disappointed. He’s like this on every new project though, Mike. As
long as it’s going well he’s on top of the world, and when it isn’t
he’s down in the dumps. I keep telling him he’ll get ulcers.” “Like
gout, it’s supposed to be the rich man’s ailment. That should cheer
him up,” I said. “It’s only—‘ Danny Williams’s voice soared up from
the bows, cracking with excitement.
“Go left! Go left! Go to port!” Someone else started shouting.
I spun the wheel desperately and Esmerelda heeled violently as she came
round. Hanging on, I had only time to see a jumble of white waters in
the sunshine, and then to my intense relief Ian was with me, taking
over at the wheel. I fell away from him, cannoning into Clare who was
also off balance.
Shouts and the thud of bare feet told me that the whole crew was
tumbling up on deck to see what was happening. I noticed the echo
sounder and in one incredible second I saw the indicator light spin
round the dial. It looked as though the bottom was coming up to hit
us.
Ian let Esmerelda continue to go about until the foaming area in the
sea was well behind us, then straightened her out and the indicator
light of the echo sounder spun the other way just as fast. He
throttled the engine down and I took a deep breath to steady myself.
Geordie came running along the deck.
“What the hell was that?” he shouted.
“I think we damn near speared ourselves on a reef – I think we’ve found
her,” I gasped, still winded. Everyone was crowding to look astern at
the jumble of white waters, but from where we were it was already
impossible to see anything underneath it. “Unless it’s more fish-‘ Ian
said, “No, it was a reef. I saw it – about a foot sticking out.
And we shoaled bloody fast just then too.” Campbell came up from
below, looking startled and groggy. He may have been asleep. “What’s
happened?” “I think we’ve found Minerva.” He looked aft and saw what
we were all trying to get a better glimpse of. “What, that?” he asked
incredulously.
“Is that all?” Clare asked. Some of the crew, the non-sailors, looked
equally baffled.
“What did you all expect – the Statue of Liberty?” I asked.
“We’ve got it, boys, wherever it is we’re there!”Geordie was exultant
and relieved, and more nervous for the safety of his ship than ever.
Danny Williams came aft to a little storm of back-patting- f “Good job
you kept your eyes open,”I told him, and he looked very pleased.
“God, I was never so scared in my life,” he said. “It came out of
nowhere – now you see it, now you don’t. I thought the bloody boat was
going to ride up on it. You were pretty handy with that wheel.” There
was another murmur of assent and it was my turn to look pleased.
Geordie said to Ian, “I want you to keep her just where she is.
I’ll bet that if we lay off a couple of miles we’ll never find it
again.
Christ, it’s lucky it’s almost low water, it wouldn’t show at all
otherwise. It’ll only dry out to about three feet at this rate.”
“There’ll be coral clusters all round,” I said, reinforcing Geordie’s
warning. “And deep water between them and the actual reef. There’ll
be a lagoon beyond that. An atoll is forming.” I saw that they were
all taking an interest, apart from lar and the on-watch lookouts, so I
expanded a little. “This rock spear that was underneath us can’t have
been there very long, or it would have been higher -you’d have an
island here. But this coral has only just started to form.” Geordie
said suspiciously, “What do you mean by “only just”?” “Within the last
five or ten thousand years – I’ll know better when I can take a closer
look at it.” “I thought you’d say that. But you’re not going to look
at it.
Do you think we could get to the middle of that little lot?” We all
looked back towards Minerva, if Minerva it was.
“No,” I said dubiously. “No, perhaps not.” Campbell had a question on
his lips that he was dying to ask, but not in public.
Headshakes and heavy gestures indicated his desire for a private word,
so I extricated myself from the still excited crew and followed him
below together with Clare.
Campbell said, “I’m sorry to interrupt the course of pure science, but
how does this tie in with the nodules? Do you think we’re going to be
luckier now?” I said soberly, “That’s just the trouble; I don’t see
how we can. Most nodules are very old, but Mark’s was comparatively
young.
He had a theory which I’m beginning to grasp, to do with them forming
very fast as a result of volcanic action. Now there’s been volcanic
action here all right but much too long ago for my taste.
There’s been time for a long slow coral growth and it doesn’t quite tie
in.” “So this is another goddarn false alarm,” said Campbell
gloomily.
“Maybe not. I could be wrong. We can only find out by dredging.”
So we dredged.
As soon as he could Geordie had taken careful sightings of the reef.
“I’m going to nail this thing down once and for all,”he said.
“Then we’ll cruise around it carefully and not too closely, keeping an
eye on the depth, and take soundings and chart everything we can see.
And then we’ll decide what to do next.” After we had satisfied him we
got started. Geordie took Esmerelda in as close as he dared and the
dredge went over the side. I could imagine it going down like a huge
steel spider at the end of its line, dropping past the incredible
cliffs of Minerva, plunging deeper and deeper into the abyss.
The operation was negative – there were no nodules at all.
I was unperturbed. “I was expecting that. Let’s go round and try the
other side again.” So we skirted the shoal and tried again, with the
same result – no nodules.
I thought that there probably had been nodules in the area, but the
up-thrust of our friendly reef had queered the pitch.
We were all calling it Minerva by now, although Geordie and I were
aware that it might be a different reef altogether – the seas
hereabouts were notorious for vigias. I decided to try further out,
away from the disturbance.
This time we began to find nodules again, coming in like sacks of
potatoes. I was busy in the lab once more but becoming depressed.
“This is standard stuff,” I told my small audience. “High manganese
low cobalt, just as before. And it’s too deep for commercial
dredging.
But we’ll do it thoroughly.” And day after day the dredging and the
shifting of position went on, with the results of my assays continuing
to be unfruitful.
Then one evening Geordie and I consulted with one another and decided
to call it off. We had been out from NONE& Panama for over two weeks,
nearly three, and I was anxious to carry on to Tahiti to be there
before the Eastern Sun arrived. Geordie wasn’t anxious over stores or
even water thanks to his careful planning we could stay at sea for up
to six weeks if we needed to – but he felt that the activity, or lack
of it, would begin to irk a crew which was after all partly made up of
people to whom he’d virtually promised action and excitement. Campbell
was quite ready to chuck the whole thing in on a land search he would
be more tenacious, but then he was seldom out there himself during the
early exploratory days, usually only coming in at the kill, so to
speak. And so we decided to call a halt to the proceedings and to turn
towards Tahiti the next morning.
The news was greeted with relief by everyone, the excitement of finding
the reef we were searching for having palled. Campbell walked heavily
across the deck towards the companionway, his shoulders stooped. I
realized for the first time that he wasn’t a young man.
“It’s hit him hard,” I said.
“Aye,”said Geordie. “What do we do now – after Papeete?” “I’ve been
thinking a lot about that. If it hadn’t been for that damned diary
then Minerva Reef would be the last place I’d go looking for
high-cobalt nodules, but Mark’s scribbling has hypnotized us.” “We
don’t even know if he meant Minerva. Do you think he was on the wrong
track?” “I don’t know what track he was on – that’s the d evil of
it.
I only leafed through those notebooks of his before they were stolen,
and I couldn’t absorb anything much in that time. But one thing did