That was one side of the coin.
There
was another—
His
mother fussing around, all things great and small, and his father’s
evil eye upon him.
Disapproval, questions, what is your
big plan in life young man—
Hmn.
Perhaps not—
Harry was at least fun.
The
bugger always had been.
“ Huh. I suppose there’s nothing else for it.”
Venezuela—some sort of mad archaeological
expedition.
The Temple of the Jaguar God.
And why
not?
Why not
indeed.
Harry
always had been his favourite uncle.
Last Christmas, the last time he’d been around the manor, Jeremy’s facetious
name for his father’s rectory, he’d been spouting Lewis
Carroll.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He
took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And,
as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One,
two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.”
One
thing he knew for sure—his father would always be poor.
If he
wasn’t careful, so would Jeremy.
Whereas
Uncle Harry seemed to have the knack of doing whatever he
wanted.
“ Venezuela, you say. Hmn.”
***
After
the cooling breezes and azure seas of the crossing, and they had
been lucky to have good weather for that, the jungle clad hills and
olive waters of the Orinoco were a stark contrast. So was the heat.
As the old steamer chugged along, painfully wheezing its way
upstream, there was little to do but to try and stay cool and get
to know the other members of the party.
The
stout and sweaty Señor Hernandez owned the boat they were on,
skippered by a bald-headed, fiercely mustachioed captain constantly
chewing on an unlit cigar. He was a small, slender man with a wide
round head. For some reason no one could quite catch the name, no
matter how many times they asked. The captain’s nephew, a boy about
a year younger than he, Paolo, was the only other hand apparently
required for what was almost a small ship.
There
was his uncle, of course, looking raffish in a newly-sprouted beard
and a bush jacket with an incongruous straw hat of local
manufacture. Khaki shorts with a hundred pockets, Argyll socks and
desert boots. A monocle on the right eye and a watch-chain hanging.
That was his uncle, all right.
William
Syrmes, about thirty-five years old, was his uncle’s secretary and
trained in archaeological documentation. He would be doing drawings
and cataloguing of artifacts as well as being in charge of the
digging. If in fact they found anything. He was still young enough
to be boyish still, in spite of his height.
It
struck Jeremy that he was there to dig. All expenses paid, of
course.
Syrmes
had broad shoulders, a bull neck and looked like a handy lad in a
pinch.
This was
even more so regarding Kevin Smith although he was shorter. Uncle
Harry had introduced him as a former soldier. He’d been at the
Somme. This one had a couple of scars on his upper lip. Long and
rangy, there was slouch in the walk that belied the steel-grey
eyes.
His role
was guide and adventurer. He was being paid very well for his time,
which was sort of unique among them.
Apparently he’d been up the river before on unspecified
errands. In Jeremy’s opinion it had to be either gold or
gems…something to do with poaching perhaps. Selling guns and
whiskey to the natives, although he might have been thinking of a
different frontier.
This was all his own imagination, but.
This one
could look after himself.
Gerald
Day, impeccably dressed, always the perfect gentleman, was paying
his own way as he put it. There was a bit of family money there.
With an interest in antiquities and primitive South American
peoples in
There
was another—
His
mother fussing around, all things great and small, and his father’s
evil eye upon him.
Disapproval, questions, what is your
big plan in life young man—
Hmn.
Perhaps not—
Harry was at least fun.
The
bugger always had been.
“ Huh. I suppose there’s nothing else for it.”
Venezuela—some sort of mad archaeological
expedition.
The Temple of the Jaguar God.
And why
not?
Why not
indeed.
Harry
always had been his favourite uncle.
Last Christmas, the last time he’d been around the manor, Jeremy’s facetious
name for his father’s rectory, he’d been spouting Lewis
Carroll.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He
took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And,
as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One,
two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.”
One
thing he knew for sure—his father would always be poor.
If he
wasn’t careful, so would Jeremy.
Whereas
Uncle Harry seemed to have the knack of doing whatever he
wanted.
“ Venezuela, you say. Hmn.”
***
After
the cooling breezes and azure seas of the crossing, and they had
been lucky to have good weather for that, the jungle clad hills and
olive waters of the Orinoco were a stark contrast. So was the heat.
As the old steamer chugged along, painfully wheezing its way
upstream, there was little to do but to try and stay cool and get
to know the other members of the party.
The
stout and sweaty Señor Hernandez owned the boat they were on,
skippered by a bald-headed, fiercely mustachioed captain constantly
chewing on an unlit cigar. He was a small, slender man with a wide
round head. For some reason no one could quite catch the name, no
matter how many times they asked. The captain’s nephew, a boy about
a year younger than he, Paolo, was the only other hand apparently
required for what was almost a small ship.
There
was his uncle, of course, looking raffish in a newly-sprouted beard
and a bush jacket with an incongruous straw hat of local
manufacture. Khaki shorts with a hundred pockets, Argyll socks and
desert boots. A monocle on the right eye and a watch-chain hanging.
That was his uncle, all right.
William
Syrmes, about thirty-five years old, was his uncle’s secretary and
trained in archaeological documentation. He would be doing drawings
and cataloguing of artifacts as well as being in charge of the
digging. If in fact they found anything. He was still young enough
to be boyish still, in spite of his height.
It
struck Jeremy that he was there to dig. All expenses paid, of
course.
Syrmes
had broad shoulders, a bull neck and looked like a handy lad in a
pinch.
This was
even more so regarding Kevin Smith although he was shorter. Uncle
Harry had introduced him as a former soldier. He’d been at the
Somme. This one had a couple of scars on his upper lip. Long and
rangy, there was slouch in the walk that belied the steel-grey
eyes.
His role
was guide and adventurer. He was being paid very well for his time,
which was sort of unique among them.
Apparently he’d been up the river before on unspecified
errands. In Jeremy’s opinion it had to be either gold or
gems…something to do with poaching perhaps. Selling guns and
whiskey to the natives, although he might have been thinking of a
different frontier.
This was all his own imagination, but.
This one
could look after himself.
Gerald
Day, impeccably dressed, always the perfect gentleman, was paying
his own way as he put it. There was a bit of family money there.
With an interest in antiquities and primitive South American
peoples in
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