"I'll take over, Number One," I rapped out to John.
"Slow ahead both! Silent routine! Shut off, as for depth-charging. Absolute silence. No talking. And if anyone so much as drops a damn thing on the plating, I'll have his guts."
John gave me a penetrating look and rapped out a series of orders. Trout eased away from her deadly ocean paramour.
"Course, sir?" asked John.
"Hold her steady on one-six-oh. What's her speed now?"
"Three knots, sir."
"Hold her at that for ten minutes. And then I want just enough way on her to keep her even. Not a fraction of a knot more."
"Shall I sound action stations, sir?" asked John.
"You heard my orders," I snarled. The sweat was trickling down inside my shirt. I took a handkerchief and wiped it away. I saw young Fenton eyeing me apprehensively.
The minutes ticked by. The control room was as tense as if we had been under attack. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten… John gave an order in a low voice.
"Barely steerage way, now, sir."
We waited. I must give her a good half an hour so that we were well out of hearing before I broke surface.
"Take over for a moment," I said to John. I went back to my cubbyhole. I decided that I would navigate myself, using old Simon Peace's magnificently annotated chart.
Even far out in the ocean his soundings were better than the Admiralty's.
I knew exactly what I had to do. I must steer a course away out of immediate danger from NP I. I must also get to Curva dos Dunas before her. That meant a course as close as possible to the deadly one-six-oh degrees which I must assume she would follow. I would now take Trout to the surface and make a break at high speed for Curva dos Dunas, hoping to get there before NP I. I did some quick sums in my head. They had said NP I could do twenty knots submerged. Well, she might, but she had been cruising along gently at seven for the past few hours. I could catch her shortly after daybreak entering the channel, which would give me a good light for firing: it is always tricky firing on a hydrophone bearing alone. I took the detailed map of Curva dos Dunas. There were sixteen fathoms at the. entrance and it was very deep all the way in, although here and there buttresses of sand projected, like waiting claws, into the channel itself. There must be a hell of a tide to scour those channels, I thought. But… how many years ago had these soundings been taken? The Skeleton Coast is notorious for its upheavals, and even whole sections of coastline have changed their contours overnight. I couldn't think about that. I pored over the entrance. I would lie just southwards and… what depth would she come in at? Perhaps on the surface? Only the event would tell. She wouldn't know a thing until they heard Trout's torpedoes running; then it would be too late.
Were they quite oblivious of us? There was the sudden slowing-down which Bissett had noticed. What did it mean? Had they… no, I rejected the thought desperately. They couldn't have seen Trout's rendezvous with the warships! Dear God! I put myself in the boots of NP I's captain.
He is lying in a good position to sink a couple of British cruisers, and what happens? Suddenly a British submarine breaks surface and the warships sheer off like startled cats. His whole firing plan goes to maggots. He takes a cautious look and sees a strange sight indeed. The destroyers about as hostile as could be — towards one of their kind. But they would know Trout was in these waters, he argues. And what in the name of all that is holy is a submarine doing lying motionless on the surface while the destroyers circle and one goes in and drops a boat? Hunted as he is, he must jump to the immediate conclusion — these warships are looking for NP I, and so must the British submarine be. So they know about me! A cold chill runs down his spine. Must I justify NP I at all costs? Sink that nearest destroyer and the submarine? No, that would be too easy, and the others would be right on the trail. Beat it at high speed? Yes. Eighty feet, high speed away to Curva dos Dunas! And by the merest chance, I added grimly, Trout takes an identical course and bashes away merrily in the wake of the deadliest thing afloat, with not a caution or a care in the world! The thought of it made my insides turn over.
I'd had the let-off of my life, I thought without humour, and it's going to cost every man of that wicked U-boat his life. The half hour was up. I picked up the Admiralty chart to give to the navigator as a formality only. I left my own — old Simon's — in my cubbyhole. After all, I thought with the first lightening of spirits since the enormity of the whole thing had struck me, it is my island, and I'm going to protect my property, so why should everyone know about it?
John looked expectant as I came in. It was just after nine o'clock.
"Diving stations. Stand by to surface," I said briefly.
"Check main vents," rapped out John.
"All main vents checked and shut, sir."
"Ready to surface, sir."
"Surface. I want you on the bridge with me, Number One."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The hatch was nicked open and the usual sea, warm it seemed to me, slopped in. I scrambled up and immediately searched the horizon. Everywhere the sea was bathed in bright moonlight. And a good thing too, because neither I nor the men on watch had had time to get their eyes accustomed to the different light.
"Nothing in sight, sir," reported John formally.
"Good," I said, drinking in the beauty of the night, and looking half expectantly ahead, as if to find our lethal fellow-traveller along the line of Trout's forestay. The South Atlantic was as empty as it had ever been.
"Group up," I ordered. "Start the diesels. Full ahead together. Three hundred and twenty revolutions. Course two-five-oh."
Trout veered away at right angles to the previous course — NP I's course, leaning to the full power of the massive diesels, and tore away into the silver night.
VIII
Curva dos Dunas
the moon's silver began to give way to the first grey of the yet unborn day. Trout tore on. Sleepless and keyed to a high pitch, I remained all night on the bridge. My eyes were red with watching, and they always strayed back to NP I's imaginary track, now well to the north and west of Trout. John had come up during the night in cheerful conversational mood.
"What's all the buzz, Geoffrey?" he asked in his easy, competent way. "Making a real mystery of things, aren't you?"
I regretted to have to do it, but I resorted to that funk-hole of the man in command, rank. I simply said nothing but stared ahead into the night.
John at first did not catch on.
"Brushing up the old navigation all by yourself, too?" he laughed.
I realised that I would rouse some comment by navigating myself, but I simply refused to turn old Simon's maps over to the usual navigator. I said nothing in reply to John's sallies. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him freeze when he realised that we were no longer on the chummy basis on which we which always gone in to the attack. John had always been excellent in giving the crew a loudspeaker appraisal of a tricky situation, and I expect this was his way of putting it to me. He froze into immobility and, except for a few terse, necessary words changing the course after we were well away from NP I's track, there had been silence between us for the rest of the night.
I decided that I would approach Curva dos Dunas from the south, turning north and east once I crossed the seventy-five fathom mark. The more I looked at the ghastly coast, the more thankful I was for old Simon's charts. It was a hopeless conglomeration of broken water, shoals and rocks; everywhere were the terrorising words, "discoloured water." Once across the seventy-five fathom line, I decided to turn Trout north-east and thread my way to within fifteen miles of the coast, and then try and pick up my two only sure landmarks, the ten-foot projection which I had named Simon's Rock, and the distinctive three-topped hill with another high hill about seven miles to the nor'rad. If I could spot the tiny beach marked "sandy, white "on the chart, it would be a great additional help; otherwise the old sailor-man's only direction on the landward side were "dunas moveis" — shifting dunes.
I crossed to the voice-pipe,
"What depth of water have we under us?"
"Eighty-seven fathoms, shoaling, sir."
"Call them out as she goes."
"Aye, aye, sir. Eighty-five. Ninety. Seventy-seven… "
God, I thought, what a coastline to be approaching! Rough as an uncut diamond.
"Seventy-five… eighty, seventy-four…"
"That'll do," I snapped out. I had crossed my rubicon. Well, here goes, I thought.
I turned to John who, with the exception of the watchmen, was alone with me.
"Clear the bridge," I said. I felt the tremor in my voice.
"Diving stations, sir?" asked John, shooting me a curious look.
"Clear the bridge," I repeated. "I'll give my orders from up here. Alone."
The ratings on watch glanced nervously at each other;is they scuttled down the hatch. John followed. He paused as his head was about to disappear. Apparently he thought better of it and I could almost see the shrug of his shoulders.
"Course seven-oh," I ordered and heard John repeat it. "Speed for ten knots."
The shudder died as Trout slowed. I searched the horizon with my glasses, looking every way for the twin sentinels on land which overlooked NP I's hide-out.
I felt completely naked. A warship is a lonely place anyway, but when one has sent everyone below, it seems more so. The gun, unmanned, pointed forward, lashed, with its muzzle towards where the land must be. The light anti-aircraft weapons on the conning-tower had the same forlorn look. The quiet sea washed across the casing. All around the darkness was lightening, bringing with it that depression peculiar to early dawn. I swept the horizon in a slow arc with my glasses. If I were fool enough to have no watchmen with me, at least I could be careful enough not to have Trout caught with her pants down, so to speak. I could imagine what sort of short shrift I would get from a court-martial, driving a warship in war-time towards a dangerous roast without a single man on watch. And the enemy in the vicinity!
Then I saw the Skeleton Coast for the first time in my life.
I have seen it many times since, but I suppose I shall never forget the primeval awesomeness of that first sight. It was a trick of refracted light from the desert behind, I suppose, but it sent a spine-chilling thrill through me. Against the far rim of lightening east, a shaggy dinosaurs, tufted by shaggy bush and a dun tonsure of sand, rose and gazed hostilely at the lonely submarine. It was, as I have said, a strange trick of the light which gave me that forbidding first cruel glimpse of sand, sea and dune-starved shrub, for Trout was, I suppose, every bit of fifteen miles away. Light refracts and plays the strangest tricks in the mica-laden air. I gazed at the strange revelation. How many times had it shown itself in this way to old Simon, laboriously — and with superb seamanship — toiling up and down charting Curva dos Dunas from his sailing-ship? I leant forward to take a bearing.
The Skeleton Coast reached for Trout's throat.
I saw the discoloured water as I leant forward and, God knows, even at that stage of my ignorance of the Kaokoveld, I knew it for what it was — sand, shoals, death! I could even see the dun sand swirling in the sea under the thrust of the screws.
"Stop both!" I screamed into the voice-pipe. "Full astern!"
Almost in slow motion Trout''s way diminished. The sand swirled forward past the casing as the screws bit astern.
"What depth of water under her?" I asked weakly.
"Five fathoms sir," replied the disembodied voice from below.
Five! I marvelled, and reached a trembling hand for the chart. Another cold chill ran down my spine. Trout was over the dreaded Alecto Shoal, about fifteen miles south of my objective. Alecto! I didn't know what it meant then, but later I was to discover that HMS Alecto reported this particular horror in 1889. I realised, too, that I was only two miles off the coast — two miles! I thought I was live at least.
"Stop both," I ordered. "How much water under us?" a question which I came to ask almost automatically later.
"Twenty fathoms, sir."
Well, that was safe enough. Looking at the chart, I estimated that I had almost run Trout aground on the north-western tip of the Alecto Shoal. I decided to swing her round and keep away from the general north-westerly trend of the shoreline.
"Speed for six knots," I ordered down the voice-pipe. "Course three-four-oh."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Trout edged her way round the shoal. Then the light came. I was aghast. I seemed to be almost on top of the land. The sea was quiet, with no sign of the dreaded heavy south-westerly swell. The sun, starting to rise redly against the backdrop of dune and sand, looked as if it had a hangover. I felt something like that myself. I took Trout seawards for a while and changed course inwards again.- The chart said "foul ground " — and foul, indeed, it was. Trout ran on slowly. Out to port the quiet sea merged into the peculiar light haze; to starboard loomed the long line of dunes topped by the bibulous sun. I switched my glasses to the north, but I suppose the refracted light destroyed some of the magnification, for a moment later, when I looked with the naked eye, I saw the three-topped hill, unmistakable, against the dun background. The entrance to Curva dos Dunas! I altered course slightly to keep me clear of a sudden four-fathom hump to the south-west of the three-topped hill.
Trout, at funereal pace, moved towards where I knew Simon's Rock must lie. And — beyond lay Trout's objective, Curva dos Dunas! A ten-foot rock sticking out of the sea is a difficult enough thing to see at any time, but in the peculiar inshore light, one might well pass it by — and be wrecked on the shoals at the entrance to the island. Old Simon's chart showed it bearing 330 degrees from the three-topped hill.
I began to sweat; nothing showed as the bearing approached. All those doubts which I had rigidly refused to consider when I had made my decision to break away from the box-search assailed me. If all this was merely chasing a will-o'-the-wisp… The line of the bearing fell across the 330 degree mark. Nothing! There was nothing either on the landward side — nothing that remotely looked like an island.
"Stop both," I ordered, struck by the harshness of my own voice.
I consulted the chart again. I was almost exactly — if any navigator can hope to be anything like exact on that coast — where the rock should be. While Trout wallowed in the slight swell, I swept every inch of sea between myself and the shore.
There was nothing. No rock, no breakers, not a living or dead thing.
I scanned every inch of sea where I knew Curva dos Dunas should lie. Nothing!
So, I thought bitterly to myself, an old man's illusion and a young fool's dream turned out to be nothing but a stretch of empty water! I could take Trout through without a thought of wrecking her, if I wished.
Even to myself I could not answer the questions which arose about NP I — or rather the noise which I fatuously believed was the hydraulic jet machinery of NP I. Who had ever heard of a submarine being propelled by the expulsion of water anyway? Who would believe such a cock-and-bull story? It looked lamer every moment. I had made a complete fool of myself in front of my officers and my crew, standing a watch alone — in war-time — and conning a ship without a single soul aboard knowing where she was. Trout's log would look lovely before a court-martial! No entries, and the captain unable to say where he was. I looked round me, cursed the Skeleton Coast and cursed NP I and all the blasted fools who had given me this impossible mission.
I snapped open the voice-pipe.
"Course three-two-oh. Two hundred revolutions."
I'd get the hell out of this blasted coast, I thought bitterly.
Then I saw it.
It flashed white and evil, like a guano-covered fang, out of the sea a few hundred yards on the port beam. I had been on the inside of the damned thing and I had been searching landwards! A sick, cold feeling hit me in the stomach after my momentary elation. I was in the wickedest stretch of foul ground. The fathom line was contorted like a switchback at Blackpool. I had been fooled for th
e second time that morning by the current and fooled more still by the curious light refraction so that I had not seen Simon's Rock itself, but only its white-guano-littered tip where the sun caught it. I was like a blind man rushing through a roomful of glasses trying not to knock them over.
"Full astern!" I yelled in the voice-pipe. "No, stop both! Give me continuous depth readings."
"Echo-sounder reports four fathoms, sir," came up John's quiet, untroubled voice. What the hell would he be thinking about my hysterical commands screamed down from the bridge where there was no one else to tell him what was going on?
"Asdic reports obstructions bearing ah… hem… almost all round the compass, sir." The calm voice had a tinge of irony. "Hydrophones report all quiet, sir. No transmissions."
Trout lay in the troughs of the waves while I tried to make up my mind. It was easy enough to know where I was. I had Simon's Rock at my back, and the three-topped hill ashore to give me a fix. I pored over the annotated chart and saw that if I turned Trout's head I could get her into the position I had originally intended, a piece of deep water flanking the entrance to Curva dos Dunas. Curva dos Dunas! Where the hell was it? The sea was calm, almost oily, and there were no breakers. There should have been, looking at old Simon's annotations. "Breaks. Six fathoms. Breaks occasionally. Possibly less water. Heavy breakers. Surf."
I gazed hopelessly around for the sand-bars which must mark the channel into Curva dos Dunas. There simply must be! With trembling hands I took a bearing and cast my binoculars along the line of it seeking my island. Nothing! Had it disappeared in all the years that had elapsed since the chart was drawn? But, argued my sailor's mind, the rest of it is accurate enough. So damn accurate that had it not been so you and Trout would have been dead ducks already. Again I cast my eye along the line of the bearing. Suddenly I felt terribly afraid. My palms sweated. I knew why they called it the Skeleton Coast. I knew the terror of the men who drove in to this fearful, bland, cross-eyed shore and were called crazy when they got back to port — if they did. I shivered, despite the growing intensity of the sun. I noticed Trout's head beginning to swing away landwards.
A Twist of Sand Page 11