Hunger by Rodman Philbrick

Author:Rodman Philbrick
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781612328577
Publisher: Speaking Volumes, LLC
Published: 2012-10-04T05:00:00+00:00

The boy took to the water like he had gills, he was that natural. The Craigs, father and son, were anchored in water fifteen feet deep, over the partial remains of a small turtle sloop that had sunk about the time of the Civil War. Probably driven near the shore and abandoned, the guidebook said, when the hull seams opened. Lot of older, poorly maintained boats used in the turtle trade, not unusual to have one sink this close to shore. The years and the storms and thousands of previous dive expeditions had taken their toll. All that remained now was part of the keel and a few ribs encrusted with coral. Just enough so you could see the shape of a boat there, lying just under the water.

The boy, raised on the dry prairie, trained in chlorinated swimming pools and algae-darkened quarries, had been so excited his eyes were like thin blue puddles ready to spill out of his face. Hurrying to put on the scuba tank harness, as if the wreck might disappear before he got into the water.

“Take it easy,” Roger Craig had said. “We’ve got all day. As long as it takes us to go through two tanks each.”

The boy simply nodding. A look that said, Please, let’s stop talking about it and just do it.

“You go first,” Roger had said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

They had gone into the water quietly, with a minimum of fuss, clutching their masks, and settled languidly toward the bottom, stirring up puffs of pale sand as they touched down. No problem, no panic, a day at the beach for sure.

Now, after a thorough examination of the wreck, the boy had become interested in the small fish feeding in and around the coral. Look at him floating there, patient as can be, keeping himself carefully balanced so as not to touch the coral itself. Following the rules. Every minute or so the boy would check his dive gauges, see how much air he had left. As careful as any adult diver, more careful than most.

Roger Craig kept a discreet distance, maybe ten yards to one side, not wanting to crowd the kid. Let him have this experience, a young man all alone at the bottom of the sea as a whole new world slowly revealed itself.

It was Roger who jerked involuntarily when a good-sized ray suddenly freed itself from the bottom and jetted off. Hadn’t even seen the damn thing, the camouflage was that good. The boy merely looked up from the coral, studied the fleeing ray, then pointed and signaled AOK to his father.

See that? No problem, Dad.

The temperature and visibility were such that you were barely aware of the water, except where it slowed you down or made you feel buoyant. With the nice little wreck and the abundant sealife it was hard to imagine better first-time dive conditions for a ten-year old, or for anybody. The way Roger figured, if they were lucky, a father and son shared maybe two or three experiences like this in a lifetime.

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