The Lance

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The water was cold and clean. Selena matched Lamont's steady, rippling movement as they followed the mooring line down. There was plenty of light. It was a stroke of luck to get a bright, sunny day. Even at 70 meters, there would still be light to see by. Selena felt the tug of the Falkland current, but it was only an annoyance. Something to be aware of and compensate for.

The sub was somewhere out of sight below. The blue of the water deepened as they passed 30 meters. She breathed easily with the full mask. She felt a little lightheaded. She checked the mix, but it was only the thrill of it, the love of the unexplored.

And the danger.

Selena loved diving. This was the dive of a lifetime.

She didn't know the names of the fish swimming around her, but there were a lot of them. So far she hadn't seen any sharks. Sharks didn't bother her; she'd seen plenty in the past. There were supposed to be sea lions in the area. She felt for the razor sharp knife at her side. She wasn't sure she wanted to see a sea lion. They were aggressive and territorial, nothing to fool with. This was their world, not hers.

"Selena." Lamont's voice sounded in her headset. "Coming up on fifty meters. Check your oxygen level."

"Roger."

Selena looked at the meter that measured oxygen partial pressure level. It was well away from the 1.4 bar that meant narcosis and possible death. Everything was working. Closed circuit rebreathers were the only way to go for deep dives. At least they were the way to go if everything kept working.

The water was getting darker. Bits of floating sediment drifted all around. The sea floor came into view. Selena began to see objects scattered about. A layer of greenish-brown silt covered everything, softening the outlines of debris spewed from the submarine when she'd plunged to her death. She saw a cook stove lying on its back. A large and ugly fat lipped fish peered out at her from the open oven. Selena thought of pans of eggs and sausage and soups and cakes being cooked on that stove.

They swam over a scattered string of phallic shapes, artillery shells for the guns. There were box like outlines, unidentifiable mounds. Then a pair of boots, the toes splayed outward. She wondered what his thoughts had been, this German seaman, in those last seconds when the water rushed in.

The hulking ruin of the sunken submarine emerged from the blue-green gloom of the deep. Ghost-like and silent on the ocean floor, U-886 still looked like the menacing predator she had once been.

The sub had struck end on and settled upright. The stern section was crushed and buckled. The bow pointed straight down a steep slope covered with thick mud and silt. The slope ended at an undersea cliff that dropped off into fathomless depths.

Sea growth encrusted the wreck. Bizarre clumps and shapes hung from the railings and guns. Pale yellow fronds and long green streamers trailed in the current. The sea floor around the submarine was stained reddish brown from rust, as if U-886 had bled to death in her final agony.

The visibility was good, but Selena reminded herself to be cautious. It wouldn't take much to stir up a cloud of particles and turn everything murky.

The British depth charges had ripped a long, ragged gash on the starboard side, exposing the central corridor to the sea. A painted white shield with a black sword and swastika was still visible on the conning tower.

Nick's voice sounded in Selena's earpiece.

"Lamont. What's your status?"

"It's the right sub. We're looking at her. She's almost upright. She's ripped open and the stern is collapsed. We're not going to find anything aft. The center section looks accessible. I'm going to take a look now."

"Roger that. Selena, you okay?"

"I'm good. You should see this. There's a painted badge on the tower, sword and swastika on a white shield."

"Most of the U-Boats had badges. They identified the boat and her crew."

Lamont and Selena reached the breach in the hull and turned on their lights. The bright white beams lit up the dark interior of the wreck. Cables and wires hung down and swayed in the current, their crisp outlines blurred by sea growth. Fallen pipes lay rusting on the deck.

Selena's light cast strange shadows inside the sub. If this were a recreational dive, she'd never have thought of going in. The opening into the hull was jagged and sharp. It reminded Selena of the maw of a primeval beast, waiting for unsuspecting prey to swim through.

Waiting for her and Lamont.

The transceiver crackled. "Nick, I'm ready to go in. Selena, you hang back behind me, give me some light."

"Roger."

Lamont eased through the gap and hung suspended. He shone his light down the passageway.

"I can see the control room. The hatch is open, that's a break. They must not have had time to get it closed. Some pipes down, cables, not too bad."

He moved into the blackness of the sub's interior. Selena followed him in and shone her light through the dark water after him. Through the open hatchway she could see the periscope column and a bank of gauges in the control room. Clusters of valve wheels, rusted pipes and sagging conduit lined the ceiling and walls. Debris lay everywhere, covered in yellowish silt. Lamont's passage sent small clouds of sediment drifting in her beam.

Her light caught something white. A half buried skull looked up at her from the floor.

Lamont paused in the control room. "Bones on the deck," he said. "The depth gauge glass is cracked and the needle is stuck right on 76 meters. 228 feet. That's about right. There's a box by what's left of the radio. I'm going to open it."

Selena watched Lamont fumble with something out of view.

"It's junk. Looks like some kind of typewriter."

Lamont moved about in the wreckage of the control room. He tugged on a cabinet door above his head. The door came open in a cloud of rust particles. He reached in and withdrew a flat, black object. It turned to a soggy mass in his hands.

"Found what was probably the log book. It's no good, turned to slime." He dropped it on the floor. He turned away from the periscope column.

"Now I'm looking at the captain's corner. There's still a piece of the curtain left."

Selena felt a vibration. She glanced outside. Sediment swirled around the sub.

"Lamont, the current is picking up."

"Roger. Hold your station." She saw him grasp a bulkhead and disappear from view as he moved into the captain's alcove.

Lamont shone his light around the confined space. A disjointed skeleton lay on the floor. Fragments of dark cloth clung to the bones. The empty sockets of a narrow skull gaped up at him, the lower jaw fallen away. The legs still wore high leather jack boots, turned a soggy, brownish green. Something poked through the white bones. Lamont reached down and pulled it out, brushed silt aside. It was a brown oilskin pouch. He placed it in the bag hooked on his belt.

The sub moved. The delicate balance keeping U-886 in place for so many years had been disturbed.

"Lamont, the sub's moving. Get out!" Selena tried to keep the fear out of her voice.

"Roger."

The submarine groaned and tilted. Selena braced against the movement. Pipes broke away from the ceiling and Selena saw one strike Lamont on the head. A sudden, thick cloud of particles blocked her view.

"Lamont. Lamont, talk to me."

There was no response.

"Selena, what's going on?" Nick's voice came over her headset.

"The sub moved. Lamont's hurt. He's not answering. I'm going in after him."

"For Christ's sake, be careful. Talk to me, Selena. Let me know what you're doing." Fear flooded her body and her heart began thumping in her chest. She forced herself to slow her breathing. With more than two hundred feet of water above her, too much breath could be fatal.

"I'm going in. I can't see much, too much stuff in the water. I can't see Lamont yet. There are pipes and cables down, but I can get past them." She pushed a tangle of wires aside, death traps moving about in the murk like slime covered spiders reaching for her.

"Talk to me." Nick's voice was calm, soothing. "Take your time. Lamont's gear will keep him alive. Don't rush."

"A couple of pipes came down in the corridor, but I think I can get through them. Wait one."

Selena pushed one of the pipes aside and swam past. She swam through the hatchway. In the swirling silt she saw Lamont pinned against the deck, a pipe across his chest. His eyes were closed behind the mask, his mouth open.

"Lamont's unconscious. There's a pipe across him, not too big." She reached down with both hands and lifted the pipe away. She heard a strange groaning, an eerie, low, metallic moan. She felt the sub moving. She wanted to get out of there. She fought her panic, concentrated on Lamont.

Selena started back through the passage, pulling Lamont behind her. The sub groaned again and began to vibrate. The water inside was filled with clouds of silt. She could see nothing at all in the murk. She worked by touch and instinct through the fallen pipes, dangling wires and cables, praying she wouldn't get snagged. She reached the opening in the hull and pulled Lamont out. The wreck was beginning to move away under her feet. Grasping him under one arm, she backpedaled toward the mooring line.

The sub picked up speed as it slid down the steep slope. Roiling clouds of silt churned out from under the stern, as if the huge engines had come back to life. The black swastika and white shield gleamed like a demon's eye in the ocean light as the long, narrow shape moved away. Streams of seaweed trailed from the conning tower. They look like flags, she thought. Flags, on a ship of the dead.

The submarine went over the edge of the cliff.

For a brief moment she held her course, as if a ghostly hand was at the helm. Then the bow nosed down and the wreck disappeared into the black depths. A thick cloud of particles billowed up from the sea floor.

"Nick, I've got him, I'm coming up. The sub's gone." She looked at Lamont's oxygen meter. Still safe.

"Roger. Remember your stops."

Selena began the ascent. She watched her depth meter. She felt the cold weight of what seemed like miles of water above her.

Lamont's eyes fluttered, opened. He looked at Selena, her mask next to his as she swam upward. She saw him open his eyes.

"I've got you. You're okay. Your meters are good."

"What happened?" His voice was hoarse.

"You got knocked out. We're going up. At one hundred fifty feet now. Decompression stop."

"I can swim."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, hook on to me, but let me go."

Selena tethered him to her belt and let him go, ready to grab him if she had to.

"Shadow. Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, Nick. It's all right. We'll be up soon. I found something."

When at last they reached the surface, Selena had never been so glad to see the blue sky above her.