The Man from the 'Turkish Slave'

by Victor Canning

  Restless, searching, he crossed the square and walked the length of the waterfront, his eyes scanning the drift and wreckage that lay below the wall. There were dead animals; dogs, cats, a sheep and two or three goats, and in one place a splash of wet colour, lime green, yellow and red where a parrot from one of the houses had been engulfed by the waters. But nowhere were there the bodies he wanted to see.

  He returned to the motor-boat and sat on the fallen palm, facing the town, the dead and wrecked little Portos Marias with its tumbled walls, its wreaths of vapour going up from the drying piles of plaster and stone.

  Manöel came back, carrying a bag of tools, and he began to shape and fit the new bow planking. And while his men worked Lesset watched. He watched the town, the stretch of square, the street mouths and the dead window openings and the shadowed doorways. Behind him there was the rasp of a plane, the tap, tap of a hammer and the clank of tools being dropped and the low voices of the men. The crying of the gulls had diminished. They had gorged themselves full and were now floating in a white patch in the centre of the harbour.

  They were dead, Lesset told himself. They had to be dead; that was the way his luck was running. Their bodies had probably been swept out to sea, or lay buried under some collapsed wall. Then as he sat there a fresh thought came to him.

  He turned away from the lifeless houses. Assis came round the stern of the motor-boat, carrying the fuel tank. He up-ended it, draining away petrol and water.

  ‘Who couldn’t have gone to the church this morning?’ Lesset asked him. ‘Is there anyone ill?’ The Blessing of the Boats ceremony was something which everyone attended. It was bad luck not to go. But he had to be sure.

  Assis looked at him for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. Manöel drove a nail home and cocked his head up as he squatted by the bows. The fat, ugly face grinned and he said, ‘There’s Pasquale.’

  ‘He would have gone,’ said Assis.

  ‘With a broken leg?’ Manöel laughed.

  ‘We must be sure. He could be watching us.’

  Lesset turned and moved across the square. Assis would have made a move to follow but Vasco held his arm.

  ‘What does it matter to you?’ he growled. They all knew what was in Lesset’s mind. ‘Whatever he does is for us as well.’

  It was a small house well beyond the bodega and fitted tightly into the foot of the cliff where the path leading to Quisto’s villa began. The door was blocked with wreckage. Lesset climbed in a window and up the stairs. He went into the bedroom that faced the square.

  A heavy bed had been thrown half on its side and a tall cupboard had been torn adrift from the wall and lay partly across the bed. Underneath, pinned down by bed and cupboard the upper part of a man’s body showed. He was a man of about seventy, his face lined and work-seamed. A long, red nightshirt had been rucked up about his shoulders and neck by the water and there was an ugly gash across his face from which the blood had flowed to stain the damp bedclothes. For a moment Lesset thought he was dead. Then the old man’s eyes opened. He moaned, a noise little more than a whisper. But as he saw Lesset his face moved and there was the shadow of a smile.

  ‘Senhor Lesset … Praise be …’ The old voice was thin, like the skirl of a dead leaf across a pavement.

  ‘Pasquale …’ Lesset stood there.

  ‘Praise be, senhor … I heard you talking out there. But I couldn’t shout.’

  Lesset nodded. He bent down and picked up a heavy length of wood that had split from the cupboard. Deliberately he raised the wood and struck hard three times, feeling the skull break beneath the heavy blows.

  He went down and out of the house and threw the wood into a pool of water. Nothing must get in the way. Nothing. And Pasquale had heard their voices. Pasquale might have lived. And Pasquale might have destroyed his security.

  Vasco looked up and said, ‘You found him?’

  ‘He was dead. A great cupboard had fallen on him.’

  Manöel nodded approvingly and then chuckled, his dirty teeth showing in a tight-stretched mouth, and for a moment his eyes met Lesset’s.

  ‘Poor Pasquale …’ Assis crossed himself.

  ‘He is dead—and so are we.’ Manöel was laughing to himself. ‘And for dead men we have a good future …’

  Lesset turned away from them to sit on the fallen palm. Above the town rose the crest of Pae, hard and clear against the blue sky.

  Suddenly from behind him he heard Assis’ voice.

  ‘I’m hungry and thirsty.’

  Lesset stood up. His suit was ripped and dirty. There was a grey stubble on the broad, corrugated face. The three men were looking at him, dark-skinned, unshaven, the wind taking their coloured shirts and ballooning them. They looked hard, tough and brutal, but he knew that compared with him they were children, soft, sentimental, easily led.

  ‘I’ll try Grazia’s,’ he said. ‘There may be something there.’

  He turned to make his way to the bodega. As he did so, he heard the steps. They clattered sharply in the bright air. His hand went down to his pocket and the automatic came out. The three men moved up behind him and he saw the dark long line of Vasco’s shotgun rise. The steps were coming down the street at the side of Grazia’s. Hard and sharp, they came on, then paused, and in the pause the silence was broken for a moment by the distant cry of the gulls. The steps started again.

  Lesset turned and with a motion of his arm directed the men to take cover behind the motor-boat. They crouched there, and watched the street corner. The steps broke into a swift running clatter.

  Round the corner of the bodega and into the sunlight came a brown, mousy-coloured figure and then, trotting across to them, as though he could smell the company of humans and would not be denied it, was Bobo, Quisto’s donkey. Assis stood up and roared with laughter. Bobo came up to them and blew gently through his nostrils.

  ‘Good old Bobo,’ Assis put out a hand and fondled the beast’s muzzle. Then he looked at Lesset and grunted truculently, ‘ Well, what about it? We’re hungry.’

  Lesset did not like the way Assis spoke. He would remember it and Assis would regret it later. But for the moment he showed no resentment.

  He went towards the bodega. The platform was a jumble of broken chairs and tables. The vine trellis was torn away into a sagging mass of greenery that swept over the walls and part of the steps and lay weighted down with sand. The piano lay smashed, its keys grimacing from a welter of splintered wood. The blue shutters hung drunkenly from the glassless windows and the door had been driven in and torn from one hinge.

  Lesset picked his way up the steps awkwardly, a clumsy, tired old figure, his head cocked, looking like some shabby, bedraggled bird. He kicked away a pulpy mass of seaweed from the door and went in.

  He found some flasks of wine, cans of food, a large cheese and a box of biscuits which had escaped being ruined. He piled all the stuff on the table. They were going to be thirty-six hours at least at sea. They would want provisions. He gathered it all up in a large cloth and was about to leave when he heard a sound.

  He spun round. It came from the half-open door, at the far end of the room, which led into the vast storeroom where Commere Grazia kept the general merchandise for the island. It was the sound of something heavy, sliding and falling and crashing into water.

  Lesset took out his automatic and moved towards the door. Three feet from it he stopped.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he called. His voice echoed back to him faintly from within the storeroom.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Peter climbed down from the pile of debris at the front of the church. He was still shaken and overawed by the swiftness of the disaster, but his brain was working now, his actions dictated by the stolid phlegm of his nature. So far as he could tell, the people in the church would be all right. Already he could hear men working away at the wreckage from inside and the dulled babble of voices had quietened as though the first impact of fright and panic had been calmed. Quisto and Father G
ordano were there. They could hold the islanders, and they were practical men who would lose no time getting to work.

  He searched the blockhouse and the Pastori house without finding Tereza. After that he had no plan. He went up and down the streets, searching the wreckage and the houses. Tereza was his only thought. He had escaped. Then she might have done. But she might be injured … He knew that he had to keep away from Lesset. That meant he could not search the square.

  Barefooted, he moved quietly and quickly, his speed matching his anxiety. She had to be safe. He had to find her. She was his girl. The one he had found. The one who meant everything … He went along the alleyways, and into courtyards and houses, hardly noticing the mad confusion and wanton destruction.

  He went down as close as he could get to the square without being seen, and climbed into a house. From a bedroom window he looked across the square. Lesset, he had thought, might have found Tereza and be holding her. But there was no sign of Tereza. He saw Lesset sitting by the boat and the others working on it. The sound of hammering filled the hot air.

  Drawn back against the side of the window, he watched them. Lesset meant to get away … and there was nothing to stop him. Mixed now with his anxiety for Tereza was an anger at the thought that Lesset was going to escape. If he could find Tereza, they would be able perhaps to help the people in the church. Time … every moment that passed was in Lesset’s favour. The man rose slowly and walked across the cobbles. He passed under the window and Peter saw the heavy-browed eyes, the large face calm and thoughful.

  Quietly he drew back into the room and made his way out of the back. He went right across the town, keeping to the back ways and, as the urgency of his search grew, greater, so his despair increased. How could he look everywhere? How could he search every nook and cranny while he had to steer clear of Lesset? He saw Lesset again, standing at the foot of a street, a short, blunt figure, head cocked, hands in his pockets, and the whole stance of the man was of one who waited, listening, distrusting this dead port. In his very stillness there was something sinister and foreboding. Then Lesset turned and moved back out of sight into the square.

  Peter went on. The pain in his ribs tore at him with every step he took and one of his feet was bleeding where he had trodden on broken glass … but all this was nothing against the anguish in his spirit. Tereza. He must find Tereza. She had to be alive.

  And then he saw her.

  He was searching the wave limit at a small open space which marked the crossing of two alleyways. Great piles of sea-wrack and kelp had been swept up there. As they dried under the fierce sun they gave off a gentle cracking. He searched through it and then, turning, saw her. She stood fifty yards below him, leaning against the side of a door, one hand to her forehead as though she had come out of the house and the brilliance of the sun had blinded her. The joy and relief in him held him to the spot. He had the feeling that if he moved the whole thing woud prove false and Tereza would disappear.

  She moved forward, her back to him and with slow, unsteady steps began to make her way down the narrow stretch of cobbles towards the square.

  He opened his mouth to shout her name, a warning, but the cry was strangled in him as he remembered Lesset. He began to run. He caught her well before she reached the square. His hands went out and spun her round. She stood for a moment facing him, held at arm’s length. Her face was still, her eyes bemused like a shocked child’s. The dark hair hung damp and loose across her shoulders which were almost naked where the white blouse had been ripped over one arm. He saw a great bruise mark above one breast, saw the green skirt stiff with salt and powdered with sand. Then she was in his arms and the warmth of her face was against his and he was kissing her, kissing the great bruise, his hands and arms holding, protecting her, and he felt her young body shaking with silent sobs and trembling with the discharge of fear and shock and relief.

  He led her into the nearest house and sat her on a chair. He found wine and held the glass for her to drink. Her eyes followed him and she put up a hand and took his, kissing it, and then she spoke his name. He fussed around, not knowing what to do, clumsy and tender and happy. He knelt before her and wrung out the water from the loose hem of her skirt. He found a piece of ribbon and looped back her disordered hair and would have bound it. Tereza smiled and took the ribbon from him. They were moments which they would never forget, a penetrating anguish and love and happiness enfolding them both.

  Then they began to talk. Jaeger and Assis had gagged her and bound her wrists, and they had put her in the kitchen of Jaeger’s house. Jaeger had been about the house until dawn. When he had left she had struggled to free herself. She had broken the glass of a cupboard door and sawn through her wrist-ropes on the broken edges of the pane. She lifted her hands, showing the cuts, and Peter kissed them. As she had untied her gag the wave had hit the house … After that … She did not know clearly what had happened to her. She was a strong and wise swimmer and she had made no attempt to fight the water. She had let it take her and had been swept away into a nightmare, remembering only the blow which had struck her above the breast and then no more until she had come back to consciousness, the sun warm on her face where she lay on a bed of sodden straw bales in a house yard. It had been a long time before she felt able to move, and then she had come through the house and had begun to move down towards the square …

  As they talked strength and purpose came back to her. Peter told her about Lesset and the people in the church and saw the alarm in her eyes at the thought of her father and the others.

  ‘They’ll be all right. I swear it. But we must help them. I couldn’t do anything until I’d found you.’

  Tereza looked at him as he talked. His brown hair was tangled over his forehead, the square blunt face, so honest and determined, was cut and scratched. His shirt and jacket were in shreds. He was hard and strong and she knew that he was hers. She wanted no one else. For the rest of her life she wanted only him …

  Ten minutes later they were making their way cautiously towards Commere Grazia’s. They had to have picks and shovels. They had to get back to the church and help free the islanders.

  By themselves they could not stop Lesset from escaping. They needed help and, while they were getting it, they had to make sure that Lesset never suspected their presence. If he knew they were working at the church he would come after them … It was going to be a race. Could they get the islanders from the church before Lesset had his boat ready for sea?

  Peter could not answer that; but he knew he was going to keep going, keep believing that he could.

  Hugging the side of the houses they went down the street towards Commere Grazia’s bodega. The working party in the square was out of sight, but they could hear them. They slipped through the side door and crossed to the storeroom.

  It was a foot deep in water and the only light came from an iron-barred window high up in the wall. Bales and crates, paint tins, coils of rope, tools and sodden clothing lay everywhere. They moved around, wading as quietly as they could and eventually found two shovels and a pick. Peter took a shovel and the pick and Tereza the other shovel. He was anxious to get out of this place. The slightest noise might betray them since they were so near the working party.

  They began to move towards the door. As they did so, there was a sudden disturbance of water on the far side of the room.

  Peter and Tereza swung round. In the gloomy corner under the window a wet mass of empty sacks began to bulge and heave. Somebody grunted and sighed, and a clump of sacks slid away into the dark water. Then from the gloom there rose up the gigantic form of Commere Grazia. Water dripped and ran from her and her wet dress clung so closely to her ample figure that for a moment Peter thought she was naked.

  She stood up, stretching her fat arms as though she had been sleeping, and shook her head to get the muzziness out of her mind, the flick of her curly hair spraying the walls with water. Then she saw Peter and Tereza. A great smile broke across her face, her teeth
gleaming against the dark skin and it was clear that she was going to give them a shout of welcome.

  Peter moved quickly to her, clamped his hand over her mouth and whispered urgently, ‘For God’s sake, Grazia. Keep quiet.’

  She frowned at him, her eyes round and puzzled over the top of his hand.

  ‘We’re in trouble. Lesset’s outside and he’s bad.’

  Grazia put up a hand and gently moved his from her mouth. She nodded.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t make a noise.’

  ‘O.K., Mistah English. But what’s goin’ on here?’ She looked from him to Tereza.

  Before he could answer he heard the sound of the bodega door scraping against the floor. They stood there, the three of them, listening to the footsteps in the room beyond. Peter’s eyes were on Grazia. The thought had come to him that for all he knew Grazia might well be working with Lesset. He heard the footsteps moving, scuffling across the sand-littered floor, crunching on broken glass and his eyes never left Grazia. If she made a move they were lost.

  They heard the clink of a bottle and the thump of a box being dumped on a table.

  Cold horror suddenly struck at Peter. Beyond Grazia he saw the top sack of a tilted pile begin to move and slide gently to one side. Grazia, when she had risen, had put out a hand to help herself up and had disturbed the unsteady stack. He could do nothing. The sack slid away and fell. It hit Grazia on the shoulder, sending her two or three steps forward, the sound of her wading legs clear and noisy. The splash of the heavy sack subsided.