Десмонд Бэгли - The Vivero Letter

‘Never mind him,’ I snapped. ‘Concentrate on what you’re doing.’

There was a diminution in the rate of rifle fire which I couldn’t understand. If I’d have been in Gatt’s place now was the time when I’d be pouring it on thick and heavy, but only one bullet came through the roof while Katherine and I were struggling with the harnesses and coupling up the bottles.

I turned to Fallon. ‘How is it outside?’

He was looking through the window at the sky in the east and a sudden gust of wind lifted his sparse hair. ‘I was wrong, Jemmy,’ he said suddenly. ‘There’s a storm coming. The wind is already very strong.’

‘I doubt if it will do us any good,’ I said. The two-bottle pack was heavy on my shoulders and I knew I couldn’t run very fast, and Katherine would be even more hampered. There was a distinct likelihood that we’d be picked off running for the cenote .

‘Time to go,’ said Fallon, and picked up the rifle. He had assembled all the weapons in a line near the window. He shrugged irritably. ‘No time for protracted farewells, Jemmy. Get the hell out of here.’ He turned his back on us and stood by the window with the rifle upraised.

I heaved away the table which barricaded the door, then said to Katherine, ‘When I open the door start running. Don’t think of anything else but getting to the cenote . Once you are in it dive for the cave. Understand?’

She nodded, but looked helplessly at Fallon. ‘What about...?’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Move... now!’

I opened the door and she went out, and I followed her low and fast, twisting to change direction as soon as my feet hit the soil outside. I heard a crack as a rifle went off but I didn’t know if that was the enemy or Fallon giving covering fire. Ahead, I saw Katherine zip round the corner of the hut and as I followed her I ran into a gust of wind that was like a brick wall, and I gasped as it got into my mouth, knocking the breath out of me. There was remarkably little rifle fire — just a few desultory shots — and no bullets came anywhere near that I knew of.

I took my eyes off Katherine and risked a glance upwards and saw the possible reason. The whole of the hillside above the cenote was in violent motion as the wind lashed the trees, and waves drove across as they drive over a wheatfield under an English breeze. But these were hundred-foot trees bending under the blast — not stalks of wheat — and this was something stronger than an English zephyr. It suddenly struck me that anyone on the hillside would be in danger of losing his skin.

But there was no time to think of that. I saw Katherine hesitate on the brink of the cenote . This was no time to think of the niceties of correct diving procedure, so I yelled to her, ‘Jump! Jump, damn it!’ But she still hesitated over the thirty-foot drop, so I rammed my hand in the small of her back and she toppled over the edge. I followed her a split-second later and hit feet first. The harness pulled hard on me under the strain and then the water closed over my head.

As I went under I jack-knifed to dive deeper, keeping a lookout for Katherine. I saw her, but to my horrified astonishment she was going up again — right to the surface. I twisted in the water and went after her, wondering what the hell she thought she was doing, and grabbed her just before she broke into the air.

Then I saw what was wrong. The mask had been ripped from her head, probably by impact with the water, and the airline was inextricably tangled and wound among the bottles on her back in such a position that it was impossible for her to even touch it. She was fast running out of air, but she kept her head, and let it dribble evenly and slowly from her mouth just as she had done when I surprised her in Fallon’s swimming pool back in Mexico City. She didn’t even panic when I grabbed her, but let me pull her under water to the side of the cenote .

We broke into air and she gasped. I spat out my mouthpiece and disentangled her airline, and she paused before putting the mask on. ‘Thanks!’ she said. ‘But isn’t it dangerous here?’

We were right at the side of the cenote nearest the hill and protected from plunging fire by the sheer wall of the cenote , but if anyone got past Fallon we’d be sitting ducks. I said, ‘Swim under water for the shot line, then wait for me. Don’t worry about the shooting — water is hard stuff — it stops a bullet dead within six inches. You’ll be all right if you’re a couple of feet under; as safe as behind armour plate.’

She ducked under the water and vanished. I couldn’t see her because of the dancing reflections and the popple on the water caused by the driving wind, but the boys on the hillside evidently could because of the spurts of water that suddenly flicked in a line. I hoped I was right about that bit of folklore about bullets hitting water, and I breathed with relief as there was a surge of water at the raft as she went beneath it and was safe.

It was time for me to go. I went down and swam for the raft, going down about four feet. I’ll be damned if I didn’t see a bullet dropping vertically through the water, its tip flattened by the impact. The folklore was right, after all.

I found her clinging to the shot line beneath the raft, and pointed downwards with my thumb. Obediently she dived, keeping one hand in contact with the rope, and I followed her. We went down to the sixty-five-foot level where a marker on the rope indicated that we were as deep as the cave, and we swam for it and surfaced inside with a deep sense of relief. Katherine bobbed up beside me and I helped her climb on to the ledge, then I switched on the light.

‘We made it,’ I said.

She took off her mask wearily. ‘For how long?’ she asked, and looked at me accusingly. ‘You left Fallon to die; you abandoned him.’

‘It was his own decision,’ I said shortly. ‘Switch off your valve; you’re wasting air.’

She reached for it mechanically, and I turned my attention to the cave. It was fairly big and I judged the volume to be in excess of three thousand cubic feet — we’d had to pump a hell of a lot of air into it from the surface to expel the water. At that depth the air was compressed to three atmospheres, therefore it contained three times as much oxygen as an equal volume at the surface, which was a help. But with every breath we were exhaling carbon dioxide and as the level of CO 2built up so we would get into trouble.

I rested for a while and watched the light reflect yellowly from the pile of gold plate at the further end of the ledge. The problem was simple; the solution less so. The longer we stayed down, the longer we would have to decompress on the way up — but the bottles in the back-packs didn’t hold enough air for lengthy decompression. At last I bent down and swished my mask in the water before putting it on.

Katherine sat up. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I won’t be long,’ I said. ‘Just to the bottom of the cenote to find a way of stretching our stay here. You’ll be all right — just relax and take things easy.’

‘Can I help?’

I debated that one, then said, ‘No. You’ll just use up air. There’s enough in the cave to keep us going, and I might need what you have in that bottle.’

She looked up at the light and shivered. ‘I hope that doesn’t go out. It’s strange that it still works.’

‘The batteries topside are still full of juice,’ I said. ‘That’s not so strange. Keep cheerful — I won’t be long.’

I donned my mask, slipped into the water and swam out of the cave, and then made for the bottom. I found one of our working lights and debated whether or not to switch it on because it could be seen from the surface. In the end I risked it — there wasn’t anything Gatt could do to get at me short of inventing a depth charge to blow me up, and I didn’t think he could do that at short notice.