Seagulls in My Soup Read Free Page A

natural, I s’pose,” I grunted, thinking of the diminishing water in
Cresswell
’s tanks. Another thirty gallons would cost another thirty pesetas (about eighty cents).
    As Sissie strode, Nelson limped, and I traipsed along Ibiza’s waterfront, the sun again broke through the high clouds and gold-plated the cathedral and fortress atop the steep hill to our left. Across the harbor, on the east side, another heavy rainstorm reminded me of the eleventh commandment: “Thou shalt not loiter ashore too long when dirty weather is in the offing.”
    Sissie gazed up at the gold-lined clouds above us. “Just like a jolly old Gainsborough painting!” she gurgled, as she clomped heavily among the heaps of lobster pots, fishing nets, sacks of potatoes, and other ‘heaps of bric-a-brac,’ as she called the means of livelihood of a hundred hardworking souls.
    â€œHammerheads,” I replied, glancing up at the clouds, black-bellied and menacing. “Going to be a right bloody gale later on. We’d better not hang around too much. We’ll have to keep a good watch on the anchor—otherwise we’re going to be bashing the rudder against the jetty again, and I’ve only just finished repairing it from the hammering we got last week.”
    At the
correos
there were two letters for Sissie; one from her brother the bishop (
dahling
Willie) and one from
deah
Toby, the ex-
majah,
who was now assistant station-
mawstah
at Victorloo in London. For me there was one telegram.
    We made for the Hotel Montesol, in the main square of Ibiza. There we sat at an outside table in the fleeting sunshine and sipped sweet coffee. I ripped open my telegram.
    Â 
    â€œGOOD DELIVERY JOB FOR YOU PLUS ONE MATE MALAGA STOP MEET ME HOTEL LA PRINCESA TEA TIME TUESDAY STOP SHINER.”
    â€œGood news, I hope, Skippah?” murmured Sissie, watching me anxiously. Always ripe for a touch of drama, was Sissie. She laid her hand on my arm.
    â€œYes, looks like it. Probably a boat delivery from Malaga. It’s from my old mate Shiner Wright. He doesn’t say how long it’ll be, but I doubt if it will be more than a couple of days—at this time of year it’s probably some nob wants his gin-palace taken to Gibraltar. So what about if you look after the boat and Nelson for me . . .” Nelson, at the sound of his name, bumped his tail against my leg under the table . . . “and I’ll split the delivery proceeds twenty-five, seventy-five with you when I get back.”
    Sissie squeezed my arm suddenly, like a bosun’s mate grabbing a marlinspike. “Oh,
dahling
Skippah, thet won’t be at
all
necessary—you know I’d do it anyway.”
    As she said this she noticed a Spanish cavalry officer passing along the street verge in front of the hotel, only six feet away from us. The officer was leading a beautiful white horse by its bridle. Sissie screwed up her Spithead-blue eyes, pursed her lips, and smiled at the horse. The cavalry officer leered lecherously at Sissie. A blue-overcoated, white-helmeted traffic policeman on the corner of the square, a dozen yards away from us, halted the traffic. The horse halted and, as the officer still returned Sissie’s smiles with
muy macho
poses, the horse relieved its bowels right in front of a group of camera-aiming, Bermuda-shorted, Hawaii-shirted American tourists, who, after the first spluttered shocks, were hurled back, bespattered, all around our table.
    The traffic, the macho officer, and the horse moved off again, and the Americans shouted for “more Kleenex, goddamit!” The non-English-speaking waiters merely stood and grinned politely. I gently lifted Sissie’s hand from my arm. “Come on, mate, we’d better get our shopping done before this storm works up.”
    By noon we had all our morning chores completed onboard
Cresswell
and by twelve-thirty we were spruced up to go onboard