by Talbot Mundy
“The Administrator by the Horn Spoon! What next, I wonder! Pull up!” said Turner. “Morning, sir.”
The two cars came to a standstill. The Administrator leaned out.
“I think I can save you a walk,” he said, smiling. “How about changing your clothes between the cars and driving back with me?”
I did not even know yet what new disguise I was to assume, but Turner opened a hand-bag and produced a suit of my own clothes and a soft hat.
“Burgled your bedroom,” he explained.
All he had forgotten was suspenders. No doubt it would have given him immense joy to think of me walking back ten miles without them.
Sir Louis gave his orders while I changed clothes.
“You’d better keep going for some time, Turner. No need to go all the way to Haifa, but don’t get back to Jerusalem before noon at the earliest, and be sure you don’t talk to anybody on your way.”
Turner drove on. I got in beside the Administrator.
“Grim tells me that you don’t object to a certain amount of risk. You’ve been very useful, and he thinks you would like to see the end of the business. I wouldn’t think of agreeing to it, only we shall have to call on you as a witness against Scharnhoff and Noureddin Ali. As you seem able to keep still about what you know, it seems wiser not to change witnesses at this stage. It is highly important that we should have one unofficial observer, who is neither Jew nor Moslem, and who has no private interest to serve. But I warn you, what is likely to happen this morning will be risky.”
I looked at the scar on his cheek, and the campaign ribbons, and the attitude of absolute poise that can only be attained by years of familiarity with danger.
“Why do you soldiers always act like nursemaids toward civilians?” I asked him. “We’re bone of your bone.”
He laughed.
“Entrenched privilege! If we let you know too much you’d think too little of us!”
We stopped at a Jew’s store outside the city for suspenders, and then made the circuit outside the walls in a whirlwind of dust, stopping only at each gate to get reports from the officers commanding companies drawn up in readiness to march in and police the city.
“It’s all over the place that disaster of some sort is going to happen today,” said Sir Louis. “It only needs a hatful of rumours to set Jerusalemites at one another’s throats. But we’re ready for them. The first to start trouble this morning will be the first to get it. Now — sorry you’ve no time for breakfast — here’s the Jaffa Gate. Will you walk through the city to that street where Grim talked with you from a roof last night? You’ll find him thereabouts. Sure you know the way? Good-bye. Good luck! No, you won’t need a pass; there’ll be nobody to interfere with you.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Dead or alive, sahib.”
I did get breakfast nevertheless, but in a strange place. The city shutters were coming down only under protest, because, just as in Boston and other hubs of sanctity, shop-looting starts less than five minutes after the police let go control. There was an average, that morning, of about ten rumours to the ear. So the shop-keepers had to be ordered to open up. About the mildest rumour was that the British had decide to vacate and to leave the Zionists in charge of things. You couldn’t fool an experienced Jew as to what would happen in that event. There was another rumour that Mustapha Kemal was on the march. Another that an Arab army was invading from the direction of El-Kerak. But there were British officers walking about with memorandum books, and a fifty-pound fine looked more serious than an outbreak that had not occurred yet. So they were putting down their shutters.
I had nearly reached the Haram-es-Sheriff, and was passing a platoon of Sikhs who dozed beside their rifles near a street corner, when Grim’s voice hailed me through the half-open door behind them. He was back in his favourite disguise as a Bedouin, squatting on a mat near the entrance of a vaulted room, where he could see through the door without being seen.
“This is headquarters for the present,” he explained. “Soon as we bag the game we’ll run ’em in here quick as lightning. Most likely keep ’em here all day, so’s not to have to parade ’em through the streets until after dark. A man’s coming soon with coffee and stuff to eat.”
“What’s become of Suliman?”
“He’s shooting craps with two other young villains close to where you left him last night. I’m hoping he’ll get word with his mother.”
Grim looked more nervous than I had ever seen him. There was a deep frown between his eyes. He talked as if he were doing it to keep himself from worrying.
“What’s eating you?” I asked.
“Noureddin Ali. After all this trouble to bag the whole gang without any fuss there’s a chance he’s given us the slip. I watched all night to make sure he didn’t come out of that door. He didn’t. But I’ve no proof he’s in there. Scharnhoff’s in there, and five of the chief conspirators. Noureddin Ali may be. But a man brought me a story an hour ago about seeing him on the city wall. However, here’s the food. So let’s eat.”
He sat and munched gloomily, until presently Goodenough joined us, looking, what with that monocle and one thing and another, as if he had just stepped out of a band-box.
“Well, Grim, the net’s all ready. If that TNT is where you say it is, in that big barn behind the fruit-stalls near the Jaffa Gate, it’s ours the minute they make a move.”
“There isn’t a doubt on that point,” Grim answered. “Why else should Scharnhoff open a fruit-shop? The license for it was taken out by one of Noureddin Ali’s agents, whose brother deals in fruit wholesale and owns that barn. Narayan Singh tracked some suspicious packages to that place four days ago. They’ll start to carry it into the city hidden under loads of fruit just as soon as the morning crowd begins to pour in. We only need let them get the first consignment in, so as to have the chain of evidence complete. Are you sure your men will let the first lot go through?”
“Absolutely. Just came from giving them very careful instructions. The minute that first load disappears into the city they’ll close in on the barn and arrest every one they find in there. But what are you gloomy about?”
“I’d hate to miss the big fish.”
“You mean Noureddin Ali ?”
“It looks to me as if he’s been a shade too wise for us. One man swore he saw him on the wall this morning, but he was gone when I sent to make sure. We’ve got all the rest. There are five in Djemal’s Cafe, waiting for the big news; they’ll be handcuffed one at a time by the police when they get tired of waiting and come out.
“But I’d rather bag Noureddin Ali than all the others put together. He’s got brains, that little beast has. He’d know how to use this story against us with almost as much effect as if he’d pulled the outrage off.”
He had hardly finished speaking when Narayan Singh’s great bulk darkened the doorway. He closed the door behind him, as if afraid the other Sikhs might learn bad news.
“It is true, sahib. He was on the wall. He is there again.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Surely. He makes signals to the men who are loading the donkeys now in the door of the barn. It would be a difficult shot. His head hardly shows between the battlements. But I think I could hit him from the road below. Shall I try?”
“No, you’d only scare him into hiding if you miss. Oh hell! There are three ways up on to the wall at that point. There’s no time to block them all — not if he’s signalling now. He’ll see your men close in on the barn, sir, and beat it for the skyline. Oh, damn and blast the luck!”
“At least we can try to cut him off,” said Goodenough. “I’ll take some men myself and have a crack at it.”
“No use, sir. You’d never catch sight of him. I wish you’d let Narayan Singh take three men, make for the wall by the shortest way, and hunt him if it takes a week.”
“Why not? All right. D’you hear that, Narayan Singh?”
“Atcha, sahib.”
; “You understand?” said Grim. “Keep him moving. Keep after him.”
“Do the sahibs wish him alive or dead?”
“Either way,” said Goodenough.
“If he’s gone from the wall when you get there,” Grim added, “bring us the news. You’ll know where to find us”
“Atcha”
The Sikh brought his rifle to the shoulder, faced about, marched out, chose three men from the platoon in the street, and vanished.
“Too bad, too bad!” said Goodenough, but Grim did not answer. He was swearing a blue streak under his breath. The next to arrive on the scene was Suliman, grinning with delight because he had won all the money of the other urchins, but brimming with news in the bargain. He considered a mere colonel of cavalry beneath notice, and addressed himself to Grim without ceremony.
“My mother brought out oranges in baskets and set them on benches on both sides of the door. Then she went in, and I heard her scream. There was a fight inside.”
“D’you care to bet, sir?” asked Grim.
“On what?”
“I’ll bet you a hundred piastres Scharnhoff has tried to make his get-away, and they’ve either killed him or tied him hand and foot. Another hundred on top of that, that Scharnhoff offers to turn state witness, provided he’s alive when we show up.”
“All right. I’ll bet you he hangs.”
“Are you coming with us, sir?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for a king’s ransom.”
“The back way out, then.”
Grim beckoned the Sikhs into the room, left one man in there in charge of Suliman, who swore blasphemously at being left behind, and led the way down a passage that opened into an alley connecting with a maze of others like rat runs, mostly arched over and all smelly with the unwashed gloom of ages. At the end of the last alley we entered was a flight of stone steps, up which we climbed to the roof of the house on which I had seen Grim the night before.
There was a low coping on the side next the street, and some one had laid a lot of bundles of odds and ends against it; lying down, we could look out between those without any risk of being seen from below, but Goodenough made the Sikhs keep well in the background and only we three peered over the edge. About two hundred yards in front of us the Dome of the Rock glistened in the morning sun above the intervening roofs. The street was almost deserted, although the guards at either end had been removed for fear of scaring away the conspirators. We watched for about twenty minutes before any one passed but occasional beggars, some of whom stopped to wonder why oranges should stand on sale outside a door with nobody in charge of them. Three separate individuals glanced right and left and then helped themselves pretty liberally from the baskets.
But at last there came five donkeys very heavily loaded with oranges and raisins, in charge of six men, which was a more than liberal allowance. When they stopped at the little stone house in front of us there was another thing noticeable; instead of hitting the donkeys hard on the nose with a thick club, which is the usual way of calling a halt in Palestine, they went to the heads and stopped them reasonably gently. So, although all six men were dressed to resemble peasants, they were certainly nothing of the kind.
Nor were they such wide-awake conspirators as they believed themselves, for they were not in the least suspicious of six other men, also dressed as peasants, who followed them up-street, and sat down in full view with their backs against a wall. Yet I could see quite plainly the scabbard of a bayonet projecting through a hole in the ragged cloak of the nearest of those casual wayfarers.
They had to knock several minutes before the door opened gingerly; then they off-loaded the donkeys, and it took two men to carry each basketful, with a third lending a hand in case of accident. Only one man went back with the donkeys, and two of the casual loafers against the wall got up to saunter after him; the other five honest merchants went inside, and we heard the bolt shoot into its iron slot behind them.
“How about it, Grim?” asked Goodenough then.
“Ready, sir. Will you give the order?”
We filed in a hurry down the steps into the alley, ran in a zig- zag down three passages, and reached another alley with narrow door at its end that faced the street. Grim had made every preparation. There was a heavy baulk of timber lying near the door, with rope-handles knotted into holes bored through it at intervals. The Sikhs picked that up and followed us into the street.
The mechanism of the Administration’s net was a thing to wonder at. As we emerged through the door the “peasants” who were loafing with their backs against the wall got up and formed a cordon across the street. Simultaneously, although I neither saw nor heard any signal, a dozen Sikhs under a British officer came down the street from the other direction at the double and formed up in line on our lefthand. A moment later, our men were battering the door down with their baulk of timber, working all together as if they had practised the stunt thoroughly.
It was a stout door, three inches thick, of ancient olivewood and reinforced with forged iron bands. The hinges, too, had been made by hand in the days when, if a man’s house was not his fortress, he might just as well own nothing; they were cemented deep into the wall, and fastened to the door itself with half- inch iron rivets. The door had to be smashed to pieces, and the noise we made would have warned the devils in the middle of the world.
“We shouldn’t have let them get in with any TNT at all,” said
Goodenough. “They’ll touch it off before we can prevent them.”
“Uh-uh! They’re not that kind,” Grim answered. “They’ll fight for their skins. Have your gun ready, sir. They’ve laid their plans for a time-fuse and a quick getaway. They’ll figure the going may be good still if they can once get past us. Look out for a rush!”
But when the door went down at last in a mess of splinters there was no rush — nothing but silence — a dark, square, stone room containing two cots and a table, and fruit scattered all over the floor amid gray dust and fragments of cement. Grim laughed curtly.
“Look, sir!”
The fruit-baskets were on the floor by one of the cots, and the TNT containers were still in them. They had tipped out the fruit, and then run at the sound of the battering ram.
Goodenough stepped into the room, and we followed him. Beyond the table, half-hidden by a great stone slab, was a dark hole in the floor. Evidently the last man through had tried to cover up the hole, but had found the stone too heavy. The Sikhs dragged it clear and disclosed the mouth of a tunnel, rather less than a man’s height, sloping sharply downward.
“What we need now is mustard gas. Smoke ’em out,” said Goodenough.
“Might kill ’em,” Grim objected.
“That’d be too bad, wouldn’t it!”
“We could starve ’em out, for that matter,” said Grim. “But they’ve probably got water down there, and perhaps food. Every hour of delay adds to the risk of rioting. We’ve got to get this hole sealed up permanently, and deny that it was ever opened.”
“We could do that at once! But I won’t be a party to sealing ’em up alive.”
“Besides, sir, they’ve certainly got firearms, and they might just possible have one can of TNT down there.”
“All right,” said Goodenough. “I’ll lead the way down.”
“I’ve a plan,” said Grim.
He took one of the fruit-baskets and began breaking it up.
“Who has a white shirt?” he asked.
I was the haberdasher. The others, Sikhs included, were all clothed in khaki from coat to skin. Grim’s Bedouin array was dark-brown. I peeled the shirt off, and Grim rigged it on a frame of basket-work, with a clumsy pitch-forked arrangement of withes at the bottom. The idea was not obvious until he twisted the withes about his waist; then, when he bent down, the shirt stood up erect above him.
“If you don’t mind, sir, we’ll have two or three Sikhs go first. Have them take their boots off and crawl quietly as flat down as they can keep. I’ll follow �
�em with this contraption. They’ll be able to see the white shirt dimly against the tunnel, and if they do any shooting they’ll aim at that. Then if the rest of you keep low behind me we’ve a good chance to rush them before they can do any damage.”
I never met a commanding officer more free from personal conceit than Goodenough, and as I came to know more of him later on that characteristic stood out increasingly. He was not so much a man of ideas as one who could recognize them. That done, he made use of his authority to back up his subordinates, claiming no credit for himself but always seeing to it that they got theirs.
The result was that he was simultaneously despised and loved — despised by the self-advertising school, of which there are plenty in every army, and loved — with something like fanaticism by his junior officers and men.
“I agree to that,” he said simply, screwing in his monocle. Then he turned and instructed the Sikhs in their own language.
“You follow last,” he said to me. “Now — all ready?”
He had a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other, but had to stow them both away again in order to crawl in the tunnel. Grim had no weapon in sight. The two Sikhs who were to lead had stripped themselves of everything that might make a noise, but the others kept both boots and rifles, with bayonets fixed, for it did not much matter what racket they made. In fact, the more noise we, who followed, made, the better, since that would draw attention from the Sikhs in front. All we had to do was to keep our bodies below Grim’s kite affair, out of the probable line of fire.
Nevertheless, that dark hole was untempting. A dank smell came out of it, like the breath of those old Egyptian tombs in which the bones of horses, buried with their masters, lie all about on shelves. You couldn’t see into it more than a yard or two, for the only light came through the doorway of the windowless room, and the tunnel led into the womb of rock where, perhaps, no light had been since Solomon’s day.
But the leading Sikhs went in without hesitation and got down on their bellies. They might have been swallowed whole for all that I heard or saw of them from that minute. You could guess why the Turks and Germans had not really craved to meet those fellows out in No-man’s-land.