"But we're ready for them."
Without in the least suspecting it I had gone straight into a
blind trap, into which, it was true, I could not be followed by
Noureddin Ali's spy, but out of which there was no escape without
being recognized. The moment I stepped into the deep shadow I
heard an unmistakable massed movement behind me. Sure that I
could not be seen, I faced about. A platoon of Sikhs had
appeared from somewhere, and were standing at ease already,
across the end of the street I had entered, with the moonlight
silvering their bayonets.
Well, most streets have two ends. So I walked forward, not
taking much trouble about concealment, since it was not easy to
walk silently. If the Sikh can't see his enemy he likes to fire
first and challenge afterwards. I preferred to be seen. The
sight of those uncompromising bayonets had changed my mind about
the choice of evils. The knife of a hardly probable assassin
seemed a wiser risk than the ready triggers of the Punjaub.
Half-way down the street Suliman tugged at my cloak.
"That is the place where my mother is," he said, pointing to a
narrow door on the left.
But I was taking no chances in that direction--not at that
moment. The little stone house was all in darkness. There were
no windows that I could see. No sound came from it. And farther
down the street there was a lamp burning, whose light spelled
safety from shots fired at the sound of foot-fall on suspicion.
I wanted that light between me and the Sikh platoon, yet did not
dare run for it, since that would surely have started trouble.
It is my experience of Sikhs that when they start a thing they
like to finish it. They are very good indeed at explanations
after the event.
The Sikhs must have seen us pass through the belt of gasoline
light, but they did not challenge, so I went forward more slowly,
with rather less of that creepy feeling that makes a man's spine
seem to belong to some one else. Toward its lower end the street
curved considerably, and we went about a quarter of a mile before
the glare of another light began to appear around the bend.
That was at a cross-street, up which I proposed to turn more or
less in the direction of the hotel. But I did nothing of the
sort. There was a cordon of Sikhs drawn across there, too, with
no British officer in sight to enforce discretion.
Come to think of it, I have always regarded a bayonet wound in
the stomach as the least desirable of life's unpleasantries.
So Suliman and I turned back. I decided to investigate that dark
little stone house, after all; for it occurred to me that, if
that was the centre of conspiracy, then Grim would certainly show
up there sooner or later and straighten out the predicament.
Have you ever noticed how hungry you get walking about aimlessly
in the dark, especially when you are sleepy in the bargain?
Suliman began to whimper for food, and although I called him a
belly on legs by way of encouragement he had my secret sympathy.
I was as hungry as he was; and I needed a drink, too, which he
didn't. The little devil hadn't yet included whiskey in his list
of vices.
The side of the street an which the little stone house stood was
the darker, so we sat down with our backs against its wall, and
the boy proceeded to fall asleep at once. The one thing I was
sure I must not do was imitate him. So I began to look about me
in the hope of finding something sufficiently interesting to keep
me awake.
There was nothing in the street except the makings of a bad
smell. There was plenty of that. I searched the opposite wall,
on which the moon shone, but there was nothing there of even
architectural interest. My eyes traveled higher, and rested at
last on something extremely curious.
The wall was not very high at that point. It formed the blind
rear of a house that faced into a court of some sort approached
by an alley from another street. There were no windows. A small
door some distance to my left belonged obviously to the next
house. On top of the wall, almost exactly, but not quite, in the
middle of it, was a figure that looked like a wooden carving--
something like one of those fat, seated Chinamen they used to set
over the tea counter of big grocer's shops.
But the one thing that you never see, and can be sure of not
seeing in Jerusalem outside of a Christian church, is a carved
human figure of any kind. The Moslems are fanatical on that
point. Whatever exterior statues the crusaders for instance
left, the Saracens and Turks destroyed. Besides, why was it not
exactly in the middle?
It was much too big and thick-set to be a sleeping vulture. It
was the wrong shape to be any sort of chimney. It was certainly
not a bale of merchandise put up on the roof to dry. And the
longer you looked at it the less it seemed to resemble anything
recognizable. I had about reached the conclusion that it must be
a bundle of sheepskins up-ended, ready to be spread out in the
morning sun, and was going to cast about for something else to
puzzle over, when it moved. The man who thinks he would not feel
afraid when a thing like that moves in the dark unexpectedly has
got to prove it before I believe him. The goose-flesh broke out
all over me.
A moment later the thing tilted forward, and a man's head emerged
from under a blanket. It chuckled damnably. If there had been a
rock of the right size within reach I would have thrown it, for
it is not agreeable to be chuckled at when you are hungry,
sleepy, and in a trap. I know just how trapped animals feel.
But then it spoke in good plain English; and you could not
mistake the voice.
"That's what comes of suiting yourself, doesn't it! Place
plugged at both ends, and nowhere to go but there and back!
Thanks for tipping off Narayan Singh--you see, we were all ready.
Here's a pass that'll let you out--catch!"
He threw down a piece of white paper, folded.
"Show that to the Sikhs at either end. Now beat it, while the
going's good. Leave Suliman there. I shall want him when he has
had his sleep out. Say: hadn't you better change your mind
about coming back too soon from that joy ride? Haven't you had
enough of this? The next move's dangerous."
"Is it my choice?" I asked.
"We owe you some consideration."
"Then I'm in on the last act."
"All right. But don't blame me. Turner will give you orders.
Get a move on."
I lowered Suliman's head gently from my knee on to a nice
comfortable corner of the stone gutter, and went up-street to
interview the Sikhs. It was rather like a New York Customs
inspection, after your cabin steward has not been heavily enough
tipped, and has tipped off the men in blue by way of distributing
the discontent. I showed them the safe-pass Grim had scribbled.
They accepted that as dubious preliminary evidence of my right to
be alive, but no more. I was searched painstakingly and
ignominiously for weapons. No questions asked. Nothing taken
for granted. Even my small change was examined in the moonlight,
coin by coin, to make sure, I suppose, that it wouldn't explode
if struck on stone. They gave everything back to me, including
my underwear.
A bearded non-commissioned officer entered a description of me in
a pocket memorandum book. If his face, as he wrote it, was
anything to judge by he described me as a leper without a
license. Then I was cautioned gruffly in an unknown tongue and
told to "imshi!" It isn't a bad plan to "imshi" rather quickly
when a Sikh platoon suggests your doing it. I left them standing
all alone, with nothing but the empty night to bristle at.
The rest of that night, until half-an-hour before dawn was a
half-waking dream of discomfort and chilly draughts in the mouth
of the hotel arcade, where I sat and watched the spies, and they
watched me. The third man was presumably still sleeping in the
mosque, but it was satisfactory to know that the other two were
just as cold and unhappy as I felt.
About ten minutes before the car came the third man showed up
sheepishly, looking surprised as well as relieved to find me
sitting there. He put in several minutes explaining matters to
his friends. I don't doubt he lied like a horse-trader and gave
a detailed account of having followed me from place to place, for
he used a great deal of pantomimic gesture. The other two were
cynical with the air of men who must sit and listen to another
blowing his own trumpet.
The car arrived with a fanfare of horn-blowing, the chauffeur
evidently having had instructions to call lots of attention to
himself. Turner came out at once, with the lower part of his
face protected against the morning chill by a muffler. Being
about the same height, and in that Syrian uniform, he looked
remarkably like Grim, except that he did not imitate the stride
nearly as well.
He stumbled over me, clutched my shoulder and made signs for the
benefit of the spies. Then he whispered to me to help him carry
out the "money" bags. So we each took three for the first trip,
and each contrived to drop one. By the time all ten bags were in
the car there can hardly have remained any doubt in the
conspirators' minds that we were really taking funds to Mustapha
Kemal, or at any rate to somebody up north.
But Davey was no half-way concession maker. Having lent himself
unwillingly to the trick, he did his utmost to make it succeed,
like a good sport. He stuck his head out of a bedroom window.
"Don't forget, now, to send me those rugs from Damascus!"
he shouted.
It all went like clockwork. Glancing back as we drove by the
Jaffa Gate I saw the three spies walk away, and there is very
often more information in men's backs than in their faces. They
walked like laborers returning home with a day's work behind
them, finished; not at all like men in doubt, nor as if they
suspected they were followed, although in fact they were. Three
Sikhs emerged from the corner by the Gate and strolled along
behind them. Detailed preparations for the round-up had begun.
The unostentatious mechanism of it seemed more weird and terrible
than the conspiracy itself.
There was a full company of Sikhs standing to arms in a side
street leading off the Jaffa Road, but they took no notice of us.
Their officer looked keenly at us once, and then very
deliberately stared the other way, illustrating how some fighting
men make pretty poor dissemblers; every one of his dark-skinned
rank and file had observed all the details of our outfit without
seeming to see us at all.
"We're using nothing but Sikhs on this job," said Turner.
"British troops wouldn't appreciate the delicacy of the
situation. Moslems couldn't be trusted not to talk. The Sikhs
enjoy the surreptitious part of it, and don't care enough about
the politics to get excited. Wish I might be in at the finish,
though! Have you any notion what the real objective is?"
"No," said I, and tried not to feel, or look pleased with myself.
But no mere amateur can conceal that, in the moment of discovery,
he knows more about the inside of an official business than one
of the Administration's lawful agents. That is nine-tenths of
the secret of "bossed" politics--the sheer vanity of being on the
inside, "in the know." I suppose I smirked. "Damn this ride
to Haifa! What the hell have you done, I wonder, that you should
have a front pew? Is the Intelligence short of officers?"
I had done nothing beyond making Grim's acquaintance and by good
luck tickling his flair for odd friendship. I thought it better
not to say that, so I went on lying.
"I don't suppose I know any more than you do."
"Rot! I posted the men who watched you into Djemal's place
yesterday, and watched you out again. You acted pretty poorly,
if you ask me. It's a marvel we didn't have to go in there and
rescue you. I suppose you're another of Grim's favorites. He
picks some funny ones. Half the men in jail seem to be friends
of his."