A Bridge Of Magpies (4 page)

He ignored the crack. 'I know you're screwed up still about the
Walewska
business. You don't have to be. You never had to be, from where I sit'

'I haven't heard your problem:

'Don't blow your nut and don't interrupt. You're well acquainted with the Sperrgebiet so -that part of it doesn't need explaining.'

I thought of that grim coast and its grim grey islands, and the
meltemi
and the Greek isles stuck in my craw. You'll find Sperrgebiet names on old whalermen's graves in
New
England . . . a sailor's boast to be remembered by. '

I said, I don't know your problem?

'What d'ye know about Possession Island?'

'Heard of it, of course. Never been there. The navigation's tricky. Not the place for a big ship like my frigate.' 'It'

s the largest of the guano isles, and that isn't saying 27

much. Any idea how wide that channel is between it and the mainland?'

'I'd guess about two miles.'

'You know Doodenstadt?'

'It's only a name.'

'On the mainland opposite Possession is Doodenstadt–the Town of the Dead.'

'A bit fanciful for a coast which doesn't have
a
human, let alone a town, for hundreds of miles.'

'It's really only a big group of rocks sticking out from the desert into the sea. The rocks are big and square like houses and there are lanes resembling streets. Hence the name. It's all very realistic, they tell me. It's half under water most of the time. What's Santorin like, Struan?'

'Real houses. Three storeys, some of them. Real streets. Fine carvings, superb frescos. The dry volcanic
ash
has preserved them, even the colours.'

'Would it
surprise you
to
hear that a fresco has been found at Doodenstadt?'

There wasn't any sound except the air-conditioning; there were no residual noises in the flat silence after our voices stopped.

I said at
length: 'I
can ride with Santorin but not Doodenstadt. The place has been known for at least a century. If there'd been frescos, someone would have discovered them long before now.'

Doodenstadt turns out to be not merely a figure of speech. Ifs real, it's
a
town. A lost city.'

'And Atlantis lies under Table Bay. I never thought I'd live to see the high office of Commander-in-Chief knocked by fantasy.'

'I almost said the same thing myself at first.'

'I've seen the way the egg-heads' minds go into orbit over Santorin. They steam themselves up into all sorts of improbable conclusions–it's Plato's drowned paradise, God knows what else. I'll bet it's the same about Doodenstadt.'

For an answer he rummaged in a drawer and produced a volume book-marked with newspaper cuttings.

'Ever heard of Farini?'

'Farini was an American traveller
who chimed to have
28

camped at a lost city in the Kalahari desert in

let me see

. . . 1885.'

'The Kalahari isn't the Sperrgebiet. Moreover, it's half-way across the sub-continent from Doodenstadt:

'I'm not suggesting a connection. Only it's interesting that Farini found an ancient ruined city covered by sand: '

Says who–Farini?'

'He wrote a book about it:

'I'll bet he did.'

'I
value your scepticism, Struan. Farini's discovery has been kicked about by everybody. The weight of the evidence is that he
did
finds ruins and that probably they've since been covered over again by sand. His son even took a photograph of the place. Scores of expeditions in modern times have searched for Farini's lost city –without without success,'

I helped myself to another cigarette.

'The Navy's become a fun outfit since my time. We never thought much beyond ships and the sea. Lost cities didn't figure?

'You've seen Santorin. There could be a parallel.'

Look, I'm not an expert. I'm the dimmest sort of amateur when it comes to this sort of thing. I've seen some of Santorin's frescos–they're much too valuable for
a
duffer like me to touch. My boat provided cheap transport for some
second-
and third-rate stuff.'

We don't lack experts. In fact, you're going to meet one of them pretty soon. He's sitting right outside waiting for me to ring. Dr Hellmut Koch. He discovered Doodenstadt's fresco.'

'Then why bring me here? –and with all that elaborate cloak-and-dagger?'

'Think, man. For more than a century the Sperrgebiet's been the mysterious, out-of-reach, get-rich-quick mecca of every crook who could get himself a ship to sail in. First it was for the "white gold" guano. Then diamonds. Now Doodenstadt could be stage three, sparking off a big-scale treasurehunt. I couldn't give a damn whether Doodenstadt is Atlantis or a link in Farini's chain of cities under the sand.
What
I am concerned about is that a lot of hoodlums could invade the Forbidden Coast.'

'Not for the sake of a fresco or two,'

29

'That won't be the way the treasure-hounds will view Doodenstadt. That fresco will be an arrow pointing straight at buried treasure unlimited. Gold, ancient jewels, all the never-never stuff. Soon they'll be saying Captain Kidd's treasure is peanuts beside what lies under Doodenstadt. That's the way a treasure legend snowballs and there are always suckers to believe it. No-good suckers. When they don't find treasure they'll turn to a spot of illicit diamond running as a backstop against their costs. And ships willing to do that sort of thing cost plenty.'

'This is a job for the diamond police, not the Navy.'

`You're wrong. There are hundreds of foreign trawlers on the fishing grounds. If word leaked out about a lost city at Doodenstadt, the Navy's life wouldn't be worth living. And one thing's sure: the diamond police won't play ball over this hot potato. They argue, rightly, that the land security's as tight as all get-out but that it's wide wide open from the sea. And the sea is the Navy's responsibility.'

'Station a frigate at Possession. That would plug the gap.'

'How long do you think Doodenstadt's secret would stay a secret if I did that? Every trawler and every island headman would start asking, 'What's new? What's a frigate up to? Another big diamond strike to protect?" The buzz would spread like a veld fire. No,
a
warship would be the surest way to advertise a lost city. Besides, how effective would it be? You know that bloody Sperrgebiet weather – a gale twenty days
a
month. And the fog: every day there's that damn fog. Every day there's half an extra smuggler's night thrown in gratis. You can't win. You know yourself you can't operate a big ship like a frigate round Possession. There's no sea room and the reefs are thicker than pock-marks on a Hottentot's face.'

'A brace of fast patrol boats would do the trick.'

'Logistically sound; but, economically and ecologically, crap. Possession's one of the most important guano islands. Disturb the birds with high-powered boats' engines and they'll push off. No guano, no white gold.'

'We're
playing verbal skittles. I pot 'em up, you knock '

em down.'

'You're the only skittle that can't be knocked down.' '

What the hell do you mean?'

`The "lost city" game must be played cards dose to the 30

chest There must be security until Koch has time to sort out what really gives. But security with a difference: it mustn't seem to
be
security. What's needed is a one-man outfit - you.'

' M e

For reply, he spoke into the intercom. 'Send in Dr Koch? Koch was a tall, rangy Austrian with slicked-back hair and a pair of humorous grey eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. He didn't look much older than me,

'This is our man, Koch.'

`Hotfoot from Circe and her wine, eh?' (It was the first flash of a sense of fun I came to know well; that, and his total dedication to his work: the investigation of sea-shore middens belonging to
Strandlopers-'Seashore
Walkers' - who were a vanished Stone Age race of Sperrgebiet nomads.) The way he said it turned me on. 'Gigi,' I corrected. 'Her name was Gigi.'

'The memory of sweet days ferments inside me,' he sighed. '

I remember once, in Athens, a bottle from Santorin . . . slightly sweet, but it had a fire .

'You can swop boozy reminiscences later,' snapped the C-in-C. 'He hasn't accepted yet, Koch. Tell him about the fresco.'

'The admiral's put you in the picture about Doodenstadt?' '

Aye.'

'Here's the set-up: there are these enormous blocks of rock half-in and half-out of the breakers. There's the old wreck of a big liner lying on top of them. I was snuffling about there for middens one exceptionally low tide-a rare good chance for me: you don't often see the water as low as that. Or so cairn, also a rarity in those parts. A large cave, originally a fault in the rock strata, had been opened up and formed by wave action. I went in. At its landward end the cleft led to a regular-shaped rock
tunnel
which ran clean under the desert. This tunnel was higher than the sea cave and out of reach of the water, and so quite dry. I went in only a little way, as I was scared of being trapped by the tide returning. But I spotted this with my torch and got a shot of it,'

He tossed me a photographic colour slide. I held it up to the light.

It might have been a duplicate-with variations-of one of the most precious finds to come out of Santorini it was 31

a
small fresco showing two
gemsbok,
or oryx, cavorting, tails swishing, heads held high. Certainly the artists' treatment–light and graceful–was uncannily similar in the two cases. The Santorin scene had presented the pundits with an inexplicable enigma: had oryx (in modem times found only in the Middle East and Africa) once inhabited the Aegean islands? Or had there been a land link, now submerged by the ocean?

Ì'll be damned!'

• I
elaborated on the Santorin discovery.

Koch was afire when I'd finished. The C-in-C sat back with the air of
a magician
who has produced rabbit quintuplets out of a hat when he'd expected one.

Koch's words tumbled over one another. 'If Struan's right we may be on to something much bigger than we imagined! If Doodenstadt's tied up in some way with the Middle East or a vanished Minoan civilization ..

His use of my Christian
name was a
tacit assumption that
I
was going along with the lost city idea. The C-in-C assumed that, too.be
a
one-man assignment, Struan. And, let me warn you,
no
bed of roses. Also it's winter, and the island may be pretty miserable: there's no one else there, so you'll be secure, with a capital S. I've fixed a ship for you to use, a fishing cutter. She's there at Possession now. Koch wants at least a couple of months to explore. You'll assist, of course. We'll give you headman status. You'll relieve the present zombie, who has started mainlining. You'll go there in the usual manner of a new headman taking over–in the island relief coaster. You'll wear a headman's uniform. Nothing to arouse anyone's suspicions. Questions?'

Steady, Weddell, steady, I told myself. They're rushing fences. A nasty little voice at the back of my brain whispered:
you're being taken for a ride, a very clever shop-
window to hide the true nature of the goods on offer. The
soft sell, Sperrgebiet-style.

Something of this must have been noticeable in my tone because the C-in-C glanced sharply at me
as
I asked, 'Communications? How do I contact you?'

'I've got a special transceiver–voice radio–laid on. RCA Navy job. Enough frequencies to chat to the moon. But that doesn't mean you're going to use it like
a
telephone. 32

Minimal use means maximum security. In the islands they gossip over the air like housewives in a supermarket. It's their main form of relaxation. Remember, anything you say will be public property within hours. Play any situation by ear. Don't come running to me.'

I
leant
forward and ground out my cigarette in his ashtray. He frowned. I said deliberately, 'I hope this conversation
is
being bugged, because if you have any doubts about what I say you can make a playback. You needn't worry about that radio because I won't be using it – ever. I know a rehabilitation package when I see one, even when it's wrapped up in lovely romantic ribbons like these.' I indicated the colour slide. '

Next time, find someone stupider. If that's African then Siberia is Atlantis. I don't intend to be tricked into being landed on some remote bloody guano island five hundred miles up the most God-forsaken coast in the world, with no chance of a drink or a woman, because of your do-gooder inclinations Thanks for the ride. It was nice seeing your superstar headquarters. In short, you can put your lost city up your admiral's jersey!'

He made a sound deep in his throat; half rose; and plucked away a switch and broken length of wire from his desk.

'We aren't bugged any longer: what I've got to say is for your ears alone. That slide is the real McCoy .. . but the hell with that. What is important is guts, and when I wanted someone with guts for a special job my first thought was of one man–Struan Weddell. Why d'ye think I went to all this trouble if I didn't believe you have what it takes? Seems I was wrong, dead wrong. Possession takes guts: I saw it at work there during the war and I'll never forget it. Convoy WV.5BX. I was in one of the escorts, a corvette. The escort leader was a frigate called
Gousblom.
Off Possession we heard the sound of heavy guns: a raider or a pocket battleship, we thought. That didn't stop
Gousblom.
That pipsqueak of a ship went
off
at full speed to fight. It was straight suicide, and she knew it. But she'd rather have thrown herself away than let the enemy get at the convoy she'd been entrusted with. Then a U-boat bagged
Gousbiom,
right
in the Possession channel. Her magazine went up. The U-boat had just torpedoed a big liner .