the contrasting blue of his eyes was startlingly pale and
penetrating,
as he watched Jake Barton cross the yard to join the gathering of
buyers under the mango trees. He sighed with resignation and returned
his attention to the folded envelope on which he was making his
financial calculations.
He really was finely drawn out, the previous eighteen months had been
very unkind to him. The cargo that had been seized in the Liao
River by the Japanese gunboat when he was only hours away from
delivering it to the Chinese commander at Mukden and receiving payment
for it had wiped away the accumulated capital of ten years. It had
taken all his ingenuity and a deal of financial agility to assemble the
package that was stored at this moment in No.
4 warehouse down at the main docks of Dares Salaam port.
His buyers would be arriving to take delivery in twelve days and the
five armoured cars would have rounded out the package beautifully.
Armour, by God, he could fix his own price. Only aircraft would have
been more desirable from his client's point of view.
Gareth had first seen them that morning in their neglected and decrepit
state of repair, he had discounted them completely, and was on the
point of turning away when he had noticed the long muscular pair of
legs protruding from the engine of one of the vehicles and heard the
barely recognizable strains of 'Tiger Rag'.
Now he knew that one of them at least was a runner. A few gallons of
paint, and a new Vickers machine gun set in the mountings, and the five
machines would look magnificent. Gareth would give one of his justly
famous sales routines. He would start the one good engine and fire the
machine gun by God, the jolly old prince would pull out his purse and
start spilling sovereigns all over the scenery.
There was only the damned Yankee to worry about, it might cost him a
few bob more than he had reckoned to edge him out, but Gareth was not
too worried. The man looked as though he would have difficulty raising
the price of a beer.
Gareth flicked at his sleeve where a speck of dust might have settled;
he placed the panama back on his golden head, adjusted the wide brim
carefully and removed the long slim cheroot from his lips to inspect
the ash, before he rose and sauntered across to the group.
The auctioneer was an elfin Sikh in a black silk suit with his beard
twisted up under his chin, and a large dazzling white turban wrapped
about his head.
He was perched like a little black bird on the turret of the nearest
armoured car, and his voice was plaintive as he pleaded with the
audience that stared up at him stolidly with expressionless faces and
glazed eyes.
'Come, gentle mens let me be hearing some mellifluous voice cry out
'ten pounds'. Do I hear 'ten pounds each' for these magnificent
conveyances?' He cocked his head and listened to the hot noon breeze
in the top branches of the mango. Nobody moved, nobody spoke.
'Five pounds, please? Will some wise gentle mens tell me five pounds?
Two pounds ten gentle mens for a mere fifty shillings these royal
