Or, I imagine, it's the little boy, what's his name? Damn!
I should know the brat's name, I am his godfather. He chuckled again, then snapped his fingers as he remembered. Damn me, of course, Ronald, like his granddaddy.
Little Ronald. Ronald Pye had turned at the door and was staring across the room at him. Dirk grinned back at him, as though at some delicious joke. Little Ronald, he grinned, and aimed the pistol at an imaginary figure in the centre of the open carpet, a diminutive figure it seemed, no higher than a man's knee. Good bye, little Ronald, he murmured, and clicked the hammer. Goodbye, little Natalie. He swung the pistol to another invisible figure and snapped the action. Goodbye, little Victoria. The pistol clicked again, the metallic sound shockingly loud in the silent room. You wouldn't- Dennis voice was strangled, you ouldn't-I need the money very badly, Dirk told him. But you wouldn't do that-'You keep telling me what I wouldn't do. Since when have you been such a ffne judge of my behaviour? Not the children? pleaded Dennis.
I've done it before, Dirk pointed out. Yes, but not children, not little children. Ronald Pye stood at the door still. He seemed to have aged ten years in the last few seconds, his shoulders had sagged and his face was grey and deeply lined, the flesh seemed to have fallen in around his eyes, sagging into loose folds. Before you leave, Ronny, let me tell you a story you have been desperate to hear for twelve years. I know you have spent much time and money trying to find out already. Return to your chair, please. Listen to my story and then you are free to go, if you still want to do so. Ronald Pye's hand fell away from the door handle, and he shambled back and dropped into the leather chair as though his limbs did not belong to him.
Dirk filled a spare glass with whisky and placed it on the arm of his chair, within easy reach, and Ronny did not protest.
It's the story of how a nineteen-year-old boy made himself a million pounds in cash, and used it to buy a bank.
When you have heard it, I want you to ask yourself if there is anything that boy would not do. Dirk stood up and began to pace up and down the thick carpeting between their chairs like a caged feline animal, lithe and graceful, but sinister also, and cruel; and he began to speak in that soft purring voice that wove a hypnotic web about them, and their heads swung to follow his regular measured pacing. Shall we call the boy Dirk, it's a good name, a tough name for a lad who was thrown out by a tyrannical father and set out to get the things he wanted his own way, a boy who learned quickly and was frightened of nothing, a boy who by his nineteenth birthday was first mate of a beatenup old coal-burning tramp steamer running dubious cargos to the bad spots of the Orient. A boy who could run a ship single-handed and whip work out of a crew of niggers with a rope end, while the skipper wallowed in gin in his cabin. He paused beside the desk, refilled his glass with whisky and asked his audience, Does the story grip you so far? You are drunk, said Ronald Pye. I am never drunk, Dirk contradicted him, and resumed his pacing.
We will call the steamer L'Oiseau de Nuit, 'The Bird of Night', though, in all truth, it's an unlikely name for a stinking old cow of a boat. Her skipper was Le Doux, the sweet one, again a mild misnomer, and Dirk chuckled reminiscently, and sipped at his glass. This merry crew discharged a midnight cargo in the Yellow River late in the summer of ag and next day put into the port of Mang Su for a more legitimate return cargo of tea and silks. From the roadstead, they could see that the outskirts of the town was in flames, and they could hear the crackle of small arms fire. The basin was empty of shipping, just a few sampans and one or two small junks, and the fearcrazed population of the city was crowding the wharf, screaming for a berth to safety. Hundreds of them plunged into the basin and swam out to where 'The Bird of Night' was hovering. The mate let two of them come aboard and then turned the hoses on the others, driving them off, while he learned what was happening. Dirk paused, remembering how the pressure of the solid jets of water had driven the swimmers under the filthy yellow surface of the basin, and how the others had wailed and tried to swim back. He grinned and roused himself. The Communistwar-lord, HanWang, wasattacking the port and had promised the rich merchants an amusing death in the bamboo cages. Now the mate knew just how rich the merchants of Liang Su really were. After consulting the captain, the mate brought 'The Bird of Night' alongside the wharf, clearing it of the peasant scum with steam hoses and a few pistol shots, and he led an armed party of lascars into the city to the guild house where the Chinese tea merchants were gathered, paralysed with terror and already resigned to their fate. Another whisky, Ronny? Ronald Pye shook his head, his eyes had not left Dirk's face since the tale began, and now Dirk smiled at him. The mate set the passage money so high that only the very richest could afford to pay it, two thousand sovereign a head, but still ninety-six of them came aboard 'The Bird of Night', each staggering under the load of his possessions.
Even the children carried their own weight, boxes and bales and sacks, and while we are on the subject of children, there were forty-eight of them in the party, all boys of course, for no sane Chinaman would waste two thousand pounds on a girl child. The little boys ranged from babes to striplings, some of them of an age with your little Ronald. Dirk paused to let it register, then, It was a close run, for as the last of them came aboard, the mate cast off from the wharf and Han Wang's bandits burst out of the city and hacked and bayoneted their way on to the wharf. Their rifle-fire spattered the upper works, and swept 'The Bird of Night's' decks, sending her newly boarded passengers screaming down into the empty holds, but she made a clear run of it out of the river and by dark was pushing out into a quiet tropical sea. Le Doux, the captain, could not believe his fortune almost two hundred thousand sovereigns in gold, in four tea chests in his cabin, and he promised young Dirk a thousand for himself. But Dirk knew the value of his captain's promises. Nevertheless, he suggested a further avenue of profit. Old Le Doux had been a hard man before the drink got to him. He had run slaves out of Africa, opium out of India, but he was soft now, and he was horrified by what his young mate suggested. He blasphemed by praying to God and he wept. 'Les pauvres petits, ' he slobbered, and poured gin down his throat until after midnight he collapsed into that stupor that Dirk knew would last for forty eight hours. The mate went up on to the bridge and sounded the ship's siren, shouting to his passengers that there was a government gunboat overtaking them, and driving them from the open deck back into the holds. They went like sheep, clutching their possessions. The mate and his Iascars battened down the hatches, closing them. up tight and solid. Can you guess the rest of it? he asked. A guinea for the correct solution.
Ronald Pye licked his dry grey lips, and shook his head. No? Dirk teased him. The easiest guinea you ever missed, why, it was simple. The mate opened the seacocks and flooded the holds. He watched them curiously, anticipating their reactions. Neither of his listeners could speak, and as Dirk went on, there was a small change in his telling of it. He no longer spoke in the third person.
Now it was we, and Of course, we couldn't flood to the top, even in that low sea she might have foundered, and rolled on her back.
There must have been a small airspace under the hatch, and they held the children up there. I could hear them through the four-inch timbers of the hatch. For almost half an hour they kept up their howling and screaming until the air went bad and the roll and slosh of the watergot them, and when at last it was all over and we opened the hatches, we found that they had torn the woodwork of the underside of the covers with their fingers, ripped and splintered it like a cage full of monkeys.
Dirk turned to the empty chair nearest the fireplace and sank into it. He swilled the whisky in his right hand and then swallowed it. He threw the crystal glass into the empty fireplace and it exploded into diamond fragments.
They were all silent, staring at the glass splinters. Why? whispered Dennis huskily at last. In God's name, why did you kill them? Dirk did not look at him, he was lost in the past, reliving a high tide in his life. Then he roused himself and went on, We pumped out the hold, and I had the lascars carry all the sodden sacks and bales and boxes up into the saloon.
