A Twist of Sand

I felt completely naked. A warship is a lonely place anyway, but when one has sent everyone below, it seems more so. The gun, unmanned, pointed forward, lashed, with its muzzle towards where the land must be. The light anti-aircraft weapons on the conning-tower had the same forlorn look. The quiet sea washed across the casing. All around the darkness was lightening, bringing with it that depression peculiar to early dawn. I swept the horizon in a slow arc with my glasses. If I were fool enough to have no watchmen with me, at least I could be careful enough not to have Trout caught with her pants down, so to speak. I could imagine what sort of short shrift I would get from a court-martial, driving a warship in war-time towards a dangerous roast without a single man on watch. And the enemy in the vicinity!

Then I saw the Skeleton Coast for the first time in my life.

I have seen it many times since, but I suppose I shall never forget the primeval awesomeness of that first sight. It was a trick of refracted light from the desert behind, I suppose, but it sent a spine-chilling thrill through me. Against the far rim of lightening east, a shaggy dinosaurs, tufted by shaggy bush and a dun tonsure of sand, rose and gazed hostilely at the lonely submarine. It was, as I have said, a strange trick of the light which gave me that forbidding first cruel glimpse of sand, sea and dune-starved shrub, for Trout was, I suppose, every bit of fifteen miles away. Light refracts and plays the strangest tricks in the mica-laden air. I gazed at the strange revelation. How many times had it shown itself in this way to old Simon, laboriously -- and with superb seamanship -- toiling up and down charting Curva dos Dunas from his sailing-ship? I leant forward to take a bearing.

The Skeleton Coast reached for Trout's throat.

I saw the discoloured water as I leant forward and, God knows, even at that stage of my ignorance of the Kaokoveld, I knew it for what it was -- sand, shoals, death! I could even see the dun sand swirling in the sea under the thrust of the screws.

"Stop both!" I screamed into the voice-pipe. "Full astern!"

Almost in slow motion Trout''s way diminished. The sand swirled forward past the casing as the screws bit astern.

"What depth of water under her?" I asked weakly.

"Five fathoms sir," replied the disembodied voice from below.

Five! I marvelled, and reached a trembling hand for the chart. Another cold chill ran down my spine. Trout was over the dreaded Alecto Shoal, about fifteen miles south of my objective. Alecto! I didn't know what it meant then, but later I was to discover that HMS Alecto reported this particular horror in 1889. I realised, too, that I was only two miles off the coast -- two miles! I thought I was live at least.

"Stop both," I ordered. "How much water under us?" a question which I came to ask almost automatically later.

"Twenty fathoms, sir."

Well, that was safe enough. Looking at the chart, I estimated that I had almost run Trout aground on the north-western tip of the Alecto Shoal. I decided to swing her round and keep away from the general north-westerly trend of the shoreline.

"Speed for six knots," I ordered down the voice-pipe. "Course three-four-oh."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Trout edged her way round the shoal. Then the light came. I was aghast. I seemed to be almost on top of the land. The sea was quiet, with no sign of the dreaded heavy south-westerly swell. The sun, starting to rise redly against the backdrop of dune and sand, looked as if it had a hangover. I felt something like that myself. I took Trout seawards for a while and changed course inwards again.- The chart said "foul ground "-- and foul, indeed, it was. Trout ran on slowly. Out to port the quiet sea merged into the peculiar light haze; to starboard loomed the long line of dunes topped by the bibulous sun. I switched my glasses to the north, but I suppose the refracted light destroyed some of the magnification, for a moment later, when I looked with the naked eye, I saw the three-topped hill, unmistakable, against the dun background. The entrance to Curva dos Dunas! I altered course slightly to keep me clear of a sudden four-fathom hump to the south-west of the three-topped hill.

Trout, at funereal pace, moved towards where I knew Simon's Rock must lie. And -- beyond lay Trout's objective, Curva dos Dunas! A ten-foot rock sticking out of the sea is a difficult enough thing to see at any time, but in the peculiar inshore light, one might well pass it by -- and be wrecked on the shoals at the entrance to the island. Old Simon's chart showed it bearing 330 degrees from the three-topped hill.