Read Online Gibraltar Road by Philip McCutchan - Free Book Online
Authors: Philip McCutchan
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done?”
“Back to London, to mess around again, sir.” Surreptitiously Shaw crossed his fingers, wondering if he’d see London again, see Debonnair. He always wondered that, though he knew nothing was ever as bad as imagination made it. The pain started up again, cruelly.
Half an hour later Shaw left the cruiser at the Detached Mole in the Captain’s motor-boat, headed in for the Tower Steps. In the increasingly hot sunshine, Shaw disembarked, looked up at the flag of the Rear-Admiral drooping limply above the Tower. The Rock of Gibraltar stood before him, three miles long, barely a mile across at its widest point, but high, seemingly sheer, overwhelming the buildings of the little town clustered at its foot and on the lower slopes. The Rock, continuously garrisoned by British regiments since 1704, symbol of England’s former might, one of the ancient keys to that Pax Britannica which once had kept the world in tune—the whole huge edifice speckled white and brown and dusty green in the burning heat. North and west lay the blue hills of Spain, mysterious Andalusia, land of sun and grape, passion and hot blood, of mountains, and almost inaccessible mountain-towns isolated in those high, barren hills.
CHAPTER FIVE
Under a hot sun which brought to a head all the variegated smells of La Linea’s back streets a small, olive-skinned boy, barefoot and in rags, ran through the square to the north of the aduana , the Customs checkpoint from British territory, making towards a narrow alleyway which opened off a street beyond the Plaza Generalisimo Franco, beyond the pavement cafes and the bars and the little dark shops.
The alleyway was close, shut in.
The boy, accustomed to his surroundings, didn’t notice the dirt in that narrow way, the paint-peeled shutters and the rusty, crumbling wrought-iron work of the intricately patterned balconies above his dark head; the smell didn’t worry him—the indescribable smell of putrefying food and of slops thrown down into the paved strip below. A priest flitted by, pale and silent in his black habit, crow-like in the gloom of the deep canyon formed by the too close buildings; two women quarrelled vociferously outside a doorway into which a slim-waisted, effeminate man was trying to draw custom for the Exhibition—trying without success, for the busy time didn’t come until the troops and sailors from Gibraltar crossed the border later in the day to see the sights. A pretty girl leaned from a window, dreaming of the vineyards—the vineyards of Jerez de la Frontera, where her novio, her fiance, worked; a woman, older and not so pretty, called down a ribald remark to the hurrying boy beneath, and he lifted his coal-black, glittering eyes, turning his peaked little face upward to call back an even cruder one, accompanying it with a cheeky grin and a gesture of his fingers.
Lightly—pursued by badinage, because all the alley knew his destination by now—the boy ran on.
He ran on until he came to the end of the alley, where he knocked at the big, iron-studded door of a house which, blocking the way, made the alley into a cul-de-sac.
The door opened, and an old woman stood with a pool of darkness behind her, a faint draught blowing up the straggly white hair and sending little whirls of dust into the air. She snapped at the boy, though she knew what the answer would be:
“ Que queres, hijo —who do you want, my son?”
“The señorita.”
She jerked her head backward. “Come in.”
The boy obeyed, and the old woman, who was dressed from head to foot in rusty, green-tinted black, and had a face like a nut, shut the door behind him, cutting off all sound from outside. The establishment housed many girls, but (oddly, because she was not Spanish, though no one quite knew what her nationality was) only one was referred to as The Señorita.
Inside the house was dark and cool, though dusty and peeling and uncared for. The big outer door opened into a kind of hall, a wide tiled
“Back to London, to mess around again, sir.” Surreptitiously Shaw crossed his fingers, wondering if he’d see London again, see Debonnair. He always wondered that, though he knew nothing was ever as bad as imagination made it. The pain started up again, cruelly.
Half an hour later Shaw left the cruiser at the Detached Mole in the Captain’s motor-boat, headed in for the Tower Steps. In the increasingly hot sunshine, Shaw disembarked, looked up at the flag of the Rear-Admiral drooping limply above the Tower. The Rock of Gibraltar stood before him, three miles long, barely a mile across at its widest point, but high, seemingly sheer, overwhelming the buildings of the little town clustered at its foot and on the lower slopes. The Rock, continuously garrisoned by British regiments since 1704, symbol of England’s former might, one of the ancient keys to that Pax Britannica which once had kept the world in tune—the whole huge edifice speckled white and brown and dusty green in the burning heat. North and west lay the blue hills of Spain, mysterious Andalusia, land of sun and grape, passion and hot blood, of mountains, and almost inaccessible mountain-towns isolated in those high, barren hills.
CHAPTER FIVE
Under a hot sun which brought to a head all the variegated smells of La Linea’s back streets a small, olive-skinned boy, barefoot and in rags, ran through the square to the north of the aduana , the Customs checkpoint from British territory, making towards a narrow alleyway which opened off a street beyond the Plaza Generalisimo Franco, beyond the pavement cafes and the bars and the little dark shops.
The alleyway was close, shut in.
The boy, accustomed to his surroundings, didn’t notice the dirt in that narrow way, the paint-peeled shutters and the rusty, crumbling wrought-iron work of the intricately patterned balconies above his dark head; the smell didn’t worry him—the indescribable smell of putrefying food and of slops thrown down into the paved strip below. A priest flitted by, pale and silent in his black habit, crow-like in the gloom of the deep canyon formed by the too close buildings; two women quarrelled vociferously outside a doorway into which a slim-waisted, effeminate man was trying to draw custom for the Exhibition—trying without success, for the busy time didn’t come until the troops and sailors from Gibraltar crossed the border later in the day to see the sights. A pretty girl leaned from a window, dreaming of the vineyards—the vineyards of Jerez de la Frontera, where her novio, her fiance, worked; a woman, older and not so pretty, called down a ribald remark to the hurrying boy beneath, and he lifted his coal-black, glittering eyes, turning his peaked little face upward to call back an even cruder one, accompanying it with a cheeky grin and a gesture of his fingers.
Lightly—pursued by badinage, because all the alley knew his destination by now—the boy ran on.
He ran on until he came to the end of the alley, where he knocked at the big, iron-studded door of a house which, blocking the way, made the alley into a cul-de-sac.
The door opened, and an old woman stood with a pool of darkness behind her, a faint draught blowing up the straggly white hair and sending little whirls of dust into the air. She snapped at the boy, though she knew what the answer would be:
“ Que queres, hijo —who do you want, my son?”
“The señorita.”
She jerked her head backward. “Come in.”
The boy obeyed, and the old woman, who was dressed from head to foot in rusty, green-tinted black, and had a face like a nut, shut the door behind him, cutting off all sound from outside. The establishment housed many girls, but (oddly, because she was not Spanish, though no one quite knew what her nationality was) only one was referred to as The Señorita.
Inside the house was dark and cool, though dusty and peeling and uncared for. The big outer door opened into a kind of hall, a wide tiled
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