Web of Spies

by Colin Smith

  “I’ve never seen that particular document,” said Maeltzer, “but it doesn’t surprise me. They believe in attention to detail.”

  “Will you be writing an article about this business at the frontier?” De Wet asked Pickett. “Will you be telephoning the High Commissioner, asking him what the hell he thinks is going on?”

  The journalist pulled a face. “You’re talking about the nearest thing to God we’re gonna see around here this side of the Second Coming. You don’t phone the High Commissioner and ask him anything. You may contact an official at the Secretariat and, if he’s feeling well disposed, he might feed you some lies.”

  “But doesn’t he ever make the kind of public appearance where he will answer questions.”

  “You mean a press conference? That’s an American invention. The British don’t believe in explaining themselves.”

  “So he never goes out?”

  “Oh, that’s not true,” said Maeltzer. “He goes out all the time. Almost every day you’ll see a report in the Post that he has been in the Old City paying his respects to the Latin Patriarchate or down to the coast to meet the mayors of Tel Aviv and Jaffa or up in Haifa inspecting the air raid precautions. But the fanatics on both sides here want to kill him. As far as they’re concerned he’s no better than a German Gauleiter in Occupied Europe. And that makes him a remote as a Pasha. He’s very well guarded. He has to be. There have been at least two assassination attempts this year already.”

  “By the Arabs?”

  “More recently by the Jews. You will have heard of the Stern Gang?”

  “I thought the British had killed him.”

  “Yes, but like the hydra he grows more heads,” said Maeltzer with evident satisfaction. “Only the British would have the genius to fight the Nazis and, at the same time, breed Jews still willing to kill anyone wearing the King’s uniform.”

  “But they don’t have much support from their own people here do they?” said De Wet. “The Jewish Agency always seems to be condemning the Stern Gang as a bunch of out of touch fanatics.”

  “Look,” said Maeltzer. “What the Jewish Agency says and what the Jewish Agency thinks are not always the same thing. You are right. Most people don’t support terrorists. Why should they? Many have sons and husbands serving with the British forces. And yet for the majority of Jews here there is always a corner of their hearts open to those willing to risk their lives however misguided they may be. Have you heard of the Yehoshua Becker case?”

  De Wet shook his head.

  “The Stern gang is short of funds. They rob the British and those they deem to be their collaborators. In Tel Aviv six months ago Becker and two others coshed a cashier from a Jewish co-operative society with a thousand pounds in his brief case he had just drawn from the Hapoelim Bank in Montefiore Street and ran off with the money. They couldn’t have hit him very hard because he started running after them and shouting ‘Stop Thief’. The one with the briefcase got away. Police and a posse of outraged citizenry, all Jews, cornered Becker and the other one. They drew their guns. One fired a few shots in the air then decided the game was up and surrendered. But Becker did not fire in the air and by the time he had run out of ammunition and the police were trying to save him from the mob he had killed two young Jewish men who got too close.

  “At first the Hebrew press was equally outraged. Becker was a murderous thug, the lowest of the low, deserved the full penalty of the law etcetera. In March he lost his appeal and a date was set for his execution. But slowly a change came over our public prints. Their editorials began to take the line that it had all been a dreadful accident. Becker hadn’t intended to kill anyone and, however misguided, it wasn’t as if he was taking the money for himself. Weren’t enough Jews being killed and mistreated in this world? Should another be hanged in the land of Israel itself? Even the families of the young men he had killed were not asking for his death. On the contrary, the parents of one of them had pointed out that killing another Jewish boy wouldn’t bring back their son. Throughout the Yishuv support was growing to save Becker from the gallows.

  “Thousands of people signed a petition pleading for his life and this was duly delivered to the High Commissioner. Not that this would have made the slightest impression, how could it when the British had hanged so many Arabs? But by now the Jewish Agency was involved. They sent someone down the Nablus Road to have a word with the US Consul and before long powerful voices in Washington were urging that this was no time to hang a nice Jewish boy even if he had killed some other nice Jewish boys. The police here were furious. People like Morton, the man who shot Abraham Stern after he had arrested him, said that if Becker got off it would make a mockery of the Mandate. The boy had received a fair trial and judgs had listened patiently to his appeal and now His Majesty had supplied him with the fine red suit they give the condemned here, he had been weighed and the hangman was making his calculations and trying to work out how much rope they should give him to break his neck whilst avoiding actual decapitation.”

  Maeltzer paused to sip his arak.

  “And what happened?” asked De Wet.

  “He was reprieved of course,” answered an American voice above them.

  They all looked up and there was Malley standing next to a tall young woman with striking copper coloured, shoulder length hair and a large, generous mouth that had the beginnings of a smile puckering the corners. There was still a hint of freckles about the bridge of her nose and cheekbones. Her skin was as pale as Malley’s and Pickett thought surely she would have green eyes and a brogue but it turned out she had neither. She was wearing a hip hugging grey skirt and a red and black polka dot blouse with short, puffy sleeves and the top three buttons undone. “This is my friend Miss Hallowes. Jessica Hallowes,” said Malley and they all got up to introduce themselves and then Pickett and De Wet rounded up some more chairs so that the newcomers could sit down.

  Jessica ordered a Gin and It and did not demur when Malley instructed the waiter to go easy on the vermouth. “We’ve celebrating her promotion,” he explained.

  “Not really,” said Jessica, screwing a cork-tipped cigarette into a tortoise shell holder. “It’s just a transfer.”

  “There’s no need to be so modest, you’re among friends,” said Malley. “She’s moving from army headquarters to the Secretariat at the Big Dave. She’ll be working for Sir Harry himself and if that’s not promotion I don’t know what is. Modesty is the curse of the English, a race with much to be proud of as any Irishman will tell you.”

  “You’re going to be the High Commissioner’s secretary?” said De Wet in an admiring tone.

  “Only one of them,” she said, accepting the light he offered her with a dip of her head. “It’s more of a transfer really. Same place, same hours. I move from army headquarters in the King David to the Government Secretariat in the south wing.”

  “She’s going to be his social secretary,” said Malley.

  “That means I type his daily appointments list.”

  “Well it’s important,” insisted Malley. “Somebody’s got to keep the guy on the rails. You’ll know his every movement.”

  “I hope not every,” Jessica giggled.

  Pickett, who had spent the second year of the war in London, took a good look at Malley’s English rose and knew instantly what he was looking at. What had Malley said earlier? “Lost her thorns.” Her polka dots were parted to reveal an enticing amount of cleavage. “Where a man might base his head,” he thought. The American had a weakness for Browning.

  Then he noticed Jessica was staring back at him or rather at his shoulder flashes. “You’re a war correspondent?”

  “When I’m at the war,” Pickett told her. “Otherwise I’m just a correspondent. At the moment I’m the Palestine correspondent.”

  “Perhaps you could get him an interview with the High Commissioner?” suggested De Wet. “He needs to ask him some questions about British immigration policy.”

  “Sorry, I think
that’s the press officer’s department,” smiled Jessica just as the band came back on and, without more ado, Mitzi started singing The way you look tonight, an up tempo version delivered with the foxtrot in mind.

  “Ooh,” said Jessica and started swaying gently in her chair to the music. At first Malley affected not to notice but after a few more bars he got up and said, “Let’s dance.”

  She got to her feet and allowed him to propel her towards the little dance floor where the crush was such that the hobbled fox-trotters were simply clinging onto each other and swaying this way and that with varying emphasis on pelvic proximity.

  In Malley’s case Pickett could not recall the last time he saw anyone so blatantly living up to the charge that a dancer might be defined as a vertical person who wished to be horizontal. He clung to Jessica like a drowning man, one hand sometimes sliding towards her neat little ass, the other landed proprietorially around her right shoulder. But Jessica had drunk nowhere near as much as her partner and was attempting to dance, something Pickett guessed she might be quite good at. And as she trotted her fox she somehow managed to maintain a sliver of daylight between them, caressing Malley’s more adventurous hand until she had located a stray digit and begun to bend it in a direction nature hadn’t intended. While all this was going on she fixed Malley with a radiant smile. It was an impressive performance and Pickett noticed De Wet was as appreciative as he was.

  Mitzi’s next number was Smoke gets in your eyes. A few couples lingered on the dance floor and started to smooch to it but Jessica led Malley firmly back to the table where he slumped back into his chair. “My partner carn shtand the heat sho we gorouta the kishen,” he said.

  “Yeah. It looked like things were getting hot out there,” said Pickett with mounting apprehension. Malley had gotten to his difficult stage. No doubt about it.

  “Very sticky,” agreed De Wet who smiled at Jessica who smiled back.

  Maeltzer said it was getting late and he didn’t want to risk disturbing the friend he was staying with, who was working an early shift on his Hebrew newspaper, by coming through his front door after his bed time. Besides, he was too old for these late nights so, if they would excuse him, he would be off.

  Pickett arranged to see Maeltzer for a coffee at the King David in the morning prior to his stringer’s departure to Haifa by train. Before he left Maeltzer, who had begun to feel very Mittel European after Mitzi’s German numbers (though this wasn’t really his background) seized Jessica’s hand and momentarily brushed the back of it with his lips. “Good night young lady,” he said. “It has been a pleasure meeting you. You dance beautifully but I hope these gentlemen don’t keep you up too late.”

  Jessica simpered but Malley glowered at Maeltzer’s departing back. On his way out Maeltzer paused to say goodbye to Mitzi who had finished her song and was about to sit down with the Palestine policemen for the band was going into a medley of instrumental numbers. “You were very good,” he told her, rather taken with his new role of gallant old charmer. “It was even better than the song about the rabbit running. You should turn professional.”

  “When Hollywood calls I won’t hesitate,” said Mitzi who was trying hard not to show how utterly astonished she was to find Maeltzer in the Europa in the first place. “You should stay, I’m going to sing more Dietrich before we finish tonight.”

  But Maeltzer insisted that her talent had already kept him up long past his bedtime and he was leaving for Haifa early in the morning. Before he left Mitzi introduced him to Walter Calderwell, who was one of the policemen present. They shook hands and Calderwell said he must be tired after such a gruelling journey which Maeltzer supposed was as an oblique reference to the incident with the bloody minded policeman at the Rafah crossing point. This was not the case. Calderwell was merely relieved to see that at least one of Mitzi’s Cairo colleagues looked old enough to be his own father let alone hers.

  Shortly after Maeltzer’s departure the band, who were nothing if not versatile, started to play a waltz, the bass player having abandoned his premiere instrument for a violin. Malley had gone to the lavatory, lurching between the tables in a manner that Pickett considered ominous.

  “I think he will be sleeping well tonight,” De Wet said.

  Jessica laughed. “Poor Michael. Perhaps he’s had a hard day.”

  “He’s certainly having a hard night,” said Pickett.

  Jessica was humming away to the music. “They’re pretty good aren’t they?” she said nodding towards the band. “I mean, a real waltz.”

  “Would you like to dance?” inquired De Wet suddenly. He was already on his feet.

  “No thanks,” said Jessica at first, glancing in the direction Malley had disappeared. Then, “Oh why not!”

  As he got up to let them pass, it occurred to Pickett that there could be a very good reason why not.

  There were only three other couples on the floor which, by Europa standards, left enough space for a chorus line. At first Pickett thought De Wet looked a bit insipid, holding Jessica as if she was a piece of Dresden china. Then something happened. It was as if he had pressed a button. One moment he appeared shy and hesitant; the next they were twirling about as if they had been practising together since childhood. Jessica was good because De Wet was better and easy to follow. The only other man who had ever come close to being as good as this on a dance floor was her father.

  “Well, will you look at that,” said Malley collapsing back into his chair. “It’s Fred and Ginger. Fughin’ Fred and Gorgeous Fughin Ginger.”

  “Your girl likes to dance,” observed Pickett. This was a bit like saying birds like to fly for Jessica was gliding about the floor looking as radiant as a bride and yes, in that light she could almost have been Ginger Rogers to his Fred Astaire. Malley grunted and called a waiter over for a refill. Pickett declined.

  Then the waltz music stopped and Marlene Dietrich returned. All Mitzi lacked was the height and the cheekbones. But she had worked on the voice and it was near enough for that time of the evening when even those who had tried to drink cautiously, De Wet for instance, were willing to be transported by a song. And Mitzi chose well. She sang, “Give me the man” from Morocco, one of the early films. “Give me the man for dancing.... I love the man who takes me into his hands and gets what he demands...”

  And so they danced, slightly closer now, while Malley seethed.

  Perhaps De Wet realised they might have been overdoing it for he broke it off a little before Mitzi had finished her song and escorted Jessica, looking a bit crestfallen the way Pickett remembered it, back to the table. By then he was at least a dance too late as far as Malley was concerned. The photographer did not wait for them to sit down. “While you were at it Captain De Wet,” - he pronounced it in the water sense - “did you tell her how you waltzed your way out of fughin Tobruk?”

  For a moment Pickett thought the South African had not understood him. Then he smiled at Jessica and said, “I thought the Australians did the waltzing. Isn’t there somebody called Matilda?”

  “As far as I can see the Australians also do the fighting,” said Malley who was beginning to sober up.

  “I think we’d better go,” said Jessica, leaning across the table to pick up her evening bag. The “we” was ambiguous. With Malley? With De Wet?

  In any case, Malley ignored her. “It’s a pity they didn’t teach you to fight as well as you dance,” he said. “Maybe if the Diggers were still there we’d still have Tobruk.”

  “I think the circumstances may have changed,” said De Wet quietly. He gave Pickett an imploring look.

  “Aw c’mon Michael Joseph,” said Pickett. “Give the man a break. He wasn’t even at Tobruk. He’s only just come out of hospital. He’s convalescing. He’s had jaundice.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Malley who at moments like this tended to imitate those hard waterfront men he had always been so terrified of as a youth. “Turn yeller didya Mister Wet?”

  “I think the lady’s
right,” said De Wet. “Time to go.” He turned to Jessica. “Good night, I’m sorry if -”

  At which point Jessica screamed because Malley had just aimed a haymaker at the side of the De Wet’s jaw. Had it landed the punch would have undoubtedly loosened a few teeth but De Wet had youthful reactions and pulled his head back in time.

  What happened next Pickett was never quite sure about. Afterwards, it occurred to him that it had been a bit like seeing a fish jump: had you imagined it?

  Certainly, Malley never saw it. One moment De Wet was ducking back, the next he appeared to be pummelling Malley’s face with a series of wickedly fast jabs - Pickett thought he saw at least one left hook followed by a straight right. And then Malley, already unsteady on his feet, fell backwards against the table and there was the sound of breaking glass as the drinks went flying. De Wet closed on him. There were some more punches and grunts and the next thing Pickett knew Malley was no longer sprawled across the table but kneeling by it with De Wet crouched over him twisting his right arm up his back the way policemen are taught to control a man. He saw the look of triumph on De Wet’s face, teeth slightly bared, jaw jutting forward. Pickett was suddenly aware the band had stopped playing. He went over to help Malley who De Wet had released and was waddling about on his knees, trying to get to his feet. He reminded Picket of a bird with a broken wing.

  “What do you lot think you’re up to then?” It was Calderwell, enraged that anyone could be so uncouth as to start a brawl while Mitzi was singing. Immediately behind him were two of the police friends he had been drinking with and bringing up the rear, equally flushed and indignant, Fritz, a Berlin Jew who was one of the assistant managers. Fritz, who walked with a slight limp acquired serving the Kaiser, made it his business to be well acquainted with the CID. “Shall I call the military police Mister Calderwell?” he asked, noticing De Wet’s uniform.

  “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” said De Wet whose shirtfront was liberally splashed with blood from Malley’s nose and mouth.