Doom's Caravan

by Geoffrey Household

  ‘After the pigeon what will you have?’

  ‘Paklava and some cheese, if I may.’

  He was hungry all right. Lack of appetite is a luxury which deserters on the run simply cannot afford. Transport and respectable lodging must have left little of his various currencies.

  When I had him relaxed over coffee and brandy and even seen a smile, I risked an essential question.

  ‘Is all this really urgent, Oliver? Have you any idea when the balloon goes up?’

  ‘When we are engaged to the last battalion in Egypt and have nothing serious left up here. Withdrawal of Ninth Australian Division might do it.’

  I did not tell him that in another week not only the Australians but the New Zealand Division too, mile after mile of them, would be rumbling under the arch of the khan where we sat, bound for the Western Desert. I was not even allowed to let my section into that secret, and I was much less sure of Oliver.

  I said as casually as possible that I wondered how long I (b) would take to act on our report.

  ‘That depends on what Ninth Army thinks of our joint reputation. You have broken every rule in the book and I am a deserter.’

  ‘Somebody must understand you. I did.’

  ‘Nobody will have the chance. Here’s a world without sense or mercy or honour. I won’t give way to it. I won’t betray my brother. He could only be one of three in Galilee, and they will know at once which. I can never say why I disappeared.’

  ‘Then we must leave it out. In your experience, how long before I (b) believed us and took action?’

  ‘Weeks. Check and recheck Moustofi Khan. They won’t get much there. Check the names I give them in Syria and the Lebanon. Run in anyone who can be bribed to talk about Abdullah el Bessam. As for d’Aulnoy, Valerie’s evidence must be taken seriously, but check through the Free French underground whether he is or is not in France.’

  ‘Why not raid first?’

  ‘And miss the two top enemy agents? Blazing idiocy! They must be sure first—and that will take some doing without alarming the whole bunch—and then set the trap and then that company of infantry you’re always talking about. There isn’t time for it all. If I were d’Aulnoy, I’d give the signal as soon as Tobruk falls—your precious, prestige bastion!’

  He sat there with, for the first time, the proper calm of a Franciscan considering the likely movements of St. Paul. He was staring at the brown, dead fields, just harvested, which lay between us and the sea, and I followed his eyes. The contrast was more violent than any meeting of sky and earth, as if a painter had slashed a first streak of blue across the sepia of a preliminary sketch.

  ‘There seems no way out,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to go into the village myself.’

  ‘Don’t do anything rash!’

  ‘That’s the damn silliest remark I ever heard.’

  Well, of course it was. But in moments of intense surprise one’s remarks are seldom intelligent. I asked him if he still had his service revolver.

  ‘I threw it away months ago. What’s the good of it? Somebody else can do that bit.’

  His plan was to get a letter from his blood brother to Hadji. Armed with that and his testimonial from Rashid Ali, he would go in by the Hermel track and sit quietly in the village until somebody questioned him. After that he would play it by ear.

  ‘How could you know of the track?’ I asked.

  ‘Rashid Ali told me. If they want to confirm that, a courier will have to cross the frontier into Turkey and send a wire to Rome—which will take time. They daren’t use a transmitter yet. The risk of our people detecting it would be too great.’

  ‘Suppose you run into someone who knew the dead Mokaddem?’

  ‘He never left Iraq, and nobody in Damascus knew him by sight. The danger is Abdullah el Bessam who knew him well. But there’s another side to that. El Bessam has no doubt that his sub-agent in Damascus is the original article and would say so if asked.’

  I decided to drive him over the frontier into Palestine then and there. To give a friendly friar a lift in broad daylight could not arouse comment or curiosity.

  ‘And I will come down tomorrow with your papers and Rashid Ali’s letter.’

  ‘Bring the telephone book, too,’ he said. ‘That’s additional proof of my bona fides.’

  I drove straight through the frontier post of Ras Naqura, saluted by the Field Security corporal on duty. My conscience on such occasions always protested. The more I abused trust, the less I got used to it. Then, following Oliver’s directions, I turned east into Galilee and dropped him on the gentle slope of the Mount of the Beatitudes where a friar would find no one to question his presence so long as he kept out of sight of his brethren.

  So back the hundred and sixty miles to Tripoli, where I arrived tired and desperate and convinced that Oliver was right when he insisted that the outbreak of rebellion was only days away, and that there was no chance of I (b) acting in time on the information of a deserter and a security officer proved irresponsible. We would have had a much better chance of a hearing if he had really been a traitor whom I had caught and interrogated.

  A marvellous position I had landed myself in, one little step after another straight into the mud, and each of them inevitable! What I did now or did not do could swing the balance between disaster in the Middle East and holding on. Yet I had no allies beyond a mother and daughter who could not be trusted, a section which could not be used and an agent who might turn up any moment as a Major in the Salvation Army and tell me that at last he had seen the light.

  Well, there it was. In the morning I dealt aimlessly with routine business, resenting the waste of time, and told Limpsfield that again I was taking the truck and should be away till midnight. He asked me to let him tell the section more of what he knew, saying that they were hopelessly puzzled by my activities—my infatuation with Sir and Hermel, my faked love affair, my absences. Normally, if there were an air of excitement in the office, the men had some very general idea what it was about. Yet no secret mail or signals were going in and out, no staff cars from Ninth Army were in the yard, no long telephone conversations followed by immediate orders. I said that the section would know soon enough, and that meanwhile there should always be a sentry at the entrance to the billet.

  About five I was back at the scene of the Sermon on the Mount, waiting for Oliver and trying to find in the Beatitudes some hope for soldiers. Blessed are the peace-makers, perhaps—but only on condition that their self-sacrifice does bring peace. And when has that been more than temporary? My feeling of being unfit for Christian society—how well at that moment I understood Oliver and Nazareth!—was interrupted by his arrival. The Franciscan gown suited him. A fake for the body, but an emblem of his character.

  He took his papers, the telephone book and a pair of shoes, and told me that he had already called on his blood brother at dawn and obtained from him a letter confirming their relationship and his loyalty. That allowed us to save valuable time; if I took the road by Quneitra and Damascus I could drop him off only twenty-two miles from Hermel. He approved and at once stripped off his gown, saying that he was rested and could be on the Hermel track next morning. So again we crossed the frontier, this time not so easily. I had to whisper that the scruffy Arab alongside me was under arrest.

  It was impossible to arrange any sure method of communication, for it was certain that he could never go near the Ronson-Bolbecs and probable that if he was not executed as an impostor he would at least be under guard. Neither of us could suggest anything. When we said good-bye he gave me the address of an uncle in England, his next-of-kin; if I had the chance, perhaps I would write to him and do the best I could. Remembering Jeremy Fanshawe, I assured him that he would have been reported missing without any details.

  Chapter Four

  IBRAHIM EL AMR

  DURING THE NEXT FEW days my impatience was intol
erable. There was nothing useful I could do. I knew myself well enough to be sure that if I went up to the Ronson-Bolbecs I should not be able to resist visiting the village—a piece of utter folly which might have incalculable consequences for Oliver. Meanwhile the divisions were moving south and Ninth Army had become an empty bluff, at the mercy of the Moslem world. The staff were confident that they had little to fear, for there was no outward sign of serious unrest.

  On June 22nd we had the news of the fall of Tobruk. I went round to see Magnat—more to get his appreciation of the effect on civilian morale than anything else, but with a wild hope that I might be able to pass on some of my worries to the French. To my disgust and amazement I found him anti-me and anti-British.

  ‘Mademoiselle Ronson-Bolbec twice called on you when you were not there,’ he began.

  ‘Dear colleague, nobody regretted it more than I, but I remind you there is no telephone to the valley.’

  ‘So one would think you would arrange your appointments well in advance.’

  ‘Alas, man proposes but Ninth Army disposes.’

  ‘She remained, however, two hours.’

  ‘Poor child! And no one could tell her.’

  ‘And you are not aware that she came to see a certain Youssef Mokaddem, describing himself as a travel agent, who never registered his address with the police?’

  I have no doubt that my face went either red or white and that I looked about as guilty as any poor, wretched Arab about to be beaten up.

  ‘Have you mentioned that to Ahmed?’

  ‘To Ahmed? No! Why should I? Would it be too much to ask what game you are playing?’

  ‘Just cover,’ I answered feebly. ‘I can’t put her to bed in the billet.’

  ‘You have also shown a remarkable lack of curiosity about the fate of Lieutenant Khalid.’

  ‘Not my business.’

  He told me that Khalid’s saddle had recently been found on the shore between Acre and Ras Naqura just over the Palestine frontier. It was heavily blood-stained, but had been under water too long for any useful deductions to be made.

  ‘Is that widely known?’

  ‘Not widely. Police and Gendarmerie know.’

  ‘Well, tell me how I can help.’

  ‘Last February a party of Australians camped there. On the previous night they had been in Khalid’s district, near Ehden. Could there have been a quarrel?’

  ‘You suggest they just shoved his body in a truck and took it with them?’

  ‘Or could he have been kidnapped?’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Listen, my dear captain! I do not want to waste my time if your service ordered it.’

  ‘If they did, they never told me. But why on earth should anyone want to kidnap Khalid?’

  ‘I have a sense of smell. You leave Mademoiselle Ronson-Bolbec alone with your agent. You ride up to the valley with your men in the middle of the night. I have reason to believe it was you who loosed on to them a train of mules. And your chief who planned all this could have wished Khalid out of the way.’

  I told him that he had created a marvellous fantasy, that I had quite innocently recommended Sir to the mule company and that my own interest in the valley was due to a chap with yellow socks who had been asking too many questions. He had called on the Ronson-Bolbecs and I was worried that he might be in secret communication with Madame.

  ‘That was when you chose to believe that Madame was an enemy agent?’

  ‘It was.’

  He then turned on me in a cold fury. I cannot imagine what additional scraps of information he had which formed the joints and dovetails between one suspicious incident and another. I put it down to the inevitable inferiority complex of the Free French. Not quite fairly. You and I have at some time made fools of ourselves in the same way by imagining plots. It goes to show how very careful I (b) must be in accepting reports from amateurs.

  ‘Is it necessary to treat me as a child? It is so obvious that the Ronson-Bolbecs are in your Secret Service. They were sent here by your Headquarters. You pretend this affair with Mademoiselle. You all use this travel agent, Youssef Mokaddem. I thank God for the simple loyalty of such a man as Ahmed.’

  I asked him what information of value the Ronson-Bolbecs could possibly bring in.

  ‘You put them there to watch for the return of d’Aulnoy. My agent in the valley and my control at Sir are not good enough for you. Yet if you had only the courtesy to ask my service they could have told you that up to a month ago d’Aulnoy was in Rome with Rashid Ali el Gailani, and a reliable report states that he is now in Strasbourg. I am compelled to tell you that I refuse all co-operation in future. No one regrets the necessity more than I.’

  I nearly blurted out that d’Aulnoy was not in Strasbourg. Far from it. I wonder whether he would have laughed at me, or raided and found nothing but the empty quarry room.

  Two more days of indecision went by, and then Zappa came up from the port with a curious story. He had been passing through the complex of old Arab warehouses behind the waterfront—a street chequered with dark vaults and cellar entrances, all black in the blazing sunlight. A voice from one of the obscure arches said to him clearly and quickly in good English:

  ‘Snap check naval stores tonight.’

  He only caught a glimpse of the back view of the speaker slipping away among crates and barrels, and thought it best not to follow.

  The naval stores were on the south side of the harbour, guarded by Arab ghaffirs on whom Zappa occasionally descended to see that they were alert and that the gate was locked. There was nothing in all the piles of maritime junk to tempt a petty thief, but the stuff was invaluable to caiques laid up for repair. The message might be a tip-off by some enemy of a thieving captain, but one would not have expected perfect English or the security term ‘snap check’.

  So I decided to accompany Zappa myself. We marched smartly along the water front, surprised one ghaffir in a café and the other sleeping peacefully at his post. Then we had a stroll round the stores, finding nothing suspicious, and settled down under cover above the watersteps. After half an hour a boat drifted silently alongside with an Arab in a dark kaftan at the oars. He called my name quietly and I slipped down the steps, telling Zappa to wait for me at my favourite bar.

  ‘That came off splendidly,’ Oliver whispered. ‘I was afraid you might just send one of your men.’

  He pushed the boat along the harbour wall until we were hidden by the black, slimy skeleton of a derelict caique and could talk more freely.

  ‘Are you watched?’

  ‘Spy or bodyguard—whichever you like. At any rate it’s the hell of a job to get rid of him. But we’re clear now.’

  He explained that he had tried to think of an excuse which would get me down to the port on some business so obvious that I would not be followed.

  ‘You have been accepted?’

  ‘I am Hadji’s man in Tripoli. The command here is just a bunch of toughs who can’t get anything out of a wireless receiver but dance music from Beirut and Cairo.’

  He told me that of course he had been arrested on arrival in the village and interrogated at length before Hadji would allow him into the headquarters.

  ‘I knew so much that they had to use me or kill me,’ he said. ‘They have chosen the first for the time being. It was the telephone directory which clinched it. Hadji was tickled pink by the way I had covered up my clients’ names.’

  I warned him that Magnat was on the look-out for Youssef Mokaddem. He laughed and said he knew it, that Magnat’s organisation was honeycombed by informers and that taking a room next door to the security office was considered a great joke. If he walked into trouble with me or the police, he had a Muscat passport in the name of Ibrahim el Amr—excellently faked, though he didn’t think much of the visas.

  He reported that d’Aulnoy was
always in the village. His face was too well known and he dared not move out. Moustofi Khan and the Colonel were away—but, he thought, no further than Libwe.

  ‘By God, I’d like to blow the whole place up and send d’Aulnoy to lead guerrillas in hell if they’d have him!’ he exclaimed. ‘But it would kill too many innocents. Or wouldn’t it? I don’t suppose you know.’

  ‘Not necessarily. That would depend on the charges and how they were placed.’

  ‘Do you know anything about explosives?’

  ‘I did a commando course in 1939. Can you get back to the valley?’

  ‘No. At this point movement is only allowed to column leaders. I can’t escape at all. When I get back to my people I shall have to curse my bodyguard for losing me.’

  I cannot say that any detailed plan was then going through my head, but I did see possibilities. I asked him if he had heard anything at all about Lieutenant Khalid.

  ‘No, except for one mention which showed that Hadji was worried.’

  ‘What would happen if they learned that Khalid was being interrogated in Cairo?’

  ‘Only a quick move, I should think. With only a day or two to go, they could safely set up their headquarters and transmitter at Libwe. I doubt if Khalid knew more than the track and d’Aulnoy’s headquarters, and that there were contacts with enemy agents.’

  ‘They have a store of explosives in the village?’

  ‘Not so far as I know. I’ve got some down here. They want to blow the Ras Shaqqa tunnel and close the coast road.’

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘I don’t know. The usual stuff,’ he replied with the faint contempt which always came into his voice when arms were mentioned.

  ‘Can I get at it?’

  ‘If you go at night—easily. It’s well hidden, so there is no need of a guard.’

  He told me that the cache was in the market gardens to the left of the avenue which ran from Tripoli to El Mina. The best way in was through a gate near the tram-stop; it was chained and padlocked, but a ramshackle job of upright palings which could be lifted off its hinges. I was to stick to the path for about eighty yards, then turn left to a well and follow the pipe to a cistern. Beyond it I would see a disused threshing-floor with a revolving post in the middle for tethering the biblical ox or ass which walked round and round treading out the corn. Lift out post and socket in one piece, and there underneath I should find the explosives.