In the meantime there would be a man holed up in the stinking cabin of a wrecked schooner on the Florida coast, awaiting the coming night with the patience of a saint and the conscience of a sinner, while hour by hour the terror would grow in him until at the long day's end he would surely come to know that he was mad.
'I can't borrow a boat,' Kim said when she came over to me again. 'It'd involve other people, and we don't want that. So what I'll do is take the tug out to deep water and hang around and see if anyone's followed me. If I'm clear I'll head back to the coast where there's not much shipping, and come into the harbour here as soon as it's dark.' She sat next to me on the splintered bunk, touching, her bare arms folded across her knees. 'Does that sound all right?'
'It sounds very good.'
I offered her a couple of hundred dollars to defray expenses, the diesel oil and the three diving lessons she'd had to postpone, but she said she often went out deep-sea 'just to be there', and the lessons were no big deal. 'This ride's on me,' she said, 'and that's the only way you can get it.'
During the heat of the day I slept, woke and slept again. Voices came sometimes, but not close. This place was a graveyard, and there was no sea-borne traffic.
In the evening I opened a can of sardines and had them with a piece of bread, and drank some tea from the thermos Kim had left for me. The blood-red remnants of the sun were paling to a grey wash and then darkening as night came down across the littered sea, and I heard the straining of rowlocks not far off, then the bump of timbers.
She came aboard quickly and on bare feet, without a sound. The moon, in its third quarter, cast an ashen light across the harbour, and reflections pooled on the planks above our heads. I hadn't lit the lamp.
'There was no one,' she said, coming beside me, 'absolutely no one.' Her hands smelled of oil and rope and seaweed; the pale light frosted the salt along her arms. 'Being not quite certain isn't a risk I'd take. I mean -'
'I know what you mean.'
Her breath was coming a little fast, and she tried to slow it, talking about the tides for a moment and the state of the sea, until she finally said, and had not been willing to say, 'All right, when you're ready.'
By the brass chronometer in the cabin of the tug it was eight in the evening when we anchored over deep water, a few minutes after eight, though time had lost its meaning now, and there was no hurry.
'How far are we?' I asked her.
'Two sea miles, give or take a bit. That's what you said you wanted.'
'Are we under their radar?'
'Yes. But we're only a blob. They don't know what vessel she is.'
The sea was dead calm, and the lights between here and the coast were motionless. The moon hung among hazy stars, and you would have said it was a night for magic to be made across this vast unfathomable stage, a night for sorcery, its reaches peopled by warlocks, witches and diabolists, casting their spells and conjuring phantoms from the very air. I told you, my good friend, that by nightfall I would come to know that I was mad, and here was the night, and here this madman's tale.
Here too of course the appalling urgency to turn back and gain the shore and find a telephone and offer myself to be led like a lamb to London.
'Did you eat anything?' she asked me.
'Yes.'
'Not too much.'
'No. Some sardines.'
Time to go to the loo.'
When I came back she helped me on with the wet-suit, and I asked her, 'All right, what am I up against?'
I heard her take a breath. 'Bad news first. They feed by night, and actively. There are a lot more rods than cones in the retinae, so they can see quite well in dim light. The moon isn't a help, though you'll need it to see what you're doing.'
I pulled the front zip and began strapping the ankles. She helped me, crouching at my feet, her hands quick and deft. 'The things that attract them are light, noise and rapid movement. I suppose that's true for most creatures, it's nothing special. But watch out if you see garbage being thrown overboard, and keep well away from it. They sometimes move about in packs, as you saw yesterday, but ninety per cent of attacks are made by a single shark. The attack's usually direct, straight on, without any close passes beforehand.' She straightened up and began helping me with the gear and the floats. 'Statistically, which is really all I'm talking about, only a third of the vie – of the people attacked have reported seeing the shark. It's usually what we call a blind hit, before you can see anything.' She stopped talking for a minute; I suppose she was having trouble with a buckle or something.
That's all I need to know,' I said. 'You've -'
They're also attracted to fish moving in a shoal. If you see a shoal, steer clear of it or try to swim towards it to turn it away. Most of the strikes are made at the extended arms and legs; try to remember to swim with your flippers almost together; just paddling slowly, with your arms close to your sides.
I wish to God -' she said and broke off and for the rest of the time she managed to sound almost normal, with her voice no more than subdued.
'What's the best weapon?'
'I'll come to that,' she said. 'These things have got large olfactory sacs, and their sense of smell is acute. A test they made at Lerner's showed that a shark can detect one part of tuna juice in twenty-five million parts of sea-water. When they smell anything that interests them, they turn upstream and home in on it. So if you feel any current running and you see a shark upstream of you, you're in better shape as far as your scent is concerned. I know you probably won't have to use any of this but if you do run into problems it's going to give you an edge.' She was standing in front of me now, fastening the last strap of the scuba harness, her eyes watching me in the light from the binnacle, the green pupils iridescent, darker than I'd seen them before, more concentrated, and I had the passing thought that she was looking at me for what might be the last time, but if that kind of thing was in her mind she would be wrong, she would of course be wrong.
'Does everything feel okay?'
I shrugged the harness a bit higher and she took up the slack on the buckles. 'Okay now?'
'Fine.'
She turned away and got a metal cylinder from the cabin, black-painted with a fire-extinguisher type lever. That was all the bad news, as I said. This is the only good news we've got. It's a concentrate from the Moses sole fish, gives out a milky fluid, but the toxicity's only potent enough if it's released into the shark's mouth.' She buckled it to the left side of the harness at the hip. 'Don't forget you've got it, for God's sake. Everything comfy?'
I said yes and walked to the rail and she held the gear steady while I climbed over and turned my back to the sea and looked up at her as she offered me the unexpected miracle of a quick, flashing smile and I let go and the cylinders hit the surface and spread bubbles around me like a veil of white lace as I turned over and began swimming.