Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John

its occupants. The driver was a young man strangely clad in starched linen knickerbockers, a golf jumper designed in a willow-plate pattern of blue and white, pale blue stockings, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. He sat negligently at the wheel, and as Archie stared at him he tilted his hat over his brow. Presently there emerged from the shop two girls and a second youth—the youth in snow white flannels with a scarlet sash, and the girls in clothe the like of which Archie had never seen, but which in his own mind he classed as the kind of thing for a tropical garden party. He noticed, since the extreme shortness of their skirts made their legs their most notable feature, that they had black patent-leather shoes with silver buckles, and wonderful shot-silver stockings.

      “You all right, honey?” one of them addressed the driver.

      “Fine. Got the candy you want?”

      Then an argument arose between the two girls and the other youth, an argument conducted in a dialect unintelligible to Archie, and in voices which forcibly reminded him of the converse of a basket of kittens. The four in that discreet monochrome place were indecently conspicuous, but they were without modesty, and among the stares and whispers of the crowded pavement conducted their private dispute with the freedom of children. The driver at last grew bored.

      “Aw, come on, Baby,” he cried. “Get off the side-walk and come aboard. We got to hustle.”

      They obeyed him, and the car presently slid into the traffic, the driver’s hat still tilted over his brows. Archie believed that he recognised one of the young women as a member of the party from the American yacht who had been dining in the hotel restaurant the night before. He rather resented their presence in Olifa. These half-witted children of pleasure were out of the picture which he had made for himself; they even conflicted with Olifa’s conception of herself. “The United States,” he told himself, “won’t be too popular in Latin America if it unlooses on the much goods of that type.”

      At last the Avenida passed from shops and offices into a broad belt of garden, flanked on one side by the Customs house and on the other by the building which housed the port authorities. Beyond them lay the green waters of the old harbour, and the very spot where the first Conquistadors had landed. The new harbour, where the copper from the Gran Seco was shipped, lay farther south, close of the railway-stations; the old one was now almost unused except for fishing-boats, and as a landing-place for the yachts which berthed in the outer basin behind the great breakwater. To the north was a little plaza, which was all that remained of the first port of Olifa. It was a picturesque half-moon of crumbling stone, and seemed to be mainly composed of cafes and cinema houses.

      Archie sniffed the salt breeze from the west, and limped cheerfully along the water-front, for he loved to be near he sea. In the outer basin he saw the funnels and top-gear of the yacht Corinna, on which he had aforetime enjoyed he Duke of Burminster’s hospitality. It annoyed him that his friend should have sold or chartered it to the kind of people he had seen in the motor-car.

      A launch from the yacht was even then approaching the landing-stage. Archie could read the name on a sailor’s jersey. Two men were landed, one who looked like a steward, and the other a thick-set fellow in an engineer’s overalls. They separated at once, and the second of the two walked in Archie’s direction. Archie had a bad memory for faces, but there was something in this figure which woke recollection. As they came abreast and their eyes met, both came half unconsciously to a halt. The man seemed to stiffen and his right hand to rise in a salute which he promptly checked. He had a rugged face which might have been hewn out of mahogany, and honest, sullen, blue eyes.

      “Hullo,” said Archie, “I’ve seen you before. Now, where on earth… ?”

      The man gave him no assistance, but stood regarding him in a sulky embarrassment. He sniffed, and in lieu of a handkerchief drew his hand across his nose, and the movement stirred some chord in Archie’s memory.

      “I’ve got it. You were with General Hannay. I remember you in that black time before Amiens. Hamilton’s your name, isn’t it? Corporal Hamilton?”

      Like an automaton the figure stiffened. “Sirr, that’s my name.” Then it relaxed. It was as if Archie’s words had recalled it for a moment to a military discipline which it hastened to repudiate.

      “Do you remember me?”

      “Ay. Ye’re Captain Sir Erchibald Roylance.” There was no ‘sirr’ this time.

      “Well, this is a queer place to foregather. I think the occasion demands a drink. Let’s try one of these cafes.”

      The man seemed unwilling. “I’m a wee bit pressed for time.”

      “Nonsense, Hamilton, you can spare five minutes. I want to hear how you’ve been getting on and what landed you here. Hang it, you and I and the General went through some pretty stiff times together. We can’t part on this foreign strand with a how-d’ye-do.”

      Archie led the way to a cafe in the crescent of old houses which looked a little cleaner than the rest. “What’ll you have, Hamilton?” he asked when they had found a table. “You probably don’t fancy the native wine. Bottled beer? Or rum? Or can you face aguardiente, which is the local whisky?”

      “I’m a teetotaller. I’ll hae a glass o’ syrup.”

      “Well, I’m dashed… Certainly—I never drink myself in the morning. Now, about yourself? You’re a Glasgow man, aren’t you? Pretty warm place, Glasgow. Are you and the other soldier-lads keeping the Bolshies in order?”

      Hamilton’s mahogany face moved convulsively, and his blue eyes wandered embarrassedly to the door.

      “My opinions has underwent a change. I’m thinkin’ of anither kind of war nowadays. I’m for the prolytawriat.”

      “The devil you are!” Archie gasped. “So am I, but my opinions are still the same. What exactly do you mean?”

      The man’s embarrassment increased. “I’m for the proly—prolytawriat. Us worrkers maun stick thegither and brek our chains. I’ve been fechtin’ for the rights o’ man.”

      “Fighting with what?”

      “Wi’ the pollis. That’s the reason I’m out here. I made Govan a wee thing ower het for me.”

      Archie regarded him with a mystified face, which slowly broke into a smile. “I’m sorry to say that you’re a liar, Hamilton.”

      “I’m tellin’ ye God’s truth,” was the reply without heat.

      Embarrassment had gone, and the man seemed to be speaking a part which he had already rehearsed.

      “No. You’re lying. Very likely you had trouble with the police, but I bet it wasn’t over politics. More likely a public-house scrap, or a girl. Why on earth you should want to make yourself out a Bolshie… ?”

      “My opinions has underwent a change,” the man chanted.

      “Oh, drat your opinions! You got into some kind of row and cleared out. That’s intelligible enough, though I’m sorry to hear it. What’s your present job? Are you in the Corinna?”

      “Ay, I cam out in her. I’m in the engine-room.”

      “But you know nothing about ships?”

      “I ken something aboot ship’s engines. Afore the war I wrocht at Clydebank… And now, if ye’ll excuse me I maun be off, for I’ve a heap o’ jobs ashore. Thank ye for your kindness.”

      “I call this a perfectly rotten affair,” said Archie. “You won’t stay, you won’t drink, and you keep on talking like a parrot about the proletariat. What am I to say to Genera Hannay when I meet him? That you have become a blithering foreign communist?”

      “Na, na. Ye maunna say that.” The man’s sullenness had gone, and there was humour in his eye. “Say that Geordie Hamilton is still obeyin’ orders, and daein’ his duty up to his lights.”

      “Whose orders?” Archie asked, but the corporal