Camberwell.
'It's been a lot of fun, Papa.' He half rose from the table,
folding the grimy wad of banknotes into his back pocket and gathering
the pile of coins with his free hand.
Captain Papadopoulos reached into the depths of the Arabic gown he wore
and produced a knife with an ornately carved handle and a viciously
curved blade. He balanced it lightly in the palm of his hand and his
single eye glittered coldly at Gareth.
'Deal!' he said, and Gareth smiled blandly and sank back into his
seat. He picked up the cards and cut them with a ripping sound and the
knife disappeared into Papadopoulos's gown once more as he watched the
shuffle intently.
'Actually, I do feel like a few more hands,' Gareth murmured.
'Just getting warmed up, hey?' The slaver altered course as she
cleared the tip of the great horn of Africa and rounded Cape Guardafui.
Before her lay the long gut of the Gulf of Aden and a run of five
hundred miles westwards to French Somaliland.
The Hindu mate came down and whispered fearfully to his Captain.
'What troubles the fellow?' Gareth asked.
'He worries about the English blockade.'
'A 'So do I' Gareth answered. 'Shouldn't we go up on deck? Deal,'said
Papadopoulos.
Below them they heard the steady thumping beat of the big diesel engine
begin, and the vibration of the propeller shaft spinning in its bed.
The mate had her under sail and power now, and the motion of the ship
changed immediately, the thrust of the propeller combining with the
push of the full spread of her canvas, and she flew towards the vivid
purple and pink flush of sky and piled cumulus cloud behind which the
sun was beginning to set.
The mate had set a course which would take him swiftly down the middle
of the Gulf, out of sight of Africa on his port side and Arabia on the
starboard. The HirondeUe was making twenty-five knots, for the sea
breeze was on her best point of sailing and a day and two nights would
see them in and out again. He sent one of his best men -to the
masthead with a telescope and he wondered which the English viewed more
sternly young black girls in chains or Vickers machine guns in wooden
cases. Mournfully he concluded that either of them would be lethal and
he shrilled at his masthead to keep a strict watch.
The sun was sinking with agonizing slowness, almost dead ahead and the
wind rose steadily, driving the Hirondelle on deeper into the gut.
Jake Barton wriggled out of the engine hatch of Miss Wobbly and grinned
at Vicky Camberwell who sat on the sponson above him swinging her long
legs idly, with the wind in her hair and the tan she had picked up in
the last few days gilding her arms and flushing at her cheeks. She had
lost the dark rings of worry and the paleness of fatigue, and looked
now like a schoolgirl, young and carefree and gay.
'That's the best I can do,' said Jake, beginning to scour the black
grease from his arms with Scrubbs Ammonia.
'She's running so sweetly, I could take her out at Le Mans.' Her knees
