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something there, perched on the ledge yet part of it hanging over. Baker paused for a moment, then approached cautiously.
    It was then that he received not only the greatest thrill of his diving career but the greatest shock of a long life. The object which was pressed on the ledge and partly sticking out over two thousand feet of water was a submarine.
     
     
    During his naval service Baker had done a training course in a submarine when based in the Philippines. No big deal, just part of general training, but he remembered the lectures, the training films they’d had to watch, mainly Second World War stuff, and he recognized what he was looking at instantly. It was a type VII U-boat, by far the most common craft of its kind used by the German Kriegsmarine, the configuration was unmistakable. The conning tower was encrusted with marine growth, but when he approached he could still discern the number on the side — 180. The attack and control room periscopes were still intact and there was a snorkel. He recalled having heard that the Germans had gradually introduced that as the war progressed, a device that enabled the boat to proceed under water much faster because it was able to use the power of its diesel engines. Approximately two-thirds of it rested stern first on the ledge and the prow jutted out into space.
    He glanced up aware of a school of horse-eyed jacks overhead mixed with silversides, then descended to the top of the conning tower and hung on to the bridge rail. Aft was the high gun platform with its 20mm cannon and forward and below him was the deck gun, encrusted, as was most of the surface, with sponge and coral of many colors.
    The boat had become a habitat as with all wrecks, fish everywhere, yellow-tail snappers, angel and parrot fish and sergeant-majors and many others. He checked his computer. On the bridge he was at a depth of seventy-five feet and he had only twenty minutes at the most before the need to surface.
    He drifted away a little distance to look the U-boat over. Obviously the overhang, which had recently been dislodged, had provided a kind of canopy for the wreck for years, protecting it from view, and at a site which was seldom visited, it had been enough. That U-boats had worked the area during the Second World War was common knowledge. He’d known one old sailor who’d always insisted that crews would come ashore on St. John by night in search of fresh fruit and water, although Baker had always found that one hard to swallow.
    He swung over to the starboard side and saw what the trouble had been instantly, a large, ragged gash about fifteen feet long in the hull below the conning tower. The poor bastards must have gone down like a stone. He descended, holding on to a jagged, coral-encrusted edge, and peered into the control room. It was dark and gloomy in there, silverfish in clouds, and he got the spotlight from his dive bag and shone it inside. The periscope shafts were clearly visible, again encrusted like everything else, but the rest was a confusion of twisted metal, wires and pipes. He checked his computer, saw that he had fifteen minutes, hesitated, then went inside.
    Both the aft and forward water-tight doors were closed, but that was standard practice when things got bad. He tried the unlocking wheel on the forward hatch, but it was immovable and hopelessly corroded. There were some oxygen bottles, even a belt of some kind of ammunition, and the most pathetic thing of all, a few human bones in the sediment of the floor. Amazing that there was any trace at all after so many years.
    Suddenly he felt cold. It was as if he was an intruder who shouldn’t be here. He turned to go and his light picked out a handle in the corner, very like a suitcase handle. He reached for it, the sediment stirred and he found himself clutching a small briefcase in some kind of metal, encrusted like everything else. It was enough and he went out through the gash in the hull, drifted up over the edge