The Dark Crusader (10 page)

And that there were others on the island was obvious. As we came close to the shore, I could count at least half a dozen houses, stilted affairs with the floor about three feet off the ground and enormously deep-eaved thatched roofs that swept down steeply from high ridge-poles to within four or five feet of the ground. The houses had neither doors nor windows, understandably enough, for they had no walls either, except for one, the largest, in a clearing near the shore, close in to a stand of coconut palms: the other houses were set further back and to the south. Still further south was a metal and corrugated iron eyesore, grey in colour, like an old-fashioned crushing plant and hopper in a quarry. Beyond this again was a long low shed, with a slightly sloping corrugated iron roof: it must have been a real pleasure to work under that when the sun was high in the sky.

We were heading in just to the right of a small pier-not a real landing-stage with anchored piles but a thirty foot long floating platform of bound logs, secured on the shore end by ropes tied round a couple of tree stumps-when I saw a man lying on the shore. A white man, sunbathing. He was a lean wiry old bird with a lot of white hair all over his face, dark spectacles on his eyes and a grubby towel strategically placed across his midriff. He appeared to be asleep, but he wasn't, for when the bow of the canoe crunched into the sand he sat up with a jerk, whipped off his dark glasses, peered myopically in our direction, pawed around the sand till he located a pair of slightly-tinted spectacles, stuck them across the bridge of his nose, said "God bless my soul" in an agitated voice, jumped to his feet with remarkable speed for such an old duffer and hurried into a nearby palm-thatched hut, clutching his towel round him.

"Quite a tribute to you, my dear," I murmured. "You looking like something the tide washed up and the old boy about ninety-nine, but you can still knock him for six."

"He didn't seem any too pleased to see us, I thought," she said doubtfully. She smiled at the big man who'd just lifted her from the canoe and set her on her feet on the sand and went on: "Maybe he's a recluse. Maybe he's one of those remittance man beach-combers and other white people are the last he wants to see."

"He's just gone for his best bib and tucker," I said confidently. "He'll be back in a minute to give us the big hand."

And he was. We'd hardly reached the top of the beach when he reappeared from the hut, dressed in a white shirt and white ducks, with a panama on his head. He'd a white beard, flowing white moustache and plentiful thick white hair. If Buffalo Bill had ever worn tropical whites and a straw hat, he'd have been a dead ringer for Buffalo Bill.

He came puffing down to meet us, his hand outstretched in greeting. I'd made no mistake about the warmth of welcome, but I had about the age: he wasn't a day over sixty, perhaps only fifty-five, and a pretty fit fifty-five at that.

"God bless my soul, God bless my soul!" He wrung our hands as if we'd brought him the first prize in the Irish Sweepstake. "What a surprise! What a surprise! Morning dip, you know-just drying off-couldn't believe my eyes-where in all the world have you two come from? No, no, don't answer now. Straight up to my house. Delightful surprise. Delightful." He scurried off in front of us, god-blessing himself with every other step. Marie smiled at me and we walked after him.

He led us along a short path, across a white-shingled front, up a wide flight of six wooden steps into his house: like the others, the floor was well clear of the ground. But once inside I could see why, unlike the other houses, it had walls: it had to have to support the large bookcases and glass-covered show-cases that lined three quarters of the wall area of the room: the rest of the walls were given over to doors and window spaces, no glass in the windows, just screens of plaited leaves that could be raised or lowered as wished. There was a peculiar smell that I couldn't place at first. The floor seemed to be made of the mid-ribs of some type of leaf, coconut palm, probably, laid across close-set joists, and there was no ceiling as such, just steep-angled rafters with thatch above. I looked at this thatch for a long and very interested moment. There was a big old-fashioned roll-top desk in one corner and a large safe against the inside wall. There were some brightly coloured straw mats on the floor, most of which was given over to low-slung comfortable looking rattan chairs and settees, each with a low table beside it. A man could be comfortable in that room-especially with a drink in his hand.

The old boy-with that beard and moustache. I couldn't think of him as anything else-was a mind-reader.

"Sit down, sit down. Make yourselves comfortable. A drink? Yes, yes, of course, first of all a drink. You need it, you need it." He picked up a little bell, rang it furiously as if he were trying to see how much punishment it could stand before it came apart in his hands, replaced it and looked at me. "Too early in the morning for whisky, eh?"

"Not this morning."

"And you, young lady. Some brandy, perhaps? Eh? Brandy?"

"Thank you." She let him have the smile she never bothered letting me have and I could just about see the old boy's toes curling. "You are very kind."

I was just coming to the resigned conclusion that his staccato and repetitive way of talking was habitual and was going to be a little wearing if we had to stay with him for any length of time-and I had the thought, even then, that the voice was vaguely familiar to me--when a rear door opened and a Chinese youth came in. He was very short, very thin, dressed in khaki drill, and the only use he had for his facial muscles was to keep his expressions buttoned up for he didn't even bat an eyelid when he saw us.

"Ah, Tommy, there you are. We have guests, Tommy. Drinks. Brandy for the lady, a large whisky for the gentleman and-let me see now, yes, yes, perhaps I rather think I will-a small whisky for me. Then run a bath. For the lady." I could get by with a shave. "Then breakfast. You haven't breakfasted yet?"

I assured him we hadn't.

"Excellent. Excellent!" He caught sight of the two men who had rescued us standing outside on the white shingles with the water drums, raised a bushy white eyebrow in my direction and said: "What's in those?"

"Our clothes."

"Indeed? Yes, yes, I see. Clothes." Any opinion he held as to our eccentricities in the choice of suitcases he kept to himself. He went to the doorway. "Just leave them there, James. You've done a splendid job, both of you. Splendid. I'll speak to you later."

I watched the two men smile broadly, then turn away. I said: "They speak English?"

"Certainly. Of course they do."

"They didn't speak any to us."

"Urn. They didn't, eh?" He tugged his beard, Buffalo Bill to the life. "You speak any to them?"

I thought, then grinned: "No."

"There you are, then. You might have been any of a score of nationalities." He turned as the Chinese boy came in, took the drinks from the tray and handed them to us. "Your excellent health."

I grunted something appropriate and as short as it could decently be and went for that drink like a thirst-stricken camel for the nearest oasis. I insulted a perfectly good Scotch by swallowing half of it at one gulp, but even so it tasted wonderful and I was about to start on the remainder when the old boy said: "Well, preliminaries over, decencies observed. Your story, sir. Let's have it."

It brought me up short and I looked at him cautiously. I could be wrong about him being a hoppity old fusspot. I was wrong. The bright blue eyes were shrewd, and what little of his face was available for expression seemed to indicate a certain carefulness, if not actual wariness. Being a little odd in your behaviour doesn't necessarily mean that you're a little odd in the head.

I gave it to him, short and straight. I said: "My wife and I were en route to Australia, by plane. During an overnight stop at Suva we were taken from our hotel room at three in the morning by a Captain Fleck and two Indians, forced to board his schooner and locked up. Last night we heard them planning to murder us, so we broke out from the hold where they'd put us-it was a bad night and they didn't see us go-jumped over the side and after some time washed up on a coral reef. Your men found us there this morning."

"God bless my soul! What an extraordinary tale. Extraordinary!" He kept on blessing himself and shaking his head for a bit, then looked up at me from under bushy white eyebrows. "If we could have it with a little more detail, perhaps?" So I gave it to him again, telling him everything that had happened since we had arrived in Suva. He peered at me through those tinted glasses all the time I was speaking and when I finished he sighed, did some more headshaking and said: "Incredible. The whole thing's quite incredible!"

"Do you mean that literally?"

"What? What? That I don't believe you? God bless-"

"This might convince you," Marie interrupted. She slipped off her shoe and peeled back the plaster to show the two deep fang marks on her foot. "The rat caused that."

"But I
do
believe it, young lady! It's just that everything is so bizarre, so-so fantastic. Of course it's true, how else would you be here? But-but why should this villainous fellow, this Captain Fleck kidnap you and talk of killing you? It all seems so purposeless, so mad."

"I've no idea," I said. "The only thing I can think of-and even that is ridiculous-is that I'm a scientist, a specialist in fuel technology and maybe someone wanted to extract some information from me. Why on earth they should want to do that I just can't imagine. And how the skipper of an obscure schooner knew that we should be flying out to Australia via Fiji-well, it doesn't make any kind of sense at all."

"As you say, it makes no sense at all, Mr.-ah-Bless my soul, you must forgive me! I haven't even asked your names yet!"

"Bentall. John Bentall. And this is my wife, Marie." I smiled at him. "And you don't need to tell me who you are. It's just come back to me. Dr. Harold Witherspoon-Professor Witherspoon, I should say. The doyen of British archaeologists."

"You know me then? You recognized me?" The old boy seemed quite bucked about it.

"Well, you do get a good deal of newspaper space," I said tactfully. Professor Witherspoon's love of the public limelight was a byword. "And I saw your series of lectures on television, about a year ago."

He didn't look so pleased any longer. He suddenly looked downright suspicious, and his eyes narrowed as he said: "You interested in archaeology, Mr. Bentall? Know anything about it, I mean?"

"I'm like a million others, professor. I know about this Egyptian tomb and this lad Tutenkhamon who was in it. But I couldn't begin to spell his name, I doubt if I'm even pronouncing it properly."

"So. Good. Forgive my asking, I'll explain later. I am being most remiss, most remiss. This young lady here is far from well. Fortunately, I'm a bit of a doctor. Have to be, you know. Living your life at the back of beyond." He bustled out of the room, returned with a medical case, took out a thermometer and asked Marie to put it in her mouth while he took her wrist.

I said: "I don't want to appear ungrateful or unappreciative of your hospitality, Professor, but my business is rather urgent. How soon will we be able to leave here and get back to Suva?"

"Not long." He shrugged. "There's a ketch from Kandavu- that's about a hundred miles or so north of here-calls in about every six weeks. It was last here, let me see-yes, about three weeks ago. So, another three weeks."

That was handy. Three weeks. Not long, he said, but they probably had a different time scale on those islands and looking out over that shimmering lagoon with the coral reefs beyond I found it easy to understand why. But I didn't think Colonel Raine would be so happy if I just sat back and admired the lagoon for three weeks, so I said: "Any planes ever pass this way?"

"No ships, no planes, nothing." He shook his head and kept on shaking it as he examined the thermometer. "Bless my soul. A hundred and three and a pulse of 120. Dear, dear! You're a sick young lady, Mrs. Bentall, probably taken it from London with you. Bath, bed and breakfast in that order." He held up his hand as Marie murmured a token protest. "I insist. I insist. You can have Carstairs' room. Red Carstairs, my assistant," he explained. "In Suva at present, recuperating from malaria. Rife in those parts. Expect him back on the next ship. And you, Mr. Bentall-I expect you'd like a sleep, too." He gave a deprecating little laugh. "I daresay you didn't sleep too soundly out on that reef last night."

"A clean-up, shave and a couple of hours on one of those very inviting chairs on your verandah will do me," I said. "No planes either, eh? Any boats on the island I could hire?"

"The only boat on the island is the one belonging to James and John. Not their right names, those natives from Kandavu have unpronounceable names. They're here on contract to supply fresh fish and whatever food and fruit they can gather. They wouldn't take you anyway-even if they would, I'd absolutely forbid it. Absolutely."

"Too dangerous?" If it was, I was right with him.

"Of course. And illegal. The Fijian Government forbids inter-island proa travel in the cyclone season. Heavy penalties. Very heavy penalties. For breaking the law."

"No radio we could use to send a message?"

"No radio. Not even a radio receiver." The professor smiled. "When I'm investigating something that happened many thousands of years ago I find contact with the outside world disturbing in the extreme. All I have is an old-fashioned hand-wound gramophone."

He seemed a harmless old duffer, so I didn't tell him what he could do with his gramophone. Instead, while Marie bathed, I had another drink, then after a shave, change and first-class breakfast, stretched out on a low rattan armchair in the shade of the verandah.

I meant to do some heavy thinking for it seemed to me that the situation was such that it was long past time that I showed some rudimentary signs of intelligence, but I'd reckoned without my weariness, the warmth of the sun, the effects of a couple of double Scotches on an empty stomach and the soporific sound of the trade-wind whispering its sibilant clicking way through the nodding palms. I thought of the island and how anxious I'd been to leave it and what Professor Witherspoon would say if he knew that the only way to get me off now would be by sheer force. I thought of Captain Fleck and I thought of the Professor, and I thought of them both with admiration, Fleck for the fact that he was twice as smart as I'd thought-which made him at least twice as smart as me-and the Professor for the fact that he was as polished and accomplished a liar as I'd ever met. And then I fell asleep.