Geoffrey Jenkins - A bridge of Magpies

'You're not the only one in all this time who must have seen U-160 surface-' I said.

'No? Think It's never for more than a few hours that she shows up. A non-scary accompaniment is a sandstorm. There's fog. By the nature of things-she submerges shortly after the Bridge of Magpies wind drops. A few hours. Zero visibility. The most dangerous shore probably in the world.'

'The guano workers..

'Forget it. It's the birds' breeding season. Possession's deserted. J don't have to lell you that. The mainland's Sperrgebietverboten. There's not a soul about.'

'Except Sang A.'

'You're wrong. Except us. We're going in to take the Book of Tsu out of U-160 when she shows up.'

J, too, had to get in there with him. Intelligence-wise-the Book of Tsu could be the biggest bonanza since American Combat Intelligence broke the Jap code before Midway, and had the fleet's plan of attack handed to them on a plate. If it was aJl Kaptein Denny claimed, it was bigger than even the C-in-C himself could imagine. The odds against two men and a girl pulling it off were astronomical. Three's a crowd187 ten's a team. And you, d need a damn fine team of ten experts, backed by a shipload of equipment, to swing the U-160 odds in our favour.

When I stood turning aJl this over in my mind and did not reply immediately, the pupils of Kaptein Denny's eyes contracted like a cat's out hunting when confronted by a sudden light. As sinister, too.

Jutta noticed it and said quickly, 'Come down to the cabin a moment, Struan. I've something to say to you-alone.'

The light in the cabin was dim because of the sand cloud, and the dark mahogany panelling didn't help what little sunlight penetrated it. Jutta stopped-turned, and faced me, looking as if there were something very complicated in her mind which had to be brought out into the light of day. She had about her a remoteness which made her seem vulnerable – and dear. I looked in the deep green of her eyes but found no answer. She made a little gesture which was hail-deprecation-halfsomething I couldn't define.

'My search for a father has turned into something else. It's still open-ended and likely to remain so'

' U – 1 6 0..:

'J wasn't meaning U-160. Me. I tried to tell you before I was a woman who hadn't found herself:

'Was?'

Her tone was quite different from that night we'd been alone in the bunkhouse.

'I came to Possession looking for one thing. I found another… bigger… no, biggest.'

`Go on.'

'J'm someone who grew up by fits and starts-painfully. I' ve waited a long time to establish where I stand in the world'

Where is that?

She came close to me and touched my lips with hers. She could control that, but not the tremors that rippled all down the length of her neck and breasts and thighs when I held her tight.

'Here.'

'Darling, darling:

'I'm not firing blanks this time, my love.'

We couldn't hear the swishing of the gale past the port188 holes for the sound of our hearts beating, together. She said, 'All these years I've felt I've been playing a part not being an insider to myself because of it. Now you've come along and transplanted a heart into me and everything is bright and fresh and new. I'm scared of losing it through Kaptein Denny and U-160. Scared for you too, my darling.'

She held me fiercely with her hips and thighs. If all this was. a revelation of the sort of woman she really was, she was my woman.

'I'll make it work- for you!

'Maybe I love you too much or not enough yet. J can't go along with this crazy U-160 business. I can't be sure in my own mind about Kaptein Denny.'

'It's too late to go back on it now.'

'That's what I'm afraid of. We're being squeezed between Kaptein Denny and Sang A."

'Not if we get the Book of Tsu..

What if you do? Kaptein Denny won't let you keep it, you can be certain. Did you see his eyes just now?'

I had. Once we'd salvaged U-160, the chase might only be starting. I hadn't planned that far.

J said, 'I have you. That makes all the difference now.' 'I want it to, my very dear love. Just look after what's most precious to me, will you?'

We held one another so long that I was worried Kaptein Denny would come looking for us. So we went back to the bridge.

'What's the dell for U-160?' I asked him. The contraction started to go from his pupils when he heard my acceptance. He kept his voice on a neutral level for the reply. The effort it took showed how keyed-up he'd been.

We can't be sure when she'll show up. She may be coming our way at this very moment.'

There's no such thing as zero visibility but the Bridge of Magpies gale was doing its best to create it. The sand being carried along doubled the normal effect on the sea's surface, of a gale tearing in one direction while a current drove against it from the opposite quarter. It was milky-coffee, churned-up, short and steep; and the sand had a stinging, maddening quality like wind-fired bird shot. You couldn't get away from it, even inside the cutter.

Ichabo was corkscrewing at the end of the tow, and every time it went slack and took up again she jerked and lurched violently. In spite of the fact we were so close, we couldn't make out the scimitar-like curve of the coast, as there was only a frail wash of light from the sun. Waves of a hundred centuries had fragmented the rock of the coastline into a loose series of offshore reefs, stacks, pinnacles and blinders. The biggest of them is Albatross Rock and the worst-Penguins Turning. They form a half-circle of about three-quarters of a mile from land, extended in a south-westerly direction only, like a comet's tail. Between them – apparently known to Kaptein Denny -ran a deep-water channel, scoured, since the Sperrgebiet was young, by the action of the incoming stream of the upwell cell. Even the Africa Pi! ot- whose language is usually as unemotional as a judge's verdict, becomes charged when describing the dangers of the patch we were heading into.

'We go in the moment we sight her-' Denny said. 'You'll take Ichabo. I91 have Gaok We make the cutters fast-one on either side of the U-boat. We rig a couple of cables under her keep and secure them to the boats. They'll act as pontoons. They, plus the lifting effect of the upwell cell, will combine lo keep her above water while we cut open the hatch.'

'With what?'

'I've brought aJong an oxy-acetylene cutting torch, with special long leads to the gas cylinders. That means we won't have to carry them around.'

'A lot depends on the state of the metal.'

'Her hull's in fine nick still.'

'All the worse for us.'

'No. All the better. Otherwise it might collapse underwater – anywhere, any time'

'Will two cutters be enough for a U-boat's deadweight tonnage of – how much?'

'Eleven hundred and twenty on the surface, twelve thirty submerged.'

'Trust Jutta to know,' Kaptein Denny permitted himself a smile.

I persisted. 'You're well heeled. You could have got the services of all the gamat fishermen and their cutters from Luderitz on the basis of winner-take-all from the hulk.. 190

'Listen-' I'd been misled by that passing smile-'Listen very carefully to me! The Book of Tsu is a secret-one of the wor! d's great secrets. My country's secret. It's not for spreading around a bunch of blab-mouthed wreckers! Or among prying officials who'd follow them once the story of a floating sub spread from the pubs. Only five people in the world, besides myself know about it: you two, Kenryo, Miki and Emmermann.'

We drove on, the silence in the wheelhouse thick and heavy. Later-the tension eased a bit when we had to exchange technicalities about the final run-in to Albatross Rock. At Penguins Turning we swung starboard on to a south-westerly heading. The fang looked like its name, a penguin who had turned its back to the land all black and shining and its chest to the sea, all white with the smash of the upwell cell.