The Strode Venturer

by Hammond Innes

  We moved off along a path that wound beneath a jungle growth of palms and other thick-leaved trees. The sky was blotted out, the breeze killed. The air was still and heavy with the day’s heat trapped. And then suddenly the stars above again and a broad straight street of coral sand glimmering white and walled by dense plantations. Don Mansoor’s gai or house was built like the rest of coral cement with a palm-thatched roof. There was a well in the forecourt and the interior was lit by a roaring pressure lamp that cast giant shadows with every movement of the occupants. There was a table, chairs and a big, ornate mirror, a dresser with cheap English china displayed. But the thing I remember most clearly was a great swinging bed slung by ropes from the palm bole roof beams.

  His wife greeted us, slight and dark with doe-like eyes and a beauty that was clearly derived from Ceylon. There were other, older women in the background, and as I sat down a young girl brought me a glass of some pale, amber-coloured liquid. Her soft nubile features smiled at me shyly as she moved back into the shadows with a glint of gold at waist and throat.

  “It is a drink we make from faan—from the palm trees,” Don Mansoor said. And Peter Strode added, “They tie the stamen down and collect the sap. This has been allowed to ferment and is slightly alcoholic.” He was watching me curiously. “I wanted you to see the inside of one of their houses—the sort of people they are.” But he didn’t say why.

  The family atmosphere, the sense of order and neatness, of a culture and a way of life nurtured and maintained in absolute isolation; it was impressive and strangely attractive so that I felt relaxed and at ease, and as I sipped my drink I found myself falling under the spell of the island. Was that what he had intended? The drink was smooth and gentle like saké, refreshing in the sultry heat. I passed a packet of cigarettes round and they disappeared like manna in the desert. Talk flowed in a haze of smoke until a bright, wiry boy, one of Don Mansoor’s sons, came in with a message, his bare chest gleaming dark in the lamplight.

  Strode finished his drink and got to his feet. “I have to go now.” He spoke to the boy. “Ali will see you down to the boat.”

  I said my good-byes and we went out into the night, “You’re staying here, are you?” I asked him.

  “I think so. I have a meeting now. If I get their agreement, then yes—I’ll stay.”

  I wanted to question him further, but I knew by the look on his face he wouldn’t tell me more than that. “What answer do I take back to your brothers?”

  He stared at me and I had a feeling that the purpose of my seeking him out had been completely wiped from his mind. “Are you flying back to England?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  It seemed strange to be talking about flying in the shade of the palms on a remote coral island. “I don’t know yet. Thursday, perhaps.”

  He was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “Tell them I’ll discuss it with them when I get back to London.”

  “When will that be?”

  “A month—maybe two.”

  He sounded very vague and I knew it wouldn’t satisfy the Strodes. It didn’t satisfy me. “The Strode Venturer’s bound for Aden next. From Aden you could fly to London and be there in little more than a week.” But I knew he wasn’t going to do that. Exasperated, I said, “What is there here on this atoll that’s more important to you than the thing you’ve been working towards for three years?”

  He looked at me and smiled. “People,” he said. “I’ve spent nearly all my life roaming the world looking for some place to put down roots.”

  “And you’ve found it here?”

  He didn’t answer that. All he said was, “You’d better get down to the boat now or Gan will be wondering what’s happened to you.” He gripped my hand. “Just remember, Bailey, what you’ve seen tonight. There’s an opportunity here—a chance to build something for the future.” There was a touch of the fanatic in the bright gleam of his eyes. “And if George and Henry don’t take it …” He let go my hand. “Well, I’ll face that one when I come to it.” And he said something to the boy who tugged at my arm.

  I left him then standing like an Adduan in his sarong outside Don Mansoor’s hut and the boy led me down the long pale street of cleanly swept coral to the beach at the northern end. The dhoni was manned and waiting, and as soon as they’d carried me on board, they rowed her out through the reef and hoisted sail. In a moment it seemed the island of Midu was no more than a dark line astern. The wind was free, the squaresail bellied out; the rowers squatted idle on the thwarts and only the helmsman had work to do as the long lean hull clove through calm water with a hiss like steam.

  There was a Land-Rover parked on the jetty end and an officer waiting for me who wasn’t Easton but a Lieutenant Goodwin of the R.A.F. Police. “Thought we’d lost you.” He said it cheerfully, but it was a question nevertheless.

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” I said. “I was delayed.

  He stared at me a moment, his eyes slightly narrowed. Then he walked to the edge of the jetty. “You dhoni-men,” he called down. “Where you from?” Nobody answered him and the dark shape of the boat shied away from the jetty. “They’re not supposed to come in here after dark.” He stood there watching as the sail was hoisted and the pale glimmer of it ghosted out to lose itself in the dark waters of the lagoon. “Well, I hope you got what you wanted.” He took me over to the Land-Rover. “I’ll drive you down to the Mess now. The C.O. wants to meet you.”

  We drove off down the jetty and as we came out on to the tarmac road beside the airfield he said, “I understand you were questioning one of the crew.” He had clearly visited the Strode Venturer. And since I had come back in a dhoni he must know I had been out to the islands. “As the policeman here I’d like to put you in the picture.” He glanced at me curiously. “A Chinese crew is always a risk in the sort of situation we have here. But if it’s arms you were after I could have told you straight off you wouldn’t find any. I was in the Cyprus business and I’m not such a fool as to have ignored that possibility. Not that I wouldn’t be glad,” he added, “to see the Adduans with the means to defend themselves. But I’ve got my orders.”

  “I’m not interested in arms,” I said.

  “No?” He forked right past the camp church. Ahead were a few palm trees, last relics of the jungle growth they had bull-dozed flat when they made the airfield. “I warned the C.O. your visit might be political. Is the Admiralty thinking of re-creating Port T?”

  “My visit is entirely unofficial.”

  “Naturally.” He nodded with a sly grin. “Okay. I know when to keep my big trap shut. But I think the C.O. will want some explanation.” And after that he didn’t say anything more so that I was left wondering what the hell he thought I was.

  Tennis courts showed in the headlights, a sweep of lawns and palm trees edging the shore. We drew up at a long low building and he took me through into the bar, which was crowded with men all dressed alike in civilian rig of dark trousers and cream or white shirts and ties. Their barrage of talk came to me in snatches: “Mushy—very mushy it was, man … You silly bugger, didn’t you see the marks on the runway?” The same talk you get in any R.A.F. Mess. The islands were gone. I was in another world—an R.A.F. world shut in on itself with only the Adduan serving behind the bar to remind me that this was one of the last lost outposts of empire, a small dot on the map surrounded by the Indian Ocean.

  The average age seemed about twenty-five. But there was an older group at the far end of the bar, among them Canning, the Station Commander. “Sorry I couldn’t meet you myself,” he said as he shook my hand. And then he was introducing me to the others in the group, Wilcox, the Marine Craft Officer, Ronald Phelps, Supplies and Services, the N.A.A.F.I. Manager, and a pot-bellied little man with an enormous handlebar moustache that made him look like a caricature of a Spitfire pilot of the last war. This was Mac, his senior Administration Officer, who said, “I’m in the chair. What are you having?”

  “Beer, please
,” I said.

  “One Slops for the Navy, Ali,” he boomed and the boy behind the bar grinned, a flash of white teeth in a laughing brown face. As he handed me the pint glass tankard I was conscious that Goodwin had drawn his C.O. to one side.

  Canning was not a man to rush his fences. He let me finish my drink and ordered me another before he broached the subject of my presence on Gan. “You’ve been out to the ship, I gather. Did you contact your man all right?”

  “Yes, thank you.” And I apologized for not making my number to him first.

  “Oh, that’s all right—so long as you got what you came for.” He had drawn me to one side and his gaze was very direct as he said, “Anything I should know about?”

  “A purely private matter.”

  He nodded and sipped his beer, letting the silence between us run on. Finally he said, “As Commander of this base, a great deal of my time is taken up with political questions. No doubt you’ve been thoroughly briefed on the situation so I don’t need to tell you that I have what the Malé Government regard as a rebel president on my hands. I am also responsible for defending the whole island group without, of course, stirring up any political mud that can be flung at us in the United Nations. As things stand the Adduan problem is an R.A.F. responsibility. If the Navy wishes to investigate the islands—either officially or unofficially—then the R.A.F. should be informed. You understand my position, I hope.”

  “Of course,” I said. “But as this was a purely private matter …”

  “I don’t accept that, Commander Bailey. If you go visiting the islands——” He gave a little shrug and then smiled. He had great charm when he smiled. “Well, don’t leave me in the dark too long. Sometime tomorrow I shall probably feel it incumbent on me to contact Whitehall about your visit.”

  It was no good protesting again that my visit here had no connection with the Navy. He didn’t believe it.

  “Meantime,” he added, “I have instructed Goodwin to see that you don’t go out to the islands again without my authority.” And then in a more friendly tone he offered me the use of a helicopter. “It’s much the best way to see the islands. I’ll lay it on with our chopper-man for tomorrow. All right?” He turned to the Marine Craft Officer. “When is that hell-ship of yours due to leave?”

  “About noon tomorrow,” Wilcox replied. “We haven’t much more to off-load.”

  Canning glanced at me. “Well, it’s up to you. If you want to go on board the Strode Venturer again——”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve done what I came to do.”

  A flicker of interest showed in his eyes and was instantly suppressed. “It hasn’t taken you long.” I think he would have liked to probe the matter further, but to my relief the Movements Officer arrived with a problem requiring his immediate attention. The flight due at 23.30 had an oil pressure drop on Number Three and it was a question of whether passengers were to be kept waiting in the Transit Mess whilst S.A.S. coped with the trouble or billeted for the night. “Sorry about this, Bailey. We’ll have another chat to-morrow—after you’ve flown round the islands.” He called to Goodwin and then went out, moving with a quick purposeful stride, the police officer at his heels.

  Shortly after that I asked Easton to show me my room. It was in the centre of a long verandahed block only a short distance from the Mess and my bags were there waiting for me. I stripped, washed and flung myself naked on the bed. The big ceiling fan stirred the air, but the room was hot and I was tired, exhausted as much by lack of food as by long hours of travelling. I turned out the light and lay listening to the whirring of the fan, the croak of the frogs outside in the grass that wasn’t grass but some exotic creeping vegetation clipped to the semblance of a lawn.

  A chance to build something, he’d said. And the way he’d said it, as though it were a challenge, his voice vibrant, his eyes over-bright. Did he think he could fight George and Henry Strode on their own ground? I tried to picture him in a City suit instead of a sarong seated at the board-room table in Strode House with his tanned face and that little French beard, but the picture didn’t fit. He’d no experience of the City. Three years in Guthrie’s didn’t mean he could hold his own in that jungle. They’d cut him to pieces.

  At least, that’s what I thought as I drifted off to sleep, still wondering what he hoped to achieve by stopping a month or so on Addu Atoll.

  At six-thirty my room boy produced a cup of thick sweet tea. “What time’s breakfast?” I asked him, but he shook his head, smiling shyly. His face was long and pointed with large ears and straight black hair. He might almost have been an Arab. “Do you understand English?”

  “Me speaking little bit, sah.” The brown eyes stared at me, serious and gentle, almost dog-like. His name was Hassan and he was from the island of Midu, which he pronounced Maydoo. I sent him off to clean my shoes and had a cold shower whilst the public address system played soft music interspersed with time checks. I was back in my room dressing when there was a knock at the door and Easton came in. “The C.O. would like a word with you.”

  “What about?”

  But all he said was, “When you’re ready I’ll take you over. He’s in his house.”

  Outside the sunlight was very bright, the air already hot. A slight breeze rustled the palms and along the shore-line of the lagoon the sails of dhonis moved in stately procession against the clear blue of the sky. Work on the station began at seven and the dhonis were bringing in men from the neighbouring islands of Fedu and Maradu. It was a bus service, but the effect was incredibly theatrical. Like the Adduans themselves, the dhonis were part of the magic of the place. It was only when we reached the C.O’.s house, which stood facing the Mess, that I could see the jetty and the ugly landing-craft and barges clustered round the Strode Venturer.

  The C.O. was waiting for me in the shade of the verandah dressed in khaki drill shirt and shorts. He had the police lieutenant with him. “About your visit to the Strode Venturer last night. Goodwin tells me there’s a white man amongst the crew—a fellow named Strode. Was it Strode you went to see?”

  “Yes.” There was no point in denying it, but I didn’t like the way Goodwin was treating it as a police matter. “Did you go out to the ship again after I’d gone to bed?” I asked him.

  “On my instructions,” Canning said quickly.

  Goodwin nodded. “I got the crew list from the Chinese purser fellow. He couldn’t produce Strode for me and when I saw the captain he refused to let me talk to him. Told me to go to hell. He was drunk, of course.”

  “Come inside a minute.” Canning obviously felt he wasn’t going to get anywhere unless we were alone. He took me through into his sitting-room and closed the door. “Now then, what’s this man Strode doing here—do you know?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said.

  He stared at me hard, but it was so dark after the glare outside that even without my sun glasses I couldn’t see the expression of his eyes. “I met a Peter Strode once on the Trucial coast,” he said. “I was at Sharjah for a time and he came in on an Arab dhow and joined a caravan bound for Buraimi. The political boys got very upset about it.” He reached for a packet of cigarettes that lay on a table beside the model of a vedi complete with sails. There were models of dhonis too, all in the same satin-pale wood and shells that gleamed a high gloss orange. He held the packet out to me. “That boat’s going to Aden and God knows there’s trouble enough brewing there. If he thinks he’s going to slip across into the Yemen …” He tossed the packet back on to the table. “Do you think that’s what he’s planning? Because if so, I’ll have to warn our people.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think he’s planning to go into the Yemen.”

  “Then where is he going?”

  I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I see.” He lit his cigarette and put the match down carefully in the ash tray. “Have you any reason to regard him as a political risk?”

  I started to explain again that my intere
st in him was a purely personal matter, but he brushed that aside. Like his police officer, he seemed convinced that my visit had some special significance. “I don’t want any repetition here of the trouble we had at Sharjah,” he said, thrusting his jaw out at me. “By the time we’d finished we had a file on him an inch thick. The Buraimi crisis was still on the boil and he took off with that Bedou caravan and just disappeared into the blue. God knows where he got to. We had search planes out, the works.”

  “He finished up in the Hadhramaut.”

  “I don’t care where he finished up. He caused one hell of a flap. And the situation here is almost as tricky. As you know, the Maldivian Government had the question of Addu Atoll raised in the United Nations. Contrary to what they claim, we did nothing to encourage the Adduans to form a break-away republic. One may sympathize with them privately, but officially it’s been a damned nuisance.”

  He went over to the window and stood staring out, drawing on his cigarette, lost in thought. “No man ships as crew with a bunch of Chinese just for the pleasure of their company,” he murmured. “Or does he?” he turned then and began questioning me about Strode again; he guessed, of course, that he was connected in some way with the owners of the Strode Venturer. “Makes it all the more odd, doesn’t it? Even if he is, as you say, just a rolling stone, a sort of black sheep of the family …” He hesitated, standing there, legs slightly apart, his right hand joggling some keys in the pocket of his shorts. Finally he said, “Well, there’s no record of his having stirred up trouble anywhere, as far as I know.” And he added, “I’m an Air Force man, not a politician. But Whitehall expects me to handle this situation—and if anything goes wrong I carry the can. Kindly remember that.” He reached for his cap then and we went out to where his staff car stood in the blazing sun. “I’ve laid on the helicopter for you. Beardmoor does a daily flip round the islands—just to show the R.A.F. is watching over them. He’ll meet you in the Mess at nine-thirty.” He smiled at me, a touch of his natural charm returning. “We’ll have a drink together before lunch. I’ll be in a better frame of mind then—with that ship gone.” He drove off then with Goodwin beside him and the R.A.F. pennant streaming from the bonnet, and I went into the Mess for breakfast.