Jamie examined every detail of the area on the map, going over it again and again. There were three thousand miles of ocean flowing from South America to South Africa, with nothing to impede the waves, so that their full fury was spent on the deadly reefs of the South Atlantic shore. Forty miles south, down the coastline, was an open beach. That must be where the poor bastards launched their boats to sail into the forbidden area, Jamie decided. Looking at the map, he could understand why the shore was not guarded. The reefs would make a landing impossible.
Jamie turned his attention to the land entrance to the diamond field. According to Banda, the area was fenced in with barbed wire and patrolled twenty-four hours a day by armed guards. At the entrance itself was a manned watch-tower. And even if one did somehow manage to slip past the watchtower into the diamond area, there would be the land mines and guard dogs.
The following day when Jamie met Banda, he asked, ‘You said there was a land-mine map of the field?’
‘In the Namib Desert? The supervisors have the maps, and they lead the diggers to work. Everybody walks in a single file so no one gets blown up.’ His eyes filled with a memory. ‘One day my uncle was walking in front of me and he stumbled on a rock and fell on top of a land mine. There wasn’t enough left of him to take home to his family.’
Jamie shuddered.
‘And then there’s the sea mis, Mr McGregor. You’ve never seen a mis until you’ve been in one in the Namib. It rolls in from the ocean and blows all the way across the desert to the mountains and it blots out everything. If you’re caught in one of them, you don’t dare move. The land-mine maps are not good then because you can’t see where you’re going. Everybody just sits quietly until the mis lifts.’
‘How long do they last?’
Banda shrugged. ‘Sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days.’
‘Banda, have you ever seen a map of those land mines?’
‘They’re closely guarded.’ A worried look crossed his face. ‘I’m telling you again, no one can get away with what you’re thinking. Once in a while workers will try to smuggle out a diamond. There is a special tree for hanging them. It’s a lesson to everybody not to try to steal from the company.’
The whole thing looked impossible. Even if he could manage to get into Van der Merwe’s diamond field, there was no way out. Banda was right. He would have to forget about it.
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