Читать книгу The Land God Made in Anger - John Davis Gordon - Страница 25

It felt better having the Kid swimming beside him, but not a hell of a lot better.

They followed the float-line down. Down they swam, down into the gloom – ten feet, fifteen – then the nets came into view, wafting up to meet them, and then the long shape of the submarine, fading away, and McQuade felt his stomach contract again. He stopped, and hovered. He could not yet see the conning tower; the float’s line curved away into the gloom towards it. The Kid hovered beside him, wide-eyed, his bubbles streaming up. McQuade peered downwards, desperate to get this over; then he kicked down between the waving nets.

He swam in front, Tucker’s home-made spear in one hand, his satchel of tools hanging from his chest, the nets looming up on both sides of them. He swam down between their treacherous tentacles, his heart knocking above the unreal roaring of his breathing, until the conning tower loomed. And with all his fearful heart he did not want to go near the dreadful place again and he swam straight at it fiercely, and grabbed the rim, and peered over the top.

There was no octopus. McQuade pulled himself over, spear first, and surged down to the hatch.

There was a ghostly yellow glow in the conning tower, coming from the torch he had dropped. The Kid surged alongside him, peering down wide-eyed. McQuade thrust his new torch into the hatch and shakily shone it around. Then, before he lost his nerve, he grabbed the ladder and pulled.

He burst down again into the conning tower. The Kid came surging after him in a flurry of bubbles, clung to the ladder and peered around. McQuade looked fearfully at the lower hatch: then he gripped his spear like a long dagger, surged at the hatch and stabbed down it.

He jabbed the spear down into the black hole, banging the blade against the metal sides for half a minute, then he hung back from the hatch fearfully, waiting for another awful mansize octopus to come flying out. They waited, hearts hammering, bubbles roaring, before McQuade shone his torch into the terrible opening.

The black water was cloudy with bits of barnacle and weed his spear had knocked off, but he could see to the bottom. And what he could see, at the end of the escape tube, was a seaman’s boot.

It was only the sole that was visible. McQuade stared at it, and he felt sick in his guts. That boot symbolized the whole horror of the charnel house that was waiting for him down there. What was inside that boot? The bones of a seaman’s foot? Would there still be rotting flesh attached to it? Toenails? A rotten, flesh-sodden sock? And ankle bones, shin bones, a whole human leg? A whole human skeleton, still in its rotting German naval uniform that would crunch apart into dreadful soupiness the moment he disturbed it? God, how many other boots and skeletons lay awaiting him down there in that dreadful hell-hole? The Kid looked back at him wide-eyed. McQuade took a deep breath, and before he lost his nerve, he pushed his head into the dreadful hatch, and kicked.

They had discussed this manoeuvre. McQuade shoved his shoulders down into the hole, and the Kid grabbed him and supported him in a vertical position. McQuade frantically jostled his shoulders and kicked again, the Kid shoved him downwards, and McQuade’s hips entered the hole, and he jammed to a stop.

All he knew was the terrifying descent, then the sudden grating of his airtank against the barnacled sides, and he was stuck. Stuck upside-down in this terrible place, both arms ahead of him helpless, his bubbles roaring in his ears and the blood pounding in his face and that boot just four feet in front of his wild eyes. All he wanted to do was thrash and go plunging backwards up this terrifying tube, and he kicked his feet frantically, and wrestled his shoulders and beat his hands to shove himself up backwards, but up there in the conning tower the Kid shoved him down harder. And McQuade screamed, and he sucked in bitter black water around his regulator and shook his head frantically and he wrestled his shoulders furiously and beat his gloved fists upon the barnacles. All he knew was that he was going to die in this horrible hell-hole with the blood pounding in his head, die die die in this terrible place, and the Kid gave him another shove downwards. McQuade thrashed his legs, bashing his knees, twisting his hips and beating his hands, desperately trying to tell the Kid to pull him out, until up there the Kid got the message from his frantic movements, and McQuade felt his hand grab his belt, and heave.

The Kid crouched over the hatch and heaved again, and McQuade felt himself unwedge. He came grating backwards up the tube, scraping and grinding through the clouds of dislodged barnacles and weed. He came surging out backwards into the conning tower, gasping, reeling.

He lurched away from that terrible hatch and grabbed the ladder and clung, head down, bubbles roaring, gasping, his whole body shuddering. The Kid held onto the ladder, staring. McQuade clung there half a minute, getting the blood out of his pounding face and the pounding out of his heart, then he shook his head furiously and held up his finger in warning. Then he pulled off his fins and shoved himself back at the dreadful hatch. He swung his feet into the black hole. He glared at the Kid to be ready to help him, then he shoved himself into the tube, feet-first.

Down he went, his airtank bumping and scraping. He shoved himself downwards, and his head disappeared into the tube, and then he ground to a stop again. With all his heart he just wanted to kick himself upwards and get out of this horrifying place but he twisted his shoulders, felt the barnacles crumble against his tank, and he clenched his teeth and shoved downwards again; and his feet hit the deck below.

He came to a sudden stop and felt the German seaman’s boot squelch under his foot in the blackness. His body was still inside the tube, but he was standing in the black water of the control room. He wanted to kick and claw upwards out of this hell-hole: and he fiercely screwed up his eyes and bent his knees and tried to shove himself downwards and backwards, out from under the end of the tube. He felt his hips clear the end, and then his airtank again jammed against the barnacles.

For a horrible moment he hung there, his back arched, his legs protruding into the blackness of the submarine’s control room, the rest of him curved upwards; then he shoved again frantically, and he felt his airtank wedge tight. Panic screamed up him and he wrestled his shoulders frantically, but his tank was locked solid. He gargled in horror and grappled his hands up the barnacled tube and shoved with all his frantic might, and he felt himself grate free. He kicked his feet against the steel deck below, and went clawing up the tube like a spider. His head burst back into the conning tower. He came scrambling out of the escape-tube in a mass of bubbles and grabbed the ladder and clung.

He clutched, fighting to get the panic under control, then looked at the Kid and shook his head. The Kid pointed at McQuade’s hips and chest. His new wetsuit was ripped, gaping on hips, chest and both arms, slashed by the barnacles, and seeping out of the gashes were thin tendrils of blood. McQuade stared at his torn wetsuit, then jabbed his finger upwards. He snatched up his fins and wrestled them onto his feet, then he pulled on the rung and he surged up the ladder. He bumped through the hatch and burst up onto the bridge. The Kid came through the hatch after him in a flurry of bubbles. They both kicked off, towards the surface.

They rose slowly, keeping pace with their own bubbles, rising between the waving nets midst the gloom and darting fish: then there was the surface, like a contorting mirror, and they burst through it simultaneously. McQuade twisted, looking wildly for the dinghy, then he struck out for it. He hurled himself onto the gunnel and kicked and threw up his leg, and rolled over into it.

The Kid sloshed more brandy into the glasses: ‘Indulge in some more of this.’ McQuade sat slumped on the bench in his underpants, his hair matted, his shredded wetsuit on the deck, while Elsie dabbed disinfectant on his cuts. ‘You poor thing,’ Elsie tutted, ‘you poor thing.’ McQuade took a big gulp of brandy and shuddered. ‘You nearly killed me, Kid.’

‘Sorry about that,’ the Kid said.

‘Ruined,’ Tucker said, morbidly examining the wetsuit. ‘Ruined, can’t patch this. Brand new,’ he added.

‘I can still taste that deadly black water.’ McQuade shuddered.

‘Brand new,’ Tucker repeated sorrowfully.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Elsie snapped.

‘What I mean is—’

‘We know what you mean!’

‘We’ll just take it out of Rosie’s housekeeping,’ the Kid joshed.

‘Oh please be serious!’

‘Serious?!’ the Kid cried. ‘Serious, the man says! Here we’ve found the bloody submarine while you sat in your nice warm dinghy! We’ve almost cracked it and we’re all about to be millionaires and all you do is grizzle about a torn wetsuit!’

Tucker shouted, ‘It’s not just the wetsuit! I’m saying we don’t know what we’re doing – that’s why the wetsuit’s ruined! Because you should have cleared those barnacles off first—’

‘Right! So next time you go down and clear the barnacles!’

‘You nearly killed yourselves down there!’ Tucker shouted. ‘Because we don’t know what we’re doing! We’re rushing in where angels fear to tread!’ He pointed angrily at McQuade. ‘You could have got stuck in that tube and never got out alive! The barnacles might have cut your air-hose!’

McQuade held up a palm, eyes closed. ‘Of course we’ve got to clear the barnacles next time. But we’ve found out that we can’t get down that tube with airtanks on, barnacles or no barnacles, because when you get to the bottom and try to bend at the waist—’

‘So how’re you going to get in,’ Tucker demanded belligerently ‘– by osmosis?’

McQuade was surprised that Tucker knew a big word like osmosis. ‘The best way is to go down the escape tube without an airtank on. But with the regulator in your mouth. The airtank harness is lowered down after you, on a rope. Maybe it’ll even float. Then when you get to the bottom, and you’re safely out of the tube, you pull the harness out after you and put it on.’

They were all looking at him. Then the Kid said, ‘Of course. Why didn’t we think of that?’

Tucker stared, then jabbed his finger, ‘Because we didn’t think first! Because,’ he waved his hand, ‘we rushed in like a bull at a gate! And so you nearly killed yourself, and ruined a brand-new wetsuit!’

‘Oh, fuck the wetsuit!’ Elsie shouted. ‘Look at this man’s wounds!’

‘So the trip’s been a success!’ the Kid cried. ‘We’ve found out how to think! All for the price of one wetsuit!’

There was a silence. Then: ‘Now, now, boys,’ Elsie murmured.

‘And the rest,’ Tucker glowered. ‘You nearly lost your lives as well. What happens when you get inside? We don’t know a thing about the layout of submarines. What about water-tight doors? How do you open them? What tools do you need to take with you? What lights?’

‘So what are you suggesting? That we give up?’

McQuade jerked as Elsie dabbed iodine on a new wound. ‘There, there,’ Elsie crooned. ‘There, there …’

Tucker glowered at them sullenly. ‘I don’t know, but I do know that we’re a fishing company and we can’t afford to waste money trying things we know nothing about.’

McQuade banged his hand on the table angrily. ‘You’re absolutely right! We’ve got to find out about this type of submarine. All about it. And that means I’ve got to go to the submarine museum in Germany.’

They were all staring at him. Potgieter blinked. Tucker looked aghast.

‘To Germany?’ he whispered. ‘How can we afford that?’

‘For God’s sake, did you nearly kill yourself down there today? No – I did! There’s no way I’m going to try again until I know what I’m doing! And that means seeing a submarine, going over it! Studying it, looking for places where loot could be hidden so we know where to look!’

‘But the expense,’ Tucker whined.

McQuade pointed at the sea angrily. ‘There’s a fortune lying just down there—’

‘We don’t know that. There may be nothing inside.’

‘Then all the more reason to find out more about it! I’ll be able to trace that submarine through the German archives!’

‘But we can’t afford to send you to Germany—’

McQuade banged the table again. ‘Then I’ll go at my own expense! While you go back to sea and catch fish!’