Benchley, Peter (23 page)

Gail took his hand.

“Starboard!” yelled Treece.

Coffin threw an anchor at the reef; the coil of rope at his feet whipped overboard.

Treece shifted into neutral and let the boat slide backward until the rope sprang taut.

Coffin put a hand on the quivering rope and said, “She’s bitin” good.”

Treece put the boat in forward gear and ran up the anchor line. He called “Port!” and Coffin threw the other anchor.

When both anchor lines were taut, Treece turned the key, and the engine died, leaving the sounds of the waves banging on the rocks, the wind hissing over the water, and the slapping of the hull on the surface.

Treece said to Coffin, “You’ll want a Desco.”

“Aye. Don’t want a bottle bangin’ around, not in this surge.”

Treece rigged three air hoses to the compressor, checked the fuel level and oil pressure, and started it.

As they dressed, Treece said to Gail, “Not that you’ll need it, but you might’s well learn.” He took the shotgun from the steering console, pumped it until all five rounds had ejected into his hand, and passed it to Gail. “It’ll be all ready to go.

All you do is pull back on the forward grip and press the trigger.”

Gail held the gun gingerly, as if it were a snake. Unconsciously, the corners of her mouth turned down, and she frowned. She worked the action and pulled the trigger; there was a metallic click.

“What do I aim at?”

“You don’t aim. You hold it at your hip. If you put it to your shoulder, it’s like to tear your arm off.

Fire it in the general direction of what you want to hit, and if it’s close enough to you, it’ll come to pieces.” Treece took the gun and replaced the five shells in the chamber.

“I couldn’t,” said Gail.

“We’ll see. One of Cloche’s maniacs comes at you waving a butcher knife, you’ll find you can do the damnedest things.” Treece saw the distress in her face. “Like I said, you won’t have to use it. Likely your biggest concern’ll be keeping your breakfast down.”

Treece went below and returned with six old, unmatched wet-suit gloves, which he tossed on the transom. “Find some that fit you,” he said to the others. “Gonna be grasping for rocks just to stay in one place. And make sure you got enough weight; want to head for the bottom like a stone to get out of this topside trash.”

They went over the side. Sanders started to rise to the surface to clear his mask, but quickly changed his mind: the waves wrenched his body from side to side, sweeping

him to within inches of the bouncing hull. He exhaled and dropped swiftly to the bottom. He could not stand on the sand; the current was less severe than on the surface, but still strong enough to cast him forward and back, like hay in a windstorm. He fell to his knees and crawled toward the reef. Above him, Treece descended fast, dragging two canvas bags and the air-lift tube.

The surge near the reef was worse: waves washing overhead caused bottom eddies that pushed the divers onto the rocks. Sanders tried to stop before the reef, but couldn’t. His hip struck a rock, and he tumbled toward sharp outcroppings of coral. He swung an arm blindly, hit something, and grabbed it: a coral ledge. Without the rubber glove, his hand would have been torn. His body hung horizontally in the current; he saw Treece and Coffin, lying face down in the sand, apparently free from the surge, already digging with the air lift.

Sanders dragged himself forward, hand over hand, until he reached the bottom of the reef. He flattened himself beside Coffin. Though his legs still tended to swing toward the reef, he found that by jamming his knees into the sand he could remain fairly steady. CofHn passed him a bag, then the first few handfuls of ampules.

In an hour, they filled all three bags six times. Sanders made six trips to the surface, there to struggle to hold onto the heaving diving platform and to avoid being swept under the boat while Gail emptied the bags. He was cold and tired, and his sinuses ached. Each descent was more difficult, took longer, for his ears resisted clearing and the sinus cavities above his eyes squeaked in protest.

With hand signals, Sanders asked Coffin to change places with him, to take the next few trips; Coffin agreed. Sanders lay prone at the lip of the hole Treece was digging, and, as the air lift exposed the ampules, snared them before they could be carried away.

Another hour passed-seven trips this time-and Coffin and Sanders changed places again. Rising with the bags, Sanders looked at his watch: almost eleven o’clock.

He clung to the platform and waited for the bags. When Gail handed them to him, he lifted the bottom of his mask and said, “How many?”

“I can’t count them all. Six, eight thousand, maybe ten. I stopped counting at five thousand; you’re bringing them up too fast.”

Sanders made five more trips with the bags, and by now he felt a physical misery more profound than anything he had ever experienced. No specific pain or discomfort was worse than any other: everything felt terrible, even his toes, which were wracked with periodic cramps that forced him to kick in an awkward, inefficient fashion. Hanging on the surface, he looked down and wondered how long it would take him to get to the bottom this time; his last descent had taken so long that by the time he arrived at the reef, enough ampules had been excavated to refill the bags immediately.

He forced himself down through the layers of pain and crawled to the reef. He was settling beside the heap of ampules when a surge hit him. He flailed with his legs, reaching for the bottom, but his legs wouldn’t touch; he was thrust at the wall of coral. In the last seconds before he

hit the reef, he raised his gloved hands in front of his face and brought up his knees, hoping to take the impact with his flippers or his arms.

His right knee hit first, and whatever it hit gave way and broke. Then he was spun around and his buttocks hit the rocks, jerking his head backward. The muscles in his neck resisted, but his head hit-not hard, for something cushioned it: a sea fan. He scrambled for a handhold and found a rock, which pulled free and tumbled down the face of the reef, knocking other rocks loose as it fell.

The surge passed, and Sanders lay against the reef, breathing hard, assessing the damage done to his aching body. There were new pains, but none seemed more wretched than those he had had before.

He inched down the reef face, making sure of each handhold before he moved to the next. Glancing to his left, he saw something shine within the bowels of the reef, a twinkle that dulled as soon as the shaft of sunlight moved away. It was in a hole at least two feet deep. Another ray of light coursed into the hole; again a twinkle.

Sanders leaned back against the reef, one leg wrapped around a boulder, one hand clutching a piece of coral. He waved, to attract Treece’s attention, but Treece was intent on the ditch full of ampules. He waited, knowing that Coffin would look up when he noticed that the ampules he was passing back to Sanders weren’t being collected, and a moment later he saw Coffin’s eyes. He pointed at Treece and at the hole in the reef.

Coffin tapped Treece; Treece looked up, set the air lift against the reef, and swam to Sanders.

A cloud passed before the sun, and the shadow crept along the bottom, darkening the water and turning the sand gray. Treece looked at Sanders, raised his eyebrows, and mouthed the word “what.”

Sanders raised his palm to Treece, then pointed to the surface, saying: Wait till the light returns. The shadow moved over the reef and away; arrows of light darted into the hole.

Treece looked, waited, looked again. He nodded his head, made the “okay” sign to Sanders, and plunged his arm into the hole.

Sanders watched Treece’s face as his fingers probed the bottom of the hole; Treece’s eyes narrowed in concentration, brow furrowed.

Suddenly Treece’s eyes snapped wide, his mouth opened, and he yelled in pain and shock. He tried to pull his arm out of the hole, but something was holding it. His shoulder was banged onto the coral, and Sanders saw it twitch. Then, gritting his teeth and bracing his other arm against a rock, he hauled back: The arm came free, dragging with it the writhing, curling body of a rnoray eel, jaws clamped tight on the soft, fleshy juncture of his right thumb and forefinger.

Treece yelled again, incoherently, and reached with his left hand to grab the moray behind the head. But the eel’s body, no longer anchored in the reef, waved in frantic spasms and pulled itself out of reach. The eel trembled and, in a blur of green, coiled itself into a knot; using the body as its own anchor, the head was pulling Treece’s hand through the knot.

Treece could not get at the head, so he pounded the body aimlessly with his left hand. But the eel did not respond: bit by bit, the back-slanted teeth were drawing his hand into the mouth.

Backed against the reef, reflexively retreating, Sanders recalled the size of the moray they had seen the night before. The head was twice, three times, the size of the one attached to Treece. Then Sanders saw the flesh tear away coma crescent rip in the rubber glove, tattered green-tinged skin waving in strips, billowing blood.

The eel unknotted itself, swallowed, and lashed at Treece’s midsection. Treece dodged, snapped his left hand onto the eel’s body, four or five inches behind the head. The head turned, jaws gnashing the water, searching for something to bite.

Treece put his injured hand in front of his left hand and squeezed, the pressure pumping blood from the wound. Ignoring the flailing body, he forced the eel’s head onto a rock and crushed it. The body jerked twice and was still. Treece released his grip, and the eel fell slowly to the sand.

Treece pointed at Sanders, then at the hole in the reef, telling him to reach in and find the object.

Without thinking, scared, Sanders shook his head: No.

Treece jammed his left index finger into Sanders’

chest and again pointing to the hole: Do it!

Sanders reached into the hole. He closed his eyes, listening to his rapid pulse, his labored breathing, anticipating-imagining-a sudden stab of pain. His fingers walked down the coral and felt the softness of sand. Nothing. In its thrashing, the eel could have knocked the object deeper

into the hole, or buried it in the sand. His shoulder was tight against the coral; he could go no farther. His fingers moved left and right, scraping over the bottom, sensing pebbles and bits of coral; then, at the limit of his reach, something hard. He strained against the coral, trying for another half inch, and managed to grasp the object between the tips of his fingers. He pulled it closer, dropped it, recovered it in a solid grip.

He withdrew his arm and opened his eyes. He was alone. The air lift rolled against the reef, bubbling; the pile of ampules lay untouched in the sand. Looking up, he saw Treece and Coffin at the surface. Treece kicked and disappeared onto the boat.

Sanders opened his fist and looked at the object in his palm. It was a gold figure of a crucified Christ, five inches high. The nails in the hands and feet were red gem stones, the eyes blue. Sanders tipped the figure on its side and saw, engraved on the base of the cross, the letters “E.f.”

Treece leaned against the gunwale, while Coffin wrapped gauze around his wounded hand.

Sanders stood on the platform and removed his mask.

“Bad?”

“No. Thank the gentle Jesus for that glove, though. Aiain problem with those bastards is infection.”

“Did you put anything on it?”

“Aye. Sulfa. Forget that: What’d you find?”

Sanders climbed over the transom and handed Treece the crucifix.

Treece examined it, noticed the initials, then held it a

few inches from his face. “My God, that’s a piece of

work.”

Gail leaned over, careful not to impede Coffin, and stared at the figure. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s more than just beautiful. See the rubies in the hands and feet? The Spaniards almost never used rubies. They liked emeralds; green was the color representing the Inquisition. They argued about the rubies for a hundred years or more. They began to use “em late, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, but only for the King. Another special thing is, there are no fixings.”

“Fixings?”

“Holding it together. It wasn’t cast in one piece; they didn’t have the equipment. And there aren’t any pins or nails or pegs. It’s like one of those Chinese puzzles: a lot of pieces that fit together only if you assemble ‘em in the right order. Look close, you can see little hairlines where the pieces join. Our friend E.f. was either very rich or very dear to someone very rich.”

Coffin split the end of the strip of gauze and tied a knot.

Treece flexed his hand, grimaced. “Cumbersome bugger.”

“Shouldn’t you see a doctor?” Gail asked.

“Only if I see the red horrors creeping up my arm.” Treece pushed off the gunwale and stood up. He raised his bandaged hand and said to Sanders, “Guess you’re not the only stupid sonofabitch on this vessel. If that’d been Percy, he’d be munching on my neck by now.”

Sanders said, “I thought of that.”

“Adam,” Treece said, “you and David go get the last of the glass and the gun. We’ll take a holiday till nighttime.”

“You’re gonna dive again?” Coffin said. “With that hand?”

Treece nodded. “I’ll go home and rig up something to keep it dry. It’ll do to hold the gun; that’s all it was doing down there anyway.”

They brought up three more bags of ampules, raised the anchor, and crossed the reefs to take Coffin to the beach.

“I’ll stay if you want,” Coffin said to Treece. “You can’t put the glass in the cave with her head messed and your hand messed.”

“No. Get your rest. I’ll call Kevin and have him help.”

“Kevin! You’d trust him?”

“Aye. He’ll take the pennies off the eyes of the dead, but he’s loyal to me.”

“He is, is he?”

“Don’t you start, too. It’s enough I’ve got to worry about old David challenging me every time I draw bloody breath.” Treece saw that Sanders had overheard him, and he smiled. “Sorry. But you are a contentious bugger. Getting better every day, though, I’ll give you that.”

Treece stopped the boat about fifty yards off the beach. “That’s it, Adam. Don’t want to beach her in the surf.”