Mary slapped the metal impatiently with her open palm. 'There's something awry in our ideas, John. I feel we should stir up our ideas, disturb the mental mud, as these pipes do, and throw out the accumulated residues of preconceived ideas we're more and more fitting into a pattern. We're wrong somewhere, I tell you, we're wrong. I know it deep down.'
'It all fits. So does Shelborne.'
She smiled, leaning back against the nozzles. 'It doesn't. You know, John, we should both be wearing diamonds — they were once considered a cure for lunacy.'
'Where's the lunacy?'
'I can't pinpoint it, John — I wish I could, but there's some error somewhere in your working out of this thing.' She straightened up so that she was close to me. 'It's funny; it was always the men who used to wear diamonds. They were thought to have magic powers, and were worn as amulets. It's really only recently that women have taken to them.'
'I am sure I am right about Shelborne.'
'I could believe that he has some sort of magic power. Maybe he picked it up from being near diamonds all his life.'
'You believe in him because he was close to your father: it blinds you to the rest.'
There was a flare from one of the Mazy Zed's smokestacks high above us. I saw the flecks in her eyes and the minute pulse of the vein by her nose.
'Diamonds are in the sky, too, you know. Look at a meteorite — it's graphite, and that's cousin to diamonds. They have predetermined paths up there…' She gestured to Orion.
I opened my mouth to reply. A lazy stream of lights arced in from the sea. They weren't meteorites. Blue, red, white. Tracer bullets! The brittle rattle of a machine-gun outpaced them.
They were coming at the Mazy Zed. I dragged Mary to the deck. The glowing arc ripped through the thick hose and struck a welter of sparks off the big nozzles. I threw myself across her. A hot ricochet plucked at my shoulder and I smelt the acrid cordite. „Then the whole world seemed to explode as a torpedo crashed into the Mazy Zed.
10
Sookin Sin
I broke surface and retched sea water. I breathed air again, great gulps of it, instead of water. Whether the blackness was the blackness of unconsciousness, or of blindness, or of night, I could not tell — all I knew was that the air was merciful and I was getting lungfuls of it. I rid myself of more sea water. There was a phosphorescence next to me. Then a slim arm was round me, holding me as I choked.
Thank God!' It was Mary. 'Thank God, I've found you, John. Here!'
She came close and thrust something under my hands.
'What is it?'
To my dazed senses it felt like a chunk of the Loch Ness monster.
'It's some of the Mazy Zed's hose — the explosion must have blown it clear.'
Half-submerged, it was safer than a rescue dinghy and rough, like a car tyre. Its semi-floating state made it easier to grasp. She levered me up so that I lay spread-eagled, face down.
She was sobbing convulsively. 'I thought… I thought it was you… when I touched it first…'
I put out a hand to her in the darkness. Her shoulder was trembling and rags of her overall slopped about.
Her voice was thick with shock and emotion. 'I'm in a mess. My shoes are gone — I slipped them off when I swam looking for you — and…'
My anger exploded: 'I'll have Shelborne's guts for tonight's work. Radar! Patrols!.. bah!'
'Steady,' she said shakily. 'Steady, John. I've got you, which is the most important thing.'
She supported me while I choked and coughed, still half-dazed. I wanted to know what was going on, but I found myself still too weak, and put my head against her, drawing in deep breaths of fresh air.
She said softly, a little wanly, I thought, 'I could almost thank whoever did it — for this.'
I felt lulled by her presence but the lethargy which was starting to creep across my limbs was a danger sign of delayed shock. I shook the cobwebs out of my head. They sneaked right in under Bob Sheriff's patrols and torpedoed the bloody ship!'
Take it easy, John,' she said. 'You know Shelborne hasn't a fleet any more than I have. And the Kalingrad People's Atlantic Fleet…'
I had to see. I trod water and tried to heave myself up higher on the hosing, but I wasn't very successful. There was no sign of the Mazy Zed. I could not credit that one torpedo, even of the large calibre type, would have sent the Mazy Zed with all her watertight compartments to the bottom.
I said, 'It must have been a motor-boat and she still must be somewhere around. One torpedo isn't enough…'
Torpedo?' she echoed. 'Was that a torpedo?'
A line of light streaked across the part of the night that I was looking at. Tracers! Another parabola answered the first — Bob Sheriff!
The bastards!' I swore. The bloody bastards…!'
'A submarine…?' said Mary.
'No — that burst of fire was from a fast boat, maybe a hydrofoil like Sheriff's.'
They went straight for the mining equipment, didn't they?'
'Yes. It doesn't look as if they were after the diamonds we'd sucked up today, or else she would not have tried to sink the Mazy Zed. No, she was out to stop us mining — just as Shelborne tried to settle me.'
'You're wrong about him, John.'
'We'll sort that out later,' I replied roughly. This was the second time in a matter of days that I had found myself hanging on to life by a thread, thanks to Shelborne. She drew away at my tone. I went on, conciliatory. 'Was there one torpedo or two. Was there a second explosion?'
'I don't think so. I only remember a fearful crash and then I found myself in the water — looking for you.' She caught my arm, and whispered, 'Listen!'
I would have known that voice anywhere: thin, it rattled as harshly as a compressor drill, that remarkable Bushman-Hottentot patois. Skipper Koeltas! The Malgas must be close at hand, unless they were survivors like ourselves. The staccato vowels clicked like handcuffs. I started to shake with silent laughter. Never had I heard anything like it — and they're pretty tough in the Richtersveld.
'What is he saying?'
'It's about the torpedo-boat captain.' I grinned. 'Koeltas says — do you really want to know?'
'Yes. How he manages those clicks and clacks I shall never know.'
'He says the captain is a pimp and his mother the village whore — there's a lot more, a sort of potted genealogical table, a la Koeltas.'
'A la Koeltas!' she echoed.
I cupped my hands. 'Ahoy, Koeltas! You Sperrgebiet-poacher-sonofabitch!' I broke into an expletive which must have brought all Koeltas's ancestors, buried in their customary seated position, back on their feet.
The thin voice cut off in mid-sentence, and then crackled like static. The water gurgled against the thick hose, there was a north-flowing current in the bay, setting from the Mazy Zed's anchorage towards Black Sophie Rock and Plumpudding Island. These two were in the northern part of the bay among jagged reefs about a quarter of a mile from the shore. The two islets were close together and Malgas's berth was about fifty yards from Black Sophie.
Silence.
'Koeltas! Johaar! Kim!'
There was a ripple alongside the hose. Mary screamed, 'Shark! Shark!'
Her scream ended in a strangle. Someone had a hand over her mouth. I couldn't see a face, only a gleam of steel in the starlight, fluid-blue as the sea itself.
'Quiet! It is Johaar! Shut up — come. That bastard hear and shoot us up.'
The knife was in his teeth. Mary cringed against me. The improvised life-raft was pulled along by Johaar's powerful stroke. I saw the schooner's masts, then hands reached down and dragged us over the low rail on to the deck.
'Keep down!' snarled Koeltas, with a reflex burst of Richtersveld profanity.
'By Jesus, it is a woman!'
'Kim, you bladdy womanizer! I'll cut your throat if you don't shut your trap!'
From somewhere behind Plumpudding came a heavy fusillade, coupled with the drum of engines pushed beyond the limit of
their revs.
Koeltas said softly, 'He's coming back for the Mazy Zed.'
'So he didn't sink her?' I asked.
'There was a hell of a bang and her lights went out,' he replied. 'No, man she's afloat. That's why he comes back…'
'With one tit hanging low,' leched Kim.
'What do you mean?'
'One of the shells went off, but the other is stuck.' said Koeltas.
By shells he meant torpedoes. One had run, but the second was fast in its firing-tube.
'Where are Commander Sheriff's men?' I went on.
Johaar laughed derisively. They were caught with their pants down, all right. They're okay for chasing a ship like the Malgas and bluffing themselves, but that bastard sank one of them. The other is throwing a lot of stuff around, but he doesn't know what in hell he's firing at.'
'Where did the boat come from?' asked Mary in a small voice.
'Lady,' said Koeltas with an odd note of deference. 'I know this place well. I know a way through the rocks between Black Sophie and Plumpudding…'
'That Cape Town tart,' said Kim, 'she was before my time.'
'Ag sis, don't be so saucy, man!' snapped Koeltas. 'Lady, I smell a ship out at sea. She waits. That's where the boat comes from.'
. 'A ship?' I echoed. 'What sort of ship waits off a peaceful coast with a torpedo-boat ready slung…?'
Koeltas laughed in his harsh, metallic laugh. 'Mister, you don't know the Sperrgebiet. There are diamonds. The Mazy Zed finds diamonds, but not for the right people. There are ships — strange ships, black ships, fast ships — and you don't see them by day. They hide themselves against the sea like the stoneplants of the Richtersveld; what is stone and what is plant you do not know.'
'Look!' exclaimed Mary. A faint luminescence, a defined line of light, was becoming visible. The moon was rising behind the dunes. Very soon the enemy would give the Mazy Zed the coup de grace.
'We must sink her.'
It was light enough for me to see the wiry little yellow man lying on the deck in his oilskin. The Tartar's eyes were as savage as his voice. Mary lay next to me, shivering in a pool of sea water. I could sense Kim's eyes burning on the outline of her body under the soaked remnants of her overall.
'With your Standard Police Smith and Wesson,' sneered Johaar. 'Yes, we'll sink her all right, man.'
'He'll think you're a spook with that silencer,' added Kim. 'Yes, let's shoot him up with the thirty-eight!'
They all laughed, including Koeltas.
'Wait!' snapped Koeltas. 'Listen!'
A strong roar of motors reverberated from the direction of Plumpudding Island, but Black Sophie Rock cut across our line of vision. It was growing lighter. Then, about 1000 yards away, I saw a vicious cream of water and the torpedo-boat shot into view. She was a fine sight, blurred in her own spray but listing to port as she rode high on the hydrofoils. A torpedo hung, half-in and half-out, of one firing tube. She raced towards the Malgas at fifty knots, I reckoned. Out of sight there came another scream of hard-pressed engines. Bob Sheriff was far behind. Then the enemy boat was abreast the Malgas. I looked into the twin muzzles of the quickfirer mounted on the cabin roof as they bore on us. I dragged Mary nearer, waiting for the guts-tearing, flaring rip of incendiary bullets which would reduce the schooner to a flaming mass of wooden splinters. Perhaps she was saving the whole weight of her metal for the Mazy Zed, for she simply thundered past, rocking us wildly.
'She sits up like a dog,' said Koeltas admiringly. 'You sink her, mister?'
They all turned and looked at me. Their best and most effective weapon, the FN automatic, would be useless against the hydrofoil craft. And the Malgas was immobile — a sailing ship at anchor against a fifty-knotter!
'Anyone see her name?' I asked lamely.
'Sookin Sin,' said Mary.
'What the hell's that?' growled Koeltas.
'It's not important anyway,' I replied, trying to think as the enemy lined herself up to rake the Mazy Zed. Six anchors! They couldn't even cut the ungainly barge adrift. I visualized the anchorage, Sinclair Island and its nearby promontory. The enemy would have to continue on between the Mazy Zed and Sinclair because at her speed there would be no room to turn; if she did, she'd run into Sheriff, who was now screaming out from behind Plumpudding in pursuit. Between Sinclair and the shore there was less than 300 yards. There came into my mind the idea of a trip-rope. Three hundred yards… Black Sophie was closer than that to the Malgas. If only… I glanced across the water to the rock, feverishly measuring, calculating. If I could rig a heavy cable between the schooner and the rock…
'Johaar! Could you swim to Black Sophie and fix a line…' I outlined my plan while we stood transfixed, waiting for the ripping burst at the Mazy Zed, visible now under the rising moon.
There it was! A polka-dot of flame bickered along the upperworks.
'He's stopped firing!' exclaimed Mary.
That short volley could not have done much harm.
'Gun jammed,' I said tersely. 'He'll clear the stoppage and return.'
Koeltas's eyes were so slitted that they seemed closed. He was dubious about the kingpin of my plan. 'That bastard does not wish to make war on an old ship like the Malgas. Unless…' — he switched into patois to express himself. 'The jackal is very, very cunning, and if you put a trap down with meat, he comes and smells human and laughs and goes away. But if you can make him really think it is not a trap, then…'
'That boat is not a seal you can hit over the head with a club.' said Kim.
Seals! The idea was born with the word! What had Koeltas himself said when they fished me, half-dead, off the blinder? — 'other nights we float in an old oil drum with dinnameet and a fuse.' Oil drums charged with dynamite! But we'd have to be quick, mighty quick, if my plan were to have a chance of succeeding. The torpedo-boat was already making for the gap between Sinclair Island and the promontory. The north-flowing current which had helped save Mary and myself had its place in my trap. Koeltas confirmed that the current was strong between Black Sophie Rock and the shore. A dozen mathematical problems of time and distance leapt into my mind; I needed an electronic computer, not a slow human brain. How much fuse should I allow? How long.would the torpedo-boat take before reaching the Malgas again, granting her fifty knots? Would she follow the same course. Would she skirt the foul ground, the, rocks and the blinders through which she had torn so gracefully before? Seeing she was now headed seawards she might prefer the" main entrance to Angras Juntas instead of the way she had come in first time. If she did, my whole plan fell to the ground.
'Kim! Get me six drums of dynamite — do you have to fill them?'
'No, he grinned. 'They're loaded, ready. Just cut the fuse the right length…'
'How much dynamite in each drum?'
'Some have thirty pounds — for the small jobs — some fifty…'
Fifty pounds of high explosive! That was better than I had hoped for. It would have to be a really old-fashioned firing job, coupled with a most up-to-date piece of calculation. If the drums detonated before the torpedo-boat was firmly committed to a course near the Malgas, she would simply veer out of harm's way round the northern flank of Black Sophie and bear directly down on her main sitting target, the Mazy Zed, from the other direction.
'Bring six fifty-pounders.' I ordered.
Kim's voice rippled with excitement. 'And fuse — how much?'
I paused. The length of fuse was vital. 'Koeltas, the current — three knots?'
The thrill of action was in his harsh voice too. 'Nee, nee! Four, maybe four and a half.'
Four and a half knots! Say the hydrofoil would complete a five-mile circuit at fifty knots, followed by a three-mile run-in to her target the length of the bay — 'Seven and a half minutes!' I told Kim. 'And cut that bloody fuse exactly!'
'Kim knows how!' grinned Johaar. 'Now give me the rope and I swim to Black Sophie.'
'Swim to Black Sophie!' Kim started for the explosives, reaching, and drawing a
heavy clasp-knife to cut the fuse.
'Cut the cackle!' My nerves were ragged. The pay-off if the fuse were too long or too short would be a bellyful of heavy machine-gun bullets. 'Where is the torpedo-boat now?'
'She's between Sinclair Island and the promontory,' replied Mary. 'You can hear the sound of the engine choking off the cliffs.'
'That's where I hoped she would make for. Johaar, how long will it take you to swim to Black Sophie?'
'Six, seven minutes.'
'With the line around you?'
'Easy.'
I turned to Koeltas. The rope.'
'I pull down the rigging to get that bastard.'
Johaar slipped a light line round his waist, putting the knife between his teeth again. He wore only a pair of shorts. He stood poised on the low rail while two of the crew hastily knotted the pilot line to a two-inch manila from the forrad sail locker.
'If I catch anyone, I cut his throat?' Johaar inquired genially.
'No! I want him alive — I want to find out who is at the bottom of all this.'
Johaar shrugged. 'Okay. But I'll beat him like a donkey first.' He went over the side.
Zero hour! I checked my watch.
'Prepare to get the drums overboard! One from the bows, one from the stern, and the rest at intervals along the side!'
Koeltas flayed his men with his thin voice, good though they were. 'Not altogether, you stupid clots! I want a neat line of drums in the sea!'
The crew grabbed the canisters and took station. I borrowed a battered old Ronson from Koeltas. Then, one after another, six fuses came sputtering to life. Three hundred pounds of high explosive, with fuses burning!
Seven minutes to go!
I raised my hand. 'Let go!'
Expertly, the crew got the drums clear. They fanned out as they floated away. The sinister red tops and pinpoint fuses formed a deadly line under the hard moon.
The River of Diamonds Page 15