and repeated his last statement. "Lying here it has no value. In
Ethiopia, it is worth fifteen thousand British sovereigns to you. The
choice is yours. Abandon it or get it into Ethiopia."
"I am appalled," said Gareth solemnly, as he paced back and forth.
"I mean, after all the fellow is an old Etonian.
God, I can hardly believe that he would welsh on our agreement.
It's absolutely frightful. I mean, I trusted him." Jake was sprawled
on the couch in Madame Cecile's private room. He had shed his
dinner-jacket, and perched on his knee there was a plump young lady
with a cap of brassy blonde hair. She was dressed in a flimsy daffodil
coloured dress, the skirts of which had pulled up to show bright blue
garters around her ripe thighs. Jake was weighing one of her ample
breasts in his hand with all the concentration of a housewife choosing
tomatoes from a greengrocers tray. The girl giggled and wriggled
provocatively into his lap.
"Damn it, Jake, listen to me. "I am listening," said Jake.
"The man was positively insulting," protested Gareth, and then seemed
for a moment to lose his concentration as Jake's companion unbuttoned
the bodice of her wispy dress.
"By Jove, Jake, they are rather delicious, what?" and they both
regarded the display with interest.
"You've got your own, "Jake muttered.
"You're right," agreed Gareth, and turned to the junoesque female who
waited patiently for him on the other couch.
Her glossy black hair was piled upon her head in an elaborate nest of
curls and plaits, and she had large, intense, toffee-coloured eyes in a
face whose paleness was emphasized by the vividly painted crimson lips.
She pouted at Gareth, and draped one arm languidly around his
shoulders.
"Are you sure neither of them understands English?" Gareth called,
as he entered into the practised embrace of the white arms.
"Portuguese, both of them," Jake assured him. "But you'd better test
them."
"Very well." Gareth thought a moment. "Girls, I must warn you that we
aren't paying for your company not a penny. This is for love alone."
Neither of their expressions changed, and the enfolding movements of
sinuous limbs continued without pause.
"That settles it," Gareth opined. "We can talk."
"At a time like this?"
"We've only got until morning to decide what we are going to do." Jake
made a muffled remark and Gareth admonished him, "I can't hear a
word."
"That gullible old Ethiop of yours has us over a barrel"
repeated Jake with sardonic relish. Before he could reply, vivid
lips,
pouting and red as ripened fruit, closed over Gareth's. There was
silence for a while until Gareth wrested himself loose and his head
popped up mustache in disarray and stained with lipstick.
"Jake, what the hell are we going to do?" And Jake told him in
nautical language which left no room for misunderstanding precisely
what he was about to do.
"don't mean that, I mean what are we going to tell old Toffee tomorrow?
Are we going to deliver the goods?" Gareth's companion reached up,
took him in a head lock and drew his mouth down again.
"Jake, for God's sake, concentrate on the problem," he pleaded as he
was engulfed.
"I am, I am!" Jake assured him, rolling his eyes sideways to meet
Gareth's, but without interrupting his efforts with the plump blonde.
"How the hell do we get four armoured cars ashore on a hostile coast,
just for a start then how do we run them two hundred miles to the
Ethiopian border?" Gareth lamented, speaking out of the unemployed
corner of his mouth, and then something caught his attention. He
pulled free and raised himself on one elbow. "I say, your companion
isn't a blonde after all. Extraordinary." Jake glanced sideways and
grinned.
"And yours seems to be Scottish she's wearing a sporran, by God."
"Jake, we've got to make a decision. Do we go or don't we?"
"Action first, decisions later. Let's engage the targets."
"Right," Gareth agreed, realizing the futility of discussion at this
moment. "Driver advance."
"Gunner. Traverse right. Steady. On. Independent rapid fire."
"Shoot!" cried Gareth, and the conversation languished.
It was half an hour before it was resumed, with the two of them in
shirt sleeves, braces dangling and black ties discarded, poring over a
large-scale map of the East African coast that Madame Cecile had
produced.
"There's a thousand miles of unguarded coast line." Gareth traced the
great horn of Africa in the light of the Petromax lamp and then ran his
finger inland. "And this is marked as semi-desert all the way to the
border. We aren't likely to run into a crowd."
"It's a hell of a way to make a living, "said Jake.
"Are we going then?" Gareth looked up.
"You know we are."
"Yes," Gareth laughed. "I know we are.
Fifteen thousand sovereigns say we have to." ij Mikhael received their
decision with a curt nod and then asked, "Have you planned yet how you
will accomplish this task? Perhaps I can be of assistance, I know the
coast well and most of the routes to the interior." He gestured for
one of his advisers to spread a map upon the stateroom table. Jake ran
his finger across it, as he spoke.
