The White Schooner by Antony Trew Page A

showed them his bruises. He had, he said, come to Rafah by way of Cyprus and Port Said, and had only been in Port Said because business had taken him there, not for any love of the Egyptians. As to the precise nature of that business he had been equivocal, until Black had worn him down with threats of violence. Threats of which, in normal times, the Englishman would have been ashamed but which, in those circumstances, at that time, in the heat and clamour of war, he supposed he might well have carried out. One never knew. But Hassan had broken then, admitted that he was a dealer in currency and hasheesh—a spiv to be explicit —and it was that which had brought him there, and taken him to Cyprus and Port Said.
    In that long hot hour of interrogation Black had become almost resentfully aware of a growing pity for the man who stood before him, frightened, helpless, and alone. Indeed, towards the end, he had even been conscious of a sort of kinship, as if each was wistfully aware that in other circumstances they might have been friends, that the confrontation was a product of forces which had not been of their seeking. But he had fought down these feelings and when soon after midnight forward elements of the infantry had driven into Rafah with the tanks, Black had handed the Arab over to an officer in military intelligence—and that was the last he had seen of him, or indeed even thought of him, until a few minutes ago outside Anselmo’s.
    And so his thoughts came back to the present—Ahmed ben Hassan in Ibiza. For Christ’s sake! Just as he could never forget the man’s face, he had no doubt Hassan could never forget his. He thanked his stars that he now wore a beard and decided that as from that moment he would never fail to wear his dark glasses. But if he were to meet Hassan face to face, to be in his company for even a few minutes, he had no doubt he would be recognised—a voice was something which could not be disguised, and a voice that had for more than an hour interrogated you, threatened you with torture and death—and all less than twelve months before—was not one that was likely to be forgotten.
     
    Black got back to his room that night in a state of exhaustion brought on by the physical energy he’d expended in shadowing Ahmed ben Hassan through most of the day, and the nervous strain which this new and unexpected complication had engendered . But at least the shadowing had paid useful dividends.
    He had followed him down to a pension, Vista Mari, on the Figueretes side of Los Molinos and then, after a long afternoon during which the Lebanese had not emerged—and when Black was about to leave in the belief that his quarry must have gone out through a back door—he had seen Hassan come out. He had changed into blue cotton slacks and a T-shirt, and a bathing towel hung round his neck. Keeping well behind, Black had followed him up over Los Molinos and down past the military hospital. From a safe distance he had watched Hassan go to the end of the rocks where he had divested himself of the T-shirt and slacks, to reveal a powerfulmuscular body clad in bathing trunks. The Arab had then pulled on a white rubber skullcap and dived into the sea.
    He was a strong swimmer and with long powerful strokes and rhythmically beating feet, he had set out for the big rock which stood out massively several hundred yards from the shore. There was a strongish breeze from the north-east and Black could not help admiring how Hassan headed boldly into wind and sea with what seemed little effort.
    The Englishman shivered. The sun was low in the sky and the wind cold. There were no other swimmers and he was not surprised, it was too late in the afternoon and too early in the year. When he judged that Hassan was half-way towards the big rock, Black went on down the slope to the kiosk. He greeted the Ibizencan bar-tender, who was packing up for the night, and ordered a coñac.
    ‘He must be tough,’ he said to the Ibizencan,