Southtrap

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Quest sailed early next morning.

I had put to sea before breakfast, but the hour did not deter the crowd. It was like a mail-ship departure. Or like the Titanic, whispered a malign gremlin at the back of my mind as the Quest rounded the breakwater. I set course past Green Point, Sea Point and the terraced warren of seaside hotels, flats and houses spilling down the Cape Peninsula's western flank. Soon the warming sun would bring out tanned bathers like termites to the white beaches. The south-easter was blowing already, but it wasn't as noticeable as the slight tug at Quest's keel of a weak current which the wind generates round Mouille Point during the summer.

As a tug pulled the Quest clear of her berth, the Erebus-Tenor banner, which McKinley had forgotten to unfasten, ripped. Someone ashore snatched a piece for a souvenir; in a moment the idea spread like wildfire through the crowd. I saw the flashes of press cameras as people fought for fragments of the cloth. The incident left a nasty taste in my mouth. Wegger, who was with me on the bridge, stood watching with a face of iron.

I scanned the passengers lining the rail and was disappointed but not altogether surprised to see no sign of Linn. She had gone to the hospital the previous evening — alone, at her own wish — and had come back depressed and tired. Captain Prestrud had not yet recovered consciousness and his condition was as well as could be expected.

The Quest cleared Mouille Point for the run parallel to the Peninsula. Lion's Head, Lion's Rump and Table Mountain itself, slightly obscured by early cloud, looked indescribably majestic against the back-lighting of the early sun. I reached for the bridge telegraph to ring down to the engine-room for more speed, and it was at that moment that I felt there was no more chance of turning back, even if I had wished to do so. The brass pointer of the telegraph, worn smooth by countless hands, was comforting to the touch, an assurance of many voyages safely accomplished. In the quadrant opposite were the words 'finished with engines'. What would the Quest have seen and done, I wondered, before I rang down for that…?

I snapped out of my introverted train of thought and jammed the pointer to 'full ahead'. The repeater swung round with a metallic rattle.

An hour later we were off Slangkop lighthouse, a landmark halfway down the Peninsula towards its extremity, the Cape of Good Hope. The funnel burbled in low, comfortable contralto. I picked up the phone to the engine-room.

'Chief? Everything okay down there?' I asked.

'Aye, Skipper, that it is.'

MacFie's Ayrshire accent was as soothing as the regular sound coming from the stack.

'No problems?'

'Not one. They don't make engines like these any more, laddie.'

'Good. Now listen, Chief, I want you to draw on the for'ard half-height fuel tanks first, but not the forepeak tank. I want that to stay full as long as possible while we're in the ice.'

'Aye, I'll do that, though I canna understand why.'

'I want her trimmed higher by the head,' I explained. 'She's riding too deep.'

Then why not use the forepeak tank first?'

The reason had come to me the previous night as I checked the ship before going to my bunk. If I kept the forepeak tank full of its bunker fuel and the Quest tangled with dangerous ice, the bow plating would be the first to rip. That would spill the oil. I would then have some sort of defence against the sort of waves we would encounter in the Southern Ocean. It was a kind of built-in desperation precaution.

'It's a bit complicated, Chief,' I replied. 'I'll tell you later.'

'It must be, that's all I can say,' he grumbled.

I looked up from the phone into the eyes of Petersen, the third officer, who was sharing the morning watch with me. He looked more like a gangling schoolboy in uniform than a man; his cap made his fair hair curl over the nape of his neck. He did an abrupt eyes-front as if I'd caught him out at something and blushed guiltily. The previous night we had had an animated discussion about the stars Alpha Crux — brightest in the Southern Cross — Achenar and Antares and their respective merits for obtaining a star-fix of Prince Edward. Navigation was his strong point, and I sensed his hero-worship. I only wished his authority matched his navigation. A man like Jensen, the quartermaster at the wheel, would get away with anything if I wasn't there to back Petersen up.

Unnecessarily I growled at Jensen. 'Steer small, will you? There's a squall coming off the land.'

The squall was ripping down off the slopes of the beautiful mountain on the Quest's port quarter. It appeared from the sea to follow the course of the magnificent scenic highway which clings to the coast over and beyond Chapman's Peak. This was a favourite trick of the south-easter as it freshened; it also told me that the wind would become worse after we had rounded Cape Point and lost the shelter of the land.

The Quest rolled against the thrust of the squall.

A voice said, 'I wonder if some of the passengers are already regretting their breakfast.'

It was Linn. I hadn't heard her come on to the bridge while I had been watching the squall.

'Hello, Linn.'

She smiled back at me. She looked as fresh as the morning. She was wearing a sleeveless turquoise-and-white striped dress, and a single gold brooch with a dolphin motif at her left shoulder.

I gestured at the Slangkop lighthouse coming abeam. It stands on a flat-topped hill which gives the place its name — Snake's Head. A village is snuggled at its foot.

'Any moment now their breakfasts are going to have a change of motion,' I said. 'This sort of wind usually abates a little about here but veers more south, which means that the Quest will begin to pitch in earnest.'

She drew me over to the port or landward side of the bridge.

'You know this coast pretty well, don't you, John? Are you a South African?'

'No. London born and bred. I first came south and saw the Cape about ten years ago. Before that I'd been in the North Atlantic.'

'Look! What's that — there in the water off the rocks?'

'The sooner you get acquainted with that, the better,' I replied. 'That's kelp. You'll see more of it along this shore. And plenty around Prince Edward.'

'It's terribly exciting — isn't it? — getting an introduction to Prince Edward things so soon after we've sailed…'

Her enthusiasm was infectious. 'We can see better from the flying bridge,' I said. 'We'll go up there. Carry on, will you, Mr Petersen.'

'Aye — aye, sir,' he stammered.

We went up to the flying bridge. It was like a little steel island all to ourselves, with a well-deck separating it from the stack and superstructure aft. Dr Kebble, the bird man, with binoculars strung round his neck, was in a group aft gesticulating in the direction of some birds in flight.

'One thing I do know about birds,' I told Linn, 'and that is that Prince Edward has its very own bird. It's unique to the island, so I'm told. It's called the Pilot Bird.'

She was amused. 'Move up to the top of the class, Captain.'

She gazed excitedly at the splendid shoreline and I caught her mood.

'If you want a further reminder of Prince Edward,' I said, 'there's Albatross Rock a little further on.'

She turned to me. The new light off the water was faceted green-blue in her fine eyes.

'It's so wonderful, John, to think I'm actually looking at a land that men dreamed of for two thousand years before it was ever discovered!'

'You're going too fast for me, Linn. Slow down, and give me a chance to catch up.'

'What I'm trying to say is that this is the point of Africa — the very southernmost tip of the continent of Africa that remained unknown and unexplored for so long. Ptolemy called it the Promontorium Prassum and nobody came here until thousands of years later when the Portuguese rounded…'

I didn't want to correct her geography but to kiss her mouth.

'Take it easy!' I grinned at her. 'If I'm going to learn about a place I've navigated scores of times then I want time to remember all these names that I've never heard before. The Cape of Good Hope may be all you say, but to this clottish sailor in front of you the very southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas. I know that because it's going to be our departure landfall.'

'It's sweet of you to be so tolerant about my geography, John. Actually I do know about Agulhas but the Cape of Good Hope is really the place the great explorers were searching for — it's grand, it's dramatic, and Dias planted a cross on it to mark one of the greatest discoveries the world has ever known.'

'If all your lectures are going to be like this,' I said, 'I'll vacate the bridge when we get to Prince Edward and join the tourists.'

We both laughed. Then I said, 'You're seeing the Peninsula under the best possible conditions. It's a very different place in a south-westerly or north-westerly buster. Look at it with a sailor's eye and all you'll see is a great navigational hazard littered with wrecks. It's not for nothing it's called the Cape of Storms.'

'Cabo Tormentoso,' she said, rolling the phrase round her tongue as if she were sampling a fine wine.

I said lightly, 'These are the Flying Dutchman waters. Pity it's the wrong sort of day for you to sight him.'

'Have you ever seen him?' she asked, quite seriously.

'Never. I may be superstitious but I certainly don't suffer from hallucinations.'

'He was an actual person. Didn't you know that, John?'

'I thought it was purely a legend.'

'When I was researching in London I came across an article in a newspaper dating from the eighteen-eighties. It quoted a sailor whose great-grandfather claimed to have seen the real ship called the Flying Dutchman in Table Bay on her way to Java. There was quite a lot in the papers about it at the time because, when King George V was a midshipman, he actually sighted it off the Cape in 1881. So the legend was given a sort of royal sanction.'

'It's extraordinary, the things you know,' I said. 'What a strange girl you are.'

She continued as if she had not heard my interjection. 'Most people confuse the sea legend with the opera bit version of the story. The real Vanderdecken did in fact reach Cape waters when he returned from Java in his ship the Flying Dutchman, and he ran into a north-westerly gale which prevented him rounding Cape Point. So he cursed God and swore that if he had to beat into the gale until Doomsday he would make it, and the curse laid on him was that he should continue to beat around the Cape of Storms for all eternity.'

'As a sailor,' I commented, 'I can take the full measure of that curse.'

'It's not everyone who sights the Flying Dutchman who is doomed,' she went on. 'Only those who see her heave to and start to lower a boat.'

Her talk made me think of Botany Bay. 'Did you happen to see the windjammer which occupied the Quest's berth immediately before us?'

Linn shook her head.

'She was a modern replica of a convict hell-ship,' I said. 'Wax-works show. Very realistic. She's on her way to Australia now. She would have beaten round Cape Point in the teeth of just such a south-easter.'

Linn pointed ahead to where, beyond the Quest's dipping bows, the land ended in twin peaks.

'Which is Cape Maclear and which is Cape Point?' she asked.

'You know more about the place than I do.'

They're only names in my head,' she replied. 'I know of them because it's somewhere about here that Dias planted his cross.' She put her hand over mine on the rail. This is sheer magic, John. Sheer magic.' She leaned her shoulder unselfconsciously against me as she craned to see something under the bows.

'What is it, Linn?'

'Did you notice the Quest's figurehead, John?'

'Of course. Thor throwing his hammer.'

'But you may not know that when a Thor ship is sold the original bronze figurehead is always removed and an imitation painted in its place.

'I didn't know,' I said. 'I'm still learning from you.'

'Dad prevailed on the owners to let him keep the Quest's original. So Thor throws his magic hammer and it comes back to the thrower fulfilling his wish. I'm having my wish today, John. I'm seeing the sheer magic of the Cape.'

Magic in you too, Linn. Woman's magic.

My apprehension and unease about the Quest's voyage began to fade a little. With Linn by my side it could turn into a bright adventure.

'I want to stand here and watch and watch while we round the Cape,' she went on. Her hand still lay on mine. 'Did you ever hear the expression, "to shoot the gulf"?'

'Never.'

'Funny how phrases die out. When Drake sailed into the Pacific from Cape Horn, sailors called it "shooting the gulf". For many years afterwards it meant breaking out into something quite new, a whole new world. I feel as if I'm doing that now. Shooting the gulf. Just like Drake.'

These are Drake waters too. Right under Quest's keel at this moment.'

'I know. He called it "the fairest Cape in the whole circumference of the earth".'

Our moment was killed by a discreet cough behind us. It was Persson, the radio operator.

He said formally, 'Personal to you, sir. Mr Wegger was with me when it came in. He said he'd keep an eye on things in the radio shack while I found you.'

Even as I took the signal slip I wondered why in hell Wegger should have been concerning himself with the radio. But it was only a momentary thought. The contents of the message obliterated this and everything else.

It read:

Captain Prestrud died 08h30 this morning. Police taken possession body pending postmortem and inquest. Norwegian consul Cape Town informed. Groote Schuur Hospital.

The shock of it made me pull my rank. 'My compliments to Mr Wegger, Persson. Tell him that his duties do not include being stand-by radio operator.'

I saw the light which had been in Linn's eyes dim at my tone. As she turned away from Persson's startled embarrassment I guessed what she was thinking of me — a smoothie with women but a bastard who rode his crew and made a show of it to impress.

I went on roughly, 'Get going, your job's not on deck watching the scenery.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' He scuttled off.

'Linn,' I felt some of the sandpaper still in my voice.

'Yes, John?' she was cool and poised — until she saw something was amiss.

I held out the signal slip. 'I think you'd prefer to read this for yourself.'

I was already making calculations for the Quest's return to Table Bay; automatically I had noted the ship's position. The mouth of the Klaasjagers River was slightly ahead and the land became more rugged and unfrequented; it is a nature reserve.

Linn read the signal. The colour rose and went from her face. She stared at the slip, but her eyes were unfocused. When she raised them they looked as if they had been weighted behind like a doll's.

She said in a small, strangled voice, 'Thank you, John. I think I'll go below to my father's — to your cabin.'

'I'll see you down…'

She shook her head and went quickly down the short steel ladder. As I followed more slowly I noticed Wegger striding away from the radio shack as if he were heading for his quarters. He could hardly have missed seeing me but he walked on without giving me a glance. When I reached the bridge I could sense the effect of the message I had sent to Wegger by the tight silence among the men. Jensen at the wheel was making a study of the compass; Petersen was standing almost to attention, just where an officer of the watch should stand.

'I'll take the deck, Mr Petersen,' I said.

'Aye, aye, sir.'

I went to the telegraph and rang, 'Half Ahead.' No point in carrying on at her present speed. The Quest would only have to retrace her course when we turned back, as we surely would, once Linn had recovered sufficiently from the shock.

The Quest's heartbeat slowed. She pitched more as the way fell off her. The splendid panorama out to port became meaningless to me. It had been a brief moment, mine and Linn's, and we would remember it. Life always kicks you in the balls when you aren't looking, an old bo'sun I sailed with used to say. It seemed as if he hadn't been so wrong, after all.

Quest coasted on, waiting for Linn's word to about-face. Now that the cruise was finished, I realized how keenly disappointed I was. For all my doubts and unease I'd wanted to challenge those wild seas, wanted to put the Quest's nose first into the south-easter building up beyond Cape Point, and then to face the Brave West Winds. Above all, I'd wanted to get to Southtrap. The nickname for Prince Edward was in itself a challenge. I must ask Linn, I thought, who was the Prince Edward Captain Cook had named it after. But with this thought came a fresh thrust of disappointment. It didn't matter now.

'Sir!-'

There was nothing deferential about the word. It was curt, imperative, explosive.

I swung round. Wegger was standing at the rear of the bridge. There was about him that air of truculence and intensity which had marked him on the dockside. Only now it was hardly concealed.

For a moment I thought it was my reprimand which had got him on the raw. But only for a moment.

'The ship's slowing — why?' he demanded.

I replied tautly. 'Mr Wegger. When I give an order aboard my ship I don't go around broadcasting explanations. The ship's slowing because I ordered it.'

I could feel the vibrations rippling from Petersen and Jensen behind me. But Wegger was completely unaffected by my tone.

'Are we going back because of Captain Prestrud?'

My look was meant for an up-and-downer to put him in his place. It stopped at his left jacket pocket. It was heavy and sagging, the way a pocket sags when you carry a gun.

'Miss Prestrud is naturally shocked,' I retorted levelly. 'She has gone below.'

He took a step towards me in that same uncontrolled way as he had done ashore. If I had to hit him, it would have to be hard and once only — before he could get the Luger.

The ship can't turn back now,' he said. 'We've got the drifter buoy…'

'I am well aware of the implications, Mr Wegger, and of our commitments to the Global Research Programme.'

An icebreaker would have come up short on the ice in my voice. Wegger didn't.

'You've slowed the ship before you know what she intends to do…'

It was lucky for him that the bridge phone rang. Petersen answered and held it out to me as if it might bite.

'John?' said Linn. 'Can you come down to the cabin, please?'

She might have been calling from the South Pole, she sounded so far away.

I pushed past Wegger and went down to her.

Linn was sitting at the desk on the wing-chair. Her eyes looked dark, very different from how they had looked out on deck only a little while before.

I said gently, 'Linn?'

She responded with only a faint tremor in her voice. 'An inquest can take a long time, can't it, John?'

'It can, Linn. The police have to carry out their investigations first. Suspects, and all that. Then there are all the legal processes which have to be put in motion.'

She looked at me squarely. 'And the medical.'

'A post-mortem can be a long and tricky business when you've got the implications of…' I couldn't say it. I had liked Captain Prestrud too much.

'Quest could be at Kerguelen before… before — ' she hesitated a little — 'before they finished that side of things.'

'It might be even further. We may well reach New Zealand in time for you to fly back for the official enquiry.'

'I hadn't pictured things as clearly as that yet.'

'Quest belongs to you now, Linn. The decision whether or not the cruise goes on is yours.'

She shook her head. The action loosened tears which hung on her cheek.

'You have a stake in Quest, too, John. Not a material share maybe, but nonetheless very real.'

This woman would read and understand me better than any of the others had done, I found myself thinking. Including the one I had married. Or those who had provided me with bed-comforts. Because she understood the Southern Ocean with her heart.

'Thank you, Linn. I won't forget that,' I answered lamely.

She got up, paced across the cabin, and then swung round and faced me. Her words came with a rush, 'For my part, the cruise goes on.'

That's for my part too, Linn.'

She came back to the desk and slumped in the chair as if the effort of making the decision had exhausted her. 'I'll have to tell Captain Jacobsen. He was Dad's dearest friend.'

I went to the phone next to her. As I picked up the instrument, I put my lips for a moment against her hair. She didn't look up, but brushed a hand across her eyes.

'Bridge,' I said. When the connection was made I continued, 'Mr Petersen, full ahead, if you please. Same course. And is Mr Wegger still there?'

'Yes — I mean, aye, aye, sir.'

Tell him to come to my cabin.'

'Very good, Captain — I mean, sir.'

It scarcely seemed a moment before Wegger entered. I stood next to Linn's chair. The controlled intensity of the man seemed to radiate, around him like a ship's electrical field in the sea. It was as if he were balancing on the balls of his feet, ready for anything.

I dropped the formal 'mister' in addressing him, now that no other member of the crew was about.

'Wegger,' I said, 'you had no right to be doing anything in the radio shack. Signals — especially those marked personal — are for my eyes only.'

'I told you before that I knew about radio. I'm interested in the Quest's equipment. I was only looking around.' Then he added with a note in his voice I didn't care for: 'And I don't like being bawled out, especially in front of a woman.'

'Miss Prestrud happens to be the new owner of the Quest.'

'Is that supposed to make a difference?'

I kept my cool. 'Miss Prestrud has decided to proceed with the cruise in spite of her father's death.'

The ugly lightning flashed in his pale eyes. And, like real lightning, it seemed to bring an instant relaxing of tension in the big body clad in nondescript uniform.

'Good.' His left hand went to his pocket and unconsciously smoothed it as if wanting — now — to conceal the gun. He took a grip on himself and said formally to Linn, 'My condolences, Miss Prestrud. I am sure your father would have wished us to go on.'

'You happened to be a party to a confidential signal, Wegger,' I told him. 'It's to remain confidential, do you understand? We don't want a shadow over the trip, for the sake of the passengers.'

He replied readily, too readily, 'Of course, sir.'

'I intend to carry on with my lectures and the tour part of it as if nothing had happened,' Linn added. That's the way we want it.'

I didn't miss the way she said 'we'.

Wegger's whole bearing appeared to have changed abruptly. He said in the half-servile way which had grated on me when he had asked me about the job, 'I'm sorry I was a bit sharp on the bridge, sir. You see, this voyage is very important to me and if it had been called off…' He let it hang for a moment and then added, as if his words needed further explanation: 'When you've been out of a job for a long time a berth like this means everything. If there's anything I can do — in my watch off if necessary…'

Thanks,' I replied. 'I'll keep that in mind.' What I had in mind, though, was that I would like to frisk him and see whether his Luger was loaded.

As he left, I felt the engines picking up their running speed. Linn wasn't with me when the Quest rounded the twin peaks and the majestic cliffs of Cape Point and dug her bows deep into the swells of the freshening gale. She missed the sight that she had dreamed of, that mariners ever since Ptolemy had dreamed of. Later in the afternoon, however, she came up on to the bridge and stood silent, watching as the low, hummocky spit of gale-blasted land that is the extremity of the continent of Africa hove into view and then began to disappear astern. I made Cape Agulhas my departure-point along the 20th parallel which intersects it.

The Quest headed South, and there was no more land between us and the Pole.