by John Harris
Her eyes were searching his face as he talked, a burly, red-haired scoundrel who was wrenching at her heart as he tried to tell her in words he hadn’t used for years of emotions he hadn’t felt for years.
For a moment, she was unable to reply for the lump in her throat. All her life she had been brought up to regard as wrong all the things he enjoyed so blatantly and with so little repentance but somehow now, with this gesture he was making, they didn’t seem to matter much, and the breezy brittle voice which she knew was cheerful largely for her benefit, made her want to cry.
‘Oh, be quiet,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘For God’s sake, be quiet!’
He stopped and sat looking at her in the dim light, smiling slightly, though there was no mirth in his eyes.
‘What are you going to do when you get ashore?’ she asked.
‘Get a train to the coast if we can. There’s no telephonic communication with the south. Carroll said so. It shouldn’t be difficult. It’s only eight or nine hours away – probably a bit more, especially at the moment with things upside down a little. Then I’ll contact the agents or the embassy. They’ll have to provide a master and another engineer, I suppose, whatever happens. When they start inquiring, Carroll’s sunk. He won’t be able to keep it dark any longer and with a bit of luck, they’ll get the ship moving or remove you all before he can arrest anybody. Once the embassy joins in, he hasn’t a chance.’
‘And when shall I see you again?’ she asked.
There was a misery in her voice that he’d never heard before from any other woman.
‘Is it so important?’ he asked.
‘Oh, don’t be stupid!’
She turned away abruptly, so that he shouldn’t see all the longing and the love that she felt for him, and he paused and, fishing in his pocket, produced a wad of notes. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You might need this. It’s yours anyway. You gave it to me in Flores. Remember? I was intending to keep it at the time, as a matter of fact.’
‘I know.’
‘You knew?’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’m losing my touch. Maybe it’s time I gave up crime.’
‘Yes, it damn well is,’ she said quickly, breathlessly, before he could interrupt. ‘It always has been.’
He laughed. ‘Driven to honesty by failure in business. What a recommendation! Sic transit gloria whatever-it-is.’
‘I don’t think it’s anything to joke about.’
He didn’t speak for a while and sat looking at her strangely. ‘You’d better take it,’ he said eventually, pushing the money at her again. ‘You might need it.’
She took the money silently and put it on the bunk beside her.
‘There’s another lot here.’ He pushed a wad of brand-new dollars at her. ‘It’s worth a quid or two. It’ll help. One day I’ll tell you a story about that dough.’
She ignored him. ‘Suppose I want to get in touch with you,’ she asked, beginning to feel desperate. ‘Where would I find you?’
He stared at her soberly, then he grinned, his yellow eyes full of sly humour. ‘Don’t fret yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll be waiting on the jetty at Montevideo when you come alongside, with a bunch of flowers and a taxi and a booking for a double bed at the best hotel.’
She looked up, startled, and his grin died at once.
He reached across and placed his hand over hers. Instinctively, her fingers curled fiercely round his.
‘It’s no good either of us kidding ourselves any longer, Grace,’ he said, ‘and pretending to look up the chimney every time the other one appears. We know, you and me, how many beans make five.’
For a while, they were silent, staring at each other, still holding hands. Outside, the rosy stars jammed the porthole with suffused light. Ash was watching her closely, as though he half-expected her to brush him aside.
‘Or would you rather I did it the proper way?’ he asked at last. ‘On me knees with a bouquet of roses?’
Grace’s fingers stirred in his and he went on hurriedly. ‘I’m sorry to rush you,’ he said. ‘We haven’t known each other long. But time seems to be getting short. I’m no damn good to you, whichever way you look at me, but there it is, I’ve put it on the mat now.’
Grace’s face was lovely, young and excited and there was grandeur in her eyes. ‘You’re not really telling me’ – she paused as though she couldn’t believe what she herself was saying – ‘that you want to marry me?’
Ash grinned, with a flash of his old wickedness. ‘If I didn’t, I’d have been in that damned cabin of yours one night long before now.’
She staggered, flattered by the glory of it.
Her eyes were still on him, bold and unashamed as his own, and her lips were parted, unafraid, excited, tender.
‘It’s asking a lot of you,’ he said. ‘I expect I’d give you a hell of a life.’
‘I’d cope,’ she said, and in a moment she was in his arms, the tenderness and the relief almost more than she could bear.
‘It’s a mug’s game, Grace,’ he said, his voice rough. ‘You don’t know what you’re taking on.’
He kissed her fiercely, then he realized the door was still open and they could hear Dodgin’s voice somewhere on deck, high-pitched and angry, with Grundy’s shrill and indignant in the background, and Dainty’s boozy tones sounding like the chorus to them both.
He reached across and, in the shadows, she heard the chink of the ring in the handle as the door clicked shut, then they were alone together, searching for each other’s mouths in the darkness.
Part Three
One
It was cold on the raft, sitting there close to the surface of the water. The mist was coming back a little, touched by the light of the stars into wraith-like shapes around them.
Behind them the ship stood out, stark and black on the silvery backcloth of the river, sharp against the sky from their position, as though it rested on the low line of reeds and willows almost out of sight beyond it, marking the opposite bank.
Dodgin was right. The currents did move them nearer to the shore. As soon as they had pushed off from the ship, they had found they moved in the direction of the distant reeds and the huddle of buildings that marked the end of the town. But it was a slow job and, sitting on the damp planks with the water lapping just below them, unable to move much, they soon found themselves chilled to their very sinews.
‘We’re not moving as fast as I thought,’ Dodgin said bitterly, staring at the distant reeds which didn’t seem to have moved much nearer. ‘Ought we to get over and swim behind it and shove it along?’
‘You can try if you like.’ Ash stirred from where he was huddled bulkily in an old and evil-smelling grey jersey that one of the Lascars had given him. ‘But I don’t fancy trying to get to the coast in wet clothes. Not quite my cup of tea, old boy. I’ve always been known as the Beau Brummell of Latin America.’
‘We could take ’em off,’ Dodgin suggested. ‘Leave ’em on the raft.’
Ash shrugged. ‘Have it your own way. Only there are some particularly nasty little fish in this river. Got teeth like a shark and a jaw like a bull terrier. Probably nip off with your wherewithal.’
Dodgin’s jaw dropped and, staring suspiciously at the water alongside, he drew in his foot, which was near the edge of the raft. He made no further suggestions about swimming.
‘Christ,’ he said, staring impatiently at the shore. ‘It’s slow, isn’t it?’
‘Let’s try our little paddles,’ Ash offered, and they made a few awkward lunges at the water with the shaped planks the carpenter had made for them. ‘Get ready, get set, go! First ashore wins a coconut! Vámonos!’
They kept up the paddling until their arms ached. They had started to sweat now and they stripped off their jerseys and sat panting, feeling the night air chill them again.
‘Not very effective,’ Ash said. ‘But it probably helps.’
He looked back at the ship. The figures that had been on the afterdeck watching them were growing i
ndistinct now and the masts were fading into the pale night sky. Somewhere there, still watching them, he knew, was Grace. He’d told her not to but she’d insisted, and he’d seen her on the stern as they’d left, shivering from the chill and from reaction and misery. He’d tried not to look at her, tried to avoid seeing her, preferring to remember her warm and luxurious and passionate, rich with happiness and with soft red lips; earthy, healthy, full of a tremendous vitality that had swept him into a flaring blaze of desire until he had emerged, dizzy with infatuation and the enchantment of unexpected love.
‘Harry Ash, old lad,’ he told himself cheerfully, ‘you’ve done it again and this time you’ve had it for good. You’ll never learn. Trapped by a woman. The old failing. Giving up the old freedom, just as you did with Elvira. Before you know where you are it’ll be best suit on Sundays, respectability and eye on the ball. The old chain and fetters before you know where you are.’
He glanced again at the ship, remembering Grace, and smiled to himself. ‘Not on your life, old lad,’ he thought. ‘There’ll be no chain and fetters with Grace.’ She didn’t go with tea and cakes and politeness any more than he did. What she wanted out of life she’d fight for and enjoy the struggle.
Life with Grace would be less of an ordeal than an adventure, with new heights to scale every day. She was like himself, with too much lust for life to be hog-tied by convention. He drew a deep slow breath and his eyes shone with a tremendous excitement. ‘Without Grace,’ he told himself, ‘you’d live only half a life and a grey half at that. Chest out, you old bastard, shoulders back, eyes down for the count. Give it the full treatment. She was worth it, every bit of it, every time.’
Dodgin looked at him, huddled at the other side of the raft, crouched over the paddle, his face in darkness, and thought he had slipped into a mood of despair.
‘We haven’t come very far,’ he said morosely. ‘We don’t seem to have got very near the bank either.’
Ash raised his head. He was just savouring the newness of the enthusiasm and the ambition he felt. He looked at the reeds, eager to reach them, anxious to get ashore, to get on a train, to get the ship moving, to meet it at the coast, and be there waiting for Grace when she stepped ashore.
‘Have you ever thought, Dodgin, old chum,’ he said cheerfully, ‘what would happen to us if your calculations were wrong? We’d probably drift out of the Saolito and into the mainstream. And it’s wide enough to get lost on. We might even drift out to sea and end up in the South Atlantic, starved and skeletal, living on seagulls’ feathers and salt water. It’s a grisly thought, isn’t it?’
‘For Christ’s sake, shut up,’ Dodgin snarled, setting about the water with his paddle with renewed energy.
The first milkiness of dawn was edging across the river as they stumbled ashore through the brackish water. A flood of pale light was creeping across the east, bleaching the rich indigo of the night sky and washing away the last hesitant stars. The reeds and the alders faded into being, as though released from hiding places at the touch of daylight. Water and sky separated and colour began to rush everywhere, and they could see the small boats moored near the jetty higher upstream, stark and black in the first light, their shapes reflected in the silent water.
A flock of ducks, indistinct in the mist, burst out of the reeds, splashing and honking insanely. Dodgin jumped as an owl flew close over their heads, calling, then a water fowl, disturbed by their movement, crashed through the shallows with a raucous squawk.
‘Made it.’ Dodgin grinned as he stood at last ankle-deep in the muddy water. ‘Made it, by Christ! Let’s get moving. I’m frozen.’
They splashed ashore and sat down to empty the water from their shoes.
‘Look,’ Dodgin said, pointing. ‘That margarine box.’
He indicated a sodden, half-submerged case. ‘That’s one I threw in.’
Ash stood up, stretching, huge in the mistiness, and slapped him across the shoulders. ‘Cut the cackle, old chum,’ he said, ‘and come to the hosses. It’s a long walk.’
The sun was up and there were more people about than they’d expected as they reached the outskirts of the town. Curious eyes rested on their muddied trousers and sodden shoes as they walked and, from time to time, they passed soldiers who eyed them inquisitively.
‘It’d be fine, wouldn’t it,’ Ash said, ‘if we bumped across one who’d been aboard the ship.’
‘Shut up,’ Dodgin said sharply. ‘We’ve not got to.’
‘Or Carroll, out for a stroll.’
‘For Christ’s sake’ – Dodgin’s voice was a bleat of protest – ‘you give me the creeps with your bloody cheerfulness!’
There was an air of sullen moodiness about the crowding workers as they moved between them, as though the curfew which had been imposed after the shooting the day before had had the effect of bringing their uncertain tempers to the boil, and as far as they could Ash and Dodgin kept to the narrow streets away from the centre of the town, trying to circle it towards the railway station on the inland side.
Skirting the area of the cathedral and the Plaza san Martín, they were stopped by a sergeant with a machine pistol strapped to his belt.
At once they became aware of the atmosphere of tense preparedness about them and noticed groups of soldiers standing in doorways staring down the length of the street. A corporal with a wireless set crouched inside a shop, talking quietly into a microphone while over his shoulder an officer peered nervously into the early sunshine. It seemed for a moment as though a quietness had fallen over the town and they could hear the faint shouts from the crowd in the distance. Even the starlings that huddled along the eaves seemed to be waiting for something to happen.
The sergeant who had stopped them moved slightly to one side as a shopkeeper came out of a door carrying a set of shutters which he proceeded to erect in front of his premises, blockading the whole façade from the cobbled pavement to the thick-tiled roof where the grass grew in dried yellow tufts along the guttering.
The sergeant cocked his thumb along the street and hitched at his belt.
‘You can’t go gown there,’ he said. ‘The mob’s out in the Avenida Nueve de Julio.’
Then, father down the road, they saw a machine-gun hidden by a clump of bushes, its crew sitting silently beside it, staring towards the opening of the avenue.
‘What’s happening?’ Ash asked.
‘The crowd’s out,’ the sergeant said. ‘There might be some trouble.’ He grinned. ‘They’ll get a surprise, though. We’ve got a battery of guns on the point that’ll soon put paid to that lot if they hole up somewhere.’
Ash looked sombre as they moved away. ‘It’ll be great if they choose this morning for a riot,’ he said.
‘Think they will?’ Dodgin asked.
‘Though it pains me to say so, I’m afraid it looks very much like it. I’ve seen ’em before and they always start like this. Only wants some military clown to give the wrong order.’
They made their way down a side street, then, before they were aware of it, before they could escape, they found themselves surrounded by a crowd which jammed the narrow alley to its walls. They were workpeople for the most part, youngsters in their teens and early twenties, who had benefited most from the late régime. There were several banners bearing slogans tossing above the crowd and they heard the sound of glass breaking as a window was knocked in by some high-spirited roisterer farther back.
For a while, they tried to push past, driving against the press of the crowd, but it was impossible and they had to turn and allow themselves to be borne along. A burly dock-worker shoved Dodgin against the wall and bawled at him in Spanish above the chattering and shouting.
‘This way, amigo! They’ve closed the docks and the union offices. They’ve stopped the buses running.’
Ash plucked him aside and rescued Dodgin, then there was a flurry of movement as the crowd swept back and Ash saw a couple of policemen advancing towards him with guns in their hands. He
stood still, regarding them coldly, while the crowd backed away silently. As they reached out to grab him, he brought his arms round and swept the two men together with a crash. Their heads clicked against each other like billiard balls and they sank at his feet. The crowd started yelling and a man with a knife ran forward.
Ash promptly grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and whirled him off his feet and back to the crowd. Then he picked up the policemen as they recovered their senses and sent them back where they had come from with a couple of tremendous kicks on the behind.
In a moment, he was surrounded by laughing, shouting youngsters who tried to chair him, but he pushed them off and the crowd started moving again, still surrounding him, still cheering. In the confusion, he became separated from Dodgin and had to step back into a doorway to wait for him, cursing the luck that had brought out the mob on this of all mornings.
The crowd had slowed down now, moving in the narrow street like a heaving mass of ants. Then Ash saw they were starting to kick doors in and were snatching up the splintered wood as weapons.
He stared along the street, searching for Dodgin’s narrow features.
‘God damn it to hell,’ he muttered, deafened by the din of a thousand voices shouting advice, slogans and threats all at the same time. A man with a pick-axe had started to chip at the cobbles near the wall and the crowd bent and started to tear voraciously at the surface of the road, dragging up the smooth round stones with their fingers for brickbats. A group of youngsters, still laughing at Ash’s treatment of the policemen tried to push a couple into his hands but he thrust them away angrily.
Then the laughter died and he caught a note of alarm in the voices.
The mob had stopped now, bunched together in a tight mass as solid as stone, and he heard shouting again from the front where the banners were and the sound of a loudspeaker blaring round the corner.
