A Twist of Sand

VIII Curva dos Dunas

the moon's silver began to give way to the first grey of the yet unborn day. Trout tore on. Sleepless and keyed to a high pitch, I remained all night on the bridge. My eyes were red with watching, and they always strayed back to NP I's imaginary track, now well to the north and west of Trout. John had come up during the night in cheerful conversational mood.

"What's all the buzz, Geoffrey?" he asked in his easy, competent way. "Making a real mystery of things, aren't you?"

I regretted to have to do it, but I resorted to that funk-hole of the man in command, rank. I simply said nothing but stared ahead into the night.

John at first did not catch on.

"Brushing up the old navigation all by yourself, too?" he laughed.

I realised that I would rouse some comment by navigating myself, but I simply refused to turn old Simon's maps over to the usual navigator. I said nothing in reply to John's sallies. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him freeze when he realised that we were no longer on the chummy basis on which we which always gone in to the attack. John had always been excellent in giving the crew a loudspeaker appraisal of a tricky situation, and I expect this was his way of putting it to me. He froze into immobility and, except for a few terse, necessary words changing the course after we were well away from NP I's track, there had been silence between us for the rest of the night.

I decided that I would approach Curva dos Dunas from the south, turning north and east once I crossed the seventy-five fathom mark. The more I looked at the ghastly coast, the more thankful I was for old Simon's charts. It was a hopeless conglomeration of broken water, shoals and rocks; everywhere were the terrorising words, "discoloured water." Once across the seventy-five fathom line, I decided to turn Trout north-east and thread my way to within fifteen miles of the coast, and then try and pick up my two only sure landmarks, the ten-foot projection which I had named Simon's Rock, and the distinctive three-topped hill with another high hill about seven miles to the nor'rad. If I could spot the tiny beach marked "sandy, white "on the chart, it would be a great additional help; otherwise the old sailor-man's only direction on the landward side were "dunas moveis" — shifting dunes.

I crossed to the voice-pipe,

"What depth of water have we under us?"

"Eighty-seven fathoms, shoaling, sir."

"Call them out as she goes."

"Aye, aye, sir. Eighty-five. Ninety. Seventy-seven… "

God, I thought, what a coastline to be approaching! Rough as an uncut diamond.

"Seventy-five… eighty, seventy-four…"

"That'll do," I snapped out. I had crossed my rubicon. Well, here goes, I thought.

I turned to John who, with the exception of the watchmen, was alone with me.

"Clear the bridge," I said. I felt the tremor in my voice.

"Diving stations, sir?" asked John, shooting me a curious look.

"Clear the bridge," I repeated. "I'll give my orders from up here. Alone."

The ratings on watch glanced nervously at each other;is they scuttled down the hatch. John followed. He paused as his head was about to disappear. Apparently he thought better of it and I could almost see the shrug of his shoulders.

"Course seven-oh," I ordered and heard John repeat it. "Speed for ten knots."

The shudder died as Trout slowed. I searched the horizon with my glasses, looking every way for the twin sentinels on land which overlooked NP I's hide-out.

I felt completely naked. A warship is a lonely place anyway, but when one has sent everyone below, it seems more so. The gun, unmanned, pointed forward, lashed, with its muzzle towards where the land must be. The light anti-aircraft weapons on the conning-tower had the same forlorn look. The quiet sea washed across the casing. All around the darkness was lightening, bringing with it that depression peculiar to early dawn. I swept the horizon in a slow arc with my glasses. If I were fool enough to have no watchmen with me, at least I could be careful enough not to have Trout caught with her pants down, so to speak. I could imagine what sort of short shrift I would get from a court-martial, driving a warship in war-time towards a dangerous roast without a single man on watch. And the enemy in the vicinity!

Then I saw the Skeleton Coast for the first time in my life.

I have seen it many times since, but I suppose I shall never forget the primeval awesomeness of that first sight. It was a trick of refracted light from the desert behind, I suppose, but it sent a spine-chilling thrill through me. Against the far rim of lightening east, a shaggy dinosaurs, tufted by shaggy bush and a dun tonsure of sand, rose and gazed hostilely at the lonely submarine. It was, as I have said, a strange trick of the light which gave me that forbidding first cruel glimpse of sand, sea and dune-starved shrub, for Trout was, I suppose, every bit of fifteen miles away. Light refracts and plays the strangest tricks in the mica-laden air. I gazed at the strange revelation. How many times had it shown itself in this way to old Simon, laboriously — and with superb seamanship — toiling up and down charting Curva dos Dunas from his sailing-ship? I leant forward to take a bearing.

The Skeleton Coast reached for Trout's throat.

I saw the discoloured water as I leant forward and, God knows, even at that stage of my ignorance of the Kaokoveld, I knew it for what it was — sand, shoals, death! I could even see the dun sand swirling in the sea under the thrust of the screws.

"Stop both!" I screamed into the voice-pipe. "Full astern!"

Almost in slow motion Trout''s way diminished. The sand swirled forward past the casing as the screws bit astern.

"What depth of water under her?" I asked weakly.

"Five fathoms sir," replied the disembodied voice from below.

Five! I marvelled, and reached a trembling hand for the chart. Another cold chill ran down my spine. Trout was over the dreaded Alecto Shoal, about fifteen miles south of my objective. Alecto! I didn't know what it meant then, but later I was to discover that HMS Alecto reported this particular horror in 1889. I realised, too, that I was only two miles off the coast — two miles! I thought I was live at least.

"Stop both," I ordered. "How much water under us?" a question which I came to ask almost automatically later.

"Twenty fathoms, sir."

Well, that was safe enough. Looking at the chart, I estimated that I had almost run Trout aground on the north-western tip of the Alecto Shoal. I decided to swing her round and keep away from the general north-westerly trend of the shoreline.

"Speed for six knots," I ordered down the voice-pipe. "Course three-four-oh."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Trout edged her way round the shoal. Then the light came. I was aghast. I seemed to be almost on top of the land. The sea was quiet, with no sign of the dreaded heavy south-westerly swell. The sun, starting to rise redly against the backdrop of dune and sand, looked as if it had a hangover. I felt something like that myself. I took Trout seawards for a while and changed course inwards again.- The chart said "foul ground " — and foul, indeed, it was. Trout ran on slowly. Out to port the quiet sea merged into the peculiar light haze; to starboard loomed the long line of dunes topped by the bibulous sun. I switched my glasses to the north, but I suppose the refracted light destroyed some of the magnification, for a moment later, when I looked with the naked eye, I saw the three-topped hill, unmistakable, against the dun background. The entrance to Curva dos Dunas! I altered course slightly to keep me clear of a sudden four-fathom hump to the south-west of the three-topped hill.

Trout, at funereal pace, moved towards where I knew Simon's Rock must lie. And — beyond lay Trout's objective, Curva dos Dunas! A ten-foot rock sticking out of the sea is a difficult enough thing to see at any time, but in the peculiar inshore light, one might well pass it by — and be wrecked on the shoals at the entrance to the island. Old Simon's chart showed it bearing 330 degrees from the three-topped hill.

I began to sweat; nothing showed as the bearing approached. All those doubts which I had rigidly refused to consider when I had made my decision to break away from the box-search assailed me. If all this was merely chasing a will-o'-the-wisp… The line of the bearing fell across the 330 degree mark. Nothing! There was nothing either on the landward side — nothing that remotely looked like an island.

"Stop both," I ordered, struck by the harshness of my own voice.

I consulted the chart again. I was almost exactly — if any navigator can hope to be anything like exact on that coast — where the rock should be. While Trout wallowed in the slight swell, I swept every inch of sea between myself and the shore.

There was nothing. No rock, no breakers, not a living or dead thing.

I scanned every inch of sea where I knew Curva dos Dunas should lie. Nothing!

So, I thought bitterly to myself, an old man's illusion and a young fool's dream turned out to be nothing but a stretch of empty water! I could take Trout through without a thought of wrecking her, if I wished.

Even to myself I could not answer the questions which arose about NP I — or rather the noise which I fatuously believed was the hydraulic jet machinery of NP I. Who had ever heard of a submarine being propelled by the expulsion of water anyway? Who would believe such a cock-and-bull story? It looked lamer every moment. I had made a complete fool of myself in front of my officers and my crew, standing a watch alone — in war-time — and conning a ship without a single soul aboard knowing where she was. Trout's log would look lovely before a court-martial! No entries, and the captain unable to say where he was. I looked round me, cursed the Skeleton Coast and cursed NP I and all the blasted fools who had given me this impossible mission.

I snapped open the voice-pipe.

"Course three-two-oh. Two hundred revolutions."

I'd get the hell out of this blasted coast, I thought bitterly.

Then I saw it.

It flashed white and evil, like a guano-covered fang, out of the sea a few hundred yards on the port beam. I had been on the inside of the damned thing and I had been searching landwards! A sick, cold feeling hit me in the stomach after my momentary elation. I was in the wickedest stretch of foul ground. The fathom line was contorted like a switchback at Blackpool. I had been fooled for the second time that morning by the current and fooled more still by the curious light refraction so that I had not seen Simon's Rock itself, but only its white-guano-littered tip where the sun caught it. I was like a blind man rushing through a roomful of glasses trying not to knock them over.

"Full astern!" I yelled in the voice-pipe. "No, stop both! Give me continuous depth readings."

"Echo-sounder reports four fathoms, sir," came up John's quiet, untroubled voice. What the hell would he be thinking about my hysterical commands screamed down from the bridge where there was no one else to tell him what was going on?

"Asdic reports obstructions bearing ah… hem… almost all round the compass, sir." The calm voice had a tinge of irony. "Hydrophones report all quiet, sir. No transmissions."

Trout lay in the troughs of the waves while I tried to make up my mind. It was easy enough to know where I was. I had Simon's Rock at my back, and the three-topped hill ashore to give me a fix. I pored over the annotated chart and saw that if I turned Trout's head I could get her into the position I had originally intended, a piece of deep water flanking the entrance to Curva dos Dunas. Curva dos Dunas! Where the hell was it? The sea was calm, almost oily, and there were no breakers. There should have been, looking at old Simon's annotations. "Breaks. Six fathoms. Breaks occasionally. Possibly less water. Heavy breakers. Surf."

I gazed hopelessly around for the sand-bars which must mark the channel into Curva dos Dunas. There simply must be! With trembling hands I took a bearing and cast my binoculars along the line of it seeking my island. Nothing! Had it disappeared in all the years that had elapsed since the chart was drawn? But, argued my sailor's mind, the rest of it is accurate enough. So damn accurate that had it not been so you and Trout would have been dead ducks already. Again I cast my eye along the line of the bearing. Suddenly I felt terribly afraid. My palms sweated. I knew why they called it the Skeleton Coast. I knew the terror of the men who drove in to this fearful, bland, cross-eyed shore and were called crazy when they got back to port — if they did. I shivered, despite the growing intensity of the sun. I noticed Trout's head beginning to swing away landwards.

God, what a race there must be here! The thought shook me out of my nameless terror. I would take Trout outside Simon's Rock and make a reconnaissance of the so-called entrance to Curva dos Dunas: if the soundings proved to be the same as on the chart, I would follow my original plan. The part about Curva dos Dunas simply not being there — I'd forget it, for the moment.

"Slow ahead both," I ordered. "Give me continuous soundings. Tell Bissett to keep his ears skinned."

"Aye, aye, sir," came John's voice.

I eased Trout round and she made her way slowly through and over the wicked sand-bars only a few feet under her keel. Had the water been breaking, I thought grimly. Now we were in deeper water. The soundings suddenly deepened — from five and six to twenty-nine and then forty-seven and sixty-one. I breathed freely again, knowing we were safe for the moment but remembering what the bottom looked like in case we had to dive. Dive! I thought of NP I. With this coast under us, we would be like two men fighting between themselves and a third at the same time. Certainly the Skeleton Coast would give neither of us any quarter.

I brought Trout round in a shallow circle and ran in towards where the entrance to Curva dos Dunas should lie. Using Simon's Rock and the three-top hill like a man in a fog holding on to one patch of light, I brought Trout in.

"Bottom shallowing, sir," came John's report.

I blurred a spot on the chart with a pencil where Trout lay. Thirty fathoms here, said old Simon's handwriting.

"Thirty fathoms, sir. Hydrophone operator reports no transmissions. Three knots."

Dead right. I felt the sea catch Trout by the tail and as she swung I felt the correction. Someone was certainly on the job down below. But it showed there was a tide race. Thirty, twenty-seven, twenty-five, twenty-three, twenty-five read the chart.

"Thirty fathoms, sir, twenty-seven, twenty-three, twenty-five. Asdic reports obstructions port, starboard and ahead. Clear astern."

God! The old man was right!

Then I saw Curva dos Dunas.

I think it must have been the slight gust of wind from the south-west — sailors on this coast mutter south-west in their dreams, for from that quarter come the waves and the wind to drive you against the ruthless shore. A ripple spread across the calm surface of the sea. I saw a sudden flicker of white. A rapid whorl of white, convulsed and turning like a man's inner ear. I saw the sand-bars curve and twist like the charted lines. The wind had whipped the sea against the wicked, waiting sand for a moment.

Curva dos Dunas had revealed itself, a veil rent aside only for a moment.

I couldn't see the inner anchorage clearly, but what I saw told its own deadly tale. Here was an anchorage — the only anchorage for a thousand miles, and it lay behind a convolution of sand-bars, completely hidden in calm weather but visible in anything of a breeze, when any sailor worth his sense would shy like a frightened horse at spotting those lines of broken surf. I marvelled at the guts of old Simon Peace at taking a sailing-ship in there; at his courage at winding his way through those broken lines of surf, now snarling as the wind broke the water across their half-concealed fangs; at his tenacity at coming back again and again to chart it. No wonder he had screamed on his deathbed! Sand, bars of sand, every one of them death at the touch of a keel. To take any ship, even under diesel or electric engines, into what appeared a broken holocaust of surf, would require a heart as steady as the three-topped hill away to starboard now. I looked with grim satisfaction at my island, my only landed possession in the world. It was a gift worthy of the old dead sailor: surf on this coast is death, but an anchorage is life. He had shown me where I could find NP I, if she was to be found.

I changed course and cruised across the entrance. No Navy hydrographer could have done a better job than old Simon. The swirl of the tide must have kept it swept clean all these years, and was likely to do so long after I was dead. I checked my original plan and made for the southern side of the entrance where there was deep water. From there, I had planned, I would sink NP I as she entered the channel. Now, however, I changed my plan slightly. Sink NP I I would, but slightly farther away and not block the one safe anchorage on all this wild coast. If only they had given me a couple of mines! I could have mined the channel and simply sat back and watched NP I destroy herself. Or would I? I asked myself now. Would I have blocked the entrance when only her skipper and I knew of the existence of one of the best-guarded maritime secrets in the world? I didn't bother to answer myself. I hadn't the mines anyway.

I manoeuvred Trout into position. I would lie on the seabed until I heard NP I and then sink her quickly. For the first time in days I grinned to myself. I reached for the voice-pipe. NP I might be almost upon us, but she wouldn't find Trout unprepared.

"Dive!" I ordered curtly. "Action stations."

The atmosphere in the control room was plain to me even as I clipped the hatch above me and received the familiar dollop of water as Trout slid under. John was meticulously correct and formal, and God help anyone under him who erred. But I could tell from young Devenish, the sub's, face, that the officers considered their skipper had gone round the bend — perhaps even now he was going up the creek by this apparently ridiculous order for action stations after a couple of hours of fooling around which would have caused any would-be officer to be sacked from his training course. The crew, battle-hardened, were alert and on the job, every man where he should be. If the officers thought I was crazy, heaven alone knows what the crew thought. Blast them all, I thought savagely, it isn't for them to think. I'm doing the thinking, and I'm carrying a burden of responsibility which may well decide the fate of the entire war at sea. They just have to sweat it out.

"What's the sounding?" I asked briefly.

"Fifteen fathoms — a shade more, sir."

"Steer three-five-oh," I ordered.

The helmsman spun his wheel and Trout swung her deadly snout towards the spot where I knew NP I must enter that fearful channel.

"Depth, eighty feet. Lay her gently on the bottom."

The planesman manipulated expertly.

"Torpedo settings for eight and ten feet," I continued. "All tubes to the ready."

"Down periscope." I had taken one last quick look round. The shallow settings on the torpedo were tricky, but I was working on the assumption that NP I would come in on the surface. I gave the plot for the attack and the fruit machine went into action. In my mind's eye I saw the whole situation. The old thrill of the chase and the consummation of the attack swept over me. The bastard, I thought without rancour.

"Course for a ninety-degree track?"

"Three-four-five degrees, sir."

Well, my rough estimate of three-five-oh had been near enough; good enough with a spread on the torpedoes.

Trout planed down to the hard, sandy bottom of the Skeleton Coast. There was a faint bump. The one and only time, I said to myself, that I hope to touch the sand of the Skeleton Coast. Trout lay with her nose, fanged now and waiting the venomous thrust of compressed air to lash its deadly cargo into life, pointing exactly where NP I must cross her path. The range was easy, and all we had to do was to wait. NP I would be a sitting duck — and she couldn't come in there at twenty knots, even if everything I had been told was true,

"Stop both," I ordered. "Silent routine." I gestured to John. "Tell them over the loudspeaker that I want absolute silence. Absolute. Do you understand? Their lives depend on it."

"Aye, aye, sir," he replied, but his glance was a mixture of curiosity and compassion. I know what he's bloody well thinking, I told myself. The skipper's imagining all this. He's fighting the old battles all over again. He knows the drill so well, you can't fault him. But the sea's empty and there isn't a whisper on the hydrophones. He's playing possum with his thoughts on some remote African beach; he's told no one where we are. They'll let him down lightly when this gets out because of his war record. But he's crazy; he is still in command.

I saw it all on his face.

A deathly hush settled over Trout after the impersonal crackle of John's voice over the loudspeaker. All pumps and all machines were still, and not a man said a word. ()ne could almost hear the crunch of the hard sand under Trout.

Bissett's voice came muffled.

"Hydrophone operator reports no transmissions, sir," said John. His voice was almost a whisper.

"Unless there is something to report, tell him to keep quiet," I said. Blohm and Voss alone knows what listening apparatus NP I has. I couldn't afford to take one slightest chance.

I stood by the periscope, its clipped-up handles making it look vaguely like a spaniel with its ears tied back above its head. The operators stood by their unmoving dials, and in the immobile engine-room I could see Macfadden gazing, apparently with the vacancy of a lunatic, at the dead telegraphs. Mac was very much on the job, however, and I couldn't have hoped for a better engineer — or a more stable man under attack. Trout lay under the sea like the puff-adders lie in the desert sand — immobile, asleep, coiled, but quick as a dart when trodden on amid their dun surroundings. So Trout lay — waiting, listening for that strange bubbling, thumping noise which I construed to be NP I's engines.

With the air-conditioning machinery switched off — for what it was worth — the sweat started to trickle down the back of my neck. John's face glistened in the high humidity. The clock hand moved round. Silence. A great silence, only broken by the occasional soft thump as Trout nuzzled the unfriendly sand under her. An hour passed. I was almost startled to see one of the crew move silently to request permission to visit the heads — he had removed his shoes and socks and was padding about barefooted. In the engine-room men had stripped off their shirts, and the sweat ran in runnels from their bare, browned torsos — legacy of the cruising days in the sun. Let them sweat it out, I thought unfeelingly.

Two hours. Three hours. We stood to action stations without exchanging a word. The heat was becoming very oppressive. No one had eaten anything since the call to action stations. I called John and gave him instructions to have bullybeef sandwiches served all round.

"Tell the cook," I added, "that if he so much as drops a knife, he'll stop right away and no one will get a morsel."

"Aye, aye, sir," John said formally.

The sandwiches provided a welcome break in the long vigil. It was now past noon. The smell of humans, mixed with oil, so characteristic of submarines, hung heavy in the staling air. My own sweat stank rank; it stank of fear. You can smell a frightened crew, but this one wasn't. But their commanding officer was — terribly, frightfully afraid.

As the afternoon wore on, the fears which had gone underground since I had actually located Curva dos Dunas raised their heads, each one with two more heads attached to the original one. Suppose I had smelled out NP I's lair — was there any guarantee that she would return soon, even reasonably soon? With her apparently unlimited cruising range, she might be away weeks. I swore to myself that if I had to wait a week, or even two, I would do so. I had waited before. The French saying came to my mind: "Patience is bitter, but its fruits are sweet." In the balance of my doubts, I had the one great concrete fact: I had found a hide-out capable of being used by a marauding submarine which no one knew about. That it was navigable, I had only old Simon's charts to rely on, but they had proved themselves accurate enough. And there had been the strange noises which Trout had followed — I was still convinced, almost to her doom.

We waited.

Another hour ticked ponderously by. John stood like a statue, and the others might have been hypnotised into frozen flesh, except that they were sweating more heavily now. Once I caught a fleeting exchange of glances between the sub at the "fruit machine "and the navigator. They still thought I was crazy, maybe even crazier after a silent action stations vigil of more than six hours. Up above the sun must be starting to sag towards St. Helena. For hours I studied the small inset chart of Curva dos Dunas, until I think I knew every fathom mark, every obstruction, every sandbar. I glanced at the clock. After five! Weary with the long inactivity, I decided to speak to Bissett myself. After hours at the hydrophones, even his sensitive ears — and they were the keenest in the boat — would be deadening. I edged into his cubicle. My rubber-soled shoes made no noise. Elton was lounging next to Bissett.

I caught his whispered words before he saw me.

"… crackers. Up the creek. Reckon Jimmy the One thinks so too. You've been listening for eight hours — for what? A farting whale. If that isn't plumb crackers…"

"Elton," I said softly, and he froze. He turned swiftly and faced me. There was a half sardonic grin on his face which triggered off the accumulated tension of hours of nerve strain within me.

He opened his mouth, but he never said what he intended to. I hit him across the side of the neck, a savage blow meant for a street fight, a muscle-ripping, cruel lunge with the edge of my forearm. He sagged like a rag doll and sat down with a heavy thump, his senseless eyes rolling back with fear.

Bissett looked aghast and did the sensible thing by concentrating on his job. I felt sick, and deeply ashamed of myself. The savagery of my pent-up feelings had mute witness in the sorry picture half propped against the bulkhead. I felt his pulse. Well, I hadn't killed him.

Suddenly a ripple ran through Bissett, like a pointer sighting his game.

"Sir! sir!" he whispered urgently.

"What is it, man?" I rapped out.

He didn't hear me. His whole being was listening.

"Confused noises bearing red one-five," he said slowly. "Getting stronger."

I could barely utter the words. "Is it the same…?"

He nodded.

He looked up and smiled.

"Coming this way all right, sir. Lot of ground echoes, but quite clear. Same as last night."

I snatched an earpiece and listened. Yes, there it was, the same deadly thump, like a man dragging a leg.

I knew all I wanted to know.

I shot through to the control room.

"Continuous readings," I snapped as I left him.

"Group up, slow ahead. Revolutions for four knots. Stand by all tubes. Plot? Firing angle? Range? Enemy course? Speed?"

Trout was galvanised. The attack routine went into deadly, efficient action.

"Thirty feet," I said. That would give me the opportunity to fire either by periscope or on the hydrophone hearing, although I preferred the former.

"Slow ahead." I'd close the range as near as I dared in the shallow water. There was the danger that Trout might break surface if I fired a full salvo.

The planesman spun his wheel and the water blew.

Trout rose silently off the sand and glided upwards.

Then it happened.

The inclinometer went mad. Trout's bows lifted like a mad thing and she spun half on her side, throwing John and myself together in a heap under the "fruit machine."

"God's death!" I swore. Davis was fighting like a maniac with the planes, but Trout bucked and kicked like an untamed broncho. He was cursing, softly, but with horrible fluency. If Trout's bows reared out of the water — it would be the end of us.

Then her nose dipped and the compass card swung madly. With a sick realisation I knew that the tide-race had us inexorably in its grip. My attack plan had gone haywire in a matter of seconds.

"For Christ's sake!" I screamed at Davis. "Get her under control! Keep her bows steady…"

Loose things fell about the conning-tower and I kicked away with savage anger a pair of shoes which seemed to materialise and try and attach themselves to me. The inclinometer bubble swung beserkly.

"God's teeth!" I raved and screamed, all my nerves shot to hell. NP I in my sights and Trout's trim so impossible that I simply couldn't fire!

"Blow the main tanks," I shouted. "No, belay that."

I knew I was beaten. There was only one thing to do. Get down on the seabed and try and sort things out while the deadly foe went on his way — unharmed. But at least I would have a look at him.

"Up periscope." I gripped the handles.

The tip burst wildly through the water and for a moment my eyesight reeled before a drunken, swinging vista of sky and white water. With that up top, it was scarcely any wonder that Trout was behaving like a madman below, in the shallow water. The periscope lifted fifteen feet out of the water in a horrid swaying arc, and I prayed silently that the look-outs on NP I wouldn't spot it. Through the white water and blue sky, deepening in the coming evening, I caught a glimpse of NP I. The narrow conning-tower stood up frail and delicate like an aircraft wing, and in that split moment I saw how lovely her lines were. She headed unwaveringly towards the entrance to Curva dos Dunas.

"Down periscope," I ordered briefly, calm now that the great moment was passed.

"Take her down," I said briefly. "Eighty feet."

The Skeleton Coast had won. NP I had got away — almost in my sights. As the water poured into her tanks, Trout steadied up a little and then, almost magically below sixty feet, regained her composure. The boat was a shambles.

"Take her down," I said, almost abstractedly. "Clear up this bloody mess."

Bissett's voice came through clearly.

"Stop that bloody row!" I snarled. What he could tell me would be of no use to me now. I knew where NP I was headed.

Trout subsided with a faint thump, like a breathless athlete.

"Take over," I said to John. I wanted time to plan a new course of action. "Break off the action. Crew to normal stations."

"Aye, aye, sir," came the reply.

I went to the cubbyhole which passed for my private cabin. I sat down wearily, and as I did so the fetid smell of sweat came up. The sweat of fear. Yes, I was frightened; that delicate, airy conning-tower of NP I had struck the fear of God into me. For a split second I felt almost glad that the Skeleton Coast had intervened and prevented my firing the death-dealing salvo. I pushed the thought aside. I had missed my big chance — through no fault of my own — and now the odds would be twice what they were. Bitterly I cursed the tide-race and the variable density of water which had sent Trout rocketing about. I had never reckoned on it.

Anyway, there was nothing I could do about that now. What I had learned was that the Skeleton Coast always laughs last.

I took old Simon's inset chart of Curva dos Dunas and laid it before me on the minute scrap of wood which passed for a table. Mines! I could slip back to Simonstown and load with mines and finish off NP I. It would mean leaving Curva dos Dunas unguarded, but then, either inside or out on a cruise, NP I would sink herself in the channel. Neat and easy, and no danger to Trout. I had almost sold myself on the idea of mines when I remembered the tide-race. No, it would be quite impossible to lay mines in the channel with the race sweeping out seawards. Trout would blow herself up — since they would sweep down on her as she laid them. To lay them from the inside would be equally impossible, as Trout would then be bottled up by her own mines.

The Skeleton Coast had won again.

I glanced at my watch and I took the decision which I had, through fear, kept rigidly at the back of my mind.

I would take Trout in after NP I.

I felt unutterably weary. I shuddered as I glanced at those fearful whorls on the chart, guarded by the remorseless sand-bars. Peering at the welter of soundings and curl annotations, I suddenly found myself amused. Before the final whorled channel into the anchorage in the centre was marked "Galleon Point." And, minutely under it in the faded Indian ink, "spar shows at low water. Five fathoms." A galleon! The thought was too much for my tired mind. I laughed to myself and the laughter, like a balm, soothed my failure and crystallised my new attack plan. It was almost dark now. I had two choices: I could try and take Trout in on the surface and risk discovery and almost certain sinking by NP I — there was no room to manoeuvre — or go in at periscope depth, using Simon's Rock, the three-topped hill and another high hill to the north to steer her by. My heart sank when I looked at the channel. A misjudged order, one mistiming, a swing of the tide-race, and Trout would be jammed against the sand-bars and wolfish breakers. It would be moonlight. I'd take Trout in, even if it killed me. Once in the inner anchorage, NP I would get her delayed salvo of Trout torpedoes, although I' hoped the explosion wouldn't damage Trout as well, the distance was so small. Anyway, that problem could wait. If I could take Trout safely in, it would be the most fantastic piece of navigation I had ever attempted. I would also have to bring her out again. And, I thought, the Skeleton Coast alone knows what the water densities are in that channel, sweeping in from warm, shallow water to the cold South Atlantic outside. The only other alternative had already been lost — to have tried to follow NP I in on hydrophone bearings. I would have had to take Trout so close behind, however, that she must have heard us. Here goes, I thought grimly. I laughed as I tossed down the dividers.

John was looking at me. I hadn't heard him come in, I had been so engrossed in the plan of attack. He had heard that last laugh of mine, and I guess it didn't sound too good to a man who thought his skipper was running off the rails.

We faced one another. John's air of anxious care nettled me. Humour the patient, I thought to myself.

"Well?" I said curtly.

John spread his hands slightly. "Look, Geoffrey… "

He stopped hopelessly when he saw my face. "You've been without sleep for two days and nights. Have some rest. I'll set a course for Simonstown — if you'll tell me where we are."

I took refuge in my command. "There's a new attack plan. I don't want it fluffed, like the other."

John made a gesture of despair. So low that I scarcely could hear, he said: "What were we attacking before?"

His loyalty, his despair, his obvious conclusion that I was no longer in a fit state to command Trout roused me. I laughed. A hard, brittle, nervous laugh. It drew a sharp look from him.

"I'm attacking the most dangerous enemy in the most dangerous waters in the world," I said.

He looked at me disbelievingly. I went towards the entrance and for a moment I thought he was going to stop me. I brushed past into the control room.

"Diving stations," I ordered. "Twenty feet. Up periscope. Group up. Both ahead together. Revolutions for six knots."

I intended to rush through the patch of rough, low-density water, and — I hoped — be shallow enough to avoid the turbulence, and get fixes on old Simon's rock at the southern entrance, and on the two hills before I committed Trout to the channel.

At sixty feet Trout bucked madly again, but at twenty feet all was quiet.

"Up periscope."

There was Simon's Rock, still white tipped in the near dark. I had a clear view of the three-topped hill bearing 105 degrees and the northern mountain, almost masked now against its dun background, on seventy degrees.

"Course one-oh-oh," I said, committing her to the entrance. It was about three-quarters of a mile to the first big swing in the channel; it then turned back almost parallel to the entrance.

Trout glided towards Curva dos Dunas.

I raised the periscope higher and was appalled at what I saw. Against the dun backdrop of the dunes, touched now with the last light of day, a gale creamed in from the south-west, breaking berserkly on the bars at the entrance, bared now like fangs. I was steady on my bearings however, and old Simon's chart was a marvel. All round creamed broken water.

The sweat trickled down my neck.

"Hydrophone operator and asdic report confused noises to port, starboard and ahead, sir," John reported, his face a mask of formality.

"Switch the bloody things off," I snapped.

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Course one-oh-five degrees," I ordered. The helmsman made a minute adjustment. Beyond the seething water straight ahead I could see the strange three-topped hill. I only had to steer for that until the high hill to the north bore sixty degrees, when I would make my first great change of course as the channel turned back on itself.

Trout crept slowly towards the bearing. I swivelled the periscope round — Simon's Rock had been lost in the whiteness on the starboard quarter. One of my lifelines was gone. I must have enough light to keep the high northern hill and the three-topped hill in view just till the moon rose.

The bearing neared.

Here it was.

"Course three-two-oh," I said without expression.

John jumped like a scalded cat.

"Three-two — oh." Very slowly: "Aye, aye, sir."

"Helmsman, course three-two-oh."

Trout swung round. I waited without breathing for the tell-tale bump which meant the end. It did not come.

The control room was tense. By the unknown grapevine the buzz had gone around the boat and most of the men, of their own accord, had taken up action stations.

The sweat poured off me. Up above, the maelstrom of white water was more terrifying than ever. Nowhere could I see unbroken sea. It was lashed to foam, aided by the strong south-westerly gale. I was getting to know my Skeleton Coast. I was also getting to know what courage it had taken the old sailor to sail a ship in there, and take soundings. Trout edged back almost the way she had come in the new channel. The light was dying on the three-topped hill, and its outlines were blurred. God, for that moon which would silhouette it for me, I prayed.

She came on to the bearing for the next wide, shallow turn to the north; the channel then veered almost due east, and again towards the south and west for the final entry into the anchorage.

The hill was more blurred and my heart sank as I decided to change course.

"Steer three-oh," I said. The rank sweat coursed down inside my clothes.

"Three-oh, aye, aye, sir," said John. But his tone reflected the growing anxiety of every man on board as Trout swung and veered down the channel.

"Sir…" he came forward anxiously.

I could spare him this moment. And, by God, I thought, I'll teach him to think I'm crazy.

I stood back from the eyepieces, wiping the sweat on a stinking towel. I gestured to him to look.

He bent down. Every eye was upon him. At last, I thought, they're saying Jimmy the One is getting a look in and, if the skipper's crazy, at least he'll get us out of this mess — whatever it is.

I watched his face. I saw the white bracket form round his mouth as he saw the inferno of breaking water. The crew saw it too. Under his tan, his face went deadly pale. He slowly turned the periscope through a full circle, and then back again. I touched him on the shoulder. He pulled back, formal, but his face and lips were bloodless. The effect was not lost on the watching men. It was the face of a man, inwardly terror-struck, who was doing everything in his power to keep his face from showing it.

"Thank you, sir," he said.

I wiped the streaming rubber eyepieces.

I changed the course slightly again, praying for the moon to rise behind the three-topped hill. I would have to wait for that, and the present gentle curve of the channel seemed as easy as any. I reduced speed to bare steerage way. Trout, at only twenty feet, seemed to be making good progress; the tide rip must be deep underneath, I puzzled. Farther on I would call the crew to action stations. There was about another four miles to go to the anchorage after that.

"Dead slow ahead," I ordered. Hoping for the moon, I could pass safely through this section — with luck. It was only a matter of five minutes. Five minutes, and I would be opposite Galleon Point. The tide was high, so I would not see the spar marked on the chart.

Then Trout struck.

As if an unseen hand had given her a push, she yawed to port and stuck firm. There was no warning, and not much concussion. Her head simply swung and stuck.

I rapped out a rapid command. The engines stopped and there Trout lodged, slightly canted, but not bumping. I swung the periscope round. She didn't seem to be right in among the breakers. Could this be some new obstruction since the days when old Simon had mapped it?

"Half astern," I ordered. If she came off, she wouldn't slide too far backwards. The engines woke up. Trout remained stuck.

"Full astern!"

No result.

John had checked and apparently there was no damage. Trout didn't seem in grave danger, but her stern now swung inwards with the current. I took the chart between sweat-soaked fingers and saw that Trout must be hard aground off Galleon Point. What had pushed her sideways? There was nothing on the chart. I swung the periscope round and studied the broken water to the south. Then I saw. There was a slight clear patch running directly into the main channel. It was a kind of overflow channel through which the water sluiced when the tide was nearly high, like now, and invisible at low water. The situation was serious, but by no means hopeless. I could blow the tanks and probably shake her loose, but that might mean giving away my position. But in this near-dark? A submarine's silhouette is small at the best of times, and it was not likely that she would be spotted if she broke surface only for a moment….

"Blow the main tanks," I ordered.

Trout strained as she became buoyant. Strained, held — and tore free — free! She leaped to the surface.

"Twenty feet," I ordered.

She dived like a mad thing. As the words left my lips — I knew that her hydroplanes were damaged.

"Surface."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Trout came up raggedly, very raggedly.

"Try and keep her awash if you can," I said to John. His clipped, curt commands showed that he knew what danger Trout was in — he had looked through the periscope.

There was only one thing now — to take Trout in on the surface and hope that she wouldn't be spotted before I could deal a lethal blow. There was also the moon. A sharp lookout aboard NP I and we were doomed. On the other hand, a submarine's conning-tower, with the rest of her almost awash, is not easy to see — unless a sliver of moonlight reflecting off the wet casing gave us away.

I reached for an old reefer jacket.

"I'll con her from up aloft," I said. "No look-outs.'

Then the thought struck me.

With one foot poised on the steel rung, I remembered my explicit orders. "You will destroy… "

"Fuse the demolition charges to blow her up," I said.

Davis at the hydroplanes blanched. I turned to John and looked him in the eyes.

"If you fail to receive word from me within five-minute intervals, no one is to venture up aloft. Is that clear? You will blow the demolition charges."

"Escape drill for the crew, sir?"

I thought of that pitiless waste of waters. They would be better off in one short, sharp explosion than trying to battle it out against the inexorable sea.

"No escape drill," I replied. "You will blow the charges. That is all."

He looked at me bleakly. I knew he would do it.

"Aye, aye, sir."

The salt spray smarted on my lips up aloft. Curva dos Dunas might have looked grim through the periscope, but from up here, with a view all round of the terrifying breakers, it was truly horrifying. Trout seemed stuck in the middle of a welter of creaming white water, with the salt spray and spindrift tearing up from the south-west across her, half-submerged. In fact, I could scarcely see the full length of the casing, or distinguish where it started and ended. It would need a very keen pair of eyes to pick us up from NP I in that driving maelstrom. Radar — but that was her Achilles heel. I felt a little easier. Then, through the broken, spume-laden air on the landward side, my two mountains, like things primitive when the world was young, reared their dun crowns as the moon rose behind them, pale and strange in the queer refracted light which the salt-laden air of the sea, meeting the mica particles of the desert, had contrived. The moon itself looked distorted, sick. The feeling of being utterly alone, dominated by the wild elements of sea and desert, wiped the fear of NP I from my heart. It was not NP I who was the first enemy, but the Skeleton Coast. Alone, I shivered.

"Steer one-one-oh," I ordered down the voice-pipe. Trout headed down the channel. There was almost nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the white water. The spume tore across the slowly-moving submarine.

The two mountains gave me a new bearing, and I altered course sharply to the southward, the land being now close by on my left. I could even see, in the strange light, the scrub on the corrugated sandhills above the rocky beach. Trout had not suffered much — for surface running at any rate — but I reckoned, looking at old Simon's chart, that we must have struck at Galleon Point. She may have even fouled some old wreckage there.

My eyes were riveted to the south-west, where I knew NP I must lie in the inner anchorage. The driving, salt-laden gale made it impossible to see any distance. About a mile and a half to go…

"Action stations," I ordered. "Bring all tubes to the ready. Settings for four and six feet. Gun crew at the ready. When I give the word, I want them to fire on a bearing I will give them immediately before. Is that clear?"

"Aye, aye, sir," came John's disembodied response.

I altered course again, due south now. The channel made one last swing before the anchorage. I felt my heart racing, for now it was all or nothing. I couldn't dive and I felt sure that in a gun-fight Trout would be outclassed.

Then I saw the long causeway leading ashore.

For a moment I couldn't believe my eyes. There it was, almost awash in the tide, but a dead straight line between the anchorage and the shore! There was nothing on my chart. Had these thorough Germans built themselves a concrete causeway to link themselves with that inhospitable shore, a back door to the funk-hole?

I looked closer and saw it was hard-packed, iron-hard shingle, a natural causeway as perfect as anyone could wish. But there was no time to admire. We were almost there.

"Course three-two-oh," I ordered.

Trout swung through the last great whorl and I noticed how much calmer and oilier the water was. I still felt reasonably safe from discovery.

The anchorage!

There was NP I on the far side, wraith-like, beautiful.

She was big — every bit of 3,000 tons, I guessed quickly. She was painted white — perfect camouflage in the breaking waters — which gave a fairy aspect to her lovely clean lines and the wing-like, streamlined conning-tower.

"All tubes ready?" I asked.

"All tubes ready, sir. Settings for four and six feet."

"Course one-nine-oh," I said.

NP I was a sitting duck. I didn't need all the elaborate paraphernalia which are vital to attack: all I had to do was point Trout at NP I and fire my salvo. The danger really lay in damage to Trout herself at that short range. She'd have to risk that.

"Stand by," I said. "Target bearing dead ahead."

Trout pointed her deadly snout across the salt-impregnated anchorage. To my amazement, I saw that NP I had a small light rigged and there was a group of men doing something to the casing — and I thought I saw more men on a strip of sand-bar beyond.

Then Trout gave her fateful lurch.

I do not know whether it was one of those hellish crosscurrents, or a sudden change in density of the water, but she lurched. I grabbed to steady myself. My grasping ringers clung, caught and tugged as I struggled for balance.

I fired Trout's recognition flare.

The flare soared across the anchorage, lighting everything, drowning the moon. German faces whipped round on NP I and stared, first at the flare, and then in horror at the clear outline of Trout at the entrance. I stood speechless, aghast. By a million-to-one chance I had given away all chance of concealment, and surprise. It wasn't going to be a clean kill now.

The flare arched over and plunged down, burning brightly. At growing speed it plummeted towards the surface of the anchorage. It struck.

The sea exploded in flame.

How long — or how short — it took I shall never be able to. calculate. My mouth was on its way to the voice-pipe to send the torpedoes on their deadly way when the sea burst into flame all round NP I. She looked beautiful before the first savage flames soiled her. The stupid clots, I thought, they've been discharging oil and petrol: they felt so safe in their funk-hole. I saw figures running, and then the flames shot up high over her bridge.

The flames came tearing across the sea towards Trout. We were in deadly danger.

"Break off the attack," I yelled down the voice-pipe. "Course three-oh degrees. Full ahead both."

As the screws gripped Trout swung while the deadly flame chased across the anchorage. I had to get into that channel. It seemed an age before the water began to break to starboard and I knew 'there was a sand-bar between us and the fiery sea of flame, now shooting skywards. I could not see NP I now. Miles of sea seemed ablaze. She could not survive. I felt weak and limp.

I had destroyed NP I.

The flame flickered at the entrance channel, but came no farther. I gasped as Trout, off course, headed towards the line of breakers to starboard. I quickly altered course for the middle of the channel. We were almost abreast the causeway.

Two figures came racing along the sand, waving frantically, arms tearing the air in terror. I could no longer see the causeway, however. The tide had covered it. The two men — sailors from NP I — tore along a narrow spit of sand, while the flames reached at them from behind. Trout was a biscuit-toss away.

"Slow ahead both," I ordered.

When the one sailor, glancing in terror at the flames behind him, saw me lean forwards to the voice-pipe, he sank on his knees and stretched his hands out in a frantic gesture of despair.

In broken English he screamed: "For the love of God, Herr Kapitan…"

No, I thought. There will be no one except three men who knew about NP I, and only myself to remember her fate.

I swung the Oeriklon on its mounting.

I fired a burst into the sailor's sagging face.

That face haunts my nightmares.