The Third Hour

by Geoffrey Household

  The passes were being loosely patrolled. Twice he came almost face to face with a piquet but vanished before he was seen. Once an unknown voice ordered him to halt. He feigned deafness and plodded steadily on, the skin of his back crawling in expectation of a bullet, into the cover of some giant and tumbled rocks. After his experience in Yucatan the crossing of the range held no unbearable hardships. He could endure hunger like a savage, making a single filling of his belly last him for forty-eight hours. The night frosts were agony, but he knew they would only stiffen, and not kill him. Worst of all were the terrifying scrambles down the walls of canyons and along the forested lips of precipices, forced on him when he left the rough tracks in search of food or in fear of patrols. The defiles where a man had to pass were watched. He therefore climbed where a man could not pass—unless he possessed a light and wiry body and had Lara and the government together at his heels.

  On the tenth day after leaving El Salto he came out on the last fold of the hills and stumbled down from a ragged skyline overlooking the Pacific. With infinite caution he slunk through plantations and along irrigation channels till he had crept within a mile of the beach of Mazatlan. There were three ships at anchor in the harbour: a British tramp discharging machinery into lighters, and two Mexican coasters. During the afternoon he lay hidden in a belt of cane. Every time that the faint rattle of the discharge ceased, he raised himself in helpless fear lest the foreign ship be about to sail. She was still there at nightfall. Manuel ate his fill of bananas and watered himself at a well. When the moon set he stole the bottom boards from a boat, being too weak to haul the boat itself down to the water, and, using them as a flimsy raft, half swum, half paddled himself out to the ship. Beyond the surf and on the smooth black bosom of the Pacific where unseen fish splashed close at hand and the lights of the little steamer were very far away, he became vilely afraid of sharks; for he had a keen imagination and no more knowledge of their ways than any other landsman. He knew that it was mere panic. He was undoubtedly more afraid of Lara.

  Fifty yards from the steamer Manuel kicked the bottom boards away from him and swam to her forefoot, jewelled with an anklet of faintly luminous bubbles as it sheered up and down in the light swell. He swarmed up her chain, and with a foot in the last link and his back against the side of the ship managed to stand upright and get his hand over the rail. He pulled himself up. There was a seaman leaning over the opposite rail, dreamily intent on nothing in particular. Manuel came silently aboard and took cover behind a stack of hatch covers and tarpaulins. All but the riding lights were out. The dim figure continued to dream. The open hatches invited him to seek refuge in the hold, but he considered the risk of being shut down for the unknown duration of the voyage and decided to take to the hold only as a last resort. The main deck offered no permanent hiding place. After a swift glance behind him he padded up the companion to the boat-deck. The boats were correctly covered. While examining the lashings Manuel heard steps approaching and bolted up on to the bridge deck. The steps followed him up. He silently opened the door of a cabin and slipped inside. The steps passed and continued to the bridge.

  The occupant of the cabin was snoring happily and decisively. The dim shapes of a bookcase, a roomy desk and a small sideboard with a good array of glasses and bottles suggested that the sleeper was the captain. Manuel felt himself illumined by the first glow of humour that had visited him since leaving Durango. There could be no place less likely to be searched for a stowaway than the captain’s cabin, if there were anywhere at all to hide. Very slowly he explored the cabin and the adjoining bathroom, hands helping eyes in the darkest corners. The captain’s bunk was solid, and under it there had to be an empty space. He softly pulled down the side, hinged at the floor level, and discovered a coffin-shaped locker half full of books, papers and old clothes. It was uncomfortable but it would do. The risk that the captain might want something out of the locker before the ship sailed had to be taken. Somebody might want something out of any other hiding place that he chose.

  The wooden flap closed with a simple ball and socket, which would allow him to get out by merely pushing; but how to close it once he was inside was a problem. Searching through the articles laid out on the dressing table, he discovered a buttonhook. It would serve as an instrument. Manuel took off his wet and filthy rags and threw them overboard, retaining only his money and passport. He then crept into the locker, his head immediately beneath the captain’s, and closed the flap behind him by passing the buttonhook through one of the holes by which it was pierced for ventilation.

  The warmth of the locker overcame the discomfort of the odd angles that prodded him in the back, and Manuel slept. He was awakened by the crash of a drawer falling out of the dressing table, and a crescendo of curses rising to a final yell of:

  “Muggridge!”

  Somebody ran up the companion, knocked and entered.

  “Muggridge, where the devil is my buttonhook?”

  “It was ’ere last night, sir.”

  “I know it was here last night, blast you! What I want to know is where is it now! I can’t put my boots on and I will not command this vessel in slippers, boy, do you hear me?”

  “It must be ’ere somewhere, sir,” said the steward’s voice hopefully.

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you!” the captain roared.

  Manuel began to form a picture of the man. He was heavy; so much could be told by his movements. He was eccentric, since he wore button boots. His ankles were not slim. He was powerful, for so tremendous a voice could not come from a man who was merely fat. He was methodical. And he was a genial soul when not upset, since the steward took no offence at his language.

  Muggridge was evidently searching the cabin without success.

  “It may be in the locker, sir,” he suggested.

  “How the hell could it be in the locker, you bloody fool? Do you think it opened it and walked in? You leave that locker alone, do you hear me? I won’t have you messing about with it, do you hear me? If you mess about with it I never know where anything is!”

  The captain subsided into mutterings and grumblings and padded out with the tread of an elephant upon velvet.

  Muggridge cleaned out the cabin very thoroughly. He hit the locker fiercely with his broom, evidently venting his feelings, but did not open it. Then all was silent.

  Manuel let down the flap to change the air, and swiftly rearranged books and clothing so that they would present a smoother surface. In the course of his excavations he came on a pile of back numbers of La Vie Parisienne and a photograph album containing an orderly selection of pornographic postcards, which the captain evidently wished to keep from the eyes of young Muggridge. The name of the ship was the Sunderland Marquis. There was no means of telling where she was bound.

  He shut himself up again and dozed peacefully until he was awakened about midday by the sound of the captain and his agent having a farewell drink together. The afternoon passed slowly. Shortly after eight bells had been struck, he heard the anchor come up and the steady pulse of the engines. At four bells the captain entered his cabin and began to wash and brush up for supper. He was humming to himself in a rumbling bass. Manuel judged that it was a good moment to reveal himself. He silently let down the flap and rolled out of the locker. The captain was arranging his tie before the mirror, his neat beard cocked up at an angle. He was simply attired in a well-cut suit of blue serge with a white carnation in his buttonhole. Except for a tattered pair of carpet slippers, he bore an astonishing resemblance, and evidently knew it, to King Edward VII.

  “Your buttonhook,” said Manuel, holding it out. “I am very sorry.”

  The captain spun round and goggled at this extraordinary apparition clothed only in two weeks’ growth of beard and whiskers. Automatically he accepted the buttonhook; then dropped it as if it were a cockroach.

  “What the devil! What—what are you? Don’t stand the
re! Answer me!”

  “I allowed myself the liberty of coming aboard your ship—” Manuel began.

  “In that damned disgraceful condition?”

  Manuel smiled an apology.

  “Cover up your parts, man! Cover up your parts!” roared the captain.

  “Which ones?” asked Manuel, whose English was a little rusty.

  The captain explained.

  “What with?” Manuel asked.

  The captain hurled a towel at him, which he draped around his middle.

  “I must apologise—” he began again.

  “Impudent young devil! Don’t talk so much, do you hear me? Explain yourself, do you hear me?”

  “Captain Manuel Vargas at your service. It was a political—”

  “You American?”

  “No. Spanish.”

  The captain snorted. After all, the man was well-spoken and he had given him a towel.

  “Serve you right! What business has a white man to mix himself up with all those dagoes?”

  Manuel smiled at this impulsive acceptance of him into the dominant race. He looked at his golden body, striped red with half-healed wounds from thorns and rocks, blackened by dirt and bruises, burnt a deeper brown in the patches where his rags had been ripped off him.

  “I can tell a white man whatever his colour is!” declared the captain. “Spaniard, are you? Well, there’s Spaniards and Spaniards. But I never met one that was any use as a seaman!”

  “It is said,” Manuel politely protested, “that Spaniards will take to sea a ship that no one else dares to.”

  “Eh? What’s that? Say that again!”

  Manuel repeated it.

  “Well, there’s something in that. I’ve seen some old tubs in Barcelona that you could poke your finger through the plates of. Ever been to sea?”

  “No. I have done many things. Businessman, printer, soldier, rebel—but not the sea. I’ll do my best to be useful. Or pay for my passage, if twenty dollars are enough. Or cook. Where are you going?”

  “Callao, in ballast.”

  “Damn!” said Manuel thoughtfully. “That’s further than I want to go.”

  “Then you’ll bloody well have to swim, young fellow-me-lad!”

  The captain suddenly became aware that he was indulging in affable conversation with a stowaway.

  “And what do you mean by coming aboard my ship like a blasted white hope without his bum-bags? Get out of here, do you here me? Muggridge! Muggridge!”

  Manuel heard the familiar sound of Muggridge’s steps racing to the door. He opened, then hastily closed it again.

  “Come in, boy!” thundered the captain, his face purple. “It’s a stowaway. And he stole my buttonhook! Had it under the bunk, Muggridge, as you’d know if you ever took the trouble to sweep this cabin properly! Take him away!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Muggridge, firmly approaching with what he hoped to be the impassive manner of a Tyneside policeman. “Where to, sir?”

  “Wait a minute, do you hear me? He can’t go about the ship like this. Sit down, you!”

  The captain opened his medicine chest, carefully disinfected Manuel and patched up his sores. He then stood back to admire his handiwork. It pleased him. He added the finishing touch by dosing his patient with a stiff whisky and water.

  “Did you say you could cook?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you know how to wash dishes. Here! Take these!”

  The captain fished an old pair of overalls out of the locker.

  “Thank you very much.”

  “Don’t thank me! I’d throw you overboard if I were allowed to. Is that your money and passport in the locker?”

  “Yes, sir. Perhaps you would be good enough to change one of these ten-dollar pieces for me?”

  “This isn’t a bank, do you hear me? I’ll see about that in the morning, do you hear me? Take him away, Muggridge, and see that he gets fed!”

  Manuel made a hearty meal with the crew, who showered on him gifts of old singlets, shoes and trousers, and nicknamed him “Sandow,” being familiar with photographs of the professional strong man attired only in a loincloth; to have stowed away in the old man’s cabin ensured his popularity.

  After a week of dishwashing and peeling potatoes he won the confidence of the cook, and endeavoured to improve his own and the ship’s fare under the pretence of teaching him a few Latin-American recipes. This led to the cook doing nothing whatever but listen to his assistants yarns of the nitrate fields, Yucatan and Lara, while for the remaining fortnight of the voyage Manuel actually produced the meals.

  When the Sunderland Marquis was about to anchor off Callao, the captain called him to his cabin and offered him a passage to England and an engagement as cook for the next voyage. Manual refused—regretfully, for he was grateful to the master and the crew, and it hurt him to think what they would eat on the passage home.

  “You’re an odd bird! A damned odd bird!” said the captain. “How are you going to get ashore?”

  “I shall bribe a boatman, sir, if you have no objection.”

  “I? None! They’d sell their mothers for money, the nasty yellow scum! Have you any friends in Callao? Not just dock rats—friends.”

  “I really believe so. I’ve lived up and down the coast.”

  “Any money left?”

  Manuel showed the last of his gold coins. With the other he had bought tobacco, and from the wireless officer a very passable shore-going suit.

  “That’s good. And here’s your pay!”

  “Pay?” asked Manuel, surprised.

  “Yes, pay! No man works on my ship for nothing, do you hear me?” bellowed the captain.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Manuel, picking up the silver. “And a thousand thanks for your kindness!”

  “Good-bye—er—Captain Vargas, wasn’t it?” the captain said, beaming suddenly and royally in imitation of King Edward VII presenting a gold watch to his jockey. “Take my advice and keep clear of politics!”

  Manuel promised to do so and shook hands warmly with his benefactor.

  He had no difficulty in getting himself rowed ashore after nightfall. The officers and crew of the Sunderland Marquis turned a blind eye to the rope hanging over the port quarter and the small boat waiting below.

  He took a bus to Lima the same night, and the next morning called at the Imprenta Sota for a job. He got it. The printing works were again on the verge of bankruptcy. Plump little Sota spent the next week in complete idleness, doing a round of his favourite cafés and innumerable acquaintances, and declaring very solemnly that, though an educated and literary man, he now believed in God.

  Better accustomed to the easy ways of Latin America, Manuel went at his work more gently. Nearly two years passed before he had saved sufficient capital to make an attempt on the 300,000 gold pesos. He needed a useful sum, for it would be folly to enter Mexico as a poor man and then arouse suspicion by paying his way with the gold when he had recovered it. He had to have money to get there, to buy horses, to finance the march to a railway station at least five hundred miles from Durango and to pass the frontier unquestioned. All this would be easy for an apparently wealthy man, travelling on pleasure or pretended business, but very difficult for anyone who attracted the attention of police and officials.

  In the spring of 1926 he sailed to Vera Cruz, travelling under his own name since he could not afford a false passport. The risk did not disturb him; it was less than that of attempting an illicit entry. The Mexican government had every reason to believe that he had got away with his gold and that he would never return. Therefore, while some record of him might still be on the top of the files in Durango and Mexico City, it was most unlikely that the authorities at the ports would have been reminded of instructions two years old, or that they would remember them. He assum
ed that the police were just as disorganised as in the days of chaos, and was ready to gamble that, taking the line of least resistance, they would pass an apparently wealthy Spanish tourist with the barest glance at his visa. His new passport, issued by the Spanish consul in Lima, bore no witness of any previous visit to Mexico.

  On his arrival at Vera Cruz, Manuel left the ship confidently. His papers were in perfect order and he had over a thousand dollars in United States currency. He passed the immigration authorities without a question being put to him and was handed on to have his passport stamped by the police. They kept him waiting for an hour of horrible suspense and then invited him—a pure formality, señor! —to the office of the lieutenant.

  “You are Manuel Vargas?” the officer asked with a courteous smile.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever been in Mexico before?”

  “No, señor teniente.”

  “Qué casualidad! A coincidence that you bear such a resemblance to Manuel Vargas, El Camarero!”

  The lieutenant pulled out a photograph from a folder on his desk, and looked from it to Manuel with satisfaction.

  Manuel instantly weighed in his mind the closed window, the door leading on to a corridor full of police, the revolver at the lieutenant’s belt. There was no escape.

  “Felicitations!” he muttered. “This is indeed the new Mexico!”

  “You see what the people can do when they have a government of their own,” replied the lieutenant, as if gently lecturing a child.

  “I never doubted it. I fought for the revolution with de la Huerta. That was the last time I was in Vera Cruz. Well, we were wrong. But how could we know that Calles was a patriot?”

  “I was with de la Huerta too.”

  “Verdad! We must have a talk while I am in your charge. The lieutenant smokes?”

  “Thank you.”

  The officer accepted a cigar from the proffered case. He was glad when an unpleasant incident such as this was not allowed to disturb the normal courtesy between man and man.