The River of Diamonds

'Indiscriminately?'

Rhennin nodded. 'Indiscriminately. At anchor, in Table Bay. Cape Town's defences were worth nothing: the air patrols were poor and the radar useless.'

Rhennin was too sure, too confident. Gruppe Eisbar had probably foundered on similar cocksureness.

'I suppose Gruppe Eisbar finished up in the British minefields guarding the port.'

Rhennin shook his head. 'No. We knew where the minefields were. The British had put a new channel into use just before the convoy arrived. We had sent another U-boat in weeks before to reconnoitre. We could scarcely believe her report that a hostile port was so lightly defended. Everything was like peace-time. There was no black-out and the lighthouses were all shining.'

'Walvis Bay was an alternative mustering-place for the deep-sea convoys.' I added.

'I know,' he went on irritably. 'We all knew. The Rudel, the Gruppe Eisbar wolf-pack, followed our surface raiders' Route Anton — the German secret route through the South Atlantic where U-boats were forbidden to attack — and they were off Angras Juntas on schedule. One of the boats — U-504 I think it was — had some trouble with her hydroplanes, but she kept station. The captains used to say later that the hydroplanes of the big boats were too small to keep them steady in the heavy seas of the Cape of Storms and you only have to read their logs to see how many torpedoes they wasted because of this…'

Mary said diffidently, breaking in, 'I suppose the Royal Navy intercepted Gruppe Eisbar.'

'No! no! The British never sank Gruppe Eisbar! I've been through all the Nuremberg records. The British South Atlantic Command knew that U-boats were on the way to attack the Cape, but only in a general way, nothing particular. No, Gruppe Eisbar simply vanished. It caused the greatest dismay and heart-searching at headquarters.'

I shook my head. 'Five U-boats, armed to the teeth, with fighting crews, don't vanish without a trace. There would be some wreckage, oil, clothing — something.'

'I know! I know!' He clenched his fists. 'I know! Listen!' He wrenched open a drawer of the desk and pulled out a paper. 'This is my brother's sighting signal. It was in code, of course, but here it is plain: Commander Eisbar to OKM. Rendezvous on schedule. No sign defences or enemy activity. Shore recognition signal satisfactory.'

'Shore recognition signal?'

He laughed uneasily. 'I see you are both bursting to know about the diamonds. After all, whether or not Gruppe Eisbar was lost or not lost, and whether my brother lived or died, is purely of academic interest to you.'

'Are you looking for U-boat wreckage with the Mazy Zed's equipment and not for diamonds at all?'

'No, Mary, it's diamonds I'm after all right.'

I added, 'And Dieter was after diamonds too.'

'Not the same diamonds or in the same way,' he replied. Some of the tension seemed to go out of him. 'You remember, Caldwell's concession was countersigned by Goering, Reichskommissionar for the Protectorate of Luderitzland, the Luftwaffe chief's father? Doctor Heinrich Goering had the same love of finery and medals as our Field-Marshal. Bismarck sent him out originally to get the local native and Hottentot chiefs on Germany's side. South-west Africa was then the centre of a big diplomatic game. Doctor Goering, in white uniform, cocked hat, sword chased in gold, rode in as the conqueror. He had an army with him — twenty half-castes, riding broken-down donkeys! Goering himself rode an ox. It was pure comic opera.'

'Luftwaffe Goering wasn't comic opera,' said Mary.

'Nor was this Goering really,' said Rhennin. 'He was in fact very shrewd. He also became one of the world's richest men. He could have bought out a brace of Rockefellers.'

'So Goering sent out a powerful U-boat raiding force…'

'Goering didn't. But Gruppe Eisbar was, nevertheless, to bring home the bacon, the Goering bacon of diamonds to Germany. He had enough stashed away in a cave on the Sperrgebiet coast to have made a big impression on neutral countries at a time when Germany's economy was on the rocks…'

'Come, come,' I interjected. 'Not enough to make any difference to Germany's bankruptcy. I don't believe it.'

'We wanted the hoard as a showpiece to create the impression among South American neutrals that we had millions and millions more like it,' Rhennin replied.

'And Dieter required five U-boats to convey the cache, which at most could not have weighed as much as a quarter of a sack of coal?'

Rhennin flushed at my tone. 'No. I said, it was a double operation. The shore recognition signal was from a spy who knew exactly where the sea cave was. It wasn't situated at Angras Juntas, that I know. I never saw Dieter's secret orders. Dieter, as commander of the Gruppe, would carry the diamonds. The U-boats would then go on to the Cape and destroy the great convoy. Tormentoso, the British gave it a code-name. Not very imaginative.'

'Cabo Tormentoso — the Cape of Storms,' echoed Mary.

I said, 'Divide the cache between four U-boat captains and 240 men, and you still have a sizeable fortune left for every individual. Winner's pickings to the commander, too, in the best piratical style.'

Rhennin didn't explode, as I thought he would do. 'The same was said by even those who knew and trusted Dieter,' he replied levelly. 'Every German agent in South America was warned to watch out for Korvettenkapitan Rhennin and his- notorious Gruppe Eisbar, if he showed up. He never did. Gruppe Eisbar simply vanished.'

'Where was the sea cave?' asked Mary.

'It was somewhere close to Angras Juntas — .the spy knew where. Local knowledge was essential to find it.' -

I said quietly. 'Below Mercury lies just such a sea cave — the Glory Hole. No one has entered it. In the graveyard above I found that.'

Mary exclaimed, 'Shelborne could not have done it!'

Rhennin's eyes blazed. 'No, one man cannot destroy a whole U-boat pack. But we shall go and have a look. I, too, mean to see what is inside the Glory Hole.'

'So do I,' I said. I went into some detail of my dispute with Shelborne aboard the Gquma and then of his oddly co-operative mood, by contrast, at Mercury itself.

'The key to it all seems to be, who was the spy?' said Mary.'

'Shelborne?' I followed up.

'No, no,' replied Rhennin. 'I know who he was — don't forget, I was right in on it as one of the most senior officers in German Naval Intelligence. His name was Werner, Abel Werner. He had worked for the old German Administration in South-west Africa.'

'Could have been Shelborne masquerading under another name. He knows every hidey-hole on the coast. In war-time it would have been easy for him to have slipped down the coast and taken over the spy's role…'

Rhennin laughed. 'You've got Shelborne on the brain, John. Grant you everything: so Shelborne, single-handed, disposes of five U-boats and their crews and successfully conceals hundreds of bodies and five submarine hulls? No!'

There is his graveyard…' I replied lamely; but what Rhennin said was›true.

He went on grimly: 'I intend to look into that, too, John, even if I have to break open every coffin to find Dieter's body.'

Mary shuddered. 'You know, people are as different as diamonds — they also feel different from one another. Today's diamonds were the coldest I've ever touched. Ordinarily the stones are cold — it's not like touching glass, you know — but today's from the sea were the coldest.'

Rhennin said, 'My study of the old records showed that on the Sperrgebiet coast they increase in average size as one moves north…'

I said meaningly, 'Towards Mercury and towards Strandloper's Water.'

'Schwerpunkt,' said Mary. 'Centre of gravity.'

'By God!' exclaimed Rhennin. 'Yes, by God!'

She went on: 'You are both set on going to Mercury, for the diamonds and for your brother, Felix.'