5

“Martha, I don’t see why this is so bloody important. You, know Chelsea’s playing West Ham tonight.”

“Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice,” snapped the woman. “We’ve already settled it. I know very well it’s your telly night. But the doctor says he doesn’t have much longer. And he specially asked you to come over tonight. God knows why, you’ve been rude enough to him over the years. I shouldn’t think he’d want to see you under any circumstances. But you ought to at least show him some respect now.”

“For God’s sake, don’t go on about it. I said I would go, didn’t I? Even if he is dying, what could be so important? We all gotta go sometime, don’t we?” His voice cracked into a noticeable cockney accent when he became irritated, revealing a trace of the past he had worked hard to overcome. The argument with his wife about missing a televised football match to visit his drunken brother-in-law aggravated him. He was irritated partially because he would miss the match, but even more so because he knew she was right. He had been rude to Jimmy frequently over the years. In fact, there were a few times when the rudeness had bordered on outright cruelty. But he couldn’t help it. The man was a no-good drunk. He couldn’t even hold the most simple job. How many times had Jimmy touched him for a fiver with the promise he would pay it back? The story was always the same. He needed the money to help land a job. The cheatin’ old sot. He just needed more funds to pay his pub bills.

“Well, come on, Alfred. We ain’t got all night. They’ll be waitin’.”

Yes, Jimmy would be waiting with his long-suffering wife, Maggie. She was the only decent one of the lot. Having put up with Jimmy all these years practically qualified her for martyrdom. She had worked bleeding hard, scrubbing floors for some lord or other and later working as a sales clerk at Marks and Spencer to hold the family together. To send their son to school. To pay Jimmy’s bills. What had she got out of it? More complaining, more drinking, and more trouble. She’d be better off when Jimmy croaked. “Hold your knickers on,” he said. “I’m coming.”

The new year was only a week old, and Martha packed a Christmas pudding to take along as a present. They had visited the Waddells only once over the holidays, a disastrous encounter on Christmas Day that broke up early when Jimmy fell into a coughing fit and began shouting about the Japanese. When he was drunk, he often ranted about the nips. Maggie began crying, and in disgust Alfred insisted they leave. As he had done so many times before, he vowed it was his last visit.

The January night was sharply cold. Alfred pulled his coat and scarf tightly around him, trying to hold in as much warmth as possible. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. Unfriendly winds cut through him much easier these days. In addition, arthritis was creeping steadily through his legs and back, making it harder for him to get around. He was most uncomfortable. He and Martha waited disagreeably in the biting night air nearly fifteen minutes for a 97 bus to pick them up for the four-and-a-half-mile journey to the depressing row of Victorian cottages, the government-subsidized council housing where Jimmy Waddell had lived since returning from the war. Neither Alfred nor Martha said much. In fact, neither of them really looked forward to the evening. Although Jimmy was the only living relative on her side of the family, his drunkenness had always made things difficult. Alfred, who by hard work had moved them beyond their simple beginnings, had never been sympathetic. He regarded Jimmy as a layabout, and it had been increasingly awkward to integrate Jimmy and his family into their lives. Visits over the years became less and less frequent.

Alfred, his eyes glued on the corner, waiting for the bus to finally appear, tried not to think much about it. Admittedly, Jimmy had had a hard time of it. Nearly four years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp would be enough to unnerve any man. But lots of people suffered in the war and somehow muddled through. Jim Waddell never did. He drifted from one job to another, first as a railway guard, then as a dustman. In between, there were visits to the soldiers’ hospital, where they tried to dry him out and straighten him up. But the drink always got to him and yanked him back down. The jobs vanished, his health and general appearance deteriorated.

Alfred felt he had survived a modern ice age when the red double-decker finally slid around the corner. They rode in silence all the way to Bowers Lane and walked the final five hundred freezing yards to the Waddell house. Like most of the cottages on the block, it was in shabby condition. It looked like years since the trim on the windows and doors had been painted.

Maggie opened the door. “Hullo, Martha,” she said with a woeful smile. The two women embraced. “Hullo, Alfred,” she added, her face straightening. Alfred knew the woman didn’t like him. He couldn’t blame her, really. And strangely, he admired her for it. Years ago, his feelings for her had been a good deal warmer, but the atmosphere around Jimmy had poisoned their relationship. She had not accepted Alfred’s rough treatment of Jimmy. He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter that she didn’t like him. In any case, there was nothing he could do now to change it.

“Hello Maggie,” he answered. She offered a cool cheek for him to peck. They entered the tattered drawing room. Jimmy was seated at one corner in the big worn easy chair wrapped in a blanket. An electric heater glowed nearby.

“Hullo, Martha, Alfred. Come in.” His voice was weaker than usual, and somehow, it seemed to Alfred, more subdued.

“The doc says I ain’t got much time left,” Jimmy said in a surprisingly cheerful way. Maybe he’s looking forward to it, Alfred thought. Everybody’ll be better off, that’s for sure. “Glad you could come. Sorry about the other night. Guess the booze got the best of me again.”

“Ah, forget it,” said Alfred as unconvincingly as he could. He ambled across the room in the direction of Jimmy. His wire-rim glasses had fogged up and he had them off rubbing them back into use with a handkerchief that once had been white.

“Sit down, Alfred. Warm yourself up. Looks really cold out there. Reminds me of that last winter in Japan. It wasn’t really as cold as it is tonight. But we didn’t have much to wear in the camp. There wasn’t much food or anything else to keep us warm. We froze. A lotta the chaps died….” Jimmy’s voice trailed off. “Can I pour you a pint?” he said after a brief pause. “Got nothing else in the place. Maggie had to have a new coat. It’s left us a bit hard up this month.”

“Well, just a pint,” Alfred said, putting his glasses back on. He had promised Martha he would be polite. Besides, every one he put away would be one less for Jimmy to down. He hoped he wouldn’t have to listen to the Japanese bit again tonight, but it looked as if he was in for it.

Across the room, Maggie watched apprehensively as Jimmy emerged weakly from his cocoon to go to the kitchen. Alfred saw how haggard she looked. She had aged remarkably in the past few years. At one time she had been a lovely young woman. On her wedding day to Jimmy he had secretly envied his brother-in-law. But for Maggie the excitement of marrying a young man who went off to war quickly diminished and then disappeared entirely as the dreadful reality of Jimmy’s life engulfed them. During the four long years he was away, she remained loyal, only to find when he returned that she had been waiting for someone else, not the broken man who came back to claim her. At first, she dared to hope it was a temporary disaster that could be overcome. But this time love was not enough. As her hopes gradually dried out, so did her youth and freshness.

Jimmy brought in two large glasses of English bitter, and handing one to Alfred, sank back into his blanket.

“Damn, this house is cold,” he grumbled. “I keep telling Maggie we ought to get one of them gas heaters, but she never gets around to it.”

Alfred, anticipating the ill-heated house would be drafty and cold, had purposely worn a heavy woolen sweater under his jacket, and with the electric heater close to one side, managed to remain fairly comfortable. Only his feet were cool.

“Well, it won’t be much longer anyway,” said Jimmy. He coughed hard. A deep rattle in his chest shook him. The violent cough emphasized his point. “It’s the lungs, they say. The fags done it. But a man’s gotta have some pleasure in life, ay? Without the booze and the fags, it wouldn’t be worth it anyhow.”

Alfred said nothing. The man disgusted him. His teeth were badly decayed. Several were gone entirely. The others hung darkly in his mouth, adding an obnoxious odor to his already foul breath. His skin was blotchy and his eyes dull. They had died long ago. Alfred sipped his bitter and reminded himself for the tenth time he had promised not to be disagreeable.

“Alfred, you and me ain’t been all that close over the years,” said Jimmy suddenly. “I know you been busy with yer shop and yer trips to Spain and all that. And I been ill a lot. I’ve had me ups and downs with the sauce. It ain’t been easy. But there’s something I been meaning to tell you for some time. I just never got around to it before.”

Oh, Christ, thought Alfred. Here comes another bit of nonsense from this bore.

“I’ve told you before about my time in Jap prisons.”

Maybe a hundred times, thought Alfred. Maybe a thousand times. If I have to hear that claptrap again, I may vomit. He took a sip of bitter, not interrupting.

“There’s something that happened before I got to Burma. I been thinking about it for a long time. I always wanted to tell somebody, but it was an official secret. It doesn’t matter now, I don’t think. It was a long time ago, thirty-four years, and besides, there’s not much they could do to me now. They wouldn’t put a dying man in prison, would they?”

Alfred pulled a pouch of tobacco from his jacket pocket along with a package of thin white papers. With experienced moves of the fingers, he skillfully slid one of the papers from the packet, curled it with one finger, and carefully tapped in a small portion of tobacco. With a quick lick of his tongue he created a saliva seal to finish the cigarette. He lit it with a wooden match and listened with increasing interest to the story.

“It was the spring of ’41, right after we left. You remember, we went first to Cairo and then up to Greece. There were several cooks in the brigade, so they made me a lorry driver. It wasn’t bad duty. It was better than being on the front lines, anyway.

“When the Jerries finally attacked, I was driving a lorry with a secret cargo and a coupla officers. They was intelligence types, on some kind of classified mission. Very ’ush-’ush and all that. I was allowed to talk to nobody about it.

“Maggie, a couple more jars of bitter.”

“Jimmy,” she said pleadingly. “You promised the doctor not to overdo it.” Her face was weary. Alfred looked at her again, searching her eyes for traces of the beauty he had once yearned for. It was long gone, drained away by unspeakable burdens.

“Aww, come on, Maggie. We’re only goin’ to have a couple. Not a big piss-up. I promised ya, didn’t I?”

She had caved in so many times before, another time really didn’t matter. Wearily she rose and returned with opened bottles of bitter for the two men, then went back to her conversation with Martha across the room.

“Ahh, that’s it,” said Jimmy, taking a long gulp. “Nectar of the gods, ay?”

Alfred raised his glass in a neutral fashion. “Cheers.”

“So where was I? Oh, yes. We was really suffering from the wet and cold. Anyhow, the major decides we should take this back road. Wasn’t much of a road really, just a dirt track. I knew we couldn’t make it, I kept tellin’ the major, but he wouldn’t listen. He was a bit hardheaded, I remember. We finally got stuck. I knew we would. But sometimes you can’t tell them officers nothing.

“The major was scared stiff. Thought them Jerries was going to get ahold of his secret boxes. You know what?” Jimmy lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Turns out there was gold in ’em. Lots of it. Belonged to some Greek banks or somethin’. Some of the gold was ours to pay the Greeks, the major said. There was five heavy boxes. Must be worth at least a million pounds at today’s prices.”

Alfred said nothing. It was the first time in years Jimmy had something to say he wanted to listen to.

“Anybody who could get ahold of them boxes today would be rich. I think they’re still there where we left ’em.”

“Why do you say that?”

“We was the only ones who knew where they were.”

“But after the war, certainly the army sent a party back to retrieve them. Anything that valuable wouldn’t be left lying around.”

“That’s just it. I don’t think the army knew where to look for ’em. If somebody didn’t know exactly where to look, they’d never find ’em.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you see? They was killed in the war. I heard the major—Coarde was his name—he went on to Libya and got it in the desert against Rommel. The lieutenant, Breckley, was on the same ship as me from Greece. And in the same unit that went to Burma. When the Japs attacked us that night, he was killed. Saw his body just before the Japs got us, had a nasty head wound. Almost didn’t recognize him. Anyhow, with them two officers dead, that gold must still be there. ’Cause I ain’t told nobody about it before tonight. The army never asked me. I guess they forgot about it. There was no way anybody could ever find that gold. Me and the major hid it too well.”

“Do you remember where it was?” Alfred asked cautiously, struggling to conceal his interest.

“Flamin’ right I do. The major drew a map. I watched him do it. Never forgot it. Drew it a hundred times in that blasted prison camp. Kept me sane, it did, gave me something to think on besides those bloody Japs.”

“Do you think you could redraw it now?”

“Already have.”

“What?”

“I got it hidden in my upstairs chest of drawers. Like to see it?”

“Yes, it might be interesting.” Might be interesting, indeed. Alfred could feel his heart beating in his throat.

Waddell got up from the chair and slowly plodded up the stairs. In a few minutes he returned with a brown envelope. He pulled out a large white piece of paper and carefully unfolded it, revealing for the first time to anyone the big secret of his life. Waddell had thought of the treasure many, many times. He had dreamed of going back and digging it up and becoming rich. Buying a nice house for Margaret, maybe buying a pub somewhere in Sussex. Living in the country in style like good folks. But he had been too sick. Too tired. And the major had warned him. Telling anyone would mean jail. He hadn’t wanted any conflict with the law.

There were two rough sketches, both done with pencil. The first showed something that looked like a layer cake.

“That’s what the hill looked like. One level on top of another. Counting down from the top, we put the boxes in the fifth layer down. It was a small cave. Then the major blasted it shut with his grenades. We piled stones on the outside to make it look natural and all. When we was finished, it was like nobody had ever been there.”

“This other map is the location of the hillside?”

“That’s it. This road ran from the main highway between Ptolemais and Kozani.”

Alfred looked at the maps closely. It was hardly a believable story. A million pounds’ worth of gold stashed away in a hillside in northern Greece. Still, there was no reason for Jimmy to make it up, particularly now. Not only that, he wasn’t smart enough to invent a story like this. It had to be true. Vaguely, Alfred remembered hearing a similar tale, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“What are you going to do with the maps, Jimmy?”

“I ain’t got much longer, you can have ’em. I know you got friends who go in for that sort of thing. Maybe they could get it, or maybe you can. I only ask one thing. Share it with Margaret. I ain’t been able to give her much in life, except trouble. I owe her somethin’. If you can find that gold, just make sure she gets a fair share.”

* * *

The coal fires of the Dicken’s era were long cold. But the musty atmosphere, the ambience of old England, was very much alive in the shop, now one of the more established antique and map shops in Mayfair. The sign on the outside said simply “Antiques, prop. J. Alfred Thompson.” A bell jangled each time the door opened, introducing a visitor to a cluttered room filled with valuables and junk of the distant and recent past. On a wooden table by the entrance was a painted wood carving of Saint George slaying the dragon. Around it were wood chests with elaborate brass fittings, brass pots, elegant eighteenth-century rural French andirons, and a number of Ming-dynasty plates. One corner of the room was devoted to sundials, in brass, wood, and even ceramic, all of them well over a hundred years old. At least a half-dozen globes were scattered around the shop, displaying maps made by cartographers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Shuffling around in the shop was a fleshy, spectacled figure with the melancholy of a basset hound, J. Alfred Thompson, dealer in antiques, curios, and old maps in Mayfair for nearly thirty-five years. The lifeless graying hair which once graced the top of his head had shifted with age to the back of his skull, straying carelessly over his collar. He looked so much a part of his coffee tweed suit it would have been difficult to imagine him wearing anything else. He was, after all, himself a fixture, a curio, as much a part of the shop display as anything else in it.

Dealing in antiques, both real and fake, provided Thompson a comfortable living. But his real interest was maps, particularly treasure maps. As a young man he had learned to read and speak Spanish with a workable degree of fluency. This later led to his particular interest in old treasure maps of the pirates and Spanish adventurers. A number of times he had closed shop and gone to Seville on commission from professional hunters in the Caribbean to research documents in the Spanish national maritime archives for traces of long-forgotten galleons that carried treasure and booty.

Thompson was good at this. And reliable. He had a reputation as a meticulous researcher, honest in his dealings with hunters who commissioned him to search Spanish and occasionally English records.

For the past several weeks the map given him by his brother-in-law had been locked in his safe while he tried to decide what to do with it.

Waddell had died only a week after giving Thompson the map. As a result, Thompson never had a chance to talk to him again, to ask the many questions that had formed in his mind since that January night. Was there any chance Coarde made an official report to someone about the gold before he was killed? How much had the boxes weighed? Was he sure no one else knew about the treasure? But above all, if he was sure the gold was there, why hadn’t he gone after it? Was it just that he was afraid?

At the funeral, Maggie said nothing about the maps. She apparently regarded the whole affair as another of Jimmy’s drunken fantasies. Without saying so, she gave the impression she thought the whole business was rubbish. A few tears slid down her face as Jimmy’s casket was lowered into the ground. But Thompson knew she didn’t weep for Jimmy. She wept for herself, for the life that might have been, for a young love that turned stale and then as rotten as Jimmy’s teeth because of the cruel restrictions life imposed on her. Thompson wanted to say something, to comfort her. No, she wouldn’t understand. There was nothing more he could say. It was done.

All that was left of Jimmy was the map. It was hard to decide what to do. Alfred himself was far too old. The arthritis made it impossible for him to go off into the Greek mountains to look for something that might not be there. If someone was to go, it would have to be someone else, someone younger. But that was the problem. Who should go? One evening, sorting through some Caribbean maps, it came to him. He finally recalled the story he had heard several years before, and he suddenly knew who should go to Greece.