A Bridge of Magpies

C H A P T E R T W O

The Boeing jumbo jet banked for the landing at Cape Town and I had a glimpse of Table Mountain through the overcast. A fine, cold rain was blowing off the ocean on a southwesterly gale-a typical, miserable Cape winter's day. The sight of the great mountain pitched a load of associations at me and made me depressed. The long tiring air journey – Athens, Lisbon, Las Palmas, the Bulge of Africa, Angolaadded its own quota of discouragement. I wondered if I should have come: I would probably arrive too late to find my mother alive. The rain splashed against the plane's windows, a reminder of days at sea on the bridge. I made a derisive comparison between that Cape of Storms sea -a cold, grey, wicked mass, throwing a punch of three thousand miles of open water behind it-and the Aegean. The meltemi was a woman's wind compared with a Cape buster, and the tideless waves breaking on the picture-postcard islands had no more guts than a junkie.

Maybe my contempt for the classic sea had showed itself by the way I had hurled my old calque into the meltemi after I'd left Santorin; I used a dozen seaman's dodges to avoid the deadly tack and tack-about into the teeth of the same wind which once had blown the Greek heroes from Troy. I had finally reached Athens only a few hours before a Cape flight was due to leave. In the rush I hadn't managed to have my one thin tropical suit smartened up, and it sat crumpled and untidy on me. I hadn't a tie but had bought a black string bootlace thing off a plane steward. The other passengers' eyes told me I looked like a kinky beach-boy. After the landing, I was checking through the usual formalities. The sluicing rain on the way across the tarmac from the plane to the terminal building hadn't acted as the best of valet services to my suit and hair. They were soaked. I stood by while an immigration official examined my pass. port. He gave me a considering look, reverted to my photograph, regarded me again, then went off to an inner office. 20

Mother official appeared and also considered me. Both disappeared for some time and returned with a third man wearing a cap and plastic raincoat over his uniform.

'War is die Moeilikheid -what's the trouble?' I asked.

`No problem,' answered the desk official. The raincoated man eyed me.

'You are Mr Struan Weddell?'

`Yes. It's all there, in the passport'

'It's hard to tell from the photograph. The hair and the beard are new.'

'It was taken two years ago when I left South Africa.'. He stamped the passport and handed it to me.

'This gentleman would like a word with you.'

I then noticed the third man's cap under its plastic covering. He was a naval officer. He grinned at my surprise. '

Captain Weddell?'

'Yes.'

'Compliments of the C-in-C, sir. We've been waiting hours for the jet: she's late. Transport is laid on for you.' `

How did the C-in-C know I was coming?'

'I don't ask questions, sir. I was detailed to meet you and fly you to the hospital.'

'Fly?'

'Helicopter, sir. She's out on the apron.'

'Hold it. You mean to say the C-in-C actually…?'

`You must ask the C-in-C why, sir. I don't know. My orders were to meet the Athens flight and fly you to the hospital.'

I was touched. He'd no call to be generous after the way I'd thrown his job in his teeth as a result of the Walewska business. As I told Byron, the tanker tore out her bottom on a reef off South West Africa and I sank her. Her skipper was trying to cut corners when making a landfall at Panther head, which is the main landfall for ships heading up the Sperrgebiet, or forbidden diamond coast. The land looks like an old bone that's been gnawed and thrown away. It is desert and has the world's richest diamond fields. That is why it's forbidden territory-all eight hundred miles of it. I' d commanded a fisheries patrol frigate, and part of my job was to police the Sperrgebiet from the sea. On land there are motorized patrols and helicopters. The other part of my job was to keep an eye on the trawlers of all nations 21 which frequent the coast. The Atlantic here matches the land for riches. Even the Grand Banks can't beat the fishing. There is a third source of riches on this God-forsaken shore: a string of rocky little inshore islands coated in bird guano-white gold, they call it. The Walewska's oil would have killed off the bird and marine life of these islands if I'd allowed her to stay afloat. So I'd blown her up with special charges so that the oil was destroyed-rather than send her to the bottom and risk seepage from the wreck. The danger was compounded by a strong current which flows through the guano isles. I'd acted fast, and on my own initiative. I meant what I said: 'Thanks. Thanks for coming?

His grin behind the beard made him look ridiculously young.

'Let's go,' I said.

'First, I'll go and borrow you a coat from the chopper, You'll get soaked.'

'It doesn't matter?

'It was told to look after you. You must be bloody cold, if I may say so, sir.

'I hadn't noticed-not after the Navy's warm reception.'

He smiled, then strode out to the helicopter and brought me back a weatherproof. I felt good. I hadn't been looking forward to the cheerless process of landing unmet and making my way to a deathbed. We fell into step and made for the machine.

I broke the companionable silence.

'Is my mother still alive, Lieutenant?'

A flicker passed across his face. His reply was neutral. 'I don't know, sir. I've told you what my orders are.'

'She must be, otherwise all this wouldn't have been laid on.''I suppose so, sir:

'Thank the C-in-C when you report, will you? I'll also call later and thank him personally.'

He didn't answer as he held open the door of the Wasp. '

Here we are, sir.'

A thick-set petty officer gave me a hand up and took my case. The pilot nodded. There were the usual clattering preliminaries and then we were airborne. The international airport lies about fifteen miles out of Cape Town. Facing it, the city on your right and a chain of 22 a suburbs and resorts stretches to the left as far as the naval base at Simonstown.

We lifted. Thin rain cloud drifted past the Perspex. I settled back and wondered whether the helicopter would land at the hospital-they must have built a heliport there while I' d been away. The craft clattered and banged onwards; after a while we changed direction and altitude. We'd dropped below the main body of the overcast, but it was still very thick. Then, through a gap, I spotted a big Old Cape Dutch style farmhouse and vineyards. I couldn't recall vineyards near the hospital.

Now I sat up with a jerk. I was sure I'd spotted a famous pass called Constantia Net If so, we weren't within a dozen miles of the hospital, but nearer the naval base. It was useless trying to question my guide, because of the earphone muffs we wore as protection against the machine's racket. I tapped him on the shoulder and gestured at the landmark, but all I got back was a thumb's-up signal. We sank lower and there were vineyards again. Then trees appeared below, together with a concrete landing-pad, a black-top road and security gates. Flanking the landing place were anti-aircraft batteries. Wetness streamed down the black barrels as they tracked the helicopter down. I waited until the rotors' clatter cut off.

'What the hell gives, Lieutenant?'

Armed Navy guards in wet oilskins opened the Wasp's door. '

There's a security check. This place is banned to civilians.' '

But…'

'This way, if you please, sir,'

Near the guns was a sort of concrete cupola which housed a lift.'See here, Lieutenant, this Is no more a hospital than.. '

The lift, sir.'

The doors clashed shut and we dropped to ground level. They reopened to reveal a pair of massive steel sliding doors, about twice the height of a man and four times as broad, set into bunker-type concrete. My guide nodded to a guard, who used a red telephone standing in a niche. After a few words from him the big doors slid open as if operated Sy some hidden agency.

'Inside, if you please,. sir'

'I don't see why.. '

But I was already in; the doors thumped shut and we were in a bare brightly lit concrete chamber. Another pair of steel doors lay ahead. We might have been on a Mars science-fiction set, except for a Navy guard sitting facing us behind a bullet-proof window. His telephone was yellow.

'The doors ahead can't open before those behind are dosed,' said my guide conversationally. 'And that can't be done without that bloke's say-so. Security's a hundred per cent. Those doors can also take a direct hit from a 500-kilo bomb, without a blink. This space becomes an airlock in the event of a nuclear attack.'

'If you tell me this is Hitler's bunker and you're Eva Braun. I'll believe you.'

`No dolls here, more's the pity. Males, rugged as they come. Hand-picked. Zip-lips.'

'Listen! Before I move another bloody step..

'You'll have to now, sir. Can't stop here.'

The huge doors rumbled open on their runners. Several concrete passages radiated on the far side. I was propelled into one of them and my escort fell into step with me.

'Silvermine,' he said. 'It's called Silvermine. They found the metal here in 1687, I think it was.'

'I hear your words but I don't know what the devil you're talking about! Silvermine! Nuclear attack! Airlock!'

'It's new since your day, sir. It's the Navy's operational headquarters. It's sunk into the side of the mountain, storeys deep..

'The hospital, man! My mother's dying!'

'The C-in-C will tell you about that, sir. We're almost at his office.'

We turned into a side tunnel; a small pair of doors, now open, could seal off the passage. Nevertheless, we faced the same elaborate security paraphernalia. When finally we were admitted to an ante-room it looked less like outer space: I saw an ordinary office desk, a typewriter, filing cabinets and wall-to-wall carpeting.'Hello, Godfrey,' said my escort. Well, here he is.'

'Welcome to Silvermine, Captain Weddell,' replied the aide. 'The C-in-C's expecting you.' Inevitably he checked on the telephone before taking me in.

The admiral sat at an outsize desk-the same tough, wiry little man with the boxer's broken nose and lopsided grin. 24

His eyes were welcoming now but I'd seen them on occasion shuttered and opaque. That was the time strong men ran. He rose, hand outstretched. 'Good to see you, Struan.' ' 'I half expected to find a little green man in a space suit.' `

You get used to it pretty soon.'

'It isn't a hospital, though,'

'No, it isn't a hospital'

`Look, sir, I appreciate what you did in sending a chopper to the airport for me. I don't know how you knew about my mother. But there's been a snarl-up somewhere: the lines must have got crossed. I've been brought here instead of to the hospital. I've got to get there-quick. Every hour may be vital'

`Nothing got snarled up. She's alive. Relax Have a cigarette.'

But I remained standing. He eyed me through the smoke. `

You've put on weight, Struan.'

Tor God's sake 1 I didn't come here to talk about my weight. My mother..

He nodded towards a cluster of three coloured telephones. '

Use the blue one. You'll find her at home. There's nothing wrong with her.'

The friendly eyes were starting to cloud up. But I told myself angrily I wasn't one of his subordinates any longer. `

The hospital sent me a cable to Santorin,.

I sent it. Your mother knows'

`You sent it! For crying in a bucket! You mean to say you bluffed me into rushing back to South Africa-what the devil for?'

'Sit down. Listen. I've a lot to say to you: I'll stand. I'm going soon.'

He was leaning back in his swing chair, looking at me with a kind of amused contempt which needled me further, '

This outfit is called Silvermine.

'I've already heard.' .. It's probably the most modern naval operational headquarters in the world. Just behind me, through there-' he gestured – 'is the operations room. Top secret. Utmost top secret, in fact. So is this office. The whole place is bugged, monitored, lousy with devices, hidden beams and so on.'

'I didn't come here to listen to all this bull.'

He let go the chair and it came forward with a bump against the desk.

`You didn't come here: you were brought. But you're an unauthorized civilian on top secret premises for which you can be locked away for a long, long time, simply at my say-so,'

He grinned and I didn't care for it.

`You couldn't go, even if you wanted to. Now shut up and sit down and listen to me.'

I sat down. I also took a cigarette.

'I had you shanghaied at the airport. I sent you the faked cable to bring you to Cape Town-with your mother's consent, I might add?

`Why the devil couldn't you leave me alone?'

'See here. A couple of months ago one of my officers was on holiday in Santorin.'

'If I'd known I'd have given him a sail for old times' sake? '

Spare the sarcasm. He was a junior in your day. You did meet him but you were too drunk to recognize him?

– '

It has happened.'

'It did happen, and pretty often, I'm told.'

`Why kidnap me to Naval Headquarters? Alcoholics Anonymous is the place you want?

`Don't over-dramatize. Snap that defence mechanism of yours out of top gear. Drinking may be a part of your lui- lekkerlewe (sweet life) but you're not a drunk.'

`Thanks for those few kind words.'

'My man overheard you using an Afrikaans expression in some dive on a jetty. That put him on to you.'

'It's a bar, not a dive. There's no entertainment except Gigi.'

I was told there was a Greek tart there.'

`Gigi's a bit flashy but she's not a tart.'

'The long and the short of it was that what he took to be a bum in a bar turned out to be Captain Struan Weddell. Ex-Navy.'

Emphasis on the ex:

'I told you not to be a bloody fool and quit because of the Walewska affair. But you wouldn't listen. You gave me the V-sign and vanished.'

I can look after myself. If this is your idea of putting me on the carpet, I don't buy it. The hell with it! The hell with you too!'

`Stop getting up! You've stretched your craving for being a loner just about to the limit at Santorin. There aren't such things in this modern world as blissful isles of escape. Once I'd located you I had a check made. Soft, boozy, aimless. Women. Just enough to live on. Toying with archaeology. That sort of crap.'

'Your dossier's spot-on.'

'A purposeless layabout.'

'So what? It's my life,'

He spoke into a pale pink intercom,

'Has he arrived?'

He nodded at the answer, apparently satisfied.

'As you rightly say, so what? I knew I'd be wasting my time if I cabled asking you to come back. I had to winkle you out of Santorin-and I've done it'

He eyed me through the cigarette smoke like a strategist who's pulled off a clever trick against the enemy.

'Again, so what?'

I'd got all set to take a dim view of another penny-lecture broadside from him when he said in a completely changed voice, 'I brought you here because I want your help with a problem, Struan.'

'You must be joking! Me!'

'You. You were meant for a somebody, not a bum,'

His eyes were distant and only half friendly.

My retort didn't have the range. 'The moral cat-o'-ninetails again.'

He ignored the crack. 'I know you're screwed up still about the Walewska business. You don't have to be. You never had to be, from where I sit'

'I haven't heard your problem:

'Don't blow your nut and don't interrupt. You're well acquainted with the Sperrgebiet so -that part of it doesn't need explaining.'

I thought of that grim coast and its grim grey islands, and the meltemi and the Greek isles stuck in my craw. You'll find Sperrgebiet names on old whalermen's graves in New England… a sailor's boast to be remembered by. '

I said, I don't know your problem?

'What d'ye know about Possession Island?'

'Heard of it, of course. Never been there. The navigation's tricky. Not the place for a big ship like my frigate.' 'It' s the largest of the guano isles, and that isn't saying much. Any idea how wide that channel is between it and the mainland?'

'I'd guess about two miles.'

'You know Doodenstadt?'

'It's only a name.'

'On the mainland opposite Possession is Doodenstadt-the Town of the Dead.'

'A bit fanciful for a coast which doesn't have a human, let alone a town, for hundreds of miles.'

'It's really only a big group of rocks sticking out from the desert into the sea. The rocks are big and square like houses and there are lanes resembling streets. Hence the name. It's all very realistic, they tell me. It's half under water most of the time. What's Santorin like, Struan?'

'Real houses. Three storeys, some of them. Real streets. Fine carvings, superb frescos. The dry volcanic ash has preserved them, even the colours.'

'Would it surprise you to hear that a fresco has been found at Doodenstadt?'

There wasn't any sound except the air-conditioning; there were no residual noises in the flat silence after our voices stopped.

I said at length: 'I can ride with Santorin but not Doodenstadt. The place has been known for at least a century. If there'd been frescos, someone would have discovered them long before now.'

Doodenstadt turns out to be not merely a figure of speech. Ifs real, it's a town. A lost city.'

'And Atlantis lies under Table Bay. I never thought I'd live to see the high office of Commander-in-Chief knocked by fantasy.'

'I almost said the same thing myself at first.'

'I've seen the way the egg-heads' minds go into orbit over Santorin. They steam themselves up into all sorts of improbable conclusions-it's Plato's drowned paradise, God knows what else. I'll bet it's the same about Doodenstadt.'

For an answer he rummaged in a drawer and produced a volume book-marked with newspaper cuttings.

'Ever heard of Farini?'

'Farini was an American traveller who chimed to have camped at a lost city in the Kalahari desert in let me see

… 1885.'

'The Kalahari isn't the Sperrgebiet. Moreover, it's half-way across the sub-continent from Doodenstadt:

'I'm not suggesting a connection. Only it's interesting that Farini found an ancient ruined city covered by sand: '

Says who-Farini?'

'He wrote a book about it:

'I'll bet he did.'

'I value your scepticism, Struan. Farini's discovery has been kicked about by everybody. The weight of the evidence is that he did finds ruins and that probably they've since been covered over again by sand. His son even took a photograph of the place. Scores of expeditions in modern times have searched for Farini's lost city -without without success,'

I helped myself to another cigarette.

'The Navy's become a fun outfit since my time. We never thought much beyond ships and the sea. Lost cities didn't figure?

'You've seen Santorin. There could be a parallel.'

Look, I'm not an expert. I'm the dimmest sort of amateur when it comes to this sort of thing. I've seen some of Santorin's frescos-they're much too valuable for a duffer like me to touch. My boat provided cheap transport for some second- and third-rate stuff.'

We don't lack experts. In fact, you're going to meet one of them pretty soon. He's sitting right outside waiting for me to ring. Dr Hellmut Koch. He discovered Doodenstadt's fresco.'

'Then why bring me here? -and with all that elaborate cloak-and-dagger?'

'Think, man. For more than a century the Sperrgebiet's been the mysterious, out-of-reach, get-rich-quick mecca of every crook who could get himself a ship to sail in. First it was for the "white gold" guano. Then diamonds. Now Doodenstadt could be stage three, sparking off a big-scale treasurehunt. I couldn't give a damn whether Doodenstadt is Atlantis or a link in Farini's chain of cities under the sand. What I am concerned about is that a lot of hoodlums could invade the Forbidden Coast.'

'Not for the sake of a fresco or two,'

'That won't be the way the treasure-hounds will view Doodenstadt. That fresco will be an arrow pointing straight at buried treasure unlimited. Gold, ancient jewels, all the never-never stuff. Soon they'll be saying Captain Kidd's treasure is peanuts beside what lies under Doodenstadt. That's the way a treasure legend snowballs and there are always suckers to believe it. No-good suckers. When they don't find treasure they'll turn to a spot of illicit diamond running as a backstop against their costs. And ships willing to do that sort of thing cost plenty.'

'This is a job for the diamond police, not the Navy.'

`You're wrong. There are hundreds of foreign trawlers on the fishing grounds. If word leaked out about a lost city at Doodenstadt, the Navy's life wouldn't be worth living. And one thing's sure: the diamond police won't play ball over this hot potato. They argue, rightly, that the land security's as tight as all get-out but that it's wide wide open from the sea. And the sea is the Navy's responsibility.'

'Station a frigate at Possession. That would plug the gap.'

'How long do you think Doodenstadt's secret would stay a secret if I did that? Every trawler and every island headman would start asking, 'What's new? What's a frigate up to? Another big diamond strike to protect?" The buzz would spread like a veld fire. No, a warship would be the surest way to advertise a lost city. Besides, how effective would it be? You know that bloody Sperrgebiet weather – a gale twenty days a month. And the fog: every day there's that damn fog. Every day there's half an extra smuggler's night thrown in gratis. You can't win. You know yourself you can't operate a big ship like a frigate round Possession. There's no sea room and the reefs are thicker than pock-marks on a Hottentot's face.'

'A brace of fast patrol boats would do the trick.'

'Logistically sound; but, economically and ecologically, crap. Possession's one of the most important guano islands. Disturb the birds with high-powered boats' engines and they'll push off. No guano, no white gold.'

'We're playing verbal skittles. I pot 'em up, you knock ' em down.'

'You're the only skittle that can't be knocked down.' '

What the hell do you mean?'

`The "lost city" game must be played cards dose to the chest There must be security until Koch has time to sort out what really gives. But security with a difference: it mustn't seem to be security. What's needed is a one-man outfit – you.'

' M e

For reply, he spoke into the intercom. 'Send in Dr Koch? Koch was a tall, rangy Austrian with slicked-back hair and a pair of humorous grey eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. He didn't look much older than me,

'This is our man, Koch.'

`Hotfoot from Circe and her wine, eh?' (It was the first flash of a sense of fun I came to know well; that, and his total dedication to his work: the investigation of sea-shore middens belonging to Strandlopers-'Seashore Walkers' – who were a vanished Stone Age race of Sperrgebiet nomads.) The way he said it turned me on. 'Gigi,' I corrected. 'Her name was Gigi.'

'The memory of sweet days ferments inside me,' he sighed. '

I remember once, in Athens, a bottle from Santorin… slightly sweet, but it had a fire.

'You can swop boozy reminiscences later,' snapped the C-in-C. 'He hasn't accepted yet, Koch. Tell him about the fresco.'

'The admiral's put you in the picture about Doodenstadt?' '

Aye.'

'Here's the set-up: there are these enormous blocks of rock half-in and half-out of the breakers. There's the old wreck of a big liner lying on top of them. I was snuffling about there for middens one exceptionally low tide-a rare good chance for me: you don't often see the water as low as that. Or so cairn, also a rarity in those parts. A large cave, originally a fault in the rock strata, had been opened up and formed by wave action. I went in. At its landward end the cleft led to a regular-shaped rock tunnel which ran clean under the desert. This tunnel was higher than the sea cave and out of reach of the water, and so quite dry. I went in only a little way, as I was scared of being trapped by the tide returning. But I spotted this with my torch and got a shot of it,'

He tossed me a photographic colour slide. I held it up to the light.

It might have been a duplicate-with variations-of one of the most precious finds to come out of Santorini it was 31 a small fresco showing two gemsbok, or oryx, cavorting, tails swishing, heads held high. Certainly the artists' treatment-light and graceful-was uncannily similar in the two cases. The Santorin scene had presented the pundits with an inexplicable enigma: had oryx (in modem times found only in the Middle East and Africa) once inhabited the Aegean islands? Or had there been a land link, now submerged by the ocean?

I'll be damned!'

• I elaborated on the Santorin discovery.

Koch was afire when I'd finished. The C-in-C sat back with the air of a magician who has produced rabbit quintuplets out of a hat when he'd expected one.

Koch's words tumbled over one another. 'If Struan's right we may be on to something much bigger than we imagined! If Doodenstadt's tied up in some way with the Middle East or a vanished Minoan civilization ..

His use of my Christian name was a tacit assumption that I was going along with the lost city idea. The C-in-C assumed that, too. be a one-man assignment, Struan. And, let me warn you, no bed of roses. Also it's winter, and the island may be pretty miserable: there's no one else there, so you'll be secure, with a capital S. I've fixed a ship for you to use, a fishing cutter. She's there at Possession now. Koch wants at least a couple of months to explore. You'll assist, of course. We'll give you headman status. You'll relieve the present zombie, who has started mainlining. You'll go there in the usual manner of a new headman taking over-in the island relief coaster. You'll wear a headman's uniform. Nothing to arouse anyone's suspicions. Questions?'

Steady, Weddell, steady, I told myself. They're rushing fences. A nasty little voice at the back of my brain whispered: you're being taken for a ride, a very clever shop- window to hide the true nature of the goods on offer. The soft sell, Sperrgebiet-style.

Something of this must have been noticeable in my tone because the C-in-C glanced sharply at me as I asked, 'Communications? How do I contact you?'

'I've got a special transceiver-voice radio-laid on. RCA Navy job. Enough frequencies to chat to the moon. But that doesn't mean you're going to use it like a telephone.

Minimal use means maximum security. In the islands they gossip over the air like housewives in a supermarket. It's their main form of relaxation. Remember, anything you say will be public property within hours. Play any situation by ear. Don't come running to me.'

I leant forward and ground out my cigarette in his ashtray. He frowned. I said deliberately, 'I hope this conversation is being bugged, because if you have any doubts about what I say you can make a playback. You needn't worry about that radio because I won't be using it – ever. I know a rehabilitation package when I see one, even when it's wrapped up in lovely romantic ribbons like these.' I indicated the colour slide. '

Next time, find someone stupider. If that's African then Siberia is Atlantis. I don't intend to be tricked into being landed on some remote bloody guano island five hundred miles up the most God-forsaken coast in the world, with no chance of a drink or a woman, because of your do-gooder inclinations Thanks for the ride. It was nice seeing your superstar headquarters. In short, you can put your lost city up your admiral's jersey!'

He made a sound deep in his throat; half rose; and plucked away a switch and broken length of wire from his desk.

'We aren't bugged any longer: what I've got to say is for your ears alone. That slide is the real McCoy… but the hell with that. What is important is guts, and when I wanted someone with guts for a special job my first thought was of one man-Struan Weddell. Why d'ye think I went to all this trouble if I didn't believe you have what it takes? Seems I was wrong, dead wrong. Possession takes guts: I saw it at work there during the war and I'll never forget it. Convoy WV. 5BX. I was in one of the escorts, a corvette. The escort leader was a frigate called Gousblom. Off Possession we heard the sound of heavy guns: a raider or a pocket battleship, we thought. That didn't stop Gousblom. That pipsqueak of a ship went off at full speed to fight. It was straight suicide, and she knew it. But she'd rather have thrown herself away than let the enemy get at the convoy she'd been entrusted with. Then a U-boat bagged Gousbiom, right in the Possession channel. Her magazine went up. The U-boat had just torpedoed a big liner.

'The City of Baroda,' added Koch. His manner, too, was hostile now. '… the one I was telling you about, lying on top of Doodenstadt's rocks.'

It wasn't the barb or the C-in-C's taunt but the sincerity behind it which altered my decision. It was the job which was his objective, not me. I believed him now, believed Koch too. If I accepted the Possession assignment I'd have a ship of sorts, because they still run the guano islands as ships, and I'd be her captain. Independent command, I grinned to myself. Maybe too bloody independent; with only birds for a crew and bird-shit for a deck. But it might turn out to be fun, and deep-down I knew that a spell away from bottles and women wouldn't do me any harm. Weddell the Happy Hairshirt Hermit… I felt happier than I'd been in years… .. we never found out what those heavy guns were that Gousblom heard,' the C-in-C was rasping with his eyes stabbing me like a laser beam. 'There was no big stuff, either ours or the Germans', about. But that's beside the point. It's a question of guts. If you chicken out. . He made a pansy's wrist-flapping, hand-on-hip gesture which would have won him a music-hall encore and would have been utterly ridiculous if it hadn't been part of his anger. He tugged at the bit of wire and glared at me.

I gave him a moment or two to run down. 'I've changed my mind. I'll go.'

If my turnabout had any effect upon him, he didn't show it. Maybe he claimed all the credit for himself. The frost didn't leave his eyes.

'You're under my orders from now on. No signals, except in emergency. Clear? Koch will fly back to Luderitz the day after tomorrow. All the paperwork is jacked up already. You'll sleep here. Silvermine has plenty of accommodation-part of the nuclear preparedness game. Go and apologize to your mother from me. You will not discuss Doodenstadt with anyone – understood?'

'Understood – sir.'

'Any. ah, attachments at Santorin?'

'Gigi? Give me some credit!'

'Good. That's all.'

Koch took my arm in a friendly gesture as we made for the door.

'Now what In hell do you think a Minoan gemsbok is doing on the Sperrgebiet?'