Free Jack Higgins by Night Judgement at Sinos

kind of gear. An old blue-belly like you knows that better than anyone.”
    But he didn’t believe me—not for a single minute.
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    I gave Ciasim three or four minutes’ start before going over and following his lines down through the clear water. It wasn’t so bad at first and then I entered the neutral zone from fifty feet on where all colours faded and things started to move in on me. Visibility was nothing like as good and for some reason, there didn’t seem to be many fish about. It was all rather sinister.
    I checked my depth gauge and moved on. No reefs, no undersea chasms—nothing. A mysterious green void leading nowhere. I was sliding headlong into eternity.
    A ship’s stern moved out of the gloom with startling suddenness and I straightened out and hovered, adjusting my air flow.
    She was tilted ever so slightly to one side, but otherwise in a remarkable state of preservation. The anti-aircraft gun on the fore-deck was still in place on its mounting, barrel tilted towards the surface. Ciasim stood beside it. He raised a hand and beckoned. I went closer.
    Black mussels grew on her rails and ventilators and some of her surfaces were covered with vicious dog’s teeth, a razor-edged clam, which not only slice like a razor as the name implies, but also carry enough poison to put you on your back for a week.
    The compass and wheel were encrusted with barnacles when I peered inside the wheelhouse. Barnacles grew onthe winch. I went down through an open hatchway. The interior of the hold at that point was like being inside the nave of a church, light filtering down through ragged holes in the deck, mainly cannon shells from the look of them. She’d been strafed from the air before sinking, that was for sure.
    I moved into the gloom, looking for a way into the main cargo area and ran into trouble at once. This was where the bomb had landed, the direct hit which had caused all the trouble. There was a jumble of twisted girders and buckled deck plates, the whole encrusted with strange, submarine growths.
    I moved closer, reached out to a metal spar only to hold myself in place. God in heaven, but it moved. Not only that, but everything in sight seemed to tremble with a kind of gentle sigh that seemed to echo through the water.
    My very bowels twisted, the fear running through me like a living thing. I went up through the hatch and kept on going, leaving Ciasim to his own devices, going up just as fast as I was able. There was no need to decompress. I hadn’t been down long enough and I came up into the clear light of day a few seconds later and kicked for the ladder. Yassi gave me a hand up. I wrenched off my mask and spat out the rubber mouthpiece.
    â€œWhat about my father?” he demanded.
    â€œStill down there. He’ll be up soon, I suppose.”
    Morgan was with them and I don’t think I’d ever seen his face greyer. I ignored him, stepped over the rail of the Gentle Jane and went below. By the time I heard his foot on the companionway, I had a bottle of Jameson out from under my bunk where I still had a secret hoard, and was on my second glass.
    He stood there watching me and I shoved the bottle along the saloon table. “Okay, so I’ve been holding out on you. Go on, help yourself.”
    â€œWas it bad, Jack?”
    â€œChristmas and New Year rolled into one.”
    I unzipped my wet-suit, towelled myself down and pulled on trousers and a sweater, ignoring his troubled gaze, then I filled my glass again and went on deck. Ciasim was back on board the Seytan , helmet off and in the act of lighting a cigarette from the match Yassi held out to him.
    He waved. “Heh, Jack, come aboard. Let’s talk.”
    I smiled bravely and muttered in a low voice to Morgan who had followed me up the companionway, “Make ready to move out. I’ve just about had it.”
    I stepped over the rail to the Seytan ’s deck and leaned against the