He was, at first, incoherent with rage, and, with his clearly visible, ever-mounting blood pressure, we feared an apoplectic stroke. Fortunately for him, he at last recovered the power of speech, and this undoubtedly relieved, to a great extent, his almost overpowering feelings. He was very bitter. His language, in addition, was shocking, but we had to admit that he had full justification for it.
He had, apparently, been walking peacefully back to the ship from his agents, with malice in his heart towards none, but nevertheless, taking due and proper precautions for the safe-guarding of wallet and watch, when among the riffraff of the street bazaars. Once clear of them, he had dropped these precautions, deeming them needless, and, at the entrance to the docks, he had had to push his way through a group of Arab sailors, whom he, in his great and regrettable ignorance, had thought to be as honest as himself. (His bitterness, at this juncture, was truly remarkable.) Suddenly, he had been jostled in the rear with great violence, and, on turning to remonstrate with the discourteous one, had not felt his watch and chain being slipped from their moorings, with that dexterity and efficiency which bespoke of long and arduous practice, so that, when about to resume his journey, he found his watch no longer there.
At this point he again lost the power of speech, and to our fearful and dreading eyes, his entire disintegration appeared not only probable, but imminent. Recovering himself with a masterly effort, however, he resumed his narrative. Although unable to espy the actual perpetrator of the theft, who had, with commendable discretion and alacrity, completely vanished, he had realized that the jostler must have been his confederate, and had pursued the said confederate for over half a mile, before being eluded by the Arab in a crowded thoroughfare. This, we realized, accounted for our captain's complexion and superabundance of perspiration.
Here again, having once more relapsed into incoherency, he was left to his vengeful meditations, alternately muttering 'My watch' and 'The villain', the former with a touching pathos, and the latter, preceded by some highly descriptive adjectives, with an extraordinary depth of feeling.
Thirty hours later found no appreciable diminution in our captain's just and righteous anger, although he could now speak like a rational being, albeit forcefully, concerning his grievous misfortunes of the previous afternoon. We had loaded our last case of dates just on sunset, and, early that morning, even as the first faint streak of grey in the eastern sky heralded the burning day, had gratefully cleared the malodorous port of Basrah. We were, by this time, fairly into the Gulf and proceeding serenely on our way, South by East, through the stifling tropical night, the darkness of which was but infinitesimally relieved by the cold, unthinkably distant pinpoints of stars in the moonless night sky.
Our captain, whose outraged feelings evidently refused him the blessed solace of slumber, had recently come up to the bridge, which he was now ceaselessly pacing, very much after the manner of a caged leopard, all the time informing us as to "the dire retribution which he intended meting out to the present illegal possessor of his watch, should he ever be fortunate enough to lay hands on him. The lascar quartermaster, very zealous in the captain's presence, was poring over the compass box, while in the bows, the lookout-man was either thinking of his native village in far-off Bombay, or had found sleep vastly easier to come by than our captain.
This last was, of course, pure conjecture, but it must have approximated very closely to the truth, for the first the lookout knew of the dhow lying dead in our path, was when a loud splintering crash, accompanied by even louder frenzied yells, informed him that our steel-bows had smashed the unfortunate dhow to matchwood.
'Don't say we've run down ANOTHER of these b-y dhows,' groaned our captain wearily (it IS a surprisingly common occurrence), ringing the engines down to 'Stop', and bellowing for a boat to be lowered with the utmost expedition. This was done, and then minutes later the lifeboat returned with the shivering, brine-soaked crew of the erstwhile dhow; the captain, duty-bound, went down on deck to inspect them, as they came on board.
The rope ladder twitched, and as the first luckless victim — how luckless, he did not then completely realize — appeared over the side, the captain's jaw dropped fully two inches, and he stood as if transfixed.
'That's the gentleman I chased yesterday' — he ejaculated joyfully ('gentleman', as will be readily understood, is employed euphemistically), then stopped, staring, with rapidly glazing eyes, at the second apparition, who had just then topped the railing. Dependent from this, the second, 'gentleman's' undeniably filthy neck, and reaching to his waist, was a most unusual ornament for an impoverished Arab — no less an object than our captain's purloined watch and chain, thus miraculously restored to him, by the playful caprices of Fortune.
With drawn breath, and with sincere pity in our hearts, we waited for the heavens to fall, for the captain to execute his oft-repeated, bloodthirsty promises, for, in short, the instant and complete annihilation of the Arabs (four in all), who were regarding the captain with the utmost trepidation, which they were at no pains to conceal.
To our no small astonishment — and, it may be added, relief — the expected Arab-massacre failed to materialize. Instead, stepping quietly forward and lovingly removing his watch and chain from the neck of the cringing, violently-shivering Arab, the captain, in a strangely gentle tone, in which there seemed, to us, to be a barely repressed inflection of triumph, merely said, 'Take these men below and give them something warm to eat; we'll hand them over to the Bahrein police, in the morning.'
We were astounded. We were amazed. We were utterly and completely dumbfounded. Our modest comprehension could not grasp it. What, we asked ourselves, wonderingly, was the reason for this incredible change of front? We were not left long in ignorance.
Swinging round on us, and brandishing his watch on high, the captain shouted: 'See! — er, I mean, hear!' We heard. The clamorous ticktock, ticktock of his watch would have put any self-respecting alarm clock to shame.
'Waterproof!' he cried exultingly. 'Waterproof, you blasted unbelievers! Waterproof!'
It was, I verily believe, the supreme moment of our captain's life.
Rendezvous
It was quite dark now and the Great North Road, the A1, that loneliest of Europe's highways, almost deserted. At rare intervals, a giant British Roadways truck loomed out of the darkness: a courteous dipping of headlamps, immaculate hand-signals, a sudden flash of sound from the labouring diesel — and the A1 was lonelier than ever. Then there was only the soothing hum of tyres, the black ribbon of highway, and the headlights of the Jaguar, weirdly hypnotic, swathing through the blackness.
Loneliness and sleep, sleep and loneliness. The enemies, the co-drivers of the man at the wheel; the one lending that extra half pound of pressure to the accelerator, the other, immobile and ever-watchful, waiting his chance to slide in behind the wheel and take over. I knew them well and I feared them.
But they were not riding with me tonight. There was no room for them. Not with so many passengers. Not with Stella sitting there beside me, Stella of the laughing eyes and sad heart, who had died in a German concentration camp. Not with Nicky, the golden boy, lounging in the back seat, or Passiere, who had never returned to his sun-drenched vineyards in Sisteron. No room for sleep and loneliness? Why, by the time you had crowded in Taffy the engineer, complaining as bitterly as ever and Vice Admiral Starr and his bushy eyebrows, there was hardly room for myself.