The Strode Venturer (18 page)

I didn’t answer him and there was an awkward silence. Finally Lingrose said, “Never mind. It’s not important. What I wanted to say to you was this. Young men full of fire and vision make uneasy bedfellows.” He smiled, thin-lipped. “What happens when the honeymoon is over, eh?” The smile was gone, the thin lips hard, and deep, downward lines at the corner of the mouth. “He’s a fool.”

“He believes in what he’s doing,” I said.

His dark brows lifted slightly. “I see. Then you’re a fool, too, if you think faith alone suffices in this wicked world. You should have persuaded him to sell.”

“Why?”

He looked at me hard. “Because I was prepared to pay you for your good offices then. Now it’s only a matter of waiting.” And he jerked his head at his minion and waddled off to join another group.

“I couldn’t help it,” Peter said afterwards. “That unimaginative tiresome little speech Henry made and all those smug bastards thinking I was being elected to the board because I was a member of the family and owned a lot of shares—a mere cipher. Besides,” he added, “if you’re going to try and rebuild something it’s no good keeping quiet about it.”

S
TRODE STRIDES OUT
: That was the flashy headline in the City page of one popular paper. His secretiveness, his personality, above all his background, had just that touch of the unexpected that appealed to all papers, even the staidest. “This brilliant young expert on Far Eastern trade … much needed dynamism in the direction of the company’s affairs … may herald a new era of prosperity for the long-suffering owners of Strode shares … a true son of his father, the man who built Strode’s.”

There was more of it in other papers, all in a similar vein, and all of them mentioned that he’d worked for Guthrie’s. “Did you tell them that?” I asked him.

“No.”

It could only have come from Slattery then. And there were other items—in particular a reference to his refusal to sell his shares. I was thinking of Lingrose and what he had said about it being only a matter of waiting. Were they trying to give him enough rope to hang himself?

But Peter was oblivious of manæuvrings of this sort. He was interested only in one thing—getting the expedition under way. Two days later he left for Bombay. I was to follow him as soon as I had dealt with all those organizational details that could only be handled in London, including the contract for sale of the first cargo of ore. There was also the question of who should command the
Strode Trader
, the captain having been invalided home with jaundice. Peter had had a letter from Deacon and this he handed to me at the airport. “Do what you can for the poor devil. I’d as soon have him as somebody I don’t know. But at least try and get George to reinstate him.”

It was a pathetic letter. Aden is a refinery terminal for
tankers mainly and no place for a man of Deacon’s age to pick up a ship. Since his dismissal he had been virtually destitute. I saw George Strode about it next day. He showed not the slightest interest. “He has only himself to blame.” There was no glimmer of sympathy in his voice. And when I reminded him that Deacon had served Strode Orient for almost thirty years, he said, “You mean we’ve put up with him for thirty years. He came to us as part of the Bailey Oriental deal—a legacy we could well have done without. The man’s a drunkard and you know it.” There was something in his tone, a suggestion of vindictiveness, as though in Deacon he saw a means of getting at me personally, for he knew by then that Bailey Oriental had been my father’s company.

“When Deacon came to Strode Orient,” I said, “he was second-in-command of the
Lammermuir
, a brilliant young officer with a fine career ahead of him.” Before the interview I had checked his records from the files in Phillipson’s office. “He didn’t start drinking until 1953 when his ship was in collision with a tanker in the English Channel.”

It had still been the same ship, the
Lammermuir
, renamed the
Strode Venturer.
She had been feeling her way through thick fog for three days. She had no radar and all that time Deacon had been on the bridge. He had finally handed over to his second officer a bare two hours before the collision. “I don’t think you’ve any idea how he must have felt. The tanker burst into flames and he had to watch, helpless, because his steering gear was out of action, whilst twenty-two men died a horrible death in a sea of blazing oil.”

“He was exonerated at the Court of Inquiry.”

“I’ve read the evidence of that Inquiry.”

His head jerked up. “What am I to infer from that?”

He knew damned well. Strode Orient had made no attempt to support their captain. Quite the reverse, in fact; their counsel had gone out of his way to shift the blame on to the officers and so avoid condemnation of the company for its failure to install radar equipment. He had partly succeeded
for the second officer had had his ticket suspended for a year and though Deacon was exonerated from any direct responsibility, he had been censured for not ensuring that his relief had definite instructions to proceed with due caution. This followed his admission under cross-examination that he’d been under great pressure to make good lost time due to an engine failure in the Bay of Biscay, an implication which the company’s counsel had flatly denied.

“All I’m saying,” I told him, “is that I think Deacon deserves better of the company than to be left to rot on the beach at Aden.”

“You do, do you?” He gazed at me, silent—a blank wall of indifference. And when I suggested his re-engagement as master of the
Strode Trader
, all he said was, “The appointment of ship’s officers is a matter for the Marine Superintendent. I think you will find that that particular vacancy has already been filled.” I left his office feeling that all the Strodes, Peter included, had in them a streak of their father’s ruthlessness.

The man Phillipson had chosen to command the
Strode Trader
was Reece, first officer of the
Strode Wayfarer
now in the Clyde for re-fit. He was twenty-nine and had held his master’s certificate for barely two years. I thought it an odd choice for what might prove to be a tricky operation.

“He’s a very good man,” Phillipson said, nodding his head decisively. “Very keen. We’ll not be having any trouble with him in command.” What he meant was that as a young man promoted to his first command Reece would be very amenable to orders from head office—particularly from the company’s chairman. In the circumstances, and from George Strode’s point of view, it was not unreasonable, and though I would have preferred a more experienced captain I didn’t press the matter. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been any use. Phillipson was one of the old guard at Strode House, a Scot with his pension to consider. I had some difficulty even in persuading him to let me have sight of Reece’s personal file.

He had been born David Llewellyn Reece at Swansea in 1934. His father had been killed in the St. Nazaire raid in 1942, his mother had died in London two years later when the clothing factory in which she worked had been bombed. He had been brought up by his eldest sister and had gone to sea at the age of fourteen, sailing out of London in coasters. In 1949 he had been arrested for smuggling. The two men charged with him had been given prison sentences. He had been bound over for two years. He had joined Strode Orient in 1952 and had been involved in a curious incident the following year when his ship had been boarded whilst anchored off the Java coast. There was a cutting from a Singapore newspaper showing an attractive, fair-haired youth standing at the head of a gangway with a drawn cutlass. It was captioned:
Strode Apprentice Routs Pirates.
He had become third officer on the
Strode Glory
in 1957, promoted second officer in 1958 and two years later had been transferred to the
Wayfarer
as first officer. On the basis of that rather unusual record I thought he was probably as good a choice as any for the task in hand. He obviously had drive and energy, and the indications of lawlessness were not unexpected in view of his background.

Perhaps if I had been so pressed I would have probed his background further. At least I should have insisted on interviewing him when he passed through London on his way out to Bombay, for it was undoubtedly Reece I saw by chance in the pub I frequented near Leadenhall Market. I had gone in for a quick beer and a sandwich lunch and in the mirror behind the bar I caught a glimpse of Phillipson standing with his face buried in a tankard and beside him a broad-shouldered, well-built man with a pleasant open face and fair crinkly hair. Though he was older now, his face still had the attractive boyish look of the young man with the cutlass in that newspaper cutting. I was being served at the time and when I turned round they were gone. I rang Phillipson as soon as I got back to the office and he not only denied having seen Reece, but said he hadn’t visited the pub at all that day. It was a lie and such a silly
one that it magnified the whole episode so that it stuck in my mind.

But whatever instructions Reece had been given privately I didn’t see that it could have any bearing on the success or otherwise of the expedition. In any case, I was faced with many other, and more pressing, problems. In particular, the location of the necessary equipment. The loading of it and the engagement of mechanics, drivers and labourers was Peter’s responsibility and he had the help of Strode Orient’s Bombay agent. But things like bull-dozers, crawler trucks, conveyor belts, all the machinery for shifting ore, could only be found by spending hours on the telephone ringing companies who had interests in India, for there was no time to ship the stuff out there. It had to be on the spot, and available. In this way I managed to lay my hands on two war surplus infantry landing craft and an old coaling barge for the transport of ore from shore to ship, and one brand-new piece of American equipment, a tumble-bug. But the stuff was hard to find and it took time.

Ida had stayed on in London and this made a great difference to me. She had Peter’s ability to become involved in an idea to the exclusion of everything else and this did much to offset the very apparent lack of enthusiasm for the project at Strode House. She had his vitality, too, his essential feeling of the excitement of life, and also a certain feminine acquisitiveness that made it fun each time I managed to lay my hands on a fresh piece of equipment. I had never had this sort of companionship from a woman before. It was an exhilarating experience and I only realized very gradually that I was becoming emotionally involved.

Meantime, Whimbrill was dealing with the matter of contracts for the sale of the ore. The Tyneside firm that had taken the first small consignment had done it more or less as a favour—they had been associated with old Henry Strode and Peter had been at school with the son who now ran the business. Long-term contracts covered their requirements and this applied to most British companies. In the end Whimbrill had to turn to the European market which
had no Commonwealth ties and he finally negotiated a contract through Dutch agents for monthly deliveries in Rotterdam starting 1st August. As it involved a penalty clause I telephoned Peter about it and at the end of our conversation I asked how Reece was making out. The line to Bombay was very clear and there was no mistaking his slight hesitation. “Fine,” he said. “Without his drive we wouldn’t be anywhere near as ready as we are.”

“What’s the trouble, then?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the heat. He’s so damned efficient.” That was all he would say, except that the way things were going he thought we could leave within the week. It was time I went out.

I told Ida that evening and had some difficulty in convincing her that an old freighter bound for a volcanic island in the Indian Ocean was no place for a woman. By then she had fallen into the habit of waiting for me at my flat. We’d have a drink there, talk over the day’s progress and then go out for dinner. But sometimes she’d have a meal prepared and we’d spend the evening in the flat. We were so involved in the venture that we were more like business partners than two people in the process of falling in love. We didn’t talk about it. We’d been through it all before, both of us, and I think we were a little suspicious of our feelings for each other, even a little guilty about our need for physical contact.

That day she had been down to Redhill, to the nursing home. She had been down several times to see the old man. “He was very low,” she said. “I don’t think he can last much longer.” And she added, “Has the transfer of those shares gone through yet? He’s very worried that he’ll die before they’re registered in your name.”

“No,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything further.” It was nearly a fortnight since I had received a letter from West, Wright, Turner & Coy.
My partner
, West had written,
has instructed me to make arrangements for the immediate transfer of the
67,215
Strode & Coy. Ordinary £1 shares he had already bequeathed to you in his Will. He gave me to
understand when I saw him this morning that he thought you might need them sooner than he had originally anticipated.

The shares were, in fact, registered in my name two days later. This brought Whimbrill into it as secretary of the company and he called me down to his office. “I knew, of course, that Lawrence Turner had been a persistent buyer during the last year and more. Latterly, as you know, I have been watching the situation very closely and I was becoming increasingly concerned about the future of these shares.” His hand had gone up to the left side of his face. “It’s a big block and faced with the necessity of providing for death duties his executors might well have decided to sell. I am relieved to know that he has taken this step and placed them beyond his executors’ reach.” He lit a cigarette and passed me the packet. “I take it you do not intend to sell?”

“No.”

He nodded, sitting hunched in his chair, jotting figures on a slip of paper. “You realize that you are now one of the biggest shareholders in the company?” The point of his silver pencil moved quickly as he added up three separate columns. “It will be tight, very tight—but the public still holds some. And there’s Mrs. de Witt. I think she might support us.” He dropped the pencil and sat back. “Lingrose hasn’t withdrawn his nominations and the meeting is next month. You won’t be back by then.”