Part 21 (1/2)
”I should put you over my knee, you-” Chubby looked up at me
”Harry, you talk to Miss Sherry just oneto have to break your head, hear?”
With only mild surprise I realized that he meant it I had seen hi to avoid, so I told hiet us the hell out of here and back to the island”
you just treat her gentle,to roast your arse so you wish you'd been the one that sat on a bunch of fire coral instead of her, hear?”
I ignored thisthe skin, and then I lifted her into my arms and held her like that while the s and Chubby ran us back to the island
When I carried Sherry up to the cave she was already half coht I stayed by her side, helping her through the shi+vering and sweating fever produced by the virulent poison Once she moaned and whispered half, in delirium, ”I'm sorry, Harry I didn't know It's the first tinize it”
Chubby and Angelo did not sleep either I heard the murmur of their voices froh outside the cave entrance and then inquire anxiously: ”How's she doing, Harry?”
By the ht off the worst effects of the poisoning, and the stings had subsided into an ugly rash of blisters However, it was another thirty-six hours before any of us could raise the enthusias We had to wait another day
The precious hours were slipping away I could ie, she had looked a fast and powerful vessel and each day wasted whittled away the lead I had counted upon
On the third day, we ran out again to the pool It was mid-afternoon and we took a chance with the water in the channel, scraping through early in the flood with inches to spare over the sharp coral snags
Sherry was still in race and, with her hands wrapped in acriflavine bandages, she was left in the whaleboat to keep Angelo co down fast and pausing above the swaying bah to drop the first marker buoy I had decided it was necessary to search the pool botto off the whole area into squares, anchoring inflatable buoys above the marine forest on thin nylon line
We worked for an hour and found nothing that was obviously wreckage, although there were rowth that would bear closer investigation I h
At the end of that hour, our air reserves in the double ninety-cubic-foot bottles were uncomfortably low Chubby used er ularly checked his pressure gauge
I took him up and was especially careful on the decoh Chubby showed his usual impatience He had never seen as I had, a diver co like chaonies can cripple a ed in the brain can do pere
”Any luck?” Sherry called as soon as we surfaced, and I gave her the thumbs down as am to the whaleboat We drank a cup of coffee from the thermos and I smoked an island cheroot while we rested and chatted I think ere all mildly disappointed that success had not been i the first find
Chubby and I changed our deain This ti at 130 feet, for the effects of gas absorption into the blood are cuer
We worked carefully through the forests of baullies and cracks between the every few oing on, back and forth on the legs of a search pattern between my marker buoys
Tilanced across at Chubby None of our wet suits would fit him, so he dived naked except for an ancient black wollen bathing costuraceful - as he forced his way through the thickets I grinned at the thought and was about to turn ahen a chance ray of light pierced the canopy above us and glinted upon so white on the floor below Chubby I finned in quickly, and exaht it was a piece of claular in shape I sank down closer to it and saw that it was eroped for the s belt, drew it fro the white object The lu carrybag Chubby atching ?” Sherry called immediately we surfaced Her confine the devil with her nerves She was irritable and ily, suppurating lesions on her hands and thighs had healed I kne easily secondary infection could attack those open sores under these conditions, and I was feeding her antibiotics and trying to keep her quiet
”I don't know,” I answered, as a up to her She took it eagerly, and while we cli it closely, turning it over in her hands
Already the surf was breaking heavily on the reef, boiling into the pool and the whaleboat inging and bobbing in the disturbance Angelo was having difficulty holding her on station - and it was tio We had spent as much time underwater as I considered safe for one day, and soon now the heavy oceanic surf would begin leaping the coral barrier and sweeping the pool
”Take us home, Chubby,” I called and he went to the motors All our attention was focused on the wild ride back through the channel With the flood of the tide the swells cah under our hull so fast that our relative speed was reversed and the whaleboat's steering was inverted so we threatened to broach to and tumble broadside on to the coral walls of the channel However, Chubby's seamanshi+p never faltered, and at last we shot out into the protected waters behind the reef and turned for the island
Now I could give my attention to the object I had recovered froreat deal of advice that I did not really need, and cautioning me to exercise care, I placed the luave it a smart crack with the jemmy bar It split into three pieces and revealed a nuested and protected by the living coral polyps
There were three round grey objects the size of hed it in my hand It was heavy I handed it to Sherry
”Guesses?” I asked
”Musket balls,” she said without hesitation
”Of course,” I agreed I should have recognized it and Ithe next object
”A small brass key”
”Genius!” she said with irony, and I ignored her as I worked delicately to free the white object which had first caught my attention It can worked on one side
It was a seglazed porcelain, a chip from the rim of a plate which had been orna but I recognized the rampant lion immediately, and the words, ”Senat ANGLIA' It was the device of John Coain, part of a set of shi+p's plate
I passed it to Sherry and suddenly I sa it must have been I told herthe chip of porcelain ”When at last the surf broke her back and the coral tore her in half, she would have gone down by the ear would have shi+fted - tearing out her inner bulkhead It would all have poured out of her, cannon and shot, plate and silver, flask and cup, coin and pistol - it would have littered the floor of the pool, a rich sowing of man-made articles and the coral has sucked it up and absorbed it”
”The treasure crates?” Sherry demanded ”Would they have fallen out of the hull?”
”I don't know,” I ad intently, spat over the side and growled
”The forehold was always doubleskinned, three-inch oak planks, to hold the cargo fro was in there then, is still in there now”
”And that opinion would have cost you ten guineas in Harley Street,” I told Sherry, and winked at her She laughed and turned to Chubby
”I don't knoe would do without you, Chubby dear,” and Chubby scowledinterest out on the distant horizon
It was only later, after Sherry and I had taken our swied into fresh clothes and were sitting around the fire drinking Chivas Regal and eating fresh prawns netted in the lagoon, that the elation of our first an soberly to consider the iht broken up and scattered across theand the treasure crates, with their enorh the sides of the hold and fallen free, then it would be an endless task searching for them I had seen two hundred blocks and mounds of coral that day - any one of which could have concealed a part of the tiger throne of India
If he were correct and the hold had retained its cargo, then the coral polyps would have spread over the entire front section of the vessel as it lay on the botto the ith layer upon layer of calcified stone, until it had becorowth of inning to appreciate the reed that it fell into two separate parts
First we had to locate and identify the treasure cases, and then we had to wrest them from the stubborn e to need, don't you, Chubby?” I asked, and he nodded
”You still got those two cases?” I felt ashanite in front of Sherry It reminded me too vividly of the project for which Chubby and I had found it necessary to lay in large stocks of high explosive That had been three years ago, during a lean season when I had been desperate for ready cash to keepthe letter of the law could our project have been considered legal, and I would rather have closed that chapter and forgotten it - but we needed gelignite now
Chubby shook his head ”Man, that stuff began sweating like a stevedore in a heatwave If you belched within fifty feet of it - it would have blown the top off the island”
”What did you do with it? ”Angelo and I took it out into the Mozaave it a deep six”