No Man's Island/Chapter 1

O MOST of us an aquarium seems an unlikely place for a diver to choose in which to spend a holiday. Sam Manning thought differently. And the aquarium at Kapiolani Park at Waikiki is different. It is an out-of-doors institution and one may smoke and watch the strange shapes and vivid colors of the occupants of the tanks in a combination of pleasure and comfort that was most acceptable to Manning.

Romance and poetry to the contrary, your deep-sea diver does not take in much of the sub-surface life while he’s at work. There are too many things to look out for: life-line, air-pipe, signals, currents, to say nothing of the actual work in hand. Then too the helmet-glasses get misty in spite of the vinegar film used to keep them clear. Like, as not, the water is roily, and it is ten to one the diver is working in a place that more nearly resembles a neglected backyard than a sea-garden aglow with color.

But there was a streak of romance, and not a narrow one, in the composition of Manning. And, when he could do so at leisure, he liked to see through the glass of the tanks the tropical, underwater beau ties that he missed at Pearl Harbor, where he had just completed a contract at the Naval station.

Striped and splotched trigger-fish in blue and gold, or black and scarlet; strange, darting shapes of silver, azure and flaming red, spotted eels, sulking squid, gorgeous anemones, like orchids of the sea, vivid marine growths, spiny sea-urchins, nightmare crabs, live coral, live sponges; a fascinating display ever shifting is kaleidoscopic review. Manning refilled his pipe, seated in the scattering shade of date-palms opposite the tank labeled Hippocampidæ, which Manning translated as sea-horses.

He played chess once in a while, and the striking resemblance of the mailed fishes, with their prehensile tails and elongated snouts, to the knights of his favorite diversion always fascinated him. Just now his attention was divided between them and a man whom he had observed, more or less closely, for the past hour.

The stranger was a riddle to Manning and the diver liked to solve such riddles. To begin with, he was dressed in a slop suit of serge that was shapeless as a collection of gunny sacks but could not hide the erect figure, the broad, square shoulders and narrowing hips of the man. He was painfully thin, but Manning sensed muscles and well-coordinated strength and action. Clad like a common sailor, evidently of the sea, Manning was sure that the man belonged aft, that he was one who gave orders rather than obeyed them.

He was pretty certain that the man was both hungry and broke. He knew that the stranger had glanced at him more than once with a look that was a part of the puzzle. It had held a hint of entreaty. Only a hint, tempered by pride that showed in the tilt of the well-shaped jaw, the carriage of the well-shaped head. It was a tentative hail to one who might or might not answer in kind.

In the look had been a suggestion of recognition. And this Manning reciprocated to a certain extent. He could not place the man and he prided himself upon his recollection of faces. Their former meeting must have been under different circumstances, he decided. The chap had been through a sickness of some kind, he fancied. Clothes and additional poundage made a vast difference.

“He’s a Yank,” decided Manning, “but he’s no stranger in these latitudes. And he’s got a good nose.”

Manning was a crank on noses. He liked the way the stranger, if he was a stranger, wore his, jutting out in an aquiline aggressiveness from between gray eyes; curving down, lean and well sculptured, ending above a close-clipped mustache that accented a firm mouth.

“About thirty,” he placed his age. Manning had just topped forty. The other was close to six feet, perhaps a trifle over the fathom. Manning was five-feet-ten, solid, vigorous.

The man regarded the fishes apathetically, hands in his pockets, frowning, opposite the Hippocampidæ. The tank might have been empty for any real attention he gave it though he was looking straight at the glass front that reflected his lean visage to Manning, who once again thought he caught that speculative glance.

“He’s no ,” the diver decided. “I like him. And he looks as if he needed a lift, if it’s only a friendly word. Rum place for him to come if he’s feeling the way he looks.”

Generous always, with the generosity happily leavened by inherent caution and a habit of going about things methodically, Manning got up and strolled over nearer to the sea-horses, ranging up alongside the other.

“Funny little beggars, ain’t they?” he said. “Don’t seem like fishes, somehow.”

“Ran into a whole herd of ’em one time,” he went on as the other did not answer. “Herded in the cabin of a wreck I was goin’ through in twelve fathom of water. I’ll bet there was four or five hundred of ’em.”

The man turned swiftly, eagerness in his eyes, his thin body tensing.

“You’re a diver?”

The gray eyes were ablaze with hope, boring at Manning. There was the note in his voice of a marooned sailor who, almost hopeless, suddenly sees a ship’s boat coming round the point and hails it, with a certain incredulity. It was a deep-sea voice with a ring to it that confirmed Manning’s impression that the man was used to issuing orders.

“That’s been my job for twenty-odd years,” he answered. “Name of Manning. Sam Manning.”

“Manning—Manning?”

The brows of the other knitted, lines of effort showing above them in a struggle for recollection. Then his face cleared.

“You were at Tahiti in—let me see—1913. Working on the hull of the Esperance?”

“Correct.”

Manning still cudgeled his brains in vain for the connecting links of memory.

“I used to watch you from the wharf. Don’t know that I met you. But you may have heard of me. I was there selling pearls. My name’s Hooper, Tom Hooper of Huapai.”

Now his voice held a note of entreaty. It was almost as if he had had reason lately to doubt his own identity, or had had it questioned, Manning thought shrewdly.

“It seems to fit in somewhere,” he said slowly. “But I can’t just place it. Pearls? And you’ve got the handle of captain, I’m thinking.”

Hooper nodded a trifle impatiently.

“I don’t look much like Hooper of Huapai just now,” he said. “I met one man this morning who ought to know me and he said he didn’t. I am not sure whether he lied or not. But Tom Hooper of Huapai is fairly well known in Tahiti. Or was. ‘Lucky’ Hooper they called me. I handled more pearls than the rest of them. My own. Tahiti is the clearing-house for pearls, you know.”

“Yes; I’ve heard so. I’ve never dived for ’em. Never had anything to do with ’em. But”

Manning’s face suddenly lightened.

“Did you own the three-masted schooner in the harbor that time? The only three-master there. A beauty—called the—the”

“Moanamanu. The Ocean Bird."

“Yes, sir. The Moanamanu. I remember that schooner. I’ve always had a notion to own a schooner myself. I’ve put in so much of my life under the surface I like to sail on top by contrast for the joy of it. Sail—not steam. A beauty, that schooner. She’s not with you?”

“She’s lying in ten fathoms inside a double reef, half-way between the Galapagos and the Marquesas.”

“Tough luck. You ran her ashore?”

“I didn’t. But I was in her.”

The man who had named himself Hooper, Lucky Hooper of Huapai, had been subjecting Manning to close inspection, a searching inquisition that began and ended eyes to eyes. And Manning did not resent it. Inwardly he chuckled. The apparent derelict had assumed the act of investigation, conducting it as a natural privilege. He liked the rising of Hooper above clothes and obvious circumstance.

“You said you were a diver?” queried Hooper after a quick glance to see if any one was in earshot, or so Manning interpreted it. “Deep-sea, I take it.”

“Anything down to twenty fathoms.”

“Are you working?”

“Just got -through. Haven’t made up my mind whether I’ll sign up again or not. I’m a bit stale after a steady spell. Expect to lay off for a week or so, anyway.”

Hooper nodded.

“Got your own outfit, I suppose?”

“Two suits, one with oxygen tank. Four assistants. Why?”

He countered sharply with the question. A grim twist of an approving smile showed on Hooper’s face.

“You may imagine I’m not rolling in wealth just now,” he said. “But there’s a reason. I think I can explain it satisfactorily to you.” His voice got a little bitter but changed again. “I know the kind of job you did at Tahiti,” he went on. “I know your reputation. You’ve only got a hazy recollection of me. I am not in a position to offer credentials. And I am in a hurry. To offset what I know of you, and you don’t know of me, I’ll give you a share in my secret. It’s a business proposition. I need a partner. I need a diver. Have you got any money, Manning?”

UCH a conversation, overheard, might have seemed incongruous. The wrong man appeared to be putting a question of that kind. But it did not seem out of the way to Manning. Odd bits of memory were piecing themselves together about Hooper of Huapai. And he did not doubt that this was the man. He was quite certain the chap was neither crook nor adventurer.

He had met many of them in his calling and invariably there had been something about them that gave them away. They had been too specious, too overdressed for their roles, one way or the other. This chap was straight, in his opinion, and he had taken some time that morning to make it up. Once fixed, Manning was ready to back it.

“I might get hold of some,” he said. “Why? Why a diver? Sunken treasure?”

“Yes. Sounds fishy, I suppose. Man told me so this morning the minute I broached it. Said Honolulu was fed up on those sorts of yarns. He meant the Coco Island expedition. The old scallawag that put across that deal let in a bunch of Honolulu men. I’ve been told a good many things in the last forty-eight hours that I couldn’t resent openly. I look like a beachcomber, I’ll admit. It’s sunken treasure. Pearls. Inside the hold of the Moanamanu. And it’s a strange sort of yarn, with only my word to prove it. I was discharged from the Seaman’s Home two days ago with a dollar and this suit of slops. But I've got to take in some one. You look like a godsend, doubly, because you’re a diver. There’s a double reason, to my mind, for haste, though you may not look at it in that way. But I can offer you an inducement, if you take any stock in what I’m saying.

“There’s a third of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it, Manning, for your share, if you’ll put up for a craft of some sort, outfit, grub and crew. The diving part of it’s easy. The rest isn’t. There are risks.”

Manning looked at a sea-horse twined about a stalk of seaweed.

“Suppose you come back with me on the car to Honolulu,” he said. “And talk it over. I’ve got rooms there where we can go over the thing at length. We’ll have supper together and go into it afterward. I’m hungry.”

Something leaped into Hooper’s eyes at the word “supper.” Hunger is a hard thing to control. But his voice was even.

“Suits me,” he said. “What have we got to go by? Have you got any charts there of the Southern Pacific?”

“That’s my business. Yes, I’ve got a lot of them.” He glanced at his watch. “We can just catch a car,” he said. “Come along.”

There were two or three soldiers on the car, part of the island garrison. Manning saw Hooper regarding them interestedly.

“Making quite a military and Naval base out of the Islands,” he remarked casually. “Big work at Pearl Harbor. With a general eye to the Japanese, I fancy. They’re swarming here. Eight of ’em on this car. But I hope we don’t have any more trouble for a while. Got a chance for real preparedness, now. Good thing the war’s over.”

“Were you in it?”

The inquiry was not casual. Manning looked at Hooper with some surprize [sic]. The tone was bitter; there was a flash in his eyes.

“I was under it,” Manning answered. “I did what they set me at. It didn’t take me across. Kept me busy at the Navy yards. How about you?”

“I was out of it,” said Hooper, his voice bitter. “But it wasn’t my fault. And now the war’s over, or as good as over, it.”

The repressed feeling in his words, ending in the clipped oath, gave Manning food for thought. It made him the keener to hear Hooper’s story. But he was not going to talk about it on the car, if the other had seemed willing. And Hooper relapsed into a broody silence.