It appeared that something was building up; or at least it appeared that way until the morning before the liner reached Colombo. That day the wireless Press News reported that an Official Spokesman had been dug out from some quiet corner in Hongkong and his dictum was: “There is no cause for alarm whatever. The troop movements are entirely in accord with the requirements of the training programme.”
Which was precisely what Latymer had had to put up with.
Shaw chucked the Press News sheets away, got up and shaved angrily. Official Spokesman indeed… those gentry specialized in lulling the world to sleep, into a false sense of security. The trouble was, so many well-meaning millions of people were always so anxious to believe them — until it was too late.
It was that same morning that a cable came from Latymer, in response to Shaw’s request for a routine check on Andersson’s standing with the Swedes. His credentials appeared to be genuine, as Shaw had known they would be. Latymer added that this had not emerged earlier because his contacts in Sweden had never heard of Sigurd Andersson. The man’s employment appeared to be very hush-hush, probably because the Swedes, until they’d been approached direct by Latymer, had been reluctant to advertise putting an agent aboard a British ship. But it was none the less genuine for all that; while it complicated things considerably, it did not, however, in the light of recent happenings, lessen the likelihood of Andersson and Karstad being one and the same man.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Shaw was standing at the after end of the veranda deck with Judith Dangan as the New South Wales made her midnight departure from Colombo. It was close, airless; Shaw’s tropic-weight jacket clung to him, his thin shirt and collar were sticky with sweat. The day had passed off well enough, if a trifle boringly. Most of the passengers had gone ashore for a full day’s sight-seeing around Ceylon, going out to Kandy and the Temple of the Tooth, or to Mount Lavinia; and ending up with dinner at the Galle Face Hotel, and then dancing at the hotel’s Gala Ball, looking out from the terraces over the Indian Ocean; and finally, tired but happy, they’d come back by rickshaw to the wharf. There they had gone aboard the tender and out to the huge, lighted bulk of the New South Wales, whose floodlit funnel dominated the harbour as the tender pushed through a fairyland of lights which glittered on the black water.
Andersson, whose behaviour had been perfectly ordinary ever since that conversation in the tavern bar, had not been one of the landward-bounders and neither, therefore, had Shaw. On his advice Judith too had remained aboard once again, and he was aware that she’d had a pretty dismal day hanging around an almost deserted ship.
They leaned against the rail, feeling the faint throb of the engines against the soles of their feet, and watching the glimmer of Ceylon’s lights sparkling from beyond the dark line of forest which fringed the port until they faded away behind the streaming, tumbling path of the wake.
She looked up at him, rather mischievously, studying the strong line of his jaw. There was a dimple in her cheek. Her soft dark hair fanned against his shoulder and he felt her breath on his neck. She looked away then, and they stood like that, silent, as the liner cut through the water; then after a while she looked up at Shaw again, asked: “Isn’t there anything else I can do to help? I’ve convinced everyone long ago that you’re just a plain naval officer. They all believe that now — especially after I passed the word that you got tight in Port Said!”
He said, “Yes. I’m not sure that was such a good idea after all!”
She laughed. “What better cover could you have than that?”
“Well — perhaps you’re right.” He paused, then added: “I’d rather you kept out of this from now on. Really, Judith.” He told a white lie then. “Andersson doesn’t seem to have cottoned on to you, and that’s the way I want it to stay.”
“But surely—”
His hand closed over hers, hard. He said curtly, “Don’t ask me any more. Just trust me.”
She said in a disappointed voice, “Of course, if that’s what you want…"
“It is.”
Somehow there wasn’t very much to say after that, and they just stood there, close together, looking out into the night and the dark sea beneath the stars which hung, lantern-like, so low over the whole sky; and then a little later he took Judith down to her cabin.
She turned at the foot of the stairway, turned her serious small face up to his. He looked at her and saw her eyes wide, the pupils dilating, sensed a kind of strain in her, heard the sharply-indrawn breath. Suddenly, Shaw took her face in his hands, bent and kissed her on the forehead. She came into his arms and seemed about to speak, but instead she drew away again, giving him a gentle little push with her hands, and then she turned and ran quickly along the alleyway.
She was gone. He hard the light tap-tap of her shoes and then that too faded.
Shaw swung away and walked along to his own cabin, frowning and troubled. She’d come to help, and he hadn’t let her, he’d turned her down. He knew he couldn’t have acted otherwise, but he was desperately sorry for the girl.
The following evening he booked a table for two in the restaurant on the boat deck. It would, he decided, be a change from the dining-room and it was time Judith had a little fun. After a drink in the tavern, they went up to the small tables tucked right away by themselves in a corner at the after end, where they could watch the pale, phosphorescent wake creaming away behind them until it was lost in the remote, star-filled night. Shaw ordered clear soup, fresh-frozen crayfish mayonnaise, steak, a bottle of Rheingold. Later, with the coffee and liqueurs, he lit a cigar and sat back, smiling across at Judith.
She said, “Quite the bloated capitalist.”
“Doesn’t hurt, once in a while! I like a bit of high life now and then.”
She said musingly, “Life’s funny, isn’t it… I expect most people think it’s all high life in your line.”
“Yes, I expect they do.”
In a faraway voice she said, “Daddy used to say that was one of the hard parts. People didn’t know who you were, so you couldn’t tell them what a lousy, rotten life it was. You know what I mean — the people who used to see films and things about agents, and think how wonderful it must be, how exciting. The result, according to daddy, was that you could never let yourself go and get rid of the tension, let off steam. It gave you a kind of shut-in, isolated feeling.”