A Twist of Sand

"Yes," I replied. "You'll see her all right. On the far side of the anchorage."

John's glance didn't waver. "Was it as important as all that -- important enough that you kept your mouth shut? Who were you shielding?"

Stein joined us.  He was lapping up the drama avidly.

"See here," I said to the three of them. "It's history now, and I want the record straight. It's history now, and that's why I can tell you. An atomic submarine is nothing new today. But in the early war years it was God's answer to the U-boat Command. All it had to do was to prove itself. Blohm and Voss made one. She sank the Dunedin Star with torpedoes from which the warheads were drawn. She came back here. I went in after her. I sank her."

Stein goggled: "You mean we -- Germany -- had an atomic submarine and it was never used in the Atlantic?"

I rounded on him. "Yes," I said. "The U-boat Command were dubious because they thought it too much of a break with the old, engine-driven U-boat. So they sent it out on a trial raiding cruise. They thought it would blow up. Two men in England besides myself knew about it. My orders were to destroy the new U-boat. I did. She's lying -- or what's left of her -- a couple of miles away inside this channel."

Stein looked unbelievingly at me. Then he said slowly: "So it was Lieutenant-Commander Peace, D.S.O. and two Bars, that did more than any other single man in the war to win the Battle of the Atlantic! Why, we would have torn England's throat out with atomic submarines! And you sank her! God's truth, how ?"

John butted in. "Yes, how?   Trout never fired a torpedo."

I laughed in their faces. "I sank her with a recognition flare."

John thought I had gone off my head.

"A recognition flare ?"

"She was fuelling and the burning flare fell in the fuel. She went up like a Roman candle."

Stein looked at me, still in disbelief.

"No survivors?"

I looked at him squarely; the nightmare of the men on the sand-bar came back to me.

"I shot down the survivors with a machine-gun."

"No, Captain Peace," said a voice, ragged with menace from the head of the bridge companionway, "you didn't. One got away."

The three of us, even John, swung round electrified. Johann stood at the back of the bridge. He carried a heavy wooden bar, called a kierie, we used to kill the snoek. Gone was the vagueness, the hesitancy of the man whose dazed mind fumbles. Curva dos Dunas had jerked him back to reality. The eyes had lost their blurred perception and were blazing now -- with the lust to kill. There was no doubt that Johann had come up on to the bridge to kill. It was his deadly quiet which frightened me.

"You fired the gun in our faces," he said slowly. "I can see you now as you swung the barrel round, Captain. And now I am going to kill you. But there won't be any doubts about this kill. For three days I lay on the sand. It was all sand, all sand and salt. The bullets got me here "-- he pulled up a sleeve, never taking his eyes off me in case I jumped him -- and showed me the underside of his left arm where almost all the flesh was missing. It was a hideous wound.

"I prayed to die, Captain, out there on the sand. I prayed that you would die slowly, like me. I went back to the U-boat -- you'll see her just now, because I know this part of the world better than you. I should do. It is a trap.

You die slowly here. I walked every inch of sand looking for a way out. There was not one."

I couldn't credit that he had missed the sand causeway to the beach. Perhaps the pain and mental shock of being all alone in this wind-driven hell had deadened his faculties.

"I went aboard the U-boat when she had cooled down." He laughed and the high note revealed the mind on the verge of being unhinged again. "They were all cooked, Captain. All my friends were cooked. But it was easier to eat my friends cooked than raw, wasn't it?" He gave a high giggle and Anne shrank back at the sound.

"And now, after all that cooked meat, I must have some raw, not so ?" He came forward with the kierie. I could see he had the strength of a maniac. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stein glance anxiously over the side.

"This is a fascinating story," he said and the mouth was as cruel as a sting-ray with its victim under its eyes. "We have now added war crimes to Captain Peace's long ú -- and often nefarious -- record."

I saw the sudden tautening of Johann's muscles. It telegraphed the warning, but there was little I could do about it. With lightning speed the kierie flickered upwards, but Stein struck first with the deadly venom of a cobra. Even in that moment of mortal peril it made me wonder where he had learned his trade. The Luger hit Johann high above the ear, just where the hair leaves the scalp. He stood swaying in front of me, the eyes unconscious. He slumped at my feet.

"Don't waste your time on him, Captain, or on thanking me," whipped out Stein. "We'll be ashore in a moment. Get your bearings, or whatever you do, in God's name!"