from the prevailing winds and the run of the surf by the horn of land,
were the ruins of the ancient slave city of Month.
Gregorius pointed it out to them, for it did not look like a city.
It was merely an area of broken rock and stone blocks running down to
the water's edge. They were close enough now to make out the roughly
geometrical layout of smothered streets and roofless buildings.
Hirondeue dropped anchor and snubbed up gently. Jake finished his
final preparations for unloading and crossed to where Gareth stood by
the rail.
"One of us will have to swim a line ashore."
"Spin you for it,"
suggested Gareth, and before Jake could protest he had the coin in his
hand.
"Heads!" jake looked resigned.
"Bad luck, old son. Give the sharks my love." Gareth smiled and
stroked his mustache.
Jake balanced on the clumsy pontoon raft as it was lifted by the donkey
engine and lowered over the side, dangling on the heavy lines. and
floated alongside as It settled on to the surface un-gracefully as a
pregnant hippo.
Jake grinned up at Vicky who was leaning over the rail, watching with
interest.
"Unless you want to be blinded with splendour, you'd better close your
eyes." For a moment she did not understand, but then as he started to
strip off his shirt and unbutton his pants, she turned modestly away.
With the end of a coil of light line tied about his waist Jake plunged
naked into the sea and struck out for the shore. Vicky's curiosity got
the better of her at this stage, and she glanced slyly overboard. There
was something so childlike and defenceless about a man with his
trousers off, she thought, as she considered Jake's bobbing white
buttocks. She might develop that as a theme in one of her columns, she
thought, and then realized that Gareth Swales was watching her with one
mockingly raised eyebrow, as he paid out the coil of line that snaked
after Jake. She blushed pinkly under her tan and hurried away to make
sure her typewriter and personal duffel bag were packed away into Miss
Wobbly.
Jake touched bottom and waded ashore to secure the line to one of the
stone blocks, and already the first car was on on its wooden blocks,
and, with the winch clattering, was being lifted over the side.
With each man performing his own task skilfully, one at a time the cars
were lowered on to the bobbing raft. There its wheels were hastily
lashed and it was hauled carefully towards the beach by the land
line.
As soon as the raft ran aground on the sloping yellow sand, Jake
started the engine while Gregorius clamped the footboards into place.
Then with the engine revving noisily and the raft swaying dangerously,
it rolled over the footboards and up the slope to park well above the
high-water mark. Then the raft was hauled back alongside the schooner
for its next load.
Although they worked as swiftly as safety would allow, the hours sped
away just as swiftly, and it was late afternoon when the last load of
fuel drums and wooden cases, with Vicky Camberwell sitting on top of
the precarious load, made the short crossing to the beach.
Almost the instant it left the ship's side, the diesel thumped into
life, the anchor chain rattled in over the bows and Papadopoulos gave
the order to cast off the line of the raft.
By the time Vicky jumped down on the crunchy sand, the Hirondelle was
moving steadily out between the horns of the bay, and spreading her
wings of white canvas to the evening breeze. The four of them stood
upon the beach in the lowering dusk and watched her go. None of them
waved, and yet they all felt a loss at her going. Stinking slaver,
with a crew of pirates, yet she had been their link with the outer
world. HirondeUe cleared the cliffs and caught the full drive of the
wind, heeled eagerly and went away, with her wake leaving a long oily
slick across the surface long after she had disappeared into the
Gulf.
Jake broke the spell of silence and loneliness that held them.
"All right, my children. Let's make camp." They had landed on the
open beach between the ruined city and the headland, and now the
evening wind was sweeping dust and grit across their exposed
position.
Jake selected a sheltered hollow under the lee of the ruins, and they
moved the cars up and parked them in the protective hollow square of
the laager.
The ancient buildings were choked with piled sand and thick with the
spiny camel-thorn growth that blocked the narrow streets. While
Jake and Gregorius checked the fuelling and lubrication of the
vehicles, and Gareth scraped a fireplace against a shielding stone
wall, Vicky wandered off to explore the ruins in the dusk.
She did not go far. A tangible sense of menace and human suffering
seemed to emanate from the rubble of buildings that had been burned
over a century before. It made her skin crawl, but she picked her way
cautiously along a narrow alleyway that opened at last into an open
square.
She knew instinctively that this had been the trading square of the
slave city and she imagined the long chained lines of human beings.
The pervading aura of their misery still persisted. She wondered if
