Southtrap

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The growing light — it was after six o'clock — revealed a grim, savage scene both out to sea and on land.

Vaalkop's 200-metre crater was out of sight immediately behind us, but nearby another splendid crater-topped pair of cones known as Moeder-en-Kind (Mother-and-Child) was visible. Between Vaalkop and this group was a sloping valley like the centre section of a gigantic saddle. Mist swirled about the double cones. This mist was the only soft thing about Prince Edward.

There are about ten other major craters on the island, which is only nine kilometres long and seven broad. I had often viewed these old volcanoes through binoculars from a safe distance out to sea. They rose in succession to the splendid 670-metre summit called Van Zinderen Bakker Peak in the middle of the island. The aggregation of these great red crater cones, the undertaker's black of the lava flows, the precipitous sea-cliffs, the princely escarpment and the coastal plain in the north and east with its emerald-green coves of weather-defying plants, all make Prince Edward's landscape as strange as a new planet. As I shifted to get a better view of the high scarp which backed Mother-and-Child towards the island's central dominating peak, an eddy brought to my nostrils the unique smell of Prince Edward — a lava-born odour, harsh, ammoniacal, raw and primitive.

'Get moving!' It was Wegger. He gestured impatiently up a slope between the rocks.

'Which way?' I asked.

There's only one way,' he retorted. 'I should know. I used it for months looking for a ship to rescue me.' "What do you mean, Wegger?'

The cave of course. We go along the coast between Ac sea and the cliffs. There!' He pointed eastwards.

The cave's on the other side of the island!' I exclaimed. 'We're all done in. We're in no shape to walk there at the moment!'

I didn't like the way he answered. 'It's eight kilometres and a bit. I know every inch. That's the way we're going — now.'

'We'll never make it!'

'Get this clear, Shotton,' he said with menacing deliberation. 'You are still useful to me. I need you to help me load the gold. I need you to help sail me to Mauritius.' He addressed Linn in the same hectoring tone. 'You're still useful too, in a small way. You can make food, help keep us going. But I warn you, don't try shamming or coming any feminine weaknesses over me. It won't work. Don't either of you try escaping either. There's nowhere to run to. I should know — God, I should know!'

The forces driving him clipped his words tight with tension.

'Don't think you can escape to Marion — you can't The channel's a death-trap. Marion's twenty-two kilometres away — you may get a sight of it, if the sky clears. Most likely you won't. I sighted it only half a dozen times in all the months I was marooned here.'

'Wegger,' I said, 'we're lucky, damned lucky, to be alive at all at this moment. The Best we can hope for is to survive. Forget that dream of yours about gold in the cave. There isn't any there. Jacobsen said so, and he must have known. The British lifted it years ago — it's in the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank in America…'

He strode over and struck me across the face with the back of his talon-like hand. I grabbed it but he tore free and had the pistol on me with the other. I never saw it move, he was so quick.

'If the gold's gone, you're no use to me anyway,' he replied roughly. 'Neither you nor the girl. You both know too much. The trip to the cave will take us five, maybe six hours. At the end of it, depending on whether the gold is there or not, you'll know whether you're going on living. Now — march!'

'Come, Linn,' I said.

I helped her over the serrated teeth of the rocks. Slowly we climbed out to the cliff-top. Wegger followed, ordering us this way and that, until we had skirted Vaalkop's wedge-shaped crater high above us and were on a scarp about 50 metres high which followed the coastline for the next two kilometres. At that point it seemed to run dead against the seaward edge of the base on which stood the great central block of craters.

It was a wild scene. The valley between Vaalkop and Mother-and-Child, viewed from close-up as we were, was a series of deep gullies radiating inland and then mounting in a succession of transverse lava ridges to the top of the twin summits. The banded platforms between the lava blocks appeared filled with a cement-like covering of old lava ash. There did not seem to be an inch of level ground anywhere which was not cluttered with conelets, balls or blocks of broken lava. Higher still, where the surface rose towards the main central scarp, the plate-like layers were covered with balls of mosses and here and there patches of rough tussocky grass which looked like a porcupine's quills.

Where we were standing the surface was a collection of rounded chunks of black lava interspersed with irregular lumps which looked like pats of cow-dung, big spheroidal 'bombs' deeply embedded, and curiously-shaped pieces shaped like the fangs of an extinct sabre-toothed tiger. A light scattering of snow was melting between them, making our onward path slippery and dangerous.

Wegger came up to us. 'I'll lead.' he cast about the grim, lunar-like surface like a hound looking for a scent and then headed diagonally across the small platform on which we stood. His sea-boots slipped on the uneven ground; both Linn and I were wearing thermal boots, which were warmer, but softer. I wondered how long they would last over that terrain.

I took a last glance at Ship Rock. The survivor was still there. Linn wouldn't look.

When Wegger was out of earshot, Linn asked, 'Is that true about Marion, John?'

'Yes. I've heard of survivors wrecked on Prince Edward who had boats but waited a year for a day favourable enough to attempt the crossing.'

'Only twenty-two kilometres to safety!'

'Linn — it was the toughest of luck to be blown ashore at Prince Edward. A slight shift of the gale and it would have been Marion. Then all this nightmare wouldn't have happened. If only I'd had an idea of.Botany Bay's position!'

'You couldn't have known, John. I only hope the transmitter is still working.'

'It's safe?'

'Right inside here.' She smiled and tapped the region of her left breast.

I tried to return the smile but it was a poor attempt. 'I fear for us when he finds the cave empty, my darling.'

'He's mad, isn't he?'

'Mad, mad, mad. Also, he's got a grenade and a gun.'

'Here!' shouted Wegger. 'Stop dragging your feet! Hurry! I've located my old path!'

We headed up the ridge, slowing down and slipping as we negotiated what looked like gigantic fossilized roots stretching from the summit of the hillock where Wegger waited. In fact they were lava tubes spreading down the loose slope.

When we joined Wegger we saw ahead a scene in strange contrast to the unending black lava. As far as the eye could see there was a mosaic of swamp, herb-field and formations of tussocky grassland between the scarp and the sea. It overlay, and was pierced by, outcrops of black and maroon-red lava. The astonishing greenness of some of the patches, mixed with darker browns and russets, gave the vista a colour as unreal as Wegger's own dream of gold.

It wasn't a dream when we reached it. It was a nightmare. Wegger led. I didn't realize we were into a swamp until I saw the crust of ice on either side of the narrow path Wegger was scouting. Ice-needles, squeezed out of the ground by freezing and topped with tiny pebbles, made the path resemble a fakir's bed. Our boots crunched and squelched. Wegger quickly forged ahead. We lost his path. In a miry place I selected what appeared to be a firm patch of peat. In a moment I was up to the waist in icy water.

It took twenty minutes for me to fight my way clear of the trap.

Twice more in the next two hours I went deep into unsuspected pits, once up to the armpits. Linn took four falls. Once she fell as she tried jumping from a slime-covered block of red lava projecting from the marsh.

It took two and a half hours for us to negotiate the hideous Slough of Despond.

Wegger remained well ahead. Eventually he waited for us to catch up where the nauseous herb-field ended and the onward route, barely 20 metres wide, led between a cliff-face and the sea.

I was half-supporting Linn. We were splashed with icy mud and soaking wet. Wegger himself looked little better.

'Wegger!' I gasped. 'Stop this nonsense! We can't go on! Linn's finished…'

He laughed threateningly. 'If you leave her she'll die. I endured this sort of thing for months. You're only getting a taste. Get on! The going's hard underfoot now.'

'How far is the cave?' asked Linn.

'Three, maybe three and a half kilometres.'

When, four hours later, we reached the two great yellow bastions named the Golden Gate which top the cliff below which the great cave lies, I was a man walking in my sleep, a sleep of utter exhaustion. I supported Linn round the shoulders. For hours we had edged along sea-cliffs, rousing birds by the thousand; we had ploughed waist-deep through disgusting wallows where elephant seals had mated; we had passed through an Alice-in-Wonderland world on the island's north-eastern side — a green, marshy flat on which perched hundreds of wandering albatrosses, each on its own small pillar of solid lava. This weird scene was the stuff of hallucinations.

During our march we had watched the sky grow progressively clearer and the cones of peak after peak of extinct volcanoes and blow-holes emerge until they seemed to fill the whole horizon. Finally it was the sight of a familiar one which made me realize where exactly we were. It was distinguished by a great bare welt down one side like a half-healed knife-thrust. I recognized it as McAll Kop, one of the landmarks above Cave Bay from the sea.

Wegger stood waiting for us again.

'Down here!' He indicated a slope running down to the sea.

We half-staggered, half-fell down the path.

Then the great cave opened in front of us.

I got out of Wegger's way behind a hummock of stones at the cave's entrance and eased Linn down on a clump of tussock grass. Her eyes were half-closed and her mud-splashed face a deathly white. My own knees felt as if they couldn't carry me one step further. I lowered myself down next to her.

The cave entrance was about four metres high and about the same across. Rough tussocky grass draped itself from niches and ledges. There were a couple of elephant seals on the rounded pebble beach near the water's edge. They paid no attention to us. A group of penguins started inquisitively towards us. There were heaps of driftwood everywhere.

I shut my eyes. I was jerked awake by Wegger's boot against my ribs.

'Matches! Where are those matches of yours?'

I'd stashed them away in my parka hood along with the strike, which had dried.

'Get up!' Wegger went on. There was about him that savage intensity I'd noticed when I first ran into him on Cape Town's docks. That, and something more.

He eyed me as I hauled myself to my feet.

'I'm going to show you what ten million dollars' worth of gold looks like,' he said. 'We need some light.'

Using dry grass and driftwood we started a fire. One of the elephant seals started roaring when it smelt smoke.

I went to Linn to help her to the blaze.

'Keep with me, John darling,' she whispered. I've got an awful premonition that something's about to happen to me.'

At the time, I put it down to her exhausted state.

Together we warmed ourselves at the fire. I wouldn't have exchanged those ten minutes of warmth for all Wegger's dream-gold.

Wegger was restless and impatient, as if his inner forces were racing at dynamo speed. He stayed at the fire only for about five minutes before going off to search around the beach. He came back with a length of driftwood about a metre long.

That's long enough for a torch,' he snapped. 'Shot-ton, bank up that fire. We're going into the cave.'

I tried to play for time, even at that final moment, hoping to find something to beat him.

'Wegger, the gold's been there for forty years. A few hours won't make any difference. Let's get ourselves fit first…'

The ugly frost-smoke expression leapt into his eyes. He rammed the piece of wood into the fire. 'Don't try and stop me, I warn you, Shotton. We'll load the gold right here on the beach when we've fixed the boat — it's the best landing-spot on the island. I know!'

He plucked his makeshift torch from the flames.

'In!' he ordered. 'Into the cave! Keep ahead of me!'

He had the Luger covering us; the grenade was at his belt.

We entered the great cave. Daylight and the torch combined were strong enough to illuminate the first few metres. After that came darkness. The floor soon became ankle-deep in water. There were a couple of big overturned red-rusted sealers' pots lying forlornly amongst a litter of elephant seal bones, oily stinking feathered messes, and a number of modern beer cans. The place smelt bad.

'The water comes from a spring on the other side,' said Wegger. 'It was my fresh water supply.'

I started to slow down, trying to think up further delaying tactics, but Wegger was alert.

'Get on — straight ahead.'

Linn and I sloshed onwards. It was bitterly cold, the coldness of a morgue.

The torch Wegger was holding threw dim shadows on the smooth basalt roof. The pool ended. It became impossible to see ahead.

I stopped. 'Wegger,' I said, 'it's no use having the torch behind us. If we don't have it here in the lead someone's going to trip and break a leg.'

I hoped he would come forward and hand me the torch. My nerves stretched while I waited. One swipe across his eyes with that blazing faggot and he wouldn't be able to see his Luger or anything else…

He did start forward, and then changed his mind.

'Here, you,' he spoke to Linn. 'Come and get it. And don't block my line of fire to your man.'

She did as he said and passed me the torch.

We went deeper.

Deeper.

Deeper and further, further and deeper. I lost track of distance.

Then the cave began to narrow like a huge funnel. There seemed to be cinders or lava ash underfoot but it was too dark to tell..Now the ceiling heightened and the tunnel curved and ended in a wall of rock.

I was in the lead with the torch held high.

A face — a woman's exquisite face — shone out of the murky shadows.

It was framed in a white shroud of ice.

There was no mistaking who it was. I had seen her before. In the photograph in Captain Prestrud's safe. In that split second of recognition I realized that the photograph had not been taken through glass but through ice. Here, in the great cave on Prince Edward.

Linn grabbed my arm. 'John! It's her! The woman in the photograph…!'

I thrust the torch higher still to see better. The smoky light showed the body propped up against the wall, coffined in a casing of ice. Cut into the rock over her head was a single word, 'Dina'.

'Dina!' I breathed. 'Dina! That's who it was! Dina's Island…!'

Wegger came level with us, stumbled, then snatched the burning wood out of my hand and went to the dead woman.

I scarcely recognized his voice. 'Dina!' he said brokenly. 'Dina! It's been a long, long time…'

I missed my moment. If I had jumped him then I would have saved Linn. As it was, both of us were so stunned at the sight of the dead woman that we simply went forward and stood with Wegger looking at her. It was so silent deep in the bowels of the dead volcano that I imagined I could hear our hearts beating.

The flaring wood showed the body dressed in a sealskin jerkin with a high mandarin collar. She had on a short sealskin skirt and knee-high boots which looked as if they had come out of the 18th century. The tops of the boots were worked with a flower motif tooled into the leather.

'Who is she?' Linn managed to ask. 'She's perfectly lovely.'

Wegger's voice seemed to have deserted him. He waved the torch at the name on the wall. Then he said, 'Dina. That's all I know. Dina. She might be anyone. Perhaps a buccaneer's girl. A shipwreck survivor — anyone. I used to come here and talk to her. She was my only friend.'

Not friend, Wegger. Lover. You were in love with a dead woman. You still are.» He went on, catching his breath. 'I never said goodbye, when the cruiser's boat came. I was afraid they wouldn't wait…'

He pushed the torch forward to bring the light nearer her face.

The grey thing which emerged from the shadows on the floor was, I thought for a split second, Dina's coffin. But a coffin doesn't have a grey rusted warhead and a lean battery-compartment attached. It was a torpedo.

This was the German torpedo Prestrud and his fellow-skippers had smuggled from under the Nazi raider's nose.

The raider's main target was next to it, stacked in a little pyramid.

Gold. Ten million dollars in gold.

There were hundreds of small ingots of it, shaped like chocolate bars. Each bar had a small oval stamped in the metal with the words 'Credit Danzig' and a group of four numerals.

'By all that's holy!' I burst out.

Wegger rounded on me, as if the shock of seeing the gold had jerked him back from Dina to hard reality.

'So I was lying, was I, Shotton? Imagining it all? I was a madman whose mind had become unstuck from being marooned alone for so long? An insane killer? I'm mad, ami?'

'It can't be real — it can't!' Linn exclaimed.

'It's real, all right,' retorted Wegger. 'You fool, Shot-ton, you stupid fool! You could have had a share if you'd listened!'

'At the price of all those lives? Never!' I replied. 'I'm going to see you pay for all those lives, Wegger!'

'You'll see to it, will you, you blabbermouth!' he sneered. 'Go ahead then, go ahead!'

Now was the moment to cut the ground from under his feet.

'It's time you knew the truth, Wegger,' I said. 'You haven't a hope. You won't get away with that gold. You think you've reached Prince Edward without anyone knowing. You haven't. Every movement of yours since you turned the Quest adrift has been monitored. The GARP watchers know exactly where we are at this very minute. They also know exactly where the Quest is.'

He went into a half-crouch, as if an electric shock had hit him.

'You're bluffing, Shotton! There's no way that could be true.'

'Smit set the buoy's transmitter operating when we left the Quest,' I went on. 'Four times a day, every time the satellite passes overhead, the GARP watchers can read off her position to the nearest half-kilometre. They will have homed a long-distance rescue plane on her days ago, and ships as well…'

Wegger's voice was deadly. 'All right. Let them rescue the Quest. No one aboard knows where we went in Botany Bay. All you say about GARP knowing where we are now is so much bull. You're bluffing. It can't be done.'

'It can, and was,' I answered. 'Tell him, Linn.'

'I brought the balloon's transmitter from the Quest with me,' Linn said. 'It's a tin thing. Smit set it operating. I've carried it around all the time. It's here, inside my clothes, now…'

I saw the muscles of his face jerk tight and his eyes go killer-blank.

He swung the Luger and shot Linn through the heart.