The Mule on the Minaret (6 page)

*   *   *

He was finishing his breakfast when the telephone bell rang.

‘Is that you, Prof? This is Gustave. Sorry to bother you so early, but I wanted to catch you before you left. Could you spare me a minute?'

Gustave was the subaltern—one of those billeted in a pension—whose eyes had followed Diana down the stairs.

‘Where are you speaking from?' Reid asked.

‘The lobby.'

‘Then come right up.'

If he were in a dressing-gown he would have an easier excuse for getting rid of Gustave. Gustave tended to be garrulous. The fact that he had acquired the nickname Gustave was indicative of his personality. He was short, wiry, athletic; he looked to be in the early thirties, but was actually only twenty-four. He had dark, curly hair; his cheeks were pale. He had a foreign look. His father was an Englishman who had entered the cotton business in Alexandria before the First World War. His father was dead. His mother might be anyone. It was an Alexandrian marriage. Who could assess an Alexandrian background? Greek, Armenian, Jewish, what you will. Gustave had been to an English school, to Stowe, but his guardian had chosen Grenoble for his university. Gustave had been in France when the war broke out; he had hurried back to England. Commissioned quickly, he had asked for a posting to the Field Security Personnel, had commanded a section in the north of England, and then . . .

Like most of those posted to the Mission he had been the victim of mischance. He had been on a parachute course, broken a bone in his ankle and been in hospital six weeks. When he returned to duty his section was in another's hands. He had awaited a fresh
posting; none had come. When Spears Mission had applied for volunteers, the adjutant had said, ‘Might not this be the thing for you, Gustave; Middle East, Egypt? Don't you speak Arabic? Shall I put in your name?'

Reid, from his experience of two wars, knew well how this kind of thing came to happen. Colonels did not recommend ‘duds' when applications for special appointments reached them, but they put barriers round the men they really needed. Gustave's colonel probably had nothing specific against Gustave. His foreign background?—Yes, perhaps, in part. Alexandria? Who was his mother, after all? And why Grenoble? Why not an English redbrick university? A certain foreignness, some basic difference? A sense that he was not quite one of them? If he had not had that accident no one would have considered having him supplanted. But since he had had that accident, what a lucky chance. For five weeks Gustave had been at a loose end. He had felt humiliated. Like all the other missionaries he had been proud and excited, restored in his own self-esteem, by his new appointment. Now he was back where he had started, like the rest of them.

‘I'm sorry to bother you with this,' he said. ‘It's outrageous of me. It's quite unimportant in the long run, but at the moment... I did think it would save time. I've always thought of you as the senior of our group. Not in rank, of course, but what does rank matter. You've got a name. People know who you are. In ten years' time these majors and colonels will be again the nobodies they were three years ago; I shouldn't say that, of course, but there it is.'

‘Gustave, let's get to the point.'

‘I know, exactly, Prof, but I had to lead up to this. You were very decent to us younger fellows on the boat; you never gave yourselves any airs though you had a perfect right to.'

‘Please, Gustave, please.'

‘I know; I'm sorry. I
will
come to the point. You stayed behind afterwards with the boss. You were the one he picked. He recognized you as our spokesman. What did he say was going to happen to us?'

‘He didn't discuss the matter.'

‘Then why did he ask you to stay behind?'

‘He had some things to say to me, personally.'

‘Oh.' Gustave stared, abashed, speechless; his eloquence punctured. Reid smiled. He quite liked Gustave.

‘You've something on your mind. Let's have it. If I can help, I promise you I will.'

‘Thanks awfully, Prof... you . . . well...' he hesitated. Then in a rush it all poured out. ‘I'm in a rather different position from these others: through being half Egyptian. I've all these relatives in Alexandria and there are some in Cairo. One wants to cut a dash before one's family. I've an idea that they don't set much store by me. My mother was a cut above the old man, at least in their eyes; most of them are anti-British, too. You know how it used to be, when my father came out: Kipling and the white man's burden. Kick the brown johnny off the pavement. That's all over now. Jack's as good as his master. They'd like to look down on me if they could, and I don't want them to. Thing is, you see, it's all my fault, but when I learnt I was coming out I overplayed my hand. I told them that I was going to be a big shot with Spears. For the first time in my life they were impressed. They respect force, and that's what the Mission stands for, in their eyes. I boasted, yes, let's face it, boasted. That puts me in one hell of a position now.'

‘What can I do to help?'

‘Now, that's exactly what I was wondering myself. But there's one thing I don't want; to be sent to the intelligence pool in Cairo, as a lieutenant. I'd told them, you see, I'd be made a Captain. It seemed a reasonable bet. I assumed that by the time any of them saw me I would be one. But if I get sent down to Cairo next week, it is just more than my vanity could stand. I'd rather go to Damascus as a corporal than to Cairo as a subaltern.'

He spoke lightly, jocularly, with gestures; he employed a jargon that he fancied was fashionable, but that jarred on Reid's perceptions. He seemed to have cast himself as a P. G. Wodehouse character, and was getting the idiom wrong. He exaggerated his predicament. But it was a predicament none the less. Reid recognized that. He had let Gustave talk a lot; it was up to him now to help him out.

‘I see your point,' he said. ‘But I don't see at the moment what I can do. We're all in the same boat. Cartwright told me that I was a hard man to place, because I was too senior in civil life for certain posts and lacked the military training that would fit me for a job on my own level. It'll be much easier for them to place you than to place me. You are young, athletic, active. On a long term basis, you haven't any need to worry; but I do see your point about not
going back to Cairo now—and as a subaltern. I'm dining with Cartwright on Wednesday. I'll make a point of saying something; I'll put it tactfully.'

‘Prof, you're wizard. Bless you.'

‘Don't bank on anything.'

‘I won't.'

As the door closed behind Gustave, a thought crossed Reid's mind. Farrar: they'd both been at Stowe. The bond of the old school tie. Gustave might be the right man for cloak-and-dagger.

*   *   *

It was half past ten before Reid left his room. Johnson was in the lounge, with a paper in his hands, but he did not appear to be reading it. His eyes looked like slits. Reid presumed that he had made a heavy night of it.

‘How did you make out?' he asked.

Johnson shook his head. ‘As you might expect. They took me to the Australian Club. It was the first time I'd had whisky at a reasonable price for weeks. I exceeded. It was good whisky, though. I'll be all right by lunch. What's more important, how did you make out?'

‘Why more important?'

‘Because you saw Cartwright. What had he to say?'

Here it goes again, thought Reid.

‘Nothing in particular, just casual gossip. Then he introduced me to a man in the economic section who knows friends of mine. He took me to the French Club.'

‘I see. So you learnt nothing about what's cooking for the rest of us?'

‘Nothing. But I can't believe there's any cause to worry. He's probably got something suitable worked out. He looks that kind of man.'

‘I see . . . Well . . . what about a stroll? I could do with some fresh air.'

They strolled along the waterfront. Yesterday in the rain and dark Reid had had no chance of making an assessment of the town. He found it now a cheerfully haphazard conglomeration of architectural styles. There were examples in the French idiom of the worst uses to which the 1920s had put concrete in terms of hard, rectangular lines; most of such buildings, originally ochre-tinted, had been discoloured by rain and sun. There were the bazaars,
tranquil, cool and arched; the spires of Christian churches mingled with the domes and minarets of Moslem mosques. Here and there the broken stonework of a Roman column testified to a legendary past. A mingling of races and of cultures, and each race, each culture, had contributed its patina to contemporary Beirut.

It was a bright, warm day. They walked slowly, but Johnson was breathing heavily. He soon returned to the problem of his employment. ‘I'm in an awkward spot,' he said. ‘I've been a major for two years; but only a temporary, not a war substantive one. If I don't get on somebody's establishment soon, I'll revert to my real rank as captain. That means a big drop in pay and in allowances. I've got a wife, and I don't have a firm making good the difference between my salary and pay. Unless I'm found a job within a fortnight I'll be “waiting to be posted”; back to captaincy; and they may antedate it to the day of sailing. That's why I'd be so very grateful to you if you could let me know how the wind's blowing. You're in a different position. In peacetime you and Cartwright move in the same world, on the same level. He'd tell you things he'd not tell me. I'm out of my depth here. One battalion of my regiment is in India, the other is back in England. I've got no influence. I've no strings to pull; at least, I don't think I have. That's why I'd be so grateful if you'd sound out Cartwright. You'll see more of him than I shall, and, what's more important, on a different basis.'

‘I'll do my best.'

To himself Reid smiled. None of them imagined that he himself had any problems. In their eyes he was an established person, with a job waiting him in England. They pictured him as someone who could accept with equanimity a wartime inconvenience. Well, let them go on doing so, and in point of fact, Gustave's and Johnson's problems were more serious than his own. This was Johnson's last chance of self re-establishment. His own problem was not material. It was personal.

*   *   *

Farrar kept his noontime appointment with Reid punctually. The terrace of the St. Georges faced the waterfront. On Sunday morning it was the town's fashionable rendezvous, with tables set out under striped umbrellas, and smart French officers, many of them with the blue képis of the cavalry, clinking their heels and bowing from the waist to smartly-dressed women, Lebanese and
European. It was impossible to believe that a few hundred miles away in the Western Desert troops were lying out in foxholes.

Farrar stood on the steps of the terrace, looking round him. He pointed out to Reid a group of three, a middle-aged couple and a young man.

‘I'm going to introduce you to them. She's of Turkish origin, married to a Lebanese. Her sister is in Istanbul. That's her nephew, Aziz. He's come down to study in the A.U.B. He's not doing very well. He's an idle gentleman, and I suspect that he's taking advantage of being away from parental scrutiny to enjoy the flesh-pots. His parents are Moslems, but his aunt's husband isn't. Let's go over. Amin Marun's the name.'

The aunt was plump, pale skinned, with large dark eyes. She must have been extremely pretty as a girl. The uncle was big shouldered, fat, with flabby cheeks; his dark hair was beginning to turn white about the ears. The boy was tall and gangly, with spots on his chin. He had a long, hooked nose. He might become handsome at the age of thirty.

‘I want to introduce Captain Reid,' said Farrar. ‘He arrived yesterday to join the Mission. He's an English professor. He should be able to advise Aziz about his studies. I'm wondering whether Aziz might not do better in an English university, in Alexandria, say.'

‘What is he studying?' Reid asked.

‘History.'

‘There might be better historians in Alexandria.'

‘That's what I was suggesting.'

‘But we want Aziz here with us,' the uncle said.

‘Perhaps he would work better if he was on his own.'

Amin Marun shook his head. ‘That's the English theory, send boys to boarding-schools. We don't agree with that. We believe in maintaining the atmosphere and influence of the home.'

‘But if Aziz fails in his exams again at Christmas—'

‘He's not going to fail.'

‘I hope he isn't. But if he does I should consider Alexandria. That's why I brought Captain Reid across. He is a man of influence in scholastic circles. He might be of assistance. His brother was out here in the First War; fought in the Mesopotamian campaign. He's beginning to wonder now whether it wasn't a waste of time.'

‘How do you mean, a waste of time?'

‘He thinks it would have been better if that part of the war had been avoided. We ought to have stayed friends with Turkey and maintained the Ottoman Empire.'

‘Did I say that?' said Reid.

‘You inferred it and I'm sure that Madame Amin would agree with me that basically the Arabs were better off under the Ottoman Empire?'

She shook her head, as her husband answered for her, ‘The Turks aren't Arabs.'

‘They are Moslems.'

‘That isn't enough. Italy hasn't the right to rule France because both are Christians.'

‘But under the Ottoman Empire the Arabs were one people.'

‘One subject people.'

Farrar shook his head. He turned to Reid with a laugh. ‘I can never get Amin Marun to agree with me. The idea of Arab independence started in Beirut. His father was one of the founders of the movement. But revolutions aren't necessarily justified because they succeed. I'm sure that Madame Amin would agree with me on that point. She was brought up in Turkey. The Turks would never have divided the Arab world into separate spheres of influence as we Europeans have. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was about the most discreditable diplomatic performance of the war. And think how much worse it might have been. Suppose Russia had had her share, as she was intended to, with the Arab world divided up, not between two countries but between three. And I can tell you this. We haven't finished with Sykes-Picot yet. Not by a long chalk, now that the Russians are in the war again. Stalin is as much an imperialist as any Czar. There are just as many private treaties in this war as in the last. I know this for a fact. There's going to be at least one new Republic in the U.S.S.R. when the war is over and that's Kurdistan. The Kurds are crazy for it. They're sick of being divided up between Syria, Turkey, Persia and Iraq.'