A Twist of Sand

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  John winced again. "Where I put up my classic boob and nearly had us ashore."

  I looked at him sombrely. "I can't promise you I won't do exactly the same. I hope to get another fix there, and then we'll beat it for the mouth of the Cunene." I dropped my voice. "That's where our friend is going to be dumped."

  John looked at me; the fog distorted the size of his eyes.

  "Dumped?"

  "Put ashore," I hastily corrected myself. I wondered if John guessed I had no intention of bringing Stein back alive.

  "Tricky," he said, turning away and raising his glasses.

  "Watch this boy," I told John. "I'm going up above to see if I can get a glimpse of the breakers."

  "Aye, aye," said John.

  The fog seemed thicker up on the "flying bridge." I strode over to the starboard wing and my anger and frustration at the whole project boiled when I saw a duffle-coated figure looking landwards. If I was going to taxi Stein around this perilous coast, at least I wasn't going to have him or any of his party on my bridge.

  I grabbed the coated shoulder.

  "Get off my bridge," I snarled. "Get the hell out of here back to the saloon."

  The hood fell back as the figure turned. It was a girl. Even in my anger I noticed that the long, red-brown hair seemed more to tumble out of her hood than anything else in its profusion.

  I looked at her in stupefaction. The fog perhaps distorted her eyes, but I can see the look in them still. She gazed at me silently.

  "As you wish," she said in a low voice.

  She started to brush past me. All my pent-up anger at Stein and his machinations broke loose.

  "What the bloody hell are you, a woman, doing on my ship?" I burst out. "If Stein thinks he can bring along his home comforts on a trip like this, then, by God, he's mistaken!" A plan flashed through my mind. Cape Cross! Yes, I'd send her ashore in the surf-boat under cover of the fog — there was a primitive settlement there — and she could have a look at life in the raw.

  "Out there," I snapped, waving my hand landwards, "is a series of shacks round a saltpan. I'm putting you ashore there — and you'll bloody well like it, understand? I'm not having any woman on board my ship on a trip like this."

  She eyed me coolly and it may have been a gesture of nervousness, or a woman's instinct, that made her fumble to undo the top button of her duffle-coat.

  "I think we should discuss this question with Dr. Stein, don't you?" she asked levelly.

  "I won't discuss anything with Stein," I snapped back. "I'm not having his bloody woman on my ship. Having him is quite enough."

  "Stop saying ' his woman '," she retorted. She stared at me hard and I remember still that there was a slight crumple of flesh between her right eyelid and eyebrow as she frowned. "So you are the famous Captain Peace," she went off at a tangent.

  I started to reply, but John's hail came floating up.

  "Breakers bearing oh-four-oh, six miles. Geoffrey! Geoffrey!"

  I stood, torn between my anger at finding Stein's woman, and the imperative need to con Etosha.

  She smiled. "Go on, Geoffrey," she mocked. "You can deal with me later. Your ship needs you now."

  I went.

  "I just caught a glimpse of it," said John, "there, I think, bearing now oh-three-five."

  I waited for a moment for the refracted light to strike back.

  "No," I said, "I don't think so. Oh-three-five is too fine. I think it must have been a mirage off the smaller saltpan, which lies just south of the point. How much water under her?"

  John flicked a glance at the echo-sounder.

  "Nine — and a bit, shallowing."

  I grinned at him. "Oddly enough, it's not shallowing just here. As we come opposite the point we'll get up to thirteen fathoms. I wish we would get a bit of sun, though."

  Etosha tore on. John, I could see, was plainly nervous. So was I. Toying with a trick of the light for a reliable bearing on the Skeleton Coast is about as safe as playing Russian roulette.

  The fog dripped, but it was lighter to the east. If I missed this bearing, I would, at best, have to fumble my way northwards to Palgrave Point and Cape Frio and beyond that, in the foul ground towards Curva dos Dunas — I felt myself sweating even at the thought.

  I trained my glasses on a fixed bearing. At thirteen fathoms under Etosha, that should be just about right.

  "How much water under her now?"

  John's voice was surprised.

  "By the deep twelve."

  "Good. Take the helm, will you, John? We should pick it up in a moment. It'll be tricky. I don't want that Kroo boy spoiling things."

  A flicker of light, like a halo, twitched across the landward side of the fog. Here it comes… I thought.

  A bright shaft, almost like a searchlight, struck the outward opaque edge. The sun, as I had assumed, had glanced off the startling white surface of the great saltpan north of Sierra Point; along its beam I hoped to see the bald, eroded hill which stood out at the back of the two saltpans.

  Like a revelation, the fog opened and my landmark was as clear as day.

  "High hill bearing red oh-three-three," I grinned at John, enjoying the complicated problem in navigation.

  But my professional pleasure was spoiled. Stein was on the back of the bridge with the woman.

  "You see, my dear; what I mean when I say that Captain Peace knows the Skeleton Coast quite as well as they say in the bars at Walvis. Look! no charts, no references — it's all in his head. It looks so very simple, does it not? But do you realise that if he didn't know exactly what he was doing, he'd tear the bottom out of her in three minutes?"

  The girl said nothing. I couldn't worry about them now.

  "Steer three-four-oh," I said in a flat voice.

  Etosha came round in a sweeping arc, blinking into broad sunlight for a minute as she cocked a snook at the dun coastline with its balding fringes of windswept weed here and there.

  "Steady as she goes," I said to John. "Put the Kroo boy on now."

  I had my fix and Etosha. was set for Cape Frio. Beyond that…

  Fortunately it was just as suitable for dropping a boat off Cape Cross.

  I turned to Stein.

  "In half an hour," I said acidly, "I shall stop the engines and drop a boat over the side. This woman of yours is going ashore." I looked at the composed face under the duffle-coat hood.

  "You've got about twenty minutes to get your things together."

  Stein grinned his ray-like grin. This was the sort of situation he loved.

  "May I introduce," he said calmly, "Dr. Anne Nielsen, of the National Zoological Museum in Stockholm."

  I gazed at her in cold rage.

  "You're losing time," I snapped. "If your things aren't ready, I'll throw them over the side after you."

  "Dr. Nielsen," Stein continued, "is the only scientist in the world — at least in this generation — to have actually examined the species Onymacris in the flesh, or shall we say, in the shell?"

  I still did not catch on.

  "What all this mumbo-jumbo has to do with me, I am at a loss to know," I retorted. Etosha was cutting through the fog and it gave an eerie air of making everything a little larger — like her eyes.

  "Shall I explain, that Dr. Nielsen is my principal assistant on this trip and she will accompany me in order to establish whether or not the Onymacris beetle lives on the Skeleton Coast. It will be a discovery of the first importance, both to science and the world. Captain Peace," he said and his voice hardened, "you will understand that there is no question of putting Dr. Nielsen ashore? She comes with me."

  The thought gave me a jolt. If I did away with Stein, she'd have to be a victim too. I must have been pondering this deeply until suddenly I was aware that I was staring at her; the only sound on the bridge was the click of the ratchet on the helm.

  I looked from her to him.

  "Very well," I said, "but I hadn't bargained for a woman. On a ship like this there's not much room.
You'll have to find a corner somewhere. Mister Garland will see to that. And — Stein — if you have any more surprises in your party, you'd better tell them to me quickly, or else…" I left the sentence unfinished.

  Stein said smoothly. "My personal bodyguard and general factotum is, of course, Johann."

  "Johann!" I gasped. "That mad U-boat rating! God's truth, Stein, what is this?"

  "It's my expedition and you are going to put us ashore at a spot which — I hope sometime to-day you will be good enough to show me on a chart. My objective on land is slightly west of the Baynes Mountains."

  I stared at him in open disbelief. The woman first, the mad German rating second, and the Baynes Mountains third.

  "The Baynes Mountains!" I exclaimed. "You're crazy, Stein! No white man has ever set foot inside them."

  "Except Baynes," retorted Stein.

  "And do you really expect me to hang around the Skeleton- Coast while you traipse off to the Baynes Mountains ú — you'll take a month at least to get there."

  "Depending," interrupted the girl, "where you put us ashore."

  "That's fair enough," I replied. The freshening wind blew back the hood. Her hair was very lovely. "But when I undertook to convey you to the Skeleton Coast, I understood that you were making a quick run ashore — at the most two or three days. There was no mention of a specific objective."

  "You will fetch us in a month's time, depending on where you are putting us ashore," said Stein. I didn't like the way he said "will."

  This new development meant I must disclose the whereabouts of Curva dos Dunas — at least vaguely. Well, I ruminated grimly, they've all signed their own death warrant. Pretty girl or no pretty girl, Curva dos Dunas was mine. I salved my conscience quickly. I could perhaps arrange a "leak "through Mark and the police would round them up, but then I would be involved if Stein spoke — and I felt quite sure he wouldn't hesitate if he found I had turned the tables on him. I shelved the question for the moment.

  Stein was speaking again.

  "I think the best plan is if we go to the saloon and I shall indicate exactly where I am going."

  I nodded. The girl went first.

  I found myself alone in the saloon with her. She slipped off the unshapely duffle-coat and I was surprised at the slim figure underneath. She wore corduroy slacks and a tangerine shirt. It looked as if it had come straight from the laundry. Her breasts barely filled the curve of the shirt.

  She caught my glance and smiled.

  "Not exactly the rig for the Skeleton Coast, thinks Captain Peace?"

  "I don't think this coast is any place for any woman at all," I said gruffly, half irritated at her close scrutiny of myself. I hadn't shaved as I had been on the bridge all night and I could feel the sticky mixture of salt air and fog moisture on the bristles. My eyes probably looked like a drunk's.

  "Cigarette?" she asked, pulling out a packet of Peter Stuyvesant.

  "I don't smoke," I said, "or practically never."

  There was a reserved, mocking smile on her lips.

  "Spoils the ability to smell where you are off the Skeleton Coast?" she asked lightly.

  I looked at her, but there was no laughter in my reply.

  "Stein didn't tell me he was bringing a woman along with him. Particularly an attractive woman. I just don't like the whole idea."

  There was no laughter this time from her either.

  "Your idea or his idea?" she asked penetratingly.

  I fenced it off, but it gave me the measure of her intelligence.

  "The two ideas must necessarily combine. I supply the landing-point — so I thought. That is my business. Where it is is also my business. I wasn't bargaining for a return pick-up in a month's time."

  "Return pick-up sounds awfully like some kind of tart," she grinned.

  But she cut short my return grin and I found myself feeling rather inane with it hanging on my lips. She took a quick draw on the cigarette — I noticed she had almost smoked half of it in our brief conversation — and said crisply, as if she regretted her sally: "You're Captain Macdonald, alias Lieutenant-Commander Peace, aren't you?"

  I didn't like the way she said it.

  I nodded.

  "That's right," I sneered. "Lieu tenant-Commander Geoffrey Peace, D.S.O. and two Bars, Royal Navy, cashiered. Now a fisherman. At present engaged in dubious unspecified activities off the Skeleton Coast."

  "I just want you to get it quite clear what my position is in all this," she went on decisively. "Let's get the record straight before we start. The first thing that springs to your mind when you see me is that I'm Stein's woman. Those were your own words."

  "What else was I to think?" I rejoined lamely. "An attractive young woman…" My words petered out.

  "Exactly," she snapped, grinding the cigarette savagely. "To you a woman means only one thing — and you had the impertinence to say it to a complete stranger. Get this clear; I don't like Stein any more than I like you on first acquaintance."

  "Then there's nothing more to be said," I snapped back.

  "There's a great deal more," she said. "I know the sort of man Stein is, and I know the sort of people he hires to work for him."

  We stared across the table in open hostility.

  "If you know all about slumming, why come along?" I sneered back. "Why dirty your lily-white hands with all this human offal?"

  She lit another cigarette angrily.

  "Don't you know what a living Onymacris means to science?"

  "No," I replied, "and I don't give a damn either.. Stein is no more hunting an extinct beetle than I am. I don't see him as the scientist in his ivory — or is it uranium — tower devoting his life and fortune to restoring one little beetle to the sum of human knowledge."

  "I was absolutely right in my assessment of you," she said. "Tough, ruthless, self-centred, no gain but my gain. You wouldn't know what it felt like to have a leading ideal about a thing like this."

  I was more curious than angry now.

  "And you have — of course."

  "Look," she said, "I was born during the civil war in China…"

  "Is this autobiography really necessary?" I asked.

  The barb went home. She flushed. She turned away to the porthole.

  "It only is because it illustrates why I am here," she said. "I haven't got any illusions about Stein — or about you, for that matter. Or this expedition. But Onymacris matters — matters, oh, so much."

  I wasn't going to let her get away with all that.

  "There must be something darkly Freudian about conceiving a passion for a beetle," I said.

  "Damn your cheap flippancy," she snapped. "When did you last speak decently to a woman?"

  "I never do. It was one of the charges when they cashiered me."

  She ignored this. "My father was one of the world's leading authorities on beetles," she said. "Without boring you with tales of hardship and being only one jump ahead of death for months on end, ahead of one opposing army or the next, he and I eventually got to the edge of the Gobi Desert. Mother, who was English, died long before that. He rediscovered Onymacris there. When at last we escaped from China, he died one night suddenly of a heart attack aboard a sampan near the Yangtse mouth. I didn't know about it till morning. The body was robbed by the coolies. His precious three beetles, which we'd kept alive when we thought we'd die of starvation ourselves, had been stamped flat. Just a couple of squashed things at the bottom of an old shoebox. A lifetime's work for science crushed out by some careless foot. I'm going to find Onymacris again — for science. I've got to. That's why I'm here."

  "It must sound a pretty obvious question," I said. "But why not go back to the Gobi and get some more, if you're so keen?"

  "First," she said a little didactically, and I could see now that she was a little older than her looks and figure would seem to indicate, "it's behind the Iron Curtain. Second, the place where we found them is now a prohibited area, anyway. Probably a sputnik launching site. An Iron Cu
rtain behind an Iron Curtain. I know. I've tried."

  "It seems a tough proposition." I agreed.

  She came back shortly: "Onymacris is a tough proposition, Captain Peace. And I expect to find only tough circumstances where it is. That's what makes it so precious to science. It's not one of the things you find by chance on a Sunday afternoon walk. You've got to work for it. It's a tough proposition."

  "Like this outfit," I said ironically.

  She looked at me levelly. "Like this outfit, Captain Peace. Like yourself, Captain Peace. Like this coast, Captain Peace, which I am told you know so well. I'm after something tough, just like you, that's why I accepted Stein's invitation without hesitation. You can forget about the woman-comfort side of things. I thought I'd explain this clearly to you before you start showering your protective instincts on a helpless female."

  "I don't see how you could be a doctor of science at Stockholm…" I began.

  "Why not?" she flashed. "Every moment of my life I've slept, eaten, talked beetles. What's so strange about it? My father taught me everything — and more — a university ever could. A doctor's degree is a necessary appendage, that's all. It couldn't have been easier. A piece of cake." She lit another cigarette. She came back at me remorselessly.

  "Why are you so cagey about this whole landing affair? Why don't you think it's safe?"

  "Listen," I rapped out, fast losing patience, for she was so damnably sure of herself and her precious beetle. "Everyone loves this blasted beetle so much, you'd think it was pure gold. You'd think each one of us was acting within the law, when we're just as far outside it as could be. I'm putting you ashore — illegally — at an illegal spot on the ú Skeleton Coast. You and Stein have absolutely no right to I be there. You yourself admit it isn't going to be easy. I say so too. I'm aiding and abetting a crime."