Siege at the Villa Lipp by Eric Ambler Page A

of the crew, including the cook, were Italians, who did not care who poured the drinks and served the meals and made the beds. I had Argentine papers and, as the yacht was registered in Genoa, there would be no nonsense about labour permits and unions that the owner could not deal with later should he decide to keep me on. Meanwhile the job was strictly temporary.
    Among the less simple reasons for my getting the job was the fact that the owner’s wife had picked me up one morning at the Carlton beach. She had done so under the impression that I was a virgin youth seeking reassurance and instruction from the older-yet-still-amazingly-attractive woman she believed herself to be. Both my clothes and the hotel at which I was staying were of the expensive kind, and when I confessed to her that I could no longer afford to tip even the boy who put up the beach umbrellas much less pay my fare home, she had at once blamed the gambling tables for my predicament and easily understood, without my having to tell her of it, my fear of parental retribution. I never tried to disabuse her of any of those notions. She was friendly in bed, only sometimes demanding, and she always smelt nice.
    With her husband my credentials were of a different order. The school to which I went has never been considered as better than reasonably good; but he happened to have heard of it, and the idea of having an English public-schoolboy - even one who was Argentine - as a servant seemed to appeal to what I assumed to be the Fascist sense of humour. I think that his original intention may have been to discipline his wife, and at the same time strike a blow for Il Duce and the corporate state, by firing me after a few days, or as soon as I had sufficiently demonstrated my incompetence. If so, I disappointed him. Being a steward on a yacht is not all that different from being a junior boy in the kind of school I had just left. I may also have misjudged the nature of their personal relationship. Possibly it did not include the friendliness with which she treated me. Perhaps, in that marriage, she was the one who had the disciplinary whip hand.
    I very much hope so, because, although I have during my life encountered a great many unpleasant men and women, I still after all these years remember him as being one of the nastier.
    When the weather broke on the Riviera we cruised south, first to Ischia and Capri, and then on down to Tripoli. There, east of the town, the owner had land, on which he played at citrus-growing, and a tarted-up farmhouse. His wife explained that he owned the place not because he wanted to or because it was profitable, but for some mysterious political reason.
    We spent several days doing nothing much while he had meetings with the Governor and other local administrators. Then we started off on a cruise that was supposed to take us to Benghazi. A north-west gale ended that, and within thirty-six hours we were back in Tripoli. There it was announced that the yacht would now be laid up for its annual refit, with just the captain retained to oversee the work. The rest of the crew would be off to their homes in Italy for the winter months. The owner and his wife moved into the house.
    Nobody having told me where I stood, I counted my savings, wondered whether I could expect a tip from the lady, and eventually asked the captain if I was entitled to my fare back to Cannes. He mumbled something about my not having a labour permit, and then said he would enquire. Until the boat went into the yard to have its bottom cleaned, I could sleep on board. I was reminded of the end of one of those terms at school when there had been not enough holiday time in which to go home, and nothing much else to do but spend too much pocket-money.
    To my surprise, the captain remembered to enquire about me without being reminded. Next day, I was sent for by the owner.
    It was the first time I had been to the house. You took a bus to the nearby village and then walked