Crash Dive!
IT was not the condition of the rusty tramp steamer that attracted Hawk’s attention, for he had seen thousands of ships like her, and he was not puzzled by the appearance of the Santo Dominican flag which flew at the truck. It was the sight of a steel bulk jutting up beyond the ship’s rail which gave him a sudden inspiration. The shape of it was familiar, for the same thing had appeared the night of the attack upon the Stingaree.
His toes were just going off the deck when he spoke.
“Listen, Chuck. You win. I’ve got a proposition to offer you.”
“Sure,” Chuck said. “I knew you’d see light. You’re yellow, Ridley. I knew it all along.”
Hawk let the insult pass, for there was more urgent business at hand. “I’ll not only tell you where that chest is, I’ll go down and bring it out myself. And if you want to let me go free after that, it’s your business.”
“Now you’re talking!” Chuck jerked his thumb at the halyard and his men loosened it and slipped it off Hawk’s fingers.
“There,” said Hawk, limbering up his arms and rubbing his hands. “I see you’ve got a tin fish over there at the rail. New addition to your firm, isn’t it?”
Chuck said nothing to Hawk, but called up toward the superstructure, where a white head appeared in answer.
“Break out your crew!” Chuck called. “Is everything set aboard the sub?”
“Yes, sir!” said the man on the bridge.
Hawk strolled over to the rail and looked down. Below, half out of the water, was a small submarine. Hawk had seen the type before. In fact, he had aided in the salvaging of a submarine a few years before. The only difference or change he could see in the hull was a built-on compartment forward—undoubtedly a compression chamber. He didn’t wonder at Mercer’s possessing such a boat, for hundreds of them had been bought by salvage firms, solely for the lead contained in the storage batteries. The recommissioning of a submarine would be a comparatively simple matter.
The discovery of the undersea craft explained many things. Hawk understood now why no ship had been sighted when he heard the beat of a propeller. And he understood how the legend had been written on the side of the Stingaree. As for Stokey’s death, the submarine had probably hovered over him while a diver on its deck injected poisonous gas into the airline.
Three white men and seventeen natives dropped over the side of the tramp steamer to the deck of the submarine and swarmed down through the conning tower hatch. When they had disappeared, Hawk was ordered down, the muzzle of Chuck Mercer’s gun at his back.
“Mind you,” Chuck rasped, as he watched Hawk go through the hatch, “no funny business, or you’ll wish you’d never been born. A lot of things can happen on a submarine.”
“So long,” Hawk called. “I’ll see you anon!”
When the submarine had cast off from the steamer, Hawk paused in the conning tower to look around at the glittering instruments, at the brass wheels and voice tubes which studded the narrow walls, but he was allowed no time for observation.
“Get below!” snapped the white-headed man. “Can’t you see you’re cluttering things up?”
Nevertheless, Hawk paused in his drop down the second hatch to note the various instruments used in the manipulation of the boat. In the hull of the boat, he stood in the center of the passage that ran down the entire length of the craft, and marveled at the economy of space.
He had salvaged submarines, but he had never been to sea in one, and he was not quite ready to put his stamp of approval on the idea. A fairly heavy sea was running and the boat rolled with a logy gait that was disconcerting to one used to the even swing of a ship. A multitude of stuffy smells came to him, the acrid odor of burned oil predominated, and the atmosphere was as damp and clammy as a cellar. Huge drops of water were condensing on the inside of the plates and, as the ship rolled, splattered down without regard to men or equipment.
“Lungs,” which were to be utilized in case of sinking, were hung up along a bare space beside the conning tower ladder. Far forward were two diesel engines, and behind them were the electric motors used for submerging.
Hawk marveled at the intricacy of construction and then at the fact that the commander of this boat had natives for a crew. And then he remembered the sinking of the Stingaree and his jaw tightened. His interest in the submarine lessened.
From above he heard the command “Fill the tanks!” Several of the crew elbowed by him on their way to valves. Hawk found a bunk and, by stooping, found that he could sit down upon it. Drops of water fell on him, but he wanted to be out of the way so that he could think.
At the command “Dive!” the motion of the boat changed, as it went down by the nose. Then Hawk knew that they were under the waves. He saw the man at the “diving piano” crouch, working the levers in the conning tower. The only sound, outside of the gurgling water, was the purr of the electric motors driving the undersea craft toward the wrecks of the Stingaree and the Ciudad de Oro.
One of the white men approached Hawk with the command to follow him and they went down the passageway to a locker where the pieces of a self-contained diving outfit were stowed. In silence Hawk pulled on the suit and laced the legs, fastened the lead shoes and adjusted the corselet.
The white man watched the performance with calculating eyes. “Know how to adjust that airflow?”
“I invented it!” Hawk said dryly.
“You’ve got two jobs to do, you know,” the other said. “You’ve got to move those chests into the sub before you go after the one in the ship.”
Hawk’s smile vanished. “What the—” he began angrily, then stopped. “All right with me, but you’ll have to change this air tank before I go after the one in the ship.”
“That’s okay, we’ve three or four of them. Need any help?”
“No. Say, by the way, isn’t there some way you can watch me out of this thing? I might get messed up and need help.” Hawk’s smile was innocence itself, but he was thinking fast.
“There isn’t any way. If you get messed up, that’s just too bad. We can see a little way out of the ports in the tower, but it’s too dark below today.” The man looked back along the ship. “We’re going to settle on the bottom in a minute, so be ready.”
Hawk listened to the faint scrape of sand against the hull as the boat came to rest on the bottom. Then he watched the men open up the compression chamber on the forward deck. He fastened the lugs on his helmet and shuffled to the bottom of the narrow ladder, where willing hands pushed him up. Then he was alone in a cell-like room, and he heard water begin to rush in upon him. The sensation was a little disturbing, for he had not tested the helmet to his satisfaction. But there was nothing to be done about it, and he felt for the dogs on the outer door to make sure they were movable.
Turning on the small hand lantern hooked in his belt, he watched the water rise up and engulf him, and slowly turned his airflow valve to adjust it with the increasing pressure.
Finally he took the dogs off the watertight door and stepped out into the murk of a hundred and twenty feet below the waves. Before he clambered down the side of the submarine, he turned his light into the chamber. Yes, a compressor valve was handy, in case he wanted to enter without help from below. Satisfied, he stepped off and floated down until his feet struck the sand.
Evidently things had happened too fast to suit the Ocean Salvage men, for they had deserted the nine chests that lay under the side of the Ciudad de Oro. All the lids were in place, just as he had left them.
He approached the first gold chest and tried its weight. Then he picked up a tool and slowly dug into the sand until he struck a hard substance—the chest.
Hawk smiled to himself as he laid the box beside the other nine, for the joke was on Chuck Mercer. When the cover was opened, plate, studded with emeralds, gleamed up. It was clear that Chuck Mercer believed Hawk had been at work taking the chests to the surface when he was interrupted. It was a small error on Chuck’s part, but it had saved Hawk’s life.
Hawk began the work of transporting the chests to the submarine, and he smiled each time he laid a box down beside the rusty hull of the undersea craft. It would have been impossible for one man to lift the seven-hundred-pound chests in the realm of light and air, but the added buoyancy of the water made it comparatively easy work.
A half-hour later saw the tons of gold bullion and a nation’s ransom in emeralds stowed inside the compression chamber, ready for transfer into the hull. At first Hawk had contemplated stalling for time on the tenth chest, but now, with only an hour’s supply of air remaining in his tank, he changed his plans radically. He kicked the side of the ship to signal that all of the chests were within the cubicle and that the place could be flooded from the inside.
He knew that he would receive little mercy at the hands of Ocean Salvage should he re-enter the submarine, so, with characteristic audacity, he decided to trap the boat on the bottom of the sea. If he could clog ballast vents and freeze the elevators, there was little chance that the craft could be brought to the surface before Hawk wanted her raised. If he could accomplish this, he could come back when the boat was empty of men, undo his work, and do as he saw fit with the submarine and its cargo.
Hawk’s salvage work had taught him something of submarine construction. He remembered that in one case the submarine had been low on air pressure and incapable of blowing its tanks. The boat had sunk to the bottom of the sea with all hands, of course, there to remain until divers brought her up with pontoons.
This boat, as Hawk had observed, was amply supplied with artificial lungs which enabled the men to leave the craft on the bottom and rise to the surface without receiving anything more serious than a ducking. And when the boat was overdue, Mercer would undoubtedly come to the scene in time to rescue the crew.
As the submarine is ballasted with sea water, and the tanks are all between the two separate hulls of the ship, Hawk’s task was simplicity itself. He had only to stop up the vents that allowed the water to be blown out into the sea, and the craft would be unable to move. And he could fix the elevator fins so that they could not be moved from inside.
In order that the boat could not leave before he completed his task, he made his way to the stern, Stokey’s pick clutched in his hand. He ran skilled fingers over the control surfaces until he found the grooves that connected the fins to the hull. The arrangement was similar to that of an airplane, where the horizontal flippers are used in gaining and losing altitude. With the elevators wedged securely down, each drive of the propellers would tend to thrust the boat’s nose down, instead of up.
Hawk dragged on the huge sheets of metal until they almost touched the ocean’s floor, hoping as he did so that no one aboard the ship had noticed the corresponding motions of the “diving piano.” This done, he thrust Stokey’s pick into the opening in such a way that a movement of the fin from the inside would be impossible.
When he had done this, he collected a quantity of sea moss and ooze, and stuffed each and every one of the ballast tank vents. Certainly, he thought with satisfaction, the submarine would have to remain right there until he wanted her to move.
But as he walked away from the trapped undersea craft, he felt no elation in the knowledge that he had outwitted Chuck Mercer. He was far too worried about Vick Stanton. He knew that the girl had had time to don the self-contained suit he had indicated, and if she had done so, thinking that she might be able to help him, she was either dead or in Mercer’s hands. Hawk was not quite sure which fate would be the worse.
Behind him came the throb of propellers, and he turned to look back at the dark blob the submarine made on the bottom. They were trying to lift her now, without waiting for Hawk’s return. It was nothing to them that they meant to abandon a man to death on the sea floor. A mirthless grin came to Hawk’s lips as he saw the nose of the boat bump the sand and then plow forward, bow down. He knew that they would try this for some time before they’d realize that they were trapped. Then they would leave the craft before their air gave out, and the boat and treasure would be Hawk’s whenever he cared to return—that is, if he lived to come back.
Ahead was the dead Stingaree, a shapeless lump of metal in the twilight. Hawk approached her with mixed feelings. He knew only too well the things men encounter aboard sunken ships, and when one’s own men…Perhaps he might even find Vick.
He forced himself to go on until he could reach the rail. He pulled himself up, steeled his nerves for a glance about the twisted, shadowy deck. But he saw nothing even faintly resembling dead men.
Making his way amid tangles of cable and hawsers, he came upon a wood hatch cover which had been so securely battened with iron lugs that it had been unable to wrest itself free and shoot to the surface. A small line was close at hand, and he slashed off a hundred-foot length and secured one end to the cover. In a moment he had released the lugs. Like a bird suddenly released from nerve-racking captivity, the wood zoomed upward, its speed incredible.
Hawk held the line which now connected him to the surface in one hand. With the other, he unstrapped his shoes and weights, fastening them to the rope so that he could haul them up after he had reached the top.
He went up the line slowly, taking care not to shoot to the surface too quickly and thereby become a victim of the bends.
Within the hour he was again above the waves, holding fast to the hatch cover.
It was good to be on top once more, able to breathe the free air. And it was good to know that, with a fair share of luck, he would soon be out of Mercer’s reach. The tide set was causing a current that would bring him close to the Haitian shore; close enough for him to swim in.
There in those brown, jagged mountains his men must be, safe.