I joined in the laugh, although a little cautiously. I was not sure how much the Kroo boy understood of what we were saying.
"You've done such a damn fine job that it's scarcely necessary to conceal the damage," I said.
He nodded. "With a more responsive crew, I'd have had her more shipshape still," he remarked. "We certainly scared the pants off this lot to-day."
John had done wonders. Apart from the missing boats, twisted davits and the mast aft, even the idlers hanging around the quayside (they never seemed to disperse) would not have noticed much amiss. The paintwork had been restored where the blistering eruption had stripped it off her plates like a blow-lamp, although there were still obvious signs on the deck of her ordeal — the twisted winches and bent bulwarks. Nevertheless, I could take her to sea any ' time. Mac had not reported from the engine room, but I knew he would be along once we had secured. In addition to the repairs, we had heaved about ten tons offish overboard which had been spoilt by the heat of the eruption.
I brought Etosha up to her moorings, which lay well away from most of the other fishing boats anyway, most of them local wooden sail-and-engine craft which (to my mind) have none of the seaworthiness or grace of those fine cutters one finds off the Norwegian coast or on the Icelandic grounds.
The angry sun transformed the harbour, even the ugly Cold Storage works with its tall chimneys and fortress-like structure, to a world of golds, blues, ambers and blacks. The quick late autumn night was falling when we cleared away the crew for the night — I did not allow them to sleep aboard, which they resented, but it was a point on which I was adamant.
John, Mac and I had the Etosha to ourselves.
"Come in, Mac," I called from my sea-cabin where John was having a drink with me later.
"Scotch?" I asked.
"Aye," he replied in his dour way. "No water."
"Anything left of your engines after this morning?" asked John.
"Bluidy little," he growled. He turned from the painting of a full-rigged ship which he was contemplating above my desk. Although I had known Mac for more than fifteen years, I still felt a little chilled at his eyes, like a line of surf under the Northern Lights, coupled with his morose dour-ness.
"Some day," he said angrily, "ye'll go too far, skipper, and you won't have me to haul you out of the muck." He smiled grimly at his inner knowledge. "The luck's been with you, so far, laddie. It damn near wasn't to-day."
I refilled his glass. For Mac to utter more than half a dozen words a day was surprising. This sounded almost like an unburdening. I poured the Haig slowly and thought, he does know too much. What do I know about him? Precious little. And yet everything a man can learn from another from being in tight corners together and carrying out deeds beyond the arm of the law. Did the same rules apply in the Glasgow gutter where Mac had been born? Was our alliance one of expediency or one of loyalty, the gamin's loyalty to the gang, so long as the leader paid off? Certainly, Mac knew too much.
Mac took the straight drink without a word. "Bit of strain in the shaft, I think, but nothing t' worry about."
"That means that the whole damn thing's as sweet as a nut," laughed John. "What was it like down in your stokehole when we staggered through that bit of flame, Mac?" "Like someone had put a blow-lamp under my backside," he said shortly.
"Everything will be all right for getting out on to the fishing grounds in the morning?" I asked him.
He treated me to one of his hard stares. "Aye," he said slowly, spinning the amber liquid round and round in the glass, obscuring the deep oil stains on the capable fingers. "Where were we this morning, laddie? Anywhere near the old place?"
Blast Mac, I thought. I had enough on my hands without his raking up what was dead. Certainly he knew a lot too much. I played for time. "Another drink, John?"
A heavy knock at the door saved my answering. I opened it. There stood a policeman. He spoke in Afrikaans. "Which of you is Captain Macdonald?"
"I am," I replied in the same language. "Come in."
"Venter," he said, introducing himself in the German way. "Sergeant."
Still speaking in Afrikaans, I said: "This is my first mate, Mister John Garland, and my engineer, Mister Macfadden." He shook hands formally.
"Neither of them speak Afrikaans," I said to relieve the uneasy air in the cabin. "Shall we speak English?"
Now was the time for my act, carried out whenever I came to port. I dropped into English with a South African accent, that clipped, staccato form of English which shortens its vowels and studs its sentences with the word "man." They say the first word you hear on arriving in Cape Town from overseas is the typical "man." Ask a South African to say "castle "and listen to the value he gives the "a" and you'll recognise him anywhere. It has none of the twang of Australia, but has an individuality all its own.
"Have a drink, Sarge?" I said with forced heartiness. "Whisky, or the real stuff?"
I pulled out a bottle of well-matured Cape brandy.
Venter gazed at the label in admiration. "Jesus!" he said with a wink. "You sea b——s certainly get the mother's milk. A nice little sopie of that, and you can't say I'm sucking on the hind tit."
I caught John's amazed eye at this little introduction and nearly burst out laughing. Mac gazed at him with the sort of expression I should imagine he reserved for delinquent pieces of machinery.
Venter took a big swallow, tossed his helmet on the table and sank with a big sigh into my chair.
"Man, captain," he said. "They sent me to ask about this bastard of your crew who got drowned."
I glanced swiftly across at John, for I had told him earlier that I had sent a note with the Kroo helmsman to the police advising them officially that I'd lost a man overboard.
"I'll get the charts," said John.
"I'll show you the exact place where we lost him. It was during a volcanic eruption, you know."
"Have your drink first," said the sergeant. "No hurry. This is bladdy good brandy. A non-European, wasn't he?"
"Yes," I said. "I was making a run at speed to get clear of a couple of volcanic islands, and the fellow — his name was Shilling — jumped overboard and swam for a rock which was sticking out of the sea. I never saw him again."
"Silly bastard," replied Venter expansively. "What did he want to go and do that for? Not a solitary clue, I'd say."
"There was no chance to go back for him," I added. "I was moving at full speed and almost at the same moment we were hit by a big wave."
"Ag, man, the docks are full of unskilled hands — you'll find another boy quite easily," commented Venter.
"Another brandy," I suggested.
"It's good stuff," approved Venter.
John slipped out and returned with the chart. He had found time even to complete the duplicate. There were the neat crosses and position of the chain of islands, about 150 miles from where we really had been. It would be safe enough, for islands on this coast simply appear one day and disappear the next. No one could dispute it.
"Our position was about twenty degrees fifty minutes South" he began in a formal voice which took me back to Royal Navy courts-martial.
"Jesus!" exclaimed Venter: "I don't understand that sort of thing. I wouldn't know how even to write it down. Tell me something simple, just for the report."
"Won't there be an inquest?" I asked tentatively.
"Nothing more than just a formality," said Venter. "No, man, just tell me where it was and I'll write it down for the major. That's about all. Bit of a waste of time, I'd say, but there it is."
John looked relieved. I don't think he liked the job of explaining faked charts.
"I should say it was about 150 miles N.N.W. of Walvis Bay. He went overboard somewhere about six o'clock."