A Twist of Sand

She eyed me coolly and it may have been a gesture of nervousness, or a woman's instinct, that made her fumble to undo the top button of her duffle-coat.

"I think we should discuss this question with Dr. Stein, don't you ?" she asked levelly.

"I won't discuss anything with Stein," I snapped back. "I'm not having his bloody woman on my ship. Having him is quite enough."

"Stop saying ' his woman '," she retorted. She stared at me hard and I remember still that there was a slight crumple of flesh between her right eyelid and eyebrow as she frowned. "So you are the famous Captain Peace," she went off at a tangent.

I started to reply, but John's hail came floating up.

"Breakers bearing oh-four-oh, six miles. Geoffrey! Geoffrey!"

I stood, torn between my anger at finding Stein's woman, and the imperative need to con Etosha.

She smiled. "Go on, Geoffrey," she mocked. "You can deal with me later. Your ship needs you now."

I went.

"I just caught a glimpse of it," said John, "there, I think, bearing now oh-three-five."

I waited for a moment for the refracted light to strike back.

"No," I said, "I don't think so. Oh-three-five is too fine. I think it must have been a mirage off the smaller saltpan, which lies just south of the point. How much water under her?"

John flicked a glance at the echo-sounder.

"Nine -- and a bit, shallowing."

I grinned at him. "Oddly enough, it's not shallowing just here. As we come opposite the point we'll get up to thirteen fathoms. I wish we would get a bit of sun, though."

Etosha tore on. John, I could see, was plainly nervous. So was I. Toying with a trick of the light for a reliable bearing on the Skeleton Coast is about as safe as playing Russian roulette.

The fog dripped, but it was lighter to the east. If I missed this bearing, I would, at best, have to fumble my way northwards to Palgrave Point and Cape Frio and beyond that, in the foul ground towards Curva dos Dunas -- I felt myself sweating even at the thought.

I trained my glasses on a fixed bearing. At thirteen fathoms under Etosha, that should be just about right.

"How much water under her now?"

John's voice was surprised.

"By the deep twelve."

"Good. Take the helm, will you, John? We should pick it up in a moment.  It'll be tricky.  I don't want that Kroo boy spoiling things."

A flicker of light, like a halo, twitched across the landward side of the fog.  Here it comes ... I thought.

A bright shaft, almost like a searchlight, struck the outward opaque edge. The sun, as I had assumed, had glanced off the startling white surface of the great saltpan north of Sierra Point; along its beam I hoped to see the bald, eroded hill which stood out at the back of the two saltpans.

Like a revelation, the fog opened and my landmark was as clear as day.

"High hill bearing red oh-three-three," I grinned at John, enjoying the complicated problem in navigation.

But my professional pleasure was spoiled. Stein was on the back of the bridge with the woman.

"You see, my dear; what I mean when I say that Captain Peace knows the Skeleton Coast quite as well as they say in the bars at Walvis. Look! no charts, no references -- it's all in his head. It looks so very simple, does it not ? But do you realise that if he didn't know exactly what he was doing, he'd tear the bottom out of her in three minutes ?"

The girl said nothing.  I couldn't worry about them now.

"Steer three-four-oh," I said in a flat voice.

Etosha came round in a sweeping arc, blinking into broad sunlight for a minute as she cocked a snook at the dun coastline with its balding fringes of windswept weed here and there.

"Steady as she goes," I said to John. "Put the Kroo boy on now."

I had my fix and Etosha. was set for Cape Frio. Beyond that . . .

Fortunately it was just as suitable for dropping a boat off Cape Cross.

I turned to Stein.

"In half an hour," I said acidly, "I shall stop the engines and drop a boat over the side. This woman of yours is going ashore." I looked at the composed face under the duffle-coat hood.

"You've got about twenty minutes to get your things together."

Stein grinned his ray-like grin. This was the sort of situation he loved.

"May I introduce," he said calmly, "Dr. Anne Nielsen, of the National Zoological Museum in Stockholm."

I gazed at her in cold rage.

"You're losing time," I snapped. "If your things aren't ready, I'll throw them over the side after you."

"Dr. Nielsen," Stein continued, "is the only scientist in the world -- at least in this generation -- to have actually examined the species Onymacris in the flesh, or shall we say, in the shell?"

I still did not catch on.

"What all this mumbo-jumbo has to do with me, I am at a loss to know," I retorted. Etosha was cutting through the fog and it gave an eerie air of making everything a little larger -- like her eyes.