Closer and closer. And then they met. The tower was directly in front of the tall chimney.
The two poles were in line.
“Here,” Jupe shouted. “Hold it right here.” He lowered the binoculars.
The water was too deep to drop anchor. Slater would have to keep the boat motionless by idling the engine against the tide.
Jupe watched him as he turned the bow toward the shore. A few minutes ago he had thought Slater was pretty dumb, but he could see now that that bald head contained a lot of savvy. The man was handling the boat like a pro.
“Okay, Pete?” Constance had finished fastening the air tank to Pete’s back. He adjusted the mask over his eyes while Constance inspected his breathing hose and checked the air-pressure gauge.
The needle indicator on the gauge showed that his air tank was full.
Walking clumsily in his flippers, he followed Constance to the rail. She sat down on it, then, leaning out over the water, let herself topple gently backward into the ocean.
Pete tumbled in after her.
He straightened out a few feet below the surface and floated face down in the water. He was trying to remember everything he had been taught about scuba diving.
Breathe through your mouth so your mask won’t fog up. Keep checking the air hose to make sure it doesn’t get a kink in it. Don’t dive until the moisture inside your wet suit has had time to adjust to your body temperature. The deeper you go, the colder the ocean and the greater the pressure. At the first sign of giddiness surface immediately but not too fast.
For several minutes Pete swam around three feet underwater, lazily wagging his flippers and giving himself time to relax and get used to this underwater world.
He had always loved scuba diving. With the weighted belt around his waist counteracting his buoyancy, he felt as if he were flying. Flying the way a bird could. There was the same wonderful sense of freedom.
Constance and Fluke were floating a few yards away from him. Pete raised his hand, forming his thumb and forefinger into a circle. He was ready to dive.
Constance patted Fluke’s back. With the powerful light beaming ahead of him, the whale glided down. Deeper and deeper. Deeper than Pete, or even Constance, could follow him.
Jupe was keeping his eyes on the television monitor in the cockpit of the boat. Slater, at the wheel, was intently watching it too.
It was fascinating, Jupe thought. Like watching a space probe. The circle of light on the small screen seemed to be exploring the sky. A hazy, sometimes cloudy sky, across which swarms of fish suddenly darted like insects.
Whenever Fluke got too far from the boat, the circle of light began to dim. Immediately Slater steered toward the shore, keeping the tower and the chimney in line, following the direction Fluke had taken.
When the circle of light grew brighter again, he held the boat steady and motionless once more.
A patch of sand and gravel, a clump of weed, appeared on the screen. Fluke had reached the bottom of the ocean. The television camera on his head was scanning it foot by foot.
Pete had halted his dive far above Fluke. He didn’t dare go any deeper. He knew from his scuba lessons that when the pressure on the human body becomes too great, the diver feels a curious sensation like drunkenness. He becomes overconfident and can do wild, stupid things that may endanger his own life.
Far below him he could see the gleam of Fluke’s searchlight. Lucky Fluke, he thought. His body was better adapted to the depths. Some whales, Constance had told him, could dive down a mile and stay underwater for as long as an hour.
Pete raised his hand to straighten his breathing tube. He ran his fingers along the curved length of it to the air tank on his back.
Funny, he thought. He couldn’t find any kink in the hose, and yet…
He fumbled desperately along the tube again. There must be a kink in it somewhere. There had to be, because he couldn’t get any air into his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.
He snatched at the buckle of his weighted belt. Hold your breath, he told himself. Take that belt off.
Hold your breath and surface. Don’t panic, you idiot. Get that buckle undone.
But there no longer seemed to be any feeling in his fingers. And there was something wrong with his eyes. The water around him seemed to be slowly changing color. It was turning a pale rose and then a deeper and deeper red. So deep it was almost black.
He was gasping for air now, trying to kick with his flippers, trying to force himself up through the darkness, trying…
A brilliant light suddenly flashed in his eyes. He felt a great solid thump against his chest. Something, something as powerful as a bulldozer, was lifting him, forcing him to the surface.
He didn’t try to resist. With his last, failing strength he clung to it, to whatever it was, this powerful mass that was lifting him up.
His head broke the surface. A hand reached out from beside him and snatched the mask from his face. He opened his mouth and took a great lungful of fresh air.
The red darkness was slowly clearing from his eyes. He looked down and saw a blurred surface beneath him. He brought it slowly into focus.
He made out a canvas harness. A flashlight. A camera.
He was lying stretched out on Fluke’s back.
Constance was floating beside him. It was she who had snatched the mask from Pete’s face.
“Don’t try to talk,” she said. “Just take long, deep breaths. You’ll be okay in a minute.”
Pete did as he was told. He lay quietly with his cheek pressed against Fluke’s back. Gradually breathing became easier. He was no longer panting. That terrible red darkness had cleared from his eyes. He felt strong enough to talk at last.
But before he asked any questions, before he tried to find out what had happened, there was one thing he wanted to say first.
“You saved my life, Fluke. ’
“Well, you saved his life once too, didn’t you?” Constance laid her hand on Fluke’s head. “He wouldn’t forget —”
She broke off as the boat pulled alongside. Jupe, who was steering, brought it to a stop. Oscar Slater was leaning over the rail.
“I saw it,” he shouted. And now his bald head seemed to be gleaming with excitement. “It was just a glimpse on the monitor. But I know I saw it. Your father’s boat, Constance.”
He turned to Jupe. “Hold her steady right here. The wreck must be directly below us. It flashed across the screen as Fluke turned to surface, and then I saw Pete. So it has to be —”
“Never mind that now,” Constance interrupted him curtly. “The first thing is to get Pete back on board and find out what happened, what went wrong.”
“But I tell you —” Slater was thumping the rail with impatience.
“Later,” Constance told him. “You get back to the wheel, Mr. Slater. Jupe, come and give us a hand.”
Slater hesitated. But he knew Constance was in command. At least for the present. Without her help he could never get that stuff off the sunken boat. He nodded sullenly and relieved Jupe at the wheel.
Between them Jupe and Constance helped Pete on board. Still feeling a little weak, Pete sat on the deck while Constance brought him a mug of hot coffee and Jupe unfastened the straps and lifted the air tank off his back.