The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

by Evelyn Waugh

  Enormous amusement in the audience.

  “Try another.”

  “Who is it this time?”

  “Why. This is too much. Gilbert Pinfold again.”

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

  Mr. Pinfold left his cabin, slamming the door on this deplorable entertainment. James, he knew, did a lot of broadcasting. He was a poet and artist by nature who had let himself become popularized; but this exhibition was a bit thick, even for him. And what was June doing? She must have lost all sense of decency.

  Mr. Pinfold walked the decks. He was still troubled by the unsolved problem of the hooligans. Something would have to be done about them. But he felt reassured about Captain Steerforth. Now that it was apparent that many of the sounds in his cabin emanated from Broadcasting House, he became certain that what he had overheard was part of a play. The similarity of June’s voice and Goneril’s seemed to confirm it. He had been an ass to suppose Captain Steerforth a murderer; it was part of the confusion of mind caused by Dr. Drake’s pills. And if Captain Steerforth were innocent, then he was a potential, a natural ally against his enemies.

  Thus comforted, Mr. Pinfold returned to his listening post in the corner of the lounge. Father and son were in conference.

  “Fosker’s wet.”

  “Yes. I’ve never thought anything of him.”

  “I’m leaving him out of this business from now on.”

  “Very wise. But you’ve got to go through with it yourself, you know. You didn’t come very creditably out of last night’s affair. I’ve no great objection to your knocking the fellow about a bit if he deserves it. Anyway you’ve threatened him and you’ve got to do something about it. You can’t just drop the matter at this stage. But you want to go about it in the right way. You’re up against something rather more dangerous than you realize.”

  “Dangerous? That cowardly, common little communist pansy—”

  “Yes, yes. I know how you feel. But I’ve seen a bit more of the world than you have, my boy. I think I’d better put you up to a few wrinkles. In the first place Pinfold is utterly unscrupulous. He has no gentlemanly instincts. He’s quite capable of taking you to the courts. Have you any proof of your charges?”

  “Everyone knows they’re true.”

  “That may be but it won’t mean a thing in a court of law unless you can prove it. You need evidence so strong that Pinfold daren’t sue you. And, so far, you haven’t got it. Another thing, Pinfold is extremely rich. I daresay for example he owns a controlling share in this shipping line. The long-nosed, curly-headed gentlemen don’t pay taxes like us poor Christians, you know. Pinfold has money salted away in half a dozen countries. He has friends everywhere.”

  “Friends?”

  “Well, no, not friends as we understand them. But he has influence—with politicians, with the police. You’ve lived in a small world, my boy. You have no conception of the ramifications of power of a man like Pinfold in the modern age. He’s attractive to women—homosexuals always are. Margaret is distinctly taken with him. Even your mother doesn’t really dislike him. We’ve got to work cautiously and build up a party against him. I’ll send off a few radiograms. There are one or two people I know who, I think, may be able to give us some facts about Pinfold. It’s facts we need. We’ve got to make out an absolutely water-tight case. Till then, lie low.”

  “You don’t think I ought to beat him up?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. If you find him alone, you might have a smack at him. I know what I should have done myself at your age. But I’m old now and wise and my advice is lie low, work under cover. Then in a day or two we may have something to surprise our celebrated fellow passenger…”

  *

  When noon was sounded Mr. Pinfold went aft and ordered himself a cocktail. There was the usual jollity over the sweepstake. He looked at the flag on the chart. The Caliban had rounded Cape St. Vincent and was well on the way to Gibraltar. She should pass the straits that night into the Mediterranean. When he went down to luncheon he was in a hopeful mood. The hooligans had fallen out and their rage had been tempered. The Mediterranean had always welcomed Mr. Pinfold in the past. His annoyance would be over, he believed, once he was in those hallowed waters.

  In the dining-saloon he noticed that the dark man who had sat alone was now at a table with Mrs. Cockson and Mrs. Benson. In a curious way that too seemed a good omen.

  Five

  The International Incident

  It was the conversation of the two generals, overheard as he lay in his cabin after luncheon, which first made Mr. Pinfold aware of the international crisis which had been developing while he lay ill. There had been no hint of it in the newspapers he had listlessly scanned before embarkation; or, if there had been, he had not, in his confused state, appreciated its importance. Now, it appeared, there was a first-class row about the possession of Gibraltar. Some days ago the Spaniards had laid formal, peremptory claim to the fortress and were now exercising the very dubious right of stopping and searching ships passing through the straits in what they defined as their territorial waters. During luncheon the Caliban had hove-to and Spanish officials had come on board. They were demanding that the ship put into Algeciras for an examination of cargo and passengers.

  The two generals were incensed against General Franco and made free use of “tin-pot dictator,” “twopenny-halfpenny Hitler,” “dago,” “priest-ridden puppet,” and similar opprobrious epithets. They also spoke contemptuously of the British government who were prepared to “truckle” to him.

  “It’s nothing short of a blockade. If I were in command I’d call their bluff, go full steam ahead and tell them to shoot and be damned.”

  “That would be an act of war, of course.”

  “Serve ’em right. We haven’t sunk so low that we can’t lick the Spaniards, I hope.”

  “It’s all this UNO.”

  “And the Americans.”

  “Anyway, this is one thing that can’t be blamed on Russia.”

  “It means the end of NATO.”

  “Good riddance.”

  “The Captain has to take his orders from home, I suppose.”

  “That’s the trouble. He can’t get any orders.”

  Captain Steerforth was now fully restored to Mr. Pinfold’s confidence. He saw him as a simple sailor obliged to make a momentous decision, not only for the safety of his own vessel but for the peace of the world. Throughout that long afternoon Mr. Pinfold followed the frantic attempts of the signalmen to get into touch with the shipping company, the Foreign Office, the Governor of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean fleet. All were without avail. Captain Steerforth stood quite alone as the representative of international justice and British prestige. Mr. Pinfold thought of Jenkins’s ear and the Private of the Buffs. Captain Steerforth was a good man forced into an importance quite beyond his capabilities. Mr. Pinfold wished he could stand beside him on the bridge, exhort him to defiance, run the ship under the Spanish guns into the wide, free inland sea where all the antique heroes of history and legend had sailed to glory.

  As factions resolve in common danger, Mr. Pinfold forgot the enmity of the young hooligans. All on board the Caliban were comrades-in-arms against foreign aggression.

  The Spanish officials were polite enough. Mr. Pinfold could hear them talking in the Captain’s cabin. In excellent English they explained how deeply repugnant they, personally, found the orders they had to carry out. It was a question of politics, they said. No doubt the matter would be adjusted satisfactorily at a congress. Meanwhile they could only obey. They spoke of some enormous indemnity which, if it were forthcoming from London, would immediately ensure the Caliban’s free passage. A time was mentioned, midnight, after which, if no satisfactory arrangements were made, the Caliban would be taken under escort to Algeciras.

  “Piracy,” said Captain Steerforth, “blackmail.”

  “We cannot allow such language about the Head of the State.”

  “T
hen you can bloody well get off my bridge,” said the Captain. They withdrew but nothing was settled by the tiff. They remained on board and the ship lay motionless.

  Towards evening Mr. Pinfold went on deck. There was no sign of land, nor of the Spanish ship which had brought the officials and, presumably, was lying off somewhere below the horizon. Mr. Pinfold leaned over the rail and looked down at the flowing sea. The sun was dead astern of them sinking low over the water. Had he not known better, he would have supposed they were still steaming forward, so swiftly and steadily ran the current. He recalled that he had once been taught that through the Suez Canal the Indian Ocean emptied itself into the Atlantic. He thought of the multitudinous waters that supplied the Mediterranean, the ice-flows of the Black Sea that raced past Constantinople and Troy; the great rivers of history, the Nile, the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhône. They it was that broke across the bows and left a foaming wake.

  The passengers seemed quite unaware of the doom which threatened the ship. Fresh from their siestas they sat about that afternoon just as they had sat before, reading and talking and knitting. There was the same little group on the sports-deck. Mr. Pinfold met Glover.

  “Did you see the Spaniards come on board?” he asked.

  “Spaniards? Come on board? How could they? When?”

  “They’re causing a lot of trouble.”

  “I’m awfully sorry,” said Glover. “I simply don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You will,” said Mr. Pinfold. “Soon enough I fear.”

  Glover looked at him with the keen, perplexed air which he often assumed now when Mr. Pinfold spoke to him.

  “There aren’t any Spaniards on board that I know of.”

  It was not Mr. Pinfold’s duty to spread alarm and despondency or explain his unique sources of information. The Captain plainly wanted the secret kept as long as possible.

  “I dare say I’m mistaken,” said Mr. Pinfold loyally.

  “There are Burmese and the Norwegian couple at our table. They’re the only foreigners I’ve seen.”

  “Yes. A misunderstanding no doubt.”

  Glover went to the space in the bows where he swung his club. He swung it methodically, with concentration, without a thought of Spaniards.

  Mr. Pinfold withdrew to his listening post in the corner of the lounge but nothing was to be heard there except the tapping of morse as the signalmen sent out their calls for help. One of them said: “Nothing coming in at all. I don’t believe our signals are going out.”

  “It’s that new device,” said his mate. “I heard something had been invented to create wireless silence. It’s not been tried before, as far as I know. It was developed too late to use in the war. Both sides were at work on it but it was still in the experimental stage in 1945.”

  “More effective than jamming.”

  “Different principle altogether. They can only do it at short range so far. In a year or two it’ll develop so that they can isolate whole countries.”

  “Where will our jobs be then?”

  “Oh, someone’ll find a counter-system. They always do.”

  “Anyway all we can do now is keep on trying.”

  The tapping recommenced. Mr. Pinfold went to the bar and ordered himself a glass of gin and bitters. The English steward came in from the deck, tray in hand, and went to the serving hatch.

  “Those Spanish bastards are asking for whisky,” he said.

  “I’ll not serve them,” said the man who handled the bottles.

  “Captain’s order,” said the steward.

  “What’s come over the old man? It isn’t like him to take a thing like this lying down.”

  “He’s got a plan. Trust him. Now give me those four whiskies and I hope it poisons them.”

  Mr. Pinfold finished his drink and returned to his listening post. He was curious to know more of the Captain’s plan. He had no sooner settled in his chair and attuned his ear to the paneling than he heard the Captain; he was in his cabin addressing the officers.

  “… all questions of international law and convention apart,” he was saying, “there is a particular reason why we cannot allow this ship to be searched. You all know we have an extra man on board. He’s not a passenger. He’s not one of the crew. He doesn’t appear on any list. He’s got no ticket or papers. I don’t even know his name myself. I daresay you’ve noticed him sitting alone in the dining-saloon. All I’ve been told is that he’s very important indeed to H.M.G. He’s on a special mission. That’s why he’s travelling with us instead of on one of the routes that are watched. It’s him, of course, that the Spaniards are after. All this talk about territorial waters and right of search is pure bluff. We’ve got to see that that man gets through.”

  “How are you going to manage that, skipper?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I’ve got an idea. I think I shall have to take the passengers into my confidence—not all of them, of course, and not fully into my confidence. But I’m going to collect half a dozen of the more responsible men and put them into the picture—into a bit of the picture anyway. I’ll ask them up here, casually, after dinner. With their help the plan may work.”

  The generals received their invitation early and were not deceived by its casual form. They were discussing it while Mr. Pinfold dressed for dinner.

  “It looks as though he’s decided to put up a fight.”

  “We’ll all stand by him.”

  “Can we trust those Burmese?”

  “That’s a question to raise at the meeting tonight.”

  “Wouldn’t trust ’em myself. Yellow-bellies.”

  “The Norwegians?”

  “They seem sound enough but this is a British affair.”

  “Always happier on our own, eh?”

  It did not occur to Mr. Pinfold that he might be omitted from the Captain’s cadre. But no invitation reached him although in various other parts of the ship he heard confidential messages…“the Captain’s compliments and he would be grateful if you could find it convenient to come to his cabin for a few minutes after dinner…”

  At table Captain Steerforth carried his anxieties with splendid composure. Mrs. Scarfield actually asked him: “When do we go through the straits?” and he replied without any perceptible nuance: “Early tomorrow morning.”

  “It ought to get warmer then?”

  “Not at this time of year,” he answered nonchalantly. “You must wait for the Red Sea before you go into whites.”

  During their brief acquaintance Mr. Pinfold had regarded this man with sharply varying emotions. Unquestionable admiration filled him when, at the end of dinner, Mrs. Scarfield asked: “Are you joining us for a rubber?” and he replied: “Not this evening, I’m afraid. I’ve one or two things to see to,” but though Mr. Pinfold hung back so that he left the dining-saloon at the Captain’s side, giving him the chance to invite him to the conference, they parted at the head of the stair without the word being said. Rather nonplussed Mr. Pinfold hesitated, then decided to go to his cabin. It was essential that he should be easily found when he was wanted.

  Soon it was apparent that he was not wanted at all. Captain Steerforth had his party promptly assembled and he began by giving them a résumé of the situation as Mr. Pinfold already understood it. He said nothing of the secret agent. He merely explained that he had been unable to obtain authorization from his company to pay the preposterous sum demanded. The alternative offered by the Spaniards was that he should put into Algeciras until the matter had been settled between Madrid and London. That, he said, would be a betrayal of every standard of British seamanship. The Caliban would not strike her flag. There was a burst of restrained, husky, emotional, male applause. He explained his plan: at midnight the Spanish ship would come alongside. The officials now on board would trans-ship to her to report the results of their demand. They intended to take with them under arrest himself and a party of hostages and to put an officer of their own on his bridge to sail her into the Spanish port
. It was in the dark, on the gangway, that the resistance would disclose itself. The English would overpower the Spaniards, throw them back into their ship—“and if one or two go into the drink in the process, so much the better”—and the Caliban would then make full steam ahead. “I don’t think when it comes to the point, they’ll open fire. Anyway their gunnery is pretty moderate and I consider it’s a risk we have to take. You are all agreed?”

  “Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.”

  “I knew I could trust you,” said the Captain. “You’re all men who’ve seen service. I am proud to have you under my command. The yellow-bellies will be locked in their cabins.”

  “How about Pinfold?” asked one of the generals. “Shouldn’t he be here?”

  “There is a role assigned to Captain Pinfold. I don’t think I need to go into that at the moment.”

  “Has he received his orders?”

  “Not yet,” said Captain Steerforth. “We have some hours before us. I suggest, gentlemen, that you go about the ship in the normal way, turn in early, and rendezvous here at 11.45. Midnight is zero hour. Perhaps, general, you will remain behind for a few minutes. For the present, good night, gentlemen.”

  The meeting broke up. Presently only the general remained with the first and second officers in the Captain’s cabin.

  “Well,” said Captain Steerforth, “how did that sound?”

  “Pretty thin, skipper, if you ask me,” said the first officer.

  “I take it,” said the general, “that what we have just heard was merely the cover-plan?”

  “Precisely. I could hardly hope to deceive an old campaigner like you. I am sorry not to be able to take your companions into my confidence, but in the interest of security I have had to limit those in the know to an absolute minimum. The role of the committee who have just left us is to create sufficient diversion to enable us to carry out the real purpose of the operation. That, of course, is to prevent a certain person falling into the hands of the enemy.”

  “Pinfold?”

  “No, no, quite the contrary. Captain Pinfold, I fear, has to be written off. The Spaniards will not let us pass until they think they have their man. It has not been an easy decision, I assure you. I am responsible for the safety of all my passengers, but at a time like this sacrifices have to be accepted. The plan briefly is this. Captain Pinfold is to impersonate the agent. He will be provided with papers identifying him. The Spaniards will take him ashore and the ship will sail on unmolested.”