Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur (книги онлайн без регистрации полностью .TXT) 📗

"I say-" gasped Gareth, and she covered the mouthpiece and smiled at

him. "It's so sweet of you." Then she listened to the manager's

voice. "Oh dear," she said. "Well, if that's the only room you have

vacant, it will just have to do then, I am sure the major has

experienced more uncomfortable billets." When Gareth saw the room that

was now his, he tried honestly to remember humbler and less comfortable

billets.

The Chinese prison in Mukden had been cooler and not placed directly

over the boisterous uproar of the public bar, and the front line dugout

during the winter of 1917 at Arras had been more spacious and better

furnished.

The next three days Gareth Swales spent at the harbour, drinking tea

and whisky in the office of the harbour master, riding out with the

pilot to meet every new vessel as it crossed the bar, jogging in a

ricksha along the wharf to speak with the skippers of dhows and

Tuggers, rusty old coal-burners and neater, newer oil, burners, or

rowing about the harbour in a hired ferry to hail the vessels that lay

at anchor in the roads.

His evenings he spent plying Victoria Camberwell with charm,

flattery and vintage champagne for all of which she seemed to have an

insatiable appetite and complete immunity. She listened to him,

laughed with him and drank his champagne, and at midnight excused

herself prettily, and nimbly side-stepped his efforts to press her to

his snowy shirt-front or get a foot in the door of the royal suite.

By the morning of the fourth day, Gareth was understandably becoming a

little discouraged. He thought of taking a bucket of Tusker out to

Jake's camp and cheering himself up with a little of the American's

genial company.

However, he did not relish having to admit failure to Jake, SO he

fought off the temptation and took his usual ricksha ride down to the

harbour.

During the night a new vessel had anchored in the outer roads and

Gareth examined her through his binoculars. She was salt-fir ned and

dirty, (Id and scarred with a dark nondescript hull and a ragged

crew,

but Gareth saw that her rigging was sound and that although she was

schooner rigged with masts which could spread a mass of canvas, yet she

had propeller drive at the stern probably she had been converted to

take a diesel engine under the high poop. She looked the most likely

prospect he had yet seen in the harbour and Gareth ran down the steps

to the ferry and exuberantly tipped the oarsman a shilling over his

usual fare.

At closer range the vessel seemed even more disreputable than she had

at a distance. The paintwork proved to be a mottled patchwork of layer

peeling from layer, and it was clear what the sanitary arrangements

were aboard. The sides were zebra-striped with human excrement.

Yet closer still, Gareth noticed that the planking was tight and sound

beneath the execrable paint cover, and her bottom, seen through the

clear water, was clean copper and free of the usual fuzzy green beard

of weed. Also her rigging was well set up and all sheets had the

bright yellow colour and resilient took of new hemp. The name on her

stern was in Arabic and French, HirondeUe, and she was Seychelles

registered.

Gareth wondered at her purpose, for she was certainly a ringer,

a thoroughbred masquerading as a cart horse. That big bronze propeller

would drive her handily, and the hull itself looked fast and

sea-kindly.

Then as he came alongside he smelled her, and knew precisely what she

was. He had smelled that peculiar odour of polluted bilges and

suffering humanity before in the China Sea. He had heard it said that

it was an odour that could never be scoured from a hull, not even sheep

dip and boiling salt water would cleanse it. They said that on a dark

night, the patrol boats could smell a slaver from over the horizon.

A man who made his daily bread buying and selling slaves would be

unlikely to baulk at a mere trifle like gun running decided Gareth, and

hailed her.

"Ahoy, HirondeLle!" The response was hostile, the closed dark faces of

the ragged crew stared down at the ferry. They were a mixed batch,

Arab, Indian, Chinese, Negro and there was no answer to his hail.

Standing in the ferry, Gareth cupped his hands to his mouth and,

with the Englishman's unconscious arrogance that assumes all the world

speaks English, called again.

"I want to speak to your captain." Now there was a stir under the poop

and a white man came to the rail. He was swarthy, darkly sunburned and

so short that his head barely showed above the gunwale.

"What you want? You police, hey?" Gareth guessed he was Greek or

Armenian. he wore a dark patch over one eye, and the effect was

theatrical. The good eye was bright and stony as water-washed agate.

"No police!" Gareth assured him. "No trouble," and produced the

whisky bottle from his coat pocket and waved it airily.

The Captain leaned out over the rail and peered closely at Gareth.

Perhaps he recognized the twinkle in the eye and the jaunty piratical

smile that Gareth flashed up at him. It often takes one to know one.

Anyway, he seemed to reach a decision and he snapped an order in

Arabic. A rope ladder tumbled down the side.

"Come," invited the Captain. He had nothing to hide.

On this leg of his voyage he carried only a cargo of baled cotton goods

from Bombay. He would discharge this here at Dares Salaam before

continuing northwards to make a nocturnal landfall on the great horn of

Africa, there to take on his more lucrative cargo of human wares.

As long as the merchants of Arabia, India and the East still offered

huge sums for the slender black girls of the Danakil and Galla,

men like this would brave the British warships and patrol boats to

supply them.

"I thought we might drink a little whisky together and talk about

money," Gareth greeted the Captain. "My name is Swales. Major

Swales." The Captain had trained his oiled black hair into a queue

that hung down his back. He seemed to cultivate the buccaneer image.

"My name is Papadopoulos." He grinned for the first time.

"And the talk of money is sweet like music." He held out his hand.

Gareth and Vicky Camberwell came to Jake's camp in the mahogany forest,

bearing gifts.

"This is a surprise," Jake greeted them sardonically as he straightened

up from the welding set with the torch still flaring in his hand. "I

thought you two had eloped."

"Business first, pleasure later." Gareth handed Vicky down from the

ricksha. "No, my dear Jake, we have been working hard." J can see

that. You look really worn out with your labours." Jake doused the

welding torch and accepted the bucket of Tusker beer. He broached two

bottles -immediately, handing one to Greg and lifting the other to his

own lips. He wore only a pair of greasy khaki shorts.

When he lowered it, he grinned. "But, what the hell, I was dying of

thirst and so I forgive you."

"You have saved our lives, Major

Swales and Miss Camberwell," agreed Greg, and saluted them with the de

wed bottle.

"What on earth is this?" Gareth turned to inspect the massive

construction on which Jake and Greg had been working, and Jake patted

it proudly.