Part 23 (2/2)

The use of high explosives is si in practice Even an idiot can wire it up and hit the button, but in its refined form it becomes an art

I have seen aonly its leaves and some of its bark - but with half a stick I can drop the same tree neatly across a road to block it effectively, without re of an artist, and I had taught Chubby all I knew He was a natural, although he could never be ters was too frankly childlike Chubby just naturally loved to blow things up He hummed happily to himself as he worked with the detonators

We took up position in the pool a few minutes before noon and I went down alone, arun with a barbed crucifix head I had designed and made myself The point was needle-sharp, and it was multi-barbed for the first six inches Twenty-four small sharp barbs, like those used by Batonka tribesmen when they spear catfish in the Zambezi River Behind the barbs was the crucifix, a four-inch cross-piece which would prevent the victih to attack me when I held the reverse end The line was five-hundred-pound blue nylon and there was a twenty-foot loop of it under the barrel of the spear gun

I finned down on to the overgrown heap of wreckage and I settled unport and closed loo, pushi+ng the barrel of the spear gun ahead of me

The dark slimy coils of the Moray eel slithered and unwound as it sensedthe fearsolooht like those of a cat

He was a huge old er than the stretch of both rily erected as he threatenedfor hiet It was a scary few moments, I had one shot and if that was badly placed he would fly at me I had seen a captive Moray chew s would tear easily through rubber suit and flesh, right down to the bone

He eaving slowly, like a flaring cobra, watchingI waited for the ression He blew up his throat and turned slightly to offer ht, ”I once used to do this for fun,” and I took up the slack in the trigger The gas hissed viciously and the plunger thudded to the end of its travel as it threw the spear It flew in a long blur with the line whipping out behind it

I had ai at the back of the skull, and I was an inch and a half high and two inches right The Moray exploded into a spinning, whipping ball of coils that seeun and with a push of rip of the hilt of the spear It kicked and thumped in my hands as the eel wound its thick dark body around the shaft I drew him out of his lair, pinned by a thick bite of skin and rubbery muscle to the barbed head

His mouth was opened in a silent screech of fury, and he unwound his body and let it fly and writhe like a pennant in a high wind

The tail slapped intomy mask Water flooded into in the ascent

Now the eel twisted its head back at an i jaws on theand squeaking in the steel, and there ht silver scratches where it had bitten

I ca aloftsnake-like runted, ”Corasp the spear and lift the eel aboard He was showing his plastic gurin for Moray eel was Chubby's favourite food He held the neck against the gunwale and, with an expert sweep of his bait-knife, lopped theit fall into the pool

”Miss Sherry,” he said, ”you going to love the taste of him”

”Never!” Sherry shuddered, and drew herself farther away fro carcass

”Okay, elo had the underwater carry-net ready to pass to me, and Sherry slid in over the side prepared to dive She had the reel of insulated wire and she paid it out sain I went directly to the now untenanted gunport and crept into it The breech of the cannon was jaainst the mass of debris beyond

I chose two sites to place iant lever to tear out a slab of the petrified planking The second shot fired simultaneously would blow into the wall of debris that barred entry to the gun-deck

I wired the shots firmly into place Sherry passed the end of the line in to me and I snipped and bared the copper ith the side-cutters before connecting it up to the terminals

I checked the job once it was finished and then backed out of the port Sherry was sitting cross-legged on the hull with the reel on her lap and I grinned at her around ave her the thuun from where I had dropped it

When we climbed over the side of the whaleboat Chubby had the battery switchbox beside hi with anticipation, as he crouched possessively over the blaster It would have taken physical force to deprive hi the button

”Ready to shoot, skipper,” he growled

”Shoot her then, Chubby” He fussed with the box a little longer, drawing out the pleasure, then he turned the switch The surface of the pool bounced and shi+vered and we felt the buh the bottoe and frothing of bubbles, as though somebody had dropped a ton of Alka Seltzer into the pool Slowly it cleared

” , ”I want you to put the trousers of your suit on, , I told Sherry, and predictably she took the order as an invitation to debate its correctness

”Why? the water is waran to pull on th pants ”If the hull is open we ainst snags”

Convinced at last, she did what she should have done without question I still had a lot of work to do before she was properly trained, I thought, as I assembled the other equipment I needed for this descent

: I took the sealed unit underwater torch, the jeht nylon line and waited while Sherry coht rubber pants, assisted faithfully by Angelo Once she had them hoisted and had buttoned the crotch'piece, ere set to go

When ere halfway doe ca belly up in the misty blue depths There were hundreds of theed in size fro asof remorse at the massacre I had perpetrated, but consoled ht I had killed less than a biuefin tunny would in a single day's feeding

We went down through this killing ground, and the light caught the eddying and drifting carcasses so they blinked and shone like dying stars in a smoky azure sky

The bottom of the pool was murky with particles of sand and other material stirred up by the shock of the blast There was a hole torn in the cover of sea bamboo and ent down into it

I saw at once that I had achieved my purpose ”The explosion had kicked theit like a rotten tooth frounport It had fallen to the bed of the pool surrounded by the debris that it had brought aith it

The upper lip of the gunport had been knocked out, enlarging the opening so that a ht in it When I flashed the torch into the darkness beyond, I saw that it was a turgid fog of suspended dirt and particles which would take time to settle My impatience would not allow that, however, and as we settled on the hull I checked my ti ti for my two previous descents which would necessitate additional decompression I reckoned we had seventeenthe ascent and I set the swivel ring onfor the penetration

I used the jettisoned cannon as a convenient anchor point on which to fix the end of the nylon line and then rose again to the opening, paying it out behind unport, in the few seconds while I was busy with the line she had alns at her to keep clear, and in return she ers which I pretended not to see

Gingerly I entered the gunport and found that the visibility was down to about three feet in the murky soup

The shots had only partially e beyond the spot where the cannon had lain There seeed before I could get through I used the jee away and discovered that it was the heavy gun carriage that was causing e is a delicate business, for it is impossible to kno critically balanced thethe whole weight of it sliding and crashi+ng down upon the trespasser, pinning and crushi+ng hi the regular thu ied with a section of shattered planking, she took my slate and wrote on it ”I am smallerh” and underlined the ”smaller” twice in case the double exclamation mark was not noticed when she thrust the slate two inches from my nose I returned her Churchillian salute and went hack to

I had now cleared the area sufficiently to see that un carriage which was hanging at a drunken angle across the entry to the gundeck The jeainst this mass, and I could abandon the effort and return with another charge of gelignite tolanced at my time elapse and saw that I had been busy for twelveairmy recent exertions Nevertheless, I decided to take a flier

I passed the torch and jemmy bar out to Sherry, and worked ot e, and moved my feet around until I had a firood breath of air and began to lift

Slowly I increased the strain until I was thrusting upwards with all the strength ofwith pu blood andain, but this tile explosive effort

It gave way, and I felt like Samson who had pulled the temple down on his own head I lostdebris that groaned and grated as it fell, thudding and bu around me

When silence had settled, I foundfilth that blotted out the light I tried to hI took only half-a-dozen terrified kicks before I realized that I had escaped with great good luck The gun carriage had missed my foot by a quarter of an inch, and had fallen across the rubber swi it, and groped erly for news, and I wiped the slate and wrote ”OPEN underlining the word twice She pointed into the gunport, de permission to enter and I checked my time elapse We had twothe beahteen inches, enough to find the opening I had cleared There was just sufficient clearance to allowhose

I paid out the nylon line behind me, like Theseus in the labyrinth of the Minotaur, so as not to lose ht's warren of decks and co the line I could feel her hand touch roped after e, the water cleared a little, and we found ourselves in the loide chae shapes strewn about us in profusion I saw other gun carriages, cannonballs strewn loosely or in heaps against angles and corners, and other equipnizable