Carney took off his jeans and tee-shirt. “This water is so clear, I’m going to go trolling. That means I’ll stay at less than ten feet, work my way across and locate the edge of the cliff. If I’m lucky and the water down there is as clear as it looks, I might manage to pinpoint the U-boat.”
He zipped up his diving suit and Dillon helped him into his tank. “Do you want a line?”
Carney shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
He pulled on his mask, sat on the high thwart, waited for the swell to rise high and went over backwards. The water was so clear that they could mark his progress for a while.
“What’s the point of all this?” Ferguson asked.
“Well, by staying at such a shallow depth, it will have no effect on the diving later. It could save time, and time is crucial on this one, Brigadier. If we use too much of it, we just wouldn’t be able to dive again, perhaps for many hours.”
Carney surfaced a hundred yards away and waved his arms. Ferguson got out the old binoculars and focused them. “He’s beckoning.”
Carney’s voice echoed faintly. “Over here.”
Dillon switched on the engines by the deckhouse wheel and throttled down. “Try and get the anchor up, Brigadier, I’ll do my best to give you a bit of movement.”
Ferguson went round to the prow and got to work, while Dillon tried to give him some slack. Finally, it worked, the Brigadier shouted in triumph and hauled in. Dillon throttled down and coasted toward Carney.
When they came alongside, the American called, “Drop the hook right here.”
Ferguson complied, Dillon switched off the engine, Carney swam around to the dive platform, slipped off his jacket and climbed aboard.
“Clearest I’ve ever seen,” he said. “We’re right on the edge of the cliff. There’s been a lot of coral damage recently, maybe because of the hurricane, but I swear I can see something sticking out over a ledge.”
“You’re sure?” Ferguson demanded.
“Hell, nothing’s certain in this life, Brigadier, but if it is the U-boat, we can go straight down and be inside in a matter of minutes. Could make all the difference. Now let’s see what you’ve got in the bag, Dillon.”
Dillon produced the Semtex. “It’ll work better if it’s rolled into a rope and placed around the outer circle of the hatch.”
“You would know, would you?” Carney asked.
“I’ve used the stuff before.”
“Okay, let’s have a look at those chemical detonating fuses.” Dillon passed them to him and Carney examined them. “These are good. I’ve used them before. Ten- or thirty-minute delay. We’ll use a ten.”
Dillon was already into his diving suit and now he sliced a large section off the block of Semtex and first kneaded it, then rolled it between his hands into several long sausages. He put it into his dive bag with the detonating fuses.
“I’m ready when you are.”
Carney helped him on with his gear, then handed him an underwater spot lamp. “I’ll see you at the anchor and remember, Dillon, speed is everything, and be prepared for that current.”
Dillon nodded and did what Carney had done, simply sat on the thwart, waited until the swell lifted and went in backwards.
The water was astonishingly clear and very blue, the ridge below covered with elkhorn coral and large basket sponges in muted shades of orange. As he waited at the anchor, a school of barracuda-like fish called sennet moved past him and when he looked up, there were a number of large jacks overhead.
The current was strong, so fierce that when he held on to the anchor chain his body was extended to one side. He glanced up again and Carney came down toward him, paused for a moment, already drifting sideways, and gestured. Dillon went after him, checking his dive computer, noting that he was at sixty-five feet, followed Carney over the edge of the cliff, looking down into the blue infinity below and saw, to the left, the great scar where the coral had broken away, the bulk of U180, the prow sticking out from the ledge.
They descended to the conning tower, held on to the top of the bridge rail, dropped down from the high gun platform to the ragged fifteen-foot gash in the hull below the conning tower. Dillon hovered as Carney went inside, checked his dive computer and saw that it was seven minutes since leaving
It was dark and gloomy, a confusion of twisted metal in spite of the illumination from Carney’s lamp. He was crouched beside the forward hatch, trying to turn the unlocking wheel with no success.
Dillon opened his dive bag, took out the Semtex and handed a coil to Carney. They worked together, Dillon taking the top of the hatch, Carney the bottom, pressing the plastic of the explosive in place until they had completed a full circle. They finished, Carney turned and held out a gloved hand. Dillon passed him two of the chemical detonating pencils. Carney paused, broke the first one and pushed it onto the Semtex at the top of the circular hatch. A small spiral of bubbles appeared at once. Carney did the same at the bottom of the circle with the other.
Dillon glanced at his computer. Seventeen minutes. Carney nodded and Dillon turned and went out through the rent, rose to the edge of the cliff, went straight to the anchor and started up the line, holding on with one hand, Carney just behind him. As they left the line at fifteen feet and moved under the keel of the stern, he checked the computer again. Twenty-one minutes. He broke through to the surface, slipped out of his jacket and climbed on to the diving platform.
“You found it?” Ferguson demanded.
“Just like Carney said,” Dillon told him. “In like Flynn and out again. Twenty minutes, that’s all. Just twenty bloody minutes.”
Carney was changing the tanks for fresh ones. “Sweet Jesus, I’ve never seen such a sight. I’ve been diving twenty years or more and I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never seen anything to beat that.”
Dillon lit a cigarette with his Zippo. “Santiago, eat your heart out.”
“I’d like to take him down, weight him with lead and leave him inside,” Carney said, “except it would be an insult to brave sailors who died down there.”
The surface of the sea lifted, spray scattering, foam appeared, moved outwards in concentric circles over the swell. They stood at the rail watching until the activity dwindled.
Finally Carney said, “That’s it. Let’s get moving.”
They got their diving gear on again. Dillon said, “What happens now? I mean, how long?”
“If we’re lucky and we find what we want straightaway, then there’s no problem. The whole forward part of the boat has been sealed all these years.” Carney tightened his weight belt. “That should mean no silt, very little detritus. Human remains will have dissolved years ago except for a few bones. In other words, it should be relatively clear.” He sat on the thwart and pulled on his fins. “If I think we should stop on the way back, I’ll just signal and hang in there.”
Dillon followed him down, aware of motion in the water, some sort of current like shockwaves that hadn’t been there before. Carney hovered over the edge of the cliff and when Dillon joined him, he saw the problem at once. The force of the explosion had caused the U-boat to move, the stern had lifted, the prow, stretching out over that 2,000-feet drop, was already dipping.
They held on to the bridge rail beside the gun and Dillon could actually feel the boat move. He looked at Carney and the American shook his head. He was right, of course, another few feet higher at the stern and U180 would slide straight over into oblivion, and Dillon couldn’t accept that.
He turned to go down, was aware of Carney’s restraining hand, managed to pull free and jack-knifed, heading for the rent in the hull, pulling himself into the control room. Everything was stirring with the effects from the explosion, the movement of the boat. He switched on his spot lamp and moved forward and saw the great ragged hole where the hatch cover had been.
It was dark in there, far murkier than he had expected, again from the effects of the explosion. He shone his spotlight inside and as he pulled himself through was aware of a strange, eerie noise as if some living creature was
