by Roger Bax
“I have a wife and eight children, excellency. If harm befalls me a hundred and fifty piastres will not keep them in food for long.” The eye stared greedily.
“How much do you want?” demanded Garve.
Jameel did not waver. “A thousand piastres.”
Garve smiled. He knew now that it was simply a question of time, and for the next half-hour he proceeded to play the game of haggling, which is governed by the same rules from Suez to Shanghai. Twice he rose as though to leave the shop; twice the Arab gathered his draperies around him as though about to make a dignified departure. But neither of them went.
It was nearly midday before the price was fixed at five hundred piastres—about five pounds. Jameel promised to be at the Pool of Siloam, whence the tunnel began its tortuous journey, precisely at midnight, and to bring boots and lanterns with him. He undertook to tell no-one of Garve’s intention, though the promise was clearly worth nothing unless it suited his own convenience.
Garve turned as he was about to leave the table. “One other thing, Jameel. No tricks!”
“Tricks, excellency!”
“If anyone’s dead body comes floating into the Pool of Siloam to-morrow, it will be yours. Understand? I’m no tourist!”
“And I’m no terrorist,” said Jameel with dignity. “I’m a guide.”
Garve nodded and departed.
He lunched at the German café near the post office, and then walked down to the Willoughby home. To his disgust he drew a complete blank. Willoughby, said Abdul, had gone with Jackson to Tel Aviv for the day; Miss Willoughby had left with Mr. Hayson half an hour ago for the quarries.
“Hell,” said Garve. He wandered off disconsolately. It was just his luck, he thought savagely. In ten years he had never met a woman who appealed to him with any urgency, and now that he had found one whom he could not forget, there was a brilliant and handsome rival, with a most impressive turn of speed. And in a quarry, of all places! Helping her down steps, lifting her over wet places, guiding her among precipices! What opportunities the fellow would have!
Eaten with jealousy, Garve made his way to police headquarters, where he found Baird just coming off duty. He suggested a drink, and they retired to yet another café. Baird was still worried about the arms dump, and kept on sinking into a moody silence, until Garve could hardly restrain his nervous irritation.
“Sorry,” said Baird at last. “I’m rotten company to-day. I don’t feel that we’ve got any grip on the situation, and—well, I don’t like it. I wish something would happen quickly.”
“When it does it will be too late to stop it,” said Garve. “Have there been any developments to-day, since you rang me?”
“Only that we’ve completely lost sight of Ali Kemal. He moved off during the night and he’s somewhere in the mountains over in Moab. We sent out two planes before lunch, but they haven’t been able to trace him. It looks bad to me?”
Garve pondered. “There can’t be a rising without a signal,” he said. “We knew that all up and down the country the Arabs are armed; we know that the mountains are littered with dumps which we can’t find, but the revolt, when it comes, will have to be concerted to be successful. It’s no use Ali Kemal sweeping across the Jordan with a thousand horsemen. We should get the news before the Arabs did, and have troops at the key points before the revolt could start. Someone will have to give the word ‘Go’ in a way that the whole country will hear at once.”
“They could fix a date,” said Band, “the same as other conspirators have done.”
“They daren’t. Somebody would give it away. Secrets like that have to be kept in the minds of a few leaders. No, they’ll have to arrange a signal which everyone will recognize—when it comes. Something which will make it easier for the outbreak to succeed. I’m only groping, Baird, but in the back of my mind there are little confused ideas which, I feel, ought to make a pattern. I’ve got a feeling that I know the key to the riddle. Sorry, it sounds silly, doesn’t it? Listen, you must find Ali Kemal!”
Baird gloomily chewed his nails. “It’s easy to say, Garve. You know what those mountains are like. They’re simply riddled with caves. Kemal knows every contour, every track. His men scatter and collect again almost before we can get a ’plane off the ground. At dusk they’re up by the Syrian frontier, and by morning they’re camped outside Petra or lost in the endless desert. We can’t arrest them, because they’re doing nothing unlawful. They carry no arms except a rifle each, and as long as they keep the other side of the Jordan they’re permitted to do that. If we took Kemal up on suspicion we should have a row on our hands right away. We’ve got to wait until Kemal makes a mistake.”
“Well, it’s your job, not mine,” said Garve thankfully, though he felt nearly as uneasy as though it were his own. They chatted a little longer and then Garve left for his hotel.
He dined early, snatched a couple of hours’ sleep, and shortly before eleven prepared for the night’s adventure. An old but very thick tweed suit and a sweater gave him all the protection he would need against the keen night air. Into his left-hand jacket pocket he slipped an electric torch and a small flask of whisky. Into his right he dropped his revolver, having first inspected the mechanism to see that it was functioning properly. He felt strangely elated, as he had often felt before on setting out to cover an exciting story. At half-past eleven he stuck a cloth cap on his head, left his key with the night porter, and set out at a brisk pace for the tunnel.
6. The Fight in the Tunnel
His footsteps rang out cheerfully on the hard ground, and a brilliant moon drove his shadow before him as he walked. He remembered with a sharp thrill of pleasure that in forty-eight hours he would be swimming with Esther by its full light. The idea of a midnight dip was perhaps less attractive to-night with the temperature well below shivering point, but then Jerusalem was in the mountains, and its nights were rarely warm. In the deep cutting of the Jordan Valley the weather would be sub-tropical.
All his senses were keyed to concert pitch to-night, and his tough, healthy body tingled with excitement as he left the road and started to descend a rough and stony path. The great wall of the city rose on his left in white majesty, while in front of him the rocky wilderness of the Kedron Valley shimmered in a silvery pool of light. He could just make out the dark shadows of Siloam’s tiny village on the hillside opposite, but nothing moved in it, and no lamp burned. There was something unearthly and awesome about the peacefulness of the night in this valley of tombs and memories. He remembered what Esther had said about not liking to walk through it at night. He could understand her feeling that way about it. The temptation to fling a quick glance over one’s shoulder was almost overpowering. Stones rattled down the slope like following footsteps. A backward glance would be reassuring, but panic started that way. Garve took a firm grip of himself and plodded on. He was, he told himself, too imaginative for this sort of job.
He was wondering how unpunctual the Arab would be, and was schooling himself to wait patiently, but to his surprise Jameel was already standing by the Pool of Siloam as he breasted the last steep slope. The man’s disfigurement showed with more sinister effect in the moonlight, and again Garve had doubts of his own wisdom. The Arab greeted him in a reassuring manner, however, and the two oil lanterns he had brought burned with a steady purposeful flame which was very comforting.
Jameel yawned. He was less obsequious out here on the hillside than he had been in the café.
“The boots were heavy,” he grumbled. “Allah permit they are the right size.”
Garve drew the thick rubber leggings to his thighs and found them satisfactory. “Fine,” he said briefly, taking a lantern. “All right, Cyclops, let’s get it over.”
Jameel hesitated. Garve had no idea what was passing in his mind, but it was almost as though the Arab were waiting for him to go first. But that was ridiculous, of course. The man was scared, perhaps, and not unnaturally.
In silence they approached the mouth of
the tunnel, gashed darkly in the moonlit slope of the hill. As they drew nearer, Garve’s ear caught the splash of running water, and something else—a low moaning which chilled his flesh.
“Stop!” he cried. “Is there someone in there, Jameel? What tricks are you playing?”
“It is all right, excellency. That is the sound the tunnel always makes. Have you never listened to a sea-shell on the shore?”
Garve nodded, ashamed of his fear. Holding his lantern high in his left hand, he plunged after the guide into the stream of brown and slimy water which ran from the tunnel’s mouth.
In a moment they were underground, with Jameel a yard or so ahead. The passage started as a deep and narrow rift in the rock, with the roof out of reach of the yellow lantern light, and the walls pressing in until Garve’s wide shoulders could barely pass. The lower portion of the wall was moist and clammy to the touch, and pale green fungus covered it like an evil growth. Higher up, however, there were patches of dry rock, whose roughly hewn surface bore the marks of axes sturdily applied nearly three thousand years before.
“How far does the tunnel stretch?” Garve called out, and his question reverberated like the shout of an army.
Jameel turned, his eye unblinking, a ghastly figure in the unreal light. “For a quarter of a mile or more, excellency. The middle part is the worst.” He stood still in the swirling water, staring, with the yellow lantern level with his head, until Garve said irritably, “All right, carry on.”
The guide’s stare unnerved him. He thought grimly how Esther would tease him if she ever got to know he had been scared like this. He determined that his foolish exploit should not come to grief, or, if it did, that she should never know.
The tunnel turned and twisted so rapidly that it was impossible, even when the light would have permitted it, to see for more than a yard or two ahead. The floor of the stream, which at first had been pebbly, began to feel less secure. The slime of ages had collected on the stones, and, once or twice, the foothold felt precarious. The roof was lower, too, so that Garve, who was taller than the Arab, was obliged to stoop as he walked. He was oppressed by the shrouding darkness, and fearful for the safety of his lantern as he slipped and stumbled. He felt that he would willingly have given five pounds for the sight of a clear star overhead, and wished heartily that he had taken Hayson’s advice and kept away. This was no place for human beings. The water smelt musty, the air was stale and cold as a corpse.
Suddenly Jameel swore horribly as he slipped in the slime. His lantern flickered dangerously as he clutched at the wall to save himself from falling, and for a moment Garve thought it would go out. He watched, fascinated, while the drooping light revived, and breathed again. Although the torch nestling in his pocket would be quite adequate for emergencies, the lanterns gave a more widely diffused light, and the loss of one of them would be a serious inconvenience.
Slowly, laboriously, they struggled on, but Garve began too soon to congratulate himself on their progress. They had hardly covered another twenty yards before the Arab once more lost his balance and plunged to his waist in a deep pothole. He scrambled out in panic. His white gown, an awkward dress for exploring, was clinging uncomfortably round his thigh boots. Perspiration glistened above his eye.
“I had forgotten that hole, excellency. There is another farther up—a deeper one, which I remember. But the tunnel widens there, and with care we can walk round the edge.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Garve. “You’re certainly earning your five hundred piastres.”
“I need it, excellency. I have many children to provide for, and times are hard, now that the tourists no longer come to Jerusalem. I am a good guide.”
Garve grunted non-committally. “Well, let’s get through. I’m sick of this damned tunnel.”
The passage was levelling out and becoming wider. Instead of running in a deep narrow channel, the water now streamed along the whole floor of the tunnel, hardly covering their ankles. They were beginning to make good progress over the best stretch they had yet encountered when Jameel, to Garve’s annoyance, came to a halt again.
“Just ahead of us is the deep pool which I spoke of …” he began. Suddenly his voice trailed off and the gaze of his one horrified eye passed over Garve’s shoulder and seemed glued to something in that part of the tunnel they had just traversed.
“Look, look, excellency—oh, Allah, help us!” he cried, and there was such terror in his tone that Garve, his imagination all too vivid, looked back in sudden fear, half expecting to find some subterranean monstrosity about to attack him.
It was an old trick. Even as Garve turned he knew his danger. There was nothing behind him but the blackness of the tunnel. He knew his life was in the balance, and for an instant of time, an agonized split second, he expected to feel the knife drive between his shoulder blades. At that moment no effort of his own could have saved him from the savage thrust already on its way, but as he gathered up his muscles to wheel round he slipped in the mud, his feet shot from under him as though they had been hit by an express train, and he crashed heavily into the stream with the Arab on top of him.
Jameel’s lamp was still burning where he had dropped it, and its sickly light threw grotesque shadows on the walls as Garve, twisting, heaving, and turning, fought with all his speed and strength to prevent the Arab striking again. Once he gripped Jameel’s wiry wrist, forcing the knife arm away from him till he felt his own muscles cracking. Then, with a quick feint, he slid out of the way and the Arab struck clumsily, grazing Garve’s shoulder. Garve struggled to rise, but his feet could get no purchase in the mud. He kicked out wildly, and as he kicked the Arab struck again. The descending knife met Garve’s ascending foot with terrific force and sank quivering into the heavy rubber heel of Garve’s boot. The Arab gave a thick cry and let go.
Now they were fighting on level terms and it was anybody’s victory. Garve was a little heavier, but the Arab was tough as a leather thong and difficult to hold. His long brown fingers clawed for purchase; he fought with his hands and teeth and head, his feet, his knees. There were no rules, and the prize was life for one of them. One moment they were locked together in the slime, half smothered in water, cutting and scratching themselves on sharp projections of rock, rolling from wall to wall. The next, they were aiming crouching unscientific blows at head and body. Time and again the Arab’s slippery limbs tore and twisted from Garve’s desperate grasp. His sodden clinging gown was a protection as well as an encumbrance. Once a sharp blow in the pit of the stomach from Jameel’s boot almost put Garve out. He clung to consciousness through a mist of pain, aiming wild weak blows at the staring eye, hoping to keep the Arab off until the nausea and the agony passed. Jameel’s face was streaming with blood where a kick from Garve’s boot had driven the ornamented knife handle into his cheek. Garve braced himself to deliver a blow which would count, but as he jerked upright his head met the low roof with a jolt which seemed to fill the tunnel with a blinding light. If the Arab had had a weapon then the struggle would have been over, but Jameel’s blows, too, were growing feebler as his strength failed.
The pace was too hot to last. Garve was nearly done, and Jameel’s breath was coming in great sobbing gasps. There was no possible ground for truce—Garve knew that if he lost the fight the Arab would certainly murder him; the Arab knew that even if he escaped death he would spend the rest of his life in jail.
Garve gathered himself for a final effort. Crouching, he advanced upon the Arab, and a second before the man could attack again he lashed out in a mighty swing which carried all the power left in him. Luck, not judgment, was behind the blow. Before Jameel could dodge away, Garve’s fist caught him flush above the left temple. With a groan the Arab staggered backwards, slipped, and fell with a great splash. Garve’s knees sagged, the darkness seemed to close in upon him, the light of the one remaining lamp became a flickering black spot before his eyes, and he knew nothing more.
He returned slowly, unwillingly, t
o consciousness. He had almost lost the will to live. He was huddled in the brown stream, his head against the clammy wall. The taste of blood was in his mouth, and he could feel the warm trickle of it on his face. His knuckles were raw again, and every particle of his body seemed to have its own special ache. The only sound in the tunnel was the gentle splashing of the stream.
Garve could hardly believe he was alive. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. It was two o’clock. His limbs were numbed with cold. The second lamp had gone out, swamped by the Arab’s fall, and the tunnel was darker than the blackest night.
He fumbled in his soaking jacket pocket for the torch he had brought, and as he touched the button a beam of light, not powerful, but adequate, cut through the darkness. He laughed a little hysterically. Thank God it still worked! If it had been broken he doubted whether he would ever have emerged from this abominable tunnel. He could not make out what had happened to the Arab. Presumably the man had made good his escape, but in that case Garve could not understand how it was that he himself was still alive. Painfully he struggled to his feet, and even as he did so he could not help thinking, with a perverse flicker of humour, what a facility he seemed to have for getting himself knocked about.
The Arab’s knife, he noticed, was still embedded in the heel of his boot. He worked it gently backwards and forwards in the rubber, and finally forced it out. It was a poor weapon, deadly enough, but of cheap workmanship, and he tossed it to one side.
He flashed his torch around, still very dazed. There was nothing to be seen but the two lanterns, one of them broken to pieces. For a time he could not decide in which direction he had been going, till he remembered that he had been walking all the while against the current. Shivering with cold, soaked to the skin, and very bruised, he started once again to struggle through the water.
As the light of his torch gleamed on the surface of the sluggish stream he gave a cry and stooped down. Just ahead of him was the deep pool that Jameel had spoken of, and, protruding from its edge, in cold and clammy horror, was a dark thigh boot. With shaking hands, Garve caught hold of the boot and pressed it with his fingers. He knew then that he would never be troubled by Jameel again. That last blow on his temple must have knocked him clean out. He had fallen back into the pool and drowned where he lay, without a sound.