I grinned to myself. The fudge was really taking time off; there was no need to inspect the Oranjemund workings since they bore no relation to sea-bed mining, but the trip would give us a welcome break to the cut-and-thrust of the court proceedings.
When MacDonald came to collect me in the afternoon, however, my anticipation turned to dismay. With him were Shelborne and Mary Caldwell. It is one thing to be opposed in a court of law where a buffer of formality takes the edge off the hostility, quite another to be confined in a small vehicle with a man who pulled a gun on you. The Gquma's cabin was too fresh in my mind for me to be anything but hostile, although Shelborne nodded formally to me.
I drew MacDonald angrily on one side. 'What the devil is this — I want to go with Rhennin.'
'Orders. You three stay together with me.'
'Whose orders?'
'Colonel Duvenhage's.'
Did the security chief think my chat with Shelborne in the boat had something more to it than met the eye?
'And under orders, we're all to be friends together now? You too?'
'I hope so.'
The mailed fist. The velvet glove was very velvet still, but I reckoned MacDonald could become pretty tough if he wanted to.
'All right,' I snapped. 'But don't expect anything from my side. I'm going purely for the ride.'
He smiled. 'I wonder.'
Shelborne sat in front with him, and Mary and I behind.
'We'll make for Area G first,' called MacDonald.
Approaching the mining area, I saw the mast of the Gquma above Anvil Creek. To the right was Oranjemund, unbelievably green; to the left, the wild agglomeration of sea, sandbars and surf which is the mouth of the Orange. The fog from the sea had lifted, and the light was direct, brutal, flanking the high dunes with black shadow.
Shelborne peered out, searching for something. He was shaking, as if from blackwater fever. His concentration was so intense that I found that I too was looking among the grey-white dunes riding endlessly to the horizon, though I did not know what for.
'Hold her north-west by a half north — there's something I want to see.' The lapse into seafaring terminology showed how preoccupied he was.
MacDonald laughed good-naturedly. 'Come again, chum, it don't make sense.'
Mary had changed from the elegant outfit of the courtroom into a pair of white slacks with a green Paisley top. She broke the tension — deliberately, I felt. 'He's a windjammer captain — ask him in terms of degrees.'
MacDonald took his cue, grinning. He wasn't the sort to keep up the strained atmosphere. 'Come again, Captain! I have to hold the tiller, or else we'll be pooped!'
Shelborne relaxed, too, although his eyes were on the seaward side. I couldn't see anything. 'Steady on three-two-zero degrees, then,' he smiled.
Close to the beach, quite near to the first workings he called out, 'Stop! This is the place.'
The surrounding dunes were featureless, but to the north the dun of the desert was torn yellow. As far as the eye could see into the dust-and-spray-hazed horizon were rows of undulations like a draped evening gown. On the left lay the sea. The diamond workings reched to the high-water mark. The area was laagered for its first part by a wall of sand at right angles to the sea, but about a mile inland it turned parallel with the coastline. A road intersected the workings on the seaward side and next to it was a gigantic horseshoe-shaped dump from the field screening plant, which stood out orange and red against the dun dunes, like a surrealist Coney Island roller-coaster. A succession of dumps receded northwards along the road, giving a curious quilted effect to the desert, like a Tibetan Sherpa's jacket. Here the Namib had been violated by huge tournadozers, tourna-pull scrapers and spitting rotary bucket excavators; bright yellow salt-proofed chassis and blue tyres made a moving line of colour thirty feet down in the diamond trenches. Everything has to be protected against sand and sea at Oranjemund, for the blowing sand is abrasive enough to strip a car of its paint within hours. Past the machinery, from the desert as far as the sea, a conveyor-belt ran the length of the field screening plant carrying its precious gravel. Grease tables and electro-static separators take the stones mechanically from the gravel, but the final sorting is by human hand and eye. Still farther north, where Area G tailed off, there was a succession of other workings: Uub-Vley, Mittag, Kerbe Huk and Affenrucken.
We got out and stood ankle-deep in the warm sand. I cursed Duvenhage inwardly, although I admitted to myself it was hard to think of our relaxed companion as the same man as my formidable opponent in the yacht's cabin. I tried to keep out of the conversation. Shelborne picked up a big horn-shaped shell, weighing it in his hand.
'I saw these here four years before Merensky.'
MacDonald gasped. 'You were here before Merensky?'
'Yes. Caldwell and I camped right here.'
Mary said, 'Tell me about those early days with my father. Did he really find diamonds here before the Oyster Line? Did he know it was a major strike? Is the legend true?'
Shelbome said softly: 'If he didn't actually prove it before his luck called him away, at least he guessed. More than guessed. You see, we had our next trip to Oranjemund all planned. Our first big find here had made it possible — a beautiful 16 1/2 — carat stone, a pure blue-white, which we took from the surface just over there.' (He pointed to a spot about a hundred yards away.) 'It was enough to finance our next journey.' He shrugged. 'You know the rest. Caldwell's usual destiny. When he came back later there were 1000 claims pegged, and Merensky had taken a fortune from a small trench at the start of the Oyster Line.'
'You returned with my father?'
He said with strange sadness: 'Yes, I was always with Caldwell.'
MacDonald interrupted. 'What are you looking for, Mr Shelborne? I want still to show you something of the new prospecting area, but we won't have time if we hang around here.'
'Come,' said Shelborne. We trailed through heavy sand to the crest of the dune. 'There it is. I'm glad they didn't disturb it.'
There was a small cairn about fifty yards away.
'My wife's grave.'
'My God!' exclaimed MacDonald. 'You didn't bring a woman up here in the old days!'
'I did. For nearly forty years now I have regretted it.'
'You mean to say,' said Mary, 'that your wife died here while, you and my father were prospecting? You didn't leave her alone…'
He went to her side with a curious affectionate gesture. 'No, my dear. It was only a short, three-day trip with your father. She had a tent and plenty of water and supplies. Of course, there wasn't a thing here then. It was desert, nothing but unadorned desert. When we came back we found her dead and the babe gone.'
'Baby? There was a baby too?… How?'
'Mary had been shot and the camp looted. There must have been more than one of them, whoever murdered her, for there were a lot of tracks, human and horses', leading away into the desert. The little boy was gone.'
'Didn't you look for him…?'
'He wasn't very old, maybe eight or nine months. We searched, of course, but we never found the body. It haunts me still. Maybe a strandwolf…'
MacDonald was shaken too by Shelborne's story, and asked him if he wanted to go over to the grave. Shelborne said yes.
'I'll wait here,' Mary said.
'So will I,' I murmured. Despite everything, I found myself drawn to Shelborne. Deep down, I respected him for his refusal, and his curious air of inner power fascinated me. We watched the two trudge down the dune towards the forlorn cairn.
'By comparison, it makes my being born in a train seem pretty civilized,' she said. The amber flecks in her eyes were blurred with tears. I noticed for the first time a tiny vein close to the surface of the skin between the bridge of her nose and right eyebrow. Later I came to recognize it as a signal flag of her emotions.