The Comedians

'I have been captain on this line for ten years. I stick to the letter of the law. I will never carry a passenger who is not on that list. Nor a passenger without an exit-visa. Has he an exit-visa?'

'No.'

'Then I can promise you, lieutenant, that he will never be a passenger in this ship.'

The sound of his rank seemed to mollify the police officer a little. 'He may be hidden,' he said, 'without your knowledge.'

'In the morning before sailing I will have the ship searched, and if he is found, I shall put him ashore.'

The man hesitated. 'If he is not here,' he said, 'he must have gone to the British Embassy.'

'It would be a more natural place,' the captain said, 'than the Royal Netherlands Steamship Company.' He handed the revolver to the second officer. 'You will give it him,' he said, 'at the foot of the gangway.' He turned his back and left the officer's black hand floating in mid-air like a catfish in an aquarium.

We waited in silence until the second officer returned and told the captain that the lieutenant had driven away with his men; then I let Jones out of the lavatory. He was effusively grateful. 'You were superb, captain,' he said.

The captain regarded him with dislike and contempt. He said, 'I told him only the truth. If I had discovered you stowing away I would have put you on shore. I am glad I did not have to lie. I would have found it hard to forgive myself or you. Please leave my ship as soon as it is safe.' He removed his jacket, he pulled his white nightshirt out of his trousers so that he could remove them with modesty, we went away.

Outside I leant over the rail and looked at the policeman who had returned to the foot of the gangway. He was last night's policeman, and there was no sign of the lieutenant or his men. I said, 'It's too late now for the British Embassy. It will be well guarded by this time.'

'What do we do then?'

'God knows, but we've got to leave the boat. If we are still here in the morning the captain will be as good as his word.'

The purser, who woke quite cheerfully from his sleep (he was lying flat on his back when we entered with a lubricious smile on his face), saved the situation. He said, 'There is no difficulty about Mr Brown leaving, the policeman knows him already. But there is only one solution for Mr Jones. He must leave as a woman.'

'But the clothes?' I asked.

'There is an acting box here for the ship's parties. We have the dress of a Spanish señorita and a peasant-costume from Vollendam.'

Jones said piteously, 'But my moustache.'

'You must shave it off.'

Neither the Spanish costume, which was designed for a flamencodancer, nor the elaborate headgear of the Dutch peasant was inconspicuous. We tried our best to make an unobtrusive mixture of the two, jettisoning the Vollendam headgear and the wooden sabots of the one and the mantilla of the other, as well as a great many underskirts in both cases. Meanwhile Jones gloomily and painfully shaved - there was no hot water. Oddly enough he looked more reliable without his moustache; it was as though before he had been wearing an incorrect uniform. Now I could almost believe in his military career. Odder still, when once the great sacrifice had been made, he entered with a kind of expert enthusiasm into the spirit of the charade.

'You have no rouge or lipstick?' he asked the purser, but the purser had none and Jones had to make do for cosmetics with a stick of Remington pre-shave powder. It gave him, above the black Vollendam skirt and the spangled Spanish blouse, a look of lurid pallor. 'At the foot of the gangway,'

he told the purser, 'you must kiss me. It will help to hide my face.'

'Why not kiss Mr Brown?' the purser asked.

'He's taking me home. It wouldn't be natural. You have to imagine that we've passed quite an evening together, all three of us.'

'What kind of an evening?'

'An evening of riotous abandonment,' Jones said.

'Can you manage your skirt?' I asked.

'Of course, old man.' He added mysteriously. 'This is not the first time. Under very different circumstances, of course.'

He went down the gangway on my arm. The skirts were so long that he had to gather them in one hand like a Victorian lady picking her way across a muddy street. The ship's sentry stared at us agape: he hadn't known there was a woman aboard, and such a woman, too. Jones, as he passed the sentry, gave him an appraising and provocative glance from his brown eyes. I noticed how fine and bold they looked now below his shawl; they had been killed by the moustache. At the foot of the gangway he embraced the purser and left him smudged on both cheeks with pre-shave powder. The policeman watched us with dulled curiosity - it was obvious that Jones was not the first woman to leave the boat in the early hours, and he could hardly have appealed to any man acquainted with the girls at Mère Catherine's. We walked slowly arm in arm to the place where I had left my car.

'You're holding your skirt too high,' I warned him.

'I was never a modest woman, old man.'

'I

mean

the

flic can see your shoes.'

'Not in the dark.'

I would never have believed our escape could prove so easy. No footsteps followed us, the car was there, unwatched, peace and Columbus reigned over the night. I sat and thought while Jones arranged his skirts. He said, 'I played Boadicea once. In a skit. To amuse the fellows. I had royalty in the audience.'

'Royalty?'

'Lord Mountbatten. Those were the days. Would you mind lifting your left leg? My skirt's caught.'

'Where do we go from here?' I said.

'Search me. The man I wrote the introduction to, he's dossing down in the Venezuelan Embassy.'

'It's the most heavily guarded of the lot. They have half the general staff there.'

'I'd be quite satisfied with something more modest.'

'Perhaps you wouldn't be taken in. You aren't exactly a political refugee, are you?'

'Doesn't deceiving Papa Doc count as resistance?'

'Perhaps you wouldn't be welcome as a permanent guest. Have you thought of that?'

'They'd hardly push me out, would they, if I were once safely in?'

'I think one or two of them might even do that.'

I started the engine, and we began to drive slowly back into the town. I didn't wish to give the impression of flight. I watched before every turn for the light of another car, but Port-au-Prince was as empty as a cemetery.

'Where are you taking me?'

'To the only place I can think of. The ambassador's away.'

I felt relief as we mounted the hill. There would be no road-block on this side of the familiar turning. At the gates a policeman looked briefly into the car. He knew my face and Jones passed easily enough for a woman when the dashboard-light was out. Obviously there had not yet been a general alarm - Jones was only a criminal; he was not a patriot. They had probably warned the road-blocks and put some Tontons Macoute around the British Embassy. With the Medea covered and probably my hotel, too, they must think they had him cornered.

I told Jones to stay in the car and I rang the bell. Somebody was awake, for I could see a light burning in a window on the ground floor. Yet I had to ring twice, and I waited with impatience as heavy steps came from a long way back inside, ponderous and unhurried. A dog yapped and whined - I was puzzled by the noise, for I had never seen a dog in the house. Then a voice - I supposed that it was the night-porter's - asked who was there. I said, 'I want Señora Pineda. Tell her it is Monsieur Brown. Something urgent.'

The door was unlocked, unbolted and then unchained, but the man who threw it open was not the porter. The ambassador himself stood there, peering myopically. He was in his shirtsleeves, and he wore no tie: I had never before seen him less than immaculate. Beside him, on guard, was a horrible miniature dog, all long grey hair, the shape of a centipede. 'You want my wife?' he said. 'She is asleep.' Seeing his tired and wounded eyes, I thought: He knows, he knows everything.