The Deep

“They’re not exactly… hospitable… out there. They don’t consider themselves Bermudians; they’re St. David’s Islanders.

There’s a bridge, the Severn Bridge, connecting the island to the rest of Bermuda. They’d as soon it fell down and was never rebuilt.”

Sanders laughed. “What are they, hermits?”

“No, but they’re a proud people, and a bit bitter, too. They make their own rules, and the Bermuda Government looks the other way. There’s a mutual agreement, I guess you could say a recompense for slavery.”

“Slavery?”

“The ancestors of St. David’s Islanders were slaves. Half of them were Mahican Indians, troublemakers sent down by the American colonists.

The other half were unruly Irish, shipped over by the British. Over the years they intermarried, and they created as hard a bloodline as you’d care to see.”

“They sound fascinating,” Gail said.

“In daylight, ma’am. Don’t linger in St. David’s after dark.”

Sanders said, “Thanks for the advice. I left our air tanks down in the equipment shed. Can we get them filled again?”

The bell captain didn’t answer. He looked uneasy. “I… I meant to ask you, Mr. Sanders.” He held up two wallet cards. “The cards you gave me. Forgive my ignorance, but I’m not familiar with NIDA.”

“Oh sure,” Sanders said smoothly. “National Independent Divers Association. There are so many divers these days, NAUI and the y can’t handle them all. NIDA’S a new group.”

“Of course.” The bell captain made a note on a pad. “It’s regulations. I hope you understand.”

“No problem.”

Gail and David went outside and ordered motorbikes from the Orange Grove cycle shop.

While the clerk was filling out forms, Gail whispered, “What was that business with the cards?”

Sanders said, “I thought that might happen. They’re getting tighter every year. You can’t get air without a certification card.”

“But we’ve never been certified.”

“I know. I had the cards made in New York.”

“What’s NIDA? Is there such a thing?”

“Not that I know of. Don’t worry. They never check. They just have to have something to put on file.”

“We probably should have taken the y course,” Gail said. “Yesterday was the first time I’ve dived in a year.”

“Who’s got fourteen Tuesday nights to waste in a swimming pool?” Sanders put his arm around her waist. “You’ll be fine.”

“It’s not just me I’m worried about.”

They listened to instructions about how to operate the motorbikes. The clerk pointed to a row of helmets and said, “What are your hat sizes?”

“Forget it,” Sanders said. “I hate those things.”

“It’s the law. You have no choice. The police can confiscate the bikes.”

“It seems to me,” Sanders said irritably, “that I should be able to decide for myself…” He stopped, feeling Gail’s hand on his arm. “Oh, all right.”

Gail put the towel full of artifacts from Goliath in the basket on the rear fender of her bike and patted her shirt pocket to make sure the ampule was there.

They set off, heading northeast on South Road.

The wind had gone around to the southeast, and as they putted along the road overlooking the south shore, Sanders pointed to the reefs: what yesterday had been a calm anchorage for the Whaler was now a churning boil of foam. Waves crashed on the rocks. Even shoreward of the reefs, the wind-whipped water gathered enough force to make surf on the beach.

The road was crowded with small slow taxicabs, whose drivers-though they had known each other all their lives and saw each other every day-impulsively waved and honked their high-pitched, bleating horns at each other.

There seemed to be no social order, no evident neighborhoods, among the houses they passed.

Generally, the houses on the right side of the road, with spectacular ocean views, were large, well kept, and obviously expensive. Those on the left, nestled close together on hillsides, were smaller. Every puff of breeze was rich with thick aromas, sweet and sour, spicy and fruity.

They passed through Devonshire and Smith’s Parishes, turned left on Harrington Sound Road, and followed the long causeway across Castle Harbour to St. George’s Island. A sign indicated the town of St. George to the left; they went right, across the Severn Bridge, and rode along the narrow road paralleling the airport toward St. David’s.

They had expected to ride into a tidy, contained community. What they found, instead, was a random assembly of limestone cottages connected by dirt paths. It was as if someone had taken a bagful of cottages ten thousand feet up into the air, and then emptied the bag carelessly, letting the contents scatter on the hillsides. Only one building seemed properly placed: a lighthouse at the top of a cliff.

They stopped on the side of the road, and Sanders unfolded the map he had gotten at the hotel.

“This is it,” he said. “It has to be. That’s St. David’s light up there.”

“Let’s ask somebody.”

“Sure. Ask any one of those thousands of people.” He waved his arm at the hillside. There were no bicycles, no cars, no pedestrians. The town seemed deserted.