by Wilbur Smith
His buyers would be arriving to take delivery in twelve days and the
five armoured cars would have rounded out the package beautifully.
Armour, by God, he could fix his own price. Only aircraft would have
been more desirable from his client's point of view.
Gareth had first seen them that morning in their neglected and decrepit
state of repair, he had discounted them completely, and was on the
point of turning away when he had noticed the long muscular pair of
legs protruding from the engine of one of the vehicles and heard the
barely recognizable strains of "Tiger Rag'.
Now he knew that one of them at least was a runner. A few gallons of
paint, and a new Vickers machine gun set in the mountings, and the five
machines would look magnificent. Gareth would give one of his justly
famous sales routines. He would start the one good engine and fire the
machine gun by God, the jolly old prince would pull out his purse and
start spilling sovereigns all over the scenery.
There was only the damned Yankee to worry about, it might cost him a
few bob more than he had reckoned to edge him out, but Gareth was not
too worried. The man looked as though he would have difficulty raising
the price of a beer.
Gareth flicked at his sleeve where a speck of dust might have settled;
he placed the panama back on his golden head, adjusted the wide brim
carefully and removed the long slim cheroot from his lips to inspect
the ash, before he rose and sauntered across to the group.
The auctioneer was an elfin Sikh in a black silk suit with his beard
twisted up under his chin, and a large dazzling white turban wrapped
about his head.
He was perched like a little black bird on the turret of the nearest
armoured car, and his voice was plaintive as he pleaded with the
audience that stared up at him stolidly with expressionless faces and
glazed eyes.
"Come, gentle mens let me be hearing some mellifluous voice cry out
"ten pounds". Do I hear "ten pounds each" for these magnificent
conveyances?" He cocked his head and listened to the hot noon breeze
in the top branches of the mango. Nobody moved, nobody spoke.
"Five pounds, please? Will some wise gentle mens tell me five pounds?
Two pounds ten gentle mens for a mere fifty shillings these royal
machines, these fine, these beautiful-" He broke off, and lowered his
gaze, placed a delicate chocolate brown hand over his troubled brow. "A
price, gentle mens Please, start me with a price."
"One pound!" a voice called in the lilting accents of the Texan
ranges. For a moment the Sikh did not move, then raised his head with
dramatic slowness and stared at Jake who towered above the crowd around
him.
"A pound?" the Sikh whispered huskily. "Twenty shillings each for
these fine, these beautiful-" he broke off and shook his head
sorrowfully. Then abruptly his manner changed and became brisk and
businesslike. "One pound, I am bid.
40, I Do I hear two, two pounds? No advance on one pound?
Going for the first time at one pound!" Gareth Swales drifted forward,
and the crowd opened miraculously, drawing aside respectfully.
"Two pounds." He spoke softly, but his voice carried clearly in the
hush. Jake's long angular frame stiffened, and a dark wine-coloured
flush spread slowly up the back of his neck. Slowly, his head
swivelled and he stared across at the Englishman who had now reached
the front row.
Gareth smiled brilliantly and tipped the brim of his panama to
acknowledge Jake's glare. The Sikh's commercial instinct instantly
sensed the rivalry between them and his mood brightened.
"I have two--" he chirruped.
Five," snapped Jake.
"Ten," murmured Gareth, and Jake felt a hot uncontrollable anger come
seething up from his guts. He knew the feeling so well, and he tried
to control it, but it was no use.
It came up in a savage red tide to swamp his reason.
The crowd stirred with delight, and all their heads swung in unison
towards the tall American.
"Fifteen," said jake, "and every head swung back towards the slim
Englishman.
Gareth inclined his head gracefully.
"Twenty," piped the Sikh delightedly. "I have twenty."
"And five." Dimly through the mists of his anger, Jake knew that there
was no way that he would let the Limey have these ladies. If he
couldn't buy them, he would burn them.
The Sikh sparkled at Gareth with gazelle eyes.
"Thirty, sir?" he asked, and Gareth grinned easily and waved his
cheroot. He was experiencing a rising sense of alarm already they were
far past what he had calculated was the Yank's limit.
"And five more." Jake's voice was gravelly with the strength of his
outrage. They were his, even if he had to pay out every shilling in
his wallet, they had to be his.
Forty." Gareth Swales's smile was slightly strained now.
He was fast approaching his own limit. The terms of the sale were cash
or bank-guaranteed cheque. He had long ago milked every source of cash
that was available to him, and any bank manager who guaranteed a
Gareth Swales cheque was destined for a swift change of employment.
"Forty-five." Jake's voice was hard and uncompromising; he was fast
approaching the figure where he would be working for nothing but the
satisfaction of blocking out the Limey.
"Fifty."
"And five."
"Sixty."
"And another five." That was break-even price for Jake after this he
was tossing away bright shining shillings.
"Seventy," drawled Gareth Swales, and that
411 at was his limit.
With regret he discarded all hopes of an easy acquisition of the cars.
Three hundred and fifty pounds represented his entire liquid reserves
he could bid no further. All right, the easy way had not worked out.
There were a dozen other ways, and by one of them Gareth
Swales was going to have them. By God, the prince might go as high as
a thousand each and he was not going to pass by that sort of profit for
lack of a few lousy hundred quid.
"Seventy-five," said Jake, and the crowd murmured and every eye flew to
Major Gareth Swales.
"Ah, kind gentle mens do you speak of eighty?" enquired the Sikh
eagerly. His commission was five per cent.
Graciously, but regretfully, Gareth shook his head.
"No, my dear chap. It was a mere whim of mine." He smiled across at
Jake. "May they give you much joy," he said, and drifted away towards
the gates. There was clearly nothing to be gained in approaching the
American now.
The man was in a towering rage and Gareth had judged him as the type
who habitually gave expression to this emotion by swinging with his
fists. Long ago, Gareth Swales had reached the conclusion that only
fools fight, and wise men supply them with the means to do so at a
profit, naturally.
It was three days before Jake Barton saw the Englishman again and
during that time he had towed the five iron ladies to the outskirts of
the town where
he had set up his camp on the banks of a small stream
among a stand of African mahogany trees.
With a block and tackle slung from the branch of a mahogany, he had
lifted out the engines and worked on them far into each night by the
smoky light of a hurricane lamp.
Coaxing and sweet-talking the machines, changing and juggling faulty
and worn parts, hand-forging others on the charcoal brazier,
whistling to himself endlessly, swearing and sweating and scheming, he
had three of the Bentleys running by the afternoon of the third day.
Set up on improvised timber blocks, they had regained something of
their former gleam and glory beneath his loving hands.
Gareth Swales arrived at Jake's camp in the somnolent heat of the third
afternoon. He arrived in a ricksha pulled by a half-naked and sweating
black man and he lolled with the grace of a resting leopard on the
padded seat, looking cool in beautifully cut and snowy crisp linen.
Jake straightened up from the engine which he was tuning. He was naked
to the waist and his arms were greased black to the elbows.
Sweat gleamed on his shoulders and chest, as though he had been
oiled.
"Don't even bother to stop," Jake said softly. "Just keep straight on
down the road, friend." Gareth grinned at him engagingly and from the
seat beside him he lifted a large silver champagne bucket,
frosted with dew, and tinkling with ice. Over the edge of the bucket
showed the necks of a dozen bottles of Tusker beer.
"Peace offering, old chap," said Gareth, and Jake's throat contracted
so violently with thirst that he couldn't speak for a moment.
"A free gift with no strings attached, what?" Even in this cloying
humid heat, Jake Barton had been so completely absorbed by his task
that he had taken little liquid in three days, and none of it was pale
golden, bubbling and iced. His eyes began to water with the strength
of his desire.
Gareth dismounted from the ricksha and came forward with the champagne
bucket under one arm.
"Swales," he said. "Major Gareth Swales," and held out his hand.
"Barton. Jake." Jake took the hand, but his eyes were still fixed on
the bucket.
Twenty minutes later, Jake sat waist-deep in a steaming galvanized iron
bath, set out alfresco under the mahogany trees. The bottle of
Tusker stood close at hand and he whistled happily as he worked up a
foaming lather in his armpits and across the dark hairy plain of his
chest.
"Trouble was, we got off on the wrong foot," explained Gareth, and
sipped at the neck of a Tusker bottle. He made it seem he was taking
Dam Nrignon from a crystal flute. He was lying back in Jake's single
canvas camp chair under the shade flap of the old sun-faded tent.
"Friend, you nearly got a wrong foot right up your backside." But
Jake's threat was without fire, marinated in Tusker.
I understand how you felt," said Gareth. "But then "I surely
understood you did tell me you weren't bidding. If only you had told
me the truth, we could have worked out an arrangement." Jake reached
out with a soap-frothed hand and lifted the Tusker bottle to his lips.
He swallowed twice, sighed and belched softly.
"Bless you," said Gareth, and then went on. "As soon as I "Ble
realized that you were bidding seriously, I backed out. I knew that
you and I could make a mutually beneficial deal later. And so here I
am now, drinking beer with you and talking a deal."
"You are talking I'm just listening, "Jake pointed out.
"Rite so." Gareth took out his cheroot case, carefully selected one
and leaned forward to place it tenderly between
Jake's willing lips. He struck a match off the sole of his boot and
cupped the match for Jake.
"It seems clear to me that you have a buyer for the cars, right?"
"I'm still listening." Jake exhaled a long feather of cheroot smoke
with evident pleasure.
"You must have a price already set, and I am prepared to better that
price." Jake took the cheroot out of his mouth and for the first time
regarded Gareth levelly.
"You want all five cars at that price in their present condition?"
"Right," said Gareth.
What if I tell you that only three are runners two are "shot all to
hell."
"That wouldn't affect my offer." Jake reached out and drained the
Tusker bottle. Gareth opened another for him and placed it in his
hand.
Swiftly Jake ran over the offer. He had an open contract with
Anglo-Tanganyika Sugar Company to supply gasoline powered sugar-cane
crushers at a fixed price of 110 pounds each.
From the three cars he could make up three units maximum of
330pounds.
The Limey's offer was for all five units, at a price to be
determined.
"I've done one hell of a lot of work on them," Jake softened him a
little.
"I can see that."
"One hundred and fifty pounds each for all five. That's seven hundred
and fifty."
"You would replace the engines and make them look all ship-shape."
"Sure."
"Done," said Gareth. "I
knew we could work something out," and they beamed at each other.
"I'll make out a deed of sale right away," Gareth produced a cheque
book, "and then I'll give you my cheque for the full amount."
"Your what? "The beam on Jake's face faded.
"My personal cheque on Courts of Piccadilly." It was true that
Gareth Swales did have a chequing account with Courts. According to
his last statement, the account was in debit to the sum of eighteen
pounds seventeen and sixpence. The manager had written him a spicy
little letter in red ink.
"Safe as the Bank of England." Gareth flourished his cheque book.
It would take three weeks for the cheque to be presented in London and
bounce through the roof. By that time, he hoped to be on his way to
Madrid. There looked to be a very profitable little piece of business
brewing up satisfactorily in that area, and by then Gareth
Swales would have the capital to exploit it.
"Funny thing about cheques." Jake removed the cheroot from his mouth.
"They bring me out in a rash. If it's all the same to you,
I'll just take the seven fifty in cash money."
Ok Gareth pursed his lips. Very well, so it wasn't going to be that
easy either.
"Dear me," he said. "It will take a little while to clear."
"No hurry, "Jake grinned at him. "Any time before noon tomorrow.
That's the delivery date I have for my original buyer. You be here
with the money before that, and they are all yours." He rose abruptly
from the bath, cascading soapy water, and his black servant handed him
a towel.
"What plans have you for dinner?" Gareth asked.
"I think Abou here has cooked up a pot of his lion-killing stew."
"Won't you be my guest at the Royal?"
"I drank your beer for free why shouldn't I eat your food?" asked Jake
reasonably.
The dining room of the Royal Hotel had high ceilings and tall
insect-screened sash windows. The mechanical fans set
in the roof
stirred the warm humid air sluggishly "into a substitute for
coolness,
and Gareth Swales was a splendid host.
His engaging charm was irresistible, and his choice of food and wine
induced in Jake a sense of such well-being that they laughed together
like old friends, and were delighted to find that they had mutual
acquaintances mostly harm en and brothel-keepers in various parts of
the world and that they had parallel experience.
Gareth had been doing business with a revolutionary leader in
Venezuela while Jake was helping build the railroad in that same
country. Jake had been chief engineer on a Blake Line coaster on the
China run when Gareth had been making contact with the Chinese
Communists on Yellow River.
They had been in France at the same time, and on that terrible day at
Amiens, when the German machine guns had accelerated Gareth Swales's
promotion from subaltern to major in the space of six hours, Jake had
been four miles down the line, a sergeant driver in the Royal Tank
Corps seconded from the American Third Army.
They discovered that they were almost of an age, neither of them yet
forty, but that both of them had packed a world of experience and
wandering into that short span, They recognized in each other that same
restlessness that was always driving them on to new adventure, never
staying long enough in one place or at one job to grow roots,
unfettered by offspring or possessions, by spouse or
responsibilities,
taking up each new adventure eagerly and discarding it again without
qualms or regrets, Always moving onwards never looking backwards.
Understanding each other a little, they began to respect one another.
Halfway through the meal, they were no longer scornful of the other's
differences. Neither of them thought of the other as Limey or
Yank any longer but this didn't mean that Jake was about to accept any
cheques or that Gareth had given up his plans to acquire the five
armoured cars. At last Gareth swilled the last few drops around his
brandy balloon and glanced at his pocket watch.
"Nine o'clock. It's too early for bed. What shall we do now?"
Jake suggested, "There are two new girls down at Madame Cecile's. They
came in on the mail boat." Gareth quickly turned the suggestion
aside.
"Later perhaps but too soon after dinner, it gives me heartburn.
You don't, by any chance, feel like a few hands at cards? There is