The Golden Reef (1969) (12 page)

‘I spoke to all three men,’ the report went on. ‘Mr Keeton in the snug little cabin of his yacht was guarded. Laughingly he referred to me as a snooper and said that I would get nothing out of him. “I am sailing round the world,” was all he would say when quizzed about his plans. Had the meeting in Sydney really been accidental or had it been arranged? Mr Keeton was not telling; but he did admit that the three survivors had had drinks together. No doubt these heroes of the War at Sea had much to talk over, although Mr Keeton’s loss of memory unfortunately blacks out much of his own past.’

‘Damn him,’ Keeton muttered again. ‘Damn his filthy eyes.’

He came to the last paragraph. ‘Surely the thoughts of many of our readers will be with this modern Captain Slocum as he sets out on his lonely voyage across the wide Pacific, for who knows what dangers may lie ahead of him in the vastness of those great waters?’

Keeton crushed the paper into a ball and flung it away.

‘Damn their thoughts! Damn them all to hell!’

The last thing he had wanted was this publicity.

Keeton had hoped to leave Sydney as unobtrusively as he had slipped away from England. But, thanks to Ferguson, this was no longer possible. A royal yacht could scarcely have had a more enthusiastic send-off than that which was given to the
Roamer.
Ships hooted, sailors cheered, and a swarm of little craft, under power and sail, accompanied him on the first stage of his voyage.

‘Confound Ferguson,’ Keeton grumbled. ‘And confound all these bloody idiots with nothing better to do than get in my way.’

He wondered how long they would maintain contact. Suppose some fanatic, inspired by his example, should decide to keep him company across the Pacific. But when he considered this idea in the cool light of reason he saw that it was not a possibility. However much another yachtsman might have wished to keep in touch, he would not have been able to do so; in the very first night the two vessels would inevitably draw apart.

He need have had no qualms; when the next day dawned he was alone. He looked towards the horizon beyond the bows of the yawl and already he could almost feel the gold in his hands. Now it was only a question of time – time to reach the reef and time to lift the treasure from the strong-room.

In the event it took just three weeks to get there. It was a day of clear skies and calm sea – perfect for his purpose. Years had passed since he had last been near this spot, and often in the
course of those years he had been tormented with the fear that somebody else might have discovered the
Valparaiso
and might have taken the gold. But always he had consoled himself with the thought that the wreck was so small and the sea so vast; the chances were a million to one against its being sighted.

He saw the reef at last; he saw the surf creaming over it just as he had seen it so many times; just as he had remembered it. Only one thing was missing to make the picture complete – the ship.

At first he refused to believe it; it must be some trick of the light, an optical illusion; the
Valparaiso
must be there, for where else could she be? But when the yawl drew closer he could no longer disguise from himself the bitter, inescapable truth: there was no ship.

It occurred to him that perhaps his navigation had been at fault, that this was the wrong reef. But he had only to look at it to know that there had been no mistake; too many times in the past had he gazed at this pale coral outcrop to be deceived by it now. This was indeed the place, but the ship had gone.

He let go the anchor in shallow water and felt it bite. He went back to the cockpit and took up his binoculars and began to search the reef from one end to the other. He saw the gap where the ship had been wedged and where he had thrown the rifle overboard. Everything was the same; nothing was changed, except for the one missing feature, that which had drawn him like a lodestar across so many miles of ocean – the iron wreck with its golden treasure; that alone had gone.

His shoulders drooped with the disappointment of it all; he was about to lower the binoculars when something caught his attention and made his heart give a sudden leap. It was only just visible, between the yawl and the reef; now and then as the surface of the water heaved slightly it vanished completely; then it appeared again like a finger pushed up by a drowning man. But Keeton knew that this was no finger; he knew that what he was looking at was the tip of one of the
Valparaiso’s
masts. And below the mast must surely lie the ship, resting peacefully on the bottom.

‘It must have been a storm,’ he muttered. ‘It sank her. It finally sank her the way Bristow feared it would. The poor devil was right.’

He wondered when this had happened; how long after he and Bristow had got away. Perhaps no more than a few days; perhaps if he had not left her when he had, he too would have been drowned with the
Valparaiso.
Of one thing he need have had no fear; no one would have found this wreck; no one but he, knowing precisely where to look. And even he had almost missed that small tip of mast barely projecting above the surface of the sea.

He decided to take a closer look. He launched the dinghy and rowed over to the spot where the wreck lay submerged. Keeping warily clear of the mast, which might have holed his boat, he leaned over the side and peered down into the limpid water. There, sure enough, was the
Valparaiso,
lying with a slight list to starboard so that the mast came up at an angle. And down there, enclosed in this iron coffin, was the cache of gold, as securely guarded from his itching fingers as it would have been in the vaults of a bank.

In a momentary frenzy of angry frustration Keeton was tempted to throw himself over the side of the boat and dive down to where the treasure lay; as if with his bare hands he would have hauled it up from its resting place. But the frenzy passed; he regained control over himself; and his mind, which had been briefly clouded by the mists of emotion, became clear again.

Of one thing he could now feel perfectly certain – the gold was there. It was still his for the taking if only he could find a way of taking it. And there must be a way; it would be more difficult than he had anticipated, but some way there must surely be.

He rowed thoughtfully back to the yawl and hauled the dinghy on board. Then he stripped and dived into the clear water, washing the sweat from his body and feeling a reinvigoration of the spirit from this immersion.

Back aboard, he lay on his bunk and smoked a cigarette. And with the smoke that he drew from the cigarette he drew also an inescapable conclusion: the job was no longer a one-man operation. He would have to get help. But not Rains and Smith, not on any account those two. It had to be someone less grasping, someone
who would not demand a half-share in the profits.

In the morning he weighed anchor and set his course back towards Australia.

Keeton lay on the hot sand and let the sun cook his already deeply tanned body. In the bay, sheltered by a curving arm of the land, the yawl rode peacefully at anchor. On his return to Australia he had given Sydney a wide berth and instead had put in at Boonville, a small town midway between Sydney and Brisbane, notable for little except its fine beach, the local fishing and the number of its inhabitants who appeared to have nothing to do.

He heard the soft scuffle of feet in the sand and saw Ben Dring walking towards him.

‘You take life easy, Skipper,’ Dring said. ‘You got nothing better to do than lie in the sun?’

He was a strong-looking man, not tall, but muscular; and his straw-coloured hair was cropped close to his head. He looked younger than Keeton, but was in fact four years older. Keeton knew this; and he knew a lot of other things about Dring too: that he had served with the Australian Army in New Guinea, that the scar on his right arm was from a Jap bullet, that he was a restless character who had never settled down to any regular job, and that, most important of all, he was enthusiastically interested in underwater swimming.

‘The kid wants to come too,’ Dring said. ‘Just for the ride.’

‘No,’ Keeton said, getting to his feet. ‘Not even for the ride.’

‘That’s what I told her you’d say. It didn’t seem to have much effect.’

‘It’ll have to.’

Dring was carrying two sets of aqualung gear – compressed air bottles, masks and fins.

‘We’re all complete. You’re going to enjoy this. It’s the kind of swimming you’ve always dreamed about. You don’t have to come up for air; you take your own supply with you.’

‘How long does one of these cylinders last?’

‘Depends on the depth. You don’t want to try much deeper than a hundred and twenty feet; not as much as that for a start. At that depth one bottle would last maybe seven or eight minutes; at the surface about forty. It varies.’

‘I see.’ Keeton was thinking of the strong-room of the
Valparaiso.
How deep was that? Twenty feet? Thirty?

‘There’s the kid now,’ Dring said. He was looking over Keeton’s shoulder.

Keeton turned his head and saw the girl coming towards them. She was nearly as tall as her brother and her hair was the same colour. She was wearing shorts and a loose cotton shirt, and the sun had turned her skin a rich golden tint like honey. Her feet were bare and she was carrying a swimsuit and a towel. She was twenty years old.

‘You’re not coming with us, Valerie,’ Keeton said. He started to walk down the beach. ‘All right, Ben; let’s be on our way.’

The dinghy was drawn up on the sand. Dring put the aqualung gear in it and he and Keeton pushed it into the water. The girl waded through the surf and without asking permission stepped into the boat and sat down.

‘Hey,’ Keeton said. ‘I told you. There isn’t room in that dinghy for more than two. It’s overloaded even then.’

She gave him a disarming smile, ‘That’s all right, Charlie. You can take me to the yacht first and then come back for Ben. It’s only a hundred yards.’

Keeton looked at Dring in exasperation. ‘Tell her to get out.’

Dring grinned. ‘I’d be wasting my breath. I gave up trying to exert my authority over that young lady years ago. When she’s set her heart on something she usually gets it.’

Keeton hesitated. He thought of ejecting the girl from the boat by force, but decided against such drastic measures. After all,
what difference did it make?

‘All right,’ he said ungraciously. ‘You win.’

He stepped over the gunwale and sat down, facing the girl. He picked up the oars and began to row.

‘You don’t have to be so grumpy,’ she said. ‘I won’t get in your way.’

He could see the contours of her young, firm breasts under the shirt and the small projections that were the nipples pressing against the fabric. Half-guiltily he lifted his gaze and met the impact of her candid sea-blue eyes watching him, faintly amused.

‘What are you thinking about, Charlie?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing.’

Her presence disturbed him; it was a distraction, and he wanted no distractions.

The girl looked at the sinews in his arms as he rowed, then up at his bony, unsmiling face.

‘What made you come here?’ she asked.

‘What makes a man go anywhere?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t need to know.’

‘You’re telling me to mind my own business, aren’t you?’

Keeton said nothing.

When they came to the yawl Valerie climbed on board and Keeton handed her the diving gear.

‘I’ll be back soon. Behave yourself.’

She laughed. ‘How could I do anything else?’

When he returned with Dring she was standing in the bows looking at the bowsprit with one hand resting on the forestay. She came back to the mainmast and helped to haul the dinghy aboard.

‘Your ship is an old one,’ she said.

‘Of course it is,’ Keeton answered. ‘If it hadn’t been old I’d never have got it for fifty pounds.’

‘Fifty pounds! As little as that!’

‘It came to a lot more by the time I’d refitted her. And even if she is old, she’s got strength. That’s what I wanted.’

He took the yawl out of the bay under power; there was no
wind. A few other small craft were lying at anchor in the harbour and round the curve of the shore were scattered a variety of wooden houses, some brightly painted, some in a state of neglect. In one of the better kept houses lived Miss Rebecca Dring, a woman of sixty or so with whom Valerie lived, and Ben too when he happened to be in town. Aunt Beckie had looked after the younger Drings ever since their parents had been drowned when their boat capsized in a sudden squall two miles off shore. Keeton had had two meetings with Rebecca and had been more impressed than charmed; there was a fair amount of iron in the aunt’s makeup, and she had a disconcertingly acid tongue. It was evident that she looked upon all young men with suspicion, especially when they came sailing in from nowhere in particular and had no apparent aim or purpose in life.

‘How do you manage all by yourself?’ Valerie asked. ‘I should have thought you needed a crew.’

‘I haven’t noticed the need.’

‘What happens to the tiller when you’re sleeping or eating?’

‘George takes over.’

‘George?’

‘The self-steering gear. Anything else you’d like to know?’

‘Oh yes, lots of things. I have an inquisitive nature.’

Dring looked amused. ‘That means she’s plain nosy.’

‘Don’t be rude. I’m not at all plain, am I, Charlie?’

‘Now she’s fishing for a compliment,’ Dring said. ‘Don’t let her hook you.’

‘I’m not easily hooked,’ Keeton said. But he could not help thinking that it would have been easier to concentrate on other things if Valerie Dring had been a shade less attractive.

Following Dring’s directions Keeton took the yawl about a mile out and then turned northward. After another couple of miles Dring said: ‘This will do. It’s deep enough and there’s some interesting rock formation.’

Keeton stopped the engine and Dring let the anchor go. Then he came back aft.

Valerie said: ‘You should have brought another aqualung. What am I going to do?’

‘If you want to swim you’ll just have to stay on the surface.’

‘There’s a nice accommodating brother.’ She turned to Keeton. ‘Where can I change?’

‘In the for’ard cabin. It’s just used for stowage. I’ll show you.’

He went to the hatch and slid it back to reveal the companionway. ‘Down there.’

Keeton and Dring went into the main cabin and put on swimming trunks. Out again on deck Dring showed Keeton how to fix the rubber fins on his feet, how to strap an air cylinder to his back and how to adjust the glass-fronted mask.

‘You’re a swimmer anyway, so you should find this easy. There’s really nothing to it.’

Keeton found that Dring was right. Once he got used to the fins it was simple; there was no need to use the arms for propulsion. He experienced a feeling of weightlessness, of ease, of pleasurable excitement. And below the surface of the water he found a new world waiting for him, a world of strange rocky structures, of unimaginably beautiful marine growths, of extraordinary shades of liquid colour and myriads of wide-eyed fishes gliding in utter silence through the warm, translucent medium in which they lived. There were caves hung about with dark green curtains waving seductively as though in invitation, and sudden milky clouds that were nothing but stirred-up sand. Through the glass window of the mask he could see quite clearly; he had never realized that there was so much light under the sea.

And he felt exultant; for here was the answer to his problem; here most certainly was the key to the treasure of the
Valparaiso.

Once more on deck with the water dripping from him, he said to Dring: ‘It’ s like you said; there’s nothing to it. Those fins make all the difference.’

‘A few more days’ practice,’ Dring said, ‘and you’ll be ready for anything.’

Valerie came up the short Jacob’s ladder that dangled from the stern, shaking water from her hair. The drops glistened like pearls on her smooth skin.

‘When you and Ben go on that trip,’ she said to Keeton, ‘I want to go with you.’

‘It’s out of the question. We may be away for weeks, even months.’

‘That’s fine. I’m free. And Aunt Beckie can get along without me.’

‘So can we,’ Dring said.

‘I could be useful. I’m a good cook.’

‘I can cook well enough myself,’ Keeton said.

‘I could help with the pearls.’

He had told Dring that he was interested in pearl-fishing. He knew that Dring thought it a crazy idea for getting rich, but the Australian was willing to take part in any adventure if he was paid for his trouble.

‘You don’t know what it’s like at sea in a ship this size,’ Keeton told her. ‘Believe me, it’s no pleasure cruise.’

‘I don’t mind things being rough. I wasn’t raised in cotton wool. I can make out.’

‘Not on this trip.’

She said no more about it. She sat in the sunlight with her hair tangled and the water drying on her golden skin. It occurred to Keeton that she was like some nymph born of the sea. He tried to avoid looking at her, but his gaze moved back in defiance of his will; her body was like a magnet drawing his eyes towards it, holding them. And she stirred emotions in him that he did not wish to have stirred.

With a muffled curse he turned to Dring. ‘All right, Ben. We’ll be getting back.’