Johnny could see that they were manhandling an inflatable escape raft, a thick mattress of black rubber, towards the nearest side of the trawler. But now they were frozen by the bellow of Kingfisher’s foghorn. They stood looking up at the tall cliff of steel that bore down on them. Their faces were pale blobs in the gloom.
“Sergio. It’s murder. Turn away, damn you, you can miss them.
Turn away!” Again Johnny lunged across the wheelhouse and grabbed at the wheel.
Sergio swung a backhanded blow that cracked against Johnny’s temple and sent him reeling back half- stunned against the storm doors.
“Who Captain for this bloody ship!” There was blood on Sergio’s lips, the shout had torn something inside him.
Kingfisher’s bows were lifting and swinging down like an executioner’s axe over the trawler. They were close enough now for
Johnny to recognize the men on the trawler’s deck but only one of them held his full attention.
Benedict van der Byl cowered against the trawler’s rail, gripping it with both hands. His hair fluttered, soft and dark, in the wind.
His eyes were big dark holes like those of a skull in the bone-white face, and his lips a pink circle of terror.
Then suddenly the trawler disappeared under Kingfisher’s massive bows, and immediately after that came the splintering crunching sound of her timbers shattering. Kingfisher bore on down the passage between the cliffs without a check in her speed.
Johnny fumbled with the catch of the storm doors, and the wind tore it open. He staggered out on to the exposed wing of the bridge and reached the rail.
He stood there with the storm clawing at his clothing and looked down at the wreckage that dragged slowly along Kingfisher’s hull, and then was left behind.
There were human heads bobbing among the wreckage, and the wash from Kingfisher’s propeller pushed them towards the cliffs of Suicide.
A wave picked up one of the men and carried him swiftly on to the cliff, sweeping him high and then swirling back to leave the body stranded on that smooth white slope of granite.
The man was still alive, Johnny saw him clawing at the smooth rock with his bare fingers, trying to drag himself above the reach of the sea.
It was Hugo Kramer; even through the fog of spray there was no mistaking that head of pale hair and the lithe twisted body.
The next wave reached up and dragged him back over the rock, tearing the nails from his hooked fingers as he tried to find a hold.
He was swirled and flung about in the turbulence below the cliff before another wave lifted him and hurled him on to the granite. One of his legs was broken at the knee by the force of the impact and the lower part of the leg spun loosely like the blade of a windmill as the water tugged at it.
Once again Hugo was left stranded but now he made no movement.
His arms were flung wide, and his leg stuck out at a grossly unnatural angle from the knee.
Then from among these mighty waves there rose up a mass of green water which dwarfed all the others.
It reared up with slow majesty and hung poised over the granite cliff before it landed on Hugo’s broken body with a boom that seemed to shake the very rock.
When the giant wave drew back, the cliff was washed clean. Hugo was gone.
The same wave that destroyed him came down the passage between the cliffs and, in contrast to its treatment of Hugo Kramer, it was tender as a mother as it lifted Kingfisher and carried her out into the open sea beyond the reach of those cruel cliffs.
Looking back into the gap between the islands, the last trace that
Johnny saw of the Wild Goose was the black rubber escape raft tossing and leaping high on the turmoil of broken water and creamy spindrift.
“They’ll have no use for that,” he said aloud. He searched for a sight of any survivor, but there was none. They were chewed to pulp in the jaws of Thunderbolt and Suicide, and swallowed down into the cold green maw of the sea.
Johnny turned away and went back into the wheelhouse.
He lifted Tracey from the deck and carried her through to Sergio’s cabin.
As he laid her on the bunk he whispered to her, “i’m glad. I’m glad you didn’t see it, my darling.” At midnight the wind still howled about the ship, hurling sheets of solid rain against the windows of the bridge. Forty minutes later the wind had veered through a hundred and eighty degrees and become a light Southeasterly air. The black sky opened like a theatre curtain, and the full moonlight burst through so brightly as to pale the stars. Though the tall black swells still marched in martial ranks from the north, the gentle wind was soothing and lulling them.
“Sergio, you must rest now. I will take the “con. Let 1 Tracey dress your back.”
“You take the con!” Sergio snorted scornfully. “I save the ship - and you sink her for me. Not bloody likely.”
“Listen, Sergio. We don’t know how badly you are hurt.
You are killing yourself.” The same argument spluttered and flared intermittently during the long night hours while Sergio clung stubbornly to the helm and coaxed the labouring vessel back towards
Cartridge Bay. He insisted on detouring far out to sea to avoid the islands, so that when the bright dawn broke, the land was only a low brown line on the horizon and the mountains of the interior were a distant blue.
An hour after dawn Johnny made radio contact with the very agitated operator at Cartridge Bay.
“Mr. Lance, we’ve been trying to raise you since yesterday evening.”
“I’ve been busy.” Despite his fatigue Johnny grinned at his own understatement. “Now, listen to me. We are coming into Cartridge
Bay. We’ll be there in a couple of hours. I want you to have a doctor, Doctor Robin Sutherland, flown up from Cape Town - also I want you to have the police standing by. I want somebody from both the
Diamond police and the Robbery and Murder squad - have you got that?”
“The police are here already, Mr. Lance. They are looking for Mr. Benedict van der Byl. They found his car here - they have a warrant …” The operator’s voice broke off and Johnny heard the mumble of background voices, then -‘Mr. Lance, are you there? Stand by to speak to Inspector Stander of the CID.”
“Negative!” Johnny cut in on his transmission. “I’m not talking to anybody. He can wait until we get into the Bay.
Just you have Doctor Sutherland ready. I’ve got a badly wounded man on board.” Johnny leaned over the radio set and shut off the main switch, then he stood and made his way slowly back to the bridge.
Every muscle in his body felt stiff and bruised, and he was groggy with tiredness, but he took up the argument with Sergio where they had left off.
“Now listen to me, Sergio. You must lie down. You can take us in over the bar; but now you must get an hour or two’s rest.” Still Sergio would not relinquish the wheel, but he consented to strip to the waist and let Tracey examine his back.
In the expanse of white muscle were little black holes each set in its own purple bruise. Some of the holes had sealed themselves with black clotted blood, from others fluid still oozed - clear or pink in colour - and there was a faint sweetish smell from the wounds.
Johnny and Tracey exchanged worried looks before Tracey reached into the first aid box and set to work.
“How she look, Johnny?” Sergio’s jovial tone was belied by his face which was a lump of bread dough touched with greenish blue hues.
“Depends if you like your meat rare.“Johnny matched his tone, and
Sergio chuckled but cut it short with a wince.
Johnny put a cheroot between Sergio’s lips and held a match for him. As Sergio puffed the tip into a glow, Johnny asked casually, “What made you change your mind?” And Sergio looked up at him quickly, guiltily, through the cloud of cheroot smoke.
“You had us cold. You could have got away with it perhaps,” Johnny persisted quietly. “What made you come
