Eye of the Tiger, The by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith [Smith, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Action & Adventure, Fiction, Indian Ocean, Adventure Stories, Treasure Troves
ISBN: 9780312979393
Google: qacCh0vA8JoC
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1975-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

I came out through the surface so fast that I broke clear to my waist, and I turned in the air and got my good arm over the gunwale of the boat. With all my strength I swung my body forward and jack-knifed my legs up under my chin.

In that instant the white death struck, the water exploded about me as he burst through the surface, I felt the harsh gritty skin tear across the legs of my suit as he brushed against me, then there was a shuddering crash as he struck the hull of the whaleboat.

I saw Chubby and Angelo's startled faces as the boat heeled over and rocked wildly. My violent contortions had thrown the shark off his run, and he had missed my legs and collided with the hull.

Now with one more desperate kick and heave I tumbled over the gunwale and fell into the bottom of the whaleboat. Again the shark crashed into the hull as I went over, missing me again by inches.

I lay there pumping air into my aching lungs, great sweet gulps of it that made me light-headed and giddy as on strong wine.

Chubby was yelling at me, "Where is Miss. Sherry? That big Johnny Uptail get Miss. Sherry?"

I rolled on to my back, panting and sobbing for the precious air.

"Spare lungs," I gasped. "Sherry waiting in the wreck. She needs air."

Chubby leaped into the bows and dragged the canvas sheet off the extra scuba sets stacked there. In a crisis he is the kind of man I like to have covering for me.

"Angelo," he growled, "get them Johnny pills." They were a pack of copper acetate shark repellent pills which I had ordered from an American sports goods catalogue and for which Chubby had professed a deep and abiding scorn. "Let's see if those fancy things are any bloody good."

I had breathed enough to drag myself off the floorboards and to tell Chubby: "We've got problems. The pool is full of big Johnnys, and there are two really mean uptails with them. That one that charged me and another."

Chubby scowled as he fitted the demand valves to the new sets.

"Did you come straight up, Harry? I nodded. "I left my bottles for Sherry. She's waiting down there."

"You going to bend, Harry?" He looked up at me and I saw the worry in his eyes.

"Yes," I nodded, as I dragged myself to my tackle box and lifted the lid. "I've got to get down again fast - got to put pressure on my blood again before she rises."

I picked out the bandolier of explosive heads for my hand spear.

There were twelve of them, and I wished for more as I strapped the bandolier around my thigh. Each head was hand-tapped to screw on to the shaft of a ten-foot stainless steel spear. It contained explosive charge equivalent to that of a 12-gauge shotgun shell and I could fire the charge with a trigger on the handle. It was an effective shark-killer.

Chubby hoisted

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