Where had he got that money from? And why did they fight? Over the money? The contents of the package? Why did only two men escape from the submarine? Why was Horst Kohler chasing H.M. so furiously? H.M. was armed with both a pistol and a knife, Kohler had nothing but his fists, yet he persevered. Surely he would not have done that just for five hundred pounds. That meant H.M.’s package contained something much more valuable. Like diamonds?
Another point: H.M. was carrying the package as he swam ashore: he swam with difficulty. Only after the fight did he open the package and put the two bags into his pockets. Why did he not do that before he escaped from the submarine? Answer: H.M. did not have time to open the package inside the submarine – he only had time to snatch it up. That suggested that he left behind more valuables.
The more McQuade thought about it, the more convinced he became. That submarine was shipwrecked, because only two men emerged from it, in disarray, one pursuing the other. So, it was still where it sank, and inside was a hell of a lot more valuable stuff than H.M. had managed to struggle ashore with. Why? Because of the counterfeit fivers. Surely only a very senior Nazi official had access to counterfeit money and a submarine. McQuade had read somewhere about the vast treasures the Nazis were said to have accumulated and shipped away to South America. Well, here we have another case. To arrange a submarine you must be a very senior official, and a high-up Nazi official has more loot stashed away against the day the shit hits the fan than five hundred counterfeit English pounds and one package of diamonds.
McQuade stared down the sandy street, his excitement mounting. God, if all that was correct, there was a fortune somewhere down there, in that submarine. Crates of the stuff.
But why was this German submarine off the coast of South West Africa? That’s a long, long way from South America where all the Nazis ran to.
McQuade stared through the windscreen, trying to think as a seaman.
Two possibilities. One: because of Allied maritime patrols in the Atlantic, the commander decides to hug the coast of West Africa. He has navigational problems and because of treacherous currents, the submarine crashes into a sandbank off the infamous Skeleton Coast.
McQuade shook his head. All right, it was a possibility, but the Skeleton Coast was simply too far off the route to South America for it to be a credible course for even the most cautious submariner.
So, possibility two. Namibia, or South West Africa, as it was called, was a German colony until the First World War. It was then occupied by South African troops to protect the Cape sea route from German warships. At the end of the war, the colony was handed over to South Africa to govern as a trusteeship territory. But the country remained heavily pro-German. So this submarine had been heading for this vast, sympathetic, pro-German territory to unload its Nazis and their loot. However, before it could do so it came to grief on the treacherous Skeleton Coast, and H.M. escaped with some of the loot, with Kohler pursuing him to get his share …
This was the most likely scenario: Namibia was so vast and so German that it would be a good place for Nazis to hide, to become absorbed. This scenario presupposed that arrangements had been made with German agents in Namibia to rendezvous with the submarine, in a fishing trawler, for example, to receive the Nazis and the loot. This also explained why the submarine was so close in-shore, waiting for the rendezvous, that it came to grief on sandbanks.
But why did only two men escape? What happened to the rest?
McQuade sighed. He knew very little about submarines. Was it possible that two men were discharged, and the submarine sailed away happily? It was not likely. For several reasons:
Firstly, H.M. was struggling to swim with his package. Surely, if the disembarkation was planned, he would have secured his package in some way to enable him to swim properly. Secondly, Horst Kohler was injured, and he was furiously pursuing H.M. Kohler was trying to prevent H.M. from escaping. And thirdly, the most compelling reason of all: if the disembarkation had been planned, why would they choose the killer Skeleton Coast? Why not further south, close to Swakopmund, and why not come ashore with some kind of raft carrying some food and water?
So, it was obviously a case of shipwreck.
But why did only two men escape?
But all those questions surely did not matter. The only thing that mattered today, forty-odd years later, was that somewhere on this Skeleton Coast lay a German submarine with a lot of Nazi treasure in it. In water so shallow that two men could escape from it.
McQuade sat back. Excited. And he made up his mind. ‘Have you got a job, Skellum?’
Skellum turned to him, his eyes glazed. ‘Nee.’
McQuade pulled out a fifty-rand banknote.
‘You and I are going to drive up to Damaraland. To meet your father. So he can tell me this story himself.’
He first went back to his ship and collected the sextant, the nautical almanac, the sight-reduction tables, an Admiralty chart of the coast, a plotting sheet and parallel rulers. He grabbed some cans of food, beer, two bottles of brandy, some cooking utensils and four blankets, which he slung in the back of the Landrover. Then he drove back towards Swakopmund and the Skeleton Coast beyond. Skellum was sprawled in a drunken sleep. That was okay with McQuade: he expected no great meeting of minds on this journey and just hoped that the man had not made up the whole story.
The road north from Swakopmund was smooth, compacted sand. To the left was the moonlit Atlantic, in all other directions was only sand, hillocks and humps going on and on. At three o’clock they came to Henties Bay, a little resort for sport-fishermen, holiday houses sitting on bare sand, and McQuade swung off the coastal road, north-east, towards Uis Mine. Now they were in the dune country, hills of yellow and white in the flashing headlamps, going on and on. Then, gradually, the dunes began to turn flinty hard, impacted with the brown gravel hurled into them by the winds, and now the earth was turning into flinty rockiness, hills of rocks rising up into the starry sky, stones flying up from the wheels. Then the dry scrub began to appear. The first light came, greyness turning to pink. Outside Uis Mine he turned left, towards Khorixas, and now here and there were iron windmills. Sunrise came, red and gold fanning up behind the rocky mountains; it was early morning when McQuade drove into dusty, dry Khorixas and stopped at the service station. He shook Skellum awake.
‘You must show me the way from here.’
Skellum blinked around, all hungover and horrible. Then memory dawned on him. He suddenly looked uncomfortable.
‘Ah – I cannot take you to my father’s kraal.’
So it was all a hoax! ‘Why not?’ McQuade demanded dangerously.
Skellum shifted. ‘Because he will beat me.’
‘Why will he beat you? Because your story is a pack of lies?’
‘Because,’ Skellum shifted uncomfortably, ‘he does not know I took these things from his hut.’
‘You stole them from your own father?’
Skellum waggled his hungover head. ‘I only borrowed them …’
McQuade grabbed him by his shirt front theatrically. ‘Last night I paid you fifty rand to take me to your father. Now get on with it! And if you’re frightened he’s going to beat you,’ he snatched a bottle of brandy off the back seat, ‘fortify yourself