Geoffrey Jenkins - A Twist Of Sand

"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 Stein 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!"