by Alec Waugh
Did I lay it on too thick, Reid wondered. His experiences during the last nine months, particularly during these last three weeks with their endless oratorical exaggerations, had accustomed him to the fanciest flights of hyperbole. He looked cautiously at the French captain. A smile that was like a purr hovered on his lips. Perhaps one could never lay it on too thick. Perhaps that was the mistake the English made abroad, and with foreigners. They laid it on too thin.
At any rate there was a definite atmosphere of cordiality when the conference began. Reid opened it. He addressed the Quimaquam. He spoke in French. Technically, his French was slipshod. His use of the subjunctive was mercurial and he imposed arbitrary arrangements on his syntax, but he was extremely fluent, his vocabulary was extensive and he could understand quickly-spoken French. He had an idea that the French liked his kind of language from a foreigner, and he suspected that General Spears would have been more popular with the French had he not spoken their language a great deal more correctly and with a much richer vocabulary than they did themselves. Reid spoke now with great rapidity. He explained to the Quimaquam that Major Johnson, a most distinguished British officer, had spent the greater part of his service in India, on the north-west frontier, that he had not been long enough in the Middle East to appreciate how different were the conditions here, in the centre of an older and deeper culture, to which the mingling of the minarets of Islam and the arches of ancient Rome proudly testified. He had not realized this at first; it is not easy to overcome a lifetime’s training; but the days that he had spent here, in this ancient city, in the company of the Quimaquam and of our so talented French colleague, had now convinced him of the necessity of a very different approach.
Reid turned to Johnson. ‘You will endorse that, I am very sure.’ Reid knew very well that Johnson had not been able to follow a third of what he had been saying, but from the way in which he pitched his voice, from the smile with which he spoke, Johnson had no alternative to agreeing. With the same technique on the few occasions when he did speak to Johnson in English, he was voluble, with an eating of his words, and with the use of obscure colloquialisms that made him completely incomprehensible to the French. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told Johnson. ‘We’ve got them on a sticky wicket, the ball is turning. It’ll be lifting in half an hour when the top has caked. If we keep the runs down for that half-hour we’ll have them where we want them. Play it slow.’
Both Johnson and the Frenchman thought that they had made their point, and in a sense the Frenchman had, because when the eventual conference began it was played within the immemorial traditions of the Orient. Nothing was decided, everything was postponed. Yet an atmosphere of cordiality had been created. Eventually there would be a satisfactory conclusion.
It was four o’clock before the meeting was dissolved. They had had nothing to eat, although cups of coffee had been proffered frequently.
‘And now, said the Quimaquam, ‘it will be my privilege and honour to invite you to join me in my humble meal.’
The meal, Reid knew well, would be anything but humble. He also knew that no preparations for it had been set in motion. He looked interrogatively at Johnson. Johnson shook his head. ‘Let’s get out of this, old boy. If I don’t get a strong whisky soon I’ll be round the bend.’
At considerable length Reid explained the predicament in which he and his compatriot found themselves. Major Johnson occupied a very confidential position in the O.C.P. He was, in fact, General Spears’ special representative. General Spears was insistent that he should receive from Major Johnson tonight a report on this day’s conference. General Spears recognized the importance of this meeting. He insisted that the report should be made to him on a direct confidential line; the nearest such line was in Damascus. The legation office closed at eight o clock. Major Johnson must, therefore, return to Damascus right away. ‘And I myself, alas, have to accompany him, because the Director-General wishes us to discuss with him the outcome of this conference. He will be delighted to learn how harmoniously our deliberations have proceeded. I hope, however, that His Excellency will at a later date offer me an opportunity of accepting the hospitality of his house.’
He stressed the need for hurry. Yet it was a full half-hour before the car door was closed. ‘Did I hear you saying that you had to come back to Damascus? Wasn’t that your alibi? Well, why don’t you? And let’s give ourselves a decent dinner. It’s a long time since I’ve had a chance to reminisce.’
* * *
The dining-room of the Omayyed was almost empty. It was late, but here there was no problem about early closing hours. ‘Let’s go into the bar,’ said Johnson.
He looked tired, and drained, and old. Reid found it difficult to remember that they were contemporaries. He had finished his first whisky, while Reid’s glass was three-quarters full.
‘Don’t wait for me,’ he said. ‘I’ll catch up with you on the wine.’
‘Wine. That’s something I’ve never understood. Too much time east of Suez. Stengahs and Gin Pahits. Ah, those long evenings before dinner; with the fans whirring, and the shouts of “Boy!” That was the life.’ By the time he had finished his second whisky, Reid’s glass was still not empty. Johnson looked younger now, refreshed, and his voice had assumed a mock self-pitying tone, as though he were laughing at himself. ‘You know, old boy, I didn’t understand a great deal of what was going on today.’
‘I didn’t think you did.’
‘Did it matter?’
‘Not in the least. They’re in the right humour now. You’ll get your wheat all right.’
‘Why couldn’t I have understood that, at the start?’
‘Why should you have? It’s not the kind of thing you were trained for.’
‘I feel awfully out of my depth at times.’
‘Don’t we all.’
‘You don’t seem to.’
‘That’s all you know.’
‘Ah, but it is different for you, Prof. You are used to listening to people. I’m not. I give orders or am given them. Half the time I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m here. The O.C.P., Office des Céréales Panifiables, indeed; if they were told that in “the Rag” how they would laugh. Oh, well, I’ll have one more whisky. You can take nearly all the wine.’
The dining-room was completely empty, by the time they reached it. There was a long five-course dinner; Johnson wrinkled his nose. ‘Now that I’ve got to the point, I’m not really hungry. A steak’ll do for me. What about you, Prof.?’
‘A steak’ll be fine for me.’
‘And about that wine. You get yourself half a bottle. I’ll stick to whisky. Grain and grape. Choose a decent wine. This is on me. You got me out of a scrape today.’
He returned to the incident before the meal was over. ‘I suppose I made an ass of myself,’ he said, ‘but damn it all, those Froggies get my goat. We’re fighting this war for their sake as much as for our own. But I wonder half the time how much they’re really in it. That Frenchman this morning doesn’t care half as much about beating the Germans as about keeping on the right side of these Syrians so that this area can remain a French sphere of influence when the war is over.’
‘Can you blame him? He’s given seven years to getting to know these people, and how to handle them, in France’s interest.’
‘But Syria is now an Independent Republic.’
‘Nominally, on paper, but don’t you remember that First War phrase about “a scrap of paper”? Nobody knows what the post-war world’s going to be like. That Frenchman’s trying to carry on the traditions that he’s been raised in.’
‘He ought to have one idea in his head: the quickest way to beat the Huns.’
‘Try to look at it from his point of view. Suppose . . .’ Reid paused, searching for a parallel situation. ‘This isn’t an exact parallel but it’ll do,’ he said. ‘Suppose the position was reversed; suppose England had been invaded first, and overrun, with France still in the war; suppose the Germans had established a pu
ppet government in London, with Mosley as Prime Minister; suppose the King had felt it his duty to his people to stay in England as a constitutional monarch. He might have thought that; but suppose Winston had gone to Ottawa and announced that Britain would go on fighting, with her allies, her Dominions, and her colonies. He would announce that the King was a prisoner and it was the duty of a loyal subject to see that he was freed. It isn’t a fair parallel, but let it pass. Now suppose that some colonies join the Free British movement and some don’t. Some colonies think that their first duty is to the constitution. After all, the Vichy Government is a legal one. Now suppose that you are a district officer in Malaya, and that Malaya has not rallied to the Free British Movement. You take your orders from Whitehall and you continue to administer your district in terms of Malaya’s welfare and Britain’s interests. Your life in 1941 wouldn’t be very different from what it had been in 1938, like that French officer’s today.
‘Then one bright morning Winston’s Free Britons and the French decide that they cannot afford to have Malaya providing all this rubber for Whitehall, half of which goes to Germany. So they decide to liberate Malaya; and a group of Free Britons from Australia with a much larger French Force from Indo-China launch a campaign to win it, take over the country and establish an allied condominium in Singapore. You find yourself in exactly the same place, doing the same work, only your orders are coming from a source that is partially French. You wonder whether it is entirely French, since France is supplying the Free British Movement with funds and weapons. Don’t you think you would be suspicious of the French at times, asking yourself whether the French, at the back of their minds, might not be toying with the idea of taking over Malaya and, in the Peace Treaty, incorporating it with their Far Eastern Empire, Cambodia and Indo-China? Don’t you think you might feel it was your duty to resist French influence, to remind the Sultan of how much he owed to Britain? I think you would, you know, or at least I think you might. We aren’t fair to the Vichy French. They feel that their duty is to Metropolitan France, to the people they grew up among. I’m very glad that I wasn’t a Frenchman of forty-two in the summer of 1940. I don’t know what I would have done. There’s another thing, too; now that we’ve got Russia and America on our side we know that we can’t lose. Two years ago could you really visualize the conditions under which we could win?’
‘I never thought about it. I simply thought: here we are and here we stand.’
‘But then we’re not logical and the French are.’
‘Prof., you’re a damned good professor.’
They moved into the main coffee lounge. Only four tables were occupied, one of them by a group of Arabs who sat over their cups of coffee, pulling at their beads, talking, talking, talking. ‘I’m going to have a whisky,’ Johnson said. ‘What about you?’ Reid shook his head. ‘I don’t often drink after dinner. I’ve done very well.’
Reid had lost count of Johnson’s whiskies. They were very small, and Johnson was completely sober. At the same time, whiskies were expensive in hotels. Usually officers only drank it in clubs, or out of the ration allowances that they drew from N.A.A.F.I He was surprised at Johnson’s extravagance. This was an occasion, he supposed, but even so—
A boy was walking from the reception-desk intoning a name.
‘That sounds like you,’ Reid said.
Johnson started forward. ‘Yes. Who—what was that?’
‘Major Joneswan. Major Joneswan.’
‘That must be.’
Reid stretched back in his chair, his mind abrood. It was the first time that he had been here since that visit with Diana all those weeks ago. He had lived in the memory of this hotel so often. It looked exactly as it had on that first afternoon. I shall remember this room as long as I live, he thought.
Johnson returned with a worried look upon his face. ‘The Spears Mission duty officer,’ he said. ‘They want me in there tomorrow, by six o’clock. I wonder why. I hope to God I haven’t put up a black. Six o’clock is an inconvenient time. I shall have to stay the night. Leave here after lunch; that means missing my siesta. I’m no real good if I’ve missed that; and I may need to be good.’
‘Why don’t you go in the morning?’
‘I could, of course; but no, that really would be awkward. There are things I have to do here first. Besides, they want some papers in Beirut that’ll need sorting out. It must be after lunch, but. . .’ He paused, frowning, then suddenly his face brightened. ‘Look, I’ve an idea. Why don’t you come in with me? You could take the wheel while I have a kip and vice versa. What’s wrong with that?’
What indeed was wrong with that? A night in Beirut, then come back next morning; either with Johnson or with public transport. He’d only miss one whole day. There were things that he could find to do tomorrow. And he needed to keep in touch with the office. He needed to know how all those irons were heating in those fires. And, anyhow, what was one day off duty? He was too conscientious. Hadn’t Diana told him that? He wouldn’t be missed here for a day. A night in Beirut. He saw himself walking into the office at six o’clock, saw the look of delighted surprise on Diana’s face; heard her exclaim, ‘Why, Noel,’ saw himself perched on the edge of her desk, his leg swinging free, laughing down at her. ‘I couldn’t stay away too long. I was getting impatient. You know how it is when you’re reading a daily serial and miss two instalments.’
‘But have you left that wheat job?’
‘Heavens, no. I’m only down here for the day.’
‘For the day?’
‘Till tomorrow morning, that’s to say.’
‘Oh, till tomorrow morning.’
‘Just time to catch up on the files.’
‘I see, to catch up on the files.’
‘Those two instalments.’
‘Exactly, those two instalments.’
Her eyes would be twinkling. He knew her so well that he could foretell almost to a sentence, almost to an intonation of the voice, how the talk would go. Yet somewhere there would be a difference; a subtle undertone. She had read his letters. They were moving on a different level. But when he would ask her casually, ‘I suppose you’re not by any lucky chance free tonight?’ she would answer, just as casually, ‘I can make myself.’
‘At Sa’ad’s then, at half past eight.’
‘At Sa’ad’s.’
And he would swing himself off the desk, and wave his hand and as he walked down the passage to Farrar’s room his heart would be thudding fiercely. Soon, very soon, he would be thinking. . . .
‘I’d be enormously grateful if you could,’ Johnson was continuing. ‘It seems silly of me; but I am a little anxious about the whole concern. I do need that little spot of shut-eye. If you’d like me to ask the D.G.—’
‘Don’t worry. I can make it.’
Next morning the heat was tempered by a breeze blowing off the hills. Reid sauntered through the souks looking for a piece of brocade, remembering how he and Diana had walked here on that fateful day.
They left shortly after lunch. The long valley of the Bekaa dazzled him; he had forgotten that such a colour as green existed. Soon, very soon, he thought. He had not rung the office to warn them that he was on his way. He wanted the surprise to be complete. He would have no difficulty in getting a room at the St. Georges at this time of year. Perhaps Jane would be away. But anyhow, there were no problems there, not in Beirut, in wartime. Johnson drove for a quarter of an hour; then handed over the wheel. ‘Just forty winks,’ he said. He was asleep within two minutes. A minute later he was snoring. He looked old and helpless, unable to keep up with changed conditions. He ought to have been holding some staff sinecure in a garrison town. A camp commandant perhaps; somewhere along the line, he had missed his chance and now it was too late.
Johnson had said, ‘Forty winks,’ but it was more likely to be a ninety minute stupor from which he would wake querulous and heavy-lidded. Reid did not disturb him. He was happy with his own thoughts. Soon, very soon. The sun lowered
in the sky. Five o’clock. He pictured Diana arriving at her desk, unlocking her cabinets, setting her desk in order. It was for her a routine afternoon like any other. How little she knew. There was a mist over the sea. Cyprus was invisible. He had been told that Flecker’s reference to the ‘hidden sun that rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire’ was a factual description, that the long spur of land north of Famagusta was ringed by fire at sunset. He had never seen it. He would not tonight.
Beirut was only a mile or two away. The roofs and towns of the city stretched below him. By an optical illusion the long promontory of sand beyond gave the impression of an incline rising to a peak. It was time to wake up Johnson. He nudged him. ‘It won’t be long now,’ he said. Soon, very soon, he thought.
He left his bag with the hall porter at the St. Georges. ‘I’ll let you know in the next hour if I’ll need a room,’ he said. He walked slowly up the short hill leading to the Rue Georges Picot. Outside the Mission building was the usual bustle of cars, military and civilian. ‘Poor Johnson,’ he thought. ‘Good luck,’ he said.
Never had his own mind been more at peace. At that moment, he knew well, Rommel’s forces were streaming across the desert towards Alexandria. It was for Britain one of the darkest weeks since the fall of France. Yet his heart was headily exultant. Life was offering him its richest wine. At Damascus five months ago he had stumbled upon a mystery. Now he was approaching it with open eyes, knowing what lay ahead. ‘I shall remember this moment all my life,’ he thought.
Diana was on the telephone when he came into her room. She was listening; she raised her head at the sight of him; a look of blank astonishment came into her face. She stared, frowned, looked down at the file in front of her, then began to talk. It was a routine matter concerning the arrival of a French admiral from Alexandria. She seemed to know well and be on good terms with the man at the other end. She was laughing and there was the familiar richness in her contralto voice. Her telephone technique was in full deployment. A piece of business that she handled on the telephone always went more smoothly than one carried out by correspondence. ‘Good,’ she was saying. ‘Good. We’ll do that. You can rely on us. We’ll do our share if you do yours. Yes, I wish you were here to discuss it. But it’s nice to have heard your voice. Good luck.’