Part 8 (2/2)
The trawler, Wild Goose, lay heeled over under the weight of fish that filled her purse seine-net; at least a hundred tons of seething silver pilchards bulging the net out alongside the trawler into a round bag fifty feet across
While above it a shrieking canopy of seabirds swirled and wheeled and dived, frantic with greed
Three of the crew on a scoop-net which hung fro the fish out of the net, swinging a ton of fish at each scoop over the side, and dropping them like a silver cloudburst into the trawler's hold The donkey engine on the winch clattered harshly in tio watched with satisfaction He had a good crew, and although the fishi+ng was only a cover for the Wild Goose - yet Hugo took pride in his teutonic thoroughness which dictated that the cover should be as solid as possible
In any case, all profits fro were for his personal account It was part of the agree
He packed the binoculars carefully into their leather case, and hung them behind the chartroom door Then he cla with catlike grace despite the heavy rubber hip boots he wore
”I'll take her here for a while,” he told the man at the winch controls He spoke in Afrikaans, but his accent was shaded with the German of South West Africa
Wide-shouldered under the blue fisherman's jersey, he worked with smooth econoh and reddened by wind and sun, for his skin was too fair to weather
The skin of his face was also red, and half-boiled, peeling so there were pinky raw places on his cheeks and black scabs on his lips
The hair that hung out under his cap hite as bleached sisal, and his eyelashes were thick and colourless, giving hihted look His eyes were the palest of cornflower blue, yet without being weak and watery as those of ed the roll and dip of the boat - engaging the clutch toon the drue above hio did not allow his attention to waver as he replied, ”What is it?”
”Gale warning! There is a northerly buster building up”
And Hugo grinned, pulled on the brake and shut the throttle
”All right, clean up Cut the purse rope, let the fish go free”
He turned and sware, and went to his chart table
”It will take us three hours to get in position,” he ed out on to the wing of the bridge again to chase up his crew
They had cut the purse rope on the net, allowing the net to fall open like a wo stain through the gap Twoloose fish fro the hatch-covers closed
Within fortysouth under full throttle to take up her waiting station
The diamond coast of South West Africa lies in the belt of the Trades The prevailing wind is the southeaster, but periodically the wind systeale comes out of the north, off the land
It is a Scirocco-type wind like the ”Khamsin” of the Libyan desert, or the ”Si dry wind out of the desert, filling the sky with brooding dust and sand clouds, s beneath a hellish pall like the sreat battlefield
The dust clouds were part of the design, the Ring had taken account of them when they planned the system - for the north wind lifted into the sky Such a quantity of mica dust that the radar screens of the dia up phanto it impossible to pick up the presence of a small airborne object
Turn Back Point was three e River The naiven by the first travellers, and expressed their views on continuing a journey northwards Those old travellers had not known that they + stood in the centre of an elevated marine terrace, an ancient beach now lifted above the level of the sea, and that it was the richest prospect of an area so dia-fenced, patrolled by jeep and dog and aircraft, guarded by gun and radar, a laager so secure that aout with him but the clothes he wore
At Turn Back Point was one of the four big separation plants where all the gravel fros from miles around was processed The settlee, with plant, workshops and stores, and accommodation for five hundred men and their families
Yet not all the Company's efforts to make it attractive and liveable could alter the fact that Turn Back Point was a hell-hole in a savage and forbidding desert
Noith the north wind blowing, what had been unpleasant before was alhtly sealed, even the joints around the s and doors were plugged with cloth or paper and yet the red dust seeped in to powder the furniture, the desks, the bed linen, even the interior of the refrigerators, with a thin gritty filed the nostrils - and with it ca heat that seemed to dry the moisture frolittering fog which reduced visibility to a dozen yards Men ere forced out into that choking dry soup wore dust goggles to protect their eyes, and thethat glittered even in that dun light
Beyond the settle a small cylindrical object He leaned forward into the wind,sloay into the desert He reached a shallow depression and went down into it
Setting his burden on the sand, he rested a moment Then he knelt over the cylinder He appeared monstrous under his leather jacket and cap, his face covered by goggles and a scarf
The fibre-glass cylinder was painted with yellow fluorescent paint At one end was a transparent plastic bubble which housed an electric globe, at the other end was a folded envelope of rubberized nylon material attached to the cylinder by a stainless steel coupling, and linked to the coupling was a sas
The whole asse, and three inches in diahed a few ounces more than fifteen pounds
Within the cylinder were two separate cohly sophisticated piece of transistorized electronic equipuish its lanal command, and also at coas into the nylon balloon through the connecting coupling
The smaller compartment held simply a sealed plastic container into which were packed twenty-seven diahed fourteen carats, the largest a formidable fifty-six carats Each of these stones had been selected by experts for colour, brilliance, and perfection These were all first-water diamonds, and once they were cut they would fetch in the open market between seven hundred thousand and a
There were fourservice and trusted diauarded walls of the processing plant They worked together, to check each other, for the Company operated a system of employee double check which was completely useless when there was collusion
These ot the was a diesel mechanic in the Company workshops It was his job to receive ant] assemble the equiprease He also packed the stones into the cylinder and passed it on to theto launch the cylinder into the swirling dust fog
His final check completed, the man stood up and went to the lip of the depression and peered out into the dust storm At last he seemed satisfied, and hurried back to the yellow cylinder With an incisive twist of the bevelled release ring he opened the valve on the bottle of hydrogen gas There was a snakelike hiss, and the nylon balloon began to inflate The folds of er to be gone, but the man restrained it with difficulty until the balloon was s cylinder leapt into the sky, and alone into the dust clouds
The man stood with his face lifted to the dark furnacered sky His goggles glinted blindly, but his attitude was one of triuhtly with the step of a e” he promised himself ”Just one more, and I'll pull out Buy that far, take a shooting trip every year-” He was still drea when he reached the parked Landrover and cliine, switched on the headlights, and drove slowly down the track towards the settle Land-Rover was in white paint so that it showed clearly through the haze of red dust
SECURITY PATROL,” it read
Wild Goose lay on station, with her diesels throbbing softly, ticking over to hold her head into the wind Even twentyhot and the occasional splatter of spray on Hugo's face was refreshi+ng
He stood in the corner of the bridge where he could watch the sea and the hel on station for fifteen hours now, during ten of which the norther had howled dis
He was always anxious at the beginning of a pick-up There was sofrom a police sweep to a tiny electrical fault in the equipment
”What tilanced up at the chronometer above his head
”Three o grunted disgustedly, slitted those pale-lashed eyes into the wind once e house
He stopped at the console beside his chart table Even to an experienced eye the machine was an ordinary ”Fishfinder', an adaptation of the old wartime anti-submarine device, the ASDIC, to theals beneath the the depth and position of the pilchard sho surface
However, this one a costly and specialized conversion The Ring had flown an expert out from japan to do the work
Now that the set hureen by the internal light, but the sound was neutral, and the circular glass screen WAS blank
”You want soo asked the old coloured man at the wheel His creere handpicked, loyal and trusted They had to be - one loud mouth could blow a multi-million pound business