Dagger Magic

Scanlan backed away toward the water's edge, trying to discover where the pair might have gone, but he could see no trace of them. More mystified than ever, he shifted his puzzled gaze back to the mouth of the cave. What could they have been doing in there?

Glancing back at O'Haverty, who lifted both arms in an exaggerated shrugging motion, Scanlan waved a hand at his partner in a gesture to stand by, and started up the rocks. He unzipped the neck of his survival suit as he climbed, reaching inside for the small but powerful emergency torch he always carried. The cave warranted a quick look.

He gained the ledge without mishap, sidling carefully along it till he reached the narrow cave mouth. After a last glance over his shoulder to assure himself that O'Haverty was still watching from the boat - and scanning the cliffs beyond with the binoculars - Scanlan ducked into the opening and switched on his torch, poking the powerful beam back into the darkness.

The cave appeared to extend some distance into the cliff-face. The dank iodine-tang of the seashore prickled at his nostrils as he started edging forward, scything the beam of the torch before him as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness. A dozen cautious steps took him to the brink of deeper darkness, where his torch probed out across the echoing vault of a much larger cavern.

The vaulted expanse was not wholly dark. Here and there pale lances of daylight pierced the shadows, filtering down through scattered chinks in the roof and the seaward wall. The cave alone was unusual enough, but not far below, the sweep of his torch and the fugitive glimmers of daylight picked out the dark, deadly outline of a great torpedo shape slumbering in the gloom, with a more angular shape thrusting upward from the center. It almost looked like - good Lord, could it be? - a beached submarine!

"Jayzus, Mary, and Joseph!" Scanlan muttered under his breath.

His words echoed in the confines of the sea cave like an untimely intrusion in the hush of some vast cathedral. He fell silent as he played his torch along the length of the thing, noting the faint gurgle of water stirring sluggishly about its armor-plated flanks. The sound suggested that the cave itself was accessible to the tides from outside, but he could see no other openings above ground save the one through which he himself had just come. Nor could he make out any underwater glow that might indicate a passage below the waterline to the sea beyond.

"Jayzus," he breathed, more softly this time. It was difficult to make any very accurate estimate of the sub's size, but he guessed she must be close to two hundred feet long, maybe more. She looked like all the photos his father had shown him of German U-boats he had helped to sink during the Second World War, when he served on a British frigate. The lines of her were right, from the graceful, deadly bow, with its jag-toothed net-cutter and lethal torpedo tubes, to the stubby conning tower and snorkel, to the deck guns mounted fore and aft. And just readable, as he played his torch across the slight curve of the conning tower, was the white-painted designation 636.

U-636. He wondered how she had come to rest here. What little he could see of her did not appear to be damaged. And she must have been lying here in secret for nearly half a century.

Suddenly avid to have a closer look, Scanlan hunkered down and flicked his torch over the rocks below, seeking a way down. A narrow ridge meandered gently along the side, slick with sea wrack but perhaps rendered less treacherous by a profusion of barnacles. A series of outcroppings presented him with a ready-made set of stepping places and handholds, and should bring him within a few feet of the foredeck.

Exhilarated at the prospect of exploring the vessel, he hooked his torch to a clip on his life-vest and began his descent toward the cavern's watery floor. The air in the cavern was moist and heavy, the tang of brine laced with a musky hint of something else that reminded Scanlan curiously of church incense. The water lapping along the hull looked to be perhaps waist-deep. He was not quite sure whether the tide had turned yet, but he should have a few minutes in reasonable safety.

He reached the bottom of the cavern without mishap and sprang lightly to the sub's foredeck, unclipping his torch to play it before him as he started aft. He brushed one hand along the rusted length of the sub's big 3.5-inch deck gun just before he skirted the conning tower, again shining the torch on the painted numbers, 636. The ladder going up into the back of the conning tower was heavily rusted, but it looked sound enough - and was.

He climbed carefully, lest he cut his hands or damage his suit, and emerged on the command bridge. Forward, the wheel that dogged down the hatch drew him almost irresistibly, but when he tried to shift it, it stubbornly resisted his efforts.