A Twist of Sand

God, what a race there must be here! The thought shook me out of my nameless terror. I would take Trout outside Simon's Rock and make a reconnaissance of the so-called entrance to Curva dos Dunas: if the soundings proved to be the same as on the chart, I would follow my original plan. The part about Curva dos Dunas simply not being there --  I'd forget it, for the moment.

"Slow ahead both," I ordered. "Give me continuous soundings. Tell Bissett to keep his ears skinned."

"Aye, aye, sir," came John's voice.

I eased Trout round and she made her way slowly through and over the wicked sand-bars only a few feet under her keel. Had the water been breaking, I thought grimly. Now we were in deeper water. The soundings suddenly deepened  -- from five and six to twenty-nine and then forty-seven and sixty-one. I breathed freely again, knowing we were safe for the moment but remembering what the bottom looked like in case we had to dive. Dive! I thought of NP I. With this coast under us, we would be like two men fighting between themselves and a third at the same time. Certainly the Skeleton Coast would give neither of us any quarter.

I brought Trout round in a shallow circle and ran in towards where the entrance to Curva dos Dunas should lie. Using Simon's Rock and the three-top hill like a man in a fog holding on to one patch of light, I brought Trout in.

"Bottom shallowing, sir," came John's report.

I blurred a spot on the chart with a pencil where Trout lay. Thirty fathoms here, said old Simon's handwriting.

"Thirty fathoms, sir. Hydrophone operator reports no transmissions. Three knots."

Dead right. I felt the sea catch Trout by the tail and as she swung I felt the correction. Someone was certainly on the job down below. But it showed there was a tide race. Thirty, twenty-seven, twenty-five, twenty-three, twenty-five read the chart.

"Thirty fathoms, sir, twenty-seven, twenty-three, twenty-five. Asdic reports obstructions port, starboard and ahead. Clear astern."

God!  The old man was right!

Then I saw Curva dos Dunas.

I think it must have been the slight gust of wind from the south-west -- sailors on this coast mutter south-west in their dreams, for from that quarter come the waves and the wind to drive you against the ruthless shore. A ripple spread across the calm surface of the sea. I saw a sudden flicker of white. A rapid whorl of white, convulsed and turning like a man's inner ear. I saw the sand-bars curve and twist like the charted lines. The wind had whipped the sea against the wicked, waiting sand for a moment.

Curva dos Dunas had revealed itself, a veil rent aside only for a moment.

I couldn't see the inner anchorage clearly, but what I saw told its own deadly tale. Here was an anchorage -- the only anchorage for a thousand miles, and it lay behind a convolution of sand-bars, completely hidden in calm weather but visible in anything of a breeze, when any sailor worth his sense would shy like a frightened horse at spotting those lines of broken surf. I marvelled at the guts of old Simon Peace at taking a sailing-ship in there; at his courage at winding his way through those broken lines of surf, now snarling as the wind broke the water across their half-concealed fangs; at his tenacity at coming back again and again to chart it. No wonder he had screamed on his deathbed ! Sand, bars of sand, every one of them death at the touch of a keel. To take any ship, even under diesel or electric engines, into what appeared a broken holocaust of surf, would require a heart as steady as the three-topped hill away to starboard now. I looked with grim satisfaction at my island, my only landed possession in the world. It was a gift worthy of the old dead sailor: surf on this coast is death, but an anchorage is life. He had shown me where I could find NP I, if she was to be found.

I changed course and cruised across the entrance. No Navy hydrographer could have done a better job than old Simon. The swirl of the tide must have kept it swept clean all these years, and was likely to do so long after I was dead. I checked my original plan and made for the southern side of the entrance where there was deep water. From there, I had planned, I would sink NP I as she entered the channel. Now, however, I changed my plan slightly. Sink NP I I would, but slightly farther away and not block the one safe anchorage on all this wild coast. If only they had given me a couple of mines! I could have mined the channel and simply sat back and watched NP I destroy herself. Or would I ? I asked myself now. Would I have blocked the entrance when only her skipper and I knew of the existence of one of the best-guarded maritime secrets in the world? I didn't bother to answer myself. I hadn't the mines anyway.

I manoeuvred Trout into position. I would lie on the seabed until I heard NP I and then sink her quickly. For the first time in days I grinned to myself. I reached for the voice-pipe. NP I might be almost upon us, but she wouldn't find Trout unprepared.