No Quarter
WHEN Hawk came to, he stared up at the kneeling Gregory and tried to raise himself up on an elbow. He sank back with a twisted grin. “I guess they nailed me all right,” he said.
“Yes,” replied the captain. “They nailed you—and got the charts.”
Hawk shot a tense hand under his shirt, to bring it forth empty. “Good lord! Did they get away?” He managed, this time, to sit up. “What are we going to do, Greg?”
Gregory gave him a hand into a chair and then stood.
“Nothing we can do, Hawk. They’ll have some way of disposing of us, now they’ve got what they want. You should have destroyed those charts after you located the spot and position.”
Hawk passed a shaking hand over his face, and then noticed that Vick was in the room. He looked at her for several seconds before he spoke.
“I suppose you’ve got an answer for all this. Who slugged me?”
“I don’t know,” said Vick. “My only advice is that you weigh anchor and get away.”
“Leave the spot to Mercer?” Hawk stood up, tense and angry. “Well, I’m going down and bring up the stuff, my lady. I’m not clearing out for an outfit like Ocean Salvage. We can pick them off in daylight, Greg. They can’t lower a diver without our seeing them.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Vick murmured.
“What the devil are we up against, anyway?” snapped Hawk. “There’s nothing superhuman about those wharf rats. If they put a diver over, they’ll have to stand by him, won’t they? And if they put a boat near the wreck, Greg can pick them off with rifles, can’t he? I’m going to get that stuff if it’s my last act on earth!”
“How about Stokey?” demanded Vick. “They got him, didn’t they? They got him without ever putting a boat over. And they’ll get you.” She crossed to Hawk’s side and laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t be a fool, Hawk! Let them have it!”
“Sure,” snapped Hawk. “Turn yellow! It’s the thing to do. We’re out a fortune, Greg, and don’t forget it. There’s only one course, and I’m going to take it. How many men did we lose?”
“Two. They lost six. But they got what they wanted, didn’t they?” Gregory started toward the door, then turned. “Maybe we’re wrong, Hawk. I think we’d better follow the girl’s advice.”
“Any day I turn tail and run from Chuck Mercer, you can put me in a straitjacket,” Hawk snapped.
“Straitjacket, maybe,” said Vick. “But even that is better than a coffin.” And she ran blindly toward her cabin.
With the coming of daylight, Hawk stepped out on the superstructure and saw that the sky was unusually clear and the sea was as smooth as a skating rink, without so much as a wind ripple to mar the turquoise surface.
Vick called to him from the wardroom. “Come on. Breakfast is getting cold!”
“No breakfast,” Hawk said over his shoulder. “I’m going down in about fifteen minutes. You can’t eat and do that.”
Nevertheless the girl came out with a cup of coffee and watched Hawk swallow the steaming black liquid. When the coffee was gone, Hawk called to a sailor, “Open the lockers and lay out the stuff!” And when the sailor had begun the task, Hawk turned to Vick.
“You ought to know something about this game by this time,” he said. “Will you keep an eye on things while I’m below? You may be in somebody else’s pay, but I’ve a hunch you wouldn’t want to see me hurt.”
“Taking a lot for granted, aren’t you?” smiled Vick. “By the way, you haven’t a spare outfit, have you?”
“What are you thinking of doing?”
She looked away, then gave Hawk a crooked smile. “Nothing drastic. If you got tangled up below, I thought perhaps you’d like to have someone standing by. You see—I never told you this before, but I’ve had my initiation undersea. I liked to look at the flowers and fish down there.”
Hawk laughed. “What are you trying to do? String me? Oh, well, I’ll tell you. There’s a self-contained outfit in the lockers. You can fool with that. You know, one of those that doesn’t need any air lines or lifelines. I’d rather have my communication and plenty of air, so I rarely use the thing. If it will make you feel any better, it’s there, ready to use. But—and get this—if anything happens to me down there, don’t make any grandstand plays. Understand?”
“Yes—and thanks.” Vick stepped back into the wardroom.
Gregory helped Hawk mount the platform and saw to it that all was tight with the helmet and corselet, leaving the front window open until the last.
“I hope you’ll be all right, Hawk.”
“Sure,” was the muffled reply. “I’ll be okay. I want you to watch for one thing: if you see any boat come around here, keep it on the move. And when I ask for grappling hooks and nets, send them fast. That’s your only job. Get them ready now. Vick is going to keep a weather eye open. It will be light down there this morning. Never saw such a clear sea.”
Gregory shut the helmet window and listened to the grinding winch which lowered the stage into the sea. He raised his arm in farewell just before the helmet vanished, and Hawk waved back. Gregory had an odd sensation as he saw the hand alone above the water. It was too like that of a man going down for the third time.
Hawk, before he left the surface, had seen the fatal message scrawled on the ship’s side. The message, “Death at Twenty Fathoms,” which had been Stokey’s last connection with the world of light and air. After that he saw only blue, crystal-clear water about him through which fish darted.
A barracuda eyed the diver hungrily and swam so close that Hawk could see the many rows of pointed teeth set in a jaw which ran a quarter of the length of the five-foot fish. But the barracuda thought better of it and went on his way.
The white sand bottom was amazingly clear, though visibility was at no time greater than thirty feet in any horizontal direction. Before, it had been necessary to use the lamp, but now the sea-filtered sunlight was sufficient, and Hawk stepped away from the stage and leaned into the slight current. In a surprisingly short space of time he stood on the edge of the clearing where the Ciudad de Oro had lain for centuries. But now he found no time to speculate on the death of the old ship. Dread tugged at him and bade him hurry, and he lost no time in rounding the stern to inspect the sand that must hold the chests of gold.
Then he saw that Stokey had done his work well before he had met his mysterious death. A chest, made of teak and bound with brass, stood upended in the sand, overshadowed by the naked ribs of the galleon, and in the side of the box, with its handle pointed toward the surface, was the weighted pick Stokey had used.
Hawk involuntarily turned and looked back toward the spot where Stokey lay beneath a coral cross, and then, squaring his shoulders, he stepped up beside the chest and pushed it over on its side. Stokey’s pick fell slowly to the sand.
It was the work of a second to force the lid of the box, and then Hawk knelt beside it, staring down into a mass of heavy bricks. Gold bullion, greenish under the blue light, was there. Thousands of dollars in gold. But Hawk didn’t pause to inspect it closer. A sensation of imminent danger made him pick up his tools and begin work on the pit beside the chest.
It was hard digging, for the water slowed all motion, and the sand, when brought up on the shovel, was half washed away before it could be deposited on the side of the hole. The cavity tended to cave every few minutes, and Hawk was finally forced to enlarge it.
He stopped for an instant and listened, thinking that he heard the sounds of propellers above him. Pressing the buzzer plate with his chin, he called the Stingaree. “Anything in sight?”
“No, not a thing,” said the operator.
“Thought I heard a prop beat down here.”
“Probably the compressor motor. It’s missing once in a while.”
Vaguely dissatisfied, Hawk resumed his work, and then the feel of his pick striking solidity made him forget for the moment. Eagerly, he dragged a second chest to light and broke its lock. More gold bullion. He quickly estimated that there must be six more chests, and hastily returned to his digging.
One by one he brought them forth, until eight brass-bound teak boxes stood in a disorderly row along the side of the Ciudad de Oro. Exertion had caused his head to spin, and when he stood erect, everything turned black. He staggered, caught hold of a beam for support, and then breathed deeply until the world was right again.
As he stood resting, he looked back into the hole and saw the black edge of still another chest. Surprised, he set down his lamp and used his pick to loosen the ninth box. He knew that two million in gold bullion already lay unearthed, and he was unable to account for the ninth. He had estimated that each brick in the chests weighed half a quintal—about fifty pounds—and that there were twelve bars to a box. So he knew that he already had the stated amount of gold.
He broke the lock on the ninth chest and threw his light into it, without suspecting the contents. He gasped and placed the window of his helmet close to the box, lowering his light. There, where he could touch them and pick them up by the handful, lay a green blue caldron of emeralds. He placed his hands on the sides of the chest and stared, hypnotized, for the gems were beautiful and brilliant. He picked some of them up, fondling them, and saw that the greater part were large square stones about as flawless as emeralds can be.
This, then, was the reason Ocean Salvage had wanted the charts. This was why Mercer had stopped at nothing in getting them. He must have known about these emeralds. Compared with the ninth chest, the eight boxes were nothing.
Hawk called the ship, his voice trembling. “Get those nets down to me! Hurry! Snap into it!”
“Coming right down with them,” replied the operator. “The captain has them all laid out, ready to go.”
Turning to look once more at the precious stones, Hawk stopped suddenly and listened. Pounding against the shell of his helmet came the vibrations of a driving propeller. It was unmistakable this time.
“Anything on the surface?” Hawk snapped into the mouthpiece. “Do you sight any ship? Are any props turning up there?”
“No,” came the puzzled answer. “We don’t see a thing.”
“Well, look sharp, and get those nets down quick!” Hawk walked a short distance away from the Ciudad de Oro and looked up.
A dark blot on the surface was recognizable as the hull of the Stingaree, and Hawk watched for the bubbles which would herald the coming of the nets. Then a churn of bubbles and a hurtling shadow far to the north of the ship caught Hawk’s attention. He stared, wondering what type of fish it could be. And then—too late—he understood.
“Torpedo!” he yelled into the phone. “Torpedo! A torpedo is coming from the north!”
A shrill babble of sound came back to him through the earphones, and Hawk threw himself flat against the white sand in expectancy of the concussion. He hitched himself under the protection of a coral ledge and looked up again, just in time to see the vicious shape crash into the side of the Stingaree.
Concussion smashed Hawk into the sand. When he was able to stagger to his feet, he felt water sloshing inside his helmet. Panic gripped him. Feverishly he felt of the outside of the copper shell which enclosed his head and then knew that the water must have been driven in only by the force of the explosion. A new danger now assailed him, for he saw the hull of the Stingaree list to the port, and bubbles told him that the ship was sinking. However, he could still hear the drumming of the compressor motor. Until the ship sank, he would have air.
Then he felt an agonizing twist in the region of his heart as he realized that Vick Stanton might be dead. He didn’t ask himself why he thought about her—he only knew that a sudden emptiness had come inside him. He felt helpless, and then, as he realized the difficulty that would come of his lack of air, he knew that he was trapped.
The compressor motor sputtered on, but still air gurgled out of the helmet to send silver globes up to the surface. Hawk leaned back against the current and watched the hull of his ship for endless, fearful minutes. As soon as the compressors went under, there would be no more air, and he could not hope to live more than a few minutes with closed valves. It was possible that they would get a boat over the side. If they did, there would be a little hope.
His attention was suddenly distracted by the appearance of a vague shape on the far side of the Ciudad de Oro. Hawk turned to face it squarely. He recognized it, finally, as a diver. The outfit was without hose or line, and hope began to throb through Hawk as he realized that it might be Vick. It was possible that she had had time to don the self-contained suit. She would get him out of this mess if she could.
A hiss above was followed by a second explosion and the Stingaree bow went out of Hawk’s sight. He saw the stern slide down almost perpendicular, amid exploding air bubbles and the shudders of the dying ship.
A gurgle sounded through the hose line and he reached up to shut off his air valve. The Stingaree was finished, and the air compressors had at last reached the level of the water. Working quickly, Hawk unscrewed his hose. And then, after making sure that no one in a boat had hold of the lifeline, he disconnected it.
The second diver was coming closer now and stopped in the shadow of the Ciudad de Oro to stare at the chests. Hawk lunged forward, feeling the tug of water currents caused by the sinking ship. He was anxious to make Vick understand that she must throw off her weights and rocket to the surface. He had already filled his suit to the limit with air, and the increased buoyancy made walking difficult.
In back of him the Stingaree was settling to the bottom, still disgorging silvery air. Gear was tangled on the slanting deck, and the chunks of wood about her were shooting to the surface with unbelievable force as they wrested themselves free and deserted. She was here now, dead beside the ship she had come to rob, and as though the better to view her new mate, the Ciudad de Oro had shifted a few degrees under the impact of crosscurrents and explosions.
Hawk raised his arm to wave at the diver in the self-contained suit and continued on toward the chests. But the other looked up and failed to return the greeting. Instead, a knife appeared from the weighted belt, catching the blue rays of light that filtered down from the surface.
A little puzzled, though not yet alarmed, Hawk went on till he stood only a few feet away from the other. He was unable to see through the window in the other’s helmet, but he was certain that the diver must be Vick.
The chests were between them now, and the other diver stepped up on one. Knife held aloft, he launched himself in a slow-motion dive at Hawk.
The helmets grated together, and Hawk strove to push away the relentless gleam of steel. The other reached out with a savage hand and caught at Hawk’s suit, drawing him nearer. Because all action was slow, Hawk was able to sidestep the attack and look into the window of the other’s helmet. He frowned, tried to drag the other to him. The knife ripped through two layers of twill and one of rubber, and Hawk heard the rush of escaping air as it went from his suit and bubbled around him like a silvery shroud.
He tried to tear away his weights and escape before the water reached him, but the diver was holding his arms tight, pressing him down against the white sand. Water sloshed up into Hawk’s headgear.
Grotesque, like two sea monsters, the divers gripped each other in a savage embrace. The knife fluttered down to the sand, and though his view was marred by seeping water, Hawk saw it and snatched it up. He was gasping for air and could feel the strength ebbing from him, but he managed to hold the knife aloft and bring it down. It came slowly. The other saw it come and tried to step aside, but the steel blade bit into the diver’s arm and traveled down, gashing as it went, to admit fatal water.
Hawk was unable to see, and he felt his hold slip as he sagged back against the sand. The hundred and twelve pounds of lead which had been his ballast held him pinned there. With a final slosh his helmet filled with water.…