Dangerous by nature, p.24
Dangerous by Nature, page 24
“Thank you,” said Hambledon gratefully, “Thank you very much indeed. I accept with very great pleasure, not only for the sake of getting such a prompt start home, but also because in that way I shall at last meet Hobkirk. We were supposed to work together, you know, but so far as I know I’ve never set eyes on him.”
“He has his own methods,” said Lanyon thoughtfully, “or so they tell me, for I have never encountered Mr. Hobkirk in the flesh myself. He is my country’s top-ranking ace when there is any investigation to be made in the Central or South American republics. They tell me that his father was an American vice-consul in Nicaragua who married a Spanish-American lady, and their son was born and brought up in these parts. They say that what he doesn’t know about the manners, customs, people, and tongues of these romantic and highly coloured countries isn’t knowledge. You will be able to inform yourself more fully, Mr. Hambledon, during the passage. I have no doubt that you and he will find plenty of interests in common.”
Hambledon agreed with a degree of enthusiasm prompted more by politeness than any other motive, It would indeed be very interesting to meet Hobkirk at last and see what he was like, but it would have been much more interesting and useful if he had revealed himself earlier, at a time when Tommy really wanted him. However, that was all over now and no longer important.
The boat from the United States destroyer was coming ashore to pick up Hobkirk from an appointed spot on the beach at seven that evening with the irreducible minimum of publicity. They would be instructed to take Mr. Hambledon with them if he could make it convenient to be at that spot as punctually to the appointed time as was humanly possible to anyone trying to do anything on time in a Latin-American country.
“The idea,” said Mr. Lanyon, “is to remove Mr. Hobkirk so unobtrusively that no one will ever know that he has been here at all. Where the Latin-American countries are concerned, Mr. Hambledon, my country much prefers to do good by stealth, as your poet so neatly puts it, and would certainly blush with fury to find some silly mutt had given its actions fame.”
“No seeing-off parties,” said Tommy.
“I am sorry, Mr. Hambledon—”
“Don’t apologize, please. It couldn’t suit me better.”
It was more than usually easy to pass through San Martin that night unobserved, since all the population were revolving round the Plaza del Palacio, dancing to the band, singing popular songs, and yelling “Viva De Silva!” before the palace
gates. The back streets were dark and quiet; Hambledon slipped away from the Hotel of All Nations to find Mateo waiting with his bags behind the shop of Señor Ignatio Gonzales the chemist, and together they strolled along narrow alleys, silent with deep dust, towards the beach.
“I’m sorry to leave so hurriedly, Mateo. There were many things I wanted to say to you and I can’t think of them now. I will write to you. What is you address?”
“I have it written on a piece of paper for the señor, but my bands are full just now. Presently I will find it. There is plenty of time,”
“There isn’t. Give it to me when we reach the boat—don’t forget.”
“No, señor, Look, the small lights on the sea yonder. It is the destroyer. Turn right here; this road takes us to the beach.”
“Mateo, what is your main ambition in life?”
Mateo laughed and swung Hambledon’s two suitcases.
“Ambition, señor? To have, day by day, enough to eat; to keep my health; not to be put in prison for anything I have not done. Is this what the señor would call ambition?”
“You said once that you would like to travel and see great cities.”
“Oh yes, señor, yes. But not till I am quite old. In another ten years, perhaps. To go now, señor, is difficult, for what will I do with Angelica? Señor, I think already the hair is beginning to grow where she was burnt. There is the boat on the sand. Can the señor not see it? More to the left there.”
Hambledon sighed. It was a burden on his mind that this ball’ Indian had twice saved his life at risk of his own and there appeared to be not the smallest thing he could do in return. How can one content the already completely contented?
The boat’s crew saw them coming and two men came forward to take Hambledon’s luggage. He stopped suddenly, turned out of his wallet and his pockets all the Esmeraldan currency he possessed in order to thrust it into Mateo’s hands, but Mateo was just out of reach, speaking to someone in the boat. Hambledon, to his intense disgust, was packed up like a baby by two enormous men and dumped into the stern on the gig, which was at once pushed off.
“Wait one moment, please. Mateo!”
“I am here, señor, in the boat,” said Mateo’s voice at his elbow in the dark. “How beautiful is our town of San Martin across the water! One would say the jewels of the Madonna were scattered along the beach.”
“But how will you get ashore?”
“Indeed, that is all in order, señor. It is all arranged. Oh look, señor! Fireworks!”
The view of the town was indeed one of most breathtaking loveliness as the boat drew away from the shore; darkness covered the shoddy buildings and the rubbish-strewn foreshore, and only the enchantment of lights remained. Hambledon, half awed, half irritated, pushed his handfuls of loose money into his coat pockets and turned where he sat to watch the sheaves of many-coloured rockets rush up the sky to meet the amazing stars. A sudden thought struck him: Hobkirk also was to have come off in this boat. Hambledon peered about him in the reflected light from several magnesium flares thoughtfully provided by Don Rodrigo de Silva at that moment, hut there were only four men in naval uniform rowing and a fifth who steered, besides Mateo and himself in the boat.
“What is it, señor?” whispered Mateo.
“The Señor Hobkirk. I understand he was to be here.”
“Doubtless the señor will meet him on board the ship.”
There came a sharp order from the steersman and Hambledon looked up to see the destroyer’s tall grey side towering above him. The gig pulled in to a rope ladder and Hambledon prepared to go aboard.
“Now, Mateo—”
“Up the ladder, señor; they are waiting. Follow me.”
Mateo climbed the ladder with Hambledon close behind him; there were two sentries at the head of the ladder who presented arms as they stepped down on the deck. Tommy returned the salute with two fingers to his hatbrim and hesitated, but Mateo urged him on.
“I want to show the señor his cabin and see that he has all he wishes before I disappear—I, his servant Mateo.” He picked up Hambledon’s suitcases and led the way, pattering down a companion ladder and along several corridors till he came to a cabin door with a card pinned upon it, “T. E, Hambledon,”
“Here, señor,” said Mateo, and stood back to let Hambledon enter first. “What it is,” he added, dodging round Tommy to put the suitcases on the bunk, “to see so many marvels packed into so small a space. And here is even a wardrobe to hang up the senior’s clothes—”
It seemed to Hambledon for a moment that he was the centre of a whirl, with Mateo revolving round him like the rings of Saturn, complicated by numerous doors which opened and shut in unexpected places. “One moment, Mateo,” he said throwing down his hat and once more plunging his hands into
his pockets for all the Esmeraldan money he had. “Here, Mateo—”
But only a silence answered. Hambledon looked round and found he was alone; he opened the cabin door but there was no sign of Mateo in the corridor outside. He must have slipped out in the middle of a word and run for it. Of course, of course, he would have to go off the ship at once. No doubt some shore boat waited alongside. Hambledon shut the cabin door in an onrush of melancholy which surprised him; odd how attached he had become to the half Spaniard half Indian with the bright black eyes and the brown monkeylike face whose expression changed moment by moment from impossible innocence to clear mischief or childlike wonder or instant resolution. Mateo rolling pale brown cigarettes and extolling “Angelica, my mule”; Mateo hurling stick bombs on the ridge of the Lion’s Paw; Mateo driving like Jehu the comfortless jeep on the road to Santa Monica to the accompaniment of Mentov’s wails. “I shall miss Mateo,” said Hambledon. “By heck I shall!”
There came a tap at the door. It was a senior lieutenant saying in a southern accent as soft as eiderdown that he was welcome aboard and that by following a certain route from his cabin he would find the wardroom. “Come right along there whenever you’re ready, Mr. Hambledon; there’s a drink waiting for you and a lot of people who want to meet you.” He leaned against the cabin doorpost and smiled sleepily.
“Thank you very much,” said Tommy. “I’ll not be long and I’ll be with you. By the way, I suppose Mr. Hobkirk is aboard?”
“The Intelligence guy? Yes, he’s aboard, sure enough. Came aboard just about the time you did, I think.”
“I’m very keen to meet him,” said Tommy, digging out his hairbrushes. “I was supposed to be with him but actually we never met.”
“He was telling me,” said the lieutenant, “It seems he couldn’t be known to be working alongside of you or his guns would have been spiked. But you made a first-class cover for him, he says, apart altogether from the mighty smart work you put in yourself, Mr. Hambledon. Even the little he had time to tell me just now I guess your sort of job takes some very special talents. Yes, sir. It’d be no good a man like me going on that stunt. Excuse me now, please. We’re just away and I have one or two things to see to. You’ll be all right now?”
He went away, shutting the door behind him, and even as he did so Hambledon felt beneath his feet the faint steady tremor as the screws began to revolve. He drew back the curtain over the porthole and saw the lights of San Martin slide rapidly aft as the destroyer turned out to sea.
“Well, that’s the end of that,” he said, as another knock came at his cabin door. “Come in!”
“I came,” said a familiar voice, “to make quite sure that the señor had everything necessary for the dignity of a gentleman on this so-great ship.”
“Mateo, you still her? Man, do you realize that we’re off? There’ll be the most awful row—”
Mateo laughed. “I really must stop this,” he said in English. “It’s becoming a habit. It’s quite all right, Hambledon. There won’t be any row. In fact, they sent this destroyer here for me. You see, I am Hobkirk.”
Manning Coles, Dangerous by Nature
