. I turned my head in all directions, scanning the close proximity. In my experiences with the undead, they were like roaches. Where you’d find one, you normally uncovered a whole bunch of the bastards.