Geoffrey Jenkins: A Twist Of Sand

I made up my mind suddenly.

"John," I said briefly. I drew a line on the chart with the ruler. "I intend to go inside this line. Two things may happen. You may find yourself drowning in the next ten minutes. Or you may find yourself facing a fine of Ј1,000 or five years in gaol."

"Go on," he said tersely.

"What I'm trying to say is simply this, that this ship is now off the diamond area of the Skeleton Coast. For months I have mapped and charted this coast coming home from the fishing grounds, in your watch below. I bought her for that. Trawling is purely a secondary consideration. It also is good cover. Remember how I insisted that I should take the midnight-dawn trick? " He nodded. " Well, I've faked the ordinary chart, but plotted everything in minute detail on my own special chart, the first accurate one ever of the Skeleton Coast.

John looked puzzled. " You may have hoodwinked me, but what of it? That's not a crime. It's no crime to chart a coast."

I laughed harshly. " It's quite clear you haven't read the Diamond Control Act. I'd say it was the finest combination of threats and penalties I've ever seen. This is the Skeleton Coast of South West Africa, John. Out there — " I gestured beyond the porthole out to starboard "are the richest unworked diamond fields in the world. It would mean a fine of Ј1,000 or five years' gaol, or both, for you and me. That's just for being here. There are plenty of other smaller items in the Act, each costing about Ј500 a time and a couple of years, which you undoubtedly would find on the charge sheet also."

"So what? " said John. " This ship is on the high seas. We're not ashore pinching anyone's diamonds."

"Ever hear of the three-mile territorial limit?" I laughed without humour. "And if that wasn't enough, there was that judgement the other day in the Appeal Court governing the rights to prospect and mine diamonds: high water marks, low water marks, territorial limits, etcetera, etcetera."

John sniffed: "No bloody South African Navy ship would find you anyway." He grinned for the first time.

"You're the most cunning submariner who ever outfoxed a destroyer, and I'd say your hand has lost none of its cunning. Look at this set-up now — thick fog, a coast where only you know where you are, funk holes everywhere…"

"Thanks for the compliments, John," I retorted. "But you're a little behind the times. Ever hear of this new border patrol the South African Air Force flies at unannounced times? Long-range Shackletons. I've seen their photographs of the mouth of the Cunene, the first ever taken from the air. They're good. They've got a coat of arms of a bloody great pelican standing on a globe rising out of the sea. I don't want to be snapped up in the beak of that pelican. There's nothing that would stop me afloat, but a Shackleton would take a photograph and — presto, an exact fix. Inside the three-mile limit. Five years inside for you and me. Irrefutable."

"What are you doing all this for, Geoffrey?" asked John quietly.

"I got kicked out of the Royal Navy — remember?" I said harshly. "I wouldn't say where I was — remember? Well, I've got a particular interest in this part of the world. It might have been just an overwhelming compulsion motive in the ordinary course of things, something to justify myself to myself, but since it ties up with the Skeleton Coast, it becomes highly dangerous and highly illegal at the same time. I'm charting this unknown coast rock by rock and shoal by shoal. The compulsion springs from something very deep in my sailor's make-up, and has also something to do with an old man I saw die. In some ways I'm finishing the job he set out to do. But it goes farther than that also, because I have an interest which I may tell you about some time. The immediate point at issue is, though, do you come in on this? You must make up your own mind."

John fobbed off the question by picking up the Hyane's photostat log.

"H'mmm" he mused, casting a glance over the others as well. "Got a problem in navigation on your hands?"

"Here's the shoal where the old Clan Alpine is reported to have struck," I said. If John intended to sidestep the issue for the moment, so would I. " These old logs — Pratt got photostats for me at the Admiralty, though God help him if he was found out giving material like this to a cashiered submarine commander — all place this shoal differently. It is the most important shoal on the coast, because it is the southern gateway to this vital piece of water here to the north. If one could penetrate the Clan Alpine shoal on the inshore side, it would give a safe passage — although in shallow water — away from a six-knot downcoast current which 'I reckon ricochets off here, just about the sixteenth fathom mark on the south-westerly corner of the shoal. It is almost impossible to take a ship in close to the coast at all because of that bouncing current. It races southwards through this mass of shoals, rocks and broken ground between here and the Cunene mouth, but I am convinced it doesn't get too close to the shore…"

"My God! Geoffrey," exclaimed John. "This is magnificent!" He studied the annotated chart. His eyes gleamed. He grabbed the dividers and parallel-rules. Then he snatched up the Hyane's log.

"I've been over it all," I said coldly. "It's no go."

He straightened up.

"Two hundred and eighty-two degrees," he exclaimed in triumph.

"That bearing's balderdash," I retorted.

"I agree," he went on quickly. "But what if you forgot the first number?"

I saw in a flash what he meant. "You mean — eighty-two degrees? Why, that would have put the Kaiser's old warship…"

"Just here!" rapped out John. "Inside the channel. Two miles offshore. Dead right. The old Hyane found the way, all right, although she didn't know it. Some stupid clot must have altered the bearing from 82 to 282 which would have been quite reasonable since she then would have been safe at sea, even if a little close in. Come on, let's get going!"

"Not so fast," I said. " You haven't given me your answer yet."

"That's my answer, blast you!" he grinned. "You'll need another nautical man for company for your five years in quod…"

He stopped short. I felt it too.

The stern was giving a queer shaking motion.

"She's — she's — wagging her tail," he burst out incredulously.

The explosion felt like a huge empty drum dropped on Etosha's stern.

We both covered the distance to the bridge in a couple of bounds.

"Port fifteen," I snapped at the Kroo boy at the wheel.

John stood by me, trying to pierce the veil, which cloyed like cerements round our eyes. A heavy bead of moisture ran off his short brown beard and the condensation on his forehead gave him the appearance of a man literally sweating over something. His anxious tone did not belie it. The drops glistened on his cap and oilskinned shoulders.

"Where are we? " he asked.

I gestured to starboard. "Gomatom bearing about ninety degrees, six miles."

"What the hell's Gomatom? " he rasped.

"It's the native name I gave a high pointed mountain ashore. The name appealed. Sounded like the surf breaking in a south-westerly gale."

The Kroo boy's eyes were standing out of their sockets.

"Where did the explosion come from?" I rapped out.

The native shook his head hopelessly.

"Port beam, do you think, John?"

"More on the quarter," he replied quietly. "I've never heard anything like that before," he went on, craning his head slowly in a small semi-circle, like a searching radar aerial.

"Nor have I," I said, for it was unlike any explosion, mine, torpedo or gunfire, I had ever heard. Yet it was an explosion.

Something heavy and wet hit the deck forward of the main hatch. Near the foremast, I thought, peering into the fog.