by John Harris
‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘He’s smart enough.’
At that moment, all his faults, his deceit, the bar-fly type of existence that she had previously regarded with scorn seemed not to matter at all. What counted were the influences deep down beyond the surface that were brought to bear when the going was rough. In spite of his dubious morals and a word that was lightly broken, he was still sufficiently honest not to fail them.
For a moment, she felt she would like to be able to cry a little, but crying had always come hard to her and the emotion in her only left her a little confused.
‘Go on, you silly old fool,’ she said aloud to herself. ‘What’s come over you?’
The door clicked and she stood up, her face reddening as she found herself face to face with Ash who had stepped into the cabin.
‘Hallo, Grace, how’s tricks?’ he said, and she found herself going hot as pleasure flooded over her at the sight of him. She sat down again, not knowing what to say, and he picked up a packet of cigarettes and helped himself to one as though he hadn’t noticed her confusion.
‘Wondered where you’d got to,’ he said casually. ‘In the uproar, I lost sight of you.’
‘Did you? Oh! And what am I supposed to do about that?’
She was blushing genuinely now, furious with herself for the way the words had come out. She hadn’t intended to say anything indifferent or antagonistic but too many men had tried to flatter her in the past and an acid retort had become second nature to her.
Ash didn’t appear to hear, however, and he fished a parcel out of his pocket.
‘Got you something to wear at night,’ he said. ‘It’s not exactly a Paris model but I suppose it’ll do.’
He tossed the package on to her lap and she opened it cautiously, and shook out an old-fashioned voluminous nightdress.
‘Looks more like a marquee to me,’ she laughed nervously. ‘Two of us could get into it at a pinch.’
With laughter she felt better and at ease with him again.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Oh, nothing,’ he said cheerfully, and she saw then that he was just a little too cheerful, as though he’d been drinking. ‘We toasted friendship between nations. A bit of a jug-up helps to clear the air, I always find. You’re always chums round a bar.’
‘You got the crew back.’
He permitted himself a smug look of triumph.
‘Masterpiece of diplomacy,’ he said. ‘A short and pungent argument and a lot bluff. They were in the town gaol.’
‘What’s going to happen? Did you see someone? The mayor or somebody?’
‘The mayor’s languishing in quod. He made the mistake of airing his grievances last night over a gun.’
He blew out smoke through his nostrils. Outside on deck, they could hear the Lascars crowding round the returned fugitives, their voices high-pitched and excited.
‘Still,’ Ash went on, ‘the little boy in the soldier suit who came alongside was very helpful. He promised to fix the telephone call as soon as the line’s repaired. It’s damaged, it seems. Promised to do all he could to felicitate – Christ, that brandy! – to facilitate our departure. Anything we wanted. A pilot later in the day. The lot. They’d found two’ – he stopped, glanced at Teresa, and looked up gravely – ‘they’d found Phizacklea and the engineer. They must have been killed outright. They’re burying ’em this afternoon and sending a boat for anyone who wants to attend. They promised compensation. Food. Repairs. Anything. There’s a water boat coming when he can fix it for it to move. I think he was scared stiff over the whole affair and what’s going to happen to ’em when the Embassy gets to know. I buttered him up well, believe me. Courage under martyrdom. You know the line. Actually, I felt more like pushing the little squirt down a drain, but I didn’t let it show.’
She found herself tongue-tied again and curiously obsessed with a feeling of guilt that she had doubted that he would do his best for them. The fact that he clearly had done so made her doubt seem worse.
He looked at her quickly, sensing something wrong. ‘What’s up?’ he asked. ‘Something in the wind?’
‘I thought you might have taken the first bus to the coast,’ she said quietly, feeling she must punish herself by being honest. ‘Or helped yourself to another car. You could have.’
His eyes rested on hers for a moment. ‘I said I’d come back,’ he pointed out. He seemed surprised that she should ever have doubted him. ‘Always keep the old word. Especially to a woman.’
‘I’ll bet.’ She looked up at him, her unhappiness driven away by the faint stirrings of jealousy that his words started in her. ‘I bet you’ve left plenty behind, weeping their eyes out.’
He laughed. ‘Not me.’
‘Never?’
‘Well, hardly ever.’
‘You’re not trying to tell me you’ve gone through life without leaving a few broken hearts behind en route?’
‘One or two. Victims of the old fatal fascination. Kiss of Death Ash they used to call me.’
She looked at him with a measure of bewilderment. ‘Don’t you ever get sick of horsing around with girls?’ she asked.
‘Horsing around? What would you have me do? Get married to some milk and water poppet and live in a London suburb for the rest of me life?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said irritably. ‘You’d never understand.’
He studied her for a moment, his eyes still and calm. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked. ‘You’ve been behaving as though you’d got a burr under your saddle ever since I came in here. Are you trying to tell me something without using all the words?’ he demanded unexpectedly and she flushed at the sharpness of his perception and the frightening rightness of his guess.
‘What would I have to tell you?’ She was immediately furious again with herself for the way in which she spoke to him.
‘I don’t know.’ He threw his cigarette through the porthole. ‘Maybe I’m getting bigheaded. Runs in the family, bigheadedness. Like wooden legs.’ He opened the door and turned to Teresa who was staring at them with a puzzled expression on her face, quite out of her depth with the conversation. ‘You shouldn’t talk in riddles, should she, Tess?’
‘No.’ The child stared oddly at Grace. ‘I thought you said earlier that–’
‘Never mind what you thought,’ Grace said sharply, giving her a little irritated, embarrassed push. ‘It’s time we all had something to eat.’
She hustled the child before her out of the cabin, flustered and annoyed with herself, and very conscious of Ash leaning against the door, staring after her with that bold stare of his that made her feel undressed, a broad grin across his face.
It was in the middle of a rowdy meal, with everyone growing a little noisy on the atmosphere of relief and a bottle of whisky contributed by Dainty, that one of the Lascar seamen put his head in at the saloon door and announced that a boat was approaching the ship from the shore.
At once, the noise stopped and Grace was thankful as they all made for the portholes. From being shabby, sad little people, Dodgin and Dainty had become so exuberantly noisy they seemed prepared to break anything that got in their way.
There had been remarkably little laughter – as though they’d forgotten how to indulge in it – and there had been no reference to Phizacklea and the dead engineer until Dainty had risen with difficulty to his feet and proposed a toast to them, and they had all stood up in silence, ludicrous as they swayed, making a mockery with their drunkenness of any solemnity they tried to put into the gesture. Within a minute or two, they had been hard at it again, noisy, argumentative and maudlin in turns.
‘They’ve come to fetch us for the funeral,’ Grundy said, staring out of the porthole at the approaching launch.
‘Better put a hat on,’ Dainty said. ‘Give ’em a proper send-off.’ He brushed the crumbs and the spilled drink off his shore-going clothes and stood up, swaying slightly.
Dodgin was peering suspiciously
at the boat, his weasel face alert.
‘It’s got soldiers in it,’ he said.
‘Guard of honour,’ Grundy commented. ‘Going to do it right, like he said. Firing party and a bugler. All the business.’
‘Let’s have the ladder down’ – Dainty moved to the door and they all followed – ‘I’ll be glad when it’s all over. Always liked Phizacklea. Besides, he owed me a quid.’
‘It’s not the same bloke!’ As they reached the deck, Dodgin’s suspicion took up where it had left off in the saloon. ‘There’s two of ’em.’
‘It’s that bloody major,’ Ash said suddenly. ‘That clot who said he’d warn the battery. What’s he want?’
Carroll looked younger and more nervous than ever as he climbed aboard. He was gnawing at his moustache and fiddling constantly with his belt. The elderly captain who accompanied him seemed no happier.
Carroll looked at the hostile faces that surrounded him and immediately picked on Ash. Although he smiled, there was no sign of his previous affability.
‘You remember me, of course, señor?’ he said. ‘Major Ignacio Carroll.’
‘I remember you,’ Ash said coldly, the unfriendliness clear in his face. ‘You’re the man who promised to warn the battery on the Punta de las Rosas and didn’t.’
Carroll’s eyes flickered unhappily towards the captain who hitched up his belt uneasily. ‘We wish to speak to the master of the ship,’ he said quickly.
‘He’s dead. You killed him. With the guns on the Punta de las Rosas. The ones you didn’t warn.’
Carroll glanced again at the captain and licked his lips. ‘Then we must see the senior officer,’ he said. He seemed unfriendly and edgy, his plump face damp with perspiration, his eyes restless.
‘What they want?’ Dainty demanded, interrupting. ‘What are they saying?’
The captain’s eyes moved uneasily towards Carroll and he coughed uncomfortably, raucous in the stillness.
Ash turned to Dainty and explained what was required and the old man stared for a moment, then as Dodgin and Grundy and the others crowded round, he started to life. ‘Better bring ’em in the saloon,’ he said. ‘And for Christ’s sake,’ he begged, ‘don’t leave me alone with ’em. I don’t know what they’re jabbering about.’
He led the way into the untidy little room and pushed out a couple of chairs. The others followed and Dainty moved about, making apologetic gestures, trying to give a good impression, defeated already, humble and oppressed by the cleanliness and the importance of the two officers and the neatness of their uniforms.
‘Tell ’em we’re sorry about the mess,’ he said, indicating the littered table scattered with chipped crockery and greasy plates.
‘Sorry, be damned,’ Ash said. ‘Don’t start apologizing for anything. Let them do that.’
Dainty gave him a worn appealing look and pushed the plates back with sweep of his arm. Carroll sat down, eyeing the debris with distaste.
Dainty caught the look on his face and glanced at Ash, as though pleading to be allowed to express his regret at the untidiness of the saloon. Hesitantly, he picked up a torn chart they had been looking at earlier in the morning, when they had been trying to fix their position, and tossed it on to the settee, looking curiously like a shabby waiter as he moved about.
‘It’s not been cleared yet,’ he said apologetically, finally summing up courage to ignore Ash’s advice. ‘I’ll get ’em to do it.’ Nervously he picked up a couple of plates and laid them down on top of the chart.
Carroll indicated the black and white faces in the doorway. ‘Could we perhaps have privacy?’ he said in a high voice that seemed none too steady.
Ash closed the door, aware of Grace and Teresa at the back of the group, then he stood between Carroll and the shabby little line of men. Dainty seemed uneasy, sucking at his pipe with a whistling sound through his lips, a little dribble of saliva running down his chin from the pipe stem, while Dodgin, looking as though he had been accused of something outrageous, appeared to sniff the air for treachery.
‘Now’ – Carroll sat back and folded his hands nervously as they took their seats – ‘we’ve already seen to the burial of your friends. It was a quiet service and was attended by our soldiers.’
Ash stared. ‘Burial? Already?’
‘Yes, Already.’ Carroll’s eyes seemed blank, like pieces of transparent black glass, as though all life had gone from them.
Ash straightened up, towering over him, all red and gold and russet, it seemed, turning on his contemptuous magnetism at full power, his eyes glowing. ‘It’s a little unexpected, isn’t it?’
‘It was a matter of policy.’ Carroll glanced at the captain as though he were wishing for some sort of confirmation, but the captain sat stolidly, his face doughy and bare of expression. ‘It was felt that the opposition elements in the town might try to use them in some way – some political way.’
‘They’re British subjects,’ Ashs snapped. ‘What had they to do with your politics?’
Carroll gave a thin unhappy smile. ‘Politics cover a lot of ground,’ he said.
Ash turned to explain what had happened to the others who went into an immediate huddle to discuss the new situation.
Dainty emerged as the spokesman, uneasy and unsure of himself, bleary-eyed and squinting with the headache the whisky had given him.
‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it, but I suppose it’s done now. So long as it was done proper. Reverent and that. But what about our message to the agents? What about the pilot? What about our lifeboat? We ’aven’t got that yet. Let’s ’ave the ship’s papers and get out. Tell him that.’
While Ash translated, Carroll dabbed delicately at his forehead with a handkerchief. Then, as Ash finished speaking, he sat up straight in the chair. He hoisted the pistol he wore at his waist to a more comfortable position and his mouth became tight.
‘As a matter of policy,’ he said cautiously, ‘we must refuse your demands for the time being. Orders have come through from a higher authority. There must be no movement of traffic. Arms have been run upriver before now, and while we’re still cut off, we must treat the matter with extreme gravity.’
‘What about the message?’ Ash asked. ‘The message your officer promised to send for us. Has it gone?’
‘He was using an authority he didn’t possess,’ Carroll said stiffly. ‘No message can leave the district for the moment.’
‘What’s all this about?’ Dodgin pushed forward, alert for trickery. He seemed to understand what Carroll was saying, as though there were some curious hostile mechanism inside his brain that registered, if nothing else, opposition and treachery.
Carroll stared at him with a chilly expression, as though the grubby-looking steward were beneath his notice, then he turned back to Ash. ‘Civil law has been temporarily suspended,’ he said. ‘No messages can be allowed out of the area.’
Ash sneered. ‘Not even one about an old British ship that couldn’t do anyone any harm?’
Carroll flapped his hands, his fingers opening and closing. ‘Leakage of information, señor,’ he said angrily, as though he resented correction. ‘There’s still fighting south of here – fierce fighting – and the uprising must be ruthlessly put down. A state of siege has been declared and until the traitorous elements have been brought under control civic freedom has for the moment been laid aside.’
He spoke almost as though he’d learned the words off by heart, as though he’d found it wise to make a habit of little speeches like this one to make his attitude and his loyalty plain to the people who mattered. His plump face had tightened but underneath the taut surface of the flesh it seemed devoid of muscle somehow, and Ash had a feeling that this performance of vigorous military administration didn’t ring true.
Dodgin was rising to his feet now, staring suspiciously over the littered table, his pale eyes bright with anger. ‘OK,’ he was saying to Ash. ‘Let’s have it. What’s going on?’
As Ash tried t
o explain, Carroll looked up at the confused babble of indignation that broke out from across the table, and he began to talk rapidly again.
‘Your ship was placed in the direct path of our guns as they were firing on an enemy position,’ he was saying. ‘Our cause has probably been gravely jeopardized.’
Ash turned abruptly.
‘Don’t talk damned nonsense,’ he snorted. He leaned across the table, his face close to Carroll’s. ‘I’ve seen more fighting than you ever will in your squalid little knife-in-the-back politics, and I’ve commanded better men and better machinery than you ever dreamed about. Don’t try to tell me the elementary principles of fighting a battle. This ship was impeding nobody. She was on her lawful business. You gave her permission yourself.’
Carroll seemed taken aback by Ash’s attack. For a moment, he gazed up at the angry face above him, then he seemed to get control of himself.
‘I’m afraid that’s not quite right.’ He indicated the far shore of the river with a gesture of his hand. ‘There are many anti-government forces across there,’ he said.
Ash turned round and swept up the torn chart which had been lying on the settee, sending the plates to the floor with a clatter. There was still a fleck of blood on the corner, like a symbol of perfidy across Carroll’s area of command.
‘Where?’ he demanded, shoving it across the table. ‘Where? Show me.’
Carroll gestured vaguely again, his eyes anxious. ‘Beyond the trees there.’
‘What sort of anti-government forces?’
‘Guns. They could be brought to bear on Santa Rosa.’
Ash jabbed at the chart with a thick red finger. ‘That’s swamp,’ he said. ‘If they’re managing to manoeuvre guns in all that stuff, they’re finer troops than it’ll ever be your privilege to command and you might just as well throw in the sponge now.’ He thumped on the table with his fist and tossed the chart back on to the settee with an angry gesture. ‘There isn’t any artillery drilled who could handle guns in that kind of country,’ he said and his voice seemed to come out in a great bellow of contempt. ‘I’ve done more soldiering than your pathetic little mob ever dreamed about, Major, and you can’t dazzle me with your stupid stories.’
