A Twist Of Sand

John grinned. "Forget it," he said. "I'm only an unskilled help. You're the backroom boy — you've got it all in your head. I must say it frightens the pants off me."

"Well," I said, mollified by his calm which was always a tonic to me in a tight corner, "I had to get well clear of Walvis before any of the fishing fleet started cluttering things up. At this speed, if Etosha hits anything, we will all take a nose-dive to the bottom. I'm making like a bat out of hell for Sierra Bay, and I think I'll get a fix on the high hill there. About eight miles to the north-west will be Cape Cross and when we spot the white water there.I'll change from this course nor'-nor'-west to nor'-west. But I'm holding her close in so that we'll be in fog most of to-day, and by this afternoon when it clears we should be somewhere around the Swallow Breakers."

John winced again. "Where I put up my classic boob and nearly had us ashore."

I looked at him sombrely. "I can't promise you I won't do exactly the same. I hope to get another fix there, and then we'll beat it for the mouth of the Cunene." I dropped my voice. "That's where our friend is going to be dumped."

John looked at me; the fog distorted the size of his eyes.

"Dumped?"

"Put ashore," I hastily corrected myself. I wondered if John guessed I had no intention of bringing Stein back alive.

"Tricky," he said, turning away and raising his glasses.

"Watch this boy," I told John. "I'm going up above to see if I can get a glimpse of the breakers."

"Aye, aye," said John.

The fog seemed thicker up on the "flying bridge." I strode over to the starboard wing and my anger and frustration at the whole project boiled when I saw a duffle-coated figure looking landwards. If I was going to taxi Stein around this perilous coast, at least I wasn't going to have him or any of his party on my bridge.

I grabbed the coated shoulder.

"Get off my bridge," I snarled. "Get the hell out of here back to the saloon."

The hood fell back as the figure turned. It was a girl. Even in my anger I noticed that the long, red-brown hair seemed more to tumble out of her hood than anything else in its profusion.

I looked at her in stupefaction. The fog perhaps distorted her eyes, but I can see the look in them still. She gazed at me silently.

"As you wish," she said in a low voice.

She started to brush past me. All my pent-up anger at Stein and his machinations broke loose.

"What the bloody hell are you, a woman, doing on my ship?" I burst out. "If Stein thinks he can bring along his home comforts on a trip like this, then, by God, he's mistaken!" A plan flashed through my mind. Cape Cross! Yes, I'd send her ashore in the surf-boat under cover of the fog — there was a primitive settlement there — and she could have a look at life in the raw.

"Out there," I snapped, waving my hand landwards, "is a series of shacks round a saltpan. I'm putting you ashore there — and you'll bloody well like it, understand? I'm not having any woman on board my ship on a trip like this."

She eyed me coolly and it may have been a gesture of nervousness, or a woman's instinct, that made her fumble to undo the top button of her duffle-coat.

"I think we should discuss this question with Dr. Stein, don't you?" she asked levelly.

"I won't discuss anything with Stein," I snapped back. "I'm not having his bloody woman on my ship. Having him is quite enough."

"Stop saying ' his woman '," she retorted. She stared at me hard and I remember still that there was a slight crumple of flesh between her right eyelid and eyebrow as she frowned. "So you are the famous Captain Peace," she went off at a tangent.

I started to reply, but John's hail came floating up.

"Breakers bearing oh-four-oh, six miles. Geoffrey! Geoffrey!"

I stood, torn between my anger at finding Stein's woman, and the imperative need to con Etosha.

She smiled. "Go on, Geoffrey," she mocked. "You can deal with me later. Your ship needs you now."

I went.

"I just caught a glimpse of it," said John, "there, I think, bearing now oh-three-five."

I waited for a moment for the refracted light to strike back.

"No," I said, "I don't think so. Oh-three-five is too fine. I think it must have been a mirage off the smaller saltpan, which lies just south of the point. How much water under her?"

John flicked a glance at the echo-sounder.

"Nine — and a bit, shallowing."

I grinned at him. "Oddly enough, it's not shallowing just here. As we come opposite the point we'll get up to thirteen fathoms. I wish we would get a bit of sun, though."

Etosha tore on. John, I could see, was plainly nervous. So was I. Toying with a trick of the light for a reliable bearing on the Skeleton Coast is about as safe as playing Russian roulette.

The fog dripped, but it was lighter to the east. If I missed this bearing, I would, at best, have to fumble my way northwards to Palgrave Point and Cape Frio and beyond that, in the foul ground towards Curva dos Dunas — I felt myself sweating even at the thought.