As the lair of a notorious rum-runner, the captain’s cabin was something of a disappointment to anyone expecting a scene from The Iron Pirate or some other stirring tale of seaborne skulduggery by Pemberton or Mayne Reid. Instead, the captain’s quarters had almost a fussy air to them, and might have belonged to some college-bound don. Everything was very tidily stowed. There were Liberty-print curtains at the portholes, a deep, adjustable armchair in some dark brocade, its wood and brass polished to perfection, fixed lamps in the modern Italian style, mahogany and brass shelves or cabinets containing the mementos of six continents, all carefully fitted so that only the heaviest seas might dislodge them. I was especially impressed by his neatly-secured collection of Meissen harlequinade characters and Tang figurines, all of the highest quality and condition.
‘I got the Chinese stuff mostly from the same old merchant. He brought them with him to Shanghai after his province was snaffled up by some local saviour.’ Quelch ran his long fingers over the mane of an ethereal horse. ‘It was in May, almost three years ago, just before I decided to try my luck in America. Since he was willing to finance the trip I agreed with more than ordinary alacrity. But there was a nasty run-in with some pirates off Taiwan and the poor old devil had a heart-attack. Since he wasn’t on board officially we slipped him into the drink while I read a few words over him, thanked him for his help, and set course for the Philippines. I’ll tell you, old boy, China’s being eaten alive by those bandits. Another few years, what with them and the Japs, there’ll be nothing left of her. Life’s cheap enough almost anywhere these days but it was never cheaper than in China. The whole country’s up for grabs and if the Yanks don’t take it, the Japs surely will. That year in South America was like a rest-cure.’ While, like many well-informed people, he foresaw a war between America and Japan over their imperial ambitions in the Far East, he did not foresee the gigantic scale of the conflict. Few of us did. Events in Europe were beginning to change the fundamental ways in which we viewed world politics, but in those days we were still highly optimistic, in spite of the continuing volatility of the Balkan states and France’s punitive attitude towards the exhausted and beaten Germans (an attitude which was, of course, to lead to a war almost everyone thought could have been avoided). Europe rejected America’s last great effort at peace-making and, disheartened, Uncle Sam gave herself up to pleasure-seeking, with a determination worthy of the Byzantine court.
Calm seas and warm weather meant that we spent a great deal of our days on deck. For November it was unusually mild, even when to Mr Mix’s considerable relief Port-au-Prince was behind us and we moved out into the wider waters of the Atlantic. Captain Quelch planned to head either for Tenerife or Casablanca, depending on our available time and the duration of our supplies. He called the Mediterranean his ‘old stamping-ground’ and was, he said, looking forward to getting back. He was feeling nostalgic. At least he had a better ship now than the last one.
‘We had to scuttle the Nancy Dee off the coast of Albania and wade ashore with whatever we could salvage,’ he said. ‘But we lost the guns. Not that they were worth much. Even Arabs won’t buy Martinis these days. Everyone wants Lee-Enfields and Winchesters.’ He sat back and sucked a reminiscent pipe. ‘Lost a wonderful wardrobe, too.’
I was content to glance through his Wheldrake while the old sea-wolf reflected no doubt on the nature of a present where the sophisticated repeating rifle was available to even the most barbaric peoples. He had told me that, long after the Armistice, it had been possible to buy a good German weapon, with a hundred rounds of ammunition, for as little as a hundred piastres, Egyptian. ‘They bring them in from the Western Desert and sell them in Palestine, mostly. But the fellahin get quite a few, too. British weapons are worth a lot more. A Lee-Enfield will set you back a fiver. And they’re still out there, hardly rusting, in the Cyrenaican and Libyan battlefields. I suppose we should be thankful they use the majority of the guns in blood feuds amongst themselves. Heaven help us if they decide to go political like those ridiculous johnnies in Cairo.’ This in reference to a newspaper report about the demands of the Egyptian Wafd ‘nationalists’. ‘Arms make a profitable cargo, by and large, but I’d never sell someone a gun that was going to kill a white man.’
Esmé was not proving a good sailor. Now I recalled her discomfort on the boat from Constantinople. Although the Hope Dempsey was a considerable improvement on that leaking pleasure-launch we took to Italy, she confessed she had not been entirely well on the Icosium. In fact, she revealed, she had met Mr Meulemkaumpf when taken faint on her first day out. The poor child rarely appeared for meals and ingested what little sustenance she could hold down in the privacy of her cabin. For propriety’s sake we had separate accommodation, although there was a connecting door between our rooms. Very little unseemly was going on, however, given my little one’s condition! I tended to spend rather more of my evenings with Quelch, Esmé being content to take the laudanum our captain supplied from his own medicine chest, so spending most of her hours in uncomplicated and relatively comfortable slumber. Das Mädchen sieht schön aus. Er hat ihr den zucker gern gegeben. Mir ist kalt. Was heisst das? Ich bin nicht ein feygeleh!
Mrs Cornelius spent most evenings in a saloon a good deal better furnished than the one we had known on the old Rio Cruz. We had sailed on her together from Odessa some five years earlier. Mrs Cornelius enjoyed the company of simple-hearted men and found the ship’s crew as compatible as the film crew, who generally spent their free time singing songs or playing cards, both of which were favourite pastimes of my life-loving friend. Wolf Seaman, after a night or two in which he awkwardly tried to be ‘one of the boys’, took Ahab-like to walking the decks alone or in the company of Mr Mix who, though accepted in the saloon, had said something about not being sure he wanted to be a cheap source of entertainment for others. This chip on his shoulders denied him the chance to improve himself, but I had long since ceased attempting to reason with him.
With women on board, there was always the danger of racial tension flaring. Meanwhile my darling had a devotee. Grace, our make-up artist, was full of sympathy for Esmé. He made it his business, whenever I took my break with Captain Quelch, to ensure she was provided for and looked after. Grace could not do enough for his ‘little treasure’. These effeminate homosexuals balance their tendency towards small-mindedness by being marvellous carers for the sick. They are at once the best and worst exemplars of their kind. It has often seemed unjust to me that the honourable love of the Greeks, of man for man, has to be tainted by this overly-visible image of degeneracy. It is not something, however, that I have ever discussed in detail and never had the opportunity of raising with intimates such as Kolya or Maurice Quelch. I’tarim Nafsak, as the Moroccans say. It is the most important thing. Maalesh. Mush Mush’kil’ah. One learns patience, a little self-knowledge, if nothing else in the Arab’s world. But patience has always been one of my virtues. It was this quality which enabled me to enjoy our voyage, even when the seas grew very rough, and make the most of the company of a man whom I grew increasingly to admire and, indeed, to love. His knowledge of music, literature, history and science was far superior to my own. He passed on to me the benefits of the finest education in the world. As a Russian refugee whose own learning had been cut short by the follies of October 1917, it might be said I was privileged to enjoy, on an intimate basis, exposure to the English public-school system, to Cambridge and to the Royal Navy.