Stuart Woods - Choke

The gin clear waters off Key West were not so clear today. There was a breeze and, since they were outside the reef, no shelter, so a light swell had roiled the sandy bottom a bit. Visibility was no more than thirty feet, Chuck reckoned as he swam after Harry, constantly checking his compass. It was peaceful, though; one of the things Chuck most enjoyed about diving was the peace. It was impossible to think about anything else when underwater.

He was descending a little too quickly, so he blew a little air into his vest to neutralize his buoyancy. That done, he continued his descent, checking his compass and depth meter, on opposite wrists, as he went. He felt a little queasy; too much wine with dinner last night, maybe. He reckoned he’d covered a hundred yards, but the wreck was still not in sight. At fifty feet he stopped his descent and blew more air into his vest. The bottom was in sight, and for the first time he had a fixed reference to let him know that a current was running-a knot, maybe two. A nurse shark swam idly underneath him, giving him a start.

He made himself relax. The creatures weren’t dangerous unless stepped on while they were sleeping on the bottom. Still, a fish that size nearby was enough to get his attention. He continued on his course of zero-three-zero, compensating for the current, which seemed to be at ninety degrees to his course.

A moment later, something large came hazily into view, and a moment after that it was clearer. The ship lay upright on the sandy bottom, intact, it seemed. Only the encrustations on its superstructure and rigging made it seem at home on the bottom instead of the surface. Harry was right; it was a good one. Harry was nowhere in sight; Chuck swam for the wreck.

Then he stopped. A little wave of nausea swept over him. Jesus, he thought, maybe he shouldn’t have come diving with a hangover. Only it wasn’t much of a hangover, not enough to make him sick. Chuck belched a couple of times; there was an awful taste in his mouth. He took a couple of extra-deep breaths and continued on. Then he saw Harry.

Harry was on deck, near the little wheelhouse, and he wasn’t wearing his tank, which lay on the ship’s deck. He still had his mask on, though, and it was all that was keeping him in one place. His body flowed out, parallel to the ship’s deck, his arms waving idly in the current.

Chuck accelerated toward him, and as he approached, he saw through Harry’s mask that his eyes were open, staring. No bubbles were rising from him. There was blood in his mask.

Chuck reached the unconscious Harry. His own heart was racing, his lungs pumping air out rapidly. He felt very sick. He decided to forget the tank, since Harry wasn’t breathing anyway. He yanked the mask off the inert man, grabbed him by the wrist, and started for the surface. He had only gone a few feet when suddenly he vomited. He spat out his mouthpiece and heaved his guts out, expelling the air in his lungs. He tried to put the mouthpiece back in for some air, but he vomited again. Involuntarily, he tried to breathe and sucked saltwater into his lungs.

Panicked now, he let go of Harry and yanked the CO2 cord on his life jacket. The jacket inflated immediately, and he shot toward the surface, kicking wildly to increase his ascent, terrified every foot of the way. What seemed minutes later, he broke the surface, gasping for air, choking on seawater and vomit, still unable to breathe. Then he retched again, bringing up bile and saltwater, and that cleared his breathing passage. He bobbed on the surface, gulping down great lungfuls of air, trying not to vomit again. He saw Fugitive at anchor, maybe a hundred and fifty yards away, upcurrent, then he saw Clare’s yellow tank. She was clinging to the diving platform.

He thought about Harry, about going down again for him, but he knew he could not. He was still nauseated. He began swimming weakly toward the yacht, but he made little progress. He unbuckled his harness and sloughed off the tank and his weights; then he was able to make better progress. As he neared the yacht, nearly exhausted, he could see that Clare had vomited, too.

He swam up to her and grabbed hold of the dive platform. “Clare, are you all right?” he gasped.

“Sick,” she said weakly. He undid her harness and got the tank off her, letting it fall into the water. He was too weak to deal with both Clare and the heavy tank. He heaved himself onto the diving platform, then got hold of Clare and dragged her up beside him.

The two of them lay there for a couple of minutes, taking deep breaths. Clare rolled over onto her stomach and vomited again. “Oh, God,” she moaned, “what’s wrong with me?”

“Me, too,” Chuck said weakly. He knew he had to get up the ladder and to the radio, but he couldn’t manage it just yet. He lay there and tried to gather strength.

“Harry,” she said. “Where’s Harry?”

“Gone,” Chuck replied, then started slowly up the ladder.

Chuck felt remarkably well now, considering how ill he had felt twenty minutes before. “How are you feeling?” he asked Clare.

“Better,” she said. She was huddled in a beach towel across the cockpit; she had hardly said a word since he had gotten her out of the water.

“Here they come,” he said, looking east. The Coast Guard cutter was steaming toward them at a great rate of knots, and he was glad to see it.

The cutter’s skipper, a lieutenant, seemed impossibly young to be in command of such a vessel, something Chuck noticed about a lot of authority figures lately.

“Are you both all right?” the young man asked as he clambered aboard.

“Yes,” Chuck said, “we’re fine.”

“Then why did you send out a mayday?” he asked.

“We’ve got one still in the water, dead,” Chuck said.

“How do you know the man is dead?” the lieutenant asked.

“Because he’s been underwater without a mask for at least half an hour,” Chuck replied. “But he was dead when I reached him.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Where is the wreck?”

“Zero-three-zero, a hundred and twenty yards, is my best guess,” Chuck replied, pointing in the direction of the reef. “There’s at least a knot of current running east.”

The lieutenant leaned over Fugitive’s railing and began crisply giving orders. “Two men in full diving gear,” he said, then told them the bearing and range. He turned back to Chuck. “Now tell me what happened.”

“We were going diving. Harry-that’s Mrs. Carras’s husband-went ahead of us, toward the wreck. I was worried because he’d had some surgery the past couple of years, and he wouldn’t wear a life jacket.”

The lieutenant turned to Clare. “What sort of surgery, ma’am?”

“He had five bypasses and prostate surgery,” Clare said listlessly. Tears began to roll down her face.

“He was in very good shape, though,” Chuck said. “He beat me at tennis yesterday.”

“Go on,” the lieutenant said.

“Harry said the wreck would be a hundred yards away, but it was farther,” Chuck said. “I finally came upon it, and Harry was lying on deck-well, not exactly lying; his tank was on deck, like he’d gotten out of it, and his mask was holding him in place against the current. His eyes were open, and there was blood in the mask.”

“What did you do then?” the lieutenant asked.

“I was feeling nauseated by then, but I pulled the mask off him and tried to get him to the surface. Then I began vomiting, and I guess I panicked. I let go of Harry and popped my jacket. I was lucky to make it, I think. I tried to swim back to the boat, but I was too weak, so I dropped my tank, and then I made it back. Clare was holding on to the dive platform; she was being sick when I got there.”