It was Mac who precipitated the situation. His attack on Stein was as swift, unheralded and savage as a wolf's. Like a striking mamba he was behind Stein and had grabbed a handful of loose skin under his left ear and with his right — I never saw the movement, it was so swift, but only heard the tinkle of the broken bottle — thrust the neck of the broken Haig bottle into the other side of his neck.
Involuntarily I struck at Mac's fearful weapon, even as it broke the skin. I saw the blood run, but it was not the death-spurt of an artery. Where Mac had learned that filthy trick, I do not know. As I grabbed his hand, Stein writhed loose and slipped from Mac's grasp.
The Luger never even trembled in his hand as he stood back against the padded locker by the porthole. He smiled mirthlessly.
"Two very desperate and dangerous men," he said, eyeing Mac and myself with respect almost. "I watched Captain… ah… Macdonald twist Hendriks's arm of! with the dirtiest hold I have ever seen. I myself nearly fall victim to an even worse trick from his engineer. You gentlemen must have been brought up very badly indeed."
Mac did not say a word. The dour mask remained un-penetrated. I measured the distance carefully to see whether I could jump Stein's gun. It seemed a slim chance. Mac would certainly provide the follow-up.
Stein spoke to Mac although his eyes were as wary as a lynx.
"I shall kill you in my own good time," he said quite dispassionately. "But not now. Now would not be the time, when we are having such an interesting discussion about Lieutenant Garland and his former skipper. Where is Lieutenant Garland, by the way?"
"He's ashore with friends," I said, looking for any chink in the man's vigilance.
"I have friends ashore too — good friends," continued Stein conversationally as cool as though death had not all but touched his jugular vein. There was a faint runnel of blood down his collar, but that was all. The Luger covered us steadily.
The plan to murder Stein dropped into my mind then.
It was just too simple. All I would have to do was to agree to his plan — and the Skeleton Coast would do the rest. I did not like the way he had been digging into my past. The merciless sands of Curva dos Dunas would be all that would hear his death-cries. I decided to play it softly, for he was a cunning devil.
"Are you going to threaten me at pistol-point to take you to the Skeleton Coast?" I asked sarcastically. "Beetle, my Aunt Fanny! Is it a packet of diamonds you are going to pick up?"
He eyed me blandly. "Strangely enough, Captain… ah… Macdonald, it is a beetle. I want that beetle more than anything else in the world. I am prepared to force you to take me there — at pistol-point if necessary — but somehow I don't think it will be necessary."
I didn't like the way he said it, but I let it ride.
"You have the whip-hand of me," I pretended to admit. "All right, I'll take you — but Ј500 is not enough. I want at least Ј1,000 and specific guarantees that there will be no leakage to the police."
Stein looked at me contemptuously and waved the Luger, not threateningly, but to emphasise his words.
"Five hundred pounds was the original offer, Captain, but now it is much less. In fact, I think I shall ask you to do it free, gratis and for nothing."
I thought I had bluffed him, but I hadn't. I took a pace towards him, but the Luger swung up at my stomach.
"Neither of you," said Stein ironically, "is likely to be scared by the mere sight of a Luger. Oh no, Captain Macdonald, your capitulation was much too quick. Perhaps with a less — shall we say, determined and resourceful — man I might have been persuaded. No histrionics, I beg of you. No, you shall take me to the Skeleton Coast and put me ashore just where I wish to be put ashore."
"The hell you say," I snapped.
Stein was enjoying himself. "Say you are Lieutenant-Commander Peace, the famous war-time commander of Trout. Assume that it is so for the sake of my argument. What of it? What good would it do either me or Lieutenant-Commander Peace, alias Captain Macdonald, to noise it abroad from the housetops that he is now a trawlerman operating from Walvis Bay? Good luck to him, they'd say. To quote the newspapers, he would have rehabilitated himself. The English sense of fair play. He'd taken his rap and got kicked out, why throw it up again in his face, even if he's got a different name and says he's a South African — and even speaks like one? It would not serve any useful purpose whatsoever. Nor would a man in that position on the mere threat of throwing open his past agree to do a job which might involve him with the law once again and wash out any chance at all of leading a decent life in the future. You agreed far too suddenly, Lieutenant-Commander Peace."
I inwardly cursed my own bungling. What did he mean? His use of my own name and his veiled references left me uneasy, very uneasy.
"So what?" I still tried to bluff it out. "Say I am Lieutenant-Commander Peace. What should the Navy care about a man kicked out and treated like dirt after what I'd done for them and the way I risked my neck? I tell you I got a raw deal and a man who has gone through that doesn't sniff at the opportunity of making a little on the side."
"Nicely taken," sneered Stein. "But when I first saw this ship I asked myself, where does a man like that get the best part of Ј200,000 for a modern trawler like Etosha? Why the double-action diesels? Why the yacht-like lines when they should be tubby to hold fish? I hear rumours ashore that Captain Macdonald knows the Skeleton Coast better than any other skipper sailing out of Walvis. They say in the waterfront bars that he keeps to himself. Why? Is he running diamonds from the Skeleton Coast? Is that what those fine lines and fast diesels are for?"
"Ah, bulldust!" snarled Mac, drawn by the reference to his engines.
Stein turned to him with a cold smile.
"That is what I said to myself — bulldust," he remarked agreeably.
He let it sink in and gestured sociably with the Luger.
"Don't you think we should sit down? We have so much to discuss — details of the trip to the Skeleton Coast and so on?"
"There is nothing to discuss," I said flatly, knowing perfectly well that there was. "I won't take you to the Skeleton Coast — under any circumstances whatsoever. That's flat. Now get out — and if you come back again, I'll throw you overboard."
"Brave words, Captain Peace — or is it Lieutenant-Commander? I can never be quite sure in a situation like this," he sneered. He sighed theatrically. "You force me to use cards I don't want to. Macfadden," he said harshly, anticipating a move by Mac, "I swear before God that I will kill you on the slightest pretext."
Mac saw that he meant it, too.
"Now, Captain Peace," he went on. "To get back to this very fine ship. Could it be that this fast, well-found ship is a diamond smuggler? I don't think so."
"Thanks for damn all," I said sarcastically.
"The point is, looking at this ship, that the man who bought her must have made his money before, not after. If you can afford a ship like this, you don't need to smuggle diamonds, do you, Captain?"
I felt the sweat trickling down my shirt. The swine was playing with me.
"I don't know the purpose of this ship yet," he said quietly. "But I intend to find out."
So he hadn't heard of Curva dos Dunas. I'd see that he never did — or never came back to tell about it.
"I became very interested in Lieutenant-Commander Peace," he went on, "and so I asked an acquaintance in Cape Town if he could find out something more about this famous submarine commander. I discovered, in fact, that he was drowned at sea eventually — after the court martial."
The cold fear tingled across my heart.
Stein put the Luger back in his pocket. It was a gesture of victory.
"Lieutenant-Commander Peace took an old merchant ship to sea in — when was it? April, '45. You remember the old Phylira, Captain? Fancy Georgiadou calling an old wreck like that after an ocean nymph! But then the Greeks, even old Georgiadou, are a sentimental lot, are they not?"