Chapter Three

SECRET AGENT

OUR RUMOUR WAS QUICKLY overtaken by reality. The Ninth Australian and the New Zealand Divisions came up from Egypt by the normal and less expensive route of the coast road—a force quite sufficient to deliver the enemy and their friends from minor temptations. Liaison with the divisional intelligence staffs also delivered me for some weeks from wasting time on the Ronson-Bolbecs.

No more was heard of Yellow Socks, but the fat Iraqi—the other visitor to the valley who claimed to be a friend of Blaise d’Aulnoy—was identified by a stroke of luck. One could equally call it the natural effect of our efficient witch’s coven of thirteen, always out and about after significant trifles.

It was Sergeant Wilson who came home with the name. He had been a clerk on the Stock Exchange, so I had given him a roving commission to keep an eye on the cornering of wheat—a popular method of getting rich quick in a country where the poor would have been on the verge of starvation if not for the supplies poured in by Ninth Army. He reported that a merchant at El Mina had borrowed a large sum from a fat Baghdad banker who had been in Tripoli for a couple of days in February. His name was Abdullah el Bessam. Dates fitted. Description fitted.

You had the Baghdad section and it was then that you came into the story. Instead of putting my enquiry through the proper channels I sent you a signal direct as one friend to another. You won’t remember it, but your reply was typical and illuminating. It went something like this:

NOTHING KNOWN AGAINST ABDULLAH EL BESSAM BUT WOULD GLADLY IMPALE HIM MARKETPLACE FOR DELECTATION POPULACE STOP AGE 51 GROSSLY FAT WEALTHY AND MAKING MORE OUT OF WAR STOP NOTED HOMOSEXUAL AND DESERVEDLY SUFFERS FROM PILES STOP CAN BE IDENTIFIED BY ANTIQUE CUSHION CLAIMS IT BELONGED CALIPH ISLAM STOP DESPATCH FOURTEEN LEBANESE SLAVEGIRLS CIF BAGHDAD SECONDHAND WILL DO.

Yes, you may well ask what happened to Abdullah el Bessam. But time passes, and we with it. He’d be dead by now in any case.

In the same week that I received your reply Captain Magnat called at my office. My guilty conscience had compelled me to avoid him since the disappearance of Khalid, for it was his duty to conduct the investigation and I was none too sure how innocently I could meet his eyes. However, Magnat’s business had nothing to do with the gendarmerie. He merely wanted to know if I could arrange for a traveller to Turkey to lose his baggage for half an hour when taking the Taurus Express from Tripoli. That was well within my powers and I was happy to oblige.

It occurred to me that I had not used him enough. I did not mention Moustofi Khan’s name, but I asked if the Deuxième Bureau had any information about d’Aulnoy’s social life and friends.

‘I have so often had to remind you, my dear captain, that our files are secret.’

‘I know. How about dining with me tomorrow?’

‘I shall be delighted as always. But it would be on false pretences. How the devil do you suppose there could be anything of interest about a prominent and trusted administrator?’

‘Well, there ought to be something. Suppose he was your boss and wanted to sack you for being an anti-clerical, revolutionary socialist, what little hint would make him change his mind?’

‘You have the most extraordinary ideas of French colonial administration.’

‘It is efficient at all levels.’

‘Thank you. Very probably d’Aulnoy would not want it widely known that he was given to unnatural practices.’

‘Exclusively?’

‘By no means. An all-round amateur.’

‘The remoteness of his house was to ensure discretion, you think?’

‘Unlikely. Up there in the valley all his visitors would be known to the people of Sir. A house in town with a back door would be better.’

I said that in my experience hedonists who appreciated the charms of both sexes usually had very good taste.

‘You are right. For d’Aulnoy, it was said, nothing over sixteen. There were never any complaints. He paid generously and had marked delicacy for a pro-Boche.’

That gave me a picture of the man which house and valley confirmed. It did not sound as if a gross Baghdadi in his fifties was likely to appeal to him, except perhaps as a companion for orgies. But mutual sympathy in a harsh world might have led to close financial relationships. That would do for the moment.

We were now well into April—the point at which, as I look back on it, my necessarily private investigation began to be complicated by problems of sex. They should have no part in war’s simplicities. In my experience the average man—always assuming reasonable leave and a friendly whore-house—consciously enjoys his freedom from the exactions of women. Slave girls, you wrote in your signal. Very typical! Even if there had been lots of emancipated female students in Baghdad University, as there probably are today, you and your thirteen lecherous scoundrels would have chosen something less demanding.

Valerie turned up at the billet, having ridden in from Sir alone. She was adjusting herself to her environment with growing confidence ever since her pet deserter had taken to long walks. For some time I had seen nothing of him, but he had evidently told her that I was in their secret and could be trusted.

She looked delightful in a green tweed coat and jodhpurs—a breath of long-legged fresh air from the shires or, perhaps, the North West Frontier. Limpsfield showed her in with such military panache as was possible when interrupted in taking a typing lesson from Boutagy, and then went down to cuddle the horse—or at least to see that nobody stole its tail while it was hitched to the section truck.

‘What have you done with Ahmed?’ I asked.

‘I simply told him that I would call for the mail myself and did not require him. Have I ruined your reputation?’

‘Done it nothing but good.’

‘Oliver told me to give you a message. Tel Ayub. On the shore. Tomorrow. Same time.’

‘It’s not Wednesday.’

‘I think he has given up whatever he was doing.’

‘The hell he has! What else did he tell you?’

‘I am supposed to be in love with you.’

‘Nobody will believe it. You are too glorious.’

‘Well, I’ll play on one condition. I want him in Tripoli.’

‘But he is not under my command.’

‘He says he is. Don’t you find him easy to work with?’

I said that I should find it easier if he wasn’t so damned arrogant. She got near to admitting that quality in him; she even admired it.

‘You don’t understand him,’ she said. ‘He was left on his own when he was ten. His father was well off but went bust—and committed suicide, I think, though Oliver has never said it in so many words. He never speaks of his mother either. I believe she had cleared out before the tragedy. Then an uncle got him into one of the charity grammar schools.’

She sounded for a moment like Biddy and I replied coldly that as often as not the officers I really respected came from the old-fashioned grammar schools.

‘I didn’t mean it that way. You should have known I didn’t. I meant that Oliver has always had to go on telling himself what he is worth. He could have been a don at Cambridge and then chucked it all up to follow me.’

The picture of Oliver as an incisive, determined, young don made sense at last. I thought it a pity that the determination had been concentrated on Valerie rather than his career. But his was not the common case of a raw intellectual swept off his feet by some cheap, sexy bitch. He had recognised physical perfection and collected character when he saw them and nothing less would ever do.

‘You don’t propose to call on him in Tripoli?’

‘Everyone will think it very natural if I call on you,’ she said demurely.

The duplicity of it! I had enough troubles and there lacked only this, as the French say. The more I learned of that girl, the plainer it was that a simple-minded security officer would have to strip off a lot more veils before he even arrived at the ostrich feathers. If Oliver did come to Tripoli and was caught, the only hope I could see for my future was to use her to muddle the court martial.

‘What is your mother going to say?’

‘She believes in the export business.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘You can be very convincing when you want to be. Your real interest is in Blaise d’Aulnoy, isn’t it?’

‘Partly. I’ve never asked you where you first met him.’

‘In Paris, in 1938. Mummy took me there for a month.’

‘The best hotel, I suppose?’

‘No. An old-fashioned one in the Faubourg St. Germain.’

She missed the irony. I had forgotten that she was not aware of all I had discovered about her mother. She knew of course how poor they were at the moment, but at that time, four long years past, she probably did not appreciate how relentlessly Biddy was gambling in futures.

‘How old were you then?’

‘Nearly sixteen.’

I cleared off the subject at once and reserved judgment. Biddy never hesitated to exploit her daughter’s amazing loveliness, but she was not as infamous as that. I could imagine her plotting a brilliant marriage a year or so later on d’Aulnoy’s next leave and the connoisseur’s pretended and exulting interest. Seventeen and middle forties? Well, but such an old friend, my dear, with money and no limits to his career.

‘Lunch?’

‘I can’t. I’ve been told to look at sewing machines and come straight back. Can one buy them on credit?’

‘I doubt it. Everything is three times its normal price and for cash.’

‘Thank God for that!’

The next day I ran out to Tel Ayub and down a path to the sea, there deserted and melancholy. Oliver was looking much scruffier with a shortened and untidy beard—more like the edge of the desert come to town than a freshly-laundered money-changer. We sat down between tall rushes and the sand where no one was in sight but fishermen half a mile away hauling in a seine.

I asked him, perhaps impatiently, why the devil Valerie had to pretend to be having an affair with me.

‘An added insurance policy for your safety.’

‘Any opinions on what I am insuring against?’

‘Yes and no. But play your hand as I tell you. Field Security always suffers from militarism and conceit. You used to be very co-operative.’

‘You seem to think you are still an A.D.S.O.’

‘No. I am only trying to help an ex-colleague.’

‘In the intervals of rutting on the hillside like a bloody stag.’

‘Has it never occurred to you that the best agents have a satisfactory sex life?’

He added that he was taking time off from the one-man bank and living rough.

‘All right for money?’

‘Yes. I have been changing forged fivers at a considerable discount. So far as I know, they are circulated by the German consul at Alexandretta.’

‘But that’s a crime! You can’t!’

‘You ordered me to be the dead Youssef Mokaddem again. So I let it be known that I was. As a notorious pro-German I’ve found out plenty, but no connection with Khalid’s attempt on you or the Hermel track. Now, let’s have your report!’

My report! Ex-colleague! Which of us in God’s name was on the run?

I did not mention Moustofi Khan, for Oliver had refused to spy on Biddy and I was now quite confident that I could handle her myself; but I asked him if the name Abdullah el Bessam meant anything to him.

‘Yes, of course. He has connections with the East Indies, and so possibly with Japan. Why?’

‘He is the fat Iraqi who called on the Ronson-Bolbecs.’

‘It could be that I am paying out certain sums of cash for Abdullah el Bessam. I believe I am.’

‘What for?’

‘I have only heard hints. Just possibly arms buying, subversion, rebellion.’

One hears it said so often that the Arabs were all pro-British during the war. They were not. The crowned heads were, for they depended on us to keep their thrones for them; and the mass of the people, like the silent majority anywhere, preferred the status quo to alarums and excursions. But you’ll remember, as I do, the squadron of the Transjordan Frontier Force which refused to march against Rashid Ali and how the whole crack regiment had to be pulled out as untrustworthy. Yes, there were always potential leaders watching and waiting for their chance. One accepted their drive for complete independence, but it seemed odd that there should be so many conspirators who preferred the Germans to the French and British. They had three adequate reasons. Germans had never held authority in the Moslem world; their armies appeared to be the lords of the future; above all, they could be trusted to deal with the Jews.

Oliver thought as I did—let alone Ninth Army—that any general rising was highly improbable so long as we had troops to spare. On the other hand no one could prophesy what might happen if we were defeated in the desert. I told him that it was his obvious duty to return to Damascus at once and confirm or dismiss his vague suspicions.

‘I will. But is it quite clear that I am working for you and nobody else?’

That was obvious, so I let the remark pass without taking a closer look at it.

‘What’s my payment?’ he asked.

‘Freedom from arrest.’

‘Is that all?’

‘What do you want?’

‘Tripoli when I come back.’

A deliberate shake-down with Valerie prompting her hero of the Secret Service! I wasn’t having any. I told him flatly that I was prepared to keep my mouth shut so long as he was useful but that I would not connive at settling him in Tripoli as Youssef Mokaddem or under any other name. He was quite unimpressed.

‘We can easily fix it between us,’ he said.

I returned to my section thankful for their companionship and sanity. The position was getting beyond me—a nightmare in which I was smothered by responsibilities I had no right to take. I was merely the gun dog of I (b), allowed to point at game and then get to hell out of the way of the line. That’s what I longed to do: to write a report and gratefully receive a biscuit and a pat. But a fine pat in the ribs from the end of a boot it was going to be for failing to retrieve Captain Enwin, eating a gendarme and burying the carcase.

The sensible half of me was seriously considering how I could get posted to some theatre of war so remote that high-powered interrogation would not be worth the trouble, while the obstinate remainder, still committed to the investigation though blackmailed by its own secret agent, was talking very much against its will to Corporal Davila.

‘If a Moslem suspect turned up in Tripoli to look for a job, where would he stay?’

He gave me the names of three likely doss-houses and assured me that every one was regularly visited by the police. A dubious stranger would at once be reported to Captain Magnat, and he, Davila, who had excellent contacts in the police, would be informed unofficially.

‘Any loop-hole in that?’

‘Of course if we could fix his papers…’

‘I have no intention of fixing anybody’s papers, Corporal Davila.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I thought by your tone of voice…’

‘Do you all know exactly what I want from my tone of voice?’

‘Well, we’ve been together quite a while and can’t help noticing when you are worried.’

‘I am. This chap should be able to move around on his own business, day or night.’

‘Better be selling something then. Could he pass as an Egyptian?’

‘Easily.’

‘I hear that Alexandrian business men are looking for accommodation. Funk more than summer holidays. Suppose your agent was an enterprising one-man travel bureau?’

Davila! I wonder what he is doing now. Retired and writing his memoirs, I should think. I can’t claim to have trained him. He came to me ready-made.

I told him to look into it at leisure and reminded him, quite unnecessarily, not to gossip with his mates.

My equanimity was restored by a period of quiet, respectable Field Security. Biddy Ronson-Bolbec came down at last for that tête à tête but had no news. I listened to her memories of the late colonel who had obviously kept her in order and been adored in return. That led her to the happy state of matrimony and how sweet Valerie could be when she chose. I could see how it was that Biddy, once established in the valley, had to stay put whether she liked it or not. Her horse was not up to her weight for the return journey, and I had to run her back in the truck to Sir—where she managed to borrow a fiver off me.

The memory of Khalid was fading and I had no real faith in Oliver’s tentative deductions from his money-changing. Even if he raked up something worth passing on, no one would pay any attention to my report when I could not disclose the source of information. I hoped—though rather ashamed of it—that he had found Damascus too hot to hold him and moved on to Turkey or the devil. But no such luck! My uncontrollable Arab agent came smartly to life with a message that I would find him in the ruins of Byblos. He never chose the same rendezvous twice.

He was wandering through the Phoenician city with the proper uncomprehending stare of the Arab for whom history begins with Mohammed. The place was desolate, its ancient quays just visible through that smooth and disillusioned sea. I imagine that today there would be a twisting worm of tourists, blinkered by their dark glasses and listening to an inaccurate guide while a decrepit baggage camel belches in the car park waiting for some fezzed fool to sit on its back and be photographed. For God’s sake, don’t these people slung with cameras have any trustworthy store of memories behind their eyes?

But in those days you would find nobody in Byblos beyond a British soldier or two who had left the immemorial coast road from curiosity, and perhaps a Lebanese giggling in the hope of money over some proud stone phallus aspiring to the unknown. So we two were perfectly in keeping.

Oliver was evasive. He would not give me any direct reply on the activities of Abdullah el Bessam, merely muddling me with a lecture on Exchange Control and transfers of cash. So I changed the subject and asked him, without bringing in Biddy at all, what he knew of a Persian named Moustofi Khan.

‘He has provided magnificent shooting over his mountain estates for the Headquarters staff in Persia,’ Oliver replied ironically. ‘So of course he is considered pro-British.’

‘Isn’t he?’

‘The bazaars don’t think so. I have been told mysteriously that he and I have much in common.’

He explained that Moustofi Khan, being a Persian heretic, could never be widely trusted by Arabs; he would, however, be a natural leader of Persian tribes in any rising; they loathed the Russians, tsarist or communist, and were on the German side.

‘A generous, impulsive fellow, it’s said. Nobody ever starves on Moustofi’s estates. But murder and bribery are all in the day’s work. Why do you want to know?’

‘Because I have identified him as the rider on the Hermel track, and he has been seen in d’Aulnoy’s village.’

‘Then he’s a likely man to have paid Khalid to assassinate you. But don’t jump to conclusions! All I have discovered about Khalid is that he was a Vichy agent in a small way and spying on Magnat. What do you know of the village?’

‘Nothing. It’s tiny. I’ve never been right into it.’

‘So it’s time you were. And as you won’t catch on to what is under your nose, you must take me with you. That’s the next move. I don’t see how d’Aulnoy’s village can be of any interest, but I must rule it out once and for all.’

‘But if you are seen in my presence…’

‘I am going to come with you openly as a hearty naval officer.’

‘Why not as Winston Churchill?’

‘Because I dislike him. I have two other good reasons. Nobody outside the Admiralty ever connects Jolly Jack Tars with security. And they are allowed beards whereas the military are not.’

I protested that this was wild, irresponsible rashness; he replied that it was only impudence which was usually successful. I warned him that Biddy would write to London and Cairo that dear Captain Enwin had called on them and was now in the Navy; he assured me that Valerie would see that she didn’t and that his name would mean nothing to her correspondents anyway, since the Enwin case was sure to be Top Secret.

‘Where are you supposed to have come from?’

‘Beirut. I shall change on the way back to Tripoli. Now, what about your current girl friend? Does she visit the office?’

‘Among Field Security officers my chastity is unique.’

‘Nonsense! Jeremy asked me for a report on your Jewish mistress. By the time I had it you had changed to a Christian Arab.’

‘Evidence of my complete neutrality in the troubles of the Holy Land.’

‘I find it disgusting. What have you got now? For the sake of my safety I must know.’

I told him that it was no business of his. In fact the transaction was quite my most discreet. The hotel laundress was a Druse. Her daughter, she told me, was leading an infidel life among Alaouites. I saw no reason why she should not lead a more godly one with an agnostic, always assuming that she pass inspection and medical examination. She was primitively charming and smelt like a musk-scented pussy-cat. As she could attend the hotel any afternoon, ostensibly to assist her mother, our arrangement was never public knowledge and my shirts were immaculately ironed.

‘Your safety depends entirely on yourself,’ I said. ‘And you must drop any idea of staying in Tripoli after visiting Sir and the village.’

He insisted that he would not be recognised and that even a trained detective could not abstract a face from its conditions.

‘Memory gives you what you ought to have seen, not what you really saw,’ he went on. ‘Say, you have a drink with a bus conductor and a month later some bearded farmer shows you his pigs. You will never spot the two as the same man unless you already have reason to suspect they might be. Voice is the only danger. And the difference between English and Arabic takes care of that.’

Well, there it was. I badly needed his experienced eye in that village, and I had no way of stopping him coming to Tripoli beyond handing him over. So I weakly told him of Davila’s idea. He thought it excellent but decided not to be an Egyptian because an Egyptian travel agent would wear European clothes.

‘I’ll be from Jerusalem,’ he said, ‘which allows me to wear the headcloth and emphasises the difference between a quiet, courteous Arab and the coarse European I am going to be in d’Aulnoy’s village.’

‘And what have you cast me as?’

‘Just be yourself and natural! You don’t understand Arabs, but at least you don’t offend them.’

All very brilliant! But these clever operators are inclined to ignore the small problems on which everything depends. It was the hell of a business to lay my hands on a naval officer’s uniform of the right size. Zappa, Davila and Holloway were all on the job and only produced a Chief Petty Officer’s cap which Holloway said he ‘found’. Eventually I had to run down to Beirut and tell lies to my colleague about amateur theatricals at the hospital. He borrowed for me the winter uniform of a lieutenant. The Navy had already changed into whites, but nobody was going to know that in d’Aulnoy’s valley.

Oliver had worked out the rest very well. I picked him up one morning on the Sir road in a patch of scrub just about large enough for him to change unseen. He emerged from the bushes as a neat, naval lieutenant with a more squarely cut beard than the slightly satanic point which he had worn as Youssef Mokaddem. Both hair and beard were light brown. He used to muck about with dyes and rinses like a teenager on her first factory job.

After leaving the truck in the personal care of the Mukhtar of Sir, we took the two horses and walked them up that stony track and down into the valley, cantering the last two hundred yards out of bravado as befitted two hearty officers coming to see a pretty girl and her mother. Oliver was in high spirits. For one afternoon he could have a sense of freedom, of being back in his world—if, that is, it ever was his world. As for me, I was privately and professionally curious what the female reactions would be. Neither of us could warn them.

Valerie was the first to appear. After staring at Oliver for half a second, she gave him a cousinly little kiss and shouted for Mummy to look who’s here. Without that I don’t think Biddy would have recognised him under hair of unfamiliar colour. She held out both hands and received him as a prodigal slave.

‘But I thought you were in England!’

‘Yes, they posted me home when my job was finished and said I could do what I liked. So I joined the Navy.’

Oliver was always stronger on Levantine customs than those of the armed forces. What he had just said was inconceivable in peace and damned unlikely even in war. I could see that Biddy was puzzled.

‘A specialist appointment,’ I added. ‘He is training naval officers for liaison with Arabs and Turks. Very necessary.’

She gave me a supercilious, humorous glance which I think meant that we disapproved of officers who were schoolmasters instead of handling lethal weapons. But she was satisfied.

‘My ship is only in Beirut for twenty-four hours,’ Oliver said, ‘but I had to see you.’

The first essential was to get Biddy alone for a moment and impress it on her that she was not to ask Oliver to interpret for her and not to indicate in any way that he understood Arabic.

‘Oh, I see!’ she replied coldly.

‘No, you don’t. It has nothing to do with you, Moustofi Khan or d’Aulnoy. I want Oliver to listen to the villagers and find out what they think of the Turks.’

What does it matter what they think up here?’

‘My dear, you have always been part of the Army, so you will understand. You remember that I told you our defence line runs through here. Well, this sector might be held by the Turks.’

It was surprising how that atrocious lie restored her self-respect. I saw for the first time—I was stupid not to have seen it before—that if I appealed to her army background I could have a useful ally, though always unreliable.

I had brought up some bottles with me, and Biddy and I had a carefree party. Oliver pretended naval geniality. Valerie was bubbling with amusement but remembered to pay more attention to me than to Oliver. Ahmed must have been quite satisfied that I was her lover and that my naval friend was as casual and guileless as he appeared.

After lunch Oliver exclaimed at the charm of the Ronson-Bolbec estate and demanded loudly to be shown all over it. So we wandered along the main paths, led by Ahmed, while Oliver pestered him with inane agricultural questions and even asked why the villagers did not keep pigs. When we were near the group of houses he proposed that we should all go and say how-do-you-do to the natives who had been so kind to Madame.

The hamlet was built on rising ground close under the ridge. It was the usual cluster of flat-roofed, stone houses with the ground floors occupied by stores and animals, and the living quarters over. D’Aulnoy had repaired the more tumble-down houses with new stone and built a small community barn. A spring on the hillside was channelled into two stone tanks, one for watering the animals and one for washing. The overflow ran down the earth street along a deep, cobbled drain.

Chairs and a table were laid out for us under a mulberry tree, while the principal citizen, named Yasser, showed us over his house which was at the top of the village and separated from the steep hillside only by a small stockyard. He exclaimed his devotion to Madame and her daughter. As we drank our coffee, conventional conversation went back and forth with the customary bunch of men standing around and acting as chorus.

Lieutenant Enwin R.N. played the hearty seaman to perfection, back-slapping, making jokes about what they all missed by not using alcohol, using the vilest soldiers’ Arabic and managing to insult two of the villagers with the utmost good will. Ahmed translated for him from French to Arabic with a fixed smile and was not, I felt, at all sorry that a European was showing himself such a barbarian. No one could ever connect this square-bearded buffoon with a quiet, Jerusalem Arab. Oliver had proved his point to my satisfaction.

For Biddy’s sake I put a question through Ahmed about the Turks. I could have betted on the reply I would get. By God, the Turks were much better governors than the French! But the people they really liked and hoped would stay for ever were the British. To the same question Magnat would have got a reply the other way round.

When we were back at the house after a tedious couple of hours I felt that the hamlet was too small and too open for any clandestine activities. D’Aulnoy’s tenants were just the same as any other Moslem fellahin: to the foreign eye a people entirely composed of good manners and pious exclamations, incapable of any determination.

We said good-bye and mounted our horses in the late afternoon since we needed daylight for Oliver’s final transformation. On our way down to Sir I asked him if he had got anything at all by listening.

‘Nothing. You are obsessed by your mystery tour. I’ve used that track often enough and I have never seen a soul on it.’

‘You only used it in daylight.’

‘Security is about people,’ he lectured, ‘not warpaths in the bush. Tripoli is the key. It was always a hotbed of sedition.’

‘Wasn’t Yasser loosing off greetings unnecessarily loudly?’

‘Yasser was only shouting at a foreigner to make his language easier to understand. I have noticed that British soldiers do the same.’

After returning the horses we stopped again at the patch of scrub on the Tripoli road. He emerged from the bushes with a red-chequered headcloth, a vile little toothbrush moustache like Hitler’s and stubble in place of the beard: a humble and respectable small trader. I put his naval uniform in the truck and left him by the roadside with a shabby suitcase in his hand to beg a lift into Tripoli or walk.

For most of the next week I was away from my section on escort duty. I had run in a couple of Roumanians who had arrived on the Island of Ruad by caique, presumably from neutral or enemy territory. Immediate orders came through from Ninth Army that I was to release the master of the caique from gaol and escort the Roumanians straight to Cairo. A comfortable staff car was provided.

Those occasional jobs for M.I.6—the genuine, copper-bottomed, British Secret Service—gave us a sense of importance, since we could pass any military control point or frontier post without question whereas they—without a lot of palaver—could not. And I’ll say this for them. They had a pleasant habit of handing out a wad of notes for expenses and never asking for the change. So I enjoyed a civilised night out in Cairo and covered the five hundred miles back to Tripoli in two easy stages.

I dropped into my office in the evening to see that all was well and found a letter on my desk addressed to me in block capitals. Limpsfield told me that it had been handed to him in the street the previous night by some petty Moslem clerk.

‘I’ve got a feeling that he used to be a shopkeeper in Acre,’ Limpsfield said, ‘but it was dark already and I couldn’t be sure.’

Evidently the matter was urgent, for Oliver must have been very reluctant to approach one of my section, however self-confident he was. But he had got away with it. Limpsfield’s memory could go no further than a vague connection with Palestine, though he had seen the A.D.S.O. Nazareth at least twice.

The note was hastily scribbled in pencil on a piece of wrapping paper and enclosed in a re-used envelope with a gummed label.

You will see Tissaphernes in your hotel. Am warning you so that you don’t show recognition.

Just like him to assume that everyone remembered their classics! Who was Tissaphernes? After sweating blood to return myself to the age of fourteen, I vaguely recalled some revoltingly treacherous Persian noble who always went one better than the Greeks. Moustofi Khan, of course.

The warning was invaluable. I flatter myself that I can always act, given time. But Oliver knew as well as I did that if I walked into the dining room and saw Moustofi Khan there some movement of eyes or mouth, easily perceptible by any sensitive oriental who was waiting for it, would give away the fact that I knew him.

I went to my room and cleaned up, turning on lights with morbid curiosity and trying to remember all the tricks I had once been taught for persuading explosives to explode—in which they show more reluctance than most people expect. It then occurred to me that he would hardly choose a hotel for an attempt on my life when there were so many discreeter possibilities. It seemed likely that he merely wanted to inspect me at close quarters or talk to me.

So I entered the dining room more cheerfully, and there was Moustofi Khan sitting three tables away, with only two others occupied. I let my eyes sweep over him without interest and gave him a nod as I sat down—as if I had decided rather late that my manners were too British. He returned a casual smile and continued his meal.

He had that quality which the young describe as charisma and the rest of us, for the last two or three hundred years, have contentedly known as charm. Definitely an individual with his own standards. Steady eyes, but not questioning. A line of civilised irony about the thin lips. He carried an aura of decision about with him so that he appeared taller than he really was. The falcon comparison was good. It seems a big bird till it is on your fist.

If he wanted to make my acquaintance he was doing nothing at all about it. He could afford not to. It must have been his experience that most human beings, unless utterly self-centred or inhibited, felt and showed curiosity about him. When our eyes met for the third or fourth time I spread out my hands in a gesture of welcome and indicated the chair opposite my own. He at once rose and came over. I don’t know enough to say whether his manners were his own or whether all upper-class Persians have the same gift of ease. We might have been dining alone in our club—two members who did not happen to have met before. An Arab would have made an altogether over-courteous, over-exclamatory fuss.

We introduced ourselves and I remarked that I had heard his name mentioned up at Ninth Army. Yes, he said, he had occasionally been of use to the staff on the state of roads and so forth. We found a few acquaintances in common, including Brigadier Paunce. Moustofi Khan was charitable in his judgment.

‘He would die gallantly but so expensively,’ he said. ‘I am sure General Wilson is wise to cage him in an office.’

I asked him where he had learned his faultless English.

‘At Portsmouth. You won’t, I fear, be aware that there is a Persian navy. As a boy I thought I would make my career in it. But it seldom put to sea. So I returned to the life of the idle rich.’

‘Politics don’t interest you?’

‘Not as they are.’

He could not have put it more politely. With half his country occupied by the British and the other half by the Russians, there was not much for a politician to do except obey.

‘The people will forgive us?’

‘Might is right. We are used to it. And often enough the might was ours in the last 2,500 years. But at this point in our history we are not a warlike people, only a proud people.’

He was giving me plenty to think about—more especially that he had taken the trouble to be on good terms with dear Reggie Paunce as an insurance policy against unforeseen complications with the Ronson-Bolbecs.

I asked him if he would join me in a brandy.

‘Not here,’ he replied. ‘In private of course I drink. You must visit my house at Libwe and taste the white wines of Shiraz. Come whenever you wish.’

He explained his presence in Tripoli, casually offering the answers to questions which the security officer had not asked. He told me that he had been in Latakia—to get a special tobacco from his favourite curer—and that his car had broken down on the way back. So there he was in the hotel.

‘Tripoli is a town where I have no friends,’ he said, as if he normally travelled from the house of one wealthy Syrian to another. No doubt he did.

‘I hope you will not feel that in future.’

‘You are most kind. I shall not.’

‘Will your car be ready tomorrow?’

‘Not for several days. One can get no spares.’

All true. I checked the story afterwards. But most civilian cars, leaping from pothole to pothole along surfaces pulverised by the movement of divisions, could easily be persuaded to break down at any convenient time and place.

‘I have to go down to Baalbek tomorrow,’ I said, taking the plunge. ‘If you don’t mind the front seat of a fifteen hundred-weight truck, it would be no trouble to drop you at Libwe.’

He accepted with every appearance of gratitude and told me that I must arrange my business so that I could lunch with him. I went up to bed saying to myself that I had really been and gone and done it now. All the same I had the feel of Moustofi Khan. He was a man who would not hesitate to kill or discredit me if it suited his purpose. Meanwhile he was curious about me as I about him, and possibly had hopes of using me. But the initiative was mine, for I had taken him by surprise without time for any elaborate preparations.

I chose Lance-Corporal Gunn to ride in the back of the truck as escort. He had no languages, but had been a policeman in civil life—at Stratford-on-Avon of all places—and was a sound, reliable fellow who carried the English Midlands about with him along with some wisps of the imagination still floating over the streets of his birthplace. A likely man for Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, I should say; but he may have fetched up running a village store and Post Office. It’s sad that one can never know what happened to them all.

I decided to wear civilian clothes for lunch with Moustofi Khan. My motives were obscure and intuitive. I had a feeling that at some time I might want to be inconspicuous. I had also observed that when we wished to impress a public with our mysterious powers which didn’t exist it was helpful to emphasise the difference between ourselves and the orthodox mass of military. Moustofi Khan would be reminded that the chain of command behind sports jacket and flannel trousers was not quite the same as behind the uniform and the Reggie Paunces.

He did not comment when I picked him up and we drove in easy conversation through Homs and along the Baalbek road to Libwe. Passing the place on previous occasions I had hardly noticed it—just another large Arab village with rather more trees than usual. Moustofi Khan made me look beyond the dusty canyon of houses to the fertile plain, where the streams gathered from Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon on their way to the Orontes. He told me that Zenobia had built an aqueduct to carry the water from Libwe to her desert capital of Palmyra. He always gave me the impression that, for him, Islam was a mere incident in the continuity of the Middle East.

He had managed to corner as many water rights as Zenobia. His gardens were a paradise of cypresses, fruit and roses, which recalled Andalusia. The house itself, of brown brick, appeared too cubical and forbidding—an aspect which vanished as soon as one was inside, for the rooms looked inwards on to two connecting patios, tiled, flowered and fountained. There was a good deal of floor-washing and dusting going on, which bore witness to the fact—confirmed by the surprise of the servants—that master was not expected home that morning. In spite of this, lunch appeared very quickly in less than half an hour.

The variety of small and delicate courses which his silent servants placed in front of me was unending and—with the exception of a single roast snipe—selected to show off that exquisite white wine of Shiraz. It was a pity that I had to concentrate on self-control: first, to keep in mind that I was the guest of a probable enemy agent; second, to be so genial that I could not be suspected of knowing it.

Over the coffee he asked me if I had met the Ronson-Bolbecs. I replied that indeed I had, trying to smirk like a successful lover who wasn’t talking.

‘I went up once to see how they were getting on,’ he said. ‘What a lovely girl she must be to European eyes!’

An attempt at covering himself in case I had heard of his presence in the valley. I could not be dead certain that he had never gone up through Sir.

‘Only to European eyes?’

‘Those fair Madonnas—well, we can see their beauty. But for ourselves we prefer more pronounced features with more brilliant eyes. And of course her breasts are too small and her thighs too thin.’

I spotted it in time. I have never drunk Shiraz since, but it appears to act like twin carburettors in pepping up the intelligence. If a British officer and gentleman were even half in love with Valerie, he would not discuss with strange Persians intimate details of her physique. At least Reggie Paunce wouldn’t. I’m none too sure of myself.

‘Possibly,’ I replied with a coolness straight from provincial drama of the eighteen-nineties, and pointedly changed the subject.

‘Did you know this Blaise d’Aulnoy who let them the valley?’

‘Very well. A man with an outstandingly creative mind—quite wasted on all the detail of administration. That was why he refused to join the Free French.’

I will not pretend that I could analyse that remark at the time; but I did remember that Magnat had accused d’Aulnoy of dreaming of the Empire of Charlemagne. Bored by administration? D’Aulnoy, more likely, had decided that the war was lost and that the only future for a creative Arabist was with Hitler and Pétain.

‘I have never been able to understand where French responsibilities begin and end,’ Moustofi Khan said.

I explained to him that there was no secret about it. The Free French governed Syria and the Lebanon, and the British were an allied army on their territory.

‘Start a riot in Tripoli, and the Deuxième Bureau would deal with it,’ I said. ‘Start putting Mickey Finns in the troops’ beer, and I should.’

A gross simplification, of course. But I wanted to play down the role of our own security organisation—or at any rate my own minor part.

‘Not much excitement in that, I suppose?’

‘No more than for a policeman at home.’

‘What control have you over the gendarmerie?’

As he had introduced the subject, I dared not be too silent.

‘None. That’s a French responsibility, and they must treat the Lebanese officers as equals. We had a very good man in Tripoli—a Lieutenant Khalid. It’s said he has bolted to Turkey or somewhere. I hear he had a case of rape hanging over him.’

Moustofi Khan shrugged his shoulders and insisted that all supposed loyal servants were crooks who hardly bothered to cover up corruption.

‘You and the French are more discreet,’ he added.

‘You are thinking of business majors in Beirut with contracts to hand out?’

‘Everywhere. You must have had offers yourself.’

‘I’m not important enough. Just a policeman, as I told you.’

‘Aren’t they asked to keep their eyes shut occasionally? Not of course on anything vital to the war effort!’

That was interesting. In England I should have taken it as just conversation; but I had now been long enough in the Middle East. The invitation seemed worth following up. I replied cheerfully that at the moment my captain’s pay was quite enough to live on, but if I found myself with another mouth to feed temptation might not be easily resisted.

‘No promotion likely to come your way?’

‘If I spoke Arabic, perhaps.’

‘What do you speak?’

‘Just French.’

And just an impulsive lie! To add the European languages which I did speak would have made me sound a better qualified security officer than I wished him to think.

He changed the subject. I forget how. He became a little patronising, as if an intelligent man such as I should understand the backgrounds and aspirations of the countries into which war had thrown me. He poured out history over me. He was not content, like the rest of us, to accept the past as ending at our feet; he saw the present as a mere point on a straight line stretching from past to future. Darius and Alexander, the Arab Caliphs and the Ottoman Empire—he lectured to me on the lot. It was our business, he said, if we had any dynamic imagination at all, to recreate the unity of the Middle East.

‘And then go?’ I asked.

‘Then be absorbed like the Crusaders.’

He undoubtedly meant me to take all this as after-lunch fantasy with strong, pro-British leanings. So I might have, if I had not suspected that his sympathies were on the other side. What I was getting were Moustofi Khan’s hopes of the Germans—for nobody else had time for dynamic imagination—and if their armies did manage to cross the Nile or the Caucasus his dreams could be near reality. One could not then set any limits to Hitler’s luck, and it was natural enough that an able and ambitious man like Moustofi Khan should see himself as Gauleiter east of the Tigris and look forward to the eventual absorption of the conquerors.

Our complicated duel had faded out. There was nothing else in our conversation worth repeating. I turned down his offer of a quiet siesta, saying that I had to be in Baalbek by five o’clock. So I climbed into my truck with Lance-Corporal Gunn driving, and relaxed thankfully into a lump of brainless digestion, alert, like any other animal, only to the road behind. As soon as I was sure that we were not followed we pulled into a lane where I had half an hour’s sleep. After splashing my face in an irrigation channel I felt as good as new. Another testimonial to Shiraz.

Gunn had enjoyed his lunch as much as I, but with iced Lager. I asked him what were his impressions of our host’s estate and employees, and got a reply which revealed a lot more than the woolly ambitions of Moustofi the Great.

‘Holloway’s famous car, sir. I wanted to have a look at the roses. Used to take care of the gardens of a pair of police cottages,’ he added apologetically. ‘And so the wog gardener chap showed me all round. When we were in the courtyard at the back of the house I saw a grey Peugeot, number 1461.’

‘Did he know that you saw it?’

‘Shouldn’t think so, sir. We were in a sort of potting shed and I spotted it through the window when somebody opened and closed the garage door on the other side of the yard.’

That was the first real evidence proving that Moustofi Khan and Yellow Socks were connected. It could mean that Yellow Socks had been in the house at the same time as myself, or that the car had been stowed away in Moustofi Khan’s garage until a new, safe number could be arranged—possibly difficult without the help of an influential police officer like Khalid.

Now, what would you say marked the Field Security characters in the Middle East? A certain sophistication? The possession of general, cosmopolitan knowledge which worried us into asking questions instead of accepting facts? I was at that time only a reckless liability to my section and my superior officers, but the dutiful worry remained. No cook could have prepared in less than half an hour such a lunch as Moustofi Khan had given me. And why should I have been served one snipe instead of the usual two—a mere mouthful not even justifying a change of wine to red?

Then for whom had the meal really been prepared? Two persons already in the house? There was plenty of room for them behind the succession of doors which rambled round the patios. The many small dishes also suggested that there had not been quite enough solid food to go round.

So I chose to guess that a lunch for two had been cooked for Yellow Socks and some important companion and that Moustofi Khan and I, arriving unexpectedly, had shared it with them. That was why I got a single snipe. My reasoning was hardly worthy of the name—no sort of criminal evidence at all. But when there is no crime it is permissible to play about with a hunch until it is either proved wrong or too damned dangerous to follow up.

I decided to follow up this one, taking reasonable precautions for my health. I told Gunn that before returning through Libwe we would wait where we were long enough to have completed the journey to Baalbek and back. If no one was on our tail after Libwe we would take the road to Hermel. He was to drop me out quickly wherever I directed him to stop, and he should then return to Tripoli and tell the sergeant-major to pick me up next day between eleven and twelve at the same spot.

Just before we arrived at the path which Limpsfield and I had followed I slipped out of the truck into the fairly adequate cover of a low growing fig tree. Gunn went on until he could turn. I had to take the risk that someone might see him going back to the Homs road without me, but the chance of this was slight. I could guess enough of Moustofi Khan’s tactics. He and any other clandestine travellers used the Hermel-Sir track at night, sliding in and out at dawn or dusk when they would pass, if seen at all, as casual riders exercising their horses. It stood to reason that there could be no permanent guard at this end of the track. If there were, it would inevitably be known in Hermel.

I must admit that I doubted the validity of all these wide assumptions when the truck had passed me on its way back and I was left alone by the roadside. There was much more greenery than when we had discovered the track, but a man could be seen a long way off.

That cut both ways. I too could see anyone before he could recognise me, and then vanish into knee-high cover until the coast was clear. So I elected not to wait for dusk and to put my trust in the melancholy emptiness around me. The ruined farmhouse was about a mile away and hidden from the Hermel road by a low ridge. I avoided the path in case I walked slap into some interested stranger where it curved at the foot of the higher ground, and made my way across country to the ridge. On top of it were the remains of a stone wall from which I could look down on the farmhouse without showing more than my head.

Limpsfield and I had of course ridden past the ruin without a thought. Now, in the light of later knowledge, I could appreciate what an admirable assembly point it was for entering or leaving the track; anyone could wait there undisturbed until told that it was safe to move on. The house was by no means so dilapidated as it looked. The roof had fallen in and little was left of the living quarters except a tumble of partition walls, but the lower storey of stables and storehouses was intact, surrounded by four good walls of solid stone with a stout door in the arched entrance.

There was no sign of life, so I walked down and opened the door. The interior, lit only by slit windows high up in the wall, was at first very dark; but when my eyes had grown accustomed I found plenty of signs of recent occupation. The floor of earth and dung turned to dust showed hoof marks. There were fresh horse droppings, fresh hay in a manger and footprints—one set being neat, small and very probably made by Moustofi Khan. A competent policeman could have filled his notebook with a mass of revealing detail, but that was beyond me. I was content to find the signs of traffic and of two heavy cases which had been set down in the dust. I knew they were heavy because it had taken a man at each end to lift them.

It was now dusk and time to leave, for there was nowhere to hide inside that extensive, barn-like substructure. The arches still holding up the floor of the former living quarters offered corners of shadow, but not enough when one could not know where torch or lantern was likely to be. I shut the door behind me and looked for a safe place, not far away, from which to keep watch. On one side of the house was the ridge, which I didn’t like; it was such an obvious post for a sentry who could command the Hermel road in daylight, and in the dark at least spot movement on the path. On the other side was a gentle slope where the cultivated land had gone back to thorn, fig and sage. There I lay down, quite close to the track and some fifty yards from the farmhouse.

As the light faded away, so did the edge of my confidence. All the same, I stuck to my opinion that if Moustofi Khan had guests there was a good chance that they were bound for d’Aulnoy’s valley. If you had asked me why not tomorrow or the day after or any day—more likely since Moustofi Khan was not expected home—I could only have answered that they were waiting for him to come home, so why not tonight? The fact remained that I was on the spot and another night I wouldn’t be, so that even if the odds were four to one against me they were worth accepting.

At any rate I thought so up to midnight. After that I wondered what the hell a respectable Field Security officer was up to, pretending to be Robin Hood and subjecting himself to a foodless night in the open. The emptiness was silent, except for the stars singing, the scufflings of rats or some other small nocturnal beasts and the howl of jackals higher up the track. A deer on the ridge opposite made me jump into life and listen eagerly until I was sure what was cantering. That was proof that I should be woken up by the approach of horses, so I seriously tried to go to sleep. Quite hopeless. Ants crawled up my trousers, and when I did doze off for a moment I woke up with a start deciding that the ants were scorpions. There was nothing for it but to stroll back and forth on the path. I was cold, since I had dressed for the sun of early summer, and I had lost all faith in my impulsive deductions from inadequate knowledge of Persian menus.

About two in the morning I did at last hear horses. I popped back into my hole among the bushes and hugged my patch of sandy soil, now shivering more from excitement than cold. I became more aware of stern reality: that I had put myself in a position where anyone still wanting to get rid of me could manage it for the price of admission and without any awkward consequences. I wished that I had the illusory comfort of my .45, but one cannot carry a heavy army revolver when lunching with a distinguished friend in plain clothes.

Three horses stopped at the farmhouse. I could see no more than moving blocks of darkness, but had the impression that one of the riders was pointing out the advantages of its position. Another of them must have shown curiosity, for the beam of a flashlight picked out the door and all three led their horses into the house.

God knows I don’t look for trouble! I shy away from the embarrassment of being caught eavesdropping, let alone stumbling over fallen rubble with bullets kicking up the dust behind. It did seem futile, however, to continue to lie on my belly scratching at mere ants when a quick dash would take me to one of the slits at the side of the house.

I made no noticeable noise and finished up flat against the wall with the bottom of a lancet close to my ear. Inside the house all three were speaking German. That was my first close contact with the enemy—a feeling not unlike that of a boy when he discovers that all his information about the erogenous zones of the female has proved delightfully correct. In the base areas one began to think after a while that Germans only existed in newspapers.

I could see the light wavering about inside; when it was turned away from me I stood on tiptoe and looked in. I was astonished to see a patrol of the gendarmerie wearing hats and cloaks. But of course! Deserted though the hills were, travellers on the Hermel track must occasionally have been noticed by herdsmen who would take their presence as natural and avoid them from a sense of guilt or nomad shyness if the outline of the riders was that of the gendarmerie. When Limpsfield and I were watching Moustofi Khan it had never occurred to either of us that his horseman’s cloak was a regulation issue, for neither of us had seen the gendarmerie on night patrol and were only familiar with the daytime uniform. Presumably Moustofi Khan had carried the képi in his saddlebag to be put on at need.

The three were moving about inside the house, so I could not hear all they said. Moustofi Khan’s companions were both German. One of them was addressed as Colonel. To judge by his accent and style he was a professional soldier of good family. The other was more cosmopolitan—by which I mean that his German was correct but spoken in a harsh, rather monotonous voice which suggested that he had used other languages as often as his own. Moustofi Khan called him by his nom de guerre: Hadji. That was the name of the agent whom Oliver’s sheikh intended him to meet. I kept on trying to get a glimpse of him, bobbing up and down like a twittering jack-in-the-box. When they lit a lantern and at last I had a clear view, I found that he answered very well to Holloway’s description of Yellow Socks.

It was only disjointed stuff that I overheard. The Colonel asked how safe it was to use the farmhouse but did not say for what. Moustofi Khan answered that he wouldn’t recommend it except in an emergency; fellahin and herdsmen sometimes took shelter there, especially in winter.

‘And this lunch guest of yours knows nothing about it?’ Hadji asked.

‘No. He has only once been in the village. It’s the daughter he is after.’

I could not hear the next question and only scraps of the reply. I think that they were telling Hadji just what I had often said to Oliver: that he was too self-confident. German or British, these chaps tended to be intoxicated by their own cleverness. Grasshoppers were mentioned. Moustofi Khan reminded him that anyone coming up to d’Aulnoy’s valley through Sir drew attention to himself, that Magnat naturally kept a check on visitors and that Ahmed could not always head him off.

‘You are sure the security police were looking for me that night?’ Hadji asked.

‘Unless he thought the girl had a lover,’ Moustofi Khan replied.

Fascinating to get a glimpse of the other side of the hill! That I was after Valerie’s secret lover was correct. That I had any useful report on Yellow Socks was quite wrong.

The Colonel said contemptuously that I sounded to him like typical Gestapo, and started further discussion. From what I could piece together it looked as if Ahmed and Khalid had arranged the attempt on my life and that Moustofi Khan had been away and unable to stop what he considered a bit of unthinking, hysterical Arab violence. Khalid had believed me to be hot on the trail of Yellow Socks. The valley and the Hermel track did not enter into it at all.

The most disagreeable remark I heard was from Hadji:

‘But he was ill for two days after Khalid disappeared.’

Moustofi Khan dismissed that one.

‘Nothing in it. Diarrhoea. I asked at the hotel.’

So my dear little laundress had passed the word round. She had nothing to go on but what I told her and the fact that she had seen me faint on my way back from the lavatory. It was she who hauled me back to bed. Luckily all my bruises were under pyjamas.

They were still discussing Khalid as they tightened their girths and prepared to be on their way. They must have argued out the pros and cons several times before, but I suppose the fact that they had shared their lunch with a security officer started it up again. It was the complete disappearance of the horse which reassured them. The accusation of attempted rape was true. Lieutenant Khalid had spent a packet in bribes to keep it quiet, and even so was in continual danger of blackmail and a blood feud. It was damned folly, the Colonel said, and added a few remarks about women in time of war—typically Teutonic but I fear I agreed with him. I gathered that if Khalid had not already been with the Prophet in Paradise he would go there quickly as soon as this gang caught up with him.

My curiosity had kept me pinned to the slit window until it was too late to cross the path into cover. I was also concentrating intensely to make sense of discontinuous talk and had not noticed that a bright half moon had risen behind me, white-washing the grey stones of the farmhouse. I tiptoed back a few paces and stepped into an enamelled piss-pot which fortunately dissolved into flakes of rust with little noise. But Moustofi Khan heard it, ran round the corner of the house and shot a beam from his torch along the wall and up to the ridge. By that time I was lying down in the shadowed angle at the base of the building behind a thistle which at least broke my outline. If the beam had been a foot lower there would have been another field for ever England around those parts.

They rode away and my world withdrew very thankfully into silence. As there was no more point in staying where I was, I took advantage of the moonlight to return to the fig tree where Gunn had left me by the side of the road. It made an excellent leafy den with dry earth underneath and no ants. There I slept on and off for eight hours, and soon after eleven saw my truck coming up the road with Limpsfield driving, and four chaps and the section tommy-gun in the back. Gunn must have romanticised both our lunch and as much as he knew of my intentions.

Oliver’s presence with me in the village had inhibited my knack of brooding over my surroundings and listening to whatever they had to say. His dictum that security meant people was not half so impressive when one remembered that he had little eye for country. Nothing suspicious? But where could a stranger possibly stay in a tiny village which was frequently visited by Biddy Ronson-Bolbec and might be inspected at any moment by Magnat or me or, say, liaison officers siting a Turkish camp? They would never have dared to leave it entirely to Khalid to give sufficient warning.

The next day I visited Magnat as soon as his office was open and asked him if he knew where d’Aulnoy had got his stone for building and repairs. On the spot, Magnat said. There were outcrops of stone everywhere. Perhaps I had noticed them while motorcycling over the hills in the dark?

I had indeed; but I had not noticed any quarry or any cut surface showing unweathered stone. The quarry could not be out in the wilds; it had to be very near or alongside one of the estate roads, all of which I knew.

I told you, I think, that I had thought Yasser’s greetings unnecessarily loud when he ushered us into his house. Well, his voice was meant to carry and to warn. There had to be accommodation for as many as three strangers; in that wide open, primitive hamlet there was none. The quarry had to be visible; it was not. So where was it? The answer stuck out a mile, with none of my usual conjectures about it. It was covered over, of course, by stout timbers with either one of the tanks on top or a good thickness of earth, and only to be discovered by interrogation of the villagers which would have to be ruthless to overcome their devoted fidelity to d’Aulnoy.

My guess was that d’Aulnoy had disguised his quarry during the two months between the suppression of Rashid Ali’s revolt and the surrender of the Vichy troops. That meant that he had prepared it beforehand as a secret base for pro-German activities or possibly a safe hiding-place for enemy agents on the run. The evidence ought to justify a well-planned raid on the village, and I could keep Oliver Enwin and Khalid right out of my report.

There were still snags, however. I had not actually seen this quarry room, though I was sure of it. And it might be empty and innocent, for I could not give a date when Hadji and the Colonel were certain to be there. It should be possible with Biddy’s aid to bag Moustofi Khan, but if he was alone he was certain to have a first-class story: for example, that he had long suspected the hide-out and that, if it hadn’t been for the clumsiness of Field Security, he would have had a German agent on toast the following week. Then there was Ahmed, Magnat’s blue-eyed boy, who could be trusted to rehearse the villagers in a common story.

I may have been wrong. I (b) might have taken my word and acted like lightning. Jeremy Fanshawe knew very well that I did not see spies under my bed and he would probably have gone ahead on my say-so. But Ninth Army were prejudiced. Was it likely that enemy agents would operate under the eyes of a distinguished army widow with a lot of bloody cousins busy losing the war in Whitehall? And as for her angelic daughter with her thighs apparently frosted together by the ice of memsahibs, wasn’t she just the perfect motive for a half-baked security officer to pretend he was a romantic fellow catching villains on her doorstep? The more I considered d’Aulnoy’s selection of them as wartime tenants, the more I saw how effective his inspiration was.

Yes, the package was not yet firmly tied up, as you or any former security officer must admit. But I had the man to do it: Youssef Mokaddem. He need never mention his old Galilee sheikh and could sum up, all the same, the essential links between Hadji, the Colonel, Moustofi Khan, Abdullah el Bessam and the whole enemy ring. I only knew the ultimate objective: to accept German control of the Middle East, which would be inexperienced enough to give full scope to the ambitions of men like Moustofi Khan.

But what was the good of all that? I was little better than a Baptist preacher who screams that there’s a communist plot every time his local market runs out of onions. The preacher might unexpectedly be right, as I was, but an Intelligence Staff needs detailed proof before demanding a company of infantry for a brutal knock-about turn with Lebanese peasants who had to be kept sweet and docile at any reasonable cost.

There was no easy way of getting hold of Youssef Mokaddem except through Valerie. I have already mentioned his exasperating habit of assuming that his superior knowledge entitled him to give orders. If he did not get in touch with me, I had not the remotest idea where he was or under what name he was pretending to flog funk-holes to Egyptians.

So, after talking to Magnat, I left at once for the Ronson-Bolbecs. I could not waste an hour if there were to be any chance of netting Hitler’s men of business while they were still in the valley. I had to let Biddy fool away time chatting about dear Oliver. She said that she was surprised at the change in his appearance and character since he joined the Navy; that he seemed more certain of himself and that she hoped he would find a nice English girl in Malta. Typical! I doubt if at that time there was any marriage market in Malta. But she still could not get hold of the fact that a desperate war was in progress.

After all that, she left me alone with Valerie, showing signs of the interested mother. I think she so liked the prospect of a son-in-law who could be her father confessor that she tended to forget I was too old for Valerie and unlikely to inherit a deer park.

We strolled to a quiet corner under the apple trees, where the enigmatic little bitch had the impertinence to ask me:

‘Aren’t you going to propose this time?’

‘My interests are strictly dishonourable,’ I said. ‘But as your mother cannot possibly see us and we are in full view of Ahmed’s pantry window I suggest you give me a passionate kiss.’

Her back view while doing so must have been delicious and convincing. On the active front she stuck her tongue out at me and had to take what was coming to her.

‘Now, listen, my girl! Where’s that man of yours?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘I do not know. When I last saw him he was about to teach camel-drivers to dance the hornpipe.’

‘But he’s living just behind your men. We can sometimes hear what they think of you,’ she giggled.

There was a disreputable pension in the street behind the billet, separated from our yard by some outbuildings and a wall. We naturally kept a very close eye on the reformed Metuali whore who ran the place, and she reported to us all her visitors and their business in exchange for guaranteed freedom from police blackmail and a small subvention of ration jam and cans of beef. I could not see how the devil Oliver had established himself there.

‘You have—er—called on him?’ I asked, absurdly embarrassed by my own question.

It was the effect of those pure and exquisite eyes in the oval face. Even after all that enthusiasm on the hillside I still had difficulty in visualising Valerie Ronson-Bolbec being tumbled on an old iron bed in a back street of Tripoli. A fair Madonna, Moustofi Khan had called her. But the Madonna didn’t give a damn how much I knew. She was in a daze of being pleased with herself, and that was that.

‘Only twice,’ she answered demurely.

‘And there is supposed to be a back way into the billet?’

‘Yes. That’s why Oliver chose it.’

Marvellous! Whichever of Ahmed’s minor agents kept an eye on her movements—and I could bet there was one—must have thought discipline in a Field Security billet even looser than it was and assumed that I had a camp bed in the office, telling Boutagy and Limpsfield to run away and play whenever my popsy climbed over the wall. Perfectly in keeping with local expectations and for any Levantine police officer all in the day’s work! I don’t know about the Gestapo.

‘Where did you leave your horse?’

‘In Captain Magnat’s yard, while I went shopping.’

Since she was picking up the mail, that was reasonable enough; but two or three hours was a lot of time to spend in the almost empty shops of Tripoli, and Magnat might think so, too.

After saying good-bye to Biddy—kissing her hand regretfully, as much as to say that her daughter and I were still just friends and not satisfactorily good ones—I rode back to Tripoli in a state of suppressed fury and told the Sergeant-Major to send me in Davila just as soon as he crossed the threshold. I then sat down to write my weekly reports to Ninth Army: rumours, Ruad caiques, taxi-drivers, port security, liaison with the French, grain shortages and other stock items.

When Davila returned in the evening, I asked him whether he did or did not have any control whatever over that pestilential, bug-ridden pension behind the billet.

‘Complete, sir. She’s most co-operative.’

‘Then what the hell is a broken down, Palestinian travel agent doing there without my knowledge?’

‘Well, sir, he asked me if there would be any objection to him knocking on her door, and as I knew she had a room free…’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Well, sir, we haven’t seen you for the last week.’

‘And stop saying “well, sir” so bloody often! How did he make himself known to you and where did you meet him?’

‘Hanging around outside Police Headquarters. He knew exactly what orders you had given me and told me to get on with it.’

‘But you don’t speak Arabic and I don’t think he’d like to be heard speaking English.’

‘He started in pidgin French, and we finally got together in Greek.’

Just like Oliver! Making himself even more of a mystery than he was! Anyway it disgusted me that the language of Sophocles and Plato should be the daily chatter of black marketeers from Smyrna to Cairo. I must have snapped something of the sort at Davila because I remember him replying that we carried on our own dirty business in the divine speech of Racine and Flaubert.

That restored my equanimity. We never knew what would come out of our Field Security sergeants. At that early period in the war you might easily find yourself commanding a Fellow of All Souls or a junior partner in Rothschilds.

‘And I am afraid I have some distressing news for you, sir. It is quite certain. Perhaps you would prefer to hear it from the sergeant-major?’

‘If you mean that Miss Ronson-Bolbec has been down to see him, I’m well aware of it and not distressed at all. Does anyone know besides you and Limpsfield?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, keep it that way! And it might be a good idea to leave some sort of ladder under our side of the wall where it could be noticed by the curious. What name is he using?’

‘Youssef Mokaddem.’

‘He is to meet me where we last saw each other at eleven a.m. tomorrow. You can shove that message into Chinese or Choctaw so long as the old girl gives it to him tonight.’

Oliver kept me waiting. When he arrived, he pointed out that buses were unreliable and I should remember it when making appointments. I was in no mood to accept his estimate of his own importance. I told him that he was risking his cover for the sake of a bed to make love on and that it was nonsense to say he was protecting me. Ahmed and Moustofi Khan were already convinced that my only interest in d’Aulnoy’s valley was Valerie. He could be suspected, I said, of choosing that pension just to be in close touch with me.

‘I could be—if there were anything to connect me with the Damascus money-changer. But there is not.’

‘Boutagy may recognise you.’

‘I shall be careful that he never sees me face to face. In any case he will believe anything I choose to tell him.’

It looked as if my secret agent had turned sour on me, so I became as polite as if he were really an Arab living on his nerves and deserving a bit more danger money. I thanked him for his timely note and gave him the whole story of my lunch with Moustofi Khan and the night before last outside the farmhouse.

‘So your Yellow Socks is Hadji!’

‘What do you know of him—beyond what your sheikh said?’

‘He is the link with German Intelligence. Speaks faultless Arabic and English and can pass anywhere. Just look at the lovely, authentic touch of those socks!’

‘How does he get here?’

‘Directly from Turkey, I should think. At one time the enemy ring passed him on through Persia to Mosul. But now you’ve got their chief agents on the run.’

The ‘you’ instead of ‘we’ sounded odd. I supposed that it had become a mental discipline to disassociate himself from the British. One unguarded ‘we’ in the wrong company could have been the end of him.

‘Any line on the Colonel?’

He was silent for a moment, and then burst out impatiently:

‘Don’t you realise what you have found? It’s the headquarters. And your colonel is the military adviser to the command in Syria.’

‘Who’s the commander?’

‘Almost certainly Rashid Ali, waiting in Italy. He would be quite incompetent without a first-class soldier at his side.’

‘And Moustofi Khan?’

‘Commander east of the Tigris—or at any rate in the Persian mountains.’

‘You are sure of all this?’

‘Yes. With what you have added, all my bits and pieces fall into place. Abdullah el Bessam is—what shall we say?—Financial Secretary. Hadji at present is Director of Military Intelligence. But every army is the same. They’ll put in some ignorant soldier as his boss when the fighting starts.’

I asked him how he had managed to penetrate the organisation as far as he had.

‘Because, in your ridiculous military terms, I as Youssef Mokaddem was Deputy Assistant Paymaster in Damascus. I know the names of the small fry and they have talked to me. The chain of command—I knew some of that too, except for the tops. And there’s still one missing: the political chief above Rashid Ali and Moustofi Khan. The Mufti of Jerusalem, perhaps, but it’s a dam’ fool choice.’

‘Can you give me the lot on paper?’

‘I will not. Youssef Mokaddem is now dead for good. I had to help you. I told you I was working for you and no one else. But now it’s finished. Finished!’

I still did not quite understand. I reminded him that I was a plain Field Security officer who could not possibly expose the organisation without expert evidence. I could report the probable presence of two Germans, and that was all.

‘No! I don’t approve of any of you. I have now to send these men to their death. I won’t! I have been alone long enough to know my own mind. I renounce violence absolutely.’

‘Why the hell did you join the Army in the first place?’

‘I made a mistake.’

God, what a mess! But the complexities of Oliver Enwin were at last plain to me. In following Valerie to Cairo he had shown nothing more than the determined persistence of a tomcat. Yes, I know that’s a hard judgment, but let’s leave it to the poets to measure the spiritual content of such devotion. On the outbreak of war what else could he do but make a choice which Valerie and her mother would approve, throwing himself into counter-espionage with all his obstinacy and his unique gift for languages and intrigue?

So far, not very original. But then, after Nazareth, he could no longer accept the obligations of war. I hesitate to call him a pacifist. There is no clear-cut name for the man who refuses to kill his fellow human beings just because he is ordered to do so by his government and is willing to use unlimited violence when ordered by himself.

Take me, for example. What made me join the Army, foaming at the mouth, at the time of Munich? Utter hatred of Hitler who was destroying the peaceful Europe I so loved, and shamelessly exhibiting himself as a man without shame or sense by his treatment of the Jews. And what about all the pacifists of my generation who fought like devils for the Spanish Republic? Oh, I grant you the religious pacifist who will resist nothing, however evil, by force! But Oliver was not one of those. By and large his engine was of conventional design, but he preferred, intellectually, to let it run in neutral.

I did not attempt to explain him to himself. What could I get but angry denials?

‘You believe that these people are justified in plotting to stab us in the back?’ I asked.

‘I have no opinion. They are patriots—as I’m not and you are.’

‘But you would be welcomed back. You’re safe at last. Come down with me today to Cairo or wherever you like!’

‘No! I follow my conscience. It’s not so hard as the first time.’

I told him that I, too, must follow my conscience. If he did nothing with the information he had, he made himself an enemy agent and I should put him under arrest.’

‘And you’ll stand the consequences?’

‘Willingly. I shall explain frankly that I felt sympathy for you, but that now there is no question what my duty is.’

‘You propose to put me on the back of your motor bike?’

As usual he had gone to the heart of the matter. The one place you cannot put an unwilling prisoner is the back of a motor bike. I could only march him down the road with a gun—which he knew I wouldn’t use—stuck against his ribs. This I would have done if there had been the slightest chance of a British or French military vehicle passing along the road to Sir. The alternative was to knock him out and tie him up to a tree while I fetched the truck; but I hadn’t any rope. So there we stood, alone in a patch of scrub, a security officer and a traitor, and the security officer could not think of one damn thing to do about it.

I showed my helplessness by trying again to argue with him. The leaders, I said, were only collaborating with the enemy for their own advantage. What was their long term object?

‘Unity and independence of all Moslem lands.’

‘We have offered it, so far as it’s in our power.’

‘But they no longer believe you can win, or that you would keep your word if you did.’

‘They prefer to believe Hitler?’

‘They are fascinated by him. For the fanatic he is the enemy of the Jews. For the simple he has lots of those oily instruments of death which you all love, and better ones. And what is wrong with Moustofi Khan’s ambition for a federated Islam?’

‘What’s wrong is that they would be worse off under Gauleiter Moustofi with German advisers than under the Arab kings with British advisers. And how about Palestine?’

‘The Jews will be protected as they were under the Turks.’

True or false? It’s what all the pro-Arabs said. Zionism was never one of Oliver’s personal enthusiasms as it was mine—so far as duty to my country permitted.

The difference between us was too great for argument, and it was no good ranting like a recruiting officer. So I started on Valerie, threatening to tell her the truth.

‘She would not believe you. And she wouldn’t care much. Not now.’

His blasted complacence infuriated me. I had no right to shoot to kill, but I realised that I had no longer any objection to seeing him out of action and moaning with pain.

‘If you make a move, Oliver, I shall put a bullet through your hand,’ I said. ‘That will fix you. You can’t earn any sort of living. You will have to go to hospital and there will be a Military Policeman by your bedside.’

Very plausible. He was not sure I wouldn’t. I was not sure myself. The good, old excuse of trying to escape would wash.

I made him take off his coat and clasp hands behind head as I ran over his body. I confiscated all his papers in the name of Youssef Mokaddem together with his wallet. He had a serviceable mixture of money in it: Palestine pounds, Lebanese and Syrian piastres, Iraqi dinars.

‘If you steal that from me, I may have to get money where I can,’ he said. ‘And I prefer to accept no favours from either side.’

I gave it back. Disgraceful weakness. But I believed what he asserted and it seemed to me that he could only be tempted over the edge if he were starving. I wanted him to have time to think—or told myself so. I was obsessed and disarmed by this man who had been a friend and a colleague.

Then I warned him that I was going straight back to clear out his room at the pension and that if I ever saw him again I should arrest him as the deserter, Captain Oliver Enwin.

I roared back to Tripoli trying to understand how and why he had won, and what he had reckoned I would do after such a confession. I came to the conclusion that he didn’t care. My report had thrown him into the same state of chewing his own tail as when he had run from Nazareth. He had to declare himself, to stand up and be counted, and he refused to do so. Meanwhile his streak of cunning and his knowledge of my character had made him reasonably sure that he could again put off decision.

Together with Davila I searched his room. At any rate there was no doubt whose side the old girl who ran the place was on. She had chosen Davila Bey’s protection and she stuck to it. She tip-toed about in her greasy carpet slippers and made sure that none of her pensioners saw us come in or go out.

The bare room held no personal possessions at all beyond soap, razor and tooth-brush in a sponge bag and Oliver’s shabby suit-case containing everything he was not wearing: clean shirt, extra pair of trousers, a gaudy pull-over, a spare head-cloth, a tie and some badly printed business cards of the one-man travel agency. What a life, self-sufficient and dispossessed like that of a wandering dervish! It was no wonder that his dialogue with himself in that pitiable room had ended in renunciation of all except Valerie. Apart from his dealings with me, he had no male companions but traitors and the poor.

We cut the suit-case apart in the hope of finding papers. There was nothing. It was certain that he had a cache somewhere with his money-changer’s clothes and perhaps a file of names and contacts which he could not afford to forget. I thought at first that I had no chance of finding it, for it might be in Damascus or buried at Byblos or Tel Ayub. But of course not! Why go to such trouble when he had a safe deposit with which his close connection was unknown. I was prepared to bet that his few really important possessions were with Valerie.

So off again to Biddy and her dear daughter, cursing d’Aulnoy for not having run a telephone line up to his villa though I would not have dared to use it if he had. You know how one dashes for results to the exclusion of all else when possessed by an imperative—fine for money-making whizz-kids but not for the business of exposing enemy agents or launching your own into the fog. It’s essential to go slowly—so slowly that your hunches will stand up to being expressed on paper, step by step and paragraph by paragraph. Yet I refused to waste a minute. I was reaching a state of excitability which would have justified any distrust felt by I (b). My one-track mind could not even think of a good excuse for the visit—nothing better than telling Biddy that it was about time for another tête à tête in Tripoli.

I caught Valerie dressed for riding and on the point of going down to the pension for a late and energetic siesta. Since her pretext had been a pretended call on me, she was not pleased. She was short with her mother and stamped round the house on unnecessary tasks. I was stuck with Biddy, who told me at great length that I must not pay too much attention to the moods of young girls, implying that it would be all right on the night. Then I was cornered by Ahmed who wanted me to back up the application of some relative of his for work in an army camp. All hollow as hell. He was just indulging in the fruitless Arab habit of interminable talk in order to weigh the other person up. Among themselves it may work. I don’t know.

I had to capture Valerie on the run before I could get a word in to tell her that I had a disappointment for her. Oliver had been suddenly called away for an indefinite period and had asked me to break it gently to her and to collect a bag or parcel or something.

‘I’ll fetch it,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I should have guessed you came with a message from him.’

The girl deserved so much more from life than she seemed likely to get. She could still be courteous when hit hard. That surprised me as much as the sense of humour which I had only recently discovered in her. I accused myself of being merciless to my pair of lovers—though God knows they were lucky to be in the power of an amoral nihilist always according to Jeremy, finding excuses.

She returned in ten minutes with a bag—one of those old-fashioned things with the handle at the top. I had the impression that she had been crying, but could not be sure. She must have had a lot of practice in concealing tears.

‘When did Oliver give it to you?’

‘When he decided to stay in Tripoli. He gave me the ticket and asked me to pick up a bag from the consigne at the station.’

Back at the office I broke open the lock of the bag. There was not much in it: his Syrian clothes, a photograph of Valerie taken long ago in Aldershot, a Damascus telephone directory and what looked like sheets of accounts in Arabic. I called in Boutagy, hoping that at last I had some documentary evidence. He disappointed me at once. The sheets ruled in red and blue were not accounts at all, he said; they were poetry, written in an ultra-decorative script with which he had some trouble. He could not place the writer or his date, but told me it was good stuff. Some phrases of his stolid and halting translation sounded vaguely familiar, and I felt pretty certain that they contained a code to be read in conjunction with the telephone book.

This directory, in Arabic and French, was more interesting—filthy, covered with smudges and dirty finger marks, and looking as if it had been pinched from a telephone box in a slum. I came to the conclusion that some of the smudges could be deliberate, knowing Oliver’s methods, and were some kind of reminder. If so, not even a practised code-breaker could make much of the markings. The whole object of a code is to communicate with somebody else, whereas Oliver was communicating with himself.

Still frustrated. Shouldn’t I have taken the whole story up to I (b) as it was? Well, it was far from coherent, and I could no longer leave out of it Khalid and my failure to hand over Oliver Enwin. So to compensate for my crimes it had to be twice as convincing as any other report. Khalid, you say, could be explained. Oh, could he? In a country at peace I know no one licensed to kill except surgeons.

With all the proper channels closed to me, my next move was foolish, angry, impatient and against all security rules. Suspects must not be scared until one is ready to pounce. But I couldn’t pounce, so when I had an opportunity to scare—just for a few hours—I decided to take it and see what would happen.

This situation developed from plain bread-and-butter military security. Some ten days later a tall, Indian Army captain rode into our yard, looked round for somebody to hold his seventeen-hand charger and handed it over to Zappa who was plain terrified. I doubt if he had ever been nearer to a horse than the paddock rails.

Captain Johns, commanding the 64th Indian Mule Company, strode jingling into my office, saluted it and sat down. In spite of Biddy’s opinion that I would have been a credit to any smart mess in India, I am sure that no one would even have passed me the marmalade after a month. But I must admit their officers were often very fierce and gallant to look at.

‘About that chap of yours, Holloway, who borrowed a mule off my company,’ he began.

‘I hope you got it back.’

‘Yes, in splendid condition. He has made friends with my Havildars—always in and out of their mess talking the most bloody awful Urdu I ever heard. I just wanted to say that you needn’t bother.’

‘Bother about what?’

‘Loyalty and all that. It’s your job, isn’t it? So I thought I’d tell you that if any of these Free India agitators turned up in the camp, my men would let me know at once and I should be down here the same morning.’

I said that I was sure of it and that Holloway was not hanging round his camp on my orders. He was homesick for India.

‘I’ve never seen an Englishman handle a tulwar as he can,’ Johns said.

The tulwar was a short, broad-bladed sabre. His sergeants carried the weapon more as a badge of rank, I think, than for carving up the enemy or clearing paths. You could call it a machete and not be far wrong.

‘He split a willow wand from a galloping mule, and then he dam’ near did it again on a motorcycle.’

‘We have a lot of strange skills,’ I replied, putting out a bit of propaganda for Field Security.

I gave the captain a drink and said how gratified I was that he knew all about our functions and was ready to bring along any security problem even if it was only Lance-Corporal Holloway. He told me about his pleasant camp under the pines near Zghorta, but complained of the lack of good training country. The paths and roads were too easy, he said. On the other hand if the company marched out into the blue, it fetched up in cultivated fields or against a cliff.

I got out the map with certainty that I was going to start some excitement and a juvenile delinquent’s indifference as to what it might be.

‘Follow along the foothills to Sir,’ I advised him, ‘and take the only mountain track there is. You can’t miss it. It leads you up to a dead end in a remote little valley with plenty of water. Camp for the night, and then back.’

‘It sounds just what the doctor ordered,’ he said. ‘Had I better let the Frogs or the Gendarmes know?’

‘I’ll do that for you, if you’ll send someone down to tell me what time your company will reach Sir. By the way, an English colonel’s widow and her daughter live in the big house. If you have some gin and your cook can turn out an edible meal, I think they’d love an invitation to the mess.’

‘My cook was my father’s,’ he said, ‘and there’s buckets of gin. Why don’t you join us up there?’

I promised to do so if I could, but my plans were far from social. If the unexpected arrival of troops flushed any game out of that village, it should break uphill and Limpsfield and I would be there to receive it.

The prospect of female society at the end of the march always sends horse and foot plunging urgently into cans of saddle soap and leather polish. Only two days later Johns sent down a magnificent, bearded Punjabi to tell me they would start next morning and be coming down into my valley about sunset.

I had a long talk with Limpsfield and put him in the picture—all of it except Enwin and Khalid. I proposed that when the line of mules coming up from Sir appeared on the skyline above d’Aulnoy’s house we should be in position on the other side of the valley, looking down on the village from the rubbish dump. It was difficult, however, to get there secretly. We could not go up through Sir, nor could we take the track from Hermel in case it was guarded. The only possibility was to reach the high ground by way of that maze of paths and small holdings through which Limpsfield and I had ridden down.

‘We’ll get the truck to take us as far as the little café,’ I said, ‘and pretend to be out for a day’s quail shooting. You carry my twelve-bore and I’ll carry the gun case with our tommy gun in it. We walk uphill till we’re on the top and then wander back and forth until the houses below look much as we remember them. It may take us an hour or more to spot the track, but it shouldn’t be impossible. Anything wrong with that?’

‘Yes, sir. Quail are out of season.’

‘Make it venison for the mess, then! There must be deer because I heard one. And I suggest we take Holloway with us—following respectfully behind with the cartridges and a game bag.’

‘He has his faults. But a good man in a scrap.’

‘I doubt if there will be one, but I want Hadji and the Colonel alive or dead.’

‘Very good, sir. I’ll take the hand-cuffs.’

I had forgotten that we had any—a left-over from days when Field Security was considered a branch of the Military Police.

It was a glorious summer day and we passed briskly through the fields, exchanging salutations in soldier’s Arabic with everyone we met—in fact overdoing cordiality for we had trouble in declining offers of gun-bearers and dogs. There was nothing for it but to stop for a coffee with the French-speaking café proprietor and explain to him the principles of deer-stalking. He was dead certain that we would not find any for miles, but saw the point about dogs and camp-followers.

As soon as we were over the crest we started to cast right and left, seldom agreeing on the exact view which had met our eyes when the terraces, the stone walls and the coastal plain first came into sight; but sticking to our rule of ignoring the growth of scrub and exploring any line where there were no boulders we eventually found the track. It was much easier to follow on foot than on motorcycles and nearly as fast.

We had fourteen miles to cover, carrying some food and our rolled greatcoats for the night—a mere stroll for infantry but harder for sweating security men out of condition who never walked if they could help it. An hour before sunset we cautiously approached the clearing above the village. I posted Holloway and Limpsfield in the scrub on each side of it, and myself crawled forward until I could command the group of houses and the path.

The scene below me was innocent enough: men beginning to drift in from the fields, smoke eddying up, women taking down their washing as the red sun lost heat in the off-shore clouds. There was some coming and going between the water and the mulberry under which we had sat, but I could not distinguish individuals.

The site of the former quarry was obvious when one looked down on it. It was under that flat yard adjoining Yasser’s house, right up against the hillside, where a few cows and donkeys stood on the trampled earth. A nice touch was an olive tree in the centre which must have been planted in a trough or perhaps a hollow shaft which also served to support the beams. The construction of a strong, weight-bearing platform was a familiar technique for the fellahin. It was common enough to see a donkey, two fat grandmothers, furniture and a rich growth of grass on the flat roof of an Arab house.

At that height I heard the mule company a minute or two before the villagers. Then the file snaked over the opposite ridge still unnoticed. The khaki puggarees, the brown faces, the mountain-coloured mules under their packs looked like a narrow mud-slide as they started down to the valley. A very professional unit. There was not so much as a bright buckle to shine in the last of the sun.

The village erupted like an ant-heap carrying off eggs into darkness. In a moment everyone was indoors except for a small knot of men, the soldier ants, agitatedly discussing what in the world had arrived and with what intentions. On the drive in front of the Ronson-Bolbec’s house three blocks of colour appeared—a bulky lump of blue as Biddy ran out to see what the excitement was, a slender streak of white for Valerie and red and black for Ahmed.

The company right-wheeled away from the house, and fell out on both sides of the estate road. Captain Johns, followed by a mounted orderly with a pennon, trotted up to the house, evidently to ask if there were any objection to his company bivouacking where it was. He then returned to his men and mules, all dissolving in the last of the dusk to dark lines, spotted by faint lights and a good red glow from the field kitchen.

And still the village was silent, and still nobody bolted up the path into our arms. A cavalry trumpet call, which I did not recognise, sent its forlorn, silver wail ricochetting round the bowl of the valley. Good old Khyber Pass stuff, right down to Captain Johns’ sabre. But real enough. I hear that in Italy the forward troops would often have run out of ammunition without the mule companies.

It looked as if I had drawn a blank. Either the village held no strangers at the moment, or Yasser was confident that the troops would not discover anything out of the ordinary, at any rate before morning. We three cheered ourselves up with a bottle of Lebanese araq which I had brought—made from the grape not the palm and as good rough alcohol as one can expect—and set about a picnic prepared by my hotel. I never believed in army rations on occasions when my men were in any sense my guests.

I kept watch all night sitting right on the edge of the path, for it was too dark to see any distance. I told Holloway and Limpsfield to turn in. I could not allow either of them to take the responsibility of firing on a fugitive. I did not at all like it myself. The consequence of bumping off Moustofi Khan without any watertight evidence against him did not bear thinking of. I very much wished that I was down at Captain Johns’ mess tent—or whatever hole in the ground was serving that purpose—boozing his gin with Biddy and Valerie.

Dawn simply confirmed the impression of absolute innocence. All the men of the village had strolled over to talk to the Punjabis and watch the fun. So we breakfasted on bully beef and water and marched back over those weary fourteen miles. I could not explain to Holloway what we had been up to, but I did let him know for the sake of morale—of which he had twice as much as the rest of us anyway—that he had started it all off with his Yellow Socks.

There was, however, one consequence of our fruitless expedition which was out of pattern. Not a word did I hear from Magnat. I expected that Ahmed would have gone running down to him to ask why the valley was under suspicion again and what a company of ferocious Indians was doing there. If that in fact had happened, I was going to tell Magnat that Johns had very properly asked me to give him notice of the route march, but that it was carried out before I had an opportunity.

Yet nothing whatever was mentioned. That was a puzzler. The sudden arrival of the mule company was news, even if Ahmed had satisfied himself next day that the troops had never had any intention of throwing a cordon round the village. Men coming into Tripoli from Sir must have talked about it, but not as an event of special interest. It looked as if Ahmed must have played down the incident, passing the word round to those who had a guilty conscience that they were not to show any sign of it.

Johns came in to thank me, saying that they had all enjoyed the operation but that the track up from Sir was far too easy for them. He had the same opinion of the Ronson-Bolbecs as everyone else. Ma had talked about India and asked more indiscreet questions, he said, than twenty German spies at the top of their form. Valerie he described as too well brought up, with no life in her. He told me about his wife. The only effect which the delectable Valerie had on him was to bring up memories of his own love. He had not seen her for two years. I suppose he had to wait another four, since his company would have been sent to Burma, not England and Normandy. Even the Crusaders could have their ladies shipped out as soon as the castle hall was habitable.

But private loneliness is irrelevant. I’m talking of my own problem. And that was military loneliness. Isolation from all those proper channels which I used to swear by and from all those pleasant colleagues ready to take responsibility off one’s shoulders was becoming intolerable. It was that blazing idiot, Oliver Enwin, who had kept me going for the last months. Now that I was alone, I saw more clearly that I could not run a private war and that I was ignoring my principle that discipline meant freedom. A sense of duty which overruled discipline was as irresponsible as Oliver’s sense of honour. And how far was it a sense of duty, not private panic at the consequences of carrying on to the point of no return?

That tête-à-tête with Biddy Ronson-Bolbec was the next unavoidable task on the programme. I met her at Sir and took her down to the El Mina bar. She appreciated the cooking even more than her daughter, but there was no gaiety. Loneliness again. Valerie had hardly been on speaking terms with her since the mule company marched away. She did not know why—perhaps because the jolly military environment had made Valerie feel cut off from her world. But there it was. The girl should be thankful that they could relax and eat. I was so wise and Valerie trusted me. Wouldn’t I spend a whole day with them and find out what the matter was?

I had to go. Another day away from the office for no obvious purpose. My absences were becoming too frequent, and I was never at the other end of the telephone when required. I (b) approved of Field Security officers who got out and about instead of sitting in an office and creating paper. But, they had implied, there were limits.

On my arrival Ahmed was cordial as usual. He knew that I was responsible for the appearance of the mule company, since Biddy had passed on to him what Johns said to her when he first rode up to the house; so I made no secret of it and told Ahmed that the company had found the track from Sir too easy for them. Did he know of another? He could not resist suggesting the path up from Ehden, to which I replied that I did not know it and would send Captain Johns to have a look. Honours even.

Valerie was nowhere, but turned up for a drink before lunch. Her appearance shocked me. She was drawn, pale and big-eyed—looking in fact much like the dolly ideal of today. I asked her what she thought of Captain Johns. She replied that at least he was a nice, normal Englishman.

The ‘at least’ made me wonder whether I myself was in the dog-house for some unknown reason, and not her mother at all. But Biddy jumped in. She said it was a pity Johns commanded nothing better than a native mule company. Considering that his family had served in India for two generations, one would have expected a crack regiment, would one not?

‘I hate that snobbish attitude!’ Valerie exclaimed.

‘The best people are always looked after.’

‘The best people stink!’

‘But so easy to talk to, Val. One doesn’t have to make an effort.’

‘Did you have to make any effort with Johns? You were tucking into his gin all right.’

‘One had to accept hospitality graciously.’

‘One has to accept nothing. One has to try to give.’

‘I gave quite enough in Cairo, and for you.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake! Spending every cent we had just to show off!’

The conversation continued on these lines for some minutes more while I confined myself to making soothing noises. Clearly Valerie was flaming angry with her mother, not with me at all. Both of them seemed to be following that frequent pattern of a row between two women in which the true cause of battle is never mentioned, any old ammunition being dredged up from the mud of ancient resentments and fired off to poison rather than kill.

Lunch was even worse to endure. I kept throwing scraps of talk into the silence which Biddy did her pitiful best to pick up. She retired afterwards on the plea of a headache, probably genuine. Valerie, regardless of manners, also tried to escape, but I would not let her. I reminded her that we were supposed to be in love. She answered that she was sick to death of that nonsense.

‘Suppose my life depended on it being believed?’

‘Oliver never mentioned…’

‘Of course he didn’t! The arrangement in Tripoli was very convenient for you both. But think! Why should I have been so obliging?’

She accepted that. After all, Oliver’s various movements and identities had made it plain that he was the very flower of the British Secret Service.

‘Who has it got to be believed by?’

‘I’m not going to tell you that. You would never give it away deliberately, but you might be up against very clever men.’

‘How much is my mother in with them?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Don’t be too sure!’

Another scrap of poison or did she know something which I did not? It seemed best for the moment to give my frank opinion.

‘I am as sure as I can be of anything. Biddy is indiscreet and a menace. But she would willingly die for her country—especially if there were a few generals looking on.’

‘Beast!’

‘O.K., I am! But that shows you don’t really doubt her.’

‘There’s always money. She might not enquire too closely where it came from.’

‘I’m here to look after that. Is it anything to do with sewing machines which is bothering you?’

‘Sewing machines? No! I just thought she was going to buy some on credit and never pay.’

‘Well then, what?’

‘It’s such a private thing between me and her. But after what you just told me about Oliver being in danger…’

I had said that it was I who was in danger. But the slip was very forgivable.

‘I hated her for taking this place,’ she went on. ‘She had no right to. But you ought to know. Blaise d’Aulnoy was here.’

‘When?’

‘When we came back from eating curry with Johns.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I saw him. He was dressed as an Arab, but I never forget his face. Mummy and I went up to bed, and then I went out again. I have a way—the cedar branch close to my window. If I jump I can catch a branch. It only swings—quite silently.’

Demanding suicidal courage the first time, I should have thought. But, as I said before, how does your cat get out?

‘You were meeting Oliver?’

‘No, only thinking about him. I like to have him alone to myself, outside. He doesn’t belong in here. And I was standing under the tree when I saw Ahmed letting in Blaise d’Aulnoy by the back door. The light was full on his face when Ahmed opened the door. How long has this been going on? I can’t bear it. How long has she…?’

‘Never till that night,’ I interrupted quite confidently. ‘Anyone else with them?’

‘No. Just d’Aulnoy and that Ahmed.’

‘Your mother hadn’t the least idea that he was in the valley.’

‘She must have done. She’s often over in the village.’

‘He was very carefully hidden. Ahmed brought him over here because he was afraid the mule company was going to take the village apart. D’Aulnoy risks being shot if I can lay my hands on him.’

‘He deserves it!’

‘Paris?’

‘Did Oliver tell you?’

‘No. He has never talked about you.’

‘Then how do you know what happened?’

‘I don’t know what happened. But little bits of information—one learns in my trade to put them together. Like a fortune teller. All is guesswork, and it can stay at that.’

But she wouldn’t let it stay at that. After all, she trusted me as an older man, a close friend of Oliver and—more than she dreamed, God knows!—guardian angel to them both.

‘He was like an uncle. I can’t explain. It was natural for him to kiss me and put me to bed. I was so very young for my age. Oh, you won’t understand. He was so gentle and it was all a joke and like being tickled. And then I was horrified. It was revolting. All your male bodies—they made me sick ever afterwards till Oliver.’

‘How far was Biddy in this?’

‘Well, she left us alone long enough. And if she didn’t know what he was, she should have done. I never told her. I couldn’t.’

A very ladylike description. I found it hard to put myself in her place. It might have been easier if I had been a pretty adolescent instead of a spotty little horror. She must have been as naïve a fifteen as she claimed, but also, I should say, a rather over-sensuous and mischievous little girl. However, what’s wrong with those merry qualities? One hardly expects a charming and favourite uncle to be thoroughly, quietly practised in seducing the too innocent whatever their nationality or upbringing.

The essentials now were that d’Aulnoy should never know he had been seen and that his presence should be kept secret from Biddy. Quite apart from her inability to keep her mouth shut, it would take time to make her understand that a dear friend of her husband was working for the enemy. So I told Valerie that she had to be under orders, as my agent and Oliver’s. Would she accept that position?

‘Of course. What do you want me to do?’

The calm oval of her face became more animated than I had ever seen it. In her monotonous life I think it meant a lot to her to be urgently needed by the outside world.

‘Don’t say a word to your mother! Think up some convincing reason why you should have been angry with her since that night! Does she really believe I am a possible husband for you?’

‘She wouldn’t mind. Just because she likes you.’

‘What did she say to Johns about me?’

‘Most attractive man. So unaffected. Such a devoted friend. Any woman would be lucky to get you. Blah, blah!’

‘Could you have thought that she was after me herself?’

‘She’s ten years older than you!’

‘What’s that among friends? A damned sight more peaceful than being married to a little squit like you!’

‘You are very rude. Remember I’m in love with you!’

‘But would she wear it?’

‘She might. After all it’s pretty flattering that I should think she might grab you from me.’

‘Well then, first order: go upstairs and throw your arms round Mummy and say you’re a silly little girl!’

‘Sometimes you make me sick.’

‘Do it out of the window and mind the cedar! Second order: give me the best description you can of Blaise d’Aulnoy!’

‘Grey hair, thin but very carefully groomed. Your height or a little shorter. Good figure. You’d put him at about thirty if you saw him from the back. Narrow nose. Brown eyes. Full mouth with a sort of dirty, smooth smile at the corners. Very distinguished and courteous. All these people here loved him. You might.’

In time of peace, perhaps. But then I might have liked Goering if I had ever met him.

‘When is Oliver coming back?’ she begged me. ‘Tell me the truth!’

‘I can’t because I don’t know where he is. It might be a day or two. It might be months.’

I felt such pity for the girl. Both sexes had to bear absence, uncertainty, misery; but at the end there would be reunion if death didn’t get there first. For her, as I saw it, there was going to be neither. A chat under the eyes of a warder, trying hard not to waste precious time in reproaches. That was all.

I went up to say good-bye to Biddy and played the hearty. I said that Valerie—ha! ha!—had made a very natural mistake. She would explain. I’d fixed everything. Then I bolted for the faithful motor bike and home. I was far too cowardly to tackle such a delicate question myself. I knew very well that Biddy would drop a well-spaced tear or two on my shoulder. Besides that, she was in bed—always an incalculable situation in which to hand out comfort.

The presence of d’Aulnoy made my case very nearly complete. I could never be sure that he was in the valley at any given time, but simultaneous raids on the village and on Libwe should produce a bag of some sort. Yet still I could not ask for Moustofi Khan to be arrested just because he was leading a movement for the unity and independence of the Middle East. The only person who had all the details was Oliver. I felt it might be worth while to let him know that d’Aulnoy had been in his own house, though I had learned the hard way never to bet on Oliver’s reactions.

An impossible job, you’ll say, to find one individual Arab, now nameless, in the entire Middle East. Well, that’s what I thought too, and I wasted far too much time fluttering over the telephone and shooting off motor bikes on improbable trips. But at last common sense took over and reminded me that I knew so much about him that I could eliminate most of the gorgeous orient and set down my flying carpet in one or two very likely landing grounds. I took it as axiomatic that he was telling the truth when he said that he was bowing out and would have nothing more to do with either side.

I could exclude, therefore, a lengthy stay in the tents of his Galilee sheikh. Anywhere else in Palestine? Far too great a risk of being recognised as Captain Enwin. He had not had time to grow a convincing beard and if he tried to buy a false one he would at once be reported as a suspicious character.

An agricultural labourer anywhere? Well, he could be that and be lost for ever after bribing the headman of some village to supply him with identity papers. But that wasn’t Oliver. He would not be at home in the part. He was a creature of the towns and the back streets.

Aleppo or Damascus? Too big a risk of being recognised as Youssef Mokaddem and drawn in again. Not Baghdad or anywhere in Iraq. Too far from Valerie. Certainly not Tripoli. That left only Beirut—a sensitive spot where the Sûreté Générale, the Deuxième Bureau and I (b) in its various manifestations were always on the look-out for strangers without papers. So he would never choose it unless he could find a hole in the very efficient security of two nations. To live and to work he had to have an identity, and he couldn’t without stealing an official card and forging stamps. I could hear him describe such drastic action as clumsy.

I thought back over all his recent history and remembered the Franciscan gown. It had not been in his office or flat; so it was quite likely to be in whatever cache he had hidden it after he finally shook off the dust of Nazareth as Youssef Mokaddem. Would he have had an identity card in the pocket—if Franciscans had pockets? But of course he would. Suppose he had been held by police while they made enquiries at his real or fictitious monastery?

I have made it all sound easier than it was—though naturally I needed a bottle to aid imagination, half the night and a lot of paper on which to list possibilities and cross them off. As I have said, I knew his past and his insolent self-confidence so well that no Sherlock Holmes deductions in a void were necessary.

My opposite number in Beirut was one of the best of us, on the easiest terms with his section and sharing my principle of never running to superior officers on any delicate matter which we could fix ourselves. I called him up to ask if he had any report of an unobtrusive Franciscan strolling round Beirut.

‘No. But there’s a chap in Tyre, if that’s any good,’ he said. ‘In view of all the troop movements on the road, my detachment there gave him a good going over.’

‘What’s he doing in Tyre?’

‘Trying to get at the true site of the conversion of St. Paul by tracing his route from Jerusalem. His community have an idée fixe that Paul went up to Damascus by the coast road. It seems to me a long way round when he could have gone by Quneitra and Deraa. But the Brother thinks he would have called on the Jewish colonies at the ports; he says they used to provide capital for the dyeing industry.’

‘It sounds as if you had been talking to him.’

‘I have. I thought I’d check up on him myself. Very interesting chap, but I wish he’d shave more often.’

‘Papers in order?’

‘Yes. Name: Brother Aloysius. Nationality: Irish. Documents: a high-class bit of bumf all over crosses, issued by his Father Superior and countersigned by the A.D.S.O. Nazareth.’

‘That’s the man. I’d like to talk to him, too.’

‘I thought your present interests were amateur dramatics.’

‘No longer. Ninth Army want to know how Tyre held out for thirteen years against Nebuchadnezzar.’

‘Try tomorrow about midday. My sergeant will line him up for you.’

‘Tell him not to mention to Brother Aloysius that he is expecting anyone.’

‘O.K. But for God’s sake don’t involve me with the Catholic Church! The Greek Orthodox is howling for my blood already.’

No reasons demanded. No lies told. What a good club ours was in those prehistoric times!

Next day I took the truck and drove down to Tyre. Passing slowly through the little town I couldn’t see any Franciscan; so I went on another three miles, and there they were—a Field Security sergeant and a monk examining the Phoenician cisterns at Ras el Ain. Cleverly done. No doubt the sergeant had found him thereabouts and stayed with him rather than invent some stale excuse for taking him back to Tyre.

I jumped out of the truck, hailed him as Brother Aloysius and asked how the Father Superior was. For the first time I saw Oliver completely off balance. He was pale and I could see his legs trembling under his gown.

He climbed into the front seat without a word, having signed a blessing to the sergeant. I don’t know enough about the ordination of Franciscans to say if he had the right to do so, but it was an impressive gesture. As one courtesy deserves another, the sergeant saluted us both—separately.

‘Underrating Field Security again, Oliver,’ I said.

‘Stop playing the fool and tell me what you’re going to do to me!’

‘I’m going to give you some lunch, and you can enjoy it in peace. I’m not arresting you and I’m not proposing any bargain. Word of Honour, your standard.’

I drove him down to the old Turkish khan, where the inn buildings lined the coast road on one side, and a shaded terrace on the other. Between the two was a high wooden arch under which half the troops in the Middle East must have passed in their time but, being in convoy, could not stop. There was never anyone on the terrace except Lebanese, or occasional military travelling at their own speed who had called in for a beer and a sandwich at so inviting a spot.

We chose some fresh fish and pigeons from the refrigerator, and as soon as he had put down a small tumbler of wine and recovered his poise I opened up. Nothing was to be gained by keeping him waiting.

‘I understand Valerie told you all about Blaise d’Aulnoy,’ I said.

‘How the hell do you know?’

‘A rumour confirmed at first hand and now by a reliable secondary source. Blaise d’Aulnoy is or was in the quarry room and has called at the house.’

‘Jesus!’

‘Lower your voice, Oliver!’

A corporal of the Welch Fusiliers, thirty feet away, was shocked. He probably had a poor opinion of papists, but did expect a decent piety.

‘I’ll wring that bugger’s neck if I can lay my hands on him. Why haven’t you run him in?’

‘Magnat’s business, I think.’

‘It’s yours! Sitting up there, fiddling with hotel control and polishing your motorcycles! I can’t eat. Take it away!’

I ate his fish as well as my own lest the inn-keeper and his herb-scented grill be slighted. Meanwhile Oliver was crumbling his bread and unconsciously refilling his glass. I reckoned that by the time the pigeons came up he would be eating them without noticing it.

‘Your accounts might be a help.’

‘What accounts?’

‘In the bag which Valerie collected.’

‘Oh, God!’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘Those were my translations of Shakespeare’s sonnets into kasidahs. I hadn’t any other paper. Why can’t any of you people read the language of the country?’

‘Well, the telephone directory, then.’

‘Names and amounts, yes. To get the name you need three consecutive letters on a marked page. You then go over to an adjoining page and read up it till you spot the three or four figures which give the sum. Clever of you to spot that some of the smudges are artificial! But it’s difficult even for me to remember what they mean.’

‘Can you reproduce the list?’

‘I thought they were all as mad as bloody hatters,’ he said, ignoring my question.

I pointed out that Moustofi Khan was not a man to take action without cool calculation of his chances. He could not yet bank on a Russian collapse; so the enemy must have promised closer support.

‘Of course they have! Rashid Ali’s revolt in Iraq was sparked off too soon. The position is far more favourable now. So far as I know, the game is to land at Tripoli and Latakia with air cover from Crete and the Dodecanese, capture Aleppo and strike the three hundred and fifty miles straight across the desert to the Kirkuk oil-fields. If its line of communications goes, the force forms a self-sufficient box in Persia until relieved from the north. Meanwhile we are desperately short of oil and Rommel closes the pincers.’

‘Their left flank is wide open to the Turks.’

‘Turkish neutrality is assured if they don’t cross the frontier. But success depends on a simultaneous rising—Syria, Iraq, the Persian tribes and the Moslems of Palestine.’

Even if the rising was far from general, it would ensure our defeat in the Western Desert. I asked him why he called them mad.

‘Because I had no faith in Arab organisation without a European commander. And he had to be here on the spot, not pub-crawling in Rome and Berlin like Rashid Ali. No one fitted the bill. But d’Aulnoy does. He has the gift. He was trained by Lyautey in Morocco. If only I had known! Whatever that man does is evil. One hasn’t to think any more.’

My gambling on Oliver’s character had paid off. Instead of a flower child I had a renaissance Italian on my hands. And how absurd! What earthly difference did a bit of slap and tickle four years earlier make to his relations with Valerie now? But those four wasted years, that pursuit of her to Egypt, that exasperating friendship which for so long—as far as I know—stopped short of even a kiss, the inexplicable blank wall of her emotions, all rankled and all were due to d’Aulnoy.

I think his description of d’Aulnoy as evil had little to do with objective truth. But since he believed it, the rest followed. His sympathy for the Arab cause and his duty to his country were no longer so agonisingly balanced. Take myself as an example. Between the wars any practical move towards that Empire of Charlemagne would have had my enthusiastic support as a good European, even if it was against my country’s interests. But never, if Hitler tried to recreate it! To me he was the personification of evil. Anything he proposed was worth resisting.

I still avoided any open assumption that Oliver was on my side. It might have annoyed him so much that he would have refused all co-operation and strolled up the valley to bump off d’Aulnoy single-handed when he couldn’t handle any fire-arm well enough to hit a haystack. So I played for time, and asked him what he was wearing under his gown.

‘As you saw me last.’

‘Where do you put your shoes and socks while you flap about in those sandals?’

‘Socks in my pocket. You must buy me some shoes.’

That sounded very hopeful, as if he were ready to be used and sure that I would use him.

‘What were your plans?’

‘I hadn’t decided. Just hanging around here and in the hills until my beard grew. A Franciscan can’t go very far from the Holy Land. He stops looking a natural part of the scenery.’

‘After the pigeon what will you have?’

‘Paklava and some cheese, if I may.’

He was hungry all right. Lack of appetite is a luxury which deserters on the run simply cannot afford. Transport and respectable lodging must have left little of his various currencies.

When I had him relaxed over coffee and brandy and even seen a smile, I risked an essential question.

‘Is all this really urgent, Oliver? Have you any idea when the balloon goes up?’

‘When we are engaged to the last battalion in Egypt and have nothing serious left up here. Withdrawal of Ninth Australian Division might do it.’

I did not tell him that in another week not only the Australians but the New Zealand Division too, mile after mile of them, would be rumbling under the arch of the khan where we sat, bound for the Western Desert. I was not even allowed to let my section into that secret, and I was much less sure of Oliver.

I said as casually as possible that I wondered how long I (b) would take to act on our report.

‘That depends on what Ninth Army thinks of our joint reputation. You have broken every rule in the book and I am a deserter.’

‘Somebody must understand you. I did.’

‘Nobody will have the chance. Here’s a world without sense or mercy or honour. I won’t give way to it. I won’t betray my brother. He could only be one of three in Galilee, and they will know at once which. I can never say why I disappeared.’

‘Then we must leave it out. In your experience, how long before I (b) believed us and took action?’

‘Weeks. Check and recheck Moustofi Khan. They won’t get much there. Check the names I give them in Syria and the Lebanon. Run in anyone who can be bribed to talk about Abdullah el Bessam. As for d’Aulnoy, Valerie’s evidence must be taken seriously, but check through the Free French underground whether he is or is not in France.’

‘Why not raid first?’

‘And miss the two top enemy agents? Blazing idiocy! They must be sure first—and that will take some doing without alarming the whole bunch—and then set the trap and then that company of infantry you’re always talking about. There isn’t time for it all. If I were d’Aulnoy, I’d give the signal as soon as Tobruk falls—your precious, prestige bastion!’

He sat there with, for the first time, the proper calm of a Franciscan considering the likely movements of St. Paul. He was staring at the brown, dead fields, just harvested, which lay between us and the sea, and I followed his eyes. The contrast was more violent than any meeting of sky and earth, as if a painter had slashed a first streak of blue across the sepia of a preliminary sketch.

‘There seems no way out,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to go into the village myself.’

‘Don’t do anything rash!’

‘That’s the damn silliest remark I ever heard.’

Well, of course it was. But in moments of intense surprise one’s remarks are seldom intelligent. I asked him if he still had his service revolver.

‘I threw it away months ago. What’s the good of it? Somebody else can do that bit.’

His plan was to get a letter from his blood brother to Hadji. Armed with that and his testimonial from Rashid Ali, he would go in by the Hermel track and sit quietly in the village until somebody questioned him. After that he would play it by ear.

‘How could you know of the track?’ I asked.

‘Rashid Ali told me. If they want to confirm that, a courier will have to cross the frontier into Turkey and send a wire to Rome—which will take time. They daren’t use a transmitter yet. The risk of our people detecting it would be too great.’

‘Suppose you run into someone who knew the dead Mokaddem?’

‘He never left Iraq, and nobody in Damascus knew him by sight. The danger is Abdullah el Bessam who knew him well. But there’s another side to that. El Bessam has no doubt that his sub-agent in Damascus is the original article and would say so if asked.’

I decided to drive him over the frontier into Palestine then and there. To give a friendly friar a lift in broad daylight could not arouse comment or curiosity.

‘And I will come down tomorrow with your papers and Rashid Ali’s letter.’

‘Bring the telephone book, too,’ he said. ‘That’s additional proof of my bona fides.’

I drove straight through the frontier post of Ras Naqura, saluted by the Field Security corporal on duty. My conscience on such occasions always protested. The more I abused trust, the less I got used to it. Then, following Oliver’s directions, I turned east into Galilee and dropped him on the gentle slope of the Mount of the Beatitudes where a friar would find no one to question his presence so long as he kept out of sight of his brethren.

So back the hundred and sixty miles to Tripoli, where I arrived tired and desperate and convinced that Oliver was right when he insisted that the outbreak of rebellion was only days away, and that there was no chance of I (b) acting in time on the information of a deserter and a security officer proved irresponsible. We would have had a much better chance of a hearing if he had really been a traitor whom I had caught and interrogated.

A marvellous position I had landed myself in, one little step after another straight into the mud, and each of them inevitable! What I did now or did not do could swing the balance between disaster in the Middle East and holding on. Yet I had no allies beyond a mother and daughter who could not be trusted, a section which could not be used and an agent who might turn up any moment as a Major in the Salvation Army and tell me that at last he had seen the light.

Well, there it was. In the morning I dealt aimlessly with routine business, resenting the waste of time, and told Limpsfield that again I was taking the truck and should be away till midnight. He asked me to let him tell the section more of what he knew, saying that they were hopelessly puzzled by my activities—my infatuation with Sir and Hermel, my faked love affair, my absences. Normally, if there were an air of excitement in the office, the men had some very general idea what it was about. Yet no secret mail or signals were going in and out, no staff cars from Ninth Army were in the yard, no long telephone conversations followed by immediate orders. I said that the section would know soon enough, and that meanwhile there should always be a sentry at the entrance to the billet.

About five I was back at the scene of the Sermon on the Mount, waiting for Oliver and trying to find in the Beatitudes some hope for soldiers. Blessed are the peace-makers, perhaps—but only on condition that their self-sacrifice does bring peace. And when has that been more than temporary? My feeling of being unfit for Christian society—how well at that moment I understood Oliver and Nazareth!—was interrupted by his arrival. The Franciscan gown suited him. A fake for the body, but an emblem of his character.

He took his papers, the telephone book and a pair of shoes, and told me that he had already called on his blood brother at dawn and obtained from him a letter confirming their relationship and his loyalty. That allowed us to save valuable time; if I took the road by Quneitra and Damascus I could drop him off only twenty-two miles from Hermel. He approved and at once stripped off his gown, saying that he was rested and could be on the Hermel track next morning. So again we crossed the frontier, this time not so easily. I had to whisper that the scruffy Arab alongside me was under arrest.

It was impossible to arrange any sure method of communication, for it was certain that he could never go near the Ronson-Bolbecs and probable that if he was not executed as an impostor he would at least be under guard. Neither of us could suggest anything. When we said good-bye he gave me the address of an uncle in England, his next-of-kin; if I had the chance, perhaps I would write to him and do the best I could. Remembering Jeremy Fanshawe, I assured him that he would have been reported missing without any details.