Dead and Alive (9 page)

By the evening we had visited three or four wine dealers and had an idea at any rate of how to set about obtaining the cargo we wanted. We had also visited the post office and collected a cable from Fosdyk, setting out his requirements. It concluded with the words—“Prospects very good.” On the strength of that we decided to celebrate. We took Pietro along and he showed us the cafés and wine bars of the narrow streets below the Corso
Vittorio Emanuele where the women are like the women of any big port and where men try to forget that their children are half-starving and there is no future.

I was not feeling particularly happy when we returned to the ship. The misery of the people, mingling with the fumes of the bad liquor I’d drunk, had left me depressed. Stuart morosely staggered off to bed. I made myself some tea and then, because I needed to remind myself of the fresh clean air of England, I opened my tin box and took out Jenny’s jewel case. When I lifted the lid I found myself gazing at the faded photograph of a girl with pigtails and an oval face which had a suggestion of laughter in the eyes and mouth. Monique! I had forgotten all about her and my promise to her mother. And a sudden horror seized me at all the things I’d seen that night and all the dingy hovels I had been into. Perhaps in one of those frightful little drinking dens … I stood the photograph on the shelf above my bed. I must find that girl—find out what had happened to her. And with this resolution I lay down on my bunk and went to sleep.

I dreamed I was being chased through horrible twisting streets. Then I was being beaten by a black-shirted hooligan because I wouldn’t tell them where Monique was, and I woke to find the sun streaming in and Boyd shaking my shoulder. “Like a nice cup o’ char, sir?” he asked.

I took it from him. “God! I feel lousy,” I said.

“I wouldn’t wonder, sir. You weren’t yourself at all when you came aboard last night.”

“I don’t even remember coming on board,” I said. I noticed with disgust that I was fully clothed.

“There’s a young Itye outside, sir. Says ’e was wiv you last night an’ you told him to come and see you in the morning. He don’t look so good either.” And he grinned.

“Oh, Pietro,” I said, and sat up on the bunk. My head felt terrible. “How’s Mr. McCrae?”

“Swearing somethink awful, sir.”

I got to my feet and found myself looking at Monique’s
photograph propped up on the shelf above my bunk. “Send Pietro in,” I told Boyd.

The boy certainly looked about as bad as I felt. He was very white and smiled sheepishly. “Next time we go out I take you to the good restaurant,” he said.

“You’re not taking me out again,” I told him. Then I gave him Monique’s photograph and Mrs. Galliani’s address “Find that girl for me,” I said. “And meet me at the same table in the Galleria at three o’clock, the day after to-morrow. And don’t lose that photograph,” I added as he was leaving.

It took me all day to unload our cargo by the twisted wreckage of the ironworks that the Germans had destroyed two years before. The burnt-brown hills that encircle Pozzuoli shimmered in the heat and the peak of Mt. Epomeo on the island of Ischia was barely visible in the flaming heat haze. We got the loaded trucks off easily enough, but when they returned from delivering the cigarettes to a warehouse in Naples, we had to reload them with the spares.

We only got back to our berth in Naples just in time to change and take a taxi out to Posillipo. Stuart, who had been morosely silent all day, did not speak during the run out to the northern tip of the bay. But as the driver swung in through a crest-encrusted gateway, he suddenly said, “If the set-up here is phoney, we have nothing to do with it—agreed?”

I agreed.

That it was phoney, in his sense of the word, was apparent the moment we entered the villa. The building itself was old and it had been added to and parts of it rebuilt at various times. It stood on rock and on the Naples side of it was the old Palazzo Don Anna with its archways planted firmly in the sea. The old mellow exterior of the villa was wiped from my mind as soon as we got inside by the welter of gilt and cupid-covered murals. The floors were thickly carpeted and exotic flowers were banked up against the walls, giving the place a strange hot-house smell.

Guidici came forward to meet us and introduced us to our host, a tall, rather saturnine man with extravagant gestures and black hair, sleekly oiled. As I shook his hand I found myself looking into a pair of shrewd black eyes set close together in a lined and rather leathery face. He was somewhere between forty and fifty years old and clearly understood the world in which he lived and the people in it. His name was Guido Del Ricci.

We were shown into a long room with huge crystal chandeliers already blazing with light. At each end there were big gilt-framed mirrors. The ceiling was thick with gilt and cupids. In one corner was a big buffet table loaded with food and drinks and presided over by a white-coated servant. In the opposite corner, on a table piled high with flowers was a picture that looked suspiciously like a Titian. The room was crowded with some twenty or thirty people. The men wore lounge suits, but the women were in evening dress, some of them loaded down with jewellery which glittered in the light.

I thought of the places I had seen the previous night and I whispered to Stuart, “This is the other Italy.”

He nodded. “This was the Italy of the Fascisti,” he muttered. “I’d like to introduce one of the partigiani to this set-up—a grenade in places like this would do Italy a lot of good.”

Our conversation was interrupted by our introduction to the assembled gathering. The frightful ceremony of shaking everybody by the hand had to be gone through. By the end of it we were none the wiser as to who we had been introduced to, but we had been left standing with two very attractive and expensively dressed girls and a maid appeared with drinks on a great silver tray. The girls stuck by us and I got the impression that they had been detailed to entertain us.

The girl who had attached herself to me said her name was Angelica. She was not exactly an angel. She had a fine full-curved body which her black and silver dress was not designed to hide. Her face was hard with full heavily made-up lips, a slightly turned-up nose, and dark
smouldering eyes that gazed up at me as though I was the first man she’d ever seen. She spoke a little English—enough at any rate to tell me that my features were like those of Cesare Borgia and to suggest that we go and dance.

Three big glass doors gave on to a wide tiled terrace lit by coloured lamps. She took my arm and together we leaned over the balustrade and looked down at the dark surface of the sea. To our left the lights of Naples blazed out brazenly. A small band in a corner of the terrace began to play
Sorrento
and we danced, her body pressed close to mine. The hardness of her face melted in the soft light and the warmth of the night. Her eyes were mischievous, passionate, laughter-filled—they were pools reflecting the rhythm of the band.

The wine and her body so close to mine beat through my blood as we swayed back and forth to the pulsing of the music. Her feet were fairy light and she made love to me with her eyes and her body as we danced and danced.

And then Del Ricci broke the spell. “You will pardon me if I interrupt you, Mr. Cunningham,” he said. “But I would like to talk business with you for a moment.” Stuart was with him, and I saw by his eyes that he was in a black mood.

Del Ricci showed us into a quietly furnished study. “She is a nice girl, Angelica,” he said, as he held the door open for me. “She is of the corps de ballet at the San Carlo Opera House. She will do well—she is a good dancer and very sympathetic.”

“Cut the suave stuff, Del Ricci,” Stuart said, as the door was closed. “What’s your business?”

The Italian shot him a quick glance from beneath his heavy eyelids. “I am sorry,” he said, “I should have given you Julia, not Anna. She is colder and has more finesse.” He went over to a decanter and poured out three large whiskies. “And now, Mr. McCrae,” he said, as he handed us our glasses, “let us ignore the trimmings and get down to the basis of life—money. How much
do you want for your ship?” His eyes darted from one to the other of us as though he would read our reactions in our faces. “How much, gentlemen?” he asked.

“Why do you think we are prepared to sell?” asked Stuart.

“A ship is a capital asset, not a pet,” was his reply. “And the value of capital assets can always be assessed.”

“Why do you want to buy?” Stuart demanded.

“Why?” He shrugged his shoulders. “That is surely not your concern. However, I will tell you. I need her for the coastal trade. As you know Italy is very short of transport. I am interested in a big transport company. With your ship I could handle coastal trade with many little towns that even small schooners cannot supply. I hope eventually to buy several of these boats and build up a big coastal trade, which is what Italy should have.”

“The possibility of building up a coastal trade has not entirely escaped us,” Stuart told him. “In fact within a year, we expect to have a regular service of at least four landing craft using the West Coast.”

Del Ricci smiled. “I could make it very difficult for you,” he said. “Whereas if you would sell me the one boat that you have you would immediately make a very good profit which could be invested in something—a little less speculative shall we say?” He suddenly leaned forward across his desk. “I’ll give you twice what she cost new. I’ll give you £20,000. I think I am mad to do it, but I need the ship to keep my transport business going. What do you say, Mr. Cunningham? Is that a fair price?”

“In sterling or lire?” I asked.

“Sterling,” he said.

“It’s certainly a generous offer,” I said. I was thinking of a clear profit of nearly £7000 each apart from the wad of lire we had banked the previous day.

Then Stuart’s quiet voice cut across my thoughts. “It’s certainly generous, Mr. Del Ricci,” he said. “So
generous, in fact, that I know very well that you are not wanting it for your normal trade.”

“Naturally I should concentrate on cargoes that were urgently required.”

“Arms for instance?” Stuart’s voice was harsh now.

“Now really, Mr. McCrae …”

Stuart took a pace forward. “Listen, Del Ricci, there was a man came to see me in London. He didn’t want to buy the boat, he just wanted me to run the arms for him. I beat him up and then I threw him down a flight of stairs. Did you know that?”

“How should I?” His voice was steady, his features immobile. His eyes were watching Stuart. “I need your boat for trade, and I am willing to pay a high price for it.”

“You are not interested in arms?” Stuart was tapping a cigarette on the back of a silver case.

“Certainly not. Why should I be?”

“That is what I am wondering.” Stuart lit his cigarette and the match-flame lit up his bearded features and showed his eyes fixed on Del Ricci. “At my own request Julia introduced me to a certain Luigi Perroni who is here to-night.”

“He is the captain of the
Pampas.
The
Pampas
is a schooner belonging to my transport company. Why?”

“A week ago his ship was off Portugal without lights and he was talking Spanish and not Italian.”

“Is that a criminal offence?”

“No, but running arms is. And that is what he was doing. He was waiting to pick up a consignment of American munitions that had been routed via Portugal.”

“That is a very grave charge, Mr. McCrae.”

“I’m glad you realise the gravity of it,” replied Stuart coldly.

“And it is a charge that I do not think you should make behind Perroni’s back. I will get him.”

“Just a moment, Del Ricci. I do not think I want to listen to Perroni’s lies. I am much more interested in knowing how you stand in the matter. I have no proof
that he is running arms—yet. I just know that he is and he is running them in one of your ships. You want to buy the
Trevedra.
You have offered twice the market value and you are prepared to pay in sterling. A flat-bottomed landing craft would be a most serviceable ship for running arms. You would be able to run them ashore at any lonely beach—straight ashore in lorries as we ran our cargo this morning.”

“You are levelling your accusations at me now, McCrae,” Del Ricci’s voice was still steady but the tone was pitched a shade higher. “That is foolish. This country is no longer run by Britain and America. It is run by us and I am a man of some standing here.”

“So are some of the Black Market profiteers.”

“Are you suggesting——.”

“That you are a Black Market profiteer?” Stuart shrugged his shoulders. “I know that you have a reputation as a clever business man, that your transport company controls all road transport in certain districts and that in those districts essential foodstuffs sold by another concern in which you are interested, the South Italy Produce Coy, are considerably more expensive than in other districts. Arms can be very useful to those who are exploiting the people to the point of desperation.”

“I think you must be mad to make accusations like this.” Del Ricci’s eyes were brightly watchful and a nerve at the side of his forehead pulsed tensely.

“Mad!” Stuart’s eyes blazed suddenly and the last vestige of liquor-warmth seeped out of me as I sensed the tension in the atmosphere. “I lost most of my best friends in this bloody country because a band of hooligans in black shirts marched on Rome some twenty-five years ago. Where did they get their arms? They took control of the country for men of standing who gave them the money to do it and who, in exchange, had exploitation legalised and made it the biggest national industry.

“Go up the roads to Cassino and Pescara, by Pisa and Florence and through the hills to Rimini. Do you know
what those rows and rows of white crosses mean? Everyone of them represents the body of a boy killed in the prime of his life because it paid somebody to give a bunch of hooligans arms in 1922. Do you think I am mad to want to see that that does not happen again?”

“If you are so sure of yourself, why don’t you go to the Questura?” There was no mistaking the sneer in Del Ricci’s voice.