'Darling, perhaps you have already solved the Waratah problem and don't know it? Isn't it simply a question of the Waratah being overwhelmed by one of those monster waves, despite all the experts said about her stability?'
Her tone made me yearn to play traitor and agree. Reluctantly, however, I said, The answer to that is, no bodies or wreckage were ever found, and the place was alive with ships within a couple of days. When a big vessel goes down, wreckage would spew out of her hatches; the engine-room boilers would explode.'
She broke in hopefully, and I loved her for it. 'Isn't it all too cut and dried, just as the experts were about the Waratah and her stability?'
I smiled back. 'Maybe as an expert I'm in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees. I can only take the picture so far, and no farther. All I know is that a danger area lay right across the track of the Waratah, and she went straight into it. Then there came into play some unknown, lethal, death-dealing factor which can swallow up a 10,000-ton liner as easily as it does a modern airliner or a supersonic fighter-jet.'
'Do we simply wait around here, then, hoping for this unknown factor to manifest itself?'
My heart sank when I looked at her, but I forced myself to say it. 'No. We have to run the gauntlet. That means the south-west. We must get up to Port St John's. Then, if a gale comes, we must sail the Waratah's course from there-south-west. It's the only way I see if we want to find out.'
She came close to me, the first time since the night. ‘I don't think I am afraid of dying; I am only afraid of losing you.'
We sailed to Port St John's from a sea as empty as the hour after the Waratah had vanished.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It came, pungent and fateful as a distant bell-buoy tolling over a killer reef.
All day we had inched Touleier up the Waratah coast while the wind stayed light in the north-east. Tafline and I checked, discussed, spotted landmarks like the impressive rock which is called The-Hole-in-the-Wall. It was perfect fair-weather yachting and some of the tension seemed to ebb from us as we absorbed the soporific magic and she ghosted along. We had breathtaking glimpses of black, iron-bound cliffs topped by great forests, for which the territory is famous; we could pick out, by their lofty whiteness like ships' spars, the straight trunks of the unzimbeet trees among their darker companions; fragile lagoons came and went at sunset with the chimerical loveliness of an old Chinese print on silk; tree euphorbias hung out stark candelabra of branches against great cliffs and begged to be photographed; here and there the lush strelitzias would overarch a river mouth with sensuous, tropical beauty, a frame for secret mangrove swamps behind, trodden not by human foot but by the claws of giant crabs as big as soup plates.
The twice-daily shipping forecasts brought a taut expectancy. One is broadcast after lunch, and the other after 11 at night. There was no hint of a gale.
There was a nerve-tingle at dawn when I brought Touleier into position off Port St John's where the Waratah and Clan Macintyre had exchanged their last signals. We had decided on this just as, lower down the coast off East London, we had cruised over the exact spot where the liner Guelph had received her garbled ‘t-a-h' lamp signal from a ship which was never subsequently identified.
Tafline had asked me to call her when Touleier was under the Cape Hermes light. I went to her cabin. She was lying, eyes wide open, waiting for me.
I felt a small nerve kick in her lips as she kissed me and she indicated the heavy sweater and slacks she had been wearing when she left me after the late-night forecast. The apology, the dedication, the promise, were all in her embrace. She held me for so long that it was I who had to remind her that the wheel was unattended.
We went on deck.
She shivered as the flash came from the Cape Hermes lighthouse. It stands, as it did when the Waratah passed by, unnaturally bright against the dark cliff on the southern bank of the lovely river mouth. Except for a few thatched cottages, the coastline looked the same as it did on that fateful morning when the two liners parted. She shivered again at the sight of the strange rectangular columns of mist marching down the St John's River to the sea, shaping themselves to the cliffs on either side. The great Gates-massive, forest-covered twin peaks flanking the river on either side-were shrouded in the early light. Once the mist swirled aside and showed the ruins of an old piled jetty and rusting boiler of some abandoned coaster, relics of the days when the port was still used by shipping.
She whispered, as if afraid to arouse the spectres of the past. ‘Is this the place?'
I nodded.
The sea was empty.
Our shadows dissipated when the sun rose for another fine day. It lulled us into going ashore when a friendly ski-boat came out from the land and offered us a ride. I left Jubela in charge of Touleier. We were rowed across the river near the mouth by an African ferry; there was a magnificent up-river view for miles. I think we were both glad to be on land and stretch our legs. We laughed at a ridiculous pleasure launch shaped like a giant swan in poor imitation of something Mediterranean; we speculated over the origin of a twelve-foot sailing ship anchor with gigantic flukes which stood near the old jetty; we saw an old cannon from the treasure ship Grosvenor, a mystery of Pondoland which rivals that of the Waratah.
We walked along the river-side road after lunch, and she bought some African beadwork. She was excitedly showing me a tiny rectangle of exquisiteness — each pattern in the Transkei has its message, of love, rejection, birth, death, health-when a car with tourists drew up with its radio blaring.
It was then that we heard the news of a gale warning. 'North-westerly to westerly winds in the vicinity of Cape Point will reach thirty to forty-five knots, spreading eastwards..'
Eastwards! To us! Here was the classic storm pattern beginning.
I caught her arm. The pleasure of the small purchase died in her.
I looked at her, and she looked at me. I remember her now in her thin summer dress standing next to the roughly planked wooden stall by the edge of the chocolate river, the blue, white and gold beadwork held in her hand. It seemed impossible, in that soft semi-tropical setting, that ice, gales and rollers would start to hurl themselves at the Cape within hours. Was it one of those lethal secondary low pressure systems which hive off the main storm and send the oilmen hurrying to batten down everything to safety and shipmasters to keep anxious watches in the type of weather which has earned the Cape of Storms its terrible cognomen? Would it turn into …?
'How bad is it, Ian?' she asked, handing back the bead-work to the disappointed African woman.
'We might know more if there had been a Walvis Bay on station,' I replied. My mind raced over a mass of technicalities. 'It may be everything; it may be nothing.'
Upon the outcome hung my career and our love..
'God!' I burst out. 'If only I knew?’ If only I could phone the Bureau and ask.’
'You could, Ian! It's worth the risk! — don't mention your name or Touleier or the fat will be in the fire. You must know more before sailing down the coast.'
I punched my fist into my palm in frustration. The real significance; can only be judged when I know more about the upper air winds, temperatures, pressures, and the like.