"I just don't want to hear any more of your dull scientific stuff," she said smilingly. "All I see is that it is lovely beyond description." She came close up to me so that I could smell the sweet sweat of the day's march, mingling with the acrid tobacco. She ran one hand inside my reefer jacket.
"If I'd never met Geoffrey Peace, I would never have seen such beauty," she said. "You'll remember that, won't you?"
I didn't touch her. She seemed as intangible as the bloom on the plankton.
"Yes," I replied slowly. "I'll remember that. I'll remember that you forgave Curva dos Dunas and the Skeleton Coast. I'll remember, some future day at sea when the plankton bloom, that you forgave me too."
She stepped back and looked long and quizzically at me.
"Food!" she said with a complete change of mood. "I need food if I'm going to tramp all day tomorrow again." Then she stopped impetuously and came back to where I stood, for I had not moved.
"No," she said. "To hell with food. I want to know about this great secret love of Geoffrey's, the Skeleton Coast. Give me another cigarette."
She sat down and blew a burst of blue smoke seawards. She pulled me down by her side.
"Come on," she said. "Wave your magic wand. Make your plankton bloom for me again. Make one sun into two."
I caught her mood.
"It's really all very simple and easy to explain scientifically," I said. "You see, this is the only place in the world where the Antarctic and the Tropics meet."
"If you told me this hill was solid diamond, I'd probably believe you," she replied.
"It might be," I responded. "If the diamond pipes of Alexander Bay continue up here, there's no reason why you should not become a sort of female Dr. 'Williamson."
"I have no intention of sublimating myself into diamonds," she smiled back. "I always felt sorry for Williamson — every golddigger in the world after his money."
"It's quite a simple explanation, although it sounds a paradox," I said. "You see, the Benguela current conies straight here off the ice. The Skeleton Coast is tropical, with a desert thrown in. One day, when I was close inshore, I saw a lion tackling some seals on the beach north of Cape Cross. Can you imagine — a tropical hunter like a lion living off an Antarctic creature like a seal?"
"Cape Cross," she frowned. "Why Cape Cross?"
"One of the earliest Portuguese navigators — I think it was Diego Cao — made his landfall there, way back before Diaz. He took one look at the Skeleton Coast and said to himself, if this is Africa, I'm on my way home. So he beat it back to Prince Henry the Navigator without going for the Cape."
"Is it the same sort of climatic mix-up which made us see two suns?"
"Yes. If we'd been lucky we might have seen some flamingo this evening too. You get huge flocks of them at sunset. Just think, a red sun, lemon sea, flamingo sky."
"You sound like something in Vogue," she replied. "Think what a seller it would be — Skeleton Coast black, with a flamingo stole."
We laughed and she threw down the butt of the cigarette.
"Now you've really made me feel uncivilised," she exclaimed. "My face must look like one of those jagged rocks there, from the feel of it. Come on now, food. No more lovely fairy tales until tomorrow."
She took my hand as we slithered down to the sand basin; it was hot and sticky and I could feel the tiny grains of sand between her fingers. Where the sweat had soaked through her sweater there was a line against the general dustiness of her breasts, emphasising their curve. The cheekbones were flushed — from the filing of the windblown sand, I thought. We trudged back to camp.
The grey monotony of the sand changed to white, white so dazzling that when I looked through my binoculars, my eyes crimped up under the magnification. I was leading the four of us next afternoon, Anne behind me, silent, lost in her thoughts, Stein next and Johann bringing up the rear. Occasionally he cursed softly in German at the weight and heat of the Remington. Stein had pocketed the Luger now; I was safe inside the sand prison.
"What is it?" said Stein coming up to me.
I gestured towards the whiteness.
"See that extra whiteness of the sand?" I said, moistening my lips and feeling the grate of the sand on my teeth.
"That's the river."
"Ah!" he exclaimed with deep satisfaction.
"Give me your glasses, Captain."
He took them and gazed for a long time at the whiteness about five miles away, below the level of where we were standing. The unbroken, savage ridge of hills and cliffs on our left as we slogged all day in the burning heat never repented. At the closest we must have been five miles from the sea, and at the farthest eight. We followed the hard track, sweating blindly. Once in the far distance ahead we saw an elephant — or thought we saw one — but otherwise the remorseless countenance of the Skeleton Coast remained unrelaxed.
"I don't see water," said Stein.
"And you're equally unlikely to," I said. "The Cunene is dry at this time anyway. It's probably dry all the year. About once in five years it comes down in full spate and it's twice the width of the Orange."
"How far inland are we hitting it?" asked Stein.
"About ten miles from the mouth, I reckon," I said.:' There's a cataract a few miles above. I've not seen it, though. I don't know if we can get by. But for some unknown reason, the course of the river widens below the cataract — it looks just like the advertisements you see for colonic irrigation."
Stein ignored the sally.
"Why shouldn't we get past the cataract?" he asked. "What do you know that you are keeping up your sleeve, Captain Peace?"
"Oh, for God's sake!" I said. "I've simply never been there, that's all! I know the river bed is there because I've walked across it. Every bit of three miles wide, but it's hard and much easier going than this. All I know is that if it had been as easy to get into the Skeleton Coast by using the dry bed of the Cunene as a track, lots of people would have tried it already. I don't know why they haven't."
"We'll find out," he replied tersely. "Nothing is going to stop me now."
I looked at the cruel face, sweat-stained. I believed him. I took the lead again. We marched towards the river.
I thought at first they were elephant or buffalo, but they were trees. Glorious, welcome shade after the lidless blaze of the past two days. I am a sailor and I suppose one's eyes get used to the endless monotony of the sea, but desert is different. The sand fretted at the eyes. It seeped into every crack, it made its presence known at every footstep. Anne had plastered her face with cream and she looked like an Everest climber in reverse. She was limping a little, but still game.
No word had been spoken since we first sighted the river. Now, although the cataract was not in sight, we were at the wide sweep of sand, still unbearably bright, which is the Cunene. There was no sign of water. In a shallow bay of sand were half a dozen huge trees whose roots, on the edge of the sand, were eroded like primeval things. By some sort of tacit consent, Anne and I flopped down under one and Stein and Johann under another, about thirty yards away. They were near enough to guard us, but far enough away not to be able to hear what was being said.
Anne stretched herself back and faced away from the sun.
"I couldn't care less whether there are half a dozen suns this evening," she exclaimed wearily. "You'll have to rustle up real magic to make me interested in anything at this moment."