It was unbelievable to Eddie that twenty minutes could be such a long time. No one spoke. Nor were there any other flashes of light to indicate any kind of activity going on. Occasionally, Teena’s father consulted the luminous dial of his wrist watch. Eddie wondered if he, too, found that twenty minutes was an awfully long time.
Then, as the tension inside of Eddie mounted to the point of bursting, the darkness was shattered by a sudden rush of activity.
It began when the enormous beacon in the lighthouse tower stopped rotating as the beam pointed out across the bay. Then, amazingly, the great finger of light was lowered until it flooded the outer edge of the bay in a brilliant blanket of white.
The sight revealed in the dazzling light caused all four of them to jump to their feet. In the deep water beyond the bay, and approximately half a mile offshore, the deck and superstructure of a submarine stood out plainly on the surface of the calm water. Even at that distance, Eddie could make out the frantic scramble of men pinned in the blinding grip of light.
... he saw the small rubber boat moving in.
Then he saw the small rubber boat moving in toward the sand bar of the bay. Three figures were plainly visible in it. Two had been paddling. But the paddles were now frozen in the light. The third figure was dressed in what looked like a skin-diving outfit. The light reflected on the glass face plate pushed up onto his forehead. Suddenly the two men with the paddles swung about and started pulling frantically back toward the submarine.
“That sub will try to dive!” Eddie’s father said quickly.
“But the men in the rubber boat?” Teena said. “They can’t—”
“They’ll be left behind,” Mr. Ross said tensely.