CHAPTER TWO
THE following day was warm. Too warm, Gavin reflected as the three of them trudged out on to the mud-flats.' Each carried a small spade and enough provisions to. last the day. The Professor carried the metal-detector. His would be the decision to dig if necessary.
'Strewth! ' Liz commented, 'it's just like summer.'
'Too hot for this game,' Gavin replied. 'We should have come in the winter.'
The further out they went the more difficult their progress became. Twice they were instructed to dig. The first excavation revealed the remains of a motor-launch less than three feet below the mud. The second turned up a rusty iron bedstead. On the latter occasion they were forced to go down seven or eight feet.
Professor Lowson was unruffled.
'It will not be easy,' he told them as he methodically filled and lit his pipe. 'We shall have to dig many times, I have no doubt, before we stand any chance of success. Nothing can be ignored.'
'You wouldn't say that if you bloody well had to do the digging,' Gavin thought as he drained the dregs from his last can of beer.
The sun was past its zenith. The Professor consulted his watch and then his compass.
'We must start back towards the mainland,' he snapped. 'The tide will be flowing in in less than two hours. It can creep in and fill the creeks ahead of you before you realise it and then you're trapped.'
They began the long trudge back. Sticky squelching mud, and every step was an effort. Twice the detector chattered but there was no time to dig. The tide is a merciless foe. It waits for no man.
Eventually they saw the dark green of the spike-grass hi the distance. Gavin looked at his watch. It was four o'clock; another three hours or so of daylight He wished the Professor would put that damned metal-detector away. They had shifted enough mud for one day.
The saltings were a relief after the monotony of the mudflats. Liz looked expectantly towards her uncle but still he trudged on. He was not prepared to rest until darkness fell.
'I hope we're not going to have this caper every day.' Gavin muttered aside to Liz.
'Leave it to me,' she gave his hand a quick squeeze. 'I'll try and persuade him that we ought to search the sea-wall tomorrow. The treasure could've been dredged up and buried in it when the wall was built.'
Professor Lowson stopped and held up his free hand, the detector crackling again.
'Ah!' his bright eyes danced with anticipation. 'We are afforded yet another chance. Gavin, Liz, this patch of soft mud amongst the spartina grass. This is where we must dig.'
Gavin unslung his spade again with reluctance. 'Couldn't we come back and try it in the morning, Prof ?'
'No!' Lowson was not one to listen to suggestions. Not when his detector had raised yet another flicker of hope. 'We must not delay.'
The soft mud pulled at their limbs, straining tired muscles, and at least half of each spadeful they removed only slopped back.
The sun was just touching the horizon when Liz's spade struck something hard. Something metallic. She stooped down and picked it up but before she could examine it Lowson had snatched it from her grasp, and held it up. It was in the shape of an oblong, about six inches long, twisted and charred as though it had been subjected to the heat of a furnace.
'It's a bit of old tat,' Gavin threw his spade down hi disgust. 'Like the bedstead and the wreck. Waste of time and energy again.'
'Wait!' There was an excited gleam in the bearded man's eyes. He examined the object from all angles. A puzzled frown was on his face.
'Dig again!' he ordered, a tremor of excitement in his voice.
'For Christ's sake!' Gavin looked up to the heavens. 'We've spent between four and five hours today digging solidly. For what? A load of rubbish that the scrapman wouldn't accept as a gift. And now, just when we're about all in, you want us to dig for more.'
"This is no ordinary metal.' Professor Lowson's voice trembled. 'I have never seen anything like it before. It defies description. I beg of you to carry on digging. Just for a few minutes more.'
'Oh all right then,' Gavin picked up his spade. Perhaps the old chap had gone off his rocker at last.
They dug for another five minutes.
'Here's another piece.' Liz held up something which oozed mud.
'And another.' Gavin tossed his find up to the Professor Lowson.
Lowson wiped the mud from the object.
'Amazing ... amazing ... Whatever can it be? It is like a mixture of iron and alloy. Yet so light, so durable.'
Liz suddenly dropped her spade and clasped her hand to her nose. 'What a stink!'
Gavin coughed. 'We haven't struck a sewer by mistake have we?'
'It's like putrifying flesh.' Liz pulled a face. 'Hey, what's this?'
Her foot touched something solid in the mud. 'There's something else here Gavin. Come and help me scrape the mud away from it.'
They worked for a minute or two and then they saw it.
liz stepped backward, an expression of sheer revulsion on her face.
'It's a hand!'
Professor Lowson scrambled down into the hole and joined them. 'Let me see!' he gasped. 'Good Lord! It's ... it's,.. something!'
'It's like a claw,' Gavin muttered, 'a webbed claw. Some reptile.'
They scraped some more mud away.
There's a body under here,' Gavin snapped. 'Liz get out of this pit Stand and watch from the top if you want. But get out!'
The girl hastened to obey. She was going to vomit she was sure. The smell and... that!
'It's a body all right,' Lowson muttered. 'But nothing human. Just look at those scales: like a reptile, greyish green. Never seen anything like it. The stench. And ... just look at that face!'
A stone gargoyle would have been handsome by comparison. Squashed distorted features, and a flat nose with cavernous nostrils. It was hairless and earless, with the top lip overhanging the lower one, and covered in scales. Oozing a land of slime.
Liz turned away and retched. Below her the two men vomited showering the monstrosity with spew. The stench was far stronger now, hanging in the windless atmosphere.
Gavin clutched at the muddy sides of the pit for support. 'Whatever is it? Where the hell did a thing like that come from. Professor?'
Curiosity was beginning to conquer fear and revulsion.
'Look at those scales for instance: greyish green. The mud here is almost black. Surely it would have taken on the colour of its surroundings as do most reptilian creatures. See the slime too. That has come from the creature itself. Like a kind of perspiration. That's what we can smell.'
'BO, eh?' Gavin Royle was attempting to recover some of his composure.
A sudden scream from above them rang out on the still evening air. They whirled round.
Liz Beck was on her hands and knees peering down with a look of stark terror on her face.
'Look!' she screamed again. 'lust look! Oh, my God!'
'What is it? Liz for God's sake, what is it? Has your reason snapped girl?' Gavin sought a foothold in the soft sides of their excavations.
She was close to hysteria. That... that thing, it's ... its chest is heaving. It's breathing! It's (dive!'
They turned and looked again at the scaly, slimy monster.
Its chest rose and sank rhythmically. Now they could hear it: laboured, rasping. A bubble of slime formed on one of its nostrils, then burst. Mud trickled from its mouth.
Gavin grabbed hold of Lowson and pushed him up the side of the pit with a strength born of terror.
'Get out!' he yelled. 'Get out before it's too late!'
Liz helped to pull them to safety and they collapsed in an ungainly heap in the zos and spartina grass. Their power of speech seemed to have deserted them. Their muscles were incapable of moving. They retched and vomited again.