A Twist of Sand

Stein said heavily: "She was carrying tanks and guns to the British in the Middle East, as well as tyres for the Eighth Army. Her loss must have hit them pretty hard at that time, I guess."

Anne gave him a long, considered look. It almost seemed as if she thought as little of him as I did. I could see him mentally rubbing his hands. His gloating satisfaction rather sickened me. Somehow the thought that she wasn't on Stein's side pleased me. One way and another, Onymacris must be quite a beetle.

Etosha came closer in and we could see the pitiful abandon of a ship left to the waves and the birds.

"It was a stroke of luck, her hitting a submerged object like that -- for the Germans, I mean," went on Stein in his mincing voice. "The court of inquiry thought she smacked on to an outlying spur of the Clan Alpine Reef. You'd think the British captain would have kept away from a coast like this instead of coming in so close. Not unless Captain Peace was in command. He must have known he was taking a big risk."

"If you'd really like to know," I said quietly, "the Dunedin Star was sunk by a German torpedo."

"Rubbish," snapped Stein. "It was a reef. Slipshod. If he'd been a German captain we'd have shot him. The Dunedin Star was off course. There was never any mention of an explosion."

Etosha circled her dead friend of the sea. Stein knew a lot about the Dunedin Star. I wondered to myself how much he was concerned in knowing her movements -- in time of war.

"Did you ever hear of the Type XXXI U-boat torpedo?" I asked.

I had Anne's and John's full attention now.

"No? Well, Blohm and Voss developed it. Acoustic, of course. The torpedo that sank the Dunedin Star was fired from a secret type of German submarine. I'll reconstruct it for you. What went through the U-boat commander's mind when he saw the Dunedin Star, laden with weapons of war, in his sights? He didn't press the button and send her to the bottom. Sooner of later -- probably sooner -- there would have been a hunting force up here looking for him. So he just tagged along behind the Dunedin Star while he drew the main charges from his Type XXXI's because he knew that at fifty knots -- and they did every bit of fifty knots -- a close salvo would tear right through any liner's plating like butter. There'd only be a dull thump. Four little beauties and a hole like a house, and a deadweight cargo that would take her to the bottom like a load of lead. The U-boat skipper went even one better. He waited until Dunedin Star was among the worst foul ground in the world Then he fired. The whole world believed that the Dunedin Star struck a hidden reef and tore her bottom out. I would have liked to have met that U-boat man."

Stein gazed at me like a man entranced.

"By God!" he said. "It would take a German to do that."

Anne's dry interruption gave me the measure of her thoughts about Stein. In words at least, it aligned her on my side.

"You forget, the solution has been worked out by a British submarine captain." She looked levelly from him to me. "Very ingenious, Captain Peace. No wonder they loaded you up with decorations." She must have sensed something of the drift of my thoughts, and the barb followed with all the flickering speed of the Bushmen's arrows out there in the desert behind the wreck. "But I'd really like to know something about your last fling that didn't come off."

I thought our truce was peace, but I was wrong.

"Course three-one-oh," I snapped savagely at the Kroo boy. I rang the telegraphs.

"Half ahead."

"I'll take over," I went on to John, quite unreasonably. "You get some rest, unless you really want to tag along here. I'm going outside the Clan Alpine. The chart says sixty fathoms, but I'd swear it's nearer six at fifteen miles offshore. There's a lot of discoloured water and breakers between the shoal and the coast. I don't want to risk it -- particularly as it will be dark quite soon."

Stein left.

"You said I could stay ..." Anne began.

"Yes," I retorted curtly and I saw, to my surprise, the hurt in her eyes. "I repeat, you can stay. But don't get in the way of anybody. And any fortuitous comment will be out of place."