Off the Mangrove Coast (Ss) (2000) Read online

  Smoke Bassett, powerful tan muscles, skin stretched taut to contain their slumbering, restless strength. A man with magnificent eyes, quick of hand and foot … a dangerous man.

  And the last of them, myself. Tall and lean and quiet, with wide shoulders, and not as interested in the money. Oh, yes, I wanted my share, and would fight to have it, but there was more than the money; there was getting the money; there was the long roll of the ketch coming down the China Sea; there was the mangrove coast, the night and the stars … there were the boat sounds, the water sounds … a bird’s wing against the wind … the distant sounds of the forest… these things that no man can buy; these things that get into the blood; these things that build the memories of tomorrow; the hours to look back upon.

  I wanted these more than money. For there is a time for adventure when the body is young and the mind alert and all the world seems there for one’s hands to use, to hold, to take. And this was my new world, this ancient world of the Indies, these lands where long ago the Arab seamen came, and where the Polynesians may have passed, and where old civilizations slumber in the jungles; awaiting the explorations of men. Where rivers plunge down massive, unrecorded falls, where the lazy sea creeps under the mangroves, working its liquid fingers into the abysmal darkness where no man goes or wants to go.

  What is any man but the total of what he has seen? The sum of what he has done? The strange foods, the women whose bodies have merged with his, the smells, the tastes, the longings, the dreams, the haunted nights? The Trenches in Shanghai, Blood Alley, Grant Road in Bombay, and Malay Street in Singapore … the worst of it, and the best… the temples and towers built by lost, dead hands, the nights at sea, the splendor of a storm, the dancing of dust devils on the desert. These are a man … and the solid thrill of a blow landed, the faint smell of opium, rubber, sandalwood, and spice, the stink of copra … the taste of blood from a split lip.

  Oh, yes, I had come for things other than money but that evening, for the first time, no man gave another good night.

  Tomorrow there would be, with luck, fifty thousand dollars in this boat… and how many ways to split it?

  No need to worry until the box was aboard, or on the line, being hoisted. After that, it was every man for himself. Or was I mistaken? Would we remain friends still? Would we sail our boat into Amurang or Jesselton and leave it there and scatter to the winds with our money in our pockets?

  That was the best way, but with such men, in such a place, with that amount of money … one lives because one remains cautious … and fools die young.

  At the first streaks of dawn, I was out of my blankets and had them rolled. While Smoke prepared breakfast, we got the diving outfit up to the side. We were eating when the question came.

  “I’ll go,” I said, and grinned at them. “I’ll go down and see how it looks.”

  They looked at me, and I glanced up from my plate and said, “How about it, Smoke? Tend my lines?”

  He turned to me, a queer light flicking through his dark, handsome eyes, and then he nodded.

  A line had been drawn …

  A line of faith and a line of doubt… of the three, I had chosen Smoke Bassett, had put in him my trust, for when a man is on the bottom, his life lies in the hands of the man who tends his lines. A mistaken signal, or a signal ignored, and the diver can die.

  I had given my life to Smoke Bassett, and who could know what that would mean?

  Johnson was taking soundings, for in these waters, chart figures were not to be trusted. Many of the shores have been but imperfectly surveyed, if at all, and there is constant change to be expected from volcanic action, the growth of coral, or the waves themselves.

  When we anchored outside the reef, I got into the diving dress. Limey lent me a hand, saying to me, “Nine or ten fathoms along the reef, but she drops sharp off to fifty fathoms not far out.”

  Careful… we’d have to be careful, for the enemies of a diver are rarely the shark or the octopus, but rather the deadline and constant danger of a squeeze or a blowup. The air within the suit is adjusted to the depth of the water and its pressure, but a sudden fall into deeper water can crush a man, jamming his entire body into his copper helmet. Such sudden pressure is called a squeeze.

  A blowup is usually caused by a jammed valve,-blowing a man’s suit to almost balloon size and propelling him suddenly to the surface where he lies helpless until rescued. While death only occasionally results from a blowup, a diver may be crippled for life by the dreaded “bends,” caused by the sudden change in pressure, and the resulting formation of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream.

  When the helmet was screwed on, Limey clapped me on the top and I swung a leg over to the rope ladder. Smoke Bassett worked the pump with one arm while he played out the hose and rope. Up down. Chug-chug. A two-stroke motion like a railroad hand car. It didn’t take much energy but each stroke was a pulse of oxygen … like a breath, or the beating of your heart. The big mulatto grinned at me as he worked the handle.

  Clumsy, in the heavy shoes and weighted belt, I climbed down and felt the cool press of water rise around me. Up my body … past my faceplate.

  It was a slow, easy descent… down … down … and on the bottom at sixty feet.

  In the dark water, down where the slow weeds wave in the un stirring sea … no sound but the chug-chug-chug of the pump, the pump that brings the living air … down in a green, gray, strange world … cowrie shells … a big conch … the amazing wall of the reef, jagged, broken, all edges and spires … a stone fish, all points and poison.

  Leaning forward against the weight of the water, I moved like some ungainly monster of the deep, slowly along the bottom. Slowly … through the weeds, upon an open sand field beneath the sea … slowly, I walked on.

  A dark shadow above me and I turned slowly … a shark … unbelievably huge … and seemingly uninterested … but could you tell? Could one ever know?

  Smell … I’d heard old divers say that sharks acted upon smell … and the canvas and rubber and copper gave off no smell, but a cut, a drop of blood in the water, and the sharks would attack.

  Chug-chug-chug … I walked on, turning slowly from time to time to look around me. And the shark moved above me, huge, black, ominous … dark holes in the reef where might lurk … anything. And then I saw … something.

  A blackness, a vast deep, opening off to my right, away from the reef. I looked toward it, and drew back. Fifty fathoms at some places, but then deeper, much deeper. Fifty fathoms … three hundred feet.

  A signal … time for me to go up. Turning, I walked slowly back, and looking for the shark, but he had gone. I had failed to hold his interest … and I could only hope that nothing in my personality would induce him to return.

  When the helmet was off, I told them. “Probably the other way. But when you go down, Limey, keep an eye open for that shark. I don’t trust the beggar.”

  On the third day, we found the hulk of the freighter. At the time, I was below, half asleep in my bunk. Bassett was in the galley cooking, and only Long Jack was on deck, handling the lines for Limey. Dozing, I heard him bump against the vessel’s side and I listened, but there was nothing more, only a sort of scraping, a sound I could not place, as if something were being dragged along the hull.

  When I heard the weighted boots on the deck, I rolled over and sat up, kicking my feet into my slippers. Johnson was seated on the rail and his helmet was off and Long Jack was talking to him. When they heard my feet on the deck, they turned. “Found it!” Limey was grinning his broken-toothed smile. “She’s hanging right on the lip of the deep. She’s settin’ up fairly straight. You shouldn’t have much trouble getting’ the box.”

  There was a full moon that night, wide and white; a moon that came up over the jungle, and standing by the rail, I looked out over the lagoon and watched the phosphorescent combers roll up and crash against the outer reef. When I had been standing there a long time, Smoke Bassett walked over.

  “Where’s
Limey?”

  “Fishin’,” he said, “with a light.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “we’ll pick it up.”

  “Anson Road would look mighty good now. Anson Road, in Singapore … an’ High Street. You know that, Scholar?”

  “It’ll look better with money in your pocket.”

  “Look good to me just anyway.” Smoke rolled a cigarette. “Money ain’t so important.”

  We watched the moon and listened to the breakers on the reef. “You be careful down there,” Smoke Bassett told me suddenly. “Mighty careful.” He struck a match and lit his cigarette, as he always did, one-handed.

  Lazily, I listened to the sea talking to the reef and then listened to the surf and to the jungle beyond the line of mangroves. A bird shrieked, an unhappy, uncanny sound.

  “Them two got they heads together,” Smoke Bassett said. “You be careful.”

  Long Jack … a queer, silent man around whom one never felt quite comfortable. A taciturn man with a wiry strength that could be dangerous. Only once had we had words and that had been back in Macao when we first met. He had been arrogant, as if he felt he could push me around. “Don’t start that with me,” I told him.

  His eyes were snaky, cold, there were strange little lights in them, and contempt. He just looked at me. I didn’t want trouble so I told him, “You could make an awful fool of yourself, Jack,” I said.

  He got up. “Right now,” he said, and stood there looking at me, and I know he expected me to take water.

  So, I got up, for this was an old story, and I knew by the way he stood that he knew little about fist fighting and then a fat man, sitting in a dirty singlet and a blue dungaree coat, said, “You are a fool. I seen the kid fight in Shanghai, in the ring. He’ll kill you.”

  Long Jack from Sydney hesitated and it was plain he no . longer wanted to fight. He still stood there, but I’d seen the signs before and knew the moment was past. He’d had me pegged for a kid who either couldn’t or wouldn’t go through.

  That was all, but Long Jack had not forgotten, I was sure of that. There had been no further word, nor had we talked much on the trip down the China Sea except what was necessary. But it had been pleasant enough.

  The next morning when I got into the suit, Limey came up to put on the copper helmet. There was a look in his eyes I didn’t like. “When you get it out of the desk,” he said, “just tie her on the line and give us a signal.”

  But there was something about the way he said it that was wrong. As I started into the water, he leaned over suddenly and stroked his hand down my side. I thought he wanted something and turned my faceplate toward him, but he just stood there so I started down into the water.

  When I was on the deck of the freighter, I started along toward the superstructure and then saw something floating by my face. I stepped back to look and saw it was a gutted fish. An instant, I stood there staring, and then a dark shadow swung above me and I turned, stumbled, and fell just as the same huge shark of a few days before whipped by, jaws agape.

  On my feet, I stumbled toward the companionway, and half fell through the opening just as the shark twisted around and came back for another try.

  And then I knew why Limey Johnson had been fishing, and what he had rubbed on my arm as I went into the water. He had rubbed the blood and guts of the fish on my suit and then had dumped it into the water after me to attract the shark.

  Sheltered by the companionway, I rubbed a hand at my sleeve as far around as I could reach, trying to rub off some of the blood.

  Forcing myself to composure, I waited, thinking out the situation.

  Within the cabin to the right, I had already noticed the door of the desk compartment that held the cash box stood open to the water. That meant the money was already on our boat; it meant that the bumping I’d heard along the side had been the box as it was hoisted aboard.

  And letting me go down again, rubbing the blood and corruption on my sleeve had been a deliberate attempt at murder.

  Chug-chug-chug … monotonously, reassuringly, the steady sound of the pump reached me. Smoke was still on the job, and I was still safe, yet how long could I remain so under the circumstances?

  If they had attempted to kill me they would certainly attempt to kill Smoke, and he could not properly defend himself, even strong as he was, while he had to keep at least one hand on the pump. Outside, the shark circled, just beyond the door frame.

  Working my way back into the passage, I fumbled in the cabin, looking for some sort of weapon. There was a fire ax on the bulkhead outside, but it was much too a clumsy for use against so agile a foe, even if I could strike hard enough underwater. There was nothing … suddenly I saw on the wall, crossed with an African spear of some sort, a whaler’s harpoon!

  Getting it down, I started back for the door, carefully freeing my lines from any obstructions. Chug… chug… chug…

  The pump slowed, almost stopped, then picked up slowly again, and then something floated in the water, falling slowly, turning over as I watched, something that looked like an autumn leaf, drifting slowly down, only much larger.

  Something with mouth agape, eyes wide, blood trailing a darkening streamer in the green water … it was Long Jack, who had seen the last of Sydney … Long Jack, floating slowly down, his belly slashed and an arm cut across the biceps by a razor-edged knife.

  An instant I saw him, and then there was a gigantic swirl in the water, the shark turning, doubling back over, and hurling himself at the body with unbelievable ferocity. It was my only chance; I stepped out of the door and signaled to go up.

  There was no response, only the chug-chug-chug of the pump. Closing my valve only a little, I started to rise, but desperately as I tried, I could not turn myself to watch the shark. Expecting at any moment that he would see me and attack, I drifted slowly up.

  Suddenly the ladder hung just above me although the hull was still a dark shadow. I caught the lower step and pulled myself slowly up until I could get my clumsy feet on the step. Climbing carefully, waiting from moment to moment, I got to the surface and climbed out.

  Hands fumbled at the helmet. I heard the wrench, and then the helmet was lifted off.

  Smoke Bassett had a nasty wound over the eye where he had been struck by something, and where blood stained his face it had been wiped and smeared. Limey Johnson was standing a dozen feet away, only now he was drawing back, away from us.

  He looked at the harpoon in my hands and I saw him wet his lips, but I said nothing at all. Bassett was helping me out of the helmet, and I dared not take my eyes from Johnson.

  His face was working strangely, a grotesque mask of yellowish-white wherein the eyes seemed unbelievably large. He reached back and took up a long boat hook. There was a driftwood club at my feet, and this must have been what had struck Bassett. They must have rushed him at first, or Long Jack had tried to get close, and had come too close.

  When I dropped the weight belt and kicked off the boots, Smoke was scarcely able to stand. And I could see the blow that had hit him had almost wrecked the side of his face and skull. “You all right? You all right, Scholar?” His voice was slurred.

  “I’m all right. Take it easy. I’ll handle it now.” Limey Johnson faced me with his new weapon, and slowly his courage was returning. Smoke Bassett he had. feared, and Smoke was nearly helpless. It was Limey and me now; one of us was almost through.

  Overhead the sun was blazing … the fetid smell of the mangroves and the swamp was wafted to the ketch from over the calm beauty of the lagoon. The sea was down, and the surf rustled along the reef, chuckling and sucking in the holes and murmuring in the deep caverns.

  Sweat trickled into my eyes and I stood there, facing Limey Johnson across that narrow deck. Short, heavy, powerful … a man who had sent me down to the foulest kind of death, a man who must kill now if he would live.

  I reached behind me to the rail and took up the harpoon. It was razor sharp.

  His hook was longer … he outre
ached me by several feet. I had to get close … close.

  In my bare feet, I moved out away from Smoke, and Limey began to move warily, watching for his chance, that ugly hook poised to tear at me. To throw the harpoon was to risk my only weapon, and risk it in his hands, for I could not be sure of my accuracy. I had to keep it, and thrust. I had to get close. The diving dress was some protection but it was clumsy and I would be slow.

  There was no sound … the hot sun, the blue sky, the heavy green of the mangroves, the sucking of water among the holes of the coral … the slight sound of our breathing and the rustle and slap of our feet on the deck.

  He struck with incredible swiftness. The boat hook darted and jerked back. The hook was behind my neck, and only the nearness of the pole and my boxer’s training saved me. I jerked my head aside and felt the thin sharpness of the point as it whipped past my neck, but before I could spring close enough to thrust, he stepped back and bracing himself, he thrust at me. The curve of the hook hit my shoulder and pushed me off balance. I fell back against the bulwark, caught myself, and he lunged to get closer. Three times he whipped the hook and jerked at me. Once I almost caught the pole, but he was too quick.

  I tried to maneuver … then realized I had to get outside of the hook’s curve … to move to my left, then try for a thrust either over or under the pole. In the narrow space between the low deck house and the rail there was little room to maneuver.

  I moved left, the hook started to turn, and I lunged suddenly and stabbed. The point just caught him … the side of his singlet above the belt started to redden. His face looked drawn, I moved again, parried a lunge with the hook, and thrust again, too short. But I knew how to fight him now … and he knew too.

  He tried, and I parried again, then thrust. The harpoon point just touched him again, and it drew blood. He stepped back, then crossed the deck and thrust at me under the yard, his longer reach had more advantage now, with the deck house between us, and he was working his way back toward the stern. It was an instant before I saw what he was trying to do. He was getting in position . to kill Bassett, unconscious against the bulwark beside the pump.