Geoffrey Jenkins - Southtrap

'Good. Now listen, Chief, I want you to draw on the for'ard half-height fuel tanks first, but not the forepeak tank. I want that to stay full as long as possible while we're in the ice.'

'Aye, I'll do that, though I canna understand why.'

'I want her trimmed higher by the head,' I explained. 'She's riding too deep.'

Then why not use the forepeak tank first?'

The reason had come to me the previous night as I checked the ship before going to my bunk. If I kept the forepeak tank full of its bunker fuel and the Quest tangled with dangerous ice, the bow plating would be the first to rip. That would spill the oil. I would then have some sort of defence against the sort of waves we would encounter in the Southern Ocean. It was a kind of built-in desperation precaution.

'It's a bit complicated, Chief,' I replied. 'I'll tell you later.'

'It must be, that's all I can say,' he grumbled.

I looked up from the phone into the eyes of Petersen, the third officer, who was sharing the morning watch with me. He looked more like a gangling schoolboy in uniform than a man; his cap made his fair hair curl over the nape of his neck. He did an abrupt eyes-front as if I'd caught him out at something and blushed guiltily. The previous night we had had an animated discussion about the stars Alpha Crux — brightest in the Southern Cross — Achenar and Antares and their respective merits for obtaining a star-fix of Prince Edward. Navigation was his strong point, and I sensed his hero-worship. I only wished his authority matched his navigation. A man like Jensen, the quartermaster at the wheel, would get away with anything if I wasn't there to back Petersen up.

Unnecessarily I growled at Jensen. 'Steer small, will you? There's a squall coming off the land.'

The squall was ripping down off the slopes of the beautiful mountain on the Quest's port quarter. It appeared from the sea to follow the course of the magnificent scenic highway which clings to the coast over and beyond Chapman's Peak. This was a favourite trick of the south-easter as it freshened; it also told me that the wind would become worse after we had rounded Cape Point and lost the shelter of the land.

The Quest rolled against the thrust of the squall.

A voice said, 'I wonder if some of the passengers are already regretting their breakfast.'

It was Linn. I hadn't heard her come on to the bridge while I had been watching the squall.

'Hello, Linn.'

She smiled back at me. She looked as fresh as the morning. She was wearing a sleeveless turquoise-and-white striped dress, and a single gold brooch with a dolphin motif at her left shoulder.

I gestured at the Slangkop lighthouse coming abeam. It stands on a flat-topped hill which gives the place its name — Snake's Head. A village is snuggled at its foot.

'Any moment now their breakfasts are going to have a change of motion,' I said. 'This sort of wind usually abates a little about here but veers more south, which means that the Quest will begin to pitch in earnest.'

She drew me over to the port or landward side of the bridge.

'You know this coast pretty well, don't you, John? Are you a South African?'

'No. London born and bred. I first came south and saw the Cape about ten years ago. Before that I'd been in the North Atlantic.'

'Look! What's that — there in the water off the rocks?'

'The sooner you get acquainted with that, the better,' I replied. 'That's kelp. You'll see more of it along this shore. And plenty around Prince Edward.'

'It's terribly exciting — isn't it? — getting an introduction to Prince Edward things so soon after we've sailed…'

Her enthusiasm was infectious. 'We can see better from the flying bridge,' I said. 'We'll go up there. Carry on, will you, Mr Petersen.'

'Aye — aye, sir,' he stammered.

We went up to the flying bridge. It was like a little steel island all to ourselves, with a well-deck separating it from the stack and superstructure aft. Dr Kebble, the bird man, with binoculars strung round his neck, was in a group aft gesticulating in the direction of some birds in flight.

'One thing I do know about birds,' I told Linn, 'and that is that Prince Edward has its very own bird. It's unique to the island, so I'm told. It's called the Pilot Bird.'

She was amused. 'Move up to the top of the class, Captain.'

She gazed excitedly at the splendid shoreline and I caught her mood.

'If you want a further reminder of Prince Edward,' I said, 'there's Albatross Rock a little further on.'

She turned to me. The new light off the water was faceted green-blue in her fine eyes.

'It's so wonderful, John, to think I'm actually looking at a land that men dreamed of for two thousand years before it was ever discovered!'

'You're going too fast for me, Linn. Slow down, and give me a chance to catch up.'

'What I'm trying to say is that this is the point of Africa — the very southernmost tip of the continent of Africa that remained unknown and unexplored for so long. Ptolemy called it the Promontorium Prassum and nobody came here until thousands of years later when the Portuguese rounded…'

I didn't want to correct her geography but to kiss her mouth.

'Take it easy!' I grinned at her. 'If I'm going to learn about a place I've navigated scores of times then I want time to remember all these names that I've never heard before. The Cape of Good Hope may be all you say, but to this clottish sailor in front of you the very southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas. I know that because it's going to be our departure landfall.'

'It's sweet of you to be so tolerant about my geography, John. Actually I do know about Agulhas but the Cape of Good Hope is really the place the great explorers were searching for — it's grand, it's dramatic, and Dias planted a cross on it to mark one of the greatest discoveries the world has ever known.'

'If all your lectures are going to be like this,' I said, 'I'll vacate the bridge when we get to Prince Edward and join the tourists.'

We both laughed. Then I said, 'You're seeing the Peninsula under the best possible conditions. It's a very different place in a south-westerly or north-westerly buster. Look at it with a sailor's eye and all you'll see is a great navigational hazard littered with wrecks. It's not for nothing it's called the Cape of Storms.'

'Cabo Tormentoso,' she said, rolling the phrase round her tongue as if she were sampling a fine wine.

I said lightly, 'These are the Flying Dutchman waters. Pity it's the wrong sort of day for you to sight him.'

'Have you ever seen him?' she asked, quite seriously.

'Never. I may be superstitious but I certainly don't suffer from hallucinations.'

'He was an actual person. Didn't you know that, John?'

'I thought it was purely a legend.'

'When I was researching in London I came across an article in a newspaper dating from the eighteen-eighties. It quoted a sailor whose great-grandfather claimed to have seen the real ship called the Flying Dutchman in Table Bay on her way to Java. There was quite a lot in the papers about it at the time because, when King George V was a midshipman, he actually sighted it off the Cape in 1881. So the legend was given a sort of royal sanction.'

'It's extraordinary, the things you know,' I said. 'What a strange girl you are.'

She continued as if she had not heard my interjection. 'Most people confuse the sea legend with the opera bit version of the story. The real Vanderdecken did in fact reach Cape waters when he returned from Java in his ship the Flying Dutchman, and he ran into a north-westerly gale which prevented him rounding Cape Point. So he cursed God and swore that if he had to beat into the gale until Doomsday he would make it, and the curse laid on him was that he should continue to beat around the Cape of Storms for all eternity.'