Flames Coming out of the Top

by Norman Collins

  By comparison, Dunnett felt sorry for one girl—she was obviously young; almost a schoolgirl—who appeared only under the close protection of an elderly and enormous nun. The nun walked slowly and ponderously, impervious alike to heat and surroundings, keeping her eyes to the deck and holding her charge’s arm in hers. The shoes which she was wearing were rough and heavy like a workman’s. The girl, too, was dressed plainly and awkwardly in what might have been a uniform, but, when Dunnett passed her, he was conscious for a moment of a lively, handsome face and a pair of ridiculously large dark eyes turned for an instant out of the strict path of duty. The nun was talking in a low, almost inaudible voice. The pair of them seemed to be surrounded by invisible convent walls; and, for the nun at least, the outside world might never have existed.

  But Dunnett had other things to think about: they were his obligations to Govern and Fryze. He had gone over that mass of figures which he and Mr. Frampton had prepared together, until he now knew everything about them, from the aggregate figure of deficiency down to the weekly wages of Señor Muras’s twelve clerks. If he should want to do so, he would be able to discuss the whole matter without reference to a single paper. And by now his destination was close at hand. Somewhere, a few hundred miles away—distances no longer seemed very great: they just meant so many more peaks on the shoreline and so many more meals consumed in the teeth of that anxious little orchestra—Señor Muras was sitting quietly, or perhaps not so quietly, utterly unsuspecting of the vials of wrath that were about to descend on him. The realisation gave Dunnett a curiously stirred, braced-up feeling. The voyage had been nothing really. The real fun of the trip was yet to come.

  They reached Amricante at noon. The shore had suddenly receded, and the Viña del Mar, which, until that moment, had been contending with the long swell of the Pacific, was now riding in the comparative calm of a wide bay. The Captain was not slow to take advantage of the change. He rang down for more steam and the whole packet soon began to vibrate and clatter. It fairly bounced through the water. Its master stood on the bridge, smiling, evidently well pleased with the impression he was making. Finally, with a sharp blast on his siren he fetched up with a broad sweeping curve, that left a long, whitish trail of churned-up water spread out behind them.

  They were still some little distance from the quayside and for a while nothing happened. Then the evident lack of interest or enthusiasm in the Viña del Mar became too much for the Captain. Under his orders the ship’s fierce little tenor foghorn emitted half-minute blasts in an effort to rouse the harbour officials; it was blown in such a way as to suggest that if he had had a gun he would have fired it.

  The town itself lay right in the heel of the bay. There was more of it than Dunnett had expected. The narrow valley seemed full of flat roofs and towers. Behind it the hills ran into mountains, and the mountains themselves were resolved into the great range of the Cordilleras. So far as the eye could see it went up and up and up. It was as though the whole land mass were on edge, with Amricante situated just where it ran into the water.

  But it was at something nearer than the distant serrated skyline at which Harold Dunnett was staring. His eye had been caught and held by a peak in the smaller range which rose like a screen behind the township. From the top of the peak a thin wisp of sinister vapour exuded and hung over the mountain, like smoke above a bonfire on a heavy autumn day. It was el Monte de Fuego, Amricante’s Fiery Mountain. At irregular intervals—the irregularity was a part of the volcanic despotism of the thing—it kindled itself into fury and became a pillar of fire by night and a cloud of smoke by day. On those occasions sailors could steer by it and excursions were arranged from places as far distant as Arica and Mollendo. At the moment, however, it was nothing more than a lazily fuming monument to primeval chaos; nothing more—but there was always the promise that at any moment it would decide to be a great deal more.

  After the tenth or eleventh blast the first indication of recognition could be detected. A shore boat put out and proceeded with the infuriating slowness of all shore boats in their direction. It was not until it was within hailing distance that those on board could see that it was entirely full of rather gorgeous uniforms. First, there were four Customs Officers dressed like soldiers, with Sam Browne belts slung across them, and revolvers in the holsters. They were sitting in the stern playing cards. In front of them the Medical Officer of Shipping made an imposing figure in a blue naval uniform decorated like a cinema commissionaire. Beside him, in white, the senior Passport Officer embraced the mast with one arm and scanned the horizon as though he were exploring. And last of all the Harbourmaster himself, a tall man, bearded like a president. His professional dress, double breasted to show his close relationship with the sea, and heavily brocaded down each trouser leg to emphasise that he was also a servant of the treasury, had a magnificence all its own.

  The Captain greeted him with the effusive friendliness of one great man for another. It was discernible, however, that most of the effusiveness lay on the Captain’s side. He had learnt painfully and to his cost what it meant to have his Clearance Papers held up; and within that little lake in the ocean the Harbourmaster was empowered to hold up anything in creation. That was why the Captain had a drink poured out ready for him when he came on board. The Harbourmaster accepted it with the smile of the undisputed tyrant.

  Harold Dunnett was the only foreigner to alight at Amricante. The others were all going down to Moliendo or Arica or further south to Valparaiso. The Customs officials therefore concentrated themselves upon him. They seemed to argue that if he were really planning to do anything so unusual as to come ashore at Amricante there must be something dubious about the whole scheme. They went therefore minutely and in detail through everything that was his. Their officer, with a disarming show of politeness, sought to occupy the suspect in conversation while the others ransacked his belongings. Over his shoulder Dunnett could see one of them pouring out a little heap of Eno’s Fruit Salts into the palm of his hand as though to satisfy himself that it was not cocaine. When the examination was over the three men stood around like porters waiting for tips. Dunnett ignored them. At last the senior officer waved them away. He was after bigger game.

  “I wish,” he said, “myself to inspect the personal brief case of Señor Dunnett.”

  “Do you mean that one?” Dunnett enquired. It was his attaché case and was lying on the rack above his bed.

  The officer inclined his head. “But first perhaps Señor Dunnett can say what it contains.”

  Dunnett paused. He suddenly remembered Mr. Verking’s absurd firearm. It hadn’t been so easy as he had expected to dispose of it on the voyage. He had been cooped away in an inside cabin and the decks had been perpetually crowded. He had put off getting rid of it until it was too late. He hoped that it would be possible to bluff it out.

  “It’s just some personal papers,” he said at length.

  The officer raised his hand. “Then perhaps the Señor will permit me to examine it?” he remarked.

  Dunnett stopped him. “There’s my revolver in it as well.” he said. He tried to make his voice sound casual and unconcerned.

  “Your revolver,” the officer repeated. “You mean a revólver”

  “That’s right,” Dunnett replied; “it was given to me just before I sailed.”

  “Have you a permit of importation?”

  Dunnett shook his head.

  “May I see your licence, please?”

  “I haven’t got any licence,” he explained. “I told you I was only given the thing just before I came away.”

  The officer looked grave. “The punishments under the Firearms Act are exemplary,” he said as though reciting a lesson. “They include confiscation of the weapon and incarceration of the offender. I shall be forced to report the whole matter.”

  “But can’t I get a permit of importation now?” Dunnett enquired.

  “Not without the licence,” the officer explained; it was obvious that he
was disposed to be scrupulous in the exercise of his authority.

  “Well then, how can I get a licence?”

  “There is no way of obtaining a licence. It is beyond the power of anyone to issue such a thing. Licences can be provided only at the time of the purchase of the weapon.”

  “But I didn’t purchase it.”

  “Then you cannot obtain a licence.”

  The deadlock appeared final and complete. The officer removed the revolver, examined it, and then laid it down respectfully on the dressing-table. He was secretly more than a little impressed by the size and aspect of the instrument: he was far more used to small lethal toys with chased barrels, like presentation fountain pens, and butts of mother-of pearl.

  “Well, what can you suggest?” Dunnett enquired.

  “There is only one thing that can be done,” the officer replied after consideration.

  “And what’s that?”

  “To take it into the country without a licence.” He offered the solution neatly and suddenly, like a mathematician who has been pondering over an equation in his mind some time before replying.

  “That’s what I’ll do then,” Dunnett answered.

  “But it’s very expensive,” the officer pointed out.

  “Expensive?”

  “Naturally. You cannot expect an evasion of the law to be entirely free. There are several people who will have to have their eyes closed to it.”

  “Well, how much will they cost?” he asked cautiously.

  The officer began to make a series of painstaking and methodical calculations upon his fingers. “About two hundred bolivianos,” he said. “I will attend to everything —everything.”

  “I’ll give you one hundred,” Dunnett replied.

  “A hundred and fifty,” the officer counted.

  “I said a hundred.”

  “Have you got the money on you?”

  Dunnett took out his wallet and carefully counted out five twenty boliviano notes. “There you are,” he said. “You’d better count it.”

  The officer waved the suggestion aside. “Between gentlemen,” he murmured, and began to make a series of zig-zag markings on the brief case in violet chalk. When he had finished he stepped back. “That,” he said proudly, “is now immune from further inspection. I have given it full diplomatic markings. There now remain only your fingerprints. It is a trifling regulation …”

  The boat which carried Dunnett ashore from the Viña del Mar was about thirty feet long and wide enough to seat eight amidships. It was a class-conscious, if inferior, vessel; the other first-class passengers had gone ashore, and after it had collected Dunnett it returned for passengers in the other classes, second, third and finally steerage. Dunnet’s journey to the jetty was thus a lonely and portentous one. The gasolene engine, housed in a mahogany box under the nose of the pilot, fumed and roared. Dunnett shielded the back of his neck with his handkerchief and sat bolt upright on the hard, burning seat. The wood was so hot that it made the skin burn and scorch to touch it. Down there on the surface of the harbour, without even a movement in the air to fan it, the shore boat was no more than a noisy, unprotected oven.

  The quayside of Amricante swung round to meet him. He could now discern the names of the shops and the waterside hotels. The face which they presented to the sea was evidently not their best. They had that unfinished, unexpected appearance of anything viewed from the wrong side. Blinds which should have been repaired long ago hung listlessly, untidily flapping from two nails; shutters drooped at angles which would have made closing them a feat as ridiculous as it would have been impossible; balconies sagged suspiciously in the middle, apparently unable to support even the inevitable birdcage which adorned them. The whole place gave the air of having been abandoned by a fleeing people; only the small groups of men standing about in the thin strips of shade which the overhang of the warehouses provided, belied the complete abandonment of the town—and they had a dazed and desolated look. Alone in the whole place, two men in peaked caps and with a certain amount of gold lace on their shoulders gave signs of animation. Out there in the sunlight on the red-hot waterfront they were fiercely and implacably quarrelling. Dunnett could hear from halfway across the harbour.

  He did not realise, however, until he was actually upon them that he was the object of the quarrel. But there could be no doubt about it, as soon as he landed. The two men stopped insulting each other, wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands and made a wild dash at him. One began groping in the shore boat for his suitcase while the other attempted to snatch his bag. At the same moment two un-uniformed loafers, mere attendant pilot fish attached to the bigger sharks, came forward and prepared for the heavier task of removing the trunks; they unhitched a makeshift tackle of straps and bits of rope and set to work. A minute later they were quarrelling fiercely, too.

  By now the two superiors, smiling like cheetahs, had taken hold of Dunnett’s arm. They were seeking madly to draw him in two directions at once: their efforts had the desperate intensity of men forced to live upon their commissions.

  “Gran Hotel España,” the man on the right pleaded. “Very beautiful hotel. Latest comforts. All best people.”

  “Hotel Plaza,” the tout on the other side replied, raising his voice until he was shouting hoarsely in Harold’s left ear. “Magnifico. Select situation. Running water and tea dancings.”

  Dunnett shook himself free and beckoned to a taxi driver at the wheel of a Chevrolet. “Hotel Avenida,” he said—it was another of Mr. Govern’s choices—“and get my bags for me.” He tried to make his voice sound robust and commanding.

  The driver was a bigger man than Dunnett had realised; the representatives of the Gran and Plaza fell back as he approached. He took hold of the suitcase and the smaller of the two trunks and went back to the car carrying them with the ease of a milkmaid. Dunnet followed with his personal papers and Mr. Verking’s revolver tucked under his arm.

  There was something dramatic about the nature of their exit. First, the driver raced his engine until the whole quayside hummed, and next he let in the clutch with the suddenness of a spasm. The car jumped off the ground for an instant and then rushed forward through the dock gates. Back on the quayside the two rival tourist agents had renewed their disagreement. Each was apparently blaming the other for the complete and spectacular escape of their mutual prey.

  The docks were some little distance from the middle of the town. Between these two centres of life there ran a narrow stony track fringed on one side by a tramline along which at unpunctual intervals there bumped a red and yellow tramcar with a striped awning. The Chevrolet had evidently travelled along the route before: the driver knew the spots to avoid, and occasionally cut acutely across the double ridge of tram lines in an effort to get round the worst craters. The ride assumed the character of a dodging game in a carnival.

  The taxi stopped abruptly as it had started, and the driver got down. “Gran Hotel España.” he announced triumphantly.

  “But I don’t want the Gran Hotel España,” Dunnett explained. “I want the Hotel Avenida.”

  “Very high-life hotel,” the driver volunteered.

  “I don’t want a very high-life hotel. I tell you I want the Avenida.”

  “Sí, Sí,” the driver admitted his mistake and hastened to repair it. He warned away the porter who came forward struggling into his jacket, jerked his car into reverse and swung across the square in a broad arc; women and pack mules scattered behind him. Then he pulled up again in the Calle Corrienteo.

  “Hotel Plaza,” he said, and clapped his hand on the button of his horn to attract attention.

  “I told you I wanted the Avenida,” Harold Dunnett shouted above the clamour of the horn. He was beginning to get angry, and remembered Mr. Verking’s advice as to how to treat foreigners. “And bloody well go there at once.”

  The driver understood Dunnett this time. He turned the car a second time and drove off at once to the Avenida. It took some litt
le time to get there, as it lay on the road between the dock and the Gran Hotel España.

  The Avenida, when they got there, had an air all its own. It was very obviously not a very high-life hotel. The blinds over the windows and the entrance porch were stained and ragged; and the woodwork, once a full chocolate brown, was by now so much discoloured by the weather as to vary from a muddy coffee to a bleached vacant white. Nevertheless, flowers in small wire bowls were suspended from almost every available projection, and gay rosettes of coloured papers had been arranged to set off the drabness of the exterior. It was as though one person, probably a woman, had set out to do the best that could be done to disguise, if not actually avert, the hostile and remoreseless passage of time. Mr. Govern’s guide book must have been even more out of date than he had realised.

  As Dunnett looked, a tall girl came out. She stood in the doorway for a moment shading her eyes with her hands, and then walked over to the taxi. Without a word she removed the two suitcases and began to carry them indoors. She moved with a kind of unhurried gracefulness. As Dunnett watched her he doubted if she could have been more than nineteen or twenty.

  When he had followed her into the patio he was surprised that no one else came forward. The Avenida might have been without other staff. The girl was standing in the centre, her breasts rising and falling from exertion. “A bedroom for el Señor?” she enquired.

  Dunnett nodded.

  “A single bedroom?” she continued. “A single bedroom,” he told her.

  “Follow me, please.” She reached down for the suitcases and led the way to the staircase. At the foot of it Dunnett touched her on the arm and removed one of the suitcases.

  “Please?” she asked in astonishment.

  “Too heavy for a girl to carry,” he explained. “I’ll bring it up myself.”

  She seemed rather hurt. It was obvious that she regarded it as being in some measure a slight on the kind of service which the Avenida could offer. It was obvious also that she was not used to having other people do things for her.