The Warlord of the Air Read Free

coolies who gathered there waving the scraps of paper they had received at the hiring office. As he howled he gathered up the papers and waved wildly at the ship, presumably issuing instructions. I hailed him with my cane.
    “Any mail?” I called.
    “Mail? Mail?” He offered me a look of hatred and contempt which I took for a negative reply to my question. Then he rushed back up the gangplank and disappeared. I waited, however, in the hope of seeing the captain and confirming with him that there was, indeed, no mail. Then I saw a white man appear at the top of the gangplank, pausing and staring blankly around him as if he had not expected to find land on the other side of the rail at all. Someone gave him a shove from behind and he staggered down the bouncing plank, fell at the bottom and picked himself up in time to catch the small seabag which the mate threw to him from the ship.
    The man was dressed in a filthy linen suit, had no hat, no shirt. He was unshaven and there were native sandals on his feet. I had seen his type before. Some wretch whom the East had ruined, who had discovered a weakness within himself which he might never have found if he had stayed safely at home in England. As he straightened up, however, I was startled by an expression of intense misery in his eyes, a certain dignity of bearing which was not at all common in the type. He shouldered his bag and began to make his way towards the town.
    “And don’t try to get back aboard, mister, or the law will have you next time!” screamed the mate of the Maria Carlson after him. The down-and-out hardly seemed to hear. He continued to plod along the quayside, jostled by the coolies, frantic for work.
    The mate saw me and gesticulated impatiently. “No mail! No mail!”
    I decided to believe him, but called: “Who is that chap? What’s he done?”
    “Stowaway,” was the curt reply.
    I wondered why anyone should want to stowaway on a ship bound for Rowe Island and on impulse I turned and followed the man. For some reason I believed him to be no ordinary derelict and he had piqued my curiosity. Besides, my boredom was so great that I should have welcomed any relief from it. Also I was sure that there was something different about his eyes and his bearing and that, if I could encourage him to confide in me, he would have an interesting story to tell. Perhaps I felt sorry for him, too. Whatever the reason, I hastened to catch him up and address him.
    “Don’t be offended,” I said, “but you look to me as if you could make some use of a square meal and maybe a drink.”
    “Drink?”
    He turned those strange, tormented eyes on me as if he had recognized me as the Devil himself. “Drink?”
    “You seem all up, old chap.” I could hardly bear to look into that face, so great was the agony I saw there. “You’d better come with me.”
    Unresistingly, he let me lead him down the harbour road until we reached Olmeijer’s. The Indian servants in the lobby weren’t happy about my bringing in such an obvious derelict, but I led him straight upstairs to my suite and ordered my houseboy to start a bath at once. In the meantime I sat my guest down in my best chair and asked him what he would like to drink.
    He shrugged. “Anything. Rum?”
    I poured him a stiffish shot of rum and handed him the glass. He downed it in a couple of swallows and nodded his thanks. He sat placidly in the chair, his hands folded in his lap, staring at the table.
    His accent, though distant and bemused, had been that of a cultivated man—a gentleman—and this aroused my curiosity even further.
    “Where are you from?” I asked him. “Singapore?”
    “From?” He gave me an odd look and then frowned to himself. He muttered something which I could not catch and then the houseboy entered and told me that he had prepared the bath.
    “The bath’s ready,” I said. “If you’d like to use it I’ll be looking out one of my suits. We’re about the same size.”
    He rose