Trout dived under the darkening South Atlantic.
My share of the mail, in my tiny cubbyhole of a cabin with only its worn green curtain separating me from the rest of the.submarine, looked uninspiring. There didn't even seem to be a personal letter among the lot. I felt depressed at the stark little pile of letters and papers, all typewritten. No loving hand to smooth my way, I thought grimly. The whole depression of the mission hit me again. In London it was Trout's lack of even a sporting chance that had shaken me; deep under the South Atlantic tonight it was the awareness that the chance was never likely to occur at all.
I ripped open the mail. One bore the superscription "Hodgson, Hodgson and Hodgson, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London." It was from my grandfather's lawyers. The dry phrases seemed utterly sterile. "We have to inform you, as the sole legatee of the late Captain Simon Peace…" It seemed the old man had left me about Ј500 and a miscellaneous collection of old nautical instruments and charts. I'd taken some of the old charts with me from his desk the day he died, anyway. I'd not looked at them.
Then came a rustle amid the dry legal phrases: "You will notice from the enclosed copy of Captain Simon Peace's will that you have been bequeathed, in terms of it, the island of Curva dos Dunas, stated by the late Captain Peace to lie in 17' 30" S n' 48" E. A title deed, apparently legal, filed with the former German Administration of South West Africa, is attached. Owing to war-time restrictions on the availability of charts and maps, we have been unable to establish the identity of this island. The Admiralty states that it cannot disclose any such information in war-time but added, confidentially, that it was unaware that any islands existed in that part of the South Atlantic. The Admiralty, however, refuse to disclose what specific area of the South Atlantic it was referring to. However, we enclose a copy of the title deed for your perusal and suggest that when conditions are more settled, a thorough investigation be made into the whereabouts and value of this property. We await your instructions as to its disposal at a later date."
The old bastard! I thought amusedly to myself. So he had an island tucked away and no one knew anything about it! Well, it was easy enough for me to find out. I went through to the navigation table and pulled out an Admiralty chart "Bahia dos Tigres to Walvis Bay "with the annotation "principally from the German Government charts to 1930." I checked off the position in the letter with the dividers.
It was about twenty miles south of the mouth of the Cunene River. There was no sign at all of an island. Curva dos Dunas? I double-checked the position. There it was — a foul looking piece of coast, if ever there was one, with broken water and shoals all over the place, but no sign of Curva dos Dunas. There were plenty of isolated rocks which pass as islands south of Walvis Bay, but nothing so far north, or near the mouth of the Cunene, which is the international boundary between South West Africa and Angola.
I was puzzling over the little mystery when the hydrophone operator's voice reached me clearly.
"Captain in the control room," called John.
"What is it, John?" I asked.
"Bissett's getting some odd noises," he said. "He just can't identify them."
"H.E?" I asked.
"No, hell," laughed John. "Elton says it's all Bissett's imagination, but you know Bissett is the best we have."
"I'll go and have a look and listen myself," I said.
Bissett had the earphones over his head and Elton, his relief and junior, was standing by, looking rather bored and amused.
"Listen to that, sir," said Bissett, giving me one earpiece.
At first I could hear nothing. Then there was a kind of gurgling noise, very faint, and then a slight, resonant hiss, almost like a bubble slowly bursting under water. It kept repeating in a kind of cycle. In the background there was a slight churning noise.
I simply couldn't make it out.
"Propellers!" I asked tentatively.
"No, definitely not," replied Bissett. "But it's moving sir. Left to right, about ten knots, I reckon."
"About south-east," I reflected aloud.
"Sounds to me like a whale farting," commented Elton.
The remark stung me, epitomising as it did the slack attitude of the crew on this warm-weather cruise.
I turned savagely on Elton: "Another remark like that, Elton, and you'll find yourself in serious trouble."
"Sorry, sir," he muttered, but the contemptuous amusement was not entirely gone from his face.
"It's slowing, sir," said Bissett.
"I'm going to follow it," I told him. "Keep on to it and don't let me lose it. If it speeds up, let me know."
I went back into the control room!" Steer one-six-oh," I told John. "Seven knots."
"Aye, aye sir," he said. "Plot?"
"No." I said. I drew him on one side. "Frankly, John, I haven't a solitary clue what we are following, but I can't stand this bloody square search a moment longer. Anything is better than that."
"Aye, aye, sir," he grinned.
I took the chart from the navigator's table and went towards my cubbyhole: "Call me at once if we catch up on that noise."
John nodded.
In my solitary cabin I started to unfold the chart I had brought with me, but my mind was against Simon Peace's little mysteries, and I threw it down in disgust. I glanced through the remaining letters. A bill or two and a neatly wrapped copy of The Times. I opened it and saw that the "deaths "column had been ringed with blue pencil. I could see the precise circle being drawn by the schoolmasterly hand. The news was like a cold douche. So he was dead! He had deserved to die with a deck under his feet, had old Arctic-eyes. "Killed in an air raid…" It left the Director of Naval Intelligence and myself. The only two who knew about NP I outside Germany. That neat circle of blue was both a courier of news and a warning. My little cubbyhole suddenly seemed unbearably stifling. It was quite clear; it needed no words, no admonition, to carry to me the meaning of the man with the pedantic and heart full of secrets.
I tossed the paper aside and went through to Bissett. He looked up inquiringly and nodded as I came in. "Still there, sir. Steady seven knots, maybe eight. I just can't make out what that noise can be."
"Steady course, no deviations?"
"Absolutely steady, sir."
The control room boys were chattering between themselves as I came through, but they were on the job all right. I had a feeling of unease which I could not explain
I threw myself down on my bunk again, but I couldn't sleep. I got up and reached for a cigarette and then cursed my forgetfulness. On the handkerchief sized table lay I Hodgson, Hodgson and Hodgson's letter. Curva dos Dunas! I took the navigator's chart and checked again on the position. I remember that I had crammed a couple of the old man's charts into my grip. I rummaged round and found them, crumpled, but not in bad shape really. At that moment I knew I had NP I in the bag. Curious how one's mental processes range apparently without purpose or pattern and then suddenly crystallise. When I saw old Simon Peace's chart — criss-crossed with soundings and annotations — I knew that I had been right in what I had intuitively reasoned before — that NP I must have a base.
And there it was: my island, Curva dos Dunas, exactly where old Simon Peace had positioned it. Curva dos Dunas — a Twist of Sand!
I looked at the formidable stretch of coast about twenty miles south of the mouth of the Cunene — what a fool I had been about the old man's dying words! Not south of north as I had thought. But south of — and there it was plain on the older chart — south of what the river used to be called, the Nourse. Twenty miles south of the Nourse lay the island, amongst the worst shoals and foul ground that could be charted anywhere. Most of them weren't anyway, not on the Admiralty map.
I studied Simon Peace's map in utter fascination. It was obvious that he had surveyed and charted the whole area himself. There, like a jewel set amid broken patterns of ore, was Curva dos Dunas. Guarded from the south by a needle-shaped rock (" ten feet at high tide, eight fathoms under "said the precise lettering in old Simon's hand) and protected farther south still by the Clan Alpine shoal, Curva dos Dunas was the most perfect hide-out anyone could wish for. North of it lay a series of shoals: the water shallowed with incredible abruptness from thirty-two to five fathoms in one place: on the landward side was a rock-strewn, hilly coast surmounted by high shifting dunes; a three-topped hill guarded a tiny beach marked "only sandy beach." This lay half at the back of the island, which seemed only a short distance from "the mainland itself. This mainland is known to sailors as the Skeleton Coast, a coastline beaten by high, thundering surf from the south-west; low, wind-blown scrub relieves the utter baldness of the dunes, and everywhere are the wicked shoals. The high dunes stretch northwards almost to the mouth of the Cunene (or Nourse as old Simon called it). The mouth itself is guarded by a most wicked constellation of shoals.