Southtrap

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  Then the mainmast crashed against the cliff level with our ledge. The topsail yard scraped along our rock.

  I knew in a flash what to do.

  I stood up, half-carried, half-led Linn, and swung myself on to the yard by some trailing buntlines and sheets.

  That mainmast must go at any moment; it also must fall clear the only way Wegger could escape in the motor-launch, namely on the weather side.

  The mast sheared, the ship shattered, and we toppled sideways all in one movement. The mast broke, in two places, one at deck level and the other at the topmast cap-stay, just above our heads. The main section struck the rock first with a bone-shattering jar and then rebounded seawards in a slow arc from the drag of its retaining tackle.

  We hit the water. I heard the crackle of an engine.

  The mast had fallen almost on top of Wegger.

  He wrenched the tiller over but before the rudder could bite he was amongst the ropes and fallen rigging. And us.

  I shot to my feet, balancing myself on the plunging yard like a circus act, while I hauled Linn up beside me.

  Within half a dozen metres the motor-launch had tangled with some shrouds and backstays. Linn and I raced along the intervening space like trapeze artists. We toppled headlong into the boat.

  My first thought was to remember how Wegger had gunned down the survivors on deck as they made for the launch.

  I pulled myself off the bottom-boards. 'Wegger…!'

  He was trying to back clear of the wreckage.

  'She's fast for'ard!' he rapped out. 'Quick, man! Free her! The screw mustn't foul!'

  I knew as well as he what would happen if it did. I unhitched myself from Linn and darted forward. The bow was enmeshed in some of the main deck life-nets and part of the maintop shrouds. I grabbed some floating wreckage and prised it free.

  'Hard astern!' I yelled at Wegger.

  Wegger gunned the engine, went astern for a few moments, and then skilfully manoeuvred the launch to clear the wreck.

  Suddenly Linn called, 'Stop!' There's a man swimming — right here! A little to your right…'

  There was only one person that huge frame could have been — Ullmann. He was swimming strongly towards us.

  One moment he was there, the next his face shot out of the water as he screamed in agony.

  I saw the great black fin dart between the launch and the swimmer like a running torpedo.

  Killer whale.

  Then Ullmann was gone.

  Four other black fins raced past us to the pounding wreck.

  'Wegger,' I shouted, clawing my way aft, 'make for the shore! They'll come for the boat once they've finished off the men in the water!'

  He didn't seem to follow me.

  'You're heading out to sea, man! Take her in — port, port, port!'

  He jammed the tiller over so hard I thought we were lost as the fragile craft rose high on the next roller and plunged. From the wave's crest I had a glimpse of iron-bound black cliffs.

  Ship Rock is about 100 metres from the shore but it seemed only seconds before we were amongst the boiling water of the reefs which run out from the mainland cliffs, dissected and serrated by a million storms.

  The launch struck, slewed, stuck.

  There was only one thing for it. I jumped over the bow into the perishingly cold sea.

  I went up to my armpits. I felt my boots on the ragged out-crops. I put a shoulder under the bow, trying to heave the boat to safety. But she slewed further, canted, then went almost clean over with a grinding, rending noise as her bottom was ripped out. My grip on the bow was torn loose but I hung on to a painter which I had looped round my wrist. I stumbled, fell, stumbled landward — to safety.

  The next wave carried the launch on and deposited it on the reef. High, if not dry.

  'Linn!'

  She half-fell over the side to me. Together, with my arm supporting her, we lurched higher on to the rocks, out of reach of the waves.

  In a moment or two Wegger threw himself down alongside us.

  For five, maybe ten, minutes, we all lay there gasping, panting, gagging seawater. Fine spray spurted over us at every roller.

  The numbness of my feet and fingers matched the numbness of my mind. It was the realization that I might allow myself to slip into unconsciousness that made me pull myself into a sitting position. First, I dragged off my waterlogged boots. Then I started massaging my fingers and slapping my arms.

  The initial thing I became conscious of was the absence of wind. For days the gale had tormented me,now its force was broken by the cliff at the foot of which we lay. There was hardly any light beyond a curious grey undertone to everything. We had finished up in a kind of rocky gully, not big enough to be styled a cove. There was a sheltering arm between us and the sea. The motor-launch lay on the seaward side.

  'Linn! Wake up!'

  She was lying on her side, coughing and shaking.

  I crawled to her, tugged off her boots and started to massage the circulation back into her feet.

  She sat up, tried to smile, but a spasm of cold rocked her.

  Then she managed to say, 'We made it, darling.'

  'Yes,' I answered. 'We made it. Just.'

  'Where are we?'

  I had taken Prince Edward so for granted from the moment I had sighted Ship Rock that I found it hard to realize she did not know.

  'You don't know? Prince Edward Island.'

  She gave a gasp of surprise and glanced at Wegger, who had not opened his eyes.

  The words acted on him like a shot of adrenalin. He sat up and shook himself like a dog. His clothes were soaking and his face was stained with salt and fatigue. But he vibrated at the sound of the name.

  'Ship Rock — that's what she struck, wasn't it, Shotton?'

  'Yes. We're ashore almost at the northernmost point of the island. I'd guess Vaalkop is right at the back of us now.'

  Wegger turned the name over on to his tongue, almost affectionately. 'Vaalkop! I know every inch of it.'

  'What is Vaalkop?' asked Linn.

  'It's an extinct volcano. These cliffs are part of its lava which once flowed into the sea. Ship Rock is the submerged heart of the crater.'

  Wegger sprang up.

  'Shotton! The launch! We've got to get it higher out of reach of the waves!'

  I ignored him and continued massaging Linn's feet. 'That boat will never float again — didn't you hear the bottom go?'

  He pulled out his Luger and held it on me. 'Shotton! You'll do as I say!'

  'Forget that bloody gun!' I snapped. The boat's holed — don't you understand?'

  'We'll fix her, we'll patch her, you and me, Shotton. We'll make it yet.'

  I reached for my boots. 'We've made it, Wegger. We're ashore on Prince Edward Island — your destination. At the cost of how many lives?'

  Linn moved and I noticed the tell-tale sag of the transmitter inside her wet parka. I put my hand on her knee to keep her still. I looked hard at her, trying to pass on my warning.

  'Rest a bit, Linn. You've been through quite something. Get your breath back — do you understand?'

  Then she did, and sank down again.

  Wegger stood over us like a grey ghost in the half-light. His words competed against the roar of the breakers.

  'We will fix the launch, do you hear? Then we'll lift the gold — some of it, at any rate. We'll still take it to Mauritius. It'll buy a ship, I'll return for the rest…'

  'Wegger,' I replied, trying not to provoke him, 'we're roughly three thousand and seven hundred kilometres from Mauritius. To begin with, where will the fuel for the motor-launch come from? That distance in an open launch!'

  'Don't try and thwart me, Shotton,' he blazed back. 'It's been done before. In the old days men used to come down here in small boats from Mauritius to hunt seal. It's an easy ride once you're clear of the Westerlies. We don't need fuel — she's got a sail and a mast. She isn't an open boat either — she's decked in for'ard and astern. She'll make i
t, I say.'

  Linn put her icy hand on mine. Perhaps, like me, she was thinking of her good-luck coin in the step of the mast. Sailing to Mauritius after our escape from Ship Rock would certainly be over-stretching our luck.

  'How do you intend to repair the launch with its bottom stove in without tools, a fire, a proper slip or anything else?' I asked.

  'Shut up!' he retorted. 'Shut up! We'll make a plan! You will, Shotton! Now get down to the boat!'

  We dodged from behind the shelter of the cliff. The wind was indeed less. The launch was half-awash among the rocks. One look at it convinced me that we could never repair it at Prince Edward. It had a gaping hole about two metres long in the bottom. Two planks were completely stove in.

  Wegger's plan seemed to lend him an energy which my exhausted muscles did not possess. He did most of the work in hauling up the dead boat clear of the waves and making it secure.

  Afterwards we scrambled back to Linn across the razor-edged rocks. She was standing against the cliff out of reach of the spray, stamping her feet and banging her arms to keep her circulation going. Her face was pinched and blue.

  I noted immediately that the transmitter's tell-tale bulge was missing from her parka.

  I was not to know then what the fateful consequences of her action were to be.

  'Wegger,' I said. 'We've got to get ourselves warm. We won't see the day out otherwise.'

  Although his teeth were chattering also, he seemed in high spirits. He was swinging his head this way and that, like a dog sniffing home after a long spell in kennels.

  I found a sodden box of matches in a pocket.

  'Maybe we'll get a little sun later,' he said. The wind's on its way out.'

  'Difficult to say — we're sheltered here,' I replied cautiously, but I felt nevertheless that his forecast was right.

  We had come ashore on the tip of the flat western coastal plain, at the foot of the extinct volcano appropriately named Vaalkop (Greyhead). The island's western shore was guarded by a row of stupendous and precipitous sea-cliffs, backed inland by a kingly ridge called the Great Western Escarpment. The wind which had been deflected off Vaalkop's sinister pallid slopes had caught Botany Bay aback and brought about her final destruction. I had often seen this coast, with its iron-bound cliffs and black and cinnamon-tipped volcano cones, from the sea. I had never thought to know them more closely.

  'As soon as it's proper light we'll get moving,' said Wegger.

  My soggy mind missed the significance of his remark at the time. I presumed the move would be further from the gully to higher, safer ground.

  'I'll try and get these matches dry,' I said to Linn. 'There's a way of doing it, when there's no sun.'

  I went to her and stroked the matches individually through her hair. It was wet at the ends but drier towards the roots. The novelty of the operation took her mind off herself. As I went on, she looked deep into my eyes. I wanted to kiss away the grim marks round them, get rid of the sootiness which had accumulated on her face from the constant tending of the fire aboard Botany Bay.

  'I never thought my hair would be used for fire,' she remarked.

  This is only stage one,' I told her. 'The second is to find something to strike them on.'

  When I had a dozen or so dry I said to Wegger, 'I'm going to try the launch for something to burn.'

  'Don't touch the planks,' he warned. 'I'm coming too.'

  We returned to the wreck. I found some half-dry cotton waste in the decked-in bow section. I also discovered a tin of instant coffee. Most of its contents had spilled — the lid was missing — but the glutinous mess was still good enough to provide something warm and stimulating. There was also a packet of biscuits, mashed to a dough-like pulp.

  Then I tapped a little fuel out of the tank, wetting the cotton waste with it. I shorted the battery and got a feeble spark. When I held a match to it, it ignited, and I set the cotton waste smouldering.

  Back where Linn was waiting, I found fresh water filtering down the cliff. I blew up the cotton waste and in the end we each had some pulpy biscuit and a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. But coffee it was.

  I was still drinking from the tin when Linn exclaimed, pointing seawards, 'John! There's a man out there!'

  I missed him at first because my attention was on the black fins of the killer whales racing like a U-boat pack through the floating masts, spars and timbers of the wreck.

  'There — up on Ship Rock!' Linn said.

  It was lighter over the sea than below our cliffs. Then I spotted the figure high up — Heaven knows how he had got there — clinging to the face of the massive pillar.

  'God help him, Linn — we can't.'

  'John — we can't leave him!'

  'It will be a mercy if he drops off soon,' I replied slowly. 'He's only prolonging his own agony. He'll never last, up there.'

  She turned away in silent grief and hid her face in her hood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The growing light — it was after six o'clock — revealed a grim, savage scene both out to sea and on land.

  Vaalkop's 200-metre crater was out of sight immediately behind us, but nearby another splendid crater-topped pair of cones known as Moeder-en-Kind (Mother-and-Child) was visible. Between Vaalkop and this group was a sloping valley like the centre section of a gigantic saddle. Mist swirled about the double cones. This mist was the only soft thing about Prince Edward.

  There are about ten other major craters on the island, which is only nine kilometres long and seven broad. I had often viewed these old volcanoes through binoculars from a safe distance out to sea. They rose in succession to the splendid 670-metre summit called Van Zinderen Bakker Peak in the middle of the island. The aggregation of these great red crater cones, the undertaker's black of the lava flows, the precipitous sea-cliffs, the princely escarpment and the coastal plain in the north and east with its emerald-green coves of weather-defying plants, all make Prince Edward's landscape as strange as a new planet. As I shifted to get a better view of the high scarp which backed Mother-and-Child towards the island's central dominating peak, an eddy brought to my nostrils the unique smell of Prince Edward — a lava-born odour, harsh, ammoniacal, raw and primitive.

  'Get moving!' It was Wegger. He gestured impatiently up a slope between the rocks.

  'Which way?' I asked.

  There's only one way,' he retorted. 'I should know. I used it for months looking for a ship to rescue me.' "What do you mean, Wegger?'

  The cave of course. We go along the coast between Ac sea and the cliffs. There!' He pointed eastwards.

  The cave's on the other side of the island!' I exclaimed. 'We're all done in. We're in no shape to walk there at the moment!'

  I didn't like the way he answered. 'It's eight kilometres and a bit. I know every inch. That's the way we're going — now.'

  'We'll never make it!'

  'Get this clear, Shotton,' he said with menacing deliberation. 'You are still useful to me. I need you to help me load the gold. I need you to help sail me to Mauritius.' He addressed Linn in the same hectoring tone. 'You're still useful too, in a small way. You can make food, help keep us going. But I warn you, don't try shamming or coming any feminine weaknesses over me. It won't work. Don't either of you try escaping either. There's nowhere to run to. I should know — God, I should know!'

  The forces driving him clipped his words tight with tension.

  'Don't think you can escape to Marion — you can't The channel's a death-trap. Marion's twenty-two kilometres away — you may get a sight of it, if the sky clears. Most likely you won't. I sighted it only half a dozen times in all the months I was marooned here.'

  'Wegger,' I said, 'we're lucky, damned lucky, to be alive at all at this moment. The Best we can hope for is to survive. Forget that dream of yours about gold in the cave. There isn't any there. Jacobsen said so, and he must have known. The British lifted it years ago — it's in the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank in America…'

 
He strode over and struck me across the face with the back of his talon-like hand. I grabbed it but he tore free and had the pistol on me with the other. I never saw it move, he was so quick.

  'If the gold's gone, you're no use to me anyway,' he replied roughly. 'Neither you nor the girl. You both know too much. The trip to the cave will take us five, maybe six hours. At the end of it, depending on whether the gold is there or not, you'll know whether you're going on living. Now — march!'

  'Come, Linn,' I said.

  I helped her over the serrated teeth of the rocks. Slowly we climbed out to the cliff-top. Wegger followed, ordering us this way and that, until we had skirted Vaalkop's wedge-shaped crater high above us and were on a scarp about 50 metres high which followed the coastline for the next two kilometres. At that point it seemed to run dead against the seaward edge of the base on which stood the great central block of craters.

  It was a wild scene. The valley between Vaalkop and Mother-and-Child, viewed from close-up as we were, was a series of deep gullies radiating inland and then mounting in a succession of transverse lava ridges to the top of the twin summits. The banded platforms between the lava blocks appeared filled with a cement-like covering of old lava ash. There did not seem to be an inch of level ground anywhere which was not cluttered with conelets, balls or blocks of broken lava. Higher still, where the surface rose towards the main central scarp, the plate-like layers were covered with balls of mosses and here and there patches of rough tussocky grass which looked like a porcupine's quills.

  Where we were standing the surface was a collection of rounded chunks of black lava interspersed with irregular lumps which looked like pats of cow-dung, big spheroidal 'bombs' deeply embedded, and curiously-shaped pieces shaped like the fangs of an extinct sabre-toothed tiger. A light scattering of snow was melting between them, making our onward path slippery and dangerous.

  Wegger came up to us. 'I'll lead.' he cast about the grim, lunar-like surface like a hound looking for a scent and then headed diagonally across the small platform on which we stood. His sea-boots slipped on the uneven ground; both Linn and I were wearing thermal boots, which were warmer, but softer. I wondered how long they would last over that terrain.