"Hum Dekta hai"
Like most of the quarters occupied by British officers, the house
occupied by Major Roger Ticknor and his wife Mabel was "enemy property,"
and its only virtue consisted in its being rent free. Grim, Jeremy,
little Ticknor and his smaller wife, and I sat facing across a small
deal table with a stuttering oil-lamp between us. In a house not far
away some Orthodox Jews, arrayed in purple and green and orange, with
fox-fur around the edges of their hats, were drunk and celebrating
noisily the Feast of Esther; so you can work out the exact date if
you're curious enough. The time was nine p.m. We had talked the Anzac
hurricane-drive through Palestine all over again from the beginning,
taking world-known names in vain and doing honour to others that will
stay unsung for lack of recognition, when one of those unaccountable
pauses came, and for the sake of breaking silence, Mabel Ticknor asked a
question. She was a little, plucky, pale-faced thing whom you called
instinctively by her first name at the end of half an hour--a sort of
little mother of loose-ended men, who can make silk purses out of sows'
ears, and wouldn't know how to brag if she were tempted.
"Say, Jim," she asked, turning her head quickly like a bird toward Grim
on my left, "what's your verdict about that man from Syria that Roger
took in a cab to the Sikh hospital? I'm out a new pair of riding
breeches if Roger has to pay the bill for him. I want my money's worth.
Tell me his story."
"Go ahead and buy the breeches, Mabel. I'll settle that bill," he
answered.
"No, you won't, Jim! You're always squandering money. Half your pay
goes to the scallywags you've landed in jail. This one's up to Roger
and me; we found him."
Grim laughed.
"I can charge his keep under the head of 'information paid for.' I shall
sign the voucher without a qualm."
"You'd get blood out of a stone, Jim! Go on, tell us!"
"I'm hired to keep secrets as well as discover them," Grim answered,
smiling broadly.
"Of course you are," she retorted. "But I know all Roger's secrets, and
he's a doctor, mind you! Am I right, Roger? Come along! There are no
servants--no eavesdroppers. Wait. I'll put tea on the table, and then
we'll all listen."
She made tea Australian fashion in a billy, which is quick and simple,
but causes alleged dyspepsia cures to sell well all the way from
Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentraia.
"You'll have to tell her, Jim," said Jeremy.
"Mabel's safe as an iron roof," put in her husband. "Noisy in the rain,
but doesn't leak."
But neither man nor woman could have extracted a story from James
Schuyler Grim unless it suited him to tell it. Mabel Ticknor is one of
those honest little women who carry men's secrets with them up and down
the world. Being confided in by nearly every man who met her was a
habit. But Grim tells only when the telling may accomplish something,
and I wondered, as he laid his elbow on the table to begin, just what
use he meant to make of Mabel Ticknor. He uses what he knows as other
level-headed men use coin, spending thriftily for fair advantage.
"That is secret," he began, as soon as Mabel had dumped the contents of
the billy into a huge brown teapot. "I expect Narayan Singh here
presently. He'll have a letter with him, taken from the Syrian who
stabbed that man in the hospital."
"Whoa, hoss!" Jeremy interrupted. "You mean you've sent that Sikh to
get the shirt of Yussuf Dakmar?"
Grim nodded.
"That was my job," Jeremy objected.
"Whoa, hoss, yourself, Jeremy!" Grim answered. "You'd have gone down
into the bazaar like a bull into a china-shop. Narayan Singh knows
where to find him. If he shows fight, he'll be simply handed over to
the Sikh patrol for attacking a man in uniform, and by the time he
reaches the lock-up that letter will be here on the table between us."
"All the same, that's a lark you've done me out of," Jeremy insisted.
"That Yussuf Dakmar's a stinker. I know all about him. Two whole
squadrons had to eat lousy biscuit for a week because that swab sold the
same meat five times over. But I'll get him yet!"
"Well, as I was saying," Grim resumed, "there's a letter in Jerusalem
that's supposed to be from Feisul. But when Feisul writes anything he
signs his name to it, whereas a number is the signature on this. Now
that fellow Sidi bin Tagim in the hospital is an honest old kite in his
way. He's a great rooter for Feisul. And the only easy way to ditch a
man like Feisul, who's as honest as the day is long, and no man's fool,
is to convince his fanatical admirers that for his own sake he ought to
be forced along a certain course. The game's as old as Adam. You fill
up a man like Sidi bin Tagim with tales about Jews--convince him that
Jews stand between Feisul and a kingdom--and he'll lend a hand in any
scheme ostensibly directed against Jews. Get me?"
"So would I!" swore Jeremy. "I'm against 'em too! I camped alongside
the Jordan Highlanders one time when--"
But we had had that story twice that evening with variations. He was
balancing his chair on two legs, so I pushed him over backward, and
before he could pick himself up again Grim resumed.
"Feisul is in Damascus, and the Syrian Convention has proclaimed him
king. That don't suit the French, who detest him. The feeling's
mutual. When Feisul went to Paris for the Peace Conference, the French
imagined he was easy. They thought, here's another of these Eastern
princes who can be taken in the old trap. So they staged a special
performance at the Opera for him, and invited him to supper afterward
behind the scenes with the usual sort of ladies in full war-paint in
attendance."
"Shall we cut that too?" suggested Mabel.
"Sure. Feisul did! He's not that kind of moth. Ever since then the
French have declared he's a hypocrite; and because he won't yield his
rights they've been busy inventing wrongs of their own and insisting on
immediate adjustment. The French haven't left one stone unturned that
could irritate Feisul into making a false move."
"To hell with them!" suggested Jeremy, reaching for more tea.
"But Feisul's not easy to irritate," Grim went on. "He's one of those
rare men, who get born once in an epoch, who force you to believe that
virtue isn't extinct. He's almost like a child in some things--like a
good woman in others--and a man of iron courage all the time, who can
fire Arabs in the same way Saladin did five centuries ago."
"He looks like a saint," said Jeremy. "I've seen him."
"But he's no soft liver," continued Grim. "He was brought up in the
desert among Bedouins, and has their stoical endurance with a sort of
religious patience added. Gets that maybe from being a descendant of
the Prophet."
"Awful sort to have to fight, that kind are," said Jeremy. "They wear
you down!"
"So the French decided some time ago to persuade Feisul's intimates to
make a bad break which he couldn't repudiate."
"Why don't he cut loose with forty or fifty thousand men and boot the
French into the sea?" demanded Jeremy. "I'll make one to help him! I
knew a Frenchman once, who--"
"We'll come to that presently," said Grim. "I dare say you didn't hear
of Verdun."
"Objection sustained. Hand it to 'em. They've got guts," grinned
Jeremy. "Fire away, old top."
"Well, they ran foul of an awkward predicament, which is that there are
some darned decent fellows among the officers of their army of
occupation. There's more than a scattering of decent gentlemen who
don't like dirt. I won't say they tell Feisul secrets, or disobey
orders; but if you want to give a man a square deal there are ways of
doing it without sending him telegrams."
Mabel put the tea back on the kerosene stove to stew, with an extra
handful of black leaves in it. Grim continued:
"Another thing: The French are half afraid that if they take the field
against Feisul on some trumped-up pretext, he'll get assistance from the
British. They could send him things he needs more than money, and can't
get. Ninety-nine per cent of the British are pro-Feisul. Some of them
would risk their jobs to help him in a pinch. The French have got to
stall those men before they can attack Feisul safely."
"How d'you mean--stall 'em?" demanded Jeremy. "Not all the British are
fools--only their statesmen, and generals, and sixty percent of the
junior officers and rank and file. The rest don't have to be fed pap
from a bottle; they're good men. Takes more than talk to stall that
kind off a man they like."
"You've got the idea, Jeremy. You have to show them. Well, why not
stir up revolution here in Palestine in Feisul's name? Why not get the
malcontents to murder Jews wholesale, with propaganda blowing full blast
to make it look as if Feisul's hand is directing it all? It's as simple
as falling off a log. French agents who look like honest Arabs approach
the most hairbrained zealots who happen to be on the inside with Feisul,
and suggest to them that the French and British are allies; therefore
the only way to keep the British from helping the French will be to
start red-hot trouble in Palestine that will keep the British busy
protecting themselves and the Jews.
"The secret agents point out that although Feisul is against anything of
the sort, he must be committed to it for his own sake. And they make
great capital out of Feisul's promise that he will protect the Jews if
recognized as king of independent Syria. Kill all the Jews beforehand,
so there won't be any for him to protect when the time comes--that's the
argument."
Mabel interrupted.
"Haven't you warned Feisul?"
She had both elbows on the table and her chin between her hands, and I
dare say she had listened in just that attitude to fifty inside stories
that the newspapers would scatter gold in vain to get.
"I sure did. And he has sent one of his staff down here to keep an eye
on things. I saw him this afternoon riding in a cab toward the Jaffa
Gate. I said as much to that fellow in the hospital, and he was scared
stiff at the idea of my recovering the supposed Feisul letter and
showing it to an officer who is really in Feisul's confidence. That--I
mean the man's fear--linked everything up."
"You talk like Sherlock Holmes," laughed Jeremy. "I'll bet you a new
hat nothing comes of it."
"That bet's on," Grim answered. "It's to be a female hat, and Mabel
gets it. Order an expensive one from Paris, Mabel; Jeremy shall pay.
We've lots of other information. The troops here have been warned of an
intended massacre of Jews. The arrival of this letter probably puts a
date to it.
"But it puts a date to something else on which the whole future of the
Near East hangs; and that means the future of half the world, and maybe
the whole of it, because about three hundred million Mohammedans are
watching Feisul and will govern themselves accordingly. India, Persia,
Mesopotamia, Egypt, all Northern Africa--there's almost no limit to what
depends on Feisul's safety; and the French can't or won't understand
that."
There came the sound of heavy ammunition boots outside on the stone
step, followed by a cough that I believe I could recognize among a
thousand. Narayan Singh coughs either of two ways--once, deep bass, for
all's well; twice, almost falsetto, for a hint of danger. This time it
was the single deep bass cough. But it was followed after half a minute
by the two high-pitched barks, and Grim held up a hand for silence. At
the end of perhaps a minute there came from the veranda a perfect
imitation of the lascar's ungrammatical, whining singsong from a
fo'castle-head:
"Hum dekta hai!--I'm on the watch."
Grim nodded--to himself, I suppose, for none had spoken to him.
"Do you mind stepping out and getting that letter from him, Ramsden?
Keep in the shadow, please, and give him this pistol; he may need it."
So I slipped out through the screen door and spent a minute looking for
Narayan Singh. I'm an old hunter, but it wasn't until Narayan Singh
deliberately moved a hand to call attention to himself that I discovered
him within ten feet of me.
The risk of being seen from the street in case some spy were lurking out
there was obvious. So I walked all the way round the house, and came
and stood below him on his left hand where the house cast impenetrable
shadow; but though I took my time and moved stealthily he heard me and
passed me a letter through the veranda rails, accepting the pistol in
exchange without comment.
I could see him distinctly from that angle. His uniform on one side was
torn almost into rags, and his turban was all awry, as if he had lost it
in a scuffle and hadn't spared time to rewind it properly--a sure sign
of desperate haste; for a male tiger in the spring-time is no more
careful of his whiskers than a Sikh is of the thirty yards of cloth he
winds around his head.
As he didn't speak or make any more movement than was necessary to pass
me the letter and take the pistol, I returned the way I had come,
entered by the back door, tossed the letter to Grim, and crept back
again to bear a hand in case of need. Grim said nothing, but Jeremy
followed me, and two minutes later the Australian and I were crouching
in darkness below the veranda. This time I don't think Narayan Singh was
aware of friends at hand.
His eyes were fixed on the slightly lighter gap in a dark wall that was
the garden gate but looked more like a dim hole leading into a cave.
There being no other entrance that we knew of, Jeremy and I doubled up
on the same job, and a rat couldn't have come through without one of the
three of us detecting him. If we had had our senses with us we might
have realized that Narayan Singh was perfectly capable of watching that
single narrow space, and have used our own eyes to better advantage.
However, we're all three alive today, and two of us learned a lesson.
It wasn't long--perhaps five minutes--before a man showed himself
outside the gate, like a spectre dodging this and that way in response
to unearthly impulse. Once or twice he started forward, as if on the
point of sneaking in, but thought better of it and retreated. Once his
attitude suggested that he might be taking aim with a pistol; but if
that was so, he chose not to waste a shot or start an alarm by firing at
a mark he couldn't see. What he did accomplish was to keep six keen
eyes fixed on him.
And that gave three other men their chance to gain an entrance at the
rear of the wall in the garden, and creep up unawares. It was probably
sheer accident that led all three of them along the far side of the
house, but it was fortunate for Jeremy and me, for otherwise cold steel
between our shoulder-blades would likely have been our first intimation
of their presence.
We never suspected their existence until they gained the veranda by the
end opposite to where we waited; and I think they would have done their
murder if the man outside the gate hadn't lost his head from excitement,
or some similar emotion and tried to make a signal to them. All three
had brought up against the end window, where a shade torn in two places
provided a good view into the room in which Grim, Mabel and the doctor
were still sitting. Each of them had a pistol, and their intention
didn't admit of doubt.
"Are you there, sahib?" Narayan Singh whispered.
But Jeremy and I were aware of them almost as soon as he, and rather
than make a noise by vaulting the veranda rail, we took the longer route
by way of the front steps. Jeremy, who was wearing sandals, kicked them
off and not having to creep so carefully, moved faster.
Of course, the obvious question is, why didn't Narayan Singh shoot? I
had a pistol too; why didn't I use it? Well, I'll tell you. None but
the irresponsible criminal shoots a man except in obedience to orders or
in self-defence.
You may argue that those three night-prowlers might have shot Ticknor
and his wife and Grim through the window while we aired our superior
virtue. The answer to that is, that they didn't, although that was
their intention. Narayan Singh, already once that night in danger of
his life, and a "godless, heathen Sikh," as I have heard a missionary
call him, pocketed the pistol I had given him before proceeding to
engage, he being also a white man by the proper way of estimating such
things.
Jeremy was first on the scene of action, with Narayan Singh close behind
him, and I was quite a bit behind, for I tripped against the top step in
my hurry. The noise I made gave the alarm, and the three Arabs twisted
round like cornered scorpions. I guess they couldn't see us well at
first, having been staring through the torn shade into the lighted room.
Their pistols were cocked, but Jeremy's fist landed in the nearest man's
face before he could shoot, and he went crashing backwards into his
friend behind, whose head disappeared for a moment through the
window-pane, and the only blood shed on that occasion came from the
first man's nose and the back of the second man's neck where the smashed
glass slit a gash in it.
The third man fired wildly at me, and missed, a fraction of a second
before Narayan Singh landed on him with hands and feet; whereat the man
in the street emptied his pistol at me and ran away. I was in two minds
whether to give chase to him, but made the wrong decision, being heavy
on my feet and none too fond of running, so the big fish got away.
But even with my help added, the three less important fish still gave a
lot of trouble, for they fought like wild cats, using teeth and finger-
nails; and the doctor and his wife and Grim were all out lending a hand
before we had them finally convinced that the game was up. Mabel
trussed up the worst man with a clothes line, while I sat on him.
I expected to see a crowd around the house by that time, but Jerusalem
works otherwise than some cities. The sound of a pistol-shot sends
everybody hurrying for cover, lest some enemy accuse them afterwards of
having had a hand in the disturbance. And the nearest police post was a
mile away. So we had our little outrage all to ourselves, although
strange tales went the rounds of the Holy City that night, and two weeks
later several European newspapers printed a beautiful account of a
midnight massacre of Jews.
We dragged our prisoners into the sitting-room, and stood them up in
front of Grim after the doctor and Mabel had attended to their hurts,
which weren't especially serious; although nobody need expect to get in
the way of Jeremy's fist and feel comfortable for several hours
afterwards. The cut made in the second man's neck by broken glass
needed several stitches, but the third man was only winded from having
been sat on, and of course he was much more sorry for himself than
either of the other two--a fact that Grim noted.
There was another noticeable circumstance that shed light on human
nature and Grim's knowledge of it. They were all three eager to tell
their story, although not necessarily the same story; whereas Narayan
Singh, who knew that every word he might say would be believed
implicitly, was in no hurry to tell his at all.
Now when you're dealing with Eastern and near-Eastern people of the sort
who lie instinctively (and it may be that this applies to the West as
well) it's a good plan to establish, if you can, a basis of truth for
them to build their tale on; because the truth acts like acid on
untruth. They're going to lie in any case; but lies told without any
reference to truth knit better than when invented at a moment's notice
to explain away another's straightforward statement. There's a
plausible theory that culprits taken in the act are best examined in
secret, one by one, in ignorance of all the evidence against them.
The wise method is to let them hear the evidence against themselves.
Nine times out of ten they will accept that as unanswerable, and strive
to twist its meaning or smother it under a mass of lies. But the truth
they have accepted, as I have said, works just like acid and destroys
their argument almost as fast as they build it up. In the few cases
when that doesn't happen, they break down altogether and confess.
Anyhow, Grim, who taught me what I have just written, refused to listen
to their bleating until Narayan Singh first told in their hearing all
that he knew about the night's events. They were forced to sit down on
the floor and listen to him like three coffee-shop loungers being told a
story; and I don't doubt that the effect was strengthened by the Sikh's
standing facing them, for the contrast was as between jackals and a
lion.
Not that they were small men, for they weren't, or mere ten-dollar
assassins picked up in the suk. They looked well fed, and wore fine
linen, whereas Narayan Singh was in rags and had lost weight in our
recent desert marching, so that his cheek-bones stood out and he looked
superficially much more like a man at bay than they did.
But their well-cared-for faces were lean in the wrong place, and puffy
under the eyes. In place of courage they flaunted an insolent leer, and
the smile intended to convey self-confidence betrayed to a close
observer anxiety bordering on panic.
The most offensive part about them really was their feet, which are
indices of character too often overlooked. They had come to their task
in slippers, which they had kicked off before reaching the veranda, and
instead of the firm, tough feet that a real man stands on, what they
displayed as they squatted were subtle, soft things, not exactly flabby,
but even more suggestive of treachery than their thin beaks and shifty
eyes.
To sum them up, they were dandies, of the kind who join the Young Turk
Party and believe the New Era can be distilled of talk and tricks; and
they looked like mean animals compared to that staunch conservative
Narayan Singh, who, nevertheless, is not without his own degree of
subtlety.