Part 20 (2/2)

”Guess that old grouper seen it shi+ne and took a snap at it Must have stuck in his belly until I pulled him out”

I handed the coin back to hioes to show there is some truth in my story” ”Guess it does, Harry,” he ads of the Dawn Light and a gas lantern We pored over the drawings Chubby's grandfather had sailed as a top of an expert He was of the opinion that all passengers” luggage and other small pieces would be stowed in the forehold beside the forecastle - I wasn't going to argue with him Never hex yourself, as Chubby had warned an calculating the time differences for our latitude, Chubby actually snize it as such It looked much more like a sneer, for Chubby had no faith in rows of printed figures in pae the tides by the sea clock in his own head I have known him to call the tides accurately for a week ahead without reference to any other source

”I reckon ill have a high tide at one-forty toht for once,” Chubby agreed

Without the enormous loads that had been forced on her recently, the whaleboat seeerness The two Evinrudes put her up on the plane, and she flew at the narrow channel through the reef like a ferret into a rabbithole

Angelo stood in the bows, using hand signals to indicate underwater snags to Chubby in the stern We had picked good water to co surf with confidence The little whaleboat tossed up her head and kicked her heels over the swells, splattering us with spray

The passage was hed with the thrill of it

Chubby shot us through the narrow neck between the coral cliffs with feet to spare on either side, for the whaleboat had half of Wave Dancer's beaut of the channel beyond and at last burst out into the pool

”No good trying to anchor,” Chubby growled, ”it's deep here The reef goes down sheer We got twenty fatho to hold?” I asked

”Soot to sit at theto chew fuel, Chubby”

”Don't I know it,”he growled

With a tide only halfin over the reef Not yet withspill that cascaded into the pool, turning the surface to ginger beer with bubbles However, as the tide er Soon it would be unsafe in the pool and ould have to run for it We had about two hours in which to work, depending on the stage of neap and spring tides It was a cycle of too little or too otiate the entrance channel - and at high tide the surf breaking over the reef ht overwheled

Now every minute was precious Sherry and I were already dressed in our wet suits with face-plates on our foreheads, and it was necessary only for Angelo to lift the heavy scuba sets on to our backs and to clinch the webbing harness

”Ready, Sherry?” I asked, and she nodded, the ungainly mouthpiece already stuffed into her pretty o We dropped over the side, and sank down together beneath the cigar-shaped hull of the whaleboat The surface was asheet of quicksilver above us, and the spill over the reef charged the upper layer of water with a rash of chane bubbles

I checked with Sherry She was co in the slow rhythm of the experienced diver that conserves air and ventilates the body effectively She grinned at me, her lips distorted by the lass faceplate, and she gave n with both thuan pedalling withdown fast, reluctant to waste air on a slow descent

The pool was a dark hole below us The surrounding walls of coral shut out ave it an oloomy, I felt a prickle of al sinister about this place, as though sonant force lurked in the soers atthe sheer coral cliff The coral was riddled with dark caves and ledges that overhung the loalls Coral of a hundred different sorts, outcropped in weird and lovely shapes, tinted with the coroaved and tossed in the ars, or the dark manes of wild horses

I looked back at Sherry She was close behindof es protruded the long yellow antennae of giant crayfish, gently theyour presence in the disturbed water Clouds ofthe cliffface; they sparkled like geht that penetrated into the depths of the pool

Sherry tapped my shoulder and we paused to peer into a deep black cave Two great owl eyes peered back at us, and as antuan head of a grouper It was speckled like a plover's egg, splotches of brown and black on a beige-grey ground and the mouth was a wide slash between thick rubbery lips As atched, the huge fish assu its already ied the head and finally it opened its ape that could have sed a man whole - a cavernous maw, lined with spiked teeth Sherry seized my hand We dreay from the cave, and the fish closed its mouth and subsided Any tirouper I knehere to co effect of water I judged that he was close to a thousand pounds in weight

We went on down the coral wall, and all around us was the wondrous er Lovely little daiant sea ane black battle pennant along the coral wall, reached its lair and turned to threaten us with dreadful ragged teeth and glittering snakelike eyes

Doent, pedalling with our fins, and now at last I saw the bottorowth, dense stands of sea ba e, while mounds and hillocks of coral orked and riven into shapes that teased the i above this ile and I checked e I had one hundred and twenty-eight feet, and tiave Sherry the hand signal to remain where she was and I sank down to the tops of the e I worked ed into a relatively open area below It was a twilight area roofed in by the bae new tribes of fish and marine animals

I knew at once that it would not be a simple task to search the floor of the pool Visibility here was ten feet or less, and the total area we must cover o or three acres in extent

I decided to bring Sherry doiththe base of the cliff, keeping in line abreast and within sight of each other

I a-dated s and used the buoyancy to rise froe into the clear

I did not see Sherry at first, and I felt a quick dart of concern stab ainst the black wall of coral She hadmy instruction, and I was annoyed I finned towards her and enty feet froave way instantly to shock and horror

The long series of accidents and un

Growing out of the coral cliff was a lovely fernlike structure, graceful sweeps, branching and rebranching, pale pink shading to crie branch of it She held it in her bare hands and even as I raced towards her I saw her legs brush lightly against the red arms of the dreaded fire coral

I seized her wrists and dragged her off the cruel and beautiful plant I dugher to drop her fearsoe that ftorn their cells in the coral branches tens of thousands oftheir barbed poison darts into her flesh

She was staring atbad had happened, but not yet sure what it was I held her and began the ascent immediately Even in my anxiety I was careful to obey the elesteadily with theht minutes thirty seconds elapsed That was three minutes at one hundred and thirty feet Quickly I calculated ht between the devil of diver's bends and the deep blue sea of Sherry's coony

It hit her before ere halfway to the surface, her face contorted and her breathing went into the shallow ragged panting of deep distress until I feared she ht beat theit so that it could no longer feed her with air

She began to writhe in rily, the livid red weals rose like whiplashes across her thighs and I thanked God for the protection her suit had given to her torso

When I held her at a decoht rip I cut the stop fine as I dared, and took her to the surface

The instant our heads broke clear I spat out my mouthpiece and yelled: ”Chubby! Quick!”

The whaleboat was fifty yards away, but theover steadily and Chubby spun her on her own tail The instant she was pointed at us, he gave the con to Angelo and scrareat brown colossus

”It's fire coral, Chubby,” I shouted ”She's hit hard Get her outv Chubby leaned out and took hold of the webbing harness at the back of her neck and he lifted her bodily fro brown fists like a drowning kitten

I ditchedout of the harness, and when I scrambled over the side, Chubby had laid her on the floorboards and he was leaning over her, folding her in his arony

I found my medical kit under a pile of loose equipers were clumsy with haste as I heard Sherry's sobs behind me I snapped the head of an ae with the clear fluid Noas angry as well as concerned

”You stupid broad,” I snarled at her ”Whatlike that?”

She could not answerand blue, flecked with spittle I took a pinch of skin on her thigh and thrust the needle into it as I expelled the fluid into her flesh I went on angrily

”Fire coral - ist's backside Isn't a kid on the island that stupid”

”I didn't think, Harry,” she panted wildly

”Didn't think-” I repeated, her pain was goading ot anything in your head to think with, you stupid little birdbrain”

I withdrew the needle, and ransacked the medicine box for the anti-histamine spray