The Land God Made in Anger. John Davis Gordon
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four good fish. He cleaned them and went back to the fire. Jakob was still asleep.
He made coffee. There was nothing to do but eat and wait.
At eleven-thirty they drove back to The Haunted Place. Five minutes before local noon McQuade sat down and faced north. He put the sextant to his eye, found the sun and adjusted the shades. He slid the adjuster and brought the sun down until the lower limb of it just skimmed the horizon. He looked at the angle, then at the time, but did not make any notes.
Jakob was watching him in amazement. McQuade smiled at him. He waited half a minute, then raised the sextant again, found the sun, tweaked the angle-adjuster, and skimmed the sun on the horizon again. The angle was a minute of arc higher than last time. He waited half a minute, and did it again. At noon the sun stays at its zenith for about four minutes before it begins to descend into afternoon. About five minutes later, after measuring half a dozen times the angle between the sun, his eye, and the horizon, he was satisfied about the zenith.
He noted down that angle. He allowed seven feet for Dip, and allowed for the sextant’s Index Error. He then subtracted the sun’s noon angle, in degrees and minutes and seconds, from ninety degrees, zero minutes, zero seconds. The final result was an exact parallel of latitude.
This piece of beach he was sitting on was exactly nineteen degrees, seventeen minutes, forty-eight seconds South. Assuming Jakob was right, somewhere out there, due west along that latitude, lay the submarine. Probably about half a mile out.
With the next part of the navigational calculation he could take his time. He had a coffee. He gave the sun an hour, then took another sight with the sextant. He noted the exact time.
He used the Landrover’s flat bonnet as a table, and began his calculations. He unfolded his nautical chart of the Skeleton Coast and drew in his latitude. He read off the longitude of the point where his latitude line crossed the coast. That in itself was enough to tell him exactly where on the earth’s surface he was. But, to double-check, he wanted to put in the afternoon position line as well. He calculated his Local Hour Angle, noted down his post-noon sun angle, allowed for Dip and Index Error, opened the nautical almanac to the page for that day, found the hour, did the calculations and arrived at Height Observed. He then opened the sight-reduction tables to the appropriate page, and worked out Height Calculated. He subtracted that from Height Observed and came up with a minuscule Intercept. He then drew in the position line on the chart. It intercepted at the point where his latitude line crossed the coast. He was quite satisfied about where on the earth’s surface he was standing.
He took a deep breath. Okay, the first step was to verify the submarine’s existence. Bring the Bonanza up here and sweep the ocean floor in a pattern. Her depth-sounder would show up anything as big as a submarine lying on the ocean bed.
Then dive down and have a look at it.
How do you get into a sunken submarine?
He had no idea. Worry about that later.
What were the legal ramifications? And if word got out there’d be fortune-hunters from all over the world looking for this submarine. So, consult a good maritime lawyer, and meanwhile tell absolutely nobody. He’d have to tell the Kid, Tucker, Elsie and Potgieter of course, but he’d give the Coloureds a few days leave and bring the Bonanza up here with a skeleton crew.
It was a long shot, but it was worth looking into: had H.M. survived the Skeleton Coast? Was he alive today? He might well have survived: he was a youngish man in 1945 and he had had Jakob’s water bottles, which he could have replenished at the Ugab river by digging. He had a gun and he might have shot a buck at the Ugab. Or a seal. If he reached Swakopmund, he would have gone immediately to a dentist because he would have been in pain. And probably seen a doctor, to treat his gashed arm. Records of all this might still exist. If McQuade could uncover those records he might find out H.M.’s name.
It was two o’clock the following afternoon when McQuade drove into Swakopmund, after returning Jakob to his kraal. He parked outside the old municipal buildings, under the palms, and went into the information bureau. A coloured woman came forward. ‘Guten Tag.’
‘Can you advise me please?’ (People like to be asked their advice) ‘I am writing about Swakopmund during the war period. Is there a municipal archive I can research in?’
The lady said, ‘Only the Sam Cohen Library.’ She produced a glossy brochure and opened it at the map. ‘Here. And the Public Library’s here.’
McQuade circled them. ‘How would I find out …’ he waved his hand, ‘… how many dentists there were in Swakopmund in 1945, for example.’
‘Maybe at the library.’
‘And do you happen to know what hospitals there were in 1945?’
‘Only the Antonius Hospital. Across the street there.’
‘Thank you.’ He went downstairs, back into the glaring sunshine.
The Antonius Hospital was an attractive old German building. He walked into the small foyer. A number of black women were sitting on chairs with infants. On the walls were government posters about nutrition, infant care, family planning, and the smiling people depicted in them were all an attractive shade of brown. McQuade went to the door marked Reception. A black woman in a white smock was sitting at a typewriter. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said in Afrikaans, ‘is this where all the records of patients are kept?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you have the records for 1945 here?’
The woman looked nonplussed. ‘No. In those days this was a German missionary hospital. It was later taken over by the government.’
‘Do you know where the old missionary records are?’
‘The missionaries took them away.’
‘And where are the missions’ headquarters now?’
‘In Windhoek, maybe. Or maybe in Germany.’
McQuade thanked her and left the hospital. Well, he’d drawn a blank there. He walked towards the main street, Kaiserstrasse.
The public library is in the old Woermann-Brock Shipping Line building, built in Bavarian style around a large open courtyard. McQuade asked the librarian what books she had on German history of Namibia in general and Swakopmund in particular during the war period. ‘Giving me details like how many dentists and doctors the town had in those days, et cetera.’
The librarian was a cultured, elderly German lady. ‘For that you must go to the Sam Cohen library. It is dedicated to the local history. Mr Cohen made a great deal of money out of Swakopmund and built the institute out of gratitude. Meanwhile, sit at a table and I’ll bring you what books we have.’
He found a table in the reference section. The librarian arrived with a pile of books.
The topmost book was by a Professor du Passani on the constitutional history of South West Africa. McQuade flicked through it. It seemed erudite stuff, more than he needed.
The next book was written by Adolf Hitler himself, Mein Kampf. McQuade put it aside. The next was a large tome about the Nuremberg Trials. He resolved to read it one day but it seemed hardly relevant to Namibia. However, a chapter had been marked by a pencil line, so he speed-read it. The gist of it was that many people challenged the legality and the morality of the Nuremberg Trials. They were without precedent in history. Before these trials, there was no such crime as ‘crimes against humanity’, a legal concept that was invented only after the war, so it could not legally be applied to deeds perpetrated before its conception. Furthermore, it was argued, the court did not have jurisdiction to hold the trials. Only a sovereign state had such power and the Allied forces were not a sovereign state, only an occupying army: so only the state of Germany itself had the legal power to try these ‘criminals’.