Nile Shadows (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 3)

by Edward Whittemore

  It’s nothing, Stern had said, laughing. Really painful wounds never bother with the body, do they? They cut deeper and the scars they leave are elsewhere.

  And then they had gone on to talk of other things. But now the incident in Damascus troubled the Colonel and he began hunting through Stern’s file. He seemed to recall that Stern had said he had gone to Haifa after the prison escape, and had hidden in Haifa until the war had broken out a few weeks later, turning everyone’s attention elsewhere.

  The Colonel stopped at a page in the file. He had found the corroborating evidence taken from the reports of other contacts that Stern had been in Haifa in August 1939. But when the Colonel looked at the evidence now, he realized that all the scattered bits and pieces of information had been provided by contacts who were known or suspected Zionist activists, involved with illegal immigration into Palestine.

  The Colonel turned more pages in the file. Stern’s unlikely adventure had also brought Poland to mind. Why the association? Simply because the German invasion of Poland had followed so soon after Stern’s escape?

  No. There was a connection and he found it. A short paragraph from an informer’s report to the Turkish police in Istanbul. To the effect that the informer had seen Stern in Istanbul shortly after his escape from Damascus. That Stern had been carrying a forged Polish passport and had been frantically arranging a secret trip to Poland. To the Pyry forest near Warsaw, on a mysterious mission of great importance.

  Or so the informer had speculated, offering a personal opinion without a trace of evidence to back up his claim.

  Under normal circumstances the Colonel would have smiled at these cobwebs of conjecture. The Turkish police were wildly inaccurate about everything, and Istanbul was notorious for its legions of aspiring informers who would gladly claim anything in exchange for a minor official favor. And in this case not even the informer’s identity had been included in the report. Even the fact that the informer had subsequently been found dead floating in the Bosporus meant nothing, given the situation in Istanbul in that last summer before the war.

  Pure invention from some desperate refugee. Ridiculous rumors whispered across a café table and set adrift in the clouded brain of a Turkish policeman lazily puffing hashish, dimly trying to focus his eyes on the crotch of a serving-boy across the way.

  And yet?

  The Colonel closed the file. He frowned.

  Perhaps he had made a serious mistake in accepting Stern’s explanation of what he had been doing in those last few days before the war began. Perhaps Stern had actually made a secret trip to Poland without telling anyone about it.

  Why? wondered the Colonel. What did it mean and what had he been hiding? Why had he lied and taken such care to make sure his lie had been covered?

  Stern had been unusually experienced and clever. He had been dedicated to a cause that was probably too idealistic ever to be realized, but the cause had still been straightforward and comprehensible, as splendid in its simplicity as Stern’s ideals had been.

  Or rather, as they had appeared to be. For it was obvious now that someone else had stumbled upon Stern’s Polish adventure and had decided to look into it more deeply, and in so doing had caught a glimpse of something unexpected. A suggestion of some enigma, some profound truth, that must have subsequently been uncovered by the Armenian.

  Who had then told Stern what he had discovered. Just before a hand grenade had come flying in through the door of a dingy Arab bar in a Cairo slum, and Stern had been killed saving the Armenian’s life.

  Where were we? asked the Colonel, looking up.

  I’m not sure, replied the Major. You were talking about the important work Stern did for us, and then you seemed to have some doubts about something.

  Yes, well, it’s just that the situation isn’t as clear in my mind now as it was. Because that seems to be the very nature of this operation. Somewhere a doubt arose, as I see it, a doubt with very serious implications. So a man who knew Stern from somewhere, an outsider, was recruited to come in and find out what he could about Stern.

  That would be our Purple Seven, said the Major.

  Yes, the Armenian. A professional who might have been a friend of Stern’s once, or who might have worked with him at some point in the past. Possibly in Stern’s gunrunning activities, without knowing they were just a cover for his role in intelligence. Well the Armenian went about his business and my guess is he was successful. Either he discovered the truth about Stern or he came close enough for it not to make any difference.

  The Colonel leaned back. There was admiration and even a touch of awe in his voice.

  My God, you just can’t appreciate the enormity of that task without having known Stern. The layers to the man, the subtleties. He grew up in these parts and knew every language and dialect, every nuance, every corner and what lay around it. There was simply no competing with him out here. He could go anywhere and be anyone, and at one time or another he did seem to go everywhere and be just about everyone. As he wanted, as it served his purposes. Describe a tiny corner of the desert and he knew it. Mention a shop hidden away in a bazaar in any of ten dozen towns and he’d been there, knew the owner. An extraordinary experience, dealing with a man like Stern. And he was modest. You didn’t even begin to sense the depths to the man until he happened to mention some unexpected thing in an offhand way.

  The Colonel grimaced. He reached down and moved his false leg.

  Anyway, the Armenian must have done whatever he did and then gone to Stern with what he’d learned, which is strange in itself. You’d think he would have gone first to the people who’d hired him, but obviously he didn’t. Because if he had, those same people would now know that Stern is dead, and they don’t. Not yet, because I haven’t told them.

  So the Armenian went directly to Stern, continued the Colonel, and that was the meeting in the Arab bar. The Armenian got in touch with Stern and set up a meeting, and then he sat down in that bar and told Stern what he’d discovered, and it was the full truth or close to it. Which was what caused Stern to begin smiling halfway through their conversation. Because at last, after all these years of subterfuge, someone had uncovered the truth about him.

  Stern’s reaction to that would be to smile? asked the Major. Why not just the opposite?

  I have no idea. It might have to do with who the Armenian is. The Armenian confronted Stern with the facts, in any case, and Stern’s reaction was to smile with relief. That was the expression you used.

  Jameson used, corrected the Major.

  Yes, Jameson, our alter ego in this case. So we have Stern smiling and the Armenian not liking it at all, and that’s when the conversation grew heated. The Armenian didn’t agree with what Stern was doing, couldn’t agree, and he argued about it. But Stern was confident. He was convinced of his rightness and he went on to justify himself. Your words again, or Jameson’s rather. And that was where matters stood when the grenade came sailing in the door and Stern saved the Armenian’s life.

  The Colonel paused.

  Important, that. I don’t know why, but it has to be. It was Stern’s last act and there’s a meaning to it. Something to do with the discovery the Armenian had made, or perhaps going further back, to the whole relationship between the two of them. Which was profound, I’d say. Something quite special to both of them.

  You know, concluded the Colonel, the curious part in all this is that we seem to have some of the answers without knowing the questions. More whiskey for you?

  The Major poured for them both. A clock ticked on the wall. When it appeared the Colonel had nothing more to say, the Major decided to ask his own questions.

  Whose operation do you think it is? The Monastery’s?

  Yes, no doubt. It’s much too deep and roundabout to be anyone else’s. And it’s bizarre and wildly improbable, not what anyone would expect. All the characteristics of a Monastery operation.

  What about the Armenian?

  I’ve been thinking about him but
no one comes to mind. Frankly, I haven’t the least idea. Of course I know who originally used that Purple Seven identity, in fact I helped put it together for him. But that was three or four years ago, in Palestine in connection with the Arab revolt, and somehow it all seems irrelevant now.

  Who was that? The man who used the identity then?

  A fellow from the ranks. Sergeant O’Sullivan was his name.

  Sergeant O’Sullivan, murmured the Major, a faraway look coming into his eyes. You’re not referring to the Sergeant O’Sullivan?

  Oh yes, the same. It rather slipped my mind how famous he used to be. I suppose you must have heard of him, even though you were very young at the time.

  Yes, replied the Major, leaning back in his chair to reflect upon this astonishing piece of information from the past.

  During the First World War, at least in the early part of the war, the exploits of Sergeant Columbkille O’Sullivan had been gloriously famous in every household in Britain, after he had been awarded two Victoria Crosses for extraordinary heroism in the gruesome slaughter known as the First Battle of Champagne, the only man of any rank to be so honored in the Great War. Then he had been referred to everywhere as the Sergeant O’Sullivan, or with even greater affection as simply Our Colly of Champagne.

  But the celebrated little sergeant’s reputation had mysteriously begun to deteriorate after his Irish compatriots raised their Easter Rebellion in 1916. By the summer of that year a rumor was rife in London that Our Colly was drinking to excess, and by the time autumn blew around it was generally known throughout England that Their Colly’s reckless bravado in combat had always been due to drink and drink alone.

  Further, while stationed in France and slyly acquiring Victoria Crosses through gross misrepresentation at the First Battle of Champagne, Their Colly, according to updated reports, had had the absurd arrogance to pretend that drinking anything less than vintage champagne was beneath him, even though when he was home again and on tour as a hero, he had reverted to his natural ways by gleefully swilling down anything alcoholic that passed through his trembling hands.

  Thus the once renowned the Sergeant O’Sullivan had been entirely forgotten by the end of the Great War. The Major himself, in the course of his professional army career, could not recall ever having heard the famous name in any context, historical or otherwise. Yet to him, as to tens of thousands of British schoolboys, Our Colly of Champagne had been a unique folk hero when they were growing up.

  My God, exclaimed the Major. Whatever did happen to Our Colly?

  Oh he reenlisted again after the war, replied the Colonel.

  He did? Our Colly?

  Yes. And because of all that notoriety he’d received at such a young age, he wanted to get away from England, so he joined the Imperial Camel Corps out here. He even reenlisted under another name, just plain Private So-and-So. He’d developed an absolute passion for anonymity.

  The Camel Corps? Our Colly on camelback?

  Exactly. But before long he’d been promoted to sergeant again, and of course it was impossible for Colly’s extraordinary talents to go unnoticed anywhere, even if he happened to be just loping around the deserts on a camel. So he was invited into this end of the business, and once with us Colly couldn’t help but carry on with his usual flair. Anonymously, of course, undercover. In fact you could say it was just what he’d always been looking for. And all that talk in the last war about his drinking was utter nonsense. Colly enjoyed a glass as much as the next man, but he was careful never to take a drink on duty. Drank only water when he was on assignment, made a point of it. Wouldn’t even touch a cup of tea. And there are stories that anyone would find hard to believe. Some remarkable episodes in Abyssinia against the Italians, and then later in Palestine when we had to deal with the Arab revolt.

  Palestine? murmured the Major. I was in and out of there during the Arab revolt. Where was Our Colly working then?

  Up around Galilee. He was using several covers at the time. One was as the Armenian dealer in Coptic artifacts and another was as a captain in the King’s Own Scottish Regiment. Every few weeks he’d slip into Haifa and transform himself. Something of a trickster, Colly was. He enjoyed that sort of thing.

  Our Colly, murmured the Major. What was he doing at Galilee?

  Oh he had several assignments going on at once, as he usually did, but probably the most important one then was helping the Jewish settlers organize their Special Night Squads, the first real mobile strike force they had. Colly was the man who trained those squads and set them up. He did that in his cover as the Scottish captain, and the methods he developed soon became one of the important operating principles of the Palmach.

  The Colonel smiled.

  The fellow had dash, damn it, it just came natural to him. I remember talking later to one of the young Haganah men Colly had taken on as a deputy, fellow by the name of Dayan, and he told me how astonished they all were the first time they met Colly. The Arab revolt was in full swing and Dayan and Allon and these others had gone up to defend a settlement near the Lebanese border. Well one moonlit night they were manning the pickets when up drove a taxi with its headlights off and its taillights on the front of the car to confuse the enemy, and out of the taxi stepped this lean small figure carrying two rifles and a Bible and a drum, an English-Hebrew dictionary and five gallons of New England rum.

  Our Colly?

  None other. His daring at coming up there alone at night, Dayan said, made a tremendous impression on everyone. They’d never met a military man like that before and it affected their thinking a good deal. The idea that warfare, irregular warfare at any rate, could be based on something other than parade-ground drill.

  Amazing, murmured the Major.

  Yes. Colly often worked for me in the most difficult of situations, and more than once I tried to convince him to accept a commission. But Colly always adamantly refused, saying he preferred to keep his standing as the Sergeant O’Sullivan. Even though his rating was secret of course, and no one knew he had any standing at all. He was quite a man, no question about it. And as for the role he played in the Spanish Civil War, that still has to be kept close to the chest.

  Why’s that? asked the Major, his head spinning with these revelations about the hero of his childhood.

  Because Colly was fighting on the Republican side, don’t you see. Officially he was on a leave of absence, and unofficially he was doing a number of things for us, but still, a regular army man and all. It just wouldn’t do. Not then, not even now.

  The Major was more astounded than ever.

  Our Colly? he repeated dreamily, gazing down at the papers in his hand. Then something caught his eye and he laughed abruptly.

  Did you choose this name, sir?

  Which name?

  The cover name for Colly’s Purple Seven identity. A. O. Gulbenkian.

  The Colonel smiled.

  Oh no, that was Colly’s doing. As a matter of fact, it was the name he used when he reenlisted and went into the Imperial Camel Corps after the last war. Says something about his sense of humor, I suppose. He thought it would be amusing to skulk around the Middle East on a camel, using the last name of a famous Armenian oil millionaire.

  Bizarre, murmured the Major. Gulbenkian does seem to be an odd name to come across here. But what were the initials A.O. supposed to stand for?

  The Colonel laughed.

  Alpha and Omega, probably. Colly’s sense of humor again.

  Our Colly of Champagne, murmured the Major. Extraordinary.

  Yes, the same. And he was small and dark all right, and thin and wiry and every bit a professional. So I admit the description you brought back had me disturbed for a moment.

  The Major was even more confused.

  Why? Couldn’t he be our Purple Seven, working out of the Monastery? You said the identity was issued to him originally.

  It was, and it’s also true that he was working out of the Monastery the last time around. But those Monks in the de
sert have been up to something since then. Do you recall the facts concerning the kidnapping of the German commandant of Crete?

  Certainly. Did Our Colly have something to do with that?

  His show from the beginning. Thought it up and worked out the details and then went along to see that it went smoothly. Well it did go smoothly, as an operation. They grabbed the commandant and walked him across the island to the south coast, and the submarine was where it was supposed to be on the night of the pickup. But that night Colly’s luck ran out. He’d been defying the law of averages for just too long.

  What happened?

  He and his group crossed tracks with a German patrol. Colly made a racket and headed up into the mountains to lead the patrol off the scent. He was shot and wounded in the darkness but he managed to keep on going, until he had to look for a place to hide toward dawn. That section of the mountains is as bare as a lunar landscape, and the only place where he could get out of sight was inside one of the underground stone cisterns the Cretan goatherds use up there, to gather the runoff in the spring when the snow melts.

  The Colonel scowled.

  On their way by, the Germans left one of their men at the cistern because he was having an attack of dysentery and couldn’t keep up, but Colly didn’t know that. Colly waited long enough for the patrol to move on across the mountain, then stuck his head out of the cistern to take a look. Shivering, numb, barely able to move. He’d been standing up to his nose in the mountain-cold water of that cistern for an hour by then. And as chance would have it, the lone German happened to be squatting on a knoll right behind Colly.

  The Colonel grimaced.

  A freak accident really, I don’t like to recall it. The startled German tossed a hand grenade and death was instantaneous for Colly. Decapitation.

  What? Our Colly?

  So the only way he could be part of these new events is if he’d been resurrected, which would certainly explain the enigmatic smile on the Armenian’s face after the explosion in the bar. If O’Sullivan had been resurrected, he’d certainly be one to smile about it.