The Ebb Tide Page 6

  “Can you discern what he means to do?” St. Ives asked, concentrating on his task.

  “No. It’s difficult to tell how far off…. Wait, I believe he’s coming directly toward us now, moving slowly. Perhaps he’s just seen us.”

  “We’ve got it!” St. Ives said, glancing through the port at the approaching submarine. He gave the grapple a small tug to assure that it was secure, and then tugged in earnest, and we teetered forward for one breathtaking, eye-shutting moment before we settled back onto our pins. The box slid neatly off the bed of the wagon in a silty cloud and settled on the sea floor, dozens of feather worms snatching themselves into their holes. St. Ives released the grapple, retracted the mechanical arm firmly against the hull of our craft, and began to propel the chamber a few paces off. “We’ll leave the rest up to our friends topside,” he said with satisfaction.

  “Gladly,” I said, glancing out through the port at the submarine, suspended there at a distance of perhaps 50 yards, although it was difficult to tell in the darkness. Frosticos seemed to be doing us the favor of casting a helpful light on our work.

  “Keep an eye on that box, Jack,” St. Ives said, looking steadily at his chronometer. “We should see Merton’s hand at play right about…now.” All was still for a moment, and then the box gave a jerk and began hopping and scooting along the floor of the sea, sand and sea bottom debris rising in a cloud. St. Ives nodded agreeably at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him, our notable success having swept the fears out of my mind like yesterday’s cobweb. All this time, of course, I had been doing my duty with the oxygen lever, and I noted cheerily that the air still whooshed briskly through the pipes. Suffocation, then, was still some distance off. We began our creeping, homeward progress, our real work finished. We simply had to wait our turn to be reeled in. St. Ives meant to be as directly under the crane as ever we could be, so that our ascent was unimpeded by anything but a floating chair or two.

  I waved victoriously at the submarine, imagining happily that the good doctor’s head was set to explode from frustration. The craft had by then begun to move away, and was circling around as if turning tail for Carnforth in defeat. “He’s showing us his back, the dog,” I said to St. Ives. “Slinking away.” But the submarine continued to turn in a close circle, not slinking away at all, and soon the light was aimed dead at us, its watery glow obscuring the shadow of the ship behind it. Abruptly it launched itself forward, flying at us in an increasing rush.

  Chapter 7

  The Turning of the Tide

  I gasped out a warning to St. Ives, who shouted, “Hold on!” at that same moment. He was bent over the controls, high-stepping our awkward craft across the sea floor now, attempting to maneuver us out of the way of the approaching submarine, which veered to remain on course. I held on with an iron grip, watching our doom hurtle toward us. The submarine easily compensated for our creaking, evasive ploys, and within moments we were blinded by the intensity of its light, and we both threw ourselves to the deck, hands over our heads, as if we could somehow protect ourselves.

  The chamber toppled backward, and we were thrown together in a heap. I banged my elbow into something hard, but scarcely felt it, fully expecting the rush of cold water, the desperate, futile flight through the hatch. But there was no rush of water, and I had no sensation of our craft having been struck by anything. The light from the submarine was gone. The submarine had passed over us, and we found ourselves dragged along backward at what seemed to be a prodigious rate. It was our friends above, hauling us out bodily. We were “packing it in” as Fred had put it, right on time, and there was no dignity involved in the packing. I gripped the stanchions that supported the circular seat, and looked up through the port at the dark ceiling of our grotto, and once again I saw the flotsam held in stasis against the sands.

  Then the blinding light again, and the submarine swept past, inches overhead, its dark shape passing like a great whale, and I thanked my stars that we were tipped flat, for the submarine evidently didn’t dare to swim any closer to the sea floor. But my musings were shattered by a heavy jolt, and now out of the port I saw that we had bulled our way straight into the coach and four. A rain of human bones tumbled out through the window. Our retracted arm hooked into the bottom of a horse’s skull, which sailed along with us like a misplaced figurehead before another jolt knocked it free. Then suddenly we were ascending smoothly, and we hauled ourselves gratefully onto the seats again, taking stock of bruises and abrasions.

  We passed through the stasis layer into the murk of the sands, St. Ives letting out ballast to aid our ascent, and I reminded myself not to be quite so prematurely satisfied in the future, gloating over a victory before the enemy had left the field. Now we were clear, though. He could hardly follow us into the pool of quicksand. “Nothing broken?” I asked St. Ives.

  “My chronometer, I’m afraid.” He held up the shattered timepiece. “I’d rather break an arm, or very nearly. But not a bad bill to pay, all in all.”

  We continued to ascend in silence for another minute or two, but then abruptly stopped.

  “Perhaps a fouled line,” St. Ives said. “They’ll be at it again directly.”

  But the minutes passed, and still we sat there, my mind turning in the silence. It came to me that I should make a clean breast of my long-held suspicions while I had a quiet moment. “I’m a little worried about an element of this entire business,” I said.

  “Out with it, then.”

  “We’ve had some good luck,” I told him. “And it seems we’ve been clever. But consider this: what if Frosticos knew what we were about, and I mean from the beginning. That business at Merton’s—knocking poor Merton on the head like that—what if it was meant to move us to action? For my money Frosticos wasn’t foxed by the false map for more than a moment. He knew we had the original, and he intended for us to lead him to the box. He provided us the means by lending us this diving chamber. We were at the mercy of the tides once we arrived here at the Bay, and it was no great feat for him to lurk about the subterranean reaches watching for us when the time was right. Then he played a helpful light on our endeavors until we had succeeded, at which point he tried to murder us in cold blood, having done with us.”

  St. Ives sat thinking, but there was only one element of the theory that required any thinking. He reached up and gave us another gasp of air. “You say he wasn’t foxed by the map,” he said carefully. “You’re suggesting…”

  “I don’t mean to suggest anything,” I said, looking out into the by now thick sands, “only that we might have been played like fiddles.”

  “I sense that you don’t want to cast any blame on Finn Conrad, but he might easily be the necessary link in the chain? His appearance outside Merton’s was certainly convenient.”

  “It was,” I said, “although it’s as easily coincidental. Perhaps Merton’s forgery was simply no good, and Frosticos saw through it.”

  “You’ve seen his handiwork,” St. Ives said.

  “Yes, but suppose Frosticos had come here straightaway by some subterranean route and had already found the map useless before our arrival, thereby suspecting it to be a forgery and lying in wait for us. When he saw us in our lighted chamber meddling on the sea floor…” I shrugged and gave us more air.

  “But we’ve got to consider that Finn was our means of finding the boatyard and discovering this chamber. We were forced to flee in it in order to avoid drowning or being shot by men who seemed to have known we would come along when we did.”

  “One other thing,” I said. “You were careful to slip the true map into your coat pocket, but Merton wasn’t half so careful, especially with his insanely detailed letter, which he placed directly into Finn’s hands before sending him post haste to the Bay.”

  “I find the idea distressing,” St. Ives said wearily. “I don’t say that I find it unlikely, just distressing.”

  “I’ve been distressed by it for the past days,” I told him, “and I should ha
ve spoken up earlier. But I like the boy, and I don’t want to malign him, especially when there’s the chance that he’s innocent. Perhaps we’re as shrewd as we think ourselves to be, but it looks very much as if Frosticos has been leading us along like blind men.” I watched the unchanging view through the port, worried that they were taking an infernally long time, and slightly unhappy with myself for having laid out my suspicions about Finn Conrad like a trial lawyer while insisting that I didn’t want to malign him.

  “For the moment,” St. Ives said, “let’s remember that all their machinations have been in vain. We’ll keep a weather eye on Finn, just for safety’s sake, but we’ll not condemn him until we’re certain.”

  “Good enough,” I said, and abruptly we began to rise again, jerky and quick, and within moments we burst out into the dawn twilight, dripping watery sand, having been reeled in ignominiously, but alive. I saw straight off, however, that something was amiss.

  The wagon was tilted disastrously, headfirst into the sand. Fred had untied the team, their forelegs covered with ooze, and was leading them away. Finn stood by him, but I saw that Hasbro lay over the back of one of the horses, unconscious or dead. Fred glanced back at us with concern evident on his face, and when St. Ives opened the hatch Fred shouted, “Remain very still, lads. Your friend’s been shot. He’ll live to tell the tale. There’s nothing for you to do for him.” He pointed up the bay before turning away.

  We looked in that direction discerned movement atop a high dune not too far off the shore. It was impossible to say who it was for certain, but we had no doubt that it was our tall friend who had peppered away at us in the boatyard.

  Then we saw that we hadn’t, in fact, been drawn clear of the sands at all, but our legs and underbelly were still submerged. The wagon itself was half sunk, too, and Fred had evidently unhitched the team in order to save them from being drawn down with the wagon. The box was grappled to its line, and it seemed likely that the combined weight of the box and the diving chamber and we two human beings had been enough to haul the wagon down into the mire.

  “One at a time, now,” Fred shouted in a voice meant for the deck of a ship. “Out the door and across the wagon, lads. It’s the only way. And be quick about it! Don’t stand arguing.” He set out toward shore.

  “Out you go, Jack,” St. Ives said, putting his hand on my elbow.

  I shook it off. “You first. Think of Eddie and Cleo,” I said to him. “And take the box with you or this is all for nothing. I’ll follow.”

  Of course he started to protest, but I cut him off sharp.

  “It’s no good,” I told him. “My mind’s made up. So it’s either out the door or shut the hatch.”

  Fred shouted something more from afar, shouted as if he meant it, and St. Ives shook his head darkly and swung carefully out of the hatch, reaching for the line along the side of the crane, stepping across to get a foot on the bed of the wagon. At once there was more shouting from without, and then the unmistakable sound of a rifle shot. I was thinking quite clearly and reasonably and was filled with a certain calm, and doubly determined to wait until St. Ives was clear of the wagon and the box with him.

  He had his shoulder under it now, lifting it upward to take the weight off the grapple. When it was free, he carried it heavily to the rear of the wagon and set it down in order to drop to the ground. Beyond, nearly halfway to Humphrey Head now, the others swarmed along, Fred leading the horses with one hand, the other holding onto Finn’s arm. I saw the boy look back at us, and Fred letting go of him for a moment to gesture for us to hurry. And in that moment Finn bolted, back across the sands toward us. Fred slapped the horses and sent them careening forward, carrying Hasbro toward high ground, and he turned and ran back after the boy. There was another rifle shot, and I saw Fred drop to the ground, but then he was up again and running.

  I saw something else, too: far in the distance, out toward the broad ocean, the tide was returning. It appeared as a wall of roiling whitewater, lit by the rising sun. How high and how distant I couldn’t make out, but it was moving toward us like galloping doom.

  St. Ives saw it, too. He left the box on the bed of the wagon and ran toward Finn. What the boy thought he could accomplish returning to the wagon I can’t say. The only answer was that he was coming to our aid at the peril of his own life, and I was filled with happiness and shame both. Even so, he had chosen the worst moment for his heroics.

  I leaned out of the hatch in a fair hurry now and clutched wildly at the crane arm, managing to grab the grappling hook, looking back to see St. Ives stopping Finn in his tracks, urging him back toward shore. Holding onto the grapple, I stepped out across the three empty feet to the tilted bed of the wagon, and suddenly I was falling, the line reeling out of the unsecured windlass. I clutched at the air futilely with my free hand, landing on the sands without a shudder, plunging in knee deep. I could hear Fred shouting, and St. Ives shouting, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Finn catapult past St. Ives and run out across the sands. Fred grabbed St. Ives by the coat now and dragged him back bodily, and St. Ives had no choice but to follow. Together they fled toward shore, not knowing that I was mired and supposing that I would gather Finn up and follow.

  I heard the ratchet sound of the windlass crank, and the rope, which was coiled atop the sand like a floating snake, began to retract. I held onto the grapple with both hands, otherwise keeping very still, and after a moment the line went taut, and I began to rise from the sands with the heavy sound of sucking and of gasping as my boots pulled free. I let go with one hand and reached for the side of the wagon, getting a good grip on it, kicking myself up onto the seat and clambering to the bed, where I stumbled to my knees, breathing heavily, half with fear and half with exertion. Finn had jumped down now, and was waving me on and pointing toward the tide, frighteningly close, moving in a long even mass of dark green and white.

  Spurred by this sight, I leapt down, heeding Finn’s admonition to run, but when I glanced again at the tide I saw that I could not. The quarter mile to shore was simply too far. Fred and St. Ives would be hard pressed to save themselves. To the north, the hillock of sand from which the doctor’s henchmen had been shooting was empty. They’d seen the advancing sea and gone away like sensible men.

  “To the wagon!” I said to Finn, and the two of us climbed back up onto the bed, which was canted steeply downward, its stern to the tide. Finn’s face wore an avid sort of lunatic joy, as if this were an adventure rather than a death sentence. My own thoughts were equally lunatic—that the wagon might save us, and that I might save the abandoned device, which had taken a disastrous toll over the years. I was damned if we’d lose it now. I shouted at Finn to lash himself to the mast of the crane with the line from the grappling hook, and I picked up the box and staggered to the front of the wagon, where the diving chamber hung with its hatch open. I spun half around with the effort of throwing the box, nearly pitching off into the sands again, but I was dead on. It crashed through the open hatch, the ocean-corrupted case knocking itself to flinders, the device sliding beneath the seat.

  When I turned around the Bay behind us was a shimmering, rapidly expanding sea, its leading edge billowing and surging forward at a height I wouldn’t have thought possible, and I could do no more than throw myself down on the bed of the wagon and latch onto the crane mast like a limpet before the tide was upon us. The waters slammed into the wagon, throwing a wave of cold ocean across our backs at the same moment that it pitched the rear of the wagon upward and forward, so that it bucked like a spooked horse. I was flung into the air, but I hung on tenaciously, hearing the splintering of wood as the wheels and axle and tongue of the wagon were torn from the bed like rotten sticks. We spun around crazily, abruptly free of the quicksand, and I slammed down sideways to the deck again, aware that we were flying forward on the crest of the tide at a prodigious speed.

  After a few moments, I realized that doom hadn’t overtaken us after all, at least not yet, and I ventured a look
around to see how things stood. What I saw was the oddest thing: ahead of us lay dry sand flats and dunes, cockle beds and half-buried debris, but beneath us the roiling tide was tossing and tearing along, now surging ahead as if to outrun us, now abating so that we moved ahead, careening along at the very forward edge of the rushing sea in a death-or-glory flight.

  I heard Finn shout out loud, not a warning or a shout of fear, but one of primal joy as we sailed like maniacs up the Bay, bouncing and scudding on the current. I clung stubbornly to the crane mast, but Finn stood up and let go with one hand, holding on with the crook of his elbow, dipping and bobbing, loose-kneed and as sure of himself as if he stood bareback atop a horse, reeling around the center ring of Duffy’s circus.

  We were quartering across the Bay now, swept west as well as north, so that we would make a landfall somewhere above Grange-over-Sands. I espied the crow’s nest atop Flotsam already behind us, and the thick trees along the marshy, lower reaches of Hampsfield Fell some distance ahead. I was cold, soaked with seawater, and blessedly thankful—even more thankful when the shoreline finally hove toward us in a rush. The wagon was thrown onto the beach by the tide, wheels forward, and we rolled across twenty feet of sandy shingle in a mad instant and straight on into the marsh, where we quickly lost momentum, slowing to a stop in a pool of dark water that sat amid the trees. The diving chamber with its prize inside was still miraculously secured to the crane, and it swung back and forth slowly like the pendulum of an enormous clock.

  Chapter 8

  Smothercated

  The morning was peacefully silent but for the calling of gulls, the cool spring sun filtered through the leaves of the tree limbs overhead, and Morecambe Bay lay as placid as a lake behind us, the tidewaters a thing of memory. It was as if we had stepped out of the tumult of a noisy ball into the silent peace of a garden.

  “Stay well clear of the pool,” I said, looking down at the swampy ground beneath us. The wagon settled more deeply into the mire even as we watched, as if the sands of the Bay and its marshy environs were determined to consume us. Finn leapt clear, landing on his feet, and I followed, coming down on solid ground with an ankle-numbing force.