"MacLean, Alistair - The Golden Rendezvous" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)that we treat all passengers with courtesy, consideration, and respect."
and self-respect made me resent the young and unmarried female passengers who regarded me as a source of idle amusement for their all too many idle hours; particularly was this true with rich young idle females -and it was common knowledge that Julius A. Beresford required the full-time services of a whole corps of accountants just to tot up his annual profits. "Especially with respect, Miss Beresford," I finished. "You're hopeless." she laughed. I was too tiny a pebble to cause even a ripple in her smiling pool of complacency. "And no lunch, you poor man. I thought you were looking pretty glum as I came along." she glanced at the winch driver, then at the seamen manhandling the suspended crate into position on the floor of the hold. "Your men don't seem too pleased at the prospect either. They are a morose looking lot." I eyed them briefly. They were a morose-looking lot. "Oh, they'll be spelled for food all right. It's just that they have their own private worries. It must be about a hundred and ten down in that hold there, and it's an almost unwritten law that white crews should not work in the afternoons m the tropics. Besides, they're all still brooding darkly over the losses they've suffered. Don't forget that it's less than seventy-two hours since they had that brush with the customs down in Jamaica." brush, I thought, was good: in what might very accurately be described as one fell swoop the customs had confiscated from about forty crew members no fewer than twenty-five thousand cigarettes and over two hundred bottles of hard liquor that should have been placed on the ship's bond before arrival in Jamaican enough as the crew were expressly forbidden to have any in their quarters in the first place; that not even the cigarettes had been placed in bond had been due to the crew's intention of following their customary practice of smuggling both liquor and tobacco ashore and disposing of them at a handsome profit to Jamaicans more than willing to pay a high price for the luxury of duty-free Kentucky bourbon and American cigarettes. But then, the crew had not been to know that, for the first time in its five years' service on the west indian run, the S.S. Campari was to be searched from stem to stern with a thorough ruthlessness that spared nothing that came in its path, a high and searching wind that swept the ship clean as a whistle. It had been a black day. And so was this. Even as Miss Beresford was patting me consolingly on the arm and murmuring a few farewell words of sympathy which didn't go any too well with the twinkle in her eyes, I caught sight of captain Bullen perched on top of the companionway leading down from the main deck. "Glowering" would probably be the most apt term to describe the expression on his face. As he came down the companionway and passed Miss Beresford he made a heroic effort to twist his features into the semblance of a smile and managed to hold it for all of two seconds until he had passed her by, then got back to his glowering again. For a man who is dressed in gleaming whites from top to toe to give the impression of a black approaching thundercloud is no small feat, but captain Bullen managed it without any trouble. He was a big man, six feet two and very heavily built, with sandy hair and eyebrows, |
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