wrong on one point.” “What’s thatTsaid Campbell.
“You said that Kane spun me a yarn as cover, and that it didn’t matter
what it was. That’s not entirely so, you know we have independent
evidence. The death certificate states the cause of death as
appendicitis. Kane and Schouten both told the same lie and I’d like to
know why.” “By God, you’re right said Campbell. “We’ll get it out of
Kane as soon as he’s served his purpose.” Geordie grunted. “We’re
going into the Pacific,” he said.
“Maybe we’ll get it out of Schouten. At all events, we’ll be at the
root of it.”
Chapter Three
It was nearly three months before we got away. You can’t begin a
scientific expedition as though you were going on a picnic. There were
a million things to do and we were kept busy on a sixteen hour day,
seven days a week. The first thing I did was to hand in my resignation
from the Institute. Old Jarvis didn’t take it too well, but there
wasn’t anything he could do about it so he accepted the situation with
reluctance.
I wished I could have told him what I was doing but that was
impossible.
Geordie assiduously recruited his crew and soon they began to turn
up.
He had kept on four of his own lads and had of course taken on Kane in
place of one of the men he let go.
Of the other six that he added, all were faces that I hadn’t seen since
I had been a boy during the war, tagging around after my dad’s gang.
Ian Lewis detached himself from his croft with alacrity and Geordie
made him first mate; he’d had years under sail and was almost as good
as a professional. Ex-corporal Taffy Morgan came along; one night
during the war he had killed six Germans with a commando knife in utter
silence, earning himself the M.M. Danny Williams had also won the M.M
although I never found out what for since he was reticent about it.
There was the burly bulk of Nick Dugan, an Irishman from the Free
State. Bill Hunter turned up – he had made a name for himself as an
underwater demolitions expert and was the only other regular sailing
man among the team. And there was Jim Taylor, another explosives
wizard – he had been very near my father when he was killed.
They were now all into their forties, like Geordie, but seemed as tough
as ever. Not one had lost his fitness and there wasn’t a paunch among
the lot of them. Geordie said he could have recruited twenty-five but
he’d picked the best of them, and I almost believed him. I was
confident that if we ran into trouble we could handle it.
Geordie was confident too, of welding them into a good sailing crew.
What any of them lacked in knowledge they’d soon pick up and the
enthusiasm was certainly there although for the time being they knew
nothing of the complications in which we were entangled. It was a
Straight research and survey trip to them all, including Kane, and any
hints Geordie may have given his special team they kept strictly to
themselves. As Campbell had predicted, Kane was sticking as close to
us as a leech; Geordie had simply told him that there was a berth for
him if he cared to cross the Atlantic with us, and Kane had jumped at
the opportunity.
Campbell had gone back to Canada. Before he left he had a long talk
with me. “I told you I had a good intelligence service,” he said.
“Well, so have Suarez-Navarro. You’ll be watched and they’ll know
everythingvou do as soon as you do it, even apart from Kane’s spying.
It can’t be helped. We’re deadlocked and we know it. So do they.
It’s a case of we know that they know that we know, and so on. It’s a
bastard of a position to be in.” “It’s like a game with perfect
information – chess, for example. It’s the man who can manoeuvre best
who wins.” “Not quite. Both sides have imperfect information,” he
corrected me patiently. “We don’t know how much they really know.
They might have the exact location of the nodules we’re after, and only
have to drop a dredge to prove their case, but perhaps they’re behind
us in planning and need to stop us somehow first. On the other hand,
they don’t know how much we know. Which is precious little.
Maybe as much as, or no more than them. Tricky, isn’t it? “It would
take a logician to sort it out. Talking of knowing, have you made any
progress with the diary?” Campbell snorted. “I gave it to a
top-flight cipher expert and he’s having his troubles.
He says it isn’t so much the peculiar shorthand as the sloppy way in
which it’s written. But he says he can crack it, given time. What I
wish I knew was how Suarez-Navarro got on to this in the first
place?”
My own thoughts were that Mark, cheated out of Campbell’s involvement I
guessed that’s how he would see Campbell’s loss, only in terms of his
own disappointment had approached them himself. But I still didn’t
know enough about how
Campbell viewed Mark to say so. It hung between us, a touchy subject
that we both carefully avoided.
So he went off to Canada to further his own progress, we speeded up
ours as much as possible, and it was with great relief that I heard
Geordie announce one day that we were at last ready for sea. All he
needed to know was where to head for.
I said, “Do you know the Blake Plateau?” “Never heard of it.” “It’s
just off the coast of Carolina. We’ll test the winch and the rest of
our gear there, and it’s a long enough voyage for you to Pull your crew
together. I don’t want to go into the Pacific to find that anything
doesn’t work for some reason or other. If there’s anything wrong we
can get it fixed in Panama they’ve got good engineering shops there.”
“Okay. But why the Blake Plateau?” “There are nodules there. I’ve
always wanted a closer look at Atlantic nodules.” “Is there any place
where there aren’t any?” he asked.
I nodded. “They won’t form where there’s heavy sedimentation, so that
cuts out most of the Atlantic – but the Blake Plateau is scoured by the
Gulf Stream and nodules do form. But they’re poor quality, not like
the ones in the Pacific.” “How deep?” “Not more than three thousand
feet deep enough to test the winch.” “Right, boy. Let’s go and scoop
up some poor quality wealth from the bottom of the sea. We should be
away in a few days now.” “I can’t wait,”. I said. I was in fact
boiling with impatience to be gone.
We made a fair and untroubled crossing of the Atlantic.
Geordie and Ian, together with the regular crew members, soon got the
others into a good working pattern and spirits ran high. Kane, we were
pleased to notice, fitted in well and seemed as willing and above-board
as the others. Knowing that they were all curious as to our purpose I
gave occasional rather deliberately boring lectures on oceanography
touching on a number of possible research subjects so that the matter
of manganese nodules got lost in the general subject.
Only two people retained an interest in what I had to say, and to them,
in semi-private, I spoke at greater length about our quarry. One was
Geordie, of course, and the other, not too surprisingly and in fact to
my satisfaction, was Bill Hunter.
Already our diving expert, his interest and involvement might well be
crucial.
One afternoon they both joined me in the laboratory, at my request, to
learn a little more. A quiet word from Geordie to Ian made sure that
we weren’t going to be interrupted.
Geordie picked up a nodule which I’d cut in half – I had brought a few
on board to help my explanation along.
He pointed to the white central core.
“I suppose you’ll tell me again that it’s a shark’s tooth in the middle
of this rock. You never did get around to explaining that, did you?”
I smiled and held up the stone. “That’s right, it is.”
“You’re kidding.” “No I’m not – it happens often. You see, a shark
dies and its body drifts down; the flesh rots or is eaten, the bones
dissolve what bones a shark has, it’s cartilage really – and by the
time anything reaches the very bottom there’s nothing left but the
teeth.
They are made of sodium triphosphate and insoluable in water.
There are probably millions of them on any ocean bottom.” I opened a
small box. “Look here,” I said and gave him a larger white bone. It
was as big as the palm of his hand and curiously convoluted.