Venter came to tell Rhennin that drinks and dry clothes were in his cabin. He shepherded us below like a couple of children. Mary went to change after a stiff pull of the cook's brew. I stripped in the cabin and drank more coffee while Rhennin prowled up and down. The telephone told us that the Mazy Zed had suffered less damage than most of us thought; it was the crew's morale that had suffered, and some of them were talking of returning to Cape Town.
In ten minutes Mary was back in black slacks and a black-and-white poncho top, with heelless black casuals. Rhennin waited without comment while we gave him a full account of the attack.
Then he said sharply to me, 'So you reckon Shelborne did it?'
'I'm sure he didn't make the attack.' -
'What do you mean?'
'If we could get to Mercury tonight on a magic carpet, we'd find Shelborne asleep in his bed. Or on Sudhuk, if the bells are…' I fumbled for the word.
'Ringing?'
They don't ring. It's a curious reverberating noise, like down-horizon gunfire, but throatier.'
Rhennin picked his words. 'See here, John. Assume that Shelborne had the resources to launch tonight's attack, why would he do it? Again, assume that he knows the whereabouts of the diamond fountainhead, why not cash in on that? He could name his price — it could be worth a million to him, even if there are big technical difficulties. His knowledge of what those problems are would in itself be worth a fortune.'
I shook my head. 'No, Felix, it's much deeper than that with Shelborne. It is some obscure and involved question of redemption — to make up for his killing of Caldwell, maybe. Redemption. Maybe that's Shelborne's aim, a wager with fate for his friend's bad deal, if you like.'
Mary said, 'The way you put it, it's just as if he had taken over- my father's personality.'
'And his luck,' I replied.
'What of my brother's luck?' asked Rhennin.
'The one meshes in with the other,' I started to say, but Mary interrupted: 'No, John, not the way I see it. The fate of Korvettenkapitan Rhennin might be a lead to the other, but it would be of subordinate importance at all times in Shelborne's mind if what you think about him is true. Say Shelborne knew the whereabouts of the Goering hoard. Why not simply unearth it and live in luxury for the rest of his life?'
'Because,' I said quietly, 'something guards both the cache and the parent rock, something pretty hideous. A killer on whom five U-boats could make no impression…'
'This is fanciful,' rejoined Rhennin angrily.
It was Mary who took the acerbity out of the conversation. 'A skeleton in the Glory Hole, let's say.'
We all laughed. Rhennin picked up the phone. 'Mac,' he said crisply, 'we sail before dawn. I want a rough patch over the hole for a three-day tow…'
The instrument crackled like the Koeltas vernacular.
'Well, so what?' asked Rhennin. 'Shore up the inner bulkhead, and I'll tow her stern-on to Mercury. With the Mazy Zed, it doesn't make much odds whether it's stern or bow.'
The instrument crackled again. 'Those are orders,' he snapped. 'Orders. It may be wet, but we won't sink.' He slapped the receiver down.
Mary and I looked at one another and at him. 'Aren't you taking a big risk, Felix?'
He got to his feet with the decisiveness which had taken him to the top in the Germany Navy. 'We sail — now. They'll expect us to stay and patch the Mazy Zed. They'll be back tomorrow and won't make the same mistake a second time. If we clear out, they won't know where to look.'
He pressed an intercom. 'Du Plooy! Get Captain Anderson on the shortwave. No long-distance stuff, see? I don't want this overheard. The tug will be alongside, ready to tow, at 0400 hours — clear?' He flicked another switch. 'Captain Longstaff: the Mazy Zed sails at 0400. The tug will be ready at that time. Start getting in the anchors-now.'
There was an indignant crackle over the phone and Mary and I smiled.
'Where to?' asked Rhennin. 'Mercury Island. Where is that? In Spencer Bay. Mr Tregard will brief you. Okay then. The safety of the ship is my concern too. Escort? Sheriff and the schooner will be convoy guards…' There was another outburst at the other end and he looked up at us and grinned. 'If you don't like it, Captain, by all means stay at Angras Juntas. The next ship may be along in six months.'
He put down the instrument. He was excited, tense. 'If Shelborne signalled the People's Atlantic Fleet to make tonight's visitation, then he's got another big think coming when we show up at Mercury; Sookin Sin to him!'
Mary suddenly looked grave. 'Sookin Sin! But John how could I have been able to read it if it was written in Russian?'
Rhennin stopped short in his rapid-fire orders. 'By God! How? It must have been faked — a Russian word in English writing?'
'Something else that stinks around Mercury,' I said.
11
'Don't tread on me!'
Shelborne's houseflag with its yellow rattlesnake emblem stood out against the hard white of Mercury and pointed a threatening finger at our approaching convoy. The sea was gentle, with a slight swell from the weather quarter, a calm as unexpected as a pink karakul pelt. To keep the element of surprise as long as possible, we had decided to bring the Mazy Zed to the graveyard side of Mercury, from the north. Our landfall was the wreck of an old gun-runner of the Hottentot war. I had been on the bridge of the Mazy Zed with Rhennin and Mary since dawn. Navigation was hellish and we had two men aloft watching for concealed reefs and broken water.
Bob Sheriff's patrol boat sheep-dogged the convoy like a destroyer. Coming close, I could see his salt-caked, stubbly face. He had driven himself hard since the attack three days previously. Sheriff had found a couple of seaboots and some planks from the sunken boat, but nothing which would serve to identify her. The Mazy Zed had sneaked out of Angras Juntas, seeing nothing. Now she was wallowing at the end of the heavy tow as the ex-harbour tug Walvis Bay dug her broad shoulders deep. Once the Mazy Zed was in position, the tug was to return to Angras Juntas for the radar men and their equipment, which could not be dismantled in time for our flying departure. The Malgas stood out to windward, holding station with a precision which seemed more like power than sail.
There was no sign of any humans at the hutments.
I gestured at the flag. That's his flag, but I don't see a soul.'
Rhennin, in a duffel coat and balaclava against the winter chill, stared at the icing-white island. 'So that's Mercury! It looks…'
'As if coiled to strike,' I finished. 'Like the flag.' I tensed up at the sight of the island again, and felt clammy under my windbreaker.
'I wonder if my father ever saw it?' asked Mary. She looked ridiculously young in a gay Fair Isle sweater and pompom cap.
That's pretty certain,' I replied. 'Look, there are the quicksands — the whole shoreline is rotten…'
'What are those odd T-shaped patches of white?'
'I never had time to find out. They puzzled me too. You can't see it from here, but from the top of Sudhuk there's a line of them into the desert.'
I told them also about the old Portuguese warship trapped in the quicksands.
'And Strandloper's Water?' she asked in a low voice.
I shrugged. 'East of the sea… ask Shelborne.'
Rhennin picked up the loudhailer microphone. 'Bob!' he called. 'Go and take a look-see — we can't see anyone.'
'Good-oh!' came back the metallic, cheerful voice. 'Guns deep a-dipping, and all that?'
I took the instrument from Rhennin. 'Be careful, Bob — very careful. He's a foxy one. We'll hold hard here until you come back. Tell the tug.'
'Roger!' The swift craft rose on its hydrofoils joyfully, like an albatross stretching its wings for a thousand-mile flight. There was no sound but the creak of the ungainly barge and the crunch of the sea over her low freeboard. Mary kept her glasses on the shore; we had been three days together now, and the way she had of calming our nerves and knitting together all the diverse elements in the crew had won our hearts. For myself, I had taken a strange, strong liking to her.