Glencannon, page 23
"Thonks, my guid mon," said Mr. Glencannon, recovering himself, "I'm afraid yere suggestion is a little bit irregular, but—weel, as lang as ye're a unifurrmed officer o' the law and promise me to carry it vurra carefully, I dinna suppose anybody will complain."
"Okay, purser," said the policeman, hoisting it to his shoulder. "Glad to do you a favor. You see, I'm starting a little stamp collection, sorter, and I was thinkin'—well, now just take you; you travel around the world a lot, see, and you must get a chance to pick up plenty stamps. Well, what I mean, if I should give you my name and address, I wonder would it be too much trouble to—"
"Bless yere soul, o' course it wudn't!" Mr. Glencannon assured him warmly. "'Twud give me pleasure to send ye stomps from the farthermost corner o' the globe!"
"Well, say, that's fine!" said the cop. "Now look, I'm sorry, but this corner's as far as I can go. Here's my address where you can send the stamps. Good luck, purser!"
Bathed in perspiration, Mr. Glencannon covered the remaining blocks of his journey, staggered aboard the Inchcliffe Castle and reached his room in a state verging on collapse.
"Come, get to work!" he admonished himself. "The sky's pink in the east and ye've no time to lose! Smosh open the box and see if the dom letter's there!"
After a din-filled interval of hammering, the little door swung wide. He shook the box, and from it belched a white cascade of letters. Kneeling, he scrambled among them eagerly. "At last!" he cried, snatching up an envelope addressed to Mrs. Dolly Schwoll, Schwoll's Hand Laundry. "At last! Ah, MacCrummon, MacCrummon! I've saved yere skin this time, m'lad, though ye'll ne'er know it! Whurra, what an ordeal it's been!"
Fanning himself with the precious letter and wondering from which side of the ship to heave the rest of them overboard, his gaze fell upon one with the typewritten address: THE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE, CALCUTTA, BENGAL, INDIA.
He leaned forward and glowered at it suspiciously.
"Ah, ha!" he growled. "Oh, ho! What devil's work is this?"
He picked it up, ripped open the envelope and read:
Sir: On or about July 1st, the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle will arrive at Calcutta. On board will be David MacCrummon, alias Colin Glencannon, wanted by you for assaulting a police sergeant in the Chandernagar Road in 1936 and by the police of Bombay and Madras for bigamy, etc. If you arrest him as soon as he steps ashore, you will find proof of his real identity in a letter he will be intending to post to Mrs. Dolly Schwoll, Schwoll's Hand Laundry, New York.
The present writer asks that in recognition of this service to law and order, you notify Mrs. Schwoll of MacCrummon's arrest. It is, of course, assumed that you will forward MacCrummon's letter to her when it has served its purpose of proving his true identity, and that the source of your information will be considered strictly confidential.
(Signed) A FRIEND OF JUSTICE.
Mr. Glencannon's face was purple and his mustache bristled like a hedgehog. "Foosh!" he shouted. "Foosh! Oh, the ungrate, the back-knifer, the Judas! Oh, the swundling, snooling, tripe-hearted Dunvegan sweer!" He crumpled the traitorous missive into a ball, hurled it to the floor and ground it with a savage heel. As he did so, he spied an envelope upon which was printed THE NEW YORK OFFICES OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR ASTROLOGICAL RESEARCH. Bending over the pile, he found that there were at least two hundred envelopes similarly marked. Tearing one open, he peered within—and stood rooted to his tracks!
Some minutes later the sun, climbing above Manhattan's skyscrapers, shone through the porthole to reveal Mr. Glencannon ankle deep in two-dollar bills, with the tide still rising. He was breathing hard. The nature of his exhalations left no doubt that he was filled with a vital fluid which may or may not have been Prana.
THE HUNTING OF THE HAGGIS
I
Captain Ball smiled paternally as he watched his officers take their places at the supper table, but the smile was a trifle tremulous at the edges. In his throat—he ker-huffed, unresultfully—he could feel that same lump that was always there when he came down the lane to Kozey Kottage after a long voyage and saw Missus B. standing in the doorway beneath the mail-order trumpet vine, which they loved just as much as though it hadn't turned out to be a peculiarly repulsive sort of warty climbing squash. Ten years. Captain Ball was thinking. Yes, tomorrow'll make the tenth Christmas this very same crowd of us has been together in the Inchcliffe Castle. M'm—well, all of us is older now than we was then, but particularly me. Yes, most damned particularly me. He reminded himself that this was only because he'd had a head start of years on the rest of them, but there was scant consolation in the thought.
The steward brought in a covered dish and placed it on the table before him. "Ker-hem!" Captain Ball recalled himself brusquely. "Good evening, gentlemen, good evening!" He shook the crumbs and fragments of the noontime curry from his napkin. "Well, I s'pose we might as well learn the worst!" With the air of a coroner lifting a coffin lid at an overdue exhumation, he uncovered the dish and peered within. "Bwah!" he recoiled. "Curry! Again!" He sat back shuddering, and from the depths of his considerable paunch came murmurs and complaints, like the voices of a rebellious mob heard dimly in the distance. For some seconds he and the company hearkened to this ventriloquial tour de force; then, when the tumult and the shouting died, "Well, there you are, and I won't say 'pardon me'!" Captain Ball spread his hands. "You heard it, gentlemen, you heard my innermost sentiments, and I'm not ashamed to state I stand behind my stomach exactly 100 percent!"
"Bravvio!" applauded Mr. Glencannon, the chief engineer. "Yere spirit o' solidarity does ye proud, sir—e'en though I suspect ye're feeling as hollow as the rest o' us." He dragged the dish toward him, spooned out a heaping portion of curried rice and codfish, and fell to stowing it away in the hatchlike orifice beneath his walrus mustache.
"Hollow?" repeated Captain Ball. "Indeed, Mr. Glencannon, my stomach's as hollow as a cargo of bass drums! But my heart—ah, my heart is full to overflowing, both with joy and sadness!" He paused lamely and smiled that same tremulous smile. "Maybe you'll say I'm a sentimental old fool, gentlemen, but, you see, I was just figuring that this is the eve of our tenth Christmas together. Well, here we ought to be gloating over the bang-up dinner we ought to be having tomorrow and singing carols about good cheer and yew logs and what not and et cetera and so on—instead of which—ker-huff—where are we? Well,"—he turned to the mate—"literally, of course, I s'pose such sticklers for accuracy as you, Mr. Montgomery, would say we was right here in Aden harbor, anchored in five fathoms and a little over, and the chart would back you up. But what I really mean to say is—er—er—well, here it is the tenth anniversary of our happy family, as it were, but instead of looking forward to a fine old feed to celebrate it, our very constitutions is roaring riot and rebellion!"
"Yus!" agreed Mr. Montgomery, sourly, "and orl on account of the curry. Curry, curry, curry, day in, day out, and the nasty stuff is only a sort of lowgrade dandruff they comb out of 'orses anyway! Welp, I wish a very curry Christmas to the rest of yer! Myself, I'll eat my dinner ashore tomorrer or my name's not Chauncey Montgomery!"
"Eh? Ah, now, see here! You don't really mean that, do you?" demanded Captain Ball in dismay. "Oh, come, come, Mr. Montgomery; surely you wouldn't, you couldn't break up our regular Christmas family party on our tenth anniversary, will you? Maybe I'm silly, maybe I'm superstitious, but it's so unusual for the same old crowd to stick together so long in one ship and always get along so free from friction!"
"Per'aps," grunted Mr. Montgomery. "Orl I know is that I've got barnacles on my stomach from the fodder, and blisters on my soul from the friction." He glanced sidewise at Mr. Glencannon, who, from the shelter of his napkin, thumbed his nose in return. "No, captain, I've choked down all the curry and the hinsults I can stand! I'm going ashore tonight, I'm going to arsk Shapiro, the ship chandler, for the name of the least worst 'otel in Aden, and then I'm going to order a dinner for myself for tomorrow. I know I won't get turkey, I 'ope I won't get ptomaine poisoning, but damned if I'll get curry!"
"No, no, of course you won't!" sighed Captain Ball. "I s'pose it was really pretty selfish of me to try to dissuade you. But—ha-ha!—there's no fool like an old fool, eh? H'm'm. Ten years!" He essayed a forkful of the curry, but either it or the lump in his throat choked him, so he gave it up. "Well, let's change the subject and talk about something pleasant! Turkey, you said?" The sounds from within him soared to the wild crescendo of hunger marchers chanting the "International," then died on a gurgle of utter despair. "Ah, turkey! All roasted to a nice, rich tobacco-juice brown, with its abdomen stuffed with chestnuts and sausages and thyme and bread crumbs, like Missus B. always stuffs hers at home—though damme if I can ever remember whether the accent is on the 'ab' or the 'do.' She always makes a lovely, thick gravy out of the giblets."
"Lawks, 'ow delicious! The thought of it fair makes my teeth water!" declared Mr. Montgomery. "If we could only 'ave turkey with giblet gravy tomorrer, even watching Mr. Glencannon eat it couldn't spoil my happetite! But look,"—he pointed through the open doorway toward the black rock mountains which reared above the lights on Steamer Point—"Look! Why, blyme, yer'd find gold coins in the streets o' Glasgow before yer'd find a turkey in Aden!"
"A-weel," said Mr. Glencannon, "oot o' respect for the captain's vurra evident distress at yere decision, I'll owerlook for the moment the crude pairsonal slurs ye've just noo cast at me. And noturally, I willna attempt to dispute the fact that the turkey is a vurra noble and palatable bird. But all the talk o' stoomachs has reminded me that for great ceremoonial occasions—birthdays, bonquets, brawls and e'en such sacred, sentimental gatherings as Captain Ball was plonning for tomorrow—there's another dish fully as deleecious as the turkey. I refair, o' coorse, to the haggis. Noo, look ye, Muster Montgomery; I'll give ye a chonce to be decent for once in yere life, e'en though it sprains ye! If I guarontee to cook up a nice, ploomp haggis for our little party, will ye no' accede to the captain's cherished wishes and eat yere Christmas meal with him and the rest o' us?"
"M'm, well, that depends," said Mr. Montgomery, loftily. "Just wot the 'ell's a 'aggis?"
Mr. Glencannon gazed at him in astonishment mingled with pity. "The haggis," he explained with a spacious gesture, "the haggis, Muster Mate, is the fruit o' a romance o' lang, lang ago, involving the humble pudding and the lordly sossage. It is the culinary triumph o' Scotland, which is to say, o' the entire world! Oh, surely, my puir fellow, e'en in all yere pewling ignorance, ye dinna mean to say ye've ne're thrilled to the deathless lines o' Robert Burns in his Address to a Haggis? Er—
"Great chieftain o' the pudding race,
Aboon them a' ye tak' your place!
His knife see rustic Labour dight
And cut ye up w' ready sleight.
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Lik' any ditch.
And then, oh what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!"
"H'mph, it sounds ruddy nausyeating to me," said Mr. Montgomery. "Besides, leaving out the silly tupenny poetry, you've only 'arf answered the question I arsked yer in the first place—to wit, wot the 'ell's a 'aggis?"
"Yes, yes, tell him!" urged Captain Ball, eagerly. "Explain him the full modus operanda of how you prepare this—er—delicious Highland titbit, Mr. Glencannon!"
Mr. Glencannon squinted a fishy eye at the gnats which swarmed around the polished brass lamp above the table. "Weel, making the haggis is rideeculously sumple," he declared. "Ye merely need a certain amoont o' oatmeal, some onions, and a five-gallon bucket. Er"—he turned to the second engineer—"what else wud ye say was needed for a haggis, Muster MacQuayle?"
"Pepper," said Mr. MacQuayle. "Ye must have plenty of pepper. Losh, I can see my auld Aunty Meg in Killiecrankie making a haggis noo!"
"Oatmeal, onions and pepper—is that orl there is to it?" sneered Mr. Montgomery.
"Weel, proctically," said Mr. Glencannon, placidly filling his pipe, "though in enumerating the ingredients, ye left oot the five-gallon bucket. But once ye've got those four succulent essentials ready at hond, yere haggis is as guid as made. All that remains to do, then, is slaughter an ox, cut his hoofs off, skin him, rip his insides oot and—"
"Not an ox—a sheep!" Mr. MacQuayle objected. "Ye commence by chopping his head off. My Aunty Meg in Killiecrankie always did the job with an auld claymore whuch belanged to my great-grand father, Piper Jaimie McTooth, o' Stronachlachar. He went oot to India with the Argyll and Dumbartons in 1857 and won a bronze medal for getting shot in half at Lucknow. Aunty Meg cud fetch a sheep's head off with that auld claymore in one lock—squirp!—till the rheumatism cromped her style. After that, she'd sneak up on him through the heather and bosh him ower the head with a rock. While the sheep would be laying there groggy, she'd sit hersel' astroddle o' him with a cross-cut saw and—"
Mr. Glencannon frowned and raised a hand for silence. "Pairdon me, Muster MacQuayle," he said, "ox! Ye hong up yere ox and ye let his blud drain into the five-gallon bucket. His stoomach, his liver, his heart and all his heavier machinery ye put carefully to one side where the collies canna snotch them. His other, or auxiliary, mechanism is vurra useful to mak' glue oot of, so ye mustna throw any o' it awa'. Ah, losh, gentlemen"—Mr. Glencannon smacked his lips—"as ye can readily judge for yersels, the haggis is a vurritable feast for the gods!"
Mr. Montgomery shook his fists toward heaven. "But now, see 'ere," he fumed. "Never mind the collies and the glue—it's the 'aggis, the 'aggis I want to know about!"
"Haw, listen to him, captain!" chuckled Mr. Glencannon. "His eagerness betrays his oppetite, and I dinna blame him! Oh, he'll be here with us tomorrow with a fork in each hond, mark my wurrds!" He struck a match, applied it to his pipe and puffed thoughtfully before continuing. "Ye tak' the heart o' yere ox—"
"Sheep," said Mr. MacQuayle.
"Ox! Great swith, Muster MacQuayle, if—"
"Oh, my eye!" snapped Mr. Montgomery. "Get a'ead with it, can't yer?"
"Aye, glodly, if ye'll only stop interrupting! Ye tak' all the parts ye dinna plon to use for glue except the stoomach. Ye hash them up. Ye mix them with yere oatmeal, yere onions and yere pepper. Then ye throw the whole business into the five-gallon bucket, soshing it aroond with a broom hondle or a guid, stoot walking stick until it gives off a scupping sound, lik' when ye wade through the ooze in the bottom o' a dry dock. At this point, if ye care to, ye can add a sprig o' pursely and a few leaves o' rosemary, gently crushed betwixt the finger and the thumb, although discriminating haggis eaters o' the auld school maintain that this detrocts from the soobtile and deelicate flavor o' the whole."
"Ugh! Me, I'd add some disinfectant an 'eave the 'ole mess overboard!" declared Mr. Montgomery. "Yus, gorblyme, and I'd 'eave the bucket arfter it!"
Mr. Glencannon raised his eyebrows. "Muster Montgomery," he said, "pairmit me to obsairve that I think ye're vurra uncouth."
"Yes, shush, shush—softly, Mister Mate," Captain Ball admonished, pacifically. "So far, the haggis is raw, don't you see?... But—ker-hem—I mean to say, how do you cook it, Mr. Glencannon?"
"Ye cook it to a turn, sir," said the engineer. "For that, incidentally, ye must use a fire. But feerst ye pick up the ox's stoomach in yere left hond, grosping it firmly around the waistline, as in the auld-fashioned Viennese waltz. Then, with yere richt, ye stoof it full o' the stoof ye fish oot o' the five gallon bucket.... Do ye check wi' me, Muster MacQuayle?"
"Dom, no by no means!" blurted Mr. MacQuayle. "Ye dinna stoof the stoofing into an ox's stoomach at all; ye stoof it into a sheep's liver! My auld Aunty Meg in Killiecrankie—"
"Foosh to yere auld Aunty Meg in Killiecrankie!" Mr. Glencannon banged on the table and stamped on Mr. Montgomery's foot. "Come, mon, come; dinna let us bicker and quibble ower details! Instead, let us combine our talents in making a haggis for the captain's Christmas party and a treat for Muster Montgomery whuch I doot he'll have the guid taste to appreciate!"
"Now, never you mind about my taste!" said Mr. Montgomery, tartly. "I don't think either of you two Scotch cannibals 'ave got the foggiest notion of 'ow to make yer 'orrid 'aggis, and I wouldn't eat it anyway. Besides that, where'll you get the ox, the sheep or wotever else you need to make it with? The only animals I've seen in Aden is camels, and I could 'ardly see them for the ticks."
"Ticks dinna matter, but camels willna sairve," said Mr. MacQuayle, sullenly. "To mak' a proper haggis, ye must have a shee—"
"Oh, blosh and fuddlesticks!" shouted Mr. Glencannon, springing to his feet. "I'm at the end o' my patience!... Captain Ball, sir!" He turned to the shipmaster. "Here and noo I give ye my solemn promise to provide a Christmas dinner worthy o' our tenth anniversurra under your commond, and in spicht o' heel, I'll do it!" With a farewell snort at Mr. Montgomery, he stalked from the room, went over the side to the dinghy and rowed away into the night.
When the sound of the oars had died away in the distance, "Welp!" the mate leered sardonically. "That settles that—wotever it was! Now I'll just nip back to my room, put on a fresh suit o' whites, 'ail a bumboat and go ashore myself.... Sure you wouldn't like to 'ave a proper 'otel meal with me tomorrer, Captain Ball and the rest o' yer? Er"—he squirmed—"I mean, I don't suppose it could cost you more than about five bob apiece."
For a moment there was silence; then Captain Ball spoke for the crowd in a voice that quavered more than a little. "Why, no," he said, "no, thank you! I fancy we'd all rather eat together, here on the ship, like we've done for the past nine years, and—and as I was hoping you would, too, Mr. Montgomery! Tradition, sentiment, superstition—see what I mean? Damned silly of me, what? But—uh—well, anyway, m'boy, I really do hope you'll enjoy your Christmas dinner."
II
As Mr. Montgomery had remarked, Aden and its environs are anything but pastoral; lowing herds, bleating flocks and all else bucolic and edible are there as scarce as in the more arid purlieus of Hades. Instead of heading for this sterile shore, Mr. Glencannon rowed down the inner harbor toward the oil-bunkering berths, where, near the terminal buoy of the pipe line, a great gray vessel lay pale in the moonlight. She was the refrigerator ship Northern Princess, on her regular run from Majunga, Madagascar, to Marseilles with frozen meat. The still air around her throbbed to the muffled, monotonous pulsation of pumps, some of them handling the fuel oil, others driving through her complex metal arteries the chemicals which proofed her cargo against even such withering heat as there was that night in Aden.
