The River of Diamonds

I interrupted. 'Felix, was there any indication that the Goering cache was — protected?'

'Protected? We were certain there were no defences!'

'No, not that sort of defences.'

He came nearer to me, and I thought I detected some fear in his eyes. 'Well, how were they defended then, if not militarily? The only other enemy we had was the sea.'

I picked my words. 'If there were some other guardian, a guardian capable of disposing of five U-boats and their fighting crews?'

'What are you driving at, John?'

I told them about the Bells of St Mary's, and of Koeltas's fears and those of the seal robbers. Mary seemed paler in the cold light.

Rhennin shook his head like a boxer after a head punch. 'And this — guardian you call it — Shelborne controls?'

'Not controls. I think he understands it.'

'Isn't he afraid of it?'

'He's afraid of it all right.'

'Why?'

'Otherwise he would have exploited his secret. I believe he also knows how the diamonds are distributed from the fountainhead to the point where the currents take over.'

There was a long silence. The thudding of the pumps echoed my heart beats.

'A guardian of the hoard, that Shelborne understands but is afraid of.' Rhennin turned it over. 'I mean to find out what it is.'

'You'll take the Mazy Zed to Mercury then?'

'We'll cut the diamond run tomorrow.'

Mary said, 'I want some fresh air after this superheated discussion. Take me up on deck please, John.'

'One last thing, Felix: your U-boats didn't carry grabs or dredges — equipment like that?'

'No. What they were after was transportable; they weren't trying to mine diamonds.'

'Was there nothing else at all…?'

'Dieter had orders to report by radio every day at 1700 hours. SKL chose that time specially for the South Atlantic because it is half-light and half-dark and a submarine surfaced is very difficult to spot. When he reached Angras Juntas, Dieter signalled dead on time. A U-boat captain would unless he were in big trouble. Then nothing. Nor ever again. But…'

'Yes?'

'One of our surface raiders, the Lohengrin, was near St Helena the day after Dieter signalled from Angras Juntas. She reported receiving a garbled message shortly before 1700 hours. It was a jumble — not code, not anything. But en clair half-way through it said plainly in German, "fouler Zauber". You could translate it by "silly humbug".'

'Lohengrin didn't get a D/F bearing on the message?'

'No. It was quite strong, but hopelessly confused. It was German, but where it came from was anyone's guess.'

'St Helena,' I said. 'She was close enough to Angras Juntas then to pick up even a weak message.'

'Or close enough to Mercury,' said Rhennin.

We left him silent, preoccupied, and went on deck. The night was dark except for Orion's studded belt. We paused at a pair of steel nozzles, each as tall as myself, in a rack. The intakes were strongly shielded by thick metal bands. These were the 'Hoovers' for the ocean bed. Compressed air, forced down a small inner pipe, bubbled and disturbed the mud, — water rushed into and up the outside pipe into the Mazy Zed's sorting machinery. It was the jet lift principle applied on a massive scale.

Mary slapped the metal impatiently with her open palm. 'There's something awry in our ideas, John. I feel we should stir up our ideas, disturb the mental mud, as these pipes do, and throw out the accumulated residues of preconceived ideas we're more and more fitting into a pattern. We're wrong somewhere, I tell you, we're wrong. I know it deep down.'

'It all fits. So does Shelborne.'

She smiled, leaning back against the nozzles. 'It doesn't. You know, John, we should both be wearing diamonds — they were once considered a cure for lunacy.'

'Where's the lunacy?'

'I can't pinpoint it, John — I wish I could, but there's some error somewhere in your working out of this thing.' She straightened up so that she was close to me. 'It's funny; it was always the men who used to wear diamonds. They were thought to have magic powers, and were worn as amulets. It's really only recently that women have taken to them.'

'I am sure I am right about Shelborne.'

'I could believe that he has some sort of magic power. Maybe he picked it up from being near diamonds all his life.'

'You believe in him because he was close to your father: it blinds you to the rest.'

There was a flare from one of the Mazy Zed's smokestacks high above us. I saw the flecks in her eyes and the minute pulse of the vein by her nose.

'Diamonds are in the sky, too, you know. Look at a meteorite — it's graphite, and that's cousin to diamonds. They have predetermined paths up there…' She gestured to Orion.

I opened my mouth to reply. A lazy stream of lights arced in from the sea. They weren't meteorites. Blue, red, white. Tracer bullets! The brittle rattle of a machine-gun outpaced them.

They were coming at the Mazy Zed. I dragged Mary to the deck. The glowing arc ripped through the thick hose and struck a welter of sparks off the big nozzles. I threw myself across her. A hot ricochet plucked at my shoulder and I smelt the acrid cordite. „Then the whole world seemed to explode as a torpedo crashed into the Mazy Zed.

10

Sookin Sin

I broke surface and retched sea water. I breathed air again, great gulps of it, instead of water. Whether the blackness was the blackness of unconsciousness, or of blindness, or of night, I could not tell — all I knew was that the air was merciful and I was getting lungfuls of it. I rid myself of more sea water. There was a phosphorescence next to me. Then a slim arm was round me, holding me as I choked.

Thank God!' It was Mary. 'Thank God, I've found you, John. Here!'

She came close and thrust something under my hands.

'What is it?'

To my dazed senses it felt like a chunk of the Loch Ness monster.

'It's some of the Mazy Zed's hose — the explosion must have blown it clear.'

Half-submerged, it was safer than a rescue dinghy and rough, like a car tyre. Its semi-floating state made it easier to grasp. She levered me up so that I lay spread-eagled, face down.

She was sobbing convulsively. 'I thought… I thought it was you… when I touched it first…'

I put out a hand to her in the darkness. Her shoulder was trembling and rags of her overall slopped about.

Her voice was thick with shock and emotion. 'I'm in a mess. My shoes are gone — I slipped them off when I swam looking for you — and…'

My anger exploded: 'I'll have Shelborne's guts for tonight's work. Radar! Patrols!.. bah!'

'Steady,' she said shakily. 'Steady, John. I've got you, which is the most important thing.'

She supported me while I choked and coughed, still half-dazed. I wanted to know what was going on, but I found myself still too weak, and put my head against her, drawing in deep breaths of fresh air.

She said softly, a little wanly, I thought, 'I could almost thank whoever did it — for this.'

I felt lulled by her presence but the lethargy which was starting to creep across my limbs was a danger sign of delayed shock. I shook the cobwebs out of my head. They sneaked right in under Bob Sheriff's patrols and torpedoed the bloody ship!'

Take it easy, John,' she said. 'You know Shelborne hasn't a fleet any more than I have. And the Kalingrad People's Atlantic Fleet…'

I had to see. I trod water and tried to heave myself up higher on the hosing, but I wasn't very successful. There was no sign of the Mazy Zed. I could not credit that one torpedo, even of the large calibre type, would have sent the Mazy Zed with all her watertight compartments to the bottom.

I said, 'It must have been a motor-boat and she still must be somewhere around. One torpedo isn't enough…'

Torpedo?' she echoed. 'Was that a torpedo?'