'I think Abou here has cooked up a pot of his lion-killing stew.'
'Won't you be my guest at the Royal?'
'I drank your beer for free why shouldn't I eat your food?' asked Jake
reasonably.
The dining room of the Royal Hotel had high ceilings and tall
insect-screened sash windows. The mechanical fans set in the roof
stirred the warm humid air sluggishly 'into a substitute for
coolness,
and Gareth Swales was a splendid host.
His engaging charm was irresistible, and his choice of food and wine
induced in Jake a sense of such well-being that they laughed together
like old friends, and were delighted to find that they had mutual
acquaintances mostly harm en and brothel-keepers in various parts of
the world and that they had parallel experience.
Gareth had been doing business with a revolutionary leader in
Venezuela while Jake was helping build the railroad in that same
country. Jake had been chief engineer on a Blake Line coaster on the
China run when Gareth had been making contact with the Chinese
Communists on Yellow River.
They had been in France at the same time, and on that terrible day at
Amiens, when the German machine guns had accelerated Gareth Swales's
promotion from subaltern to major in the space of six hours, Jake had
been four miles down the line, a sergeant driver in the Royal Tank
Corps seconded from the American Third Army.
They discovered that they were almost of an age, neither of them yet
forty, but that both of them had packed a world of experience and
wandering into that short span, They recognized in each other that same
restlessness that was always driving them on to new adventure, never
staying long enough in one place or at one job to grow roots,
unfettered by offspring or possessions, by spouse or
responsibilities,
taking up each new adventure eagerly and discarding it again without
qualms or regrets, Always moving onwards never looking backwards.
Understanding each other a little, they began to respect one another.
Halfway through the meal, they were no longer scornful of the other's
differences. Neither of them thought of the other as Limey or
Yank any longer but this didn't mean that Jake was about to accept any
cheques or that Gareth had given up his plans to acquire the five
armoured cars. At last Gareth swilled the last few drops around his
brandy balloon and glanced at his pocket watch.
'Nine o'clock. It's too early for bed. What shall we do now?'
Jake suggested, 'There are two new girls down at Madame Cecile's. They
came in on the mail boat.' Gareth quickly turned the suggestion
aside.
'Later perhaps but too soon after dinner, it gives me heartburn.
You don't, by any chance, feel like a few hands at cards? There is
usually a decent game down at the club.'
'We can't go in there. We aren't members.'
'I have reciprocity with my London club, old boy.
