A Twist Of Sand

I brought the Etosha into Walvis Bay towards sunset. John was with me on the bridge. As Pelican Point, a narrow peninsula which juts into the sea at the harbour mouth, came, clearly to view about five miles to the southward, the moderate wind to seaward suddenly switched northerly and the uneasy lop of the waves from the south-west indicated that we were in for a couple of days of the great rollers which crash so mercilessly on the coast after a northerly blow, more so at this late autumn season than during the summer.

Etosha eased towards the harbour mouth at seven knots. "If she'd been a sailer, we'd be all aback now," John remarked. His lips were cracked from the wind, and the top of his thick woollen polo-necked jersey was stained with salt and paint. He was tired, too, after the excitement of the dawn. He had been on his feet solidly since.

"I've got some old sailing directions below," I remarked. "It would drive me round the bend bringing a schooner, even under snug sail, up to an anchorage like this."

The wind off the land, blowing powerfully across the direction of the northerly wind outside the harbour, threw up a short, nasty sea.

"Starboard fifteen," I told the Kroo boy at the wheel. "Slow ahead," I rang.

The sun, endowed by the great surge of volcanic dust thrown up by the eruptions, was making a great show of going down. Sunsets are always spectacular on the Skeleton Coast, but this one was out-vying them. Gold spears stabbed heavenwards like molten searchlights, refracted and diffused by the volcanic dust over the sea and the fine particles of sand whipping in from the desert which backs the port.

As Etosha edged in towards her buoy, I laid her length parallel with the sandy peninsula.

John laughed. "Not forgotten the tricks of the trade, eh? Put her against the sunset with a spit of land behind and what do our nosey-parkers see from the shore of damage? Nothing. Only blackness. I suppose it's in the blood, Geoffrey — you might as well ask a wolf not to stalk a caribou as expect a submariner not to hide himself!"

I joined in the laugh, although a little cautiously. I was not sure how much the Kroo boy understood of what we were saying.

"You've done such a damn fine job that it's scarcely necessary to conceal the damage," I said.

He nodded. "With a more responsive crew, I'd have had her more shipshape still," he remarked. "We certainly scared the pants off this lot to-day."

John had done wonders. Apart from the missing boats, twisted davits and the mast aft, even the idlers hanging around the quayside (they never seemed to disperse) would not have noticed much amiss. The paintwork had been restored where the blistering eruption had stripped it off her plates like a blow-lamp, although there were still obvious signs on the deck of her ordeal — the twisted winches and bent bulwarks. Nevertheless, I could take her to sea any ' time. Mac had not reported from the engine room, but I knew he would be along once we had secured. In addition to the repairs, we had heaved about ten tons offish overboard which had been spoilt by the heat of the eruption.

I brought Etosha up to her moorings, which lay well away from most of the other fishing boats anyway, most of them local wooden sail-and-engine craft which (to my mind) have none of the seaworthiness or grace of those fine cutters one finds off the Norwegian coast or on the Icelandic grounds.

The angry sun transformed the harbour, even the ugly Cold Storage works with its tall chimneys and fortress-like structure, to a world of golds, blues, ambers and blacks. The quick late autumn night was falling when we cleared away the crew for the night — I did not allow them to sleep aboard, which they resented, but it was a point on which I was adamant.

John, Mac and I had the Etosha to ourselves.

"Come in, Mac," I called from my sea-cabin where John was having a drink with me later.

"Scotch?" I asked.

"Aye," he replied in his dour way. "No water."

"Anything left of your engines after this morning?" asked John.

"Bluidy little," he growled. He turned from the painting of a full-rigged ship which he was contemplating above my desk. Although I had known Mac for more than fifteen years, I still felt a little chilled at his eyes, like a line of surf under the Northern Lights, coupled with his morose dour-ness.

"Some day," he said angrily, "ye'll go too far, skipper, and you won't have me to haul you out of the muck." He smiled grimly at his inner knowledge. "The luck's been with you, so far, laddie. It damn near wasn't to-day."