A Twist of Sand

"This Kroo boy is as good as they come," I said. "He'll take her in like a ski-boat."

"It would solve a good many problems if we all got drowned," she said sombrely. She shivered inside the duffle-coat, now glistening with a faint film of white salt.

Stein was silent. Johann had given a stir, but his eyes remained shut. The Kroo boy, wearing only an ancient pair of Jantzen trunks, had unshipped the tiller and was steering with an oar. He was grinning with animation. It was a challenge to his skill. The ragged fringe of beard --  all southern African natives are vastly proud of even a few wisps of a beard for it is a sign of virility -- whipped back across his left cheek.

"I put her ashore -- any pertikler place, baas?" he shouted. The boat bucked with the first of the inshore breakers.

"Anywhere you think best," I called back. "Anywhere on that beach."

"Good-oh," he yelled, remembering some sailor's expression.

Now that the beach was closer, I could see that it was not fine sand, but coarse, broken here and there by rocks fretted and polished by the wind.

The Kroo boy yawed slightly. I had not noticed the big comber building up about twenty yards to starboard. But he had, and in a moment we were carried majestically, high above the surrounding sea. Then the nose of the boat tilted downwards and, with the water vainly clutching at both gunwales, rushed at something like twenty knots for the beach.

Anne sank down by one of the seats and closed her eyes, clutching at the wood.

"Steady as she goes," I ordered, quite unnecessarily, to the Kroo boy. The sea had given him life. The underfed figure was proud and tensed under the whip of the wind and waves. The black face, usually sullen and unwilling, had become alive.

The great breaker streamed in towards the beach. If we touched anything, let alone the iron-hard beach, it would tear the planking out like matchwood. Even a strong swimmer wouldn't last five minutes in the maelstrom. But the oarsman knew his job. Suddenly the boat lurched sickeningly to port, into a welter of foam. Another great wave ahead of ours had crashed on the beach and was hurtling itself back seawards. The spindrift, thick as foam, enveloped the boat, and I had to peer to see above it. The boat's motion was stayed like a turbo-prop engine in reverse. She touched once, touched twice. In a second the oarsman was over the side, up to his waist and hauled her in towards the beach. I jumped out after him, hauling on the other bow at a short painter. The sea slopped inside my half-boots. Without looking back -- we both knew the menace of that twenty knot wave even a biscuit-toss from the shore --  we hauled the boat up on the tough shingle.

"Out!" I yelled to Anne and Stein. Their feet crunched on the beach. We hauled the boat still higher. The Kroo boy and I were panting, and my peaked cap was floating in an inch of bilge-water.

"My God! "said Stein.

"How'll you ever get back?" shuddered Anne^ her face pale.

"It's like Sputnik," I grinned back. "It's much easier going than coming."

There was a nervous air about Stein.

"Get Johann out and lay him here on the beach. Untie his hands," he said rapidly.

I stared at him in surprise. After his earlier attitude, it wouldn't have surprised me if he'd thrown him overboard. Now he was fussing like a hen over a chick.

The Kroo boy obediently hauled him out and laid him on the sand.

The touch of the gritty shingle electrified the unconscious man.

Without opening his eyes, his hands, as if of their own volition, reached out, fingering the shingle. Then the hand moved slowly up the side of the face, as if exploring the beach against his cheek. He gave a terrible scream and sat upright. Thank God his hands are still tied, I thought.

Stein jabbed him with the Remington, while the Kroo boy, aghast at the wide eyes and screaming mouth, like a gutted barracouta, cringed against the boat. I was glad to find Anne close to me.

"Shut up, you bloody fool," he shouted. "Besatzung Stillgestanden! Attention!"

Johann rose, U-boat discipline still automatic in his make-up, but he whimpered and gathered up another handful of sand. Sand had made him mad. It wasn't any wonder, looking along that desolate beach with the granules of hard sand chafing like sandpaper. It never seemed to blow away. There was always more.

Stein cut the ropes and gestured with the rifle to the boat.

"Unload," he said harshly.

Blindly, as if only his motor impulses and not his mind were working, Johann stumbled across to the boat. Without waiting, the Kroo boy started to pass the stores to him and together they piled them up a little way up the beach, out of reach of the sea.

Stein, still obviously tense, made a movement of his hand towards Johann.

"A living Nemesis of your misdeeds, Captain Peace," he sneered. "You should have made a good job with the machine-gun. See what the touch of the sand does to him."