Master of the Game
Chapter 4

Saturday was market day in Cape Town and the streets were crowded with shoppers looking for bargains, meeting friends and lovers. Boers and Frenchmen, soldiers in colorful uniforms and English ladies in flounced skirts and ruffled blouses mingled in front of the bazaars set up in the town squares at Braameonstein and Park Town and Burgersdorp. Everything was for sale: furniture, horses and carriages and fresh fruit. One could purchase dresses and chessboards, or meat or books in a dozen different languages. On Saturdays, Cape Town was a noisy, bustling fair.
Banda walked along slowly through the crowd, careful not to make eye contact with the whites. It was too dangerous. The streets were filled with blacks, Indians and coloreds, but the white minority ruled. Banda hated them. This was his land, and the whites were the uitlanders. There were many tribes in southern Africa: the Basutos, Zulus, Bechuanas, the Matabele - all of them Bantu. The very word bantu came from abantu - the people. But the Barolongs - Banda's tribe - were the aristocracy. Banda remembered the tales his grandmother told him of the great black kingdom that had once ruled South Africa. Their kingdom, their country. And now they were enslaved by a handful of white jackals. The whites had pushed them into smaller and smaller territories, until their freedom had been eroded. Now, the only way a black could exist was by slim, subservient on the surface, but cunning and clever beneath.
Banda did not know how old he was, for natives had no birth certificates. Their ages were measured by tribal lore: wars and battles, and births and deaths of great chiefs, comets and blizzards and earthquakes, Adam Kok's trek, the death of Chaka and the cattle-killing revolution. But the number of his years made no difference. Banda knew he was the son of a chief, and that he was destined to do something for his people. Once again, the Bantus would rise and rule because of him. The thought of his mission made him walk taller and straighter for a moment, until he felt the eyes of a white man upon him.
Banda hurried east toward the outskirts of town, the district allotted to the blacks. The large homes and attractive shops gradually gave way to tin shacks and lean-tos and huts. He moved down a dirt street, looking over his shoulder to make certain he was not followed. He reached a wooden shack, took one last look around, rapped twice on the door and entered. A thin black woman was seated in a chair in a corner of the room sewing on a dress. Banda nodded to her and then continued on into the bedroom in back.
He looked down at the figure lying on the cot.
Six weeks earlier Jamie McGregor had regained consciousness and found himself on a cot in a strange house. Memory came flooding back. He was in the Karroo again, his body broken, helpless. The vultures...
Then Banda had walked into the tiny bedroom, and Jamie knew he had come to kill him. Van der Merwe had somehow learned Jamie was still alive and had sent his servant to finish him off.
"Why didn't your master come himself?" Jamie croaked.
"I have no master."
"Van der Merwe. He didn't send you?"
"No. He would kill us both if he knew."
None of this made any sense. "Where am I? I want to know where I am."
"Cape Town."
"That's impossible. How did I get here?"
"I brought you."
Jamie stared into the black eyes for a long moment before he spoke. "Why?"
"I need you. I want vengeance."
"What do you - ?"
Banda moved closer. "Not for me. I do not care about me. Van der Merwe raped my sister. She died giving birth to his baby. My sister was eleven years old."
Jamie lay back, stunned. "My God!"
"Since the day she died I have been looking for a white man to help me. I found him that night in the barn where I helped beat you up, Mr. McGregor. We dumped you in the Karroo. I was ordered to kill you. I told the others you were dead, and I returned to get you as soon as I could. I was almost too late."
Jamie could not repress a shudder. He could feel again the foul-smelling carrion bird digging into his flesh.
"The birds were already starting to feast. I carried you to the wagon and hid you at the house of my people. One of our doctors taped your ribs and set your leg and tended to your wounds."
"And after that?"
"A wagonful of my relatives was leaving for Cape Town. We took you with us. You were out of your head most of the time. Each time you fell asleep, I was afraid you were not going to wake up again."
Jamie looked into the eyes of the man who had almost murdered him. He had to think. He did not trust this man - and yet he had saved his life. Banda wanted to get at Van der Merwe through him. That can work both ways, Jamie decided. More than anything in the world, Jamie wanted to make Van der Merwe pay for what he had done to him.
"All right," Jamie told Banda. "I'll find a way to pay Van der Merwe back for both of us."
For the first time, a thin smile appeared on Banda's face. "Is he going to die?"
"No," Jamie told him. "He's going to live."
Jamie got out of bed that afternoon for the first time, dizzy and weak. His leg still had not completely healed, and he walked with a slight limp. Banda tried to assist him.
"Let go of me. I can make it on my own."
Banda watched as Jamie carefully moved across the room.
"I'd like a mirror," Jamie said. I must look terrible, he thought. How long has it been since I've had a shave?
Banda returned with a hand mirror, and Jamie held it up to his face. He was looking at a total stranger. His hair had turned snow-white. He had a full, unkempt white beard. His nose had been broken and a ridge of bone pushed it to one side. His face had aged twenty years. There were deep ridges along his sunken cheeks and a livid scar across his chin. But the biggest change was in his eyes. They were eyes that had seen too much pain, felt too much, hated too much. He slowly put down the mirror.
"I'm going out for a walk," Jamie said.
"Sorry, Mr. McGregor. That's not possible."
"Why not?"
"White men do not come to this part of town, just as blacks never go into the white places. My neighbors do not know you are here. We brought you in at night."
"How do I leave?"
"I will move you out tonight."
For the first time, Jamie began to realize how much Banda had risked for him. Embarrassed, Jamie said, "I have no money. I need a job."
"I took a job at the shipyard. They are always looking for men." He took some money from his pocket. "Here."
Jamie took the money. "I'll pay it back."
"You will pay my sister back," Banda told him.
It was midnight when Banda led Jamie out of the shack. Jamie looked around. He was in the middle of a shantytown, a jungle of rusty, corrugated iron shacks and lean-tos, made from rotting planks and torn sacking. The ground, muddy from a recent rain, gave off a rank odor. Jamie wondered how people as proud as Banda could bear spending their lives in a place such as this. "Isn't there some - ?"
"Don't talk, please," Banda whispered. "My neighbors are inquisitive." He led Jamie outside the compound and pointed. "The center of town is in that direction. I will see you at the shipyard."
Jamie checked into the same boardinghouse where he had stayed on his arrival from England. Mrs. Venster was behind the desk.
"I'd like a room," Jamie said.
"Certainly, sir." She smiled, revealing her gold tooth. "I'm Mrs. Venster."
"I know."
"Now how would you know a thing like that?" she asked coyly. "Have your men friends been tellin' tales out of school?"
"Mrs. Venster, don't you remember me? I stayed here last year."
She took a close look at his scarred face, his broken nose and his white beard, and there was not the slightest sign of recognition. "I never forget a face, dearie. And I've never seen yours before. But that don't mean we're not going to be good friends, does it? My friends call me 'Dee-Dee.' What's your name, love?"
And Jamie heard himself saying, "Travis. Ian Travis."
The following morning Jamie went to see about work at the shipyard.
The busy foreman said, "We need strong backs. The problem is you might be a bit old for this kind of work."
"I'm only nineteen - " Jamie started to say and stopped himself. He remembered that face in the mirror. "Try me," he said.
He went to work as a stevedore at nine shillings a day, loading and unloading the ships that came into the harbor. He learned that Banda and the other black stevedores received six shillings a day.
At the first opportunity, Jamie pulled Banda aside and said, "We have to talk."
"Not here, Mr. McGregor. There's an abandoned warehouse at the end of the docks. I'll meet you there when the shift is over."
Banda was waiting when Jamie arrived at the deserted warehouse.
"Tell me about Salomon van der Merwe," Jamie said.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
Banda spat. "He came to South Africa from Holland. From stories I heard, his wife was ugly, but wealthy. She died of some sickness and Van der Merwe took her money and went up to Klipdrift and opened his general store. He got rich cheating diggers."
"The way he cheated me?"
"That's only one of his ways. Diggers who strike it lucky go to him for money to help them work their claim, and before they know it Van der Merwe owns them."
"Hasn't anyone ever tried to fight back?"
"How can they? The town clerk's on his payroll. The law says that if forty-five days go by without working a claim, it's open. The town clerk tips off Van der Merwe and he grabs it. There's another trick he uses. Claims have to be staked out at each boundary line with pegs pointing straight up in the air. If the pegs fall down, a jumper can claim the property. Well, when Van der Merwe sees a claim he likes, he sends someone around at night, and in the morning the stakes are on the ground."
"Jesus!"
"He's made a deal with the bartender, Smit. Smit sends likely-looking prospectors to Van der Merwe, and they sign partnership contracts and if they find diamonds, Van der Merwe takes everything for himself. If they become troublesome, he's got a lot of men on his payroll who follow his orders."
"I know about that," Jamie said grimly. "What else?"
"He's a religious fanatic. He's always praying for the souls of sinners."
"What about his daughter?" She had to be involved in this.
"Miss Margaret? She's frightened to death of her father. If she even looked at a man, Van der Merwe would kill them both."
Jamie turned his back and walked over to the door, where he stood looking out at the harbor. He had a lot to think about. "We'll talk again tomorrow."
It was in Cape Town that Jamie became aware of the enormous schism between the blacks and whites. The blacks had no rights except the few they were given by those in power. They were herded into conclaves that were ghettos and were allowed to leave only to work for the white man.
"How do you stand it?" Jamie asked Banda one day.
"The hungry lion hides its claws. We will change all this someday. The white man accepts the black man because his muscles are needed, but he must also learn to accept his brain. The more he drives us into a corner, the more he fears us because he knows that one day there may be discrimination and humiliation in reverse. He cannot bear the thought of that. But we will survive because of isiko."
"Who is isiko?"
Banda shook his head. "Not a who. A what. It is difficult to explain, Mr. McGregor. Isiko is our roots. It is the feeling of belonging to a nation that has given its name to the great Zambezi River. Generations ago my ancestors entered the waters of the Zambezi naked, driving their herds before them. Their weakest members were lost, the prey of the swirling waters or hungry crocodiles, but the survivors emerged from the waters stronger and more virile. When a Bantu dies, isiko demands that the members of his family retire to the forest so that the rest of the community will not have to share their distress. Isiko is the scorn felt for a slave who cringes, the belief that a man can look anyone in the face, that he is worth no more and no less than any other man. Have you heard of John Tengo Jabavu?" He pronounced the name with reverence.
"No."
"You will, Mr. McGregor," Banda promised. "You will." And Banda changed the subject.
Jamie began to feel a growing admiration for Banda. In the beginning there was a wariness between the two men. Jamie had to learn to trust a man who had almost killed him. And Banda had to learn to trust an age-old enemy - a white man. Unlike most of the blacks Jamie had met, Banda was educated.
"Where did you go to school?" Jamie asked.
"Nowhere. I've worked since I was a small boy. My grandmother educated me. She worked for a Boer schoolteacher. She learned to read and write so she could teach me to read and write. I owe her everything."
It was on a late Saturday afternoon after work that Jamie first heard of the Namib Desert in Great Namaqualand. He and Banda were in the deserted warehouse on the docks, sharing an impala stew Banda's mother had cooked. It was good - a little gamey for Jamie's taste, but his bowl was soon empty, and he lay back on some old sacks to question Banda.
"When did you first meet Van der Merwe?"
"When I was working at the diamond beach on the Namib Desert. He owns the beach with two partners. He had just stolen his share from some poor prospector, and he was down there visiting it."
"If Van der Merwe is so rich, why does he still work at his store?"
"The store is his bait. That's how he gets new prospectors to come to him. And he grows richer."
Jamie thought of how easily he himself had been cheated. How trusting that naive young boy had been! He could see Margaret's oval-shaped face as she said, My father might be the one to help you. He had thought she was a child until he had noticed her breasts and - Jamie suddenly jumped to his feet, a smile on his face, and the up-turning of his lips made the livid scar across his chin ripple.
"Tell me how you happened to go to work for Van der Merwe."
"On the day he came to the beach with his daughter - she was about eleven then - I suppose she got bored sitting around and she went into the water and the tide grabbed her. I jumped in and pulled her out. I was a young boy, but I thought Van der Merwe was going to kill me."
Jamie stared at him. "Why?"
"Because I had my arms around her. Not because I was black, but because I was a male. He can't stand the thought of any man touching his daughter. Someone finally calmed him down and reminded him that I had saved her life. He brought me back to Klipdrift as his servant." Banda hesitated a moment, then continued. "Two months later, my sister came to visit me." His voice was very quiet. "She was the same age as Van der Merwe's daughter."
There was nothing Jamie could say.
Finally Banda broke the silence. "I should have stayed in the Namib Desert. That was an easy job. We'd crawl along the beach picking up diamonds and putting them in little jam tins."
"Wait a minute. Are you saying that the diamonds are just lying there, on top of the sand?"
"That's what I'm saying, Mr. McGregor. But forget what you're thinking. Nobody can get near that field. It's on the ocean, and the waves are up to thirty feet high. They don't even bother guarding the shore. A lot of people have tried to sneak in by sea. They've all been killed by the waves or the reefs."
"There must be some other way to get in."
"No. The Namib Desert runs right down to the ocean's shore."
"What about the entrance to the diamond field?"
"There's a guard tower and a barbed-wire fence. Inside the fence are guards with guns and dogs that'll tear a man to pieces. And they have a new kind of explosive called a land mine. They're buried all over the field. If you don't have a map of the land mines, you'll get blown to bits."
"How large is the diamond field?"
"It runs for about thirty-five miles."
Thirty-five miles of diamonds just lying on the sand... "My God!"
"You aren't the first one to get excited about the diamond fields at the Namib, and you won't be the last. I've picked up what was left of people who tried to come in by boat and got torn apart by the reefs. I've seen what those land mines do if a man takes one wrong step, and I've watched those dogs rip out a man's throat. Forget it, Mr. McGregor. I've been there. There's no way in and there's no way out - not alive, that is."
Jamie was unable to sleep that night. He kept visualizing thirty-five miles of sand sprinkled with enormous diamonds belonging to Van der Merwe. He thought of the sea and the jagged reefs, the dogs hungry to kill, the guards and the land mines. He was not afraid of the danger; he was not afraid of dying. He was only afraid of dying before he repaid Salomon van der Merwe.
On the following Monday Jamie went into a cartographer's shop and bought a map of Great Namaqualand. There was the beach, off the South Atlantic Ocean between Luderitz to the north and the Orange River Estuary to the south. The area was marked in red: SPERRGEBIET - Forbidden.
Jamie examined every detail of the area on the map, going over it again and again. There were three thousand miles of ocean flowing from South America to South Africa, with nothing to impede the waves, so that their full fury was spent on the deadly reefs of the South Atlantic shore. Forty miles south, down the coastline, was an open beach. That must be where the poor bastards launched their boats to sail into the forbidden area, Jamie decided. Looking at the map, he could understand why the shore was not guarded. The reefs would make a landing impossible.
Jamie turned his attention to the land entrance to the diamond field. According to Banda, the area was fenced in with barbed wire and patrolled twenty-four hours a day by armed guards. At the entrance itself was a manned watchtower. And even if one did somehow manage to slip past the watchtower into the diamond area, there would be the land mines and guard dogs.
The following day when Jamie met Banda, he asked, "You said there was a land-mine map of the field?"
"In the Namib Desert? The supervisors have the maps, and they lead the diggers to work. Everybody walks in a single file so no one gets blown up." His eyes filled with a memory. "One day my uncle was walking in front of me and he stumbled on a rock and fell on top of a land mine. There wasn't enough left of him to take home to his family."
Jamie shuddered.
"And then there's the sea mis, Mr. McGregor. You've never seen a mis until you've been in one in the Namib. It rolls in from the ocean and blows all the way across the desert to the mountains and it blots out everything. If you're caught in one of them, you don't dare move. The land-mine maps are no good then because you can't see where you're going. Everybody just sits quietly until the mis lifts."
"How long do they last?"
Banda shrugged. "Sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days."
"Banda, have you ever seen a map of those land mines?"
"They're closely guarded." A worried look crossed his face. "I'm telling you again, no one can get away with what you're thinking. Once in a while workers will try to smuggle out a diamond. There is a special tree for hanging them. It's a lesson to everybody not to try to steal from the company."
The whole thing looked impossible. Even if he could manage to get into Van der Merwe's diamond field, there was no way out. Banda was right. He would have to forget about it.
The next day he asked Banda, "How does Van der Merwe keep the workers from stealing diamonds when they come off their shifts?"
"They're searched. They strip them down mother-naked and then they look up and down every hole they've got. I've seen workers cut gashes in their legs and try to smuggle diamonds out in them. Some drill out their back teeth and stick diamonds up there. They've tried every trick you can think of." He looked at Jamie and said, "If you want to live, you'll get that diamond field off your mind."
Jamie tried. But the idea kept coming back to him, taunting him. Van der Merwe's diamonds just lying on the sand waiting. Waiting for him.
The solution came to Jamie that night. He could hardly contain his impatience until he saw Banda. Without preamble, Jamie said, "Tell me about the boats that have tried to land on the beach."
"What about them?"
"What kind of boats were they?"
"Every kind you can think of. A schooner. A tugboat. A big motorboat. Sailboat. Four men even tried it in a rowboat. While I worked the field, there were half a dozen tries. The reefs just chewed the boats to pieces. Everybody drowned."
Jamie took a deep breath. "Did anyone ever try to get in by raft?"
Banda was staring at him. "Raft?"
"Yes." Jamie's excitement was growing. "Think about it. No one ever made it to the shore because the bottoms of their boats were torn out by the reefs. But a raft will glide right over those reefs and onto the shore. And it can get out the same way."
Banda looked at him for a long time. When he spoke, there was a different note in his voice. "You know, Mr. McGregor, you might just have an idea there...."
It started as a game, a possible solution to an unsolvable puzzle. But the more Jamie and Banda discussed it, the more excited they became. What had started as idle conversation began to take concrete shape as a plan of action. Because the diamonds were lying on top of the sand, no equipment would be required. They could build their raft, with a sail, on the free beach forty miles south of the Sperrgebiet and sail it in at night, unobserved. There were no land mines along the unguarded shore, and the guards and patrols only operated inland. The two men could roam the beach freely, gathering up all the diamonds they could carry.
"We can be on our way out before dawn," Jamie said, "with our pockets full of Van der. Merwe's diamonds."
"How do we get out?"
"The same way we got in. We'll paddle the raft over the reefs to the open sea, put up the sail and we're home free."
Under Jamie's persuasive arguments, Banda's doubts began to melt. He tried to poke holes in the plan and every time he came up with an objection, Jamie answered it. The plan could work. The beautiful part of it was its simplicity, and the fact that it would require no money. Only a great deal of nerve.
"All we need is a big bag to put the diamonds in," Jamie said. His enthusiasm was infectious.
Banda grinned. "Let's make that two big bags."
The following week they quit their jobs and boarded a bullock wagon to Port Nolloth, the coastal village forty miles south of the forbidden area where they were headed.
At Port Nolloth, they disembarked and looked around. The village was small and primitive, with shanties and tin huts and a few stores, and a pristine white beach that seemed to stretch on forever. There were no reefs here, and the waves lapped gently at the shore. It was a perfect place to launch their raft.
There was no hotel, but the little market rented a room in back to Jamie. Banda found himself a bed in the black quarter of the village.
"We have to find a place to build our raft in secret," Jamie told Banda. "We don't want anyone reporting us to the authorities."
That afternoon they came across an old, abandoned warehouse.
"This will be perfect," Jamie decided. "Let's get to work on the raft."
"Not yet," Banda told him. "We'll wait. Buy a bottle of whiskey."
"What for?"
"You'll see."
The following morning, Jamie was visited by the district constable, a florid, heavy-set man with a large nose covered with the telltale broken veins of a tippler.
"Mornin'," he greeted Jamie. "I heard we had a visitor. Thought I'd stop by and say hello. I'm Constable Mundy."
"Ian Travis," Jamie replied.
"Headin' north, Mr. Travis?"
"South. My servant and I are on our way to Cape Town."
"Ah. I was in Cape Town once. Too bloody big, too bloody noisy."
"I agree. Can I offer you a drink, Constable?"
"I never drink on duty." Constable Mundy paused, making a decision. "However, just this once, I might make an exception, I suppose."
"Fine." Jamie brought out the bottle of whiskey, wondering how Banda could have known. He poured out two fingers into a dirty tooth glass and handed it to the constable.
"Thank you, Mr. Travis. Where's yours?"
"I can't drink," Jamie said ruefully. "Malaria. That's why I'm going to Cape Town. To get medical attention. I'm stopping off here a few days to rest. Traveling's very hard on me."
Constable Mundy was studying him. "You look pretty healthy."
"You should see me when the chills start."
The constable's glass was empty. Jamie filled it.
"Thank you. Don't mind if I do." He finished the second drink in one swallow and stood up. "I'd best be gettin' along. You said you and your man will be movin' on in a day or two?"
"As soon as I'm feeling stronger."
"I'll come back and check on you Friday," Constable Mundy said.
That night, Jamie and Banda went to work on the raft in the deserted warehouse.
"Banda, have you ever built a raft?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. McGregor, no."
"Neither have I." The two men stared at each other. "How difficult can it be?"
They stole four empty, fifty-gallon wooden oil barrels from behind the market and carried them to the warehouse. When they had them assembled, they spaced them out in a square. Next they gathered four empty crates and placed one over each oil barrel.
Banda looked dubious. "It doesn't look like a raft to me."
"We're not finished yet," Jamie assured him.
There was no planking available so they covered the top layer with whatever was at hand: branches from the stinkwood tree, limbs from the Cape beech, large leaves from the marula. They lashed everything down with thick hemp rope, tying each knot with careful precision.
When they were finished, Banda looked it over. "It still doesn't look like a raft."
"It will look better when we get the sail up," Jamie promised.
They made a mast from a fallen yellowwood tree, and picked up two flat branches for paddles.
"Now all we need is a sail. We need it fast. I'd like to get out of here tonight. Constable Mundy's coming back tomorrow."
It was Banda who found the sail. He came back late that evening with an enormous piece of blue cloth. "How's this, Mr. McGregor?"
"Perfect. Where did you get it?"
Banda grinned. "Don't ask. We're in enough trouble."
They rigged up a square sail with a boom below and a yard on top, and at last it was ready.
"We'll take off at two in the morning when the village is asleep," Jamie told Banda. "Better get some rest until then."
But neither man was able to sleep. Each was filled with the excitement of the adventure that lay ahead.
At two A.M. they met at the warehouse. There was an eagerness in both of them, and an unspoken fear. They were embarking on a journey that would either make them rich or bring them death. There was no middle way.
"It's time," Jamie anounced.
They stepped outside. Nothing was stirring. The night was still and peaceful, with a vast canopy of blue overhead. A sliver of moon appeared high in the sky. Good, Jamie thought. There won't be much light to see us by. Their timetable was complicated by the fact that they had to leave the village at night so no one would be aware of their departure, and arrive at the diamond beach the next night so they could slip into the field and be safely back at sea before dawn.
"The Benguela current should carry us to the diamond fields sometime in the late afternoon," Jamie said. "But we can't go in by daylight. We'll have to stay out of sight at sea until dark."
Banda nodded. "We can hide out at one of the little islands off the coast."
"What islands?"
"There are dzens of them - Mercury, Ichabod, Plum Pudding
Jamie gave him a strange look. "Plum Pudding?"
"There's also a Roast Beef Island."
Jamie took out his creased map and consulted it. "This doesn't show any of those."
"They're guano islands. The British harvest the bird droppings for fertilizer."
"Anyone live on those islands?"
"Can't. The smell's too bad. In places the guano is a hundred feet thick. The government uses gangs of deserters and prisoners to pick it up. Some of them die on the island and they just leave the bodies there."
"That's where we'll hide out," Jamie decided.
Working quietly, the two men slid open the door to the warehouse and started to lift the raft. It was too heavy to move. They sweated and tugged, but in vain.
"Wait here," Banda said.
He hurried out. Half an hour later, he returned with a large, round log. "We'll use this. I'll pick up one end and you slide the log underneath."
Jamie marveled at Banda's strength as the black man picked up one end of the raft. Quickly, Jamie shoved the log under it. Together they lifted the back end of the raft and it moved easily down the log. When the log had rolled out from under the back end, they repeated the procedure. It was strenuous work, and by the time they got to the beach they were both soaked in perspiration. The operation had taken much longer than Jamie had anticipated. It was almost dawn now. They had to be away before the villagers discovered them and reported what they were doing. Quickly, Jamie attached the sail and checked to make sure everything was working properly. He had a nagging feeling he was forgetting something. He suddenly realized what was bothering him and laughed aloud.
Banda watched him, puzzled. "Something funny?"
"Before, when I went looking for diamonds I had a ton of equipment. Now all I'm carrying is a compass. It seems too easy."
Banda said quietly, "I don't think that's going to be our problem, Mr. McGregor."
"It's time you called me Jamie."
Banda shook his head in wonder. "You really come from a faraway country." He grinned, showing even white teeth. "What the hell - they can hang me only once." He tasted the name on his lips, then said it aloud. "Jamie."
"Let's go get those diamonds."
They pushed the raft off the sand into the shallow water and both men leaped aboard and started paddling. It took them a few minutes to get adjusted to the pitching and yawing of their strange craft. It was like riding a bobbing cork, but it was going to work. The raft was responding perfectly, moving north with the swift current. Jamie raised the sail and headed out to sea. By the time the villagers awoke, the raft was well over the horizon.
"We've done it!" Jamie said.
Banda shook his head. "It's not over yet." He trailed a hand in the cold Benguela current. "It's just beginning."
They sailed on, due north past Alexander Bay and the mouth of the Orange River, seeing no signs of life except for flocks of Cape cormorants heading home, and a flight of colorful greater flamingos. Although there were tins of beef and cold rice, and fruit and two canteens of water aboard, they were too nervous to eat. Jamie refused to let his imagination linger on the dangers that lay ahead, but Banda could not help it. He had been there. He was remembering the brutal guards with guns and the dogs and the terrible flesh-tearing land mines, and he wondered how he had ever allowed himself to be talked into this insane venture. He looked over at the Scotsman and thought, He is the bigger fool. If I die, I die for my baby sister. What does he die for?
At noon the sharks came. There were half a dozen of them, their fins cutting through the water as they sped toward the raft.
"Black-fin sharks," Banda announced. "They're man-eaters."
Jamie watched the fins skimming closer to the raft. "What do we do?"
Banda swallowed nervously. "Truthfully, Jamie, this is my very first experience of this nature."
The back of a shark nudged the raft, and it almost capsized. The two men grabbed the mast for support. Jamie picked up a paddle and shoved it at a shark, and an instant later the paddle was bitten in two. The sharks surrounded the raft now, swimming in lazy circles, their enormous bodies rubbing up close against the small craft. Each nudge tilted the raft at a precarious angle. It was going to capsize at any moment.
"We've got to get rid of them before they sink us."
"Get rid of them with what?" Banda asked.
"Hand me a tin of beef."
"You must be joking. A tin of beef won't satisfy them. They want us!"
There was another jolt, and the raft heeled over.
"The beef!" Jamie yelled. "Get it!"
A second later Banda placed a tin in Jamie's hand. The raft lurched sickeningly.
"Open it halfway. Hurry!"
Banda pulled out his pocketknife and pried the top of the can half open. Jamie took it from him. He felt the sharp, broken edges of the metal with his finger.
"Hold tight!" Jamie warned.
He knelt down at the edge of the raft and waited. Almost immediately, a shark approached the raft, its huge mouth wide open, revealing long rows of evil, grinning teeth. Jamie went for the eyes. With all his strength, he reached out with both hands and scraped the edge of the broken metal against the eye of the shark, ripping it open. The shark lifted its great body, and for an instant the raft stood on end. The water around them was suddenly stained red. There was a giant thrashing as the sharks moved in on the wounded member of the school. The raft was forgotten. Jamie and Banda watched the great sharks tearing at their helpless victim as the raft sailed farther and farther away until finally the sharks were out of sight.
Banda took a deep breath and said softly, "One day I'm going to tell my grandchildren about this. Do you think they'll believe me?"
And they laughed until the tears streamed down their faces.
Late that afternoon, Jamie checked his pocket watch. "We should be off the diamond beach around midnight. Sunrise is at six-fifteen. That means we'll have four hours to pick up the diamonds and two hours to get back to sea and out of sight. Will four hours be enough, Banda?"
"A hundred men couldn't live long enough to spend what you can pick up on that beach in four hours." I just hope we live long enough to pick them up....
They sailed steadily north for the rest of that day, carried by the wind and the tide. Toward evening a small island loomed ahead of them. It looked to be no more than two hundred yards in circumference. As they approached the island, the acrid smell of ammonia grew strong, bringing tears to their eyes. Jamie could understand why no one lived here. The stench was overpowering. But it would make a perfect place for them to hide until nightfall. Jamie adjusted the sail, and the small raft bumped against the rocky shore of the low-lying island. Banda made the raft fast, and the two men stepped ashore. The entire island was covered with what appeared to be millions of birds: cormorants, pelicans, gannets, penguins and flamingos. The thick air was so noisome that it was impossible to breathe. They took half a dozen steps and were thigh deep in guano.
"Let's get back to the raft," Jamie gasped.
Without a word, Banda followed him.
As they turned to retreat, a flock of pelicans took to the air, revealing an open space on the ground. Lying there were three men. There was no telling how long they had been dead. Their corpses had been perfectly preserved by the ammonia in the air, and their hair had turned a bright red.
A minute later Jamie and Banda were back on the raft, headed out to sea.
They lay off the coast, sail lowered, waiting.
"We'll stay out here until midnight. Then we go in."
They sat together in silence, each in his own way preparing for whatever lay ahead. The sun was low on the western horizon, painting the dying sky with the wild colors of a mad artist. Then suddenly they were blanketed in darkness.
They waited for two more hours, and Jamie hoisted the sail. The raft began to move east toward the unseen shore. Overhead, clouds parted and a thin wash of moonlight paled down. The raft picked up speed. In the distance the two men could begin to see the faint smudge of the coast. The wind blew stronger, snapping at the sail, pushing the raft toward the shore at an ever-increasing speed. Soon, they could clearly make out the outline of the land, a gigantic parapet of rock. Even from that distance it was possible to see and hear the enormous whitecaps that exploded like thunder over the reefs. It was a terrifying sight from afar, and Jamie wondered what it would be like up close.
He found himself whispering. "You're sure the beach side isn't guarded?"
Banda did not answer. He pointed to the reefs ahead. Jamie knew what he meant. The reefs were more deadly than any trap man could devise. They were the guardians of the sea, and they never relaxed, never slept. They lay there, patiently waiting for their prey to come to them. Well, Jamie thought, we're going to outsmart you. We're going to float over you.
The raft had carried them that far. It would carry them the rest of the way. The shore was racing toward them now, and they began to feel the heavy swell of the giant combers. Banda was holding tightly to the mast.
"We're moving pretty fast."
"Don't worry," Jamie reassured him. "When we get closer, I'll lower the sail. That will cut our speed. We'll slide over the reefs nice and easy."
The momentum of the wind and the waves was picking up, hurtling the raft toward the deadly reefs. Jamie quickly estimated the remaining distance and decided the waves would carry them in to shore without the help of the sail. Hurriedly, he lowered it. Their momentum did not even slow. The raft was completely in the grip of the huge waves now, out of control, hurled forward from one giant crest to the next. The raft was rocking so violently that the men had to cling to it with both hands. Jamie had expected the entrance to be difficult, but he was totally unprepared for the fury of the seething maelstrom they faced. The reefs loomed in front of them with startling clarity. They could see the waves rushing in against the jagged rocks and exploding into huge, angry geysers. The entire success of the plan depended on bringing the raft over the reefs intact so that they could use it for their escape. Without it, they were dead men.
They were bearing down on the reefs now, propelled by the terrifying power of the waves. The roar of the wind was deafening. The raft was suddenly lifted high in the air by an enormous wave and flung toward the rocks.
"Hold on, Banda!" Jamie shouted. "We're going in!"
The giant breaker picked up the raft like a matchstick and started to carry it toward shore, over the reef. Both men were hanging on for their lives, fighting the violent bucking motion that threatened to sweep them into the water. Jamie glanced down and caught a glimpse of the razor-sharp reefs below them. In another moment they would be sailing over them, safe in the haven of the shore.
At that instant there was a sudden, tearing wrench as a reef caught one of the barrels underneath the raft and ripped it away. The raft gave a sharp lurch, and another barrel was torn away, and then another. The wind and the pounding waves and the hungry reef were playing with the raft like a toy, tossing it backward and forward, spinning it wildly in the air. Jamie and Banda felt the thin wood begin to split beneath their feet.
"Jump!" Jamie yelled.
He dived over the side of the raft, and a giant wave picked him up and shot him toward the beach at the speed of a catapult. He was caught in the grip of an element that was powerful beyond belief. He had no control over what was happening. He was a part of the wave. It was over him and under him and inside him. His body was twisting and turning and his lungs were bursting. Lights began to explode in his head. Jamie thought, I'm drowning. And his body was thrown up onto the sandy shore. Jamie lay there gasping, fighting for breath, filling his lungs with the cool, fresh sea air. His chest and legs were scraped raw from the sand, and his clothes were in shreds. Slowly, he sat up and looked around for Banda. He was crouching ten yards away, vomiting seawater. Jamie got to his feet and staggered over to him.
"You all right?"
Banda nodded. He took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at Jamie. "I can't swim."
Jamie helped him to his feet. The two men turned to look at the reef. There was not a sign of their raft. It had been torn to pieces in the wild ocean. They had gotten into the diamond field.
There was no way to get out.