Geoffrey Jenkins - A bridge of Magpies

`This place is off limits? I said. 'Diamond territory. Ver- boten. That coven stunt recorders as well. I asserted it emphatically but in my own mind that didn't quite include the maps and other things I'd seen. She wasn't with me yet: she was still living with something in the recording.

`Stunt? That's when I was born: she replied,

If that's so, all I can say is that the language of maternity wards has caught up with the permissive age.'

She made a stagey, throwaway gesture at the tape-recorder that underlined the first conclusion I'd jumped to, 'I mean – born. When the liner was hit.'

'You artistes live out your scripts, don't you? But don't get too carried away. When you come back to earth you'll discover that the bit of Sperrgebiet you're standing on is very expensive. It could cost you a thousand-dollar fine or a year in jail.'

She remained tense and uptight. 'My name's Jutta Walsh. I was born thirty-one years ago today in a boat which rescued the liner's passengers. Here, at the Bridge of Magpies. No one ever found out who the rescuer was because he disappeared next day. My mother died. That liner's a part of me! Nothing's going to stop me going aboard het That Includes you!'

'My name's Santa Claus-alias Struan Weddell. I'm headman of that island over there. It's Christmas Day today.'

The touch of colour that came into her cheeks wasn't from windburn. My sarcasm, however, didn't break down her defiant attitude. She regarded me in silence, with coal hostility.

'I know how you got here: Kaptein Denny? I went on. '

There's no debate about this territory. It's Sperrgebiet, and on the Sperrgebiet you're guilty until you can prove yourself innocent What I'm trying to say is that I don't have to listen to your reasons in order to clobber you. Being here is enough in itself, but I realize show-biz is a hen of a razzmatazz and you've got to have local colour to pay off. The sound effects on your tape are good-very good.'

'Listen to me clearly! I tell you I way born here! The City of Baroda was carrying women and children to the Cape. My mother was pregnant. „'

'Babies are born that way.'

`The shock of the U-boat attack brought on labour. I was a month premature.'

'Congratulations on your script. That sort of soap opera should be a wow over the air. But here you've no audience to cry over it. Even the birds have gone. You'll have to get out.'

She remained strained and intent. 'You've got it all wrong. Believe me-what you overheard on the tape happened in real life, a long time back. What you call sound effects are actual battle noises radioed from inside a Uboat which was in action and fighting for its life. Those men-all of them-died later, '

'And I'm U-boat Admiral Donitz in person.'

'You stupid thick-headed dot!' she blazed. 'You're plain bloody-minded and stubborn.'

'Cops usually are,'

'You're a cop?'

'Sort of.'

'Blinded by your job.'

'I'm new. Now get your things together and march! Back to my boat! I'll see you aboard Gaok;

'First I'm going aboard that liner.'

'Says who?'

'I've come a long way, and I've waited a long time, I'm going aboard.'

'The hell you are!'

She tried to push past but I grabbed her. The force of her rush took us among her books and maps. I knocked over the compass and trod on a chart.

The damn-you expression went from her eyes in a split second; just as Sperrgebiet fog changes the colour of the light. In it's place was genuine appeal and a touch of des, peration that wasn't play-acting. I knew then that I'd misjudged her: I found myself believing her story.

'Please!' she burst cut 'Please-those are priceless!'

She didn't put her hands above her head to signal surrender but the way she picked up one of the books and held it out to me said the same thing. It was titled Nuremberg Trials, Vol. XIII. There were a couple of other similar ones. She also handed me a paper with neat hand-written columns of figures, dates and names. It was headed, U-boats which operated in South African waters 1939-1945'. There was another. 'U-boat types, class, tonnage, speed, armament, range'-and a sheaf of other papers, including photocopies and official-looking letters. The map I'd trodden on turned out to be a naval chart of the Possession channel, annotated in German.

We became intensely conscious of one another. '

Your work?'

'Yes.'

'The illusion of war.'

'You could call it that'

It's more than that, though.'

'It's more than that.'

I made a sweeping gesture which took in the collection and tape recorder. 'In old cathedrals people listen to tape ' explaining the architecture and art they're looking at-but I wouldn't have thought the Sperrgebiet qualified for the same treatment.'

She stayed silent for a few moments. Maybe, I thought, she was weighing my remark as a good let-out However, I discounted my suspicions about that the moment she replied. Her voice was warm, and revealed how grateful she was I'd accepted her story as 24-carat

'I hadn't thought of it in those terms but mine's the same sort of idea-if you put the site of a naval battle in place of a cathedral. The lecture was going fine-until you showed up.''I was-am-trying to head you away from trouble.' '

Thanks. There wasn't anyone around. I thought I'd get away with it?

'You have?

'What do you mean?

'If I accompany you it's okay. This shoreline's part of my pad. Possession's my ship: I'm a sort of re-tread captain. Let's go and look at the wreck together.'

'I can't begin to thank you..

'Call me Struan: that'll be thanks enough.'

'Struan.'

'Is this a pilgrimage or a picnic, Jutta?'

'Something of both, I guess.'

She didn't go into that. Nor did she explain further her sight-and-sound set-up when we collected the documents and books and put heavy stones on top of them to keep them from blowing while we were away at the wreck. They made a formidable, and interesting, pile of documentation,

'You've done a lot of homework, Jutta.'

'Yes. It took years?

Again, no more. She smiled, though, and I was pleased to see the pinched look go from her face. I left the explanations for later.

We traversed the dome of rock which comprises Doodenstadt, winding and back-tracking through the 'streets' to get to our objective. The strange geological formation projected into the sea on one hand and into the desert on the other. At shoe-leather distance the lost city impressed me still less. We couldn't board the liner from the landward side. You could have driven a train through the torpedo holes in her. It was a miracle she'd stayed afloat long enough to be beached. Also-it must have been a spring tide that put her high up where she was.

We stood and looked at her rusty plating. Jutta's interest took the chill off the sense of static disaster which the years hadn't softened.

She said unexpectedly, 'Sorry I was like that back there, •

Struan.'

'Forget it. We're here now.'

'It's just that it meant – means – so much.'

I was on the point of asking for the explanation which I felt was becoming overdue; but I decided to play it gently for the moment.

'You a historian, Jutta?'

'Sort of;

She didn't seem inclined to elaborate. It was faith, not fact, which had made me trust her in the first place. But patience isn't one of my strong suits. She intrigued me.

I said, 'The South African sun didn't give you that complexion.'

She flushed, which made it better still. `No. London. I flew here, only a couple of days ago.'

'That's a very long way to come for a view of a rotting old hulk. Especially one that's out of bounds.'

'I told you, you could almost call it my cradle.'

'A small reason for a big journey.'

'Maybe. Don't come the cop again, Struan. You're nicer without.'