Ruined City (21 page)

'Perhaps you would bc so good as to have it sent to my hotel, M'sieur.'

He never saw it again. M. Potiscu said that somebody in the hotel must have stolen it. It was a pity.

Next day, with some ceremony, the documents received their signatures in the office of the Consul, being signed on British territory, in theory.

'His Excellency will be very pleased that this is satisfactorily arranged,' remarked the Consul, after it was over and the Ministers had gone. 'We like to do everything we can to help on British trade.'

'Perhaps you would tell His Excellency,' said Warren gravely, 'that without his help I could not have concluded the deal. I am very deeply grateful for all his assistance.'

He may have been. But he went back to his hotel and booked a passage on the morning service to Berlin, and then did his packing. He tore up a great amount of paper, drafts of various agreements, and burned the pieces in the grate. Then he went down and dined alone, and went out to the Gonea.

That evening he played Polski Bank again for the last time with Theopoulos, and, assisted by Virginio, lost twenty pounds to keep him sweet for the future. In a dark corner he gave six hundred pounds in dinars to Potiscu. In another dark corner he gave two pounds to Virginio, commission on Theopoulos. Quite openly he gave a bracelet to Hélène worth about twenty pounds.

The grey dawn was showing round the edges of the curtains before he had an opportunity to speak to Pepita alone.

'Mademoiselle,' he said, 'this is the end. I go back to my own country in an hour or two, and I do not expect to return for many months — perhaps, if all goes well, for years.'

She nodded. 'For me, also, there will be a change. Today , I have received from Smyrna the offer of an appointment — a good offer, M'sieur, that one must not refuse. You understand, I have been twice in Smyrna before, and now I am artiste known to the clientele. One can demand a good engagement, so.'

'Do you like Smyrna, Mademoiselle?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'It is as good as Visgrad. It is not gay like Athens, or even Istanbul, but the engagement is a good one, and one will save money.'

He eyed her for a moment. 'Mademoiselle,' he said, 'without your aid I could not have succeeded in my business. I should have departed for England, if you had not introduced me to Theopoulos.'

She laughed merrily. 'The English, they get sleepy too soon. It is droll, that.' She laid her hand upon his own. 'M'sieur, I am glad that you have been successful in your business. I declare, I am happy that I have been able to keep you from your bed that night, and to help the meeting with the Minister. M'sieur, you were kind to my little one, and that sort of kindness one does not forget.'

He smiled. 'Mademoiselle, I know mat you seek no reward for what you did. Nevertheless, without your aid the business could not have been done.' He produced an envelope from his breast pocket. 'Mademoiselle, in a big business, such as the one mat I have now concluded here, it is possible to pay commission for the help that is received. One more drop to the bucket will not greatly matter, when the scale of the business is considered.'

He handed her the envelope. 'You should take this to the Credit Lyonnais in the Litescu,' he said. 'They will arrange for the money to be paid in Corsica without difficulty of the exchange.'

She dropped her eyes. 'M'sieur, you are too kind. It was not for this that I have tried to help you.'

'I know that, Mademoiselle,' he said.

She tucked the envelope unopened into her bag. 'We will dance once more, M'sieur?' she said.

That afternoon she left the little hotel where she lived, and went walking through the town in a blaze of passion. She was a shade too elegantly dressed, as ever; she tripped along on her high, patent-leather heels, her face aflame.

She turned into the French bank in the Litescu. She stormed up to the counter, and flung a slip of paper at the clerk.

'This draft — it is not good?' she enquired scornfully. 'One makes a mock of me? Ah — I declare, it is insupportable, that!'

Nonchalantly, the clerk picked up the slip of paper and unfolded it; impassively he studied it. 'One moment, Mademoiselle,' he said, and retired to the back regions.

She was a little damped by his indifference. 'I declare — I will not wait to be insulted once again,' she exclaimed. 'It is not right that one should treat me so.'

In the bank nobody paid the slightest attention to her outburst. She remained by the counter, tapping one foot irritably upon the floor.

The clerk returned.

'You deceive yourself, Mademoiselle,' he said courteously. 'This is a cheque of the English financier, M'sieur Ouarren, value seventy-five thousand francs, French. We have special instructions to receive this cheque. It is in order, perfectly.'

She gripped the counter, and stood staring at the cheque, fascinated. 'Ten thousand pardons,' she said at last, in a low tone. 'I thought that one had mocked himself of me.'

Slowly she raised her head, and stood there staring down the marble hall towards the door, wide open in the sun. Outside, across the dusty street, there was a gap between the houses; she could see the hill behind the town, rising in folds to the high mountains, blue-grey with olive woods. There would be little farms up there with cobbled paths and small, walled pastures: there would be terraced gardens for the vines and for the flowers, the roses, the carnations, and mimosa. It would be like that in Sulina,

A fortnight later, Mr Donald Grierson came to Sharples. He had spent the previous day in London with Warren. He was a red-haired, burly man of good north-country stock, about forty years of age, energetic and outspoken.

'Oh, aye,' he said, 'they let me go all right. The Clydeside aren't that full of work. Mind, they wanted to know what I was going to, but I didn't let on.'

Warren asked: 'Have you been in Sharples recently?'

Grierson shook his head. 'I was there four years back. Not since. They tell me things is very bad in Sharples.'

Warren nodded. 'Now, let me show you what I've done so far.'

Grierson laid his hand upon a heavy roll. 'These are the plans?'

They worked on steadily all through the day. At the end of it Grierson faced him across the table.

'Well, Mr Warren,' he said thoughtfully, 'I'd like you to know how it all strikes me before I go up North on to the job, the way we'll understand each other from the start.'

He drew through a dead pipe between his teeth. 'The architects are good, and the designs are good. You've been Well advised there. And the price you've got — well, in the Clydeside today, we'd reckon that a fair price, that you'd not lose much on, any road. You've done a good job getting those ships at that price, Mr Warren.' He smiled broadly. Td like to know how it was done.'

He continued. 'And your progress payments scheme is none so bad, though I'd rather have seen a bit more on the materials. You need have no fear about the ships themselves — they'll be good, sound ships before ever they leave the yard. But whether we'll build them at a profit. . . that I very much doubt.'

Warren nodded slowly.

'In my opinion, Mr Warren,' said the manager evenly, 'you'd better budget for a fifty-thousand loss on the three ships.'

'So much as that?'

'I think so, Mr Warren. Mind you, don't think I'm setting up an alibi right from the start, but look at it fair. Four hundred and twenty thousand pounds of work, at what in normal times we'd reckon a cut price, although it's none so bad these days. And starting from a yard that's dead, stone dead and derelict. It's not reasonable to expect a profit, Mr Warren. We're going to lose money at the start, and I'd say that it would be the thick end of that sum before we're cracking as a proper yard again.'

Warren smiled slowly. 'Well, go to it,' he replied. 'Make it as little as you can.'

The manager got to his feet. 'You can depend upon it that we'll do that,' he said. 'And now, with your leave, I'll go and get a bite of something to eat, and men I'll get along to King's Cross. Time I was on the job.'

He got to Sharples early the next day, and walked down from the station to the 'Bull's Head', carrying his bag. Once or twice he saw a man he recognized and gave a friendly nod; his heart sank at me aspect of the town. There was no life, no spirit in the place; it was with a serious face that he rang the bell of the hotel.

A slatternly girl came and unbolted the door. 'Mr Hancock home?' he asked.

'Aye,' she said, 'he's within. Will ye step inside?'

The landlord came lumbering into the hall.

'Eh, Mr Hancock, you remember me? I want a room for a few nights till I can get fixed up — I'm working here from now on.'

The landlord greeted him warmly. 'Sit ye down, an' let me draw ye a can o' bitter, an' tell me what brings ye back to Sharples,' he exclaimed. 'Sit ye right down.' .

'I'd rather have a mug of tea, if it's the same to you.'

In half an hour he had learned a great deal about Sharples, and it was with a more thoughtful face than ever that he walked down to the Yard. He routed out the watchman, Robbins, from his hut. 'You remember me?' he said. 'Grierson, my name. I remember you when I was working here in the stores, weren't you? I mind your face. I'm the new manager. You've had a letter?'

'Oh, aye,' the old man quavered. 'A letter come yesterday. I told the missus, I said, I couldn't make head nor tail of it, I said.'

Grierson eyed him critically and his heart sank again; even the watchman was too old to be of any real service. He was starting from absolutely nothing.

'Well,' he said quietly, 'I'm manager here from now on, Robbins
.
Get the offices opened up this afternoon and get a room cleaned up for me. I'll go in Mr Drew's old room for the time being.'

He took the old man's keys and started on a tour of inspection of the Yard, notebook in hand. It took him two hours and a half; at the end of that time he had been in every store and shed, and had filled three pages of his book.

Then he went down to the Labour Exchange.

Within a quarter of an hour the town was in a ferment.

The news spread from the door, carried on running feet, that Mr Grierson was within, him as was under Mr Drew, and they were taking on a ganger and ten men for labouring down at the Yard. By the time it had run through the town as far as Pilgrim Street it was to the effect that Barlows had got a good order for ships, Mr Drew and Mr Grierson were in the town, and fifty men were needed at the Labour Exchange at once. By the time it got to the top of the town it seemed that two hundred skilled men were required, specially platers.

The town became revitalized that afternoon, awoke to running life. Men struggled into jackets, crammed their caps upon their heads and went swarming down the hill to the Exchange; wives routed out the stay-at-homes, the pessimists, and sent them packing off to join the throng. Outside the doors of the Exchange the crowd swelled to over a thousand men, filling the street, and waiting patiently for news.

Grierson, coming out of the side door after an hour's conference with the manager of the Exchange, was surrounded and besieged by questions. He hesitated for a moment, then fought his way to the main steps of the Exchange.

On the steps he stood above them, visible to everyone. 'Now, see here, lads,' he said. 'I've come back here as manager of Barlows Yard, only it's not Barlows any longer. It's been taken over as a new Company. Don't ask me what we're going to build, because I don't rightly know myself, and; if I did I wouldn't be able to tell you.'

A voice cried out anxiously, 'Will ye be needing platers, mister?' The speaker was jostled into silence by his mates.

The manager laughed, and some of the men laughed with him. 'Go easy, lad,' he said. 'We got to get an order for a ship before we start and plate her. I'm hopeful we may get an order, but we haven't got one yet. Soon as we do, we'll be needing platers, fitters, riveters, joiners — all sorts. At present I've taken on ten men for cleaning up the Yard and getting straight, and there'll be no more needed for a while. It'll be no good anyone coming to the gate or writing letters to the Company, because I'm taking on through the Exchange. That's fair to everyone. Now, get along back home to your teas and don't come pestering me, 'cos I know nothing more than what I've told you.'

He came down from the steps, pushed his way through them, and went back to the Yard. The men stood about in little groups for an hour or more, slowly dispersing to their homes.

The news got to the hospital as soon as anywhere. It came, no doubt, from the out-patients; it went flowing through the cold stone corridors into the wards. In the children's ward it came from a nurse to Sister, who passed it on to Miss MacMahon.

'Nurse says there's something happening in the town,' said Sister. 'Something about Barlows starting up again.'

At the words something seemed to turn over inside the Almoner; she straightened up above the cot and stared at the sister. 'That — that's splendid news,' she said uncertainly. To the sister's astonishment, she was blushing. 'Do you know any more?'

The nurse said, 'They were saying down in out-patients ' something about a Mr Grierson being in charge. Some name like that.'