A Twist Of Sand

"You will fetch us in a month's time, depending on where you are putting us ashore," said Stein. I didn't like the way he said "will."

This new development meant I must disclose the whereabouts of Curva dos Dunas — at least vaguely. Well, I ruminated grimly, they've all signed their own death warrant. Pretty girl or no pretty girl, Curva dos Dunas was mine. I salved my conscience quickly. I could perhaps arrange a "leak "through Mark and the police would round them up, but then I would be involved if Stein spoke — and I felt quite sure he wouldn't hesitate if he found I had turned the tables on him. I shelved the question for the moment.

Stein was speaking again.

"I think the best plan is if we go to the saloon and I shall indicate exactly where I am going."

I nodded. The girl went first.

I found myself alone in the saloon with her. She slipped off the unshapely duffle-coat and I was surprised at the slim figure underneath. She wore corduroy slacks and a tangerine shirt. It looked as if it had come straight from the laundry. Her breasts barely filled the curve of the shirt.

She caught my glance and smiled.

"Not exactly the rig for the Skeleton Coast, thinks Captain Peace?"

"I don't think this coast is any place for any woman at all," I said gruffly, half irritated at her close scrutiny of myself. I hadn't shaved as I had been on the bridge all night and I could feel the sticky mixture of salt air and fog moisture on the bristles. My eyes probably looked like a drunk's.

"Cigarette?" she asked, pulling out a packet of Peter Stuyvesant.

"I don't smoke," I said, "or practically never."

There was a reserved, mocking smile on her lips.

"Spoils the ability to smell where you are off the Skeleton Coast?" she asked lightly.

I looked at her, but there was no laughter in my reply.

"Stein didn't tell me he was bringing a woman along with him. Particularly an attractive woman. I just don't like the whole idea."

There was no laughter this time from her either.

"Your idea or his idea?" she asked penetratingly.

I fenced it off, but it gave me the measure of her intelligence.

"The two ideas must necessarily combine. I supply the landing-point — so I thought. That is my business. Where it is is also my business. I wasn't bargaining for a return pick-up in a month's time."

"Return pick-up sounds awfully like some kind of tart," she grinned.

But she cut short my return grin and I found myself feeling rather inane with it hanging on my lips. She took a quick draw on the cigarette — I noticed she had almost smoked half of it in our brief conversation — and said crisply, as if she regretted her sally: "You're Captain Macdonald, alias Lieutenant-Commander Peace, aren't you?"

I didn't like the way she said it.

I nodded.

"That's right," I sneered. "Lieu tenant-Commander Geoffrey Peace, D.S.O. and two Bars, Royal Navy, cashiered. Now a fisherman. At present engaged in dubious unspecified activities off the Skeleton Coast."

"I just want you to get it quite clear what my position is in all this," she went on decisively. "Let's get the record straight before we start. The first thing that springs to your mind when you see me is that I'm Stein's woman. Those were your own words."

"What else was I to think?" I rejoined lamely. "An attractive young woman…" My words petered out.

"Exactly," she snapped, grinding the cigarette savagely. "To you a woman means only one thing — and you had the impertinence to say it to a complete stranger. Get this clear; I don't like Stein any more than I like you on first acquaintance."

"Then there's nothing more to be said," I snapped back.

"There's a great deal more," she said. "I know the sort of man Stein is, and I know the sort of people he hires to work for him."

We stared across the table in open hostility.

"If you know all about slumming, why come along?" I sneered back. "Why dirty your lily-white hands with all this human offal?"

She lit another cigarette angrily.

"Don't you know what a living Onymacris means to science?"

"No," I replied, "and I don't give a damn either.. Stein is no more hunting an extinct beetle than I am. I don't see him as the scientist in his ivory — or is it uranium — tower devoting his life and fortune to restoring one little beetle to the sum of human knowledge."

"I was absolutely right in my assessment of you," she said. "Tough, ruthless, self-centred, no gain but my gain. You wouldn't know what it felt like to have a leading ideal about a thing like this."

I was more curious than angry now.

"And you have — of course."

"Look," she said, "I was born during the civil war in China…"

"Is this autobiography really necessary?" I asked.

The barb went home. She flushed. She turned away to the porthole.

"It only is because it illustrates why I am here," she said. "I haven't got any illusions about Stein — or about you, for that matter. Or this expedition. But Onymacris matters — matters, oh, so much."

I wasn't going to let her get away with all that.