Doom's Caravan

by Geoffrey Household

  I had said that it was I who was in danger. But the slip was very forgivable.

  ‘I hated her for taking this place,’ she went on. ‘She had no right to. But you ought to know. Blaise d’Aulnoy was here.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When we came back from eating curry with Johns.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw him. He was dressed as an Arab, but I never forget his face. Mummy and I went up to bed, and then I went out again. I have a way—the cedar branch close to my window. If I jump I can catch a branch. It only swings—quite silently.’

  Demanding suicidal courage the first time, I should have thought. But, as I said before, how does your cat get out?

  ‘You were meeting Oliver?’

  ‘No, only thinking about him. I like to have him alone to myself, outside. He doesn’t belong in here. And I was standing under the tree when I saw Ahmed letting in Blaise d’Aulnoy by the back door. The light was full on his face when Ahmed opened the door. How long has this been going on? I can’t bear it. How long has she…?’

  ‘Never till that night,’ I interrupted quite confidently. ‘Anyone else with them?’

  ‘No. Just d’Aulnoy and that Ahmed.’

  ‘Your mother hadn’t the least idea that he was in the valley.’

  ‘She must have done. She’s often over in the village.’

  ‘He was very carefully hidden. Ahmed brought him over here because he was afraid the mule company was going to take the village apart. D’Aulnoy risks being shot if I can lay my hands on him.’

  ‘He deserves it!’

  ‘Paris?’

  ‘Did Oliver tell you?’

  ‘No. He has never talked about you.’

  ‘Then how do you know what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know what happened. But little bits of information—one learns in my trade to put them together. Like a fortune teller. All is guesswork, and it can stay at that.’

  But she wouldn’t let it stay at that. After all, she trusted me as an older man, a close friend of Oliver and—more than she dreamed, God knows!—guardian angel to them both.

  ‘He was like an uncle. I can’t explain. It was natural for him to kiss me and put me to bed. I was so very young for my age. Oh, you won’t understand. He was so gentle and it was all a joke and like being tickled. And then I was horrified. It was revolting. All your male bodies—they made me sick ever afterwards till Oliver.’

  ‘How far was Biddy in this?’

  ‘Well, she left us alone long enough. And if she didn’t know what he was, she should have done. I never told her. I couldn’t.’

  A very ladylike description. I found it hard to put myself in her place. It might have been easier if I had been a pretty adolescent instead of a spotty little horror. She must have been as naïve a fifteen as she claimed, but also, I should say, a rather over-sensuous and mischievous little girl. However, what’s wrong with those merry qualities? One hardly expects a charming and favourite uncle to be thoroughly, quietly practised in seducing the too innocent whatever their nationality or upbringing.

  The essentials now were that d’Aulnoy should never know he had been seen and that his presence should be kept secret from Biddy. Quite apart from her inability to keep her mouth shut, it would take time to make her understand that a dear friend of her husband was working for the enemy. So I told Valerie that she had to be under orders, as my agent and Oliver’s. Would she accept that position?

  ‘Of course. What do you want me to do?’

  The calm oval of her face became more animated than I had ever seen it. In her monotonous life I think it meant a lot to her to be urgently needed by the outside world.

  ‘Don’t say a word to your mother! Think up some convincing reason why you should have been angry with her since that night! Does she really believe I am a possible husband for you?’

  ‘She wouldn’t mind. Just because she likes you.’

  ‘What did she say to Johns about me?’

  ‘Most attractive man. So unaffected. Such a devoted friend. Any woman would be lucky to get you. Blah, blah!’

  ‘Could you have thought that she was after me herself?’

  ‘She’s ten years older than you!’

  ‘What’s that among friends? A damned sight more peaceful than being married to a little squit like you!’

  ‘You are very rude. Remember I’m in love with you!’

  ‘But would she wear it?’

  ‘She might. After all it’s pretty flattering that I should think she might grab you from me.’

  ‘Well then, first order: go upstairs and throw your arms round Mummy and say you’re a silly little girl!’

  ‘Sometimes you make me sick.’

  ‘Do it out of the window and mind the cedar! Second order: give me the best description you can of Blaise d’Aulnoy!’

  ‘Grey hair, thin but very carefully groomed. Your height or a little shorter. Good figure. You’d put him at about thirty if you saw him from the back. Narrow nose. Brown eyes. Full mouth with a sort of dirty, smooth smile at the corners. Very distinguished and courteous. All these people here loved him. You might.’

  In time of peace, perhaps. But then I might have liked Goering if I had ever met him.

  ‘When is Oliver coming back?’ she begged me. ‘Tell me the truth!’

  ‘I can’t because I don’t know where he is. It might be a day or two. It might be months.’

  I felt such pity for the girl. Both sexes had to bear absence, uncertainty, misery; but at the end there would be reunion if death didn’t get there first. For her, as I saw it, there was going to be neither. A chat under the eyes of a warder, trying hard not to waste precious time in reproaches. That was all.

  I went up to say good-bye to Biddy and played the hearty. I said that Valerie—ha! ha!—had made a very natural mistake. She would explain. I’d fixed everything. Then I bolted for the faithful motor bike and home. I was far too cowardly to tackle such a delicate question myself. I knew very well that Biddy would drop a well-spaced tear or two on my shoulder. Besides that, she was in bed—always an incalculable situation in which to hand out comfort.

  The presence of d’Aulnoy made my case very nearly complete. I could never be sure that he was in the valley at any given time, but simultaneous raids on the village and on Libwe should produce a bag of some sort. Yet still I could not ask for Moustofi Khan to be arrested just because he was leading a movement for the unity and independence of the Middle East. The only person who had all the details was Oliver. I felt it might be worth while to let him know that d’Aulnoy had been in his own house, though I had learned the hard way never to bet on Oliver’s reactions.

  An impossible job, you’ll say, to find one individual Arab, now nameless, in the entire Middle East. Well, that’s what I thought too, and I wasted far too much time fluttering over the telephone and shooting off motor bikes on improbable trips. But at last common sense took over and reminded me that I knew so much about him that I could eliminate most of the gorgeous orient and set down my flying carpet in one or two very likely landing grounds. I took it as axiomatic that he was telling the truth when he said that he was bowing out and would have nothing more to do with either side.

  I could exclude, therefore, a lengthy stay in the tents of his Galilee sheikh. Anywhere else in Palestine? Far too great a risk of being recognised as Captain Enwin. He had not had time to grow a convincing beard and if he tried to buy a false one he would at once be reported as a suspicious character.

  An agricultural labourer anywhere? Well, he could be that and be lost for ever after bribing the headman of some village to supply him with identity papers. But that wasn’t Oliver. He would not be at home in the part. He was a creature of the towns and the back streets.

  Aleppo or Damascus? Too big a risk of being recognised as Youssef
Mokaddem and drawn in again. Not Baghdad or anywhere in Iraq. Too far from Valerie. Certainly not Tripoli. That left only Beirut—a sensitive spot where the Sûreté Générale, the Deuxième Bureau and I (b) in its various manifestations were always on the look-out for strangers without papers. So he would never choose it unless he could find a hole in the very efficient security of two nations. To live and to work he had to have an identity, and he couldn’t without stealing an official card and forging stamps. I could hear him describe such drastic action as clumsy.

  I thought back over all his recent history and remembered the Franciscan gown. It had not been in his office or flat; so it was quite likely to be in whatever cache he had hidden it after he finally shook off the dust of Nazareth as Youssef Mokaddem. Would he have had an identity card in the pocket—if Franciscans had pockets? But of course he would. Suppose he had been held by police while they made enquiries at his real or fictitious monastery?

  I have made it all sound easier than it was—though naturally I needed a bottle to aid imagination, half the night and a lot of paper on which to list possibilities and cross them off. As I have said, I knew his past and his insolent self-confidence so well that no Sherlock Holmes deductions in a void were necessary.

  My opposite number in Beirut was one of the best of us, on the easiest terms with his section and sharing my principle of never running to superior officers on any delicate matter which we could fix ourselves. I called him up to ask if he had any report of an unobtrusive Franciscan strolling round Beirut.

  ‘No. But there’s a chap in Tyre, if that’s any good,’ he said. ‘In view of all the troop movements on the road, my detachment there gave him a good going over.’

  ‘What’s he doing in Tyre?’

  ‘Trying to get at the true site of the conversion of St. Paul by tracing his route from Jerusalem. His community have an idée fixe that Paul went up to Damascus by the coast road. It seems to me a long way round when he could have gone by Quneitra and Deraa. But the Brother thinks he would have called on the Jewish colonies at the ports; he says they used to provide capital for the dyeing industry.’

  ‘It sounds as if you had been talking to him.’

  ‘I have. I thought I’d check up on him myself. Very interesting chap, but I wish he’d shave more often.’

  ‘Papers in order?’

  ‘Yes. Name: Brother Aloysius. Nationality: Irish. Documents: a high-class bit of bumf all over crosses, issued by his Father Superior and countersigned by the A.D.S.O. Nazareth.’

  ‘That’s the man. I’d like to talk to him, too.’

  ‘I thought your present interests were amateur dramatics.’

  ‘No longer. Ninth Army want to know how Tyre held out for thirteen years against Nebuchadnezzar.’

  ‘Try tomorrow about midday. My sergeant will line him up for you.’

  ‘Tell him not to mention to Brother Aloysius that he is expecting anyone.’

  ‘O.K. But for God’s sake don’t involve me with the Catholic Church! The Greek Orthodox is howling for my blood already.’

  No reasons demanded. No lies told. What a good club ours was in those prehistoric times!

  Next day I took the truck and drove down to Tyre. Passing slowly through the little town I couldn’t see any Franciscan; so I went on another three miles, and there they were—a Field Security sergeant and a monk examining the Phoenician cisterns at Ras el Ain. Cleverly done. No doubt the sergeant had found him thereabouts and stayed with him rather than invent some stale excuse for taking him back to Tyre.

  I jumped out of the truck, hailed him as Brother Aloysius and asked how the Father Superior was. For the first time I saw Oliver completely off balance. He was pale and I could see his legs trembling under his gown.

  He climbed into the front seat without a word, having signed a blessing to the sergeant. I don’t know enough about the ordination of Franciscans to say if he had the right to do so, but it was an impressive gesture. As one courtesy deserves another, the sergeant saluted us both—separately.

  ‘Underrating Field Security again, Oliver,’ I said.

  ‘Stop playing the fool and tell me what you’re going to do to me!’

  ‘I’m going to give you some lunch, and you can enjoy it in peace. I’m not arresting you and I’m not proposing any bargain. Word of Honour, your standard.’

  I drove him down to the old Turkish khan, where the inn buildings lined the coast road on one side, and a shaded terrace on the other. Between the two was a high wooden arch under which half the troops in the Middle East must have passed in their time but, being in convoy, could not stop. There was never anyone on the terrace except Lebanese, or occasional military travelling at their own speed who had called in for a beer and a sandwich at so inviting a spot.

  We chose some fresh fish and pigeons from the refrigerator, and as soon as he had put down a small tumbler of wine and recovered his poise I opened up. Nothing was to be gained by keeping him waiting.

  ‘I understand Valerie told you all about Blaise d’Aulnoy,’ I said.

  ‘How the hell do you know?’

  ‘A rumour confirmed at first hand and now by a reliable secondary source. Blaise d’Aulnoy is or was in the quarry room and has called at the house.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Lower your voice, Oliver!’

  A corporal of the Welch Fusiliers, thirty feet away, was shocked. He probably had a poor opinion of papists, but did expect a decent piety.

  ‘I’ll wring that bugger’s neck if I can lay my hands on him. Why haven’t you run him in?’

  ‘Magnat’s business, I think.’

  ‘It’s yours! Sitting up there, fiddling with hotel control and polishing your motorcycles! I can’t eat. Take it away!’

  I ate his fish as well as my own lest the inn-keeper and his herb-scented grill be slighted. Meanwhile Oliver was crumbling his bread and unconsciously refilling his glass. I reckoned that by the time the pigeons came up he would be eating them without noticing it.

  ‘Your accounts might be a help.’

  ‘What accounts?’

  ‘In the bag which Valerie collected.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘Those were my translations of Shakespeare’s sonnets into kasidahs. I hadn’t any other paper. Why can’t any of you people read the language of the country?’

  ‘Well, the telephone directory, then.’

  ‘Names and amounts, yes. To get the name you need three consecutive letters on a marked page. You then go over to an adjoining page and read up it till you spot the three or four figures which give the sum. Clever of you to spot that some of the smudges are artificial! But it’s difficult even for me to remember what they mean.’

  ‘Can you reproduce the list?’

  ‘I thought they were all as mad as bloody hatters,’ he said, ignoring my question.

  I pointed out that Moustofi Khan was not a man to take action without cool calculation of his chances. He could not yet bank on a Russian collapse; so the enemy must have promised closer support.

  ‘Of course they have! Rashid Ali’s revolt in Iraq was sparked off too soon. The position is far more favourable now. So far as I know, the game is to land at Tripoli and Latakia with air cover from Crete and the Dodecanese, capture Aleppo and strike the three hundred and fifty miles straight across the desert to the Kirkuk oil-fields. If its line of communications goes, the force forms a self-sufficient box in Persia until relieved from the north. Meanwhile we are desperately short of oil and Rommel closes the pincers.’

  ‘Their left flank is wide open to the Turks.’

  ‘Turkish neutrality is assured if they don’t cross the frontier. But success depends on a simultaneous rising—Syria, Iraq, the Persian tribes and the Moslems of Palestine.’

  Even if the rising was far from general, it would ensure our defeat in the Western Deser
t. I asked him why he called them mad.

  ‘Because I had no faith in Arab organisation without a European commander. And he had to be here on the spot, not pub-crawling in Rome and Berlin like Rashid Ali. No one fitted the bill. But d’Aulnoy does. He has the gift. He was trained by Lyautey in Morocco. If only I had known! Whatever that man does is evil. One hasn’t to think any more.’

  My gambling on Oliver’s character had paid off. Instead of a flower child I had a renaissance Italian on my hands. And how absurd! What earthly difference did a bit of slap and tickle four years earlier make to his relations with Valerie now? But those four wasted years, that pursuit of her to Egypt, that exasperating friendship which for so long—as far as I know—stopped short of even a kiss, the inexplicable blank wall of her emotions, all rankled and all were due to d’Aulnoy.

  I think his description of d’Aulnoy as evil had little to do with objective truth. But since he believed it, the rest followed. His sympathy for the Arab cause and his duty to his country were no longer so agonisingly balanced. Take myself as an example. Between the wars any practical move towards that Empire of Charlemagne would have had my enthusiastic support as a good European, even if it was against my country’s interests. But never, if Hitler tried to recreate it! To me he was the personification of evil. Anything he proposed was worth resisting.

  I still avoided any open assumption that Oliver was on my side. It might have annoyed him so much that he would have refused all co-operation and strolled up the valley to bump off d’Aulnoy single-handed when he couldn’t handle any fire-arm well enough to hit a haystack. So I played for time, and asked him what he was wearing under his gown.

  ‘As you saw me last.’

  ‘Where do you put your shoes and socks while you flap about in those sandals?’

  ‘Socks in my pocket. You must buy me some shoes.’

  That sounded very hopeful, as if he were ready to be used and sure that I would use him.

  ‘What were your plans?’

  ‘I hadn’t decided. Just hanging around here and in the hills until my beard grew. A Franciscan can’t go very far from the Holy Land. He stops looking a natural part of the scenery.’