thirty-two years, this despite her father's large fortune and respected
title.
Gareth glanced sideways at her and saw all too clearly why this should
be. The first adjective which sprang to mind was "horsey', but it was
not the correct one, Gareth decided.
"Comely'or'camel-like' would convey a much more accurate description.
A besotted camel, he thought, as he intercepted the adoring gaze which
she fixed upon him as she sat sideways upon the luxurious leather
seats.
"Jolly good of you to let me take your Pater's bus for a spin, old
girl. And she simpered at the endearment, exposing the huge yellowish
teeth under the large nose.
A V A "Definitely thinking of buying one myself, when I get home.
Can't beat the old Benters, what?" Gareth swung the long black
limousine off the metal led road and it plunged forward smoothly over
the dusty rutted track that led northwards along the coast through the
palm trees.
An ask ari policeman recognized the fluttering pennant on the front
wing, red and blue and gold with rampant lion and unicorn, and he
pulled himself to foot-stamping attention and flung a flamboyant
salute. Gareth touched the brim of his hat to the manner born, then
turned to his companion who had not taken her eyes from his tanned and
noble face since they had left the grounds of Government House.
"There is a good view place up ahead, looks out across actually.
Thought we'd park the channel, very beautiful there for a while." She
nodded vehemently, unable to trust herself to speak.
Gareth was glad of that she had a squeaky little treble and he smiled
his gratitude. That brilliant, completely irresistible smile,
and the girl blushed a mottled purple.
She had good eyes, Gareth tried to convince himself, that is if you
like camels" eyes. Huge sorrowful pools with long matted lashes.
He would concentrate on the eyes and try and avoid the teeth. He felt
a sudden small twinge of concern. "I hope she doesn't bite in the
critical moments.
With those choppers, she could inflict a mortal wound." For a moment
he considered abandoning the project. Then he made himself imagine a
pile of one thousand sovereigns, and his courage returned.
Gareth braked the Bentley and searched for the turnoffs It was well
concealed by underbrush and he missed it and had to back up.
Gently he eased the gleaming limousine down into a small clearing,
walled in by fern and scrub and roofed over by the cathedral arches of
the palms.
"Well, here we are, what?" Gareth pulled on the hand brake and turned
to his companion. "Actually you can see the channel if you twist your
neck a bit." He leaned forward to demonstrate, and with a convulsive
leap the Governor's daughter sprang upon him. Gareth's last controlled
thought was that he must avoid the teeth.
Jake Barton waited until the huge glistening Bentley began to heave and
toss on its suspension like a lifeboat in a gale, before he rose from
the cover of the ferns and, carpet-bag in hand, crept around to the
bonnet with its gleaming winged initial V and the stiffly embroidered
household pennant.
The noise he made in opening and lifting the engine cowling was
effectively smothered by the whinnying cries of passion that issued out
-of the car, and Jake glanced through the windscreen and caught one
horrifying glimpse of the Governor's daughter's white limbs, long and
shapeless and knobbly kneed as a camel's kicking ecstatically at the
roof of the cab before he ducked his head into the engine.
He worked swiftly, his lips pursed but the tune stealthily muted,
and his brow creased with concentration as the carburettor jumped and
heaved unpredictably under his hands and the whinnies of passion and
the high-pitched exhortations to greater effort and speed rang
louder.
The resentment he had felt at Gareth Swales's refusal to assist in
painting the iron ladies faded swiftly. He was pushing and pulling his
full weight now, and his efforts made even the most gruelling manual
labour seem insignificant.
As Jake lifted the entire carburettor assembly off the engine block and
stowed it into the carpet-bag, there was one last piercing shriek and
the Bentley came to an abrupt rest while a ringing silence fell over
the palm grove.
Jake Barton crept silently away through the undergrowth leaving his
partner stunned and entangled in a mesh of lanky limbs and expensive
French underwear.
"I want you to believe that in my weakened condition it was a long walk
home. At the same time, I had to try and convince the lady that we
were not betrothed."
"We'll get you a citation," Jake promised him,
and emerged from the engine housing of the armoured car.
"With disregard for his own personal safety Major Gareth Swales held
the pass, stan ned the breach, battered down the gates-"
"Terribly amusing," growled Gareth. "But, just like you, I have a
reputation to maintain. It would embarrass me in certain circles if
this got out,
old son. Mum's the word, what?"
"You have my word of honour," Jake told him seriously, and stooped over
the crank handle. She fired at the first turn and settled to a steady
rhythm to which Jake listened for a few moments before he grinned.
"Listen to her, the bloody little beauty," and he turned to
Gareth. "Wasn't it worth it just to hear that sweet burbling song?"
Gareth rolled his eyes in agonized memory and Jake went on. "Four of
them. Four lovely, well-behaved ladies. What more could you ask out
of life?"
"Five,"said Gareth promptly, and Jake scowled.
"We'd put my name on the fifth one," he wheedled. "I'd sign a
statement to protect your reputation." But the expression on Jake's
face was sufficient answer.
"No?" Gareth sighed. "I predict that your sentimental,
oldfashioned outlook is going to get us both into a lot of trouble."
"We can split up now."
"Wouldn't dream of it, old son. Actually, it would have been dicey
peddling a dead one to those Ethiops. They've got these dirty great
swords, and it's not only your head that they lop off or so I hear. No,
we'll settle for just the four, then." May
22nd the Dunnottar Castle anchored in the Dares Salaam roads and was
immediately surrounded by a swarm of barges and lighters. She was the
flagship of the Union Castle Line, outward bound from Southampton to
Cape Town, Durban, Lourenco Marques, Dares Salaam and Jibuti.
Two suites and ten double cabins of the first class accommodation were
taken up by Lij Mikhael Wasan Sagud and his entourage. The Lij was a
scion of the royal house of Ethiopia that traced its line back to
King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. He was a trusted member of the
Emperor's inner circle and, under his father, the deputy governor of a
piece of mountain and desert country in the northern provinces the size
of Scotland and Wales combined.
The Ras was returning to his homeland after six months of petitioning
the foreign ministers of Great Britain and France, and lobbying in the
halls of the League of Nations in Geneva, trying to gather pledges of
support for his country in the face of the gathering storm clouds of
Fascist Italian aspirations towards an African Empire.
The Lij was a disillusioned man when he disembarked with four of his
senior advisers and made the short journey by lighter to where two
hired open tourers awaited his arrival on the wharf. Hire of the motor
vehicles had been arranged by Major Gareth Swales and the drivers had
been given their instructions.
"Now, you leave the talking to me, old chap," Gareth advised Jake,
as they waited anxiously in the cavernous and gloomy depths of No. 4
Warehouse. "This really is my part of the show, you know. You just
look stern and do the demonstrating. That will impress the old Ethiop
no end." Gareth was resplendent in a pale blue tropical suit with a
fresh white carnation in the buttonhole, and silk shirt. He wore the
diagonally striped old school tie, his hair was brilliantined and
carefully brushed, and the sleek lines of the mustache had been trimmed
that morning. He ran a judicious eye over his partner and was mildly
satisfied. Jake's suit had not been cut in Savile Row, of course, but
it was adequate for the occasion, clean and freshly pressed. His shoes
had been newly polished and the usually unruly profusion of curls had
been wetted and slicked down neatly.
He had scrubbed all traces of grease from his large bony hands and from
under his fingernails.
"They probably don't even speak English," Gareth gave his opinion.
"Have to use the old sign language, you know.
Wish you'd let me have that dead one. We could have palmed it off on
them. They are bound to be a gullible lot, throw in a handful of beads
and a bag of salt-" He was interrupted by the sound of approaching
engines.
"This will be them, now. Don't forget what I told you." The two open
tourers pulled up in the bright sunlight beyond the doors and disgorged
their passengers. Four of them wore the long flowing white shammas,
full-length robes like Roman togas draped across the shoulder.
Under the robes they wore black gabardine riding breeches and open
sandals. They were all of them elderly men, the dense bushes of their
hair shot through with strands of grey and the dark faces wrinkled and
lined. In dignified silence they gathered about the taller, younger
figure clad in a dark western-style suit and they moved forward into
the cool gloom of the warehouse.
Lij Mikhael was well over six feet in height, with a slight scholarly
stoop to his shoulders. His skin was the colour of dark honey and his
hair and beard were a thick. curly halo about the finely boned face,
with dark thoughtful eyes and the narrow nose with its
Semitic beak. Despite the stoop, he walked with the grace of a
swordsman and his teeth when he smiled were glisteningly white against
the dark skin.
"By Jove," said the Lij, in the drawling accent that echoed
Gareth's with surprising accuracy. "It is Forty swales isn't it?"
Major Gareth Swales's composure seemed to fall away, leaving him
tottering mentally at the use of a nickname he had last heard twenty
years before. He had been so branded when his unexpected attack of
flatus had clapped and echoed from the vaulted ceiling and stone walls
of College Chapel. He had hoped never to hear it spoken again, and now
its use took him back to that moment when he had stood in the cold
stone chapel and the waves of suppressed laughter had broken over his
head like physical blows.
The Prince laughed now, and touched the knot of his necktie. For the
first time Jake realized that the diagonal stripes were identical to
those that Gareth Swales wore at his own throat.
"Eton 1915 Waynflete's. I was Captain of the House. I gave you six
for smoking in the bogs don't you remember?"
"My God," gasped
Gareth. "Toffee Sagud. My God. I just don't know what to say."
"Try him with the old sign language, then," murmured Jake helpfully.
"Shut up, damn you," hissed Gareth, and then with a conscious effort he
resurrected the smile that lit the gloomy warehouse like the rising of
the sun.
"Your Excellency Toffee my dear fellow." He hurried forward with hand
outstretched. "What a great and unexpected pleasure." They shook
hands laughing, and the solemn dark faces of the elderly advisers
lightened with sympathetic merriment.
"Let me introduce my partner, Mr. Jake Barton of Texas.
Mr. Barton is a brilliant engineer and financier Jake, this is
His Excellency Lij Mikhael Wasan Sagud, Deputy Governor of Shoo and an
old and dear friend of mine." The Prince's hand was narrow-boned, cool
and firm. His gaze was quick and penetrating before he turned back
to
Gareth.
"When were you expelled? Summer of 1915 wasn't it?
Caught boffing one of the maids, as I recall."
"Good Lord, no!"
Gareth was horrified. "Never the hired help. Actually, it was the
house master's daughter."
"That's right. I remember now. You were famous went out in a blaze of
glory. Talk about your feat lasted for months. They said you went to
France with the Duke's, and did jolly well for yourself." Gareth made
a deprecating gesture, and Lij Mikhael asked, "Since then what have you
been doing, old chap?" Which was a thoroughly embarrassing question
for Gareth. He made a few airy gestures with his cheroot.
This and that, you know. One thing and another.
Business, you understand. Importing, exporting, buying and selling."
"Which brings us to the present business, does it not?" the
Prince asked gently.
"Indeed, it does," agreed Gareth and took the Prince's arm. "Now that
I realize who is buying, it only increases my pleasure in managing to
assemble a package of such high quality." The wooden crates were
stacked neatly along one wall of the warehouse.
"A .
"Fourteen Vickers machine guns, most of them straight from the factory
hardly a shot through the barrels-" They passed slowly down the array
of merchandise to where one of the machine guns had been uncrated and
set up on its tripod.
"As YOU can see, all first-class stuff." The five Ethiopians were all
warriors, from a long warlike line, and they had the true warrior's
love of and delight in the weapons of war. They crowded eagerly around
the gun.
Gareth winked at Jake, and went on, "One hundred and forty-four
Lee-Enfield service rifles, still in the grease-" Half a dozen of the
rifles had been cleaned and laid out on display.
No. 4 Warehouse was an Aladdin's Cave for them. The elderly courtiers
forgot their dignity, and fell upon the weapons like a flock of crows,
cackling in Amharic as they fondled the cold oiled steel.
They hoisted up the skirts of their shammas to crouch behind the
demonstration machine gun and traversed it happily, making the staccato
schoolboy imitations of automatic fire as they mowed down imaginary
hordes of their enemies.
Even Lij Mikhael forsook his Etonian manners and joined in the
delighted examination of the hoard, pushing aside an old greybeard of
seventy to take his place at the Vickers gun and triggering off a noisy
squabble amongst the others in which Gareth diplomatically
intervened.
"I say, Toffee, old chap. This isn't all I have for you. Not by a
long chalk. I've kept the plums for the last." And Jake helped him to