by Alec Waugh
‘He didn’t discuss the matter.’
‘Then why did he ask you to stay behind?’
‘He had some things to say to me, personally.’
‘Oh.’ Gustave stared, abashed, speechless; his eloquence punctured. Reid smiled. He quite liked Gustave.
‘You’ve something on your mind. Let’s have it. If I can help, I promise you I will.’
‘Thanks awfully, Prof... you . . . well...’ he hesitated. Then in a rush it all poured out. ‘I’m in a rather different position from these others: through being half Egyptian. I’ve all these relatives in Alexandria and there are some in Cairo. One wants to cut a dash before one’s family. I’ve an idea that they don’t set much store by me. My mother was a cut above the old man, at least in their eyes; most of them are anti-British, too. You know how it used to be, when my father came out: Kipling and the white man’s burden. Kick the brown johnny off the pavement. That’s all over now. Jack’s as good as his master. They’d like to look down on me if they could, and I don’t want them to. Thing is, you see, it’s all my fault, but when I learnt I was coming out I overplayed my hand. I told them that I was going to be a big shot with Spears. For the first time in my life they were impressed. They respect force, and that’s what the Mission stands for, in their eyes. I boasted, yes, let’s face it, boasted. That puts me in one hell of a position now.’
‘What can I do to help?’
‘Now, that’s exactly what I was wondering myself. But there’s one thing I don’t want; to be sent to the intelligence pool in Cairo, as a lieutenant. I’d told them, you see, I’d be made a Captain. It seemed a reasonable bet. I assumed that by the time any of them saw me I would be one. But if I get sent down to Cairo next week, it is just more than my vanity could stand. I’d rather go to Damascus as a corporal than to Cairo as a subaltern.’
He spoke lightly, jocularly, with gestures; he employed a jargon that he fancied was fashionable, but that jarred on Reid’s perceptions. He seemed to have cast himself as a P. G. Wodehouse character, and was getting the idiom wrong. He exaggerated his predicament. But it was a predicament none the less. Reid recognized that. He had let Gustave talk a lot; it was up to him now to help him out.
‘I see your point,’ he said. ‘But I don’t see at the moment what I can do. We’re all in the same boat. Cartwright told me that I was a hard man to place, because I was too senior in civil life for certain posts and lacked the military training that would fit me for a job on my own level. It’ll be much easier for them to place you than to place me. You are young, athletic, active. On a long term basis, you haven’t any need to worry; but I do see your point about not going back to Cairo now—and as a subaltern. I’m dining with Cartwright on Wednesday. I’ll make a point of saying something; I’ll put it tactfully.’
‘Prof, you’re wizard. Bless you.’
‘Don’t bank on anything.’
‘I won’t.’
As the door closed behind Gustave, a thought crossed Reid’s mind. Farrar: they’d both been at Stowe. The bond of the old school tie. Gustave might be the right man for cloak-and-dagger.
* * *
It was half past ten before Reid left his room. Johnson was in the lounge, with a paper in his hands, but he did not appear to be reading it. His eyes looked like slits. Reid presumed that he had made a heavy night of it.
‘How did you make out?’ he asked.
Johnson shook his head. ‘As you might expect. They took me to the Australian Club. It was the first time I’d had whisky at a reasonable price for weeks. I exceeded. It was good whisky, though. I’ll be all right by lunch. What’s more important, how did you make out?’
‘Why more important?’
‘Because you saw Cartwright. What had he to say?’
Here it goes again, thought Reid.
‘Nothing in particular, just casual gossip. Then he introduced me to a man in the economic section who knows friends of mine. He took me to the French Club.’
‘I see. So you learnt nothing about what’s cooking for the rest of us?’
‘Nothing. But I can’t believe there’s any cause to worry. He’s probably got something suitable worked out. He looks that kind of man.’
‘I see . . . Well . . . what about a stroll? I could do with some fresh air.’
They strolled along the waterfront. Yesterday in the rain and dark Reid had had no chance of making an assessment of the town. He found it now a cheerfully haphazard conglomeration of architectural styles. There were examples in the French idiom of the worst uses to which the 1920s had put concrete in terms of hard, rectangular lines; most of such buildings, originally ochre-tinted, had been discoloured by rain and sun. There were the bazaars, tranquil, cool and arched; the spires of Christian churches mingled with the domes and minarets of Moslem mosques. Here and there the broken stonework of a Roman column testified to a legendary past. A mingling of races and of cultures, and each race, each culture, had contributed its patina to contemporary Beirut.
It was a bright, warm day. They walked slowly, but Johnson was breathing heavily. He soon returned to the problem of his employment. ‘I’m in an awkward spot,’ he said. ‘I’ve been a major for two years; but only a temporary, not a war substantive one. If I don’t get on somebody’s establishment soon, I’ll revert to my real rank as captain. That means a big drop in pay and in allowances. I’ve got a wife, and I don’t have a firm making good the difference between my salary and pay. Unless I’m found a job within a fortnight I’ll be “waiting to be posted”; back to captaincy; and they may antedate it to the day of sailing. That’s why I’d be so very grateful to you if you could let me know how the wind’s blowing. You’re in a different position. In peacetime you and Cartwright move in the same world, on the same level. He’d tell you things he’d not tell me. I’m out of my depth here. One battalion of my regiment is in India, the other is back in England. I’ve got no influence. I’ve no strings to pull; at least, I don’t think I have. That’s why I’d be so grateful if you’d sound out Cartwright. You’ll see more of him than I shall, and, what’s more important, on a different basis.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
To himself Reid smiled. None of them imagined that he himself had any problems. In their eyes he was an established person, with a job waiting him in England. They pictured him as someone who could accept with equanimity a wartime inconvenience. Well, let them go on doing so, and in point of fact, Gustave’s and Johnson’s problems were more serious than his own. This was Johnson’s last chance of self re-establishment. His own problem was not material. It was personal.
* * *
Farrar kept his noontime appointment with Reid punctually. The terrace of the St. Georges faced the waterfront. On Sunday morning it was the town’s fashionable rendezvous, with tables set out under striped umbrellas, and smart French officers, many of them with the blue képis of the cavalry, clinking their heels and bowing from the waist to smartly-dressed women, Lebanese and European. It was impossible to believe that a few hundred miles away in the Western Desert troops were lying out in foxholes.
Farrar stood on the steps of the terrace, looking round him. He pointed out to Reid a group of three, a middle-aged couple and a young man.
‘I’m going to introduce you to them. She’s of Turkish origin, married to a Lebanese. Her sister is in Istanbul. That’s her nephew, Aziz. He’s come down to study in the A.U.B. He’s not doing very well. He’s an idle gentleman, and I suspect that he’s taking advantage of being away from parental scrutiny to enjoy the flesh-pots. His parents are Moslems, but his aunt’s husband isn’t. Let’s go over. Amin Marun’s the name.’
The aunt was plump, pale skinned, with large dark eyes. She must have been extremely pretty as a girl. The uncle was big shouldered, fat, with flabby cheeks; his dark hair was beginning to turn white about the ears. The boy was tall and gangly, with spots on his chin. He had a long, hooked nose. He might become handsome at the age of thirty.
‘I want to
introduce Captain Reid,’ said Farrar. ‘He arrived yesterday to join the Mission. He’s an English professor. He should be able to advise Aziz about his studies. I’m wondering whether Aziz might not do better in an English university, in Alexandria, say.’
‘What is he studying?’ Reid asked.
‘History.’
‘There might be better historians in Alexandria.’
‘That’s what I was suggesting.’
‘But we want Aziz here with us,’ the uncle said.
‘Perhaps he would work better if he was on his own.’
Amin Marun shook his head. ‘That’s the English theory, send boys to boarding-schools. We don’t agree with that. We believe in maintaining the atmosphere and influence of the home.’
‘But if Aziz fails in his exams again at Christmas—’
‘He’s not going to fail.’
‘I hope he isn’t. But if he does I should consider Alexandria. That’s why I brought Captain Reid across. He is a man of influence in scholastic circles. He might be of assistance. His brother was out here in the First War; fought in the Mesopotamian campaign. He’s beginning to wonder now whether it wasn’t a waste of time.’
‘How do you mean, a waste of time?’
‘He thinks it would have been better if that part of the war had been avoided. We ought to have stayed friends with Turkey and maintained the Ottoman Empire.’
‘Did I say that?’ said Reid.
‘You inferred it and I’m sure that Madame Amin would agree with me that basically the Arabs were better off under the Ottoman Empire?’
She shook her head, as her husband answered for her, ‘The Turks aren’t Arabs.’
‘They are Moslems.’
‘That isn’t enough. Italy hasn’t the right to rule France because both are Christians.’
‘But under the Ottoman Empire the Arabs were one people.’
‘One subject people.’
Farrar shook his head. He turned to Reid with a laugh. ‘I can never get Amin Marun to agree with me. The idea of Arab independence started in Beirut. His father was one of the founders of the movement. But revolutions aren’t necessarily justified because they succeed. I’m sure that Madame Amin would agree with me on that point. She was brought up in Turkey. The Turks would never have divided the Arab world into separate spheres of influence as we Europeans have. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was about the most discreditable diplomatic performance of the war. And think how much worse it might have been. Suppose Russia had had her share, as she was intended to, with the Arab world divided up, not between two countries but between three. And I can tell you this. We haven’t finished with Sykes-Picot yet. Not by a long chalk, now that the Russians are in the war again. Stalin is as much an imperialist as any Czar. There are just as many private treaties in this war as in the last. I know this for a fact. There’s going to be at least one new Republic in the U.S.S.R. when the war is over and that’s Kurdistan. The Kurds are crazy for it. They’re sick of being divided up between Syria, Turkey, Persia and Iraq.’
He enlarged his thesis: ‘To keep Russia in the war we have to promise her what she wants; the Kurds are the cream in her coffee.’
Reid let him talk, but afterwards at lunch in the Cercle he remonstrated. ‘I never said that the Arabs were better off under the Turks. I don’t believe it for a moment.’
‘I’m sure you don’t. I was using you as a decoy. I wanted to lead up to that corollary about the Kurds.’
‘Yes, and what about that now? Is it true?’
‘Of course it isn’t.’
‘Then why on earth?’
‘The oldest trick in counter-espionage. Didn’t they tell you about it during that course at Matlock? If you want to find out if someone is indiscreet you tell him under a vow of secrecy something that isn’t true. If you then hear the story from another source you know that that person broke his vow of secrecy. My Kurdish nonsense is a variation on that gimmick. If that story crops up in the Turkish press or in any of the confidential summaries from Istanbul—we’re on very good terms with one section of their foreign Ministry—I shall know what Madame Amin is about.’
‘Do you know that she is in contact with someone there?’
‘I suspect she is. We’re censoring her correspondence but we’ve found nothing yet. She probably sends her messages, if she sends them, through someone here.’
‘What’ll you do if you find that she is sending messages?’
‘Nothing, for the moment. I’ll have to decide—or rather other people will have to decide for me—what is the best use for her. When a policeman is chasing a murderer, the moment he has his man, he claps the handcuffs on. It’s different in our game. We could use Madame Amin as a broadcasting station. We could send up to Turkey—and Turkey is neutral don’t forget—the kind of information that we want the Germans to have, true, half true, altogether false. If we were to find some excuse for arresting Madame Amin, we might frighten and send underground a number of people whom we want to watch. We rarely arrest small fry. They are more useful at liberty. They may lead us to something; and, of course, as I said, I’ve no idea whether she is passing on information; or, if she is, whether she is passing it on innocently. She can be useful that way too. She’s a push-over from our point of view. Born in Turkey, married to a Lebanese, all her family in Turkey—somebody must be using her. I want to know where and how. . . . What did you make of the boy, by the way?’
‘I hadn’t any chance of making anything. He didn’t say a word.’
‘Is he queer?’
‘How on earth should I know?’
‘Schoolmasters have a nose for that kind of thing.’
‘I’m not a schoolmaster.’
‘I know you aren’t, but you know that world. What would your guess be?’
‘I’d say “no”.’
‘You would. I was afraid you would.’
‘Afraid?’
‘Forget it. If he had been, it would have been more simple. But in this world things don’t always work out simply. And when they do, there’s usually a snag. One waits and bides one’s time. I’ve all the time there is. Now about this afternoon. This is your range-taking day. What about the racecourse?’
There was racing every Sunday. If it had been difficult that morning on the terrace of the St. Georges to believe that a war was being fought, a few hundred miles away, it was even harder that afternoon when the same elegant creatures whom he had seen that morning at the St. Georges were sauntering now in different frocks under the fir-trees, past the paddock. At the far end of the racecourse was the low yellow Résidence where General Catroux lived, with its Circassian guard in comic opera uniform at the gateway. It was like a film-set. And after the races there was a thé dansant at the St. Georges, with the same smart officers, the same smart women, again in different dresses.
‘This is their big day of the week and this is how they spend it,’ Farrar said. ‘And this is our one free day a week and this is how we spend it. There’s really no alternative, with petrol scarce. There’s a nine hole golf course but one loses balls so fast that one can’t afford to play often enough to strike any kind of form. But it’s a good life even so. Now, what about that flat of mine?’
‘I’d like to move in very much.’
‘Fine. Give me a couple of days, to get in some more furniture, and we are fixed.’
To be living in a semi-luxury flat in this frivolous little beach resort was certainly an odd footnote to last year’s drôle de guerre.
* * *
Reid moved in on the Wednesday. There was now in the spare room, a double bed, a wardrobe and a desk; there were a couple of rugs on the floor.
‘We’ll get some pictures soon; but that’s a start. You’ve your own entrance to the bathroom, which has two doors so that you can lock me out, and you’ve got a private key to the flat, so that you’ve all the privacy you could need if you want to entertain a flousy.’
‘I don’t fancy that I’m likely to
.’
‘You never know; and remember this: shortage of females is the central problem of the Middle East. But it isn’t here. Make the most of Beirut while you can. You might be posted to Baghdad one day.’
That night Reid dined with Cartwright. Cartwright had a bungalow five minutes’ drive from the Legation, which before the war had been owned by an Englishman in the I.P.C. It was furnished in the English style: with heavy club armchairs, photographs of school groups, and an oar over the mantelpiece.
‘This should make you home sick for college life,’ said Cartwright.
There was no other guest. ‘I thought it would be more pleasant just ourselves,’ he said. ‘I have to do so much official entertaining and being entertained; it becomes an effort, always trying to find what interests the other so that that I can keep the conversation moving. Always the search for a common multiple; usually it’s a very low one. I’m sure we’ll find that we have a good deal in common.’
Cartwright was three years older, but they were contemporaries in this, that they had had no adult life before August 1914. Cartwright was to have gone up to Oxford that October. They had grown up quickly in wartime, and over half of their contemporaries were dead.
‘I was looking at the old Fernhurst register the other day,’ said Reid. ‘Of the forty-four boys who went to school with me in September 1911 only nineteen are alive, and I suppose in your case there’d be even fewer: your generation was in France in time for the Somme; mine didn’t get there till Passchendaele. The survivors of the Somme came back for a second dose of medicine. For the most part, the survivors of Passchendaele hadn’t recovered in time for the victory campaign.’
‘The lost generation, in fact.’
‘Weren’t there a number of lost generations, each different in a very definite way?’
‘I guess there were, but I’ll tell you this. I believe that those of us who did survive are younger now than our immediate successors. We had no youth, no carefree period. But in recompense we got a delayed adolescence. Some of those bright young people are beginning to look middle-aged.’