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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. Travelling’s very hard on me.’
Constable Munda 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 announced.
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 dozens 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 marvelled 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 colourful 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 towards 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.
