The Land God Made in Anger. John Davis Gordon

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ get into the submarine the same way as those two guys got out! The only extra equipment we need is a few extra airtanks, an air-compressor and some new wetsuits. We’ve already got the dinghy and an outboard motor.’

      ‘But,’ Tucker frowned worriedly, ‘supposing we can’t get in that way, supposing we’ve got to cut our way in and even hire an expert to do it, I can see this taking months, and all the time our overdraft’s mounting up.’

      ‘You’re an engineer,’ Elsie said testily, ‘you know how to use an oxyacetylene torch to cut steel.’

      ‘Not underwater I don’t, I’m not going down there.’

      ‘We can all scuba-dive, we’ll all come down with you!’

      ‘Not me,’ Tucker said emphatically, ‘I’ve only dived around nice shallow rocks, looking for crayfish and periwinkles, I’m not diving out there amongst the big biteys, I’ve got my family to consider.’

      McQuade did not want to think about the big biteys either. ‘No problem with sharks out there. They’re too well fed.’

      ‘And Jim knows because he’s a marine biologist!’ the Kid said.

      ‘And I’m a family man, not like you guys. And,’ Tucker continued worriedly, ‘supposing when we crack the submarine there’s no loot inside? And what about our insurance? Will we be covered if we have an accident on a job like this? With a skeleton crew?’

      ‘That’s a chance we’ll have to take.’ McQuade decided to cut through all this. ‘Now, can we please have a vote? On whether we want to be millionaires. Elsie?’

      ‘I’m in,’ Elsie said.

      ‘In,’ the Kid sang: ‘In, in!’

      ‘Pottie?’

      ‘Got, yes, man,’ Potgieter said earnestly.

      ‘Hugo?’ McQuade said.

      Tucker looked at them unhappily.

      ‘But what do I tell Rosie?’ he fretted.

      ‘You tell her nothing! We’ve told the Coloureds we’ve got engine trouble and we’re going off on sea-trials. Same for Rosie.’

      Tucker looked thoroughly miserable. ‘Do I have to dive?’

      McQuade said flatly: ‘If it becomes necessary we all have to dive. Except Elsie.’

      ‘Oh Lord …’ Tucker groaned, racked. ‘And if we don’t find the submarine, what happens to our cheques?’

      McQuade said grimly, ‘If we don’t find it, we’ll all have to take a cut in our cheques.’

      ‘Oh Lord.’

      ‘Well?’ McQuade demanded. In? Or out?’

      Tucker took an anguished breath. ‘In,’ he muttered. He looked as if he might burst into tears.

PART TWO

11

      The Bonanza sailed late that night. The fog had gone. By midnight the lights of Walvis Bay were disappearing astern and a wind was blowing in off the cold Benguela current, whipping the spray across the bows. McQuade stood on the bridgewing in his foul-weather gear, on watch, the helm on autopilot, the black sea surging and smacking and flying. He did not want to go diving down into that any more than Tucker did, and oh God, no, he did not want to be opening up the charnel house of skeletons and stink of death that Commander Manning had promised, he did not want to be diving head-first down that tube of black water into that black tomb, he did not want to be putting on his new expensive wetsuit tomorrow and toppling himself into that dark deep cold water – and those lights of Walvis Bay looked awfully good.

      And there was something else for him to be uptight about: Red Straghan, the diver Roger Wentland had warned him about. That morning McQuade had bought one new wetsuit from Alan Louw’s shop and another second-hand tank and harness, but he had had to go to Straghan’s shop for a second-hand air-compressor. Red Straghan himself had come out of the workshop when he heard McQuade’s voice, his hard red face wearing his truculent smile, his hard blue eyes opaque, and said, ‘An air-compressor, Jim? What d’you need one of those for? Doing a lot of crayfishing these days?’

      ‘Just for emergencies,’ McQuade had said. ‘An airtank’s no good if you can’t refill it out there, is it?’

      Red Straghan had leered, ‘Well, if you need any underwater work done, remember your friends, Jim …’ leaving McQuade with the uneasy feeling that he knew something was afoot. But how could he know?

      McQuade did the entire night-watch himself: he was too tense to sleep. Finally the sun came, first flaming pink, making black silhouettes of the sand dunes, then golden red, then over the horizon came the sun, big and blinding gold and setting the dunes on fire, and the shore became visible, ancient and harsh, stretching on and on. The Bonanza ploughed northwards up the Skeleton Coast in the early morning, and McQuade surveyed the treacherous shore through his binoculars: the seething Atlantic swells breaking in long crashing lines, and beyond the desert rose up, harsh and dry, going on and on, not a living thing to be seen. When the boys began to show up, McQuade gave orders to assemble marker-buoys out of anchors, chain and rope he had bought yesterday. He went to bed but two hours later he was still awake and he went back to the bridge. They were passing Cape Cross and the rocky shore was black with seals, the seething sea alive with them; then the lifelessness came back into the burning shores. From time to time his binoculars picked up the skeletons of shipwrecks on the shore, stark bits of hulls, sometimes high and dry, half-buried in half a century of shifting sands.

      McQuade moved restlessly between the bridgewing and the satellite-navigator, plotting the co-ordinates, and the boys also moved restlessly, watching the progress on the chart, watching the echo-sounder, watching the shore. All their enthusiasm for treasure-hunting seemed to have evaporated. Tucker, who had never had much, was quietest of all, watching his dials, glumly counting the cost of each passing hour. The Kid paced about restlessly, rethinking his convictions that big biteys were too well fed in this part of the world. Only Potgieter seemed placidly unworried.

      ‘What’re you looking so cheerful about, Pottie?’ Tucker complained.

      Potgieter said, ‘No, Got, man, everything’s okay, hey.’

      ‘You’re not afraid of bankruptcy?’ Tucker complained.

      ‘No, Got, man, that’s a chance you’ve sommer got to take, hey?’ Potgieter said.

      ‘Not afraid of big biteys?’ the Kid complained.

      ‘No, Got, that’s a chance you sommer got to take, hey?’ Potgieter explained.

      ‘What you going to do if you meet a big bitey?’ the Kid demanded. ‘Stick your finger in his eye?’

      ‘No, Got, you worry about that when it happens, hey?’ Potgieter explained philosophically.

      ‘There’s СКАЧАТЬ