The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale - Marc Brandel [32]
“Two poles.”
He grabbed Slater’s arm. This was no time to pretend to be stupid.
“Keep the two poles in line!” he shouted excitedly.
“What? What are you jabbering about, boy?”
“Captain Carmel,” Jupe told him. “When the boat started to sink, he tried to get a fix on the shore. He saw that television tower with the factory chimney behind it.”
“What?”
“Don’t you see?” It seemed to Jupe it was Slater who was being stupid now. “All we’ve got to do to find the area of the wreck is to go back down the coast until those two landmarks, those two poles, are in a straight line!”
Chapter 13
Danger in the Depths
JUPE STOOD ON THE FOREDECK with the binoculars to his eyes.
He held them focused on the shoreline three miles away. As the boat moved down the coast, the television tower and the factory chimney were drawing closer together. Another hundred yards, he figured.
Slater was at the wheel. “Slow speed,” Jupe called to him. “Steady.”
Closer and closer. And then they met. The tower was directly in front of the tall chimney.
The two poles were in line.
“Here,” Jupe shouted. “Hold it right here.” He lowered the binoculars.
The water was too deep to drop anchor. Slater would have to keep the boat motionless by idling the engine against the tide.
Jupe watched him as he turned the bow toward the shore. A few minutes ago he had thought Slater was pretty dumb, but he could see now that that bald head contained a lot of savvy. The man was handling the boat like a pro.
“Okay, Pete?” Constance had finished fastening the air tank to Pete’s back. He adjusted the mask over his eyes while Constance inspected his breathing hose and checked the air-pressure gauge.
The needle indicator on the gauge showed that his air tank was full.
Walking clumsily in his flippers, he followed Constance to the rail. She sat down on it, then, leaning out over the water, let herself topple gently backward into the ocean.
Pete tumbled in after her.
He straightened out a few feet below the surface and floated face down in the water. He was trying to remember everything he had been taught about scuba diving.
Breathe through your mouth so your mask won’t fog up. Keep checking the air hose to make sure it doesn’t get a kink in it. Don’t dive until the moisture inside your wet suit has had time to adjust to your body temperature. The deeper you go, the colder the ocean and the greater the pressure. At the first sign of giddiness surface immediately but not too fast.
For several minutes Pete swam around three feet underwater, lazily wagging his flippers and giving himself time to relax and get used to this underwater world.
He had always loved scuba diving. With the weighted belt around his waist counteracting his buoyancy, he felt as if he were flying. Flying the way a bird could. There was the same wonderful sense of freedom.
Constance and Fluke were floating a few yards away from him. Pete raised his hand, forming his thumb and forefinger into a circle. He was ready to dive.
Constance patted Fluke’s back. With the powerful light beaming ahead of him, the whale glided down. Deeper and deeper. Deeper than Pete, or even Constance, could follow him.
Jupe was keeping his eyes on the television monitor in the cockpit of the boat. Slater, at the wheel, was intently watching it too.
It was fascinating, Jupe thought. Like watching a space probe. The circle of light on the small screen seemed to be exploring the sky. A hazy, sometimes cloudy sky, across which swarms of fish suddenly darted like insects.
Whenever Fluke got too far from the boat, the circle of light began to dim. Immediately Slater steered toward the shore, keeping the tower and the chimney in line, following the direction Fluke had taken.
When the circle of light grew brighter again, he held the boat steady and motionless once more.
A patch of sand and gravel, a clump of weed, appeared on the screen. Fluke had reached the bottom of the ocean. The television camera on his head was scanning it foot by foot.
Pete had halted his dive far above Fluke. He didn’t