Part 20 (1/2)
”I plan to set up our base caap to reach the area of the wreck”
”It looks a little risky” She eyed the narrow channel with reserve
”It will save us a round journey of nearly twenty miles each day - and it isn't as bad as it looks Once I took h there at full throttle!
”You lasses up on top of her head to look at rinned at her, and she grinned back
”I am an expert already,” she boasted The sun had darkened the freckles on her nose and cheeks and given her skin a glow She had one of those rare skins that do not redden and becoht Instead it was the kind that quickly turned a golden honey brown
It was high tide e rounded the northern tip of the island into a protected cove and Chubby ran the whaleboat on to the sand only twenty yards froo, carrying it up aain covered it with tarpaulins to protect it from the ubiquitous sea salt
It was late by the tione out of the sun, and the long shadows of the pal only our personal gear and a fivegallon container of fresh water In the back of thefishermen had scratched out a series of shallow caves in the steep slope
I selected a large cave to act as our equip quarters for Sherry and elo chose another for the the slope and screened from us by a patch of scrub
I left Sherry to sweep out our new quarters with a brush is on the inflatable mattress while I took my cast net and went back to the cove
It was dark when I returned with a string of a dozen big stripedWe ate in contented silence, and afterwards Sherry and I lay together in our cave and listened to the big fiddler crabs clicking and scratching ast the palh we are the first reed, and she chuckled and drew closer to me
In the dawn Chubby set off alone in the whaleboat on the long return journey to St Mary's He would return next day with a full load of petrol and fresh water in jerry-cans Sufficient to last us for teeks or so
While aited for hi task of carrying all the equipment and stores up to the caves I set up the co gear, and Sherry arranged hanging space for our clothes and generally made our quarters comfortable
The next day, she and I roa the valleys and beaches between I had hoped to find water, a spring or well overlooked by the other visitors - but naturally there was none Those canny old fisher
The south end of the island, farthest from our camp, was impenetrable with salt marsh between the peak and the sea We skirted the acres of evil-srass The air was rank and heavy with rotted vegetation and dead fish
Colonies of red and purple crabs had covered the mudflats with their holes froroves, the herons were breeding, perched long4egged upon their huge shaggy nests, and once I heard a splash and saw the swirl of so in one of the swamp pools that could only have been a crocodile We left the fever swaround, then we picked our way through the thickets of shrub growth towards the southerrunost peak
Sherry decided we must climb this one also I tried to dissuade her for it was the tallest and steepest My protests went completely unnoticed, and even after we had e below the southern cliff of the peak, she pressed on detqht found a way to the top then I'et the same view from there as from the other peaks,” I pointed out
”That's not the point”
”What is the point, then?” I asked, and she gavetook usually reserved for snify the question with an answer, and continued her cautious sideways shuffle along the edge
There was a drop of at least two hundred feet below us, and if there is one deficiency in e, it is that I have no head for heights However, I would rather have balanced on one leg atop St Paul's Cathedral than adreat reluctance I followed her
Fortunately it was only a few paces farther that she uttered a cry of triue into a narrow vertical crack that split the cliff-face The fracturing of the rock had formed a stepped and readily climbable chimney to the summit, into which I followed her with relief Alain
”Oh dear God, Harry, look!” and she pointed to a protected area of the wall, in the back of the dark recess Soo had patiently chipped an inscription into the flat stone surface
A BARLOW WRECKED ON THIS PLACE 14th OCT 1858
As we stared at it, I felt her hand grope for er the intrepid mountaineer, her expression was half fearful as she studied the writing
”It's creepy,” she whispered ”It looks as though it ritten yesterday - not all those years ago”
Indeed, the letters had been protected frolanced around al us
When at last we climbed the steep chitnney to the sue fro the surf break in long white lines upon Gunfire Reef The gap in the reef and the great dark pool of the Break showed very clearly froe point, while it was just possible to h the coral Froht in her death throes, watched her broken up by the high surf
”Tiainst us now, Sherry,” I told her, as the holiday mood of the last few days evaporated ”It's fourteen days since Manny Resnick sailed in the Mandrake He will not be far from Cape Town by now We will knohen he reaches there”
”How?”
”I have an old friend who lives there He is a member of the Yacht Club - and he atch the traffic and cable me the moment Mandrake docks”
I looked down the back slope of the peak, and for the first tih the tops of the pal fire
”I have been a little halfarsed on this trip,” I roup of school kids on a picnic Frohten up the security - just across the channel there is my old friend Suleiman Dada, and Mandrake will be in these waters sooner than I'd like We will have to keep a nice low silhouette fro e need, do you think?” Sherry asked
”I don't know, er than we think possible We are shackled by the need to ferry all our water and petrol fro a few hours of each tide when the condition and the height of the water will let us Who knoe are going to find in there once we start, and finally we may discover that the Colonel's parcels were stowed in the rear hold of the Dawn Light that part of the shi+p that was carried out into the open water If it was, then you can kiss it all goodbye”
”We've been over that part of it before, you dreadful old pessihts”
So we thought happy thoughts and did happy things until at last I made out the tiny dark speck, like a water beetle on the brazen surface of the sea, as Chubby returned from St Mary's in the whaleboat
We cliroves tothe cove as we came out on the beach The whaleboat was low in the water under her heavy cargo of fuel and drinking water And Chubby stood in the stern as big and solid and as eternal as a great rock When aved and shouted he inclined his head gravely in acknowledgement
Mrs Chubby had sent a banana cake for e sunhat of woven palm fronds Chubby had obviously reported Sherry's behaviour, and his expression was e was already being done Sherry was toasted to an edible medium rare
t was after dark by the tiathered about the fire I where Angelo was cooking an island chowder of claoon that afternoon It was time to tell my crew the true reason for our expedition Chubby I could trust to say nothing, even under torture but I had waited to get Angelo into the isolation of the island before telling him He has been known to commit the most monstrous indiscretions - usually in an atte ladies
They listened in silence to elo aiting for a lead froe his fences He sat scowling into the fire, and his face looked like one of those copper masks from an Aztec temple When he had created the correct atmosphere of theatrical suspense he reached into his back pocket and produced a purse, so old and well handled that the leather was alh
”When I was a boy and fished the pool at Gunfire Break, I took a big old Daddy grouper fish When I open his belly pouch I found this in him” From the purse he took out a round disc ”I kept it since then, like a good luck charh I was offered ten pounds for it by an officer on one of my shi+ps”
He handed old coin, the size of a shi+lling The reverse side was covered with oriental characters which I could not read - but the obverse face bore a crest of two ra a shi+eld and an arn as I had last seen on the bronze shi+p's bell at Big Gull Island The legend below the shi+eld read: ”AUS: REGIS & SENAT: ANGLIA' while the rim was struck with the bold title'ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY'
”I always proo back to Gunfire Break - looks like this is the time,” Chubby went on, as I examined the coin minutely There was no date on it, but I had no doubt that it was a gold mohur of the company I had read of the coin but never seen one before
”You got this out of a fish's gut, Chubby?” I asked, and he nodded