He went ashore in our new dinghy, returning half-an-hour later.
‘He’s working for a Salcombe farmer and has orders to take ten cartloads to Kingsbridge. He doesn’t know what it’s for, but fancies it’s top dressing for land.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ I groaned. ‘Ten loads—five tons! Over a thousand pounds lying and spoiling on fields. I can’t stand it, Austin.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked, and posed me. What could I do? Nothing—I could see that. I didn’t dare meddle.
‘I’ll wire Cheyne,’ I said, in desperation. It was the only thing I could think of.
‘Not from here. If you must wire go to Newton Abbot or Plymouth, and be guarded in your message. You mustn’t forget this may be all right. This chap may be working for some agent of ours.’
There was no confidence in his voice, and, speaking for myself, I couldn’t believe such a thing possible, so I went to Newton Abbot that afternoon and wired to Cheyne.
‘Ten tons of goods being removed to K instruct,’ was the message. I didn’t dare give the name Kingsbridge in full.
No answer arrived till next morning and then it came from Birmingham: ‘K on rail quite correct Carwithen,’ it ran, and we both heaved sighs of relief.
Before we sailed again other carts had taken up the good work, and thirty tons had vanished into the interior of the county. But, as Voogdt pointed out, it was a useful lesson in self-control. I thought of Ward’s story of the navvies and the quay extension and wondered whether I should ever attain that much command of myself. It’s a queer business, having to sit still and see thousands of pounds worth of your own property being taken away from under your very nose in broad daylight, not knowing whether it’s going into your pockets or going to waste, and unable to say a word or stretch out a finger to help it in the right direction.
When we got back to Terneuzen we were told the Olive Leaf had been paid off and our next voyage was to Kirkcaldy, on the Firth of Forth. That meant new charts and a new voyage, and our first experience of the North Sea winter trade made me regret the departed Olive Leaf, who presumably had got accustomed to it, as eels are said to get accustomed to skinning. It was bitterly cold, the weather had gone easterly with the approach of March, and when next we got back to Terneuzen we both reviled Cheyne heartily. Why couldn’t he keep us in the Channel till warmer weather? we demanded, and he grinned and said he’d do his best.
Our first two voyages were almost entirely successful. Deducting ’Kiah’s bonuses, which we had placed to his credit without his knowledge, Voogdt and myself reckoned ourselves richer by fifteen hundred pounds apiece; but after those two trips we hit a streak of bad luck. Out of three loads, deposited in Channel ports, only fifteen tons came to hand, which divided into six shares made six hundred pounds a piece. With ’Kiah’s bonus deducted—a quarter of our joint share—that left us each two hundred and twenty-five pounds. A hundred and twelve pounds a voyage was very good pay, past denial, but after our first two voyages we were rather inclined to turn up our noses at it.
Our payments were as unbusinesslike as our methods of trading. Sometimes we asked Cheyne for money, and found he would advance up to a hundred pounds without remark. The larger sums were sent us in all sorts of currency—postal money orders, banknotes, sometimes gold packed in strong boxes—delivered by registered post at the ports where we touched. The money orders were sent in different names, and we were advised by Carwithen as to the offices we were to cash them at and what names we were to sign on them. I didn’t care for such methods; the false names displeased me, for one thing; but I believe Voogdt positively enjoyed it.
‘I wish I was at the head office,’ he said once in Southampton Water. ‘This game of hiding one’s tracks appeals to me.’
‘It doesn’t to me,’ I said shortly. I’d just had no end of a bother trying to cash a money order inland, at Salisbury. Carwithen had instructed me to apply in the name of Collings; I had spelt the name Collins; and it took me a long hour to get the money, the fool behind the counter fencing with me, playfully assuming that I couldn’t spell my own name. I couldn’t very well tell him it wasn’t my own, either.
Voogdt laughed. ‘How much was it for?’ he asked.
‘A hundred and seventy. Rotten, potty, silly methods. I shall ask for mine to be banked for me in Birmingham in future.’
I wrote Ward that night, and from that time left the handling of my money to him—only drawing from Cheyne as occasion required. Voogdt approved when I told him what I had done.
‘Ward’s all right,’ he said. ‘But don’t trust Cheyne in the same way.’
‘I thought you liked him,’ I said, rather surprised.
‘H’m! Perhaps I do—fairly well. Whether I do or not, he must think so. I like him as well as one wolf likes another in the pack. We hunt together, but he’d eat me—or I him—if other quarry failed. Somebody must keep in with him, you chump. Don’t you see that in all this muddle and grab he holds the reins? What’s to prevent his doing the lot of us in the eye, if he likes to ship the stuff away when we aren’t there? I mean to go on loving him. Then if he tries any little games he may invite me to help.’
‘And I thought you had taken to the chap!’ I said. ‘D’ye think he’ll try it on?’
‘You never know. No harm in being hand in glove with him for the present, anyhow.’
About the middle of March we had a bad scare. We had learnt from Ward that our continued shipments had not been without some effect on the tungsten market. He told us that he was now getting from ten to fifteen pounds a ton less than when the syndicate began operations, and warned us that a number of cargoes successfully delivered would in all probability cause a further drop in price. Voogdt said that couldn’t be helped; our holding was too precarious for us to attempt maintaining a demand. ‘Thieves are forced to sell in a bad market,’ he said. ‘I’ve always had a sneaking sympathy with burglars, when I’ve reflected how the fences swindle them. We must just sell as fast as we can for the best price we can get.’
Naturally we looked at the market reports anxiously every time we were ashore, and landing at Southampton, in the second week in March, found tungsten had come down with a rush to a bare two hundred pounds a ton. There was a further announcement that wolframite had been discovered in paying quantities in the refuse of an exhausted tin mine in Cornwall.
‘Game’s up,’ I said.
Voogdt shook his head. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll pay us well at less than two hundred a ton. This is only a flash in the pan. If there’d been any promise of a constant supply it would have gone lower than that.’
A letter he had received from Ward with supplies made a brief veiled reference to ‘recent discoveries,’ but as far as I could make out neither Ward nor Carwithen appeared to take the matter seriously. Cheyne, however, was in a lather when we got back to Terneuzen.
‘Game’s up,’ he said, using my very words.
‘Looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?’ said Voogdt, teasing him, I thought. Cheyne cursed and grumbled and swore, and ended by asking us both to dinner. We accepted, but when he had gone ashore Voogdt suggested I should stay aboard.
‘I’ll grub with him by myself, if you don’t mind. If he’s going to start stealing, this is where he’ll begin. If I’m alone he may give me a clue to his intentions. If you’re there, he won’t. He pays me the compliment of thinking me a rogue, and you’ve already had the sack once for your transparent honesty, don’t you see. So you stay aboard and keep anchor watch, Jem. I’ll tell all necessary lies on your behalf.’
He got back after midnight, and before he opened his mouth I could see that something had upset him.
‘I knew he would. I knew he would!’ he said. ‘The sweep! He wants us to split a cargo, leaving the better half at a port not yet decided on, and report to Ward that we’ve had an accident and had to jettison the stuff. Not a bad scheme, either, I confess I admire his ingenuity.’
‘And that sweep is to marry Pamela Brand!’ I said.
‘Certainly not,’ I said, rather hot about it. ‘The girl’s nothing to me. In fact, I don’t like her—much. But she’s straight—straight as a line—and ’tisn’t fair to marry her to a swab like that.’
‘Never mind about her just now. The question is, what are we going to do?’
‘Give him the hammering he deserves and then write and inform Ward.’
‘Have a holy row, in fact. Kick Cheyne out; bust the show; and see tungsten quoted at fifteen pounds a ton or thereabouts next time we get ashore. Sorry to disappoint you, but that won’t do, Jem. Telling Ward’s all right. I’ll do that myself. But we can’t afford a row royal. Cheyne must be induced to leave the sales to me, and we must just keep another banking account.’
‘Can we do that?’ I asked.
‘We’ll manage it that way or some other. We cannot afford a row at any cost. Remember that, whatever you do. We must keep this beast sweet; help him, even, and just report each move to headquarters. Ward knows you’re straight, at all events.’
Cheyne came aboard next morning, Voogdt meeting him at the gangway. They both went down into the cabin at once and then called me through the skylight.
‘I’ve told Cheyne you’re all square,’ Voogdt explained, when I entered.
I said nothing, but Cheyne seemed not to notice my manner.
‘No good paying out six shares when we can make it three, is it?’ he asked.
I grunted some sort of an agreement. More I couldn’t do, for it was all I could manage to do to keep my hands off him. But it seemed to satisfy him, and he and Voogdt began to explain what he wanted done.
Our next voyage was to Swanage, and we were to put into Newhaven on the way and discharge twenty tons. Thence he wanted us to cable him, but Voogdt had said that meant complications and insisted on wiring the customer himself. Cheyne jibbed a little, but he had no choice, and so gave Voogdt the name of one of Ward’s customers that he knew personally and agreed that Voogdt should communicate with him direct. As far as I could make out, the whole thing had been planned beforehand between him and this customer, who must have been another rogue of the same sort, and they had only been waiting their opportunity.
I said nothing: sat like a dummy and grunted yes or no. My fingers were itching to get at the beast, and I didn’t try to be civil. At last even he saw it, dense as he was, and soon after took his leave, Voogdt going on deck to see him off.
‘Is he all right?’ I heard him ask, the skylight being a little open.
‘As straight as a line,’ Voogdt reassured him. ‘He’s a bit sulky because he’s been trying to persuade me he ought to have a half-share instead of a third, that’s all.’
‘What’s he want that for?’
‘He says it’s his ship. Of course I told him we couldn’t do it, and equally of course he daren’t make a fuss any more than the rest of us.’
‘Good enough,’ said Cheyne. ‘If he shows signs of being nasty, promise him a bonus. We can manage that, I daresay.’ And off he went.
‘You must try and disguise your feelings a bit,’ Voogdt said when he came below. ‘He’s been asking if you were to be relied on.’
‘I heard him. Faugh, the swine! He, to ask whether another man is to be relied on! He, that’s cheating women, and his own relations at that.’
‘That thinks he’s going to cheat them, you mean,’ said Voogdt, with a grin. ‘Come, man; put a more cheerful face on it. Think of him here counting his chickens and Ward, with that wooden face of his, hatching the eggs in Brummagem for all of us. We can work it well. See how: we land the stuff, advise Ward by code wire, and depart. From the next port we advise Cheyne’s customer, who swoops down on his prey, to find it gone. Having arranged for cartage and so on, he’ll talk to Cheyne like a Dutch uncle. Cheyne can’t explain it, nor can we. It’s just another cargo gone wrong, that’s all. Here’s Cheyne at one end, slaving away to get the stuff off, and Ward at the other disposing of it.’
He drew such a funny picture of Cheyne’s rage at his disappearing cargoes that even I was bound to laugh, and after that it was no good holding out against the arrangement. But I wrote Ward that night, exposing the whole business, and next day we started loading the stuff Master Cheyne already regarded as his own.
CHAPTER XIII
SHOWING A FOWLER IN HIS SNARE
AT her best no one could ever have mistaken the Luck and Charity for a yacht. She was too heavily built for that; but for the first two years I had her she looked a cut above the everyday coasting ketch. She was new then; I was able to keep her clean, her decks scrubbed and her brass work polished, and to indulge her with some little vanities, such as take a sailor’s eye. Her clumsy tiller was abolished, for instance, and replaced with a neat little mahogany wheel; there were white gratings for the steersman’s feet; the compass stood in a binnacle of bright brass and mahogany, and awnings hung from the booms in port.
But now her chipped and clay-stained wheel, with all its brass and wood work scratched and tarnished, was the only trace remaining of her man-millinery. That starvation winter in Exmouth had swallowed everything saleable, and working up and down the Channel ever since had accounted for the rest. The gratings had gone; all that was left of the awnings was a patch or two in the stained canvas of her sails; a ring of screw holes on the dirty deck showed where once the polished binnacle had stood, and we steered now by a clumsy floating compass of antiquated design clamped upon the after end of the skylight. Her once spotless decks were filthy with trampled mud and coal, her brass fittings had given place to galvanised iron, and neatness and lightness in her appliances had been replaced everywhere by clumsy strength.
And yet, soiled and weathered as she was, I think I liked her better now than ever I had done in the days of her prosperity. She was built for rough work; shining brass and white awnings were never her proper wear. Like most men and some women she looked better in her working dress, aproned and bare-armed, than in any ballroom rig. The more I looked at her the more I liked her, and when Voogdt came up to relieve me at midday I spoke my thoughts.
‘A dear good old packet she is,’ I said. ‘Honest as a woman. It’s a shame she should be put to dirty work like stealing for Cheyne.’
‘How many more times am I to tell you she is not stealing for Cheyne, you pudding-head?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t want to think otherwise of women,’ I said. ‘I’ve met ’em all over the world, good and bad, and there’s good in the worst of ’em. D’you think any woman would have thought out a dirty, treacherous game like this scheme of Cheyne’s?’
‘P’raps not. I don’t know. Lord forbid that I should shake your faith in woman, lovely woman, even if you do express it like a Surrey-side melodrama. I don’t think women’ll ever hurt you much, at all events. Give us the wheel. East by nor, half east, is it?’
‘East by nor’, half east,’ I repeated mechanically, And then, not feeling sleepy, sat down on the skylight for a chat.
It was a fine day, not too cold, and the breeze being well behind us, it was pleasant on deck. The cruel winter was nearly over, I was making money, and things generally looked more cheerful but for this Cheyne business. That soured me. I couldn’t keep it out of my mind, and before my pipe was well alight we were discussing it all over again.
Voogdt, like myself, had written Ward before we sailed and pitched the letter across the cabin table for me to read before he sealed it. It was a brief, concise report, such as only a skilled penman could write, with nothing to confuse the reader and nothing omitted. Even I, knowing the whole business as I did, felt I had a clearer notion of it all after reading his description. My letter, written in the heat of temper, had been full of abuse of Cheyne, yet somehow Voogdt’s simple statement, extracting the gist of all he had said, point after point, seemed to show hi
m more clearly as a rogue than all my adjectives had done.
He laid the whole thing before Ward, enclosed a short list of code words he’d drawn up so ingeniously that it seemed to me they provided for every contingency, and also enclosed—what I had forgotten in my haste—the name and address of Cheyne’s customer. He said the deal was ‘possibly prearranged’—hit off in two words what I had taken half-a-page to say. The concluding paragraph made me chuckle: ‘To avoid alarming Cheyne I suggest that consignments misdirected by his order be divided into five shares instead of six. Should he find himself credited with a share in goods he believes lost, he may get confused and be unable to discharge his duties as efficiently as heretofore.’
I chuckled as I remembered it. ‘Think Ward’ll have a plan ready?’ I asked.
‘If he’s the man I think him he will. He’ll have to do that double entry business we spoke of. “Oh! what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.” Who would have thought we were in for such an interesting business that day you took me aboard at Exmouth?’
‘It’s a bit too interesting at times.’
‘Rot! It’s the risk makes the sport. Half the time we’re working in the dark. Look at these German people, for instance. We don’t know what they’re up to; they may shoot us or run us down or blow the company’s sheds sky-high any day, for aught we know. Anyone of a hundred chances may wreck our plans: a row with Cheyne, an astute man watching the markets, another tramp like myself suffering from curiosity. The business was only founded on an accident, mind you—a half-drunk sailor dropping his watch. Interesting? I should jolly well think it was. I’m not one of your placid breed: I believe you’d rather be selling things over a counter, or trading regularly from port to port, or drawing a settled income. Not me, Jem. Life’s a gamble at best, and though you safe players may leave the table with most of the counters, I swear you don’t get most of the fun.’
‘I’m certainly not getting much fun out of this so far,’ I said. ‘Three bad voyages on end. Cheyne a rogue, and our never knowing what these Germans may be up to any minute. I don’t like it. I can’t be civil to one, and watch another, and keep different accounts going in my head all at the same time. Acting a part before this rascal and that—’
The Mystery of the Mud Flats Page 15