66 Metres: A chilling thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat!. J.F. Kirwan

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СКАЧАТЬ beeped. At last he grabbed one fin and then a leg, and yanked Bjorn around to face him. Both he and Bjorn were still sinking. They bumped into the sludge-covered escarpment like two drunken men falling down a hill in slow motion. Jake had to let go of his torch. It spun around wildly, strobing like a disco light as he gripped Bjorn’s harness with one hand and inflated his stab jacket full of air with the other. Bjorn’s eyes were nearly closed. Nitrogen narcosis had taken him elsewhere. Jake checked his second computer, the Suunto – the Aladin had stopped working – sixty-eight metres. His fins found purchase on the slope. He flexed his knees and with both hands shoved Bjorn’s body upwards.

      Jan Erik arrived.

      Jake could hear his own heart pounding. But there was another, stranger, pulsing white noise, growing louder. The beginnings of oxygen poisoning. He pointed to his inflate button, and he and Jan Erik both pumped air into their jackets. Jake had just given the ‘Up’ signal when Jan Erik’s eyes went wide, seeing something behind Jake. Jake turned just in time to see a snowstorm of descending silt they must have kicked up whilst chasing Bjorn. In the next second it enveloped them like thick soup. He couldn’t see his outstretched hand. He reached for Jan Erik but he was already gone, hopefully upwards. The white noise was now a din in Jake’s head. He knew what it meant. He was going to black out. Then he would sink. And then it would all be over.

      He finned hard, worked his thighs almost into cramp. He had to get up above fifty. Once he was moving upwards, the air in his jacket would carry on expanding and propel him to the surface. If he blacked out and didn’t wake up till he reached the surface, it would be a nasty decompression incident, but that was preferable to the alternative. It grew more difficult to concentrate. The porridge-like silt meant he could barely read the Suunto, even when he held it right in front of his mask.

      He suddenly didn’t know which way was up, or where his torch was. All around him a sea of clay and bubbling blackness. White noise roared in his ears like a jet engine. Then he remembered – follow the bubbles. Watching their direction in front of his face, he righted himself, and kicked hard. Jake felt himself lifting. He dared to hope, and read the Suunto, counting down the metres. Fifty-nine, fifty-eight… He was going to make it. His eyes watered inside his mask. The crushing noise pressed inside his skull. Concentrate! Fifty-three … fifty-two … fifty-one … fifty-two … fifty-three… No! That wasn’t possible! How the hell could he be going down? There were no currents in the fjord. Numbness crept over him. Unable to fin any more. His legs not responding. Fuck. Not like this! Seconds, seconds… Then he remembered. He reached down to his right side and cracked open his emergency cylinder. It blasted air into his jacket, squeezed it tight around his chest and shoulders like an airbag. The white noise wailed like a hurricane in his head.

      He blacked out.

      It was like tuning-in on an old style wireless, trying to find a station in a forest of static. Mexican deep divers called it the wah-wah. The sound your brain makes when it has too much oxygen under pressure. But if you rise, the partial pressure of oxygen drops. The wah-wah goes away, and in theory you wake up. That’s what Jake was thinking when he came to.

      He was peaceful. Then he recalled where he was. Still ascending. He dumped air out of his jacket fast, and checked his computers again. The Aladin said ‘Err’. The Suunto was flashing, but at least gave depth. Twenty-nine metres. Twisting around, he found the other two with him. They were conscious, hanging there in mid-water. Bjorn looked confused. Jan Erik’s grin was gone, but he did that Norwegian wink with both eyes blinking instead of just one. Jake swam up to each of them and read their air gauges, checked his compass, then led them towards the cliff. They trawled the edge one way then the other till they saw the green strobe under the boat. Jake checked his watch. Twenty minutes. They shone their lights under the boat so Andreas would know they were there.

      They hung around for a further twenty minutes at nine metres, Jake checking their air every now and again. Occasionally one of the others would try an ‘Up’ signal. Jake shook his head each time. They ascended to five metres and waited. Andreas gunned the engine once or twice. Jake knew he was worried. They were late, but at least Andreas could see them beneath the boat. But they were way off the decompression tables, so Jake kept them there, five metres under the boat, until their air supply was down to twenty bar. At last he gave the ‘Up’ signal.

      As Jake clambered last into the boat, Andreas was fussing. ‘Where the hell have you been for the past hour? I was having kittens!’

      Bjorn’s eyebrows were knitted together, a deep frown puckering his face. Jan Erik’s grin resurfaced as he showed Andreas his depth gauge. Andreas laughed. ‘Sure. You moved the needle with your dive knife.’ The ensuing silence caused him to check Bjorn’s depth gauge, then Jake’s expression. ‘Holy mother of God! You’re all crazy. You should be dead!’

      After that, nobody said much.

      As the boat sputtered its way home, Jake inevitably found himself thinking about Sean, lost to the depths three years ago.

      Almost joined you.

      The boat neared the jetty, a single streetlight casting harsh light over them. Jake never imagined he’d be pleased to smell Sarpsborg’s soap factory.

      As they unloaded the boat, Bjorn spoke, latching onto Jake’s eyes. ‘You saved my life down there, didn’t you?’

      Jake matched his gaze, but said nothing. In his mind he’d almost killed them all. He’d taken them on this dive, breaking the rules of their club where the maximum depth limit was thirty-five metres, because Bjorn, Jan Erik and Andreas were heading to Lanzarote next week, and would go down to fifty. He’d wanted to prepare them. Now he felt like tossing his instructor card into the fjord.

      Near midnight, the four of them sat at the bar in one of Halden’s few pubs, Siste Reis – ‘Last Stop’ – next to the train station, which was in fact the last stop on the line from Oslo. Bjorn looked sullen. Jan Erik was getting plastered, especially as Andreas was buying, and couldn’t stop talking. Jake didn’t really hear any of it, except when Andreas mentioned that Jan Erik had found out earlier that day he was going to be a father. At that point Jake switched from beer to Talisker whiskey. Then he remembered something. He waited till Andreas went to get the next round. ‘Hey, when I was coming up, at one point I couldn’t fin any more, and started sinking. But it doesn’t make any sense, I was positively buoyant by then, I should have kept ascending.’

      Jan Erik cleared his throat, morphed it into a generous burp. ‘Ah, that was me.’

      Jake stared at him.

      ‘You see, I didn’t know which way was up, and I saw these blue fins – yours – so I grabbed them and held on tight.’

      Jake shook his head, and raised his glass. ‘Nice one.’

      Jan Erik grinned again, beer froth decorating his upper lip. ‘If it’s a boy, I’ll name him Jake, poor sod.’ Then he fell about laughing. It was infectious, and Jake finally joined in.

      He didn’t remember how he got home.

      The next evening, Bjorn rang Jake’s doorbell.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘You leave tomorrow, don’t you?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Can I come in?’

      Jake paused. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

      ‘My sis Vibeke is with me.’

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