Fourteen

 

‘Perhaps he was right,’ Edward said, staring through the window at the untidy East Aghieri Quay. There was an old tug which hadn’t moved for years, green slime hanging on her mooring ropes, a sagging lifeboat from a sunken ship which was half full of water, launches with peeling paint, pinnaces with drab unpolished brass funnels. ‘Perhaps we should find somewhere better.’

‘It wouldn’t make a better boat,’ said Sam.

A week passed and they heard nothing. Edward was composing a letter to Uncle Egg, explaining their failure, when a young man wearing an ear-biting high collar appeared in the doorway. He removed his hat to show a parting top dead centre as if it had been cut with a knife.

‘Bassani, Andolfo,’ he said. ‘At your service, Signori. From Avvocato Ferignani. Will you please call on him as soon as possible?’

Ferignani had Edward shown to his office immediately he arrived. He produced papers and what looked suspiciously like a bank draft.

‘You have sold your boat, Signor Bordillone,’ he beamed. ‘Signor Matscheck was most impressed.’

 

After the initial euphoria had worn off, Sam and Edward were sad to see the Bourdillon go. They cradled the boat and saw her lifted by slings to the deck of a coaster heading for Brindisi and then up the Adriatic to Venice. Ferignani had made enquiries but couldn’t find out who wanted it.

For the first time Edward began to grow suspicious. The British newspapers were full of the growing jealousy of the German Kaiser for the British fleet. ‘If the Germans have got the Bourdillon, there’s nothing to stop them copying it.’

It was a chastening thought.

‘There’s nothing to stop the Austrians taking her from Venice,’ Edward went on. ‘There’s nothing even to stop a German ship picking her up and taking her round to Hamburg or Kiel.’

‘So now we’ve got a torpedo and launching gear and no boat,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s go and celebrate.’

Sam dressed for the occasion in a suit pressed by Mamma della Strada with a stiff collar so tall it made his eyes bulge. They invited the whole della Strada family to join them at a restaurant near the Castel Sant’ Angelo, but Mamma della Strada had enough sense to refuse and simply allowed her two daughters, Rosina and Teresa, to go.

‘They chaperone each other,’ she said with mock severity.

After supper, they all went dancing. The dances were old-fashioned and the music was provided by accordions, guitars, mandolins and violins. For a while, Edward was swept away with the noise, the crush and the nearness of the girl in his arms. They danced till they dropped, then wandered home, careful not to keep the sisters out too late.

‘If you ask me,’ said Sam later, ‘you should be taking yourself back to England, and having a word with your uncle. We’re going to need a couple more boats out here at least – and not fitted for paraffin either. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.’ Sam grinned. ‘But I can’t make up my mind. Should it be Rosina or Teresa?’

 

It was as though he had never been away. Uncle Egg was bubbling with enthusiasm and talk of bonuses, and the Vicar and his family were coming round that evening. Augusta was away at school, but with them came a tall young man with cold eyes and a lock of dark hair that drooped romantically over one eye.

‘My curate,’ the Vicar said. ‘Alexander Owen-Smith.’

‘He’s a nephew of Lord Howhill,’ the Vicar’s wife whispered. ‘He’s also related to nobility in Germany. His full name’s Von Rauche Owen-Smith.’

Edward took an instinctive dislike to him. He never took his eyes off Gerogina, and when she played the piano and sang he stood by her to turn the pages.

‘Give us a song, Alexander,’ the Vicar’s wife suggested.

Owen-Smith feigned modesty but he sang. He started off with Beethoven’s lullaby – ‘Guten Abend, gut Nacht, mit Röslein bedacht–’ and for an encore sang a ditty which Edward had learned from the German bosun of the Culloden with very vulgar variations. He had a light tenor voice and Edward, who couldn’t tell a tune from a warthog, seethed with jealousy.

But a moment later Georgina was at his side, all smiles. Was Aunt Edith still encouraging the Vicar’s wife to think that Georgina and he were made for each other?

Georgina was peaches and cream, all an English girl should be, but suddenly seemed a pale shadow alongside Rafaela.

‘When are you coming home?’ she asked.

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’m setting up an office in Naples.’

‘All those foreigners. I couldn’t bear it!’

‘They’re not savages.’

‘But actually living there.’

‘It’s where my work is. It might be a long time before I come home for good.’

He saw her face tighten. That’s torn it, he thought. But then the curate oiled in, and Edward was ignored by both of them for the rest of the evening.

 

Edward spent three weeks supervising the fitting out of Aeneas and a third boat they christened Achates.

‘Something to show you, my boy,’ said Egg one morning, taking Edward into the workshop. He pulled away a huge sheet to reveal the mock-up of a slender 50-foot-long boat with a stepped flat-bottomed hull.

‘What do you think?’ Egg said. ‘Hydroplane design. They’ve been forced on us by the interest in motor-boat racing in Monaco. Petrol engines made it possible. Just imagine what they could do in wartime.’

‘Can I take one to Italy?’ said Edward eagerly.

‘Not yet. She’s too light forrard. I haven’t got it right and the water’s lifting the bow too high. But you’ll have it soon, I promise.’

Itching to be off, Edward made some last-minute arrangements with the office, and stopped for a brief chat with Sam’s old girl friend, Alice Appleby, who was still tapping away at her old typewriter. Maurice, charming as ever, didn’t bother to say goodbye.

‘It’s all down here,’ he said irritably, shaking a piece of paper in Edward’s face. ‘Your bloody boats will be on their way within a month.’

Crossing the Channel in a freezing gale. Edward found himself looking forward to the warmer climes of the Mediterranean. Sam was there to meet him. He had acquired a small van with a box body for moving spares.

‘Didn’t take long to learn to drive it,’ he said. ‘I only ran over a few pedestrians.’ He chuckled. ‘And we’ve had a couple more enquiries. One from that feller on Lake Maggiore again, and one from the navy. The Maggiore one sounds like it might come off this time. The navy one’s only a query. Ferignani’s in touch. He’s a good bloke that. I took him fishing the other day in the towing launch. He’s on our side all right. I’ve also found another workshop in West Aghieri Quay. It’s the place the yachtsmen use. There’s a workshop with everything we need including a private basin, a yard with a good gate and a solid lock. There’s plenty of room for two boats. We are getting two boats?’

Edward grinned. ‘More if we want them.’

‘Did you talk to him about Matschek?’

‘He promised to look into it. But I don’t suppose he will. He’s too busy. But he agreed we ought to know to whom we’re selling in future. Which reminds me, what about the final documentation from Matschek? Has it arrived?’

‘All signed, sealed and delivered, and stamped to within an inch of its life. And you wait, he’s going to love the new place. He’ll be sure to tell all his friends.’

 

Sam was right. The West Aghieri Quay had style, and it couldn’t do any harm to be neighbours with the smart yachts and motor boats of Neapolitan businessmen. It was a very pleasant change after the tumbledown shacks of the East Quay. They hired a cart hauled by two mules, and slung the crates containing Egg’s torpedo and the launching gear aboard. Sam’s truck was stuffed with everything else.

They had barely unloaded when news came that the boats had arrived, and they headed straight for the Bacino Principe. Both boats had been painted yellow because they had decided the varnished hull didn’t encourage second glances from the Italians who liked bright colours.

After they had towed the boats to their new base, the della Strada family turned out to help again, all the way down to Alessandro who at thirteen was now squarely on the payroll for the simple reason that he refused to leave their side.

The paperwork involved was heavy but Rosina, who seemed to have her eye on Sam, offered to help. She worked as a secretary at the railway station and was a dab hand at office work.

They chucked out the old plywood desk that Sam had knocked up, and invested in a solid mahogany job with a leather top. It made Edward feel he wasn’t just pretending to be a businessman.

There was a letter from the man at Lake Maggiore, headed with the name of one of the great Milan engineering firms. There was also a letter from the Admiralty in Rome. Edward started answering letters, offering demonstrations and dates, and it was late evening before Rosina said that her back ached, her head ached, and her fingers were tired of typing.

Sam took his leave very shortly afterwards, and Edward got down to studying the final documentation for the boat they had sold. The papers included the bill of sale, registration papers, importation documents, references to patents, documents about fuel, and plans showing the bulkheads and stringers and the type of propellers. The change of ownership documents were at the bottom and consisted of several parchment-like sheets covered with signatures. Matschek’s name was prominent among them and there were others Edward had never heard of, but not one that indicated any German connection. But at the bottom, tucked away in a corner where they could hardly be seen, were some initials which leapt out at Edward as if they were a jack-in-a-box.

They were scrawled with a broad pen-nib in black ink. Normally he wouldn’t have looked twice, but he had seen these too often to miss them. They were Avvocato Montesi’s, and Avvocato Montesi acted only for Orlandos.