'He asked for our solemn word.'
'Forced under duress, at gunpoint? The aces are all ours, Felix.'
'Why doesn't he simply bring Mary ashore here out of harm's way — why Walvis?'
'Because,' I replied, 'he knows himself that at times Mercury kills. The quicker we get off, the better.'
'I say that, too,' added Koeltas. 'I still kill Shelborne — myself.'
'If we can return to the Cape with a first-class sea-bed assay, the authorities will back us up. It's no good telling them at this stage that Shelborne is obstructing us. He'll come up with some cock-and-bull yarn about disturbing the birds and the seals — you know just how sensitive they were about that before we set out…'
'I'll rub his nose in guano before we're through,' said Rhennin savagely., 'Dieter and Gruppe Eisbar… It makes my blood run cold. But how…?'
I interrupted. 'We know now that the rest of the Goering cache is in the Glory Hole. I'll bring it out. The dive is first priority. I have got to see, Felix.'
Rhennin smiled for the first time that evening. 'It will be the biggest single day's haul of diamonds on record — better than the Oyster Line!'
'I get diamant also?' asked Koeltas. 'I kill Shelborne for some more, eh?'
I said roughly, 'Yes, Skipper. You go and fetch them out of a graveyard from under the noses of five dead men sitting there, and you'll get your share.'
The skin was tight on his Tartar cheekbones. 'Shelborne kills them too?'
'Yes.'
He whistled through his hemp-stained teeth. 'Next time I bring the FN automatic.'
I called to Shelborne that we had agreed. He still took no chances. He locked us in the guano workers' deserted quarters for the night. There was no point in trying to escape, as others on Mercury had found, simply because there was nowhere to escape to. I lay awake long after the others, thinking of Shelborne's dedicated search for grace in the Namib and the fate which had dealt him a diamond hand and the joker in the shape of the terrible guardian which had struck down Gruppe Eisbar, the captains, the springbok, the patrol boat — and my fellow-diver.
14
The diver's red flag with diagonal white stripes fluttered from the dinghy's tiny mast. I made final adjustments to my hood and mask, Rhennin helping. There was only a slight swell and the air was muggy — not sharp as on Mercury the previous night — which I attributed to the late withdrawal of the fog seaward.
I was diving alone. Pieterse's stand-in refused point-blank to accompany me. He was as near mutiny as the rest of the Mazy Zed's crew. The dead diver's body aboard and the proximity of the grim island, the chevrons of coffins showing white on the graveyard slope like the teeth of a crocodile basking in the sun, they got them down. Some said also that it was the presence of a woman aboard which had brought all our misfortunes. The sight of Shelborne, black-clad, grim, with Rhennin, myself and Koeltas, all in a dishevelled state, had done nothing to improve their mood. Although he had hidden it at hand under a strip of canvas as we neared the barge, Shelborne's Schmeisser may have been seen when a lead from a sheet winch slackened off and snatched aside the covering.
Shelborne had lain a cable's length from the Mazy Zed while I gave a shout for Mary to come over in the rubber dinghy — alone — and join us. Shelborne did the talking. With her, his grimness disappeared. He was gentle, but his voice became hard when he told her of his ultimatum. The large green eyes in the gaunt face rested on her unwaveringly as he described how he had found us in the graveyard. He made it clear that the choice was hers and simply swept aside our protests. Underneath his words lay a peculiar implication — Mary did not miss it any more than I did, although I was not to know its meaning until later — that between himself and Mary lay bigger things than the shooting of Rhennin, Koeltas and myself, or the Mazy Zed. Mary had looked appealingly at me, but she seemed drawn to Shelborne's suggestion in some inexplicable way which, I felt, both included and excluded me. The terms of the ultimatum seemed of academic importance, almost, compared to the purport of the subtler interchange. She agreed without any serious demur, although I could tell from the way she looked at me that there were a lot of unanswered,questions in her mind, and went back alone in the dinghy to fetch her things.
When she returned, he had stood off the Mazy Zed a little farther before putting Rhennin, Koeltas and myself into the dinghy. Mary's preoccupation and almost unquestioning acceptance of Shelborne left me moody and depressed. Johaar alone on board the Mazy Zed seemed cheerful — the Bells were silent. He had wanted to be my diver-buddy, but I couldn't risk taking a greenhorn. Mary's departure and the uneasy bargain — and our proposed double-cross — left me mentally unprepared for the dive, and fear isn't a good thing to take below the sea. I had waited until the Gquma had disappeared into a fogdog on the horizon, a luminous spot low down in the north-west, before I began my preparations.
'Handsomely, now,' said Rhennin as I slid into the water.
The words at Strandloper's Water were on my lips before I could check them. '"Good luck to you, Shelley, perhaps my luck will change now!"'
Rhennin's eyes widened, the black muzzles of the Glory Hole gaped at me, and I slid into the depths.
Using my favourite dolphin kick, I planed down to the first air station. Pausing, I rolled on my back and readjusted my mouthpiece. If it was torn away — I suspected that Pieterse's might have been — I wanted to be ready to cope quickly with an emergency. Above, I could see the dinghy's bottom and below the water was as green as a treesnake. I swung carefully through 360 degrees, alert, expectant. There was nothing. The absence of marine life of any sort again surprised me. My plan was to dive a couple more fathoms — it was nine at the mouth itself — and then turn away seawards. If, I reasoned, Pieterse had been killed by something at the Glory Hole, I would not give it the chance to spot me descending, but I would come in at ground level and reconnoitre.
Seven fathoms. I glided out to sea, steering by my wrist compass. The water was green, turgid almost, and as lonely as the Namib. Nothing stirred except myself. This absence of life made me apprehensive; I had never known it before.
Eight fathoms. The safety rope to Rhennin was free in my hands.
Eight and a half fathoms. My mind was on the ghastly weals on Pieterse's neck. I continued seawards, parallel with the bottom. In a moment I would give a kick on my flippers and touch it. Would it be diamond-bearing?
There was no need. The slimy green belly of the sea reached up at me. The flatulent, unhealthy thing heaved a full half-fathom. I saw its tissue of mud blended with myriads of fine shells, stippled with green-white bones of seals and fish, as if I had been looking through a low-powered microscope. I shouted in fear behind my mask as it surged at me and I kicked wildly upwards. I shot up twenty feet before I got a hold of my nerves and forced my trembling limbs to be still. Another spurt to the surface like that and I would kill myself. I rested on the rope. There was a soft murmur below me. I sweated with fear.- What malignant creature…? I put these Koeltas-like imaginings out of my mind. I must look in order to know. I took the long-bladed knife from my belt with shaking fingers. I had deliberately not brought a speargun to leave me as mobile as possible.
Repeat the measured count: seven fathoms, eight fathoms, eight and a half. Murk. The discoloured water was green with thousands of particles. Mud, I told myself rationally, nothing but the mud of the ocean-bed. From the Glory Hole direction came the murmur I had heard previously, a sigh almost. I forced myself to within three feet of the sea-bed. Then two. One foot. I reached out. My fingers touched cold, slimy green mud. I recoiled and jerked up a few feet. I forced myself down again. I closed my fingers on it. There was no tissue, no skin, no life — nothing but slimy green mud. There was no second heaving-reach. Bubbles from my Scuba poppled surfacewards. I dug the knife to its hilt in the green film. It neither rose nor reacted. I glanced at my compass and turned due east — for the mouth of the Glory Hole.