The anchor clattered over the side. Eight fathoms and a bottom of hard sand. Good holding ground.
Anne said, a trifle judicially, "I seem to remember an American lieutenant in that famous old-time battle off Boston — what was it?…"
"Shannon? Chesapeake?" said John.
"Yes," said Anne. "That's it — Chesapeake. They reinstated him donkeys' years later… "
I smiled grimly when I thought of the Director of Naval Intelligence. One played that game by their rules — until death do us part.
She might have been arguing for the man, not the cause.
Stein, however, aligned himself with me.
"Captain Peace has too much of a past to let him fo I comfortable," he said amiably. "The present is what matters. The Afrikaaners have an expression — ' Don't haul dead cows out of the ditch.' With Captain Peace in particular they are apt to stink."
Anne turned to John.
"You could send a radio message. There's nothing to stop you."
"Except," I said acidly, "a squadron of American ships which is cruising around here somewhere recovering guided missiles fired from Cape Canaveral. They've got aircraft with them, too. Go ahead. Broadcast to the world our illegal mission. They've got the latest radar and radio-interception devices in the world. Even so, they won't find Etosha. Not in this anchorage, anyway."
Stein glanced at me in veiled admiration.
"This Captain Peace would be a great poker-player — always a new ace up his sleeve."
"See the sand blowing across from the sand-bars there?" I said. It billowed like a windsock of snow from the summit of Mount Everest. '* That sand is laden with mica and chemical salts. You remember a thing the U-boats used in the war — Bold, they called it? They used to release a film of chemical components which hung like a curtain in the water and foxed our asdics. The same thing happens with that sand. Radar will simply not penetrate inside here." I turned to Anne with more vehemence than I really meant. "Go ahead. Get John to signal your American friends. And explain all this away too."
A flush came up on her cheeks, already bright with the wind.
"Computation — you remember?" was all she said.
"Are you ready to go ashore?" I asked Stein.
"In half an hour," he said. "I've got the stores all packed."
"You'll have to put up with the surf-boat," I said. "The others got smashed… er — at sea in a blow. I'll send the Kroo boy, he's the best surfman amongst the crew."
Stein's mouth hardened.
"You're going to send us ashore at the mercy of a single kaffir? What does he know about this anchorage?"
I almost felt sorry for Stein then. It was like dropping an unwanted puppy in a bucket of water with a brick round its neck. But he knew too much. The girl — well, I had a plan for her.
"Of course I'm coming," I said. "How far do you think you'd get without me?"
Stein relaxed. I refused to look at Anne.
"Get the boat alongside," I told John. "Detail the Kroo boy to come with me. Get some of the others to load the stuff into the boat. Smack it about."
Stein had certainly helped himself liberally to Etosha's stores. With typical thoroughness he had labelled everything. Jim, the Kroo boy, stood in the tossing surf-boat with its high prow, and the crew passed down things to him. Stein had even roped up some canvas — for a tent presumably. He came up with a Remington high velocity in one hand and the Luger in the other. He was like a child off on a picnic.
"Arms for the man," he grinned. He'd also stuck: i Bowie knife in his belt. "This will stop almost anything," he patted the Remington affectionately. "For person: I protection, there's nothing at all to touch the old Lugci. Perfect balance in the hand."
Anne had changed into a thicker red sweater and a duffel coat. She was very silent.
Stein knelt down and listened to Johann's breathing.
"Tie his hands and throw him in the boat," he said callously. "He may come round on the way to the to the beach. He may cause trouble if he finds you in the boat also."
Johann was heaved like a sack of potatoes into the boat.
The native crew looked on goggle-eyed. The surf-boat looked very deep in the water, but I thought she would be all right.
I jumped in. Anne stood at the open rail and looked down into my face.
"Come on," I called. "Jump. I'll catch you."
It may have been the blowing salt, but her eyes were wet. The right eyelid was slightly rumpled. She gave a ghost of a smile and leapt lightly down, scarcely making use of my proffered hands.
Stein came last. I noticed the bulge of ammunition in his pockets. Well, he'd need it, every round of it, to get him out alive. You can't shoot the Skeleton Coast.
"Cast off," I said.
"Back in two hours," I called to John.
The Kroo boy cast off expertly. If he was something of a duffer at Etosha's wheel, he certainly was in his element now. He guided the heavily-laden boat expertly as I headed her towards the channel. Our course lay roughly across the causeway, now submerged, to the beach, which meant the boat would have the protection of the sand-bars for the tricky run in through the surf. Since they guarded the beach against the south-westerly swell, it shouldn't be too risky. A dollop of water came aboard and Anne gave a slight gasp. Curva dos Dunas certainly looked more terrifying from the low level of a boat than from a ship's bridge. The surf creamed on every side, but with the boat's compass I took a quick bearing and then headed her almost directly towards the high hill to the north. Once inside the channel it became smoother, and the water turned white with a pale blue backing — like the colour of a Lazy Grey shark. Satisfied that I was now over the causeway proper, I turned the boat directly shoreward.
"How's your surf-riding?" I asked Anne banteringly.
"Not so good," she replied, putting on a brave show, but I could plainly see she was terrified of the line of creaming surf ahead.
"This Kroo boy is as good as they come," I said. "He'll take her in like a ski-boat."
"It would solve a good many problems if we all got drowned," she said sombrely. She shivered inside the duffle-coat, now glistening with a faint film of white salt.
Stein was silent. Johann had given a stir, but his eyes remained shut. The Kroo boy, wearing only an ancient pair of Jantzen trunks, had unshipped the tiller and was steering with an oar. He was grinning with animation. It was a challenge to his skill. The ragged fringe of beard — all southern African natives are vastly proud of even a few wisps of a beard for it is a sign of virility — whipped back across his left cheek.
"I put her ashore — any pertikler place, baas?" he shouted. The boat bucked with the first of the inshore breakers.
"Anywhere you think best," I called back. "Anywhere on that beach."
"Good-oh," he yelled, remembering some sailor's expression.
Now that the beach was closer, I could see that it was not fine sand, but coarse, broken here and there by rocks fretted and polished by the wind.
The Kroo boy yawed slightly. I had not noticed the big comber building up about twenty yards to starboard. But he had, and in a moment we were carried majestically, high above the surrounding sea. Then the nose of the boat tilted downwards and, with the water vainly clutching at both gunwales, rushed at something like twenty knots for the beach.
Anne sank down by one of the seats and closed her eyes, clutching at the wood.
"Steady as she goes," I ordered, quite unnecessarily, to the Kroo boy. The sea had given him life. The underfed figure was proud and tensed under the whip of the wind and waves. The black face, usually sullen and unwilling, had become alive.
The great breaker streamed in towards the beach. If we touched anything, let alone the iron-hard beach, it would tear the planking out like matchwood. Even a strong swimmer wouldn't last five minutes in the maelstrom. But the oarsman knew his job. Suddenly the boat lurched sickeningly to port, into a welter of foam. Another great wave ahead of ours had crashed on the beach and
was hurtling itself back seawards. The spindrift, thick as foam, enveloped the boat, and I had to peer to see above it. The boat's motion was stayed like a turbo-prop engine in reverse. She touched once, touched twice. In a second the oarsman was over the side, up to his waist and hauled her in towards the beach. I jumped out after him, hauling on the other bow at a short painter. The sea slopped inside my half-boots. Without looking back — we both knew the menace of that twenty knot wave even a biscuit-toss from the shore — we hauled the boat up on the tough shingle.
"Out!" I yelled to Anne and Stein. Their feet crunched on the beach. We hauled the boat still higher. The Kroo boy and I were panting, and my peaked cap was floating in an inch of bilge-water.
"My God! "said Stein.
"How'll you ever get back?" shuddered Anne^ her face pale.
"It's like Sputnik," I grinned back. "It's much easier going than coming."
There was a nervous air about Stein.
"Get Johann out and lay him here on the beach. Untie his hands," he said rapidly.
I stared at him in surprise. After his earlier attitude, it wouldn't have surprised me if he'd thrown him overboard. Now he was fussing like a hen over a chick.
The Kroo boy obediently hauled him out and laid him on the sand.
The touch of the gritty shingle electrified the unconscious man.
Without opening his eyes, his hands, as if of their own volition, reached out, fingering the shingle. Then the hand moved slowly up the side of the face, as if exploring the beach against his cheek. He gave a terrible scream and sat upright. Thank God his hands are still tied, I thought.
Stein jabbed him with the Remington, while the Kroo boy, aghast at the wide eyes and screaming mouth, like a gutted barracouta, cringed against the boat. I was glad to find Anne close to me.
"Shut up, you bloody fool," he shouted. "Besatzung Stillgestanden! Attention!"
Johann rose, U-boat discipline still automatic in his make-up, but he whimpered and gathered up another handful of sand. Sand had made him mad. It wasn't any wonder, looking along that desolate beach with the granules of hard sand chafing like sandpaper. It never seemed to blow away. There was always more.
Stein cut the ropes and gestured with the rifle to the boat.
"Unload," he said harshly.
Blindly, as if only his motor impulses and not his mind were working, Johann stumbled across to the boat. Without waiting, the Kroo boy started to pass the stores to him and together they piled them up a little way up the beach, out of reach of the sea.
Stein, still obviously tense, made a movement of his hand towards Johann.
"A living Nemesis of your misdeeds, Captain Peace," he sneered. "You should have made a good job with the machine-gun. See what the touch of the sand does to him."
I saw the fret of the wind and the sand and could sense the utter desolation the mad sailor must have felt when, somehow or other, he had got ashore — alone, utterly alone, with my ghastly machine-gun wound in his arm. The blowing sand made for a grey light, even with the sun shining and the white reflection off the surf; the sand had a quality of stinging which, after some time, would be like the drip of water in Chinese-torture.
The muscles tugged at the corners of my mouth and eyes. I sensed, too, what Anne was feeling.
"Poor devil," she said softly.
We watched the two men unload the stores and heavy tarpaulin. They had to drag it up the shingle by the ropes. The pile of wrapped pieces looked utterly forlorn and pathetic. In a few moments the drag-marks had been obliterated by the blowing sand. Everything seemed too inadequate against the mighty forces which were apparent on every hand. Johann came over to join us while the Kroo boy went to fetch one last thing out of the boat. I think it was my cap. He was about fifteen yards away. He was bending over, the underfed hipbones projecting from the ragged trunks.
Stein walked quickly over towards him. The boy's back was towards us. He couldn't have heard Stein coming.
Nor did Stein hear Anne's scream as she started towards him. Some sixth sense must have told her what he was about.
As it was, it was so unexpected to me that it hit me like a blow in the stomach.
Stein pulled out the Luger and shot the Kroo boy through the back of the head.
The wind carried the sound of the shot away, adding to the ghastly unreality of it all. It was like something happening in slow motion, miles away. Anne, sobbing, with arms outstretched, reached for the weapon. I saw Stein turn, in the same ghastly slow motion, death for her in his eyes too. He hadn't heard her until that moment. The black figure pitched forward slowly and lay raggedly half in and half out the boat.
One life more or less didn't matter at that moment to Stein. I think the madness which I saw in his eyes had obliterated all comprehension who it was reaching for his Luger.
Thank God my cap had fallen off in the boat. I was able to tear the heavy binoculars in their leather case from round my neck without obstruction and, using the strap as a sling, cast it at Stein.
The soft, harmless thump in his ribs jerked the kill-lust from his eyes. A split second before Anne was a dead woman. As she clawed at him for the gun I saw the mighty control he exercised over himself. He turned the barrel away almost as if he feared his own reflexes would beat his mind to the draw. At the same moment I saw his left forearm with its heavy watch crash into Anne's cheekbone. She fell sideways on to the shingle in an untidy heap.
I leapt forward.
Stein swivelled the Luger at my stomach. "Back!" he shouted hoarsely, "Get back! Johann!" He threw the Remington by the barrel away to his left. "Get that rifle, Johann! Kill him if he makes a move!"
The mad sailor's face creased in a grin. He grabbed the rifle and flicked the bolt expertly.
"Now, Herr Kapitan?" he grinned.
"No, soon," said Stein soothingly, as if talking to a patient. "Soon, see?"
"You murdering bastard!" I rapped out, "I'll…"
Stein had regained all his composure in a few brief seconds.
"On the contrary, Captain Peace, I have you to thank for not committing me to that reprehensible category. If you hadn't thrown that case, I might have forgotten myself — just for the moment. The consequences to myself, but more particularly to this expedition, would have been immeasurable. Without our scientist, all our best efforts would have been put to naught, not so?"
It seemed hardly possible that this bland, self-controlled man had just killed in cold blood.
"I'll get you back to Walvis to hang for this," I snarled.
I knelt down by the crumpled form on the beach. There was an ugly mark on her cheek. She moaned slightly. She wasn't badly hurt. She'd be round in a moment.
"Very touching," sneered Stein. "Sir Galahads have always got me down, even from the original prototype. But get this quite clear, Captain Geoffrey Peace. You've just saved this expedition in a way which you couldn't have foreseen. You wouldn't have got off this beach alive today but for your quixotic gesture. You are not going back to Walvis. You're coming with me."
"Like hell I am," I retorted.
I didn't like the look of the Luger, or the Remington. The girl moaned quietly. She was still stunned.
"You don't think," he sneered, "that I was going to allow you to go back to your ship merely on the promise that you would come back again, did you? Give me credit for a little assessment of your character, Captain Peace. You're a functional aid to this expedition, no more. Just like that silly woman there. She's a dedicated woman, Captain Peace, but I must say this little effort of hers took me unawares. She has her uses, just like you. Again I must thank you for what you did — it would have been too bad to have ended her functional usefulness prematurely." He half-bowed mockingly. "If I had allowed you back on board, all you had to do was to forget about Stein and his party, and the Skeleton Coast would do the rest. You don't think I — to quote a military phrase — would allow you to keep your lines of communication open while cutting mine?"
So S
tein had anticipated my moves. All my neat plans for getting Anne back to Etosha and leaving Stein and Johann to their fate, a horrid fate, had been trumped.
He must have seen the look on my face, for he burst out laughing.
"You made me shoot that kaffir," he said, without pity. "You can't get the surf-boat back by yourself. It's the only boat in Etosha anyway. Garland has simply no option but to wait for our return. He couldn't navigate the channel out to sea. So you'll come along, whether you like it or not. I'll watch you every moment, so don't try any tricks. You'll guide the party to the Baynes Mountains."
"Without instruments or a compass?" I asked.
"The boat's compass is good enough, and you're an expert," he replied. "I don't want positions of exact latitude and longitude. You'll navigate — where I want to go. Johann will be your personal bodyguard. His finger's just itching on that trigger."
Anne lay quite still.
"And — the girl?"
My gesture must have had more in it than I thought.
"Ah, the girl," he said. "Scientist to spitfire in a flash! Chivalrous Captain Peace! She is, as you might say, a hostage to science. She is the only living person who can positively identify Onymacris, and as such she is absolutely indispensable. She comes along — unharmed. You are the only person who can get in and out of the Skeleton Coast without anyone else knowing. Johann is a hostage, a hostage to your past, Captain. He certainly won't let you forget that!"
Anne opened her eyes.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Get some water," I said briefly to Johann. He paused, but Stein waved him on.
"Not the water-bottle," he added. "Just enough in a mug."
I played for time.
"You can't expect me to hike a hundred or two miles inland in this rig," I said.
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