Firmly I took Dancer across to the safe anchorage in the lagoon across the channel, and by the time the sun went down below a blazing horizon I had Dancer riding peacefully on two heavy anchors, and I was sitting up on the bridge enjoying the last of the day and the first Scotch of the evening. In the saloon below me there was the interminable murmur of discussion and speculation. I ignored it, not even bothering to use the ventilator, until the first mosquitoes found their way across the lagoon and began whining around my ears. I went below and the conversation dried up at my entry.

I thickened the juice and served my clam ca.s.serole with baked yams and pineapple salad and they ate in dedicated silence.

"My G.o.d, that is even better than my sister's cooking," Jimmy gasped finally. I grinned at him. I am rather vain about my culinary skills and young James was clearly a gourmet.

I woke after midnight and went up on deck to check Dancer's moorings. She was all secure and I paused to enjoy the moonlight.

A great stillness lay upon the night, disturbed only by the soft chuckle of the tide against Dancer's side - and far off the boom of the surf on the outer reef. It was coming in big and tall from the open ocean, and breaking in thunder and white upon the coral of Gunfire Reef The name was well chosen, and the deep belly-shaking thump of it sounded exactly like the regular salute of a minute gun.

The moonlight washed the channel with shimmering silver and highlighted the bald domes of the peaks of the Old Men so they shone like ivory. Below them the night mists rising from the lagoon writhed and twisted like tormented souls.

Suddenly I caught the whisper of movement behind me and I whirled to face it. Guthrie had followed me as silently as a hunting leopard. He wore only a pair of jockey shorts and his body was white and muscled and lean in the moonlight. He carried the big black .45, dangling at arm's length by his right thigh. We stared at each other for a moment before I relaxed.

"You know, luv, you've just got to give up now. You really aren't my type at all," I told him, but there was adrenalin in my blood and my voice rasped.

"When the time comes to rim you, Fletcher, I'll be using this,"he said, and lifted the automatic, "all the way up, boy," and he grinned.

We ate breakfast before sun-up and I took my mug of coffee to the bridge to drink as we ran up the channel towards the open sea. Materson was below, and Guthrie lolled in the fighting chair. Jimmy stood beside me and explained his requirements for this day.

He was tense with excitement, seeming to quiver with it like a young gundog with the first scent of the bird in his nostrils.

"I want to get some shots off the peaks of the Old Men," he explained. "I want to use your hand-bearing compa.s.s, and I'll call you in."

"Give me your bearings, Jim, and I'll plot it and put you on the spot," I suggested.

"Let's do it my way, skipper," he replied awkwardly, and I could not prevent a flare of irritation in my reply.

"All right, then, eagle scout." He flushed and went to the port rail to sight the peaks through the lens of the compa.s.s. It was ten minutes or so before he spoke again.

"Can we turn about two points to port now, skipper?"

"Sure we can," I grinned at him, "but, of course, that would pile us on to the end of Gunfire Reef - and we'd tear her belly out."

it took another two hours of groping about through the maze of reefs before I had worked Dancer out through the channel into the open sea and circled back to approach Gunfire Reef from the east.

it was like the child's game of hunt the thimble; Jimmy called "hotter" and "colder" without supplying me with the two references that would enable me to place Dancer on the precise spot he was seeking.

Out here the swells marched in majestic procession towards the land, growing taller and more powerful as they felt the shelving bottom. Dancer rolled and swung to them as we edged in towards the outer reef.

Where the swells met the barrier of coral their dignity turned to sudden fury, and they boiled up and burst in leviathan spouts of spray, pouring wildly over the coral with the explosive shock of impact. "Then they sucked back, exposing the evil black fangs, white water cascading and creaming from the barrier, while the next swell moved UP, humping its great slick back for the next a.s.sault.

Jimmy was directing me steadily southwards in a gradual converging course with the reef, and I could tell we were very close to his marks. Through the compa.s.s he squinted eagerly, first at one and then the other peak of the Old Men.

"Steady as you go, skipper," he called. "Just ease her down on that heading."

I looked ahead, tearing my eyes away from the menacing coral for a few seconds, and I watched the next swell charge in and break - except at a narrow point five hundred yards ahead. Here the swell kept its shape and ran on uninterrupted towards the land. On each side, the swell broke on coral, but just at that one point it was open.

Suddenly I remembered Chubby's boast.

"I was just nineteen when I pulled my first jewfish out of the hole at Gunfire Break. Weren't no other would fish with me - don't say as I blame them. Wouldn't go into the Break again - got a little more brains now."

Gunfire Break, suddenly I knew that was where we were heading. I tried to remember exactly what Chubby had told me about it.

"If you come in from the sea about two hours before high water, steer for the oentre of the gap until you come up level with a big old head of brain coral on your starboard side, you'll know it when you see it, pa.s.s it close as you can and then come round hard to starboard and you'll be sitting in a big hole tucked in neatly behind the main reef. Closer you are on the back of the reef the better, man-" I remembered it clearly then, Chubby in his talkative phase in the public bar of the Lord Nelson, boastful as one of the very few men who had been through the Gunfire Break. No anchor going to hold you there, you got to lean on the oars to hold station in the gap - the hole at Gunfire Break is deep, man, deep, but the jewfish in there are big, man, big. One day I took four fish, and the smallest was three hundred pounds. Could have took more - but time was up. You can't stay in Gunfire Break more than an hour after high water - she sucks out through the Break like they pulled the chain on the whole d.a.m.ned sea. You come out the same way you went in, only you pray just a little harder on the way out --,"cos you got a ton of fish on board, and ten feet less water under your keel. There is another way out through a channel in the back of the reef But I don't even like to talk about that one. Only tried it once."

Now we were bearing down directly on the Break, Jimmy was going to run us right into the eye of it.

"Okay, Jim," I called. "That's as far as we go." I opened the throttle and sheered off, making a good offing before turning back to face Jimmy's wrath.

"We were almost there, d.a.m.n you," he bl.u.s.tered. "We could have gone in a little closer."

"You having trouble up there, boy?" Guthrie shouted up from the c.o.c.kpit.

"No, it's all right," Jimmy called back, and then turned furiously to me. "You are under contract, Mr. Fletcher!

"I want to show you something, James, and I took him to the chart table. The Break was marked on the admiralty chart by a single laconic sounding of thirty fathoms, there was no name or sailing instruction for it. Quickly I pencilled in the bearings of the two extreme peaks of the Old Men from the break, and then used the protractor to measure the angle they subtended.

"That right?" I asked him, and he stared at my figures.

"It's right, isn't it?" I insisted and then reluctantly he nodded.. "

"Yes, that's the spot," he agreed, and I went on to tell him about Gunfire Break in every detail.

"But we have to get in there," he said at the end of my speech, as though he had not heard a word of it.

"No way," I told him. "The only place I'm interested in now is Grand Harbour, St. Mary's Island," and I laid Dancer on that course. As far as I was concerned the charter was over.

Jimmy disappeared down the ladder, and returned within minutes with reinforcements - Materson and Guthrie, both of them looking angry and outraged.

"Say the word, and I'll tear the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's arm off and beat him to death with the wet end," Mike Guthrie said with relish.

"The kid says you pulling out?" Materson wanted to know. "Now that's not right - is it?" I explained once more about the hazards of Gunfire Break and they sobered immediately.

"Take me close as you can - I'll swim in the rest of the way," Jimmy asked me, but I replied directly to Materson. "You'd lose him, for certain sure. Do you want to risk that?"

He didn't answer, but I could see that Jimmy was much too valuable for them to take the chance.

"Let me try," Jimmy insisted, but Materson shook his head irritably.

"If we can't get into the Break, at least let me take a run along the reef with the sledge," Jimmy went on, and I knew then what we were carrying under the canvas wrapping on the foredeck.

"Just a couple of pa.s.ses" along the front edge of the reef, past the entrance to the break." He was pleading now, and Materson looked questioningly at me. You don't often have opportunities like this offered you on a silver tray. I knew I could run Dancer within spitting distance of the coral without risk, but I frowned worriedly.

"I'd be taking a h.e.l.l of a chance - but if we could agree on a bit of old danger money" I had Materson over the arm of the chair and I caned him for an extra day's hire - five hundred dollars, payable in advance.

While we did the business, Guthrie helped Jimmy unwrap the sledge and carry it back to the c.o.c.kpit.

I tucked the sheath of bank notes away and went back to rig the tow lines. The sledge was a beautifully constructed toboggan of stainless steel and plastic. In place of snow runners, it had stubby fin controls, rudder and hydrofoils, operated by a short joystick below the Perspex pilot's shield.

There was a ring bolt in the nose to take the tow line by which I would drag the sledge in Dancer's wake. Jimmy would lie on his belly behind the transparent shield, breathing compressed air from the twin tanks that were built into the cha.s.sis of the sledge. On the dashboard were depth and pressure gauges, directional compa.s.s and time elapse clock. With the joystick Jimmy could control the depth of the sledge's dive, and yaw left or right across Dancer's stern.

"Lovely piece of work," I remarked, and he flushed with pleasure.

"Thanks, skipper, built it myself." He was pulling on the wet suit of thick black Neoprene rubber and while his head was in the clinging hood I stooped and examined the maker's plate that was riveted to the sledge's cha.s.sis, memorizing the legend.

Built by North's Underwater World.

5, Pavilion Arcade. BRIGHTON. SUSs.e.x.

I straightened up as his face appeared in the opening of the hood.

"Five knots is a good tow speed, skipper. If you keep a hundred yards off the reef, I'll be able to deflect outwards and follow the contour of the coral."

"Fine, Jim."

"If I put up a yellow marker, ignore it, it's only a find, and we will go back to it later - but if I send up a red, it's trouble, try and get me off the reef and haul me in." I nodded. "You have three hours," I warned him. "Then she will begin the ebb up through the break and we'll have to haul off."

"That should be long enough," he agreed.

Guthrie and I lifted the sledge over the side, and it wallowed low in the water. Jimmy clambered down to it and settled himself behind the screen, testing the controls, adjusting his face-plate and cramming the mouthpiece of the breathing device into his mouth. He breathed noisily and then gave me the thumbs up.

I climbed quickly to the bridge and opened the throttles. Dancer picked up speed and Guthrie paid out the thick nylon rope over the stern as the sledge fell away behind us. One hundred and fifty yards of rope went over, before the sledge jerked up and began to tow.

Jimmy waved, and I pushed Dancer up to a steady five knots. I circled wide, then edged in towards the reef, taking the big swells on Dancer's beam so she rolled appallingly.

Again Jimmy waved, and I saw him push the control column of the sledge forwards. There was a turmoil of white water along her control fins and then suddenly she put her nose down and ducked below the surface. The angle of the nylon rope altered rapidly as the sledge went down, and then swung away towards the reef.

The strain on the rope made it quiver like an arrow as it strikes, and the water squirted from the fibres.

Slowly we ran parallel to the reef, closing the break. I watched the coral respectfully, taking no chances, and I imagined Jimmy far below the surface flying silently along the bottom, cutting in to skim the tall wall of underwater coral. It must have been an exhilarating sensation, and I envied him, deciding to hitch a ride on the sledge when I got the opportunity.

We came opposite the Break, pa.s.sed it and just then I heard Guthrie shout. I glanced quickly over the stern and saw the big yellow balloon bobbing in our wake.

"He found something," Guthrie shouted.

Jimmy had dropped a light leaded line, and a sparkler bulb had automatically inflated the yellow balloon with carbon dioxide gas to mark the spot.

I kept going steadily along the reef, and a quarter of a mile farther the angle of the tow line flattened and the sledge popped to the surface in a welter of water.

I swung away from the reef to a safe distance, and then went down to help Guthrie recover the sledge. Jimmy clambered into the c.o.c.kpit, and when he pulled off his face-plate his lips were trembling and his grey eyes blazed. He took Materson's arm and dragged him into the cabin, splashing sea water all over Chubby's beloved deck..

Guthrie and I coiled the rope then lifted the sledge into the c.o.c.kpit. I went back to the bridge, and took Dancer on a slow return to the entrance of Gunfire Break.

Materson and Jimmy came up on to the bridge before we reached it.

Materson was affected by Jimmy's excitement. "The kid wants to try for a pick up." I knew better than to ask what it was.

"What size?" I asked instead, and glanced at my wrist.w.a.tch. We had an hour and a half before the rip tide began to run out through the break.

Not very big-" Jimmy a.s.sured me. "Fifty pounds maximum."

"You sure, James? Not bigger?" I didn't trust his enthusiasm not to minimize the effort involved.

"I swear it."

"You want to put an airbag on it?"

"Yes, I'll lift it with an airbag and then tow it away from the reef."

I reversed Dancer in gingerly towards the yellow balloon that played lightly in the angry coral jaws of the Break. "That's as close as I'll go," I shouted down into the c.o.c.kpit, and Jimmy acknowledged with a wave.

He waddled duck-footed to the stern and adjusted his equipment. He had taken two airbags as well as the canvas cover from the sledge, and was roped up to the coil of nylon rope.

I saw him take a bearing on the yellow marker with the compa.s.s on his wrist, then once again he glanced up at me on the bridge before he flipped backwards over the stern and disappeared.

His regular breathing burst in a white rash below the stern, then began to move off towards the reef Guthrie paid out the bodyline after him.

I kept Dancer on station by using bursts of forward and reverse, holding her a hundred yards from the southern tip of the Break.

Slowly Jimmy's bubbles approached the yellow marker, and then broke steadily beside it. He was working below it, and I imagined him fixing the empty airbags to the object with the nylon slings. It would be hard work with the suck and drag of the current worrying the bulky bags. Once he had fitted the slings he could begin to fill the bags with compressed air from his scuba bottles.

If Jimmy's estimate of size was correct it would need very little inflation to pull the mysterious object off the bottom, and once it dangled free we could tow it into a safer area before bringing it aboard.

For forty minutes I held Dancer steady, then quite suddenly two swollen green shiny mounds broke the surface astern. The airbags were up - Jimmy had lifted his prize.

Immediately his hooded head surfaced beside the filled bags, and he held his right arm straight up. The signal to begin the tow.

"Ready?" I shouted at Guthrie in the c.o.c.kpit.

"Ready!" He had secured the line, and I crept away from the reef, slowly and carefully to avoid up-ending the bags and spilling out the air that gave them lift.

Five hundred yards off the reef, I kicked Dancer into neutral and went to help haul in the swimmer and his fat green airbags.

"Stay where you are," Materson snarled at me as I approached the ladder and I shrugged and went back to the wheel.

"The h.e.l.l with them all, I thought, and lit a cheroot but I couldn't prevent the tickle of excitement as they worked the bags alongside, and then walked them forward to the bows.

They helped Jimmy aboard, and he shrugged off the heavy compressed air bottles, dropping them to the deck while he pushed his face-plate on to his forehead.

His voice, ragged and high-pitched, carried clearly to me as I leaned on the bridge rail.

"Jackpod" he cried. "It's the-' "Watch id" Materson. cautioned him, and James cut himself off and they all looked at me, lifting their faces to the bridge.

"Don't mind me, boys," I grinned and waved the cheroot cheerily.

They turned away and huddled. Jimmy whispered, and Guthrie said, "Jesus Christ!" loudly and slapped Materson's back, and then they were all exclaiming and laughing as they crowded to the rail and began to lift the airbags and their burden aboard. They were clumsy with it, Dancer was rolling heavily, and I leaned forward with curiosity eating a hole in my belly.

My disappointment and chagrin were intense when I realized that Jimmy had taken the precaution of wrapping his prize in the canvas sledge cover. It came aboard as a sodden, untidy bundle of canvas, swathed in coils of nylon rope.