“You got some nice pets, Harry,” said Chubby in a disinterested tone that I knew was forced, and I looked about quickly for Sherry.
“You okay?” I called, as I saw her wet and pale-faced in the stern. She nodded; I doubted she could speak.
I jerked out the quick release pin on my harness, freeing myself of the weight of the scuba.
“Chubby, set up a stick of gelly ready to shoot,” I called, as I rid myself of mask and fins and peered over the side of the whaleboat.
The shark was still with us, circling the whaleboat in a it” of hurt and frustration. He came up to-show the full length of his dorsal fin above the surface. I knew he could easily attack and stove in the planking of the whaleboat.
“Oh God, Harry, he’s horrible! Sherry found her voice at last, and I knew how she felt. I hated that loathsome fish with the full force of my recent terror - but I had to distract it from direct attack.
“Angelo, give me that Moray and a baitknife,” I shouted and he handed me the cold slimy body. I hacked off a tenpound lump of the dead eel and tossed it into the pool.
The shark swirled and raced for the scrap, gulping it down and scraping the hull of the whaleboat as it passed so close. We rocked violently at its passing.
“Hurry up, Chubby,” I shouted, and fed the shark another lump. It took it as readily as a hungry dog, dashing past under the hull and again bumping thie-boat so that it swayed unpleasantly and Sherry squeaked and grabbed the gunwale.
“Ready,” said Chubby, and I passed him a two-foot section of the eel with its empty belly cavity hanging open like a pouch.
“Put the stick in there, and tie it up,” I instructed him, and he began to grin.
“Hey, Harry,” he chortled, “I like it.”
While I fed the monster with scraps of eel, Chubby trussed up the stick of gelignite in a neat parcel of eel flesh, with the insulated copper wire protruding from it. He passed it to me.
“Connect her up,” I instructed, as I coiled a dozen loops of the wire into my left hand.
“Ready to shoot,” grinned Chubby, and I threw the bundle of meat and explosive into the path of the circling shark.
It raced for it, and its glistening blue back broke the surface as it swallowed the offering. Immediately the wire began to stream away over the side and I paid out more from the reel.
“Let him eat it down,” I said and Chubby nodded happily. “Okay, Chubby, blow the bastard to hell,” I snarled as the fish came to the surface, fin up, and swung around us in another circle, with the copper wire trailing from the corner of the sickle-moon mouth.
Chubby hit the switch, and the shark erupted in a tall burst of pink spray, like a bursting water melon, as his pale blood mingled with the paler flesh and purple contents of the belly cavity, sputtirig fifty feet into the air and splattering the pool and whaleboat. The shattered carcass wallowed like a bleeding log upon the surface, then rolled over and began to sink.
“Goodbye, Johnny Uptail,” hooted Angelo, and Chubby grinned like a cherub.
“Let’s go home,” I said, for already the oceanic surf was breaking over the reef, and I thought I was going to throw up.
However, my indisposition responded miraculously to a treatment of Chivas Regal whisky, even though taken from an enamel mug, and much later in the cave Sherry said: “I suppose you want me to thank you for saving my life, and all that crap?”
I grinned at her and opened my arms. “No, my sweeting, just show me how grateful you are,” which she did, and afterwards there were no ugly dreams to spoil my sleep for I was exhausted in body and spirit.
think all of us were coming to regard the pool at Gunfire Break with a superstitious dread. The series of accidents and mishaps to which we had been subject appeared to be the result of some deliberate malevolent scheme.
It seemed as though each time we returned to the pool it had grown more sinister in its aspect and that an aura of menace was growing about it.
“You know what I think,” Sherry said laughingly, but not completely as a joke. “I think the spirits of the murdered Mogul princes have followed the treasure to act as guardians. -” Even in the bright sunshine of a glorious morning I saw the expressions on the faces of Angelo and Chubby. “I think the spirits were in those two big Johnny Uptails; that we killed yesterday.” Chubby looked as though he had breakfasted off a dozen rotten oysters, he blanched to a waxy golden brown and I saw him make the sign with his right hand.
“Miss. Sherry,” said Angelo severely, “you must never talk like that.” I could see gooseflesh on his forearms. Both he and Chubby had an attack of the ghostlies.
“Yes, cut it out,” I agreed.
“I was joking,” protested Sherry.
“Good joke,” I said, “you really slayed us.” And we were all silent during the passage of the channel and until we had taken station in the shelter of the reef.
I was sitting in the bows, and when all three of them looked at me I saw by the expressions on their faces that I had a crisis of morale on my hands.
I will go down alone” I announced, and there was a small stir of relief.
“I’ll go with you,” Sherry volunteered halfheartedly. “Later,” I agreed, “but first I want to check for Johnnies, and recover the equipment we lost yesterday.” I went down cautiously, hanging just under the boat for five minutes while I scrutinized the depths of the pool for those evil dark shapes, and then finning down quietly.
It was cold and eerie in the deeper shades, but I saw that the night tide had scoured the pool and sucked out to sea all the carrion and blood that had attracted the shark pack the previous day.
There was no sign of the huge white death carcasses, and the only fish I saw were the multitudinous shoals of brilliant coral dwellers. A glint of silver from below led me to the spear I had abandoned in my rush for the boat, and I found the empty scubas and the damaged demand valve where we had left them in the gunport.
I surfaced with my load, and there were smiles amongst my crew for the first time that day when I reported the pool clear.
“All right,” I capitalized on the rise of their spirits, “today we are going to open up the hold.”
“You going in through the hull?” Chubby asked.
“I thought about that, Chubby, but I reckoned that it would need a couple of heavy charges to get in that way. I’ve decided to go in through the passenger deck into the well.” I sketched it on my slate for them as I explained. “The cargo will have shifted, it will be lying in a jumble just beyond that bulkhead and once we pop her open here, we can drag it out item by item into the companionway.”
“It’s a long haul from there to the gunport.” Chubby lifted his cap and massaged his bald dome thoughtfully.
“I’ll rig a light block and tackle at the gundeck ladder and another at the gunport.”
“A lot of work,” Chubby looked sad.
“The first time you agree with me - I’m going to begin worrying that I may be wrong.” “I didn’t say you were wrong,” said Chubby stiffly, “I just said it was a lot of work. You can’t let Miss. Sherry haul on a block and tackle, can you now? “No,” I agreed. “We need somebody with beef,” and I prodded his bulging rock-hard gut.
That’s what I thought,” said Chubby mournfully. “You want me to get geared up?”
“No.” I stopped him. “Sherry can come down with me to set the charges now.” I wanted her to test her nerves after the previous day’s horrors. “We will blast the well open and then go home. We aren’t going to work again immediately after blasting. We are going to let the tide clean the pool of dead fish before going down. I don’t want an action replay of yesterday.”
We crept in through the gunport and followed the nylon guide line we had placed on our first visit, along the gundeck, up through the companion ladder to the passenger deck, and then along the dark forbidding tunnel to the dead-end bulkhead of the forward well.
While Sherry held the torch for me, I began to drill a hole through the partition with the brace and bit that I had brought from the surface. It was awkward working without a really firm stance on which to anchor myself, but the first inch and a half was easy going. This layer of wood had rotted to a soft corky consistency, but beyond that I encountered iron hard oak”planking and I had to abandon my efforts. I would have been a week at the task.
