by Wilbur Smith
usually a decent game down at the club."
"We can't go in there. We aren't members."
"I have reciprocity with my London club, old boy.
Sign you in, what?" They had played for an hour and a half. Jake was
enjoying the game. He liked the style of the establishment, for he
usually played in less salubrious surroundings the back room behind the
bar, an upturned fruit-crate behind the main boiler in an engine room,
or a scratch game in a dockside warehouse.
This was a hushed room with draped velvet curtains, expanses of dark
wood panelling, dark-toned oil paintings and hunting trophies
shaggy-maned lions, buffalo with huge bossed horns drooping
mournfully,
all of them staring down with glassy eyes from the walls.
From the three billiard tables came the discreet click of the ivory
balls, as half a dozen players in dress shirts and braces, black ties
and black trousers, evening jackets discarded for the game, leaned
across the heavy green-topped tables to play their shots.
There were three tables of contract bridge from which came the murmur
of bid and counter bid in the cultivated tones of the British upper
class, all the players in the dress that Jake thought of as penguin
suits black and white, with black bows.
Between the tables, the waiters moved on silent bare feet, in
ankle-length white robes and pillbox fez, like priests of some ancient
religion bearing trays of sparkling crystal glass.
There was only one table of draw poker, a huge teak structure with
brass ashtrays set into the woodwork, and niches and trays to hold the
whisky glasses and the coloured ivory chips. At the table sat five
players, and only Jake was not in evening dress the other three were
the type of poker players that Jake would dearly love to have kept
locked up for his exclusive pleasure.
There was a minor British peer, out in Africa to decimate the wildlife.
He had recently returned from the interior, where a white hunter had
stood respectfully at his elbow with a heavy-calibre rifle,
while the peer mowed down vast numbers of buffalo, lion and
rhinoceros.
This gentleman had a nervous tic under his right eye which jumped
whenever he held three of a kind or better in his hand.
Despite this affliction, a phenomenal run of good cards had allowed him
to be the only winner, other than Jake, at the table.
There was a coffee planter with a deeply tanned and wrinkled face who
made an involuntary little hissing sound whenever he improvised on the
draw or squeezed out a pleasing combination.
On Jake's right hand was an elderly civil servant with thinning hair
and a fever-yellow complexion who broke out in a muck sweat whenever he
judged himself on the point of winning a pot an expectation which was
seldom realized.
In an hour's careful play, Jake had built up his winnings to a little
over a hundred pounds and he felt very warm and contented down there
where his dinner was digesting. The only element in his life that
afforded him any disquiet was his new friend and sponsor.
Gareth Swales sat at his ease, conversing with the peer as an equal,
condescending graciously to the planter and commiserating with the
civil servant on his run of luck. He had neither won nor lost any
significant amount, yet he handled the cards with a dexterity that was
impressive. In those long tapering fingers with the carefully
manicured nails, the pasteboards rustled and rippled, blurred and
snapped, with a speed that defied the eye.
Jake watched carefully, without appearing to do so, whenever the deal
passed to Major Gareth Swales. There is no way that a dealer,
even with the most magical touch, can stack a deck of cards without
facing them during the shuffle and Gareth never faced the deck as he
manipulated it. His eyes never even dropped to the cards, but played
lightly over the faces of the others as he chatted. Jake began to
relax a little.
The planter dealt him four to an open-ended flush, and he filled it
with the six of hearts. The civil servant, who had an insatiable
curiosity, called his raise to twenty pounds and sighed and muttered
mournfully as he paid the ivory chips into the pot and Jake swept them
away and stacked them neatly in front of him.
"Let's have a new pack-" smiled Gareth, lifting a finger for a servant,
and hope that it breaks your run of luck." Gareth offered the seal on
the new pack for inspection, then split it with his thumbnail and
unwrapped the pristine cards with their bicycle-wheel designs,
fanned them, lifted the jokers and began to shuffle, at the same time
starting a very funny and obscene story about a bishop who entered the
women's rest room at Choring Cross Station in error.
The joke took a minute or two in the telling and in the roar of
masculine laughter that followed, Gareth began to deal, skimming the
cards across the green baize, so that they piled up neatly before each
player. Only Jake had noticed that during the bishop's harrowing
experiences in the ladies" room, Gareth had blocked the cards between
shuffles, and that each time as he lifted the two blocks he had rolled
his wrists so that for a fleeting instant they had fanned slightly and
faced.
Guffawing loudly, the baron gathered up his hand and looked at it.
He choked in the middle of his next guffaw, and his eyelid started to
jump and twitch, as though it was making love to his nose. From across
the table came a loud hiss of indrawn breath as the planter closed his
cards quickly and covered them with both hands. At Jake's right
hand,
the civil servant's face shone like polished yellow ivory and a little
trickle of sweat broke from his thinning hairline, ran down his nose,
and dripped unheeded on to the front of his dress shirt, as he stared
at his cards.
Jake opened his own cards, and glanced at the three queens it
contained. He sighed and began his own story.
"When I was first engineer on the old Harvest Maid tied up in
Kowloon, the skipper brought a fancy little dude on board and we all
got into a game. The stakes kept jumping up and up, and just after
midnight this dude dealt one hell of a hand." Nobody appeared to be
listening to Jake's story, they were all too absorbed with their own
cards.
"The skipper ended up with four kings, I got four jacks and the ship's
doctor pulled a mere four tens." Jake rearranged the queens in his
hand and broke off his story while Gareth Swales fulfilled the civil
servant's request for two cards.
"The dude himself took one card from the draw and the betting went mad.
We were throwing everything we owned into the pot. Thanks,
friend, I'll take two cards also." Gareth flicked two cards across the
table, and Jake discarded from his hand before picking them up.
"As I was saying, we were almost stripping off our underpants to throw
it all in the middle. I was in for a little over a thousand bucks Jake
squeezed open the new cards and could hardly suppress a g
rin. All the
ladies were there. Four pretty little queens peered out at him.
"We signed IOUs, we pledged our wages, and the dude came right along on
the ride, not pushing the betting but staying right there."
Gareth gave the baron one card and drew one himself.
They were listening now, eyes darting from Jake's lips to their own
cards.
"Well, when it came to the showdown, we were looking at each other
across a pile of cash that came to the ceiling and the dude hit us with
a straight flush. I remember it so clearly, in clubs three to the
eight. It took the skipper and me twelve hours to recover from the
shock and then we worked out the odds on that deal just happening
naturally it was something like sixteen million to one. The odds were
against the dude and we went looking for him. Found him down at the
old Peninsula Hotel, spending our hard-won gold. We were preparing for
sea at the time. Our boilers were cold. We sat the dude on top of
them, and fired them.
Had to tie him down, of course, and after a few hours his knockers,
were roasting like chestnuts."
"By God," exclaimed the peer.
"How awful."
"Quite right," Jake agreed. "Hell of a stink in my engine room." A
heavy charged silence settled over the table all of them aware that
something explosive was about to happen, that an accusation had been
made, but most of them not certain what the accusation was,
and at whom it had been levelled. They held up their cards like
protective shields, and their eyes darted suspiciously from face to
face. The atmosphere was so tense that it pervaded the gracious
room,
and the players at the other tables paused and looked up.
I think," Gareth Swales drawled in crisp tones that carried to every
corner of the listening room, "that what Mr. Barton is trying to say
is that somebody is cheating." That word, spoken in these
surroundings, was so shocking, so charged with dire consequence, that
strong men gasped and blanched. Cheating in the club, by God, better a
man be accused of adultery or ordinary murder.
"I must say that I have to agree with Mr. Barton." The icy blue eyes
snapped with angry lights, and he turned deliberately to the bewildered
member of the House of lords beside him.
"I wonder if you would be good enough, sir, to inform us as to the
exact amount of our money that you have won." The voice cracked like a
whiplash, and the peer stared at him with complete incomprehension for
a moment and then his face mottled purple and crimson, and he gobbled
angrily.
"Sir! How dare you. Good God, sir!-" and he rose in his seat,
breathless, choking with outrage.
"Have at him!" cried Gareth, and overturned the heavy teak table with
a single upward thrust of both hands. It crashed over, pinning the
planter and the civil servant under it, and scattering ivory chips and
playing cards in such profusion that nobody would ever know what cards
Gareth Swales had dealt to himself in that last remarkable deal.
Gareth leaned across the struggling mass of downed players and clipped
the peer smartly under the left ear.
"Cheating! Ha! Caught you cheating!" The peer roared like a bull and
swung a full-armed punch under which Gareth ducked lightly, but which
went on to catch the club secretary between the eyes, as he hurried up
to intervene.
The room erupted into violence, as the other members rushed in to
assist the secretary.
Jake tried to reach Gareth, through the sudden seething storm of
bodies.
"Not him, you!" he shouted angrily, flexing his arms and knotting his
fists.
There were forty club members in the room. Only one person was not
dressed in the uniform that showed they belonged Jake in his baggy
moleskins and the pack turned on him.
"Watch out behind you, old boy," Gareth warned Jake in a friendly
fashion, as he reached out to take the lapels of Gareth's suit in his
hands.
Jake whirled to meet the rush of angry members, and the fists that were
bunched for Major Swales thudded into the charging group. Two of them
dropped but the rest swarmed on.
"Lay on!" Gareth encouraged him merrily. "And damned be he who cries
"Enough"." Miraculously he had armed himself with a billiard cue.
By now, Jake was almost totally submerged under a heaving mound of
black evening dress. There were three of them riding on his back, two
hanging around his legs, and one tucked under each of his arms.
"Not me, you fools. Not me him!" He tried to point to Gareth,
but both his arms were occupied.
"Quite right," Gareth agreed. "Dirty cheating dog!" and he wielded
the billiard cue with uncanny skill, holding it inverted and tapping
the thick end smartly against the skulls of the well-dressed gentlemen
riding on Jake's back. They dropped away, and freed of their weight
Jake turned to Gareth once more.
"Listen-!" he bellowed, advancing despite the bodies that clung to his
legs.
"Listen, indeed." Gareth cocked his head, and the sound of a police
whistle shrilled, and there was the glimpse of uniforms beyond double
doors. "Peelers, by Jove, Gareth announced. "Perhaps we should move
on. Follow me, old son." With a few expert swings of the billiard
cue, he knocked the glass from the window beside him, and stepped
lightly and unruffled into the darkened garden.
Jake strode along the unlit footpath under the dark jacaranda trees. He
followed the main road out towards his camp beside the stream. The
outraged cries and the sound of police whistles had long since died
away in the night behind.
Jake's anger had also died away, and he chuckled once as he thought of
the peer's purple face and his bulging affronted eyes. Then behind
him, following along the dark street, he heard the rhythmic squeak of
the springs of a ricksha, and the pad of bare feet.
Even before he looked back, he knew who was following.
"Thought I'd lost you," Gareth Swales remarked lightly, his handsome
noble features lit by the glow of the cheroot between his teeth as he
lolled against the cushions of the ricksha. "You took off like a long
dog after a bitch. fantastic turn of speed. I was very impressed."
Jake said nothing, but strode on towards his camp.
"You can't possibly be bound for bed." The ricksha kept station beside
Jake. "The night is still a pup and who can say what beautiful
thoughts and stirring deeds Care still to be thought and performed."
Jake tried not to grin, and kept going.
"Madame Cecile's?"Gareth wheedled.
"You really do want those cars don't you?"
"I am hurt,"
announced Gareth, "that you should imply gross materialism to my
friendly overtures."
"Who is paying? "demanded Jake.
"You are my guest."
"Well, I've drunk your beer, eaten your food why should I stop now?" He
stopped and walked to the ricksha. "Move over, then, he said.
The ricksha driver wheeled in a tight turn and trotted back into
the
town, while Gareth pressed a cheroot between Jake's lips.
"What did you deal yourself?" Jake asked, between puffs of the
fragrant smoke. "Four aces? Straight flush?"
"I am appalled at the implied slur on my character, sir. I shall
ignore the question." They jogged a little farther in silence until it
was Gareth's turn to ask the next question.
"You didn't really roast that poor fellow's chestnuts, did you?"
No, "Jake admitted. "But it made a better story." They reached the
door of Madame Cecile's, discreetly set back in a walled garden, with a
lamp burning over the lintel.
Gareth paused with his hand on the brass knocker.
"You know damned if I don't owe you an apology. I've misjudged you all
along the line."
"It's been a lot of laughs."
"I think I'm going to have to be honest with you."
"I don't know if I can stand the shock." They grinned at each other
and Gareth punched his shoulder lightly.
"It's still my treat, what?" Madame Cecile was so tall and thin and
bosorriless that she seemed in danger of snapping off like a brittle
stick. She wore a severely cut dress of dark and indeterminate colour
which swept the ground and buttoned up under her chin and at the
wrists. Her hair was drawn back tightly into a large bun at the back
of her neck and her expression was prim and disapproving, but it
softened a little when she let them into the front room.
"Major Swales, it is always a pleasure. Mr. Barton, we haven't seen
you in a long while. I was afraid you'd left town."
"Let us have a bottle of Charlie Champers, my dear." Gareth handed his
silk scarf to the maid. "Have you run out of the Pal Roger 1923?"
"Indeed not,
Major."
"And we'd like to talk alone for a while before meeting any of the
young tallies. Is your private lounge vacant?" Gareth was settled
comfortably in one of the big leather armchairs with a glass of
champagne in one hand and a cheroot in the other.
Duce is about to put himself in to bat. Though God alone knows what he
hopes to gain by it. From all accounts, it's the most desolate stretch
of desert and mountain one could imagine. However,
Mussolini wants it perhaps he has visions of empire and glory. The old
Napoleonic itch, you know."
"How do you know this?" Jake was sprawled on the buttoned couch across
the room. He wasn't drinking the champagne. He didn't like the