At the bottom Penelope rotated again, sweeping the torch beam around looking for debris which would come from an anchor or body hitting the reef.
A bit of haze in that direction, but it was enough to make her choose. She swam forward, arching the beam in each direction as she went.
Over there, was that a light? She marked her place on her dive compass and swam a little further, where a light flickered on and moved frantically.
Penelope kicked, propelling herself forward and her torch picked up a body.
Sam.
His eyes were closed and he was floating there, BCD on, but no mask or fins and a chain wrapped around his legs held in place with a padlock. Still.
No. He can’t be dead. She had just seen a light. She propelled herself towards him and he moved, eyes opening.
Alive.
Her relief was short-lived as Sam did the out of air symbol.
Shit.
She grabbed her spare regulator and stuck it in his mouth, stroking his cheek. He inhaled deeply, once, twice, three times.
Anger filled her as she examined the lock. It needed a key and she couldn’t leave Sam to get it, because he’d be out of air before she returned.
So they needed to carry the anchor to the surface.
The anchor had caught underneath a rocky outcrop, one of its spikes inserted in a hole. She checked Sam.
He floated, waiting, trusting she was going to help him. He wouldn’t even know who was with him.
The regulator hose was long enough for her to bend closer to the anchor without pulling it from Sam’s mouth, but he bent down with her, as if he knew what she was trying to do.
She clipped her torch to her vest, then placed his hands on the anchor and showed him the direction he needed to push. Then she tapped once, twice, three times on the back of his hand. At the same time as he pushed, she tugged on the anchor and it came free.
And immediately dropped back onto the rock.
Damn, it was heavy.
She checked her air. Usually she’d start her ascent at this level.
It wasn’t an option.
She checked the chain, but it was padlocked tight around his ankle, with no room to slip a foot out.
She tried lifting it again, and Sam helped. They held it between the two of them, but when she pushed off and kicked, they didn’t go more than a metre before sinking down again. It was just too heavy and Sam couldn’t kick with his ankles chained.
She detached the connection which inflated her BCD and plugged it into Sam’s. She inflated his BCD as far as it would go, and he floated like a balloon being held down. This better work, otherwise she’d wasted precious air.
Then she unplugged the connection from his jacket and plugged it back into hers. She undid one of her buckles and clipped herself to his BCD so she wouldn’t float away when she inflated her BCD.
Together they lifted the anchor again and there was a slight lift. She inflated her jacket a little at a time until it was fully inflated.
They had to push off together and swim for the surface. She pointed her torch upwards and swept it around, hoping someone would see it and have a rope ready.
A shadow crossed the torch.
Shark.
A tiger shark by the size of it. Hopefully it was satiated by the whale earlier that day.
