A Twist of Sand

I was oblivious of the pain from my shoulder until I reached camp, carrying Anne over my other shoulder. Of the next days, in fact, only salient points remain with me now, interspersed with some completely trivial, I remember how fresh her lipstick was and I was at infinite pains not to blur it. She would have liked it that way. By the remains of the camp fire I cut lengths of rope and tied her hands and feet for the long carry back to the caravel. I had no rational thought. My movements were automatic. There was no gap in the remorseless vacuum of grief which encased me. I rummaged among her things and found a scarf. I tied her jaw firmly and bound a handkerchief across the half-closed eyes. I wrapped the duffle-coat round her head. I feared the sand would tarnish the brightness of the lovely hair. It was not until later that I found I had made a careful selection of food and one nearly full canteen of water.

I set off down the bed of the Kapupa river. I set course as automatically as were my other reactions. Perhaps something instinctive came to my rescue. I might have fumbled or hesitated had I been conscious of what I was about, but I wasn't. Instead of branching northwards towards the Nangolo Flats up which we had trudged from the Cunene, I struck left at the sentinel rock up the gigantic break in the rock towards the Kandao mountains, which are the southern outposts of the great crag which juts into the river to make the lions' tunnel. The sun struck into my face as it dropped in the afternoon. The sweat poured off me. I had nothing to protect my head. I could smell the sweet woman-smell of the body as my sweat soaked through her jersey. I followed blindly a track not dissimilar to the one on which she had found the fatal Onymacris. It ran too much to the south for my liking, but it had a lot of west in it. And I must get to the west. My one thought was not to return to Curva dos Dunas, but to get my burden to the caravel. My right shoulder where the bullet had pierced it -- high and by no means dangerous -- ached like hell. With my left cramped with the weight of the dead woman and the wound in my right, it felt as if someone had strapped a red-hot poker across the base of my neck.

I stopped at evening when it was too dark to stumble on. The great valley of the Otjijange lay at my back. I camped where a slab of eroded rock lay spreadeagled on the edge of a mile-wide drift of sand. In front lay the highest peak of the Kandao range, almost directly opposite me, four tiny peaks on the right and one sloping summit attached to them -- like four little warthogs running after their mother. I could see the track stretching round the left flank of the peak -- but I was getting anxious about the way it continually bore south. I must get more north. I reckoned, roughly speaking, that on a line to the coast I would now be twenty miles south of Curva dos Dunas.

I have little recollection of the next morning. Perhaps I was a little delirious for the wound hurt more than ever. I became fully aware of things when my sailor's instinct told me there had been a change in course. The track was now veering northwards, and I saw the Kandao peak was a dozen miles behind me. It was also downhill. I stumbled on. I scarcely noticed that the sun had burned the skin off my forehead and face. The smell of sweet sweat from Anne's clothes drove me on. Death and corruption were holding back. I knelt in the burning sand to drink from the canteen and blessed the Skeleton Coast for that mercy. I staggered on into the afternoon sun.

Like the lift of fog off the Skeleton Coast, my consciousness cleared. I was heading due north, but something else had penetrated. I rubbed my sweat-soaked eyes against the rough hair of her duffle-coat. The pool! Away to the left against the cliff was the caravel. In half an hour it would have been in shadow. The thought that I might have stumbled past and missed it woke me to full realisation like an injection of adrenalin. I knew what I had to do. I skirted the pool, my mind numb with memories. I pushed the body through the open gunport, when I reached the ship. There was no rigor mortis. The Skeleton Coast was pouring its balm still. I swung myself up, and cried aloud at the pain in my shoulder. I carried her through the doorway. I didn't go into the lovers' cabin. There was a smaller one on the left.

The bunk was bare and I laid her on it. I unwrapped the head and jaw.

I leant down and kissed the rumpled eyelid.

I stood back and tossed a lighted match into the red-gold hair.

It was all over in an hour. The old ship crackled like a chord from Ravel while I stood and watched the blaze. Before the moon came up there was scarcely even a glow among the ashes.

I decided to have some food and try to sleep.

The food and the water canteen were missing. I had left them aboard in my agitation. I was alone in the Kaokoveld without food or water.