Command Part 12

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Dainopoulos hurriedly. "I quite agree with you, Captain. We'll make a change right away. Now if you'll ..."

"Putting aside all personal feeling," continued Captain Rannie, and indeed he had gone right on while his employer was speaking, "putting all that to one side, I feel it my duty as master of the vessel. The man is not fit to be a s.h.i.+p's officer."

"I'll get you a seat, Mister," said Dainopoulos to Mr. Spokesly, and he hurried out and over to a small cafe, returning with a chair.

"No satisfaction in going on like this, as any one can see not blinded by prejudice. No one would believe, no one, what I have to put up with.

Not a soul on the s.h.i.+p who shows the faintest glimmer of grat.i.tude." And Captain Rannie was suddenly silent.

"That's what we'll do," said Mr. Dainopoulos in a loud, sympathetic voice, "and I'll see if I can't get you a better anchorage. This afternoon I expect I'll have a lighter for you. How will that do, Captain?"

"I expect nothing, and I'll not be disappointed," replied the captain.

"My experience leads me to expect things when I get them. If anything has happened on board since I left, don't blame me. I give you full warning. The man is not to be trusted. I have difficulty in keeping my hands off him. I only refrain as a matter of dignity. I would not soil my hands with such--such riff-raff. I hope I am not misunderstood.

There's a limit to human endurance, that's all."

"I know how it is, Captain. Don't you worry. Only, you know as well as I do he was the only man I could get at the time."

"I make no charges," said Captain Rannie, suddenly rising to some six feet two, to Mr. Spokesly's intense astonishment. "I hope I am above that sort of thing. But, I must really say, things could be managed better if more attention was paid to the express wishes of the master of the vessel." And without looking up or indicating in any way that he was conscious of their presence, Captain Rannie walked away and disappeared into the Place de la Liberte.

Mr. Dainopoulos looked after him for a moment with an expression of perplexity on his marred features and then sat down.

"What's the matter with him?" inquired Mr. Spokesly, very much interested. "Is he touched at all?"

"No, he's all right. Only he grumble grumble too much," said Mr.

Dainopoulos scratching his chin philosophically.

"I should think he does if he's always like that. What is his job worth?"

"Seven hundred drachma a month I pay him, and he says it's not enough."

"That so? Hm!" Mr. Spokesly was thinking. "That's about thirty pound a month. And I suppose he finds the s.h.i.+p." Mr. Dainopoulos nodded.

"Fifteen hundred drachma a month for that, and he says he lose money on the job."

Mr. Spokesly was looking down at the floor, flicking the ash from a cigarette, and he did not see the sudden wide-open stare Dainopoulos fixed upon him, as though beholding him in a new aspect.

"Why, think of it. Here you are, without a s.h.i.+p!" he exclaimed.

"No doubt about that," muttered Mr. Spokesly.

"Well, why not make a trip for me? This s.h.i.+p she's not very _beeg_, but she's going down to the Islands for the Government, you understand."

"For the Government? A transport?"

"One trip. After that I'll have something else much better for you. Yes, much better."

"What, go mate with this Captain Rannie?"

"One trip," said Mr. Dainopoulos, holding up his forefinger. "I can fix you for four hundred drachma a month."

"You said something, first time I came ash.o.r.e, about a skipper's job,"

said Mr. Spokesly.

"That's just what I mean. Something better, see? This skipper," he added, leaning forward and lowering his voice, "he no good! But he got a paper from me, you understand, for a year, so I can't do nothin'."

"What about me?" said Mr. Spokesly, rather to his own surprise. "Do I get a paper, too?"

"Only one trip," countered Mr. Dainopoulos. "You go one trip and I'll fix you for a _beeg_ s.h.i.+p."

"Well, I can't do any better, and going home may be a wash-out," mused Mr. Spokesly. "I'll get some clothes."

"You go to a friend o' mine and he'll get you everything. Here's the number. Jean Tjimiski Street. You better get uniform, see, and wear all the time. Better than plain clothes. Plenty trouble goin' aboard s.h.i.+p without uniform. And then you come to my house."

"I was going to the Olympos," began Mr. Spokesly.

"Too dear! Olympos no good," hastily began Mr. Dainopoulos who was not at all anxious to have an employee of his drawn into conversation by the people who lived at the Olympos. "You come to my house. I will speak to the officer who buy the stores from me and he will be glad if captain and mate both English, you understand. That all right?" And he patted Mr. Spokesly on the shoulder.

"You mean, come and stay with you?"

"Certainly. Why not? My wife, she likes you very much. And Miss Solaris, eh?"

"Well, I don't notice she likes me so very much. She tolerates me. I don't understand that girl, Mister."

Mr. Dainopoulos looked very serious at this. He shook his head. He lit a cigarette, blew the smoke away, and put his face close to Mr.

Spokesly's.

"Never mind her, Mister. Keep away from her. She's a fine girl but she's got funny ideas. And she's crazy about that feller what's gone away. She thinks he's a king and she's a queen. You understand what I mean? She ain't here at all, you see? She's got notions she's goin' to find him and he'll take her back to Austria or somewhere. I can't tell you all about it. I laugh when she tells us all her fool notions. She thinks you can get her on your s.h.i.+p and take her back to her ... yes!" Mr.

Dainopoulos was humorously hideous as he reiterated this astounding notion on the part of Evanthia Solaris. "And when I says to her, 'Aw, he's gone away now; won't be back for six months, maybe,' she call me a liar. 'He'll come back,' she say to me. I want him! Ha, ha!'"

"Well," said Mr. Spokesly, looking meditatively at the immense safe.

"She's right after all, and you're wrong. I'm here, ain't I?"

"And that's why I tell you, look out. These women, they ain't like Englishwomen, Mister."

"How?"

But Mr. Dainopoulos couldn't explain how. It is not easy to explain how.

Perhaps, if Mr. Dainopoulos had been less absorbed in making money and had dabbled in the fine arts, he might have hit upon some adequate comparison. He might have said, for example, that the difference was like the difference between the rose, with its perfume and its comprehensible thorns, and the poppy, or the hemlock or the deadly nightshade, blooms of fatal lure and incalculable perils. Mr.

Dainopoulos knew the difference but he did not know the English for it.

He must have sensed in some way the latent danger for a man like Mr.

Spokesly, a man with much unconscious romanticism in his nature, for he shook his head vigorously and said several times, "You look out. She'll fix you to do something crazy. You're engaged, or I'd say, keep away from her. But since you're engaged, well, look out, that's all. By and by she'll forget all her fool notions and get married."

"Well," said Mr. Spokesly. "I got to get out of these clothes before I see anybody. I'll take a walk up to see your friend the tailor. See you later." And he walked towards Venizelos Street.

He was profoundly disturbed at this unexpected revelation of the att.i.tude of Evanthia Solaris. If that girl had designed to cast a spell upon him, she could have chosen no more potent elixir than this sublimated essence of quixotism. She wanted him to get her back to the gay and impudent young person who had almost tweaked the noses and pulled the beards of the serious French officers who had seen him safely locked in the train bound north through the lines. Without being competent to a.n.a.lyze his complex emotions, Mr. Spokesly was in no doubt of their reality. He would do it. It appealed to his particularly English ideal of chivalry, which is embodied in the immortal phrase "making a woman happy." He would do it. He would astonish her by his sudden solicitude for her happiness. And it must be admitted that, whatever else he failed to do, Mr. Spokesly succeeded in astonis.h.i.+ng her. Evanthia Solaris was perfectly equipped to achieve her own happiness, equipped with the weapons and instincts of the jungle; and the spectacle of an Englishman at his ancient and honourable pastime of making a woman happy, while it never caused her to relax her vigilance, certainly inspired her with novel emotions.

Mr. Spokesly was so lost in his reflections, most of them confusingly agreeable, that he started when a familiar mellow voice asked him where he was going. His friend the Lieutenant of Reserve was standing at the corner of the Place. It was evident that the billet of deputy-a.s.sistant harbour master carried no crus.h.i.+ngly onerous duties. The old lieutenant looked as though he had had a number of little drinks since Mr. Spokesly had left him. He stood leaning on a cane looking on benevolently at the busy scene.

"Floka's is right here," he said. "S'pose we have a couple? Beautiful morning, isn't it? Well, and how did you get on?"