Part 24 (1/2)

Weup fresh whirlpools of dirt and h I noticed so away like monstrous spiders into the depths of the shi+p They at least had survived the blast in their armoured carapaces

I played the bea for the entry point to the lower decks and the holds With the shi+p lying upside down, I had to keep trying to relate the existing geography of the wreck to the drawing I had studied About fifteen feet from our entry point I found the forecastle ladder, another dark square opening aboveupwards in a silver shower and running like liquidThe ladder was rotted so that it fell to pieces atsuspended in the water around my head as I went on into the lower deck

This was a narrow and crowded alleyway, probably serving the passenger cabins and officers” mess The claustrophobic at conditions in which the crew of the frigate e, attracted powerfully to the doorways on either hand which pro discoveries I resisted their te deck until it ended abruptly against a heavy timber bulkhead

This would be the outer wall of the well of the forward hold, where it pierced the deck and went down into the shi+p's belly

Satisfied e had achieved, I turned the beauilty thrill that we had overrun our working ti us closer to the dreaded danger of empty air bottles and uncorabbed Sherry's wrist and gave her the cut-throat hand signal for danger before tapping my wristwatch She under, stood i slow journey back through the hull along the guiding line Already I could feel the stiffening of the deave me air more reluctantly now that the bottles were almost exhausted

We came out into the open and I made certain that Sherry was by my side before I looked upwards What I saw abovechoke in my throat, and the horror I felt turned to a warm oily liquid sensation in my bowels

The pool of Gunfire Break had been transformed into a bloody arena Attracted by the tons of dead fish that had been killed by the blast, the deep-water killer sharks had arrived in their scores The scent of flesh and blood, together with the excited h the water, had driven the frenzy

Quickly I drew Sherry back into the gunport and ered there, looking up at the huge gliding shapes so clearly silhouetted against the light source of the surface

Ast the shoals of sly beasts that the islanders called Albacore shark They were barrel-bodied and swing-bellied, big powerful fish with rounded snouts and wide grinning jaws They swirled about the pool like so and their ulp down shreds of flesh I knew theressive display when not in feeding frenzy Now they were in intense excitation they would be dangerous, yet I would have accepted the risk of a decompression ascent if it had been for the lithe shapes that sped silently about the pool, turning with a single powerful flick of the long s tail, so that the pointed nose alain with all the power and grace of an eagle in flight

When either one of these terrible fish paused to feed, the sickle-moon mouth opened and the multiple rows of teeth came erect like the quills of a porcupine and flared outwards

They were a th fro blade of the dorsal fin as long as a man's arm; they were slaty blue across the back and with snohite bellies and dark tips to tail and fins, they could bite a man in half and s the pieces whole

One of theunport, and it turned sharply and ca a few feet above us as ered back into the gloo spikes of the ans

These were the dreaded white death sharks, the most vicious fish of all the seas, and I knew that to attempt to ascend in the clear and decompress adequately with limited air and no protection would be certain death

If I were to get Sherry out alive I would have to take risks that in any other circumstances would be unthinkable

Quickly I scribbled on the slate: ”STAy! I ae and ins to prevent me, but already I had pulled the pin out of the quick release buckle ofbreath before I thrust ivethe wreck to cover me as I finned swiftly for the cover of the cliff

I had left Sherry what remained ofif she used it sparingly, and noith only the air that I held in auntlet of the pool and try for the surface

I reached the cliff and began to go up, close in against the coral, hoping that my dark suit would blend with the shades I went up without into the open pool where the great sinister shapes still swirled and milled

Twenty feet fro rapidly as the pressure of water decreased I could not hold it in or it would rupture the tissue of s I let it trickle from my lips, a silver beacon of bubbles that one of the white death sharks noticed i across the pool with slashi+ng strokes of his tail, bearing down upon lanced up the cliff and found six feet above me one of the small caves in the rotten coral I dived into it just as the shark flashed past me, turned and sped back for a second pass as I shrank into my shallow shelter The shark lost interest and swirled away to pick up the falling-leaf body of a dead snapper, gulping it down convulsively

My lungs were throbbing and puen had all been absorbed fro up in in to black out into anoxia

I left the shelter of the cave, but, still following the cliff, I drove upwards as hard as I could with the single swi bitterly for the use of the other still trapped under the gun carriage

Again I had to release expanding air as I rose, and I knew that intoo rapidly and soon it would turn to gas and bubble like cha ar shape of the whaleboats hull suspended upon it I was coain Far belowIt looked as though I had escaped their notice

My lungs burned with the craving for air, and the blood pounded in my temples as I decided that the time had arrived when I must forsake the shelter of the cliff and cross the open pool to the whaleboat

I kicked out and shot towards the whaleboat where it lay a hundred feet frolanced down and saw one of the white deaths had seenIt caave th as I drove for the surface and the boat

I was looking doatching the shark come It seemed to swell up in size as it rushed towards me Every detail was burned into 's snout with the two slitted nostrils, the golden eyes with the black pupils like arrowheads, the broad blue back from which stood the tall executioner's blade of the dorsal fin

I cah the surface so fast that I broke clear to ood ar s up under my chin

In that instant the white death struck, the water exploded about ritty skin tear across the legs ofcrash as he struck the hull of the whaleboat

I saw Chubby and Angelo's startled faces as the boat heeled over and rocked wildly My violent contortions had thrown the shark off his run, and he had s and collided with the hull

Noith one unwale and fell into the bottoain the shark crashed into the hull as I went over,air into ht-headed and giddy as on strong wine

Chubby was yelling at et Miss Sherry?”

I rolled on tofor the precious air

”Spare lungs,” I gasped ”Sherry waiting in the wreck She needs air”

Chubby leaped into the bows and dragged the canvas sheet off the extra scuba sets stacked there In a crisis he is the kind of rowled, ”get them Johnny pills” They were a pack of copper acetate shark repellent pills which I had ordered froue and for which Chubby had professed a deep and abiding scorn ”Let's see if those fancy things are any bloody good”

I had breathed enough to drag ot proble Johnnys, and there are two really ed me and another”

Chubby scowled as he fitted the deht up, Harry? I nodded ”I left oing to bend, Harry?” He looked up at me and I saw the worry in his eyes

”Yes,” I nodded, as I dragged et down again fast - got to put pressure on ain before she rises”

I picked out the bandolier of explosive heads for my hand spear

There were twelve of them, and I wished for h Each head was hand-tapped to screw on to the shaft of a ten-foot stainless steel spear It contained explosive charge equivalent to that of a 12-gauge shotgun shell and I could fire the charge with a trigger on the handle It was an effective shark-killer

Chubby hoisted one of the scuba sets on to elo knelt before me to strap the shark repellent tablets in their perforated plastic containers to ht belt,” I said, ”and I lost a fin There is a spare set in, I did not finish the sentence Blinding burning agony struck ony so fierce that I cried aloud, and my arm snapped closed like the blade of a clasp knife It was an involuntary reaction, the joint doubling as the pressure of bubbles in the blood pressed on nerve and tendons

”He's bending,” snarled Chubby ”Sweet Mary, he's bending” He leapt to theelo,” Chubby shouted, we got to get hi agony in

The knee doubled under ht belt around

Chubby cut the motors and we coasted in under the lee of the reef, while Chubby scrambled back to where I crouched on the thwart He stooped over me to thrust the mouthpiece between my lips and open the cocks on the air bottles