Road To The Coast

by John Harris

  He nodded to the battery captain and Dodgin, Danity and Grundy moved away, Dodgin sullenly as though he suspected treachery.

  ‘Now, perhaps,’ Carroll said to Ash as they found themselves alone, ‘we may sit down. We’ve a great deal of talking to do.’

  Ash indicated the saloon and they moved inside out of the rain. Carroll said no more until he was sitting in Danity’s place at the table, then he shook the rain off his cap, making lines of splashes along the deck.

  ‘I’m sorry to say,’ he announced, ‘that there can be no message to the coast just yet. There’s been considerable flooding farther downstream and there’s now no telephonic communication between Santa Rosa and the South.’

  ‘There wasn’t before,’ Ash said coldly.

  Carroll’s eyes were dark and unhappy, as though he were appealing to Ash to understand the difficulties that beset a man’s loyalties in a country where he could never be certain that the side he supported was the right side.

  ‘I have my sacred duty to my country,’ he said vaguely, ‘and there’s still a state of siege.’

  ‘Look’ – Ash lost his temper and slammed his flat hand down on the table – ‘this is a British ship. The fighting’s stopped. The river’s bound to be opened up again.’

  ‘That is included in my orders,’ Carroll said with a twist of his lips that was meant for a smile. ‘The army’s in control now and the army is the fulcrum on which the country revolves. They have given instructions for a limited flow of traffic to the coast.’

  Something in the way he spoke the last sentence brought Ash up sharply, and there was silence for a moment. He could hear the drumming of the rain outside and the steady drip as the water fell from Carroll’s coat to the floor. Suddenly the initiative seemed to have passed to Carroll, and he leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

  ‘Contrary to what you imagine,’ he said, ‘hostilities have not ceased. They are only suspended. There can be no relaxing. The Confederation of Labour’s said to be preparing to seize power and restore the tyrant, and we’ve been warned to expect clashes. There’s already been serious trouble in Rosario. There have been small outbreaks here in Santa Rosa even.’

  ‘So we saw. You were busy swopping sides, I noticed.’ Ash turned away irritably. ‘What in the name of God,’ he demanded, ‘has this ship to do with all that?’

  Carroll shrugged. ‘We’ve been instructed to institute a search for the dictator. Rumour has it that he’s reached Paraguay by air but the embassy’s denied it. It seems more likely that he’s aboard a gunboat in the dockyard and may try to get up the Paraná to Asunción. We must watch all shipping.’

  ‘We haven’t got the bastard,’ Ash snapped.

  Carroll ignored him. ‘He wasn’t the only fugitive,’ he said. ‘There were others. We hear of them all the time trying to get out of the country. One has gone to the Spanish embassy. Another to the Paraguayan. There were others also who were unfortunate enough to be up-country and have still to reach the border. I hope to be instrumental in apprehending at least one of them.’

  ‘You’ll enjoy that,’ Ash sneered.

  ‘It would help,’ Carroll admitted. ‘There’s been a great upheaval in the country and many of us are beginning to be very doubtful about the future.’

  Ash had moved to the porthole and was staring out at the rain, as though he were uninterested, and Carroll rose and stood beside him.

  ‘I’ve thought many times of resigning,’ he said, his youthful face taut. ‘Loyalty will count for nothing now. The fact that I tried to remain faithful to the government and do my duty suddenly becomes a threat to me. Loyalty to a régime means nothing when the régime ends and another one in direct opposition takes its place. I can only look forward now to anonymity.’

  He stood slackly, his shoulders stooping slightly, and for a moment Ash discovered he could find it in himself to be sorry for him. Then his thoughts were interrupted as a soldier ushered Grace and Teresa into the saloon.

  As the soldier withdrew again, Ash looked quickly at Carroll and saw a bleak look of unhappiness on his face, and knew immediately that the need for Grundy and Dainty to discuss navigation and fuel was nothing more than a trick to get them out of the way. He found the hair on the back of his neck prickling suddenly and the perspiration on his forehead felt cold.

  For a moment, nobody spoke. Ash pulled out a chair for Grace to sit down and Teresa stood beside her, her eyes on Ash.

  Carroll walked up and down for a second in the restricted space near the door, puffing nervously at his cigarette, treading the water that had fallen from his coat into a sticky puddle on the worn linoleum which covered the deck.

  ‘Well?’ Ash said at last in a voice that was like a rumble in his throat. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea to tell us all about it? You’ve obviously got us in here for some good reason.’

  Carroll took the cigarette from his mouth, looked round for somewhere to put it, then dropped it fastidiously into one of the dirty mugs that littered the table.

  He indicated Grace and the child.

  ‘I’m not enjoying this any more than you are,’ he said. ‘As I’ve already told you, I have no wish to make war on women and children. But there are times when a man’s circumstances force him to be the ruthless.

  Ash said nothing and Carroll flinched at the flinty enmity in his face. He drew himself up, as though he were having to drive himself into what he was doing. ‘You have their passports, of course?’ he asked. ‘Their English passports?’

  Ash glanced at Grace, knowing that Teresa’s passport was the last thing they could afford to produce. ‘My car was set on fire,’ he said. ‘By aircraft. Everything we had was burned in it. That’s one of the things I shall enjoy taking up with the embassy when you come to your senses and let us go.’

  Carroll was staring at Teresa now, not listening to him. ‘Such a pretty child, too,’ he said. ‘And now we have no proof of her identity.’

  ‘You would have had but for your damned Air Force!’ Ash spoke quickly, as though he were trying to draw Carroll’s attention from the child, and Grace watched him mutely, holding Teresa close.

  ‘What’s he saying, Tess?’ she kept muttering. ‘What’s it all about?’

  ‘It was on our way down here to Santa Rosa,’ Ash continued loudly. ‘No doubt, if you take the trouble, you can make inquiries for proof of it.’

  ‘I’ve made inquiries already.’ Carroll stood in the corner, gnawing at this nails and looking over his fist at Teresa.

  ‘Well, what more do you want?’

  ‘Why did you come down here in the first place?’ Carroll turned quickly on Ash as though he were suddenly angry, suddenly frustrated by the delay and the unexpected show of spirit by Dodgin which had driven him to this humiliating haggling, as though he hated Ash for his unyielding enmity, even for his Englishness and his red hair, which seemed a flaring symbol of the amiable tyranny his country had suffered for generations from the cold island across the Atlantic, as though he wanted to see it all settled and himself safe.

  ‘Why did you come to the river?’ he demanded.

  There was a moment’s pause before Ash replied. ‘We thought it would be quicker by river,’ he said slowly. ‘We knew this ship was here. We’d made arrangement to meet her.’

  ‘She’s hardly a luxury ship.’

  Ash returned Carroll’s stare and Grace could feel his strong fingers gripping her shoulder. ‘She’s a British ship,’ he said. ‘We’d lost the car, in any case. We had no option.’

  ‘You acquired another car.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You stole it. In Flores.’

  ‘I paid for it,’ Ash said coolly. ‘I hired it for a week.’

  Carroll lit another cigarette and offered the case. They shook their heads and he put it away as though they’d spat on it. ‘We followed the lady’s route,’ he said. ‘We traced it back to its beginning. You met each other in Flores. These two arrived there by bus.
They’d come from Córdoba by train. Why did they leave the train? Why did you pick on Flores? It’s an odd place to meet, isn’t it?’

  ‘So is Central Africa,’ Ash retorted. ‘And Stanley met Livingstone there. Or perhaps you’ve never heard of Stanley and Livingstone.’

  Carroll stared at Teresa, trying to ignore the sneer in Ash’s voice, the cynical superiority of the old world for the new.

  ‘She seems a very intelligent child,’ he said. ‘She speaks a little Spanish also, it seems. How is that?’

  ‘She’s travelled a lot.’

  Carroll studied the grave face of the child. ‘I think she understands all I say,’ he commented. He drew in his breath quickly and barked a question at her. ‘Tell me your name, child,’ he said. ‘Quickly!’

  ‘Teresa.’ The child faced him nervously, her voice only a whisper.

  ‘Teresa? And what else? What is your surname? Tuapellido?’

  The child’s gaze flickered across to Ash and up to Grace. Ash’s eyes met Grace’s over the top of her head and he could see she was praying silently, not understanding what was going on. In the stillness, the rain seemed louder than ever, rattling on the deck like shot.

  ‘Come, child,’ Carroll snapped. ‘What is your surname?’

  Teresa indicated Ash abruptly, just when they thought she was going to lose her voice with shyness. ‘Same as his,’ she said.

  Carroll frowned, clearly disappointed, and began to fiddle with his tunic pocket. ‘There are many good reasons why I must question everybody,’ he said. ‘There are many at large who should be behind bars. For what they’ve done in the name of liberty.’

  His eyes flickered round the cabin. It was obvious he had scented a means of saving his career and was following it up eagerly, his nose to the trail like a bloodhound’s.

  ‘You’ve heard of Almirio Alvarado?’ he said, and Ash nodded. ‘If I were to find Alvarado,’ Carroll continued, ‘many things might be overlooked. Many things might be forgiven. We don’t know yet where he is, but we do know that his family isn’t with him. He had a daughter – about as old as this child,’ he added with a meaning look at Teresa. ‘There was an Englishwoman too,’ he went on, still fiddling with the flap of his pocket. ‘Some relative. His wife was English. Naturally, I’ve made inquiries and I find they left by train for the coast.’

  While he was talking, he whipped a photograph out with a dramatic gesture and pushed it under Teresa’s nose.

  ‘Do you know that man, child?’ he demanded in a high voice that was almost a shout.

  Grace could see the photograph over Teresa’s head, and, though she hadn’t recognized a word Carroll had said, she distinguished the picture at once as one of Alvarado.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell all she knew of him, to point out that all the chivvying of the child would come to nothing; that neither imprisonment nor questioning, nor anything they could do to them, would ever produce Alvarado; that she knew him better than any of them and knew exactly how little anything meant to him beyond his own ambition. Then she realized wearily that it would do no good and in any case Carroll would not have understood.

  She squirmed at the enforced silence, conscious of every detail in the cabin through a blurred haze of anger, as though the actions of everyone had been searchlighted by the silence – Carroll, gnawing his nails, his eyes moving over their faces; Ash, reaching forward over the table, leaning on his hands, his big fingers tapping, his yellow eyes angry; and Teresa, studying the photograph, as though she had never seen a similar one on the oak table back in her home.

  At last the child raised her head towards Carroll.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘No.’ Teresa faced him firmly.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Carroll snatched the picture away and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he stared round at them, his face flushed with angry frustration. As he saw the look of scorn on Ash’s face, it seemed to break the last threads of his self-control.

  ‘They can go,’ he snapped. ‘Get them out of here.’

  He pushed Teresa away from him roughly and the child yelped and stumbled. Ash straightened up with a quick angry movement and Carroll stepped back.

  A chair fell over and Grace jumped forward with a cry to catch Teresa and swept her into her arms.

  Carroll stared at them for a second then he opened the door wide.

  ‘Bueno, pues venid! Pronto!’

  The soldier outside pushed into the cabin where Grace was hugging Teresa, on her knees and speechless with relief.

  Carroll looked at Ash. ‘I don’t believe her,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow perhaps, or the day afterwards, I shall know for certain.’

  Ash said nothing and Carroll went on coldly. ‘Perhaps you think I’m not serious,’ he said. ‘Señor, I’m already a marked man because I didn’t declare immediately for the revolution, and doubtless the new government will learn very soon about this ship. I’m very serious. Tomorrow or the day afterwards, I shall have more photographs – from Alvarado’s home in Córdoba, which should place beyond all doubt her identity, and I shall have sufficient evidence then to remove her.’

  ‘This is a British ship,’ Ash reminded him. ‘We’re British people.’

  ‘Who takes any notice of British people living abroad?’ Carroll said. ‘Tired fragments of a tired empire who are trying to find something better in a younger country with a future instead of a past. You are under our jurisdiction. And no one, least of all a foreigner, is allowed to interfere in the course of justice or the carrying out of the government’s orders.’

  He spoke mockingly, as though all Ash’s past insults had rubbed his temper raw and he was now enjoying the changed position that his discovery had produced, as though the growing certainty of triumph was fortifying his resolve.

  Eleven

  They heard Carroll’s shoes along the alleyway and the pause as he lifted his foot over the step to the deck. Then Dodgin appeared, followed by Grundy and old Dainty.

  ‘Well?’ Dodgin said immediately; brushing the wet hair from his eyes. ‘What happened?’

  Ash glanced at Grace. ‘Nothing,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What was it all about? Are they going to let us go?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘God knows.’ Ash shrugged heavily, wearily. ‘A lot of cock about hostilities being only suspended. Search for political fugitives. All that guff.’

  ‘Christ, I wish I’d stayed in here,’ Dodgin said viciously. ‘I’d have smashed him. You lot are too easy-going.’ He seemed to be bursting with the desire for violence, as though Carroll’s presence aboard the ship had presented him with the opportunity for an outbreak and he had been cheated from using it by the unreasonableness of the others.

  Grundy was standing in the background, his face suspicious, holding a pair of heavy brass rulers he’d been using. ‘What I’d like to know,’ he said slowly, ‘is why did he get the kid in here like that?’

  ‘The kid? What kid? Like what?’ Dodgin turned on him, his sharp mind suspicious at once, the questions coming like the staccato fire of a machine gun.

  ‘That kid.’ Grundy pointed at Teresa. ‘He had her in here. I came back. I was outside the door. That water boat was a lot of boloney to get us out of the way.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Ash turned angrily. ‘He got her in here to ask her a few questions. He’s been asking us all questions.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘How the hell do I know? He’s calling the tune just now, not me.’

  Grundy scowled and opened and shut the rulers with a click, not taking his eyes off Ash, as though he sensed that he was free to say what he liked, to comment as he pleased as if he had never been in awe of Ash’s grand manner. ‘We should have signed his paper,’ he said. ‘Then this wouldn’t have happened. I still think we should have signed it.’

  Ash stared at Grundy, his eyes hard and bright with
dislike, but he said nothing and Grace knew he was hanging on to his quick temper, suffering the mate’s deliberate provocation to avoid drawing attention to Teresa.

  Apparently aware that he was suddenly in a position to goad without fear of retaliation, Grundy was strutting about in front of them, stirring up Dodgin’s anger deliberately.

  ‘It’s all right saying he’s calling the tune,’ he pointed out loudly. ‘But there’s no need to push the kid about. I heard her yell. As though he hit her.’

  ‘Push the kid about?’ Dodgin stared round at Ash, as though he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Who did?’

  ‘That bloke. That officer.’

  ‘It was nothing.’ Grace spoke desperately, afraid of Dodgin’s unreasoning anger, trying to come between Ash and Grundy’s tormenting. ‘He hardly touched her.’

  ‘She yelled out anyway,’ Grundy accused. ‘I heard her. He was pushing you about too. I heard you shout.’

  ‘The bastard!’ Dodgin hissed the words and Grundy seemed to enjoy seeing his anger directed at someone other than himself. ‘My Christ, you’re a yeller lot, letting him get away with that! The Knife, that’s what he wants.’

  He stared at Ash unbelievingly. ‘And you let him get away with it, a little rat like that?’

  ‘God damn it,’ Ash shouted furiously, and Grace was shocked at the strain in his face. ‘It was nothing, I tell you.’

  All the malignity in Dodgin surged up, shoving the lid off his self-control as though it were an overboiling pot. All the vitriol that soured his mind, all the resentment and animosity he had always harboured for more fortunate people than himself seemed to scour him clean of sense. ‘Well, I say it isn’t nothing,’ he shouted. ‘He deserves what he’s going to get. You’re a lousy lot of cowards.’

  He flung open the door and stood framed in the opening. There was no question of gallantry in him. He had pushed people about often enough himself when he had found they were weak enough to let him, and he had a wife and children in Liverpool whom he terrified when he was at home. It was simply that he suddenly had an excuse for the violence he had been so anxious to practise ever since the shell had landed on the Ballaculish’s bridge, a trigger with which to set off the bomb.