Redcap

by Philip McCutchan

  After considerable pressure from Shaw, who revealed such of the background story as he felt able to after swearing the doctor to secrecy, O’Hara, who still hadn’t made up his mind anyway, agreed that in the circumstances he could quite properly put down the cause of death as heart failure; and this he was prepared to do, subject to Shaw’s guarantee that, since he was acting purely for the sake of national security, the department would see to it that if there should ever be any inquiry, he personally would be in the clear.

  Sir Donald Mackinnon thereupon noted in the ship’s Official Log that Colonel Gresham had died of heart failure and that he had no reason to suspect other than natural causes; he then sent a cable ahead to this effect to the Line’s agents in Port Said and also reported direct to London. In due course he passed the word among the men he had interviewed that morning, that the inquiry was now complete and no resultant action had been found necessary.

  Shaw, as soon as he could get a long message cyphered, reported everything in detail to Latymer, giving it as his view that it was now essential he should remain aboard the New South Wales instead of disembarking at Port Said. He added that he was himself taking over Colonel Gresham’s MAPIACCIND responsibilities aboard pending further orders. When this message was ready, he went up to the radio room to send it off. As he left the room, Sigurd Andersson came out of the library nearby. He said good evening to Shaw and walked on towards the radio room. Shaw looked back, noted that he had gone in. Shaw strolled away, gave Andersson time to send his message and then went back to the radio room, asked if he could just check up on his own message again. While he was pretending to do this, he looked about him and was able to glance quickly at the cable sent by Andersson.

  He read:

  COMING ASHORE STOP ARRANGE MEETING STOP ARRIVING

  EIGHT P.M. REGARDS

  ANDERSSON

  It was addressed to the local agents of Ycecold Refrigeration and it could so easily have been merely to do with Andersson’s supposed job as a salesman. But it would have to be followed up now.

  Afterwards, Shaw wondered if he’d been intended to read that message.

  That evening in the dog watches and beneath a heavy, almost purple sky, the New South Wales stopped engines and the body of Colonel Gresham slid into the Mediterranean from under the draping of Sir Donald Mackinnon’s own Blue Ensign.

  Shaw and Judith—and Sigurd Andersson—were among those who attended the simple, very moving service.

  And the following morning, a long way across the Indian Ocean and the Great Australian Bight, a small, slightly built, grey-haired man with heavy spectacles hooked across large ears, walked down the hallway of a scruffy lodging-house in Sydney’s Woolloomooloo district and picked up his Sydney Morning Herald from the table where it had just been placed by a blousy woman in curlers.

  He walked back to his room and opened it.

  He read a headline in a fairly prominent position:

  DEATH STRIKES NEW LINER

  And in smaller print:

  RETIRED COLONEL HAS HEART ATTACK IN STATEROOM

  The small man smiled momentarily in satisfaction, showing bad teeth, and then he walked down into the hall again. Taking up the telephone, he rang a number in the suburb of Clontarf across the harbour. And shortly after he had passed a brief message a further telephone connexion was made, this time between Clontarf and a restaurant in King’s Cross not far from Woolloomooloo.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The morning after Gresham’s sea burial Shaw received Latymer’s confirmation that he was after all to continue with the ship to Sydney. Latymer made no reference to his earlier information about Karstad’s death, but suggested that Shaw should watch Andersson closely and should not bring matters to a head until the man had given a clear lead.

  That evening the New South Wales reduced speed and slid in towards the land. A little later she moved slowly and stately out of the Eastern Mediterranean, along the thin finger of the breakwater and into Port Said harbour, past the blazing neons of Simon Artz, the tourists’ Mecca, elbowed her way through the harbour traffic, the bum-boats, the busy launches standing by to send their hordes of port officials aboard the incoming liner as she crept through the dark water and the stifling, airless heat.

  The port doctor boarded to clear the ship inwards; and he only glanced casually at the entry regarding Gresham’s death, asked Dr O’Hara one or two questions, and that was all.

  Soon after 8 p.m. the New South Wales, moving slowly on, secured to a buoy just clear of the Roads to await the southbound convoy for the passage through the canal. The accommodation-ladder was lowered and an Egyptian armed guard, sweating into a blue tunic, took up his position as usual by the top platform. A barge nosed up alongside with the canal searchlights, which were brought aboard and placed well for’ard to give full illumination of the banks when the liner’s great beamy hull moved through the narrow waterway, a trip which she would start just after midnight. Soon, her decks were thronged with passengers making deals with the milling bum-boats, from which, by means of a spider’s web of thin ropes hauling baskets, there came up silks and toys and fezes, watches, trashy jewellery, leather goods and pornographic literature unobtainable in England. The gulli-gulli man was aboard and performing on the veranda deck until he was chased away by a ship’s officer; there was a fortuneteller and a man who extracted corns with a little arrangement that looked like a blow-pipe and which he applied to the corn, sucking vigorously through it . . . Shaw had seen all this many times before, but Judith, enjoying the thrill of breaking new ground, was enthralled by all the supposed glamour of the Middle East. She laughed delightedly at the gulli-gulli man, tried to persuade Shaw to let her buy something from the bum-boatmen; but he absolutely refused.

  He said, grinning down at the eager girl: “Not on your young life. If there was anything that was the slightest good, I’d buy it for you myself. Take my word for it—there isn’t! It’s all junk. And darned expensive at that.” He added, “By the way, I’m going ashore. I’ll have to leave you now—I’ve got to get my passport stamped by the police. They’ve set up shop in the lounge.”

  She asked, “Can’t I come ashore?”

  He looked down at her, took her arm gently. His eyes roved over the girl’s fresh white frock, which set off the sun-browned, slim body, looked at her eyes alight with interest in everything around her. He felt a sudden longing to forget the job and take her ashore, to be, for one evening’s fun, just an ordinary tourist. He sighed a little, said: “I’d rather you didn’t. I want to do this on my own.” She looked up and saw the determination in his face and she knew she had

  to accept that. “All right, then,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

  He smiled, took her chin in his fist for a moment and examined her. He said, “None of your business, young lady! Can you amuse yourself for the evening?”

  She said quietly, “Oh, I’ll manage.”

  “Don’t take any chances. Try and keep where there’s people, in the public rooms.”

  “Why?”

  “Just because I say so. We don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  He left her then, got his passport stamped, put his special identity card (which would be useless and dangerous in Egyptian territory) into his cabin safe, and after that he hung about the lower promenade deck until he saw Anders-son emerge from the starboard accommodation-ladder and step down on the floodlit floating pontoon, the ‘snake’ pontoon which had been positioned to link ship with shore. An-dersson had got a fair start by the time Shaw had reached the ladder, obtained a receipt for his stamped passport which was collected at the gangway, crossed the pontoon and reached dry land; Shaw pressed on after him, caught up and then remained at a discreet distance as Andersson made for the centre of the city. There was nothing suspicious about Andersson so far; he didn’t appear even to be in a hurry. He stopped now and again to stare into the windows of shops still open as they reached the main streets, glanced round once but didn
’t appear to notice Shaw. He went into a shop and came out five minutes later with a wrapped parcel; while he was in there, Shaw moved across the street and kept him under observation from there. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, and afterwards Andersson walked on again, unhurriedly still, carrying his parcel.

  A few minutes later he was walking up towards a refrigerator show-room, where he stopped. He lit a cigar. Shaw turned and looked into a shop-window, watched Andersson from the corner of his eye. The man was doing something funny with his cigar, almost as though he were signalling. And then he was moving on, puffing at the cigar; he turned a corner, disappeared. Shaw put on speed. If Andersson was allowed to vanish round that corner for long, the chances would be that he’d be gone altogether.

  And then, as Shaw came up to the show-room, a small mob of young Egyptians suddenly gathered. One of the youths, glancing round and eyeing Shaw, stepped smartly backwards. He thrust a leg between Shaw’s feet in a quick movement which must have been entirely unnoticed by any of the passers-by. Shaw, caught off balance and completely by surprise, staggered, slipped, fell flat. There was a howl of high-pitched, gleeful laughter from the group of young men as Shaw jumped up, and one of them danced towards him on his toes, fists raised mockingly as though inviting the Englishman to fight it out.

  Shaw noted that the group was closing in around him. There was no time to make an issue of this. He demanded icily, “Do you mind letting me pass?”

  There was another laugh and a stream of saliva shot towards him, caught him on the front of his light jacket before he could dodge. He clenched his fists, and then, without thinking, he grabbed the spitter’s arm and at once the youth began to yell. Immediately Shaw was in the middle of a big and growing crowd from which, mysteriously, all Europeans seemed to have been excluded; no one from the liner was near enough to help. The crowd was clearly angry and Shaw was being roughly handled when three armed police materialized from a doorway. It was almost as though they’d been standing there ready for trouble; they shouldered their way through the crowd and as they came up close several young Egyptians began yelling at once, and gesticulating towards Shaw, who sensed that he was being accused of assault and battery on a pretty big scale.

  This, he felt, was getting really serious.

  He tried to argue, but it was quite useless; and the policemen wasted no time in listening anyway. Two of them seized Shaw by the arms while the third stuck a gun in his back, and they yelled at him in their own language as they dragged him away through the crowd, clearing a gangway by shouldering and pushing and lashing out with short, heavy sticks. As the mob thinned out Shaw found he was being taken to a police patrol car.

  When they reached it the door was thrown open by the driver and he was bundled in.

  Two policemen got in on either side of him, the third got in the front. One of the men, releasing an arm, frisked Shaw, jerked his gun from its holster and passed it to the man in front. The driver let in his clutch and they drew away. Shaw, breathing heavily, furiously, demanded to know what they intended doing. He snapped, speaking as well as he could in Arabic:

  “I don’t propose being held in a police post while you frame a charge. I’m a British subject and I’m sailing in the New South Wales at midnight. I can prove—”

  He broke off short with an involuntary gasp of pain as a fist smashed into his mouth. One of the men laughed, said in English: “That will not be necessary, Commander Shaw. We are quite prepared to believe what we already know.”

  Shaw’s heart thumped; he scarcely noticed the trickle of blood down his chin. He asked, “What do you mean—and how do you know who I am, anyway?”

  “Never mind. It is enough that we do know.”

  “But I—”

  The man let go Shaw’s arm and his elbow came back viciously, took Shaw in the ribs. He winced, and then doubled up as the elbow was followed by a fist. The man hissed, “Quiet. You are not catching the New South Wales or any other liner. And you are not going to a police station.”

  “Where am I going then?” Shaw gasped the words out, the pain in his side snatching at his breath.

  “That you will see in due course.”

  Shaw’s brain whirled. Through the window, he could see the still-busy streets, the lights flowing past. People gaped in at the car as it slowed at corners, but they didn’t appear concerned about the bloody-faced man in the back. This was Egypt, not London, and Shaw was an Englishman . . . He tried to wrench his arms free, a gun-butt came down on his head with a crack and he passed out, slumped forward between the two men.

  The car, going fast now, headed out of Port Said, making southward. One of the policemen searched through Shaw’s pockets, but apparently without result.

  At eleven forty-five the canal pilot boarded the New South Wales and hands mustered on the fo’c’sle, stood by to let go the last lines from the buoy and move through the canal for Suez. And the liner’s Staff Commander climbed up to the Captain’s day-cabin, knocked and went in.

  Cap under arm, he reported to Sir Donald Mackinnon.

  “Ship ready to proceed, sir, but there’s a passenger adrift.” He added significantly, “It’s Commander Shaw, sir.”

  “Shaw?” Sir Donald spoke sharply, jerked upright in his chair. “Dammit, Stanford! Him of all people. Any idea what’s keeping him?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t see him before he went ashore. That girl—Miss Dangan, he'd got pretty friendly with her and she was waiting about at the head of the ladder. She said he told her he was going ashore, but he didn’t say where or what for. In fact he told her it was none of her business when she asked.”

  “Damn and blast.” The Captain got to his feet, walked up and down the cabin, hands clasped behind his back, white eyebrows drawn together. He was leading the convoy through, should be under way in fifteen minutes. He snapped, “We can’t go through without Shaw. With Gresham gone too, that’s leaves us with no senior man in charge of that ruddy crate.”

  “I know, sir.” Stanford hesitated. “Do you think this has anything directly to do with the cargo?”

  “How the hell do I know! Anything can happen in Port Said these days.” The Captain looked at his watch. “Stanford, get hold of the agent and tell him I want to see him again at once. Let me know in fifteen minutes whether Shaw’s back or not—if he isn’t, I’ll have to hold the ship and miss the convoy.”

  At the end of the fifteen minutes the Staff Commander reported no sign of Shaw. The pilot went ashore again and the liner was re-secured to the buoy. The hands were fallen-out from stations. The rumours began among passengers and crew. Few people had as yet gone to bed, and the atmosphere in the ship seemed to become more tense than ever.

  Shaw had recovered consciousness after the police car had left Port Said behind and was still heading south. Opening his eyes, feeling sick and groggy, his hair stiff with caked blood, he looked out at sand and sand and more sand rushing into the headlights. He was evidently on the fringe of the desert. There was scarcely anything to be seen except an apology for a roadway, and the odd palm-tree. Occasionally a nocturnal Arab on a camel. A petrol can abandoned by the roadside among other garbage, and the sand. And the dust.

  Shaw’s throat was dry, parched, painful. He would have given his soul for a drink of water to ease away the sandy grit which filled his mouth as the car drove clouds of the muck into the air, sent it swirling up all around so that they were moving along enveloped in a sand-storm of their own. This road had never been meant for anything that went so fast as this car. And despite the night air the car was hot. Even the policemen seemed to be feeling the effects of that drive. Their jacket collars were loosened, they sweated freely. There was a smell of hashish, which was a further irritant to Shaw. But they were still alert enough, and they still held his arms tightly, though they took no apparent notice of him when he stirred. A little later when the throbbing in his head had receded somewhat, he asked, for the second time:

  “Where are you taking me?”
>
  The man who spoke English laughed shortly. He said, “What does that matter? You are going to die. What does it matter where it is that you die?”

  Shaw said, “Call it curiosity.”

  The man shrugged. “Mere morbidity. But I shall tell you, as you wish it. You are going to the oasis of Solli, between Zagazig and Ismailia.”

  There was a kind of gloating in his tone. Shaw said simply, “Oh. Thanks very much.”

  The man looked at him oddly. He asked, “You have not, perhaps, heard of the oasis of Solli?”

  “Never. Should I have done?”

  “But yes. . . The man spoke quickly in his own language and then the two policemen exchanged looks over Shaw’s head. They laughed. The driver and the third policeman joined in as well. The four of them laughed loud and long. Then the English-speaker simmered down. Wiping his streaming face with a filthy handkerchief, he gasped: “You have not heard of the oasis of Solli! Ah, my friend, you will find out soon! Meanwhile it is better you do not know, perhaps. It is a fact that to look forward in ignorance is more fun, yes?”

  It wasn’t so very long after that when the car drove in its surround of moving dust and sand, past a handful of nomad tents and a curious high tower standing out against the moon, into Solli. The car’s lights showed it as a dirty-looking place, with white-walled, single storey, shack-like buildings fringing a rutted street littered with the refuse from the habitations. There were many camels, and dark-skinned Arabs, men and women who came to their doorways to stare curiously at the police car as it went along the street; and other people, different people, people who seemed to belong to a strange race. To Shaw, they had more the look of India than of Egypt. The car turned off into a small courtyard and, out of sight now from the road, backed up until it was hard alongside a low doorway leading into a pitch-black room with a hint of moonlight in one corner. . . .