trip.
There were two persons in the forward seats of the aircraft, the pilot and a passenger, and their faces were turned towards us as it roared past. However, they were too far from us to make out the features and I could not be sure if I knew either of them. They were both white men, that was all that was certain.
The Cessna turned steeply out over the lagoon and, one wing pointed directly down into the crystal water, it swept around and then levelled for another run down the beach.
This time it passed so closely that for an instant I looked up into the face of the passenger as he peered down into the palm grove. I thought I recognized him, but I could not be certain.
The Cessna then turned away, rising slowly, and set a new course for the mainland. There was something about her going that was complacent, the air of someone having achieved his purpose, a job well done.
Sherry and I crawled from our hiding-place and stood up to brush the sand from our damp bodies.
“Do you think they saw us?” she asked timidly.
“With that bottom of yours flashing like a mirror in the sunlight, they could hardly miss.”
“They might have mistaken us for a couple of native fishermen.”
“Fishermen?” I looked at her, not at her face, and I grinned. With those great beautiful boobs?”
“Harry Fletcher, you are a disgusting beast,” she said. “But seriously, Harry, what is going to happen now?”
“I wish I knew, my sweeting, I wish I knew,” I answered, but I was glad that Chubby had taken the case of silverware back to St. Mary’s with him. By now it was probably buried behind the shack at Turtle Bay. We were still in profit even if we had to run for it soon.
The visit by the aircraft instilled in us all a new sense of urgency. We knew now that our time was strictly rationed. Chubby brought news with him when he returned that was equally disturbing.
“The Mandrake cruised for five days in the south islands. They saw her nearly every day from Coolie Peak, and she was messing about like she didn’t know what she was doing he reported. “Then on Monday she anchored again in Grand Harbour. Wallys says that the owner and his wife went up to the hotel for lunch, then afterwards they took a taxi and went down to Frobisher Street. They spent an hour with Fred Coker in his office, then he drove them down to Admiralty Wharf and they went back on board Mandrake. She weighed and sailed almost immediately.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes,” Chubby nodded, “except that Fred Coker went straight up to the bank afterwards and put fifteen hundred dollars into his savings account.”
“How do you know that?”
“My sister’s third daughter works at the bank.”
I tried to show a cheerful face, although I felt ugly little insects crawling around in my stomach. “Well,” I said, “no use moping around. Let’s try and get the pump assembled so we can catch tomorrow’s tide.”
Later, after we had carried the water pump up to the caves, Chubby returned alone to the whaleboat and when he came back he carried a long canvas-wrapped bundle.
“What have you got there, Chubby?” I demanded, and shyly he opened the canvas cover. It was my FN carbine and a dozen spare magazines of ammunition packed into a small haversack.
“Thought it might come in useful,“he muttered.
I took the weapon down into the grove and buried it beside the cases of gelignite in a shallow grave. Its proximity gave me a little comfort when I returned to assist in assembling the water pump.
We worked on into the night by the light of the gas lanterns, and it was after midnight when we carried the pump and its engine down to the whaleboat and bolted it to a makeshift mounting of heavy timber which we placed squarely amidship. Angelo and I were still working on the pump when we ran out towards the reef in the morning. We had been on station for half an hour before we had it assembled and ready to test.
Three of us dived on the wreck - Chubby, Sherry and myself - and we manhandled the stiff black snake of the hose through the gunport and up into the breach through the well of the hold.
Once it was in position, I slapped Chubby on the shoulder and pointed to the surface. He replied with a high sign and finned away, leaving Sherry and me in the passenger deck.
We had planned this part of the operation carefully and we waited impatiently while Chubby went up, decompressing on his way, and climbed into the whaleboat to prime the pump and start the motor.
We knew he had done so by the faint hum and vibration that was transmitted to us down the hose.
I braced myself in the ragged entrance to the hold, and grasped the end of the hose with both hands. Sherry trained the torchbeam on to the dark heap of cargo, and I swung the open end of the hose slowly over the rotted cargo.
I saw immediately that it was going to work, small pieces of debris vanished miraculously into the hose, and it caused a small whirlpool as it sucked in water and floating motes of rubbish.
At this depth and with the RPM provided by the petrol engine, the pump was rated to move thirty thousand gallons of water an hour, which was a considerable volume. Within seconds I had cleared the working area and we still had good visibility. I could start probing into the heap with a jemmy bar, breaking out larger pieces and pushing them back into the passage behind us.
Once or twice I had to resort to the block and tackle to clear some bulky case or object, but mostly I was able to advance with only the hose and the jemmy bar.
We had moved almost fifty cubic foot of cargo before it was time to ascend for a change of air bottle. We left the end of the hose firmly anchored in the passenger deck, and went up to a hero’s welcome. Angelo was *in transports of delight and even Chubby was smiling.
The water around the whaleboat was clouded and filthy with the thick soup of rubbish we had pumped out of the hold, and Angelo had retrieved almost a bucketful of small items that had come through the outlet of the pump and rfallen into the sieve. - it was a collection of buttons, nails, small ornaments from women’s dresses, brass military insignia, some small copper and silver coins of the period, and odds and ends of metal and glass and bone.
Even I was impatient to return to the task, and Sherry was so insistent that I had to donate my halfsmoked cheroot to Chubby and we went down again.
We had been working for fifteen minutes when I came upon the corner of an up-ended crate similar to others that we had already cleared. Although the wood was soft as cork, the seams had been reinforced with strips of hoop iron and iron nails so I struggled with it for some time before I prised out a plank and pushed it back between us. The next plank came free more readily, and the contents seemed to be a mattress of decomposed and matted vegetable fibre.
I pulled out a large hunk of this and it almost jammed the opening of the hose, but eventually disappeared on its way to the surface. I almost lost interest in this box and was about to begin working in another area - but Sherry showed strong signs of disapproval, shaking her head, thumping my shoulder and refusing to direct the beam of the torch anywhere but at the unappetizing mess of fibre.
Afterwards I asked her why she had insisted and she fluttered her eyelashes and looked important.
“Female intuition, my dear. You wouldn’t understand.”
At her urging, I once more attacked the opening in the case, but scratching smaller chunks of the fibre loose so as not to block the hose opening.
I had removed about six inches of this material when I saw the gleam of metal in the depths of the excavation. I felt the first deep throb of certainty in my belly then, and I tore out another plank with furious impatience. It enlarged the opening so I could work in it more easily.
Slowly I removed the layers of compacted fibre which I realized must have been straw originally used as packing. Like a face materializing in a dream, it was revealed.
The first tiny gleam opened to a golden glory of intricately worked metal and I felt Sherry’s grip on my shoulder as she crowded down close beside me.
There was a snout, and lips below that were drawn up in a savage snarl, revealing great golden fangs and an arched tongue. There was a broad deep forehead as wide as my shoulders, and ears flattened down close upon the burnished skull - and there was a single empty eye-socket set fairly in the centre of the wide brow. The lack of an eye gave the animal a blind and tragic expression, like some maimed god from mythology.
I felt an almost religious awe as I stared at the huge, wonderfiilly fashioned tiger’s head we had exposed.
