Alistair MacLean: The Golden Rendezvous

“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 Senor 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 may be 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 in those parts. And it seemed very likely, for he stood there perfectly straight, almost at attention, his hands loosely by his sides, as the three crated coffins were hoisted inboard. When the third crate came swinging in over the rail he removed his hat casually, as if to get the benefit of the light breeze that had just sprung up from the north, the direction of the open sea, and then, looking round him almost furtively, lifted his right hand under the cover of the hat held in his left hand and made a quick abbreviated sign of the cross. Even in that heat I could feel the cold cat’s-paw of a shiver brush lightly across my shoulders. I don’t know why; not even by the furthest stretch of imagination could I visualise that prosaic hatchway giving on number four hold as an open grave. One of my grandmothers was Scots; maybe I was psychic or had the second sight or whatever it was they called it up in the highlands, or maybe I had just lunched too well. Whatever might have upset me, it didn’t seem to have upset Senor Carreras. He replaced his hat as the last of the crates touched lightly on the floor of the hold, stared down at it for a few seconds, then turned and made his way forward, lifting his hat again and giving me a clear, untroubled smile as he came by. For want of anything better to do, I smiled back at him.