Doom's Caravan

by Geoffrey Household

  ‘How do you earn your living?’

  ‘Money-changer in Damascus.’

  ‘Capital?’

  ‘I had about fifty quid left. That’s quite a lot for a money-changer in a back street. One only needs a table and chair.’

  ‘And the Ronson-Bolbecs?’

  ‘I knew they were here. That woman telephoned me when they arrived at Haifa and saved herself a taxi on to Beirut. I drove them up, made them comfortable in a cheap hotel and found d’Aulnoy for them. I knew nothing about the swine then, God help me!’

  I let that pass as natural disgust with a very able Frenchman, obstinately on the wrong side, and continued trying to make sense out of his position.

  ‘You come over from Damascus on foot?’

  ‘Bus and foot. Every fortnight. I didn’t know exactly where d’Aulnoy’s place was and had to explore. That’s how I found the hard track.’

  ‘And told Valerie you were working under cover?’

  ‘Yes. There I was, brave, alone, in need. It did the trick. After four years just living for her, and I win on a lie! I’m utterly ashamed of that, too.’

  He had a type of mouth which always appeals to me: wide with fairly full lips which set in a firm, straight line when at rest, but were vulnerable at the corners. Those corners now were sensitive and just perceptibly quivering, like the leech of a sail when you hold a boat too close-hauled and gamble that you won’t have to go about. Remember that he was only in his middle twenties! His impudent daring and his conscience both belonged to youth. I shouldn’t have pitied him so deeply if he had been my own age.

  ‘It’s so unfair to her,’ he went on. ‘I only wanted to see that she was all right. That woman staked all she had on entertaining. Kept a bloody salon on nothing a year! I used to help them a bit out of my pay.’

  ‘Twenty pounds from time to time.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You’ve just told me. Hasn’t she any pride?’

  ‘Not of that sort.’

  ‘Would she take money from a gang of drug smugglers?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Or from enemy agents?’

  ‘Never! It’s unthinkable. Everyone will tell you that.’

  ‘They have. At length.’

  ‘What will happen to me?’ he asked—I think with Valerie’s future in mind more than his own.

  ‘Well, if I were on the court martial it would be psychiatric treatment for the rest of the war. But one never knows.’

  ‘Could you fix it so that I surrender to Jeremy?’

  ‘No. You must go through the usual channels.’

  ‘Very military!’

  ‘Routine is the price of freedom, Oliver—which has never occurred to you.’

  ‘Well, get on with it! I might try to escape. Draw your gun!’

  ‘You can’t possibly reach your own under that kaftan. I am wondering how I know who you are. You’re just another wog.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t use that word.’

  ‘Just another wog would be an acceptable excuse, Oliver, if some fool ever asks me why I did not recognise you.’

  ‘You can’t do that. I won’t allow it.’

  ‘I need a reliable Arab agent urgently. But in my humble position I am not allowed one.’

  ‘I will not spy on Valerie’s mother.’

  ‘Given her your word of honour too?’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Well, put it this way! You are trying to keep the pair of them out of trouble and at the same time working for me. As a money-changer who are you?’

  ‘Just Youssef Mokaddem, born in Iraq. It’s not an uncommon name.’

  ‘Could you go back to being the dead Youssef Mokaddem?’

  ‘Easily. My sheikh will vouch for me if he has to, and Rashid Ali’s letter will stand up. I studied his style and writing very carefully. But if I meet anyone in Damascus who knew him well I shall have to disappear quick.’

  ‘How can we see each other? I’m not used to handling agents of your calibre.’

  ‘I’ll fix that.’

  There was just time to tell him the points of special interest to me: I wanted to know whether Khalid and the rider of the roan were working for the enemy or themselves. I needed more information on the identity and political sympathies of visitors to the valley who were not known locally, such as Yellow Socks and the fat Iraqi. Lastly a big question mark over Ahmed, which he approved.

  ‘One has to remember that French Security continually makes the same mistake,’ he said. ‘Arabs and especially North Africans give stubborn love and loyalty to a man. But when the man goes it doesn’t follow that they will give the same loyalty to a government.’

  It was now nearly one-thirty. I told him to wait where he was until my men came in and we had gone. His way back to the Hermel track was much as I suspected—along the ridge, across the end of the valley and then up the rocks to the point where Limpsfield and I had seen him. He had the luck of the devil. If he had come to meet Valerie half an hour later than he did, Wilson and Flowers would have bagged him.

  Field Security recovered their motorcycles at the ford, roared through Sir and went home to the billet, having had a romantic night in the hills with no apparent result. When at last I was alone in my room and had time to take a look at myself, I began to realise what I had tied round my neck. I had at least the excuse that it was not our duty to arrest deserters whom we might find useful where they were. I had emphasised this in lectures to the troops as an example of the difference between ourselves and the Military Police. All the same my action was nothing but an irresponsible impulse. What might pass with some obscure, half-crazy private was unthinkable in dealing with a trusted security officer. I was as unmilitary as Oliver.

  Or was I? His utter folly was to sacrifice everything for honour, and nothing could be more military than that. The word, I have been told, is obsolete. Honour between man and man? Just homosexualism. Between man and woman? Outdated. In business? An absurd convention. And yet, you know, the conception is still around among youth, though I am not sure of their name for it. What they dislike is the idea of a binding contract with society; the spoken contract between one individual and another is perfectly familiar to them. And I shall go on calling the force behind it Honour. Probably those half-educated sociologists have some vast jargon term ending in -ism, but two stern syllables which go back to the Roman Republic are good enough for you and me.

  It was unwise to tell the Headman of Sir that my four men and I were on our way to dine with the Ronson-Bolbecs. But think of a better excuse if you can. I had to tell him something. What I had not reckoned with was Ahmed, who of course heard of the mysterious operation and knew very well that we had never come down to the valley at all. He took the trouble to find out what in fact we had been doing and discovered that the five motorcycles had climbed up as far as the ford but could not trace where we had then gone on foot.

  So on his next visit to Tripoli he made a show of being distrusted by the British who were spying on him in spite of his loyal service to the French and the two ladies. Magnat came round to see me and asked if I would kindly let him know why Field Security conducted police operations which were the sole responsibility of the French.

  I replied that I was on private business and that I had taken four of my men as far as the ford as a bodyguard.

  ‘You do not believe then that the Lebanon is at peace?’

  ‘Mon ami, since a little child I have been afraid of the dark.’

  ‘You are continuing your folly of considering these abominable Ronson-Bolbecs as spies for the Boches?’

  ‘My interests are not wholly confined to Security.’

  ‘The little Valerie or her mother?’

  ‘A study of the superb literature of France has taught me that one should always begin
with the mother.’

  ‘But I hear that lunch at El Mina was profitable.’

  ‘It is true that she entered the restaurant sad and came out smiling. But I suggest that your agents should not waste your time by presenting town gossip as exclusive news.’

  A gallant officer really could not continue such very personal questions, however sure that the perfide Albion was at it again. So he asked me to tell him frankly if I had anything definite against Ahmed.

  ‘Nothing whatever. I give you my word that I never saw him the whole evening. Presumably he was in the house.’

  ‘It is curious that he should be so worried, and you can give no explanation.’

  ‘I should guess that he is robbing his absent master and has a guilty conscience.’

  ‘That is what he would not do—more than the ten per cent which is customary,’ Magnat answered positively. ‘He is proud of his trust.’

  About a week after this interview Boutagy, looking important and secretive, came into my office and told me that there was a chap hanging about the street—a Moslem small farmer by the look of him—who wished to speak to me in private. Boutagy instructed him to go round the corner and wait under the poplars in a dusty, open-air café. If my lordship chose to come, my lordship would.

  ‘He has a little French,’ Boutagy said, ‘so you will not need me. But I will sit at a distance.’

  His offer was not due to any fears of my safety, but to give me face. A big man did not see just anybody unattended.

  He pointed the fellow out to me and then took a chair at the other end of the garden. Arabs, Christians as well as Moslems, can do with such dignity absolutely nothing.

  The stranger was so nondescript and typical a villager that I doubted if I should ever recognise him again. He wasted no time. Cutting his greetings down to French standard, he said he had a message for me. A lady whom I knew well wished to meet me at five o’clock the following evening. She and her mother were going to ride from Sir to Ehden. She would arrange to be alone at the second bend of the path which led up from Ehden to the place where soldiers were building a fort.

  I asked him where he came from. The valley of M. d’Aulnoy, he said. So I thanked him and gave him some money over his conventional refusal to take it.

  If Valerie had been showing an interest in me, as common gossip assumed, the story would have been fairly convincing. Since she seldom left the valley I should have wondered how she knew of this mountain path and perhaps assumed that in early days the Ronson-Bolbecs had been invited to a meal by one of the officers at the defence works. As it was, the sender had to be Oliver Enwin. I was impressed by the cunning with which he had covered his tracks; these A.D.S.O.’s, I thought, really know their stuff. His choice was excellent for a quiet and uninterrupted meeting, with a floor of soft pine needles under the trees.

  I knew the place well. The Australians had started work on a defensive box—a complicated hedgehog which had got little further than the foundations. There was now a detachment of British sappers on top of the hill, too small to complete the work but large enough to give an impression of industry. Two roads led up to their camp, one a raw, rough route for army trucks, the other a wide forest path now deserted but much used in summer when the wealthy Lebanese Maronites came up to their mountain villas at Ehden.

  I always liked to have a good reason for being where duty hadn’t taken me, so I started up the hill at four and dropped in to see the captain in charge of the two platoons of sappers. I found him cursing the ignorance of Ninth Army staff which had set them to work without sufficient men or equipment. He had no suspicion at all that he and his men were camouflage and only expected to look busy. He told me that Lieutenant Khalid had been hanging round the camp a few days earlier, as usual the best of greasy, good fellows. Khalid had offered to put on a real Lebanese dinner for him, and the captain asked me if I saw any objection. I told him of course to go ahead and enjoy himself and to be careful with the araq.

  At quarter to five I started down the forest path, perhaps taking more pleasure in my cornering than Limpsfield would have approved. I had just rounded the last of the hair-pin bends above the rendezvous when I came on Khalid riding up the right of the path and pulled up for a chat. I am not sure whether he was moving or standing still. It was all so fast. There was room for us both, and as I skidded to a stop just short of him he swung his horse off the path on the uphill side as if I had frightened it. The next thing I knew was that the hind hooves had landed on the petrol tank and steering column, just missing my leg, and the bike and I were rolling down the slope until we came up against a pine tree. I cannot have been knocked out for more than a second or two, for my next impression was of Khalid scrambling down to me carrying a considerable chunk of wood.

  In my dazed condition I remember thinking that Oliver Enwin had decided to get rid of me and used Khalid. I was resigned to my fate and I would never have remembered my .45 at all if my hip had not been bruised by it. I was lying on right hand and holster so that I could draw the revolver with a fair imitation of a dying convulsion. When Khalid lifted up his pine log and put his intention beyond doubt I let him have it. The bullet took him on the breast bone and lifted him clean up in the air. I had been told the .45 would do that, but I didn’t really believe it.

  You will remember that in base areas the only casualties we ever had were due to motorcycle accidents. Every section had a man in hospital two or three times a year and some of them died. I won’t say that Arab drivers found it exciting to kill a man in uniform, but one can safely put it that they made no special effort not to knock him off his bike. So this accident was fully in keeping with army statistics; and Khalid, who had conducted the procès verbal of several similar fatalities, was well aware of it. A fine mess I was in, wide open to the accusation that in a fit of temper after a traffic accident I had murdered a respectable and friendly policeman.

  Self-defence? Well, in all my war I never heard that anybody thought a Field Security Officer important enough to assassinate him. Melodrama simply did not enter our lives, and officers who persuaded themselves that it did seldom stayed long. I had no proof of any kind for the court martial. Neither Boutagy nor Limpsfield knew what message I had received, though I am sure they would have perjured themselves in my favour. Even so, if asked whether I thought it likely that this restricted sweetie would be riding above Ehden with slap and tickle in her innocent mind, I could only reply that I thought the message was from Enwin and make matters worse.

  Yes, the prosecutor would be on velvet. Why should Lieutenant Khalid want to kill you? He was put up to it by Enwin who may or may not be a money-changer in Damascus and knew I had recognised him. Why didn’t you arrest him? Well…er…Where did you meet him? Mucking around the Ronson-Bolbecs. Cheers from Brigadier Paunce. You ran into this unfortunate officer going round a corner too fast in the dusk? I stopped in time and he made his horse kick me. And then the horse drew your gun with its teeth, I suppose?

  How comforting to be in the Gestapo and able to shoot civilians without being tried for it!

  When I had disentangled myself and discovered that everything was sore but nothing broken, I reconsidered my hazy accusation of Oliver. I could not accept it. He was the last person on earth to kill anyone for his personal advantage. In that case the message purporting to be from Valerie was not his at all. Magnat, Khalid, Ahmed—all of them had reason to suspect that I was after Valerie, and in the Levant to suspect is, ten minutes later, to be sure. God only knew who had plotted my removal, but his staff work, in spite of a false appreciation, was efficient.

  I had a look at Khalid. He was very dead and I hoped there could be no more blood in him. There was of course. There always is. But I had to get rid of the body. Oliver’s story of the burying of Youssef Mokaddem on the Mosul hills put that into my mind, though I had no discreet helpers and no spade or pickaxe. I dared not leave him. The smashed motorcycle
was evidence against me, let alone the bullet from my gun; and it could be in the interest of the unknown to give a hint to the Military Police. Why didn’t I cut the bullet out? What, in that mess! You would have to be a surgeon, not a poor, shaken security officer trembling with undeserved remorse at taking a hitherto friendly life.

  I reckoned that nobody official would have been told where Khalid was. If all had gone well and I had been lying with a smashed liver and the bike half on top of me, he could confidently report the accident with tears running down his moustache; but if something unforeseen were to happen, he would not wish his presence on the spot to be known. So it was unlikely that there would be any immediate search for him in the right place.

  Meanwhile at least I had his horse to carry the body, but where? Up a tree for the kites? Down a hole if I could find one? Under a mound of pine needles? It was then that I had an inspiration. I understand that it is a commonplace now, but I didn’t pass on the technique. Like so many British inventors I never attempted to develop the commercial side.

  It was less than an hour since I had watched those busy sappers completing the excavation for foundations on the reverse slope of the hill and then knocking off for the day. It was a pick-and-shovel job except at one point where a massive boulder had to be removed from the line. They had blasted this out, thrown back the fragments, filled up and smoothed over ready for pouring concrete in the morning. I dared not interfere with their shallow trench, but this pit could, I hoped, be reconstructed.

  I plugged the hole in Khalid, dragged him up the slope and slung him across his horse. It ought to have run in panic from its rider’s murderer; instead, it searched my holster for sugar. An insensitive beast. Or perhaps it was trained to stand under any circumstances, as well as to the highest French standard of dressage. The manoeuvre which sent me flying was, I think, what they call a capriole.

  If I had not been desperate and too muzzy to be capable of prolonged thought, I should never have followed up my inspiration. You know how one gets away, when partly sloshed, with the most astounding follies which one would not have the guts or the luck to carry out sober. The sappers had sentries out on their tented camp, but not on the outlying bits of fortification. So far, so good. I wandered round looking for a shovel. There wasn’t one. That well disciplined unit had returned all tools to the quartermaster’s store.