Tiger Milk Read online

  She was lingering over a demitasse when a prolonged blast of the whistle and a slacking of speed served notice that the train might be approaching the frontier. The car steward informed her that there was to be a few minutes’ halt—last stop before the frontier. Shortly after the train rolled to a stop she left the dining car, pausing in the vestibule to get a breath of fresh air and then to stand on the bottom step to survey the scene.

  Outside, the night air was cool and fresh. The lighted windows of the compartments cast a reflected glow through a feathery mesh of rain.

  Along the extensive length of the wooden platform flares had been placed at irregular intervals, stunted torches hissing in the light rain and casting enormous flickering shadows. A one-story building farther up the platform was also alight and she could see the officers who had been rechecking passports swinging off the train to make their way toward it, followed by the armed guards of the corridors.

  It was then that she saw Luce. He was walking up the platform in trench coat and snap-brim, stretching his legs in spite of the rain and the general orders not to leave the train.

  He noticed her and paused to extend a pleasant good evening.

  “Dampish constitutional, isn’t it?” she commented.

  “Oh, this rain’s nothing.”

  She thought how completely impersonal he was, considering the event of the day. Not that she would have wanted it any other way, but it was almost as though he had forgotten the whole thing or else had far more important matters to think about.

  The tread of feet sounded along the platform from back in the direction of the third-class section. An officer and armed guard strode in sight, hurrying a frightened-looking, pleading young man between them. Another officer advanced to meet them and the threesome halted, the young man being shoved roughly-ahead by the guard to answer questioning.

  Berkeley’s heart went out to him. He stood there so humbly, rolling his cap around in his hands while the rain beat down on his tousled dark head. Beside his feet was his suitcase, a worn bulging thing secured by a piece of rope.

  The two officers snapped their questions at him and he tried to keep up with his answers, turning his head from one inquisitor to the other.

  The girl felt a deep sympathy well up within her. That frightened, bullied refugee represented more than a lone poignant figure. He stood for all who were homeless and buffeted and in flight.

  “What’s the matter?” she exclaimed tensely. “What has he done? What are they going to do with him?”

  Luce looked at her. “I don’t know,” he said.

  He did not sound as though it made a great deal of difference, either. But she could not feel that sense of indifference. A refugee seeking a haven had run up against some of that petty persecution, probably, and that plagued her.

  Impulsively she swung off the car step and hastened toward the little group. The officers whirled in surprise as the girl burst in upon them.

  “What is it?” she said quickly. “Oh…” she tried to think of the phrase “… que pasa?”

  One of the officers shrugged. His eyes were shadowy beneath the gleaming visor of his cap. He shook some papers in his hand. Berkeley judged that there was a question about the refugee’s credentials. Oh, yes, and a fine time to discover that.

  Somebody down the platform blew a long blast on a whistle. Instantly a volume of sparks shot up from the locomotive. She heard Luce speak, close to her side.

  “You had better come, Miss Britton.”

  Berkeley looked at the shabby, tousled young man. His face was glistening with the rain and he was looking at her with wide eager eyes, his cap still gripped in both hands. She reached out and touched his arm.

  “I’m sorry,” she said deeply. “I wish I could help.”

  She turned quickly and hurried back. The train was beginning to move as she swung on board.

  She mounted to the vestibule and turned for one last look at that tragic figure. The officers had given a curt order to the guard and turned away, lighting cigarettes, when suddenly, impulsively, the refugee’s desperation exploded into action. Kicking out blindly, he sent the guard’s rifle clattering to the platform and then leaped headlong for the train.

  “Here!” shouted Berkeley. “Jump for it!”

  Luce, standing on the car step, turned as the refugee plunged for the goal of her voice. He was just bounding up on the step when Luce jerked up a knee, caught him squarely under the chin, and sent him hurtling back to the station platform. He pitched headlong and lay there dazed as the train swiftly gathered momentum and left him behind.

  Berkeley could not believe her eyes. Luce had done that! A beleaguered refugee making a desperate bid for escape and he had actually knocked him off the train!

  He came up to the vestibule of the car and found himself facing the blazing eyes of a tall, pale girl.

  “Why, you—!” She could not seem to find any words.

  There were no words, really. “I saw you do that!” she burst out savagely. “Why, in God’s name, did you?”

  “Why did I prevent that refugee from boarding the train?” he said coolly. “Oh, there are reasons.”

  Berkeley did not speak for a moment. The rising tide of white-hot anger that coursed through her whole being was almost beyond the bounds of her self-control.

  Then she shook her head slowly. “There is only one kind of man who would do a thing like that—one of these faceless men without pity or mercy. Faceless men who act like beasts.”

  “I’m sorry that it offended your sensibilities,” said Luce. “But, as I say, there are always reasons and I have mine.”

  She drew a deep breath. “There are no reasons in heaven or on earth,” she said. “None. You are just a merciless beast.” And then because she could not stand the thought of talking to him further she turned sharply and made her way back to her compartment.

  It made her feel sick somewhere deep inside. She sat in her compartment, head buried in her hands, and fought to get her thinking under control.

  A knock sounded on the curtained glass door.

  “Yes?” she said.

  It slid open part way and she raised her head to see Robert Luce. He stood on the threshold of the compartment, looking tall and hard and composed.

  “I thought perhaps you might give me a chance to change your opinion,” he said.

  “No,” said Berkeley. “I had a good flash of you, thanks. I don’t wish to talk about it.” She paused, and then continued with steady, measured words. “The hard part of it is that I’m under such an obligation to you that I can’t say all that I think.” Luce’s mouth tightened. No one could mistake the force of feeling behind her low steady voice.

  “I’m sorry…” he began.

  “I’ll never forget you,” said Berkeley. “Because I’ll never forget a persecuted refugee sprawling on a station platform in the rain. You’ll go with that always. And now please leave—”

  He waited a brief moment more, looking down at her, then he inclined his head and stepped back over the threshold, sliding the door shut.

  The old city of Lisbon looked out upon the Atlantic toward America. America’s nearest European neighbor, a beautiful capital of troubadour music and clear smokeless air, parks and open-air cafes under long lines of palms.

  Hundreds of years ago hawk-eyed navigators had sailed from this city, looking toward the new world, also. And now her harbor was one of the last outlets for refugees and stranded Americans—ships flying the American flag and those great silver-winged Clipper planes leaving the Portuguese capital with people looking toward America.

  The express from Spain arrived at noon, hours late, but maintaining nearly a day’s margin for those taking the next Clipper. Berkeley registered at the Monteagudo where she found the baggage she had sent ahead, and got off a cable to her family. She did not mention her marriage. In the first place, that required too much explanation to be hurled bluntly on a cable blank, and, in the second, it was not real enough t
o her to give it that much prominence.

  To her surprise, early in the afternoon, she received a telephone call from Philip Courtney. He proposed tea if she had no other plans.

  Berkeley had no other plans nor did she wish any. She was in no mood for anything social. But she remembered she had been distant with him before. She accepted his invitation with the reservation that she would have to return to her hotel early.

  He called around for her and was waiting before the elevators when she arrived in the foyer.

  “It’s kind of you to grant me this time on your one day in Lisbon,” he said companionably. “I hope,” he grinned, “I can make it a good send-off for your take-off.”

  “How did you know where to locate me?”

  “I found out at the Airways when I was there. Although,” he said casually, “I was prepared to phone all the hotels, beginning with the Monteagudo and Avenida Palace, and working on down to the pensions. Shall we fare forth?”

  He appeared to know his way around Lisbon with assurance. She asked him if he had ever been here before.

  “No,” said Philip Courtney, “but in Lisbon it is very simple. You just get in a taxi and say ‘Rossio’ and then anything you want is at your fingertips.”

  Berkeley discovered “Rossio” to be a great focal point of Lisbon, a nerve center from which all the life of the city seemed to radiate.

  At a secluded and picturesque little sidewalk cafe they seated themselves and Courtney regarded the beverage list tacked on the trunk of the old tree beneath which they sat.

  “I think,” he said, considering, “that ‘chá’ means tea. I suppose if you want hot tea it would be ‘hot cha.’” He smiled at her. “Sounds familiar. Will you have ‘cha’?”

  “Hot cha,” she nodded.

  “The festive order of the day is hot cha,” he agreed.

  The order of the day also seemed to be music—music from a Portuguese guitar. In the strong dexterous hands of a wiry Portuguese it sounded like a soft blend of several instruments, with a gay elfin quality.

  Between its infectious melody and Courtney’s pleasant conversational manner Berkeley found her reserve beginning to thaw. She remembered various things he had said in Valleron that she had been to preoccupied to notice much at the time.

  “Did you say something about you and Linda Baker having been in the same predicament over here?” she questioned.

  He nodded. “In that we both were interrupted in work that was important to us. Miss Baker is a concert pianist. Only fair, so she says, but I imagine she must have great talent to be a pupil of this DesLoge. Studying with him, I judge, was the richest experience of her life.”

  “And you,” said Berkeley. “What happened to you?”

  Courtney looked up and laughed. “Oh, me,” he said casually. “I was just working out some ideas under the auspices of a Thomas Fellowship in architecture. Studying the theories and effects of such master architect-builders as Michelangelo and Sir Christopher Wren. I hung on as long as I could and then drifted into Spain where I have been for three weeks acquiring a sunburn and twenty-six words of Spanish.”

  He spoke lightly, as though it was all a matter of “c’est la guerre,” but she knew that it must have meant a lot to him. She had heard of Thomas Fellowships. They were international in scope, awarded only on the basis of creative achievement and mature talent.

  She smiled and looked speculatively out at the street scene, the leisurely promenaders stopping to listen to men arguing over coffee at the numerous little cafes. One cup of coffee brought on a political argument in Portugal, she remembered hearing, and six cups caused a new party to arise.

  Courtney regarded her over his cigarette. The slanting mellow rays of the late sun caught her rich chestnut hair so that it appeared edged with misty gold. There was vitality to the appeal of this tall, patrician-looking girl, a level set to her dark blue eyes.

  He nodded briefly, as though something he had been deliberating in his mind had been settled. Then he mashed out his cigarette and suggested a short drive for a look at the city.

  “They have something called the Avenida da Liberdade,” he mentioned. “Three hundred feet wide with gardened promenades between the driving lanes. Shall we give it a whirl?”

  So they gave the Avenida da Liberdade a whirl and returned to her hotel in the early evening.

  “How long do you expect to remain in Lisbon?” she asked him.

  “I had planned to stay here a week,” Courtney said. “But well, I don’t know—Lisbon might not be so interesting after tomorrow.” He flirted an indefinite hand. “Perhaps I’ll try to change my reservations. Hop off with the dawn.”

  “Don’t underestimate Lisbon,” she warned humorously, and extended her hand. “The afternoon was lovely, hot cha and all. Thank you.”

  “See you at the airport,” he called after her, as she stepped into the elevator. “Boas noites.”

  He was at the Clipper base the next morning when she arrived. She saw him over at the ticket counter in discussion with two airways men. And while she was having her baggage weighed she encountered Linda Baker, looking attractive and smartly turned out, a small rose pinned at her shoulder.

  “We have a pretty good passenger list,” she said as they waited together at the baggage counter. “Thirty, I believe, including one of those ex-Russian princes and an English movie actress.”

  “Are you glad to be on your way?” asked Berkeley.

  Linda twisted a white glove in her hand. “I’m grateful to have the States to return to,” she said quietly. “But when I think of the hopes and plans I brought over with me I feel as though I had been chased from a banquet table right after the appetizer.” Then she gave a quick little laugh. “Oh, well—I hope Philadelphia is in the same place.”

  It was a beautiful morning for the take-off. The sky over Lisbon was bright and clear when the Clipper’s crew marched two by two out of the big silver plane gleaming in the sunlight and floating motionless at its mooring, all four propellers whirling like glistening circles in the sun.

  Linda and Berkeley walked out with Philip Courtney as the passengers followed the Clipper’s crew.

  “This kind of flying weather is too good to miss,” he explained, glancing at her sideways. “I’ll spend that week in Lisbon some other time.”

  Berkeley had not seen any sign of Luce, but as she settled herself at a window she saw him arriving at the very last. He was striding along alone, topcoat over his arm.

  He was the last one aboard. The door was shut behind him. The engines accelerated their roar, against which the slap of the mooring lines falling on the water was obliterated.

  The crowd on shore watched the big plane taxi slowly toward the take-off. On the outskirts, a little graying man held a de; d pipe between his teeth and stared after the plane with brig it keen eyes narrowed against the sun. His companion, a good-looking, tailored Englishman, touched him on the arm.

  “You still believe you missed your man, Rogge, old chap,” he said in a low voice.

  Little Mr. Rogge took the pipe from his mouth.

  “We had a tip he was slipping quietly out through Lisbon and would be contacted in Valleron at a certain time,” he said dreamily. “I don’t know whether that tip was wrong, or whether he changed his plans, or whether he was just too blasted smart for us. All I know is that Murray and I didn’t see a single thing out of the way, then or since.”

  “Personally,” said his colleague, “I think the tip was wrong. We get things like that all the time here.”

  “Maybe,” sighed Mr. Rogge. “But I feel somehow that the greatest failure of my life is tied up with that plane taking off out there. It’s just a feeling I can’t shake.”

  He watched the Clipper as it gathered speed, the blue water foaming up against the racing silver body. It lifted clear, skimmed low over the water, and then began to rise. Mr. Rogge’s eyes stayed with it for a long time.

  “I mean, dash it all!” he said softly, leis
urely. Then he stuck his pipe in his pocket and turned away. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Sorry, America.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The ocean stretched boundlessly below like a great blue floor glinting here and there with the sparkle of the sun. One or two ships were sighted shortly after the take-off, but after that it was just the ocean and the sky and the steady muted roar of the four motors over the Atlantic.

  The passengers had split into informal little groups, ranging from five around the English movie actress to those who sat alone, reading or just gazing steadily out the window.

  Courtney lounging comfortably in his seat listened to blonde little Irene Carver as she leaned on the table between them. She had cornered him and he had submitted good-humoredly.

  “Mind you, Court,” she said, “I’m not holding Dad responsible. I simply say that ever since he was put in charge of the job of air conditioning Europe there has been trouble. He goes into a country to air condition it and—bang!—ultimatum.”

  Courtney glanced amused across the aisle at her father who was sitting with his son. Franklin Carver looked every inch the popular conception of the American business executive. He was big, without being ponderous, iron gray in hair and brows, and strongly featured.

  “It’s not as bad as Rennie says,” he objected. “But I will say I’ve had my troubles. The best combination for a headache is to try to supervise a business in Europe under appalling conditions and keep an eye on a couple of jitterbugs like these.”

  Mr. Wilson Gayne passed by on his way up the aisle to another scat. He nodded in recognition, but with no particular warmth. He carried a green cloth book bag, which he seldom appeared to be without, as if it might be a badge of his profession. Rennie Carver looked after him a moment and then swung back to Philip Courtney.

  “So he’s a literary critic,” she commented. “He looks as though the only kind of book that he’d review favorably would be one of those tomes where the heroine leans on a fence looking at brown fields and speculates for sixty pages or so on how hard life is. What’s he been doing abroad?”

  “I understand he has been visiting a good friend, a Norwegian author now living in exile,” said Courtney.