by Robert Thier
‘Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz. It’s the provincial capital.’
Capital, eh? Even in such a large, important city, it appeared, people weren’t expecting much traffic to come up the strong-flowing river, and they were delighted to see us. Some people in the waiting crowd even cheered or threw their hats into the air. I let them have their happy delusions. They’d stop cheering soon enough, when Mr Ambrose pulled out his price list.
Behind the docks and the cheering crowd, a palatial building rose, the Argentinian flag fluttering from its highest pinnacle. I saw Mr Ambrose eyeing it with cool calculation.
‘Forget about it,’ I told him.
He threw me a look. One of those looks. ‘How can you know what I was thinking, Mr Linton?’
‘I don’t know. I just know that whatever you’re thinking is a bad idea from the look in your eyes.’
‘Indeed, Mr Linton?’
‘Indeed, Sir.’
Silence.
‘Well?’
‘Well, what, Mr Linton?’
‘Well, what were you thinking about?’
‘If you must know, Mr Linton, I was considering charging the Argentinian government for the damage done to the Mammon’s sails by their Navy’s cannons.’
I almost choked. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘You would advise against it, Mr Linton?’
‘Considering that you are in Argentina, and the damage to your sails was incurred because you fired on Argentinian ships? Yes, Mr Ambrose, Sir, I would.’
‘Hm. You may be correct, Mr Linton. States can be strangely sensitive when it comes to attacking their army or navy.’
It wasn’t long before we had landed, and the cheers of the crowd, as I had suspected, ceased rather abruptly. In no time at all, Mr Ambrose had set up an impromptu stall beside the gangway and, from behind a collapsible table, was haggling with the natives like nobody’s business. Or like Rikkard Ambrose’s business, to be exact. I didn’t understand a single word of the half-heated (the natives) half ice-cold (Mr Ambrose) business proceedings. But a few expressions like ‘Avaro!’ or ‘Maleducado!’ were muttered in a tone that left little doubt about their meaning. Still, I noticed that people always waited until they were well away from Mr Ambrose and the giant figure of Karim towering behind him before muttering such words.
The day wore on. I continued working on deciphering the manuscript for some time, but my head could only deal with so many illegible scribbles, and I soon returned to watching Mr Ambrose more or less legally rob the inhabitants of Santa Fe. If I had ever wondered before about how he got so abominably stinking rich, now I knew. He could haggle the kilt off a Scotsman. I continued to watch, a smile playing around my lips each time one of the Argentinians walked by me, muttering expletives.
When one of Mr Ambrose’s sailors came down the gangplank, balancing a small barrel on one shoulder, I leaned towards him.
‘What does ‘Avaro’ mean?’
‘Skinflint. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. I’m just improving my Spanish.’
Within another hour, I had learned the Spanish words for ‘bastard’, ‘blaggard’ and ‘monkey’s arse’. I was watching the crowd, keeping an eye open for new and interesting sources to expand my vocabulary, when I first saw him.
At first I only noticed him because his skin tone was lighter than that of the natives. Not pale by any means, no, but not the same gleaming, polished bronze that generally prevailed here, either. His was a white face, although darkened by continued exposure to sunlight. The man to whom the face belonged was moving through the crowd like a shark through water, heading straight towards us.
I could see his face more clearly now. Rather dark for a white man, dark and angular. I frowned. Where had I seen that face before? I could swear that I…
The man reached into his pocket. Suddenly, I remembered - just a moment before the man withdrew his hand from his pocket and I saw the harsh glint of sunlight on metal. Pushing away from the ship, I jerked upright.
‘Mr Ambrose! Look out!’
The words had hardly left my lips when a massive dark shadow streaked past me. With a guttural battle cry, Karim hurled himself onto the stranger, grabbing the arm that held the gun and twisting it skyward. There was a thunderous report, and the flash of a gun sent people staggering backwards, terrified. Cries in Spanish rose up all around, and everyone fought to get away as fast as their legs would carry them.
No. Not everyone. Two men were moving forward, out of the crowd, straight towards us, also pulling guns.
‘Look! There! Get them!’
But my shout went unheard. There was no one to get them. All the sailors were on board the ship and Karim was still wrestling with the first shooter. Mr Ambrose was alone. The first of the two men raised his weapon.
In a move so fast I could hardly follow it, Mr Ambrose gripped the table and pushed. The heavy monstrosity turned over, crashing to the cobblestones with a unhealthy crack. Mr Ambrose flung himself down, and a moment later, a bullet whizzed through the air where he had just stood. The next one thudded into the table with a dull crunch.
Not wasting a moment, Mr Ambrose leapt over the table. He was on the first shooter in the blink of an eye, and in the next blink, his fist made contact with the man’s eye. The bastard went down like a felled tree. But the other one was finished reloading. He raised his gun and-
-and stumbled backwards as I threw my arms around his neck from behind, jumping onto his back.
‘Grrgl!’
‘Take that, you blighter!’
Now, I’d be the first to admit that I wasn’t exactly a wrestling champion, or a professional streetfighter. But I had managed to stay alive in a household with five female siblings and an aunt for over ten years. You can’t do something like that without learning a few tricks.
Grabbing a pencil from my pocket, I jabbed it into the shooter’s midriff. When he opened his mouth to yelp, I stuffed a dirty, ink-stained rag inside and gave him a good whack on the head. He gurgled and collapsed to his knees, which I took as an invitation to tighten my stranglehold.
‘There! How does that feel you bastard?’
He groaned in reply, and I jammed my pencil into his side again.
Hey, nobody said growing up with five sisters is easy.
But apparently, the guy I was clinging onto had had some pretty tough siblings, too. Whirling around with me still clutching his neck, he staggered backwards into a wall. Unfortunately, the wall was not made out of rubber or soft satin cushions. The breath was knocked out of me brutally, and my ribs protested in a flare of pain. My grip loosened, and with a violent jerk, the shooter shook me off, sending me flying. Landing face-first in a puddle of mud-water, I rolled around to come nose to nose with the barrel of a gun.
‘Say goodbye, lad!’ the shooter growled, taking aim.
My eyes widened. I stared at the man - and then my eyes slowly moved further, behind him, to the fast-approaching shadow.
‘Goodbye,’ Mr Ambrose hissed, and whacked the man over the head with his cane so hard that I heard the crunch of bones. He crumpled to the ground in a heap, and then there was silence.
Well, except for the distant cries of Argentinians running from the crazy Englishmen, and the gurgling sound made by the man still in Karim’s clutches. Growling some guttural expletive into his beard, the Mohammedan rose, holding up his prize with one hand by the scruff of the neck.
‘Here, Sahib. I thought maybe you might want him alive.’
Bending to pick up one of the fallen guns, Mr Ambrose checked to see if it was loaded. Then, without even blinking, he raised it to eye level and shot the assassin through the head.
‘You were wrong,’ he informed Karim. ‘Let’s go. I don’t think the people here want to purchase any more of our goods.’
‘As you wish, Sahib.’ With a half-bow, the mountainous bodyguard chucked the corpse into the harbour. It disappeared into the water with an ominous splash. Then he turned, picked up the fall
en table and the bag of money as if they weighed no more than a feather, and followed Mr Ambrose aboard the ship.
‘Mr Linton?’ Mr Ambrose’s voice came down from the deck. ‘What are you waiting for? Don’t stand there, gawking! Move!’
I blinked, then stared up at him. ‘Well, excuse me if I’m not used to seeing people get shot in the head!’
‘You are excused,’ Mr Ambrose granted graciously. ‘But only this once. See that you control yourself better in the future.’
And with that, he turned and marched away.
‘You’re welcome!’ I shouted after him. ‘For saving your life, you know! I’m so glad you’re still as alive and chipper as ever!’
‘Get moving, Mr Linton!
*~*~**~*~*
We continued up the river at a quick pace. If there were any pursuers on our metaphorical heels, they had no chance of catching us. The river was a raging torrent, and even with the steam engine, we sometimes had trouble making our way.
One night, a few days after the fight on the docks at Santa Fe, I was just about to cuddle up under the blanket on my bunk, when I heard a creak from overhead. Who would still be up at this hour? We were anchoring at the shore for the night, and while there were guards posted, they were on land, and not on the deck above me. Curious, I went up to investigate.
When I stuck my head out of the door, I saw a dark figure standing on the poop deck, black coat tails fluttering in the wind. Sighing, I stepped out and closed the door behind me.
‘Trying to repeat your no-sleep-experiment, Sir?’
He didn’t turn.
‘No, Mr Linton. I’m thinking.’
‘At this hour? It’s barely twenty minutes to midnight.’
‘You don’t say.’
I climbed up on the deck and positioned myself beside him, leaning on the railing. He threw me a cool look.
‘I prefer to think alone, Mr Linton.’
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. ‘You don’t say.’
A pause. Then:
‘You know those men were sent by Dalgliesh, don’t you, Sir?’
‘Yes, I know.’ Cocking his head, he regarded me shrewdly. ‘What I want to know is how you know, Mr Linton.’
I smiled winningly at him. ‘Female intuition?’
My winning smile didn’t quite seem to work, to judge by the look he sent back at me out of the corner of his eyes. ‘Mr Linton…!’
I shrugged. ‘Or I might have seen one of those goons and Dalgliesh at a ball together.’
His head whipped around, his dark eyes boring into me with unsettling intensity. ‘You met Dalgliesh at a ball? When?’
‘Oh, a few weeks ago, back in London.’
At the ball where my engagement was announced.
I didn’t mention the last part to Mr Ambrose, though. For some unfathomable reason, he seemed to be rather easily aggravated when it came to any suitors I might have. He probably thought I would slack off at work if someone managed to wrestle a ring on my finger. Not that that would ever happen!
‘Weeks ago?’
Oh-oh…I could practically hear the frost growing on Mr Ambrose’s voice. He fully turned to face me, concentrating all the considerable force of his dark, penetrating eyes on me. ‘And you didn’t see fit to mention this to me until now?’
Actually, I hoped I could avoid telling you altogether…
‘Well, you know, you’re a busy man, and I thought-’
I didn’t get any farther than that. To my utter shock, I was suddenly engulfed in a vice-like grip, clutching me to a chest as hard as stone.
‘I do not pay you to think, Mr Linton!’ I heard his ice-cold voice at my ear. ‘Understood?’
‘Yes, Sir. I only wanted to-’
The rest of the sentence ended in a wheeze as his grip tightened even more. Then, before I could really grasp what happening, he was gone, and I could breathe again. Panting, I grabbed the railing to steady myself, and stared up at the dark, towering figure beside me gazing out onto the river as if I didn’t exist.
Had this really just happened? Had Mr Ambrose, Mr Rikkard Ambrose, just hugged me?
After weighing all the scientific evidence and making a careful probability calculation, I decided that, no, on the whole, it hadn’t happened. It was simply incredible. Things like that didn’t happen in real life.
But they might happen on a romantic journey into the interior of South America, a little voice in my head said.
I snorted. Sure! Next thing, I’d be taken captive by a rakishly handsome pirate lord! Shaking my head at my own foolishness, I returned to my own cabin to get a good night’s sleep.
About two hours later, the river pirates attacked.
Nibbling at Pirates’ Bottoms
If anyone was hoping for me to awaken in the arms of a handsome pirate, I have to disappoint them. Instead, I was awakened by gunshots and curses mingled with Spanish battle cries. Most were pretty incomprehensible, but I did catch something about cutting off balls. Apparently, my self-taught Spanish lessons were paying off.
Dragging my behind out of bed, I quickly pulled on the first scraps of clothing I could find, grabbed a knife from the table, and hurried up on deck.
Torches lit the night like angry dragons’ eyes. From up the river, another boat was approaching, men with guns and sabres bustling on deck, shouting enchantingly filthy curses. Our men were rushing to the railing, no less armed to the teeth. Their faces were grim, but determined. Seeing a mountainous figure tower up out of all the confusion, I hurried over to him.
‘Karim! What is going on?’
‘A pirate attack,’ he told me, his face unmoving as a gnarled old oak.
‘I can see that for myself, blast you! What are we doing about it?’
‘Waiting.’
I was getting fed up with the bodyguard’s lack of conversational skills and was about to tell him so, when an iron grip closed around my arm.
‘What,’ demanded an ice-cold voice right next to my ear, ‘are you doing up on deck?’
I held up my knife which, this morning, I had used to dismantle a particularly stubborn crust of bread into chewable portions. ‘I came to fight! We’re under attack, aren’t we?’
‘Yes!’ His grip didn’t loosen. On the contrary, it tightened. ‘And that means that you have no business being here! Go and-’
‘Sahib!’
Karim’s warning shout came not a moment too soon. I could see the flash of gunfire from the enemy ship out of the corner of my eyes, and a moment later I was flying, crashing onto the deck, a heavy weight slamming on top of me.
‘Oomph!’
‘Stay down!’ Mr Ambrose hissed into my ear. ‘And don’t move!’
I can’t say I found my first pirate raid particularly exciting. It is rather hard to see all the exciting stuff that’s going on while you’re being squashed to the floor with a heavy, hard and determined Rikkard Ambrose on top of you. I pointed this out to him several times, but he must not have heard me over the gunfire, or he would surely have been so considerate as to get off me and help me to my feet, right?
Yes, of course!
The story - as later told by Karim, with an annoyingly self-satisfied smirk on his face - went thus: the pirates had been travelling downriver, probably on the trail of one of the merchant ships we had encountered on our way up. How they must have cheered when - lo and behold - instead of having to chase some vessel miles downriver, they found us anchoring at the shore, practically defenceless. Like all self-respecting pirates would, they of course immediately agreed to rob us, gut us and throw our limp corpses in the river. What a golden opportunity, right?
Wrong.
The pirates were somewhat surprised, to say the least, when, upon opening fire on the defenceless merchant ship, hidden hatches had opened in the side of said merchant ship, revealing a nice collection of pristinely polished cannons, pointed straight at them. Their surprise was still more intense when the defenceless merchant ship opened fire,
destroying the rigging of their boat and bringing down both masts with one salvo.
The biggest surprise, however, came when the captain of the helpless merchant ship sent out his men to the wrecked pirate boat, led by a mountain-high, sabre-swinging maniac in a turban, who made short work of the fearsome pirates, shooting most and chaining the rest with their own chains. It wasn’t long before the ragged remnants of the brave pirate crew were arrayed on the deck of the Mammon, looking rather dazed.
‘Well?’ I demanded, trying to scrape dirt off my beloved peacock vest, which had gotten a bit stained and ruffled on the deck of the ship. I threw a morose look at Mr Ambrose, wondering whether he would foot the cleaner’s bill. Probably not. ‘What now? What are we going to do with them?’
Mr Ambrose was walking down the line of stunned pirates, examining each as if he were a bug under a microscope. ‘Well, they meant to rob us. Why don’t we return like with like, as the Good Book recommends?’
‘You take advice from the Bible?’
‘From the rare parts of it that are sensible.’ Mr Ambrose nodded to Karim. ‘All right. Take everything of value they have, sink their boat and throw them overboard.’
The pirates were still so much in shock that the first one of them landed in the water with a splash before they realized what was happening. My head cocked in contemplation, I watched the protesting pirates being swept away by the current.
‘Mr Ambrose, Sir? Aren’t there flesh-eating fish in these waters?’
‘They only attack humans when there is blood in the water, Mr Linton.’
‘Um…there is blood in the water, Sir. Quite a lot, in fact.’
‘You don’t say.’
*~*~**~*~*
Leaving behind a lot of happy piranhas, we crossed the border into Brazil a few days later. We encountered no more trouble, until we reached a small village on the edge of a cliff jutting out into the river. Mr Ambrose spent a few hours haggling the natives’ ears off, selling them a lot of overpriced things they didn’t need but suddenly realised they desperately wanted. We were just about to depart again, when an old man approached the ship and called out to us in Portuguese.
Karim started forward to intercept the stranger, but I shook my head. ‘No. Don’t. Let him speak.’
