They saw it before long: a carcass of sorts, a ship’s skeleton, covered in barnacles and seaweed, its wooden frame rotting into and blending with the very seabed. Amazing marine plants and coral had grown through it, around it and within it, and this long-dead thing was now alive and crawling with sea creatures.
Ruby stayed close to Kekoa, who signalled them towards the less accessible part of the wreck, and they made their way inside a tangled mess of wood and seaweed. Ruby felt her way, her underwater flashlight illuminating small areas at a time, catching drifts of silt in its beam, flashes of silver as quick fish dodged and darted. Shy crabs scuttled sideways and bashful anemones drew in their tentacles as she passed. All manner of life had taken up residence here, undisturbed by the world above. It was unlikely that any of these creatures had ever seen a scuba-diving schoolgirl before.
She and Kekoa moved slowly round the old ship, half-recognisable objects part-buried in the silt: something that could perhaps be a candlestick, a cup; something that might once have been a piece of furniture, but now was no more than a curiously shaped piece of wood, loomed out of the semi-dark.
They moved methodically and silently, swimming further into the wreck, Ruby pointing the flashlight into the dark recesses of what was left of the ship. They looked for anything that might provide a clue that would in turn lead them to the pirates or whoever else might be after the sunken treasure.
They had been under for about forty-seven minutes when things went bad.
A loud noise, like the rumble of thunder, and Ruby turned to see Kekoa pinned under a huge wooden beam, part of the old ship finally succumbing to the sea. Kekoa was trapped and blood was beginning to drift from her head into the water, creating a scarlet halo. But far worse was the leg wound. Ruby thought she could see bone. It didn’t look good. She attempted to pull Kekoa free, but it was futile.
Kekoa was calm – not the panicking kind. She signalled towards the surface – to Hitch – and Ruby nodded. She swam back the way they had come, through the maze of rotting wood and coral.
Then, as she turned a corner in the old corridor of the ship, she felt something glide past her legs and she pulled back in surprise, dropping the flashlight. It hit something hard beneath her, flickered and went out.
She was plunged into darkness, underwater, trapped inside a fragile wooden skeleton that might cave in at any moment, and with a limited air supply. Well, that was enough to bring on anyone’s claustrophobia. Ruby was suddenly disorientated, unsure which way was out, and barely managing to contain her panic.
Nice going Agent Redfort.
This was not meant to happen – the flashlight was Spectrum issue and should be robust enough to survive a knock. Ruby remembered her training and consciously slowed her heart rate and remained completely still until she felt calm, or at least calmer. RULE 19: PANIC WILL FREEZE YOUR BRAIN. Then she began to move forward. Now completely blind, she remembered what Kekoa had taught her, and methodically felt around her, feeling for a way through, a way out.
As she slid her hands over the inside walls of the ship, she felt something – a latch, a trapdoor, a porthole perhaps. She pushed and pushed and finally it gave. Ruby was a petite girl, small enough to make it through a fairly tiny aperture, and she twisted and wriggled her way out of the watery prison.
She half swam, half clawed through a forest of seaweed and then out of the gloom ahead of her rose a horse’s head (the old wooden figurehead of the ship) – a tiny fish darting in and out of its rotten eye. It stood there like a memorial or grave marker, which of course it was.
This was the wreck of the Seahorse, and where it rested many had died. Beyond the graveyard Ruby could see glimmers of light flickering – that meant a way out and up. She paused only when she saw something twinkle, something caught in the fronds of seaweed. She reached down and plucked it from where it lay. A stone, a cut stone, beautiful and of transparent yellow.
Ruby gripped the jewel in her palm and pushed on through the seaweed, drawn by a sound, a whispering, a calling, very distant but getting nearer. Hitch? No, not Hitch. She turned full circle in the water, but could see nothing but blue. Was this the mermaid-sound that Red had heard? Or was it just the white noise of her panicking mind?
She started to make for the ocean surface. And then she caught her breath. Menacing grey shapes, like circling planes above her.
Sharks.
They were between her and the boat; they were between her and the boat and her and the rest of the ocean; they were everywhere, surrounding her, circling like some bullying mob.
But one of them wasn’t circling; one of them was moving towards her.
So although it was true that Ruby Redfort had never been scared of sharks, not her whole entire life, that position was rapidly changing. Being surrounded by a whole batch of them (as Tilly Matthews would say) can do that to a person. Ruby opened her hand to grab for some kind of frail defence, and as she did so, the yellow jewel slipped from her hand and fell through turquoise.
The retractable aluminium pole Ruby then pulled from her belt did not do its job. She valiantly prodded it towards the grey menace, but it didn’t make the impact she had hoped it would and none of the sharks seemed even the slightest bit troubled. Despite what her dive master had told her, these guys were definitely interested. It was almost as if they’d been trained to show an interest, like they were guarding the location, making sure no one dallied too long.
Were they being controlled by something? Someone? No, that was far-fetched; it was more likely they were expecting something, food for instance. This was feeding time? Had someone been feeding the fish? It would be a smart way to guard treasure.
Treasure that was evidently no longer there. Just one small stone that could prove it ever existed, though even that had vanished. All these thoughts washed through Ruby’s mind in split seconds as the predators closed in. The whispering was getting louder, much nearer, and the sharks were surrounding her. Bumping her. Knocking the breath from her.
She flailed one way then the other, jabbing the stick, twisting, turning until she lost her grip on it and her only defence twirled away from her. She swivelled round and saw one of the creatures open its jaws to reveal those gums, those teeth.
SOMETHING CRASHED INTO THE WATER and white bubbles fizzed up to the surface. And just like that, the menacing grey shapes were gone.
Ruby was suspended in the deep blue ocean. She turned to check her back and there behind her was Hitch. He was not in dive gear – there had not been time for that. He was treading water, a knife in his hand. He looked around for Kekoa and then made a gesture, pointing up, and Ruby followed him to the surface.
They clambered onto the small boat, both spluttering seawater, Ruby dizzy to be alive.
‘Wh… what did you do?’ she stammered from where she had collapsed on the deck.
‘All I did was jump in the water,’ said Hitch. ‘Ruby, what happened to Kekoa?’
‘I came to get you,’ wheezed Ruby. ‘She’s trapped!’
‘What do you mean trapped?’
‘Inside the wreck – something fell on her. She looks in bad shape.’
Hitch turned the radar dial on his Spectrum watch, tuning into Kekoa’s signal – it wasn’t there.
‘Darn it,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to give me a pretty accurate description of Kekoa’s location kid.’
Kekoa had taught Ruby well and she described the place where they had entered the wreck and the direction they had swum through it. Finding Kekoa would be easy – getting her out would be the tricky part.