The Land God Made in Anger. John Davis Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ yes, there it was. The busy line had been steady at about forty feet, then suddenly it had jumped to thirty feet, then back it went to forty-odd. Tucker had scribbled down the exact time and the knotlog’s read-out. The Bonanza was now churning sternwards towards the shore, four hundred yards away. They were all staring at the depth-sounder. ‘Here it comes!’ the Kid whispered.

      And the needle suddenly leapt to thirty feet again before dropping back.

      ‘Oh yes!’ McQuade pulled the engine throttle to neutral again. ‘Fifteen degrees to starboard!’ He waited for the Bonanza to slow, then shoved the throttle to Slow Ahead again.

      The bows swung slowly to starboard and the Bonanza began to churn forwards again. They all clustered around the depth-sounder breathlessly. The ship passed over the submerged object again from a different angle, on a line fifteen yards different from the last. And the echo-sounder’s needle suddenly shot up to thirty feet again, then dropped back.

      ‘Stop!’ Potgieter yanked back the throttle. McQuade snapped, ‘Drop a buoy.’

      The Kid scrambled down the bridge companionway. Elsie followed him, to help. The Kid snatched up the anchor of a prepared float, and Elsie grabbed the chain. They heaved it over the side into the sea.

      The float bobbed on the swells, marking the spot. McQuade took a deep, excited breath.

      ‘Okay,’ he called down to them. ‘This is it. Go to the anchor.’ He took the helm from Potgieter and pushed the engine control to Slow Ahead. The Kid ran up the deck and scrambled up onto the fo’c’sle, to the windlass. He looked back at the bridge. McQuade eased the Bonanza forward for two hundred yards. Then:

      ‘Let go!’ he shouted.

      The Kid slammed his hand on the ratchet. There was a clattering, and the big anchor went crashing down into the blue-black sea. McQuade eased the throttle astern and watched the counter as the chain rattled out. One hundred feet. One-twenty. One-fifty. ‘Avast!’

      ‘Avast!’ the Kid bellowed. The chain stopped. McQuade put the engines harder astern. The trawler churned backwards sluggishly, dragging the chain, then suddenly it lurched as the big flukes bit into the sand. McQuade slammed the engines into neutral, and shouted: ‘Everybody get kitted up. We’re going to look for it before the light goes …’

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      Their wetsuits were on. They lifted the inflated dinghy over the rail, and dropped it overboard. Potgieter lowered a short rope ladder. McQuade clawed his way down it into the rocking dinghy. The Kid followed. Then Potgieter lowered the outboard motor, on a rope, which McQuade eased over the dinghy’s transom and fastened. Tucker lowered down the airtank harnesses. Elsie lowered the fins, masks, tool-bags, floats. Last came Tucker, looking as if he were going to a funeral. He clambered into the wobbly dinghy and said: ‘I’m only wearing this wetsuit in case I fall overboard.’

      ‘Dry your eyes and start the engine.’

      The marker floated about a hundred yards behind the Bonanza’s stern. Four hundred yards beyond it the surf thundered against the Skeleton Coast. Tucker ripped the cord and the outboard motor roared to life.

      ‘Tank up,’ McQuade said. He hefted on his airtank harness. He buckled on his weight-belt. He wrestled on the fins. The Kid was tanked up. McQuade called, ‘Cast off.’

      Potgieter untied the painter and threw it down to them. Tucker opened the throttle and the dinghy churned away from the hull of the Bonanza.

      ‘Good luck, darlings!’ Elsie shouted. ‘Good luck.’

      Tucker eased the dinghy up to the float. McQuade grabbed it, and looked at the surging blue-black sea. God, he did not want to be going over the side into it. ‘Okay,’ he said soberly to the Kid. ‘Goggle up.’

      He spat into his mask, smeared the saliva across the glass, then rinsed it in the sea. He put it on, over his eyes and nose.

      ‘First I’ll check the visibility.’ He said to Tucker: ‘If we can see the bottom it’ll be quicker if you tow us around the area, with the Kid and I hanging onto the dinghy.’ He added: ‘And nicer.’ He put his regulator into his mouth.

      He lay down on the fat rubber gunnel, clutching it with one arm. He buried his head under the water.

      All he could see was brilliant blue, fading into misty darkness. He peered all about, then raised his arm and made a circling motion.

      Tucker opened the throttle unhappily and the dinghy began to churn into a circle. McQuade kept his head under water, hanging onto the gunnel, and oh God he did not like that darkness down there, but no way was he going to see anything like this. He pulled his head out, sat upright and Tucker slowed the engine. McQuade took the regulator from his mouth. He looked for the yellow buoy to get his bearings. Then looked at his wrist-compass.

      ‘We’re both going over,’ he said to the Kid: ‘We follow the buoy’s rope down to the anchor, where the sub should be, but the anchor may have landed way off. If we don’t see the sub immediately, you go north,’ he pointed, ‘I’ll go south. You’ll have to get down at least twenty feet to see the bottom.’ He looked at Tucker. ‘Circle around slowly and keep both our bubbles in sight.’

      And before his nerve could fail him, he put the regulator back into his mouth and clutched his mask and toppled himself over backwards, into the sea.

      There was the crash about his ears, the roaring of the bubbles, the sharp bite of the cold on his face, the bitter taste of the sea. Below him, and in all directions stretched the blue gloom of the icy Atlantic, surging darkness. There was another splash, and there was the Kid, his eyes wide behind his mask. McQuade gave him a confident thumb-sign he did not feel and he thrust his head down, and he lifted bis buttocks, and he kicked, and down he went, into the underworld.

      He dived down six feet, his breath roaring, looking for the rope hanging from the marker-buoy. The Kid was swimming towards it. The rope curved away into misty darkness, and down they went together.

      They swam side by side, down ten feet, twenty: still they could not see bottom. Down they went further; at twenty-five feet the bottom came mistily into view, a seething mass of waving weed and rocky sand. The rope disappeared into it. Then they saw the chain. They followed it, and there was the anchor, its flukes caught insecurely in a mass of weed. McQuade gave it a tug. The anchor shifted easily. He jabbed his finger at it, the Kid grabbed one of the flukes and McQuade grabbed the other. They lifted it. They swam with it, to a wide wedge of sand ten feet away, and dropped it. McQuade wrestled the flukes into the sand. He gave the chain a tug. It held.

      They hovered, bubbles roaring, and looked in all directions for the submarine. Visibility was only about fifteen feet, fading into opaque gloom. McQuade looked at the depth gauge on his wrist: they were at about thirty-five feet. How far from the submarine had the anchor landed? A hundred feet, even two hundred, allowing for the ship’s movement? McQuade tapped the Kid, pointed at his wrist-compass and then pointed north, and made a circling motion, then tapped himself on the chest and pointed south.

      And, oh God, it was lonely down there, without the Kid beside him. McQuade swam hard, his breathing roaring in his ears, scanning from side to side, while ahead the seething sea faded into sinister grey-blue nothingness. There were many СКАЧАТЬ