The River of Diamonds

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  'Yes.'

  'He has the lead on you.'

  'Yes. He knows what guards the fountainhead — I don't. He knows where it is — I don't. Whatever it is, it is too big for him, or else he would have come forward with it long ago. I guess the Mazy Zed has the edge on him there. As I stood watching those buck dying just now, a lot of things explained themselves in my own mind. I have to tell Felix.'

  'May I come with you?'

  'Yes, of course. This is going to be a rough party Mary.'

  She said obliquely. 'The Bells haven't sounded all the time we've been talking. I wonder if it was Shelborne who christened them the Bells of St Mary's — and why?'

  Rhennin was loading shells into the magazine of a Luger. A beautiful long barrelled Colt.45 lay on the desk among boxes of cartridges, a finely-chased.7.65 mm. Browning, also with a long barrel, and a stubby Bernadelli.

  He smiled grimly. The pick of weapons is yours.'

  Mary shivered.

  'Normally I'd go for the Colt,' I said, 'but I don't reckon any of them will be much use against what we have to face.'

  He clicked the magazine of the Luger into place with a slap of his palm and poised it expertly on its centre of gravity. I, too, have always liked the Luger for its balance. 'Are you thinking of what happened to Bob Sheriff?'

  'Maybe,' I replied. 'But the Schweipunkt isn't here, it's at Strandloper's Water.' I explained the springbok migration, as I saw it, to the ancient river, its mouth and the diamond fountainhead. We must, I insisted, trek to Strandloper's Water.

  'By all that's holy!' exclaimed Rhennin.

  Mary said, 'It blows Shelborne into a sort of gigantic ogre, finger on the trigger of some hidden power of destruction…'

  Rhennin spun the Luger. 'If Shelborne gets hurt along the way, that's just too bad.'

  'I've a hunch Shelborne is on the island, watching everything we do,' I said. 'On second thoughts, maybe we had better try Mercury first, and investigate that graveyard of his. I'm sure the landing-place is covered, so I'll take the Colt after all, Felix. If Bob Sheriff were here to give us cover, I'd risk it, but I think as things stand, we should slip ashore in the dinghy tonight.'

  Rhennin nodded agreement. 'We'll land at the seal platform — it slopes down to the water.'

  'We'll want knives and an iron bar to prise open the coffins.'

  The diving suits will be ideal with warm clothing underneath,' said Rhennin.

  'We may as well blacken our faces too,' I said.

  'Put me ashore and let me talk to Shelborne!' Mary pleaded. 'I won't come to any harm…'

  Rhennin was gentle with her. 'We've got to find these things out, Mary. Shelborne will not come to any harm either, unless…'

  'Unless! Unless!' she exclaimed. 'Unless you don't draw first, I won't shoot you down! John, don't go!'

  I broke open the heavy Colt, slipping in six shells. I put the rest of the packet in my pocket. I was acutely aware of Mary's magnetism, and of a curious contrary conviction that I should go my own way. I didn't want to stay for her sake. The realization made my voice harsh. 'Forget it! This is a man's job. I'm going to rest up for an hour or two, Felix. I want to be fresh for a night out among the coffins.'

  I saw the tears well into Mary's eyes at my brusqueness.

  'What time?' he asked.

  'Seven. It'll be dark then, and not too cold. Bring a nip of brandy — we may need it when we see what's inside the coffins.'

  'Well, it won't be the first dead man I've seen.'

  I fought for sleep, torn between the look on Mary's face and Shelborne's unknown menace. I jerked out of an uneasy rest and we met in Rhennin's cabin — black rubber diving suits, blackened faces, knives and pistols at our belts.

  Mary said brokenly, 'Come back, both of you, won't you? Let me know — I'll be awake.'

  Rhennin went over the side.

  'Shove off,' I whispered, slipping the painter securing the dinghy. I felt Rhennin's strong paddle-thrust and for a moment the upperworks and gantry stood out against the freezing stars. We headed for Mercury. The Bells were silent. I set a rough course by the Southern Cross.

  I lifted my paddle and tapped Rhennin's shoulder. 'Feel anything?'

  'Slight surge,' he whispered back. 'Must be off the Glory Hole.'

  I could not see the four grim muzzles. 'It doesn't feel very strong.'

  'No. There's a little more sea though.'

  'No Bells, thank God, all afternoon.'

  'Johaar's recovering fast without them.'

  'Give way!'

  Our paddles dipped. The dinghy edged landwards. A strangled gargle broke the blackness. My reflexes beat my reason, and in a flash the heavy Colt was in my hand. The gargle ended in a plaintive chuffering.

  'Easy!' whispered Rhennin. 'Seal-pup.'

  Using cautious half-strokes, we stole in towards the ramp. The sea washed against rock.

  'They'll lie just above the high-water mark,' I warned softly. 'Crawl for God's sake, or you'll rouse the island.'

  I admired Rhennin's cool nerves. 'Here,' he said, 'tie this round your waist. We'll stay roped together. If the seals perform, two pulls on the rope means lie flat. Three — proceed, crawling. No talking.'

  'Roger.'

  His paddle clunked on rock. The dinghy rocked as he crept into the icy water. My rope tugged three times. I went over into a foot of water and the unforgettable stench of a seal nursery. I shouldered the rubber craft and followed the rope. A little above the water-level I came up to him. He guided my hand to a big rock to weigh down the dinghy. Then I edged into the lead, as we had arranged. My shoulder bumped a seal. He must have been a bachelor or a rogue bull to be on the fringe. I shouldered him out of the way like a Rugby forward; he grunted and went on snoring. I signalled and we moved onwards, seeking the defined gangways which always exist in seal colonies, where neutrality is respected. Inch by inch I manoeuvred forward with muted grunting on every side. A pup yelped softly in his sleep as my searching hand touched him. Half a dozen times I found our way blocked and half a dozen times, by the most painstaking search among the grunting bodies, I regained a neutral corridor.

  Then ahead was a rock face. Seals were packed against it — a coveted residential area. Risking everything, I stood up to explore the face, which was about five feet high, with a deserted ledge above — the boundary of the colony! We eased ourselves silently above the sleeping herd. The wicked drop from graveyard to sea was our main obstacle now. I was glad I couldn't see, remembering the way it had looked from above. One slip would take us both to destruction.

  Two hours later, exhausted, muscles kicking, hands as raw as jailhouse blues, faces cut, we hauled ourselves over the graveyard wall. I had led, seeking hand and footholds in the smooth rock by the intermittent light of display of sea phosphorescence. Rhennin, following, would feel his way by my heels — from one precarious fingernail-hold, from one toe-hold to the next — and so we made our way to the top. Three-quarters of the way up Rhennin gave a frantic jerk and slip; above our racing gasps for breath we had heard the jemmy ring on the rocks far below. We threw ourselves down against the inner wall.

  It must have been ten minutes before Rhennin spoke. 'John, if the coffin lids are blown off in a storm like Shelborne says, they can't be screwed down.'

  I hadn't thought of that. Metal screws wouldn't last in the corrosive sea fogs. 'Maybe there are wooden pegs, or dowels.'

  'We can use our knives in that case. Where is it?'

  'I found the Knight's Cross on the other side. There's a sort of stile.'

  The ordered rows of coffins stood out hideously white under the rising moon.

  'Anything to distinguish which one?'

  'No. All guano-coated.'

  His voice was steady. 'When we've got one open, I'll shine the torch below the level of the lid so that it won't show.'

  'Felix…' I said, fumbling. I looked round the small enclosure. The climb had set back our schedule. 'What if…?'

  'If I ha
ve to open every bloody one, I will — whatever sights we may see inside.'

  We picked our Way through the nesting birds, who uttered little more than a few angry quacks. We selected a guano-coated oblong near where I had found the medal. We ran our knives along the overlap of the lid, scraping away a seal of stinking excrement. I took one side and Rhennin the other. I thrust in my knife. The wood was softer than I had anticipated. Rhennin's face was grim, withdrawn. He nodded and gave the thumbs-up sign. We threw our weight on our knives. It did not budge. Again we thrust our knives into the seams.

  'My iron bar — that's what we need,' said Rhennin.

  I ran my frozen fingers along the wood. Something protruded — not wood, but rope. It ran round the coffin, into the cement base. I showed Rhennin. Towards the feet we discovered another. The coffin had been wrapped around with two-inch manila, which had become iron-hard as the guano had permeated it.

  Rhennin said, 'That's the sort of thing Shelborne would do if he wanted to hide the body. We need a couple of crow-bars.'

  'Try cutting it.'

  The heavy blade made almost no impression. He shook his head. 'Is there nothing we can use?'

  We looked around. On the seaward side was the small building I had noticed with Shelborne. We picked our way to it through the birds.

  'Might be a toolshed, or store of sorts.'

  'A chapel, perhaps,' I suggested.

  Rhennin laughed cynically. 'Not on your bloody life! Can you imagine Shelborne…'

  'Yes, I can. He'd use the service for burial at sea. He'd do it superbly — prayer-book in hand, sonorous phrases, wind blowing, a group of cowed guano-workers…'

  'Build-up of the image that terrifies Koeltas and Co.'

  I parodied him, irreligiously, with the words I had heard used many times at sea: '"Such as sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, being fast bound in misery and iron…"'

  Rhennin raised a foot to kick open the rough door. I stood back, the Colt raised. He picked up my words: '"We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead…"'

  He kicked it open, hard.

  Korvettenkapitan Rhennin sat at the head of the table. The other four U-boat captains were grouped around. Each man held a hand of cards; by him was a handful of uncut diamonds. In the middle was a kitty of diamonds which they had staked on the poker game. They all had red hair. -And they were all dead.

  'Fauler Zauber,' said a voice.

  I saw the glint of the blue-black muzzle of the Schmeisser machine-pistol almost before I made out the black sealskin figure.

  'Fauler Zauber,' Shelborne repeated. 'A silly humbug, not so?'

  13

  The Five Red-headed Captains

  'You! It was you who sent that message! Fauler Zauber! Headquarters thought…' Rhennin was as white as the coffins.

  Shelborne said harshly, 'Don't shine that torch in my eyes, Rhennin! I am a man of peace, but…'

  I laughed. I didn't recognize my own voice. 'Peace! Yet you carry a Schmeisser! Five men you've killed sitting there…!'

  'Drop that pistol!'

  'You killed Caldwell too!'

  'If either of you makes a move, I swear before God that it will be the last you ever make.'

  I could see, in the half-light, the dune of flesh which banked up above his right cheekbone when he was agitated. The gullies in his face were deeper, the eyes wide and luminous.

  Rhennin burst out: 'But the message — how…?'

  Shelborne nodded to a figure in seaman's clothes lying sprawled inside the doorway. 'He sent "fauler Zauber": I overheard it. The radio is behind the door there. It was the one bit of sense I could make out in what he sent, "silly humbug". The game, the diamonds — a silly farce, you must agree.'

  Rhennin burst out. 'He didn't mean it that way… The operation… you shot them down as they played; they weren't ready.'

  'Look — do you see bullet-marks?'

  'You double-talking bastard…!'

  Shelborne raised the Schmeisser. One burst would cut a man in half. 'Throw down your guns — here, at my feet. You first, Tregard. If Koeltas is to be believed, you're the more dangerous of the two.'

  I surrendered the Colt. 'So you've got Koeltas? He ran out to sea when the Bells sounded.'

  'I picked him up on Hollam's Bird Island.' His voice was grim. 'He thought I was out of the way. He couldn't resist the temptation of a little poaching.'

  The cutter?'

  'Of course — she'd outrun the Malgas any time. Koeltas is back at the hut now. Unfortunately Kim…'

  'Man of peace!' I sneered. My respect for the man grew: I would not have dared to fight it out single-handed with Koeltas's cut-throat crew.

  The Luger too!'

  Rhennin threw the pistol.

  'Now the torch!'

  Rhennin rolled it towards Shelborne. As he bent down to retrieve it, that would be the time to jump him. The same thought must have crossed his mind, for he sank unwaveringly, warily, on his haunches, the Schmeisser aimed.

  'Get inside the hut!'

  The torch beam reflected from the dead eyes of the U-boat ace at the top of the table and dully from the piles of uncut stones. The five captains were dressed in heavy off-white rolltop sweaters under black reefer jackets. Their caps were on the table. The insignia was the same, their clothes were alike, but it was the realization of one item of dreadful uniformity which sent a thrill of horror down my spine — their matching red hair. It was all exactly the same shade. No two men could have been born like that, let alone five.

  Rhennin's swift step over the sentry's body and his words stopped mine. 'Immelmann! Werner! Hessler! Schmidt!'

  His agonized roll-call was the first since Seekriegsleitung had searched the ether, day after day, for Gruppe Eisbar. They were not to know that SKL, the brilliant fighting machine, had itself gone to its death before they could answer. Korvettenkapitan Rhennin's face was vigorous, young, alert, a younger edition of Felix. Ironical to die here on land at the hand of a diamond-struck prospector 600 miles from the Western Approaches, away from the destroyers' depth-charges, the Asdic, the minefields.

  'Dieter!'

  The sightless eyes stared. Rhennin tore open the reefer jacket to look for bullet-holes so that the cards spilled out of the dead man's hand. But there were no wounds.

  Rhennin lost control of himself. 'You swine! You bloody swine! He never had red hair! They've all got red hair! All red hair! You monster! — you dyed their hair!' He plucked unseeingly at Dieter's jacket.

  Shelborne rapped out: 'Stand out of my line of fire!'

  I yelled helplessly. 'He doesn't know what he's saying or doing…!' The Schmeisser gave a metallic, pre-death clunk as Shelborne switched the lever over to rapid fire. 'Stop! Stop…!'

  Rhennin staggered towards the entrance, cannoning into the man opposite Dieter. The body crashed sideways to the floor. Shelborne's torch sought his eyes, blinding him.

  'Gruppe Eisbar!' he mouthed. 'Here are Goering's diamonds, Dieter! Here they are! You never made off with them! How did he destroy the whole Rudel, Dieter? One man! You swine, you bloody swine!'

  Shelborne was rock-steady. 'Pull yourself together, man! His hair is red because of the guano. The ammonia in the guano — it turns all their hair red! They're all like that, every corpse in the graveyard! It mummifies them too!'

  It was the only thing that would have stopped him except a bullet. He stood swaying over the body of the sentry. Then he took a great grip of himself. His voice was shaky. 'What did you do with the U-boats, Shelborne?'

  His voice was cool, soothing almost. 'All this took place a.long time ago, Rhennin. I'm sorry about your brother. I didn't realize you had any inkling he was on Mercury.'

  I told him about the Knight's Cross.

  'I didn't steal it — I haven't moved them,' he said. He was watchful but persuasive, sympathetic. Spontaneously, the comparison sprang into my mind
— his manner was like Mary's. The thought sickened me. What else had he taken from Caldwell in addition to his life?

  Shelborne said, 'We'll go to the huts. The path is very slippery — you'd better rope yourselves. I'll follow — with the Schmeisser.'

  Rhennin asked, in a strangled voice, 'The crews of Crupper Eisbar — they are all dead?'

  'Yes.'

  'May I see them too?'

  'They are in their ships. They are not preserved like the captains by the guano. They won't be a pretty sight.'

  'The wolf-pack — you know where it is, then?'

  'I have it safe also.'

  I said, 'In the Glory Hole, of course.'

  'Of course — where else?'

  'Is that why you killed Piet Pieterse?'

  'You are here to answer questions, not me.'

  Rhennin said, indicating the heaps of uncut diamonds, 'What…?'

  'They thought it was rather fun to play for stakes — diamond stakes — like that. There must be Ј50,000 lying on the table.'

  'They wouldn't have stolen it.'

  'I didn't say they did. They were relaxing, waiting for a radio signal from U-boat headquarters. There are plenty more diamonds in the cache…' I said, 'In the Glory Hole, too, of course.'

  'Of course.'

  'Another of your secrets.'

  'I didn't know about the hoard until Gruppe Eisbar came.'

  'Is it still there?'

  'Yes. And the U-boats.'

  I moved closer so that I could read his eyes. 'Shelborne, you've been here more than twenty years. That whole time would have been worth waiting for the one day when the wind, the tide and the air explosions would have been right so that you could bring out the cache. There must have been such days — but no. What is it that can kill a U-boat pack, five captains, a heavily-armed patrol boat, thousands of buck — and yet cannot induce you to enter the Glory Hole and bring out a fortune?'

  He said softly, 'The Bells of St Mary's.'

  I laughed, but it came out wrong. 'Or Caldwell's ghost.'

  He was so withdrawn that he didn't notice how the muzzle of the Schmeisser had fallen. The black clothing gave the illusion that there was nothing of him but the bald head and abstracted face.