The River of Diamonds

'Or,' I interjected, 'a man who was losing his senses and trying desperately to say something before they ran out.'

Shelborne was silent.

'Why did they choose the toolshed?' I demanded.

Shelborne's eyes were blank. I knew he was lying — somehow he had coerced them to their deaths there. With what lightning weapon had he been able to strike down the light-hearted U-boats captains? It must have been an agent as fleet in its strike as that weird night plant of the Namib which rushes into overpowering and nauseating bloom for a mere seven hours once in a year and dies before dawn.

Shelborne watched me keenly. 'For no other reason than that the hut was situated where they thought radio reception would be best; they made it their own mausoleum and I left them there as they sat because I knew the guano would mummify them in time. It was as good a tomb as Mercury could provide.'

'Why call it the Bells?' I hurried on. 'Why, of all things, the Bells of St Mary's — you named them that, I presume?'

He smiled. 'Yes, it was I. You know the song, the bells from over the sea…'

I shuddered at this mind which could give a lyrical name to a killer.

Rhennin interrupted. 'Listen, Shelborne, we have had a bellyful of strange things tonight. How Dieter died, maybe I shall never know: but it doesn't affect the major issue.'

'And that is?'

'Diamonds. Diamonds from the sea.' Shelborne gave a quick intake of breath. 'I know — we both know — that you're on to something big, something too big for you. Admit that. Stop this nonsense about the Bells. Forget about Dieter and Gruppe Eisbar.' He was pleading, persuasive. Tregard has hammered you about Caldwell. What if Caldwell did come to a sticky end and you don't want it dug up again? Fair enough — it's history, just as Dieter is history. We can wipe the slate clean. Your knowledge for a share in the Mazy Zed project.'

Shelborne seemed not to hear. 'For eighteen months after Gruppe, Eisbar there was only myself on Mercury — war, no relief ships. The food ran out. I hadn't the cutter then. I went back into the Namib.' He edged past us and gave the trommel handle a flick. 'Caldwell went out to meet his fate in the Namib. I lived a whole year there in sun which is death by day and cold which is death by night: loneliness and tireless emptiness do not corrupt the soul there because they are refined by the presence of death. Not to know at dawn whether you will see the sunset, not to know at sunset whether you will see the dawn. You must come to terms with the Namib.' He paused and when he went on his voice was exalted. 'Against this one's own violence is puny; that is why I abhor violence. You go on because the way back holds equal tortures. Beyond the summit of the next dune and truths — still you go on. The Unubersehbares Dunenmeer — the horizonless dunes, the Germans used to call them. There is a horizon, though, and there is a journey — into fear, into death, into yourself. Perhaps one never returns.'

I said, 'Caldwell in the flesh and you in the spirit.'

He brushed it aside. 'You come to worship all forms of life — I showed you the beetles, Tregard — and also the mechanics of life itself: you saw that leg which had specially equipped itself and that hygroscopic layer on the beetle's back. That meant water, and water is life.'

He looked round the cabin, as if he were seeing it for the first time — or the last.

Rhennin asked more sharply, 'Well, are you coming in with the Mazy Zed?.'

That appraisal of his room told me a great deal. 'You have a court order. Very well. Go ahead. Enforce it. Against what? Against whom? I haven't done anything except threaten you with a gun. No one has tried to stop you prospecting the sea-bed. No one has attempted to prevent you entering the Glory Hole.'

'Is that your answer then?'

'It is.' A thrill of cold fear ran through me as his eyes moved from Rhennin to me, and back to Rhennin. He spoke softly, but there was a quiescent power about the way he said it, a sly menace, like that of a missile head without its rocket. 'If you attempt to mine diamonds from the sea round Mercury, every man of your crew will die. You with them. As certainly as a burst from this loathsome weapon.'

There was no penetrating the zareba of his secret, no way into the fastness of his desert-tempered mind. Mary had been right about him. Mary…!

I said, 'And Mary with us?'

For the first time I had got through his guard. He was horrified. 'Mary,' Mary is here? You brought her from Angras Juntas…'

'Yes, of course. She's got a job to do.'

'But after the torpedoing…!'

He was reeling against the ropes. I wanted him down for the full count. 'We were standing on the deck, Mary and I, only a few feet from where your friends' torpedo exploded.'

He said in a strangled voice, 'She wasn't… hurt?'

'No. Pretty shocked. We were both thrown into the water. Johaar rescued us.'

Rhennin saw his opportunity, too. 'Why are you so concerned about this girl, Shelborne? Is she part of your conscience about Caldwell?'

He didn't seem to hear. 'Mary — my God!'

I went on. 'First Caldwell, and then a near miss at killing his daughter!'

His eyes were alive with pain. 'You don't… you can't understand.'

Rhennin said, 'The days of the one-man, one-fortune strike are done. It needs money, science, a pool of brains, a capital of millions. Given enough of each or all, I'd break open the Namib into the bargain.'

Shelborne said thinly, 'It is a paradox, isn't it, that the Sperrgebiet was the first part of the earth's crust to cool out of chaos, and it still remains the last to be conquered. That is my answer.'

Koeltas said savagely, 'There's only one thing for this smooth-talking bastard — shoot him stone-dead!'

Shelborne's eyes had their heart-green diamond tinge. 'Mary must be out of this, do you hear?' He raised the Schmeisser and Koeltas cringed away at the look on his face. 'You will agree to this — I am not offering you terms. You will go free tonight and take the U-boat captains' diamonds for yourselves. I will guarantee proper burial for them. You will take the Mazy Zed away from Mercury. You will give me your solemn word that there will be no mining. Mary will come with me in the Gqama to Walvis Bay. When I return — in about a week if the wind is right — you will be gone. You will never return.'

I laughed. '"Don't tread on me!"' Rhennin asked, 'And what if we don't?' 'I will take you outside and shoot all three of you.' He wasn't bluffing. His sincerity was the measure of just how big his secret was. But, if we could show one strong pointer or fact to a major discovery, Shelborne would be beaten. A one-man stand, an island Hampden gun in hand, would not prevail once the big guns of the diamond business got going — he would be swept out of the way like a flawed stone on a sorter's table. In the week he planned to be away at Walvis, we could make a quick prospect — for our strong pointer which we still lacked.

Rhennin caught the look in my eyes. 'We want to discuss this — alone.'

'I'll take Mary, whether you agree or not.' 'Having murdered her father, as you plan to murder us.'

He laughed easily. 'Quite.'

'You won't get away with it, you know, if we refuse.' 'No? You slipped ashore on a dangerous shore on a dark night in a small rubber boat. The dinghy is found; you are not. You were drowned. Koeltas here — no one will miss him.'

The wiry Hottentot said, 'I see him kill Kim. He will kill us. He does not mind.'

They were four against one — Kim got what he deserved.' He held up one hand, scored by a long seam. 'Koeltas had his shot in too.'

'Are you going to give us the opportunity…?'

'Yes. I intend to handcuff you first, though. I have a couple of pairs for guano workers when Mercury gets them down.'

He pulled them from a canvas bag, made us snap them on each other's wrists and closed the door.

'What?' asked Rhennin.

'Listen,' I whispered urgently. 'Agree. Let him take Mary. I'll dive into the Glory Hole — right away, if the weather holds. Then — Strandloper's Water. We'll also toothcomb Mercury while he's away and debunk this nonsense of the Bells.'