A Twist Of Sand

"That should clear us, all right," I said, "even if Hendriks is fool enough to come racing through the water as if we didn't exist."

"She's put her helm down," exclaimed John with a note of anxiety. "What the devil is she playing at?"

The Pikkewyn had allowed her head to fall off slightly and was bearing down straight at us. She was half a mile away.

"Blast!" I exclaimed. "Hard a'port," I snapped. I couldn't ring for more speed because of the heavy net holding us down. Ordinarily, nothing but a warship could have outmanoeuvred Etosha. But now she was wallowing like a hamstrung horse.

The schooner again altered course and came roaring down upon us. I have never been at the receiving end of a torpedo, but the sight of that old ship tearing down upon me, seemingly hell-bent on ramming Etosha, gave me some idea of what it is like to see that inexorable track streaking through the water.

I snatched a megaphone. "Cast off that net," I roared, "quick, damn you! cast it off!"

John stood aghast. We were sending over the side our profits just because some damn fool Malay was showing us how he could sail a schooner.

The crew, aware of their peril, jumped to it. The thick hawsers snaked overboard with a splash — away went the catch to Davy Jones.

"Full ahead," I rang, watching the oncoming doom, travelling like an express train. Then I saw her lean over as she luffed slightly until her lee scuppers were under water. It was clear she did not intend to ram us. But she was coming as close as she dared. I snatched up the megaphone as she came within a biscuit's toss — it was plain she had meant to cut across our stern and foul the trawl. My anger rose as I saw what she was up to. The fool! Had that light wooden hull, even at eleven knots, fouled the heavy hawsers of the net, her bow would have swung in towards the Etosha, and heaven alone knows what would have happened.

I could see Hendriks near the mizzen shrouds, grinning and waving. The figure next to him was Stein.

The stream of invective which had arisen to my lips at Hendrik's deliberate act of provocation was cut short at the sight of Stein. Bracing himself against the angle of Pikkewyn's deck, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, but the words were lost in the wind.

John turned to me furiously. "We'll have Hendriks's scalp for this, Geoffrey — you can't damn well play about with ships like that. Full ahead and after him?"

"No," I rapped out, for I thought I saw part of Stein's game. "No. She's doing a good eleven knots, and it'll take everything Etosha has to catch up with her on that course before night. I think I see what Stein is up to. You remember how he tried to get Etosha's speed out of Mac? He's played a double game here — he knew we'd have to cut the trawl for fear of being rammed and then go tearing after him to ask what the hell. No. I've lost the net and my catch and I'm damned if Stein is going to find out what Etosha can do. We'll let him go."

The schooner was drawing away rapidly.

"But," said John vehemently, "You can't go attempting

to ram another ship on the open sea "

"He's got the perfect defence," I replied shortly. "A ship under sail has the right of way. Anything under steam must give way to it. We were under way. He was perfectly within his rights. We can't do anything about it."

"Wait till I find Hendriks alone ashore," expostulated John, "I'll teach him"

"To sail close to the wind," I remarked grimly, nodding my head after the schooner.

A shout from one of the crew, who had been busy watching the antics of the Pikkewyn, cut across my anger. A couple of cables' lengths away, as if brought up with the wind of the schooner, was one of the most extraordinary sights I have ever seen at sea. The sea boiled as if from a thousand torpedo-tracks, all running parallel. It foamed, it roared, it churned. Ahead, like a convoy escort, and in perfect formation of threes, a dozen or more huge rays rose, splashing back into the sea with breath-taking slaps. A school of porpoises, helplessly bewildered, were being shouldered along the surface, and my glance of amazement caught a fifteen foot shark struggling to force his way down into the seething mass carrying him along.

It was the barracouta, or snoek, as we call them. The cartoonists' butt from the hard days of food rationing merits more than the contempt poured on the snoek then. He is the finest fighter in the seas, more brutal and relentless than a shark. In these waters the snoeking season generally ends in early winter, but snoek is one of the most important catches in South Atlantic waters.

The sight was like one of those gigantic migrations of springbok in the Namaqualand desert when scores of thousands of buck, moving in gigantic phalanxes a dozen miles across, pour across the countryside, oblivious of fences, oblivious of homesteads, of guns, fire and man. They pour on and on, in countless numbers, and once they threw themselves by the thousand into the sea. Why they do it, man still has to learn.