It had been with some trepidation that Jardine had emerged to take breakfast, after his usual morning exercises and a long and satisfying shower. He found Mason already up and at his desk, which, rather worryingly, left him with the wife and dreading a repeat of what had happened in the hours of darkness. Her attitude was remarkable: there was not the slightest hint of what she had done the night before, no change in either her awkward behaviour or her proneness to inappropriate remarks; the subject was not even alluded to in a look.
That left Jardine wondering if she was a sleepwalker — it was possible, but in the end he decided, with her husband in another bed probably every night and with a different companion, she, with an appetite to be sated, took her pleasure where she could find it, with the caveat that she would avoid congress with a native for fear of scandal.
That word gave him pause — if Whitehall found out what Conrad Mason was doing they would drum him out of the Colonial Service, yet it seemed that many people knew. Peydon, for one, was certainly aware, hence his reaction to gormless Grace, and was that the real reason for his troubled relationship with the local Anglican divine?
Those were thoughts to be put aside. He had come to Zeila by boat, sailing up the coast in a hired dhow, no problem now he knew that Grace had sailed for Aden at first light, so he and his patrol boat were well past the place. Peydon was busy at his barracks organising his trip into the desert; Jardine had passed by to hear much frustrated shouting and the honking of camels.
By his calculation, if everything had gone well, his weapons would be in the Suez Canal only a few days’ sailing away. His task was to organise the unloading, which would have to be into boats, probably those dhows rotting in the harbour.
Mason, having taken over the sick fellow’s duties, had given him the name of a contact, Jamal Cabdille Xasan, a local worthy who had once been prosperous but had suffered the same fate as the place in which he resided. If there was one decent dwelling in the town it was his, but that only became apparent once Jardine was through the doors and into the cool and columned courtyard. Having introduced himself, Xasan sent for a man to interpret their conversation.
Jardine knew ‘Jamal’ meant ‘beautiful’ in Arabic and never was it more inaccurately applied. Xasan had a hooked nose, drooping black eyes, rotting teeth in a sour, turned-down mouth, bad breath and a manner that reeked of a life of double-dealing. Mason was sure he was still involved in the slave trade, now something much interdicted by all the colonial powers. Whatever, he was the fellow who, for a price, could secure the men and boats Jardine needed to get his goods ashore, so for a visitor who knew he would need hours to negotiate with him, he could breathe fire for all he cared.
It was a lengthy and tedious business, but unavoidable, fuelled by endless cups of sweet tea, for there was not a Muslim born who did not see it as a bounden duty to bargain for hours, and Xasan was both a hard man to read and one difficult to beat down. It was late in the afternoon when the terms were finally struck and a down payment made, plus a ‘gift’ to the interpreter.
He could have sailed back to Berbera easily and landed in darkness — it was another clear, starry night — but Jardine decided, discretion being the better part of valour, he would sleep on the boat. There were any number of places to anchor along a near-deserted shore, and the men transporting him were adept fisherfolk who caught a couple of flathead mullet to be cooked over a brazier hung on the vessel’s side. With those same fellows keeping a look out for sharks, he had a dawn dip in the sea as well.
Once back at the bungalow he was informed by Mason that a message had gone off to the Ethiopians at Dire Dawa to speed a camel caravan to Zeila; if it arrived early and had to wait, it was not a problem, given there was a set of wells just inland at Tashoka. Jardine had no notion how it had been sent or to whom, nor was he about to ask.
It was enough that it had been done; it was the kind of thing he did not need to know, and information like that, inadvertently spread, could jeopardise the messenger as well as the means of communication. So far, apart from Alverson, everything had gone swimmingly. He should have known it was too good to continue; when the problem arose it came in trousers and a shirt and was female.
‘You guys think you are smart, but when I see Tyler Alverson making ready to ship out and he is not telling me where he is going, and this is after you two had a cosy midnight talk, I begin to smell something.’
‘I can’t imagine what you think it is, Miss Littleton.’
‘There’s only one place Tyler wants to go and it is not Aden, so when he informs me that’s where he is headed I know he is lying.’
‘I am not privy to where he wants to go or is headed, I have my own concerns.’
‘You know, Jardine, the folks round here are real friendly, and when I saw you come in on a dhow this morning-’
‘You were in Berbera, not here?’
‘Sure I was, and when you disappeared I went and had a little word.’
‘They don’t know anything.’
‘They know more than you think and they took you to a place called Zeila where you met some guy and-’
‘Don’t tell me,’ he interrupted, ‘you paid them to talk?’
‘Naw, I undid a couple of buttons on my shirt. They were so keen to see what a white woman had inside they would have denied Mohammed.’
‘God knows why,’ Jardine replied with an infuriated growl, ‘you’d hardly fill an egg cup.’
His attempt to divert her with an insult failed utterly, she just grinned and wiggled her tight bottom. ‘Some guys like their ladies a little on the slender side. Now, I will tell you what I think: Tyler wants to get into a part of Abyssinia that the locals are keeping him out of and I figure he has engaged you to get him there, which is why you went to Zeila, which I am told is a shithole.’
‘Fishing trip.’
‘My ass.’
‘I’ve met stevedores who swear less than you.’
‘And I have met liars in academia who would leave you for dead. I need to get to Gondar or Aksum and drag my dear mother out of there. I have sent her cables by the dozen saying it is dangerous, but either they don’t get through or she is not listening.’
‘Neither are you. It is bloody dangerous.’
‘You don’t remember, I am a Spartan woman.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means I can read and write, it means I can shoot a rifle or a pistol, and if you can find a bow and arrow I will knock an apple off your goddamned head. It means I can ride a horse bareback and go without food, climb mountains and herd cattle.’
‘I read somewhere those Spartan women were happy to be seen prancing around in the nude.’
‘There I draw the line.’
‘You might have just blown your best chance of persuading me.’
‘And I thought you were a decent guy.’
‘When it comes to lust, honey, there’s no such thing.’ The drawling interruption identified the speaker. ‘They also shared their charms with more than one man to beget children. You now have a chance to get me on your side, Corrie.’
‘How much did you hear, Tyler?’
‘Enough.’
‘So, Jardine, what’s it to be?’ Corrie Littleton asked.
‘When did I cease to be a “Mr” and become someone you address like a servant?’
‘I’ll call you “sir” if it will help,’ the girl said.
‘Wrong Jardine — that’s my cousin.’
‘You got a first name?’
‘Yes, my friends call me Cal, you can call me Mister Jardine.’
‘I have to tell you I am desperate. The only way I will get my mother out of there is if I drag her by the hair. I know nothing about armies …’
‘Except classical ones,’ Alverson suggested, with a slight smirk.