Southtrap

The owner — did he intend to sail her to Australia?'

'Not him. The show loaded him with dollars. He's still living it up at the Mount Nelson Hotel. He'll fly to Australia, and pick up another packet when Botany Bay goes on show there. He's got a crew do the dirty work of shifting the ship. Young guys. A dozen or so.

'That day I went to see for myself I heard one of 'em talking to the skipper. "Tom," he says, "the sooner we get to sea, the better. I can't take this circus much longer."

"Nor me," the skipper tells him. "But it'll all be different in the Roaring Forties. You'll get all the sailing you want there." Nice guy, I thought.'

I said, 'They'll get all the sailing they want in the Roaring Forties, all right.'

'Know those parts, Cap'n?'

Know them! I've seen the gale-gusts come through the channel between Prince Edward and Marion hitting one hundred and twenty knots, the sea a tormented hell of corrugated water with waves fifteen metres from trough to crest, and the ice spicules spraying like automatic fire on the wind.

'Yes, I know them.'

He glanced sharply at me, and slowed for the dock check-point.

'Something wrong, Cap'n?'

'I was thinking of Botany Bay down those parts. A sailer. It's a bastard. You have to be tough to survive.'

We halted at the entrance to have our papers cleared. Then the driver pulled away into the open street beyond, making for the big roundabout on the foreshore which would lead us to the hospital on the mountain slope dominating the city.

'That guy was — the one you were speaking to by the ship.'

The driver was not unobservant, 'for all his blabbermouth.

'You know him?'

'Not to say know exactly. But he's been hanging around ever since Quest came in — he must sleep on the docks.'

I had a sudden flash of insight. 'Do you always do the dock run?'

He was cautious. 'What makes you ask?'

'I wondered if you took Captain Prestrud anywhere last night. He finished up in hospital.'

The man's chumminess froze. I could have kicked myself for having mentioned it.

He lied sullenly. 'It was my night off last night.'

We drove on in silence.

I glanced up at the bulk of Table Mountain. A streamer or horn of cloud was starting to work its way round one side preliminary to forming the famous 'tablecloth'. It reminded me of Prince Edward Island. I'd seen the same thing happen there a score of times. A cloud horn suddenly appears against the windward quarter of the mountain peaks of the great western escarpment. Then it works round to the north, shrouding the black summits. I hoped Botany Bay would steer clear of Prince Edward. Too many fine ships have gone.missing without trace in its wild waters. Some last century and some this. Well-found vessels too, like the Danish training ship Kobenhavn perhaps.

Prince Edward Island. I'd be back there again within the week if the cruise was still on. But in what capacity? That depended on what I was going to find at the hospital. 'Severe head injuries but not a car accident.' That's all the hospital had said. He wasn't the right type, nor the right age to have gone on a pre-sailing bender ashore and got mixed up in a brawl in some sleazy joint. Could he have been mugged?

I pulled upright in my seat as the thought struck me. How had Wegger known about Captain Prestrud? He'd seemed very anxious to address me as captain, to feel mat I was authorized to take him on in Quest. He'd also been hanging around the Quest ever since she docked…

I slammed on my mental brakes. I was being suspicous without reason. Maybe it was because the intensity of the man was still with me. I had made no secret of Captain Prestrud's injury around the ship — everyone had known within minutes of the hospital's telephone call. If Wegger had been anywhere close on the dock-side, he could have heard it from one of the crew. There was nothing to connect Wegger with Captain Prestrud. Nonetheless, I decided to ask Captain Prestrud about him if he were fit enough.

The taxi turned on to the De Waal Drive and picked up speed in the direction of Groote Schuur Hospital. The driver pretended he was too occupied with the road for any further talk.

If Captain Prestrud were too badly hurt to carry on with the cruise, what then? Had Quest's voyage simply been a tourist trip, it could have been called off. Linn Prestrud, Captain Prestrud's daughter, was due with the main party of passengers by jet from Europe that afternoon. They would be disappointed, but it was the scientists who were the real problem. The Quest had given a hard-and-fast commitment — no, it was more than that: it was a contract involving a time factor.

Quest was a key cog in an international meteorological project known as the Global Atmospheric Research Programme in which one hundred and forty-five nations were taking part. She had been commissioned to launch, in the seas of the Southern Ocean where ships hardly ever go, a sophisticated drifting instrumented buoy which would gather marine and weather information. This would be transmitted via satellite to the American National Center for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colorado.

Quest also had the task of releasing a special high-altitude stratosphere balloon which would supply similar automatic data. Captain Prestrud himself had informed me that this was the bread-and-butter which would finance the Quest's cruise — the passengers were secondary contributors. An intricate web of international communications — satellites, radio, telexes, computers — were already in operation in anticipation of Quest's lonely voyage.

I wondered for one brief moment if I should risk taking Captain Prestrud along, if he were not too seriously injured. I immediately discarded the idea. The Roaring Forties are no place for the unfit, let alone the injured. That meant I had to have another officer. Quest had got to sail tomorrow and that didn't leave much time to find one. But Wegger had turned up as if in answer to prayer. His papers had seemed in order. It looked as if I was going to have to take Wegger.

We turned into the hospital grounds.

CHAPTER THREE

It was like hearing a mummy speak from out of its wrappings. His voice was so distorted by pain and the bandages that I hardly recognized it.

'John — is that you, John?'

Yes, sir. This is John Shotton.'

I stood in the hospital ward and looked down at the figure in the bed. My comparison with a mummy persisted — the bandages which swathed his head were white, what was visible of the tanned face was off-white, and the faintly pungent, acrid smell of the medicaments was throat-catching, faintly sickly, like the odour of a mummy. The gallows-like iron thing — for patients to haul themselves upright, if they could — might have doubled for the device ancient Egyptian embalmers used for handling corpses. I could have used a brandy, even at that time of the morning.

'Is the Quest ready for sea?'

I hesitated before answering. Captain Prestrud reached out a hand and gripped my arm. I was surprised at the strength in it. Then I realized there were no injuries except on his head and face. All the damage was concentrated there.

'Is she?'

Pain dimmed his eyes, sunk deep in their sockets. He tried to focus on me past the helmet of bandages. Five minutes only, the nurse had warned. Now I realized she was being generous.

'John,' he said more strongly. 'I liked you from the moment I clapped eyes on you. You were the sort of man I needed for the Quest. An officer who could take over from me, any time, any place. Almost my second self.'

The feeling had been mutual. I had never met anyone I came to admire so much in such a short time. That was what had induced me to throw up my own ship and sign on as his second-in-command. That, and the fact that Quest was going to those far Southern seas that I longed to explore.

Before I could stumble out a reply he went on, 'I want you to take the Quest to sea tomorrow.'