The River of Diamonds

11

'Don't tread on me!'

Shelborne's houseflag with its yellow rattlesnake emblem stood out against the hard white of Mercury and pointed a threatening finger at our approaching convoy. The sea was gentle, with a slight swell from the weather quarter, a calm as unexpected as a pink karakul pelt. To keep the element of surprise as long as possible, we had decided to bring the Mazy Zed to the graveyard side of Mercury, from the north. Our landfall was the wreck of an old gun-runner of the Hottentot war. I had been on the bridge of the Mazy Zed with Rhennin and Mary since dawn. Navigation was hellish and we had two men aloft watching for concealed reefs and broken water.

Bob Sheriff's patrol boat sheep-dogged the convoy like a destroyer. Coming close, I could see his salt-caked, stubbly face. He had driven himself hard since the attack three days previously. Sheriff had found a couple of seaboots and some planks from the sunken boat, but nothing which would serve to identify her. The Mazy Zed had sneaked out of Angras Juntas, seeing nothing. Now she was wallowing at the end of the heavy tow as the ex-harbour tug Walvis Bay dug her broad shoulders deep. Once the Mazy Zed was in position, the tug was to return to Angras Juntas for the radar men and their equipment, which could not be dismantled in time for our flying departure. The Malgas stood out to windward, holding station with a precision which seemed more like power than sail.

There was no sign of any humans at the hutments.

I gestured at the flag. That's his flag, but I don't see a soul.'

Rhennin, in a duffel coat and balaclava against the winter chill, stared at the icing-white island. 'So that's Mercury! It looks…'

'As if coiled to strike,' I finished. 'Like the flag.' I tensed up at the sight of the island again, and felt clammy under my windbreaker.

'I wonder if my father ever saw it?' asked Mary. She looked ridiculously young in a gay Fair Isle sweater and pompom cap.

That's pretty certain,' I replied. 'Look, there are the quicksands — the whole shoreline is rotten…'

'What are those odd T-shaped patches of white?'

'I never had time to find out. They puzzled me too. You can't see it from here, but from the top of Sudhuk there's a line of them into the desert.'

I told them also about the old Portuguese warship trapped in the quicksands.

'And Strandloper's Water?' she asked in a low voice.

I shrugged. 'East of the sea… ask Shelborne.'

Rhennin picked up the loudhailer microphone. 'Bob!' he called. 'Go and take a look-see — we can't see anyone.'

'Good-oh!' came back the metallic, cheerful voice. 'Guns deep a-dipping, and all that?'

I took the instrument from Rhennin. 'Be careful, Bob — very careful. He's a foxy one. We'll hold hard here until you come back. Tell the tug.'

'Roger!' The swift craft rose on its hydrofoils joyfully, like an albatross stretching its wings for a thousand-mile flight. There was no sound but the creak of the ungainly barge and the crunch of the sea over her low freeboard. Mary kept her glasses on the shore; we had been three days together now, and the way she had of calming our nerves and knitting together all the diverse elements in the crew had won our hearts. For myself, I had taken a strange, strong liking to her.

Now her binoculars crescent-cased the bay, resting on the old coasters and coming back to the quicksands.

' "Something hid behind the ranges,"' she said softly.

'He's been there, so he knows,' I said.

Rhennin said, 'By heavens, I mean to find out.'

She kept the glasses to her eyes. 'Perhaps you're right, John, and the diamond fountainhead isn't his true objective…'

'"Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, across that angry or that glimmering sea"?'

She dropped the binoculars and looked at me. 'Have you thought, John, it was Shelborne who did all those things, not the great Caldwell? It was Shelborne who crossed the roof of the world, your last blue mountain barred with snow; it was Shelborne who dared the Atacama. My father went only a few miles inland into the Namib…'

I stared at her. 'You're saying…?'

Rhennin interrupted. 'You two can continue your lofty discussion some other time. We're after diamonds, diamonds. John, will you get aboard the Malgas and keep a weather eye on Koeltas in case Shelborne shows up?'

'Okay,' I nodded.

'Remember to write!' Mary smiled as she said it, turning her thoughtful eyes away from the shore.

Remember to write! The trite phrase emphasized the sense of distance, of age — not so much the physical gap — between the grim isle and the rotten shoreline. I had heard of a guano man on Mercury who had never made the mile-journey from the island to the mainland. It was, he had said, a million miles.

The Malgas came alongside after I had called Koeltas on the loudhailer. I jumped on to the low deck. Koeltas called out something derisive about the Mazy Zed; the sails filled and the schooner swept on.

'Shelborne comes?' There was anxiety, almost fear, in Koeltas's voice.

I pointed to the racing patrol boat. 'Commander Sheriff has gone to see where everyone is.'

The eyes seemed to slant more in the Tartar face. 'I keep out of the bay until I see, too.' He shouted orders and brought the Malgas round on a broad reach to starboard.

Then it reached out like fingers of sound across the sea: the Bells of St Mary's.

I saw the fear on the faces of the crew. Kim didn't wait for Koeltas's high-pitched yell for everything the schooner would carry. Forrad, they ran out a whisker boom to give her jib extra pull. Malgas fled to the southwest past Dolphin Head like a panic-stricken puppy — blindly, anything to get out of range of that long rolling vibration. Koeltas stood holding the starboard shrouds, as if to get himself as far — a deck's width even — from the Bells as possible.

I grabbed the thin, oilskinned shoulder. 'Don't be a bloody fool, man! There's nothing to worry about…'

He shook me free with a stutter of oaths. Kim's upturned eyes, concentrating on getting every ounce of draw out of the tower of sail, looked as if in prayer. Johaar cast anxious glances landwards.

Koeltas got out. 'We are dead men! The Bells…!'

'For Pete's sake!' I snapped. 'Put her aback and wait till they send a boat for me — I don't intend running away.'

I am sure that he didn't mean to try and kill me and that the knife-draw was a fear reflex. He lunged, the blade in one hand, holding on with the other.

I, too, jerked forward. The knife went over my shoulder. His elbow jarred the bone. I crashed into him like a Rugby fend-off, knocking his head, with its tight peppercorn-curled hair, between the shrouds. The stink of his oilskin and his sweat of fear were acrid — like a spitting polecat. I felt the knife go up to plunge into my back. Cupping my right hand, the palm upwards and the back bent back almost horizontal, I smashed it home under the right side of his throat with something between a short hook to the jaw and a rabbit-punch. The knife ripped my reefer jacket and I felt a thin graze-burn of pain. Continuing my upward thrust-blow, I kept his head back, forcing it between the ratlines. When he struck again, I side-stepped to my right and twisted the rope round his throat until his yellow skin became blotched with the purple of strangulation.

Johaar roared with laughter. Kim, at the wheel, was grinning, too. The crew ran aft to the fight, forgetting in the thrill of blood-letting their sail-stations and the dreaded Bells. Koeltas writhed and bucked as his senses ran out and his face became more convulsed.

The piebald giant slapped me on the shoulder like a referee at a fight. 'Man, you've strung that bladdy Hotnot up like a fat-tailed sheep to a slaughter-pole!'

Kim called out. Take his knife, you stupid bastard, and cut this throat! The rope won't do it!'

The weapon fell from Koeltas's hand. I remembered the.38 revolver. I snicked it from his belt and fell back.

'Don't spoil it with a gun, man!' roared Johaar. 'By Jesus, that's the smartest piece of dirt I've seen for years!'

Koeltas shook his head free of the rope. The eyes were bloodshot, half insensible. The knotted veins in his temples receded as he gulped air. He spat, and there was blood on the deck. He shook his head again and hitched his oilskin. The wrinkled face split into a wide grin of genuine amusement.

'By God, mister, I like you!' He came close, oblivious, it seemed, of the pistol. 'Some day we finish this fight and we both die happy, eh?' He took the revolver with childlike insouciance from my hand and picked up the knife. 'Put her aback!' he shouted at the crew. 'Go on, you bloody strandlopers! This is a man, and we take him where he wants to go!' He turned to me, cocking his head at the sound of the Bells. 'I send the boat — for you, mister, unnerstand? No one else. I'm scared, but still I wait.' He made an odd gesture with his hand, half of fear, half of admiration.

The sails went aback and Johaar slid the dinghy overside. He took the oars in his huge paws. He had pulled only a few cable-lengths when he shipped them and swore.

'Look!'

Koeltas's fear of the Bells was greater than his fear of me or his loyalty to Johaar. The Malgas was heading out to sea under every rag they could hoist.

Rhennin growled, as I came aboard the Mazy Zed, 'Blast Koeltas and his Bells! I want every bit of local knowledge to anchor off Mercury.'

'Johaar,' I suggested.

'He may be all right,' he said grudgingly, 'but Koeltas is the man I really want.'

I shouted to Johaar, who was standing looking lost, the crew gaping at his massive physique and piebald skin. He came to the bridge, wearing only a pair of washed-out khaki pants, a sheath-knife stuck in his belt.

This calm no good,' he said. 'Hot wind afterwards, make you sick.' He glanced round the ungainly bulk of the Mazy Zed. 'For a real ship, no good. But for this…' He shrugged expressively.

Rhennin exploded. 'I didn't ask for your opinions about my ship. I asked you where to anchor.'

The slow, reverberating echo struck across the water.

It was difficult to pinpoint. As before, though, the source seemed to be Mercury.

Johaar shuddered. 'You give me a doppie of brandy, eh?' His fear seemed to communicate itself to the silent bridge.

Rhennin was on edge. There's some quite normal explanation — probably an undersea volcano, or something like that.'

Mary said, 'Shelborne says he has known it for more than thirty years…'

'If it were an undersea volcano fissure there'd be a smell of sulphur and dead fish lying about,' I said. 'It simply can't be a volcano, Felix. I thought of that when I was on the island with Shelborne. It's like something rocking a boat.'

'Or someone,' added Mary.

'Don't be fanciful,' snapped Rhennin. 'I know what happened to U-boat captains and crews who let their imaginations run away with them — we didn't know where to drop a wreath for them.'

I refused to bring into the open what was at the, back of my mind, even to Mary. I must take a look at the seabed first, to see that. 'It's not a vibration and it's not a tremor,' I said. A low echo came towards us. 'Listen! I'd like to measure that sound in decibels — it must carry for miles and miles.'

'We hear it one day off Saddle Hill when the wind is in the north,' Johaar contributed gloomily. Rhennin had rung for brandy and the bottle was firmly clutched in his hand.

'Saddle Hill — that's the best part of eleven miles,' I said.

The hydrofoil shot out from behind Mercury and Sheriff came within hailing distance. 'Not a merry soul! Place absolutely deserted. The flatboom's gone, too.'

'Did you go ashore?' Rhennin asked.

Too true!' replied the metallic voice. 'Went up to the huts and rang the bell, nice and polite. Watson equally on. his best behaviour with the guns — just in case. Nothing there at all, old boy' — my eyes and Mary's looked — 'felt as if I were full of pots, every bloody thing snaking. No wonder the so-and-so's cleared out. So would I…'

Rhennin cut in. 'No danger of any sort, Bob?'

'Hell, no. Just deserted and creepy, that's all.'

'What do you mean, creepy?'

'Don't rightly know, old boy. Just gave me the willies. Feeling of being watched.'

'You saw no one? You are sure?'

'Not a damn' thing. Had a gander at the seaward side as we came round the point. Nothing there either but some strange oblong white rocks.'

Sheriff didn't know about the above-ground coffins, or Gruppe Eisbar.

Rhennin said, 'Tell the tug to take up the tow and to be as careful as hell, Bob. You keep close, will you. We'll anchor off that seal colony. John says it's pretty steep, too. We might even get a hawser ashore as well as the anchors.'

Sheriff replied, 'I'll make a quick recce.'

'Watch your step at the entrance to the cavern, Bob,' warned Rhennin. 'We don't know what's there. There may be a strong set into it, or — hell, I don't know, but just keep your eyes skinned, will you?'

The voice came back light-heartedly. 'If I see a U-boat, I'll send you a signal pronto.'

Rhennin looked at me and then at Mary. His voice was expressionless. 'You do that, Bob.'

The tow flickered silver. The Mazy Zed grumbled and bumbled, yawed and protested, pitched unnecessarily in the calm sea.

I picked up the bridge phone. 'Get me Piet Pieterse.'

Rhennin said, 'Piet's a good man — when do you dive?'

Mary stared at me, wide-eyed. 'You're going down?'

'Today,' I replied. 'The weather's a godsend, whatever it might portend for later. I could wait months otherwise. Felix, as soon as you can spare the hydrofoil from the business of bringing this load of iron to rest, I want her for the dive.'

Piet Pieterse, a tow-haired South African with a strong accent, joined us. He looked like a poster lifesaver, except for a long scar from cheekbone to ear, half of which was missing. He'd fought it out underwater with a killer-barracuda when helping the military to recover bodies from a crashed sea-search plane. The knife-edged fangs of the brute were set in the butt of his speargun as a memento of the occasion.

Mary said, 'Let me come! I can help…'

Piet smiled. 'Lady, this is a job for men. But maybe you can have some hot coffee waiting for us when we come up.'

'John,' she begged me, 'don't go — not today, anyway. Go rather with Bob and take a look-see at the lie of the land off the Glory Hole first. You don't know what is there; no one does. Don't rush into this thing. Felix…'

Rhennin said, 'John must make up his own mind, Mary. He doesn't have to dive. He's a freelance.'

'Mary,' I said gently, 'Shelborne himself says that a calm day is a rarity. A calm day with the tide right is rarer still.'

'You don't know the tide is right.'

'It's ebbing now,' replied Rhennin. 'That means it will be low by the time you get organized.'

There is still a risk…' Mary persisted.

'You can't be over-certain of the tides on this coast,' said Piet. 'No, man, if it's falling let's dive.'

'That's what I feel,' I replied. I avoided Mary's hurt eyes. 'Listen, Piet, we'll do this thing the safest way.'

'What depth?'

'Nine fathoms, I reckon,' I said. 'Although it's pretty steep-to off the mouth.'

He screwed up his eyes. 'Forty minutes under, then. That's safe.'

I was aware of Mary close to me. 'Make it thirty-five. We'll use the open-circuit Scuba with full face masks — we want to be able to see everything we can.'

'Wet or dry suit?'

'Dry — yes, dry. It'll be pretty cold down deep, Piet, particularly once we get inside the cavern.

He nodded agreement. 'Any underwater surge, chief?'

'Listen, Piet, I think you should know: this isn't any ordinary dive — rather, it could turn out not to be.'

His eyes gleamed. 'Hell, man, this is what I like to hear. Are there sting-rays or something like that inside?'

Rhennin's eyes were watchful when I replied. 'We'll take along the full armament — knife, hand spear, spear-gun, the works. We'll wear life-jackets too — the inflatable yellow, with carbon dioxide cartridges.'

Piet was elated. 'This looks bloomin' good to me, chief.'

I went on, 'We'll operate from Sheriff's boat with a portable decompression chamber, although the actual dive will be from the rubber dinghy. I want fifty fathoms of nylon rope for additional air points at three and seven fathoms.'

Piet was excited in his slow way. 'Two air points, eh? Signals? Special emergency ones?'

'Yes. Standard: two tugs, are you all right? Three, stop. Four, am pulling you up. Emergency — a series of sharp ones?'

Piet considered. That's okay for a dive in open water, but what if we run into trouble inside? — say I get tangled up with a sting-ray: he'll jerk the rope and you'll think it's me.'

'What do you mean, you'll run into trouble?'

'I am going first, of course. You can play safety man on the first run.'

'Listen, Piet, this is my party. There may be risks…'

That's the way I like it, John. If you're playing it as safe as all this, then you'll agree that the more experienced man should go first — and I've a lot more experience than you.'

What he said was true. I wanted to be the first to see the inside of the Glory Hole, though.

He was adamant. 'We'll use a yellow smoke candle for an emergency.'

'A smoke candle won't float out from the cavern,' I argued.

'Fair enough,' he replied. 'I know: before I enter the Glory Hole, I'll let go a smoke cartridge so that the surface chaps know it's okay. I signal with five pulls at the same time. You come down from air station number two. You can see what I'm doing and keep tabs on me while I go in.'

'Roger. Mary,' I said, 'will you check the first-aid kit with Piet? He knows what is wanted — all the usual bandages and compresses, but I also need some anti-histamine tablets and ointment.'

'What's that for?' she asked in a small voice.

'Burns, stings, things like that. I had some special cortisone ointment, but I think it went down with the Praying Mantis.'

Mary was strained. 'Anything else?'

I laughed, trying to ease her anxiety. 'Ask the cook for some baking soda. It's also good for burns and stings. Oh, yes — something like a pencil to use to screw up a tourniquet if necessary.'

It was mid-afternoon before Sheriff's boat was ready. The diver's red flag with white stripes flapped on the dinghy's tiny mast: there was scarcely enough wind to make it stand out. Four separate openings, like a quadruple black muzzle, pointed at us as the tide fell from the Glory Hole. Piet and I had established our two air stations along the nylon rope into the depths; I could just distinguish the black-and-white quarterings on the grey cylinders at three fathoms. Piet and I were ready in our rubber suits, waiting to don masks for the descent. Despite the short time, Piet had done a painstaking check of the Scuba gear: pressure, at 3000 lb. per square inch; the regulators, cylinder valves, hoses, mouthpieces and masks; the quick-release buckles to ensure that every one was snapping open at a flick.

We synchronized the decompression meters strapped to our wrists and snuggled into the face masks. I gave the thumbs-up sign. Head and hands down, Piet nodded to me and Rhennin, gave a smooth kick with his flippers, and vanished beneath the calm surface. I turned to Sheriff's boat, a little way from the dinghy. Mary stood taut, unsmiling. I gave her the thumbs-up sign, too, and went over the side. Using the conventional scissors kick, I eased down slowly to the first air station at three fathoms. Piet was there, hanging on and grinning. The water was not clear and there seemed to be a greenish reflection from the bottom, which puzzled me.

Piet waited five minutes, signalled, and went farther down. The signal line went slack.

Two pulls: are you all right?

Two return pulls: I am all right.

I could see him vaguely but the water seemed full of particles of sand. The line tautened: Piet had started his run-in to the Glory Hole. I waited. There were no fish, which was strange. The line tautened again and then slackened. No point in becoming anxious. Piet was as sound as they come. I wouldn't fluster him with unnecessary signals.

I glanced at my wrist meter. I was nervous, which isn't a good thing under water. I fiddled uneasily with the line, wondering whether I should try Piet for a simply okay. I discarded the idea. I'd rather go down to the next air station at seven fathoms than hang around here close to the surface. We'd have to change over deep, anyway, and five minutes wouldn't make much difference. It was bad Scuba not to stick to schedule. Perhaps the dinghy would wonder what was going on.

I frog-kicked gently, holding the nylon rope as I planed down. The water became greener, murkier. I kept glancing to my left to see whether I could not spot the entrance. A darker patch showed the loom of the island proper.

The signals line gave a savage jerk which almost tore it out of my hand — and then went slack.

Emergency!

I resisted the temptation to strike out for the bottom. Piet wouldn't appreciate a panic, although that tug meant trouble. I waited agonizingly for the series of quick pulls which meant a crisis.

They never came.

Instead, Piet's body- legs, head and arms jack-knifing, convulsing, jerking- floated past me, borne surface-wards by his life-jacket. I caught one glimpse of the face behind the mask: it was a ghastly, death-like travesty of Piet's placid, stolid features. I grabbed, but the rubber-encased body kicked free. God! His rate of ascent alone was enough to kill him! It didn't look like the bends, oxygen starvation, or any of the usual symptoms of a Scuba fault — sting-ray? octopus? scorpion fish? sea snake? catfish? What ever it was, it had been hellish quick. The smoke candle was still at Piet's belt and so was his knife, but the speargun with its buoyant butt was missing.

Piet and I surfaced simultaneously, nausea filling me after the dangerous rate of ascent. He jerked over and over in the water, splashing, thrashing.

I tore off my mask. 'Felix! Bob! Help here!'

The dinghy was a dozen yards away and Sheriff's hydrofoil thirty. I glimpsed Mary's white face. A lifebelt splashed down, out of arm's reach. I ducked under Piet's flailing arms, but his knee mule-kicked me in the chest. His mask was white inside with foam, his own foam. I dived, locking my arms under his shoulders. He gave two or three frightful spasms and then went limp. Holding his head high, I kicked out on my back for Sheriff's boat.

'Get him into the decompression chamber — quick!' I snapped.

'What on earth…?' began Mary.

'Later! Piet is bad…'

Rhennin, who had shot over in the dinghy, said quietly, 'Not bad, John — he's dead.'

I looked over at the lithe, still figure. I couldn't believe it. 'Nonsense!' I tore off the foam-splashed mask and ripped the hood full back behind the ears. I knelt down and listened. There was no breathing. Where his neck joined his shoulder, it was mottled and blotched. I turned him over to apply artificial respiration.

'That man Shelborne…' I cursed softly as I began the rhythmic movements of resuscitation.

Rhennin said, 'Look, John, those blotches mean decompression sickness. He did something down deep he should not have done. He was adventurous…'

'He wasn't a fool,' I panted. 'Piet wouldn't have taken a risk if it was stupid. There's something horrible down there, Felix.'

He looked at me oddly. 'You suffering from diving hallucinations? Seeing things which aren't?'

I paused. Piet remained still, lifeless. 'I wasn't deeper than sixty feet at any stage, and most of the time I was at forty,' I said sharply. 'You're a pretty poor diver if you can't take a hundred, let alone sixty.'

Rhennin repeated. 'Don't go on, John — it's useless. He's dead.' There was a dreadful blue tinge round his mouth.

'Get him over to the Mazy Zed,' I ordered Bob. 'We'll have relays work on him. Warmth, blankets, hot-water bottles…'

Silent, fearful hands helped bring the still figure aboard the mining barge. I was still fresh enough for the first relay! Blankets under him, we stripped him down to trunks. I eased rhythmically up and down, my eyes unable to take themselves from the hideous blotches near his neck. What had done that? I asked myself as many times as I rose and fell. Then I rested, tired, and my eyes lifted for the first time from Piet into the distance beyond Mercury.

I must be drunk from lack of oxygen I told myself — it produces the same effects as alcohol.

The north-eastern side of the bay, between the shore and the neck in the lows hills backing it, was moving, marching.

The desert was marching into the quicksands by the old Portuguese warship. A great, endless dun legion was streaming towards and around the T-shaped white scars.

I dropped my eyes to Piet's blotches. They weren't blurred: I was seeing straight. The Mazy Zed group stood statue-like, staring at my face. I lifted my eyes and gestured with my head.

The tidal wave ashore was white on top, brown underneath. It was not desert. The wave creamed and broke like foam as it hit the water.

A host of springbok, innumerable as the sands of the Namib, threw itself into the sea.