Rapture of the Deep: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, Soldier, Sailor, Mermaid, Spy (28 page)

It takes a little getting used to, but as soon as we learn to wiggle our legs just right, we swim at least twice as fast through the water as we could before. We gambol about down there within the space of our two chestfuls of air and then joyously burst through the surface, side by side, rejoicing in our new agility.

"We have become true mermaids, Sister!" I exult, clasping her slippery form to me, and we both laugh and sing out our joy.

But then we stop, for over us falls a shadow. The bell has been hoisted and it is now right above us.

"It's too heavy for the raft!" I shout. "Put it on the deck!"

John Thomas and Finn McGee put their shoulders to the capstan wheel, winch the bell higher, and swing it back over the deck. Then they throw the ratchet bar and winch it down till it rests on the deck.

I jump out of the water and crawl over the rail, to stand next to the thing. I see that there have been some changes made in it. When I had last seen it, the lead weights keeping the bell upright and the air trapped within had been held by short lengths of chain. Now they are at the ends of six stiff legs, four feet in length. Plenty of room for the diver to get out beneath ... I hope.

I nip underneath and see the same thick wood bench for the diver to sit on ... and there are small viewing windows at either end of the bench. Some iron handles have been added to the inside, should things start to get rough, though I really don't know what help they would be if this thing were to tip over at two hundred feet below.

I duck my head and come back out and find Professor Tilden rubbing his hands in anticipation of a test dive of his wonderful diving bell.

"My dear, this is going to be such a marvelous thing!"

I stand there, the water still streaming off me, and say, "I hope so, Professor. The bottom is flat and sandy and only sixty feet below. It should be a good place to test this thing."

"Oh, yes, oh, yes!" he exclaims. "Let us get on with it!"

Tilly is a dear man, but sometimes I wish he did not treat me as one of his laboratory rats.

He contains himself and says, "Now, dear, there are several things to remember. There will be an assortment of ropes inside the bell connected to those of us above by a system of pulleys—two tugs on the rope that ends with one monkey-fist knot means come down gradually till you tug again. There will also be a rope ending in two monkey-fist knots." I can see the various ropes laid out next to the bell. "One sharp pull signals stop, two tugs on that means come up slowly till you tug again. Four tugs means bring it up all the way. The rope with three knots will have a net bag at the end of it to bring up whatever you find. Do you understand?"

I nod and ready myself to get in. I put my goggles on my forehead. I still have my feet fins on and feel that I must look like the perfect frog.

"And one other thing," continues Tilly. "If you go down in the bell, you must come up in the bell."

"All right," I say, "but why?"

"There are scientific considerations," Tilly says, then sniffs. "Never you mind. Just remember."

There are some thumps on the deck, and I see that both Captain Hudson and Jaimy have joined us, as well as Dr. Sebastian. Jaimy looks worried and Dr. Sebastian glances over dubiously at Professor Tilden, I believe for the first time questioning his scientific credentials.

"All right, in you go, Jacky," says Tilly. "Let us go for twenty minutes on the first descent, shall we."

Dr. Sebastian looks pained. "Perhaps, Professor, we should start with ten minutes. After all, we do not know how long the air trapped in the bell will last her. In addition, she will be going through extreme exertions in swimming in and out of the device, and in the process using up a lot of oxygen. Hmmm...?"

"Very well," says Tilly, slightly miffed. "Ten minutes it is. Are you ready, girl?"

"Yes," I say, and instead of giving Jaimy the big-eyed worried look that I want to give, I toss him a wink and a carefree grin, and duck under the lower edge of the bell.

Inside, I climb up the ladder attached to the inside and seat myself on the bench and wait.

Soon I feel a jerk as the winch engages, and I feel myself and the bell lifted. Looking down, I see the deck fall away, then I see the
Nancy B
.'s rail go by, and then, under me, there is nothing but water. I hear the ratchet thrown again as the winch turns in the other direction and the water comes up toward me.

When the lower edge of the bell breaks through the surface, the water beneath my feet immediately flattens out and it is like looking down through a big version of our glass-bottomed buckets. I can see perfectly, all the way to the bottom, which is good, as I'll be able to see what I'm coming down on. It looks like a clear stretch of sand below, which is also good. There'll be no stand of coral to catch one leg of the bell and tip it over and me out.

There is a good deal of light coming in through the viewing windows and the open bottom, so I check out the knotted ropes hanging next to me. All seems in order. I peek out the windows, but all I see is blueness there, for the real show is below. A large skate flies lazily across my field of vision, as I am down far enough now to make out smaller fishes grazing amongst patches of seaweed.

The surface of the water has come up some and my ears are starting to hurt, both caused, as I was told by Tilly, by the compression of the air inside the bell. As instructed, I swallow a few times and hold my nose shut and blow, and I hear a little
pop ... fizzz
and the ears don't hurt anymore. Good.

I'm about twenty feet from the bottom and decide to test the rope signals. I reach out to give a yank to the line knotted with the two monkey ists, which goes through a pulley above me and then snakes down and out the bottom of the bell. It stops its descent.

Well, good. At least that works. Let's see if this does.

I bring my goggles down over my eyes, make them snug, take three deep breaths, hold the last, slide my bottom off the bench, and plunge feet-first into the water below me.

I take a moment to get my bearings, then with a flick of my feet ins, I glide out from under the bell.

This is really not so bad, not so bad at all.
I'm down forty feet, and I didn't have to swim for it; all I had to do was sit there and then pop out from under.
Pretty neat.

I twist and look up to the surface shining above me. The dark hulls of the
Nancy B.
and the
Dolphin
loom above, with their anchor lines trailing down—there's the
Dolphin's
big hook right over there, half buried in the sand and holding well. That is good, for I don't want my bell dragged all over the bottom of the sea.

I see also the raft at the
Nancy B.'s
side, and what appear to be two people leaning over the side and peering down through the glass-bottomed buckets. There is also a whitesuited form, which I know to be Joannie, floating out to the side. I wave to all, and Joannie waves back as I head under the bell to resurface inside. Then it's up the ladder and back on the bench to give the one-knotted rope two quick tugs.

The bell starts down again, and this time I let it go all the way to the bottom. Twenty more feet and it comes to rest on the sand, almost level.

Once again I drop down off of the bench, this time to stand with my feet on the sandy bottom.
Amazing,
I think,
I'm standing on the bottom of the sea, the water to my chest, but with my head in the air. What a brave new world this is, indeed.

Another big gulp of breath, then I duck under, between the legs of the bell, and come up outside. This time, being on the bottom, I take up the green net bag and hunt for sponges and specimens—hey, the ever practical Jacky Faber. Waste not, want not.

Some things try to scurry away from me, but they don't quite make it, so they get stuffed into the bag. When all of the other creatures of the bottom have safely fled from my grasp, I jerk the three-knotted rope twice, and the bag with its contents flies up out of sight. I hope Dr. Sebastian will be pleased.

A final scan of this piece of the bottom yields nothing else, so it's back under and into the bell, as I think the ten minutes are about up.

Sure enough, as soon as I am seated on the bench and pull on the proper rope, I feel myself and the bell being hauled slowly to the surface.

There will be more test dives done today, I know, but tomorrow the Belle of the Caribbean Sea will dive on the wreck of the
Santa Magdalena,
and then we shall see what we shall see.

Yesterday, after that first descent, when the bell was brought up and put back on my deck and I had crawled out from under it, a great cheer went up from the men on both ships. It surprised me, but hey, I like attention, so I took a little bow. Then we got back to work.

We ungrappled the two ships and moved the
Nancy B.
a few hundred yards farther out and reanchored, this time with four hooks to hold us steady in the wind, current, and tide.

The next dive was a little deeper, and this time I took a very excited Joannie with me, partly because she wanted to so much, and partly because we wanted to see how the air in the bell would hold up with two people in it. We harvested some sponges, and caught two lobsters, which we presented to Captain Hudson for his dinner—we're somewhat sick of lobster, ourselves. The third time that we ducked back into the bell, we found that the air within was becoming somewhat stuffy, so I yanked on the rope with the one big knot and up we went.

I reported on the lack of decent air to Tilly and Dr. Sebastian, and they decided that only one person (me) should go down for longer periods at great depths.

On the last dive before lunch, we swung the bell to the other, seaward side of the ship, and this time I went down a good hundred feet and all went well. I didn't take any specimens this time, instead just making sure that I could get about easily at this new depth—and it turned out that I could.

When I stepped out on the deck again, water streaming off me, Higgins was waiting with a big towel.

"We must get us one of these, Higgins!" I exclaimed. "Can you imagine the salvage possibilities? Why in Boston Harbor alone—"

"Yes, Miss, perhaps we shall recover the tea from the great Boston Tea Party. But for now, let us get you into something dry," replied Higgins as he hustled me into my cabin.

I reflected that it had been a most wondrous morning.

That afternoon, we took the
Nancy B.
in closer to land, where the water depth was only about thirty feet, and found a spot between two big coral heads where we could lower the marvelous bell between them and take our people down on excursions to see the beauty of the undersea world—any of them brave enough to go, that is.

It was a rare day for this sort of thing, and all who went down gasped in wonder at the beauty below. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun was almost directly overhead, sending shafts of light streaming through the clear, blue-green water and lighting the multicolored coral and its attendant plants most beautifully.

I went down with each to calm their nerves with my chatter, and when we reached the bottom, I slipped outside to swim about, to show them how easy it was—yes, and maybe to show off a bit. Perhaps I didn't have to do the somersaults ... oh, well...

Dr. Sebastian was the first to go down. "I cannot believe this!" said the good Doctor, entranced by the bright little fish who swam up to his window to peer in. "We must have a drawing of this entire expedition for presentation to the Academy! Oh, what a sensation it will be!"

Later Tink and Davy went down, each having dared the other so they both had to do it. When I was down with Davy, I made sure to swim outside the window, stick my thumbs in my ears, wiggle my fingers, and make faces at him. Tink, charmed by it all, declared his intention of making fins and goggles for himself.

Then I let Joannie take Daniel down, but kept a good eye on the proceedings below. When they reached the bottom, Joannie came out and cavorted about as much as I had; but then, instead of going back under, she wiggled her feet fins and shot straight to the surface, to play a bit of a trick on Daniel, I suppose.

The trick turned out to be on her, however. As soon as her head broke the surface, Tilly was leaning over the rail, pointing his finger at her face.

"If you go
down
in the bell, girl, you must come
up
in the bell!" he roared.

Joannie looked at me, mystified.
Haven't we free-dived to that shallow depth a hundred times already?
she seemed to ask.

I shrugged and pointed down. If Tilly doesn't see fit to explain, well, so be it.

She flipped over, stuck her little rump in the air, wiggled back down to the bell, and got in, and we hauled it up. She emerged very abashed, poor thing. Nobody likes to be yelled at, especially my crew, who ain't used to it.

I then took Jim Tanner down. When we came back up, Captain Hudson was standing on our deck, his shirt off and with a big grin on his face.

"Take me down, Miss," he ordered. "And let's see what the fuss is all about."

We did it and he was suitably impressed. I pointed out many things of interest and then slipped out to do my underwater ballet act.

"You really are a piece of work, Jacky Faber," said Captain Hudson, on our way back up, looking as much at me as at the panorama of nature outside.
Hmmmm.

Yes, many took the little trip down that day—including the Brotherhood, except for Jaimy. He did not. He just went a little pale when I held out my hand to him and shook his head. I regret the offering, because he was so plainly distressed, and I shan't do it again.

Too bad, Jaimy. We could have had a little bit of naughty fun down there.

Having once again taken our bearings on the western tip of Key West, and on the red rag still hanging in the mangrove bush that marks the old Indian campground and alligator pit, we maneuver the
Nancy B.
into position, fish out our marker buoy, and I get ready to dive.