So Disdained (29 page)

"Peter, dear," she said, "you're hurt. They told us outside."

The man that she had brought with her was already talking rapidly to Fazzini in Italian that had a very English ring to it, helped out with frequent gesture and a word or two of French. He was speaking to them most energetically and with more confidence than accuracy, but it did the trick. They understood what he was saying all right.

"Who's that?" I asked.

She bent towards me, and spoke quietly in order that we shouldn't interrupt their business. "His name's Captain Stenning," she said. "Directly you left this morning, Kitter and I drove up to London. I've got a passport, you see, so I didn't have to wait for that. I simply couldn't just sit there in Under and wait till I heard from you, Peter."

I smiled at her. "You mean you flew out?"

"Mm. I went to Imperial Airways, and they got me a special machine from the Rawdon Company, and we left Croydon at about ten o'clock. Captain Stenning was the pilot they sent with it. We had to stop at Paris for petrol, and directly that was done we went on again, but we could only fly as far as Nice. I had a little talk with him at Le Bourget when he wasn't cursing the French mechanics. And I asked him if he knew Lenden, and he knows him quite well. And then at Nice I told him all about it, and he offered to come on with me and see it
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through, if I'd let him. I was all alone, and I thought it'd be a good thing, and so we left the aeroplane with the people there, and came on by car."

She glanced across at him. He was still talking nineteen to the dozen to Fazzini, but there was a humorous set to his hard face, and Ribotto was laughing quietly. "He's frightfully rough," she said, and smiled. "He was swearing most dreadfully all the time we were at Le Bourget, but we got through the Customs and the machine filled up and all in twenty minutes from the time we landed till we were in the air again. And in all that hurry, he got me a cup of tea and a lunch basket. It was just the same at Nice. He's a lovely man when you're in a hurry."

She bent over me. "What's the damage, Peter?" she inquired. "This arm looks all funny."

I pressed her gently back. "You're requested not to handle this exhibit," I replied. "That shoulder's where it hadn't ought to be, and I've bust some fingers. Bad for the piano, I'm afraid."

She slipped off the table. "Peter," she said, "I'm going to get you a doctor."

I stopped her. "No you're not," I said. "We've got to get this thing straightened out before anyone starts mucking me about."

I raised my head. "Captain Stenning."

He broke off his conversation, and swung round on me.

"Glad to see you," I said. "Can you make out what's the matter with these blokes? I've been trying all I'm fit to get them to go and have a look at the Casa Alba. They agree it ought to be done, but I can't shift them."

He laughed sharply. "That's just what I'm coming to. It's the smuggling, I think," he said curtly. "All the frontier towns live on it, these days." He turned again to Fazzini and began rallying him in Italian with a torrent of words and gestures. The Italian replied with a shy smile. Already these two were good friends.

And presently they came to some agreement. Fazzini and one of the others left the room together, and the man called
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Stenning came lounging over to my table and sat down on it casually, swinging one leg. "Well, Fats is all right now," he said casually. "He's going to raid the house for us."

He stared down at me, and at my arm extended on the table. "You look as if you're suffering from impact. Miss Darle here tells me that you came out on one of the Breguet Nineteens. You want to be careful with that chassis. D'you tip her up on the ground?"

I laughed ruefully. "No," I said. "I spun into the deck."

He stared at me. "From what height?"

"About three hundred feet."

"Christ," he said succinctly. "Might have bust your ruddy neck, cart-assing about like that." He was staring at the hump of my coat. "D'you mean to tell me that's your shoulder sticking up like that?"

"I expect so," I replied.

He swung his leg off the table. "We'd better put that back, for a start," he said. "Can't leave the ruddy thing like that all night."

I didn't move. "We'll get along a doctor in a minute or two," I said. "What's happening about this raid?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and got back on to the table. "As you like. None of the Dago doctors I've had anything to do with could bring a kitten into the world without an accident. But have it your own way."

I hadn't thought of that. First-class medical attention in Lanaldo was a good bit to hope for.

Sheila moved forward. I think—and hope—that Stenning had forgotten that she was there while he was talking to me. "Can you put it back?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders again. "I can't say till I've had a look. It may be too much swelled up. Probably is, after this time. I'll soon tell you whether I can or not—and if I can't, I'm damned if I'd let any doctor here muck about with it. Better leave it like it is till you can get it seen to properly."

There was a pause. He had said all that he was going to upon that subject, and it sounded good sense to me.

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"Ever done it before?" I asked.

He blew a long cloud of smoke. "Lord, yes. Shoulder—twice, no, three times. I play rugger for the 'Quins. But lacrosse is the game for that."

I glanced at Sheila and saw her nod to me, ever so slightly. "You'd better have a cut at it," I said. "But let's get this other thing squared up first. What's happening? Where's Fazzini gone off to?"

Stenning lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one, and offered the case to me. I refused. "Fats is all right," he said. "He's a two-fisted he-man."

"I know," said Sheila dryly. "I heard you tell him so, in Italian. He's gone to telephone, hasn't he?"

Stenning spat a shred of tobacco from his lip. "He's not allowed to go messing about like that on his own," he said. "He's gone to telephone to his boss in San Remo. This is an international affair. But you'll find he's a stout lad, that. He's all for it now."

"What was the trouble before you came?" I asked. "You said something about smuggling."

Stenning laughed shortly. "This town lives on running things across the border," he said. "It's the local industry. Take that away from them, and you put the whole ruddy place on the dole. Well, this Casa Alba of yours is a sort of agency for them, from what I could make out. Fixes the freights and all that. They've got everyone in the district squared to shut their mouths, and paying damn good money. I tell you, these lads don't like the idea of raiding that house one little bit."

I could see it clearly now. "Lenden told me that they ran the smuggling as a blind," I muttered. "Of course."

"That's right," said Stenning. "And a damn good blind too. It's kept everyone here as quiet as a mouse about what goes on in that house, for God knows how many years. Not that they didn't smell a rat now and again. Old Fats there, it wasn't any news to him that they were Russians. But they could shut their eyes to it. And now you've come along and put them in the cart properly over it."

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I thought about it for a minute. "What's made them change their minds? Why don't they just shove us all down the sink and forget about us?"

He flicked the ash from his cigarette. "Because they're Dagoes," he said sharply. "North Italians, and a ruddy good crowd with a sense of responsibility and a sense of humour. I tell you—if we'd been five miles the other side of the border in a French village and told them to go and raid a place like that, we would have been down the sink and no mistake. But this lot, you can jolly them along and make them see the joke of it."

He eyed me seriously for a minute. "You'd better get up on your hind legs and say the kind word to Fats when he comes back," he said. "I've said it already, but it'd look well coming from you. They're going to halve the income of the town by this raid—pretty well. And all old Fats said about it was——" he shot off a phrase of Italian, thought for a minute, and translated—"That it's a bloody shame, but it can't be helped."

He thought for a minute. "Give me the Dagoes," he said quietly. "These North Italians, anyway." He chucked the stump of his cigarette out of the window and turned to me. "Let's have a look at that shoulder of yours while we're waiting," he said. "Fats may be some time."

I don't know where that man picked up his medical skill. He was the son of a most tragic marriage between a Naval officer and a chorus girl, I believe. Later in the evening he told me something of his life; he had been a chauffeur before the war. The beginning of the war found him building cycle-cars—the Stenning-Reilly car—in a lean-to shed at Islington. He enlisted, and in 1916 he was commissioned into the R.F.C. I might have met him, because when we came to compare notes I found that his squadron was only twenty miles down the line from my own, but I can't say that I remember him. There were so many of that type. He had been a civil pilot since the war, and knew Lenden well.

He took off his coat before starting on me: I remember
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noticing the Froth-blower cuff-links that he was wearing. And then he set my shoulder like a professional. The worst part of it was getting the clothes off, because we didn't want to cut them more than necessary. He had a very sure and gentle touch, that chap. I think that may have been the effect of his manual profession; I only know that the worst of my twinges came from Sheila when she was assisting him. I know that's a rotten thing to say, but it is true. He had the surest hands of anyone I've ever met.

We got the shoulder opened up at last, and he made a very careful examination, prodding the swellings with those sure fingers. In the end he stood up. "Ruddy good job you've kept it still," he muttered. "That'll go back all right."

He spoke for several minutes to the clerk and to Ribotto in mixed Italian and English. He wanted the chemist and not the doctor, but he'd forgotten the word for chemist and Ribotto had forgotten what chemist meant. That got cleared up at last, and the clerk was despatched across the square with a message.

Then he set to work to put my shoulder back. The first shot failed, and I was very nearly sick on the table. The second time it went all right. By the time I had stopped seeing whorls and spots the shoulder was back in place all right, and I could move it a very little.

After that we started on the fingers. Stenning wasn't satisfied with the splints that the chemist brought with his bandages. By a torrent of Italian and pantomime he got what he wanted in an incredibly short time—a pair of tinsmith's shears and a biscuit tin. Out of that he set to work to fashion three little troughs of tin for each finger to lie in on a bed of cotton-wool. After that exhibition I was content to let him set them for me, and they stayed like that until I reached London.

Fazzini came back as we were finishing those, and began talking to Stenning in Italian. They spoke together for a few minutes, and then Stenning turned to me.

"He says his boss is coming over from San Remo for this show," he said. "They reckon to start at about five o'clock in the morning and get to the place at dawn."

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I moved uneasily at the table. "I don't see that. Why can't they start before?"

Stenning turned to Fazzini with the question. The Italian hesitated, lowered his voice, and the talk became confidential. Finally Stenning burst out laughing and clapped the Italian on the shoulder; the other smiled his slow, shy smile. Stenning turned to me.

"This is what it is," he said. "The fellow who's coming from San Remo—Fazzini's boss—he isn't in on this smuggling. I reckon he's outside the radius of the people they bribe. He never touches a bean of what these lads get, and he doesn't know about it. Old Fats here has a party out on the border tonight, and they'll be making for the Casa with their stuff. He wants to give them time to get clear away before the Field-Marshal arrives from San Remo. That's why he's fixed his raid for five o'clock."

It was then about eleven. "I suppose it's all right," I said. "What if they start skipping in the meantime?"

Stenning nodded. "I thought of that—and so did Fats. He's put a guard on the road to Ventimiglia, and he'll hold up any car from the Casa. I don't see how Lenden can get away from there except by road, and that's the only road."

He paused. "I think it's all right," he said, and I agreed.

We got most of my clothes on to me again, and lashed the arm up stiffly with a sling. Then we all went across the square in the bright moonlight to the Ristorante delle Monte and had a meal with Ribotto. I managed to eat a little and to drink quite a lot; so that by the time that meal was over it was midnight and I was more or less myself again. That was the brandy, of course. I had a bad time of it when that wore off, but for the next twelve hours I was very little troubled by my injuries.

There was no talk of going to bed. We made Sheila comfortable before the stove in an English wicker chair, and covered her over with a rug. I think she slept a good deal. Stenning and I sat upon rather a hard sofa before the stove, smoking and drinking, and talking together drowsily. It was then that he
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told me something of the experiences of his varied life. Nothing that he told me lessened the respect that I had formed for him, from the account of his month's imprisonment for being "drunk in charge" to the almost incredible story which culminated in his marriage.

Ribotto was up and about at three in the morning, and we had a sort of breakfast. He went out into the back premises and fried up a dish of veal and sausages, helping it out with spaghetti. I roused Sheila, and when we had had a little walk around the square to get an appetite we settled down to it.

That meal was never finished. There was a commotion in the square, and Fazzini appeared in the doorway. He spoke rapidly to Stenning for a minute or two, and disappeared. Stenning turned to me.