A Twist of Sand

I began to sweat; nothing showed as the bearing approached. All those doubts which I had rigidly refused to consider when I had made my decision to break away from the box-search assailed me. If all this was merely chasing a will-o'-the-wisp. . . . The line of the bearing fell across the 330 degree mark. Nothing! There was nothing either on the landward side -- nothing that remotely looked like an island.

"Stop both," I ordered, struck by the harshness of my own voice.

I consulted the chart again. I was almost exactly -- if any navigator can hope to be anything like exact on that coast  -- where the rock should be. While Trout wallowed in the slight swell, I swept every inch of sea between myself and the shore.

There was nothing. No rock, no breakers, not a living or dead thing.

I scanned every inch of sea where I knew Curva dos Dunas should lie. Nothing!

So, I thought bitterly to myself, an old man's illusion and a young fool's dream turned out to be nothing but a stretch of empty water! I could take Trout through without a thought of wrecking her, if I wished.

Even to myself I could not answer the questions which arose about NP I -- or rather the noise which I fatuously believed was the hydraulic jet machinery of NP I. Who had ever heard of a submarine being propelled by the expulsion of water anyway? Who would believe such a cock-and-bull story ? It looked lamer every moment. I had made a complete fool of myself in front of my officers and my crew, standing a watch alone -- in war-time -- and conning a ship without a single soul aboard knowing where she was. Trout's log would look lovely before a court-martial! No entries, and the captain unable to say where he was. I looked round me, cursed the Skeleton Coast and cursed NP I and all the blasted fools who had given me this impossible mission.

I snapped open the voice-pipe.

"Course three-two-oh.   Two hundred revolutions."

I'd get the hell out of this blasted coast, I thought bitterly.

Then I saw it.

It flashed white and evil, like a guano-covered fang, out of the sea a few hundred yards on the port beam. I had been on the inside of the damned thing and I had been searching landwards! A sick, cold feeling hit me in the stomach after my momentary elation. I was in the wickedest stretch of foul ground. The fathom line was contorted like a switchback at Blackpool. I had been fooled for the second time that morning by the current and fooled more still by the curious light refraction so that I had not seen Simon's Rock itself, but only its white-guano-littered tip where the sun caught it. I was like a blind man rushing through a roomful of glasses trying not to knock them over.

"Full astern!" I yelled in the voice-pipe. "No, stop both! Give me continuous depth readings."

"Echo-sounder reports four fathoms, sir," came up John's quiet, untroubled voice. What the hell would he be thinking about my hysterical commands screamed down from the bridge where there was no one else to tell him what was going on ?

"Asdic reports obstructions bearing ah ... hem . . . almost all round the compass, sir." The calm voice had a tinge of irony. "Hydrophones report all quiet, sir. No transmissions."

Trout lay in the troughs of the waves while I tried to make up my mind. It was easy enough to know where I was. I had Simon's Rock at my back, and the three-topped hill ashore to give me a fix. I pored over the annotated chart and saw that if I turned Trout's head I could get her into the position I had originally intended, a piece of deep water flanking the entrance to Curva dos Dunas. Curva dos Dunas! Where the hell was it? The sea was calm, almost oily, and there were no breakers. There should have been, looking at old Simon's annotations. "Breaks. Six fathoms. Breaks occasionally. Possibly less water. Heavy breakers. Surf."

I gazed hopelessly around for the sand-bars which must mark the channel into Curva dos Dunas. There simply must be! With trembling hands I took a bearing and cast my binoculars along the line of it seeking my island. Nothing! Had it disappeared in all the years that had elapsed since the chart was drawn? But, argued my sailor's mind, the rest of it is accurate enough. So damn accurate that had it not been so you and Trout would have been dead ducks already. Again I cast my eye along the line of the bearing. Suddenly I felt terribly afraid. My palms sweated. I knew why they called it the Skeleton Coast. I knew the terror of the men who drove in to this fearful, bland, cross-eyed shore and were called crazy when they got back to port -- if they did. I shivered, despite the growing intensity of the sun. I noticed Trout's head beginning to swing away landwards.