An Empty Coast

by Tony Park

  ‘I know it, I just don’t like it. So, you know Emma’s in Namibia?’

  Ursula sat down in the shade, but Sonja stayed standing, her back to the sun and the ocean, enjoying the warmth and the smell of the sea.

  ‘I do. She was planning on coming to see me after she had spent some time with you. It’s you I wasn’t expecting to see. I didn’t think the Namibians would let you into the country.’

  Sonja raised her eyebrows. ‘You know about all that stuff in the delta, in Botswana?’

  Ursula smiled. ‘It’s that thing called the internet again, Sonja. What I couldn’t find online was a decent picture of you. It’s why it took me a moment to recognise you. It seems you guard your privacy well – you were even wearing a scarf and dark glasses when you punched that paparazzi photographer in Los Angeles. I thought you looked a bit like Angelina Jolie in that picture.’

  Sonja laughed. Her aunt was as smart and as funny as she’d remembered her, apart from the bleak time after her uncle was killed. ‘I’m keeping a low profile here in Namibia as well, Tante Ursula.’

  Ursula waved a hand in front of her face, as though shooing away a mosquito, and took a long draught of beer and licked her lips. ‘Are you in trouble?’

  ‘No. I was worried about Emma for a while. She sent me an SMS saying she needed my help. I panicked and crossed the border from South Africa, but it turned out she just wants to pick my brains about military uniforms. Her archaeological dig uncovered –’

  ‘A man in a flying suit who appears to be the victim of an accident or military action during the bush war.’

  ‘You don’t miss anything, do you, Tante.’

  Ursula waved towards her studio. ‘My world revolves around painting and surfing the net. I have plenty of time to stay on top of current affairs. The story about the mystery airman got me thinking, about Udo.’

  Sonja left the railing and took a chair under the umbrella. The sea breeze had taken the sting out of the African sun, but she could feel it starting to burn now. ‘Really, why is that?’

  Ursula looked out over the Atlantic; its glittering surface belied the cold dark waters beneath. ‘Udo came across a stranded airman in the desert, in the Skeleton Coast National Park. It was a long way from where this latest body was found, but it got me thinking.’

  ‘I don’t remember hearing about that. I used to love his stories about his life as a ranger.’

  Ursula sighed. ‘And he used to love telling them to you, and embellishing the bits about his tangles with lions and rhinos and elephants. We were such a small family, and you may have guessed that I couldn’t have children.’

  Sonja nodded. Sometimes she wished she hadn’t been taking the pill when she and Sam were living together. Maybe having a little piece of him would have dulled the pain. ‘The airman?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Ursula. ‘It was only a few days before Udo died. He was patrolling the salt road, the one that runs along the Atlantic coast, in his Land Rover. He was heading north towards Möwe Bay and was between there and Terrace Bay when he found this guy staggering out of the desert. Udo called me from the park headquarters and told me about it. He said he was amazed the guy was alive. He was dehydrated and he had a head wound and he didn’t know how long he’d been walking for.’

  ‘The guy’s lucky he came across Udo when he did. I don’t imagine many vehicles use that road,’ Sonja said. The coast was aptly named; it was littered with the rusting remains of numerous shipwrecks and the desert’s relentless sands had been burying the sun-bleached bones of stranded mariners for centuries.

  ‘Ja, you’re right, and there were even fewer cars in the park during the war. It was a miracle. Udo told me the man said he had been flying a single-engine spotter aircraft that had suffered engine failure. He took the pilot to park headquarters where they patched him up. A military ambulance came and took him away.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Sonja said. ‘Did it make the local newspapers?’

  Ursula shook her head. ‘When I next spoke to Udo on the telephone, two days later, he told me not to say anything about the mystery pilot. He said the man had been on a covert mission and Udo had been ordered by his superiors not to mention anything about it, to anyone.’

  ‘What did you think about that?’ Sonja asked.

  Ursula shrugged. ‘Nothing. It was the war. We all did as we were told.’

  ‘Not you, from what I remember,’ Sonja said.

  Her aunt gave a little smile. ‘I wasn’t in favour of the war; your father was correct about me, I was no supporter of the government. The problem was that Hans thought I was against him and the soldiers; I hated the way things were, not the people in uniform.’

  ‘I remember seeing you in the newspaper once, marching in protest about the South Africans siting their military bases next to schools as a tactic to prevent SWAPO from mortaring them.’

  Ursula nodded. ‘You’re a soldier, Sonja, you know that even in war there should be honour, rules to protect the innocent.’

  Sonja wasn’t so sure about that. She had her own code that she tried to follow, but she’d done some things she would rather forget. There was nothing honourable about war. ‘Udo never talked about the pilot again?’

  Ursula looked out over the Atlantic again. ‘No, and two days after our last conversation his Land Rover was ambushed on the salt road. According to the autopsy he was killed by a burst of fire from a Russian-made AK-47, the weapon of choice of the SWAPO guerrillas.’

  ‘So tragic,’ Sonja said, meaning it. Udo had served his country not by killing people but by trying to conserve its wildlife. She remembered him as a funny, kind, gentle man who, like his young wife, had probably been against the war.

  Ursula reached across the table and put her hand on Sonja’s. ‘I loved him, Sonja, with all my heart, and I miss him every day, but I still have my life, I still carry on.’

  Sonja nodded. Her aunt was getting frail, but there was still a light in her eyes, an innate goodness that kept her going, kept her optimistic. Unlike me, Sonja thought.

  Chapter 16

  Emma looked out the Perspex window of the Beechcraft, scanning the endless red rocky desert ground below them.

  ‘Giraffe, eleven o’clock,’ Natangwe said, pointing out the window.

  Emma was surprised. Natangwe was loving flying and was pointing out animals and places he recognised continually. He was wide eyed and grinning most of the time, like a kid on an amusement park ride. Alex, however, was as white as a sheet and, once more, dry-retching into a white paper bag. Poor guy, she thought.

  Natangwe stole a quick glance away from the window across the aisle to Alex, and then back over his shoulder to Emma. He winked at her. He was poking fun at Alex, which was mean, but she was enjoying seeing this playful side of Natangwe, who always seemed so brooding and intense.

  Emma unbuckled her seatbelt and, bent at the waist, moved forward between the two young men and past Sebastian, who grinned at her, to the cockpit, where Professor Sutton sat in the co-pilot’s seat next to Andre Horsman.

  Professor Sutton looked back over his shoulder and held up a folded map. ‘We’re coming up to the area where your young man’s lion was last recorded.’

  Alex was not ‘her’ man, and the professor’s condescending tone, as usual, didn’t fail to annoy her. ‘He’s not well, I’m afraid.’

  ‘He’s not much of an asset, either. So much for those eagle eyes.’

  Emma felt defensive of Alex now.

  ‘No harm done,’ Horsman said. ‘The lions are pretty much on our estimated flight path in any case. I’ve plugged in the coordinates Alex gave me for the lion’s last known location and we should be over it soon. It’ll be a bonus if we help the desert lion conservation program as well as find our missing aircraft.’

  Emma thought he was a good man. She had assumed he’d be some arrogant rich fat cat, bu
t he’d been happy to help – unlike the stuck-up Sutton – and had a relaxed, easy manner about him. ‘It sure would.’

  ‘I’m taking her down, now that we’re over those last mountains,’ Andre said.

  Emma rested a hand on each of the pilots’ seats. It was quite thrilling, seeing the nose of the aircraft dip and the ground coming closer. Horsman levelled out and he and Sutton continued scanning the dry landscape below. Emma knew she should return to her seat and assist with the search, especially if Alex wasn’t capable of even looking out the window for his own lions.

  She was surprised, however, to find when she got back to her seat that Alex was sitting up, his laptop open in front of him and a map spread out on his knees. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘We should be nearly over the lion’s last position.’

  ‘So Andre just said,’ Emma replied. ‘You’re looking better.’

  He looked away from her, out the window. ‘This is important, Emma. These lions are the last of their kind in the area.’

  ‘Smoke ahead,’ Andre said to them all over the intercom. ‘Seems odd out in the middle of nowhere. I’m going down as low as I can to have a look.’

  The Beechcraft dropped and banked sharply to one side as Horsman pulled their aircraft into a wide turn. Emma saw Alex’s left hand clamp down on the armrest of his seat. She thought the ride was a buzz. They were so low now it almost felt as though she would be able to touch the rocky ground below, if she could open the window.

  ‘Campfire,’ Dorset said.

  Emma saw three men dressed in bright traditional clothing look up and point at them. She caught a glimpse of a cooking pot and a couple of dogs barking up at them as well.

  ‘There’s . . .’ Alex swallowed, ‘there’s been another fire down there. Can you take us around again, please, Andre, to have a look at that burnt patch about fifty metres from the men?’

  ‘Roger,’ the pilot said. They levelled out once more and then Andre pulled into the steep turning pattern again. Alex had a pair of binoculars out, his laptop and map at his feet now. He scanned through the porthole.

  ‘They’ve burned something down there, an animal of some kind,’ Natangwe said, relying on his bare eyes. ‘I can see the skeleton. It’s big, but not as big as a cow.’

  ‘No,’ Emma said, and put a hand to her mouth.

  ‘It’s the male lion,’ Alex said, ‘I’m sure of it.’

  Emma caught his eyes and saw the inestimable sadness and frustration inside him. Alex took a hand-held GPS from his daypack. ‘Can you please just circle a couple more times while I record this location, Andre?’

  ‘Roger, just a couple more, then we need to get back on track. Fuel is getting low.’

  ‘Danke schön, I very much appreciate it,’ Alex said. He checked the latitude and longitude on his GPS and took out a notebook. ‘The coordinates here are exactly the same as the last recorded location of the lion. There is no doubt that what we saw down there was its body, burned to cover the evidence of the crime.’

  ‘Everyone, I’m climbing,’ Andre said into the intercom. ‘There are vultures up ahead and if we hit one of them we’re in big trouble.’

  Alex peered out the window on his side and Emma leaned over him. Below them, as their aircraft increased its altitude, they could see a cluster of vultures on the ground. Several more of the giant birds had taken flight at the noise of the Beechcraft’s approach, but they were now settling into a circuit pattern, and, one by one, as if they were being guided by some natural air traffic controller, they were coming in to land again.

  ‘There are cattle down there,’ Natangwe said.

  ‘I see them,’ Alex replied. ‘The vultures seem to be feeding on the carcass of a cow.’

  ‘Probably killed by that lion,’ Natangwe said. ‘That’s a big part of some herdsman’s income gone for good.’

  Alex shot him an angry glance. ‘Natangwe, you don’t understand what the project I’m working on is all about. We want to empower the herdsmen and show them they can make money from tourists coming to see the desert lions. We’re showing them new and different ways to keep their cattle safe.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem to be working.’

  Emma was worried the tension between them might spill over mid-air, which would not be good for anyone. ‘Guys, we can talk about this on the ground. How about we concentrate on trying to spot the missing aeroplane and, while we’re at it, shouldn’t we be looking for the lionesses and cubs?’

  The faceoff between the two younger men was put on hold as each, sullenly, looked back out his respective window.

  They flew on over the rocky red expanse. It was like another planet down there, Emma thought. Alex’s airsickness seemed to have abated and she went to the rear of the aircraft and opened up a cooler box. She handed out bottles of water and Cokes, and apples and pears to the five men.

  ‘Andre,’ she said as she handed him a bottle of water, ‘can we use our phones on this flight, or is it like a commercial flight where they’re banned?’

  He nodded his thanks to her. ‘Sure, you can use your phone up here, but I don’t think you’ll get much signal.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Emma went back to the cooler box and took a juice and an orange for herself, and peeled the fruit while staring at the endless landscape below. She took her phone out and turned it on, but as Andre predicted there was no signal. She would check it again when they returned to Ondangwa to refuel, and send her mother a message from there.

  Chapter 17

  It was nearly dusk when Andre Horsman landed the Beechcraft on a game farm near Otjondeka. Andre had suggested this instead of heading all the way back to Ondangwa.

  Emma, like the others, had agreed. Although they had found no trace of the missing aircraft, it had been an eventful day. Andre had said that they could refuel at the farm, owned by an old air force friend of his.

  ‘I still need to get back to Ondangwa Airport and my vehicle soon,’ Alex told Emma as they drove in the back of an open Land Rover game viewer through the gathering darkness to the farmer’s house. ‘I have to drive to where the male lion was killed and talk to those herdsmen.’

  ‘Will they be in trouble?’ Emma asked.

  Alex shrugged. ‘It’s up to the Namibian police and the courts.’

  Natangwe looked back at them from the row of seats in front. ‘Nothing should happen to them. Man and lions have existed here for thousands of years.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alex, ‘and man very nearly succeeded in wiping them off the face of the earth.’

  The farmer’s name was Benjie van der Westhuizen. As well as sheep there was also game on his farm, and he pointed out springbok and mountain zebras as they drove to the house. ‘I have some small guest chalets for hunters and tourists who come sometimes to the farm, you will be very comfortable in there,’ Benjie told them.

  ‘Do you have wi-fi or phone signal here?’ Emma asked him.

  ‘No phone signal. We normally have satellite internet, but regrettably it has not been working these last two days. I am waiting for a technician to come out and fix it, but we are a long way from anywhere.’

  Emma felt frustrated by the lack of communication in Namibia. They hadn’t picked up a signal anywhere. Her mother was due any time at the dig site and Emma now wished she had left a message somewhere for her, though she couldn’t be sure that if she left a note at Namutoni, the nearest national park camp to the dig, her mother would even get it.

  ‘I for one am enjoying being out of contact from the rest of the world for a while,’ Professor Sutton said.

  ‘I have my satellite phone,’ Alex said, lowering his voice so that only Emma could hear. ‘You can use that to send an SMS if you like, but not for calls unless it’s a real emergency. I don’t want everyone knowing as they’ll all want to use it after a day or two and I will be in trouble from the do
nors.’

  Emma patted his arm. ‘Our little secret.’ To Andre, in a louder voice, she said, ‘How long do you expect we’ll keep searching?’

  He swivelled in his seat. ‘Personally, I’ll keep searching until I find that aircraft, but Benjie only has enough fuel spare for one more day’s flying, and to top us up tomorrow night to get us back to Ondangwa.’

  ‘So we’ll be back at Ondangwa day after tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. From there I’ll refuel and if we’re still searching I’ll have to relocate to somewhere further west, near the Atlantic coast, maybe at Purros; there’s an airstrip there.’

  ‘OK, cool,’ Emma said. ‘Professor, I’m just worried about my mother. I’m meant to be meeting up with her soon.’

  Lights and a flickering fire beckoned them ahead and Benjie stopped the game viewer at a semicircle of six rondavels, round huts set around the blazing fire and a braai area. A bigger building, presumably Benjie’s farmhouse, was a further hundred metres away. ‘So this is where you will be staying. I hope it will be comfortable.’

  ‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ Sutton said.

  They offloaded their bags and Emma, Natangwe, Alex and Sebastian took a room each, as did the two older men. Emma opened the door of her rondavel. It smelled a little musty, and vaguely gamey, which she thought might have something to do with the old zebra skin on the floor, but otherwise it was clean and tidy. She pulled the light switch and saw a double bed and a doorway that led to a toilet and shower. Emma opened her bag, took out her hairbrush and went into the en suite to straighten herself out a little. A few minutes later there was a soft knock on her door.

  ‘Alex,’ she said as she opened the door.

  He put a finger to his lips. ‘Not so loud.’ He reached under his shirt and pulled the satellite phone, in its pouch, from the waistband of his shorts. ‘Just an SMS, OK?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, OK.’

  ‘But you must take it outside somewhere, to get a satellite signal. It won’t work indoors.’