'Nothing to it,' he said promptly. 'Four empty oil drums and some of that lumber we're cutting will make a dandy raft. Will you be using it in the evenings?'
'It's not very likely,' I said.
Then you won't mind if the boys use it as a diving raft. It's nice to have a swim and cool off nights.'
I grinned. 'It's a deal.'
He pointed to the air compressor. 'Will that be all right just there?'
That's fine. Look, can you lead that exhaust pipe away -- as far away from the intake of the air pump as possible. Carbon monoxide and diving don't go together.'
He nodded. 'I'll get another length of hose and lead it round the other side of the hut.'
I joined Katherine in the hut and dug out my tattered copy of the Admiralty diving tables. 'Now I'll tell you why we have to have two lines to the bottom,' I said. I sat down at the table and she joined me, rubbing her hair with a towel. 'We're going down about a hundred feet and we want to spend as much time as possible on the bottom. Right?'
'I suppose so.'
'Say we spend two hours on the bottom -- that means several decompression stops on the way up. Five minutes at fifty feet, ten at forty feet, thirty at thirty feet, forty at twenty feet and fifty at ten feet -- a total of ... er ... one hundred and thirty-five minutes -- two and a quarter hours. It's going to be a bit of a bind just sitting around at these various levels, but it's got to be done. Besides the weighted shot rope from the raft, we'll have to have another with slings fitted at the various levels to sit in, and with air bottles attached, because your harness bottles will never hold enough. And toe whole lot will have to be pulled up every day to replenish the bottles.'
'I've never done this kind of thing before,' she said. 'I've never been so deep nor stayed so long. I hadn't thought of decompression.'
'You'd better start thinking now,' I said grimly. 'One slip-up and you'll get the bends. Have you ever seen that happen to anyone?'
'No, I haven't.'
'Fizzy blood doesn't do you any good. Apart from being terrifyingly painful, once a nitrogen embolism gets to the heart you're knocking at the Pearly Gates.'
'But it's so long,' she complained. 'What do you do sitting at ten feet for nearly an hour?'
'I haven't done this too often myself,' I confessed. 'But I've used it as an opportunity to compose dirty limericks.' I looked across at the recompression chamber. 'I'd like to have that thing a bit nearer the scene of the accident -- maybe on the raft. I'll see what Rudetsky can do.'
IV
The work went on, week after week, and I nearly forgot about Gatt. We were in radio contact with Camp One which relayed messages from Pat Harris and everything seemed to be calm. Gatt had gone back to Mexico City and was living among the fleshpots, apparently without a care in the world, although his band of thugs was still quartered in Merida. I didn't know what to make of it, but I really didn't have .time to think about it because the diving programme filled all my time. I kept half an eye on Halstead and found him to be working even harder than I was, which pleased Fallon mightily.
Every day discoveries were made -- astonishing discoveries. This was indeed Uaxuanoc. Fallon's teams uncovered building after building -- palaces, temples, games arenas and a few unidentifiable structures, one of which he thought was an astronomical observatory. Around the cenote was a ring of stelae -- twenty-four of them -- and there was another line of them right through the centre of the city. With clicking camera and busy pen Fallon filled book after book with data.
Although no one was trades-union inclined, one day in every week was a rest day on which the boffins usually caught up with their paper work while Rudetsky's men skylarked about in the cenote. Because safe diving was impossible under those conditions I used the free day to rest and to drink a little more beer than was safe during the working week.
On one of those days Fallon took me over the site to show me what had been uncovered. He pointed to a low hill which had been denuded of its vegetation. 'That's where Vivero nearly met his end,' he said. 'That's the Temple of Kukulkan -- you can see where we're uncovering the steps at the front.'
It was a bit hard to believe. 'All that hill?'
'All of it. It's one big building. In fact, we're standing on a part of it right now.'
I looked down and scuffled the ground with my foot. It didn't look any different from any other ground -- there was just thin layer of humus. Fallon said, 'The Mayas had a habit of building on platforms. Their huts were built on platforms to raise them from the ground, and when they built larger structures they carried on the same idea. We're standing on a platform now, but it's so big you don't realize it.'
I looked at the ground stretching levelly to the hill which was the Temple of Kukulkan. 'How big?'
