The River of Diamonds

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  Six minutes!

  Mary was at my side. 'Johaar is in trouble.'

  I raced to the stern with her, Koeltas and Kim. We could see his head and the powerful thrash of his arms. He had underestimated the current; he was being swept away from Black Sophie. The way he was going, he'd finish up among the drums as they exploded. Koeltas, wordless, seized my wrist and looked at my watch. His eyes went to the guano-daubed rock and then to the white scar of the torpedo-boat's track.

  'He'll never make it' — the patois was strained, brittle, a cacophony of clicks and clacks.

  He snatched up an axe from the belaying-pin rail and cut Johaar's rope.

  'What the hell…!' With one stroke, Koeltas had wrecked my whole operation. I grabbed at him, but with the strength of a steel spring he shook me clear and lumped on to the low rail, cupping his hands. The foam was at the corners of his mouth from the rattle of words. 'Johaar! Let go! Swim there! I'll shoot a rope. Fasten it on Black Sophie!'

  Five minutes!

  Koeltas dived below. Free of the rope, Johaar turned like an eel and struck strongly towards the rock. Koeltas came back with a small rocket line-gun, the sort of thing for firing a light line to rig a breeches buoy.

  Four and a half minutes!

  The hydrofoil swung in from the sea.

  Koeltas did not wait for Johaar to reach shore. He touched the fuse. We stood back. Mary's face flared blue in its light. The line arced over Johaar's head. We saw the marker burning bright among the rocks.

  Four minutes!

  The torpedo-boat emerged from the lee of Plumpudding Island. Sheriff's craft was still out at sea. The enemy boat did a series of dainty side-steps through the blinders.

  Three minutes!

  Johaar scrambled ashore. He snatched the light line and started hauling in the heavier manila. The crew paid it out in return, shouting and gesticulating at the approaching menace.

  Two minutes!

  The heavy rope reached Johaar. He vaulted over rocks, stumbled, rose, making for a pinnacle about twelve feet high. In my anxiety over him, I had lost sight of the line of drifting drums. The torpedo-boat was rushing towards them at fifty knots; they drifted across at four knots.

  One minute!

  Johaar raised a dripping arm. I saw his grotesque, python-like piebald markings in the moonlight.

  Throttle wide open, bumping against the set of the current, the torpedo-boat screamed down at the schooner. This time there was no doubt about her intentions. The twin muzzles were locked on us.

  Zero!

  Black Sophie Rock abeam!

  The first drum exploded far to port of the enemy, almost among the breakers. The second, closer, followed almost at once. The boat shied like a Polaris breaking surface. The helm went over hard and she streaked for the gap between the Malgas and Black Sophie. Mary, Koeltas, Kim and I — and the rest of the crew — stood at the rails without a thought of the deadly twin muzzle's. They were swinging hard now, trying to regain their lost target. Four other drums exploded like a badly-timed broadside. The craft skidded sideways, hydrofoils fighting for a grip, away from the ragged detonations. She lay hard over on her starboard side: the loose torpedo jinked up and down. Fifty knots and a live torpedo hanging loose! Let her touch the trip-wire with that…

  I never saw her die. One moment the superb craft was creaming along as fast as a torpedo itself, the next — the Malgas jerked on the end of the rope. There was a shattering roar, a blinding flash. The torpedo exploded. The gun-mounting cartwheeled high into the night, like a discarded space booster rocket. A foul dribble of obscenities dripped from Koeltas's mouth and the yellow skin was taut to whiteness over the high Tartar cheekbones.

  Kim mouthed, 'Black Sophie! My beautiful bitch! My Beautiful bitch!'

  I caught the flash of Johaar's knife blade waved in frantic glee. Then he took a flying header into the breakers and came ploughing across to us. He and Bob Sheriff's boat arrived simultaneously. The power cut and she sank on her hull, gliding to the schooner's side.

  'Give us a light, blast you!'

  I wasn't surprised at Sheriff's tone, standing outlined in the torch beam, capless, oilskins streaming.

  'What the hell gives?' he demanded, jumping on to the deck. 'What sort of party is this, Tregard? I heard a couple of small explosions and then one hell of a big one. The other craft's disappeared…'

  Kim said, aping the Royal Navy's accent. 'Simple matter of a trip-rope, old boy. Nothing simpler. Nothing at all, on my oath!'

  Sheriff turned on him savagely. 'Who the hell are you anyway?'

  I think Koeltas, Johaar and Kim would have torn him to pieces if I had not intervened. 'These are my pirates,' I said placatingly. 'They are capable of almost anything. Don't give them too many excuses.'

  Sheriff shrugged and called across to the patrol boat, 'Watson, if there's any trouble aboard this ship, you know what to do.'

  The bearded figure at the gun nodded. 'Aye, aye, sir.'

  'Listen,' I said. 'That's not the sort of threat I care for, any more than your tone with these chaps. We have done your job — we sank her almost with our bare hands.'

  'Christ!' he exploded. 'That's exactly what I'm bitching about! How the hell did you get here from the Mazy Zed?'

  Mary laughed, and her voice eased the tension. 'We went into orbit.' She explained the torpedoing, our rescue, the canisters of dynamite, the trip-rope.

  Sheriff listened in amazement and then laughed ruefully. 'Seems you boys know a lot about in-fighting that I don't.' He came over and gripped my arm, a sort of clubman's gesture, and said formally to Koeltas, 'Thank you for your invaluable assistance.'

  Koeltas looked disconcerted. The vowels clicked and I translated. '"That's all right, we just buggered him up nicely."'

  Kim leered. 'Man, he talks like a fancy love-boy, but underneath I think he's tough.'

  Johaar refused to be left out of the accolades. 'I swim. I tie the rope.'

  'Is this Man Friday or Long John Silver?' Sheriff asked.

  I grinned. 'All of us have got scores to settle up the coast.' I gestured to the north. 'We intend going about it in our own way…'

  'I hate to think what that might be.'

  'If you'd like them on your side, you only have to offer them a ride in your speedboat.'

  He laughed. 'Hell, of course! I have to report to the Mazy Zed anyway.'

  Across the anchorage at the barge, a small emergency light had been rigged on the wrecked gantry.

  'Come on, chaps, let's get going.'

  It was too short a distance to the Mazy Zed to use the hydrofoils, although Koeltas begged a quick feel of the helm. Watson, the gunner, gazed at the lot of us with the sort of disapproval that only a former Chief Petty Officer of the Royal Navy can exude.

  I found a windcheater for Mary, who had become very quiet. 'Cold?' I asked.

  'Yes, John,' she replied. 'Cold inside. We seem to be being guided inexorably into violence and death. I fear Mercury and I fear your meeting Shelborne again. I like you both — terribly, and I can't bear it. It's like two express trains who believe the points are right but are racing for head-on collision.'

  The small figure stood in a pool of sea water — torn, ragged, her hair astray. The swift passage of phosphorescence was reflected in her amber eyes. Once again, I was puzzled by my feelings for her — warmth, closeness, a curious intuition of her moods, but lacking in something. She looked at me, and I at her.

  We bumped alongside the Mazy Zed.

  Under the jury light I could see where the machine-gun bullets had stripped metal and rubber raw. A big section of hose was missing, probably the piece Mary and I had used as a raft. The hull had a hole about the size of a piano. For a radius of about twenty feet round it the plating was buckled. It did not seem too bad for me. The explosion had largely dissipated itself.

  Rhennin was shouting orders when he caught sight of Mary and myself. He helped us aboard. 'Thank God! I thought you both had bought it up on deck�
� Venter! Get a couple of blankets! Rustle up a steward. I want hot drinks — rum. No, coffee and rum. Quick!'

  'Don't thank me, Felix, thank my pirates.'

  'You sank her?'

  I told him briefly. He whistled at the name Mary had seen on the boat. 'Sookin Sin — know what that means?'

  I shrugged.

  'I do,' he said quietly. 'It's Russian. Sonofabitch. Pretty low class. Koeltas category.'

  I too exclaimed. 'That Second Atlantic People's Fleet, or whatever it calls itself?'

  'Could be. Hell on them! I don't want the Mazy Zed spotlighted in an international incident.'

  I shrugged. 'She made the attack, not us. What is the Mazy Zed like below?'

  'She shipped some water, but it was more a hell of a noise than anything. I thought we'd sucked up Davy Jones himself from his locker — bellowing!'

  'And the machine-gunning?' Mary asked.

  'They shot away the hoses, but we have hundreds of feet of it in reserve below. A couple of hours will see that fixed. And it's going to be fixed. The nozzles still look okay to me; no bullets penetrated.'

  The electric power snapped on. The deck was white under the floodlights, set up for working twenty-four-hours-a-day shifts. Mary and I in our blankets were a couple of scarecrows in the general untidy picture of the deck"- twisted metal, scarred steel, blackened plating.

  'I want a full damage assessment in half an hour,' Rhennin said to the chief engineer. He turned to Sheriff. 'See what clues you can find — bodies, flotsam of any sort. Slap it about, will you, Bob: we'll talk about the other part of it later.'

  Sheriff glowered under his tan. 'I have yet to have a radar warning from those so-and-so's on Sinclair — I can't see in the dark.'

  Rhennin went on, 'They won't risk a second attack — you can use your spotlight.'

  'Aye, aye.'

  Koeltas called to me. Rhennin waited until his rapid-fire request was done» 'Who is that, John?'

  'Skipper Koeltas. He wants to go out to sea. There's a ship from which the boat came, he says — he smells it.'

  'No,' he replied. 'It's been a costly enough night's work without endangering Bob again. Any survivors from our other boat?'

  'All safe,' replied Sheriff. 'I pulled them out of the water. Walker, the engineer, is shot up — the burst caught her in the engine room. Went up like a ruddy Roman candle.'

  Venter came to tell Rhennin that drinks and dry clothes were in his cabin. He shepherded us below like a couple of children. Mary went to change after a stiff pull of the cook's brew. I stripped in the cabin and drank more coffee while Rhennin prowled up and down. The telephone told us that the Mazy Zed had suffered less damage than most of us thought; it was the crew's morale that had suffered, and some of them were talking of returning to Cape Town.

  In ten minutes Mary was back in black slacks and a black-and-white poncho top, with heelless black casuals. Rhennin waited without comment while we gave him a full account of the attack.

  Then he said sharply to me, 'So you reckon Shelborne did it?'

  'I'm sure he didn't make the attack.' -

  'What do you mean?'

  'If we could get to Mercury tonight on a magic carpet, we'd find Shelborne asleep in his bed. Or on Sudhuk, if the bells are…' I fumbled for the word.

  'Ringing?'

  They don't ring. It's a curious reverberating noise, like down-horizon gunfire, but throatier.'

  Rhennin picked his words. 'See here, John. Assume that Shelborne had the resources to launch tonight's attack, why would he do it? Again, assume that he knows the whereabouts of the diamond fountainhead, why not cash in on that? He could name his price — it could be worth a million to him, even if there are big technical difficulties. His knowledge of what those problems are would in itself be worth a fortune.'

  I shook my head. 'No, Felix, it's much deeper than that with Shelborne. It is some obscure and involved question of redemption — to make up for his killing of Caldwell, maybe. Redemption. Maybe that's Shelborne's aim, a wager with fate for his friend's bad deal, if you like.'

  Mary said, 'The way you put it, it's just as if he had taken over- my father's personality.'

  'And his luck,' I replied.

  'What of my brother's luck?' asked Rhennin.

  'The one meshes in with the other,' I started to say, but Mary interrupted: 'No, John, not the way I see it. The fate of Korvettenkapitan Rhennin might be a lead to the other, but it would be of subordinate importance at all times in Shelborne's mind if what you think about him is true. Say Shelborne knew the whereabouts of the Goering hoard. Why not simply unearth it and live in luxury for the rest of his life?'

  'Because,' I said quietly, 'something guards both the cache and the parent rock, something pretty hideous. A killer on whom five U-boats could make no impression…'

  'This is fanciful,' rejoined Rhennin angrily.

  It was Mary who took the acerbity out of the conversation. 'A skeleton in the Glory Hole, let's say.'

  We all laughed. Rhennin picked up the phone. 'Mac,' he said crisply, 'we sail before dawn. I want a rough patch over the hole for a three-day tow…'

  The instrument crackled like the Koeltas vernacular.

  'Well, so what?' asked Rhennin. 'Shore up the inner bulkhead, and I'll tow her stern-on to Mercury. With the Mazy Zed, it doesn't make much odds whether it's stern or bow.'

  The instrument crackled again. 'Those are orders,' he snapped. 'Orders. It may be wet, but we won't sink.' He slapped the receiver down.

  Mary and I looked at one another and at him. 'Aren't you taking a big risk, Felix?'

  He got to his feet with the decisiveness which had taken him to the top in the Germany Navy. 'We sail — now. They'll expect us to stay and patch the Mazy Zed. They'll be back tomorrow and won't make the same mistake a second time. If we clear out, they won't know where to look.'

  He pressed an intercom. 'Du Plooy! Get Captain Anderson on the shortwave. No long-distance stuff, see? I don't want this overheard. The tug will be alongside, ready to tow, at 0400 hours — clear?' He flicked another switch. 'Captain Longstaff: the Mazy Zed sails at 0400. The tug will be ready at that time. Start getting in the anchors-now.'

  There was an indignant crackle over the phone and Mary and I smiled.

  'Where to?' asked Rhennin. 'Mercury Island. Where is that? In Spencer Bay. Mr Tregard will brief you. Okay then. The safety of the ship is my concern too. Escort? Sheriff and the schooner will be convoy guards…' There was another outburst at the other end and he looked up at us and grinned. 'If you don't like it, Captain, by all means stay at Angras Juntas. The next ship may be along in six months.'

  He put down the instrument. He was excited, tense. 'If Shelborne signalled the People's Atlantic Fleet to make tonight's visitation, then he's got another big think coming when we show up at Mercury; Sookin Sin to him!'

  Mary suddenly looked grave. 'Sookin Sin! But John how could I have been able to read it if it was written in Russian?'

  Rhennin stopped short in his rapid-fire orders. 'By God! How? It must have been faked — a Russian word in English writing?'

  'Something else that stinks around Mercury,' I said.

  11

  The Glory Hole

  'Don't tread on me!'

  Shelborne's houseflag with its yellow rattlesnake emblem stood out against the hard white of Mercury and pointed a threatening finger at our approaching convoy. The sea was gentle, with a slight swell from the weather quarter, a calm as unexpected as a pink karakul pelt. To keep the element of surprise as long as possible, we had decided to bring the Mazy Zed to the graveyard side of Mercury, from the north. Our landfall was the wreck of an old gun-runner of the Hottentot war. I had been on the bridge of the Mazy Zed with Rhennin and Mary since dawn. Navigation was hellish and we had two men aloft watching for concealed reefs and broken water.

  Bob Sheriff's patrol boat sheep-dogged the convoy like a destroyer. Coming close, I could see his salt-caked, stubbly face. He had driven hi
mself hard since the attack three days previously. Sheriff had found a couple of seaboots and some planks from the sunken boat, but nothing which would serve to identify her. The Mazy Zed had sneaked out of Angras Juntas, seeing nothing. Now she was wallowing at the end of the heavy tow as the ex-harbour tug Walvis Bay dug her broad shoulders deep. Once the Mazy Zed was in position, the tug was to return to Angras Juntas for the radar men and their equipment, which could not be dismantled in time for our flying departure. The Malgas stood out to windward, holding station with a precision which seemed more like power than sail.

  There was no sign of any humans at the hutments.

  I gestured at the flag. That's his flag, but I don't see a soul.'

  Rhennin, in a duffel coat and balaclava against the winter chill, stared at the icing-white island. 'So that's Mercury! It looks…'

  'As if coiled to strike,' I finished. 'Like the flag.' I tensed up at the sight of the island again, and felt clammy under my windbreaker.

  'I wonder if my father ever saw it?' asked Mary. She looked ridiculously young in a gay Fair Isle sweater and pompom cap.

  That's pretty certain,' I replied. 'Look, there are the quicksands — the whole shoreline is rotten…'

  'What are those odd T-shaped patches of white?'

  'I never had time to find out. They puzzled me too. You can't see it from here, but from the top of Sudhuk there's a line of them into the desert.'

  I told them also about the old Portuguese warship trapped in the quicksands.

  'And Strandloper's Water?' she asked in a low voice.

  I shrugged. 'East of the sea… ask Shelborne.'

  Rhennin picked up the loudhailer microphone. 'Bob!' he called. 'Go and take a look-see — we can't see anyone.'

  'Good-oh!' came back the metallic, cheerful voice. 'Guns deep a-dipping, and all that?'

  I took the instrument from Rhennin. 'Be careful, Bob — very careful. He's a foxy one. We'll hold hard here until you come back. Tell the tug.'

  'Roger!' The swift craft rose on its hydrofoils joyfully, like an albatross stretching its wings for a thousand-mile flight. There was no sound but the creak of the ungainly barge and the crunch of the sea over her low freeboard. Mary kept her glasses on the shore; we had been three days together now, and the way she had of calming our nerves and knitting together all the diverse elements in the crew had won our hearts. For myself, I had taken a strange, strong liking to her.