Geoffrey Jenkins: A bridge of Magpies

'Welcome to Silvermine, Captain Weddell,' replied the aide. 'The C-in-C's expecting you.' Inevitably he checked on the telephone before taking me in.

The admiral sat at an outsize desk-the same tough, wiry little man with the boxer's broken nose and lopsided grin. 24

His eyes were welcoming now but I'd seen them on occasion shuttered and opaque. That was the time strong men ran. He rose, hand outstretched. 'Good to see you, Struan.' ' 'I half expected to find a little green man in a space suit.' `

You get used to it pretty soon.'

'It isn't a hospital, though,'

'No, it isn't a hospital'

`Look, sir, I appreciate what you did in sending a chopper to the airport for me. I don't know how you knew about my mother. But there's been a snarl-up somewhere: the lines must have got crossed. I've been brought here instead of to the hospital. I've got to get there-quick. Every hour may be vital'

`Nothing got snarled up. She's alive. Relax Have a cigarette.'

But I remained standing. He eyed me through the smoke. `

You've put on weight, Struan.'

Tor God's sake 1 I didn't come here to talk about my weight. My mother..

He nodded towards a cluster of three coloured telephones. '

Use the blue one. You'll find her at home. There's nothing wrong with her.'

The friendly eyes were starting to cloud up. But I told myself angrily I wasn't one of his subordinates any longer. `

The hospital sent me a cable to Santorin,.

I sent it. Your mother knows'

`You sent it! For crying in a bucket! You mean to say you bluffed me into rushing back to South Africa-what the devil for?'

'Sit down. Listen. I've a lot to say to you: I'll stand. I'm going soon.'

He was leaning back in his swing chair, looking at me with a kind of amused contempt which needled me further, '

This outfit is called Silvermine.

'I've already heard.' .. It's probably the most modern naval operational headquarters in the world. Just behind me, through there-' he gestured – 'is the operations room. Top secret. Utmost top secret, in fact. So is this office. The whole place is bugged, monitored, lousy with devices, hidden beams and so on.'

'I didn't come here to listen to all this bull.'

He let go the chair and it came forward with a bump against the desk.

`You didn't come here: you were brought. But you're an unauthorized civilian on top secret premises for which you can be locked away for a long, long time, simply at my say-so,'

He grinned and I didn't care for it.

`You couldn't go, even if you wanted to. Now shut up and sit down and listen to me.'

I sat down. I also took a cigarette.

'I had you shanghaied at the airport. I sent you the faked cable to bring you to Cape Town-with your mother's consent, I might add?

`Why the devil couldn't you leave me alone?'

'See here. A couple of months ago one of my officers was on holiday in Santorin.'

'If I'd known I'd have given him a sail for old times' sake? '

Spare the sarcasm. He was a junior in your day. You did meet him but you were too drunk to recognize him?

– '

It has happened.'

'It did happen, and pretty often, I'm told.'

`Why kidnap me to Naval Headquarters? Alcoholics Anonymous is the place you want?

`Don't over-dramatize. Snap that defence mechanism of yours out of top gear. Drinking may be a part of your lui- lekkerlewe (sweet life) but you're not a drunk.'

`Thanks for those few kind words.'

'My man overheard you using an Afrikaans expression in some dive on a jetty. That put him on to you.'

'It's a bar, not a dive. There's no entertainment except Gigi.'

I was told there was a Greek tart there.'

`Gigi's a bit flashy but she's not a tart.'

'The long and the short of it was that what he took to be a bum in a bar turned out to be Captain Struan Weddell. Ex-Navy.'

Emphasis on the ex:

'I told you not to be a bloody fool and quit because of the Walewska affair. But you wouldn't listen. You gave me the V-sign and vanished.'

I can look after myself. If this is your idea of putting me on the carpet, I don't buy it. The hell with it! The hell with you too!'

`Stop getting up! You've stretched your craving for being a loner just about to the limit at Santorin. There aren't such things in this modern world as blissful isles of escape. Once I'd located you I had a check made. Soft, boozy, aimless. Women. Just enough to live on. Toying with archaeology. That sort of crap.'

'Your dossier's spot-on.'

'A purposeless layabout.'

'So what? It's my life,'

He spoke into a pale pink intercom,

'Has he arrived?'

He nodded at the answer, apparently satisfied.

'As you rightly say, so what? I knew I'd be wasting my time if I cabled asking you to come back. I had to winkle you out of Santorin-and I've done it'

He eyed me through the cigarette smoke like a strategist who's pulled off a clever trick against the enemy.

'Again, so what?'

I'd got all set to take a dim view of another penny-lecture broadside from him when he said in a completely changed voice, 'I brought you here because I want your help with a problem, Struan.'

'You must be joking! Me!'

'You. You were meant for a somebody, not a bum,'

His eyes were distant and only half friendly.

My retort didn't have the range. 'The moral cat-o'-ninetails again.'

He ignored the crack. 'I know you're screwed up still about the Walewska business. You don't have to be. You never had to be, from where I sit'

'I haven't heard your problem:

'Don't blow your nut and don't interrupt. You're well acquainted with the Sperrgebiet so -that part of it doesn't need explaining.'

I thought of that grim coast and its grim grey islands, and the meltemi and the Greek isles stuck in my craw. You'll find Sperrgebiet names on old whalermen's graves in New England… a sailor's boast to be remembered by. '

I said, I don't know your problem?

'What d'ye know about Possession Island?'

'Heard of it, of course. Never been there. The navigation's tricky. Not the place for a big ship like my frigate.' 'It' s the largest of the guano isles, and that isn't saying much. Any idea how wide that channel is between it and the mainland?'

'I'd guess about two miles.'

'You know Doodenstadt?'

'It's only a name.'

'On the mainland opposite Possession is Doodenstadt-the Town of the Dead.'

'A bit fanciful for a coast which doesn't have a human, let alone a town, for hundreds of miles.'

'It's really only a big group of rocks sticking out from the desert into the sea. The rocks are big and square like houses and there are lanes resembling streets. Hence the name. It's all very realistic, they tell me. It's half under water most of the time. What's Santorin like, Struan?'

'Real houses. Three storeys, some of them. Real streets. Fine carvings, superb frescos. The dry volcanic ash has preserved them, even the colours.'

'Would it surprise you to hear that a fresco has been found at Doodenstadt?'

There wasn't any sound except the air-conditioning; there were no residual noises in the flat silence after our voices stopped.

I said at length: 'I can ride with Santorin but not Doodenstadt. The place has been known for at least a century. If there'd been frescos, someone would have discovered them long before now.'

Doodenstadt turns out to be not merely a figure of speech. Ifs real, it's a town. A lost city.'

'And Atlantis lies under Table Bay. I never thought I'd live to see the high office of Commander-in-Chief knocked by fantasy.'

'I almost said the same thing myself at first.'

'I've seen the way the egg-heads' minds go into orbit over Santorin. They steam themselves up into all sorts of improbable conclusions-it's Plato's drowned paradise, God knows what else. I'll bet it's the same about Doodenstadt.'