Butler Did It! by Sally Pomeroy Page B

his bound hands, effectively eliminating his ability
to use either his hands or his feet. His eyes were wide open in
fear. All the while, the firestorm of bullets struck the water
thirty feet above them. Katherine pulled the regulator from her own
lips and pressed them between the man’s, giving him his first
breath of air in over two minutes. He gulped at the compressed air,
his body shuddering to take in more than the regulator could
provide. She could hear him bleat as she wielded her dive knife
close to his crotch and sawed through the plastic cable tie binding
his hands. Once free, he calmed down and passed the regulator back
to her. In return, Katherine gave him her pony bottle of reserve
air, and not waiting for a response, grabbed his arm, and began
pulling him toward the reef wall.
    Silently, she prayed that the gunfire
from the dark ship would disturb the normally crystalline water
enough that the shooters would have trouble seeing their target,
and their target’s savior.
    Katherine knew that if the gunmen
stopped shooting, the bubbles from their air tanks would lead the
gunmen directly to any place the pair tried to hide. Her heart was
pounding and she had to increase the flow of air through her
regulator to accommodate her rapid breathing.
    Don’t panic! She told herself.
The words of her first diving instructor ran through her head. More divers die from panic than from sharks .
    She had practiced helping another diver
in trouble, but practicing for an emergency is nothing like the
real thing. She hoped that the gunmen on the dark ship didn’t have
any divers of their own. She needed somewhere to hide quickly;
somewhere where their bubble trails wouldn’t give them away.
Katherine instinctively knew that the only safe place that she and
the man could hope to hide was in the blowhole.
    If we can get into the
chimney of the blowhole, no one will be able to see us, and the
bubbles will exit out the top and not out the entrance.
    Despite his obvious lack of experience
in scuba diving, the black man put his trust in the woman and let
Katherine lead him away from certain death. It was only when they
arrived at the reef wall, and she tried to pull him into the
blowhole entrance, that he began to thrash around, attempt to break
free, and swim up to the surface. She knew that if he reached the
surface, he was dead, and so was she. She used the haft of her dive
knife to thump his head to get his attention. With urgent hand
signals, she got him to follow her inside the blowhole. Once he saw
the daylight at the back of the chamber, his reluctance ceased and
he followed her up the chimney.
    Inside the cave, the force of the waves
had carved a long series of ledges. They slanted up from water
level toward the blowhole chimney. She led the man to a ledge large
enough for the pair of them to climb onto and sit upright. As soon
as they broke surface and spit out their regulators, he spoke in a
British accent.
    “Oh, Thank y…” he groaned weakly,
coughing up water.
    She quickly put a hand over his mouth,
and pointed up at the blowhole exit. Kobi tried to focus on the
woman who had pulled him into this cave. There was some light
coming from the back of the cave and he could just see her pale,
yet beautiful face.
    Removing her hand from his mouth, she
noticed that his face was badly battered. One eye was nearly
swollen shut and he had cuts and bruises all over his torso. With
every movement of the water in the chamber, the man rocked on his
ledge, and with every movement of his body, he groaned softly under
his breath.
    I’ll bet he has broken ribs, Katherine thought , and maybe internal injuries, too. I have to
get him some medical help quickly.
    Above them, numerous voices argued over
the rumble of an idling outboard motor. Quietly, the pair listened
to the dialogue being shouted back and forth above them, and waited
in abject terror, knowing that at any moment they might be
found.
    A voice from a bullhorn echoed down