by Wilbur Smith
Back at the parking lot, I heard something shriek behind me. A terrier jumped out of its owner’s car and ran around in circles, clearly afraid of something.
I looked up in a nearby tree and saw a bald eagle enthroned in the branches surveying the commotion below, as majestic and haughty as any of its kind. The eagle spread its immense wings and dropped out of the tree like a cannonball. It hurtled past my head and snatched up the yapping dog. Silent at last, the dog was up in the air, skewered by enormous talons, and whisked off into the trees and beyond.
There was a moment’s silence in the parking lot. Then the dog’s owner stared up to the trees. She rushed off to find the game warden. She returned to the car, wracked by tears, her husband comforting her.
As he climbed into the driver’s seat, he caught my eye. He winked, and could hardly suppress a grin. He pumped his fist and let out a “whoop,” then found his poker face again and slid into the car next to his devastated wife.
It seemed the eagle was not the only one who had had enough of that yapping little dog.
Beyond Yosemite, we continued our journey north, returning to the coast to follow the ocean road through the mountain country of Big Sur. Here, the Santa Lucia Mountains edge dramatically into the Pacific, with the Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs blanketing the foothills in rich dark green. Along the highway, coastal redwoods stood like sentinels, guardians from another age.
This country had once been the heart of a gold rush, similar to the stampedes for the Witwatersrand that I had written about in When the Lion Feeds, but the Santa Lucias had kept Big Sur so isolated that only the most hardy, intrepid travelers had ever made it here. Now, although more people had arrived with the highway, the land still felt wild and remote. The Los Padres Forest was alive with the sound of coyotes at night. Once, at the side of the road, we stopped to see the spoor of a mountain lion, come down from the peaks to hunt Bighorn sheep and California deer in the lowlands. As we trekked north, condors and falcons turned overhead, or considered us menacingly from their hiding places in the forest’s uppermost branches.
North of Big Sur, we traveled for long days in Monterey County, until we found ourselves in Salinas, with the striking Gabilan Mountains looming over us to the east and the wide, open expanses of the Pacific Ocean in the west. As we followed the coast, staying in the small towns and villages, I imagined we had entered the pages of a John Steinbeck novel. At the edge of the road, farmers sold produce straight from their trucks. The hospitality of the local, rural Americans was so far removed from the frenzy of the big cities that it seemed unreal. Along the way, classic American songs played on a loop inside my head, Kris Kristofferson on permanent repeat.
I admired Hemingway for his passionate evocation of hunting in Green Hills of Africa and for the way he blazed new trails in his writing. However, I loved Steinbeck more. My favorite Hemingway had always been For Whom the Bell Tolls. I loved the sparseness of his writing, the way he saw people so clearly, the deft, delicate brushstrokes that defined character with such economy. I loved, too, that he was essentially a tragic figure, an unhappy man disguising his uncertainty behind a carefully constructed macho image. But Steinbeck held a different place in my heart. His humanity is a searing light shining into his characters’ souls, exposing their truth and vulnerability. I had always loved Cannery Row for its humor, pathos and empathy with people who are struggling with poverty, their low-rent tragedies. It is a wonderful insight into Depression-era America—touching and moving and funny. Tortilla Flat, too, showed his towering love for downtrodden humanity—and, if he was a little left wing in novels like In Dubious Battle and his unforgettable The Grapes of Wrath, well, I could forgive him that. In East of Eden he had created two warring brothers who I could only aspire to match with Sean and Garrick Courtney.
These abundant lands were bursting with stories. Steinbeck had called it “the valley of the world,” and inside One Main Street in Salinas we found the National Steinbeck Center, a museum dedicated to his life’s work. We spent many hours absorbing every aspect of the exhibitions: Steinbeck’s handwritten manuscripts and journals locked behind glass; the Model T Ford from the movie of East of Eden sitting out front, while images of James Dean as Cal Trask played on repeat; and, finally, the green camper that Steinbeck lived in as he wended his way along the highways of rural America, writing Travels with Charley along the way. One day was not enough to take in the scale of Steinbeck’s achievement, so we came back the next, and the day after that.
John Steinbeck had lived his life as I aspired to do: always searching, always traveling, writing what he knew about most intimately of all. When, several days later, we reached San Francisco, and the end of our journey, I was thinking of him still, and eager to pick up my pen.
Our American voyage was over—but only for a short time. I knew this country would keep tempting me back.
•••
Every year I received letters from American readers who convinced me that this truly was a special country. I had one reader who would write to me from Florida every time I released a new novel. The thought that someone, out there, was waiting for my stories was more sustaining than I had ever imagined. His daughter, Sandi Smith of Crossville in Tennessee, sent me a card when he died. “Dear Mr. Smith,” it read. “My father was so impressed with your stories, I thought you should know that one of your books, The Sunbird, was buried with him. I have also read all your books and enjoyed them.”
There was a man called Jack, living in Houston, who was also an avid reader and who wrote to me whenever a novel was published. After several years, I received a letter from him saying, “Dear Wilbur, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but our relationship has to come to an end because I’m 89 at my next birthday and my eyesight is going, and so I won’t be able to read your books in the future.” It just so happened that, a week before, I had been sent a large-print edition of my latest book from my publishers, produced for people with poor or failing eyesight. I put the book in a padded envelope with a letter that said, “Jack, it doesn’t have to end. You’ve got to put up with my books for a while yet. Here is one that you can read.” I heard from his wife afterward what had happened. Jack opened the book and was so overcome with excitement that he wrote two letters. One was to me thanking me for sending him the book, saying how much he enjoyed it, and how much my friendship meant to him; the other was a letter to his son in New York saying, “Look what Wilbur Smith has sent me, isn’t this fantastic!” When he took the letters to the post office, his eyesight was so bad that he got them mixed up and he sent me the letter meant for his son, and mine to his son. I remained friends with his wife for a long time, until I finally received a letter saying, “I’m terribly sorry to tell you that, just before his 92nd birthday, my husband Jack passed away, but in his will, he stipulated that all your books had to be in the coffin with him to go on the next voyage.” She sent me a photograph, and there was Jack, in the coffin, looking very dapper in a nice dark suit, a white satin pillow under his head and my books all around him. “Jack,” I thought, “good voyage, mate. Thank you very much.” That was one of the sincerest compliments I have ever received.
In another lifetime, I am certain I would have made America my home, but we are only given one lifetime, and for me America will always remain that vast, rich place of people and stories, constantly changing, constantly growing, a place that brought so much pleasure in my life.
16
THIS DIVING LIFE
The golden rule of diving is: dive alone, die alone. Beneath the surface, with the waves crashing above, it was a rule I had broken too often.
Thirty feet below the sparkling waters of the Indian Ocean, I checked the gauge on my oxygen tank and watched it tick over, every breath an increment closer to empty. It was 1995 and I had been waiting here, trapped beneath a coral ledge, for too long, and time, as it always does, was running out. Somewhere up there, dimly perceivable as a rippling shadow, Judith—the manageress of my Seychelle
s estate—waited patiently on our yacht, with no way of knowing what was happening below. In recent months, she had skippered the boat for me on many occasions, keeping a watchful eye as I explored the depths of the sea with not another diver in sight. I loved diving, the weightlessness felt like the ultimate freedom, the graceful agility the medium allowed was a release from surly earthly bonds, and I’m convinced man evolved from the sea as we are drawn instinctively to open water; to me it’s like coming home. The solo diving experience appealed to me even more profoundly; there’s a purity about the isolation, the raw solitude of having nothing else to rely on but your own ingenuity and instinct. This was my domain, no other human for miles in every direction. But this time I was not alone. Between me and the safety of the boat hung three gray reef sharks, six feet long from their broad, menacing snouts to the tips of their tails. Black points ran along each of their dorsals, but most unnerving of all were the black holes of their eyes, like coals set in a mask of gray stone.
The gray reef shark is the first shark species discovered to display threat behavior. It adopts a “hunched” posture, dropping its pectoral fins and swimming from side-to-side in an exaggerated motion when it’s threatened and is preparing to attack. It has been known to attack divers and it is astonishingly fast, launching itself like a harpoon by covering twenty feet in a third of a second.
So far, the sharks circling above me were luxuriating in the warm waters, placidly indifferent.
I had not noticed them arrive. I knew these stretches of coral as intimately as the gullies and scrubland of Leopard Rock, and came here often to watch the magical sea life: the angelfish and parrotfish, the peacock groupers and black and white snapper. One fish, the five-hundred-pound Napoleon wrasse, had become my first underwater fan when, upon dropping a bit of my picnic lunch one day, I discovered he was partial to hardboiled eggs. After that, he would find me whenever I dived and come begging for food like a faithful hound. The Napoleon wrasse, also known as the humphead wrasse, has almost comically thick lips, two black lines behind its eyes and a hump on its forehead. Added to its strange appearance, its coloring is like something out of Disneyworld, or an animation by Pixar. It varies from blue green to vibrant green and purplish blue, and is stunningly iridescent, a confection of color.
I knew reef sharks patrolled these waters, but they had never bothered me before and I had never bothered them. This seemed like a good arrangement, and one I was keen to maintain. But now they were in danger of breaking our unspoken contract, nosing around with what looked to me like increasing curiosity and, when I checked my tank again, I had only a few minutes left.
I was no novice under the water but, as the sharks’ gray hulks obscured the light from the surface, I began to feel like one. I’d broken the golden rule one too many times, and it crossed my mind that I was about to become a headline story: reckless novelist meets his grisly end in island paradise . . .
I learned to dive in Rhodesia, long before When the Lion Feeds had transformed my life. My first forays under the water were in the dazzlingly blue waters of the Chinhoyi Caves, north of what was then Salisbury. The caves are a vast, beautiful complex of interconnected caverns, and beneath the surface lies a network of submerged tunnels that challenge even the most adept divers. In those caves, divers can plunge up to one hundred meters into the water, exploring places the sunlight has never reached. Later, driven by my fascination for coral and underwater life, groups of friends and I would head for the Mozambique Channel to camp, dive, spear fish and host braais on the beach. Over the years, I’d gained more and more experience. Spurred on by my friendship with South Africa’s champion diver David Cohen, I had dived the battleship wrecks that litter the ocean floor around the remote Pacific islands, and the ruins of even older ships on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The underwater world is a rich and miraculous domain. It is the only place that can never be mapped by satellite; it’s a geography as uncharted as in the days of my father and grandfather before him. Down here, you could still be a pioneer, but this world also has its dangers.
I crouched beneath the coral, trying to conserve my breath, and to appear as small as possible to hungry mouths and sharp teeth. Up above, the sharks dropped their pectoral fins. Seemingly hunched over, they began to dance from side to side, a motion that could only mean one thing.
The tank was near zero. The sharks were ready to attack, to inflict the kind of damage on me I’d only read about in books and newspapers. But if I knew anything, then, I knew this: I was not going to die under the water, not without a fight. It was only thirty feet to the surface. If I was lucky, I could get up quickly without suffering the horrors of decompression sickness, but first, I had to get there in one piece.
There was only one route to the surface from here: I was going to rise straight through the middle of the sharks.
Drawing my last breath, I threw myself from beneath the coral, fixed my sights on the light above, and began to rise. Slowly at first, as I didn’t want to unnecessarily startle the predators, and after about four meters I was level with the reef sharks and still rising. Refusing to be mesmerized by the pitch black of their eyes, I averted my gaze, but they had seen me. The kicking of my fins had drawn their attention, the frenzy of bubbles and churning water I left in my wake.
Ten meters from the surface, bright light began to play all around me. Somehow, I fought my way and broke the surface, and, tearing the mask from my face, gulped greedily at the fresh air. The boat was only meters away. I swam for it with every ounce of energy I could muster, saw Judith coming into focus above, and reached out my hand. Moments later, I heaved myself over the side. Lying spread-eagled on the deck, I noticed that Judith was staring into the depths from which I had come.
When I dragged myself to my feet, she pointed into the water. Just under the surface hung the gray shapes of the reef sharks. They had swum behind me, she said, following me and cresting the waves just as I had scrambled into the boat.
“Judith,” I said, in as steady a voice as I could manage, “it’s time to go.”
It was the last time I dived alone.
•••
Cap Colibri: my former exotic island home. It appeared out of the ocean, a stripe of golden sand, capped by deep, lush vegetation.
I had been going to the Seychelles for many years. I had known the cut diamond expanses of the Indian Ocean ever since I was a boy, fishing with my father in the same Mozambique Channel where I would one day set my maritime thriller The Eye of the Tiger, but the idea of owning my own island in the Indian Ocean had always been a hopeless dream. However, I kept coming back. First I did so to indulge my passion for game fishing, for the Indian Ocean has some of the most spectacular fishing grounds in the world, with black marlin, sailfish and queen mackerel in abundance. Later, it was to dive in its crystal-clear waters, and witness firsthand the phantasmagoria of coral lurking under the surface. As my writing career took off, the Seychelles became a getaway, somewhere I came to wrench myself out of whatever novel I was working on, to recuperate before I went back to battle with the story once again.
In 1989 I became the proud owner of a twenty-seven-acre plot at the southern end of Cerf Island in the Seychelles, part of the Sainte Anne Marine National Park, a string of islands surrounded by reefs due west of Mahe. I will never forget my first sight of Cap Colibri. The pristine beach was ringed by impenetrable jungle and, as I approached our new home, I felt like Robinson Crusoe, hacking my way through the bush with a panga in hand. This was a corner of the world that, like Leopard Rock, would be my retreat from the mayhem of everyday life. But more than that, it was an island steeped in mystery and had a thrilling story of its own.
When we arrived at Cap Colibri, the beach and land around our estate were pocked with holes, small craters dug in the earth. The more we explored the island the more cavities we’d find, some hidden by vegetation, others lying in plain sight. They were not the work of island rodents, but of shovels and spades. A fisherman fro
m further up Cerf Island told us the island’s secret. Cerf Island had once been a haunt for pirates. Rumors persisted that great treasures had been buried here and travelers would turn up determined to find it. What we had found was the evidence of the human hunger for buried gold.
Nobody had ever found the treasure of Cerf Island, but the previous owner of our estate had discovered the extent desperate men will go in their lust for riches. Word had gone around that he had found the treasure, hoarded it away and not told a soul. Local fishermen claimed he was sitting on a fortune and, across the islands, covetous eyes began to turn his way.
The rumor was unfounded, but one of the neighboring islands housed a penal facility and, on a moonlit night, a plan was hatched. Stealing a boat, the convicts sailed to Cerf Island and forced their way into the house that was now ours. They tied up the owner, threatened and tortured him; but he could not tell them where the treasure was hidden because he did not know. The truth was, the treasure was a fable that had developed a life of its own. The convicts murdered him in his house and fled without a single gold coin.
It was not the only story of piracy and legendary treasure that haunted these waters, and it was another local myth that would inspire the third Courtney sequence, planting the seeds of the novel that would one day become Birds of Prey.
Legend has it that the Seychelles is home to untold buried treasure, if only someone knew where to look. Once upon a time, this had been pirate country, a group of islands far from the authority of the British or any other empire, where men could do as they pleased and the rule of a captain was the rule of law. The treasure of the Seychelles had grown out of the real-life exploits of Olivier Levasseur, a French pirate more commonly known as the Buzzard, or La Buse, in French. Levasseur was born to a French bourgeois family in 1688 and became a naval officer before obtaining a Letter of Marque from King Louis XIV during the War of the Spanish Succession. The letter was effectively royal permission to wage war on Spanish ships as a “privateer”—a mercenary of the seas. When the war ended and he was ordered to return home with his ship and crew, Levasseur had other ideas. He had developed a taste for the life of a privateer and had no intention of changing his ways. The riches he had pillaged from Spanish ships were too tempting to ignore, so he crossed the line, becoming an outlaw and pirate. He sailed and plundered down the west coast of Africa, before moving east, into the Indian Ocean.