a bush hat, had opened the boot of his car, pulled out a collapsible
hand-propelled wheel chair, and, with the smooth efficiency of
experience, had it assembled in ten seconds flat, while the other
chauffeur, with the aid of a tall, thin nurse clad in over-all white
from her smartly starched cap to the skirt that reached close down to
her ankles, tenderly lifted a bent old man from the back seat of the
second packard and set him gently in the wheel chair. The old boy-even
at that distance I could see the face creased and trenched with the
lines of age, the snowy whiteness of the still plentiful hairdid his
best to help them, but his best wasn’t very much. Captain Bullen looked
at me. I looked at captain Bullen. There didn’t seem to be any reason
to say anything. Nobody in a crew likes having permanent invalids
aboard ship: they cause trouble to the ship’s doctor who has to look
after their health, to the cabin stewards who have to clean their
quarters, to the dining-room stewards who have to feed them, and to
those members of the deck crew detailed for the duty of moving them
around. And when the invalids are elderly and very infirmand if this
one wasn’t I sadly Missed my guess-there was always the chance of a
death at sea, the one thing sailors hate above all else. It was also
very bad for the passenger trade. But as long as the illness was of
neither a contagious nor infectious nature and that a certificate could
be produced from the invalid’s own doctor to the effect that the invalid
was fit for the proposed voyage, there was nothing that could be done
about it. “Well,” captain Bullen said heavily, “i suppose i’d better go
and welcome our latest guests aboard. Finish it off as quickly as
possible, Mister.”
“I’ll do that, sir.” Bullen nodded and left. I watched the two
chauffeurs slide a couple of poles under the seat of the invalid chair,
straighten and carry the chair easily up the sparred foot planks of the
gangway. They were followed by the tall angular nurse and she in turn
by another nurse, dressed exactly like the First, but shorter and
stockier. The old boy was bringing his own medical corps along with
him, which meant that he had more money than was good for him or was a
hypochondriac or very far through indeed or a combination of any or all
of those; on the credit side was the fact that both had that indefinable
competent no-nonsense look of the professional nurse which would make
the lot of our ship’s surgeon, old Dr. marston, who sometimes had to
work a whole hour in one day, all that much easier. But I was more
interested in the last two people to climb out of the packards. The
First was a man of about my own age and size, but the resemblance
stopped there. He looked like a cross between ramon novarro and rudolph
valentino, only handsomer. Tall, broad-shouldered, with deeply tanned,
perfectly sculpted latin features, he had the classical long, thin
moustache, strong, even teeth with that in-built neon phosphorescence
that seems to shine in any light from high noon till dark, and a darkly
gleaming froth of tight black curls on his head; he would have been a
lost man if you’d let him loose on the campus of any girls’ university.
For all that, he looked as far from being a sissy as any man i’d ever
met: he had the strong chin, the balanced carriage, the light, springy
boxer’s step of a man well aware that he can get through this world
without any help from a nursemaid. If nothing else, I thought sourly,
he would at least take Miss Beresford out of my hair. The other man was
a slightly smaller edition of the First, same features, same teeth, same
moustache and hair, only those were greying. He would be about
fifty-five. He had about him that indefinable look of authority and
assurance which can come from power, money, or a carefully cultivated
phoneyness. This, I guessed, would be the sefior miguel carreras who
inspired such fear in our local carracio agent. I wondered why. Ten
minutes later the last of our cargo was aboard and all that remained
were the three boxed coffins on the back of the old truck. I was
watching the bo’sun readying a sling round the First of those when a
well-detested voice said behind me: “this is Mr. carreras, sir. Captain
Bullen sent me.” I turned round and gave fourth officer dexter the look
I specially reserved for fourth officer dexter. Dexter was the
exception to the rule that the fleet commodore always got the best
available in the company as far as officers and men were concerned, but
that was hardly the old man’s fault: there were some men that even a
fleet commodore has to accept and dexter was one of them. A personable
enough youngster of twenty-one, with fair hair, slightly prominent blue
eyes, an excruciatingly genuine public-school accent, and limited
intelligence, dexter was the son-and, unfortunately, heir of lord
dexter, chairman and managing director of the blue mail. Lord dexter,
who had inherited about ten millions at the age of fifteen and,
understandably enough, had never looked back, had the quaint idea that
his own son should start from the bottom up and had sent him to sea as a
cadet some five years previously. Dexter took a poor view of this
arrangement: every man in the ship, from Bullen downwards, took a poor
view both of the arrangement and dexter, but there was nothing we could
do about it. “How do you do, sir?” I accepted carreras’ outstretched
hand and took a good look at him. The steady dark eyes, the courteous
smile couldn’t obscure the fact that there were many more lines about
his eyes and mouth at two feet than at fifty; but it also couldn’t
obscure the compensatory fact that the air of authority and command was
now redoubled in force, and I put out of my mind any idea that this air
originated in phoneyness; it was the genuine article, and that was that.
“Mr. Carter? my pleasure.” the hand was firm, the bow more than a
perfunctory nod, the cultured english the product of some stateside ivy
league college. “I have some interest in the cargo being loaded, and if
you would permit “but certainly, senor carreras.” Carter, that
rough-hewn anglo-saxon diamond, not to be outdone in latin courtesy. I
waved towards the hatch. “If you would be so kind as to keep to the
starboard-the right hand of the hatch “‘starboard’ will do, Mr. Carter.”
he smiled. “I have commanded vessels of my own. It was not a life that
ever appealed to me.” he stood there for a moment, watching macdonald
tightening the sling, while I turned to dexter, who had made no move to
go. Dexter was seldom in a hurry to do anything; he had a remarkably
thick skin. “What are you on now, fourth?” I enquired. “Assisting
Mr.” that meant he was unemployed. Cummings, the purser, was an
extraordinarily competent officer who never required help. He had only
one fault, brought on by years of dealing with passengers-he was far too
polite. Especially with dexter. I said, “those charts we picked up in
Kingston. You might get on with the corrections, will you?” which
meant that he would probably land us on a reef off the great bahamas in
a couple of days’ time. “But Mr. cummings is expecting “the charts,
dexter.” he looked at me for a long moment, his face slowly darkening,
then spun on his heel and left. I let him go three paces, then said,
not loudly, “dexter.” he stopped, then turned slowly. “The charts,
dexter,” I repeated. He stood there for maybe five seconds, eyes locked
on mine, then broke his gaze. “Aye, aye, sir.” the accent on the “sir”
was faint but unmistakable. He turned again and walked away, and now
the flush was round to the back of his neck, his back ramrod stiff.
Little I cared; by the time he sat in the chairman’s seat i’d have long
since quit. I watched him go, then turned to see carreras looking at me
with a slow, still speculation in the steady eyes. He was putting chief
officer Carter in the balance and weighing him, but whatever figures he
came up with he kept to himself, for he turned away without any haste
and made his way to the starboard side of number four hold. As he
turned, I noticed for the First time the very thin ribbon of black silk
stitched across the left lapel of his grey tropical suit. It didn’t
seem to go any too well with the white rose he wore in his buttonhole,
but maybe the two of them together were recognised as a sign of mourning