Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “It occurred to me I’d save you the time of coming up to see me this morning, Grim, and look in on you instead before I start my rounds. Any new developments?”

  “Not yet, sir. I’ll need forty-eight hours. If we move too fast they may touch the stuff off before we get the whole gang in the net.”

  “You’re sure you’d rather not have the police?”

  “Quite. They mean well, but they’re clumsy.”

  “Um-m-m! All the same, the thing’s ticklish. There are rumours about all ready. The Grand Mufti* came to me before breakfast with a wild tale. I’ve promised him some Sikhs for special sentry duty. He’d hardly gone before some Zionists came with a story that the Arabs are planning to blow up their hospital; I gave them ten men and an officer.” [*The religious head of the Moslem community.]

  “Is the city quiet?” Grim asked him.

  “Fair to middling. The Jews refused to take their shutters down this morning. I had to issue an order about it. I hear now that they’re doing business about as usual, but I’ve ordered the number of men on duty within the city walls to be doubled. At the first sign of disturbance I shall have the gates closed. Are you quite sure you’re in touch?”

  “Quite. sure, sir. I’m positive of what I told you last night.

  Will you be seeing Colonel Goodenough?”

  “Yes, in ten minutes.”

  “Please ask him to hold his Sikhs at my disposal for the next two days. You might add, sir, that if he cares to see sport he could do worse than lend his own services.”

  “I’ll do that. You can count on Goodenough. That’s a soldier devoid of nonsense. Anything else?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Keep me informed. Remember, Grim, I’m responsible for all you do. I’ve endorsed you in blank, as it were. Don’t overlook that point.”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  Sir Louis walked out. Almost before his spurs ceased jingling in the tiled hall, Brigadier-General Jenkins strode out in a towering rage from behind the screen.

  “‘Pon my soul, a spy’s trick!” he exploded. “Had an eavesdropper, did you? Listening from behind a screen while you tricked me into a promise on Catesby’s account!”

  “Sure,” Grim answered, folding the screen back, and letting his face wrinkle in smiles all the way up to the roots of his hair. Very comical he looked, for his eyebrows were only partly sprouted again. “Had two of you to listen in on the Administrator!”

  “Endorses you in blank, eh? How long would he let the endorsement stand if he knew I was behind that screen while he was talking to you?”

  “Try him!” Grim suggested. “Shall I call him back? He doesn’t want to break you — told me so, in fact, last night — but he could change his mind, I daresay. My tip to you is to get back to Ludd as fast as your car can take you, release Catesby, and say as little as possible to any one!”

  “Damn you for a Yankee!” Jenkins answered. “You’ve got me cornered for the moment, and you make the most of it. But wait till my turn comes! As for you, sir,” Jenkins turned and looked me up and down with all the arrogance that nice new crossed swords on his shoulder can give a certain sort of man, “don’t let me catch you trying to interfere in any Administration business, that’s all!”

  I offered him a cigarette, grinning. There was no sense in picking a quarrel. No man likes to discover that a perfect stranger has overheard his intimate confessions. His annoyance was understandable. But he hadn’t nice manners. He knocked the cigarette case out of my hand and kicked it across the room. So I got into one of the deep armchairs and laughed at him in self- defense, to preserve my own temper from boiling up over the top.

  “To hell with both of you!” Jenkins thundered, and strode out like Mars on the war-path.

  “Poor old Jinks!” said Grim, as soon as he had gone. “As Sir Louis said last night, he has a wife and family besides the unofficial ladies on his string. All they’ll have to divide between them soon, at the rate he’s going, will be his half-pay. He has fought for promotion all his days, to keep abreast of expenses. What that string of cormorants will do with his four hundred pounds a year, when he oversteps at last and gets retired, beggars imagination! However, let’s get busy.”

  Business consisted in dressing me up as an Arab with the aid of Suliman, and drilling me painstakingly for half-an-hour, both of them using every trick they knew to make me laugh or show surprise, and Grim nodding approval each time I contrived not to. More difficult than acting deaf and dumb was the trick of squatting with my legs crossed, but I had learned it after a fashion in India years ago, and only needed schooling.

  “You’ll get scuppered if you’re caught,” he warned me. “If Suliman wasn’t so scared of devils I wouldn’t risk it, but I must have somebody to keep an eye on him when the time comes; that’ll be tomorrow, I think.”

  “Suppose you tell me the object of the game,” I suggested. “I’m sick of only studying the rules.”

  “Well — your part will be to sit over those two tons of TNT and see that nobody explodes them ahead of time. There’s a conspiracy on foot to blow up the Dome of the Rock.”

  “You mean the Mosque of Omar?”

  “The place tourists call the Mosque of Omar. The site of

  Solomon’s Temple — the Rock of Abraham — the threshing-floor of

  Araunah the Jebusite. Next after the shrine at Mecca it’s the

  most sacred spot in the whole Mahommedan world.”

  “Good lord!” I said. “Are the Zionists so reckless?”.

  “No, the Arabs are. Remember what old Scharnhoff said the other day about the new fanaticism?”

  “Is Scharnhoff mixed up in it?”

  “He’s being watched. If the Arabs pull it off, they’ll accuse the Jews of doing it, and set to work to butcher every Jew in the Near East. That will oblige the British to protect the Jews. That in turn will set every Mohammedan in the world— ‘specially Indians, but Egyptians, too — against the British. Jihad — green banner — holy war — all the East and Northern Africa alight while the French snaffle Syria. Sound good to you?”

  “Sir Louis knows this?”

  “He, is paid to know things.”

  “And he lets you play cat and mouse with it?”

  “Got to be careful. Suppose we draw the net too soon, what then? Most of the conspirators escape. The story leaks out. The Jews get the blame for the attempt, and sooner or later the massacre begins anyhow. What we’ve got to do is bag every last mother’s son of them, and suppress the whole story — return the TNT to store, and swear it was never missing.”

  “The Administrator has his nerve,” I said.

  “You’ll need yours, too, before this game’s played,” Grim answered. “D’you see now why I picked on you for an accomplice?”

  “I do not.”

  “You’re the one man in Jerusalem whom nobody will suspect, or be on the look-out for. The men we’re up against are the shrewdest rats in Palestine. They’ve got a list of British officers, my name included, of course. They’ll know which men are assigned to special duty, and they’ll keep every one of us shadowed.”

  “Won’t that — I mean, how can you work if you’re shadowed?”

  “Me? I shall catch my spur in the carpet, fall downstairs and break a leg at ten-fifteen. At ten-thirty the doctor comes, and finds me too badly hurt to be moved. He sends word of it to Sir Louis by an orderly who can be trusted to talk to any one he meets on the way. I leave by the back way at ten forty-five. However, here’s a chance for you to practise deaf-and-dumb drill. There’s some one coming. Squat down in that corner. Look meek and miserable. That’s the stuff. Answer the door, Suliman.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You may now be unsafe and an outlaw and enjoy yourself!”

  The man who entered was a short, middle-aged Jew of the type that writes political reviews for magazines — black morning coat, straw hat, gold pince-nez — a neatly trimmed dark beard beginning to turn gray f
rom intense mental emotion — nearly bald — a manner of conceding the conventions rather than argue the point, without admitting any necessity for them — a thin-lipped smile that apologized for smiling in a world so serious and bitter. He wore a U.S.A. ten-dollar gold piece on his watch chain, by way of establishing his nationality.

  “Well, Mr. Eisernstein? Trouble again? Sit down and let’s hear the worst,” said Grim.

  Eisernstein remained standing and glanced at me over in the corner.

  “I will wait until you are alone.”

  “Ignore him — deaf and dumb,” Grim answered. “Half a minute, though — have you had breakfast?”

  “Breakfast! This is no time for eating, Mister — I beg your pardon, Major Grim. I have not slept. I shall not break my fast until my duty is done. If it is true that the Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned, then I find him no worse than this Administrator!”

  “Has he threatened to crucify you?” Grim asked. “Take a seat, do.”

  “He may crucify me, and I will thank him, if he will only in return for it pay some attention to the business for which he draws a salary! I drove to Headquarters to see him. He was not there. Nobody would tell me where he is. I drove down again from the Mount of Olives and luckily caught sight of his car in the distance. I contrived to intercept him. I told him there is a plot on foot to massacre every individual of my race in the Near East — a veritable pogrom. He was polite. He seems to think politeness is the Christian quality that covers the multitude of sins. He offered me a cigar!

  “I offered him a telegram blank, with which to cable for reenforcements! He said that all rumours in Jerusalem become exaggerated very quickly, and offered me a guard of one soldier to follow me about! I insisted on immediate military precautions on a large scale failing which I will cable the Foreign Office in London at my own expense. I offered to convince him with particulars about this contemplated pogrom but he said he had an urgent appointment and referred me to you, just as Nero might have referred a question regarding the amphitheatre to one of his subordinates!”

  “Pogroms mean nothing in his young life,” Grim answered smiling.

  “I’m here to do the dirty work. Suppose you spill the news.”

  “You must have heard the news! Yet you ignore it! The Moslems are saying that we Zionists have offered two million pounds, or some such ridiculous sum, for the site of Solomon’s Temple. They are spreading the tale broadcast. Their purpose is to stir up fanaticism against us. The ignorant among them set such value on that rock and the mosque their cut-throat ancestors erected on it that Jews are now openly threatened as they pass through the streets. Yet there is not one word of truth in the story of our having made any such offer.”

  “There are plenty of troops,” said Grim. “Any attempt at violence could be handled instantly.”

  “Then you will do nothing?”

  “What do you suggest ought to be done?”

  “Here is a list. Read it. Those are the names of fifty Arabs who are active in spreading anti-Zionist propaganda.”

  Grim read the list carefully.

  “All talkers,” he said. “Not a really dangerous man among them.”

  “Ah! There you are! I might have expected it!” Eisernstein threw up his hands in a gesture of contempt rather than despair. “Nobody cares what happens to Jews. Nobody cares for our sleepless agony of mind. Nobody cares how or what we suffer until afterward, when there will be polite expressions of regret, which the survivors will assess at a true valuation! It is the same wherever we turn. Last night — at half-past one in the morning — a committee of us, every one American, Called at the American consulate to tell our consul of our danger. The consul was unsympathetic in the last degree. Yet our coreligionists in the States are taxed to pay his salary. He said it was not his business. He referred us to the Administrator. The Administrator refers me to you. To whom do you refer me? To the devil, I suppose!”

  “The best thing you can do,” said. Grim, “is to go ahead and deny that story about the offer to buy the Dome of the Rock. You Zionists have got the most efficient publicity bureau on earth. You can reach the public ear any time you want to. Deny the story, and keep on denying it.”

  “Ah! Who will believe us? To be a Zionist is to be a person about whom anybody will believe anything; and the more absurd the lie, the more readily it will be believed! Meanwhile, the Moslems are sharpening their swords against us from one end of this land to the other!”

  I suppose that what Eisernstein really needed more than anything was sympathy, not good advice. Grim’s deliberate coolness only irritated the passion of a man, whose whole genius and energy were bent on realizing the vision of a nation of Jews firmly established in their ancient home. A people that has been tortured in turn by all the governments can hardly be expected to produce un-nervous politicians. He was at the mercy of emotions, obsessed by one paramount idea. A little praise just then of his loyalty to an ideal, to which he had sacrificed time, means, health, energy, everything, would have soothed him and hurt nobody. But the acidity of his scorn had bitten beneath the surface of Grim’s good humor.

  “There’ll be no pogrom,” Grim said, getting up and lighting a cigarette. “There’ll be nothing resembling one. But that won’t be the fault of you Zionists. You accuse without rime or reason, but you yell for help the minute you’re accused yourselves. I don’t blame the Arabs for not liking you. Nobody expects Arabs to enjoy having their home invaded by an organization of foreigners. Yet if this Administration lifts a finger to make things easier for the Arabs you howl that it’s unfair.

  “If the Administrator refuses to arrest Arabs for talking a little wildly, you call him a Nero. I’m neither pro- nor anti- Zionist myself. You and the Arabs may play the game out between you for all of me. But I can promise you there’ll be no pogrom. It is my business to know just what precautions have been taken.”

  “Words! Major Grim. Words!” sneered Eisernstein, getting up to go. “What do words amount to, when presently throats are to be cut? If your throat were in danger, I venture to say there would be something doing, instead of mere talk about precautions! I hope you will enjoy your little cigarette,” he added bitterly. “Good morning!”

  “Talk of fiddling while Rome burns!” Grim laughed as soon as the Zionist had left the room. “Has it ever occurred to you that Nero was possibly smothering his feelings? I wonder how long there’d be one Zionist left out here, if we simply stood aside and looked on. Go and change your clothes, Suliman. It’s time I broke a leg.”

  Grim disappeared upstairs himself, and returned about ten minutes later in the uniform of a Shereefian officer — that is to say, of Emir Feisul’s Syrian army. Nothing could be smarter, not anything better calculated to disguise a man. Disguise, as any actor or detective can tell you, is not so much a matter of make- up as suggestion. It is little mannerisms — unstudied habits that identify. The suggestion that you are some one else is the thing to strive for, not the concealment of who you really are.

  Grim’s skin had been sun-tanned in the Arab campaign under Lawrence against the Turks. The Shereefian helmet is a compromise between the East and West, having a strip of cloth hanging down behind it as far as the shoulders and covering the ears on either side, to take the place of the Arab head-dress. The khaki uniform had just enough of Oriental touch about it to distinguish it from that of a British officer. No man inexperienced in disguise would dream of choosing it; for the simple reason that it would not seem to him disguise enough. Yet Grim now looked so exactly like somebody else that it was hard to believe he was the same man who had been in the room ten minutes before. His mimicry of the Syrian military walk — blended of pride and desire not to seem proud — was perfect.

  “I’m now staff-captain Ali Mirza of Feisul’s army,” he announced. “Ali Mirza a man notorious for his anti-British rancor, but supposed to be down here just now on a diplomatic mission. I’ve been seen about the streets like this for the last two days. But say: that
doctor is a long time on the way.”

  He went to the telephone, but did not call the hospital; that would have been too direct and possibly too secret.

  “Give me Headquarters — yes — who’s that? — never mind who’s speaking — say: I can’t get the military hospital — something wrong with the wire — will you call Major Templeton and say that Major Grim has had an accident — yes, Grim — compound fracture of the thigh — very serious — ask him to go at once to Major Grim’s quarters — thanks — that’s all.” He returned to the fireplace and stood watching me meditatively for several minutes.

  “If you deceive Templeton, you’ll do,” he said at last. “Wait a minute.”

  He went to the desk and scribbled something in Arabic on a sheet of paper, sealed that in a blank envelope, and handed it to me.

  “Hide it. You’ve two separate and quite distinct tasks, each more important and, in a way, dangerous than the other. The principal danger is to me, not you. If they spot you, my number’s as good as hoisted from that minute. You mustn’t kid yourself you’re safe for one second until the last card has been played.”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  “I’m coming to that. Your first job is to make it possible for me to get the confidence of one or two of these conspirators. You’re a deaf-and-dumb man — stone deaf — with a message for staff- captain Ali Mirza, which you will only deliver to him in person. Suliman does the talking. You say nothing. You simply refuse to hand your message over to any one but me. They’ll appreciate why a deaf and dumb man should be chosen for treasonable business. But perhaps you’re scared — maybe you’d rather reconsider it? It’s not too late.”

  I snorted.

  “All right. These conspirators meet at Djemal’s coffee shop on David Street. They talk to one another in French, because the proprietor and the other frequenters of the place only know Arabic. You know French and Arabic enough to understand a sentence here and there, so keep your ears wide open. I shan’t show up until a Sikh named Narayan Singh tells me that a certain Noureddin Ali is in there. He’s the bird I’m after. He’s a dirty little murderer, and I’m going to be right pleasant to him.