“Yes.“Johnny stirred himself.
“I would like to watch,” Sergio suggested, and Johnny nodded.
“All right, come.” Sergio handed over the bridge to the helmsman and they went down to the armoured door of the computer room.
Johnny opened the lock. There were only two keys to this compartment. Johnny had one and Benedict van der Byl had the other.
He had insisted on having the duplicate, and Johnny had reluctantly agreed not knowing that the key would be used in Las Palmas.
The heavy steel door swung back, and Johnny stepped over the coaming and seated himself before the console of the computer. Covered in cellophane and suspended on a clip above the keyboard of the computer were the cards containing the various programme codes.
Johnny selected the sheet headed: PRIMARY OPERATION: DREDGING AND
RECOVERY, and began feeding the code into the computer, punching it on the keyboard.
“Beta, stroke, oh, oh, seven, alpha.” And within the enamelled console, a change of sound heralded the beginning of the new programme, the hum of her reels and the click of the selectors, while on her control panel the lights blinked and flashed.
Now the computer’s screen began to answer the instruction, spelling out her response like a typewriter.
“New programme.”
“Primary Operation. Dredging and Recovery.”
“Phase One.”
“Initiate safety procedure:a) Report air pressure … I b)
Report air pressure … 2” Johnny leaned back in the padded stool and watched the exhaustive check that the computer now made of Kingfisher’s equipment, typing out the results on the screen.
“What she do now7 Sergio asked curiously, as though he had never spent ten days in this compartment assisting his Japanese friend.
Johnny explained the procedure briefly.
“How come you know this so good?” Sergio enquired.
“I spent a month at the Computer Company’s head office in America last year while they designed this machines
“You the only one in the
Company who can work it?”
“Mr. Benedict van der Byl has done the course as well. Johnny told him, then he leaned forward again. “Now she is set.” The screen on the computer reported itself satisfied.
“Phase One Completed.
Initiate Phase Two.
Lowering and siting of dredge head.” Johnny stood up. “Okay, let’s get upstairs.” He locked the door of the computer room and followed Sergio up to the bridge.
Johnny went to stand beside the repeater screen on the bridge, which was relaying the computer’s signals exactly as they were printed on the main screen in the compartment below. He could see out through the windows of the wheelhouse, and he watched the automatic response of the heavy equipment on the foredeck.
The gantry swung forward, and the steel arms picked the dredge head from its chocks, and lifted it with the armoured suction hose dangling behind it. Then the gantry swung back, and with a jerky mechanical movement lowered the head through the square opening in the deck. This well pierced the hull, and through it the hose began to snake a monstrous black python sliding into its hole. The huge reels that held the hose revolved smoothly, as the dredge was lowered to the sea bed.
“Head on bottom.” The computer screen reported, and the hose reels stopped abruptly.
“Phase Two Completed, Initiate Phase Three.
Cyclone Revolutions 300.
Vent dredge pump.” There was a rising high-pitched whine now, like the approach of a jet aircraft. The sound reached a peak, and steadied - and immediately another sound overlaid it. The dull roar of high-pressure air through water, a sound of such power and excitement that Johnny felt the hair on his forearms prickle erect. He stood still as a statue, his expression rapt and his lips set in a small secret smile. That sound was the culmination of two years of planning and endeavour, the sweet reward of the driving dedication that had made a dream into reality.
Suddenly he wished that Tracey was with him to share this moment, and then he knew instinctively that she had deliberately left him alone to savour his moment of triumph.
He grinned then, as he watched the thick black hose engorge and pulse with internal life, like a great artery pumping, pumping, pumping.
In his imagination Johnny could see the rich porridgy mixture of sea water and mud and gravel that shot up the hose into the spinning cyclone, he could imagine the steel head on the sea bed below the hull surging rhythmically to stir the sand and pound loose any gravel that pressure had welded into a conglomerate.
From the waste pipe over Kingfisher’s stern poured a solid steam of dirty yellow water mixed with the sand and gravel that had been rejected and spun out of the cyclone. It stained the green sea with a cloudy fecal discharge, like the effluent from a sewage outlet.
or three days and two nights Kingfisher’s pumps roared, and she inched forward along the marine gully like a fussy housewife vacuuming every speck of dust from her floor. As the third evening spread its dark cloak over her, Johnny Lance sat on the padded seat in front of the computer console. He sat forward on the stool with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands for a full hour. He sat like that in the attitude of despair.
When he lifted his head, his face was haggard and the lines of defeat were clearly cut into his features with the cold chisel of failure.
From the meagre recovery of small diamonds that Kingfisher had made in the last three days it was clear beyond reasonable doubt that despite all the indications the Thunderbolt and Suicide field would not support the running costs of the vessel, let alone cover the overheads, or the interest charges and capital repayments on the loan account.
Van Der Byl Diamond Company was finished - and Johnny Lance was financially ruined beyond any possibility of ever finding redemption.
It remained only for the jackals to assemble and squabble over the carcass.
Sergio Caporetti leaned over the railing of the bridge, blowing long streamers of blue cheroot smoke from mouth and nostrils to help foul a morning which was already thick and grey with sea-fret. The islands of Thunderbolt and Suicide were blanketed by the mist, but the surf broke against their hidden cliffs like distant artillery and the seabirds” voices were plaintive and small lost souls in the void.
Wild Goose came bustling up out of the mist, swinging in under
Kingfisher’s side to hover there under power with two of her crew fending off.
Hugo Kramer stuck his white blond head out of the wheelhouse window, and shouted up at the deck.
“Okay, boss. Come on!” Sergio watched the tall figure on
Kingfisher’s deck rouse and look around like a man waking from sleep.
Johnny Lance lifted his head and looked up at the bridge, and Sergio noticed that he was unshaven, a new beard darkened his jaw and emphasized its prominence. He looked as though he had not slept, and he hunched into the wind breaker with the collar turned up against the mist. He did not smile, but lifted one hand in farewell salute to
Sergio who noticed incongruously that the index finger was missing from the hand. Somehow, that pathetic little detail struck Sergio. He was sorry, truly sorry. But there is always a loser in every game, and twenty-five thousand pounds is a lot of money.
“Good luck, Johnny.“Thanks, Sergio.” Johnny went to the rail lugging his briefcase and swung over it; he dropped swiftly down the steel rungs set in Kingfisher’s hull and jumped the narrow gap of surging water to Wild Goose’s deck.
The trawler’s engine bellowed, and she pulled away, rounding on to a course for Cartridge Bay. Johnny Lance stood on her open deck looking back at Kingfisher.
“He’s a good guy.” Sergio shook his head with regret.
