The River of Diamonds

Now her binoculars crescent-cased the bay, resting on the old coasters and coming back to the quicksands.

' "Something hid behind the ranges,"' she said softly.

'He's been there, so he knows,' I said.

Rhennin said, 'By heavens, I mean to find out.'

She kept the glasses to her eyes. 'Perhaps you're right, John, and the diamond fountainhead isn't his true objective…'

'"Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, across that angry or that glimmering sea"?'

She dropped the binoculars and looked at me. 'Have you thought, John, it was Shelborne who did all those things, not the great Caldwell? It was Shelborne who crossed the roof of the world, your last blue mountain barred with snow; it was Shelborne who dared the Atacama. My father went only a few miles inland into the Namib…'

I stared at her. 'You're saying…?'

Rhennin interrupted. 'You two can continue your lofty discussion some other time. We're after diamonds, diamonds. John, will you get aboard the Malgas and keep a weather eye on Koeltas in case Shelborne shows up?'

'Okay,' I nodded.

'Remember to write!' Mary smiled as she said it, turning her thoughtful eyes away from the shore.

Remember to write! The trite phrase emphasized the sense of distance, of age — not so much the physical gap — between the grim isle and the rotten shoreline. I had heard of a guano man on Mercury who had never made the mile-journey from the island to the mainland. It was, he had said, a million miles.

The Malgas came alongside after I had called Koeltas on the loudhailer. I jumped on to the low deck. Koeltas called out something derisive about the Mazy Zed; the sails filled and the schooner swept on.

'Shelborne comes?' There was anxiety, almost fear, in Koeltas's voice.

I pointed to the racing patrol boat. 'Commander Sheriff has gone to see where everyone is.'

The eyes seemed to slant more in the Tartar face. 'I keep out of the bay until I see, too.' He shouted orders and brought the Malgas round on a broad reach to starboard.

Then it reached out like fingers of sound across the sea: the Bells of St Mary's.

I saw the fear on the faces of the crew. Kim didn't wait for Koeltas's high-pitched yell for everything the schooner would carry. Forrad, they ran out a whisker boom to give her jib extra pull. Malgas fled to the southwest past Dolphin Head like a panic-stricken puppy — blindly, anything to get out of range of that long rolling vibration. Koeltas stood holding the starboard shrouds, as if to get himself as far — a deck's width even — from the Bells as possible.

I grabbed the thin, oilskinned shoulder. 'Don't be a bloody fool, man! There's nothing to worry about…'

He shook me free with a stutter of oaths. Kim's upturned eyes, concentrating on getting every ounce of draw out of the tower of sail, looked as if in prayer. Johaar cast anxious glances landwards.

Koeltas got out. 'We are dead men! The Bells…!'

'For Pete's sake!' I snapped. 'Put her aback and wait till they send a boat for me — I don't intend running away.'

I am sure that he didn't mean to try and kill me and that the knife-draw was a fear reflex. He lunged, the blade in one hand, holding on with the other.

I, too, jerked forward. The knife went over my shoulder. His elbow jarred the bone. I crashed into him like a Rugby fend-off, knocking his head, with its tight peppercorn-curled hair, between the shrouds. The stink of his oilskin and his sweat of fear were acrid — like a spitting polecat. I felt the knife go up to plunge into my back. Cupping my right hand, the palm upwards and the back bent back almost horizontal, I smashed it home under the right side of his throat with something between a short hook to the jaw and a rabbit-punch. The knife ripped my reefer jacket and I felt a thin graze-burn of pain. Continuing my upward thrust-blow, I kept his head back, forcing it between the ratlines. When he struck again, I side-stepped to my right and twisted the rope round his throat until his yellow skin became blotched with the purple of strangulation.

Johaar roared with laughter. Kim, at the wheel, was grinning, too. The crew ran aft to the fight, forgetting in the thrill of blood-letting their sail-stations and the dreaded Bells. Koeltas writhed and bucked as his senses ran out and his face became more convulsed.

The piebald giant slapped me on the shoulder like a referee at a fight. 'Man, you've strung that bladdy Hotnot up like a fat-tailed sheep to a slaughter-pole!'

Kim called out. Take his knife, you stupid bastard, and cut this throat! The rope won't do it!'

The weapon fell from Koeltas's hand. I remembered the.38 revolver. I snicked it from his belt and fell back.

'Don't spoil it with a gun, man!' roared Johaar. 'By Jesus, that's the smartest piece of dirt I've seen for years!'

Koeltas shook his head free of the rope. The eyes were bloodshot, half insensible. The knotted veins in his temples receded as he gulped air. He spat, and there was blood on the deck. He shook his head again and hitched his oilskin. The wrinkled face split into a wide grin of genuine amusement.

'By God, mister, I like you!' He came close, oblivious, it seemed, of the pistol. 'Some day we finish this fight and we both die happy, eh?' He took the revolver with childlike insouciance from my hand and picked up the knife. 'Put her aback!' he shouted at the crew. 'Go on, you bloody strandlopers! This is a man, and we take him where he wants to go!' He turned to me, cocking his head at the sound of the Bells. 'I send the boat — for you, mister, unnerstand? No one else. I'm scared, but still I wait.' He made an odd gesture with his hand, half of fear, half of admiration.

The sails went aback and Johaar slid the dinghy overside. He took the oars in his huge paws. He had pulled only a few cable-lengths when he shipped them and swore.

'Look!'

Koeltas's fear of the Bells was greater than his fear of me or his loyalty to Johaar. The Malgas was heading out to sea under every rag they could hoist.

Rhennin growled, as I came aboard the Mazy Zed, 'Blast Koeltas and his Bells! I want every bit of local knowledge to anchor off Mercury.'

'Johaar,' I suggested.

'He may be all right,' he said grudgingly, 'but Koeltas is the man I really want.'

I shouted to Johaar, who was standing looking lost, the crew gaping at his massive physique and piebald skin. He came to the bridge, wearing only a pair of washed-out khaki pants, a sheath-knife stuck in his belt.

This calm no good,' he said. 'Hot wind afterwards, make you sick.' He glanced round the ungainly bulk of the Mazy Zed. 'For a real ship, no good. But for this…' He shrugged expressively.

Rhennin exploded. 'I didn't ask for your opinions about my ship. I asked you where to anchor.'

The slow, reverberating echo struck across the water.

It was difficult to pinpoint. As before, though, the source seemed to be Mercury.

Johaar shuddered. 'You give me a doppie of brandy, eh?' His fear seemed to communicate itself to the silent bridge.

Rhennin was on edge. There's some quite normal explanation — probably an undersea volcano, or something like that.'

Mary said, 'Shelborne says he has known it for more than thirty years…'

'If it were an undersea volcano fissure there'd be a smell of sulphur and dead fish lying about,' I said. 'It simply can't be a volcano, Felix. I thought of that when I was on the island with Shelborne. It's like something rocking a boat.'

'Or someone,' added Mary.

'Don't be fanciful,' snapped Rhennin. 'I know what happened to U-boat captains and crews who let their imaginations run away with them — we didn't know where to drop a wreath for them.'