"Dead or alive, sahib."
I did get breakfast nevertheless, but in a strange place. The
city shutters were coming down only under protest, because, just
as in Boston and other hubs of sanctity, shop-looting starts less
than five minutes after the police let go control. There was an
average, that morning, of about ten rumours to the ear. So the
shop-keepers had to be ordered to open up. About the mildest
rumour was that the British had decide to vacate and to leave the
Zionists in charge of things. You couldn't fool an experienced
Jew as to what would happen in that event. There was another
rumour that Mustapha Kemal was on the march. Another that an
Arab army was invading from the direction of El-Kerak. But there
were British officers walking about with memorandum books, and a
fifty-pound fine looked more serious than an outbreak that had
not occurred yet. So they were putting down their shutters.
I had nearly reached the Haram-es-Sheriff, and was passing a
platoon of Sikhs who dozed beside their rifles near a street
corner, when Grim's voice hailed me through the half-open door
behind them. He was back in his favourite disguise as a Bedouin,
squatting on a mat near the entrance of a vaulted room, where he
could see through the door without being seen.
"This is headquarters for the present," he explained. "Soon as
we bag the game we'll run 'em in here quick as lightning. Most
likely keep 'em here all day, so's not to have to parade 'em
through the streets until after dark. A man's coming soon with
coffee and stuff to eat."
"What's become of Suliman?"
"He's shooting craps with two other young villains close to
where you left him last night. I'm hoping he'll get word with
his mother."
Grim looked more nervous than I had ever seen him. There was a
deep frown between his eyes. He talked as if he were doing it to
keep himself from worrying.
"What's eating you?" I asked.
"Noureddin Ali. After all this trouble to bag the whole gang
without any fuss there's a chance he's given us the slip. I
watched all night to make sure he didn't come out of that door.
He didn't. But I've no proof he's in there. Scharnhoff's in
there, and five of the chief conspirators. Noureddin Ali may be.
But a man brought me a story an hour ago about seeing him on the
city wall. However, here's the food. So let's eat."
He sat and munched gloomily, until presently Goodenough joined
us, looking, what with that monocle and one thing and another, as
if he had just stepped out of a band-box.
"Well, Grim, the net's all ready. If that TNT is where you say
it is, in that big barn behind the fruit-stalls near the Jaffa
Gate, it's ours the minute they make a move."
"There isn't a doubt on that point," Grim answered. "Why else
should Scharnhoff open a fruit-shop? The license for it was
taken out by one of Noureddin Ali's agents, whose brother deals
in fruit wholesale and owns that barn. Narayan Singh tracked
some suspicious packages to that place four days ago. They'll
start to carry it into the city hidden under loads of fruit just
as soon as the morning crowd begins to pour in. We only need let
them get the first consignment in, so as to have the chain of
evidence complete. Are you sure your men will let the first lot
go through?"
"Absolutely. Just came from giving them very careful
instructions. The minute that first load disappears into the city
they'll close in on the barn and arrest every one they find in
there. But what are you gloomy about?"
"I'd hate to miss the big fish."
"You mean Noureddin Ali ?"
"It looks to me as if he's been a shade too wise for us. One man
swore he saw him on the wall this morning, but he was gone when I
sent to make sure. We've got all the rest. There are five in
Djemal's Cafe, waiting for the big news; they'll be handcuffed
one at a time by the police when they get tired of waiting and
come out.
"But I'd rather bag Noureddin Ali than all the others put
together. He's got brains, that little beast has. He'd know how
to use this story against us with almost as much effect as if
he'd pulled the outrage off."
He had hardly finished speaking when Narayan Singh's great bulk
darkened the doorway. He closed the door behind him, as if
afraid the other Sikhs might learn bad news.
"It is true, sahib. He was on the wall. He is there again."
"Have you seen him?"
"Surely. He makes signals to the men who are loading the donkeys
now in the door of the barn. It would be a difficult shot. His
head hardly shows between the battlements. But I think I could
hit him from the road below. Shall I try?"
"No, you'd only scare him into hiding if you miss. Oh hell!
There are three ways up on to the wall at that point. There's no
time to block them all--not if he's signalling now. He'll see
your men close in on the barn, sir, and beat it for the skyline.
Oh, damn and blast the luck!"
"At least we can try to cut him off," said Goodenough. "I'll
take some men myself and have a crack at it."
"No use, sir. You'd never catch sight of him. I wish you'd let
Narayan Singh take three men, make for the wall by the shortest
way, and hunt him if it takes a week."
"Why not? All right. D'you hear that, Narayan Singh?"
"Atcha, sahib."
"You understand?" said Grim. "Keep him moving. Keep after him."
"Do the sahibs wish him alive or dead?"
"Either way," said Goodenough.
"If he's gone from the wall when you get there," Grim added,
"bring us the news. You'll know where to find us"
"Atcha"
The Sikh brought his rifle to the shoulder, faced about,
marched out, chose three men from the platoon in the street,
and vanished.
"Too bad, too bad!" said Goodenough, but Grim did not answer. He
was swearing a blue streak under his breath. The next to arrive
on the scene was Suliman, grinning with delight because he had
won all the money of the other urchins, but brimming with news in
the bargain. He considered a mere colonel of cavalry beneath
notice, and addressed himself to Grim without ceremony.
"My mother brought out oranges in baskets and set them on benches
on both sides of the door. Then she went in, and I heard her
scream. There was a fight inside."
"D'you care to bet, sir?" asked Grim.
"On what?"
"I'll bet you a hundred piastres Scharnhoff has tried to make his
get-away, and they've either killed him or tied him hand and
foot. Another hundred on top of that, that Scharnhoff offers to
turn state witness, provided he's alive when we show up."
"All right. I'll bet you he hangs."
"Are you coming with us, sir?"
"Wouldn't miss it for a king's ransom."
"The back way out, then."
Grim beckoned the Sikhs into the room, left one man in there in
charge of Suliman, who swore blasphemously at being left behind,
and led the way down a passage that opened into an alley
connecting with a maze of others like rat runs, mostly arched
over and all smelly with the unwashed gloom of ages. At the end
of the last alley we entered was a flight of stone steps, up
which we climbed to the roof of the house on which I had seen
Grim the night before.
There was a low coping on the side next the street, and some one
had laid a lot of bundles of odds and ends against it; lying
down, we could look out between those without any risk of being
seen from below, but Goodenough made the Sikhs keep well in the
background and only we three peered over the edge. About two
hundred yards in front of us the Dome of the Rock glistened in
the morning sun above the intervening roofs. The street was
almost deserted, although the guards at either end had been
removed for fear of scaring away the conspirators. We watched
for about twenty minutes before any one passed but occasional
beggars, some of whom stopped to wonder why oranges should stand
on sale outside a door with nobody in charge of them. Three
separate individuals glanced right and left and then helped
themselves pretty liberally from the baskets.
But at last there came five donkeys very heavily loaded with
oranges and raisins, in charge of six men, which was a more than
liberal allowance. When they stopped at the little stone house
in front of us there was another thing noticeable; instead of
hitting the donkeys hard on the nose with a thick club, which is
the usual way of calling a halt in Palestine, they went to the
heads and stopped them reasonably gently. So, although all six
men were dressed to resemble peasants, they were certainly
nothing of the kind.
Nor were they such wide-awake conspirators as they believed
themselves, for they were not in the least suspicious of six
other men, also dressed as peasants, who followed them up-street,
and sat down in full view with their backs against a wall. Yet I
could see quite plainly the scabbard of a bayonet projecting
through a hole in the ragged cloak of the nearest of those
casual wayfarers.
They had to knock several minutes before the door opened
gingerly; then they off-loaded the donkeys, and it took two men
to carry each basketful, with a third lending a hand in case of
accident. Only one man went back with the donkeys, and two of
the casual loafers against the wall got up to saunter after him;
the other five honest merchants went inside, and we heard the
bolt shoot into its iron slot behind them.
"How about it, Grim?" asked Goodenough then.
"Ready, sir. Will you give the order?"
We filed in a hurry down the steps into the alley, ran in a zig-
zag down three passages, and reached another alley with narrow
door at its end that faced the street. Grim had made every
preparation. There was a heavy baulk of timber lying near the
door, with rope-handles knotted into holes bored through it at
intervals. The Sikhs picked that up and followed us into
the street.
The mechanism of the Administration's net was a thing to wonder
at. As we emerged through the door the "peasants" who were
loafing with their backs against the wall got up and formed a
cordon across the street. Simultaneously, although I neither saw
nor heard any signal, a dozen Sikhs under a British officer came
down the street from the other direction at the double and formed
up in line on our lefthand. A moment later, our men were
battering the door down with their baulk of timber, working all
together as if they had practised the stunt thoroughly.
It was a stout door, three inches thick, of ancient olivewood and
reinforced with forged iron bands. The hinges, too, had been
made by hand in the days when, if a man's house was not his
fortress, he might just as well own nothing; they were cemented
deep into the wall, and fastened to the door itself with half-
inch iron rivets. The door had to be smashed to pieces, and the
noise we made would have warned the devils in the middle of
the world.
"We shouldn't have let them get in with any TNT at all," said
Goodenough. "They'll touch it off before we can prevent them."
"Uh-uh! They're not that kind," Grim answered. "They'll fight
for their skins. Have your gun ready, sir. They've laid their
plans for a time-fuse and a quick getaway. They'll figure the
going may be good still if they can once get past us. Look out
for a rush!"
But when the door went down at last in a mess of splinters
there was no rush--nothing but silence--a dark, square, stone
room containing two cots and a table, and fruit scattered all
over the floor amid gray dust and fragments of cement. Grim
laughed curtly.
"Look, sir!"
The fruit-baskets were on the floor by one of the cots, and the
TNT containers were still in them. They had tipped out the
fruit, and then run at the sound of the battering ram.
Goodenough stepped into the room, and we followed him. Beyond
the table, half-hidden by a great stone slab, was a dark hole in
the floor. Evidently the last man through had tried to cover up
the hole, but had found the stone too heavy. The Sikhs dragged
it clear and disclosed the mouth of a tunnel, rather less than a
man's height, sloping sharply downward.
"What we need now is mustard gas. Smoke 'em out,"
said Goodenough.
"Might kill 'em," Grim objected.
"That'd be too bad, wouldn't it!"
"We could starve 'em out, for that matter," said Grim. "But
they've probably got water down there, and perhaps food. Every
hour of delay adds to the risk of rioting. We've got to get this
hole sealed up permanently, and deny that it was ever opened."
"We could do that at once! But I won't be a party to sealing 'em
up alive."
"Besides, sir, they've certainly got firearms, and they might
just possible have one can of TNT down there."
"All right," said Goodenough. "I'll lead the way down."
"I've a plan," said Grim.
He took one of the fruit-baskets and began breaking it up.
"Who has a white shirt?" he asked.
I was the haberdasher. The others, Sikhs included, were all
clothed in khaki from coat to skin. Grim's Bedouin array was
dark-brown. I peeled the shirt off, and Grim rigged it on a
frame of basket-work, with a clumsy pitch-forked arrangement of
withes at the bottom. The idea was not obvious until he twisted
the withes about his waist; then, when he bent down, the shirt
stood up erect above him.
"If you don't mind, sir, we'll have two or three Sikhs go first.
Have them take their boots off and crawl quietly as flat down as
they can keep. I'll follow 'em with this contraption. They'll
be able to see the white shirt dimly against the tunnel, and if
they do any shooting they'll aim at that. Then if the rest of
you keep low behind me we've a good chance to rush them before
they can do any damage."
I never met a commanding officer more free from personal conceit
than Goodenough, and as I came to know more of him later on that
characteristic stood out increasingly. He was not so much a man
of ideas as one who could recognize them. That done, he made use
of his authority to back up his subordinates, claiming no credit
for himself but always seeing to it that they got theirs.
The result was that he was simultaneously despised and loved--
despised by the self-advertising school, of which there are
plenty in every army, and loved--with something like fanaticism
by his junior officers and men.
"I agree to that," he said simply, screwing in his monocle. Then
he turned and instructed the Sikhs in their own language.
"You follow last," he said to me. "Now--all ready?"
He had a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other, but
had to stow them both away again in order to crawl in the tunnel.
Grim had no weapon in sight. The two Sikhs who were to lead had
stripped themselves of everything that might make a noise, but
the others kept both boots and rifles, with bayonets fixed, for
it did not much matter what racket they made. In fact, the more
noise we, who followed, made, the better, since that would draw
attention from the Sikhs in front. All we had to do was to keep
our bodies below Grim's kite affair, out of the probable line
of fire.
Nevertheless, that dark hole was untempting. A dank smell came
out of it, like the breath of those old Egyptian tombs in which
the bones of horses, buried with their masters, lie all about on
shelves. You couldn't see into it more than a yard or two, for
the only light came through the doorway of the windowless room,
and the tunnel led into the womb of rock where, perhaps, no light
had been since Solomon's day.
But the leading Sikhs went in without hesitation and got down on
their bellies. They might have been swallowed whole for all that
I heard or saw of them from that minute. You could guess why the
Turks and Germans had not really craved to meet those fellows out
in No-man's-land.
Grim went in on all-fours like a weird animal, with my shirt
dancing on its frame above his back. Goodenough went next,
peering through that window-pane monocle like a deep-sea fish.
All the rest of the Sikhs went after him in Indian file, dragging
their rifle-butts along the tunnel floor and making noise enough
to remind you of the New York subway.
I went in at the tail end, trying at intervals to peer around a
khaki-covered Punjaub rump, alternately getting my head and
fingers bruised by heels I could not see and a rifle-butt that
only moved in jerks when you didn't expect it to. My nose was
bleeding at the end of ten yards.
But you couldn't keep your distance. Whenever the men in front
checked at some obstruction or paused to listen, all those behind
closed up; and by the time those behind had run their noses
against iron-shod heels the men in front were on their way again.
You couldn't see a thing until you rammed your head into it, and
then the sense of touch gave you a sort of sight suggestion, as
when you see things in a dream. As for sound, the tunnel acted
like a whispering gallery, mixing all the noises up together, so
that you could not guess whether a man had spoken, or a stone had
fallen, or a pistol had gone off, or all three.
Once or twice, when the line closed up on itself caterpillar-
fashion, I was able to make out my white shirt dancing dimly;
and once, where some trick of the tunnel sorted out the sounds, I
caught a scrap of conversation.
"D'you suppose they'll be able to see the shirt?"
"God knows. I can hardly make it out from here."
"When it looks like the right time to you, sir, turn the
flashlight on it."
"All right. God damn! Keep on going--you nearly knocked out
my eye-glass!"
Even over my shoulder, looking backward, I could see practically
nothing, for what little light came in through the opening was
swallowed by the first few yards. There was a suspicion of
paleness in the gloom behind, and the occasional suggestion of an
outline of rough wall; no more.
Nor was the tunnel straight by any means. It turned and twisted
constantly; and at every bend the men who originally closed it
had built up a wall of heavy masonry that Scharnhoff had had to
force his way through. In those places the broken stones were
now lying in the fairway, as you knew by the suffering when you
came in contact with them; some of the split-off edges were as
sharp as glass.
It was good fun, all the same, while it lasted. If we had been
crawling down a sewer, or a modern passage of any kind, the sense
of danger and discomfort would, no doubt, have overwhelmed all
other considerations. But, even supposing Scharnhoff had been on
a vain hunt, and the veritable Tomb of the Kings of Judah did not
lie somewhere in the dark ahead of us, we were nevertheless under
the foundations of Solomon's temple, groping our way into
mysteries that had not been disclosed, perhaps, since the days
when the Queen of Sheba came and paid her homage to the most
wise king. You could feel afraid, but you couldn't wish you
weren't there.
I have no idea how long it took to crawl the length of that black
passage. It seemed like hours. I heard heavy footsteps behind
me after a while. Some one following in a hurry, who could see
no better than we could, kept stumbling over the falling masonry;
and once, when he fell headlong, I heard him swear titanically in
a foreign tongue. I called back to whoever it was to crawl
unless he wanted to be shot, but probably the words were all
mixed up in the tunnel echoes, for he came on as before.
Then all at once Goodenough flashed on the light for a fraction
of a second and the shirt showed like a phantom out of blackness.
The instant answer to that was a regular volley of shots from in
front. The flash of several pistols lit up the tunnel, and
bullets rattled off the walls and roof. The shirt fell, shot
loose from its moorings, and the leading Sikhs gave a shout as
they started to rush forward.
We all surged after them, but there was a sudden check, followed
by a babel worse than when a dozen pi-dogs fight over a rubbish-
heap. You couldn't make head or tail of it, except that
something desperate was happening in front, until suddenly a man
with a knife in his hand, too wild with fear to use it, came
leaping and scrambling over the backs of Sikhs, like a forward
bucking the line. The Sikh in front of me knelt upright and
collared him round the knees. The two went down together, I on
top of both of them with blood running down my arm, for the man
had started to use his knife at last, slashing out at random, and
I rather think that slight cut he gave me saved the Sikh's life.
But you can make any kind of calculation afterwards, about what
took place in absolute darkness, without the least fear of being
proven wrong. And since the Sikh and I agreed on that point no
other opinion matters.
I think that between the two of us we had that man about
nonplused, although we couldn't see. I had his knife, and the
Sikh was kneeling on his stomach, when a hundred and eighty
pounds of bone and muscle catapulted at us from the rear and
sprawled on us headlong, saved by only a miracle from skewering
some one with a bayonet as he fell.
He laughed while he fought, this newcomer, and even asked
questions in the Sikh tongue. He had my arm in a grip like a
vise and wrenched at it until I cursed him. Then he found a leg
in the dark and nearly broke that, only to discover it was the
other Sikh's. Still laughing, as if blindfolded fighting was his
meat and drink, he reached again, and this time his fingers
closed on enemy flesh. Judging by the yells, they hurt, too.
There must have been at least another minute of cat-and-dog-fight
struggling--hands being stepped on and throats clutched--before
Goodenough rolled himself free from an antagonist in front and,
groping for the flashlight, found it and flashed it on. The
first thing I recognized by its light was the face of Narayan
Singh, with wonderful white teeth grinning through his black
beard within six inches of my nose.
"Damn you!" I laughed. "You weigh a ton. Get off--you nearly
killed me!"
"Nearly, in war-time, means a whole new life to lose, sahib. Be
pleased to make the most of it!" he answered.
Within two minutes after that we had eight prisoners disarmed and
subdued, some of them rather the worse for battery. The amazing
thing was that we hadn't a serious casualty among the lot of us.
We could have totaled a square yard of skin, no doubt, and a
bushel of bruises (if that is the way you measure them) but mine
was the only knife-wound. I felt beastly proud.
By the light of the electric torch we dragged and prodded the
prisoners back whence they had come, and presently Grim or
somebody found a lantern and lit it. We found ourselves in a
square cavern--a perfect cube it looked like--about thirty feet
wide each way.
In the midst was a plain stone coffer with its lid removed and
set on end against it. In the coffer lay a tall man's skeleton,
with the chin still bound in linen browned with age. There were
other fragments of linen here and there, but the skeleton's bones
had been disturbed and had fallen more or less apart.
Over in one corner were two large bundles done up in modern gunny-
bags, and Grim went over to examine them.
"Hello!" he said. "Here's Scharnhoff and his lady friend!"
He ripped the lashings of both bundles and disclosed the Austrian
and the woman, gagged and tied, both almost unconscious from
inability to breathe, but not much hurt otherwise.
The Sikhs herded the prisoners, old alligator-eyes among them,
into another corner. Grim tore my shirt into strips to bandage
my arm with. Goodenough talked with Narayan Singh, while we
waited for Scharnhoff to recover full consciousness.
"Those murderers!" he gasped at last. "Schweinehunde!"
"Better spill the beans, old boy," Grim said, smiling down at
him. "You'll hang at the same time they do, if you can't tell a
straight story."
"Ach! I do not care! There were no manuscripts--nothing! I
don't know whose skeleton that is--some old king David, perhaps;
for that is not David's real tomb that the guides show. Hang
those murderers and I am satisfied!"
"Your story may help hang them. Come on, out with it!"
"Have you caught Noureddin Ali?"
"Never mind!"
"But I do mind! And you should mind!"
Scharnhoff sat up excitedly. He was dressed in the Arab garments
I had seen in his cupboard that day when Grim and I called on
him, with a scholar's turban that made him look very distinguished
in spite of his disarray.
"That Noureddin Ali is a devil! Together we would look for the
Tomb of the Kings. Together we would smuggle out the manuscripts
--translate them together--publish the result together. He lent
me money. He promised to bring explosives. Oh, he was full of
enthusiasm! It was not until last night, when I had broken that
last obstruction down and discovered nothing but this coffin,
that I learned his real plan. The devil intended all along to
fill this tomb with high explosive and to destroy the mosque above,
with everybody in it! Curse him!"
"Never mind cursing him," said Grim, "tell us the story."
"He sent oranges here, all marked with the labels of a Zionist
colony. When I told him that the explosive would arrive too
late, he said I should use it to smash these walls and find
another tomb. He himself disappeared, and when I questioned
his men they told me the explosive would be brought in hidden
under fruit in baskets. I waited then in the hope of killing
him myself--"
"Hah-hah!" laughed Grim.
"That is true! But they bound me, and later on bound the woman,
and laid us here to be blown up together with the mosque."
Grim turned to Goodenough, who had been listening.
"Do I win the bet, sir?"
"Ten piastoes!" said Goodenough. "Yes. Narayan Singh says
Noureddin Ali was gone by the time they reached the wall."
"Sure, or he'd have brought Noureddin Ali. I've been thinking,
sir. We've one chance left to bag that buzzard. Will you give
me carte blanche?"
"Yes. Go ahead."
Grim crossed the place to the corner where old alligator-eyes
stood herded with the other prisoners.
"Are you guilty?" he demanded.
"No. Guilty of nothing. I came out of curiosity to see what was
happening here."
"Thought so. Can you hold your tongue? Then go! Get out
of here!"
Alligator-eyes didn't wait for a second urging, nor stay to
question his good luck, but went off in a shambling hurry.
"You are mad!" exclaimed Scharnhoff. "That man is the next-worst!"
"Grim, are you sure that's wise?" asked Goodenough.
"We can get him any time we want him, sir," Grim answered. "He
lacks Noureddin Ali's gift of slipperiness."
He turned to Narayan Singh.
"Follow that man, but don't let him know he's followed. He'll
show you where Noureddin Ali is. Get him this time!"
"Dead or alive, sahib?"
"Either."