The Wailing Octopus: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

"After lunch," Tony said. "Don't you remember? A diver is supposed to rest after each dive. Relax, and I'll have some sandwiches ready in a few minutes."

All hands were hungry. Scotty stowed away four sandwiches and Rick did nearly as well. Then they started work on the compressor. It wasn't a hard job, but it was tedious, and nearly two hours elapsed before they finished. Each part had to be washed in soap and water, then carefully dried. Finally, the compressor was ready. They carried it to the boat, started the gas engine, and connected the tanks. But before the air started to flow, Rick carefully inspected the filter system to be sure that hadn't been tampered with too.

"You know," he observed, "these enemies Steve is hunting know a lot about sport diving."

Scotty considered. "They knew that tanks could be dangerous, and they knew that oil in a compressor is dangerous. You're right, Rick. They know plenty about it."

"But it doesn't do us much good to know that they know," Rick concluded. "Well, now what? It will be a few hours before all the tanks are charged."

"Where are Zircon and Tony?"

"Napping. We probably should join them."

"Not me. There's nothing to do after sundown but sleep. I'd like to take a walk and look the island over."

Rick sighed. "Always an eager beaver. I'll go with you, if you don't walk fast."

They turned north and walked up the beach. Somewhere off this stretch of beach was the Maiden Hand. But where? They strolled along leisurely, stopping now and then to examine some bit of beach flotsam. There were shells, but most of them were small and water worn.

"We'll have to collect a few shells on the reef," Rick said. "Barby will be disappointed if we don't."

"That's easy enough to do," Scotty replied. "I saw half a dozen different varieties this morning."

They passed a beach house, obviously empty. Rick gestured toward it. "Funny how few people there are here. If I owned a place on this island I'd be here all the time."

"Unless you had to make a living," Scotty added practically. "This isn't the season for vacations. I expect vacation time finds plenty of activity here. There's one cabin occupied to the south of us. I saw people there this morning. They're probably the same ones who waved at us from a boat when we flew over day before yesterday."

"The boat isn't there now," Rick observed. "At least, I haven't seen it."

"They may have gone to St. Thomas for supplies. Or they may have gone home." Scotty pointed to what seemed to be the largest house on the island, near the northern tip. "That's quite a place. Let's go have a look."

There was a long pier in front of the house, and, unlike the others on the island, this house had a second story. There was no sign of life. They walked around it and found a barbecue pit. Scotty examined it. "This has been used recently, probably in the past few days."

Rick bent down and peered at a scrap of meat. "You're right. They had steak. And this piece hasn't dried out yet."

"Maybe they're still here." Scotty walked to the back of the house. "They might be out fishing or something." He looked in a window and called urgently, "Rick! Look!"

Rick hurried to his side and peered in. The room was evidently used for storing diving equipment. Hung along one wall were three full diving suits of expensive make. Next to them, neatly racked, was an assortment of spear guns, all of the spring type, and all of Italian make.

On another wall were three Scuba regulators, not aqualung types such as the boys used, but the variety that carries a full face mask through which the diver breathes. In a rack on the floor were nine spare tanks and a compressor much larger and more expensive than theirs.

Swim fins, also of Italian make, were lying on a table. They were the shoe type, put on like a pair of slippers. Rick identified an underwater camera, complete with steering fins and outside controls, and a number of face masks with built-in snorkels. Boxes stacked on the floor carried labels that identified them as midseason suits of French make.

"We've found some real fancy frogmen," Scotty observed. "This place looks like a high-priced show-room for diving gear."

"Pretty plush," Rick agreed.

They wandered back down to the beach and found that this area of the island was apparently more open to the sea. There were bits of flotsam, including coconuts that had washed in. The sea shells were larger, and they found a few worth picking up.

Scotty beckoned and pointed to a piece of wood, nearly buried in the sand. "What do you make of this?"

Rick examined it. It was curved, and a shred of green metal still clung to the rusty remains of an ancient hand-fashioned nail. He looked up with sudden excitement. "It's a section of a ship rib. And a pretty old one, too." His finger indicated the shred of metal. "Copper. Or used to be." He broke it off. "Completely oxidized. It's been in the water a long time, perhaps even centuries."

The boys stared out at the reef, both half afraid to put their thoughts into words. Finally Scotty asked, "Do you remember reading about any earthquakes or big tidal waves down here recently?"

Rick tried to recall. "No. Why?"

"Well, the Maiden Hand has been under the water out here for a couple of centuries – and in pretty deep water, too. It would take some disturbance that could reach down a hundred and twenty feet to break off a chunk."

Rick grinned. "You're right. But we haven't anything to lose by taking a look, have we?"

They trotted down the beach toward their own house at a half run. Rick looked at his watch. "At least one pair of tanks should be full by now, and there's plenty of time for a dive. Come on!"

They paused at the pier, put the pressure gauge on the first two tanks in series, and found them charged, as Rick had predicted. Then they ran for the house.

Zircon and Tony were gone and there was a note on the living-room table. "We're exploring the southern end. Be back in an hour or two."

"Shall we wait?" Scotty asked.

"No need. We can take our floats. Let's get going."

They changed to trunks. Then, since they would not have anyone on the surface to keep track of time or depth, strapped on wrist watches, compasses, and wrist depth gauges. Floats and weight belts were put on, then the boys added small plastic slates and pencils for writing underwater. Knives, masks, snorkels, their favorite guns, fins, and lungs completed their equipment.

"Shall we walk up the beach, or swim?"

"Swim," Rick said promptly. "This stuff is too heavy to carry comfortably."

They launched floats, placed aqualung mouthpieces on top of their masks, and swam parallel to the beach. By using snorkels they avoided the effort of lifting their faces out of water to breathe and conserved the air in the tanks. With effective but effortless leg strokes they moved along rapidly.

As they approached the ship rib that Scotty had found they turned and swam straight out toward the reef, crossed it, then came to a halt.

"Let's tie our floats to something," Rick suggested, and Scotty nodded.

Aqualung mouthpieces replaced the snorkels, and each boy tested his flow of air, checked to be sure his mask was connected to the lung by a safety line, charged his gun, and set his watch. The watches, designed especially for underwater swimming, had an outer dial that could be set to show elapsed diving time.

Rick hooted and pointed down. Scotty nodded and they submerged. Because of their belt weights, and the weight of air in their tanks, they were just heavy enough to sink slowly. After the dive, when the air in the tanks was nearly exhausted, they would weigh about five pounds less and have a slight positive buoyancy that would help them to rise.

They found coral outcroppings and tied their float lines, being careful not to cut their hands. Rick suddenly wished they had brought canvas gloves. Scotty still wore a single rubber one.

Then, with a few strong kicks to overcome their inertia, they started down the face of the reef. It fell off sharply for about forty feet, then more gradually until sand bottom was reached at about ninety feet.

Rick felt the sensation of thrusting his face into a wedge as the pressure increased. He swallowed a couple of times and felt his ears equalize, but his mask was beginning to hurt. He exhaled through his nose and equalized the pressure inside the mask.

There were plenty of fish around now. A grouper saw them coming and ducked into his hole in the coral. A fairly large moray eel, only his head visible, watched their progress. Tiny demoiselles fluttered around them, and a pair of red squirrelfish watched from the shelter of a purple coral fan.

The coral growth was spectacular, with fantastic shapes and colors. Then, as they went deeper, the colors gradually faded to a uniform green. Rick knew from underwater flash photographs that the appearance was deceptive. The colors remained, but the quality of light changed.

Scotty hooted four times, the signal for danger! Rick looked and saw a barracuda hovering near by. He gulped. The fish was easily five feet long. Both boys lifted their spear guns just in case the 'cuda attacked, but the motion alarmed him and he was gone with one powerful flick of his tail.

Rick consulted his wrist depth gauge, holding it close to his face plate. They were at bottom at ninety feet, and the clean sand dropped away at an angle of about thirty degrees. The boys planed downward, a few feet above the sand until Rick's gauge read 120 feet. This was the limit of their dive. Going deeper would mean stopping for decompression on the way up.

He recalled that the waves came into the beach from a slightly northerly direction and motioned to Scotty that they should turn north. Scotty moved out to the limit of visibility, and they swam on a compass heading of north, watching for any sign of a wreck. Now and then a coral shelf extended out from the reef, but they saw nothing that could have been a wreck. Once they swam over a patch of marine growth perhaps twenty feet long and ten wide, and a huge eagle ray lifted from it and glided off like a weird futuristic airplane.

It was quiet, except for the regular chuckle of their exhausts, and the light was subdued and even. It was a world without shadows. Still, Rick thought, there was plenty of light for photography. Next time he would bring his camera.

The watch showed him that over half their allotted time was gone, and he hooted once to Scotty, then reversed course, heading back toward their floats.

They approached the patch where they had seen the ray and Rick paused suddenly. There was an odd shape on the sand near the patch. He flippered over to it and examined it. Scotty joined him. It looked like an oversized mushroom protruding from the sand at an angle.

Rick unsheathed his knife and poked at it. The sharp tip penetrated for a fraction of an inch, then stopped. It was either rock or metal, and judging from the shape, it was unlikely that it was rock. He put his knife under it and pried, and the thing moved in the sand.

Both boys went to work on it, scooping the sand from around it. In a moment they had it clear. It was something like a dumbbell, covered with marine growth where it had been above the sand, but fairly smooth under it.

Rick took his belt slate and scribbled, "Metal."

Scotty nodded. Then both of them turned to look at the patch of marine life.

A distant throb, as though of a boat, caught their attention. They looked up, but the surface was invisible.

It was Tony and Zircon, Rick decided. They probably had returned to the cottage and found the diving equipment missing. They could spot the location where the boys were diving easily enough, first by the floats, then by the bubbles of their exhausts.

Scotty hooted suddenly, four times. Rick turned quickly in time to see a six-foot shark speed past. The tips of the pectoral fins and the second dorsal were darker than the rest of the fish, and Rick identified it as a black-tipped shark. Obviously, the shark was on business of its own, not particularly interested in them. Still, it was curious. The shark was rushing almost straight up.

Scotty gripped his arm and pointed. More sharks! Another black tip. And a ten-foot leopard shark! All rushing upward.

The boys watched tensely, and then out of the dimness above something sped down at them, followed by the sharks. It landed in the clear sand just beyond the marine growth. Rick saw a black tip go for it, then the black tip was struck from the side by the big leopard. In spite of his sudden apprehension, Rick couldn't help wishing for his camera.

The sharks rushed again, and the falling object was lifted from the sand by the disturbed water. This time, Rick recognized it. A chicken! It was tied to a length of string from which dangled a lead sinker. The bird was dead, but apparently freshly so. He knew that it was the chicken blood that had brought the sharks – and a giant barracuda! The great fish, a full six feet in length, slashed past the sharks and tore a chunk out of the bird.

The leopard shark made a fast pass at the barracuda, then turned and snapped at a black tip. Rick gulped. A hole suddenly appeared in the black's side, as smooth as though scooped out of ice cream. And then the other sharks hit the wounded black tip.

There were many sharks now, worrying the chicken and the wounded black tip like fierce dogs over scraps of meat. Rick thought, "We'd better get out of here!" He hooted twice at Scotty, the signal to ascend. Scotty motioned to him to retreat. Rick picked up the dumbbell-shaped object. It was heavy, but not too heavy to handle, and he started a slow retreat along the sand.

The sharks were paying no attention to the boys, but Rick wasn't at all sure that they wouldn't, once the supply of chicken and wounded shark were exhausted. His mind raced. Where had the chicken come from? Whoever had tossed it into the water would have known that the blood would bring sharks. It wasn't a casual toss, either. Not when the chicken had been weighted with a fishing sinker big enough to carry it to the bottom. Tony and Zircon would never do such a thing. Besides, they had no chickens.

Rick and Scotty backed far enough away so that the sharks could no longer be seen. Then, heading toward the reef, they started for the surface. Scotty was slightly in the lead, and Rick kept glancing back in case one of the big fish decided to follow. But they reached the surface without incident and broke water about two hundred feet from their floats. There was no boat in sight.

Replacing aqualung tubes with snorkels, they swam on the surface, faces down, alert for sharks. When they reached the floats, Scotty kept watch from the surface while Rick dove to untie the lines.

As they climbed on the floats and lifted masks, Scotty and Rick pointed and yelled "Hey!" simultaneously.

But they had seen different things. Rick had seen the Water Witch pass through the reef and head for them. Scotty had seen another boat, a big cabin cruiser, tied up at the pier in front of the house occupied by the fancy frogmen!

Rick turned and looked at the cruiser, then at the house. He was in time to see the front door close. There would have been plenty of time for someone to drop the chicken from the cruiser and then cross the reef and tie up at the dock.

"I'll bet that's where the chicken came from," Rick said harshly.

"That's a bet I won't take," Scotty returned. "But you can bet we'll find out!"

CHAPTER IX

Wreck of the "Maiden Hand"

Tony Briotti examined the metallic object they had brought from the bottom, then took his knife and scraped at it. Under the covering of marine growth, red rust appeared. He looked at Hobart Zircon. "Recognize this, Hobart?"

"There's only one thing I can think of that fits the shape, Tony. Bar shot."

"My conclusion exactly." Tony weighed the thing in his hand. He grinned at the boys. "Adventure-prone, and lucky. Describe the place where you found it."

Rick did so, concluding, "The patch didn't look anything like a ship, though. If that's what you're thinking."

"After two centuries, the ship would no longer look like a ship. But this is unquestionably a bar shot for an ancient cannon. It was used to cut ship's rigging, and to knock down masts, and create other damage of that sort. It's likely that the pirates, or the Maiden Hand, would have carried bar shot."

"I think you have found the ship," Zircon told them, "and the question about earthquakes was a good one. There was a heavy quake in this region about a year ago. I had occasion to recall it a half hour ago when we found a slight fault at the southern tip of the island that had uncovered an Indian midden."

"And a fine one," Tony added. "You boys can dive for treasure if you want to. I've some work of my own to do."

"Incidentally," Scotty reminded Rick, "in the confusion below we forgot to send up a buoy. Hope we can find the place again."

"We can."

"What confusion?" Zircon asked.

Rick told him. "A freshly killed chicken was dropped near us. And it must have been bleeding when it hit the water, because we suddenly had a shark convention around us." He pointed to the boat tied at the pier, now far behind them because the Water Witch had been moving. "And we think that was the boat that dropped it."

"It was weighted," Scotty added.

The scientists looked at each other. Tony grunted. "It makes no sense, Hobart. Why would anyone weight a freshly killed chicken and throw it over the side?"

"No reason at all," the big scientist said, "unless he wanted to create mischief below."

"But just the act of dropping a chicken wouldn't ensure harm to divers below," Tony objected.

"That's why I said mischief. Inexperienced divers might panic under such circumstances and attract the sharks to themselves."

Rick hazarded a guess. "What if they just wanted to keep people from diving in the area?"

"That might be one way of doing it." Zircon said thoughtfully. "Are you suggesting that there are others after the Maiden Hand treasure?"

Scotty spoke up. "How could anyone else find out about the treasure?"

"It's possible that there are other references besides the logbook we found," Tony replied. "But it would be too farfetched to speculate that other treasure hunters had found the location and were diving right at this time."

"This might be related to what happened on St. Thomas," Rick ventured.

Zircon shook his massive head. "Extremely unlikely. Consider." He ticked off the points on his fingers. "Who knew we were coming to Clipper Cay? Ernst, Steve, and his Navy friend. We did not mention it to the people from whom we bought supplies, nor did we discuss it in the presence of others. We were not followed here. No, Rick, I think that we cannot blame this incident on the ones in St. Thomas."

"Then it was a dangerous practical joke," Tony concluded. "Unless there was some legitimate reason for throwing the chicken over that we don't know about."

Zircon steered the Water Witch through the reef entrance, and the Spindrifters tied up at the dock. Rick and Scotty inspected the compressor and then measured the amount of air in the tanks. They hooked the tanks up, refilled the gas tank of the compressor engine, and left the tanks to fill while they went to the cottage.

Rick and Zircon prepared dinner while Tony and Scotty refilled the gasoline lanterns that provided light, and generally straightened up the cottage.

Rick called, "Tony, tell us more about this Indian stuff you found."

Scotty added, "And what's a midden, anyway?"

Tony leaned on his broom. "A midden is a polite name for a refuse heap. Before the days of rubbish collection, people used to dump their trash in the yard. The Indians did, and thereby provided archaeologists with an important source of information. Apparently a tribe lived on this island, close to the southern tip. It's likely that they simply dumped their rubbish into the water. Well, the earthquake Hobart spoke of shifted the old coral formations at the southern tip slightly and lifted a few square yards out of the water."

He went to the front porch and brought back a curved piece of material, encrusted with coral. "This used to be a pottery bowl, probably Taino in origin. I'll probably find many like it."

It didn't look like much of a find to Rick, but he knew that Tony's trained eyes could see many things that he couldn't. "You'll dive with us, though, won't you?" he asked.

"Of course. But you and Scotty are the real enthusiasts, and the diving I do will use up air that you properly should be using. I'll go down with you in the morning, because I want a look at the wreck. But after that I think Hobart and I can amuse ourselves on the midden while you and Scotty hunt treasure. Of course we'll be ready to help if you need us."

A few minutes before six, Rick turned on his portable all-wave radio to the channel Steve had given him, but the air was silent. He waited for ten minutes, then snapped it off again. Apparently Steve had no message for them.

Dinner consisted of fresh snapper and barracuda steaks served with coconut sauce for which Zircon had learned the recipe during his tours of the Pacific. It was delicious, and Rick wondered about the fussiness of people who refuse to eat barracuda simply because the fish is a noted predator. However, he knew that people are served barracuda every day under less offensive names.

After dinner they sat over coffee on the porch and watched the sun sink beyond the reef. It was like a Pacific sunset – colorful and somehow soothing.

The boys walked to the pier, checked their tanks, and found them fully charged. Then, at Scotty's suggestion, they locked tanks and compressor in the cabin of the Water Witch. Fresh-water rinses for the remainder of their equipment followed, and they carried the equipment into the house.

Zircon was already engrossed in a book, while Tony was engaged in scraping the pottery shard he had found. The boys watched him for a few minutes, then Scotty suggested, "How about a walk?"

"Okay." There was an idea stirring in the back of Rick's head. As they walked down to the beach he said, "We ought to take a look at the folks who own that boat."

And Scotty said in the same breath, "Let's visit the fancy frogmen."

They grinned at each other, amused at how much alike their thought processes were.

"We'd better approach from the back," Scotty suggested.

Rick agreed. "Suppose we cross to the eastern shore, then walk up until we're in sight of the house. It's close to the northern tip, anyway."

It was almost fully dark now, and no lights appeared in the houses south of them. As they watched, lights showed far up the beach where the fancy frogmen lived. But there were no other lights anywhere on the island.

"Just two houses occupied," Rick said.

"We'll probably have more neighbors during the week end," Scotty answered. "The people in the house south of us must have left, but they may be back. Come on."

They made their way through the palm grove, watching fruit bats whirl against the darkening sky. There was a slight breeze, just enough to make the palms whisper. It reminded Rick of Hawaii.

The eastern shore was rough. The reef was much closer here, and long swells that had come all the way across the Atlantic sounded like subdued thunder as they broke. It was dark now, and only the white of the breaking water could be seen.

They walked up the eastern shore until the lights of the frogmen's house were directly opposite, then turned toward it, moving with caution.

"Take it easy," Rick whispered. "They may be outside."

As they drew closer they could see that the lights were in the front rooms of the house. The back was dark, except for light that came through open inner doors.

"Wait." Scotty whispered. "I'll see if they're out front."

Rick sat down to wait as Scotty vanished. Few could equal his pal when it came to moving silently and invisibly.

In a surprisingly short time Scotty reappeared. "No one out front," he reported. "They're all in the living room."

Rick rose, and together they walked swiftly and silently to the rear of the house. The door of the room in which the diving gear was stowed opened into the living room. Perhaps they could see in there.