Grand Canary Read Free Page B

devil of a thirst. So fetch me a bottle of whisky. And look sharp about it.’
    There was a pause during which the steward’s eyes remained irresolutely upon his boots. Then he said:
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ in a constrained voice, as though the words came from those very boots; and he turned and went out.
    The satire faded from Harvey’s face, and, raising himself, he gazed through the square glass port. Why had he bullied the steward? It wasn’t like him to do that. A dark melancholy flowed into his eyes as he stared at the blurred river-bank slipping past like a grey veil unwound slowly across the screen of his sight. Life slipped past now in just such a fashion. Remote, empty, meaningless.
    He moved uneasily, gritted his teeth. Why did the fellow not come? Was he never coming? He waited with quivering nerves, then on an impulse he jumped up and flung out of the cabin. The deck, swept now by the freshening wind of the estuary, was deserted as he crossed to the companion, descended, and entered the saloon. It was a small place, but very bright and clean, panelled in white wood, the floor covered by a Turkey carpet, the shining mahogany of the long fixed table splashed by a pot of blazing geranium. And seated in the corner with his boots upon the cushions was a very big man of about sixty with a large square-cropped grey head on which his bowler hat reposed at an angle both rakish and profound. He was ugly, his eyebrows mere grey tufts, one ear a flattened wreck, but over all his seamed and battered face there lay a look of jaunty affability. He wore a very shiny blue serge suit, much too small and much too shabby. And yet he carried that shabbiness adventurously. The tight short trousers upon his bulky legs gave him quite a dashing air; his neck-tie bore a large imitation pearl pin; and his linen was clean – at least in parts. There he sat composedly, and in his knobby, enormous hands he gravely held a certain volume with a paper back. As Harvey entered he lowered the book, over which his lips had moved, looked across the steel-rimmed spectacles on his broken nose, and in a seductive Irish voice remarked:
    â€˜Good mornin’ to you.’
    â€˜Morning.’ Harvey sank into a chair, rang the bell, and began nervously to drum his fingers upon his knees. In a moment the table steward entered.
    â€˜Steward,’ said Harvey in a controlled voice, ‘ I ordered some whisky to be sent to my cabin – No.7. Send it up, will you? In the meantime bring me a brandy and soda.’
    At once the steward’s face exhibited an ill-concealed embarrassment.
    â€˜Dr Leith, sir,’ he hesitated. ‘No. 7?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, sir. The bar is closed.’
    â€˜Closed?’
    The steward bent over and lowered his voice with awkward, too obvious tact.
    â€˜Closed to you, sir. The captain’s orders through Mr Hamble, the purser.’
    Harvey’s fingers ceased their drumming; he sat quite still, transfixed by the unexpectedness of the reply. Then his lips drew to a narrow line.
    â€˜I see,’ he murmured to himself. ‘I see.’
    Dimly he felt the two men watching him; dimly he saw the steward slip out of the saloon; but he gave no heed. Ismay, of course, had done this – Ismay, priding himself upon his friendship, his influence, his ability to arrange the universe, had interviewed the captain – oh, it was maddening.…
    Suddenly the man in the corner spoke.
    â€˜Do ye know, now,’ he said – and unexpectedly his battered face was illumined by a friendly grin – ‘ they’re cranky, some of these skippers, cranky as a cracked payanna. Sure, if I was you, I wouldn’t be gettin’ up in the air about sich a thing one way or t’other.’ He paused, but, though Harvey gave no sign of having heard, with undiminished gusto he went on: ‘ I saw ye in the tinder comin’ off. Me name’s Corcoran. Jimmy