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harm of any kind come to anyone innocent.”
    “Should we burn him?” Frank turned to the others in the cockpit.
    “Oh, cut it out,” Thomas Hudson said. “For Christ’s sake.”
    “I’m leaving in the morning,” Frank said. “As a matter of fact I’m cleared.”
    “Let’s burn him,” Fred Wilson said. “Natives seem to favor it.”
    “Burn him, Captain Frank,” Rupert urged. “What do you say?” he asked the others.
    “Burn him. Burn him. God give you strength to burn him,” said the boys on the dock.
    “Nobody want him unburned?” Frank asked them.
    “Burn him, Captain Frank. Nobody see it. Nothing ever been heard. Not a word’s been said. Burn him.”
    “Need a few practice shots,” Frank said.
    “Get off this damned boat if you’re going to burn him,” Johnny said.
    Frank looked at him and shook his head a little so that neither Roger nor the boys on the dock saw it.
    “He’s ashes now,” he said. “Let me have just one more, Rupert, to stiffen my will.”
    He handed up the cup.
    “Captain Frank,” Rupert leaned down to speak to him. “This will be the deed of your life.”
    Up on the dock the boys had started a new song.
    “Captain Frank in the harbor
    Tonight’s the night we got fun.”
    Then a pause, and pitched higher ...
    “Captain Frank in the harbor
    Tonight’s the night we got fun.”
    The second line was sung like a drum bonging. Then they went on:
    “Commissioner called Rupert a duty black hound
    Captain Frank fired his flare pistol and burnt him to the ground.”
    Then they went back to the other old African rhythm four of the men in the launch had heard sung by the Negroes that pulled the ropes on the ferries that crossed the rivers along the coast road between Mombasa, Malindi, and Lamu where, as they pulled in unison, the Negroes sang improvised work songs that described and made fun of the white people they were carrying on the ferry.
    “Captain Frank in the harbor
    Tonight’s the night we got fun.
    Captain Frank in the harbor”
    Defiant, insultingly, despairingly defiant the minor notes rose. Then the drum’s bonging response.
    “Tonight’s the night we got fun!”
    “You see, Captain Frank?” Rupert urged, leaning down into the cockpit. “You got the song already before you even commit the deed.”
    “I’m getting pretty committed,” Frank said to Thomas Hudson. Then, “One more practice shot,” he told Rupert.
    “Practice makes perfect,” Rupert said happily.
    “Captain Frank’s practicing now for the death,” someone said on the dock.
    “Captain Frank’s wilder than a wild hog,” came another voice.
    “Captain Frank’s a man .”
    “Rupert,” Frank said. “Another cup of that, please. Not to encourage me. Just to help my aim.”
    “God guide you, Captain Frank,” Rupert reached down the cup. “Sing the Captain Frank song, boys.”
    Frank drained the cup.
    “The last practice shot,” he said and firing just over the cabin cruiser lying astern he bounced the flare off Brown’s gas drums and into the water.
    “You son of a bitch,” Thomas Hudson said to him very quietly.
    “Shut up, christer,” Frank said to Thomas Hudson. “That was my masterpiece.”
    Just then, in the cockpit of the other cruiser, a man came out onto the stern wearing pajama trousers with no top and shouted, “Listen, you swine! Stop it, will you? There’s a lady trying to sleep down below.”
    “A lady?” Wilson asked.
    “Yes, goddam it, a lady,” the man said. “My wife. And you dirty bastards firing those flares to keep her awake and keep anybody from getting any sleep.”
    “Why don’t you give her sleeping pills?” Frank said. “Rupert, send a boy for some sleeping pills.”
    “Do you know what you do, colonel?” Wilson said. “Why don’t you just comport yourself as a good husband should? That’ll put her to sleep. She’s probably repressed. Maybe she’s thwarted. That’s what the analyst always tells my wife.”
    They were very rough