Little Lost Lambs at the Post

by Harold Lamb

  Din, his middle name, to which he never alluded, happened to be Dinwiddie—had no great confidence in himself an a morale builder where Iranians were concerned. They were unpredictable in their reactions. The Isfahan regiment of gendarmes had proved to be moody but perfectly normal in carrying out their routine as state police. Din suspected that the privates had to pay the noncoms for privileges, and the noncoms shared their pay with the company commanders, who contributed to the salary of the regimental head, who probably paid twice for any supplies bought from Iranian army depots. There was no love lost between the gendarmerie and the army. Honesty might be the best policy, but Din was not sure it was the best policy in Iran, except for Americans.

  Isfahan itself seemed to have nothing ailing it except the drought, and Din could do nothing about that. What he hit upon to improve the morale was to start a band. Music, he thought, had charms to soothe the gripes, A martial band would inspirit his own gendarmes and make a hit with the Isfahan folks when it paraded at the sunset hour. Also, it entailed no exertion on the part of Din, except the purchase of some secondhand flutes and horns, to piece out the local cymbals and kettledrums. He had taught this band the only tune he knew well. Only now did he reflect that Western music, which runs to harmony, might not please Orientals, who preferred discords.

  An apparition stood before his eyes. Two girls, Iranians, moved across the courtyard and sat in one of the arched recesses. They wore European dress and carried schoolbooks, and they discarded their shoes to perch in the recess and chatter like squirrels a pebble's toss from him.

  No, Din told himself.

  The elder of the two was unbelievable. She was smooth and very mobile, and no Virginian voice had ever held the music of hers. Din had met no Iranian girl before, veiled or otherwise, but he was a judge of such finer points. This one might have stepped out of the pages of his Thousand and One Nights. When he centered his earnest attention upon this Scheherazade, he felt his blood change course and accelerate. Strangely enough, her glance never once met his.

  He was hoping that she might at least drop a book, when he became aware of actual music: ". . . look away, look away . . . down south in Dixie." His conscious mind told him this was the music of his band, entering the Chahar Bagh.

  The tumult in the avenue outside gave way to silence. Hurriedly the major strode back to the street, conscious even then that Scheherazade and her friend followed curiously.

  He heard the unmistakable "umph” of a crowd giving way to excitement.

  Beside him, the fragile form of Scheherazade poised, listening. Din inhaled happily and tried to articulate in Persian. "Ahval-i-shuma, chih taur'st? ” he gave forth.

  Actually Scheherazade’s dark eyes flashed up at him. "You ask how is my health, major? You speak this to me?"

  "I do indeed.” It seemed a minor miracle to Din that this apparition of loveliness not only could but would speak to him in English. "I have a lot more to say to you, miss. That's my band parading,” he added happily.

  “Your band?” A frown touched her forehead. "Whatever is the matter with it?”

  For the first time, Din realized that something was indeed the matter with his band's stuff. It lacked schmalz. The strains of Dixie wavered and wailed. The dense crowd surged around the olive-drab figures of his musicians in an unnatural manner. Its roar sounded more like the vociferation of lions on a food riot within a menagerie than the tribute of true music lovers.

  Walking sticks brandished in the air fell unmistakably upon the shoulders of the marching bandsmen. As they neared him, Din beheld clods hurtling at them. A big Isfahani took a swipe at the band leader, who jabbed back with his horn. Out of step, bleeding freely, Din’s embryo band marched on doggedly, the storm center of the apparently infuriated crowd.

  "I'll be blessed,” said the Virginian softly.

  The sight of his unarmed musicians being maltreated by a mob was too much for Din, who had graduated not so long ago from the V.M.I. and West Point. Forgetting even Scheherazade, he headed toward the thick of the disturbance.

  There was no sense in trying to argue with this crowd, even if the major had been able to speak its language. Coming up to his men, he hailed them, broke off the music, stood them at attention. Then he pivoted, and marched them downstreet after him in silence. The crowd now contented itself with heaving a few stones and honking a Bronx cheer after him.

  Din had hoped for an audience. He had one now. As he paced moodily at the head of his half-demolished bandsmen, he beheld among the spectators the three leading personalities of Isfahan. They were the bishop of the English church, the consul of the British government, and General Yendikhast, late of (he Imperial Iranian Army. The Britishers, dismounted hy their bicycles, surveyed him inscrutably; the dapper general, astride a fine charger, gloated openly. To add to his misery, he saw the slender figure of his Scheherazade mount a small white pony and ride away—out of his life, he told himself morosely.

  In silence he led his band down a side street into (he entrance drive of his hotel. He waved away the half dozen bazaar dealers who waited his coming hopefully on the veranda.

  ”Not today,” he told them. "I’m not buying. No souvenirs."

  One salesman held out invitingly a small miniature of a veiled woman and a mosque, painted on ivory. "Souvenir of Isfahan,” he intoned.

  The sight of it pained Din, who growled, ”Y’allah!” meaning, "Get out.”

  Then he faced Sergeant Farrash, his band leader, who had shared his hopes for the opening that evening. Sergeant Farrash was pretending to straighten his damaged horn. Since Din knew very few words of Persian, their conversation ran as follows:

  DIN: Great trouble you have. (A pause for cogitation.) Why? Music not good?

  SERGEANT: Music good. Water bad.

  DIN: What water?

  SERGEANT: The water that stolen was.

  DIN (losing contact): Stolen? Where?

  SERGEANT”. From the river.

  And he pointed to the near-by bed of the river, where a few camels and donkeys were drinking and a few women filling jars from the stagnant pools. So Din’s band had been beaten up at sight, and his morale building had backfired, and Scheherazade had given him the air, because the water had been stolen from the river. It did not make sense, and Din gave up interrogating Sergeant Farrash.

  After hesitating a minute, he went over to the large and placid British consul, who was parking his bicycle at the hotel steps.

  With misgivings, he put the riddle up to the Britisher, who knew all the answers in Isfahan, having lived there half a lifetime.

  "Ah,” said the consul, "yes. So your fellows were savaged by the mob because of the stolen water? It's quite understandable.” He sounded very official. "You see, your bandsmen were gendarmes, and the Isfahanis resented their parading to music down the street.”

  "So it seems.” Din knew that American officers like himself, training the local gendarmerie, were newcomers and virtually intruders in a sphere of ancient British influence. But he was tired of being treated like a hound pup straying into a dog show. "But as man to man," he said softly, "will you forget politics for a minute and tell me why?”

  Perceptibly the Britisher stiffened. He pointed his pipestem at the river. "This river is the Zendeh Rud. It flows from mountain sources to Isfahan. There is no other river, and, in consequence,” he enunciated very clearly, "no other water for Isfahan. There is almost no water in the Zendeh Rud partly because of the drought, but chiefly because a dam has been built on the estates upstream. The people on those estates have a right to build that dam to maintain their own water supply. But the farms downstream are suffering, ls the situation up to this point clear to you?”

  "Yes,” said Din. "But aren’t you doing anything about it?”

  "This is Persia, and not the Wild West of your United States. The guards at the upriver dam are doing something about it. I believe—I cannot state it as a fact, but I believe—that they are selling water to the cultivators
below. That is, for the gratuity of a few tomans, they allow a water cart to be filled or they open the runoff gate for a moment.”

  Din had grown up on a farm. He said, "What kind of human lice would sell water in a drought?”

  For the first time the consul smiled. ‘"Your gendarmes posted at the dam ... I believe.”

  It was noon the next day before Din simmered down enough to think clearly. He had spent the morning with a pair of binoculars at a turn of the river road a half dozen miles up from Isfahan, having parked his jeep carefully out of sight. And he was convinced that the consul had spoken the truth and nothing but the truth.

  The earth dam here had become a line of demarcation between the desert and the sown. Below it, irrigation ditches gaped dry; above it, green fields and orchards flourished around overflowing ditches. Little water trickled around or over that dam.

  At the sluice gate two gendarmes of the Isfahan regiment stood their post with rifles. These two were engaged in talk by groups of farmers coming upriver. Invariably after such talks, a water cart would be filled or the sluice gate opened for a couple of minutes. It looked very fishy, but it afforded the major no evidence of skulduggery.

  One thing struck him as queer. No one visible seemed to object to the squeeze. Several soldiers in Iranian uniform fished tranquilly in the small lake above the dam. Din did not see any fish caught. These fishermen, he learned, were orderlies of General Yendikhast, who owned most of the land around the dam and occupied the large house in full view of the proceedings.

  Thoughtfully the major drove his jeep back to Isfahan and stopped at the telegraph office. He wanted more information about the complaisant general. The only person who would tell turn any truth would be his own colonel at the other end of the wire in Teheran. Since any telegram would be widely discussed in Isfahan, his inquiry had to be cryptic:

  WIREPRONTO WHATKIND GAZEBO OURLOCAL NUMBERONE STARSPANGLED TYCOON.

  It would be an act of God, he knew, if his colonel could decipher this and send back an intelligible reply through the medium of the Persian alphabet. By hanging around the telegraph office, he got his hands on the answer before the interested operators had time to study it.

  Straightway he carried the flimsy off to the solitude of the mosque of the Mother of Shah Hussein, knowing that no one would intrude on him there. In fact, Din reflected, no one would be likely to intrude on him anywhere just now. With care, he studied his message;

  YURGAZ A BOAHU Y LONGAL CAP ONEEX TAM A LANE

  Without troubling to make sense out of the spelling, he repeated the sounds aloud, and grinned. "Your gazabo a Huey Long-Al Capone ex Tamerlane.”

  So General Yendikhast, once a military dictator, was now believed to be a top-flight racketeer. This was interesting to know, but Din did not see what he could do about it.

  The shades of evening were falling when he jumped up, electrified. Through the silver-plated doors, Scheherazade entered his courtyard, and sat, as before, upon the step of the arched recess. But this evening she carried no books and had no companion. As if in deep meditation, she studied the surface of the empty pool.

  Approaching, Din looked hungrily at the back of her dark head, fearful of breaking the spell by saying the wrong word. "Hello, Scheherazade,” he ventured.

  "Tell me, major,” said Scheherazade, "is it proper now for me to take dinner with you? Or isn't it?”

  Din kept his fingers crossed hard. Things like this happened in the pages of The Thousand and One Nights; they did not happen to him in person.

  “Well,” he said softly, "I think it would be more than proper; it would be scrumptious. Will you——”

  As if she had learned the words by heart, she spoke all in a breath. “Will you dine at my place now?”

  "Yes, Scheherazade."

  "Can you eat an Iranian dinner, major?"

  "Yes, I can.” Din was aware that her head had the scent of dried rose leaves. Somehow, she didn’t seem to be an ordinary girl. "Tell me, are you real, Scheherazade?”

  Then she laughed softly. "Oh, I am real enough. But my name is not Scheherazade. I teach in the secondary school, and my salary is eighty tomans a month, and my house is a very poor house for an American officer to visit.”

  "Not for this American officer.” He still did not quite believe what he heard. "Will you give the white horse a miss tonight and ride in my jeep?”

  "Indeed I will. I left the white horse at our farm, because I thought you would rather ride in the military jeep. The dinner will be preparing. How terrible it would be if you were not to come!”

  When Din tried to take her hand to help her up, she slipped away and walked in front of him with dignity to the parked jeep. When she settled herself in the seat, he noticed that she was trembling.

  "I am very nervous about this.” she kept saying.

  And, unaccountably, Din felt the same way. He had not been as near as this to a girl in long months. He had not been so close to a Scheherazade ever.

  It was nearly dark when they arrived at Scheherazade’s farm. This stood far down the river, which had no water in it at all below Isfahan. The yard was occupied by a pigeon tower, a flock of sheep shoving around an empty water trough, a wagon with water casks, a bevy of black goats and the white pony. Dust billowed in clouds around the jeep as it stopped hurriedly in the midst of the animals. Yes, thought Din, she’s real if she belongs here.

  She was worrying again. "Don’t mind the animals, please, major. They enter in everywhere. And my relatives can’t speak English.”

  As the dust subsided, Din beheld two men, both awkward in tight, polished shoes and European clothes, one thin and old, the other plump and young. Their hands had worked in the soil.

  "This is Shams-i-Daulat,” cried Scheherazade, jumping out and straightening the shirt collar of the white-haired man—a shirt without a tie. "The Sun of the Country, I presume you would say, and my father. The other’s Iz-id-Din.”

  The two farmers stepped forward and put their hands to their foreheads and chests. Din stepped out and shook hands with them while Scheherazade watched anxiously, trying to push away a trio of black goats.

  "I hope you are not bothered, major,” she cried. "We gave the animals water at this hour last night, and now they want more. Will you enter my house?”

  Din looked around and grinned. "Scheherazade,” he said, "on my home farm we raise hogs and cows, and the only difference is we water them at the branch—I mean the stream.”

  Scheherazade sighed in relief. "I thought all Americans were millionaires with automobiles and radios. You see, I never spoke to one before. We use the river when there is a river.”

  As he went in, Din glanced at the water casks. All but one were empty. A ragged servant and half-grown boy bowed as he stepped through the courtyard gate.

  The dinner was certainly Scheherazade’s. In her high-heeled shoes she carried the platters from a door, where a pair of hands held them out, to the table under the withered poplars where black bugs zoomed around the one lamp. When she offered a plate to Din, she never looked at him. At times she stumbled over the intrusive goats, and at times Din felt a wave of sheep surge against bis back. When she poured steaming tea into Din’s glass, she told him he could drink it because the water had been boiled, and she was sorry they had no whisky. The two men—the father and the one who might have been her brother—ate vigorously, in decorous silence. Din noticed a tin of expensive English preserves, honey, pecan nuts and sugar candy, and suspected they had been bought for the occasion. So he ate heartily of the pilau and cucumber salad and sour cream, and Scheherazade seemed really relieved. She sat down by him long enough to sip some tea.

  "We have figs," she explained, offering him some, "but the other fruit is bad because there is no water. We paid sixty tomans for the last load at the lake.”

  Rapidly Din calculated that would be about nineteen dollars American, and Scheherazade's salary as teacher was twenty-four dollars a month.

  "Um,” he mu
rmured, "and who did you pay for the water?”

  “The gendarmes. The soldiers keep people from taking it above the dam without paying, but the gendarmes take the money.”

  "I see.” Din brushed the flies away from the sour cream and helped himself to some to go with the figs. "But why do they want money for water?"

  "Because they are afraid not to.”

  The major noticed how a flush of excitement rose in the girl’s white throat, and wondered a little. "Afraid?" he asked.

  "If they did not give the money to the soldiers of General Yendikhast, their families would be sent away or put in prison. And the soldiers are afraid not to give the money to General Yendikhast or they would lose their pay.”

  In silence Din digested this information. "Can you prove what you are saying, Scheherazade?"

  "Of course not. Anyway, who would dare give evidence? But I gave the toman notes to the gendarmes. I suppose they keep part for themselves. I don’t know. This sort of thing has happened before, only the water was not so low in the river as it is now.” She kept glancing at the courtyard door, where the solitary servant stood as guard of honor at the feast for the distinguished guest.

  "So you people pay the gendarmes, who pay the soldiers, who pay the general," nodded Din. "Did you ever think," he added mildly, "of going up there at night and busting down that dam?”

  Again Scheherazade regarded the door. "Yes,” she whispered, "but we couldn't, with spades. And it is the property of the general. No one can do anything. Besides, if all the water of the lake began to run down the river, the villagers would take it for their irrigation—so would the people of Isfahan, for all the animal herds. It would never last beyond Isfahan, as far as this farm.”