A Bridge of Magpies

Some of the holiday air went out of Kaptein Denny when we left the island astern without sighting Sang A. He went to the side and took a sip of seawater and announced that we were over the spot where Bol Islet-once positioned on Admiralty charts-had suddenly vanished.

He made several fiddling alterations of course which kept Gaok in the fog curtain. He seemed to be getting uptight about something.

'Sang A is around,' he said. smell her still. But I reckon she's over towards the mainland.'

'It makes no odds, Go after her.'

'There's a dangerous skietrots there. skietrots -what sort of gamat word is that?

`Shooting rock: it's untranslatable really. It's a rock on which the seas break and shoot high. It's called Pikkewyn se Draai – Penguins Turning.'

I hope Sang A is turning too by now.'

'Ready then, Captain Weddell?'

Any time.'

Something was eating him, though, and he still hesitated to break clear of the fog. Jnstead, he hung around on the wispy fringe of the bank for some time. Then he seemed to make up his mind and everything grew light all at once-and we were blinking in broad sunlight, with a long view of the Sperrgebiet's desolation ahead.

Sang A was there aJl right.

She was moving southwards parallel to the coast, close in-shore. Her passage ahead was blocked by an irregular chain of islets. Two stood out at a glance from the rest. One of them was shaped like an outsize conical highway post and the sea clawed and foamed against it and gave it the name skietrots; the second-bigger-was almost a third of a mile long and half a mile offshore.

Kaptein Denny indicated the latter. 'Albatross Rock.'

Jutta broke her silence. 'Sang A isn't worried at seeing us.'

'Not yet.' I swung my glasses through a wide arc. There was something very determined about the way she was plugging along on a dead straight course. She might have been on rails, rather than negotiating as bad a patch of foul ground as I'd seen on the Sperrgebiet. She was changing course now, 126 coming about a little short of the dangerous fang.

'Engine,' I requested Kaptein Denny. 'We'll go alongside now.'

'Is she aware of us at all, Struan? Look at the way she's behaving.' That was clear, even to Jutta's unnautical eyes. Instead of sheering clear of the rocks and reefs, as any normal vessel would have done, Sang A completed an inward U-turn which would bring her still closer inshore, and among them. She then steadied on a new course-still parallel to the coast but this time heading back towards the Bridge of Magpies and Possession. On rails, I thought, on bloody rails!

Kaptein Denny's eyes were slits. 'She's following a plot.'

It was clear that her new reverse up-coast course over lapped slightly on her previous down-coast one.

'And J'm going to find out what it is. That engine, please!'

He went to see to it.

'The lost city, Struan-is that what she's after?' '

On this pitch?… It's miles away.'

'Kaptein Denny's not happy either.'

'Why isn't he, do you think, Jutta-why? What gives?'

She clenched one of the bridge window catches until her knuckles showed white.

'I'm scared, Struan.'

Of what?'

'I don't know! I don't know! Scared about your going aboard that ship. Scared about my staying. I want to run away, but I want, more, to stay:

I took her by the shoulders and pressed my thumbs into them.

'I'll sort it out. For us. That's a promise.'

'Promises are easy. This isn't.'

There was no time to say any more because just then Denny returned from the engine-room. The distance between the two vessels began to narrow.

'This isn't going to be easy. Sang A won't stop.'

Denny spoke almost mechanically. Ever since sighting Sang A he seemed to have faJlen into a mood of deep preoccupation. His earlier enthusiasm for the chase had evaporated.

'I'll jump when we come alongside. You hold station until I' m ready to return, What I have to say won't take long.'

Gaok bored in on an interception course; Sang A held hers, ruler-straight. She was doing about eight knots and could easily have got away from Gaok if she'd wanted to. But not if she was doing what I thought she was doing. Emmermann and Kenryo rushed out on to Sang A's cat- walk when we drew level, and the crew began giving their vocabularies a work-out.

`What d'ye think you're playing at?' roared Emmermann. `

Keep clear! Keep clear!'

Gaok was thrashing aJong right alongside Sang A and both vessels were bucking in one another's wash. Only a couple of feet separated them. I picked a gap between the threatening crewmen, and jumped.

Two toughies made at me. The nearer aimed a roundhouse swing at my head. I dodged and made a staggering lunge across the bucking deck-missed my footing, and fell on my knees. My man came on. I was a millisecond ahead of him; grabbed his foot and rode the kick aimed at my neck. Nevertheless, it caught me under the right armpit with the force of a car's bumper. I was tossed backwards and half under one of the tarpaulined objects. Only my peripheral vision registered what it was because my main attention was focused on the two men rushing at me, the first one having disengaged his foot. It wasn't a winch or a bollard I saw, or any of the other things you'd expect to find on the deck of a ship going about her lawful occasions. It was a twin-mount machine gun. I'd slipped into a crouch to meet the attack when the men stopped like dogs called to heel. Angry dogs, snarling dogs. Only then did I hear Kenryo shouting at them. I got up, brushed past them, and started to walk towards Emmermann and Kenryo on the cat-walk. That walk could have been in millimetres, not feet: it seemed to last for ever. Not because of the menacing crew but because of my racing thoughts. That machine-gun put the clincher on what I suspected about Sang A. It certainly didn't fit in with Emmermann's story about trawling. It also wrote the C-in-C's brief to me in much broader and more dangerous terms. Ships don't go around with high-powered electronics gear and mounted guns, searching for lost cities. If there was a lost city at all. I wondered whether there'd ever been one, in point of fact, and what really lay behind my assignment. Whatever it was 128 it began to look rough. I decided to tackle Emmermann and Kenryo first about the electronic gear, and hold back about the gun. I'd never get off Sang A alive if I mentioned it. They weren't to know I'd glimpsed it: the tarpaulin cover was still in place. Their answer to any request for use of their radio was both a back number and a foregone conclusion now, but I intended to go ahead because it provided my excuse for boarding Sang A.

I finally reached Emmermann and Kenryo.

Emmermann's face was livid; the cords in his neck stood out and there were little nicks from a bad shave

'Order that ship of yours to sheer off or I'll ram her,' he rasped.

'Get off or I'll throw you off I' added Kenryo. I gave his stocky figure a quick once-over. His threat wasn't an idle one. And I'm a big man. You murderous sod, I thought, it was you who killed Breekbout and Koch. He looked as if he'd come at me any moment.

'See here,' I said. 'There's been another death. I want you to signal the fisheries frigate.'

'Who the hell do you think you're ordering about!' Kenryo started towards me but Emmermann stopped him.

'It's no business of ours, whoever it is,' he said.

'It was Dr Koch. I'm making it your business.'

'Why don't you use your own radio?' Kenryo's eyes were hot and sly.

'It's out of order,' I admitted. Well, yes or no?' '

No,' replied Emmermann.

'Fair enough.'

They both seemed surprised at my ready and unquestioning acceptance of their refusal. But there wasn't any point in pressing the demand, plus another for Sang A to request clearance to operate in non-fishing waters. The answer to that one lay back on deck, hidden under a tarpaulin. Also, I wanted to keep communications open between myself and Sang A, so that I could still come aboard under some pretext or other. The whole situation had changed radically since I'd spotted that machine-gun: I'd have to handle things very carefully indeed. .