Road To The Coast

by John Harris

  Dodgin was noisy in his enthusiastic affection. ‘You did it,’ he said. ‘You got the bloody tug to tow us off after all!’

  Ash nodded. ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Know-how. That’s all.’

  Dodgin stood back, beaming and admiring. ‘I don’t know how you done it, Mr Ash,’ he said. ‘Straight I don’t.’

  Old Dainty stepped forward almost shyly. ‘Mister,’ he said, ‘I think a lot of people owe you a bit of a debt of gratitude. If that tug hadn’t come, the old scow’d have been here when the water dropped and then she’d have been stuck for months.’

  ‘Glad you’re pleased. Anything to oblige.’ Ash dumped a file of papers in the old man’s arms and indicted the pilot climbing on board behind Carroll. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘These are yours. That’s the pilot. He means a free and undisputed passage downstream.’

  ‘Passage downstream?’ Dainty stared. ‘You mean we’re going?’

  As they caught his words, there was a yell of joy from the crew and one of the Lascars did a handspring on the hatch cover from sheer happiness. The old man looked appealingly at Ash. ‘Honest?’ he begged. ‘No funny business this time? I don’t want no more shooting. None of that lark.’

  Ash shook his head. ‘No funny business,’ he said. ‘You’ll find a note guaranteeing a safe passage among the papers.’

  Old Dainty seemed as though he wanted to weep with joy.

  ‘Brother,’ he said in his low boozy voice. ‘Wait till I smell that old Western Ocean. I’ll know it’s true then. And I’ll buy you the biggest drink you can think of.’

  Ash shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, old boy,’ he said calmly. ‘Not this time. I shan’t be with you. This is where I bow myself out, as you might say.’

  ‘Won’t be with us?’ Grace’s expression was suddenly bleak. ‘Why not?’

  Ash winked solemnly at her with the eye farthest from Carroll. ‘It’ll sort itself out,’ he said. ‘I’ll follow later.’

  He could see she didn’t believe him and the unhappiness on her face changed again to bewilderment.

  Dodgin looked suspiciously at Carroll. ‘Sounds screwy to me,’ he said. ‘But if you say it’s all right’ – he shrugged – ‘you’re the boss, Mr Ash.’

  Ash patted the steward’s shoulder briefly, almost disinterestedly, and turned away.

  ‘About ten minutes,’ he said to Dainty. ‘That’s all. Fast as you can make it. Before they change their minds.’

  ‘We’ve been ready all morning!’ The old man grinned and shuffled off.

  Ash turned to Carroll. ‘Ten minutes all right?’

  Carroll nodded, feeling secure with the launch alongside and group of soldiers clustered behind him on the deck.

  ‘In private? It’s my last chance.’

  Carroll nodded again. ‘There’ll be a soldier outside the door, of course,’ he said.

  Ash gave Teresa a smack across the behind as she hung over the rail watching the launch. ‘Don’t let it go without me,’ he said. ‘I’ve a little business ashore to attend to.’

  ‘OK.’ The child directed her gaze unfalteringly downwards for any sign of treachery from the launch.

  Grace was waiting in the dark little cabin when Ash arrived below to collect his few belongings. As he entered, he paused in the doorway to speak to the soldier who was following him.

  ‘Habla usted inglés?’ he asked.

  ‘No, señor.’ Ash smiled and patted his shoulder, then he swept into the cabin like a whirlwind and, slamming the door behind him, pulled Grace on to his knee, swinging her into his great arms and planting a tremendous and resounding kiss full on her lips.

  The wolfish grin was on his face again and he seemed to be laughing inside himself as he pushed her away, ignoring her questions.

  He picked up the briefcase from the deck and held it up in front of her. ‘See that, Grace?’ he said. ‘Salvation. That’s what it represents. Freedom. Home. It’s the biggest laugh I’ve ever had.’ He put the case on the bunk and began to stuff newspapers and magazines into it, testing its weight from time to time.

  ‘Now the money, Grace,’ he said turning towards her.

  ‘What money?’

  ‘The money I gave you. The dollars. I’m sorry but I’ve got to have it back.’ He clicked his fingers, speaking sharply. ‘And keep it dark in case that swaddy outside the door sees it. He doesn’t speak English but it would hardly do for him to see the gleam of triumph in the old eye, would it?’

  She stared at him for a second, then she went to the captain’s cabin, watched by the soldier, and returned with the wad of dollars. Ash closed the door after her and laid the notes carefully on top of the magazines in the briefcase.

  ‘Feels like a million,’ he said gaily, testing the weight of the case again. ‘It’s got to,’ he added.

  ‘Harry, what’s it all about? What are you up to?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Ash said. ‘Just in case our friend outside’s not so dim as he looks.’ He turned and saw the bewilderment on her face.

  ‘If Carroll only knew, Grace,’ he said, grinning. ‘If he only just knew. Look’ – he took her by the arm – ‘do you know what was in that case when I first picked it up in Córdoba? Not the thirty thousand dollars Carroll thinks there was. Not even the seventeen thousand I thought there was. Know how much I got out of that deal with Duffy? Do you know?’ He looked excited. ‘Seven hundred and fifty dollars. That seven hundred and fifty I’ve just put back in there – and a briefcase full of leaflets. That’s all.’

  She stared at him, still bewildered by his gaiety.

  ‘I tried to tell you all about it that morning by the side of the road,’ he went on. ‘Only you looked so damned happy at the thought that at least money wasn’t going to be one of your problems, I hadn’t the heart to give you the rest of it. I got seven hundred and fifty dollars.’ He spoke slowly, trying to impress the words on her. ‘And no more. Eleven brief-cases full of lolly all waiting to be picked up and one on the end full of leaflets they were going to drop from an aeroplane. Leaflets and two hundred and fifty quid in dollars for the printer. That had to be the one that Handsome Harry Ash had the luck to pick up, while Duffy and Salazar got away with seventeen thousand dollars apiece. Duffy told me. He told me over the telephone while I was standing knee-deep in bloody leaflets. You could almost hear him grinning all over his face. It didn’t sweeten my cup of happiness, believe me.’

  He paused, staring at her and smiling, then he swung round and picked up the briefcase again. ‘Thank God I kept the case,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d better. Even seven hundred and fifty dollars in small notes can’t be carried in your bum pocket.’

  ‘But Harry – for God’s sake, Harry,’ she begged him, almost in tears, ‘stop being so damn cheerful. That’s nothing to crow about now, is it?’

  ‘Isn’t it? Isn’t it?’ He gave her another smacking kiss full on the mouth that made her go dizzy for a moment. ‘Don’t you see, Grace, that poor clot, Carroll, thinks I’ve got the lot. The lot. Don’t you see? I’ve persuaded him to let the ship go in exchange for it. That’s how I got the tug. That’s how I got the papers. That’s how I got the pilot. Duffy dropped most of his pickings somewhere – God, don’t I wish I knew just where! – and Carroll thinks he was the one who’d got the leaflets and I – me, myself, Harry Ash – I was the one who got the pile. I’ve been wondering all this time – ever since I first mentioned it – how to tell you about it and if I tried for a thousand years I couldn’t think of a better way than this. The poor fool made the mistake of letting me talk instead of shoving me in chokey straight away and asking questions afterwards, and it came to me like a flash of lightning just when I wasn’t thinking about it. Boy, did I talk then! I had stars in his eyes and sweet dreams in his mind before he knew what had happened.’

  Grace smiled but there wasn’t much mirth in her face. She even managed to feel vaguely sorry for Carroll, scared as he was by events and dominated always by Ash’s personality, blinded by
it, as though by the glare of a great light.

  Ash bounced away from her, undefeatable, exuberant, and fastened the briefcase. ‘Pity it isn’t what I said it was,’ he commented, ‘and a greater pity still I can’t get away with it. I could have bought the Ritz for you.’

  She stared at him, on the edge of tears, unable to respond to his gaiety.

  ‘Harry – I wish to God you’d be serious for a moment.’ She was controlling herself with difficulty. ‘What’s going to happen to you?’

  He looked up at her, sobering suddenly.

  ‘Did you tell them about the money?’

  Ash nodded. ‘In a way.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Various reasons.’

  ‘Teresa?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘What else? Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’ The elation had gone from his face abruptly, and he looked dogged suddenly and desperate and strained. ‘It was no good, Grace,’ he said. ‘This was the only way. I’ve tried all the other ways and they didn’t work. I nearly got Dodgin shot and I nearly sunk the ship.’ He seemed angry with himself. ‘What more could I do? This is all there was left.’

  She flung herself into his arms, choked by her new love and numbed by the thought that she had reached the end of it. ‘Where will they take you?’ she asked.

  ‘One of Caroll’s calabozos, I expect. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Prison’s no place for a man like you.’

  ‘Some aren’t too bad, I’ve found.’

  ‘You’d die of boredom, frustration, misery, being cooped up, something. I know you.’

  ‘Not me. I’ve told you, I’m the sort who survives.’

  ‘What will you do when they set you free? For money. I mean.’

  ‘Make some more.’

  ‘How?’

  He grinned. ‘I’ve never been stuck yet.’

  ‘How long will it be?’

  ‘God knows. Next time they have a revolution probably.’

  She didn’t know what to say. However much he tried to make a joke out of it, an infamous jest on the trusting Carroll, it still amounted to nothing more than a sacrifice on his part. He was giving up his freedom, that freedom she knew he set such store by, so they could all reach safety, giving up his own liberty for theirs.

  She knew there was nothing she could do to dissuade him either, for a man bent on chivalry took some turning aside. Again she had that feeling that had occurred to her so often before that he didn’t belong to the twentieth century but to some bigger bolder swashbuckling age that wasn’t frightened of itself, where men weren’t hog-tied and hidebound by their own over-civilized laws.

  And in that instant, too, she knew that nothing mattered so long as he didn’t disappear out of her life for ever. She’d sell up the damned hotel and come back and bail him out, put up the best lawyers in the world to save him if necessary. In that second, she willingly relinquished all her need for security, for stability, for a safe old age, so long as she could spend the rest of her life at his side. At best, it could only be a dim mockery of a life without him now, anyway, secure though it might be. Security was nothing without some divine motivating spark to keep it from becoming a burden.

  He stood looking at her for a moment, and though he affected to be unaware of her thoughts, she sensed that he knew what was in her mind, because he pushed her away gently, as though he would permit no more unhappiness, and swung the briefcase gently, still testing its weight. In the gesture there was a trace of the old undefeated, undefeatable Ash.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll find you when they let me out. I’ll find you somehow.’

  ‘I’ll write to you,’ she replied unsteadily. ‘I’ll send it through the ambassador or something. I’ll find out how to do it. I’ll keep in touch.’

  He nodded and moved to the door. ‘Gracie,’ he said slowly. ‘Do me a favour. Keep Tess out of the way until I’m over the side. I don’t want to have to answer any questions.’

  ‘What shall I tell her?’

  ‘Tell her anything. Tell her I’ll see her later.’

  He paused and looked up at her calmly. ‘Well, I’m off,’ he said. ‘Carroll won’t wait.’

  ‘Must you go? Already?’

  For the first time, her voice sounded thin and anxious, and it stopped him dead. He turned slowly, his smile gone.

  She was standing in the corner of the tiny cabin by the end of the bunk.

  ‘I’ve given him my word,’ he said. ‘Remember? Word of honour. Besides, if I keep him waiting, he’ll start getting suspicious.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid?’

  ‘No.’ There was a note of triumph in his voice, as though he’d mastered things he hadn’t believed possible. ‘By God, no!’

  There were tears in her eyes and he turned away quickly. ‘For God’s sake, Grace,’ he said. ‘One thing I never could stand was a woman sobbing on my shoulder.’

  She lifted he head and tried to smile. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized and his face twisted.

  He opened the door and the soldier outside straightened up quickly. ‘I told you before it was a mug’s game, Grace, didn’t I?’ Ash said over his shoulder. ‘Go and have a jug or two for me when you get home. It’ll help keep your chin up.’

  ‘I’ll keep my chin up.’

  ‘And keep on going when all the rest have stopped?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Right, I’m off now.’

  He grinned at her then, kissing her quickly, he stepped past her into the alleyway. They soldier eyed her curiously, then he slung his rifle over his shoulder and followed.

  Carroll was waiting at the top of the ladder when Ash arrived on deck.

  ‘Hang on to that,’ Ash said, handing the briefcase to him. ‘Just until I get a line to lower it.’

  Carroll appeared to weigh the case in his hand, then Ash took it back quickly and began to tie a heaving line to the handle.

  ‘I’ll carry it for the time being,’ he said. ‘Dodge let this down to me, will you, when I reach the launch?’

  He bent over the case and opened it on his knee, so that the flap lifted towards Carroll, obscuring the contents.

  Fishing inside it briefly, he produced the single packet of notes it contained, the packet Grace had returned to him.

  ‘All in packets like that,’ he said, holding it up for Carroll to see. ‘All right?’

  He was moving about quickly, his movements restless, difficult for Carroll to pin down and question.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on. What are we waiting for?’

  ‘Send us a postcard,’ Dodgin called as he lowered the briefcase after them to the launch.

  Teresa, hanging over the rail above, waved frantically and he waved back and grinned.

  ‘See you soon,’ he said. ‘Keep smiling, Little ’un.’

  He was conscious of the wooden creak of the boat beneath his feet. The sun had begun to burn his neck now and the sky had become bronze-blue again. The air was windless and the only features in the monotonous landscape were the twin towers of the Church of the Virgin, shining over the poplars and the eucalyptuses of the drab countryside as the sun caught them.

  Carroll stood in the stern of the launch with the soldiers, nervous but with his anxiety gone, and Ash looked away quickly. The gaiety he had kept in his face for Grace had vanished. The joke on Carroll had gone a little sour now.

  It was going to be difficult when Carroll opened the brief-case and realized that what he’d banked on to save himself hadn’t materialized after all. Probably painful too, for Carroll would never be able to stop the ship once it had started, would never dare to, in case he had to explain why he’d let it go in the first place. The whole operation was, in fact, a delicately balanced bit of blackmail that would have been a credit to a Machiavelli. Unfortunately, Carroll would be bound to take it out of somebody when he found out.

  Ash looked up at the rust-streaked sides of the Ballaculish and saw Grace on t
he end of a row of faces, beyond Teresa and Dodgin and Dainty and Grundy, and the group of Lascars.

  He glanced away, pretending to busy himself with finding somewhere to stand. ‘You can forget it, chum,’ he was repeating softly to himself under his breath. ‘You’ve had it and she’s free to go where she pleases. If you were honest with yourself, anyway, you’d probably admit she’s better off without you. You can’t turn over a new leaf at this stage in your life and there are better men than you about.’

  She waved to him in a quick gesture and he found it difficult to look up at her. Circumstances had played their part, he knew, in the last few trying days – circumstances and fear and gratitude and loneliness and the need for someone to lean on. She’d admired him for what he’d done and what he’d been during the short time she’d known him.

  ‘But you can’t keep that lark up for the rest of your life old lad,’ he thought briskly. ‘It would be like coming out of the Army, being demobbed, all over again. You can’t go on winning gongs. You can’t score a goal in every match. It was hard work and application and keeping your nose clean that counted in the long run.’

  He knew himself and his limitations and in the ordinary routine of life he couldn’t go on being a bloody hero all the time. Sooner or later he’d slip. A leopard couldn’t change its spots and routine and work were always enough to give him whirling lights before the eyes.

  He glanced up again, catching a glimpse of Teresa’s pale little heart-shaped face, bewildered by his apparent desertion, and the hatchet-shaped features of Dodgin for whom he was surprised to find he felt an odd sort of affection. Then, as his eyes rested on Grace, he knew she was crying at last and that in itself was enough to drain the courage out of him. But, even as he tasted the faint dry savour of disillusion, he saw her blink quickly and straighten up and smile; and he knew at once he was being a damn fool – a plain straight unvarnished god-damned fool. With a sudden blinding flash of intuition, he knew that whatever he did, whatever he failed to do, it would ever matter to Grace; not even that he was the dim sort of clot who could never manage to keep his end up.