handed in a telegram at the post office on the Avenida da Republica and it read: Many happy returns. Wish you were with us. Love from all. Peterkins .
It was addressed to Stephen Widmark.
Chapter Six
The long car journey with McFadden took some sleeping off, and it was almost eight o’clock when Widmark woke to the screech of seagulls.
He went to the window and looked out across the bay. It had rained during the night and the sky was overcast, the sea beneath it a steely grey. In the distance Chefine Island and Cape Inhaca stood out on the skyline, etched in deepest blue, the tongue of land enclosing the bay clearly visible. To the east, the line of the horizon revealed the break where the bay opened to the sea.
In the fairway he could see the marker buoys, some fishing boats, and a dredger low in the water puffing out into the bay to dump its load. A breeze, cool and refreshing, came in over the water, and there was a steady drip from the trees and shrubs in the garden below him.
Dressed as a tourist, Widmark spent much of the morning in the docks checking various details, but speaking to no one; he wore dark glasses, something he now wished he’d done at the frontier posts. For some time he watched the four ships in the anchorage below the coaling berths, sorting them out and putting names to them on the basis of the information he had collected in Cape Town. As he looked he felt once again the exhilaration that precedes action: the stimulating synthesis of fear and excitement. For months he had been scheming and planning, and here at last was the object of it all: the big freighter with the raked bow, cruiser stern and squat funnel. He wondered about the men on board: what they looked like and what sort of account they’d give of themselves when the day came. Later he drove about the town, refamiliarisinghimself with its layout and the names of the wide tree-lined avenidas. Opposite the Old Fort near the harbour he found the Port Captain’s office, the high gable decorated with a frieze above which hung the Portuguese flag. The whites and greys, the tessellated balconies, the deep shadows behind the tall doors and french windows, gave the building a cool tranquillity.
Widmark parked the car and walked down past the dry-dock to the boat harbour; beyond it he could see the upper works of two Portuguese gunboats at the Gorjao Quay, Wondering what rôle they might play in the events that lay ahead, he went into the boat harbour. The Catembe Ferry was taking on its load of Africans, the women wearing bright sarongs and coloured doeks, the men in khaki shorts and white singlets. The women carried a variety of things on their heads: sacks of beans, crates of fowls, jars of water and sometimes parcels. When he’d seen all he wanted to he drove back to the Polana where he found an envelope which had been pushed under the door of his room. The note read: Number nine hooks are best. Peter. It was from the Newt and confirmed the rendezvous for nine o’clock that night on the road to Peter’s.
For the next hour or so he wrote up his diary. Something he’d not done for days.
Then, after a bath and change, he went down to the cocktail bar and brooded in the shadows over a dry martini, thinking of what lay ahead.
Later, on his way through the dining-room, he saw Olympia Stavropoulus, voluptuous, magnificent, the glitter of her jewels heightening the illusion of majesty. His mild panic was followed by relief and embarrassment, for she was looking through him; there was not a flicker of recognition.
At his table on the veranda he breathed deeply, shrugging his shoulders. What shattering luck that he should have run across her here when she ought to have been safely bedded down in Alexandria. Of course there was nothing exceptional about her being in L.M.; a lot of wealthy women, and some oftheir men, had hurried down to Southern Africa when Rommel threatened Cairo and Alex. Olympia Stavropoulus would certainly be in the
It was addressed to Stephen Widmark.
Chapter Six
The long car journey with McFadden took some sleeping off, and it was almost eight o’clock when Widmark woke to the screech of seagulls.
He went to the window and looked out across the bay. It had rained during the night and the sky was overcast, the sea beneath it a steely grey. In the distance Chefine Island and Cape Inhaca stood out on the skyline, etched in deepest blue, the tongue of land enclosing the bay clearly visible. To the east, the line of the horizon revealed the break where the bay opened to the sea.
In the fairway he could see the marker buoys, some fishing boats, and a dredger low in the water puffing out into the bay to dump its load. A breeze, cool and refreshing, came in over the water, and there was a steady drip from the trees and shrubs in the garden below him.
Dressed as a tourist, Widmark spent much of the morning in the docks checking various details, but speaking to no one; he wore dark glasses, something he now wished he’d done at the frontier posts. For some time he watched the four ships in the anchorage below the coaling berths, sorting them out and putting names to them on the basis of the information he had collected in Cape Town. As he looked he felt once again the exhilaration that precedes action: the stimulating synthesis of fear and excitement. For months he had been scheming and planning, and here at last was the object of it all: the big freighter with the raked bow, cruiser stern and squat funnel. He wondered about the men on board: what they looked like and what sort of account they’d give of themselves when the day came. Later he drove about the town, refamiliarisinghimself with its layout and the names of the wide tree-lined avenidas. Opposite the Old Fort near the harbour he found the Port Captain’s office, the high gable decorated with a frieze above which hung the Portuguese flag. The whites and greys, the tessellated balconies, the deep shadows behind the tall doors and french windows, gave the building a cool tranquillity.
Widmark parked the car and walked down past the dry-dock to the boat harbour; beyond it he could see the upper works of two Portuguese gunboats at the Gorjao Quay, Wondering what rôle they might play in the events that lay ahead, he went into the boat harbour. The Catembe Ferry was taking on its load of Africans, the women wearing bright sarongs and coloured doeks, the men in khaki shorts and white singlets. The women carried a variety of things on their heads: sacks of beans, crates of fowls, jars of water and sometimes parcels. When he’d seen all he wanted to he drove back to the Polana where he found an envelope which had been pushed under the door of his room. The note read: Number nine hooks are best. Peter. It was from the Newt and confirmed the rendezvous for nine o’clock that night on the road to Peter’s.
For the next hour or so he wrote up his diary. Something he’d not done for days.
Then, after a bath and change, he went down to the cocktail bar and brooded in the shadows over a dry martini, thinking of what lay ahead.
Later, on his way through the dining-room, he saw Olympia Stavropoulus, voluptuous, magnificent, the glitter of her jewels heightening the illusion of majesty. His mild panic was followed by relief and embarrassment, for she was looking through him; there was not a flicker of recognition.
At his table on the veranda he breathed deeply, shrugging his shoulders. What shattering luck that he should have run across her here when she ought to have been safely bedded down in Alexandria. Of course there was nothing exceptional about her being in L.M.; a lot of wealthy women, and some oftheir men, had hurried down to Southern Africa when Rommel threatened Cairo and Alex. Olympia Stavropoulus would certainly be in the
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