Vince Book five

Vince book five.

Published by Eric Bray at Smashwords

copyright 2012 Eric Bray

This collection of writings is purely a work of fiction.

One or two of the businesses mentioned, which take no significant or active part in the plot, are genuine, as are similar geographical locations. They are included merely for authenticity.

All characters and events are entirely a figment of my imagination, and as such, bear no intended resemblance to any person, dead, living, or not yet created, or event from the past, present, or future.

Finally - my apologies to the People of Anglesey, for the liberties I have taken with their country, their language, and place names.

Chapter-------title

One---------Routine

Two---------Holyhead

Three-------Underwater

Four--------The Fox

Five--------The Plane wreck

Six---------Uninvited guests

Seven------Crash-test Dummies

Eight------Aftermath

Nine-------The ‘plane, again

Ten--------All Change

Eleven----Mum, or not?

Chapter one.

Routine.

The Angler-fish lay buried in the brown mud, thirty feet down from the rippled surface, which was covered in little dimples. They appeared and were gone in an instant, leaving a spreading circle of ripples which overlapped the next, and the next, until they vanished in the confusion, as more dimples and expanding circles appeared, accompanied by a tiny tinkling sound.

Hopefully, the fish wig-wagged its modified dorsal fin, which resembled a bit of fleshy tissue caught on a stick. Its function was to lure other creatures into the reach of the telescopic jaw that was lined with jagged teeth, which would snap out and engulf anything foolish enough to come within reach.

An experienced eye could see the slightly different colour and pattern of the flattened body, the tiny disturbance of the grains of mud as the fish breathed, and the two staring, waiting, eyes. They could not fail to see the fitful wig-wag of the lure. The fish had been lying there, unmoving, since the light grew, that day, and now its eyes told it that the light was dimming, and would soon end. All day it had waited, and eaten nothing but one tiny, incautious shrimp.

But now, there was a disturbance in the water, a slight change in the feel of it, as it flowed over the shallow hump of the fish’s body. The fish knew it was a good time to move, time to go out into deep water, away from the surge that was coming, pushed by the storm that was growing in the Atlantic. The fish, of course, didn’t know that Man called that particular body of water by that name. The storm was beginning to race northeast, driven by the Coriolis effect of the spinning globe the fish was a minute speck on the surface of.

Other creatures also responded to the warning signals, either digging in, if they lived in burrows, or heading west, if they were freely mobile. That could mean that they might not be quite so careful, and would be easy picking.

The hungry Angler-fish decided to wait a little longer, in the hope of a decent meal.

Another powerful surge crashed into the bay, stirring up the shallowing bottom into a choking cloud of sand and mud particles that clogged the fish’s gills, choking it. It coughed and gasped as it struggled along, belatedly understanding that it had waited too long.

On the surface, the churning mass of water, weighing sixteen pounds for each cubic foot of liquid, smashed blindly into the breakwater, climbed over the top, driven by the pressure from below and behind, then collapsed into the comparative calm beyond. The bulk of the wave was reflected, but the head, which made it over the breakwater, was sufficiently powerful to inundate the small boats that bobbed at their moorings. It made them leap, and bash into each other. Some succumbed, broken, and sank, others just sank, only their in-built flotation tanks keeping them on the surface.

The Angler-fish paddled resolutely on. It was not built for speed. It’s flat, lumpy body, and stubby, ragged-edged fins were part of its disguise.

The unexpected back-surge of the reflected wave caught it unprepared, sending it tumbling along the bottom. Before it could regain its equilibrium, the next breaker came roaring in, picked it up, and dragged it into mid-water, tumbling and spinning it round, carrying it inshore to where the bottom was in constant motion, pebbles and small boulders tumbling and grinding at each other as each passing pressure wave sucked and blew. There was nowhere to shelter, now. The fish was picked up again, and flung mercilessly against the concrete and stone bastion that stood firm against the ravages of the sea, as it had for many years. Not that the Angler-fish knew this. It knew nothing, now, its spark of life had been dashed out by the crashing blow. Its remains were smashed, again, and again, against the obstruction, until a freak effect threw it over the top of the barrier, and onto the deck of a half-swamped boat. It lay there for a minute or so, then was washed off again, as this boat also gave up the struggle against the elements, and sank to its gunwales.

The morning after the storm, the man wandered down to the tiny beach, leaving his little van parked untidily in an ‘instant’ lay-by, formed where the earth bank had collapsed, and then been abraded away even more by constant use as a parking space. The man dumped a heap of assorted bits of diving kit just above the waterline, where the lapping waves could not reach, then wandered along the high-tide line of debris washed up by the storm. Most of it was bladder-wrack or kelp that had been torn from its hold-fasts, and carried inshore by the maelstrom. That was not what his eyes sought. He looked for the gleam of abraded metal, or the shine of freshly broken wood, which could signify something of interest in or under the mud-flats, offshore. Despite reports of a wreck in the area that had been gleaned in fragments of gossip over many years, despite many dives in the area, he had never found a trace of his quarry.

A new shape, tangled in the wrack, drew his eye. Wary of getting a handful of spines from a weever-fish, which could give a nasty sting even after death, he pulled the weed from the object. The battered corpse of the Angler was already beginning to bloat, and was even more ugly and ragged, in death, than it had been in life. Leaving it for the gulls, the man completed his traverse of the beach, and having found nothing useful, returned to his kit.

He stood for a minute, watching the agitated water, still restless after the storm. He noted the direction of the current, visibly swirling the remnants of debris in the little cove, indicating the presence of a much more powerful flow offshore. He would have to watch out for that, or he might find he was faced with a very long walk back - from Blackpool, or somewhere! For a minute longer, he wondered whether to give it a miss, today, and go to his old wreck site, which was sheltered in a gully, although he had found nothing further of interest there for several years, now, ever since he and Pete had finally freed the church bell from its securing concretion. He smiled wryly at the memory of the struggle to get the several tons of the bronze casting ashore, only for it to be claimed as Treasure Trove by the Receiver of Wreck. One day, they might pay up, but he wasn’t holding his breath. Government departments move exceedingly slowly, when it suited them! (And there were many smaller things of greater value that he hadn’t, and wouldn’t, declare!)

Decided, he trudged back to his van for an extra belt weight or two. Being over-heavy might be a good thing, today.

As he made his way back onto the sand, a yellow sparkle, off to his left, drew his eye. Carefully, he moved towards it, unblinking, knowing that a tiny change of angle could lose it again. There! It lay buried in the back of a sand ripple, below the high-tide line. Putting his extra weights down, he dug carefully with his fingers until the shape of it was exposed. He had a brass or copper tube, about an inch round, and four or so long. One end had a slight ridge running around it, while the other was tapered in by a few degrees, over the last half inch. Delicately, he cleared some more damp sand away from the tapered end, but there was no dull grey, or shiny metal, cone, protruding from it. Knowing it was empty, he casually flicked the rest of the sand away, confident that it would not explode in his face, as could happen with a live shell.

He rinsed the casing off in the water, and then studied it, looking for manufacturers marks. A triangular depression at the flat, sealed end, showed where the firing pin had done its work. The depression was triangular in shape, giving a clue to the casing’s identity, if you knew where to look. He didn’t extract the compacted grains from within the tube, as there may be fragments of the percussion cap, or unburned grains of powder within, possibly providing further clues towards the source.

Leaving his weights on the sand, as a marker, he trudged up to the van again, and hid the casing out of sight under a raggy carpet. He then went to his kit, and removed a short handle, with a thick disk on one end, set at an angle, and a box on the other. He switched his metal-detector on, waved it over his spare spare knife, to check it was working, then tracked up and down the beach, waving the search head over the sand.

A feeble beep at one spot produced a ring-pull, but nothing of value. That made about six million, now, if he’d kept count. At the present rate of exchange, weighing them all in might just cover the cost of his petrol used in taking them to the recycling plant!

Back at his kit, he threaded the extra weights onto his belt, then kitted up. With his fins dangling from one hand, and the detector in the other, he waddled clumsily down into the water until he was about knee deep, then squatted and sat down, shuddering as the cold water squirted up the inside of his wet-suit onto his hot sweaty body. When he was stable, he fitted his fins, fished around for his demand valve, checked it was free of debris - and delivering air, and then fitted his face-mask. After two or three breaths, he checked his contents gauge, noting that the needle was hovering just below 250.

Carefully, methodically, he checked everything. Watch, compass, two knives in different locations, nylon monofil line-cutter, buoyancy jacket, schnorkel, straps tight, contents gauge again, just in case. Diving was a dangerous business, and diving alone was even more so. Although it freed you from the inconvenience of spending most of your time looking for your partner, who was hopefully doing the same for you, it also meant that if something went wrong, you were on your own. Nobody would, or could, come to assist. You either sorted it, or died. There was no grey area.

He didn’t use a dive computer, not trusting in a machine to tell him what to do, although his wife had one, and put all her faith in it. She often came with him, but the battery was flat, again, and without her computer, she would not dive. He preferred the simple, battery-less, non-electronic, barely mechanical Bourdon tube, which worked on the outside pressure bearing on a curved metal tube. It very rarely went wrong. His watch was an automatic, mechanical one, rather less accurate than a modern quartz one, perhaps, but much more accurate than a quartz watch with a flat battery!

Satisfied that everything was as it should be, he took a bearing, with his wrist-mounted compass, on a barely visible pop-bottle marker buoy, bobbing in the water, a hundred yards or so out. Ready, he rolled over, paddled round onto the correct heading, added correction for the current, and then finned slowly and steadily away.

It was like diving in cold Brown Windsor soup. He could see his extended arm as far as the elbow. His hideous, but cheap, dayglow orange gloves were a dull grey blur in the murky distance.

He finned steadily for ten minutes, following the compass needle, and then raised his head to check his bearings. The bottle was bobbing, over to his right. He’d misjudged the strength of the current by about a knot. Taking a fresh bearing, he set off again, for three minutes, and then checked for the marker again. It was still right of his heading, but only a few yards away, so he finned over to it, then rested for a moment, watching how rapidly he was carried away by the flow.

He estimated that the current was running at four knots, on the surface, and knew that he could fin at six, for ten minutes, if he had to, but would rather not!

Ready, he found the buoy-line, vented air from his jacket, and sank steadily down, finning steadily to hold position, until he crashed soggily into the unseen bottom. Hoping the weights were more or less where he’d left them on his last dive before the storm, he groped around for the grid-line. When he found it, he waved his detector over the end-weight, a half-bucket shaped block of concrete with an iron bolt embedded in it, as a ‘tester’. The detector beeped, and flashed a green light, showing that it was still working.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see a thin grey stripe extending about a foot ahead of him. He tried his torch, but there was so much back-scatter from the suspended particles, it made things worse, so he turned it off again.

Visualizing where the shore was, in relation to his line, and the compass, he let the current wash him along it, as he wafted the detector across the mud, covering a strip about four feet wide. All too soon, the weight at the other end arrived, and he planted his knees in the mud, then lifted the weight, moving it out as far as he could reach, then flicked the line up. After flogging back along the line to the start, he did the same with that weight at that end, then let the current carry him along the line again, scanning steadily.

Arriving at the far end weight for the second time, he checked his contents gauge. It showed 200, signifying he had air for three, maybe four, more passes, then he would have to return to the surface.

The diver moved the weight again, then fought back to the beginning, and repeated the exercise.

The gauge showed 150. One more run was his limit. Move the weight, flog back to the start, move the weight, untangle himself from the buoy line, then wash along the bottom again. His detector made a feeble toot, at one point, so he stopped, searching more carefully. The green light didn’t flash, so it was a weak target. He checked his air. 85, time to quit. He dumped a small lump of concrete from a pocket, tied to a pop-bottle by a length of fishing line, unscrewed the cap, blew a little air in, refitted the cap, and let the bottle go. It rocketed off to the surface, unreeling itself as it went.

He followed at a more leisurely pace, listening for the whine of outboard engines, or the slapping of a wind-surfer board.

As the gloom lifted, he could feel the surge of the current pulling. His raised arm broke through the surface, followed by his head and shoulders. He paddled in a circle, seeing nobody, and nothing, except his bottles, the end marker was a scant three feet away. He could have completed that run! Ah, well! The land was that way. He started finning, boiling the water behind him as he angled across the current.

It took twenty minutes of steady finning before he began to see rocks and patterns on the bottom. Lifting his head, he was in time to fend off a rock that loomed at him. He was still in ‘his’ bay, but only just. Despite his angling off, he had been carried to the far south end. He had about ten atmospheres of air left in his bottle, and decided to climb out there, and walk, rather than run out of air halfway along the bay. Ten ats. was good for five minutes, perhaps, of hard finning on the surface. He rolled over, and sat up in eighteen inches of thin mud, to remove his fins, noting it was raining again. Damn! He thought, incongruously. I’ll get wet!

He lugged his gear around the arm of the bay, back to his little van. A shiny Range-Rover was jammed into the little parking place, behind it. The owner, also wearing a diving suit, was studying the bay, from the top of the low earth bank.

Hi! I wouldn’t bother, unless you are really determined to get wet! Our diver said. The vis is about eighteen inches, and there’s a hell of a current running!

That’s what I thought! The voice was cultured, with a South Eastern accent, Home Counties, maybe. You were down long enough, though!

I was working.

Ah! The man looked at him. On your own? The BSAC wouldn’t like that!

Stuff them! They’re for Sunday Divers. In these conditions, a partner is a liability. He lowered his kit to the ground.

And if you meet trouble?

If I can’t sort it, I’m dead. That’s life! He grinned wryly. Better one, than two or more, lost while searching for the first one. I’m still here, so far. He shrugged out of his cylinder harness, then closed the pillar valve, purged the air-line, and removed the valve. Our diver unzipped his wet-suit jacket, and fished inside for a key on a string, that hung around his neck. I’m Vince, by the way.

Michael. The posh man responded. I have a necklace like that! he grinned. I’ve heard that there is a galleon that was carrying gold, off the shore, there!

Vince collapsed onto the wet bank, laughing. Fools Gold, perhaps. There’s a lugger out there that was carrying coal, until it cut the corner too tight!

I heard that cannon were found?

Sure. There are cannon all over the seabed around here. They used to dump scrap ones, or broken ones, when they rounded Anglesey, if they were trying to make Liverpool Bay in bad weather, without swamping!

Oh.

You stand more chance on the Royal Charter, round at Moelfre. It’s on the sheltered side, today, too. I found a ring, once. The wife has it as a wedding band.

You’re married, then? Doesn’t she object to what you do?

Why should she? She often accompanies me!

But the risk!

She knows and accepts it. If it happens, tough, it’s my time! Or hers.

Fatalists, hey?

No, not that extreme. Just acceptance.

A motorcycle roared past, braked, pulled a tight ‘U’ turn, and puttered back, to stop by Vince’s van. The rider flipped up the visor, then the chin-guard. Hi, Dad, I thought I might find you out here!

Hi, Slug, I’m just on my way back, now.

The boy looked at the sea. There’s a hell of a rip, offshore!

We were just discussing that. I’m Michael, by the way.

Andy. Everyone calls me Slug. He paused. Unless you’re an Olympic swimmer, I wouldn’t go out there, today.

Your father did.

Well, he’s loopy. Everyone knows that! He’s been known to jump out of helicopters, into the raging sea, so he could swim to sinking ships! Totally insane!

Ah! from Michael.

Hey! Not so much of the ‘loopy!’ You’re not too big to put over my knee!

What do you mean, you never have! Slug looked at his watch. I must go, I’m due in Bangor, in twenty.

No racing, now!

Yes, Dad! Andy flipped his visor down, clicked into first, pulled another ‘U’ turn, and then opened the throttle, racing off down the road with the front wheel pawing the air.

And he calls ME mad! Vince watched him go out of sight round a bend. He’s off to see his date, the third one this week.

It’s serious, then?

No, third date, third girl!

Michael chuckled, He’s spreading the wild oats!

I hope not! But he can pay the bills! I must be off, too. Vince heaved his gear into the van. I really do advise against diving, here. If you are stuck for ideas, go and see Fred, in the Trearddur bay dive shop. He’ll point you to somewhere safer.

Thanks. I will.

Vince left Michael looking at the bay, knowing his pop-bottle markers weren’t visible from here without binoculars, and the knowledge of what to look for. The little engine started, and he rattled off, the van sounding like a can of bolts in a washing machine.

Vince followed the theory of saving money by buying cheap, nearly scrap vans, because they often got left on beaches, where they got covered with salty sand, and sometimes, salt water, if the tide turned before he could remove it. This one was definitely on its last legs, and had a mechanic bothered to crawl underneath it, he could have seen up through the holes in the floor, and out through the windows. Vince didn’t care, as long as the engine, steering, brakes, and some of the lights worked, it was good enough for what he wanted. If he needed posh transport, he’d use George, his wife’s, Discovery, a prettied up Land Rover. Other than that, his feet were good enough, and didn’t break down!

Vince turned up the lane leading to Llyn Hafodol, their cottage named after the lake on the land they owned, crunched onto the gravel parking area, noting the absence of vehicles, and stopped by his garage/workshop. He left the van there, walked round to the front door, caressing the bell hanging in the porch, let himself in, and cancelled the burglar alarm.

With his kit unloaded, and washed down with fresh water, he went into the double shower cubicle he’d built into the back of the garage, pushed a short hose down his neck cuff, then turned a tap on. After a rude rasp of air, the hose spluttered, and then a stream of hot water flooded into his suit, making it into a giant hot-water bottle. As the suit inflated, water began to spurt from all the accumulated nicks, pin-holes, and rips in it, then the sleeve and leg cuffs.

After a minute or so, when the water ran clear, not muddy, he turned another tap, and washed off the outside of his suit, which was already fairly clean after the rain. Warm again, he turned off the taps, removed the hose from his neck, then struggled out of the clingy suit, because the lining was wearing thin.

Wearing a towel, with a non-pair of mis-matched flip-flops on his feet, he put his used cylinder into a tank of water, connected a hose to the pillar valve, started a compressor, and then opened valves, to begin the process of refilling the bottle.

When he went into the living room, on the way to the bedroom, the answerphone was beeping sporadically, so he pushed the ‘play’ button.

You have click one click messages! The synthesized voice said, Message One –, then George’s voice. Hi, Hon, I’ve gone to Bangor, See you in a while. The electronic voice continued –You have no new messa-.

Vince pushed the delete button. You have click no click messages! The voice declared, smugly. Vince was already in the bedroom, dressing. All messages have been deleted!

Vince was sitting in the ‘comfy’ bit of his workshop, listening to Mark Knopfler, on the c.d. player, singing about ‘Sailing to Philadelphia." Vince had never worked out why the sleeve picture was of an aeroplane. Two radios were hissing in the background, one tuned to the Marine V.H.F calling channel, 16, and the other to the Rescue common frequency of 5.680 Megs H.F. USB. Apart from a ship in trouble off Sullam Voe, in the Shetlands, there was nothing happening to concern him. Sullam was a bit far for the Air-Sea Rescue helicopter from RAF Valley, where he sometimes helped out as a diver.

Sprawled limply along the designated modelling bench, on the back wall, were the remains of a three metre wingspan radio-controlled glider that had suffered the ignominy of hitting the only, stubby tree that stood on the edge of the ridge that ran across the fields at the back of the house, as the owner demonstrated her skill, or lack of judgement, when performing a fast ‘run and break’ during a recent flying session.

Other models, all but one were gliders, of various forms, were safely stored in racks above, away from accidental knocks. The one powered model was a heavily modified ex Military target drone, one that had ‘Got away’, been reported as a ‘crashed light aircraft’, and had been duly rescued by Vince and the SAR team. It now carried a video camera and transmitter, allowing instant aerial viewing of the photo-survey in progress. The control console was a free-standing unit that could be self-powered, or run from a car battery. It contained a TV receiver, a video recorder, and the control unit for the aircraft. It also contained an automatic ‘Come here’ gadget, in case the operator lost track of the drone. It would bring the model back into sight, and then cause it to orbit, at a safe height, ‘hands-off’, which was useful if the operator was busy with another task.

Vince was pretty good with it, but usually left it to Oki Cheeseman, a mutual close friend, while he and Pete, her husband, did the diving. Oki was a pure-blood Japanese. Her father, ‘Tommy’ Ichioga Tamasawara, had died twenty years ago, her mother had gone when she was a child. The broken model on the bench was Oki’s. Vince’s preference was for smaller, very agile, ‘freestyle’ aerobatic machines. George had taken to calling them ‘hairybatics’, as the ground frequently got in the way, changing the wild gyrations into even wilder avoidance maneuvers, as Vince attempted to avoid hitting it!

All the land around Llyn Hafodol, including the ridge, and the lake, were theirs. Years ago, they had bought a derelict cottage, and practically rebuilt it. In the process, amongst other things, they had discovered the original deeds, and eventually had them ratified. The cottage had belonged to a Seaman, who had been lost at sea, along with his ship and crew, and the cottage had remained unused until George and Vince found it, by chance, one day, when they were driving around, sight-seeing, one impossible to dive day.

So, they were financially secure, and could make their play their work.

Pete and Oki were currently in Bermuda, having their second, or third, honeymoon. Pete was ‘something’ in Customs and Excise, while Oki was a ‘House Manageress’, in her own house. She had no higher ambition that she admitted to.

Pete’s erstwhile work partner, Trevor, was last heard of in Cornwall. Vince couldn’t recall why. His wife, Joan, had remained behind, in her house across the island, with her brood.

Gravel crunched outside, accompanied by the flat rumble of a Land Rover engine. Vince climbed from his chair, went to put the kettle on, then went out, to carry the shopping in, if any. He lugged a big sack of spuds in, while George carried a lettuce, and three cream cakes, which she placed delicately onto the kitchen table, then slumped into a chair with a sigh. I must have walked for miles! My feet are killing me!

Then buy your shoes a size bigger! Vince placed a steaming cup just out of her reach. Slug’s in Bangor, too!

What, again? He must be wearing a groove up and down the fifty-five! George reached for the coffee, a tantalizing inch too far away. Ar! I can’t reach it!

Well, you’ll have to move your fat backside, then!

Me? Fat? It wasn’t me that had to let my belt out a hole this morning! Vince was as fat as a pipe-cleaner. And I’m exhausted!

Yeah, I’ll bet! Spending money is hard work!

But I didn’t! Well, not much, anyway! George waved at the few items. You can see what I’ve bought!

Are you telling me you went all the way to Bangor, for a lettuce? What’s the delivery van bringing, later?

She looked crestfallen. Nothing much, just your Anniversary present to me!

Vince looked puzzled, and then checked the calendar that hung on the wall. That’s not for two months, yet!

I’m making sure you