begin their preparations while Sherry and I stopped only briefly at Missus Eddy’s for provisions before pushing the pick-up over the ridge and down through the Palms to Turtle Bay.
“It’s a story book,” murmured Sherry, as she stood under the thatch on the wide veranda of the shack. “It’s make-believe! She shook her head at the sway-holed palm trees and the aching white sands beyond.
I went to stand behind her, placing my arms around her middle and drawing her to me. She leaned back against me, crossing her own arms over mine and squeezing my hands.
“Oh, Harry, I didn’t think it would be like this.” There was a change taking place within her, I could sense it clearly. She was like a winter plant, too long denied the sun, but there were reserves in her that I could not fathom and they troubled me. She was not a simple person, nor easily understood. There were barriers, conflicts within her that showed only as dark shadows in the depths of her ocean-blue eyes, shadows like those of killer sharks swimming deep. More than once when she believed herself unobserved I had caught her looking at me in a manner which seemed at once calculating and hostile - as though she hated me.
That had been before we came to the island, and now it seemed that, like the winter plant, she was blooming in the sun; as though here she could cast aside some restraint of the soul which had curbed her spirit before.
She kicked off her -shoes, and barefooted turned within my encircling arms to stand upon tiptoe to kiss me. “Thank you, Harry. Thank you for bringing me here.”
Mrs. Chubby had swept the floors and aired the linen, placed flowers in the jars and charged the refrigerator. We walked through the shack hand in hand - and though Sherry murmured admiration for the utilitarian decor and solid masculine furnishings, yet I thought I detected that gleam in her eye which a woman gets just before she starts pushing the furniture around and throwing out the lovingly accumulated but humble treasures of a man’s lifetime.
As she paused to rearrange the bowl of flowers that Mrs. Chubby had placed upon the broad camphor-wood refectory table, I knew we were going to see some changes at Turtle Bay - but strangely the thought did not perturb me. I realized suddenly that I was sick to death of being my own cook and housekeeper.
We changed into swimsuits in the main bedroom - for I had found in the very few hours since we had become lovers that Sherry had an overdeveloped sense of personal modesty, and I knew it would take time before I could wean her to the standard casual Turtle Bay swimming attire. However, it was some compensation for my temporary overdress to see Sherry North in a bikini.
It was the first time I had really had an opportunity to look at her openly. The most striking single thing about her was the texture and lustre of her skin. She was tall, and if her shoulders were too wide and her hips a little too narrow, her waist was tiny and her belly was flat with a small delicately chiselled navel. I have always thought that the Turks were right in considering the navel as a highly erotic portion of a woman’s anatomy - Sherry’s would have launched a thousand ships.
She didn’t like me staring at it. “Oh, Grandma - what big eyes you’ve got,” she said, and wrapped a towel around her waist like a sarong. But she walked barefooted through the sand with an unconscious push and sway of buttock and breast that I watched with uninhibited pleasure.
We left our towels above the high water mark and ran down over the hard wet sand to the edge of the clear warm sea. She swam with a deceptively slow and easy stroke, that drove her through the water so swiftly that I had to reach out myself and drive hard to catch and hold her.
Beyond the reef we trod water and she was puffing a little. “Out of training,” she panted.
While we rested I looked out to sea and at that moment a line of black fins broke the surface together in line abreast, bearing down on us swiftly and I could not restrain my delight.
“You are an honoured guests” I told her. “This is a special welcome.” The dolphins circled us, like a pack of excited puppies, gambolling and squeaking while they looked Sherry over carefully. I have known them sheer away from most strangers, and it was a rarity for them to allow themselves to be touched on a first meeting and then only after assiduous wooing. However, with Sherry it was love at first sight, almost of the calibre that Chubby and Angelo had demonstrated.
Within fifteen minutes they were dragging her on the Nantucket sleigh ride while she squealed with glee. The instant she fell off the back of one, there was another prodding her with his snout, competing fiercely for her attention.
When at last they had exhausted us both and we swam in wearily to the beach, one of -the big bull dolphins followed Sherry into water so shallow it reached to her waist. There he rolled on his back while she scratched his belly with handfuls of coarse white sand and he grinned that fixed idiotic dolphin grin.
After dark while we sat on the veranda and drank whisky together, we could still hear the old bull whistling and slapping the water with his tail, in an attempt to seduce her into the sea again.
The next morning I gamely fought off a fresh onslaught of island fever and the temptation to linger in bed, especially as” Sherry awoke beside me with the pink glossy look of a little girl, and her eyes were clear, her breath sweet and her lips languorous.
We had to check through the equipment we had salvaged from Wave Dancer, and we needed an engine to drive the compressor. Chubby was sent off with a fistful of banknotes and returned with a motor that required much loving attention. As that occupied me for the rest of the day, Sherry was sent off to Missus Eddy’s for camping equipment and provisions. We had set a three-day deadline for our departure and our schedule was tight.
It was still dark when we took our places in the boat, Chubby and Angelo at the motors in the stern and Sherry and I perched like sparrows on top of the load.
The dawn was a flaming glory of gold and hot red, promise of another fiery day, as Chubby took us northwards on a course possible only for a small boat and a good skipper. We ran close in on island and reef, sometimes with only eighteen inches of water between our keel and the fierce coral fangs.
All of us were in a mood of anticipation. I truly do not believe it was the prospect of vast wealth that excited me then - all I really needed in my life was another good boat like Wave Dancer - rather it was the thought of rare and exquisite treasure, and the chance to win it back from the sea. If what we sought had been merely bullion in bars or coins I do not think it would have intrigued me half as much. The sea was the adversary and once more we were pitted against each other.
The blazing colours of the dawn faded into the hard hot blue of the sky as the sun rose out of the sea, and Sherry North stood up in the bows to strip off her denim jacket and jeans. Under them she wore her bikini and now she folded the clothes away into her canvas duffle bag and produced a tube of sun lotion with which she began to anoint her fine pate body.
Chubby and Angelo reacted with undisguised horror. They held a hurried and scandalized consulation after which Angelo was sent forward with a sheet of canvas to rig a sun shelter for Sherry. There followed a heated exchange between Angelo and Sherry.
“You will damage your skin, Miss. Sherry,” Angelo protested, but she drove him in defeat back to the stern.
There the two of them sat like mourners at a wake, Chubby’s whole face creased into a huge brown scowl and Angelo openly wringing his hands in anxiety. Finally, they could stand it no longer and after another whispered discussion Angelo was elected as emissary once more and he crawled forward over the cargo to enlist my support.
“You can’t let her do it, Mister Harry,” Angelo pleaded. “She will go dark.” “I think that’s the idea, Angelo,” I told him. However, I did warn Sherry to take care of the sun at noon. Obediently she covered herself when we ran ashore on a sandy beach to eat our midday meal.
It was the middle of the afternoon when we raised the triple peaks of the Old Men and Sherry exclaimed, “Just as the old mate described them.”
“We approached the island from the sea side, through the narrow stretch of calm water between the island and the reef. When we passed the entrance to the channel through which I had taken Wave Dancer to escape from the Zinballa crash boat, Chubby and I grinned at each other in fond recollection, then I turned to Sherry and pointed it out to her.
“I plan to set up our base camp on the island, and we will use the gap to reach the area of the wreck.”
“It looks a little risky.” She eyed the narrow channel with reserve.
“It will save us a round journey of nearly twenty miles each day - and it isn’t as bad as it looks. Once I took my big fiftyfoot cruiser through there at full throttle!
