IT was getting on towards six o'clock so I thought I'd buy myself a beer and go out and sit in a deckchair by the swimming pool and have a little evenin g sun.I went to the bar and got the beer and carried it outside and wandered do wn the garden towards the pool.It was a fine garden with lawns and beds of azaleas and tall coconut pal ms, and the wind was blowing strongly through the tops of the palm trees, ma king the leaves hiss and crackle as though they were on fire. I could see th e clusters of big brown nuts hanging down underneath the leaves.There were plenty of deck chairs around the swimming pool and there wer e white tables and huge brightly coloured umbrellas and sunburned men and w omen sitting around in bathing suits. In the pool itself there were three o r four girls and about a dozen boys, all splashing about and making a lot o f noise and throwing a large rubber ball at one another.I stood watching them. The girls were English girls from the hotel. Th e boys I didn't know about, but they sounded American, and I thought they were probably naval cadets who'd come ashore from the US naval training ve ssel which had arrived in harbour that morning.I went over and sat down under a yellow umbrella where there were four empty seats, and I poured my beer and settled back comfortably with a cigar ette.It was very pleasant sitting there in the sunshine with beer and cigarette.It was pleasant to sit and watch the bathers splashing about in the green water.