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The cool night air blew some of the cobwebs from my brain and by the time I reached the guest-house I was almost sober again. There were a couple of times when I stumbled on the way back, but nothing serious.
It must have been well after eleven when I walked through the front gate, thinking of that lurching contraption, that excuse for a bed. It would be my last night clinging to the bed-post. I had taken it for granted that I would be moving on board the yacht, although nothing had been said.
A couple of guys were still swilling coffee in the television lounge. I had laughed when I first heard it called that. It was just an open space under the back of the house, with an old television set and a collection of chairs gathered from the junk shops around Townsville.
I joined them for a nightcap. One of them I knew; the others were strangers to me, probably new arrivals. The company kept changing. A guy would sit in for half an hour or so and then disappear; somebody else taking his place – like musical chairs. In the end I was confused as to whom I was talking to. The coffee was heavily laced with cheap Scotch whisky – bottled in Taiwan. Alcohol wasn’t permitted in the house, but what the eye didn’t see, couldn’t be censured.
I don’t remember getting to bed. I seem to recall someone helping me up to my room, helping me get a few things out of my bag, rummaging around. I didn’t really remember anything that happened after the third or fourth cup of Irish coffee. What I do remember, is telling that pack of rough-heads that it was my last night in the house, that I was moving up in the world, that I had scored a full-time job with Steve as dive-master on his yacht. I had been pretty pleased with myself.
––––––––
Hell! Who created hangovers?
Beer, wine and then whisky. It had been a long time since my head had taken such a hammering. Talk about gorillas’ armpits and the bottoms of parrots’ cages! I had the lot. I lay sweating in the bunk as the sun moved itself across the room.
There was no crowd in the bathroom when I finally managed to struggle the distance. I don’t think there was anybody even left in the house – which was not surprising as it was almost midday!
A scalding hot shower, followed by five minutes of cold and then back to the hot. Thirty minutes of this and my head was starting to clear, the fuzziness leaving my brain; but I still felt like death. Four cups of black coffee liberally laced with sugar – no whisky this time – and things stopped their endless spiral. I was longing for a hair of the dog, but I didn’t know where the boys had hidden the bottle.
It took an hour to pack my gear. I must have scattered it all around the room before I hit the sack. My room-mates would be glad to see the back of me; the place stinking of stale wine and cheap whisky; the pillow saturated.
I crept downstairs, dreading the exit into the bright sunlight. There was one more step than I thought and I hit the bottom with a crash. The fat guy behind the excuse for a reception desk gave me a hard stare as he wrote out the receipt for the one night’s accommodation. They didn’t trust you for longer than that.
The long haul back to the charter boat wharf, lugging my tank and other gear, helped to sweat off some of the alcohol. I was soaked but sober by the time I arrived. There wasn’t a sign of anybody on deck, but she was there all right – the Belle, the name written in bold white letters across the stern. I had been telling myself it might all have been a dream, a figment of my drunken imagination, but it was real enough. I dropped my luggage on the concrete and called out. It was the wrong thing to do. Some little demon started playing the Anvil Chorus in my head. God, roll on tomorrow!
Steve appeared on deck, looking fresh as a daisy, and yelled across to me, a grin on his face.
“You certainly took your time. Get lost or something?”
I gave him the two finger treatment. I was in no mood for jokes. He laughed and sprang down into the dinghy; loosening the line and calling something back down into the saloon as he did so. He took the gear I passed down to him and we paddled back to the yacht.
“What happened?” he asked as we bumped against the side of the hull, making a dull scraping sound on the steel.
“Had a few nightcaps when I got back to the hotel,” I said. I hadn’t told Steve that I was staying at the guest-house. I still had some of my pride left. “The butler forgot to wake me this morning. What the hell would you think happened!” I leaned over to haul up my suitcase and almost threw up. “Look, Steve, I’ve got the granddaddy of a hangover, so take it easy, please?”
He grinned, calling softly to Sonia.
She appeared from the saloon, dressed in white flared shorts and pink halter-top, her smile partly concealed by large sun-glasses perched way down on her nose. Even in my weakened condition I could feel the blood start to rise. Maybe moving in with Steve wasn’t such a good idea after all. He wouldn’t appreciate the competition.
“Good morning, Mike!” Her voice sparkled. “How about a hair of the dog?”
She held up a can of beer, the top ripped off, condensation running down the sides. The whisky in my stomach started to rebel, but I knew it would be the best thing; or rather the second best. I had already considered the best.
“Pass it over,” I pleaded. “There’s a good girl.”
As she reached over I couldn’t help staring down her cleavage. I grasped the can in one hand, trying hard to stop the shaking but not quite succeeding. Was it the alcohol, or was it her?
It was so cold I could feel the ice slivers sliding down my throat, hitting the lining of my stomach with a jolt. Five minutes later I was a new man, ready for the day – or what was left of it.
“Come up with any other excuses for us to be poking about the wreck?” Steve asked, eager to get down to business. He had probably been expecting me for hours.
Sonia poured me another cup of coffee, my sixth for the day, the liquid trapped in my stomach starting to slop around.
“No,” I replied. “To be truthful, I hadn’t given it much thought. What about you guys?”
“Well,” Steve said. “We were thinking that maybe the film crew angle might be the best. It seems to fit most of the things we want to do. You know how people are about filming.” I didn’t, but he was going to tell me anyway. “Governments welcome movie people. They get valuable publicity for nothing – at least if it’s a documentary on a potential tourist attraction.”
“As well as that angle,” Sonia broke in. “It gives us a chance to keep people away from the wreck. We might even be able to get the local council to make the wreck off-limits for a few weeks. We can claim they’ll get in the way, spoil the shooting and all that.
They had spent the morning in profitable thought. I was feeling guilty. I had nothing to offer but questions.
“That’s great,” I said. “But what about when we start breaking into the ship? We’ll have to use underwater cutting gear. Won’t they start to get just a little suspicious?”
I poured the rest of my coffee down the sink and filled a glass with water. The caffeine was making me jumpy.
“Not in the least,” Sonia replied. “It’ll all be part of the script we’ll show them. We’ll give them a reason why we need to cut into the ship. It’s only an old wreck.” She reached into the refrigerator and took out three beers. “They shouldn’t care if we knock it about.”
It was hot down in the saloon. There was silence for a minute or two as we bent to the task of ripping off the tops and drinking that first mouthful.
My mind went back to those questions which had not been put the night before.
“A couple of things you guys forgot to let me in on,” I said. “And that’s the location of this wreck and what she is.”
They looked at each other, puzzled. Steve thumped his forehead with the palm of his hand.
“Shit,” he said. “You’re right. I forgot all about it. I must have taken it for granted. Sonia, you’re the one with all the details. Fill him in.”
I couldn’t be certain. Maybe they had kept it from me intentionally. Maybe they weren’t sure whether I would turn up this morning, worried that the enormity of the thing might have frightened me off. It would explain some of the anxiety in the questions Steve had put to me as we came across in the dinghy.
Sonia made herself comfortable in her favourite position, drawing one knee up to her left breast. “The ship is the USS President Coolidge. She was originally a passenger liner, launched in 1931. Early in 1942 she was taken over by the United States Government and converted into a troopship and general store vessel in some incredibly short period of time. As she was clearing the harbour, with about five thousand troops on board, heading for the battle zone, she hit a mine, an American mine.”
“Which harbour was that?” I asked.
“Espiritu Santo,” she replied, and then added, seeing the blank look on my face. “It’s the largest island in the New Hebrides group in the South Pacific.”
I knew where it was.
“Anyway,” she continued. “The Captain drove the ship up on to the shore reef and everybody managed to get off. Well, almost everybody. There were one or two killed when they jumped into the water in full fighting pack. The ship sat there for a short while, bow up on the reef. A couple of hours later she slid off, heeled over, and went stern first into deeper water.”
“How deep is she lying?” I asked.
“The starboard side of the bow is in about twenty-one metres. The deepest part is down at the stern – about seventy five metres. The section we’re interested in is the Sea Post Office, on the starboard side of D deck, what’s known as the Upper Deck. It’s fairly deep, but at least it’s not on the port side. It’d be over sixty metres if it were.”
“It’s still going to be deep diving,” I said. “Our bottom time is going to be limited. Either that or we’ll spend a bloody long time decompressing after each dive. What else do you know about her?”
She lowered her knee and leaned forward. Steve took the opportunity to fetch three more beers. I pushed mine away. I’d had enough. What I needed was food – hot food.
“There’s been three salvage attempts that I know of,” she continued. “The first was shortly after the sinking. A United States Navy diving team cut into the Special Cargo hold on E deck and removed secret radar equipment and long-range artillery guns. They also broke into the strong-room and removed the troop’s payroll and some secret documents. But apparently they didn’t get down as far as the Specie Room in the Sea Post Office. Either they didn’t realise the gold was there, not being part of the payroll, or it was too deep for the equipment they had at the time.
As soon as she paused, I excused myself and made a bee-line for the bathroom. My bladder had been threatening to burst for the last quarter of an hour. It took me a couple of minutes to work out the valves and foot-operated flushing device.
By the time I returned there was a loaf of bread on the table together with cheeses, pickles and a few different kinds of sliced meat. I buttered a couple of pieces of bread and made myself a large sandwich. It wasn’t the hot food I had been thinking about, but it would fill in the spaces.
“What about the other two salvages?” I asked. “Had either of them been after the gold?”
“No,” she replied. “I’m fairly positive they weren’t. The gold’s been a very well-kept secret. There’s nothing in any official publications. My father was one of the three men who arranged the shipment. I’m half American, by the way. He and the other two guys handled the whole thing: from collection at the mint, to storage on the Coolidge. Dad died of cancer three years ago, a couple of weeks after my twenty-first birthday. The other two died during the war. I’ve known about the coins since a few months before dad died. He’d been dreaming of going after them for years, but never had the strength, nor the capital.”
I told her I was sorry about her father.
“Anyway,” she went on. “The other two attempts were for the scrap in the two huge propellors and their spare blades; and for the bunker oil.”
“Bunker oil!” I said unbelievingly. “What the hell would they want that for?”
“Seems it was a pollution hazard. Some salvage company removed the oil on a time-cost basis. Probably cost the government a packet.”
“And now,” Steve interrupted, his eyes bright. “It’s our turn. We’ll go in and pick up those shiny gold discs. They’ve been waiting for someone like us ever since the day the ship went down – the 26th October 1942.”
We all laughed like kids on the day before Christmas. Sonia leaned across and gave me a hug, crushing my throat, the tang of her perfume filling my nostrils. Whether it was the scent or the pressure on my windpipe, I’m not sure, but dizziness all but overtook me.
“Hey, you guys,” I called out. “We haven’t got the gold yet. Let’s at least wait until we’ve got some of it in our hot little hands.”
The merriment gradually subsided. Steve wiped the tears from his eyes, blew his nose and sat down again. Sonia pirouetted across to the galley and switched on the gas before reaching for the kettle. A cup of coffee was what we all needed.
“Right,” I continued. “How do we go about setting up this movie deal? I don’t know a thing about movie cameras and such. Do either of you?”
“Not really,” Steve answered, lifting the cups out of the sink. “But it’s not something that can’t be overcome with a little effort. It’d probably be best if Sonia looked after that side of things. You and I will have our hands full with the actual recovery. It’ll give her something to do. All she’ll need is some coaching.”
“And that’s no problem,” Sonia broke in. “I’ve got a few friends down in Melbourne involved in television who should be able to arrange something for me. It won’t take much to put on a convincing performance. After all, we don’t have to be pretending to film an epic; just a bit for local television. Nothing big. A two man crew and the leading man.” She fluttered her eyelashes at me.
“Right,” Steve said. “That’s settled. Sonia can come down to Melbourne with me while I set up a two dollar corporation as a front for the project. We’ll need some fancy documents and papers as well, but I don’t think we’ll have any difficulties there. It’ll probably take me a week or two in Vila chatting with the local authorities; a few dinner parties and suchlike. You’ll have plenty of time to sort out what equipment we need to take along.
The die had been cast, matters settled.
It was the first good night’s sleep I’d had for ages; even knowing Sonia was only a few feet away down the saloon. We spent the next day and the evening planning each step, discussing the equipment we would need; and counting the coins.
They flew down to Melbourne. There was no sense in taking the yacht. It might have saved a few air-fares and got me back to friends and family; and it would have been just as easy to get the things we needed in Melbourne; probably easier. But the trip down south and then the return journey would have wasted time, and we were eager to get on with it. A day wasted was a day lost.
The Belle was best left in Townsville. Steve and I knew too many people in Melbourne. There would be too many questions asked. They would see the equipment going on board, know we were fitting out for an expedition, and before we knew it there would be twenty friends and acquaintances wanting to join the crew. In Townsville, we knew nobody. There would be nothing to do but work. Living on board, I would have no distractions, no interruptions, nobody wanting to know what we were up to.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
One of the things I had to get hold of was the underwater cutting equipment we would need to cut into the Specie Room. We didn’t know what debris might be blocking our passage into the Sea Post Office. We had to be prepared for hacking our way through a tangle of twisted metal, if need be.
I didn’t think that cutting through the steel wall of the Specie Room would present as great a problem as it had at first seemed. The ship had been down there for a long time – over forty years; and was in relatively shallow water, where the high concentration of oxygen would allow for a rapid break-down of the steel. The water of the South Pacific would be warm, adding to the process. It wouldn’t be like the Titanic, sitting at four thousand metres below the surface in an icy sea. That ship will stay sound for another hundred years at least. The Coolidge would collapse in on itself in another twenty.
The equipment wouldn’t have to be sophisticated. We wouldn’t need electronic devices to by-pass alarm systems. There would be nobody to hide from, at least not below the surface. We could blast along to our heart’s content, as long as there weren’t any souvenir hunters prowling about.
There was a lot to be said for the movie cover. We could take as much time as we liked with the cutting gear; doing pretended re-take after re-take, trying to get our shots right. The more I thought of it, the better I liked it.
Steve had figured it would take him at least three weeks to get his side of things set up. Buying a shelf company would only take a couple of days. He was going to get a couple of old-age pensioners to be shareholders and officers of the company. There was no need for our names to appear at all.
Getting the film equipment, the cameras, underwater lights, clapper-boards and other bits and pieces would take much longer, for we only needed second-hand equipment. There was no need to spend money on brand new cameras. Besides, it would look peculiar if we turned up with everything looking as though it had never been used.
Sonia called a couple of the friends she had mentioned, and one of them lined her up with a job at a television studio. With her looks they would want her in front of the cameras, rather than behind them. As far as I could see, it didn’t really matter how much she learnt about making movies. All she needed to know was the front of the camera from the back, and how to load it. Anything else would be a waste of time. We weren’t actually going to show the film!
So once again I was on my own; but this time I was living in comfort, even though in moderately cramped conditions.
Boat life is something you have to get used to. It’s impossible to spread out, and everything must be kept in its place. Once you start leaving things lying about, you can get into a hell of a mess. I soon learnt that lesson; stepping over empty baked-bean cans rolling around the floor; getting tangled up in dirty clothes; and searching for tools for hours, only to find I had kicked them under a bunk.
Steve had left a fat roll of cash with me. We weren’t going to trust the record left by cheques in a deal like this. If things went sour, we didn’t want the trail leading back to us. Besides, the use of cash meant cheaper prices for most of the things we needed. No receipts, so no tax.
It didn’t take long to get the equipment together – about ten days. The monstrous arc-welder we needed to run the underwater cutting gear was already sitting on the wharf, together with the air-compressor we needed to recharge our diving bottles. Steve had a portable one on board, but it wouldn’t be able to keep up with our demand. It would be useful in case the water-lubricated job I had managed to acquire broke down, but that would be all. This was salvage work, not pleasure diving.
I brought all of the smaller stuff across in the little plywood dinghy: the cutting rods, the hoses, lights, ropes, power and lighting cables; but the two machines would have to wait until I could get a berth alongside the wharf. They were even too big for the Zodiac inflatable boat stowed in the lazaret – the small storage hold aft of the steering cockpit.
There was only one place to store the huge arc-welder – in the alley-way, smack between the dining table and the forward cabin, under the mid-ships skylight behind the mast. I would have to take the skylight off to get it in, but it was the only place it could go. It weighed too much to be stowed on deck; the yacht would be top-heavy and dangerous in a rough sea; and it was too big to go down into the lazaret. She was going to be a cramped boat, but we would get by; even if it meant sliding past the arc-welder every time we made a visit to the bathroom, or Steve wanted to get into his cabin.
It took me a day just to get the skylight off and shift the heavy brass frames up onto the bow, out of the way. A sheet of canvas stopped the early morning dew dropping through into the saloon.
I called Steve a couple of times from the public booth on the Charter Boat wharf; standing in the public eye, feeding coins into the unit’s voracious mouth. He had all the bits of paper he reckoned we would need, but still had to make the trip to Vila and get the governmental approvals we would need to shoot our film on the wreck. He had already made a few contacts and it sounded as though everything would go through without any difficulty. I was keeping my fingers crossed. Sonia was busy cramming her head with shutter speeds, focal lengths and all the other mysterious jargon of the film world.
Early on the eleventh day I stumbled out of my bunk to find that the motor-sailer which had occupied the end berth on the wharf had departed during the night; and a few enquiries revealed that it wouldn’t be back for several days. I lost no time in running a couple of lines to the wharf, dropping the ropes tied to the piles in the stream and pulling the Belle across. Steve would have done it under power. Me, I’m scared of anything larger than a runabout. Luckily there was no current running in the creek and I managed to avoid crashing into any of the other vessels moored nearby.
The crane-driver’s late arrival meant that it was well after six before he finally lowered the arc-welder through the opening where the skylight had been. The compressor fitted neatly into the lazaret.
By this time the current had started to run again and I didn’t want to risk pulling the Belle back to her moorings. The motor-sailer wouldn’t need the space for a couple of days and I could enjoy the luxury of being tied up to land instead of in the middle of the stream. I was getting sick and tired of jumping out of my bunk every time a piece of wood or some other unknown object bumped against the hull in the middle of the night.
I thought about getting on with replacing the skylight, but decided it could wait until the following morning. There wasn’t much left to do, so I might as well save it up; nothing left but to sit and wait for the beautiful Sonia to return. I thought of her; of long smooth legs, a trace of feathery down; of that silky hair; her perfume clear in my mind; and those eyes – the blueness of depths yet to be explored.
Running around organizing the boat and equipment had kept my mind and body fully occupied; too busy to worry about the female sex, but not too busy to keep my eyes from the occasional sweet young thing strolling along the wharf – flashing tight little shorts in the breeze. They liked the yachts; there was no doubt about that.
It was time to let off steam. If I didn’t get rid of the urge growing within me before Sonia returned, there might be trouble between Steve and me. I didn’t want a jealous partner. It was bad enough that I was already jealous of him!
Steve had an affiliation membership with the Townsville Motor Boat Club, and as a crew member I was free to make use of the facilities, although I had been too busy up until now. The club would be the logical place to pick up a bit of the local talent. There were the various hotels, of course; but I figured I might have more luck at the club. Most of the young girls would only be after a good time, a few drinks, and some laughs; but maybe a few might be interested in something else as well.
My wardrobe had been increased by a few more casual clothes; mainly slacks and soft shoes. I hadn’t seen the need for a jacket, at least not where we were going, but Steve had a fair selection of yachting blazers and ties. Most of the jackets were loose around my waist, but I found one that must have been a little older than the rest; no doubt purchased before he acquired the last few kilos of his beer pot. The sleeves were a margin short, but not so you would notice.
The long days spent working on the yacht had done wonders, my muscles now firm and my skin a deep overall tan which contrasted well with the blueness of my eyes. The sun and salt-laden air was fast turning the tips of my fair hair to blonde. I could have trimmed it, but preferred it thick and loose about my ears. The flab which had been creeping around my middle had all but disappeared. Life had taken on a whole new meaning; confidence had returned. The boy had once again become the man.
And before the night was finished, the boy would need that man.