coral beside him he got a real shock. Only centimetres from his right hand was the head of a large moray eel!
Bloody hell! Andrew thought, snatching his hand away and pushing himself off around the next outcrop.
He knew that moral eels were not poisonous like snakes, but they had vicious incising teeth and he had read that their bite was both painful and liable to become infected.
I don’t need any more medical problems at the moment, he told himself, noting that his right buttock and thigh felt quite numb and painful.
Luckily the moray eel did not strike, and Andrew was able to relax and look around. For a few seconds he studied the coral and his surroundings. The first thing he noted was a subtle change in the pattern of the seaweed. Then his brain sorted it out.
The tide has changed. It is on the ebb and the current is now flowing the other way, he thought. That meant it was flowing east and washing across the reef. I had better hurry back. I don’t want to get washed away from the reef and have to battle with the current to get back to it, he thought.
Another check of his air showed him he was down to 97psi. Getting close to the safety minimum, he thought. But he was not really worried about decompression. He had not been deeper than five metres the whole time and knew that he could just surface and swim back that way. As long as those murderers aren’t looking!
Thinking about them sent stabs of anxiety through him and he wished he had waited to see what the crooks did next.
Will they stay there or head off straight away? he wondered. If it was me I would get away from there as quickly as I could so as not to attract attention to my net. He was sure that the net had been there for a while and that the crooks intended to use it again. In five days’ time possibly? he mused.
For a moment he contemplated surfacing to see what the trawler was doing. But there did not seem to be any coral outcrops sticking out of the water where he was.
If I just stick my head out without cover they might spot me, he thought. That brought on a bout of shivering as horrific images of the murders and his own near-death experience swamped him.
After that Andrew found it hard to swim. His whole body seemed drained of energy and it took all his will power to keep finning north along the edge of the reef. Twice he stopped to listen, thinking he could hear the trawler but each time he wasn’t sure. A glance at his watch showed him it was 1127.
They must have recovered all those projectiles by now, he decided. But how long would it take them to roll up and secure the net?
Andrew wasn’t sure, but estimated fifteen minutes at least. That means they won’t leave until about 1145. So I had better stay very careful, he warned himself.
He began to worry about his physical weakness and the fact that he was now having difficulty getting his right leg to move properly. It felt like it was stiffening up and he experienced several sudden but agonizing stabs of pain.
I had better get back to dry land while I still can, he told himself.
But that raised the question of when to turn left and swim across the top of the reef. It was a problem he had not thought about and when it occurred to him he cursed himself for being a fool.
I don’t know when to turn, he thought angrily.
He did not want to turn too soon and end up on the murderer’s side of the sand cay. Nor did he want to go past the sand cay and have to waste time and valuable energy swimming back to it. The only way was to risk a peek and hope that the murderers weren’t looking.
I should be at least four or five hundred metres from them by now, Andrew reasoned. If I am quick they might not see me or if they do they might think it was just a turtle or something.
But it was still a real risk and the fear of the consequences of it going wrong was enough to get his heart hammering. Andrew found he was gulping air and that the pressure was down to 93psi.
Calm down! We might need some air, he told himself.
For a few seconds he forced himself to breathe slowly. He then made sure, using his compass and the visual cue of the reef edge, that he was orientated. He only wanted to break surface for a few seconds. Satisfied he was facing the right way and ready he forced himself to fin upwards.
His head broke the surface and then there were those few horrible moments of blindness until the water drained off his face mask. Then he could see. To his intense relief he saw that the sand cay was only a few hundred metres away and almost due west from him. Then he turned his head and caught a glimpse of the game fishing boat. It looked small and a long way off but it was still there.
The sight of it sent a chill of anxiety through Andrew and he at once allowed his head to slip back under. They are still there, he thought. God, I hope they aren’t going to stay.
Using his compass to keep direction Andrew set off swimming Northwest. To his surprise he found that the water over the reef was at least two metres deep for most of the distance.
It must have come up a lot in that last half an hour, he thought.
He was swimming against the current now as the tide began to ebb, but it was slight and helped him keep direction. But there were very few coral outcrops for him to surface behind and he only came up once. To his relief he saw that he was on course and he slipped just below the surface and continued.
For the last fifty metres Andrew stopped using his regulator. The air was down to 85psi so he used his snorkel instead, reasoning that he was now so far away from the crooks that they would be unlikely to see such a small object.
And I’m in behind the sand cay too, he thought.
The next time he risked a peek he saw that this was so. He also noted a very relieved looking Carmen sitting in a small hollow she had scooped out of the southern end of the sand cay. She waved and he waved back and continued swimming. She had peeled off her wetsuit and only wore her dark green one-piece bathers.
As Andrew reached the shallows Carmen waded in to meet him and as he stood up she took the weight of his equipment.
“Thank God you’re back,” she said. “I was starting to get worried.”
“Sorry, but it was worth it,” Andrew replied. “Tell you when I have this stuff off me.”
To his dismay he found he was so weak he could hardly stand and he was panting for breath. While he took off his BCD and air tank he recovered a bit. Then he removed his fins and his weight belt. That was a huge relief and he sloshed up onto the dry sand and just flopped down, feeling utterly drained. The dry sand was hot and felt wonderful to his chilled body and he just lay back and closed his eyes.
“Keep an eye out for that game fishing boat,” he said. “I just need to get my breath back.”
“You are shivering. You need to get out of that wetsuit,” Carmen replied.
“Not yet. Not till those murdering mongrels have gone. We might have to swim for it again. You’d better put yours back on, just in case,” Andrew answered.
Carmen nodded and picked up her wetsuit. “You are right. It just got so hot in the sun,” she explained.
Andrew nodded and rolled onto his back. For the next few minutes he just lay there with his eyes closed against the sun, soaking in the warmth while his whole body trembled and shook. He felt nauseous but very relieved. Every muscle felt drained of energy and he ached all over. His buttocks and thigh had gone numb and he was afraid to even look at them.
But there can’t be too much damaged or I would not have been able to do all that swimming, he reasoned.
After she zipped up the front of her wetsuit Carmen quizzed him about what he had seen. “So there really was a submarine?” she asked.
Andrew nodded. “Yes, a real live submarine, a