George Strode called me down, wanting to know what the hell it was all about. I couldn’t tell him much that he didn’t already know, for I could see by his face and the questions he asked that he was well aware that the ground was being cut from under his feet. “If he thinks he’s going to blackmail me into supporting his scheme …” He was angry and a little confused.
I think they all were for a special meeting of the board was hurriedly called for Tuesday morning. That was on the Monday after they’d had an opportunity of talking it over during the week-end and Whimbrill took me out to lunch in the hope that I would use my influence with Peter to avoid a head-on collision between him and the rest of the board. “I don’t think he realizes how deeply George resented his action over the Strode Venturer. And then to hold a pistol to their heads like this.” His hand went up to the skin-grafted ear and the side of his head where no hair grew. It was a habit of his when he was nervous or ill-at-ease. “Was this Lawrence Turner’s idea?” And when I didn’t answer, he said, “Turner’s very clever—always was.”
He must have worked very closely with Turner in the old days and I thought he was probably the source of the old man’s information about the company. “I only hope,” he murmured to himself, “that he isn’t too ill to have thought this thing through properly. George isn’t going to like it—and he can be awkward, very awkward indeed when he’s cornered.” Back in his office after lunch he lit a cigarette and reached for a folder lying in one of the trays on his desk. “The day after Peter contacted Lingrose I received letters of nomination proposing two further names for election to the board. Slattery I think you know?”
I nodded.
“The other is a man named Benjamin Wolfe. Both are directors of Liass Securities, close associates of Lingrose, and checking the share register I find that over the last three months more than a hundred and sixty-four thousand shares have changed hands, about thirty-four thousand being purchased in the names of these two gentlemen. I’ve been in the market for some myself and Turner purchased a further twenty-nine thousand odd. All the rest, some eighty-six thousand shares, have been bought on behalf of nominees. Presuming that these were acquired by Lingrose’s investment company, Liass Securities, which already held over thirteen thousand, then I think we must reckon on Lingrose controlling a minimum of a hundred and thirty-three thousand shares. If Peter supports him, then control of the company will undoubtedly pass out of the hands of the present directors. Even if they got Turner’s backing it still wouldn’t be enough.” His face was bleak as he reached for the house phone. “Since you’re certain Peter won’t change his mind I’ll have to see whether I can’t persuade George.”
He went down to see him a few minutes later. What he had to say must have come as a shock for shortly afterwards I ran into Elliot and he told me Henry Strode was in there and Hinchcliffe too, and they had sent for le Fleming and Crane. The meeting was still going on when I left at five-thirty to pick Ida up. Peter was out with some fellow he knew in the Foreign Office and we spent most of the evening discussing what would happen if he did go in with Lingrose.
But it never came to that for George Strode called him down to his office first thing next morning and told him that Strode Orient would accept responsibility for a pilot operation in the Indian Ocean. He offered him the Strode Trader just laying up in Bombay at the end of a charter, and in addition to the ship and her crew, financial support to a maximum of £10,000. “Turner was right,” Peter said to me afterwards. “You can plead a cause till you drop dead in your tracks. Nobody cares a damn in a place like this. But threaten to vote them off the board, frighten them with the thought they may lose their directors’ fees——” He smiled at me sourly. “It’s human nature, I suppose. But I’ll be glad to get back to a world I know, to people I understand.”
As a result, the board meeting that afternoon was a mere formality. Henry expressed his satisfaction that, after a closer examination of what he called “our Indian Ocean venture,” his brother had decided to give it the full backing of Strode Orient’s resources. Nobody was fooled, but it sounded good, and there was more in a like vein from the other directors and from George Strode himself. It was only at the end that the true purpose of the meeting was revealed when Henry Strode suggested, almost diffidently, that as Peter would be away he might like to sign a proxy in favour of one of his co-directors so that they would have the support of his votes at the annual general meeting.
“They weren’t taking any chances,” Peter said. “They wanted it signed then and there. But I was damned if I’d give my votes to Henry.” He had made the proxy out in favour of Whimbrill.
We celebrated expensively that night, dining at L’Ecû de France with Ida and the girl she was staying with. For them it can’t have been a very gay evening, for Peter spent most of the time discussing stores and equipment, the basic essentials he needed to get the stuff out to the ship. Later he hoped to establish a proper loading quay and blast a deep water channel into it, but at present the nearest he could get the ship was about two cables off. That meant barges, all the paraphernalia of beach loading. And he’d want mechanical diggers, loaders, transporters, a portable drilling rig, huts for the men ashore, an electric generator, refrigerator, cooking stove, fuel, food, stores. The list was almost endless. If the girls were bored by it all, they didn’t show it. Peter’s enthusiasm, his single-purposed concentration was infectious.
Next morning George Strode rang me on the house phone. I was to put myself entirely at Peter’s disposal, give him all the help I could. “And we’re throwing a little party for him to-night at the Dorchester. I’d like you to be there.”
The object of the party was a public demonstration of family solidarity. When Ida and I arrived there must have been at least two hundred people in the room—shipowners, bankers, financiers, stockbrokers, a sort of cross-section of the City and their wives, together with a sprinkling of journalists, mainly from the City offices. Henry Strode was acting as host, taking Peter round, introducing him to everybody. Then about eight o’clock he thumped on a table for silence and made a little speech welcoming him to the board. It was the usual thing—a couple of funny stories, a few platitudes and then champagne glasses raised, his health toasted.
Somebody called out “Speech” and the next moment Peter had leapt on to a table. “Ladies and Gentlemen—Strode Orient have allocated me a ship and the necessary finance and I am leaving in a few days’ time for an unknown destination. This is a new venture, the sort of venture my father would have revelled in. I want you to drink to its success.” He raised his glass, standing there, high above that crowd of sober, calculating men, his dark faun face flushed, his eyes glinting in the light from the chandeliers.
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then a murmur that rose to a roar as, having drunk the toast, they began to speculate.
“The idiot!” Ida said. And I watched as the journalists closed in on him.
“Commander Bailey.” Slattery was at my elbow. He had a square, paunchy, rather truculent-looking man with him. “This is Mr. Lingrose.” Bright, bird-like eyes, sharp as a magpie’s stared at me out of a Jewish face that had the high colouring of blood pressure. But it was Slattery who said, “What is this venture?”
I didn’t answer him and there was an awkward silence. Finally Lingrose said, “Never mind. It’s not important. What I wanted to say to you was this. Young men full of fire and vision make uneasy bedfellows.” He smiled, thin-lipped. “What happens when the honeymoon is over, eh?” The smile was gone, the thin lips hard, and deep, downward lines at the corner of the mouth. “He’s a fool.”
“He believes in what he’s doing,” I said.
His dark brows lifted slightly. “I see. Then you’re a fool, too, if you think faith alone suffices in this wicked world. You should have persuaded him to sell.”
“Why?”
He looked at me hard. “Because I was prepared to pay you for your good offices then. Now it’s only a m
atter of waiting.” And he jerked his head at his minion and waddled off to join another group.
“I couldn’t help it,” Peter said afterwards. “That unimaginative tiresome little speech Henry made and all those smug bastards thinking I was being elected to the board because I was a member of the family and owned a lot of shares—a mere cipher. Besides,” he added, “if you’re going to try and rebuild something it’s no good keeping quiet about it.”
STRODE STRIDES OUT: That was the flashy headline in the City page of one popular paper. His secretiveness, his personality, above all his background, had just that touch of the unexpected that appealed to all papers, even the staidest. “This brilliant young expert on Far Eastern trade … much needed dynamism in the direction of the company’s affairs … may herald a new era of prosperity for the long-suffering owners of Strode shares … a true son of his father, the man who built Strode’s.”
There was more of it in other papers, all in a similar vein, and all of them mentioned that he’d worked for Guthrie’s. “Did you tell them that?” I asked him.
“No.”
It could only have come from Slattery then. And there were other items—in particular a reference to his refusal to sell his shares. I was thinking of Lingrose and what he had said about it being only a matter of waiting. Were they trying to give him enough rope to hang himself?
But Peter was oblivious of manæuvrings of this sort. He was interested only in one thing—getting the expedition under way. Two days later he left for Bombay. I was to follow him as soon as I had dealt with all those organizational details that could only be handled in London, including the contract for sale of the first cargo of ore. There was also the question of who should command the Strode Trader, the captain having been invalided home with jaundice. Peter had had a letter from Deacon and this he handed to me at the airport. “Do what you can for the poor devil. I’d as soon have him as somebody I don’t know. But at least try and get George to reinstate him.”
It was a pathetic letter. Aden is a refinery terminal for tankers mainly and no place for a man of Deacon’s age to pick up a ship. Since his dismissal he had been virtually destitute. I saw George Strode about it next day. He showed not the slightest interest. “He has only himself to blame.” There was no glimmer of sympathy in his voice. And when I reminded him that Deacon had served Strode Orient for almost thirty years, he said, “You mean we’ve put up with him for thirty years. He came to us as part of the Bailey Oriental deal—a legacy we could well have done without. The man’s a drunkard and you know it.” There was something in his tone, a suggestion of vindictiveness, as though in Deacon he saw a means of getting at me personally, for he knew by then that Bailey Oriental had been my father’s company.
“When Deacon came to Strode Orient,” I said, “he was second-in-command of the Lammermuir, a brilliant young officer with a fine career ahead of him.” Before the interview I had checked his records from the files in Phillipson’s office. “He didn’t start drinking until 1953 when his ship was in collision with a tanker in the English Channel.”
It had still been the same ship, the Lammermuir, renamed the Strode Venturer. She had been feeling her way through thick fog for three days. She had no radar and all that time Deacon had been on the bridge. He had finally handed over to his second officer a bare two hours before the collision. “I don’t think you’ve any idea how he must have felt. The tanker burst into flames and he had to watch, helpless, because his steering gear was out of action, whilst twenty-two men died a horrible death in a sea of blazing oil.”
“He was exonerated at the Court of Inquiry.”
“I’ve read the evidence of that Inquiry.”
His head jerked up. “What am I to infer from that?”
He knew damned well. Strode Orient had made no attempt to support their captain. Quite the reverse, in fact; their counsel had gone out of his way to shift the blame on to the officers and so avoid condemnation of the company for its failure to install radar equipment. He had partly succeeded for the second officer had had his ticket suspended for a year and though Deacon was exonerated from any direct responsibility, he had been censured for not ensuring that his relief had definite instructions to proceed with due caution. This followed his admission under cross-examination that he’d been under great pressure to make good lost time due to an engine failure in the Bay of Biscay, an implication which the company’s counsel had flatly denied.
“All I’m saying,” I told him, “is that I think Deacon deserves better of the company than to be left to rot on the beach at Aden.”
“You do, do you?” He gazed at me, silent—a blank wall of indifference. And when I suggested his re-engagement as master of the Strode Trader, all he said was, “The appointment of ship’s officers is a matter for the Marine Superintendent. I think you will find that that particular vacancy has already been filled.” I left his office feeling that all the Strodes, Peter included, had in them a streak of their father’s ruthlessness.
The man Phillipson had chosen to command the Strode Trader was Reece, first officer of the Strode Wayfarer now in the Clyde for re-fit. He was twenty-nine and had held his master’s certificate for barely two years. I thought it an odd choice for what might prove to be a tricky operation.
“He’s a very good man,” Phillipson said, nodding his head decisively. “Very keen. We’ll not be having any trouble with him in command.” What he meant was that as a young man promoted to his first command Reece would be very amenable to orders from head office—particularly from the company’s chairman. In the circumstances, and from George Strode’s point of view, it was not unreasonable, and though I would have preferred a more experienced captain I didn’t press the matter. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been any use. Phillipson was one of the old guard at Strode House, a Scot with his pension to consider. I had some difficulty even in persuading him to let me have sight of Reece’s personal file.
He had been born David Llewellyn Reece at Swansea in 1934. His father had been killed in the St. Nazaire raid in 1942, his mother had died in London two years later when the clothing factory in which she worked had been bombed. He had been brought up by his eldest sister and had gone to sea at the age of fourteen, sailing out of London in coasters. In 1949 he had been arrested for smuggling. The two men charged with him had been given prison sentences. He had been bound over for two years. He had joined Strode Orient in 1952 and had been involved in a curious incident the following year when his ship had been boarded whilst anchored off the Java coast. There was a cutting from a Singapore newspaper showing an attractive, fair-haired youth standing at the head of a gangway with a drawn cutlass. It was captioned: Strode Apprentice Routs Pirates. He had become third officer on the Strode Glory in 1957, promoted second officer in 1958 and two years later had been transferred to the Wayfarer as first officer. On the basis of that rather unusual record I thought he was probably as good a choice as any for the task in hand. He obviously had drive and energy, and the indications of lawlessness were not unexpected in view of his background.
Perhaps if I had been so pressed I would have probed his background further. At least I should have insisted on interviewing him when he passed through London on his way out to Bombay, for it was undoubtedly Reece I saw by chance in the pub I frequented near Leadenhall Market. I had gone in for a quick beer and a sandwich lunch and in the mirror behind the bar I caught a glimpse of Phillipson standing with his face buried in a tankard and beside him a broad-shouldered, well-built man with a pleasant open face and fair crinkly hair. Though he was older now, his face still had the attractive boyish look of the young man with the cutlass in that newspaper cutting. I was being served at the time and when I turned round they were gone. I rang Phillipson as soon as I got back to the office and he not only denied having seen Reece, but said he hadn’t visited the pub at all that day. It was a lie and such a silly one that it magnified the whole episode so that it stuck in my mind.
But whatever instructions Reece h
ad been given privately I didn’t see that it could have any bearing on the success or otherwise of the expedition. In any case, I was faced with many other, and more pressing, problems. In particular, the location of the necessary equipment. The loading of it and the engagement of mechanics, drivers and labourers was Peter’s responsibility and he had the help of Strode Orient’s Bombay agent. But things like bull-dozers, crawler trucks, conveyor belts, all the machinery for shifting ore, could only be found by spending hours on the telephone ringing companies who had interests in India, for there was no time to ship the stuff out there. It had to be on the spot, and available. In this way I managed to lay my hands on two war surplus infantry landing craft and an old coaling barge for the transport of ore from shore to ship, and one brand-new piece of American equipment, a tumble-bug. But the stuff was hard to find and it took time.
Ida had stayed on in London and this made a great difference to me. She had Peter’s ability to become involved in an idea to the exclusion of everything else and this did much to offset the very apparent lack of enthusiasm for the project at Strode House. She had his vitality, too, his essential feeling of the excitement of life, and also a certain feminine acquisitiveness that made it fun each time I managed to lay my hands on a fresh piece of equipment. I had never had this sort of companionship from a woman before. It was an exhilarating experience and I only realized very gradually that I was becoming emotionally involved.
Meantime, Whimbrill was dealing with the matter of contracts for the sale of the ore. The Tyneside firm that had taken the first small consignment had done it more or less as a favour—they had been associated with old Henry Strode and Peter had been at school with the son who now ran the business. Long-term contracts covered their requirements and this applied to most British companies. In the end Whimbrill had to turn to the European market which had no Commonwealth ties and he finally negotiated a contract through Dutch agents for monthly deliveries in Rotterdam starting 1st August. As it involved a penalty clause I telephoned Peter about it and at the end of our conversation I asked how Reece was making out. The line to Bombay was very clear and there was no mistaking his slight hesitation. “Fine,” he said. “Without his drive we wouldn’t be anywhere near as ready as we are.”
The Strode Venturer Page 14