Silence is Golden

18. A Friendly Message from Home

We anchored in a picturesque Argentinian harbour that would have made a wonderful motif for any postcard. It was attached to a small town with little stone houses overgrown by ivy – the sort of place that didn't look as if it got visitors often. The people cheered and greeted us with warm smiles when we went ashore, and they eagerly perused the list of goods Mr Ambrose had brought from faraway England. Their smiles quickly disappeared, however, when they heard the prices Mr Ambrose was asking.

Fortunately, I didn't speak a single word of Spanish and didn't have to participate in the haggling. Instead, I could lie in the sun and watch as Mr Ambrose waged a fierce battle around every single peso. Of course, he won most of them.

'If you keep this up all the way, we're not going to be very popular in Argentina by the time we leave the country.'

He sent me a cool look, which was actually quite welcome in the blistering heat. I would have to get him to give me cool looks more often. 'What gave you the notion that I desire to be popular, Mr Linton?'

A smile quirked up one corner of my mouth. 'No idea. Forget I said anything.'

We didn't stay long in the harbour. When we left again, the townspeople clearly expected us to take the route down the coast. It was quite a lot of fun to watch their flabbergasted faces when we fired up the steam engine and, with steam puffing out of the Mammon's steel smokestack, started up the nearby river into the interior of the country.

Even more amusing to see were the faces of the crews of the boats we passed on our way upriver. With the river overflowing with water, and the current too strong to fight with oars or sails, every single vessel, except ours, was sailing with the current, down the river. I soon started to make a hobby out of sitting on deck and waving to the startled captains as we puffed our way past them, towards the jungle and the mountains. Unfortunately, I could never engage in this amusing pastime for long: every time Mr Ambrose caught me at it, he chased me back to work.

Finally, we arrived at a large city situated at the junction of two rivers. I was a city girl at heart, and breathed easier at the sight of tall, elegant stone houses and paved streets.

'At last! I was getting really tired of those endless hours spent below deck trying to decipher that bloody manuscript!'

'It is your job. It doesn't matter if you get tired of it.'

'You can't make me work all the time, you know! A person could get daft from trying to work all day.'

'Which would differ from your current level of intelligence how, exactly?'

I threw him a dark look, which he completely ignored.

We were standing at the pointy end of the ship, which by now I had learned was called 'prow'. I was gazing admiringly at the beautiful city that stretched out in front of us. Mr Ambrose was staring coldly at his crew, directing our landing with curt gestures of his hands. A small crowd was already gathering at the docks.

'What is this place called?' I wanted to know.

'Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz. It's the provincial capital.'

Capital, eh? Even in such a large, important city, it appeared, people weren't expecting much traffic to come up the strong-flowing river, and they were delighted to see us. Some people in the waiting crowd even cheered or threw their hats into the air. I let them have their happy delusions. They'd stop cheering soon enough, when Mr Ambrose pulled out his price list.

Behind the docks and the cheering crowd, a palatial building rose, the Argentinian flag fluttering from its highest pinnacle. I saw Mr Ambrose eyeing it with cool calculation.