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.