NIGHTS ON A ROOF
I did not stop long on this occasion at Tangier, because, from a
newspaper point of view, Casablanca was a place of more immediate
interest. The night before I sailed there arrived an old Harvard friend
travelling for pleasure, and he proposed to accompany me. Johnny Weare
was a young man to all appearances accustomed to good living, and
friends of an evening--easy to acquire at Tangier--advised him to take
a supply of food. But I unwisely protested and dissuaded John, and we
went down laden with little unnecessary luggage, travelling by a French
torpedo-boat conveying despatches.
Here I must break my story in order to make it complete, and anticipate
our arrival at Casablanca with an account of how the French army
happened to be lodged in this Moorish town. In 1906 a French company
obtained a contract from the Moorish Government to construct a harbour
at Casablanca; and beginning work they found it expedient, in order to
bring up the necessary stone and gravel, to lay a narrow-gauge railway
to a quarry a few miles down the coast. In those Mohammedan countries
where the dead are protected from ‘Infidel’ tread the fact that the
tracks bordered close on a cemetery, in fact passed over several
graves, would have been cause perhaps for a conflict; but this--though
enemies of France have tried to proclaim it--was not a serious matter
in Morocco, where the Moslems are done with their dead when they bury
them and anyone may walk on the graves. The French were opposed solely
because they were Christian invaders to whom the Sultan had ‘sold
out.’ They had bought the High Shereef with their machines and their
money, but the tribes did not intend to tolerate them.
After many threats the Arabs of the country came to town one market-day
prepared for war. Gathering the local Moors, including those labouring
on the railway, they surrounded and killed in brutal fashion, with
sticks and knives and the butts of guns, the engineer of the locomotive
and eight other French and Italian workmen. The French cruiser
_Galilée_ was despatched to the scene, and arriving two days later
lay in harbour apparently awaiting instructions from home. By this
delay the Moors, though quiet, were encouraged, hourly becoming more
convinced that if the French could land they would have done so. They
were thoroughly confident, as their resistance demonstrated, when,
after three days, a hundred marines were put ashore. As the marines
passed through the ‘Water Port’ they were fired upon by a single Moor,
and thereupon they shot at every cloaked man that showed his head on
their march of half-a-mile to the French consulate. At the sound of
rifles the _Galilée_ began bombarding the Moslem quarters of the town;
and the stupid Moorish garrison, with guns perhaps brought out of
Spain, essayed to reply, and lasted for about ten minutes.
But the landing force of the French was altogether too small to do more
than protect the French consulate and neighbouring European houses.
Town Moors and Arabs turned out to kill and rape and loot, as they do
whenever opportunity offers, and for three days they plundered the
places of Europeans and Jews and at last fought among themselves for
the spoils until driven from the town by reinforcements of French and
Spanish troops.
The fighting and the shells from French ships had laid many bodies in
the streets and had wrecked many houses and some mosques. Certain
Moors, less ignorant of the French power, had asked the French to spare
the mosques and the ‘Saint Houses,’ domed tombs of dead shereefs, and
when the fighting began the Arabs, seeing these places were untouched,
concluded, of course, that the protection came from Allah, until they
entered them and drew the French fire.
Casablanca, or, as the Arabs call it, _Dar el Baida_, ‘White House,’
was a desolate-looking place when we arrived three weeks after the
bombardment. Hardly a male Moor was to be seen. The whole Moslem
population, with the exception of a few men of wealth who enjoy
European protection, and some servants of consulates, had deserted
the town and had not yet begun to return. Jews in black caps and
baggy trousers were the only labourers, and they worked with a will
recovering damaged property at good pay, and grinning at their good
fortune. In the attack the Moors had driven them to the boats, but now
the Moors themselves had had to go. Native Spaniards did the lighter
work.
A Spaniard and a Jewish boy took our luggage to an hotel, of which
all the rooms were already occupied, even to the bathroom and the
wine closet, as the long zinc tub in the courtyard, filled with
bottles, testified. The proprietor told us that for ten francs a day
we might have the dining-room to sleep in, but on investigation we
decided to hunt further. Speaking Spanish with a grand manner, for he
was a cavalier fellow, the hotel-keeper then informed us through an
interpreter that he wanted to do what he could for us because he too
was an American. The explanation (for which we asked) was that in New
York he had a brother whom he had once visited for a few months, and
that at that time, ‘to favour an American gentleman,’ he had taken out
naturalisation papers and voted for the mayor.
But this man’s breach of the law in New York was his mildest sin, as
we came later to hear. He had many robberies to his credit and a murder
or two. For his latest crime he was now wanted by the French consul
and military authorities, but being an American citizen they could not
lay hold of him except with the consent of the American consul, who
happened to be a German, and, disliking the French, would let them do
nothing that he could help. Rodrigues (this was the name of the Spanish
_caballero_) had defended his place against the Arab attack with the
aid only of his servants. The little arsenal which he kept (he was a
fancier of good guns and pistols) had been of splendid service. It is
said that when the fight was over forty dead Moors lay before the hotel
door, half-a-dozen horses were in Rodrigues’s stable, and bundles of
plunder in his yard. It was a case of looting the looters. On tinned
foods taken from the shops of other Europeans (whom he had plundered
when the Arabs were gone from the town) he was now feeding the host
of newspaper correspondents who crowded his establishment. But we were
not to be looted likewise by this genial fellow-countryman, and our
salvation lay at hand as we bade him _au revoir_.
Leaving the Hôtel Américain we turned into the main street, and
proceeding towards the Hôtel Continental came upon a party of French
officers, who had just hailed and were shaking hands with a man
unmistakably either English or American. Beside him, even in their
military uniforms the Frenchmen were insignificant. The other man was
tall and splendid and brave, as the writer of Western fiction would
say. He wore a khaki jacket, white duck riding trousers, English
leggings, and a cowboy hat; and over one shoulder were slung a rifle, a
kodak, and a water-bottle. To lend reality to the figure--he was dusty,
and his collar was undone; and as we passed the group we heard him tell
the Frenchmen he had just returned from the ‘outer lines.’ How often
had we seen the picture of this man, the war correspondent of fiction
and of kodak advertisements!
Both Weare and I were glad to meet the old familiar friend in the
flesh and wanted to speak to him, but we refrained for fear he might
be English and might resent American effrontery. As we passed him,
however, we noticed his name across the flat side of the water-bottle.
In big, bold letters was the inscription: ‘Captain Squall, Special
War Correspondent of “The Morning Press.”’ This was characteristic of
Squall, as we came to know; neither ‘special correspondent’ nor ‘war
correspondent’ was a sufficient title for him; he must be ‘special war
correspondent.’
We had heard of Squall at Tangier and thought we could stop and speak
to him, and accordingly waited a moment till he had left the Frenchmen.
‘How-do-you-do, Captain?’ I said. ‘I have an introduction to you in my
bag from the correspondent of your paper at Tangier.’
‘You’re an American,’ was the Captain’s first remark, not a very novel
observation; ‘I’ve been in America a good deal myself.’ He adjusted
a monocle and explained with customary originality that he had one
bad eye. ‘What do you think of my “stuff” in the Press?’ was his next
remark.
‘A little personal, isn’t it? I read that despatch about your being
unable to get any washing done at the hotel because of scarcity of
water, and your leaving it for that reason.’
‘Yes, that’s what the British public like to read, personal touches,
don’t you think?’
‘Where are you living now? We have to find a place.’
‘Come with me. You know the Americans were always very hospitable to
me, and I like to have a chance to do them a good turn. I’m living on a
roof and getting my own grub. You know I’m an old campaigner--I mean to
say, I’ve been in South Africa, and on the Canadian border, and I got
my chest smashed in by a Russian in the Japanese war,--I mean a hand to
hand conflict, you know, using the butts of our guns.’
‘Were you a correspondent out there?’
‘No, I was fighting for the Japs; I’m a soldier of fortune, you know.’
‘But the Japanese Government did not allow Europeans to enlist.’
‘I was the only one they would enlist; I mean to say, my father had
some influence with the Japanese minister in London.’
‘But you’re very young; how old are you?’
‘Well, I don’t like to say; I mean there’s a reason I can’t tell my
age,--I mean, I went to South Africa when I was sixteen; you see that’s
under age for military service in the British Army.’ The Captain waited
a moment, then started off again. ‘I’ve got medals from five campaigns.’
‘I’d like to see them.’
Indifferently he opened his jacket.
‘There are six,’ I remarked.
‘Oh, that’s not a campaign medal; that’s a medal of the Legion of
Frontiersmen. I mean to say, I was one of the organisers of that.’
Weare and I recognised the type. There are many of them abroad and
some wear little American flags. But, of course, to us they are more
grotesque when they affect the monocle. We knew Squall would not be
insulted if we turned the conversation to the matter of most interest
to us at that moment.
‘For my part,’ said Weare, ‘I could do well with something to eat just
now. One doesn’t eat much on a torpedo-boat.’
With the prospects of our companionship--for Squall was boycotted by
most of the correspondents--he led us away to his roof to get us a
meal; and, for what the town provided, a good meal he served us. He
did his own cooking, but he did it because he liked to cook,--he meant
to say, he had money coming to him from the sale of a motor-car in
London, and he had just lost fifteen or twenty thousand pounds--the
exact amount did not matter either to us or to him.
For a fortnight, till an old American resident of Casablanca invited
us to his house, we suffered Squall. We three slept on the roof while
a decrepit, dirty Spaniard, the owner of the place, slept below. It
was a modest, one-storey house, built in Moorish style. There were
rooms on four sides of a paved courtyard, under a slab in the centre of
which was the customary well. Overhead a covering of glass, now much
broken, was intended to keep out the rain. The place had been looted
by the Moors, who took away the few things of any value and destroyed
the rest, leaving the room littered with torn clothes and bedding and
broken furniture, if I might dignify the stuff by these names; nor had
the old man (whose family had escaped to Tangier) cleared out any place
but the kitchen and the courtyard.
There was a little slave boy whose master had been killed, and who now
served a ‘Mister Peto’ and came to us for water every day. As our old
Spaniard would not keep the place clean and saved all the food that
we left from meals (which filled the place with flies) we hired the
boy for a peseta, about a franc, a day to keep it clean. He was to get
nothing at all if he allowed in more than twenty-five flies, and for
one day he worked well and got the money. But the reason of his success
was the presence all that day of one or the other of us engaged at
writing, protecting him from the wrath of the old man, who resented
being deprived of both stench and flies. The next day when we returned
from the French camp there was no more black boy, and we never saw him
again, nor could we ascertain from the old man what had happened to
him. Thereafter we never drew a bucket of drinking water from the well
without the fear of bringing up a piece of poor ‘Sandy.’
As candles were scarce and bad we went to bed early. Weare and I
generally retiring first. We climbed the rickety, ladder-like stairs
and walked round the glass square over the courtyard to the side of the
roof where cooling breezes blew from the Atlantic. There undressing, we
rolled our clothes in tight bundles and put them under our heads for
pillows. To lie on we had only sacking, for our rain-coats had to be
used as covering to keep off the heavy dews of the early morning. Only
Squall had a hammock.
Before retiring every evening Squall had the task of examining and
testing his weapons, of which he had enough for us all. A ‘Webley’ and
‘Colt’ were not sufficient, he must also bring to the roof his rifle,
on the butt of which were fourteen notches, one for each Moor he had
shot. He clanked up the steps like Long John, the pirate, coming from
‘below,’ in ‘Treasure Island.’ When he had got into the hammock, lying
comfortably on revolvers and cartridge belts, his gun within reach
against the wall, he would begin to talk. ‘You chaps think I bring all
these “shooting-irons” up here because I’m afraid of something. Only
look at what I’ve been through. I’ve got over being afraid. The reason
I bring them all up with me is that I don’t want them stolen,--I mean
to say there isn’t any lock on the door, you know.’
‘Go to sleep, Squall.’
‘I mean you chaps haven’t got any business talking about me being
afraid.’
‘Can’t you tell us about it at breakfast, Squall?’
One night Squall wanted to borrow a knife; his, he said, was not very
sharp. He had been out ‘on the lines’ that day, and he wanted it, he
explained, to put another notch in his gun.
Sometimes a patrol would pass in the night, and we would hear the three
pistols and the gun click. Once the gun went off.
At daybreak we would rouse old Squall to go and make coffee, and while
he was thus employed we were entertained by the occupants of a ‘kraal’
(I can think of no better description) next door. In a little, low
hut, built of reeds and brush, directly under our roof, lived a dusky
mother and her daughter. The one (I imagine) was a widow, the other
an unmarried though mature maid. They were among the score of Moors
who had not fled, and there being no men of their own race about they
were not afraid to show their faces to us. The mother was a hag, but
the younger woman was splendid, big and broad-shouldered, with a deep
chest. Her colour was that of an Eastern gipsy, bronze as if sunburned,
with a slight red in her cheeks; she was black-haired, and she always
wore a flower. From her lower lip to her chin was a double line
tattooed in blue, and about her ankles and arms, likewise tattooed,
were broad blue bangles, one above her elbow. The clothes that she
wore, though of common cotton, were brilliant in colour, generally
bright green or blue or orange-yellow, sometimes a combination; they
were not made into garments but rather draped about her, as is the way
in Morocco, and held together with gaudy metal ornaments. Two bare
feet, slippered in red, and one bare arm and shoulder were always
visible. While this younger woman cooked in the open yard, and the old
crone lean and haggard watched, they would look up from their kettle
from time to time and speak to us in language we could not understand.
We threw them small coins and they offered us tea. But we did not visit
the ladies, to run the risk, perhaps, of dissipating an illusion.
‘Coffee, you chaps,’ sounded from below, and we went down to breakfast
with good old ‘Blood-stained Bill.’