The Triangle and The Mountain: A Bermuda Triangle Adventure (6 page)

CHAPTER THREE

When Grant stumbled into the cockpit after a four and a half
hour sleep he found Madeleine in good spirits and apparently in charge of
things. She had the headphones of her iPad on her ears and bounced around with
the rhythm. She gave him a silent salute. Disgusted with such excessive display
of energy he withdrew for a wash and a shave.

Armed with a mug of coffee he entered the cockpit again
after twenty minutes.

“Anything happened?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just the sea and the sky. The sails
did not flap long, just a little bit a few times but the boat corrected itself
and we moved on. And there was a ship.”

“A ship?”

“Yes, a large freighter. It sailed very fast in the same
direction that we do.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I did not see it. One minute there was nothing behind us
and then it was there out of the blue.”

“Yes, can you see how fast things can happen?”

“Well, nothing happened. They hooted and I waved. They whole
crew stood on the railing and waved as they passed.”

“I have not heard a thing. Why did you not wake me up?”

“I thought I’d let you sleep.”

“So you gave them a show from the cockpit?”

“I did nothing, just waved back.”

He wondered about that. She was way too perky. The whole
crew on the railing? She gave herself away there.

“And why is it that you are not wearing your harness?”

“I did not think it was necessary. I feel safe without it
and you have not been wearing yours at all.”

“Hmm, you must not take safety so casually. See, I’m now
forced to let out this safety rope.”

He switched on the light of the beacon on the buoy and
dropped the contraption overboard. The coiled line snaked off the deck.

“Do you see this? It’s for your safety. If you fall
overboard you swim for the rope. At night you look for the LED flashing on top
of the buoy. And you shout.”

“If you could not hear a ship’s hooter how will you hear me
shout?”

“It’s a ship’s horn and maybe I am not asleep. So you shout.
In fact, we have a whistle around here. Let me find it and put it around your
neck.”

“I’m not wearing a whistle!”

He gave her a good, hard look. It was a struggle not to show
his irritation. But she was his only crew.

“Then don’t fall overboard,” he said.

“Am I off duty now?”

“Yes, you are off for four hours.”

“So we do four hours on and four hours off?”

“That’s the way it goes on a yacht. Before you go, though, there
are one or two things. For instance, how long have those clouds been on the
horizon?”

“Those little ones?”

“Yes.”

“Well, actually, I have not noticed them before now.”

“OK, I’ll keep an eye on them. They have those flat bottoms
that come with storm clouds. For your information, they are called Nimbus clouds.”

“I know that word,” said Madeleine. It’s from Harry Potter.”

“I got it from my skipper’s course,” said Grant tersely. “Also,
it’s time you get a steering lesson. Are you ready for it?”

“Sure. Where do we start?”

“Sailing one point one.”

“Which is?”

“Read the compass. Do you see it?”

“I could be wrong but I think this is it.”

“Yes, it is pretty big and quite obvious, since it is right
in front of you. Do you see what course we are sailing?”

“Yes, it is to the side of north.”

“We are actually sailing exactly northward, but we are
allowing for the deviation. Do you see this arrow here? This is our course.
Look to the bow of the boat and you should see it all line up.”

“OK, I do.”

“Good, stand here. I’ve taken the autopilot off and the
wheel is live. Put your hands on it. Can you feel the rudder?”

“Yes, I can.”

 “Now change to north-east.”

“Why? I don’t want to miss Bermuda. I know we have to go
north to get there.”

“We are going to Bermuda, but I’m sure we are off course.”

“How can that be?”

“It’s the drift caused by these big swells. I’ll show you on
the GPS screen. See here,” said Grant as he pressed the buttons on the large
viewer. “That is Bermuda and this line is us. If we continue the way we are, we
are going to miss the islands to the west.”

“That won’t be a good thing,” said Madeleine. She traced an
imaginary line on the screen with her free hand, connecting Bermuda in the
north to Puerto Rico in the south. “If we go on like this we are going to get
right inside the Triangle. We are very close to it.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff!” said Grant
sharply.

“Not at all,” she said, backing off. “There is no need to
explode on me. But if you live here you grow up with all the stories. It’s not
a matter of believing. It’s just interesting.”

“Well, let’s concentrate on the sailing. I’m going to shake
out all the reefs from the mainsail and then I’m going to roll out the foresail
and mizzen to their maximum.”

“What do I do?”

“You just hold your course.”

 Grant returned to the cockpit after ten minutes and threw a
critical glance on the compass.

“Is it good?” asked Madeleine.

“It’s ok. Now sailing one point two. Keep the wind in the
sails. Apart from looking ahead of you, you always watch the sails, not only
the compass as you have been doing.”

“If I lose wind, how do I get it back?”

“You turn in the direction that the wind blows.”

“Going along with the wind?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Until the sails fill again. Once you are satisfied that it
has happened, you return to your original course.”

“Is that all?”

“No. Here comes sailing one point three. Don’t get blown
over. There is an example right in front of you. Unless this wind takes those
clouds out of our path, we are going to have some squalls hitting us. When that
happens the wind can vary a lot. If a surprise squall hits us you need to steer
for a moment or two into the wind to keep it from pushing the yacht down. Watch
the ocean. You can see where the wind creates cat’s paws the surface. That will
tell you where a sudden squall comes from.”

“Which is kind of opposite of what you just told me.”

“Exactly.”

“So the difference is the strength of the wind.”

“I’m impressed. If you learn so fast, why have you not been
sailing before? I’d imagine that all of you who grew up on the islands would be
on the water from kindergarten.”

 “My parents forbade me. My father’s brother died out at sea
and because of that we were all forbidden to start sailing.”

“Were they not upset then that you worked on a yacht off St
Martin?”

“No. I sent them pictures of it and they said it was big
enough to be safe.”

“So your parents don’t know that you are here with me?”

“No. I want to surprise them before Thanksgiving so I can
help with the preparations.”

“Won’t they miss you if they cannot contact you for ten
days?”

“I’m Skyping and this is the thing I wanted to ask you. I
cannot figure out the password for the LAN. I’ve tried the boat’s name, I’ve
tried your name but nothing works.”

“It’s one-two-three-four,” Grant said. “I should have
changed it for something else but I never did. If you manage to Skype, good
luck. The internet is slow because it goes over satellite. It’s better just to
email. Just a thought though. Won’t your parents know that you Skyped from a
boat?”

“If I Skyped from your office it’ll be fine.  It looks
nothing like a boat.”

“There is proprietary information on my screens.”

“I won’t show your screens and its lunchtime,” said
Madeleine. “Could I make you anything now in the galley?”

“Sure,” he said. “Let’s use up the fresh things first. We
have some baguettes that will be hard soon. How about you put on it whatever
you fancy?”

He leaned back and spread his arms wide. The good feeling of
the previous night was returning. What helped was that there were promising
signs that his crew was staying and that she was not going to give him any
major trouble. 

The baguettes, when they came, were a bit overweight in the
greens but tasty anyway. She put pre-cut pieces on a plate and had not
forgotten the bottle of champagne, so they could celebrate his coup with Tencent.
He popped the cork and filled their glasses.

“Tell me about your castle,” said Madeleine.

***

The two
KhoiKhoi
did not move from their sleeping
positions until the sun was already very hot. The South Easter, which had
quietened down during the night, had picked up again by the time they made
themselves comfortable in the clearing from where that they could observe the
ship movements in both Table Bay and False Bay. In that way they were
consciously or subconsciously exactly like the Dutch colonists, whose first
word was always about the latest ship that had arrived. In Table Bay they could
make out almost nothing, since all the ships had their canvas down but in False
Bay a small schooner was leaving Simon’s Town. They watched it beat against the
wind in the open mouth of the bay.

There was a rustle in the undergrowth. A
duiker
antelope appeared, apparently spooked. It saw them, stopped for a split second
and then bounced across the clearing to the other side.

“Leopard,” said the master. “It hunts the
duiker
during the day when it sleeps. It uses the wind to disguise any sound and then
it creeps up on the buck from downwind. This one was just lucky to have
escaped.”

“Maybe we prevented the leopard from getting its meal,” said
Hadah. He sounded apologetic, as if he had sympathy for the predator.

“It will try again,” said the master. “The leopards in these
mountains are very clever.”

When the sun was exactly above them they made a smokeless
fire and roasted the last of the tubers that they had dug up the day before.
Then the master decided that it was time to return to the other side of the
mountain. Their water reserves were depleted. They gathered up their belongings
and approached the path crossing the col between the two peaks with great
caution. Nobody seemed to be around. They examined the soft soil and came to
the conclusion that yes, indeed, the slaves of the day before were followed by
people who wore shoes made in the workshops in Cape Town or maybe even somewhere
far away. The heavy boot marks covered smaller, softer marks made by the
sandals preferred by the
KhoiKhoi
. It was exactly as the master had
predicted. The slaves were followed by Dutch, who used
KhoiKhoi
trackers. The pursuers must have gone down the col on the hot side of the
mountain and somewhere down there they decided to give up the chase because
they came up again. The two sorcerers followed the tracks down the cool side
until they got to the place where they could slip into their secret watering spot
in the ravine.

A while later, with their water containers refilled, they cautiously
approached their cave with all their senses on the alert when the master
stopped. He sniffed the air. Hadah followed his example. They came to the same
conclusion. There was a smell of the
buchu
herb in the air. Something
that was not there the day before. The only people who mixed
buchu
with
fat and cow’s dung and smeared it on themselves were
KhoiKhoi
who lived
away from the Dutch. These were the people who willingly let the sorcerers have
their sickly offspring so that they could do what they had to do.
Buchu
was used in great quantities whenever there was a ritual of passage, for
instance when there was a birth. The two men kept a tally of all the pregnant
women within three days’ travel. Who could have had a baby now? Perhaps it was not
a birth, perhaps it was another ritual of passage. Perhaps a death? Whatever
the occasion, the smell they picked up was that of business.

They found a young man, dressed like themselves, sitting on
a rock a few paces away from the entrance to the cave. He stood up when he saw
them.

After a respectful greeting for the master and a more
abbreviated one for Hadah he informed them of the purpose for his visit.

“I come from
Oqtis
, the king of the
Chainouqua
,” he said. “Here, I’ve brought gifts. He put an earthenware jar in front of
them. It was filled with curdled milk. Then he unfolded items wrapped in smooth
skin. It was beef, so fresh it had no smell on it yet.

The master took up the jar with curdled milk and had a long
drink. He passed it over to Hadah, who found it very welcome indeed. He eyed
the pieces of meat. The master nodded at him and he left to find sticks for the
fire.

The meat was sizzling on rocks in the centre of the coals
when the master spoke. “Yes, I know
Oqtis
,” he said. “His father grew up
in front of me and I was also there when
Oqtis
was born. He was the
first child and a strong, healthy boy. It was a very proud day. They
slaughtered a big ox in his honour. Now they’ve slaughtered another one because
the father has passed on to the forefathers.”

The messenger nodded. When he mentioned that
Oqtis
as
the king, he knew that the old sorcerer would get the picture.

“Now
Oqtis
is king and he wants to see you,” he said
quietly.

“Has he told you what it was about?”

“No, but it is an urgent matter. You have to come with me
now.”

“Unfortunately we have some business to attend to tomorrow.
We will travel on the day after tomorrow.”

“The king will not be pleased.”

“Tell the king we regret that we cannot come with you
immediately but that we will definitely be there.”

“I will stay until you leave.”

“No, you cannot do that. Do you have children?”