Geoffrey Jenkins: A Cleft Of Stars

I pointed this out: 'No good there — the water's banking up,' I shouted.

'The edge of the terrace looks like Niagara!'

'The opposite side in the Shashi channel is our best bet,' I told her. 'Look at its big trees. They'll give safe moorings. This palm isn't going to hold much longer. Once the storm's blown itself out, we'll recross to The Hill.'

'How wide can the river become in flood?'

'A mile — two miles — who knows?'

The Empress of Baobab was now straining and tugging at its mooring like a dog on a leash. Her shallow draught and high freeboard made her very cranky in the gale.

'It's no use trying to plug into the teeth of this wind; the engine simply won't make it,' I said. 'We'd do better to strike diagonally across the confluence and then allow the current to carry us down to the tree we choose.'

'Isn't that pretty dangerous?'

'Anything's dangerous in this. You steer and I'll nurse the outboard.'

I pointed out as our target a large tree on a high bank opposite, slightly above the confluence.

'Steer for that and don't let her head fall off, if you value our lives, or we'll be swamped'

'Isn't it simply Hobson's choice which bank we go for? Why not strike to this side where The Hill is?'

'If I'm right about a runaway cyclone, we can expect still more wind. Those high Shashi banks will shelter us. We'll make fast right under their lee.'

'What about your flash flood?'

'The Shashi's gradient isn't steep like the Limpopo's and therefore the run-off won't be as fast. Let's go!'

I stripped off the waterproof engine cover and prayed the electrics would work, It took half a dozen pulls on the starting cord before it kicked but it sounded healthy enough. Of course, her head fell off as soon as I cast off but I managed to bring her back on course by gunning the motor to its maximum.

The crossing was as slow and tedious in its way as our plod on foot through the wadi's sand. The engine's power against the combined forces of the river and the gale was weaker than I had expected and we chugged across the choppy water (with the bows trying to break away all the time) with a kind of hellish single-mindedness. Nadine was kept busy compensating but our course was as zig-zag as a war-time convoy under attack. We finally made it across and then nearly came to grief when the current bore us down on the tree I had selected. The boat's unexpected speed caught us by surprise and she was snared by a sunken branch which luckily snapped before ripping the hull.

I secured the boat fore and aft to the big tree and, with the lesson of the underwater branch in mind, lashed several small trunks to the boat's above-water bulges to serve as buffers. It was mid-morning before we crept below out of the wind and driving rain.

It stormed all day.

By late afternoon the river was in full flood and presented an awe-inspiring sight. Muddy water roared by, making a kind of deep-throated complement to the sound of the gale, which had increased in violence to a long dismal howl. It simply threw the rain at us, and it became impossible to stand and face the wind quarter, which remained north-east. Its con· tinuous pressure was broken at intervals only by fiercer squalls. The air was full of flying debris; these squalls seemed to pick up objects which the otherwise steady thrust of the wind passed over. The way the weather was developing made me more certain that a cyclone from the sea had indeed broken loose overland instead of veering characteristically back into mid-ocean. I explained to Nadine that I had heard of this happening on occasions in the past and that on these rare occasions thousands of square miles of countryside had been swamped. The pool at the rivers' junction had now vanished and in its place was a swirl of chocolate water by virtue of the down-current becoming stronger and running headon into gale-lashed water. We checked at intervals and saw the waves grow in size until they were about three feet high. Two great natural forces were testing their strength against each other.

By midday we were certain that our decision to move to the Shashi bank was a wise one. The main torrent was in the Limpopo channel beside The Hill and the water there was banked right up to the terrace. The trees near the palm to which I'd originally tied up were under water, or had been washed away. The choppy water was full of floating timber and we saw some dead animals too.

As the storm grew in intensity I double-lashed the boat to our big tree. At first I secured her both bow and stern to its trunk and later to the overhanging branches as well. It was risky working on the exposed deck which the rain had made as slippery as glass and the wind plucked at one's clothing making it dangerous to stand. From time to time we had to bail out the cockpit when the waves came aboard and added their quota. As the afternoon wore on I became anxious about our tree's holding power in the wet bank. I checked and felt reassured: it still stood firm; and I thought that by fending off the drifting debris and preventing a dam forming round the boat we would safely ride out the gale. The boat had also the advantage of the lee under the bank but this decreased as the water rose and increased her exposure to the gale. And as the day progressed the weather grew colder.

We spent some time examining and discussing the 'King's Messenger'. The fresh, strong torch we'd found in the boat showed clearly the chevron pattern in the centre of the stone and we made a cast of it by softening a candle and pushing it through the hole. Afterwards we felt surer that my hunch about its being part of an ingenious 'combination lock' was correct. However, trying to talk above the racket of the storm was tiring and as it grew worse we conversed less and even dozed at intervals.

About five o'clock in the afternoon I left Nadine and went on deck. The air was full of storm sounds. There was a weak smudge of light in the west where the sun was sinking but I reckoned that it would be dark soon. I couldn't see anything in the direction of The Hill and the river seemed to be boiling and churning worse than before. I checked the boat's moorings because there appeared to be a new degree of play in the way she bucked and swung on the ropes. I wondered if the tree was working loose from the wet bank and decided to get a light and inspect it after I had cleared away the build-up of loose stuff round the hull.

I was busy on this with a pole and had my head down, so still don't know from which direction came the wall of water which hit us. One moment I was shoving the debris clear; the next the boat had flipped on to her side, throwing me to the cockpit's bottom-board. The tree came loose and fell with a crash on top of us. Its weight must have plunged us completely under water because everything became a choking mess of muddy water. Mechanically, I grabbed hold of something and held on and then the boat and the tree, tangled together by ropes and branches, broke surface and shot away on the current. I had no idea which way we were going. The cockpit was full of water and the boat was still pinned on her side by the tree, which now began to bump and crash and threatened to hole her at every lift and fall.

I tried to get across to the cabin door to find an axe to-cut away the tree but the angle of list made my first attempt impossible. For a moment I was held by evidence of how powerful had been the force of water which had hit us. A big tiger fish lay on the gratings: it had been sliced lengthwise on some metal projection and its guts lay pulsating while" its razor toothed jaws snapped feebly. I managed to reach the door at my second attempt, and found Nadine safe but bewildered and up to her waist in water:

'Bail, Nadine! For God's sake, bail! I'm going to try and cut her loose!'