The Man from the 'Turkish Slave' Page 3

  Chapter Two

  When Peter Landers awoke the air was full of the warm, grassy smell of a hot morning. From a bank of small, glossy-leaved shrubs with tiny red flowers behind the tent came a pungent, medicinal scent. A great cloud of sea-birds was wheeling and crying over the sea where he had struggled a few hours before. Inland the rough slopes of a mountain rose to a long, jagged crest. The girl was on the edge of the plateau.

  He pulled on his still damp shirt and trousers and went across to her. She was holding a sheep down and clipping away part of the fleece which was matted with fly-blow. Her shirt which had dried on her, was stained with sea-water. She looked up and he saw that she was beautiful in a wild, dark, untidy fashion. Her face was oval, the chin firm and a little pointed, a vigorous, purposeful chin, and her lashes were long over the warm, friendly eyes.

  His divorce had left Peter with a casual, cynical attitude towards women. He liked a pretty girl, liked the company and the pleasure they gave to a brief shore leave, but he asked for no more. He had burnt his fingers once. He didn’t mean it to happen again. This girl, however, drew his attention more than most … after all, she had saved his life. For that reason alone he felt a warmness for her and, in some odd way, was glad that she was good to look at … a dark, sparkling creature, full of youth and energy, an island girl like something out of a wild Cornish folk-tale.

  She stood up, gave the sheep a gentle prod with her bare foot, and it bounded away, bleating indignantly. Peter faced her, feeling embarrassed, knowing the agony of searching for words to express gratitude.

  ‘Obrigado, senhorita, Muito obrigado.’

  She gave a little shake of her head and laughed, hugging her arms across her breast, her white teeth flashing.

  ‘There is nothing to thank me for, senhor. I was glad to help.’

  ‘I forgot. You speak English. That’s good. Well, you saved my life … You must know how I feel.’

  ‘You are all right now, senhor?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. But I’d like to know where I am.’

  ‘This is Alvaro.’

  ‘An island?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How far is it from Brazil?’

  ‘This is Brazil, senhor. But the mainland is a long way. Nearly two hundred miles.’

  ‘Is there a town here? Can I get a boat back?’

  ‘There is only Portos Marias.’ She pointed up over the cliff slope towards the mountain. ‘The path will take you there in two hours. You are lucky, too, senhor. There is a boat to-day, and then not another for a fortnight.’

  ‘Then that’s the one I’ve got to get. What time does it go?’ He glanced at his watch. It was ten o’clock. As he had been talking, he had begun to realise just how lucky he had been. Here he was alive and kicking. The sleep and the food had made a new man of him and there was nothing now to hold him back … In Sao Paulo there was a man waiting who would be more than interested in what he had to say. ‘ What time does this boat leave?’

  ‘When it is ready, senhor. There is no other time.’

  ‘Then it may already have gone?’ He was concerned now with one idea; to get to the mainland.

  The girl shook her head. ‘No, senhor. It will not be gone yet. The captain always eats at midday with Commere Grazia.’

  ‘I shall make it, then. Good.’ He paused, the urgency going from him for a moment, and smiled at her. He pulled his wallet from his pocket. In it he had some English money and a twenty-dollar bill which he had won in a poker game on the Slave. The American note was damp and limp and he tore it a little as he eased it out of the wet wallet. The girl watching him, said:

  ‘You do not say how you came to be in the water.’

  He laughed, holding the note out to her. ‘ It’s a long story. I haven’t enough time to go into it … but, thanks to you, it’s a story which is going to have a different ending from the one intended by some people. Here—’ he gave her the note, ‘—the next time you go to town buy yourself some nylons.’

  She took the bill, stared at it for a moment and then began to laugh, and her laughter was like the bright, gay sound of water over smooth stones. He laughed, too, suddenly caught up in the simple pleasure which possessed the girl, and remembering his despair before the moment of salvation when her young body had flashed brown and white through the air.

  He put out his hands and caught her gently by the shoulders. He was alive and he owed it to her. He bent forward, feeling her shoulders move under his hands with the laughter still in her, and he kissed her lightly.

  He stepped back and she was looking at him, amused but a little solemn.

  ‘Thank you for everything.’

  He turned and began to make his way up the cliff. At the top of the slope he turned and looked back at her. She was watching him. He raised a hand and she waved. Then she swung round, shouted to her dogs and began to gather the sheep which had spread out over the plateau.

  At the end of two hours he realised that the girl’s estimate of the time it would take him to cross the island had been wrong. He was slowed down because of his bare feet, but even so he still had not cleared the mountain on the other side of which lay Portos Marias.

  He had come up over the cliff to find before him a well defined path. Some way ahead was the mountain, sloping up through patches of grass and shrubs to a jumble of grey and black rock backed by a final precipitous rise of crags and dark ravines. The path, at first, curved around the lower slopes of the mountain through great stretches of myrtles. Now and again the track dropped steeply down and up to traverse deep ravines. The floors of these ravines were dark, hot and filled with a rich vegetation of tree ferns, wild figs and flowered creepers. Land crabs scuttled from the path ahead of him with a rustling sound, then stopped and watched him go by, their great claws raised menacingly, the black, beady eyes obscenely alert.

  Then for a while the lower slopes of the mountain flattened into a rough plain, broken with shrubs, long sweeps of thin grass and dried water courses. He saw no signs of life except now and again small patches of cultivated land growing maize and hedged in with rough stone walls or long hedges of uprooted dried thorn. A few skeins of sheep wandered over the rocky ground and once a handful of wild goats went bounding away from him. The mountain to his left dominated the whole island. Away to his right he could see the dancing silver line of the sea. The path, for all its twisting, clung obstinately to the base of the mountain, gradually working round in a west and northerly direction.

  He travelled as fast as he could with bare feet for there was in him now a great desire not to miss the boat. Once he got in touch with the man in Sao Paulo there was trouble coming for a lot of people.

  He could see the path rising ahead of him, snaking towards the broken crest. He climbed steadily, picking his way carefully. He was hot and sweaty very soon. A sharp stone cut into his right foot and he walked with a limp, cursing and impatient.

  When he got to the top it was to find himself on the broken rim of an enormous crater. The mountain was an old volcano and the steep craggy inner sides of the crater dropped away from him in some places through falls of over five hundred feet. It was a wild, ugly-looking place, a desert of long broken rock slopes, black cliff faces and great spreading moraines formed by the weathering tufa stone. The bottom of the crater was marked with a small lake, its waters still and black in the great crescent shadow cast from the far rim of the crest. The path skirted the crest for a while, then dipped and, swinging round a shoulder of tall rock pinnacles, suddenly brought Portos Marias and the coast into view.

  Peter stopped and looked down at it. From this height it was no more than a cluster of houses, a patch of open square and the thin line of a jetty thrusting out into the ragged circle of a harbour enclosed by a bent green finger of headland. There was a coastal steamer alongside the jetty, a tired plume of yellow smoke drifting up from her stack. At sea, just beyond the headland, he made out a handful of small fishing boats heading inshore.

  The p
ath dropped sharply and soon became a rough road lined by small fields. He plodded through a little valley crowded with stunted trees and found himself on the edge of a broad stretch of cliffside down which the road, flanked now by a stream, plunged to Portos Marias and its harbour. Most of the fishing boats were through the harbour entrance now, their masts bare, moving under power. Peter was more interested in the steamer. He hurried on, not wanting to miss it.

  From the sea there was a narrow harbour entrance between the horns made by the outthrust of two headlands. The enclosed waters spread in a great circle, calm and blue. Below him tall white and yellow houses huddled in an untidy sprawl around the three sides of a broad, palm-lined square that faced the harbour. They were large, well-built houses, their windows triple-arched, twisting columns at their doors, and the walls gay with bands and lozenges of bright tiles. Cut by narrow alley-ways and streets the houses spread up the cliff-side, one roof peering over the top of another. There was something about the way they faced the sea yet crowded back against the encircling cliff-side which reminded Peter of Cornish villages.

  He came to the top of a steep street and as he passed the first house, he heard the long drawn hoot of a steamer. He hurried on.

  At the foot of the hill he passed a church built back into the cliff-side. A priest was brushing down the shallow flight of steps that ran up to the immense portico. Black-robed against the shining marble, he raised a hand in greeting to Peter.

  Peter came out into the open space facing the harbour.

  There were a few men and women moving about the square, but the jetty itself was crowded. Sheep were being driven up a wide gangplank to the foredeck of the coastal steamer and men were carrying aboard large cardboard cases. There was shouting and confusion and a great deal of laughter. A sheep breaking loose from the flock, was pursued down the jetty past Peter by a handful of boys and finally headed back to the gangplank. No one took any notice of him. He was barefooted, his shirt torn and his chin dark with stubble but many of the islanders were no better dressed.

  He looked up at the seaman hanging over the stern rail of the steamer, searched among the tag-ends of Portuguese he knew, and asked him when the boat sailed. He was told that it would be another hour.

  He stood there, relieved. And now he was conscious that he was tired, hungry and thirsty.

  ‘Where can I eat around here?’ he asked the man.

  The seaman jerked his head towards the square.

  ‘Grazia’s.’

  He was about to turn and make his way back to the square when he saw the dog. It came trotting purposefully down the jetty towards him, its corkscrew tail flying jauntily, the black patch over its eye giving it a blackguardly swaggering air. It passed Peter, threaded its way through the crowd on the jetty and disappeared across the dusty square. Peter stared after it, and a swift excitement rose in him. This was the dog he had seen aboard the fishing boat which had been alongside the Turkish Slave. There was no doubt in his mind about it.

  Most of the fishing boats were already in and had tied up alongside. Men were on the jetty, taking the plaited fish baskets as they were swung up, and loading them into donkey-carts. The dog must have come off one of these boats.

  All of them, he saw, were of the same rig and design. Their paintwork and their names different, but that was all. Painted on each side of their bows was a great eye. He had seen this before in Portuguese waters. One of these boats had been alongside the Slave … He began to understand things. The fleet went out together but during the night one slipped away to a rendezvous and then joined up with the fleet again to sail back to Portos Marias. There was no Customs here and he doubted whether there would be any Customs check on the fortnightly boat when it reached the mainland … It was easy. A back-door into South America for thousands and thousands of pounds worth of stolen European jewellery.

  Suddenly the tiredness went from him. He stood there and ran his eye over the boats and he felt hard and determined. He was supposed to be dead. But he was alive and kicking. Marston and Rogers had given him a chance. So far he had been unlucky. But now … the more he could tell the man in Sao Paulo, the better it would be for him. This island was connected with the jewel-running. By staying here he might uncover the whole set-up. Beside, if he went hurrying off to the mainland now they might think he’d been too scared to stay and find out all he could, that he’d taken the easy, obvious way out. That was the last thing he wanted anyone to think. He was on his mettle. Even without the thought in his mind of the job that might be his with the Freestone Line, he felt he wanted to know more. He had a personal interest in this for the crew of one of these boats had been prepared to leave him to drown.

  He turned and walked from the jetty to the square, moving slowly under the stumpy palms, the dead leaves hanging from their lower trunks like grass skirts. He had an hour to think things over. Halfway along the houses that fronted the square and the harbour was a long flat-roofed, two-storey building with a raised open space before it. The space was set with tables and enclosed by a trellis-work over which grew vines and creepers. A sign read—Bodega Grazia. Peter climbed three steps to the platform and sat down on a wooden chair. He sat there thinking, and watching the life of Portos Marias. He had a decision to make.

  People came drifting across the square with the unhurried steps of those who have passed their lives under the strong sun. The women were small, compact creatures, their skirts dull coloured and their blouses and shawls vivid with reds and greens and yellows. There was a chattering vivacity about them which contrasted with the tall, dark, dignified composure of the men. An island people, thought Peter. In their build and manner they had something of the hardness and self-contained assurance of his own Cornish fishing folk.

  More fishing boats were tied up alongside the jetty now and there was a stream of donkey carts going to and from a long, corrugated iron building which stood in the far corner of the square.

  Two or three men mounted the bodega platform and sat at a table in the opposite corner from Peter. They gave him a quick, curious glance and then politely ignored him.

  Looking out across the dusty square, seeing the waiting steamer, the crowd about the fishing boats, hearing the small sea-breeze rustle the dried blades of the palms above him, Peter felt the excitement in him steady to a firm desire.

  If only it could be done, he thought, then he knew he would have to do it … He understood himself well enough to know that it would be a challenge he could not resist. The men in Plymouth had put their trust in him. Here was a job that needed doing and it had fallen right into his lap. He was the only one who could do it. This stuff was stolen; there was no adventurous, forgivable element in it; to these men a human life meant nothing. If they were not stopped someone else might get in their path, someone who wouldn’t have his luck. The more he could tell the man in Sao Paulo, the better; and the longer he stayed here the more he might learn. If only he could stay here until the next fortnightly boat came. But how the devil could he do it without exciting comment? He’d been told ‘no heroics’—and that was the last thing he wanted. If he stayed on and the men involved in this traffic became suspicious of him … Under the bright sun he shivered suddenly as he thought of the knife that might slide between his shoulder blades. But if he could stay on innocently …

  A voice behind him spoke.

  ‘Senhor?’

  He turned. Standing by his table was a negress. She was so fat that she looked to have no legs at all. A voluminous cotton wrapper was draped about her body which bulged and pressed against it so that it had the appearance of a spinnaker sail bellying out before the wind. It was none too clean and carried a startling design. A highly-coloured Arc de Triomphe was planted in the centre of her stomach, the Empire State Building, upside down, occupied the run of one arm, and part of the Taj Mahal was crushed between her ample breasts. She wore a wide straw hat around the rim of which straggled faded calico flowers. She stood there smiling at him, and her smile was as exu
berant as the rest of her. Black, shining and bulging, Commere Grazia was a monument of flesh and friendliness.

  Peter gave her the first word of Portuguese he had ever learned. For the moment his appetite had gone. He wanted only a drink.

  ‘Cerveja.’

  She gave a little lift of her eyebrows at his pronunciation and then waddled away. She came back and put the beer on the table. She stood and watched him drink and he knew her eyes were going over him, summing him up.

  Suddenly she said in English, ‘Mistah, you come on the boat—or swim ashore?’ Her voice was husky, joking, wreathing up through the labyrinth of her vast throat.

  Peter started. The joke brought too close a fact he wished to keep secret. Commere Grazia chuckled. ‘You surprised Ah knows English boy when Ah sees one? During the war we got lots of English and American sailors here.’

  ‘I’m English, yes. I came on the boat.’ He said this last with a slight belligerency, but at the back of his mind was the sudden wish; if only he could make people believe that. He watched her to see how she took it.

  Grazia grinned at him. ‘Lots of people here speak English, but Ah speak it real good.’

  ‘You certainly do.’ It was one thing to tell her he had come on the boat. But to stay here … that would need a good story.

  ‘Ah speak good because Ah’m British. Mistah, you don’t see no damned dago here.’ She gave her plump chest a pat. ‘One of my husbands top hand on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. A no-good man, but he makes me British. What yo do, Mistah English? You a sailorman or just a plain bum?’

  Peter laughed, but his mind was working fast. If this woman would accept him, then maybe others would. ‘I’m a seaman.’ He tried to make it sound casual. ‘But I got into a spot of trouble—’

  ‘In Santos?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked like a drifter, a down-at-heel, so he could talk like one. ‘I came over on the boat to have a look round. Thought I might get a job here.’