Hatteras Blue (23 page)

"Gold ...
gold?
You
saw
it?"

"Not yet. Just the exterior. It's an old submarine."

"Sounds deep, too."

"It is."

"Tiller—look—"

"What?"

"Are you sure this is a good idea? Being out here with these two guys. I wouldn't trust either of them behind me with a knife. And such a deep dive. I mean, gold or not, do we need this job that much?"

"This could leave us both sittin' pretty, Jack. We're talking millions. Enough to get you through school and set up in business and still rich."

"We don't need that much money," said Caffey, his young voice troubled. Galloway saw his profile turn up to the stars. "I'm not even sure I
want
that much money."

Galloway watched him for a long moment. At last he reached out and clapped him on the back. His double cousin was the only one aboard he didn't have to worry about, whom he could trust without reserve. Just then, under the stars, he loved Jack very much. "Don't give me that bullshit, boy. Want it or not you might get it."

"I guess it would be nice to have."

"It sure would. Oh, I almost forgot. Come over here." Caffey came over. Galloway tilted his ear closer and whispered, "I brought a gun aboard. It's under the mattress in my bunk. If things get out-and-out savage, I want you to use it."

"Jesus," said Caffey, straightening. "I hope you know what you're doing, Till."

"This isn't the first shady deal for me, Jack."

"And you paid for it."

"Go to bed, kid. Go to bed."

When his cousin had gone below Galloway looked at the sky for a time. He reached for the bottle again, weighed it in his hand, then put it away. He'd have to be sharp tomorrow. He had a feeling it might be a very long day.

fourteen

G
alloway woke half an hour before the

sun. He stared at the overhead, wondering where his usual hangover was, feeling the rock and sway of the boat. At sea? Then he remembered. Moving quietly, he took the sextant out of its box and went topside. Aydlett was on deck, sitting on the locker. The two men exchanged looks before Tiller turned away. He checked his watch and lifted the instrument to his eye.

Breakfast was a short affair, and silent. Instant coffee from the alcohol stove in the galley, bread and raspberry jam, a box of granola bars passed around while Galloway computed and then plotted the star fix.

The celestial reduced their whereabouts to a polygon half a mile across. Tiller drew it in on the chart.

"We're somewhere in there?" said Keyes, bending over it as he ran a cordless shaver over his jaw.

"Right. Depth sounding puts us on the seaward edge. We'll run a little way back west, say quarter of a mile, and we should be over the wreck."

"What about the buoy we dropped before?"

"Keep an eye out, but it looks to me like the storm carried it away. We'll have to do an expanding square search till we catch the wreck on the pinger again."

It took three hours before the sounder's trace jagged upward. At the same moment Caffey's voice rang out.

His seventeen-year-old eyes had picked up the little red and white marker, dragged below the passing crests by hundreds of feet of water-soaked line. Galloway sent Aydlett forward to give him a hand with the boathook. The waterman went reluctantly, his face like a storm front. When he held up a fist Tiller shut down the engines. "Okay, we're here," he announced. "Let's get
Charlene
ready to go. I want to get in some bottom time today."

"Charlene?" said Keyes.

Galloway hauled on the bridle and the little vehicle came obediently alongside. Its name was stenciled on its nose. He swung himself over the side. Jack followed, bare feet landing lightly. Air hissed as the buoyancy chambers blew clear and the orange hull rose higher in the water.

"Okay. Start handing down that pile."

Filled air tanks, twin units, with regulators attached. Galloway and Caffey stowed them in the trunk aft. When six were aboard Galloway climbed back on the boat. "Enough for now. Let's see those decompression tables."

"I worked it out already," Keyes said. "It's—"

"Don't tell me." Galloway frowned at the tables, did a calculation with a grease pencil, and tilted it toward him.

"Same as I came up with."

'Teah, but it's better to work the deep ones out twice. Twenty minutes bottom time, then three decompression stops, total decomp time thirty minutes." He looked at Caffey, who had been pretending indifference. "Feel up to diving, partner?"

"You bet!"

"Today's your day. Wet suits—we'll be losing a lot of body heat over that long a dive."

"Wait a moment. I'm going down too."

"And me," said Aydlett.

"Keep your shirts on, both of you. There'll be plenty of work to do down there."

Keyes glanced up, eyes surprised and then angry. Tiller looked at him, waiting. Bernie watched them both, half bent to the gear. At last the blond man smiled, a movement of the lips that added no hint of warmth to his eyes. "Sure," he said. "Okay. You're the boss."

"He ain't mine. I'm goin' in safety, like last time."

'You don't learn easy, do you, Shad?"

"Kiss my black ass, Galloway."

He sighed. He didn't feel like having it out with Aydlett again. "Whatever makes you happy, Shad. But you better hold on to the line this time."

'You goddamn right I will. I don't expect you to come after me no more."

Tiller sighed again and reached for a wet suit top.

He reviewed the procedure briefly with Jack as they dressed out. Each diver would be wearing a "double," two of the large tanks, as he climbed into
Charlene.
He would breathe from them during the descent and exchange them for fresh ones from the trunk as they ran low.

There was plenty of air. That was not the problem. The problem was nitrogen. They'd have to ration air used versus bottom time so there would be enough left for decompression—stopping on the way up to wait for the gas to leave their bodies. A direct ascent from 180 feet to the surface would mean the bends—painful, crippling, quite possibly fatal.

"Ready, Till?" Caffey's voice was nasal beneath his mask.

Galloway nodded and slid down his own. Atlantic and sky contracted to flat glass surrounded by rubber. He felt Hirsch behind him, tugging down his tanks, tightening straps. At last she slapped him lightly on the shoulder. When Caffey disappeared he lurched heavily to the transom and toppled over it into the water.

He spent a few seconds submerged, adjusting his buoyancy and letting the current drift him aft. When he came abreast of the vehicle he hauled himself up into its forward cockpit, cursing as the doubles dug into his back, and flooded the buoyancy tank. His last look up at
Victory
showed him Keyes, eyes steady and cold, squatting on the bow; Hirsch, leaning on the transom, looking down at them anxiously; Aydlett, behind her, fitting a fin to his foot with a determined expression.

His faceplate slipped beneath the surface then, and they shimmered and were gone. Just in time, he remembered to cast off the tow line. He pushed the stick forward, and twisted round to check his partner as they began to glide downward. Behind him, in the rear seat, Caffey was looking up. He too turned his face mask to the roof of the sea.

Their sky now was a moving mirror, like liquid mercury. Through it golden light shuddered diagonally down into the blue. Their bubbles streamed behind them, silvery jellyfish rocking toward the surface. The black hull of the boat was the only shadow.

Better visibility today, Galloway thought. A lot more light was pouring into the ocean. They'd be able to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the wreck. He wanted to decide on a plan of entry today, maybe even get inside for a quick look. If he kept his head and moved briskly they could get a lot done in twenty minutes.

He shoved the stick left. The vehicle began a circle as it glided downward. The sporadic rumbles of their exhalation punctuated an eerie silence. Every few seconds he had to clear his ears, an indication of how rapidly they were descending. Desert-dry air hissed past his tongue, tasting of rubber and metal. The restless mirror receded, became a uniform turquoise haze above them as they passed fifty feet. As they sank the sea deepened through azure to cyan, still shot through with moving light, though the gold had deepened into the emerald green of old bottles.

He removed his attention from the sea and concentrated on flying
Charlene,
watching his depth gauge. At 140 he pulled back on the stick, leveling them fore and aft, and pulled up a toggle switch in front of him.

The whine of an electric motor filled his ears. Galloway banked, and they circled cautiously lower.

The sea floor gradually came into view below. It was flat, white, a sandy desert littered with small tan rocks. Nothing grew on the bottom, nor had he seen any fish yet. They continued the circle till a gray shadow loomed ahead. He steered for it, then suddenly cut the motor. They sank slowly to the bottom and grounded, rocking gently in the current.

It was the wrong wreck.

He sat motionless, the stick loose in his hand, and looked up at the bow of a destroyer. The stem rose proud and straight, as if she were steaming over the ocean floor, and the superstructure was erect and almost undamaged—till it ended, chopped clean a few yards aft of the stack. A few bluefish, hard little mouths pursed, milled in and out of the shattered windows of the bridge.

Caffey reached forward to tap his shoulder. He signaled, palm up—What's happening?

—Nothing. Forget it. We'll make a circle, keep looking.

The motor purred a high note and they lifted lightly from the sand, bumping twice over rocks before they became waterborne.

Tiller completed three circles around the destroyer, each wider than the last, before they found the U-boat. It lay, he estimated to himself, between two and four hundred yards northeast of the remains of the
Arnold.

He examined his mental state as they purred toward it. So far, at least, he was not much affected by the depth. He was conscious of a mild elation, a slight high; but he could cope with that, even welcome it to
counter
the blue gloom and claustrophobia that haunt every diver who ventures beyond the brilliant colors of the near-surface.

The sea was much brighter this time than on the first dive. With clearer water he could make out, in less detail as it stretched away from him, the general outline of the sunken submarine. He turned the vehicle to run along the starboard side, in the direction of the bow, repeating his observations to himself to fix them in his memory.

It was big. Even allowing for the magnifying effect of water, it seemed enormous. The gray-black hull, covered here and there with patches of pale growth, was heeled to the right at about a forty-degree angle. He repeated that to himself. Bow slightly lower than stern. Right plane badly crumpled, apparently by contact with the bottom, as was the blunt bow, the thin plating of which had been peeled away on the underside to reveal a long tube. Slowing, he pulled a hand light from under his seat. Focused on the dark mouth of the tube, the spot of yellow illuminated a smoothly curving dome within.

The head of a torpedo. Tiller clicked the light off thoughtfully. He circled to the left and slid along the other flank of the wreck.

From this side, the high side, the hull seemed pregnant in its silent convexity. The starboard list exposed its belly to them. Save for the fairing of the ballast tank and the flat upper deck its underside was smooth, the steel covered with a coat of mud and coral which, as he touched the button of the lamp again, glowed briefly with flame red, saffron, the rich brown of long-fallen maple leaves. The port plane was tilted high off the sea floor and seemed undamaged. A slow stir beneath it proved to be the same grouper he'd seen before. It was, he thought to himself, just as ugly.

Halfway down the port side he saw the first evidence of attack. A foot-wide hole had been punched through the flat deck downward toward the pressure hull, part of which was visible through upward-twisted gratings. He remembered the emotionless prose of his father's action report. One of the hedgehogs. But this had not been the fatal stroke. Beneath the mangled deck the pressure hull was dented but still sound. Below and astern of the hole it flowed smoothly aft undamaged to the conning tower. He studied it as they crept nearer, slowing the electric motor to the whish-whish of a barely moving prop.

He'd seen sunken U-boats before. There were two others off the cape, in shallower water, sunk in the early days of the war. He'd taken sport divers out to them a few times. This boat was different. It was bigger than the old Type Sevens. The conning tower was streamlined, built for speed beneath a storm- and war-lashed surface. There were no handrails or antennas to create turbulence. His eyes fastened for a moment on the rusting snout of an antiaircraft gun protruding from a low turret, then slid down and aft as the vehicle crept on.

The hole Keyes had told him about came into view aft of the conning tower. He thought: This is what sank her. It was low in the hull, a gape of blown-out steel plate, jagged and shadowy. A mass of pipes and cables, the boat's entrails, writhed from it. Wires moved gently in the current, tangled like a scuppernong thicket, coated with weed. It wasn't the easy entrance he'd hoped for. In fact, Galloway thought, it might be as dangerous to enter there as to risk set charges on the hatches.