The Man from the 'Turkish Slave'

by Victor Canning

  She counted to herself, a silent chant and she was in the forties and without an idea in her head of what she would do. Forty-eight; Lord make me think of something. Forty-nine; oh, Lord, You ain’t got much time left. Fifty …

  She rose to her feet, gave a loud shout and began to waddle forward. She went down off the platform, turned away from the men and began to pant and bustle towards the far side of the square.

  Lesset and the others, almost at the head of the slip, swung round at the sound of her voice.

  ‘Assis!’ Lesset made a movement of his arm and together he and Assis ran across the square towards the retreating Grazia. Vasco and Manöel stood watching them.

  Lesset caught her up easily and, putting a hand on her shoulder, dragged her round.

  ‘What’s the idea, Grazia? You can’t get away, you aren’t built for speed.’

  ‘Mistah Lesset …’ She looked frightened and her breath came wheezily from her exertions, ‘ there’s a snake up there under the broken chairs … Lord, he came out and raised his head at me. Ah got an abomination of snakes …’

  ‘Come on,’ Lesset spoke curtly. ‘You’re beginning to see things. There are no snakes on this island.’

  ‘It was a snake, Mistah Lesset … All yellow and black and the evil in his eyes brighter than yoh own …’

  Lesset laughed quietly. ‘You’ve been sitting in the sun too long. Come on, you get down to the boat and stay with us.’

  Assis took her by one arm and Lesset by the other and they brought her down to the boat.

  The slowness with which she walked increased the impatience in Lesset. Every unnecessary moment they spent on this island carried danger, the odd, unforeseeable peril that works with time.

  ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ He jerked at Grazia’s arm.

  Grazia grunted.

  ‘At my age and figure, Mistah Lesset, hurry ain’t only undignified, it’s impossible.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The wall of the house on the corner of the square had collapsed. Tereza and Peter crouched behind the pile of broken plaster and stones. Obliquely to their left they could see Lesset and his men working the boat down to the slip. Part of the bodega platform was in sight but Grazia was hidden. Away to the right, close up against the front of the houses, a long, smooth run of sand left by the waves covered the cobbles of the square. Beyond it were the beached and battered fishing boats, some of them hard against the house fronts. Part of the fence had been broken down. Peter kept his eye on the long stretch of sand as he waited. He had to cross it in full view. Once that was done he would be safe for he would have the cover of the boats.

  His hand rested lightly on Tereza’s, feeling the hard, caked mud on it. Although his mind was on the task before him, there was an odd corner of it which examined coolly the damage all around him. There was a hell of a lot of work to be done in Portos Marias and he wanted to have a hand in it.

  Away to his left Grazia screamed. He saw the men turn. Tereza’s hand slid up his bare arm and gave him a squeeze. Crouching low, he ran across the long strip of sand, waiting for the shout which would mean discovery. But it never came. He reached the cover of the tilted boats and made his way towards the yard. He swung over the fence where it had been smashed down and ran across the yard towards the door of the factory.

  Most of the cardboard cases had been washed haphazardly about the cobbles. Some of them had split and cans lay everywhere. A donkey cart with a dead donkey pinned under it lay wedged in the angle by the door. A great cloud of flies rose from the beast’s smashed skull as he passed and went through the door.

  He picked his way across the floor of the long workroom. It was six inches deep in water. The safe, he knew from Tereza, was in a little storeroom above the partitioned glass office. A small flight of ladder stairs led up from the office to the room. The glass partition was smashed, the whole place had been flooded and the water had reached up into the storeroom. The safe was untouched. It stood in a recess half-way up against the wall which here was formed by the rock of the cliff against which the building backed.

  He soon found what he wanted; a cardboard box full of black powder cartridges, tight rolls about six inches long, and a long length of fuse cord. He put the cord in the box with the cartridges and went down into the office.

  Lesset pointed to the wall at the edge of the slip.

  ‘Sit here, Grazia, and don’t move.’

  Grazia sat down, puffing and sighing.

  Lesset turned to Manöel. ‘All right. Get across to the cannery and fetch the petrol and oil. We’ll run the boat down.’

  There was nothing Grazia could do. She closed her eyes and made a silent prayer for Peter. When she opened her eyes Manöel was on his way. She watched him move unhurriedly across the square.

  Tereza saw him, too. She watched him moving towards the cannery. There was nothing she could do. She crouched there in a long agony of torment … Out in the bay the gulls wheeled and called, the sound of the boat being pushed down the last slope over the rollers thundered gently in the clear air, and from the sand on the far side of the collapsed wall she saw the flick and spring of the sand hoppers as the sun dried and baked the golden surface which was pocked with the mark of Peter’s feet. Peter … Peter …

  Manöel went into the yard, picking his way through the strewn cases towards the small shed which was built up against the far cliff-side close to the cannery door. The petrol and oil were kept in the shed in containers. Manöel was in a happy frame of mind. As he had worked he had eaten well from the food Lesset had brought from Grazia’s, and he had tossed back half a garrafao of wine. Things were going well. They would soon be away. He had three nice bank accounts in different names waiting for him in the Argentine. He had an ugly face and a quick temper, but his money now would make women overlook these, and the weather promised well for the journey ahead. A small green crab moved across the sun-dried cobbles of the yard, waving an impudent fighting claw in the air. He stepped on it, taking pleasure in the crunch of its shell beneath his foot. As he did so, he heard another sound. It was the noise of someone within the cannery; someone who was coming towards the half-open door and wading through the water that still covered the floor which was below the level of the yard.

  Manöel moved quickly and silently to the side of the door. He stood, pressed back into the angle, and waited. A crowd of angry flies, fat and iridescent, rose from the dead donkey at his side and swarmed around him, whipping across his face and buzzing savagely. He stood there impassive, his broad face ricked with a stiff grimace, his breath coming gently from the half-open mouth.

  Peter came through the door. He moved three paces into the yard and then Manöel jumped forward. For all his bulk he was swift and silent. His great fist came up and then smashed down on the back of Peter’s neck. Peter fell forward heavily, his knees crashing against the hard cobbles. He threw out his hands and saved his face from the ground. The box under his arm slid away from him.

  Deliberately Manöel spat and then drew the knife from his belt. As he did so, Peter’s head rolled over on his arm. His eyes opened and through a mist of red pain he saw the brutal face of Manöel above him. The blade in the man’s hand shone with a brightness that hurt his eyes. With the shock of the light, the sight of that broad, panting face above him, a savage disbelief filled Peter, taking him for its own, making him its creature. It could not be Manöel. It could not be … His disbelief was anger and fury …

  His feet slewed round and kicked at Manöel. The man came down in a heap across him. Peter rolled and his hands found the other’s throat. They clamped tight as he heard the sound of the knife clattering away over the stones. He held on, knowing that a sound would betray him, and the two of them rolled and twisted, squirmed, kicked and writhed like some shapeless monster, contorted and frantic with a silent agony. Hands and nails clawed at his face and wrists. He felt the crash of knees and feet against his body. He saw the livid, bloodshot eyes of Manöel pressed up against his own,
lost them in a searing blackness and then saw the blue sky roll and pitch, the line of a case sweep by him and the green edge of the far cliff-top lurch and dip. Under him the ground heaved and about his neck he was each moment more and more conscious of a great clamp that threatened to squeeze the life from him. And, as the pressure increased, his own muscles and fingers strained and fought to hold the throat of the other. A black fury possessed him. He had Manöel under him and he was shaking and squeezing the great neck, the man’s head smashing against the ground … And then, he was abruptly aware that the body under him was limp. The hands about his own neck fell away and his hungry lungs suddenly filled with air that rasped into him and made his head swim.

  He swayed back, kneeling, and rubbed his palms against his eyes to clear his head. He stood up and neither knew nor cared whether Manöel lived. In a daze he staggered towards the cardboard box and picked it up, nearly pitching forward as he did so. He stumbled across the yard, half-fell over the broken fence, and then was leaning in the cool shade of one of the fishing boats. He bent down and splashed cold sea-water from a pool under its quarter into his face, and slowly the world steadied. He made his way along the lee of the boats and, when he reached the last one, he groped in his pocket for his handkerchief. It was wet and sodden and filthy. Before him was the open run of sand, like a great stretch of desert. He edged round the stern of the boat, leaning out a little, and saw Grazia. She was sitting on the wall, her eyes turned towards him. Below her he could see the motor-boat riding in the water at the foot of the slip. The men were standing with their backs to him.

  He gave the handkerchief a flick but did not wait for Grazia. Their backs were to him and he took a chance. He lunged forward and half-stumbling, half-running headed across the sand.

  Tereza saw him coming. She rose, seeing Lesset and his two men still turned from Peter, seeing Peter racing towards her. He seemed to take an age coming across the sand, lumbering along like a drunken man, and she waited agonisingly for the shout from the slip which would discover him. He came up to the wall and stumbled against it. Tereza reached out a hand to him and pulled him over. He collapsed over the pile of rubble and crashed at her feet. A large stone began to totter but she reached forward and steadied it.

  Peter lay there, the blood running from a fresh cut on his face, the hard, brown torso filthy and scratched and bruised, and he looked up at her and smiled. His voice came to her in a whisper, ‘Blimey, I shall be glad when this picnic’s ended.’ And in that moment she loved him more than she had ever dreamed she could love anyone.

  Lesset gave the bow mooring rope a twist round the post at the foot of the slip. He straightened up and now, at the sight of the motor-boat floating, rocking a little with the movement in it of Assis and Vasco, he felt some of the weight drop from him. It was running: his luck was working smoothly. In a little while they would be away. His eyes lifted to the harbour entrance. The boat would slide out, and he would never see Portos Marias again … and never want to see it again. But he would remember it; not only for these last hours, but for the quiet content he had known here, the content which was only his when he lived in the settled circumstances of risk, and moved among them with the confidence that came from his own sureness and intelligence. Somewhere else, it would all begin again … and already he looked forward to it.

  He came back up the slip and saw Grazia watching him. She looked him straight in the eyes and said calmly, ‘Yoh bad man, Mistah Lesset.’

  He smiled and patted her on the shoulder. He liked her, really liked her; but he liked himself more. That’s all there was to it. ‘You don’t understand, Grazia. We’ve got to be what we are. People won’t accept that and that’s where they make a big mistake. Never fight against yourself. Fight for yourself. That way the world becomes a swell place and you never have to beg for a dime, and you never have to count the dollars …’

  ‘One day the Lord’s goin’ to present you with His account, Mistah Lesset.’

  Assis called from behind. ‘Where’s Manöel? We can’t check the engine without petrol.’

  Lesset looked across the square towards the cannery. Impatiently he began to move towards it. Now that the boat was in the water, his tiredness had gone. For a while, things had threatened to get out of hand … but now all that was behind him. He looked around at the mess and wreckage affectionately. There must have been quite a disturbance out there on the ocean bed … People, he thought, took nature much too lightly. They forgot that they lived on top of a furnace. But it was there. Fire and flood and destruction. All through the ages Nature now and again had rumbled and turned over in bed … And for him, in Portos Marias, she couldn’t have timed it better.

  He went into the yard and he saw Manöel at once. He was lying by the cannery door and there was blood running from his forehead and a cloud of flies sang above him. For a moment he stood there, cold, without feeling or thought. He saw Manöel stir one foot a little, heard the flies and felt the hot sun warm on the back of his head. Then it came to him, an even bitterness of heart. And the tiredness came over him with the first thought which was, ‘It hasn’t finished yet.’ And anger flared with the second; ‘But it will be.’

  He pulled the automatic from his pocket and turned back. He found bare foot marks in a drift of sand beyond, the fence. He followed them into the shadow of the boats. He saw the marks beside the small pool in the lee of the boat, saw the water still turbid and he moved on. From the end of the last boat he saw the footprints, two lines running back and forth across the sand. He made a third line, crossing the sand with heavy purposeful steps. He climbed the pile of broken wall material and stood at the bottom of the street, looking up its deserted length towards the church. Bobo came clattering across the square behind him, and he heard Assis and Vasco calling to him. He ignored them.

  He went up the street slowly, searching the ground and it gave him a clear story. There were two sets of prints in places, and he could visualise the people. Peter and Tereza. And he knew what they would have been doing. Digging, hoping to release the islanders before he left.

  Well … it was to the good. Now he would have no doubt of their fate. It had to be Peter and Tereza, for only they would have kept out of his way.

  He passed Jaeger’s body, and saw the glint of sun on the sand drying to powder in the folds of the rumpled clothing. And, although his mind was ahead, facing the moment when he should be at the church, some small part of his thoughts lingered with Jaeger. He remembered his first meeting with the man … remembered how easy it had been to persuade him to join them … Money … they all fell before its power.

  He went up the street, moving deliberately. From a house wall a great mat of bougainvillea had been ripped down. His feet crushed the wet foliage. A cat suddenly sprang to a window sill from inside a room and mewed at him. He put out a hand and touched its fur as he passed. And then when its cry followed him, realised it was a black cat. Luck; it was running … No man could live without it.

  He looked up, seeing the ragged curl of clouds round Pae, and then, his eyes dropping, the great sprawl of rubble half across the street before the church. He stopped, watching the pile of debris. There was no sound, no movement. Light on his feet now, he picked his way across the sun-baked drifts of mud and sand to the foot of the mound studded with lengths of broken marble and great fragments of masonry. The stiff hand of the Madonna thrust up from the soft skirt of plaster and earth at the foot of the pile. He climbed to the top of the heap, his feet sinking into the loose stuff, his hand holding the automatic and his eyes noting the fresh dirt and stones thrown out at the lip of the mound. As he stood on the brink of the hole dug down to the top of the door arch he heard a sound from his left. He swung round, and he saw Peter and Tereza. Running back between the church and the school yard next to it was a small recess fronted by a tall wooden gate. They were standing in the recess close against the gate. Peter had a shovel in his hand and, as Lesset looked down on them, not twenty yards from him, Peter mo
ved in front of Tereza. Lesset smiled at that. It was like him, noble, protective and obvious …

  Lesset moved the automatic gently and he said encouragingly as though he had fractious children to deal with, ‘Come on. Get out of there and go down the street ahead of me.’

  Neither of them replied or made any move.

  His tone hardened and the large head cocked a little.

  ‘I’m not going to waste words. Do as I say, or I’ll shoot you where you stand and have you carried down.’

  He meant every word he said. Peter had no doubt of that. He stood looking up at this man whom he hated, who seemed and was so evil, perched up there like a shabby old raven. He heard Tereza breathing quickly behind him, could feel the gentle pressure of her breast against his naked back as she stood close to him, and, although he knew Lesset would have no hesitation in shooting them, he could not forsake the man because he was a man and he was in danger.

  He said evenly, ‘Lesset, come down off that pile as quickly as you can. You’re in danger. They’re going to blow an opening in the door and the fuse is burning now. Come down, quickly!’

  Lesset shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know what you hope for—but it won’t work. Get into the street, both of you.’ He moved his feet gently to a better stance and a trickle of stones rolled down the pile.

  ‘Lesset—don’t be a damned fool!’ Peter shouted angrily. ‘Get down!’

  And then from behind Peter, Tereza shouted, too; ‘Please, please—he’s telling the truth!’