‘Gotcha,’ the Kid said.
‘Okay,’ McQuade said. ‘But I wish you’d all look more cheerful about it. Elsie, how about some fried egg and bacon sandwiches.’
‘Anything for my boys,’ Elsie said happily.
Three miles, at about three knots, takes one hour. Each leg was roughly twenty-five yards apart. Therefore it would take at least forty hours to cover the area once. If he doubled the speed, it would take about twenty hours; about two days of daylight. If the depth-sounder found nothing encouraging in the first coverage of the area, they would cover it again at right-angles to the original pattern, namely in an east-west configuration: this would take another two days.
By midmorning McQuade decided to increase the speed.
The Bonanza ploughed up and down the Skeleton Coast, her depth-sounder’s pulses bouncing off the seabed and activating the needle across the paper. Down the coast she ploughed for three miles, then Potgieter said, ‘Coming about,’ and back up the coast she went on her new track, parallel to her last one, slowly working her way deeper out into the Atlantic. There was mostly silence on the bridge, only the muffled throbbing of the engine and the occasional sighs and shuffles and the sssh and slap of the sea. The boys sat at their instruments, pencils in hand, logging, plotting, occasionally calling out a new observation. McQuade paced back and forth, between the bridgewing and the instruments, peering over shoulders, everybody waiting and watching.
‘How about something to eat?’ Tucker complained.
‘Nice hamburgers?’ Elsie said brightly.
‘Make mine medium-rare,’ McQuade said.
‘Rare, please,’ the Kid said, ‘but not unusual.’
When the sun began to get low, they had covered three-quarters of the area. And everybody was tired.
‘All right, we’re about fifteen hundred off the shore,’ McQuade said. ‘We’ve got about another five hours to finish the first pattern. Every leg we do is taking us into safe water. What do you want to do? Drop the anchor and sleep, or keep going all night?’
‘Oh, drop the hook!’ Tucker said.
‘Another twelve hours of wasted wages?’
‘Oh, fuck the wages!’
McQuade smiled. ‘Kid?’
‘Oh fuck my bottom ones,’ the Kid said. They all laughed.
‘Anything’s okay by me, hey?’ Potgieter said.
McQuade sighed. ‘Okay. Can you bring up a case of beer, Elsie? We keep going until dark, then drop the hook. And start again at first light.’
They started again long before that. At two a.m. McQuade woke up and went onto the bridge to check that everything was all right. The Kid was on anchor-watch. Potgieter was lying on the bench, wide awake. ‘What’s the matter, Pottie?’
‘Agh, no man, I slept a bit, hey,’ Potgieter said.
‘He’s thinking what he’s going to do with his million,’ the Kid said.
‘Seen any lights?’ McQuade looked at the log-book.
‘No.’
‘Last Fix?’ McQuade pushed the button on the sat-nav. He compared the read-out with the log-book.
‘Half an hour ago,’ the Kid said. ‘We’re spot-on.’
‘And what are you going to do with your million, Pottie?’ McQuade said.
‘Buy a farm, hey,’ Potgieter said happily, ‘and grow rabbits.’
‘Rabbits, huh?’
‘Bladdy good money in rabbits, hey, man,’ Potgieter said, ‘with all the kaffirs wanting meat.’
‘But what about all those pretty Aussie girls shaking their pretty arses at you in your nice white uniform?’ the Kid said.
Tucker burst onto the bridge in his underpants. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Pottie’s going to leave us and buy a farm,’ McQuade said.
‘And grow rabbits,’ the Kid said. ‘Jolly good money in rabbits.’
‘Rabbits?’ Tucker said. He added in a rare sign of humour, ‘I’ll leave with him.’
Then Elsie appeared up the companionway, in his silk dressing-gown. ‘What’re you boys all doing up?’
‘Hunger, Elsie,’ McQuade said. ‘Sheer malnutrition.’
‘The National Union of Seamen,’ the Kid said, ‘is taking up our case.’
Elsie beamed at them, his fat bristly cheeks dimpled. ‘Well, we can’t have that! What’ll it be?’
‘More of that treacle tart,’ Tucker said. ‘Hot, with ice cream.’
‘And seeing we’re all awake,’ McQuade said, ‘why don’t we get on with the job?’
The sun was up when they finished the last leg of the north-south pattern, over a mile out to sea. The depth-sounder had shown no sudden variation in readings. And McQuade doubted that the submarine had come to grief this far out: the water was over a hundred and seventy feet deep – despite what the chart said – over the maximum depth at which escaping submariners could survive.
‘All right, so now we start the east-west pattern.’
‘It’s not here,’ Tucker whined. ‘That submarine’s not here.’
Potgieter swung the wheel. The bows came round, pointed towards the hostile shore.
‘It’s not here,’ Tucker moaned. ‘All those wages …’
But it was. It was late afternoon when Tucker hollered: ‘Got it!’
McQuade rushed in from the bridgewing. ‘Time! Knotlog!’ He bounded at the throttle and rammed it to neutral. ‘Radar!’ he shouted. ‘Measure it off!’ He rammed the engine to Astern. ‘Hold her straight!’ he shouted at Potgieter. He bounded to the depth-sounder.
And yes, there it was. The busy line had been steady at about forty feet, then suddenly it had jumped to thirty feet, then back it went to forty-odd. Tucker had scribbled down the exact time and the knotlog’s read-out. The Bonanza was now churning sternwards towards the shore, four hundred yards away. They were all staring at the depth-sounder. ‘Here it comes!’ the Kid whispered.
And the needle suddenly leapt to thirty feet again before dropping back.
‘Oh yes!’ McQuade pulled the engine throttle to neutral again. ‘Fifteen degrees to starboard!’ He waited for the Bonanza to slow, then shoved the throttle to Slow Ahead again.
The bows swung slowly to starboard and the Bonanza began to churn forwards again. They all clustered around the depth-sounder breathlessly. The ship passed over the submerged object again from a different angle, on a line fifteen yards different from the last. And the echo-sounder’s needle suddenly shot up to thirty feet again, then dropped back.
‘Stop!’ Potgieter yanked back the throttle. McQuade snapped, ‘Drop a buoy.’
The Kid scrambled down the bridge companionway. Elsie followed him, to help. The Kid snatched up the anchor of a prepared float, and Elsie grabbed the chain. They heaved it over the side into the sea.
The float bobbed on the swells, marking the spot. McQuade took a deep, excited breath.
‘Okay,’ he called down to them. ‘This is it. Go to the anchor.’ He took the helm from Potgieter and pushed the engine control to Slow Ahead. The Kid ran up the deck and scrambled