Gold From Crete by C.S. Forester Read Free Book Online Page A

had now. And the explanations which would have to be made before he could get the Coulterville to move from her dangerous berth would consume certainly several minutes. He knew that if he were captain of a new cruiser and an apparently insane foreign officer came rushing up to him in port and asked him to move, he would ask a good many questions before he decided to consent. And what would happen to Anglo-American relations if the first British destroyer to visit Brooklyn were to signalize her arrival by blowing the bows off a brand-new American cruiser was something he did not like to think about.
    The seconds were ticking by, although even now probably not more than ten had elapsed since the splash.
    ‘We’ll have to send a diver down,’ said Crowe. As he uttered the words he visualized the job that had to- be done. If that depth charge were to go off while the diver was in the water, the man would be blown to pieces.
    ‘Jones was killed at Crotona,’ said Hammett, ‘and we left Higgs at Alex. They were the only two divers we had.’
    ‘I’ll go myself,’ said Crowe. He knew a momentary relief as he said it; the hardest task a leader can ever have is to order some other man into a danger he does not himself share.
    ‘Let me go, sir,’ said Hammett.
    ‘No,’ said Crowe. ‘I took the course myself once; I’m the best qualified. Get the pump and suit out quick, and have some slings rigged over the stem.’
    It was twenty years since he had last worn a diving suit and since he had made the three dives which comprised the sketchy course taken by a fair sprinkling of naval officers. He felt the heavy shoes clank over the steel deck as he made his difficult way to the side of the ship. Through the little glass window he could still see the skyline of New York across the East River. The speed with which the gear had been got out and made ready was a credit to Hammett and his first lieutenant; the intense orderliness of a ship of war - even a poor battered old thing like the Apache - was justified by this event. No one could ever know when any piece of equipment would be desperately needed immediately. Who ever would have guessed, when they made fast to the shore, that in ten minutes the diving suit would be called for in such a frantic hurry?
    The air pump whispered steadily in his ear as he trailed pipe and lines behind him. Everything was satisfactory as far as he could see, except that in this appalling climate the sweat was already running in rivers down him and making him itch in a most unpleasant fashion at the same time as the suit prevented him from scratching. He felt his way down the short ladder and then let himself drop down through the muddy, turbulent water. The light faded rapidly from his glass window as he sank, and it was entirely dark by the time he felt his feet sinking into the soft ooze of the bottom. He felt a momentary distaste as he found himself thigh-deep in the filthy stuff. He took a few difficult steps to his left, and then a few forward, and he felt nothing solid. He knew a brief panic, and he swallowed hard. The swallowing seemed to clear his ears and his brain at the same time. He turned to his right and fumbled forward in the darkness with laboured six-inch strides. Then his heavy boot felt and struck it, jarring against something solid, and as he ascertained its shape with his feet he confirmed his first hope. That barrel-shaped thing could only be a depth charge.
    He spoke into the telephone. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Send the slings down.’
    ‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied a strained voice in the telephone.
    He had to wait a second or two for the slings to come down, long enough to feel a gust of savage irritation at the delay, until he remembered that in the increased air pressure of a diving suit every emotion, whether of anger or exhilaration, was proportionately heightened. Then something rapped against his helmet and his eyes took hold of the reassuring slings. He squatted