Geoffrey Jenkins - A bridge of Magpies

'Gaok! Ahoy!'

The deckhouse door opened and a short stocky figure dressed in a sun-faded fisherman's jersey and thick corduroy pants emerged. His head was round and set close on his shoulders and there were a few grey streaks in his otherwise very black hair, not short and curly as a gamat's usually is, but straight and rather long. His face was weatherbeaten, more tawny than copper, and strangely smooth. It had the typical high cheekbones and Oriental appearance of the Malay. He made us fast with large, strong hands. I jumped aboard. My first impression was of his rather dignified aloofness-something natural in his bearing, perhaps-because he was quite friendly.

`Kaptein Denny?'

`Dis my-that's me.'

'Weddell. The new headman of Possession.'

'So?'

I've arrived,'

'I saw.'

He inclined his head towards the long-boat, switching into English. Some of his vowels had unusual values.

`You're out early, Captain Weddell. With a rifle, too: 1 'Your English is pretty good.'

'I thank the Sonop School in Cape Town. I like to give it a workout when I can. I don't get much chance. There's not much need for that rifle around here, Captain.'

It's a standard headman issue.'

'Van Rensburg used his a lot on the seals.'

'I'm not Van Rensburg. It's my job to protect them. And the fish-inside the twelve-mile limit.'

'That's a new duty for a headman. I hadn't heard about it,'

'Every fisherman knows it's illegal to fish inside the twelve. mile limit, Kaptein Denny.'

'Not all fish, Captain'

'All fish.'

'It's cold up here on deck. Come below.'

He led me to a day cabin under the wheelhouse; a second smaller one led off it. Both were much better fitted out than the spartan accommodation I had seen in other cutters. He fiddled at a small mahogany bar. 'Something to keep out the cold-a dop-en-dum (brandy and water)?'

'The sun's not over the yardarm yet,'

He smiled f! eetingly. 'We'll call it night because of the fog. That makes it all right.'

'A small one then.'

He turned to fix the drinks and I almost sat on a cushion which had been crushed down hurriedly on the locker. It half concealed a woman's handbag and a white silk scarf. I supposed the woman was hidden away somewhere below. We must have disturbed them by coming unexpectedly out of the fog. It blew Kaptein Denny's image which Breekbout had given me. Yet it was nothing to do with me if he brought his goodies along to enjoy in the solitude of the Sperrgebiet. He must have noticed the crumpled cushion when he handed me my brandy but gave no sign. He drank orange juice: Breekbout was correct about him there.

'I can't drink alone,' I said,

'It's against my religion-sorry.'

'Don't be sorry. You a Mohammedan?'

'No. Malay. My sect forbids it,'

'Gesondheid!'

'Good health.'

He sat down and stared at me with curious, unreadable eyes. I felt awkward drinking his liquor and pulling my authority while doing it.

'I don't want to crack down on you about this fishing business. It'll be okay if you just clear out. Say it's a friendly warning.'

'I've been coming here every winter for.., over thirty years, it must be. It gives me a sort of squatter's right.'

An unexpected remark from a fisherman, but it gave me a clue to why he had taken over leadership of the Luderitz gamat community,

'In court that would be called argument by false analogy.'

His eyes remained expressionless. He just sat passively regarding me. I felt uncomfortable.

'Look, I don't want to play rough and start acting like a new broom. But you know it's against the regulation' 'I come only in winter.'

'Why?'

'It's the sort of fish. In the summer the current's wrong for them.'

'It could be as you say.'

'I know this coast very well, Captain Weddell, There are some very strange things.'

Strange as hell! Right under his keel was the strangest of all: a lost city. I told myself I mustn't make an overkill of the fishing issue or else he might suspect something. On the other hand I didn't want him hanging around and watching, once Koch arrived. That could be any time. I downed the brandy. 'Thanks for the drink. It's my first day and I'm taking a look-see at my kingdom. I'm on my way for a run ashore.'

'I wouldn't go, Captain Weddell. There's a big blow coming up. You could be trapped.'

We had a gale, yesterday.'

'Come up on deck and show you what I mean.'

The fog bad lifted and visibility was a couple of miles. On the seaward horizon, however, lay a thick bank of it still. It was unusual because between it and the sky was a clear-cut seam of the horizon.

'That means a buster. It'll be here before you've had your run ashore.'

'I've also sailed this coast. That's simply a hangover from the morning fog. It'll be gone in an hour,'

'It means trouble – here, close inshore. A few miles out it's different, There's one weather on the coast and another at set'

He was too concerned about my welfare and it made me suspicious. I must have shown my scepticism.

'It can be blowing only a moderate breeze out to sea when a full gale tears up the channel. You won't like it if you're caught ashore. There isn't any water. You'll be stuck there until the wind drops. Besides, it's almost a full moon.'

'What's that got to do with it?' 46

'It always blows hardest at Possession at the full and change of the moon'

I'm learning.'

'There are always things to learn on the Sperrgebiet, Captain Weddell.'

The odd way he said it clinched my decision to ignore his advice.

'I'll take my chance. Thanks all the same, Breekbout!'

Aye, aye sir?'

`Doodenstadt. Make it snappy!

Kaptein Denny said. 'You can't land on the rocks. The best spot is to the north… there's a bit of a beach…'

I decided to ignore that too. Nor did I ask Kaptein Denny how he came to know where the best landing-place was on a shore where landing was prohibited.

Doodenstadt, when I got close enough, hadn't a chance of convincing me it was a lost city. No way. It was little else-outwardly at least-than an outcrop of formidable rocks of unusual shape; the 'streets' a series of gullies possibly resulting from the erosion of a thousand storms. Of course Koch's fresco was away out of sight, but I was thoroughly disenchanted.

'Keep clear!' I snapped at Breekbout. 'Do you want us to finish up alongside that other bloody wreck?'

`Kaptein Denny was right: no landing here,' he mumbled truculently. When I still hesitated about giving in, he added, '

Kaptein Denny always right'

Okay, blast you. Back to the beach, I want to check the liner.'

Breekbout stayed with the boat at the little beach while I plunged through a tangle of alleys between the sandhills, in the general direction of the City of Baroda. The going opened up farther on when I struck a wide sandy watershed leading towards it. I followed this. It effectively masked my approach to the bow section of the wreck.

Then there were men's voices ahead. There was plenty of cover, and whoever was speaking couldn't see me coming. I crawled forward, making sure my rifle didn't make a giveaway clink. The sound gave me a clear bearing all the time but the nearer I approached the more strident the voices became – distorted, almost mechanical,

They were mechanical!

The gully narrowed and kinked and ended against a platform of rock. Sitting on this in the lee of the wreck, her back to me, was a girl. Next to her was a tape-recorder – whence the voices I'd homed in on!

She seemed to be having trouble with the machine, which gave out a jumble of Donald Duck noises. Maybe the distortion was caused by the tape snagging in the wind. Whatever the cause, it gave me a chance to observe without being observed. She stood up and busied herself rewinding the spool with one finger, doing it very carefully as if she didn't want to entrust the task to the recorder's own automatic device.