"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
waters. That the liquor had not been placed in bond was understandable
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,