A Hero for Leanda

friendly service from the harbor master. Now that he was hardly more than a survivor, things might be different. But the graying Negro was sympathetic and helpful. There was a contractor in the town, he said, who might undertake the salvage job, especially if Conway mentioned the letter of credit as proof that he could pay. Conway thanked him, and took the address, and plodded on. But the contractor was away up the coast on a job, and wouldn’t be back till next day. Conway made an appointment, praying that the weather would hold.
    The next thing was to start looking for work. He would soon be penniless, and he could think of few worse places to be penniless in than Accra . There were people he’d met in the town who might help him. That was one way. Influential-seeming men he’d been introduced to at the Yacht Club, at the European Club, when for a day or two he’d been something of a celebrity, a prized guest with a good story to tell. Cocoa planters, mining engineers, shipping men, who had entertained him lavishly—and several of whom he’d entertained himself , aboard Tara , and got on well with. They’d been decent people; they’d probably do their best to give him a leg up. The trouble was , he didn’t want to ask them. He didn’t want to feel obliged to anyone. Better, he thought, to keep the thing impersonal— to go along to the Labour Exchange and line up with the black men and offer what he had and take what there was. Ghana , he’d read, was in need of skilled men, and his qualifications were high. They were building a new harbor for ocean-going ships at Tema, just along the coast—there might be a suitable billet for him there. Of course, he’d need a work permit. He’d have to see the immigration people again—and this time they wouldn’t be coming out in a launch to meet him! He was land-bound, now, and could expect no special treatment. Soon, no doubt, he’d be red-tape-bound, too. He’d managed to get away from all that in Tara , but he’d have to face it now. He’d have to deal with self-satisfied bureaucrats, office boys who’d graduated to brief cases and couldn’t forget it. There’d be lengthy interviews—perhaps humiliating ones. In this newly sovereign country there were plenty of officials who would enjoy humiliating a white man. Still, the sooner he started, the sooner he’d finish. He’d better get along to the Labour Exchange right away.... But when he looked at his watch he saw that it was five o’clock. All the offices would be closing. First thing tomorrow, then.
    Meanwhile, he had to get through the evening. He could go back to the Rest House, where for a few shillings a night he’d been staying since Tara’s disappearance—but there’d be nothing to do there except sit on the veranda and receive the unwanted condolences of his fellow guests. Better to keep moving, to walk on through the town— though he didn’t much like the town, either. He’d never intended to stay in Accra for long—he’d called in for fresh food and supplies on his leisurely way round the Guinea coast, that was all. It was a squalid place, like most of these tropical ports. A facade of dignity and wealth, the British colonial front, and behind it a slum interior. Picturesque, of course, in a way—he remembered how intrigued he’d been by it when he’d first come ashore, full of his usual zest for new places and knowing that T ara was lying waiting for him in the harbor, a way of escape when he needed it. He’d strolled with curiosity and pleasure among the stalls in the native quarter, among the tin buckets and old tires and alarm clocks, the silks and ivory and brass, and thought the scene as colorful and lively as an Eastern bazaar. Now he saw it all with a prisoner’s jaundiced eye— the narrow, congested streets, the dark bodies jostling, the bare feet stirring the black dust, the blaring cars, the sightless beggars, the stench and the heat. He told himself that he’d have to get used to it, since he couldn’t even raise the fare to leave it—that he soon would get used to it, think nothing of it, as other Europeans had. At thirty-two, he should have resilience enough for that. It wouldn’t be the first port he’d had to stay and work in for a while—he’d been doing it, at intervals, for years, when supplies ran low and he needed money for the next leg of his travels. All the same, he wished he could have been shipwrecked in some more salubrious and temperate