Danger Below! Read online

  “But at least you have no reason to question Captain Biggs’ actions?” Maxwell demanded.

  “No reason whatever,” the scientist stated, and the men relaxed slightly, or so it seemed to Rick.

  Captain Biggs switched to a new tack. “I’d been navigating by radio direction finder, and when the eye of the storm gave me good visibility, I took bearings on this island. But with the ship heaving so, the bearings couldn’t be very precise. We’d appreciate seeing how you plotted yours.”

  “Certainly.Won’t you come into the library? Rick and Scotty took the bearings, and I’m sure they’ll be glad to go over the figures with you.”

  In the library, the captain pulled a notebook from his pocket and read off his sightings. Rick jotted them down. Then, because the bearings were from the sea to the island, he plotted their reciprocals on the chart so that the Spindrift sightings and the captain’s could be compared directly. The bearings were very good, and Rick said so. “You were a lot closer than I would have thought anyone could be from a pitching boat, Captain. As you see, you’re less than five hundred yards north of our position, and less than that to seaward.”

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  “This will certainly show that Captain Biggs did everything he could to plot the precise location,”

  Maxwell said heartily.

  Rick intercepted Scotty’s glance. His pal’s eyebrow went up an eighth of an inch. “I guess that’s so, sir,”

  he replied.

  Maxwell and Biggs had apparently obtained the information they had come for. Dr. Brant and the boys escorted them to the dock, talking about the hurricane and the damage it had done to the coast, then waved good-by as they shoved off.

  “An odd pair,” Hartson Brant commented. “They could have called us on the phone without coming all the way out here.”

  “I thought so, too,” Rick agreed.

  Scotty didn’t comment until the two boys were alone in the submersible, fitting the sonoscope image tube into its holder. As Scotty drove screws home while Rick held the instrument in place, he observed,

  “Rick, old buddy, what interested me most was the place Captain Biggs chose to cut his tow loose.”

  Rick grinned.“Yep. And that’s why I think there’s more to this business than meets the eye. Biggs must have known he was losing the tow when we first saw him. But what does he do? He waits before cutting it loose. He waits until he’s right over the deepest water on this part of the coast!”

  CHAPTER V

  Echo of the Wreck

  There came a lull in the lab activity while Roger Pryor left the island to go toPhiladelphia , home city ofSeafaring Industries . While installation of the sonoscope was in progress, one of the company labs had been fabricating special watertight connectors through which wires from the nose were to reach the submersible’s interior. The small nose compartment containing the sonar device would be flooded when underwater.

  Rick took advantage of the break to do a bit of telephone detecting. As he explained to Scotty, “Maybe everything’s on the up and up.But maybe not. Why wonder when a phone call or two will tell us?”

  Captain Douglas of the State Police, commander of the local barracks, knew just about everything that went on in Whiteside. He was an old friend. Rick called him and asked, “Did our hurricane watcher get through the storm all right?”

  “Both of them did,”Douglas replied. “Which one do you mean, Rick?”

  “We only knew about one,” Rick explained. “He was on the beach just south of Pirate’s Cove. Where was the other one?”

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  “He put up his instruments in the old Rescue Service shack on the beach north of Whiteside Landing.

  Why? What are you looking for, Rick?”

  “We just wondered, Captain. Scotty and I talked with Dr. Cartwell, who was south of us, but we haven’t had a chance to get back and see if he got what he was after.”

  “You’d have missed him. He and his friend both pulled out of their stations right after Donna’s eye passed, before the winds got real bad again. They moved into a motel in town, and left when the winds subsided. So I suppose they got what they were after.”

  Rick thanked the officer and hung up. He repeated the conversation to Scotty. “Pretty strange for weather observers to leave before the storm was over, don’t you think?”

  Scotty agreed promptly. “I think they were a couple of phonies. Two stations, both closed after the eye passed the area. And what does that add up to?”

  “They weren’t interested in weather. They were doing a triangulation on the tug and the drill rig. It can’t be anything else.”

  Scotty shook his head. “I agree, but we can’t be sure. Better make a couple of other checks-or at least one.”

  “Okay. Here goes.”

  Rick called theUniversityofDelaware and asked for Dr. Cartwell. After some confusion, the university switchboard said no such person was on the faculty. Did he want someone else? Rick asked to speak to the university’s Research Coordinator, then inquired about aUniversityofDelaware project in conjunction with the United States Weather Bureau to measure certain aspects of the hurricane.

  The Research Coordinator didn’t know what Rick was talking about. There was no such project atDelaware . Rick thanked him and rang off.

  “Does that settle it?” he asked.

  “Looks so,” Scotty admitted. “And would you care to make a small wager?”

  “Such as?”

  “That both those observers had radio transmitting and receiving units.In other words, walkie-talkies on the Citizen’s Band.”

  “No bet,” Rick said with a shake of his head. “What you’re saying is that they were giving Captain Biggs the precise position so that he could dump the drill rig into Tansey’s Trench.”

  “Doesn’t it look that way?”

  “It sure does.But why?”

  “How do I know?” Scotty asked.

  Rick rubbed his chin thoughtfully.“Insurance, maybe? Anyway, if we’re right, the only reason Maxwell Page 21

  and Biggs called on us was to see if we’d noticed anything funny about how the tow was handled.”

  “Big question,” Scotty said. “Is the rig in the trench?”

  There was only one way to answer that big question, and that was to go and see. To do so, help was needed. Rick went to the bottom of the stairs and called up to Barby. She and Jan were going over clothes in Barby’s room.

  “What is it, Rick?”

  “We need help from you and Jan. Can do?”

  “Can and will.” In a moment the girls joined them. Briefly Rick reported his telephone conversations and the conclusion, and ended by saying, “Scotty and I will go out in the boat and use the echo sounder to see if we can find the rig. But you two will have to take positions on the porch and labroof, and line up the pelorus and compass, then tell us when we’re on station. Navigating that precisely from the water would be difficult with the instruments we have on the boat.”

  There were three instruments in the Megabuck Network. Rick got them from his room, gave one to Jan, and one in the form of an ornamental hair band to Barby. It had been made for her originally. He kept the third. While the girls started for their stations with the communications units, Barby with the pelorus and Jan with the Boy Scout compass, the boys hurried to the dock.

  Aboard the largest Spindrift boat was an echo sounder that Scotty had put together from a kit. Its purpose was to give depth, both as an aid to navigation and for finding fishing spots. It wouldn’t register small variations in the undersea terrain, but the drill rig was plenty big enough to register-if they could find it.

  “We may have trouble if it’s really in the trench,” Scotty said as they cast off.“The deeper the water, the less precise this gadget. The maximum useful depth is about 500 feet. After that, the sound scatters too much and you get false returns.”

  “If it’s in Tansey’s Trench, we’ll have to go after it in the Sea Horse,” Rick retorted. He engag
ed the gears, and the motorboat backed out of the landing cove, turned, and headed for sea.

  The height of the waves still showed evidence of the storm’s passing, but the weather had quieted down nearlyto fair-weather normal, and the sea wasn’t too rough for comfort. Rick steered by compass, compensating slightly for drift caused by the waves. About a mile from shore he spoke into the Megabuck unit. “Can you read me?”

  “Loud and clear,” Jan replied, and Barby chimed in, “Of course we can hear you.”

  Rick grinned. He asked, “Could you have heard me if you hadn’t turned on the unit?” Barby had once forgotten to turn on her Megabuck set at a crucial time.

  “Like an elephant, he never forgets,” Barby retorted.“Unless, of course, he happens to be wrong. Then his memory fails.”

  “I’ve trained it,” Rick said. “Stand by.”

  The boat bounced through the waves, throwing spray. Rick enjoyed it, as he always did getting out Page 22

  on-or under-the sea. When he estimated they were nearly on station, he called again.

  “How are we doing?”

  Jan replied, “You’re north of my line.”

  “And south of mine,” Barby reported.

  “That means we’re not far enough out,” Rick answered. “Watch, and call in when we’re about there.” In a moment Barby spoke up.“Dead on.” “Still a bit north,” Jan said. “Correct slightly as you go-“

  Rick adjusted the wheel a fraction.

  “Steady as she goes,” Jan called.“Stop! You’re dead on.”

  “Dead on for me, too,” Barby agreed.

  “Okay. How are you reading, Scotty?”

  “A bit less than 295 feet.”

  “Okay. Search starts. We’ll head for the direction where Roger estimated it went down. Keep track of us, girls.”

  He held the boat at slow speed while Scotty watched the face of the echo sounder, which showed depth as a green blip on an illuminated screen.

  Scotty read off the depths: “290, 295, 300, 305, 300, 310, 300, 340, 350, 370, 400. Hey, we’re over the trench!”

  Rick stayed on course for a few minutes longer, then turned 90 degrees to head seaward, held the course for a count of twenty, then turned 90 degrees again. “Heading back to the starting point,” he told the listening girls. “Vector us correctly.”

  “Give it about 2 degrees west,” Jan said quickly.

  “It looks the same to me,” Barby agreed.

  Rick corrected slightly, moving the wheel slowly so as not to overcompensate.“How’s that?”

  “Good. Steady as she goes,” Jan reported.

  In a moment Barby spoke up.“Dead on.”

  “Agree,” Jan said.

  Rick turned the boat in its own length, and set a course a bit northward and eastward of the previous run. It was a repetition of the first.Slight variations in the bottom, and then the fast drop over Tansey’s Trench. He made the run five times more, returned to the starting point where the tow had been cut loose, then started searching closer inshore. After another five runs he was beginning to wonder if the currents had moved the drill rig in another direction completely. Then, on the return to the starting point, Page 23

  Scotty called the depths.

  “Over the trench.Fuzzy reading.Still fuzzy.Clearing at 550, 500,450, 425,400, 370,325, 300, 310, 210,195 . Hey! We’re over it!”

  Rick reversed his engines and called into the unit, “We’ve got it! Get bearings!”

  In a second Barby spoke.“I’m on.”

  “Locked tight,” Jan agreed.“Wonderful, Rick! Did you take a buoy?”

  He berated himself for being thoughtless. “No, and I don’t know if there’s one aboard.”

  The resourceful Scotty came to the rescue. “Don’t worry, Rick. Just hold station.” He dove into the forward locker and tossed out a coil of quarter-inch nylon line, then disappeared and came up with a coil of half-inch line and a small patent anchor. Working quickly, he tied the two lines together and affixed the five-pound anchor to an eye splice on the end of one.

  “Ask the girls if we’re still on station.”

  Rick did so. “Slightly off,” Barby reported. “Go south about three boat lengths.”

  Jan spoke up. “That puts you off for me. You’re about two lengths too far out”

  Rick corrected as directed, until the girls spoke together. “You’re on, Rick!”

  “Now,” he said.

  The anchor plummeted into the depths. Scotty payed out line until only half the remaining half-inch coil was left, then he began “fishing.” He explained, “I’m trying to see if I can feel it. It ought to feel different from the bottom.” He let out more line, then said, disappointed, “Feels like soft bottom. Check with the girls.”

  “Anchor on the bottom, but not on the wreck,” Rick told them. “Recheck your bearings.”

  “Still on,” Jan said.“Maybe a hair north.”

  “You’re a couple of lengths north on the pelorus,” Barby called. “Rick, the wind and current are pushing you.”

  He had known that, but he couldn’t estimate how rapidly he was drifting, nor did he know whether the slowly turning propeller was pushing him too hard against the drift. “I must have been drifting north,” he said. He gave the boat a bit more throttle and moved slowly toward the south, into the main thrust of the light wind. Scotty let out a yell.“Caught!” He threw figure eights around a cleat, then hurriedly attached a pair of bright, high-visibility orange life jackets to the end of the line, released the figure eights from around the cleats, and tossed the jackets into the sea.

  “Wreck now buoyed properly, sir,” Scotty reported, saluting like a British sailor.

  “Well done, Scott. For this you shall be promoted to Able-Bodied Seaman,” Rick stated kindly. “You are a credit to the Spindrift Navy.”

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  “ Thankee, Captain,” Scotty said modestly. “Idoes my best to oblige, sir, that I does.”

  “I will note this devotion to duty in the ship’s log, Scott.”

  “If the captain doesn’t mind, sir, I’d prefer that he note it on a table napkin, sir. It’s almost chow time ashore, sir.”

  “Well put, Scott. Pipe all hands to chow whilst I set a course for the homeland.”

  Barby’s voice sounded in Rick’s hearing-aid-type earphone. “What on earth are you and Scotty muttering about? I thought we’d accidentally tuned in on an old movie.”

  “Captain Brant speaking, madam,” Rick said stiffly. “Your Royal Highnesses will be pleased to know that your gallant naval forces have accomplished the mission. The wreck is buoyed.”

  “Buoy oh buoy!” Jan exclaimed.

  “The Navy will maintain radio silence from now on,” Rick said sternly. “Bad puns overload the ship.” He shut the unit off and grinned at Scotty. “Dive tomorrow?”

  “Weather permitting.” Scotty grinned back. “Maybe we can set up shop on the rig and drill for oil right here off Spindrift.”

  CHAPTER VI

  The Dive Plan

  Rick and Scotty studied the coastal chart on which the positions of tug and drill rig had been plotted.

  The night before, they had added the actual position of the wreck before reporting to the laboratory for an evening’s work on the sonoscope installation.

  “I see something interesting,” Scotty observed.

  Rick nodded. “So doI . If the girls sighted accurately last night while we were hunting the wreck, our original sightings must have been off by a couple of hundred feet.”

  “Oh, I’m sure the girls were accurate,” Scotty assured him. “They’re very careful about things like this.

  You can bet they were as accurate as we were when we made the original sights.”

  “You’re being diplomatic again,” Rick accused with a grin. “What you mean is, they were as accurate as I was. If there was an error, it must have been mine. I was using that little Boy Scout compass, and it isn’t the finest instrument in the world. If my sight was of
f even by the width of one line on the sighting ring, then the position we charted was at least 250 feet off. And it looks as though that’s exactly what happened.”

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  “Which leads to another interesting conclusion,” Scotty said. “Captain Biggs had the position more accurately than we did.” He pointed to the lines marking the tugboat captain’s position data.

  “Uh-uh. If he really intended to dump the drill rig into Tansey’s Trench, he didn’t miss by much.”

  Scotty rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “What I can’t understand is how he missed at all.”

  Rick shrugged.“Little things. The drill rig was low in the water, its portside dipping. I’ll bet the twin screws on that big tug were really churning. Also, the sea was high. Captain Biggs could have misjudged his true speed through the water. In fact, I don’t see how he could have known it precisely, even with watchers helping him from ashore. Then, it wasn’t easy to guess how far forward the rig would travel once he cut it loose. It sank pretty fast, remember. Maybe it went under a minute sooner than he estimated.”

  “True,” Scotty agreed. “He couldn’t have been sure whether the tug’s pull was helping to keep the rig afloat or not. And it’s nearly impossible to judge the effect of underwater currents accurately. Actually, if our original position had been exactly on, Roger Pryor’s guess about where the wreck settled would have been very close.”

  Rick had been pondering the mystery of the drill rig ever since the captain’s visit with his boss. He tossed out a guess he didn’t believe at all. “Maybe the tugboat skipper didn’t intend to dump the rig in Tansey’s Trench. Maybe he wasn’t paying any attention to the depths.”

  “Yep.And maybe fish can’t swim and birds can’t fly,” Scotty jeered. “With two men plotting positions, which must have been arranged in advance, and with the tug getting lower while the seas got higher, and with fairly level ground everywhere outside of Tansey’s Trench, it turns out to be nothing but a simple coincidence.”

  Rick laughed. “Okay. I was just wondering what you thought.”