A Bridge of Magpies

C H A P T E R N I N E

I slipped Gaok's cable and Kaptein Denny had the diesel roaring in under a minute. We got under way and tore off in the direction of Sang A.

Jutta joined me on the bridge. I took a long look at the black ship.

'We're in danger of making fools of ourselves. That ship's not up-anchoring at all.'

'What's all the activity about then?'

I shouted to Kaptein Denny to cut our speed and join us. Sang A wasn't more than a mile and a half away now. 'They' re trimming her head,' I pointed out. 'Look, it's beginning to point towards Doodenstadt.'

'There's another mooring buoy astern.' Denny could make it out but I couldn't. 'There's a cable out to it and they're winching her stern round.'

'What the hell are they up tor

°There are a couple of boats, too,' added Jutta.

They were light launches and they were putting off from Sang A's side-trailing something between them. I saw what it was as Denny spoke.

'A hawser. They're dragging for something.'

'We don't want to break up this interesting little party,' I said. 'We'll just stooge around with the engine off.'

While Kaptein Denny attended to the motor Jutta and I kept watch on the launches. They worked their way slowly and deliberately between Sang A and a point on Possession, holding so straight a course that it was clear they were steering on a fixed bearing. Gaok lost way and lay rising and falling in the easy swell.

'Looks as if they're dragging for something on the sea bed,' I said.

'Perhaps they lost an anchor in the storm-' suggested Jutta.

Denny paused before replying-until the launches had made more progress towards the island.

'No, They're much too close inshore. Any skipper who 120 anchored there would need his head read.'

'Maybe he does anyway,' I retorted. 'See what they're doing with the ship itself.'

Swig A's head was pointing all wrong, to lie meeting the upchannel current but it was clear that was the way it was intended because they'd now secured her stern to the buoy and I could make out the tight thread of cable out of the water between the two.

'Take us close now,' I told Kaptein Denny. 'The top of Gaok's crow's nest is about level with the portholes in that odd shack of Sang A's. I mean to find out what's inside.'

'A sneak look seems the only way to do it-judging from their previous reception,' said Jutta.

Kaptein Denny grinned. Whatever Sang A was up to seemed to have put him in a relaxed mood.

'There's nothing to prevent us sailing round and round Sang A. You could always be looking after the interests of your darling birds?

The way he put it could have implied anything or nothing. Anything being that he guessed I was no more a headman than I was a gannet.

'Let's go.'

Our run-in was from astern of Sang A. I'd circled over towards Possession to get into position, and Kaptein Denny was to take the wheel while I made my eye-in-the-sky inspection. We were chugging along at about four knots.

`Steady!'

J glanced up to take my line.

'I'll be damned! Look at that!'

Sang A's masts and the stumps of the City of Baroda's were in a line.

'They've deliberately trimmed Sang A on the liner's old course!'

Jutta was afire, now that the liner had come into it. Denny said, 'We too are on that course-exactly.'

'The liner had already been hit by the time she reached the position where we are now. She was heading for the rocks to beach herself.'

Jutta gripped me tightly by the arm. She was looking everywhere as though she hadn't already memorized every detail of the anchorage!

`What's the sense of it? Struan .? Kaptein Denny…?'

Neither of us replied, because there wasn't a reply. `What's the point in mocking up an old course? It doesn't help.. I don't see..

'I do see something-Jutta: that there's more to Sang A than meets the eye.'

'You're going to cut that stern buoy mighty fine, Captain Weddell.'

'Shave it to a whisker, if you like. I want the best view.' '

It's like treading in old footprints made by someone you knew?' exclaimed Jutta.

Take it easy,' I said, hearing the excited pitch of her voice. '

There are no footprints in the sea. You've crossed and recrossed the line's course a dozen times already and it's meant nothing. Don't start imagining things.'

She replied with a gesture: you didn't need a pelorus to see how the six masts of the three ships stood in a neat line. Take her in now,' I told Kaptein Denny. I'm going up aloft.'

Sang A's crew came running when they saw us boring straight down on their stem. They did more than run when we seemed likely to ram. They yelled and waved us off and shouted obscenities. Kenryo was among them.

I ignored them and concentrated on the shack.

The racket brought one man inside to a porthole. He'd forgotten to remove the headphones hanging loose round his neck. The giveaway was complete when Kaptein Denny skimmed Sang A's quarter so close that I could almost have reached out and touched two other head-phoned operators seated at big consoles.

The shack was jammed with electronic equipment.

I left the crow's nest and descended to the wheel-house.

'Give her the gun and pull well clear,' I told Denny. 'The place is stuffed with electric gear. Sang A is no more a trawler than I am Captain Kidd.'

'Then what's she up to, Struan?' asked Jutta.

'I'll reserve judgement until I know what is under those tarpaulins.'

Then you'll have to go aboard her again, Captain Weddell.' '

Not today. Let 'em cool off. Tomorrow. We've got two bodies to bury now.'

The burials went wrong right from the start. I would have preferred to have buried them at sea but there would have had to be post-mortems when the law came into it; so that meant land burials. Possession was out, for the simple reason that there is no soil over the island rock in which to dig a grave. So we decided on the mainland, alongside the charred Land-Rover. Kaptein Denny and I couldn't manage to dig the graves more than a couple of feet deep because the sand kept pouring back. There wasn't a Bible or a prayer-book and I could only remember stray holy-sounding phrases like, dust to dust, and in the midst of life we are in death. So after a couple of false starts I said the Lord's Prayer while Jutta wept and kept looking back towards her mother's grave, away in the old cemetery. The only other sounds were the soft chording of the breeze and the faraway clatter of Swig A's winches and the chug of her launches. They were watching us, of course.

I expected Kaptein Denny to do better in his own religion for Breekbout, but his contribution consisted of some rice balls and bright sticky sweets. It was probably reaction-but I wanted to laugh when a group of beetles emerged from the sand and started rolling away the rice balls and became entangled in the sticky sweets while Denny intoned in a language I didn't understand. I thought of the belly-laugh it would have given Koch. Then the whole thing backfired on me and all J wanted was to get my hands on the swine who had done it to him.

There was no decisive finale-and Denny stood around looking awkward when he'd stopped his half-chant We just grabbed the spades and shovelled the sand over the two canvas bundles and then I remembered, 'I am the resurrection and the life,' and something about the sea giving up its dead, so I said aJoud the parts I could recall, and slurred the rest. Then Kaptein Denny and I wired two boards, with their names and the date, on to the wrecked vehicle. When we'd finished, Jutta asked me to take her over to the official litlle graveyard. Kaptein Denny retreated-he sensed that Jutta wanted to be alone with me-but asked for the rifle and some spare shells, and went and stood guard by the shoulder of the big sandhill from which we'd first spotted him at the graveyard. The precaution seemed strange in that emptiness-until one thought of Koch.

Jutta had brought some smooth white stones from Passes sion in her handbag-Ind she laid them out on the mound in the form of a cross. She asked me to say some of the words I had said for Breekbout and Koch, but I tailed off because-being so disconnected, they sounded ridiculous. Suddenly Jutta came close and clung tightly to me, then turned and walked fast and straight, back across the sand to where Kaptein Denny stood guard.

I didn't follow immediately. I stood and stared after her-she'd changed for the ceremony, before we came ashore, into a pale green slack suit, which was her only decent outfit, and which offset her hair. I felt a sudden tide of emotion- as criss-cross as any on the Sperrgebiet's coastline. One thing I was sure of – Jutta wasn't just a sudden infatuation on my part. What I wasn't so sure of was Kaptein Denny. What J was least sure about was Sang A. Already my one-man assignment had ballooned into squad size: a murder squad. Nor had I even got to grips with whatever lay behind the thing whose deadly sharp edges had revealed themselves in the two killings. Should I leave things to simmer until someone put a foot wrong and enabled me to play the right card? Or act decisively on the plan which was starting to take shape in my rind?

I walked back to Jutta and Kaptein Denny.

'I intend presenting Emmerrnann and Kenryo with an ultimatum tomorrow-' I told them. 'I'm going to ask them to signal the fisheries frigate and report Koch and Breekbout's deaths, and at the same time request clearance for Sang A to be at Possesslon.'

'That isn't an ultimatum-' answered Jutta. 'It's simply an admission that you're without a radio and therefore cut off from outside help.'

Denny too was sceptical. 'Where will it get you?'

If they refuse, which is likely, we needn't look any further for the murderers.'

'Of course they did it-' Jutta was emphatic.

'Furthermore, a refusal would prove that they haven't any right to be doing whatever they're doing at this moment.'

'And then?'

The rest of the plan was mine, and they were involved: it wouldn't do to reveal it yet. 'We'll play it by ear. I may get some clue tomorrow as to what all their hidden gear is for.'

But in that I was mistaken, because early next day, when Kaptein Denny took Gaok through the thick fog to where Sang A had anchored, she had disappeared. It was the right spot, too, because her stern mooring buoy was still there. Kaptein Denny cut Gaok's engine. The only sound, magnified by the fog, was the slap of waves against Possession's cliffs, and some other unidentifiable noises from the channel. None of us had slept well and Jutta's eyes were tired. She was wearing her favourite suede jacket and her shoulders and beret were beaded with moisture.

`Blast!' I exclaimed. 'But I'll bet Sang A hasn't thrown in the towel and pushed off altogether.'

`No,' Denny replied, 'she hasn't.' He stood listening a moment and then went to the bridge door. 'I don't see her. But I smell her. There!' He jerked his head in one direction but it didn't mean much to me: I'd lost all sense of direction in the fog.

`Go after her, Captain Weddell?'

'Naturally.'

`Wait!' Jutta came to me. 'Isn't there some other way…?'

She indicated the loaded rifle which stood near the wheel.

`Sooner or later there's got to be a confrontation between us. Better sooner-Jutta. You're not involved-so don't worry.'

'Not involved! And if they clout you over the head with a sealing club you think I won't get hurt?'

I turned away from her eyes. I was on an emotional seesaw and my end was high in the alr.

'Think you'll locate her?' I was unjustifiably abrupt with Kaptein Denny.

`Yes. We'll stalk her. We use sail: good, silent sail'

That killed the moment with Jutta, of course. She went and stood by herself, looking out.

We made sail and slipped slowly and silently down-channel. Denny was everywhere: a sea-challenge always stirred him up. He knew his way, too, and gave us-me, rather, because Jutta held herself apart-a running commentary on the wrecks we were passing by, or over. There was the Nautilus, a World War I coaster stuffed full of treasure-recovery gear, a sailer named the Maridahl which couldn't beat a Possession gale when she tried to claw her way out; close by her the Lovely Amanda, a Yankee whaler; and finally the Black Prince, a 1915 mercy ship from Luderitz which had finished up on the island's southern tip and had given her name to Black Prince Cove.

Some of the holiday air went out of Kaptein Denny when we left the island astern without sighting Sang A. He went to the side and took a sip of seawater and announced that we were over the spot where Bol Islet-once positioned on Admiralty charts-had suddenly vanished.

He made several fiddling alterations of course which kept Gaok in the fog curtain. He seemed to be getting uptight about something.

'Sang A is around,' he said. smell her still. But I reckon she's over towards the mainland.'

'It makes no odds, Go after her.'

'There's a dangerous skietrots there. skietrots -what sort of gamat word is that?

`Shooting rock: it's untranslatable really. It's a rock on which the seas break and shoot high. It's called Pikkewyn se Draai – Penguins Turning.'

I hope Sang A is turning too by now.'

'Ready then, Captain Weddell?'

Any time.'

Something was eating him, though, and he still hesitated to break clear of the fog. Jnstead, he hung around on the wispy fringe of the bank for some time. Then he seemed to make up his mind and everything grew light all at once-and we were blinking in broad sunlight, with a long view of the Sperrgebiet's desolation ahead.

Sang A was there aJl right.

She was moving southwards parallel to the coast, close in-shore. Her passage ahead was blocked by an irregular chain of islets. Two stood out at a glance from the rest. One of them was shaped like an outsize conical highway post and the sea clawed and foamed against it and gave it the name skietrots; the second-bigger-was almost a third of a mile long and half a mile offshore.

Kaptein Denny indicated the latter. 'Albatross Rock.'

Jutta broke her silence. 'Sang A isn't worried at seeing us.'

'Not yet.' I swung my glasses through a wide arc. There was something very determined about the way she was plugging along on a dead straight course. She might have been on rails, rather than negotiating as bad a patch of foul ground as I'd seen on the Sperrgebiet. She was changing course now, 126 coming about a little short of the dangerous fang.

'Engine,' I requested Kaptein Denny. 'We'll go alongside now.'

'Is she aware of us at all, Struan? Look at the way she's behaving.' That was clear, even to Jutta's unnautical eyes. Instead of sheering clear of the rocks and reefs, as any normal vessel would have done, Sang A completed an inward U-turn which would bring her still closer inshore, and among them. She then steadied on a new course-still parallel to the coast but this time heading back towards the Bridge of Magpies and Possession. On rails, I thought, on bloody rails!

Kaptein Denny's eyes were slits. 'She's following a plot.'

It was clear that her new reverse up-coast course over lapped slightly on her previous down-coast one.

'And J'm going to find out what it is. That engine, please!'

He went to see to it.

'The lost city, Struan-is that what she's after?' '

On this pitch?… It's miles away.'

'Kaptein Denny's not happy either.'

'Why isn't he, do you think, Jutta-why? What gives?'

She clenched one of the bridge window catches until her knuckles showed white.

'I'm scared, Struan.'

Of what?'

'I don't know! I don't know! Scared about your going aboard that ship. Scared about my staying. I want to run away, but I want, more, to stay:

I took her by the shoulders and pressed my thumbs into them.

'I'll sort it out. For us. That's a promise.'

'Promises are easy. This isn't.'

There was no time to say any more because just then Denny returned from the engine-room. The distance between the two vessels began to narrow.

'This isn't going to be easy. Sang A won't stop.'

Denny spoke almost mechanically. Ever since sighting Sang A he seemed to have faJlen into a mood of deep preoccupation. His earlier enthusiasm for the chase had evaporated.

'I'll jump when we come alongside. You hold station until I' m ready to return, What I have to say won't take long.'

Gaok bored in on an interception course; Sang A held hers, ruler-straight. She was doing about eight knots and could easily have got away from Gaok if she'd wanted to. But not if she was doing what I thought she was doing. Emmermann and Kenryo rushed out on to Sang A's cat- walk when we drew level, and the crew began giving their vocabularies a work-out.

`What d'ye think you're playing at?' roared Emmermann. `

Keep clear! Keep clear!'

Gaok was thrashing aJong right alongside Sang A and both vessels were bucking in one another's wash. Only a couple of feet separated them. I picked a gap between the threatening crewmen, and jumped.

Two toughies made at me. The nearer aimed a roundhouse swing at my head. I dodged and made a staggering lunge across the bucking deck-missed my footing, and fell on my knees. My man came on. I was a millisecond ahead of him; grabbed his foot and rode the kick aimed at my neck. Nevertheless, it caught me under the right armpit with the force of a car's bumper. I was tossed backwards and half under one of the tarpaulined objects. Only my peripheral vision registered what it was because my main attention was focused on the two men rushing at me, the first one having disengaged his foot. It wasn't a winch or a bollard I saw, or any of the other things you'd expect to find on the deck of a ship going about her lawful occasions. It was a twin-mount machine gun. I'd slipped into a crouch to meet the attack when the men stopped like dogs called to heel. Angry dogs, snarling dogs. Only then did I hear Kenryo shouting at them. I got up, brushed past them, and started to walk towards Emmermann and Kenryo on the cat-walk. That walk could have been in millimetres, not feet: it seemed to last for ever. Not because of the menacing crew but because of my racing thoughts. That machine-gun put the clincher on what I suspected about Sang A. It certainly didn't fit in with Emmermann's story about trawling. It also wrote the C-in-C's brief to me in much broader and more dangerous terms. Ships don't go around with high-powered electronics gear and mounted guns, searching for lost cities. If there was a lost city at all. I wondered whether there'd ever been one, in point of fact, and what really lay behind my assignment. Whatever it was 128 it began to look rough. I decided to tackle Emmermann and Kenryo first about the electronic gear, and hold back about the gun. I'd never get off Sang A alive if I mentioned it. They weren't to know I'd glimpsed it: the tarpaulin cover was still in place. Their answer to any request for use of their radio was both a back number and a foregone conclusion now, but I intended to go ahead because it provided my excuse for boarding Sang A.

I finally reached Emmermann and Kenryo.

Emmermann's face was livid; the cords in his neck stood out and there were little nicks from a bad shave

'Order that ship of yours to sheer off or I'll ram her,' he rasped.

'Get off or I'll throw you off I' added Kenryo. I gave his stocky figure a quick once-over. His threat wasn't an idle one. And I'm a big man. You murderous sod, I thought, it was you who killed Breekbout and Koch. He looked as if he'd come at me any moment.

'See here,' I said. 'There's been another death. I want you to signal the fisheries frigate.'

'Who the hell do you think you're ordering about!' Kenryo started towards me but Emmermann stopped him.

'It's no business of ours, whoever it is,' he said.

'It was Dr Koch. I'm making it your business.'

'Why don't you use your own radio?' Kenryo's eyes were hot and sly.

'It's out of order,' I admitted. Well, yes or no?' '

No,' replied Emmermann.

'Fair enough.'

They both seemed surprised at my ready and unquestioning acceptance of their refusal. But there wasn't any point in pressing the demand, plus another for Sang A to request clearance to operate in non-fishing waters. The answer to that one lay back on deck, hidden under a tarpaulin. Also, I wanted to keep communications open between myself and Sang A, so that I could still come aboard under some pretext or other. The whole situation had changed radically since I'd spotted that machine-gun: I'd have to handle things very carefully indeed. .

I was wondering how to play my next card about the electronics business when a man walked on to the cat-walk carrying an echo-sounder, or sonar record -the sort of cardboard cylinder device that revolves on a drum while a pen traces graphs on it. It also proved my point why Sang A couldn't speed up to escape Gaok; because above twelve knots the noise of a ship's engines confuses the sensitive instruments. I said, keeping my voice as level as I could-'You're not a trawler!'

Kenryo's eyes were dirty with anger but the cool way he played the situation showed me what I was up against. He took the cylinder from the newcomer, held it out briefly to me, and then thrust it out of sight into his pocket. But I'd seen enough. It was different from and more sophisticated than the ordinary type of echo-sounder record I'd known in the Navy.

'Who said Sang A was a trawler? Not us. You came aboard blowing your top about fishing inside the limits, when we're not fishing at all. Sang A's job is to spot shoals for the fishing fleet. You've probably seen this sort of record. Echosounder.'

'Your fancy equipment is a waste of time where you are now-' J retorted. And pointing seawards I indicated a patch of water over which the birds had gathered hunting for fish. '

A little local knowledge would be much more profitable.'..'

We prefer technology.'

My attempt to lower the temperature seemed to be paying off because Emmermann said, less aggressively.

'You fouled up our run by barging alongside. Sonar cannot.

'I know. Above twelve knots you can't get a decent reading.'

'You're very well informed for a simple island headman.' (

Steady, I reminded myself, steady. Not so simple, as you will discover.)

'These waters are full of ships fitted with special gear.'

The man who had brought out the echo-sounder cylinder came to my rescue by asking Kenryo a question. Now that the heat was off I wanted to get back to Gaok and think – hard. I'd found out what I'd come aboard for. Plus. The man was a Korean like the rest of them but with the air of authority which never brushes off a naval officer. His question was clearly about me; his presence as a neutral bystander helped aJso to defuse the explosive potential of the situation. Kenryo hesitated a second, then said with a feeble attempt 130 at sociability, 'Captain Mild, our liaison offIcer. He asks to be introduced.'

Mild held out his hand with a puppet-like action as if he'd been trained to it and to the words he now shot out. 'Glad to know you', sir.' Like Kenryo, he had a slight American accent.

I shook hands perfunctorily. J couldn't work up much enthusiasm for being buddies with anyone aboard Sang A. All I wanted now was to be gone. But Captain Mild just stood there in front of me-I guessed he'd run out of further English-with an odd dazed expression in his eyes as though he were trapped in a mental cage. Either he'd been kicked around a lot or else a 16-inch gun had gone off next to him and he'd never got over the shock.

'Lend me a megaphone,' I asked Emmermann. call up my boat to come alongside.'

'Good. Your birds and seals will be starting to miss you? '

No one can accuse us of disturbing them,' added Kenryo with a sneer.

Except when that machine-gun of Sang A's opens up, I told myself. Except when all this mysterious gear hidden from sight goes into action. Except…

With a derisive half-smile, Kenryo handed me the loudhailer. 'Satisfied?'

His remark made me surer than ever that he was unaware I' d spotted the machine-gun. I wouldn't be leaving Sang A if he'd known. I didn't want to spoil things at the last moment, so I didn't answer, merely took the megaphone and busied myself calling up Kaptein Denny. While I did so I was noting the deck lay-out and the various entrances and exits.

Gaok drew alongside.

'So long.' Captain Mild found two more English words. He seemed to know what they meant, too.

'Totsiens' -which means no more than au revoir, I meant to be back.

I reboarded Gaok and we headed for Possession. I told Jutta and Kaptein Denny about the machine-gun and echo-sounder. In my own mind I'd resolved to take a closer look at Sang A's other concealed deck gear but didn't mention that It could wait I had other things laid on for them.

Kaptein Denny's reaction to my news was to become completely silent. But Jutta asked, 'What can they be after on the ocean floor, Struan?'

'Not a clue. But if it's fish it's. illegal and if it's treasure or diamonds it's doubly illegal.'

She was still on the lost city tack; she wasn't to know that I now discounted it. 'What's left-where they are now?'

'I don't know,' I replied. 'But the whole thing has got out of hand. Kaptein Denny, I would like you to take a message from me to the police and port captain at Luderitz. You can make tracks at once., I'll write it down so there won't be any mistake.'

He didn't answer.

Jutta's eyes were all over my face. 'And me?'

'I'd like you to go along too.'

Her eyes called me traitor.

'Not again. I went once.'

Kaptein Denny had given the channel one of his long quartering surveys. Then he said, 'I'll let you know my decision in an hour when I've had time to study the weather.'

'Hell's teeth!' I burst out. 'Weather! Temperament! Mood maintenance! Both of you! You'd think we were a crowd of kids playing cops and robbers and deciding who's going to be next to hide! This is murder! Two men are dead!'

'There may be a third, Struan, if we leave you alone. No dice!'

The emotional seesaw I'd ridden previously now came up and smacked me hard under the chin. The first part of my plan had worked but the second was in danger of being sabotaged by my awn side.

I thought I'd give them a cooling-off period so I switched to a neutral topic-so I thought.

'One of their own people gave away the echo-sounder,' I told them. 'An odd-looking guy came on to the bridge carrying the cylinder. I'd have thought he was an ex-navy type. Kenryo introduced him as Captain Miki.'

'Who did you say?'

I almost felt Denny's Stock-wave strike me.

'Captain Miki.'

He'd half-turned from the wheel and now he put in a terrific effort to pretend he was concentrating on Gaok's course. It meant I couldn't see what was going on in his face. But his bands on the wheel gave him away. The knuckles were white and the fingers tight clenched.

'Mean anything?'

'Nothing.'

But it did. It changed his mood from preoccupation to reserved consternation. He didn't speak again all the way back to the island and when we landed, went off by himself. It gave me the opportunity to speak alone to Jutta. We went and sat on some rocks by the bunkhouse

'I'm not side-lining you, Jutta, I'm front-lining you by asking you to go to Luderitz:

'Don't twist my arm-Struan. It isn't that way.'

'Why I want you to go is that you must get on the blower direct to the C-in-C. I'll give you the Silvermine code number. Tell him what's happened. Say Sang A is fitted with a sophisticated echo-sounder and is searching the sea-bed for something with it.'

'You don't need me to do the legwork. Denny can do that just as well. Have him tell the police what he knows. They can pass it on to the C-in-C. He'll then make his own deductions about the echo-sounding gear?

'No. I want you to describe to the C-in-C Denny's reactions all along the line. Especially after I returned from Sang A.' '

He seems burned up about Captain Miki.'

'I mean to find out about that too. He's playing a lone band, Jutta. I can't get on to his wavelength. Sometimes I think that weather line of his is a bluff: at other times I fall for it. I just don't know the key to the man,'

Jutta said nothing, but wouldn't meet my look.

'Ask the admiral-too-whether he saw 'Captain Denny's boat the day after be rescued your mother.'

'What did you say?'

'He was in the corvette Vggie off Possession.. I ex plained briefly his war-time association with Convoy WV. 5BX

She was all ears.

I added, 'By speaking direct to him you can give your search for your father's identity a big boost. If anyone is in a position to help you it could be the C-in-C. By doing this for me you have a unique opportunity of getting his ear.'

That ended her objections; and her eyes were very bright, as if the sun's reflectlon off the sea were being mirrored in 133 them. Then she knelt down impulsively and found one of the smooth, white-marble-sized pebbles penguins roll to each other when courtlng. She squeezed it into my palm and touched my knuckles with her lips.

'I'm a stupid clot…I'll go…

I won't mistrust you again.'

But she did.

She and Denny sailed a couple of hours later, after he had come to me and announced, to my surprise, that the weather signs were right. He was as reserved as before. I didn't know whether to believe him or not; nevertheless I gave him a written message for the authorities in Luderitz. After Gaok had sailed I began to feel Possession's special quality of loneliness. Not even Sang A was in sight. The island seemed as ancient and companionable as a sabretoothed tiger. I hung around while it was light and at sunset Sang A returned. She kept well away from the lost city area and made straight for her mooring.

When darkness came I lit Breekbout's ghost lights. I rationalized my action as being a kind of tribute to the dead.

The fog came, the wind ceased, the sea boomed.

Every time condensation splashed off the roof I thought it was a footfall. I loaded the rifle after I'd heard the noise half-a-dozen times. Listen, I told myself, you'd better get a grip on yourself or you'll be heading the same crazy way as Van Rensburg. It didn't help my hypter-acute state of aJertness, though, and I went to bed with the gun by my hand. I slept dressed, on a hair trigger.

It was a real footfall outside the bunkhouse which woke me around midnight.

I groped for the gun, set my finger to the trigger, and went in a low crouch to the door. I eased it open and edged out. The ghost lights were a yellow reflected patch against the fog. There was also a blurred human outline.

My bare feet made no sound. I went closer. The figure started to move away-back to me. My pulse rate doubled. It was a woman. Automatically I looked for the ghost hounds. She didn't hear me before I was right up to her and threw my arm in a stranglehold round her throat,

– I dragged her into the light.

It was Jutta,