by Len Deighton
‘Cairo is glorious,’ Alice replied. ‘After Alexandria almost anywhere would be.’
‘What is wrong with Alex?’ said Sayed, abbreviating as the British did. That and his challenging tone of voice revealed a youthful taste for debate.
‘Nothing. But it is so dull and grey,’ said Alice. ‘The buildings and the streets and the sea – so lifeless.’
‘I have never lived there,’ said Peggy, wondering if Alice Stanhope’s opinion of Alexandria was a verdict on living with Mummy. ‘But it always seems like a resort out of season when I go there to visit my friends. Isn’t your mother afraid of the bombing?’
‘Mummy isn’t afraid of anything,’ said Alice.
‘Alex always seems much nicer when Cairo starts to warm up,’ said Sayed. ‘Have you ever been here in Cairo in summer?’
‘No, not yet,’ said Alice.
‘The English find it too hot,’ he said. ‘But we are used to it.’ He drank some tea and wiped his lips delicately. To Ross he said politely, ‘Where are Rommel’s spearheads by now?’
Everyone at the table turned their eyes to Jimmy Ross, who said noncommittally, ‘We’ll hold him. Rommel is no superman.’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ said Sayed and produced a sheet of rough grey paper of the very cheapest kind, one of the leaflets that the intruders had scattered. ‘I’d like to hear your opinion of this, Corporal Cutler.’ It was a crudely drawn map of the fighting fronts. A large red arrow took Rommel’s Afrika Korps to the Suez Canal and beyond. Another such arrow carried the German army fighting in southern Russia down through the Caucasus. The tips of both arrows joined at the oil-rich region that surmounts the Persian Gulf. The artist had made the meeting point into a jagged explosion. Around it there were dozens of crudely drawn little British soldiers sprawled and dead.
Sayed held the leaflet across the table so that the other man could see it. ‘It’s a bit out of date,’ said Ross. ‘The German armies are frozen to a standstill in Russia. And next week’s map will show Rommel being knocked back into Tunisia.’
Sayed grinned as if to suggest that, were the positions reversed, he would have given an equally evasive reply. ‘But as a military man, Corporal Cutler, would you not say that, if this was the strategic objective’ – he laid his palm uppermost so that his manicured fingernails tapped lightly upon the map – ‘then drawing the Allied armies deeper and deeper into the Western Desert would mean less men to send to Iraq and Persia to oppose a German assault from the Caucasus?’
Ross looked again at the map.
When he was slow to reply, Sayed said, ‘The Germans have always been experts at grand strategy. Geopolitik is a German word, is it not?’
‘I’m not sure I know that word,’ said Ross. ‘May I keep your map?’
‘Better it is destroyed,’ said Sayed, taking it back and screwing it up before putting it in his pocket. ‘You might get into trouble with such subversive literature.’ He sipped his tea and attacked his lemon-curd tart with a fork. He broke it into segments, tasted the lemon curd from the tip of his fork, and then lost interest in it. That was how he kept so thin, thought Peggy.
‘I won’t get into trouble,’ said Ross. ‘We are fighting a war for freedom to say what we think and to do as we wish.’
‘Are you? You surprise me, corporal. What freedom do we Egyptians have under your rule? Your soldiers sing obscene songs about our king and queen. Your men regularly smash up our hotels and restaurants, and no compensation is ever paid to the owners. You use our country to have your battles, but Egypt is a neutral country not at war with anyone. Even the English-language newspapers are so fiercely censored that they never say anything important.’
‘What about personal freedom?’ said Ross shifting uncomfortably.
‘What about it indeed? Let’s take your own case, corporal. Only officers may go into the best hotels like Shepheard’s or the Continental. As a corporal you are barred from such places as the Turf Club, the Trocadero Club, and the Gezira, to name but three. What sort of personal freedom is that for men who are fighting a war for freedom?’
‘Why should you care?’
‘I don’t,’ said Sayed. ‘But I do care when your government sends a public school lout here to bully my king, and boast of the way he calls him “boy”.’
‘Ambassador Lampson, you mean?’
‘You know whom I mean,’ said Sayed.
‘Stop it, Sayed,’ said Zeinab, smiling and smacking him on the arm playfully. She looked at the others. ‘We shouldn’t have got started on politics. My brother becomes too passionate and upsets people.’ She was looking at Jimmy Ross.
‘No offence intended,’ said Sayed. ‘If Corporal Cutler were running things it would all be better, I’m sure.’
‘Yes, they would certainly allow corporals into Shepheard’s,’ said Jimmy Ross feelingly.
‘But no officers?’ said Sayed.
‘Certainly no officers,’ said Ross solemnly. They all laughed, and Peggy noticed the way in which Alice touched her corporal’s hand. He was a handsome enough young man, but it was hard to fathom why this upper-class girl was so attached to such a lowly soldier. She had only to raise an eyebrow and she would have colonels and brigadiers to do her bidding. Oh, well, thought Peggy, all women seem to look for something different in the men they choose. Perhaps Cutler was an athletic lover, heir to a fortune, or kind to stray animals.
‘What did you do in civvy street, Corporal Cutler?’ Sayed asked.
‘I was a clerk,’ he said vaguely.
‘And now?’
‘I’m an infantryman misemployed as an army clerk.’
‘You are probably too valuable,’ said Peggy diplomatically. ‘A lot of soldiers out there in the blue would give anything to be working in Bab-el-Hadid barracks right in the heart of Cairo.’
‘That’s true,’ said Alice.
‘Is that where you work, Bert?’ said Sayed. ‘Just round the corner? What a lucky bloke you are.’ Sayed had heard so many Australians using the word ‘bloke’ that he wanted to try it out. ‘Isn’t that the Military Police headquarters? What do you do there?’
‘I’m just a clerk. I work for the provost marshal. Filing his papers, mostly. Typing letters and answering the phone.’
‘The provost marshal,’ said Sayed. ‘That’s an important job, Bert. Isn’t he the man who runs Egypt?’
‘Only the Military Police.’ He drank some tea as if needing time to consider his words.
‘And of course the Special Investigation Branch and some of the intelligence services too,’ said Sayed. ‘Give us the low-down. What is happening in the underworld?’
‘I’m sworn to secrecy,’ said Ross. So Sayed knew who worked at the barracks; not many people did.
‘You can tell them about the hashish, couldn’t you?’ said Alice. ‘The people are locked up.’ He looked at her. She was clever. She was playing her part with all the skills of an actress. And there was nothing against revealing that story, it would be in the papers next week.
‘There is not much to tell,’ he said. ‘It was a report I typed out. Syrian seamen have been hiding slabs of hashish inside sheep carcasses and tossing them into the waters from ships lying off the coast. After dark, men rowed out to recover them.’
‘How was it discovered?’ Sayed asked.
‘We pay informers,’ said Ross. ‘There is usually someone who will betray such gangs. The trouble is that there are so many of them.’
‘Your work sounds very exciting,’ said Zeinab. She was looking at him with new interest.
‘I just type out the reports and get them signed and file them away,’ he said. ‘It’s boring.’
‘Do you know,’ said Alice as if she didn’t want the interest to fade, ‘that black marketeers get one hundred pounds for one heavy-duty tyre? One hundred pounds!’
‘I must go,’ said Ross. ‘I’m all alone in the office this afternoon. Someone has to be there, in case the provost marshal’s phone rings.’ H
e got up and picked up the bill.
Sayed snatched the bill away from him. ‘This is on me,’ he said. ‘Yesterday the horses ran well for me.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ross.
‘I hope you didn’t take offence, Bert. May I call you Bert?’
‘I didn’t take offence.’
‘About the leaflet, I mean. Nothing personal,’ said Sayed.
Ross put his hand on Alice’s shoulder. ‘You stay with our friends. Keep away from the demonstrations. I will see you tonight?’
‘Of course,’ said Alice.
‘She’ll be safe with us,’ said Sayed. ‘You may have confidence in me. I will look after these ladies.’
‘Thanks, Sayed.’
When Jimmy Ross had left them, Sayed ordered more tea. As he was talking to the waiter, Zeinab leaned close to Alice and said, ‘He is magnificent, your man!’
She said it with such fervour that Alice was surprised. The surprise must have showed on her face, for Zeinab added, ‘Did you not see the way his eyes flashed in anger? I like such a man.’
It was hard to know whether Sayed heard what his sister had said. Perhaps it was just that he knew the sort of things she was likely to say. He said to Alice, ‘You will bring him tonight?’
‘Where?’
‘To Prince Piotr’s. Does he play bridge?’
‘Yes. I believe so.’
‘It doesn’t matter. It is a party. There is no need to play bridge until very late.’
‘Is it a party every Friday?’ Alice asked.
‘Piotr will love to argue with Corporal Cutler. He is bored with arguing with the rest of us, and Captain Darymple is so stupid.’
‘I say! You mustn’t say that,’ said Peggy West. It was a mild objection, as if she was correcting Sayed’s grammar.
‘Why must I not say it?’ said Sayed with interest. ‘Is it a military secret?’
‘He’s going off to the war,’ said Peggy. ‘He might get killed.’
‘You English,’ said Sayed. ‘How can you be such outrageous hypocrites?’ He made the most of the word outrageous, rolling it round in his throat as if it were an Arabic word.
Peggy poured more tea. ‘Why doesn’t Corporal Cutler – Bert, that is – why doesn’t he apply for a commission?’
‘He’d be sent away for training,’ said Alice, improvising hastily. ‘He might be posted to East Africa or to the Pacific to fight the Japanese.’
‘Yes, you’re right. It’s better the way it is,’ said Peggy who understood Alice’s fears.
‘You have him here,’ said Zeinab. ‘That’s the important thing.’ She gave a little grin as if she’d said something wicked.
‘You’ll bring him?’ Sayed asked.
Alice looked inquiringly at Peggy. Peggy said, ‘Piotr won’t mind. The more the merrier, that’s Piotr’s motto.’
Sayed looked at her pondering the words. ‘Where does Piotr’s money come from?’ he asked. Peggy was considered an authority on everything to do with the Magnifico and its residents.
‘His family had Suez Canal shares. That’s how he got a visa to live here. But since the war started, he can only have the income in Egyptian pounds; they won’t let him change his money. So he’s trapped.’
Sayed nodded.
‘That’s what I heard, anyway,’ said Peggy, feeling perhaps that she’d said too much.
‘Zeinab thinks he’s a spy … a spy for the Russians.’
When Peggy looked at her, Zeinab said, ‘Sayed laughs at me. But that powerful shortwave wireless set in his apartment … and having lots of money, and no job.’
‘For the Russians? I don’t imagine he has much to thank Joe Stalin for,’ said Peggy.
‘He has such strange eyes,’ said Zeinab, as if that was absolute proof of his guilt.
‘I think he has a mistress hidden away somewhere,’ said Sayed. He looked at Alice to see how she reacted to such a notion. Alice could not suppress a grin; one brief meeting with Piotr had been enough to convince her that women played no part in his carnal yearnings.
‘I like him very much,’ said Peggy. ‘Piotr is generous and easygoing and funny. Look how confident we all are that he will welcome Bert, a stranger. How many people are there like Piotr? If Lucia kicks him out, we will all be impoverished.’
Emboldened by Peggy’s description of Prince Piotr’s hospitality, Alice Stanhope said, ‘Do you think I could bring someone else too?’
She spoke very softly, so that Sayed had to lean across the table to hear her. ‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘Does she live in Cairo?’
‘He’s a he,’ said Alice. ‘An American newspaper man. He’s a friend of my parents. My mother says he wants to meet “the real people”, whatever that means. She expects me to entertain him for a couple of days. Where can I take him? It’s so difficult if you are a civilian.’
‘Bring him,’ said Sayed. ‘My sister will flirt with him shamelessly.’
Zeinab averted her face to hide her embarrassment. ‘Please don’t say such things, Sayed,’ she whispered.
‘We are with friends,’ said Sayed. ‘Peggy and Alice know I speak only in fun.’ To Alice he said, ‘Bring him. The more the merrier. I must remember that English saying: the more the merrier.’
Only a couple of hours later Jimmy Ross was being conducted along one of the most squalid alleys of El Birkeh. The sun had gone down and it was suddenly chilly. He’d put on his old working uniform with its major’s crowns. In this environment it seemed like a wise thing to do.
‘It’s a bloody pigsty,’ he said, as the MP sergeant led him into a narrow doorway past two military policemen and two uniformed Cairo policemen. He picked his way up a flight of stone steps by the light of another policeman’s flashlight. It was still daylight outside, but there were no windows giving onto the staircase, and in such places there were no fittings that could possibly be stolen. Even to build stairs of wood was an invitation to thieves, who would strip away anything that could be sold for a piaster or two.
‘Wait till you see him,’ said the red-capped military police sergeant who was leading the way up the stairs. ‘Talk about stink!’
The room was so small there was not much space in it for the two men to stand. It was a windowless cell, lit by one low-watt electric bulb hanging from the ceiling. The red cap stood in the doorway, relishing the slight movement of air on the landing. Someone said that the dead body of the sergeant major had been left just the way it was found by the MP patrol. But too many people had tramped through this place for there to be much faith placed in that.
Jimmy Ross was aware of the way they were watching him. He was supposed to be Albert Cutler, the expert detective who knew all about these things. He looked down at the corpse and then at the MP, who was holding a handkerchief to his face. He tried to remember the things they said in movies. ‘Has the photographer been yet?’
The MP sergeant looked at him. ‘Yes, sir. He’s finished.’ Yes, silly question; he should have known that.
Ross felt like vomiting but he tried to look unconcerned at the sight of the decomposing corpse. ‘Have you searched the body?’
‘No, sir.’
‘And you say you found him?’ he said to the sergeant. On the way here they’d chatted. He was only twenty-two. He’d been a solicitor’s clerk before the war, and the army had made him a military police sergeant. He was an intelligent youngster but far too young for Cairo’s streets. ‘Tell me again.’
‘An Arab kid came up to us on the street and told us … he said there was a soldier feeling ill. We found him like this. No one seems to know anything. And of course I haven’t touched anything,’ he added.
‘And the photographers have got all they want?’
‘That’s what they said. They couldn’t wait to get out of here. And the medical officer too. He couldn’t fix a time of death; too long ago, he said.’
‘Yes, so he said on the phone,’ said Ross. He felt he should show a little expertise. Speaking quietly, he
added, ‘It’s tricky when bodies are decomposing in warm climates. And some of the army’s medical officers don’t know about police work.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant respectfully.
Ross took a hold of himself and looked more closely at the metal cot and the body that was sprawled so that its head and one arm was on the floor. The dead man’s face had turned deep purple and was set into an open-mouthed grimace. The hands were swollen so that the fingers had distended into fat sausages. The only decoration was an unframed coloured litho of King Farouk. There was something sardonic in its presence here in this filthy room.
‘It’s a brothel, you say?’
‘Yes, sir, a brothel,’ said the young sergeant.
Ross leaned very close to the body. The badges showed it to be a sergeant major dressed in the rough khaki uniform that was sometimes needed in a Cairo winter. Steeling himself to the task, Ross reached out and started to empty the dead man’s pockets. He hoped the sergeant would go away, but instead he watched the process with grim fascination. Ross tried to seem indifferent to the horror of it. Since being installed in his quarters at the Citadel he had scoured its lending library for ‘true police’ stories. He’d read Secrets of Scotland Yard twice. ‘Look at this, then,’ he said. The pockets produced plenty of evidence: two paybooks in different names, two cargo manifests that were totally blank except for having signatures and rubber stamps prematurely applied. Then he opened the battle dress, lifted the filthy vest and examined the chest wound.
‘Ummm,’ he said, although he felt like screaming. He stood up. ‘You can take him away, sergeant,’ he said. His brain reeled as he took a deep breath. What would poor old Cutler have made of it? Suddenly he knew. ‘I think we’re looking for a soldier … perhaps a commando or someone with special training.’
‘A soldier?’
‘Look at the wound. Didn’t you ever get training in unarmed combat? Knife placed expertly right into the heart. The army is training too many people how to kill quickly and quietly, sergeant. We can’t be surprised when they go into business for themselves.’
‘Johnny Arab is fond of the knife,’ said the sergeant.