The Comedians (31 page)

‘And Major Jones,' Jones added jauntily and moved out from behind me into view.

‘Oh, Mr Jones,' the captain said in a tone of distinct displeasure.

‘I hope you've room for a passenger?' Jones asked with his unconvincing hilarity. ‘Not short of schnapps, I hope?'

‘Not for a passenger. But are you a passenger? At this hour of the night, I would imagine you lack a ticket . . .'

‘I have the money to pay for one, captain.'

‘And an exit-visa?'

‘A formality for a foreigner like myself.'

‘A formality which is complied with by all except the criminal classes. I think you're in trouble, Mr Jones.'

‘Yes. You might say I'm a political refugee.'

‘Then why have you not gone to the British Embassy?'

‘I felt I'd be more at home in the dear old
Medea
' – the phrase had a good music-hall ring and perhaps that was why he repeated it. ‘Dear old
Medea
.'

‘You were never a welcome guest, Mr Jones. I had too many inquiries about you.'

Jones looked at me, but I could give him little help. ‘Captain,' I said, ‘you know how they treat prisoners here. Surely you can stretch a rule . . .'

His white nightshirt, embroidered around the neck and cuffs, perhaps by that formidable wife of his, had a horribly judicial air; he looked down at us from the height of his bunk as from a bench. ‘Mr Brown,' he said, ‘I have my career to consider. I must return here every month. Do you think that at my age the company would give me another command, on another route? After an indiscretion such as you propose?'

Jones said, ‘I'm sorry. I never thought of that,' with a gentleness which surprised, I think, the captain just as much as it surprised me, for when the captain spoke again it was almost as though he were offering an excuse.

‘I do not know whether you have a family, Mr Jones. But I certainly have.'

‘No, I have no one,' Jones admitted. ‘No one at all. Unless you count a bit of tail here and there. You're right, captain, I'm expendable. I'll have to sort this out some other way.' He brooded a little, while we watched him, then suddenly suggested, ‘I could stow away if you'd turn a blind eye.'

‘In that case I would have to hand you over to the police in Philadelphia. Does that suit you, Mr Jones? I have an idea there are people in Philadelphia who want to ask you questions.'

‘It's nothing serious. I owe a little money, that's all.'

‘Of your own?'

‘On second thoughts perhaps it wouldn't suit me all that well.'

I admired Jones's calm: he might have been a judge himself, sitting in chambers with two experts in a tricky Chancery case.

‘The choice of action seems to be strictly limited,' he summed the problem up.

‘Then I would suggest again the British Embassy,' the captain said in the chill voice of one who always knows the correct answer and expects no disagreement.

‘You're probably right. I didn't get on with the consul in Leopoldville very well, that's the truth. And they all come out of the same stable – Career out of Diplomatic Bag. I'm afraid they'll have a report on me here too. It's a problem, isn't it? You really would be bound to hand me over to the coppers in Philadelphia?'

‘I'd be bound to.'

‘It's just as short as it's long, isn't it?' He turned to me. ‘What about some other embassy where there'd be no report . . . ?'

‘These things are governed by diplomatic rules,' I said. ‘They couldn't claim a foreigner had the right of asylum. They'd be stuck with you for keeps, as long as this government lasted.'

Steps came rattling up the companionway. A hand knocked on the door. I saw Jones catch his breath. He wasn't nearly so calm as he tried to show.

‘Come in.'

The second officer entered. He looked at us without surprise as though he expected to find strangers. He spoke to the captain in Dutch, and the captain asked him a question. He replied with his eye on Jones. The captain turned to us. As though he had at last abandoned the hope of Maigret for the night he put his book down. He said, ‘There's a police officer at the gangway with three men. They want to come on board.'

Jones gave a deep unhappy sigh. Perhaps he was watching Sahib House and the 18th hole and the Desert Island Bar disappearing for ever.

The captain gave an order in Dutch to the second officer who left the cabin. He said, ‘I must get dressed.' He balanced shyly on the edge of the bunk like a
hausfrau
, then heavily descended.

‘You're letting them come on board!' Jones exclaimed. ‘Where's your pride? This is Dutch territory, isn't it?'

‘Mr Jones, if you will please go into the toilet and keep quiet, it will be easier for all of us.'

I opened a door at the end of the bunk and pushed Jones through. He went reluctantly. ‘I'm trapped here,' he said, ‘like a rat,' then altered the phrase quickly to ‘a rabbit, I mean,' and gave me a frightened smile. I sat him firmly down like a child on the lavatory seat.

The captain was pulling his trousers on and tucking in his nightshirt. He took a uniform jacket off a peg and put it on – the nightshirt was concealed by the collar.

‘You're not going to let them search?' I protested. He had no time to reply or to put on his shoes and socks before the knock came on the door.

I knew the police officer who entered. He was a real bastard, as bad as any of the Tontons Macoute; a man as big as Doctor Magiot and one who wielded a terrific punch; many broken jaws in Port-au-Prince testified to his strength. His mouth was full of gold teeth, probably not his own: he carried them as an Indian brave used to carry scalps. He looked at us both with insolence, while the second officer, a pimply youth, hovered nervously behind. He said to me, the words like an insult, ‘I know
you
.'

The little captain looked very vulnerable in his bare feet, but he replied with spirit, ‘I don't know you.'

‘What are you doing on board at this hour?' the policeman said to me.

The captain said in French to the second officer so that his meaning was clear to everyone, ‘I thought I told you he was to leave his gun behind?'

‘He refused, sir. He pushed me on one side.'

‘Refused? Pushed?' The captain drew himself up and almost reached the negro's shoulder. ‘I invited you on board – but only on conditions. I am the only man allowed to carry arms on this ship. You are not in Haiti now.'

That phrase spoken with conviction really disconcerted the officer. It was like a magic spell – he felt unsafe. He looked around at all of us, he looked around the cabin. ‘
Pas à Haïti?
' he exclaimed, and I suppose he saw only the unfamiliar, a framed certificate on the wall for saving life at sea, a photograph of a grim white woman with iron-grey waves in her hair, a stone bottle of something called Bols, a photograph of the Amsterdam canals ice-bound in winter. He repeated distractedly, ‘
Pas à Haïti
?'

‘
Vous êtes en Hollande
,' the captain said with a masterly laugh as he held out his hand. ‘Give me your revolver.'

‘I am under orders,' the bully said miserably, ‘I am doing my duty . . .'

‘My officer will return it to you when you leave the ship.'

‘But I am looking for a criminal.'

‘Not in my ship.'

‘He came here in your ship.'

‘I am not responsible for that. Now give me your revolver.'

‘I must search.'

‘You can search all you like on shore but not here. Here I am responsible for law and order. Unless you give me your revolver I shall call the crew to disarm you and afterwards I will have you pitched into the harbour.'

The man was beaten. His eye was drawn to the disapproving face of the captain's wife as he unbuttoned his holster and handed over his gun. The captain put it in her charge. ‘Now,' he said, ‘I am prepared to answer any reasonable questions. What is it you want to know?'

‘We want to know if you have a criminal on board. You know him – a man called Jones.'

‘Here is a passenger-list. If you can read.'

‘His name will not be on it.'

‘I have been captain on this line for ten years. I stick to the letter of the law. I will never carry a passenger who is not on that list. Nor a passenger without an exit-visa. Has he an exit-visa?'

‘No.'

‘Then I can promise you, lieutenant, that he will never be a passenger in this ship.'

The sound of his rank seemed to mollify the police officer a little. ‘He may be hidden,' he said, ‘without your knowledge.'

‘In the morning before sailing I will have the ship searched, and if he is found, I shall put him ashore.'

The man hesitated. ‘If he is not here,' he said, ‘he must have gone to the British Embassy.'

‘It would be a more natural place,' the captain said, ‘than the Royal Netherlands Steamship Company.' He handed the revolver to the second officer. ‘You will give it him,' he said, ‘at the foot of the gangway.' He turned his back and left the officer's black hand floating in mid-air like a catfish in an aquarium.

We waited in silence until the second officer returned and told the captain that the lieutenant had driven away with his men; then I let Jones out of the lavatory. He was effusively grateful. ‘You were superb, captain,' he said.

The captain regarded him with dislike and contempt. He said, ‘I told him only the truth. If I had discovered you stowing away I would have put you on shore. I am glad I did not have to lie. I would have found it hard to forgive myself or you. Please leave my ship as soon as it is safe.' He removed his jacket, he pulled his white nightshirt out of his trousers so that he could remove them with modesty, we went away.

Outside I leant over the rail and looked at the policeman who had returned to the foot of the gangway. He was last night's policeman, and there was no sign of the lieutenant or his men. I said, ‘It's too late now for the British Embassy. It will be well guarded by this time.'

‘What do we do then?'

‘God knows, but we've got to leave the boat. If we are still here in the morning the captain will be as good as his word.'

The purser, who woke quite cheerfully from his sleep (he was lying flat on his back when we entered with a lubricious smile on his face), saved the situation. He said, ‘There is no difficulty about Mr Brown leaving, the policeman knows him already. But there is only one solution for Mr Jones. He must leave as a woman.'

‘But the clothes?' I asked.

‘There is an acting box here for the ship's parties. We have the dress of a Spanish señorita and a peasant-costume from Vollendam.'

Jones said piteously, ‘But my moustache.'

‘You must shave it off.'

Neither the Spanish costume, which was designed for a flamenco-dancer, nor the elaborate headgear of the Dutch peasant was inconspicuous. We tried our best to make an unobtrusive mixture of the two, jettisoning the Vollendam headgear and the wooden sabots of the one and the mantilla of the other, as well as a great many underskirts in both cases. Meanwhile Jones gloomily and painfully shaved – there was no hot water. Oddly enough he looked more reliable without his moustache; it was as though before he had been wearing an incorrect uniform. Now I could almost believe in his military career. Odder still, when once the great sacrifice had been made, he entered with a kind of expert enthusiasm into the spirit of the charade.

‘You have no rouge or lipstick?' he asked the purser, but the purser had none and Jones had to make do for cosmetics with a stick of Remington pre-shave powder. It gave him, above the black Vollendam skirt and the spangled Spanish blouse, a look of lurid pallor. ‘At the foot of the gangway,' he told the purser, ‘you must kiss me. It will help to hide my face.'

‘Why not kiss Mr Brown?' the purser asked.

‘He's taking me home. It wouldn't be natural. You have to imagine that we've passed quite an evening together, all three of us.'

‘What kind of an evening?'

‘An evening of riotous abandonment,' Jones said.

‘Can you manage your skirt?' I asked.

‘Of course, old man.' He added mysteriously. ‘This is not the first time. Under very different circumstances, of course.'

He went down the gangway on my arm. The skirts were so long that he had to gather them in one hand like a Victorian lady picking her way across a muddy street. The ship's sentry stared at us agape: he hadn't known there was a woman aboard, and such a woman, too. Jones, as he passed the sentry, gave him an appraising and provocative glance from his brown eyes. I noticed how fine and bold they looked now below his shawl; they had been killed by the moustache. At the foot of the gangway he embraced the purser and left him smudged on both cheeks with pre-shave powder. The policeman watched us with dulled curiosity – it was obvious that Jones was not the first woman to leave the boat in the early hours, and he could hardly have appealed to any man acquainted with the girls at Mère Catherine's.

We walked slowly arm in arm to the place where I had left my car. ‘You're holding your skirt too high,' I warned him.

‘I was never a modest woman, old man.'

‘I mean the
flic
can see your shoes.'

‘Not in the dark.'

I would never have believed our escape could prove so easy. No footsteps followed us, the car was there, unwatched, peace and Columbus reigned over the night. I sat and thought while Jones arranged his skirts. He said, ‘I played Boadicea once. In a skit. To amuse the fellows. I had royalty in the audience.'