But there were snags.
As the boat with only Mac and me hit the water that inky night, Curva dos Dunas hit, too.
It was a savage right cross from the wind, followed by a brutal left hook by the sea. Phylira never stood a chance.
Except for the long swell, the sea was relatively calm as I gave the order to clear away the falls of the boat. It had been hauled up forward earlier so that it would run the length of the starboard beam before getting clear. This would give us a lee from the ship's side which would enable me to get her well under control — engineless until we were clear of the ship — as the swift current gripped her. A few minutes before Mac came to the bridge with his faked report about a rudder fault, I had altered course so that the old freighter lay with her head pointing slightly away and parallel to the land. This would get her clear to sea out of danger of the rocks and shoals. On her new course, Phylira now lay with her port beam square to the south-west.
The right cross of the gale struck with untamed ferocity out of the south-west, without warning. It was so violent that at first I thought it was a squall, but it was to blow for days afterwards. Ply/lira's whole length lay open to the blow. As the boat with Mac and me felt water under her, Phylira reeled under that gigantic elemental punch.
One moment Phylira was peering ox-like out to sea, the next I was staring horror-struck at the red-painted, rusty side swing over the tiny boat, alive and electrified by the galvanic force of the blow. There was nothing Mac or I could do. In the lee of the ship we were protected from the thundering charge of spray and frenzied wind which tore over the ship. Phylira hung poised over us.
Mac, one hand on the tiller and the other on the starting-handle, gazed awe-struck as thousands of tons of rusty old steel bent right over us, a moment's hesitation before the death-dealing roll which would take her and us to the bottom.
"Christ!" he screamed, and began to swing the starter like a madman. It stayed dead. But the Trout current already had us in its grip and we were swept as far as the engine-room. Phylira leaned still more over us and loose gear began falling in the water. Part of the deck came into view, so sharp was the list. Phylira was about to fall right on top of us.
Then the sea dealt its left hook. The savage mountain of water which the great gale had built up in front of it recoiled off the northerly point of Curva dos Dunas. It was almost the place where I had first seen the graceful, deadly dorsal fin of NP I. The sea staggered back' from the iron-hard sand-bar. The Trout current threw in all the weight of its six knots behind the recoiling wall. The current had already swung the old ship's head from north-west almost round to north-east. I could see Phylira sag as it burst all over her bows and, even above the scream of the wind, I heard the whimper of torn metal. Our cockleshell shot high into the air and we slid by the canting stern into the maelstrom. Phylira disappeared in the darkness.
Mac got the engine to fire as we swept past like a surf-boat, but it was a puny thing. The boat swung round in the grip of the enhanced current and made madly for the surf. I baled frantically. Then suddenly the water was calmer. We had been swept inside the northern entrance arm of Curva dos Dunas. In the small boat, half full of water now, but afloat, we were safe inside the sand-bars, despite the screaming wind and driving spume.
The King's Ransom packet lay soggy, but safe, in the water sloshing above the floorboards.
From the beach next morning we looked at the wreck of the Phylira through my binoculars, wiping them clean of the blowing salt every few minutes. We disposed of the boat by staving in a few planks and weighing her down on the causeway, where the next tide covered her. Phylira lay against the southern entrance — heaven alone knows what combination of sea and wind put her there. Her masts were canted over and from the way she lay I could see that her back was shattered. I spent the morning searching the rigging for traces of the crew, but there were none. When the causeway cleared at the next tide Mac and I got within a few hundred yards of the wreck, but there was not a sign of life.
Curva dos Dunas would keep Georgiadou's secret well.
Stein's voice cut into my line of memory.
"It must have been brilliantly executed, Captain Peace," he sneered. "Georgiadou would love to know the details. You and he should become partners, you know. On the one hand, a Greek with a tortuous, greedy mind, and on the other a sacked Royal Navy officer with a flair for brilliant, ruthless execution. It would be a great team, Captain Peace."
I said nothing. So he thought I had deliberately disposed of the Phylira and her crew. Well, even to deny it wouldn't send me up much in Stein's opinion. With hellish ingenuity this German beetle-hunter — so he said — had put together a chain of unrelated things and found out just who and what I was. Would any man go to those lengths just for the sake of finding some extinct species of beetle? Curva dos Dunas! There lay my trump card, and I intended to play it. Let him think what he liked about the Phylira. It seemed that Curva dos Dunas was the only thing Stein had not unearthed, that and the fate of NP I.
Stein looked at us both blandly. He jerked his head generally at the Etosha. "Lowestoft?" he remarked, knowing perfectly well that she had first tasted water on Oulton Broad.
He was enjoying himself enormously. It was simple enough, of course; he could have seen the brass plate by the bridge companion. But with his evil air, it smelt to me of black magic again.
I nodded briefly.
Stein rose and fingered the panelling in the saloon.
He hummed and then broke into a surprisingly clear tenor.
"In Lowestoft a boat was laid,
Mark well what I do say!
And she was built for the herring trade,
But she has gone a-rovin', a-rovin', a-rovin',
The Lord knows where!"
"Kipling had a way of putting these things, did he not?" he went on urbanely. "The operative words being, of course, 'the Lord knows where!' The Lord and Captain Peace know where!" he mocked.
Then the mockery died in his voice and he rapped out: "You will be ready to sail at dawn tomorrow, Captain Peace. I shall be here and I shall want room for my assistant, too."
"You can go to hell!" I retorted. "You and your beetles. Garland isn't here, won't be until tomorrow afternoon and I'm damned if I sail without my first lieutenant."
"You have no choice at all," Stein replied smoothly.
"I must wait for the boats," I replied. "Mine got smashed up in a heavy sea. They'll take a couple of weeks to get here."
"Don't play for time," sneered Stein. "You can't bluff me like that. We sail the morning after tomorrow, then. Garland can be safely back on duty. The rest is unimportant."
He turned by the companionway and smiled.
"No need to see me off the ship, Captain Peace," he said. "It's a dark night, and accidents can always happen. This has been a most instructive and informative evening. I can understand why the Royal Navy respected your talent, Captain Peace. I do too, or else I would not be asking you to take me. Gentlemen, to the Skeleton Coast."
With a melodramatic wave of the hand, he disappeared.
XI
"It lighteneth," observed John biblically. He raised his night glasses from their strap and rubbed off the moisture with the tip of his elbow, heavily swathed in an off-white sweater.
And almost a biblical figure he looked, too, in his thick sweater and balaclava cap dripping droplets of moisture, the whole picture slightly out of focus in the swirling fog.
I glanced at the compass card.
"Christ!" I exploded at the Kroo boy. "Can't you keep on course without swinging a point or two either way!"