Peter Benchley - The Deep

He contemplated the possible perils and, as usual, found himself ambivalent toward them: nervous but excited, afraid of the unknown but impatient to meet it, eager to do things he had never done. As he looked at the dark water, a shiver of anticipation made the hair on his arms rise.

They traveled southwest for another few minutes.

“See up ahead,” Treece said, pointing. “That’s Orange Grove. You can tell by the lights: four in a row close together, that’s the dining room. Then a dark spot for the kitchen, then a long thin one-the picture window in the bar.”

“What do you do on a foggy night?”

“Stay home.”

Treece kept the boat at three-quarters throttle until they were directly off the Orange Grove lights. Then he turned toward shore and slowed to a speed just above idle. He peered through the cabin window at the water ahead. “Could use a bit of wind,” he said, “and a bit of cloud cover, too.

In that moonlight, we’re going to stick out like the cherry on a cream pie.”

“How much do you draw?”

“Three feet. We should get through with nothing more than a scratch or two.”

“Will I be in your way if I go up forward?”

“No. Sing out if you see anything that wants to dent us.”

Sanders walked to the bow. The dog was still blocking the way to the pulpit, and Sanders nudged her aside and went to the end of the pulpit. The bow cut through the water with a sshhhh noise that, from where Sanders stood, was as audible as the low chug of the engine. Sanders looked at the streak of moonlight ahead. Something broke

water-a flash of silver crossed the moonlight and splashed into the dark. Sanders looked back at Treece, who said, “Barracuda.”

They crossed the first line of rocks, and the second.

Twenty or thirty yards in front of the boat, Sanders saw rings of water spreading away from a center, as if some unseen hand had thrown a stone from above. “What’s that?” he said.

Treece raised up on tiptoes. “Bejesus!” he said, and he swung the wheel hard left. “That bastard would’ve stove us clean.”

“Reef?”

“Aye. We’re in the third line now.” Treece aimed the bow toward shore and turned off the engine.

The boat continued to drift, then finally settled, nearly motionless. Treece jumped up onto the gunwale and walked forward. “No wind, no tide, no nothing. One hook should keep us here.” He threw an anchor overboard and let the line run through his hands until it fell slack. He tugged it twice, securing the anchor in the coral, and tied it to a forward cleat. “Let’s get dressed.”

Followed by the dog, they went aft into the cockpit.

As Sanders attached his regulator to the neck of the scuba tank-holding the regulator up to the moon, to make sure he wasn’t putting it on backward-Treece went below. He threw two black neoprene wet suits-boots, trousers, jackets, hoods-through the hatch onto the deck.

“Is the water that cold?” Sanders asked.

“No, but the rocks’ll flay you at night. Brush up against something you can’t see, it’ll give you the chills.” Treece ducked below again, and returned, carrying in one hand a metal strongbox, in the other a large battery-powered light in an underwater housing. He showed Sanders the on-off switch on the light and said, “We won’t use it any more than we have to. It’s a bloody beacon down there.”

“How will we see?”

“Still see,” Treece said, pointing to the strongbox.

“You stick next to me.” He opened the box.

Inside, cushioned with rubber, were a mask and a pistol-grip flashlight. “Infrared stuff. So I can find the rock you left.”

When they were dressed, they sat on the starboard gunwale. “Look at your watch,” Treece said.

“After half an hour, you come up, no matter how much air you’ve got left. Don’t want to run out of breeze at night. There may be a current down there, and it’s no fun to swim five hundred yards back sucking a dry tank.”

Treece reached beneath the gunwale, found a Ping-Pong paddle, and tucked it in his weight belt. The dog wagged her tail and sniffed at Treece’s flippers. “Guard the boat, Charlotte,” he said.

He looked at Sanders. “Set? We’ll go down together. When we hit bottom, turn on the light and have a quick look-around. Make it as short as possible. Soon as you see something familiar, so you know where we are, turn off the light and head for it.

If I’m lucky with this”—he held up the infrared light—“we won’t have to use that light too much.”

“What makes you think anybody’ll come out after us?”

“Chances are, nobody will. But there’s no sense issuing engraved invitations.”

Treece put in his mouthpiece and made a thumbs-up no sign. Sanders answered with the same sign, and they rolled backward into the water.

Beneath the surface was utter darkness. More than an absence of light—it was a thick, enveloping black, a positive nothingness. Sanders’ eyes were open, but they did not see-not his bubbles as he breathed, nor the rim around the faceplate of his mask, nor a finger held an inch in front of his face. For a second, he believed he had suddenly been struck blind. Water washed around his nose. He tilted his head to clear his mask, feeling for the top of the faceplate, pressing hard with his fingers, exhaling through his nose, and he saw undulating pinpoints of light-starlight refracted by the water.

As he exhaled and his lungs emptied, Sanders began to sink toward the bottom. He took a breath, and his descent slowed. The water, chilly at first, was warming to body temperature inside his wet suit. He felt warm and helpless and peaceful, as if he were revisiting the womb. He spread his arms and let himself glide softly to the bottom.

His flippers touched sand. There was a gentle current, enough to make standing difficult, so he dropped to his knees. The light hung around his wrist by a rubber thong. He felt for the on-off switch and pushed it with his thumb. A cylinder of yellow stabbed through the black.

Sanders had no idea where he was or which way he was facing. He swung the light left and right over the sand and rocks and was startled by the brilliance of the colors brought out by the incandescent beam. By day, the sand had looked pale blue-gray, the rocks blue-brown, the fish blue-green. But the flashlight brought out the natural in colors. He saw the whites and reds and oranges of the coral, the power-pink belly of a slumbering parrot fish. The light hit a line of brown, covered by green, and Sanders recognized it as one of the timbers from the wreck. The head of a small barracuda appeared at the edge of the beam of light.

It lingered for only a moment. Sanders looked around.

Outside the narrow shaft of yellow, all was black. He wondered if sharks were attracted by light.

Something touched his shoulder. He jerked backward in spasmodic shock and felt fingers tapping him. Then he saw the black figure of Treece move into the beam of light. Treece gestured for Sanders to turn off the light and follow him; he held out his hand.

Sanders took the hand, turned off the light, and when he felt a slight tug, began to kick alongside Treece.

Still he saw only black. Without Treece’s special mask, the infrared light was invisible. Sanders assumed that Treece was homing in on the cave, for there was no hesitation to his movement: he was swimming fast, in what felt like a relatively straight line.

Treece slowed, then stopped. With his hand, he guided Sanders to a spot on the bottom. He tapped the light, and Sanders pressed the switch.

They were at the mouth of the cave.

The light reflected off the white sand and rock walls. Sanders saw the rock marker they had placed in the cave. Treece’s hand moved it and set it in the sand next to the infrared light. A finger pointed to the depression in the sand where the rock had been, telling Sanders to train the light there. The finger withdrew, and a hand appeared, holding the Ping-Pong paddle. Treece moved the paddle over the sand in short, swift motions. The sand rose in billows: in seconds, the cave was filled with a cloud. Sanders put his face down beside the light. The hole in the sand grew. It was several inches deep, more than a foot in diameter. Treece brought his face down beside Sanders’, and the two heads clustered about the light as the paddle waved the sand away.