A Twist of Sand

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  I flicked through a table of tides. The causeway would start to flood slowly from about four a.m. onwards with the rising tide. I could get ashore in the half-light of dawn and even if Phylira had the temerity to hang around, they would see no link between the sea and the shore except a line of breaking surf. My bet was that Olafsen would head her straight out to sea as soon as he saw that, if he waited that long looking for me.

  I bent over the chart again and was stepping off the distance carefully between Curva dos Dunas and Cacimba when I sensed more than anything that I was not alone.

  I wheeled round.

  There was Mac. He was grinning — a curious, one-sided, evil grin. In his hand he held a massive wrench. His eyes were without a trace of mercy.

  "Aye," he said slowly, glancing at the chart. "Aye, I thought so right from the start. Lost without trace at sea, eh? Nice insurance for that Greek bastard."

  I saw the way to do it, then. With an accomplice it would be easy, alone it would be near impossible.

  I nodded.

  "Almost, Mac, but not quite."

  "Including the Scots engineer who deserted the Royal Navy to be with his skipper?"

  He said it without rancour. His morals were those of the gutter. He understood, instinctively, what I was about, though he didn't know the details. The killer instinct, beggar-your-neighbour, morals of the gutter.

  I glanced at the heavy wrench. I'd toy with him a moment. I don't think he was offended, even while he thought I was about to leave him to drown. It was what he would have done in my position. We understood each other perfectly. My action, as he saw it, didn't even violate his code of loyalty to me.

  He jerked his head at the chart.

  "Going back to where all the fuss was over the court martial?"

  "Yes, Mac," I replied evenly.

  He hadn't got my drift, but he had assessed the measure of the lure that Curva dos Dunas had for me. He did not know, however, on the one hand the age-old challenge which old Simon Peace had faced — and won up to a point — and which he had bequeathed to me, and on the other the material prospects of a valuable harbour to which I held sole title.

  Mac looked at me squarely.

  "With some men it is women, and with some it is whisky," he said. "With me it's machinery. With you, skipper, it's some God-forsaken piece of land or sea, I'm not quite sure which. It's ruined you once. Why not leave it alone now?"

  Mac would be in this now, I decided: up to his neck in it with me. There could be only one way to get his assistance and that was by telling him everything.

  I took the battered King's Ransom carton from the suitcase and locked the door. Mac looked interested as the key turned, but he knew he could batter me into submission with the wrench. I tipped the contents, the dull uncut stones, on to the table.

  Mac made a curious gesture as he flattened the pile down with the palm of his hand.

  "That's very expensive whisky," he said. It was the only time I had ever seen Mac shaky.

  "Enough," I said briefly.

  "You taking them out?" he asked.

  "No," I said. "I'm taking them in. You and me Mac. Two hundred thousand quid's worth, if I guess right. Maybe more."

  "Do you want me to open the valves?" he asked cryptically. I knew he was in on it now as much as myself.

  "No, Mac," I said, as if we were discussing a minor engine defect and not the biggest thing in diamonds since Cullinan. "In a little more than twenty-four hours from now you will stop the engines and report to me that something has come adrift in the steering gear — the rudder pintles have gone, or any other bloody technicality you like. You'll think up something, or you'll put it wrong yourself."

  Mac grinned. He knew exactly what I meant.

  "I'll lay the Phylira against the current. The Trout current, I call it, just for old times' sake."

  Mac winced. I didn't think it would touch him so deeply.

  "If you've got some real whisky somewhere, I'd find it useful," was all he said.

  I pulled a bottle of my special Johnny Walker Black Label from a locker. Mac took it straight.

  "You've a lot of very fine whisky in this cabin," he muttered.

  "The Trout current sweeps down here at anything between four and six knots, close inshore," I told him. "You'll have to leave enough way on her to cope with that. It swings and weaves through these rocks and shoals like a matelot on a bender. It'll be damn tricky, even if the weather is calm. This swell is enough in itself."

  "I don't get it," said Mac. "I've stopped the engines with just enough way on to hold her against the current and I report to you on the bridge that the steering gear's amiss. What then?"

  "We go over the side to inspect the fault," I said crisply.

  Mac tapped the edge of the whisky glass with the wrench until it rang dully, like a bell of doom.

  "What time is all this?" he said slowly.

  "About three-thirty a.m." I said.

  "And then?"

  "I'll have this old wreck lying a bit to the nor'ard of where I intend to land," I said. "As soon as the boat hits the water, the Trout current will sweep it away from the Phylira. In two minutes we'll be lost in the darkness. I know the way after that. I'll give a course of three-one-oh degrees just before we make our ' inspection.' That'll take the Phylira well out of the way."

  Mac shook his head. "They'll simply turn round and search for us. A couple of hours and it will be full daylight. They'll find us, sure as nuts."

  "You're wrong, Mac," I said quietly. "The Royal Navy never found the U-boat I sank. And no one in this rotten old tub, let alone that soak Olafsen, will find you and me where we are going." I smiled grimly at his set face. "I give you my assurance of that, Mac. I know."

  Mac eyed me for a long time. "So it was a U-boat then? You never said so at the court martial."

  "No, Mac," I said. "And the reasons still hold good to-day. There are others also."

  Mac was as sharp as quicksilver.

  "The… whale noises… special machinery?"

  "Special machinery," I said, looking hard at him. "A lot of men died because of that special machinery."

  "But you never fired a shot," Mac protested.

  I heard the harsh grate in my own voice. "I know how to kill men without using torpedoes or bullets, Mac. The sea and I. See that chart?" I deliberately put my hand across it so he wouldn't see the whorls and the depth readings. "That's a murder weapon, Mac. I used it once to kill men. It's also worth more than all those diamonds, if I get back to do what I want to do. I used it once and I'm going to use it again — and you and I will be rich men."

  "You're a more ruthless bastard than I ever imagined," he said slowly. "But I'm with you. This Skeleton Coast is eating into you, Skipper. If it's as bad as I think, it'll also get you in the end. Is that the plot?"

  "Not all," I said. "It's all deadly simple. Once we're clear of the Phylira, I'll take you in to land. Can we use the small boat with the engine? Is it working?"

  "If it's like everything else on this ship, it isn't," he said acidly. "But I'll make it work by tomorrow night." The thought struck him.

  "But the sound of the engine — they'll pick us up easily…"

  I heard the harshness in my voice again. "They bloody well won't because it will be drowned by the thunder of the surf. We'll be right close in, Mac, so close that it'll probably scare the pants off you. I want that engine working — well. I don't fancy the idea of taking anything in under sail through a deadly channel at night."

  Mac flicked another measure of whisky into the glass.

  "I saw Garland's face when he looked through that periscope," he said, his eyes shadowed. "He was as scared as a man could be. I'll get some water and food into the boat now. You've worked out the plot and I know there won't be any snags. A completely ruthless bastard," he repeated.

  But there were snags.

  As the boat with only Mac and me hit the water that inky night, Curva dos Dunas hit, too.

 
It was a savage right cross from the wind, followed by a brutal left hook by the sea. Phylira never stood a chance.

  Except for the long swell, the sea was relatively calm as I gave the order to clear away the falls of the boat. It had been hauled up forward earlier so that it would run the length of the starboard beam before getting clear. This would give us a lee from the ship's side which would enable me to get her well under control — engineless until we were clear of the ship — as the swift current gripped her. A few minutes before Mac came to the bridge with his faked report about a rudder fault, I had altered course so that the old freighter lay with her head pointing slightly away and parallel to the land. This would get her clear to sea out of danger of the rocks and shoals. On her new course, Phylira now lay with her port beam square to the south-west.

  The right cross of the gale struck with untamed ferocity out of the south-west, without warning. It was so violent that at first I thought it was a squall, but it was to blow for days afterwards. Ply/lira's whole length lay open to the blow. As the boat with Mac and me felt water under her, Phylira reeled under that gigantic elemental punch.

  One moment Phylira was peering ox-like out to sea, the next I was staring horror-struck at the red-painted, rusty side swing over the tiny boat, alive and electrified by the galvanic force of the blow. There was nothing Mac or I could do. In the lee of the ship we were protected from the thundering charge of spray and frenzied wind which tore over the ship. Phylira hung poised over us.

  Mac, one hand on the tiller and the other on the starting-handle, gazed awe-struck as thousands of tons of rusty old steel bent right over us, a moment's hesitation before the death-dealing roll which would take her and us to the bottom.

  "Christ!" he screamed, and began to swing the starter like a madman. It stayed dead. But the Trout current already had us in its grip and we were swept as far as the engine-room. Phylira leaned still more over us and loose gear began falling in the water. Part of the deck came into view, so sharp was the list. Phylira was about to fall right on top of us.

  Then the sea dealt its left hook. The savage mountain of water which the great gale had built up in front of it recoiled off the northerly point of Curva dos Dunas. It was almost the place where I had first seen the graceful, deadly dorsal fin of NP I. The sea staggered back' from the iron-hard sand-bar. The Trout current threw in all the weight of its six knots behind the recoiling wall. The current had already swung the old ship's head from north-west almost round to north-east. I could see Phylira sag as it burst all over her bows and, even above the scream of the wind, I heard the whimper of torn metal. Our cockleshell shot high into the air and we slid by the canting stern into the maelstrom. Phylira disappeared in the darkness.

  Mac got the engine to fire as we swept past like a surf-boat, but it was a puny thing. The boat swung round in the grip of the enhanced current and made madly for the surf. I baled frantically. Then suddenly the water was calmer. We had been swept inside the northern entrance arm of Curva dos Dunas. In the small boat, half full of water now, but afloat, we were safe inside the sand-bars, despite the screaming wind and driving spume.

  The King's Ransom packet lay soggy, but safe, in the water sloshing above the floorboards.

  From the beach next morning we looked at the wreck of the Phylira through my binoculars, wiping them clean of the blowing salt every few minutes. We disposed of the boat by staving in a few planks and weighing her down on the causeway, where the next tide covered her. Phylira lay against the southern entrance — heaven alone knows what combination of sea and wind put her there. Her masts were canted over and from the way she lay I could see that her back was shattered. I spent the morning searching the rigging for traces of the crew, but there were none. When the causeway cleared at the next tide Mac and I got within a few hundred yards of the wreck, but there was not a sign of life.

  Curva dos Dunas would keep Georgiadou's secret well.

  Stein's voice cut into my line of memory.

  "It must have been brilliantly executed, Captain Peace," he sneered. "Georgiadou would love to know the details. You and he should become partners, you know. On the one hand, a Greek with a tortuous, greedy mind, and on the other a sacked Royal Navy officer with a flair for brilliant, ruthless execution. It would be a great team, Captain Peace."

  I said nothing. So he thought I had deliberately disposed of the Phylira and her crew. Well, even to deny it wouldn't send me up much in Stein's opinion. With hellish ingenuity this German beetle-hunter — so he said — had put together a chain of unrelated things and found out just who and what I was. Would any man go to those lengths just for the sake of finding some extinct species of beetle? Curva dos Dunas! There lay my trump card, and I intended to play it. Let him think what he liked about the Phylira. It seemed that Curva dos Dunas was the only thing Stein had not unearthed, that and the fate of NP I.

  Stein looked at us both blandly. He jerked his head generally at the Etosha. "Lowestoft?" he remarked, knowing perfectly well that she had first tasted water on Oulton Broad.

  He was enjoying himself enormously. It was simple enough, of course; he could have seen the brass plate by the bridge companion. But with his evil air, it smelt to me of black magic again.

  I nodded briefly.

  Stein rose and fingered the panelling in the saloon.

  He hummed and then broke into a surprisingly clear tenor.

  "In Lowestoft a boat was laid,

  Mark well what I do say!

  And she was built for the herring trade,

  But she has gone a-rovin', a-rovin', a-rovin',

  The Lord knows where!"

  "Kipling had a way of putting these things, did he not?" he went on urbanely. "The operative words being, of course, 'the Lord knows where!' The Lord and Captain Peace know where!" he mocked.

  Then the mockery died in his voice and he rapped out: "You will be ready to sail at dawn tomorrow, Captain Peace. I shall be here and I shall want room for my assistant, too."

  "You can go to hell!" I retorted. "You and your beetles. Garland isn't here, won't be until tomorrow afternoon and I'm damned if I sail without my first lieutenant."

  "You have no choice at all," Stein replied smoothly.

  "I must wait for the boats," I replied. "Mine got smashed up in a heavy sea. They'll take a couple of weeks to get here."

  "Don't play for time," sneered Stein. "You can't bluff me like that. We sail the morning after tomorrow, then. Garland can be safely back on duty. The rest is unimportant."

  He turned by the companionway and smiled.

  "No need to see me off the ship, Captain Peace," he said. "It's a dark night, and accidents can always happen. This has been a most instructive and informative evening. I can understand why the Royal Navy respected your talent, Captain Peace. I do too, or else I would not be asking you to take me. Gentlemen, to the Skeleton Coast."

  With a melodramatic wave of the hand, he disappeared.

  XI

  A Lady for Onymacris

  "It lighteneth," observed John biblically. He raised his night glasses from their strap and rubbed off the moisture with the tip of his elbow, heavily swathed in an off-white sweater.

  And almost a biblical figure he looked, too, in his thick sweater and balaclava cap dripping droplets of moisture, the whole picture slightly out of focus in the swirling fog.

  I glanced at the compass card.

  "Christ!" I exploded at the Kroo boy. "Can't you keep on course without swinging a point or two either way!"

  He looked truculent. More truculent than scared, although in his hands lay the fate of Etosha and us all, ripping through this cursed darkness with all the power of the great diesels. The telegraph stood at full ahead; she had her head, striding out through the murky water almost dead into the light breeze from the nor'-nor'-west. She had been doing gloriously since I rang down to Mac hours ago when Etosha slipped out of Walvis into the fog. The winter fog was ideal cover for our movements, and if the wind did not freshen
from the north-west, it would hang around until the middle of the afternoon.

  I steadied the wheel over the Kroo boy's shoulder. The fog came in through the open bridge windows, wet, clammy, but fresh with the sea — unlike the land smog with its tale of filth and cities.

  "When do you think we should sight it?" asked John.

  "In about ten minutes, if this black bastard can keep his mind on the job that long," I replied acidly. "Bearing oh-five-oh. You can't miss it."

  "You can miss anything in this fog," rejoined John.

  "No, you won't," I said. "I've been keeping her about six miles offshore all night…" I saw him wince as he thought of the shoals and the rocks as close in, and the wicked currents which come and go along the Skeleton Coast… "and in about ten minutes the sun will be at a sufficient angle to refract under the fogbank. You won't miss the hill in Sierra Bay. It's about six hundred and fifty feet high, and you'll catch a glimpse of white water as the sun glances off the fogbank."

  "Neat as a problem in physics," laughed John.

  "Oh, for God's sake!" I burst out. Then I regretted it. My nerves were shot to hell, tearing through a fogbank like this at sixteen knots and never being sure that I was' not taking Etosha — to a sudden and dreadful death. "Sorry," I said. "But this isn't a pleasure cruise to me — and you know anything can happen on this coast."

  John grinned. "Forget it," he said. "I'm only an unskilled help. You're the backroom boy — you've got it all in your head. I must say it frightens the pants off me."

  "Well," I said, mollified by his calm which was always a tonic to me in a tight corner, "I had to get well clear of Walvis before any of the fishing fleet started cluttering things up. At this speed, if Etosha hits anything, we will all take a nose-dive to the bottom. I'm making like a bat out of hell for Sierra Bay, and I think I'll get a fix on the high hill there. About eight miles to the north-west will be Cape Cross and when we spot the white water there.I'll change from this course nor'-nor'-west to nor'-west. But I'm holding her close in so that we'll be in fog most of to-day, and by this afternoon when it clears we should be somewhere around the Swallow Breakers."