The long flexible blades cut the air above our heads. I tapped the pilot on the arm.
‘One more sweep,’ I said, ‘then we’ll return to the ship and try again tomorrow.’ He nodded.
We dropped towards the heavy sea and I watched the wave-tops, blunted by the downward thrust of air from the blades.
‘O.K., Chief,’ I shouted over my shoulder. Chief Petty Officer Edwards of H.M.S. Vernon leaned through the door and watched the ocean top.
‘Back a bit,’ Edwards shouted. It had always been a bomb-aimer’s joke, but now the pilot obediently brought the helicopter along a reciprocal course.
‘Just a floating piece of wood,’ Edwards’s voice said over the intercom. We moved on to the next square of the area search. Twelve miles away on the starboard side I could see the Portuguese coast at Cape Santa Maria. Through the grey sea ran black veins as the light fell across the contours of the water. ‘Too dark now,’ I said, and Ossie switched off his radio and the cabin glowed with the green light of the instrument panel.
It was two and a half days before our effort was rewarded. Hours of ‘backing a bit’ over foam-lashed pieces of flotsam and sliding over for a close look at a shoal of fish.
When we made contact the extreme long-wave radio set on Ossie’s knees – the one he had stolen from da Cunha’s safe – gave a ‘beep beep’ of response. The pilot held us steady. The wave-crests were inches under us.
‘Beep beep’: it was emitting a signal to us. Ossie was shouting over the intercom and I grabbed the diver’s rubber-clad arm and tried to go through his instructions all over again in thirty seconds flat. Edwards patted my hand and said, ‘It will be O.K., sir’, then like a demon king in a pantomime he was gone. Hands crossed, face lowered, he hit the water with a splash. Only now did I see the target he had dived at. The silver metal floating amid the waves shone here and there through the green vegetation. C.P.O. Edwards had the cable lashed around the big metal cylinder within ten minutes. The winch operator began to haul it up and brought it splashing and dripping into the cabin of the helicopter.
Dawlish had done his stuff. When the helicopter got back to the ship everything was ready and waiting – even a ration of rum for the still wet C.P.O. Edwards. I was in the captain’s day-cabin with the cylinder; a Marine sentry was stationed outside and even the captain knocked before coming in to ask if there was anything more I required.
Two bolts had to be chiselled off, but that was only to be expected after more than a decade under the water. The light alloy panel came free to reveal a large compartment and give access for adjustments to the barometer, thermometer, hygrometer and the motors.
Every twelve hours this metal cylinder had surfaced and its voice had told da Cunha that it was still ‘alive and well’. Fernie Tomas had tried to ‘home’ on the signal, but failed to spot it before it descended to the sea bed again. Harry Kondit knew that his boat travelled twelve miles on each of da Cunha’s trips. ‘Down the coast’ he had said, because Harry Kondit thought he was the only man who kept rendezvous at sea.
I reached inside to where the instruments had once been, and found a slim metal tin with the Nazi eagle and the bright-red sealing wax. Before I opened it I sent for a jug of coffee and sandwiches. It was going to be a long task.