Scend of the Sea

She smiled. 'I said, we must go and look, you and I. I didn't mention the authorities.'

'What do you mean?'

'Touleier.'

'Touleier, I expostulated. 'But she's laid up for the winter. You can't just go off in a yacht which doesn't belong to you anyway, but to a syndicate. Besides, it's winter, the worst time of the year.. ’

The idea came to me during the Conference when I turned and looked at you,' she went on. 'Touleier's ready for the round-the-coast race in the spring, you told me so yourself. You also said they wanted you to skipper her, although you probably couldn't, if you're on the weather watch. She's got a new suit of sails and that untried self-steering device. Nothing would please the sponsors more than that the winner of the South American race should take Touleier on a quick shake-down cruise round the coast while his own ship is being repaired.'

I gasped, then I laughed. It might still lie within my grasp to justify everything I had done and said about the Waratah.

'It's so simple and so fantastic I’ I exclaimed, a little unsteadily. 'Jubela-I could get him to crew with us. It's a big strain handling a fast boat like Touleier by oneself, and Jubela knows his stuff. We can expect some rough weather..'

'We want rough weather, we want another big gale,' she said firmly. 'It's the way we'll find the Waratah secret.'

This time I'll take a camera along — a very good camera,' I remarked. 'If we see anything like my old sailing ship, I can at least bring back a picture for the doubting Thomases.'

The thought of the wild sea and frenetic wind sobered my enthusiasm for a moment. 'We can count on at least half a dozen winter gales in those parts. However, the one I hit in Walvis Bay and the sort of gale which hit the Waratah was no ordinary winter gale. But we do know that the storm that hit Waratah was followed shortly afterwards by two other exceptional gales. We may be lucky-or unlucky. It's also very different being out in a blow in a small boat like Touleier and a ship even of Walvis Bay's size. The going will be rough.'

She had touched my hand. 'There's probably not a sailor in the whole Southern Hemisphere safer than you in a gale. The Fairlies must have been bora in gales.'

I felt like adding, died, too.

Touleier's sponsors had been delighted when I put forward Tafline's suggestion. They, at least, did not seem to share the general misgivings about me. Jubela appeared as glad as the sponsors when I found him drinking mournfully in a shebeen at 10 o'clock in the morning.

The sea is clean,' he had said. 'And I am like a bushpig in a wallow here.'

Now he was in his element; gone was the silence and depression which had marked his final days at the wheel of Walvis Bay. I had told him the Waratah story and Tafline had been with me. ‘It is right that one should know the grave of one's ancestors' was all Jubela had replied, 'and this ancestor must have been a great sailor.'

The mood of the three of us was tight, purposeful, that day when we approached the headland of St Francis, our last southern gateway to the Bashee, still some 200 miles to the north-east, the final point in rounding the 'ankle' of the coast. Touleier herself seemed to share that mood: taut, yet controlled; eager, yet aware of the dangers ahead.

I took my binoculars and climbed into the rigging. Astern, the horizon had the peculiar blur of purple-blue characteristic of a south-westerly blow, although I felt sure it would not work up into a buster of the calibre which had nearly sunk the Walvis Bay. I had to rely on my own instincts. It would have been fatal for me to have got in touch with the Weather Bureau, and I had no intention of letting Colonel Joubert in on our mission. I had concealed the yacht's departure by slipping out of Cape Town at night, in a growing northwesterly wind. Now, well to the east, rounding that 'ankle' of the South African coastline, I was keeping well clear of the land in order to avoid being caught by some of the violent squalls which sometimes sweep down from the high land. Touleier's thrusting spinnaker would snap the light-metal racing mast like a carrot if it were caught aback. There it was!

I called to Tafline. 'Cape St Francis!'

She swung up nimbly alongside me and looked through the binoculars, and then let them hang round her neck on the strap. She put her face against mine, warm by contrast with the cold south-westerly wind and its threat of rain. The dedicated purpose of the voyage was lightened by my joy at being away to sea with her, and having a splendid yacht underfoot. I think she guessed what I was thinking, for she turned and looked into my eyes, and allowed the roll of the mast to sway her hard against my side.

Touleier raced on.

Unwilling to break the silence, yet reminded of our mission by the sight of that distant landmark, she said at length, 'You read the sea like a book, Ian. It is what lies ahead now, isn't it? It would be pure magic, you and me and Touleier, if it weren't for the Waratah.'

I side-stepped it now. I gestured towards some other passing ships. 'We're using the standard northward route close to the coast to avoid the Agulhas Current. That tanker out there is picking up the benefit of its southbound flow. That's the way it has always been. Northbound, you keep close to the land, especially in this sort of wind, which sets up a counter-current shorewards.'

Without warning, she buried her face in my neck. 'Oh my darling, my darling!' she sobbed. ‘I know all these winds, storms, currents, and the rest are part of the pattern which has been woven into our lives because of. . of. .' I felt the warm tears against my skin. 'But it's you I want, free of all these terrifying shackles. .' She choked gently, and I tried to comfort her, and I tasted the salt of her tears on her lips. She took my face in her hands and searched it with her finger-tips as if to memorize every line; she kissed me as if her heart would burst until even that lively deck and press of sail became oblivion as we raced towards the Bashee.

There were a hundred things to do to the yacht as Touleier sped northwards. After Cape St Francis, Tafline had insisted, as part of the general state of alertness and preparedness, on being taught the rudiments of helmsmanship, although my heart was in my mouth once when Touleier was caught napping by a sharp squall with her at the wheel; the yacht went far over before I could get to Tafline's side, but Jubela saved the situation by letting fly a halliard.

I kept Touleier well clear of the big harbour of Port Elizabeth, but beyond we went close to two groups of tiny islands, called St Croix and Bird, which lie in the big bay of Algoa. In these waters the first sailor ever to round the Cape nearly five centuries ago turned back because his crew mutinied: Bartholomew Diaz planted a marble cross, and it is wrongly commemorated by the name Cape Padrone at the north-eastern fringe of the bay. Only in this century, shortly before the Second World War, was the true location of Diaz's cross found slightly to the north.

Now we were approaching the spot. I was trying to use the weak inshore counter-current about three miles out to help Touleier along and edge past a race of the Agulhas Current which spills over near Cape Padrone. There was muddy water under the yacht, a sure sign that the south-wester was strong enough to generate at least a slight counter to the big main stream further out.