He set himself to put her at ease, answering her occasional shy murmurs with descriptions of his naval career, with a few digressions about trigonometry, cricket, and his dogs Buster and Doodles, and she listened wide-eyed, interest colouring the creamy texture of her skin, her satin lips parted in admiration, her slender fingers drooping in wonder, and her white shoulders gleaming with attention. Presently, when the waiters had cleared away, they took their coffee and petits fours standing side by side at the stern rail, while the phosphorescent wake of the ship creamed beneath them, the balmy air mingled with Donna Meliflua's haunting perfume, and the hidden steel band played a soft samba arrangement of “What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?”
And now, having won her girlish confidence, Avery tactfully turned the talk to their destination, and her impending union with Don Lardo.
“You see, dear Meliflua, I'm sure your Mummy and Daddy know best,” he told her, “and he's probably quite a nice chap, for a Dag – I mean, for a Viceroy. You don't get that kind of job unless you're a sound man, you know. Anyway, when we get close to Cartagena, it may be slightly tricky, since I, as enemy o' thy country – though sure friend to thy sweet self, if you'll pardon the familiarity – must ashore in secret, to see how I may best convey thee to him without creating a diplomatic incident. Don't want to embarrass him, I mean, or get myself arrested, for that matter—”
He paused, his sailorly ears detecting the sound of splashing close at hand, and to his distress saw that great tears were plopping into her cleavage. Pity seized him, and he seized her (just by the hand, and in fond concern). She raised her lovely face towards him, her lips trembling like red plastic cushions, and breathed a scented sigh what time another pearly drop rolled from her perfect lid.
“Oh, Capeetan Ben!” she murmured, and he thought, what a dashed nice thing to call him. “You are so kind to poor leetle Meliflua – an' yet so crooel! If you only knew what a vile dog's deenaire ees thees Don Lardo … an' I yam but a tender maid. But …” she heaved another sigh which knocked her coffee cup off the rail, “… what mus' be, mus' be … I suppose … ah, but how I envee your Vanitee, who may marry as her heart chooses!”
At mention of that magic name Avery raised his eyes to where it had been painted on the stern overhead. There it was: Glodden Vattiny. Oh, well, he thought, you can't win them all, and turned again to regard the sweet resignation of the lovely flyweight at his side. Gosh, what a ripping little sport she was, taking it on the chin this way, and what a cad Don Lardo must be to constrain her, and she such a decent pippin. Why, he thought, if he were a Dago himself (perish the thought, but just suppose), he couldn't ask for a better kid sister than young Meliflua. And wouldn't his Dago pals cluster round her, just, with those gorgeous eyes and jolly attractive little mouth, and silky hair and swanlike neck and smooth shoulders and … and things. Awfully nice, really.
Meliflua shivered. “Oh, but I yam cheely … no, I like eet out 'ere … per'aps if you 'old your coat aroun' my shouldaires … ah, that ees more comft'able … thenk you.” And she gave him a timid smile of sisterly gratitude, and snuggled up. “Ah, your Vanitee ees so luckee … eef my parents were kind, like 'ers, I might 'ave marreed Jaime, or Andrea, or Pedro, or Rodrigo, or Arturo, or Ricardo, or Alfonso, or Juan, or any of thee gang who used to play their guitars beneeth my weendow an' throw flowers an' confectionery an' love-tokens an' boxes of fruit to my balconee …”
“Good eggs, were they?” said Avery sympathetically.
“Not eggs, fruit, I say. But none of them,” she added pathetically, laying her head on Avery's shoulder, “was thee man of my dreams.” Her glowing eyes misted, and she stifled a glooping sob. “I used to pray I might meet 'eem.”
“What was he like?” asked Avery, smiling indulgently.
“Ah … 'e was my Cid, my caballero … about seex-two, I theenk … weeth broad shouldaires, yet so sleem an' elegant, what you een Eengleesh call a lovely leetle moovaire, weeth light brown 'air, an' a cheen so proud, an' eyes like …” She was gazing up at him intently “… yes, like a clear grey sky … oh, an' so 'andsome an' strong an' kind, an' brave, an' sexee …”
“My, you're what we English call well away,” smiled Avery. “Ah, little Meliflua, I know not where such paragon might be found, save in fond poetical romance, but I tell thee what – if I knew a chap like that, hanged if I wouldn't introduce you, Don Lardo or no Don Lardo, because you're such a stout little fella, you deserve this dream-chap of yours, honestly, and if he comes along … well, just you collar him, is my advice, and I'll be the first to weigh in with a toast-rack as a wedding-pres—”
Meliflua gave an ecstatic yip and a crooning moan, and an amazed Avery found slender arms about his neck, warm lips opening moistly on his own, and a lissom form glued to his frontage. Hold on, he thought, I only said if, so you needn't be so grateful for a purely hypothetical promise, you dear giddy little goose. Really, she was a most impulsive child, but he mustn't appear unsympathetic … what awfully pleasant perfume these Spanish gels used, he'd have to ask her what it was and get some for Vanity; why should it make him think of throbbing guitars and castanets and Donna Meliflua dancing in that rather abandoned way? Pity her dream-chap didn't exist, because she'd look absolutely stunning in bridal white, with a lace veil and a red rose clenched between those tigerish little teeth …
Heavens, she'd fainted. At least she'd come unglued and was lying limp in his arms with her eyelids fluttering, muttering some nonsense about thunderbolts and prayers being answered. Fagged out, of course, poor kid, after a trying day, and he'd kept her up far too late. With a cheerful: “Come on, young stager. Beddy-byes,” he swung her easily up in his arms, carried her to her cabin, and turned her over to Hattie McDaniel with a courteous kiss on the hand and a brotherly pat on the cheek, but she just stared at him in a trance-like sort of way; totally bushed, obviously.
Well, the sooner he delivered her to Don Lardo and she got these Mills and Boon notions about handsome cavaliers out of her girlish head, the better; one couldn't but feel sorry for the little squirt, but there it was. He took a last look round to see the masts were straight and the ship pointing the right way, and found his thoughts straying fondly to Vanity, as usual… dear Vanity, with her silky blue-black hair and dark appealing eyes … half a sec, had he got that right? Well, near enough, probably; he'd had a long day himself.
So! Likewise Hm-hmh. If Avery wasn't such a straight shooter we might wonder if the strain wasn't beginning to tell at last. Has he succumbed to the Latin charms of the gorgeous Spaniard? No, he's just confused – which is nothing to what he'll be when he discovers that Vanity has become a brunette indeed, always assuming the dye-job lasts and she ever escapes the besotted clutches of Happy Dan Pew. As for Meliflua, who can blame the impressionable chit for falling for Avery like a ton of nutty slack, especially when the alternative is the repulsive Don Lardo, whom we'll meet in a minute. If he wasn't such a snurge, one could almost feel sorry for Lardo, what with his fiancée going sour on him, and Bilbo and Sheba planning him evil despite, which is what they're doing, e'en now …
CHAPTER
THE TENTH
o here's the map of the Caribbean, that great blue beautiful sea bounded to west and south by Mexico and Latin America, and to north and east by the curving island chain of Cuba, Hispaniola, and the Antilles. Focus on a point where the Isthmus of Panama snakes down to join South America at what is now Colombia, and the map dissolves into a sweeping aerial night shot of huge purple hills and dark emerald jungle fringed by a strand that gleams silver under the moon. And brightest of all is the spot where old Castile has stretched out its stately hand and placed the jewel that is Cartagena, that glittering citadel of the most famous sea-coast in all romance, the Spanish Main. Churches and palaces lie white under the night sky, their glory mirrored in the dark sea at the city's feet, its lights twinkling like a carpet of fireflies through the dusk – you can almost hear Ravel's Bolero swelling to its great crescendo when thos
e spine-tingling trumpets blare suddenly from ambush, and then the music throbs away into silence.
That was Cartagena of the old days, when Spain held and plundered the New World from California to the Amazon, while the heretic fleas of England, France, and Holland clung almost unregarded to their tiny footholds round the edges of the great sea, and none dare challenge the vast empire of His Catholic Majesty, with its great garrisons and galleons, its fortresses and harbours, its far-clung cities and mines and provinces and plantations with their armies of slaves and priests and settlers and soldiers, its unlimited wealth and power and glory – none, that is, except a lawless company of bare-legged hunters, woodcutters, renegade seamen, gentlemen, fugitives, and scoundrels; one or two of them would write books some day, and win their little fame as explorers and naturalists and historians, and one would even become Archbishop of York and roar for pipes and rum in the vestry; but mostly they were plain ruffians, and in the time when they hit and ran and harried the Spanish giant by land and sea with their tall ships and long guns, they were called by a name detested in the Escurial, disowned by nervous governments, idolised by their Protestant countrymen, and patronised by history. Buccaneer.
So much for the record, and to explain why, as we look down on that tropic fairyland in the summer night, guarda costa sloops scuttle to and fro along the palm-fringed coast like water-beetles, and massive cannon peer from battlements above the anchorages. For no honest Spaniard knows when, out of the blue north, may come those terrible towering ships, flying their Union Jacks or Jolly Rogers, and bearing crews of even more terrible men who growl in the tongues of the North and Channel seas, and lust for the blood and treasure and women of New Spain.
But on this night all was tranquillity, and the guarda costa crews snoozed sweatily at their posts, or munched tacos and tortillas and garlic sandwiches while they listened to the strains of “Carmen Carmella” strummed on mandolins. They didn't see the great galleon which came dipping in after nightfall to anchor out beyond the roads, but if they had they might have recognised her as the Santa Cascara from far Cadiz (it would have been too dark to see the hideous crossed-out scrawl on her stern, which now read Goalend Van Titty). Nor had the guarda costas bothered to patrol beyond Isla Baru – not that they would have detected, in a gloomy mangrove-screened inlet, the rakish silhouette of that lean black cruiser known to the filibusters of Cayona as the Sac de Terre Qui Rit, or Laughing Sandbag to you. Aye, 'twas dread Black Bilbo on the prowl in the Dons' very backyard, d'ye see, lurking most frightsome unseen – for ye'll mind he and Sheba intended to venture incognito into Cartagena, there to learn the sailing date of the Viceroy's fiancée from Spain. Little did they guess the Santa Cascara had sailed several weeks ahead of time (trust the Goa Reminder to get it wrong), and was now at anchor only a few miles away, with Donna Meliflua reclining in her cabin, being fanned by McDaniel and tapping crimson lip what time she schemed, all innocent-eyed, how best to get her girlish hooks into the marvellous Avery. The designing hussy – and her only sixteen! Meanwhile the object of her passion is up on deck wondering how to convey her discreetly to Don Lardo -for you can't just breeze in on a Viceroy, even a Dago one, with: “Hello, Lardo old man, I'm Avery, discredited naval hero and English heretic, and I've got your intended out yonder on my ship – well, your ship, actually, if everyone had their own, but I had to sort of requisition her, wi' bloodsome slaughter …” Not good enough; bound to raise awkward questions, to say nothing of trouble with customs and quarantine. No, better scout ahead first …
A similar problem had faced Bilbo and Sheba earlier that day, but they'd had longer to think about it. As a result, a remarkable entourage had entered Cartagena's Baranquilla Gate at the hour of siesta, led by a stately gentleman brave in black and silver, wi' plumed castor and long beribboned cane, his modish Cordovan boots squeaking something fearful. At his heels stumped a perspiring dwarf who shaded his master with a multicoloured golf brolly and gasped sotto voce: “Not so bleedin' fast, cap'n, a screw in me wooden leg's come adrift!” They had paused at a joiner's shop in the Plaza to have the leg rawl-plugged and let the townsfolk have a good gape at the rest of the procession, which consisted of a score of slaves staggering under matching luggage, and a sumptuous mule-litter guarded by an enormous red-bearded goon and containing a mind-boggling beauty of Dusky Hue. Clad in a leopard-skin track suit and picture hat, with diamonds dripping from her shapely wrists, she had reclined languidly, yawning while a maid silvered her toe-nails, and demanding in a bored voice of the stately gentleman when the hell they were going to get to the goddam' hotel, and if there wasn't a sunken bath she would throw up. She had paid for the dwarf's leg repair with a jewel tossed to the joiner by her maid, and the entourage had passed on.
All of which had created a sensation, reported within the hour to Don Lardo himself. The Viceroy's eyes narrowed in thought as he listened to his chamberlain's breathless account:
“… she ees the Countess Passionata Eclaire, fabulously wealthy weedow of the Preseedent of Plantation Slaves and Human Cattle, Inc., makeeng a tour of 'er late 'usband's eestates, an' Excellencee, beleeve me, she ees the oreeginal Cherry Blossom bimbo! But stacked! When she moves eet ees like a boa constreector struggling to get out of a wet-suit, her eyes are smouldereeng coals of deesire, strange seens lurk in her velvet elbows -”
“Enough!” lisped Don Lardo, lowering jaundiced eyelids. “Command her to my masked ball and knees-up this evening, and if she is less than you describe …” he stifled a yawn “… I may have you impaled on stakes of burning bamboo.”
“Save your matches, boss!” chortled the chamberlain. “Thees leetle number is truly tall, tanned, an' terreefeec, por Dios!”
So now we come to the grand ball and knees-up scene, where a brilliant throng of cavaliers and ladies in costly finery tread elegant measures 'neath the glittering chandeliers of Don Lardo's state apartment, to the music of Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra playing “Rum and Coca-cola.” At the buffets, groaning with crystal and gold plate, other guests punish the choice viands and sweet wines o' Peru; among them the stately gentleman in black and silver, whom we recognise as Bilbo, is having the time of his life among the anchovy canapés and stuffed olives – for this, to Bilbo, is gracious living as he always dreamed it would be, with lackeys proffering goodies and brimming his glass, bold-eyed beauties o' quality ogling his raffish elegance through their masks, hidalgos exchanging bows with him and calling him esteemed señor – and to complete his bliss, he has discarded those damned boots for elegant diamond-buckled shoes, and his full-bottomed hairpiece is glued down with Airfix. When a ravishing Duchess murmurs huskily, “Shake me, handsome,” he whirls her into the conga line, the while his crafty eyes stray to the Viceroy's dais to see how Sheba is doing with Spain's answer to Billy Bunter.
Sheba is finding it distinctly rough. Magnificent in a silver Marie Antoinette wig, with matching mask and off-the-shoulder cat-suit in clinging lamé, the sable villainess has never been more bewitching, and the pasty-faced ape lounging with her on the Viceregal sofa, his piggy eyes devouring her, has whispered no fewer than four highly indecent proposals into her dusky ear in the past two minutes. Sheba, smiling evilly through the slits of her mask, responded in her husky murmur with counter-suggestions of such obscenity that the little greaser's corpulence quivered with delight and clouds of steam rose from his lace collar, wilting his fine suit of purple taffetas (in the worst possible taste, naturally). He humphed his obesity still closer, and in a lustful croak invited her to come upstairs and view his collection of Aztec petit-point.
“You fascinating wicked boy,” purred Sheba, “how can you tease a poor girl when all the world knows you are to be married to the most beautiful lady of Spain? … the lucky little beast,” she added, flashing splendid teeth. “I could scratch her eyes out.”
“That eesn't for ages yet,” panted the portly lecher. “Ah, Passionata, my ebony dove, my cocoa bean—”
“Not for ages?” said Sheb
a, as he nibbled at her fingers. “Why, when does she sail from Spain?”
“Ah, that ees a state seecret,” he leered, munching at her wrist. “Anyway, 'oo the 'ell cares? Let's you an' me go shake the universe, baby—”
“But if I don't know”, crooned Sheba, moving her elbow out of his jaws, “how can I rearrange my schedule, so that I stay as long as possible in Cartagena with you? … you mad wild boar, you.”
“Schedule, schmedule!” crowed the rotund amorist. “We'll talk about eet tomorrow! Ah, your shouldair tastes deevine! Come to my love-nest on the second floor, Passionata—”
Aztec petit-point, here I come, thought Sheba with an inward shudder; well, she'd better tip Bilbo the wink that this was going to be an overnight job. “First take me in your arms for a quick whirl round the floor, foolish Hercules,” she husked, sensuously disengaging her neck from the Viceregal teeth, and with a glad cry the taffeta-clad Lothario dragged her into the dance, where they gyrated to the intoxicating rhythm of the Inquisition Twist, the latest dance craze from the old country.
But who's the splendid figure standing at gaze in the doorway of the vast apartment, elegant in long-skirted coat o' crimson camlet wi' ruby buttons, his half-cut features clean concealed – sorry, his clean-cut features half-concealed by a silken mask? The very picture of a Spanish grandee (and he's got the papers to prove it, if necessary), he holds by the hand a diminutive stripling lad, equally masked and modish, who hangs back in cheesed-off reluctance: Let's eavesdrop on their whispered converse:
GRANDEE: Thus far have I conveyed thee in disguise, wilful Meliflua, at no small risk to myself, so I think you might stand up straight and not droop in fashion un-maidenly –