The River of Diamonds

13

'You! It was you who sent that message! Fauler Zauber! Headquarters thought…' Rhennin was as white as the coffins.

Shelborne said harshly, 'Don't shine that torch in my eyes, Rhennin! I am a man of peace, but…'

I laughed. I didn't recognize my own voice. 'Peace! Yet you carry a Schmeisser! Five men you've killed sitting there…!'

'Drop that pistol!'

'You killed Caldwell too!'

'If either of you makes a move, I swear before God that it will be the last you ever make.'

I could see, in the half-light, the dune of flesh which banked up above his right cheekbone when he was agitated. The gullies in his face were deeper, the eyes wide and luminous.

Rhennin burst out: 'But the message — how…?'

Shelborne nodded to a figure in seaman's clothes lying sprawled inside the doorway. 'He sent "fauler Zauber": I overheard it. The radio is behind the door there. It was the one bit of sense I could make out in what he sent, "silly humbug". The game, the diamonds — a silly farce, you must agree.'

Rhennin burst out. 'He didn't mean it that way… The operation… you shot them down as they played; they weren't ready.'

'Look — do you see bullet-marks?'

'You double-talking bastard…!'

Shelborne raised the Schmeisser. One burst would cut a man in half. 'Throw down your guns — here, at my feet. You first, Tregard. If Koeltas is to be believed, you're the more dangerous of the two.'

I surrendered the Colt. 'So you've got Koeltas? He ran out to sea when the Bells sounded.'

'I picked him up on Hollam's Bird Island.' His voice was grim. 'He thought I was out of the way. He couldn't resist the temptation of a little poaching.'

The cutter?'

'Of course — she'd outrun the Malgas any time. Koeltas is back at the hut now. Unfortunately Kim…'

'Man of peace!' I sneered. My respect for the man grew: I would not have dared to fight it out single-handed with Koeltas's cut-throat crew.

The Luger too!'

Rhennin threw the pistol.

'Now the torch!'

Rhennin rolled it towards Shelborne. As he bent down to retrieve it, that would be the time to jump him. The same thought must have crossed his mind, for he sank unwaveringly, warily, on his haunches, the Schmeisser aimed.

'Get inside the hut!'

The torch beam reflected from the dead eyes of the U-boat ace at the top of the table and dully from the piles of uncut stones. The five captains were dressed in heavy off-white rolltop sweaters under black reefer jackets. Their caps were on the table. The insignia was the same, their clothes were alike, but it was the realization of one item of dreadful uniformity which sent a thrill of horror down my spine — their matching red hair. It was all exactly the same shade. No two men could have been born like that, let alone five.

Rhennin's swift step over the sentry's body and his words stopped mine. 'Immelmann! Werner! Hessler! Schmidt!'

His agonized roll-call was the first since Seekriegsleitung had searched the ether, day after day, for Gruppe Eisbar. They were not to know that SKL, the brilliant fighting machine, had itself gone to its death before they could answer. Korvettenkapitan Rhennin's face was vigorous, young, alert, a younger edition of Felix. Ironical to die here on land at the hand of a diamond-struck prospector 600 miles from the Western Approaches, away from the destroyers' depth-charges, the Asdic, the minefields.

'Dieter!'

The sightless eyes stared. Rhennin tore open the reefer jacket to look for bullet-holes so that the cards spilled out of the dead man's hand. But there were no wounds.

Rhennin lost control of himself. 'You swine! You bloody swine! He never had red hair! They've all got red hair! All red hair! You monster! — you dyed their hair!' He plucked unseeingly at Dieter's jacket.

Shelborne rapped out: 'Stand out of my line of fire!'

I yelled helplessly. 'He doesn't know what he's saying or doing…!' The Schmeisser gave a metallic, pre-death clunk as Shelborne switched the lever over to rapid fire. 'Stop! Stop…!'

Rhennin staggered towards the entrance, cannoning into the man opposite Dieter. The body crashed sideways to the floor. Shelborne's torch sought his eyes, blinding him.

'Gruppe Eisbar!' he mouthed. 'Here are Goering's diamonds, Dieter! Here they are! You never made off with them! How did he destroy the whole Rudel, Dieter? One man! You swine, you bloody swine!'

Shelborne was rock-steady. 'Pull yourself together, man! His hair is red because of the guano. The ammonia in the guano — it turns all their hair red! They're all like that, every corpse in the graveyard! It mummifies them too!'

It was the only thing that would have stopped him except a bullet. He stood swaying over the body of the sentry. Then he took a great grip of himself. His voice was shaky. 'What did you do with the U-boats, Shelborne?'

His voice was cool, soothing almost. 'All this took place a.long time ago, Rhennin. I'm sorry about your brother. I didn't realize you had any inkling he was on Mercury.'

I told him about the Knight's Cross.

'I didn't steal it — I haven't moved them,' he said. He was watchful but persuasive, sympathetic. Spontaneously, the comparison sprang into my mind — his manner was like Mary's. The thought sickened me. What else had he taken from Caldwell in addition to his life?

Shelborne said, 'We'll go to the huts. The path is very slippery — you'd better rope yourselves. I'll follow — with the Schmeisser.'

Rhennin asked, in a strangled voice, 'The crews of Crupper Eisbar — they are all dead?'

'Yes.'

'May I see them too?'

'They are in their ships. They are not preserved like the captains by the guano. They won't be a pretty sight.'

'The wolf-pack — you know where it is, then?'

'I have it safe also.'

I said, 'In the Glory Hole, of course.'

'Of course — where else?'

'Is that why you killed Piet Pieterse?'

'You are here to answer questions, not me.'

Rhennin said, indicating the heaps of uncut diamonds, 'What…?'

'They thought it was rather fun to play for stakes — diamond stakes — like that. There must be Ј50,000 lying on the table.'

'They wouldn't have stolen it.'

'I didn't say they did. They were relaxing, waiting for a radio signal from U-boat headquarters. There are plenty more diamonds in the cache…' I said, 'In the Glory Hole, too, of course.'

'Of course.'

'Another of your secrets.'

'I didn't know about the hoard until Gruppe Eisbar came.'

'Is it still there?'

'Yes. And the U-boats.'

I moved closer so that I could read his eyes. 'Shelborne, you've been here more than twenty years. That whole time would have been worth waiting for the one day when the wind, the tide and the air explosions would have been right so that you could bring out the cache. There must have been such days — but no. What is it that can kill a U-boat pack, five captains, a heavily-armed patrol boat, thousands of buck — and yet cannot induce you to enter the Glory Hole and bring out a fortune?'

He said softly, 'The Bells of St Mary's.'

I laughed, but it came out wrong. 'Or Caldwell's ghost.'

He was so withdrawn that he didn't notice how the muzzle of the Schmeisser had fallen. The black clothing gave the illusion that there was nothing of him but the bald head and abstracted face.

His reply was strange, forced, and he reminded me of our time together on Sudhuk. He meant to kill me then, and I felt sure he intended to now. 'You might rightly say the ghost of the Namib. If ghost means a survival of something which was and now is not, or only in some other form…'

So I had been right: he was speaking of the ancient prehistoric river barrier and its complementary diamond fountainhead.

He ignored me and swung back into the present, addressing Rhennin. 'Are you satisfied now that I didn't kill your brother and the others?'

Rhennin shook his head like a drunk. 'Not with bullets — there's not a mark on him. But he died, and you killed him: that I know.'

He said incisively, 'Tregard, you first — you know the route roughly. But don't be foolish enough to make a run for it, you'll only fall and break your neck. My graveyard is getting a bit full, as you see.'

The island's new patina of guano made the path hazardous in the bitter cold, and I was glad when we sighted the huts, which were lighted. On the stoep, the tongue of the old bell swung gently, as it had at sea; Mercury never slept.

'Open it!' ordered Shelborne at the door.

It wasn't a room. My eyes rested for a moment only on the bound figure of Koeltas before travelling round in astonishment. It was a ship's cabin — but it was also the proclamation of a lonely man. A loom and a rope jack for making fancy rope-and-canvas thrum mats for the floor told of patient hours of a craft which has passed with the sailing ship. Next to its ratchet-wheel was a wooden fid and belaying-pin as well as a number of coils of Portsmouth blue yarn, Devonport red and Chatham yellow. There were no pictures, but strange, surrealist designs had been superimposed on the walls with a type of bright steel rope. I recognized it as the special flexible electro-plated rope which British warships use for ammunition hoists. Centre-piece of the room was a brass signal cannon, polished and bright as an old ship's lantern, on a bracket near the galley door. The main light, however, came from a five-foot pillar light buoy, like a little latticed lighthouse with a cone topmark, in the left-hand corner. It had once been fixed to a reef and the steel was deeply scored by rust and weather. Behind it a canvas. hammock was permanently slung, with a mercury barometer, an anemometer, a modern aircraft-type sextant and a chart-rack on the wall. The near corner was cluttered with a pile of sails and running gear for the Gquma.

Shelborne's curtness disappeared and he spoke in the companionable way he had used on occasion before. Again I felt the curious ambivalence of my attitude towards this man. 'What do you think of my new suit of sails for the Gquma? — I've been sewing them for months, to use on a special occasion.'

I almost forgot the Schmeisser. 'Blue — that's an unusual colour for sails, isn't it?'

He nodded. 'Yes, but they're pretty special. Look at that nylon spanker — what a picture she'll be with that set in a fresh south-wester…'

I rejected what he was saying when I saw what was against the far wall — an old portable trommel, or diamon sieving jig, burnished bright. A prospector's hammer, battered with use, hung above it.

I strode across and swung them round. 'Like the Borchardt — these were Caldwell's!'

Had Shelborne parted from Caldwell the way he claimed at Strandloper's Water, Caldwell would never have left behind him the tools of his trade, the trommel and the hammer. It would have been pointless to go without them to look for diamonds.

Shelborne backed to the door with the machine-pistol ready, his tone changed, harsh. His reply left no doubt in my mind that he intended to shoot us. 'Who else's?' He motioned towards Koeltas. 'Take off his gag.'

I did so. There was a rapid-fire of Hottentot profanity. Shelborne smiled without humour and let him finish.

Rhennin said, 'I must know about Dieter.'

Shelborne was relaxed, watchful. 'Let me see, in…'

'May-June 1942,' supplemented Rhennin.

'Yes. The birds were away. I was alone, except for the cook. A U-boat surfaced off the jetty one afternoon. The crew had manned the gun before the water had drained off the casing…'

'Dieter's crew was one of the smartest in the service,' said Rhennin.

'Half a dozen of them came ashore with an officer. He spoke German, which of course I do too. He said any resistance would be crushed. They clumped up to the hut here. Ouboet, the cook, yelled at them. They shot him right outside this door. The officer said I'd get the same if I didn't co-operate. When I went outside again the bay seemed full of U-boats…'

'There were five in Gruppe Eisbar.'

They took me to U-68, to your brother. He asked me for details about the Glory Hole. I thought they intended to use it as a sort of undersea base for raids against shipping — you remember, Walvis Bay was a mustering point for long-distance convoys.'

'No — he was after the Queen Mary convoy in Cape Town.'

Shelborne was thoughtful. 'So that was it — he kept referring to his mission.'

'Goering's cache was the other part of it.'

Shelborne smiled a little. 'So it seemed. Your brother was quite open about it. He intended to unearth the cache and then shoot me, he said. I told him I had never been inside the Glory Hole…'

'… which remains a lie,' said Rhennin.

Shelborne looked across at me. 'What do you think, Tregard?'

I fumbled for a reply; he was closer to my thought processes than I cared for.

Still looking at me, Shelborne went on. 'Korvettenkapitan Rhennin talked tough. He thought I was concealing something. He told me he would dive with the whole Rudel into the cavern — he knew it was big and deep. A spy had given him information about the cache the day before at Angras Juntas. The man…'

'Yes, yes,' exclaimed Rhennin impatiently. 'I know all this. I was at SKL headquarters. We got Dieter's sighting signal. But what happened here — at Mercury?'

Shelborne shrugged. 'While they dived, they put me ashore. It was fairly calm. From the summit of the island I watched them submerge. Next thing, a couple of rubber dinghies landed on the graveyard side. I went down. The five captains were in great spirits. Your brother had a small flourbag half-filled with diamonds. He told me the U-boats had surfaced inside the Glory Hole and had moored themselves to a natural rock shelf. Goering's diamonds, he said, were in a tin-lined box on the shelf with a notice in German stencilled on the outside. The pick-up could not have been simpler. They had a radio with them; they said they couldn't signal from inside the cavern. One of them was uneasy, however.'

'That would be Immelmann,' said Rhennin.

'Say it was Immelmann, then. Korvettenkapitan Rhennin wanted to go over to my quarters and signal from there, but Immelmann prevailed on them to stay on the seaward side of the island where, he said, reception would be better. The six men — there was the radio operator too — went to the toolshed where I keep cement for the coffins. I hung around; they didn't seem to mind. They were gay, carefree. They said they'd play poker to pass the time, using the diamonds for stakes. They'd have to wait for a fixed time, your brother said — he didn't say when.'

'That is correct. Their signal was due at 1700 hours; SKL would reply in about three hours afterwards.'

Shelborne went on, 'They closed the door. I stood back when the signalling started. Morse, but it was a jumble — code, I suppose. Then came the little bit — fauler Zauber — in plain German. I was surprised not to hear them talking. I came away before it was dark and cold. Next day I went back. There they were, as you saw them — dead, with the cards in their hands, although their hair was its natural colour then. I never saw the U-boats come out…'

Rhennin's face was livid. 'You lie, Shelborne! You lie! It is impossible! You have left something out…'

'Yes, I have. The Bells of St Mary's started late that afternoon.'

Koeltas cursed fluently. 'I say, too, he lies! He never stays when the Bells start… He knows the Bells kill…'

Rhennin continued rapidly. 'Gruppe Eisbar was at the ready. They were fighting men. They were on enemy soil. Only death in a form they did not know could have struck them down. There is not a mark on them! They died so quickly the cards did not fall from their hands!'

Shelborne asked, 'Why did he transmit fauler Zauber — silly humbug?'

'What he sent was rubbish,' replied Rhennin harshly. 'HQ never received it. It was monitored by one of our surface raiders. What you thought was code was a mix-up — there was no sense to it.'

'Or,' I interjected, 'a man who was losing his senses and trying desperately to say something before they ran out.'

Shelborne was silent.

'Why did they choose the toolshed?' I demanded.

Shelborne's eyes were blank. I knew he was lying — somehow he had coerced them to their deaths there. With what lightning weapon had he been able to strike down the light-hearted U-boats captains? It must have been an agent as fleet in its strike as that weird night plant of the Namib which rushes into overpowering and nauseating bloom for a mere seven hours once in a year and dies before dawn.

Shelborne watched me keenly. 'For no other reason than that the hut was situated where they thought radio reception would be best; they made it their own mausoleum and I left them there as they sat because I knew the guano would mummify them in time. It was as good a tomb as Mercury could provide.'

'Why call it the Bells?' I hurried on. 'Why, of all things, the Bells of St Mary's — you named them that, I presume?'

He smiled. 'Yes, it was I. You know the song, the bells from over the sea…'

I shuddered at this mind which could give a lyrical name to a killer.

Rhennin interrupted. 'Listen, Shelborne, we have had a bellyful of strange things tonight. How Dieter died, maybe I shall never know: but it doesn't affect the major issue.'

'And that is?'

'Diamonds. Diamonds from the sea.' Shelborne gave a quick intake of breath. 'I know — we both know — that you're on to something big, something too big for you. Admit that. Stop this nonsense about the Bells. Forget about Dieter and Gruppe Eisbar.' He was pleading, persuasive. Tregard has hammered you about Caldwell. What if Caldwell did come to a sticky end and you don't want it dug up again? Fair enough — it's history, just as Dieter is history. We can wipe the slate clean. Your knowledge for a share in the Mazy Zed project.'

Shelborne seemed not to hear. 'For eighteen months after Gruppe, Eisbar there was only myself on Mercury — war, no relief ships. The food ran out. I hadn't the cutter then. I went back into the Namib.' He edged past us and gave the trommel handle a flick. 'Caldwell went out to meet his fate in the Namib. I lived a whole year there in sun which is death by day and cold which is death by night: loneliness and tireless emptiness do not corrupt the soul there because they are refined by the presence of death. Not to know at dawn whether you will see the sunset, not to know at sunset whether you will see the dawn. You must come to terms with the Namib.' He paused and when he went on his voice was exalted. 'Against this one's own violence is puny; that is why I abhor violence. You go on because the way back holds equal tortures. Beyond the summit of the next dune and truths — still you go on. The Unubersehbares Dunenmeer — the horizonless dunes, the Germans used to call them. There is a horizon, though, and there is a journey — into fear, into death, into yourself. Perhaps one never returns.'

I said, 'Caldwell in the flesh and you in the spirit.'

He brushed it aside. 'You come to worship all forms of life — I showed you the beetles, Tregard — and also the mechanics of life itself: you saw that leg which had specially equipped itself and that hygroscopic layer on the beetle's back. That meant water, and water is life.'

He looked round the cabin, as if he were seeing it for the first time — or the last.

Rhennin asked more sharply, 'Well, are you coming in with the Mazy Zed?.'

That appraisal of his room told me a great deal. 'You have a court order. Very well. Go ahead. Enforce it. Against what? Against whom? I haven't done anything except threaten you with a gun. No one has tried to stop you prospecting the sea-bed. No one has attempted to prevent you entering the Glory Hole.'

'Is that your answer then?'

'It is.' A thrill of cold fear ran through me as his eyes moved from Rhennin to me, and back to Rhennin. He spoke softly, but there was a quiescent power about the way he said it, a sly menace, like that of a missile head without its rocket. 'If you attempt to mine diamonds from the sea round Mercury, every man of your crew will die. You with them. As certainly as a burst from this loathsome weapon.'

There was no penetrating the zareba of his secret, no way into the fastness of his desert-tempered mind. Mary had been right about him. Mary…!

I said, 'And Mary with us?'

For the first time I had got through his guard. He was horrified. 'Mary,' Mary is here? You brought her from Angras Juntas…'

'Yes, of course. She's got a job to do.'

'But after the torpedoing…!'

He was reeling against the ropes. I wanted him down for the full count. 'We were standing on the deck, Mary and I, only a few feet from where your friends' torpedo exploded.'

He said in a strangled voice, 'She wasn't… hurt?'

'No. Pretty shocked. We were both thrown into the water. Johaar rescued us.'

Rhennin saw his opportunity, too. 'Why are you so concerned about this girl, Shelborne? Is she part of your conscience about Caldwell?'

He didn't seem to hear. 'Mary — my God!'

I went on. 'First Caldwell, and then a near miss at killing his daughter!'

His eyes were alive with pain. 'You don't… you can't understand.'

Rhennin said, 'The days of the one-man, one-fortune strike are done. It needs money, science, a pool of brains, a capital of millions. Given enough of each or all, I'd break open the Namib into the bargain.'

Shelborne said thinly, 'It is a paradox, isn't it, that the Sperrgebiet was the first part of the earth's crust to cool out of chaos, and it still remains the last to be conquered. That is my answer.'

Koeltas said savagely, 'There's only one thing for this smooth-talking bastard — shoot him stone-dead!'

Shelborne's eyes had their heart-green diamond tinge. 'Mary must be out of this, do you hear?' He raised the Schmeisser and Koeltas cringed away at the look on his face. 'You will agree to this — I am not offering you terms. You will go free tonight and take the U-boat captains' diamonds for yourselves. I will guarantee proper burial for them. You will take the Mazy Zed away from Mercury. You will give me your solemn word that there will be no mining. Mary will come with me in the Gqama to Walvis Bay. When I return — in about a week if the wind is right — you will be gone. You will never return.'

I laughed. '"Don't tread on me!"' Rhennin asked, 'And what if we don't?' 'I will take you outside and shoot all three of you.' He wasn't bluffing. His sincerity was the measure of just how big his secret was. But, if we could show one strong pointer or fact to a major discovery, Shelborne would be beaten. A one-man stand, an island Hampden gun in hand, would not prevail once the big guns of the diamond business got going — he would be swept out of the way like a flawed stone on a sorter's table. In the week he planned to be away at Walvis, we could make a quick prospect — for our strong pointer which we still lacked.

Rhennin caught the look in my eyes. 'We want to discuss this — alone.'

'I'll take Mary, whether you agree or not.' 'Having murdered her father, as you plan to murder us.'

He laughed easily. 'Quite.'

'You won't get away with it, you know, if we refuse.' 'No? You slipped ashore on a dangerous shore on a dark night in a small rubber boat. The dinghy is found; you are not. You were drowned. Koeltas here — no one will miss him.'

The wiry Hottentot said, 'I see him kill Kim. He will kill us. He does not mind.'

They were four against one — Kim got what he deserved.' He held up one hand, scored by a long seam. 'Koeltas had his shot in too.'

'Are you going to give us the opportunity…?'

'Yes. I intend to handcuff you first, though. I have a couple of pairs for guano workers when Mercury gets them down.'

He pulled them from a canvas bag, made us snap them on each other's wrists and closed the door.

'What?' asked Rhennin.

'Listen,' I whispered urgently. 'Agree. Let him take Mary. I'll dive into the Glory Hole — right away, if the weather holds. Then — Strandloper's Water. We'll also toothcomb Mercury while he's away and debunk this nonsense of the Bells.'

'He asked for our solemn word.'

'Forced under duress, at gunpoint? The aces are all ours, Felix.'

'Why doesn't he simply bring Mary ashore here out of harm's way — why Walvis?'

'Because,' I replied, 'he knows himself that at times Mercury kills. The quicker we get off, the better.'

'I say that, too,' added Koeltas. 'I still kill Shelborne — myself.'

'If we can return to the Cape with a first-class sea-bed assay, the authorities will back us up. It's no good telling them at this stage that Shelborne is obstructing us. He'll come up with some cock-and-bull yarn about disturbing the birds and the seals — you know just how sensitive they were about that before we set out…'

'I'll rub his nose in guano before we're through,' said Rhennin savagely., 'Dieter and Gruppe Eisbar… It makes my blood run cold. But how…?'

I interrupted. 'We know now that the rest of the Goering cache is in the Glory Hole. I'll bring it out. The dive is first priority. I have got to see, Felix.'

Rhennin smiled for the first time that evening. 'It will be the biggest single day's haul of diamonds on record — better than the Oyster Line!'

'I get diamant also?' asked Koeltas. 'I kill Shelborne for some more, eh?'

I said roughly, 'Yes, Skipper. You go and fetch them out of a graveyard from under the noses of five dead men sitting there, and you'll get your share.'

The skin was tight on his Tartar cheekbones. 'Shelborne kills them too?'

'Yes.'

He whistled through his hemp-stained teeth. 'Next time I bring the FN automatic.'

I called to Shelborne that we had agreed. He still took no chances. He locked us in the guano workers' deserted quarters for the night. There was no point in trying to escape, as others on Mercury had found, simply because there was nowhere to escape to. I lay awake long after the others, thinking of Shelborne's dedicated search for grace in the Namib and the fate which had dealt him a diamond hand and the joker in the shape of the terrible guardian which had struck down Gruppe Eisbar, the captains, the springbok, the patrol boat — and my fellow-diver.