A Twist of Sand

John fobbed off the question by picking up the Hyane's photostat log.

"H'mmm" he mused, casting a glance over the others as well. "Got a problem in navigation on your hands?"

"Here's the shoal where the old Clan Alpine is reported to have struck," I said. If John intended to sidestep the issue for the moment, so would I. " These old logs -- Pratt got photostats for me at the Admiralty, though God help him if he was found out giving material like this to a cashiered submarine commander -- all place this shoal differently. It is the most important shoal on the coast, because it is the southern gateway to this vital piece of water here to the north. If one could penetrate the Clan Alpine shoal on the inshore side, it would give a safe passage -- although in shallow water -- away from a six-knot downcoast current which 'I reckon ricochets off here, just about the sixteenth fathom mark on the south-westerly corner of the shoal. It is almost impossible to take a ship in close to the coast at all because of that bouncing current. It races southwards through this mass of shoals, rocks and broken ground between here and the Cunene mouth, but I am convinced it doesn't get too close to the shore. . . ."

"My God! Geoffrey," exclaimed John. "This is magnificent!" He studied the annotated chart. His eyes gleamed. He grabbed the dividers and parallel-rules. Then he snatched up the Hyane's log.

"I've been over it all," I said coldly.   "It's no go."

He straightened up.

"Two hundred and eighty-two degrees," he exclaimed in triumph.

"That bearing's balderdash," I retorted.

"I agree," he went on quickly. "But what if you forgot the first number?"

I saw in a flash what he meant. "You mean -- eighty-two degrees? Why, that would have put the Kaiser's old warship ..."

"Just here!" rapped out John. "Inside the channel. Two miles offshore. Dead right. The old Hyane found the way, all right, although she didn't know it. Some stupid clot must have altered the bearing from 82 to 282 which would have been quite reasonable since she then would have been safe at sea, even if a little close in. Come on, let's get going!"

"Not so fast," I said. " You haven't given me your answer yet."

"That's my answer, blast you!" he grinned. "You'll need another nautical man for company for your five years in quod . . ."

He stopped short.  I felt it too.

The stern was giving a queer shaking motion.

"She's -- she's -- wagging her tail," he burst out incredulously.

The explosion felt like a huge empty drum dropped on Etosha's stern.

We both covered the distance to the bridge in a couple of bounds.

"Port fifteen," I snapped at the Kroo boy at the wheel.

John stood by me, trying to pierce the veil, which cloyed like cerements round our eyes. A heavy bead of moisture ran off his short brown beard and the condensation on his forehead gave him the appearance of a man literally sweating over something. His anxious tone did not belie it. The drops glistened on his cap and oilskinned shoulders.

"Where are we ? " he asked.

I gestured to starboard. "Gomatom bearing about ninety degrees, six miles."

"What the hell's Gomatom? " he rasped.

"It's the native name I gave a high pointed mountain ashore. The name appealed. Sounded like the surf breaking in a south-westerly gale."

The Kroo boy's eyes were standing out of their sockets.

"Where did the explosion come from?" I rapped out.

The native shook his head hopelessly.

"Port beam, do you think, John?"

"More on the quarter," he replied quietly. "I've never heard anything like that before," he went on, craning his head slowly in a small semi-circle, like a searching radar aerial.

"Nor have I," I said, for it was unlike any explosion, mine, torpedo or gunfire, I had ever heard. Yet it was an explosion.

Something heavy and wet hit the deck forward of the main hatch. Near the foremast, I thought, peering into the fog.

"Squid," said the helmsman.

"Keep your eyes on that bloody compass," snarled John. "Cut the cackle."

"Look-out! " I shouted through cupped hands. "What hit us forrard?"

The voice came back faintly, as if the man had turned away as he called back. It had a curious hysterical quality, but then fog does peculiar things to sound, even a hundred feet away. Almost simultaneously came another explosion as if a giant steel drum had been dropped. It was farther away, but clearly on the port beam.

The Kroo boy at the wheel gave a cry.

"Baas, die kompas verneuk my I" (" Skipper, the compass cheats me!") he exclaimed in Afrikaans.

I was at his side in a flash. The compass rose was swinging and by the time I reached the binnacle it had travelled through seven degrees. But the ship's head had remained steady.

"There's a great deal going on that I don't understand and don't like," I rapped out to John, who was looking at the gyrating needle in silent wonder. "I'm going to stop engines and see if we can hear anything. If there's surf dead ahead, we'll hear it. If there's land, we'll smell it."

I rang the telegraph to " stop."