At first, the captured frogmen were defiant. They insisted that the Navy had nothing on them. The brass ball wasn't theirs. They were only sport divers having some fun.
Then, faced with the unassailable fact that Rick had taken motion pictures of their activities, they lapsed into sullen silence and refused to talk.
Rick and Scotty watched Jimmy Kelly check the diving equipment of the frogman teams lined up on the destroyer escort's deck. Beyond the teams they could see the three enemy frogmen, taking the air under the watchful eye of a shotgun-armed sailor.
"I wonder if we'll ever get the full story," Rick mused.
"We've got all we need," Scotty answered. "What pieces are missing?"
"Well, I'm curious about the chicken. I think we hit it when we decided they wanted to scare us out of the octopus-cave area, but it would be nice to know for sure. And why did they take the sonar equipment to the eastern reef during the storm?"
"Probably to make a recording as a routine check. They couldn't assume all sub activity was taking place to the west."
"But how can we be sure?"
"We can't. We can only try to figure out what happened, based on what information we have. For instance, there must have been a sonar unit near where we swam at St. Thomas. It's the only thing that could have got the shadow so excited. But what difference does it really make? We know most of the story, and we can guess the rest."
"Steve may be able to fill in some pieces later," Rick observed. He liked to have a thing wrapped up neatly, with no loose ends hanging. Still, that was almost impossible in a case like this.