Command Part 16

She led the way to a darkened room, set the tray down, and pushed the green shutters away, revealing a wooden balcony with chairs and a green iron table. Below, in the hush of early morning, lay the road, and beyond the trees and houses that followed the sh.o.r.e they could see the Gulf, now streaked and splotched with green and gray and rose. The early morning, charged with the undissipated emotions of the night, is a far more beautiful hour than the evening. To Evanthia, however, who had always dwelt amid scenes of extravagant natural beauty, this exquisite sunrise, viewed as it were in violet shadow, the invisible sun tingeing the snow of the distant peaks with delicate sh.e.l.l-pink and ivory-white, the vessels in the roadstead almost translucent pearl in the mist, the sh.o.r.e line a bar of solid black until it rose ominously in the sullen headland of Karaburun--all this was nothing. To Mr. Spokesly it was a great deal. It became to him a memory alluring and unforgettable. It was a frame for a picture which he bore with him through the years, a picture of himself on a balcony, listening to a girl in a yellow kimono while she whispered and whispered and then sat back in her chair and raised her cup to drink, looking at him over the rim of it with her brilliant amber eyes.

"I don't know as it can be done," he muttered, shaking his head slightly, gulping the coffee and setting the cup on the table. "Not so easy, I'm afraid."

"_You_ can do it," she whispered imperiously.

"S'pose you get caught?" he replied cautiously. She waved a hand and shrugged.

"_N'importe. C'est la guerre._ That don't matter. You can do it, eh?"

Mr. Spokesly rubbed his chin.

"I don't say I can and I don't say I can't. _He_ might be able to get you down there as a pa.s.senger."

She shook her head vigorously, and leaned over the table, touching it with her long filbert nails.

"No!" she said. "He says 'no good.' n.o.body allowed to go Phyros, n.o.body to Alexandria. n.o.body. You understand?"

He looked at her as she leaned against the table and then his gaze dropped to where the yellow wrap had opened so that he could see her bosom, and he felt a dizziness as he looked away. It was characteristic of Evanthia that she made no sudden gesture of modesty. She leaned there, her white throat and breast lifting evenly as she breathed, awaiting his answer.

"Yes, I understand," he answered, looking out to where the _Kalkis_ was emerging from the distant haze. "But what I don't see is why you want to do it."

"I want to go wis you," she whispered sharply, and he looked at her again to find her gazing at him sternly, her finger on her lips.

And Mr. Spokesly suddenly had an inspiration. Here he was again, mewing like a kitten for somebody to come and open the door, instead of taking hold and mastering the situation. He took a deep breath, and lit a cigarette. He must play up to this. No good fooling about. In for a penny, in for a pound. Could it be managed? He decided it could. It was evident Mr. Dainopoulos knew something about it but had no intention of taking an active part in the adventure. Mr. Spokesly realized he himself had no notion where the _Kalkis_ was going after discharging in Phyros.

It seemed Evanthia did, or had some notion of it. Yes, it could be managed. His hand closed over hers as it lay on the table.

"I'll fix everything," he said. "You be ready and I'll do the rest."

Her face grew radiant. She became herself again--a woman who had got what she wanted. She rose and stroked his hair gently as she bent over him.

"Now I get some breakfast, _mon cher_," she twittered sweetly. "You stop here. I call you." And with a soft, sibilant flip-flop of her heelless slippers, which showed her own pink heels and delicate ankles, she disappeared.

And Mr. Spokesly, who had come home from distant places to join the forces, who had become engaged in an exemplary way to a girl who was now wondering, away in beleaguered England, why Reggie didn't write, tilted his chair a little and allowed his mind to go forward. When he asked himself what would be the upshot of this adventure, he was compelled to admit that he didn't know. What startled and invigorated him was that he didn't care. He saw himself, as they say, on deck in fine weather, a full moon pouring her glorious radiance down upon them, and Evanthia beside him in a deck chair under the awning. He saw himself in some distant harbour, after much toil and anxiety, sitting at cafes with bands playing and Evanthia in that corn-coloured dress with an enormous black hat. And then his thoughts went so far forward that they lost coherence and he grew dizzy again. His chair was tilted back against the opened jalousie and he stared with unseeing eyes across the glittering water. It was the dream he had had before, on the _Tanganyika_, only a little clearer, a little nearer. They were dead, while he was alive.

There you had it. Perhaps in a little while he, too, would be dead--a bomb, a sh.e.l.l, a bullet--and the dreams would be for others while he joined that great army of silent shades. Why had he never seen the simplicity of it before? This was the mood for adventure. You forgot the others and went right on, getting the things that are yours for the taking, never counting the cost, finding your dreams come true....

Then you went back to beleaguered England, and Ada would be there, waiting.

And then, as he sat there, he came slowly back to the present and saw that the _Kalkis_ was moving. He saw steam jetting from the forecastle and that told him they were heaving up the anchor. An obsolete old ship, he reflected, with the exhaust from the windla.s.s blinding everybody and making it difficult to see the bridge. The _Kalkis_ began to move.

Now she had way on and was turning towards him. Coming in to a new berth, Mr. Spokesly noted. He rose, and Mr. Dainopoulos appeared at the door leading to the balcony.

"You all right, eh?" he inquired, and seeing the empty cups made a peculiar grimace. He pointed to the _Kalkis_.

"You got a new berth?" said Mr. Spokesly.

"Yeh. Over here," said Mr. Dainopoulos. "It's the best we can get just now. No room inside. Now," he went on, "You got to go on board, see, and have a look round. There's two hundred ton to be loaded quick, but I think her winches, they ain't very good. You let me know. The captain, he talk plenty about _new_ winches. Where do I get new winches, eh? I ask you, where do I get 'em, out here?"

This time, when called, Mr. Spokesly was ready.

"We'll get her loaded," he said. "If it's all light general we can do it, winches or no winches. Is the other mate finished?"

"Just about. He don't get any more pay, anyhow."

Evanthia suddenly came out of the shadow of the room and looked at them in a theatrical way, as though she were about to begin a big scene and was waiting for her cue from the rear.

"Breakfast," said Mr. Dainopoulos, upon whom this sort of histrionics was lost, and they went down to a room on the ground floor, a room that was full of moving green shadows and pale green beams as the dense foliage of the garden swayed in the breeze. It was like sitting in a recess at the bottom of the sea. The slim girl with the contemptuously taciturn expression was laying the table.

"My wife, she don't come down," said Mr. Dainopoulos, devouring lamb stew. They might have been in the breakfast room of a home in Haverstock Hill. Only the figure of Evanthia hissing incomprehensible commands into the ears of the sullen young girl, who stared at Mr. Spokesly and moved unwillingly into the kitchen, recalled the adventure behind this little scene. On the walls were enlarged photographs of the father and mother of Mr. Dainopoulos, life-size coloured prints in gold frames that were enclosed in an outer gla.s.s case on account of flies. The furniture had come, at his wife's order, from Tottenham Court Road, and was a glossy walnut with dark green plush. A giant dresser of black Anatolian oak which stood against one wall bore on its broad shelves a couple of blue and green and yellow Armenian vases and a great shining copper tray like an ancient shield. Across this shield the green sunlight wavered and shook so that even Mr. Dainopoulos allowed his eye to rest on it. He wanted to get rid of that dresser and buy one of those white kitchen cabinets he saw in advertis.e.m.e.nts. He did not know furniture, strange to say, or he would have asked an extremely high price for his dresser. He sat looking at the light playing on the copper shield, which sent it flying back in a fairy flicker athwart the ceiling, which was dark brown and riven with huge cracks, and doing a little posing on his account.

"My wife she don't come down," he said. It reminded him of something he had been going to tell Mr. Spokesly that first night and his wife had stopped him. Why did she always do that? Always there was something about the English he couldn't follow. He went on with his lamb stew, noisily enjoying it, and pretending he did not see Evanthia's rehearsal of one of her favourite poses, a great madama dispensing hospitality to her guests in the morning room of her _chateau_.

"I met a major yesterday," said Mr. Spokesly, "in the Olympos. He said he wanted me to go and see him about the cargo."

"Eh!" Mr. Dainopoulos stared, knife and fork raised.

"Oh, I fancy he just wants to give us a few hints about the discharging in Phyros."

"He can do that," said Mr. Dainopoulos, letting his hands fall to the table. "He can do that. Yes," he went on, seeing the possibilities of the thing, "you go along and tell him you'll attend to it all yourself, see? You fix him. The captain, he don't like government peoples."

"I'll go this morning, after I've got some gear."

"It ain't a very long voyage to Phyros," said his employer.

"Where do we go, from Phyros?" asked Mr. Spokesly.

"To Piraeus for orders," said the other quickly. Mr. Spokesly could not help glancing at Evanthia, who regarded him steadily.

"I see," he said. Piraeus was the port of Athens. Athens, just then, was a peculiar place, like Saloniki. So that was it.

"Captain Rannie said he didn't know," he observed. Mr. Dainopoulos grunted.

"Perhaps he didn't know, when you ask him. I think I got a charter, but I ain't sure. I take a chance, that's all."

After they had finished and as he was waiting for Mr. Dainopoulos, he saw Evanthia in the garden, an ap.r.o.n over her pink cotton dress, smoking a cigarette.

"So it's Athens you want," he said, smiling. She put her finger to her lips.

"By and by, you will see," she said and led him away down among the trees. She pulled his head down with a gesture he grew to know well, and whispered rapidly in his ear. And then pushed him away and hurried off to look for eggs in the chicken-house. He joined Mr. Dainopoulos in a thoughtful mood, more than ever convinced that women were, as he put it, queer. He was so preoccupied that he did not notice the lack of originality in this conclusion.

Mr. Dainopoulos was thoughtful, too, as they made their way into the city and he opened his office. He was in a difficulty because he did not know how far Mr. Spokesly, being an Englishman, could be trusted with the facts. He was perfectly well aware of the difference between doing a little business in hashish, which destroyed the soldiers in Egypt body and soul, and an enterprise such as he had in mind. What would be Mr.

Spokesly's att.i.tude after his interview with the major, and after getting away to sea? He had said he was taking a chance of a cargo. This was scarcely true; but he was taking a chance in sending Mr. Spokesly out ignorant of what was in store for him. But he decided to do it. He decided to make that drug-rotted old captain of his earn his salt. He would let Captain Rannie tell Mr. Spokesly after they were at sea.

Sc.r.a.ping his chin with his fingernail as he stood in front of his big safe, Mr. Dainopoulos felt sure that, out at sea, there would be no trouble. Then he opened his safe. He would make sure. The major had his own personal influence, no doubt; and it would be a powerful one if he exercised it. Mr. Dainopoulos could imagine him engaging Mr. Spokesly's interest tremendously with the story of those men waiting for their stores in Phyros. He took out a cash-box, and closing the safe went back to his desk.

"Listen here, Mister," he said, and suddenly broke off to wave away the young Jew, who was gazing in upon them with eyes enlarged and charged with pathos. "Listen here," he went on when the youth had vanished like a wraith. "I want to fix you so you'll be all right if anything happens, you understand. I don't know. Perhaps the Government take the _Kalkis_ when she get to Piraeus--plenty trouble now in Piraeus--and you gotta come back here. So I pay you six months now. You give me a receipt for six months' pay."

"What for?" demanded Mr. Spokesly, astonished.

"You understand, easy to cover risks with underwriter, yes. But s'pose I buy another ship and I got no captain. See?"