Seas of South Africa (6 page)

I felt the side of my face. It was bruised and swollen and very sore. If those men hadn't come for him, he would surely have killed me. And then he would have killed Hollie and Seaweed, and Little Laura, and stolen the sub. So why should I go back and check on him? I didn't know, but the very fact that I had to ask myself that question told me it would haunt me. I had to return so that I could know I had done the right thing. It was enough that he had attacked me. I didn't want him to haunt me, too.

So I shut off the kettle and sailed down the mainland side of the island slowly and cautiously. It was shallow, but that was not a problem as long as I didn't try to submerge. At the first sign of trouble, I would simply turn around, crank up the engine, and take off.

It was hard to see the beach clearly in the darkness and fog. I tried to identify the spot where I had run through the trees,
but too many places looked the same. I went down until I was sure we had passed the spot, turned around, and started back up. Maybe he had gotten to his feet and walked away, or maybe they had carried him, or . . . I hated to think of it . . . buried him already. If I didn't see a body on the beach, I would sail away. I wasn't going to search the whole island for him.

After a while, I thought maybe we were next to the beach where the fight took place, but I wasn't sure. There was no body on the sand, at least none that I could see. I stopped the sub, stood up on the hatch with the binoculars, and stared through the mist. No, there was nothing there. Maybe he had survived, after all. Maybe they had stopped fighting, or he had taken them to whatever it was they were looking for—money probably, or the treasure he had talked about. But no, there was nobody here. I started the engine again, and continued.

Just a little further north, where the sand gave way to a rocky area, I thought I saw a dark shape on the ground. I stood up on the hatch again, and looked. Yup, looked like a body to me. I shut the engine, inflated the kayak, closed the hatch behind me, and paddled to the beach. I looked carefully to make sure there was no one else around. The closer I got to the dark shape, the more certain I felt it was him. When I climbed out of the kayak and pulled it up onto the beach, I knew for sure. He was lying face down on the rocks, not moving at all. I had seen dead bodies before. There's something
different in the look of a dead body, even in the dark. It's hard to explain, but once a person is dead, their body is no different from the body of a dead cow, or even a dead tree. It is no longer a person. It becomes something else.

Even though I was certain he was dead, I approached carefully. What if he were playing dead? What if he were wounded, but still alive, just waiting for me to get close enough that he could stab me?

I stepped closer, reached over, and poked him with the paddle. It was like poking a heavy bag of sand. He was definitely dead. I came closer still, bent down, and pulled him over. He was so heavy! I figured I'd better check his pulse. I didn't want to, but thought I should. His hands were large, and scarred, like his face. I put my fingers on his wrist, where the pulse ought to be. There was no warmth there, the way there should be in a living body. I couldn't find a pulse. I moved my fingers several times looking for one. I pressed harder. No, there was nothing there.

I stood up and stared at him. He had been stabbed many times. I could see the tears in his clothing and the darkness of blood. There was blood on his neck and chin. He had such a frightening face. He had been such a frightening man. But a strange feeling came over me, I didn't know why. I suddenly imagined him as he might have been when he was just a little boy—because there had been a time, a long time ago, when he had been a boy, just like any other boy. Here, now, he was lying dead on a beach, murdered. How sad it was, that a little
boy,
any
boy, would ever end up like this. Who even knew all he had done in his life? How many crimes had he committed? Had he ever done anything good? Had he ever loved anyone? Surely somebody must have loved him, once upon a time? As I stood and stared at him, I started to feel terribly sad for him. I could barely hold back my tears.

But I did.

Chapter Seven

SHOULD I WALK TO
the police station to report the murder, and tell the policeman there everything I had witnessed? But what if he told me to stay around to testify, and what if I couldn't leave for a long time? What if he didn't believe me, and kept me under suspicion? After all, I hadn't entered the country legally. I had never shown anyone my passport. Maybe he would put me behind bars until he sorted it all out. What would happen to my crew then? No, there was no way I could risk telling the police. I had been warned not to trust them. For a moment, I wondered if I ought to pull the body into the water, tow it a few miles out, and give it a burial at
sea. But then I would be destroying the evidence of the crime, which would be helping the murderers, and creating another crime. And what if I got caught with the body? Everyone would believe I had killed him. No, I couldn't do that. I didn't see how I could do anything but leave. I would have to let somebody else find the body. But then, what if it were found by young kids playing on the beach? As I stood over the body and tried to figure it out, I caught a glimpse of a small mast in the fog. The dark sailboat!

That settled everything. I ran to the kayak, pushed it into the water, and raced to the sub. As I climbed up and opened the hatch, I saw the sailboat approaching slowly through the fog. Maybe they were coming to collect the body and hide what they had done.

There was no time to deflate the kayak. I tied it to the hatch, jumped inside, started the engine, and cranked it up. As we motored away, I looked back with the binoculars, but couldn't tell if they were stopping or not. Probably they were. I sailed around to the sea side of the island and half a mile out from shore. I deflated the kayak, folded it, and put it away. Then I put the kettle on again, sat at the radar screen, and waited for them to show.

I drank a cup of chamomile tea, with honey, but couldn't seem to settle down. My crew knew when I was upset or excited. They could feel the difference in my mood. And if I was calm and relaxed, or nervous and agitated, they reflected that. Seaweed stayed on his feet, ready to climb up the portal and
jump into the air. Hollie picked up his ears, listened extra carefully to every sound, and sniffed the air. But not Little Laura. She cakewalked around the floor like a tiny penguin, picking up tiny bits of rope and wood that Hollie had dropped, and carrying them all the way up to her cage. She reminded me of Jack in the Beanstalk. It was so much work for her. Finally, it occurred to me to tie her cage closer to the floor. So I did. I hung it from a rope just two feet off the floor. She watched me do it, trying to bite me the whole time. But now, her climb was a lot shorter, and she went up and down a lot more often.

Half an hour later, there was a beep on the radar. A vessel appeared at the northern corner of the island. They were coming now.

I submerged, raised the periscope, and waited. Without lights, they were hard to spot. Sometimes they appeared as a dark shadow on the water, and sometimes they seemed to disappear. The closer they came, the better I could see them. The further from shore we were, the less fog there was. A mile out, there was none.

They came within a quarter of a mile of us, and I was starting to wonder if they had located us with a portable sonar device. But they hadn't. They came past and kept going, never knowing we were there. I engaged battery power and followed them. They were towing the orange dinghy.

They motored out three miles, and stopped. I surfaced a quarter of a mile away, climbed the portal, and watched them
through the binoculars. They lit two lanterns and hung them from the mast. There were six pirates in the boat.

The first thing they did was climb into the dinghy, reach down and lift something heavy out, and drop it into the sea. I was certain it was the body, even though I couldn't see it clearly. Then, they started searching the dinghy. They were looking for something, but couldn't find it. They argued. I saw one man push another into the water. Eventually, they all climbed back onto the sailboat and went inside the cabin. I waited. A little while later, they came charging out of the cabin as if they had discovered something. They pulled the dinghy right out of the water and turned it upside down. They shone a flashlight on it. There was something attached to the bottom. It looked like a black garbage bag. I saw them get excited when they pulled it free. One man held it up in the air and I heard them cheer from quarter of a mile away.

The pirates headed back towards Mozambique Island. They must have thought they were safe now that they had destroyed the evidence of their crime. They turned off their lamps, motored around the north of the island, and back down the mainland side in the fog. I followed them. I couldn't help it. I just couldn't let them get away with it. It wasn't right. I didn't know what I could do, but I couldn't leave without doing something.

I had to surface to round the island again, but kept our distance. Through the binoculars, I watched them drop anchor down by the bridge. Five of them climbed into the dinghy
and paddled to the beach, leaving one pirate behind to keep watch. I heard them laugh and shout. But the man on the boat was shouting with frustration and anger. He wasn't happy being left behind. I motored a little closer to see him better. He was carrying a small machine gun over his shoulder, the kind I've seen harbour police use in other countries. He was standing on the stern of the boat, watching his companions leave, no doubt to go to the café to celebrate having found whatever it was they had found.

I watched for half an hour. I could tell by his movements that the man on the boat was unhappy. He was hitting and kicking things. Finally, one of the other pirates yelled to him from the beach. I swung the binoculars over and saw him wave his arm. There was another man there, a small old man. I wondered if it was the man who had kept watch over the dinghy. It sure looked like him. The pirate on the boat put down his gun, jumped into the water, and swam to the beach. He greeted his companion happily, and they disappeared in the dark. The old man sat down on the sand and stared at the boat. I was sure it was him. This was my chance.

I wanted to get onto their boat and have a look. What was it they had taken from the man they had killed? Money? Treasure? I wanted to know. Maybe I could find it and take it. And then I could sabotage their boat so that they couldn't follow me. They were probably planning to spend hours at the café, drinking and celebrating. I would have time.

Switching to battery power, I snuck up behind their boat
from the mainland side, so that the old man wouldn't see or hear the sub. I doubted he could spot it in the dark anyway. I climbed out onto the hull, then jumped onto the bow of the sailboat. My heart was racing. The sailboat stank like rotten cheese. I crouched down and crept along the deck until I reached the door to the cabin. Not surprisingly, it was locked. So, I went back to the sub and grabbed a small crowbar and a flashlight. I took a peek through the binoculars to make sure the old man was still sitting on the beach. He was. I jumped back onto the sailboat.

The cabin door made some noise but gave way easily with the crowbar. I took a few steps down into the cabin, held the flashlight against my middle to make only a small light, turned it on, and took a look around.

I couldn't believe what I saw. The cabin was filled with guns, of every size. They were leaning against the walls and lying on the floor. There were handguns and machine guns and rifles. On a counter, where the sink, stove and fridge were, there were bundles of money, bags of white powder, and the plastic bag they had found on the bottom of the dinghy. It had been opened, and I saw the glitter of gold and jewellery. I couldn't believe it.

It didn't take me long to decide what to do. I would sabotage the boat, but not here. I went back to the sub and grabbed a hacksaw. I sawed through the anchor line, then tied a towing line from the portal of the sub to the bow of the sailboat. I took another glance at the old man sitting on the
sand. He was as still as a wooden statue. I wondered if he was even awake. I wondered if he ever actually reported anything he saw. What would he think when he saw the sailboat sailing away by itself? I turned on the engine and cranked it up full blast. The sub's propeller churned up the water and the rope went taut. The bow of the sailboat spun around and came after us like a horse on a lead. As I towed the boat away, I took one last look at the old man, saw him rise to his feet, shake off the sand, and hurry off the beach.

Chapter Eight