under its own weight.’
‘I’ve thought of that one, too,’ I said calmly. ‘Have you ever watched anyone pour reinforced concrete?’
He frowned and then caught on, snapping his fingers.
‘We make the mould and put a mesh of wires inside,’ I said. ‘That’ll hold it together.’
I showed him a model I had made, using fuse wire and candle wax, which he examined carefully. ‘You’ve done a hell of a lot of thinking about this,’ he said at last.
‘Somebody has to,’ I said. ‘Or that gold will stay where it is for another fourteen years.’
He didn’t like that because it made him appear stupid; but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He started to say something and bit it short, his face flushing red. Then he took a deep breath and said, ‘All right, you’ve convinced me. I’m in.’
Then I took a deep breath – of relief.
III
That night we had a conference.
I said, ‘This is the drill. Sanford – my yacht – will be ready for trials next week. As soon as the trials are over you two are going to learn how to sail under my instruction. In under four months from now we sail for Tangier.’
‘Christ!’ said Walker. ‘I don’t know that I like the sound of that.’
‘There’s nothing to it,’ I said. ‘Hundreds of people are buzzing about the Atlantic these days. Hell, people have gone round the world in boats a quarter the size.’
I looked at Coertze. ‘This is going to take a bit of financing. Got any money?’
‘About a thousand,’ he admitted.
‘That gets tossed into the kitty,’ I said. ‘Along with my twenty-five thousand.’
‘Magtig,’ he said. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of money.’
‘We’ll need every penny of it,’ I said. ‘We might have to buy a small boatyard in Italy if that’s the only way we can cast the keel in secrecy. Besides, I’m lending it to the firm of Walker, Coertze and Halloran at one hundred per cent interest. I want fifty thousand back before the three-way split begins. You can do the same with your thousand.’
‘That sounds fair enough,’ agreed Coertze.
I said, ‘Walker hasn’t any money and once you’ve thrown your thousand in the kitty, neither have you. So I’m putting you both on my payroll. You’ve got to have your smokes and three squares a day while all this is going on.’
This bit of information perked Walker up considerably. Coertze merely nodded in confirmation. I looked hard at Walker. ‘And you stay off the booze or we drop you over the side. Don’t forget that.’
He nodded sullenly.
Coertze said, ‘Why are we going to Tangier first?’
‘We’ve got to make arrangements to remelt the gold into standard bars,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine any banker calmly taking a golden keel into stock. Anyway, that’s for the future; right now I have to turn you into passable seamen – we’ve got to get to the Mediterranean first.’
I took Sanford on trials and Walker and Coertze came along for the ride and to see what they were letting themselves in for. She turned out to be everything I’ve ever wanted in a boat. She was fast for a deep-sea cruiser and not too tender. With a little sail adjustment she had just the right amount of helm and I could see she was going to be all right without any drastic changes.
As we went into a long reach she picked up speed and went along happily with the water burbling along the lee rail and splashing on deck. Walker, his face a little green, said, ‘I thought you said a keel would hold this thing upright.’ He was hanging tightly on to the side of the cockpit.
I laughed. I was happier than I had been for a long time. ‘Don’t worry about that. That’s not much angle of heel. She won’t capsize.’
Coertze didn’t say anything – he was busy being sick.
The next three months were rough and tough. People forget that the Cape was the Cape of Storms before some early public relations officer changed the name to the Cape of Good Hope. When the Berg Wind blows it can be as uncomfortable at sea as anywhere in the world.
I drove Walker and Coertze unmercifully. In three months I had to turn them into capable seamen, because Sanford was a bit too big to sail single-handed. I hoped that the two of them would equal one able-bodied seaman. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds because in those three months they put in as much sea time as the average week-end yachtsman gets in three years, and they had the dubious advantage of having a pitiless instructor.
Shore time was spent in learning the theory of sail and the elements of marline-spike seamanship – how to knot and splice, mend a sail and make baggywrinkle. They grumbled a little at the theory, but I silenced that by asking them what they’d do if I was washed overboard in the middle of the Atlantic.
Then we went out to practise what I had taught – at first in the bay and then in the open sea, cruising coastwise around the peninsula at first, and then for longer distances well out of sight of land.
I had thought that Coertze would prove to be as tough at sea as apparently he was on land. But he was no sailor and never would be. He had a queasy stomach and couldn’t stand the motion, so he turned out to be pretty useless at boat handling. But he was hero enough to be our cook on the longer voyages, a thankless job for a sea-sick man.
I would hear him swearing below when the weather was rough and a pot of hot coffee was tossed in his lap. He once told me that he now knew what poker dice felt like when they were shaken in the cup. He wouldn’t have stood it for any lesser reason, but the lust for gold was strong in him.
Walker was the real surprise. Coertze and I had weaned him from his liquor over many protests, and he was now eating more and the air and exercise agreed with him. He put on weight, his thin cheeks filled out and his chest broadened. Nothing could replace the hair he had lost, but he seemed a lot more like the handsome young man I had known ten years earlier.
More surprisingly, he turned out to be a natural sailor. He liked Sanford and she seemed to like him. He was a good helmsman and could lay her closer to the wind than I could when we were beating to windward. At first I was hesitant to give him a free hand with Sanford, but as he proved himself I lost my reluctance.
At last we were ready and there was nothing more to wait for. We provisioned Sanford and set sail for the north on November 12, to spend Christmas at sea. Ahead of us was a waste of water with the beckoning lure of four tons of gold at the other side.
I suppose one could have called it a pleasure cruise!
