‘Who is it?’ said Hugo. ‘What happened?’
‘He came this morning with a message for the Ruler. He was admitted, drew a knife and tried to stab him. Major Youba who was already suspicious of the man, was standing beside the Ruler and shot him.’
‘He certainly shot him,’ said Hugo.
‘He put a dozen bullets into him from a machine pistol. You can’t take any chances with a homicidal maniac.’
‘Was he a maniac?’
‘Self-induced mania. He was full of
bhang.
Look at his eyes.’
The eyes were rimmed with red and there was a crust of dried foam round the lips.
‘Who sent the man? Who organised it? What does it mean?’
Cowcroft replaced the sheet and stood up before he spoke. He said, ‘He has been identified. His name is Abdullah bin Zafra. He is related by blood to Raman bin Zafra, who commands one of the contingents in the bodyguard of Sheik Hammuz.’
‘Then it’s a declaration of war.’
‘Nearly. But not quite. It will be too easy for Hammuz to say, if he wishes, that he knows nothing of the matter and regrets it deeply. It is well known that when men over-use hashish they lose control of their senses.’
‘If he wishes.’
‘Exactly,’ said Cowcroft. ‘He has kept all his options open.’
Hugo drove home more slowly than he had come.
When he was shaving next morning he saw the ship arriving. It was flying the Red Ensign on the main and the zebra-striped flag of Umran at the foremast. He watched it being fussed into position, stern first, at the end berth by one of the port tugs. Remembering his experiences when bathing he concluded that there must be a considerable dredged channel to allow in even such a moderate-sized boat.
After breakfast he walked down the jetty to have a closer look at her. She was the S.S.
Lyme Bay.
The hatches were already off and a gang was busy slinging crates ashore. One had broken open. It seemed to have held tinned peaches.
A man who was leaning on the rail of the foredeck smoking a pipe spotted him and waved him to come aboard.
Hugo climbed the gangplank and introduced himself. The man with the pipe turned out to be the captain. He invited Hugo into the tiny stateroom and offered him a glass of the gin which sailors seem to drink at all hours of the day and night. Hugo settled for a lime juice. He judged from the man’s accent that he came from the same county as Charlie Wandyke.
‘Certainly, I know Charlie,’ said the skipper. ‘We went to the same kids’ school. You might say it’s because of Charlie I’m here. Or put it another way, if it wasn’t for him, I certainly wouldn’t be here. The freight on those few cases of tinned fruit wouldn’t pay the passage out. As soon as they’ve unloaded, the real cargo will be coming down.’
‘Smitherite.’
‘Is that the fancy name they have for it? I can tell you one thing about it. If it was gold dust they couldn’t treat it more carefully. It comes down in sealed sacks, each weighed to the last ounce. You saw that crate of tinned stuff they dropped, accidental on purpose, on the quay. That’s winked at. They always drop one case. The gang look on it as their perks. But if they spilt a single pinch of what’s in those bags, the foreman would have their hides off them.’
‘How much have you taken off so far?’
This is my second trip. The
Morecambe Bay
– that’s our sister ship – has taken one. That’s three loads at a hundred tons a time.
They bring it down in lorries. Thirty to forty lorry-loads.’ He looked out of the porthole. ‘Here’s the first of them arriving now. That’s Charlie in the driving cab. Sit tight, I’ll bring him aboard.’
Charlie Wandyke came in looking dusty and worried, said, ‘Yes’ to the gin, and perched on the table.
He said, ‘Looks as though you had some trouble at the Palace. I noticed they’d doubled the guards and had road-blocks out. What happened?’
When Hugo had told him about it he looked even more worried. He said, ‘We’re out on a limb at the diggings, you realise that? We’re going to have to do something about it.’
‘You’ve got a contingent of armed police.’
‘Six armed policemen aren’t much use against a hundred tribesmen. Mind you, they mayn’t bother us at all. There’s nothing much to loot. No. What I want is a motor launch, big enough to take all of us. When trouble starts, I’ll shut down the diggings, put every man jack of us aboard, and go across to Iran until it’s blown over.’
‘You’re sure it is coming, then.’
‘It’s almost here. Can’t you feel a sort of prickling under your skin? Like when a bad storm’s blowing up. You can feel it for days before.’ He drank some of his gin and said, ‘Why do you suppose Albert here stays on board instead of sampling the pleasures of the town.’
‘Last time I came here,’ said the skipper, ‘I did make a round of the town. Indian sex films, bath tub liquor and pox. It’s not an experience I’d care to repeat.’
Wandyke said, ‘I take it that’s why you’re moored stern first, with only two light ropes ? And why you’re keeping your crew on board?’
‘I’m a naturally cautious man,’ said the skipper. ‘You always did look on the dark side, Charlie. I remember at school you wore a belt and braces.’
‘It’s because I’m cautious,’ said Wandyke, ‘that I’m alive and healthy today. I was digging for Wolframite in Kenya when the Mau-Mau trouble started. It was my first job actually. I used to laugh at my chief, because he kept an army jeep, fully tanked up, under his back porch, with his bull terrier sleeping in it. We got away in it with two minutes to spare and beat it for Nairobi.
Some of the other teams weren’t so lucky. The Maus jumped them that night. They cut off the hands and feet and heads of any white men they caught and threw the bits down the mine. We found them when we re-opened the diggings.’
‘For God’s sake,’ said the skipper. ‘Have another drink and cheer up.’
Hugo had been doing some sums. He said, ‘If you’ve only actually got out two ship-loads of a hundred tons each so far, where’s the Ruler’s money coming from?’
‘You don’t buy minerals by the pound like sugar. You sell production. When our first samples had been assayed in London, the Ruler started selling forward on the London Metal Exchange. This stuff goes at around £1,000 a ton. That’s nearly 5op for every pound of it.’
‘No wonder you’re careful with it,’ said the skipper.
‘It’s a sizeable lode. We’re only beginning to scratch the edges of it. Sooner or later one of the big metallurgical outfits from America or Germany is going to take it over and open it up properly. They’ll build a dock alongside the diggings, big enough to take bigger boats than Albert’s tub, and they’ll put up a ropeway and run the stuff straight on board. That way they could bring out five thousand tons a month.’
Hugo did some more mental arithmetic and said, ‘That’s sixty million pounds a year.’
‘Right. And say a quarter, or maybe a third, goes away in expenses and freight. That leaves forty million, split equally between the Company and the Ruler. It puts him straight into the big league. Above Abu Dhabi, and not so far below Kuwait. As long as the ore lasts.’
‘And as long as he lasts,’ said the skipper. ‘We’d better see how they’re getting along with this lot.’
Hugo took this as a hint that the party was over. As he walked down the jetty he looked with interest at the cargo which was coming on board. It was in stout plastic bags, each one folded over at the top and fastened with wire. The end of the wire had a metal seal on it. Each bag was being weighed before it was lifted on board, and the weight was being recorded by two men; one would be from the mine and the other would represent the Shipping Company. At £50 a hundredweight you couldn’t blame them for being careful.
As he was leaving the jetty he remembered that he had some shopping to do. He was planning a return party for his American colleagues. The first requisite would be rye whisky and the second some cans of beer.
The one-eyed Moharram greeted him warmly. There were no dancing girls or champagne on view, but there seemed to be pretty nearly everything else, in that vast dim emporium, from gin to lavatory paper. When Hugo had chosen what he wanted, adding, as an afterthought, a tin of peaches which looked suspiciously like one of the ones he had seen on the quayside that morning, Moharram clapped his hands and a very old woman, dressed from head to toe in black hobbled out of a back room, added up the score on a scrap of paper, accepted the pound notes which Hugo offered her, did a further sum, and gave him his change in Umrani riyals.
Moharram said, ‘She’s my mother. She calculates good.’
‘And where did you learn to speak English?’
Moharram grinned, exposing a fearful row of yellow teeth.
‘No English. I speak American. Four years in America. In Brooklyn, New York. Fine people the Americans. Lots of money. Very generous.’
Very generous, agreed Hugo. If it had not been for American generosity he would not have been there at that moment.
He dropped his purchases at his flat and drove out to the police fort. Cowcroft was waiting for him with a message. He said, ‘It seems to be in some sort of code. I imagine it means something to you.’
Hugo remembered that Colonel Rex had given him a code book with instructions as to its use, which he had understood only vaguely. He took it out of his brief-case and set to work. Half an hour of sorting out, with a dash of guesswork, produced ‘Apples and oranges arriving Billingsgate on schedule twenty-fourth morning, Rex.’
‘That’s the day after tomorrow,’ said Cowcroft. ‘If they airfreight them straight out the first lot should be here by Monday evening. That should be all right. Things are a bit quieter now. I’ve got a feeling that attempt at the Palace was premature. Anyway, a brotherly note of condolence and congratulation on his escape was delivered by hand this morning.’
‘You mean that Sheik Hammuz wasn’t behind it?’
‘I don’t mean anything of the sort. I mean that it was bad timing. He must have intended the assassination to be a signal for general revolt. It went off too soon. Do you carry a gun? ‘
‘No. Ought I to?’
‘Up to you. Have you ever used one?’
‘I’ve never actually fired one.’
‘I think it’s time you started.’
Cowcroft unlocked the big safe in the corner of his room, unlocked a drawer at the back of it and, after some thought, selected one of the five or six guns in it.
‘Do you know what this one is?’
‘Certainly. No one knows more about guns, in theory, than I do. It’s a short-barrel version of the American police positive .388 automatic. The last person I shot with one was a Guatamalan drug-smuggler. I hit him at twenty-five yards when he was running down an alley-way in the dusk.’
‘We’ve got our own practice range here,’ said Cowcroft. ‘Let’s see what you can hit at ten yards in daylight.’
Hugo spent the next half-hour, under instruction from a police sergeant, trying to hit a target in the shape of a crouching man which sprang up from behind a barrier of sandbags. Every policeman who had nothing better to do came over to enjoy the fun.
At the end of the half-hour fifty rounds had been expended. Hugo’s right wrist was aching abominably, and the target had been hit three times.
Cowcroft came across to watch. He said, ‘You’re trying too hard. You shouldn’t aim with a hand gun. You wouldn’t ever have time, anyway. Try it by instinct.’
‘What do you mean, instinct?’
‘Put the gun down a moment. Now, point your finger at my stomach. Quickly. Don’t think about it.’
Hugo did so. Cowcroft, who was standing ten yards away, looked at it critically, and said, ‘Do you realise that if your finger had been the muzzle of a revolver, you’d have hit me, bang in the navel.’
‘Should I really?’ said Hugo.
‘Certainly. Now try it with the gun. Not at me. At the target. Hold it where you hold your hand, somewhere down by your hip. Arm bent, quite relaxed.’
Five of the next six shots went into the target.
‘Well,’ said Hugo, ‘if I’d known it was as easy as that—’
The next thing is, how are you going to carry it? I think the old-fashioned shoulder holster is best. Don’t forget to keep the safety-catch on. And even more important, don’t forget to take it off when you want to use it.’
When Hugo drove out to the Palace that afternoon the weight of the gun, just above his left hip, was an unexpected comfort to him. He found the road-blocks removed, and life going on much as usual. He reported to Sayyed Nawaf that the arms were on schedule and the Treasurer looked relieved. He said, ‘We shall be very happy when they have arrived here safely.’
Prince Hussein said, ‘You bring us arms. The Americans have brought something even more important.’ And when Hugo looked at him blankly, ‘A very lovely girl, don’t you think so?’
‘Oh, her,’ said Hugo. ‘Yes, she’s quite a girl.’
He was thinking of that comment that evening, as he was undressing to go to bed, when the doorbell rang.
Last time, it had been Tammy. He hoped it might be her again. He pulled on his trousers and coat and had started for the door when he remembered that he had left the gun and harness hanging on the chair beside his bed. After a moment’s hesitation, he went back, feeling curiously shamefaced, and re-adjusted the harness.
The bell rang again.
Hugo walked to the door, and opened it, keeping one foot behind it to prevent any sudden inward thrust.
It took him a moment to recognise Moharram. The storekeeper bowed, and said, ‘Pardon the late call, Mr. Greest. I have a visitor at my store. He’d like a word with you.’
Hugo said, ‘Come in. I shan’t keep you a minute.’
‘That’s all right, Mr. Greest. I’m quite happy to wait here.’
‘Certainly not. Come in. And shut the door. That’s right.’
Hugo went into his bedroom, leaving the door open, lifted the receiver and dialled a number. Cowcroft answered him.
He said, ‘I’ve just had an invitation from a neighbour of mine, Moharram. He wants me to meet a man.’
‘Is that old Mo, who keeps the general store?’