The Land God Made in Anger. John Davis Gordon
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into the tube, and then he ground to a stop again. With all his heart he just wanted to kick himself upwards and get out of this horrifying place but he twisted his shoulders, felt the barnacles crumble against his tank, and he clenched his teeth and shoved downwards again; and his feet hit the deck below.
He came to a sudden stop and felt the German seaman’s boot squelch under his foot in the blackness. His body was still inside the tube, but he was standing in the black water of the control room. He wanted to kick and claw upwards out of this hell-hole: and he fiercely screwed up his eyes and bent his knees and tried to shove himself downwards and backwards, out from under the end of the tube. He felt his hips clear the end, and then his airtank again jammed against the barnacles.
For a horrible moment he hung there, his back arched, his legs protruding into the blackness of the submarine’s control room, the rest of him curved upwards; then he shoved again frantically, and he felt his airtank wedge tight. Panic screamed up him and he wrestled his shoulders frantically, but his tank was locked solid. He gargled in horror and grappled his hands up the barnacled tube and shoved with all his frantic might, and he felt himself grate free. He kicked his feet against the steel deck below, and went clawing up the tube like a spider. His head burst back into the conning tower. He came scrambling out of the escape-tube in a mass of bubbles and grabbed the ladder and clung.
He clutched, fighting to get the panic under control, then looked at the Kid and shook his head. The Kid pointed at McQuade’s hips and chest. His new wetsuit was ripped, gaping on hips, chest and both arms, slashed by the barnacles, and seeping out of the gashes were thin tendrils of blood. McQuade stared at his torn wetsuit, then jabbed his finger upwards. He snatched up his fins and wrestled them onto his feet, then he pulled on the rung and he surged up the ladder. He bumped through the hatch and burst up onto the bridge. The Kid came through the hatch after him in a flurry of bubbles. They both kicked off, towards the surface.
They rose slowly, keeping pace with their own bubbles, rising between the waving nets midst the gloom and darting fish: then there was the surface, like a contorting mirror, and they burst through it simultaneously. McQuade twisted, looking wildly for the dinghy, then he struck out for it. He hurled himself onto the gunnel and kicked and threw up his leg, and rolled over into it.
The Kid sloshed more brandy into the glasses: ‘Indulge in some more of this.’ McQuade sat slumped on the bench in his underpants, his hair matted, his shredded wetsuit on the deck, while Elsie dabbed disinfectant on his cuts. ‘You poor thing,’ Elsie tutted, ‘you poor thing.’ McQuade took a big gulp of brandy and shuddered. ‘You nearly killed me, Kid.’
‘Sorry about that,’ the Kid said.
‘Ruined,’ Tucker said, morbidly examining the wetsuit. ‘Ruined, can’t patch this. Brand new,’ he added.
‘I can still taste that deadly black water.’ McQuade shuddered.
‘Brand new,’ Tucker repeated sorrowfully.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Elsie snapped.
‘What I mean is—’
‘We know what you mean!’
‘We’ll just take it out of Rosie’s housekeeping,’ the Kid joshed.
‘Oh please be serious!’
‘Serious?!’ the Kid cried. ‘Serious, the man says! Here we’ve found the bloody submarine while you sat in your nice warm dinghy! We’ve almost cracked it and we’re all about to be millionaires and all you do is grizzle about a torn wetsuit!’
Tucker shouted, ‘It’s not just the wetsuit! I’m saying we don’t know what we’re doing – that’s why the wetsuit’s ruined! Because you should have cleared those barnacles off first—’
‘Right! So next time you go down and clear the barnacles!’
‘You nearly killed yourselves down there!’ Tucker shouted. ‘Because we don’t know what we’re doing! We’re rushing in where angels fear to tread!’ He pointed angrily at McQuade. ‘You could have got stuck in that tube and never got out alive! The barnacles might have cut your air-hose!’
McQuade held up a palm, eyes closed. ‘Of course we’ve got to clear the barnacles next time. But we’ve found out that we can’t get down that tube with airtanks on, barnacles or no barnacles, because when you get to the bottom and try to bend at the waist—’
‘So how’re you going to get in,’ Tucker demanded belligerently ‘– by osmosis?’
McQuade was surprised that Tucker knew a big word like osmosis. ‘The best way is to go down the escape tube without an airtank on. But with the regulator in your mouth. The airtank harness is lowered down after you, on a rope. Maybe it’ll even float. Then when you get to the bottom, and you’re safely out of the tube, you pull the harness out after you and put it on.’
They were all looking at him. Then the Kid said, ‘Of course. Why didn’t we think of that?’
Tucker stared, then jabbed his finger, ‘Because we didn’t think first! Because,’ he waved his hand, ‘we rushed in like a bull at a gate! And so you nearly killed yourself, and ruined a brand-new wetsuit!’
‘Oh, fuck the wetsuit!’ Elsie shouted. ‘Look at this man’s wounds!’
‘So the trip’s been a success!’ the Kid cried. ‘We’ve found out how to think! All for the price of one wetsuit!’
There was a silence. Then: ‘Now, now, boys,’ Elsie murmured.
‘And the rest,’ Tucker glowered. ‘You nearly lost your lives as well. What happens when you get inside? We don’t know a thing about the layout of submarines. What about water-tight doors? How do you open them? What tools do you need to take with you? What lights?’
‘So what are you suggesting? That we give up?’
McQuade jerked as Elsie dabbed iodine on a new wound. ‘There, there,’ Elsie crooned. ‘There, there …’
Tucker glowered at them sullenly. ‘I don’t know, but I do know that we’re a fishing company and we can’t afford to waste money trying things we know nothing about.’
McQuade banged his hand on the table angrily. ‘You’re absolutely right! We’ve got to find out about this type of submarine. All about it. And that means I’ve got to go to the submarine museum in Germany.’
They were all staring at him. Potgieter blinked. Tucker looked aghast.
‘To Germany?’ he whispered. ‘How can we afford that?’
‘For God’s sake, did you nearly kill yourself down there today? No – I did! There’s no way I’m going to try again until I know what I’m doing! And that means seeing a submarine, going over it! Studying it, looking for places where loot could be hidden so we know where to look!’
‘But the expense,’ Tucker whined.
McQuade pointed at the sea angrily. ‘There’s a fortune lying just down there—’
‘We don’t know that. There may be nothing inside.’
‘Then all the more reason to find out more about it! I’ll be able to trace that submarine through the German archives!’
‘But we can’t afford to send you to Germany—’
McQuade banged the table again. ‘Then I’ll go at my own expense! While you go back to sea and catch fish!’
Because it is so popular with German tourists, there is a Lufthansa