The German Numbers Woman. Alan Sillitoe

why the hell he was where he was and doing what he did. Much better to be crewing one of the mob’s small boats, in at the sharp end with all the risks of getting caught, the beer cans going overboard like confetti for a fish’s wedding, and banter to keep you amused on changing watch.

      If anyone asked where he came from he always answered ‘Shithouse-on-the-Ouse.’ You don’t have that sort of accent, they might reply, and he would tell them that’s because I was brought up properly, meaning mind your own business, which they usually did. Where Shithouse-on-the-Ouse was he had no idea, but it must have been a seaport somewhere because the old man had been a pastry cook on a liner, and they were always on the trek from one place to another.

      His father had seen no greater success in life than for Richard to become an officer in the Merchant Service, but Richard could only get as close to that heavy level by going back to college and training to be a radio operator, with which the old man had to be satisfied, and more or less was, since it gave him officer status on board. Poor old sod thinks I’m still connected with it, and would walk off the end of Southport pier if he knew what I was up to.

      His first job was on a trawler, but he had to give a hand with the catch now and again, and didn’t like the smell. Then he worked on a series of superannuated tramp steamers that took him around the world, each billet varying from poor to awful, nothing to do but call it experience. As second radio officer on tankers he enjoyed dodging pirates in the Far East. He carried a service revolver, but they were ordered to offer no resistance and just hand over cash, cigarettes and whisky to any cutthroats who got on the ship. He would often lie in wait, a one-man ambush, and regretted that no Lascar mob had ever thought to climb on board in the night, so that he could shoot them down.

      He went from ship to ship, but didn’t get far enough, or quick enough, up the so-called ladder of success. For him there seemed to be no such thing. Maybe there was some defect in his character that others saw but he did not. He wasn’t unhappy. He could wait. Life up and down the Gulf Stream on his last ship was cushy enough, until one evening in Maracaibo, after they had loaded, someone approached him behind a shed on the quayside and offered five thousand pounds if he would take a bundle to an address in England. He hadn’t imagined it to contain soap, and that was a fact, but so much money never came amiss, and he got the packet through without being stopped, the first indication in his life that, while not cut out for honesty, he must have an honest face. He liked the bright light in his head, and the rhythmical buzzing that marked time with his legs as he went through the customs, an experience more intense than any to be got from a taste of whatever the parcel in his kit contained.

       Honesty and naivety went together, he had to suppose, because when asked to do the same again he turned the proposal down. The young thug in dark glasses made it plain that if he didn’t take another consignment they would shop him for the first transgression. Richard let the man know he had only refused because he needed a hefty upping in the pay. The man swayed off to use the telephone, which brought a higher up from across the street. To them Richard played a normal hand, merely business sense, showing they dealt with someone hardening to the realities of the trade. Because he seemed no fool they paid half as much again. After the third trip he said let’s be cunning. Nobody’s luck lasts. Let’s find other ways, other routes. From then on he was in too far to either get out or want to.

      He never knew whether being frightened came first or feeling guilty at taking drugs into the country. Success made the query irrelevant. Kids had no self control, or they wanted to see how close they could get to auto-destruct, or they needed to get drunk quicker and travel further out than was possible on half pints of bitter; or they had to blast a way with the dynamite of coke, crack, hash or acid to a part of themselves they wouldn’t understand or very much like when they got there – a method towards self knowledge which, once tried, or even more than twice tried, would stop them ever getting there by normal means such as jogging or swimming forty lengths in the swimming pool, or holding their breath for five minutes. Maybe they ought not to splash out their giros, dole, wages, pocket money, or fat salary from the bank, or corrupt handouts gained by public office, on something so disagreeably lethal. It was a free country, however, so forgive them, Lord, they know only too well what they do.

      But there was no excuse for what he did, nevertheless, plenty of articles in the papers to put him right, should he need it, with such money rolling in. No use telling them anymore that he wanted out. He didn’t. If it wasn’t him it would be someone else, never a shortage to volunteer as a pack mule from the poppy fields. He was up to his neck in it, thousands every trip being good enough reason to carry on.

      For the captain to call him to his cabin had been an out-of-the-ordinary command. He stood up from his table, all six feet four of him, as if he might come forward for the pleasure of throwing him overboard. ‘I want you off, as soon as your contract’s up, which it will be when we get to Southampton in two days.’ The matter was so important he even paused halfway through filling his pipe. ‘You can go to hell in your own way.’

      Richard never knew how he had found out. A response wasn’t called for. The captain was a bastard, straight as they came. No beard or moustache for him, all clean shaven, and no damned nonsense either. One of those menacing peepholes glared as if finding him no better than a dung beetle that had crawled up a hawser to spatter his immaculate ship, too low to shop, though he might have given him to the hangman if he’d had sufficient proof, and if that was the regulation punishment for the crime.

      ‘You heard me. Out of my sight!’ in a tone suggesting he would bark at someone afterwards to mop the floor where his shoes had been placed – and who could fault him? Such a man wouldn’t act without a picture of Richard taking the parcel from his contact. He’d been shopped all right, maybe a couple of times, which finally set the captain onto him. ‘Clear out.’

      A hard spark in the old man’s eye indicated relish for the play whilever he stood there. Better a yes sir, not even that, only an about turn and head on fire with chagrin at his stupidity at having been caught, wondering how many seamen and officers the captain had thrown off ships during his lifetime.

      That was it. No more Merchant Service for him. The more occupations you had, the longer life seemed. There was a lot to learn, so he went into the game full time, and nobody had made the connection with him yet. Few got caught out of many who did it, and he soon gave good if not plenty of unique service, especially with his intercepted wireless material. The only way to get caught – apart from redhanded, which would put him down for twenty years if the consignment was a big one – was if whoever moved the pieces wanted to get rid of him, and put a few words in the right direction. But he would never be such a one, having built up his own intelligence file, and should they ever pull that kind of stunt he’d tear such a large part of the fabric down that the sound of ripping would be in their ears forevermore. He wasn’t the naive tourist recruited in Bangkok or Turkey. If and when he got out of the trade it would be under his own terms, and in safety, the only assurance on his side that he would keep his lips tight forever.

      

      Called to the flat on Harley Street, where the crew assembled before a trip, Richard caught a glance of deference from Mr Waistcoat, looking like a prosperous surgeon who had made pots of money pulling the tonsils out of rich Arabs. Richard called him Mr Waistcoat because he wore such a garment of the fanciest design. Richard would like to ask where he got them, except he wouldn’t be seen dead wearing one. In any case, it was best to act as if you knew your place, which at crisis time would be a more rarified locality than such a ponce could ever know about.

      Waistcoat sat on the mock-Jacobean Harrods sofa and, by continuing to manicure his nails and not inviting Richard to sit down, showed his origins as rather different to those which would have led him to becoming an eminent Harley Street surgeon. Neither did the timbre of his voice suggest as much, and Richard wondered how many years in jail had been necessary to make the transformation. He was no longer a person who would feel at ease weaving through the crowds on Oxford Street, but the sort to grow pettish if a Rolls wasn’t waiting to ferry him from place to place. He was one of those who looked as if he didn’t need to shave yet shaved twice a day. As for his age he could be anything between forty and fifty, forty because he had spent twenty years inside, and fifty because he had struck it rich too young, with