He felt the diver turning
him to see his face… Playing dead was becoming easier. Ben
sensed his consciousness flickering, the freezing cold water feeling
warmer. Through half-closed lids a blurry image appeared as the
diver put his hands on Ben’s face, peering at him.
The diver moved downward
once again, fiddling with Ben’s leg and the sidewall mesh.
Oxygen-starved instincts overtook Ben’s thoughts and he
leaned to the emergency mouthpiece and sucked air. Consciousness
bloomed again, along with the pain, the cold, and the fear.
The diver hadn’t
appeared to notice. A new thought occurred to Ben: On his dangling
weight belt hung a knife. He could reach further down than up
because the wrist restraints had been fixed low on his body and
around his thighs. Ben managed to remove the knife and still the
diver concentrated on fastening Ben’s leg with kelp to the
sidewall of the pen.
Ben quickly used his free
hands to clear his mask. Through the strands of kelp he could
just make out the diver’s first stage regulator below him,
atop the tank.
He gently took hold of the diver’s
hose and put his knife to it, waiting until the man released Ben’s
last leg restraint from the fence. Once freed, Ben cut the diver’s
primary air hose cleanly, then twisted behind him and cut the
emergency air hose. As the diver flailed, himself now wound in
the kelp, Ben slashed his BC so it would hold no air. The slice
was so vigorous it opened the wet suit and drew blood.
Ben took more breaths from his emergency
air. Thinking became easier, colors brighter. Ben inhaled deeply
as he hung fast to the other diver’s tank and weight belt.
Predictably the diver dropped his weights into Ben’s hand
and Ben managed to cram the belt into the strap around his own
thigh where it hung with his own. They were going down together
despite the kelp. Ben was heavy, his dry suit nearly full of water.
The other diver was in serious trouble, struggling, and from the
sounds of it choking. He was becoming ineffective. Ben made him
more so by removing the man’s dive mask. He turned as the
diver turned, staying behind him, just as the other diver had
done to him, clinging to his tank.
