by Alec Waugh
‘Indeed he hasn’t.’
‘Nor have you?’
She looked up quickly. There was a look of gratitude in her eyes, as one might have for a doctor who has made a quick diagnosis.
It must after all have been the same for her: the anxiety when her husband was posted missing, the weeks of waiting; then the relief of learning he was a prisoner; safe, safe, safe; one day he would come back to her. There had been that month or so of exaltation, then gradually the recognition of the chancery in which she found herself; the war might last for four, five years, and for all that period she would be neither wife, nor widow; in cold storage, she who was little older than a debutante.
‘Did you ever make your bob?’ he asked.
‘I was going to in 1940; if there had been no war.’
Neither realized for the moment how quickly they had made their conversational transition. They had been following their own thoughts, reaching the same point without the need of words. There was now animation in her face. Youth had returned to it. She had nearly finished her whisky. She must have been desperately tired when she came in.
‘Let me freshen that drink,’ he said. He had a feeling she would be grateful if he did the talking for a little, so that she could relax. ‘What’s your husband’s profession?’ he inquired.
‘A regular soldier. That’s bad luck, isn’t it? He’ll miss promotion. He’ll be out of date when it’s all over.’
Reid thought of all those regular officers who had been captured on the retreat from Mons. They had never made up the ground that they had lost; particularly the elder ones. But perhaps that was partially their own fault.
‘At a first glance it looks like that,’ he said. ‘But there’s another angle; Louis Napoleon spent three years in prison; do you know what he said about them?’
‘What did he say?’
‘That he had been educated in the University of Ham. He read there the books that otherwise he’d never have had the time for. That happened to me at Mainz. It was a prelude to Oxford. I met there for the first time first class minds on equal terms. Gerard Hopkins was there; so was Hugh Kingsmill. I had eight months of solid reading. I read all the major Russian novelists, except Tolstoy. I read Flaubert and Balzac. I was introduced to Walter Pater. I heard good talk four hours of the day. If I hadn’t done that reading then, I don’t know when I would have; Hopkins and Kingsmill were my university. I went up to Oxford with a flying start. Not only that: I made up my mind about myself. I knew what I wanted to do: to learn enough to be able to interpret History and Philosophy in terms of one another. It’s not the same for your husband, as a regular army officer. But there’s a great deal of solid reading he might do, military history and strategy that the average subaltern never finds the time for. Can he read German?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then he can read Clausewitz and Schlieffer. When his time comes for the Staff College he may look on this period as a blessing in disguise.’
‘Let’s hope so. But it’s hard to take a long view in wartime.’
He knew what she meant. She was inhabitating a vacuum. He looked across at Farrar. A good deal of laughter was coming from his group. Gustave was doing most of the talking. He was recounting an incident that had taken place when he was on a training exercise in England, and making high fun at the expense of his major whom he described as ‘the old Perisher.’
‘There was I in that sunken road. It was raining; my men were soaked and as near mutinous as makes no difference. I’d no idea where we were; lost my bearings, couldn’t find my position on the map. And then, at just that moment, who should show up but the old Perisher himself. He looks me over and he looks my men over and he doesn’t say a word. Petrified, was I petrified. Believe me—’ He pronounced ‘me’ as though it were a French word. Reid found it hard not to wince. It was a piece of music-hall slang that was seventeen years out of date. ‘And then what do you think he says, that old Perisher of mine? “Now what would you do if an enemy platoon appeared over that ridge?” What would I do? Had I a clue? The old cerebellum wouldn’t work. I squeezed the lemon and not a drop came out.’
He told the story with gusto and animation. The girls listened with amused expressions. Farrar was smiling. Gustave might be the right character for the curious harlequinade he was conducting. Reid turned back to Janet. ‘Do you have anything to do with the Mission?’
‘Only in as far as May Spears is the general’s wife. We’re completely independent.’
‘Do you know Diana Benson?’
‘We share a flat.’
‘Then you know here very well.’
‘Does anyone know her very well?’
The evening wore on. Seven-thirty became eight-thirty. The two girls stood up. ‘Time for us to go,’ said Annabelle. ‘Why don’t we take Lieutenant Sargent with us, so that he can compare a Lebanese home with an Egyptian?’
At least he’s made a good impression there, thought Reid.
‘Now we can relax,’ said Farrar as he closed the door behind them. ‘Jane, stay for supper?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m all in. I want to pack up, have a bath, get into pyjamas, read my mail and darn my stockings. But I’d like one more drink before I go.’
It was her fifth. She was a different person now. ‘What a day,’ she said. ‘Seven hours on the road. It’s exactly what I was looking for when I joined the outfit. I wanted to be so exhausted at the end of every day that I’d fall flat upon a mattress and stay there till reveille. But this is becoming more than I had bargained for. If May wasn’t such a darling I’d throw in my hand; but she is a darling. We all love her; and the thing’s worth doing, which so few things are.’
She finished her whisky in one long swallow, then stood up.
‘I’ll drive you home,’ said Farrar.
‘I’ve my car.’
‘Exactly. I will drive it.’
‘How will you get back?’
‘I’ll take a taxi. Charge it to the firm. Off we go. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, Prof. Then we’ll eat right away.’
He was back within fifteen. ‘That girl wasn’t fit to drive,’ he said. ‘She’s drinking much too much.’
‘She’s got a good deal on her mind, I suppose.’
‘Not only on her mind, poor thing. Still, there it is. I’m hungry; where’s that soup?’
The cook was a Lebanese, short, dusky and half Turkish. He was a good cook and his discretion had been guaranteed. ‘I wouldn’t be in his shoes if he tried to double-cross us,’ Farrar said. ‘Cloak-and-dagger means cloak and dagger.’
‘And how did Gustave strike you?’
‘He’ll do; other things being equal.’
‘How about his Wodehousian slang?’
‘All right out here. The epitome of gilded youth, the Bright Young Person as the Egyptian sees him. His Arabic was fluent; and those girls liked him. He’s likeable all right. I wonder if he gave you the full reason for not wanting to go back to Egypt?’
‘It sounded a sound reason.’
‘I daresay; but there’s often a truth behind the truth. I’d like to know if there is, in this case. It would double his value to us, if there is.’
‘Don’t you believe anything that anybody tells you?’
‘Not till I’ve checked on it.’
‘You certainly lead a complicated life.’
‘This is a complicated war and I’m in a complicated branch of it.’
‘I wonder how you keep track of what you’re doing?’
‘I don’t. It’s guess work; or at least it’s preparation. Do you play chess?’
‘Not very seriously.’
‘But you know how you develop your pieces, aiming at the centre of the board; with your knights out and your bishops cleared, so that you are covering the maximum of squares. You don’t know how the game will develop because you don’t know what your adversary is planning; but you are as ready as you can hope to be at that stage of the game before a piece has b
een taken. Your enemy may give you an opening to attack, or he may blunder into your defences. But you’ve done all you can by covering the greatest possible number of squares. That’s not an exact parallel. But it’ll do. I’m making all the preparations that I can; and you’ve got to remember this, that I haven’t been here very long, less than half a year; there was no real organization here till the Vichy French had gone. France was always suspicious of us; unnecessarily suspicious, as the French tend to be. I won’t have my system working for at least a year and just when I’ve got it working the way I want, they’ll probably transfer me to Teheran or Haifa. What did you think of the Koumayans?’
‘I didn’t have much chance of thinking anything.’
‘I know. Gustave was talking all the time.’
‘Tell me about them.’
‘There isn’t much to tell. They’re of Armenian origin. That’s obvious from the name. Their fathers are local notables with a number of irons in a great many fires, in the way of Lebanese economy, which has its ramifications in every country, in most cities. There’s a big colony in Brazil, there’s a big colony in Brooklyn. A shipload of wool is bought in Sydney; it’s shipped for Singapore; half-way to Java it has been resold and is scheduled for Ceylon. But it never gets to Ceylon. It is re-bought in mid-ocean and headed for Aden. It may eventually turn up in Capetown; and somewhere at the back of each transaction there’s a Lebanese drawing his minute commission. That’s how Lebanon survives, on that endless flow of commissions from all round the world. No one knows how rich any Beiruti is, or rather how rich he would be if he didn’t gamble; but I’d say that either of those girls would be a very advantageous proposition for any young British officer looking for a dot.’
‘Are they Christians?’
‘Greek Orthodox. So there’s no complication there. Which did you think the prettier?’
‘I don’t know that I really thought about it; there didn’t seem much to choose.’
Farrar laughed. ‘There are times when I envy you, Professor. You are so invulnerable, so immune. You meet two very pretty girls and don’t bother to ask yourself which you’d prefer if you had the choice. It’s your being married, I suppose; you’re fixed, you’re settled. There’s nothing to be done about you. The score’s added up. Have you ever thought how it is for me?’
‘How what is for you?’
‘This whole woman problem in the Middle East.’
‘You tell me how it is for you.’
‘In the first place Beirut is an exception. The Lebanon has Christians, Maronites, Greek Orthodox. Women don’t live behind veils in purdah as they do in Syria, in Iraq and in most of Egypt. But even here there is a great dearth of women. Beirut is French so it has houses of call like the Mimosa; but they are dreary, and what’s the alternative? There are some light-hearted ladies bent on a good time; not worrying about tomorrow; wives with husbands somewhere; an occasional nursing sister, a girl in an embassy or in a show like ours. But those are the exceptions; most of the young women have marriage very definitely in mind. That’s for the younger ones. There are also quite a number of older ones in the middle thirties who are desperately anxious to be married; it’s their last chance. There weren’t nearly enough men to go round when they came out. The men they should have married had been killed in the war; it was the period of the bright young people when a large number of the bright young men were queer; it was the period of Freudian psychology when young things talked about releasing their inhibitions: they released them right enough. Half of them got involved with married men who left them on the shelf. London, before the war, was amply stocked with disappointed unmarried women in the early thirties. A number of them are out here now; to every woman there are twenty men, most of them from the desert who haven’t seen a woman for six months. This is their chance.
‘All of which adds up to a very pretty problem for poor Nigelo. After all, he’s not getting any younger. He’s over thirty, and that’s the age when one should be getting married. I run the danger of being a quadragenarian by the time the war is over—when will it be over? And if you were me, would you see much to be said for marrying one of those young women in the services: two weeks’ honeymoon and then you go your separate ways; what an opportunity for her to play wild and loose, with a temptation at every turn. A girl like Annabelle Koumayan presents a very definite temptation to somebody like me. She’s young, she’s unspoiled, she’s as near to being rich as makes no difference. And I can tell you this, for her a British officer has the charm of novelty. She hasn’t seen so very many of us yet. I’ve quite a number of things upon my mind in addition to chasing subversive elements. That’s why I say you’re lucky, Prof; you can take this war in your stride.’
Chapter Three
On the following Sunday, Reid was duty officer. It was in the main a sinecure. It involved sitting by day and sleeping by night beside a telephone, but the duty officer’s sleep was rarely interrupted. The bed in the telephone room was comfortable, and Reid watched his fellow missionaries depart at eight o’clock without regret. He was prepared to enjoy a quiet evening by himself. He had brought a packet of sandwiches and a half bottle of local wine. It was the first meal that he had had by himself since he had left England. It was also his first opportunity for quite awhile, for a period of uninterrupted reading. He was not only surprised, therefore, but resentful when the telephone bell rang shortly before ten.
‘Spears Mission. Duty officer,’ he said.
There was a laugh from the other end. ‘How very official you do sound.’ It was a female voice, a deep, contralto voice.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked.
‘Diana.’
‘Diana who?’
‘Benson. Don’t you remember?’
‘Of course. I hadn’t expected you to call.’
‘And you’ve never heard my voice on a telephone before. Nigel told me that you were duty officer. I thought that you might be lonely. I also wondered if you’d heard the news?’
‘What news?’
‘About America being in the war.’
‘With whom?’
‘Japan. The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbour.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Somewhere in Hawaii. Half their fleet’s gone down’.
‘And are we in this too?’
‘I gather so. Anyway there’s that Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis. Everyone will be in it in three days; at least that’s what the boys in my group are saying.’
‘It’s the biggest news in the world’s history.’
‘That’s what I knew you’d feel. That’s why I wanted you to know. I asked where you were tonight and Nigel told me that you were duty officer. I couldn’t bear to think of you all by yourself, not knowing. I had to ring you up.’
‘I’m touched.’
‘I think you should be. Do you know what I thought? If I call him now he will remember me all his life, because he’ll never forget today. It’s the day that’s changed the world. All through our lifetimes people are going to talk about this day, and when people are exchanging war memories, when you ask, “When did you hear, how and where?”, you’ll say, “There I was, a Spears Mission duty officer in Beirut, cut off from everyone and everything, and a young woman took pity on me.” You’ll forget a great many things, but you’ll remember that.’
Yes, he’d remember that, and indeed the news was so startling, so unexpected, that he wanted to be alone to absorb it, to think about it by himself. At the same time he did not want to disconnect the line; to lose that rich, full voice.
‘I ought to ring off and let you get back to your party. But I’m selfish. I want to go talking on,’ he said. ‘It’s tantalizing, hearing you but not seeing you; yet at the same time you seem closer on the telephone.’
She laughed. ‘I’ve had that said to me before. I wonder if my voice is wrong for my appearance.’
‘That’s not the impression it gave me. Next time we meet...’ He checked.’... Why don’t we have lunch
one day?’
‘That would be nice.’
‘Or dinner?’
‘Dinner would be nicer.’
‘What about Tuesday?’
‘Tuesday would be fine.’
‘Shall we meet at the St. Georges at half past eight?’
‘The St. Georges at half past eight.’
‘We might try the Lucullus.’
‘We might indeed.’
There was a pause. ‘I’ve got to be firm with myself,’ he said. ‘I mustn’t keep you from your party.’
‘Thank you—and in forty-eight hours’ time . . .’
‘In forty-six and a half. Good night.’
There was a click from the other end. He stared at the receiver. Three seconds ago it had contained that golden voice; now it was a metal instrument. He put it back. The day that changed the world. Indeed, that was what it was: the world had become a different place; America and Japan were in the war, and all over the world at this moment people were thinking in consternation, ‘How will this affect me?’
To the millions of Americans and Japanese who would be involved, whose lives would be uprooted, the tens of thousands who would lose their lives, this was a night of black calamity; and how else but with heavy hearts could the Germans and Italians learn of the acquisition of that ally and this foe? For them the end of the war was immeasurably farther off; but for the beleaguered British, standing alone, apart from their unlikely and uncertain alliance with the Russians, how could they not welcome today’s news gleefully? The war had become infinitely complicated. Territories that had thought of themselves as safe, were now in peril. Australia and Malaya were in the front line. The war’s worst fighting lay ahead, but who could doubt for a second the ultimate outcome of the fighting now that America was in it, and on our side?