Affair in Araby - Talbot Mundy
There was nothing but squalid villages and ruins, goats and an
occasional rare camel to be seen through the window--not a tree
anywhere, the German General Staff having attended to that job
thoroughly. There is honey in the country and it's plentiful as well as
good, because bees are not easy property to raid and make away with;
but the milk is from goats, and as for overflowing, I would hate to have
to punish the dugs of a score of the brutes to get a jugful for dinner.
Syria's wealth is of the past and the future.
Long before it grew too dark to watch the landscape we were wholly
converted to Grim's argument that Syria was no place for a man of
Feisul's calibre. The Arab owners of the land are plundered to the
bone; the men with money are foreigners, whose only care is for a
government that will favour this religion and that breed. To set up a
kingdom there would be like preaching a new religion in Hester Street;
you could hand out text, soup and blankets, but you'd need a whale's
supply of faith to carry on, and the offertories wouldn't begin to meet
expenses.
Until that journey finally convinced me, I had been wondering all the
while in the back of my head whether Grim wasn't intending an
impertinence. It hasn't been my province hitherto to give advice to
kings; for one thing, they haven't asked me for it. If I were asked, I
think I'd take the problem pretty seriously and hesitate before
suggesting to a man on whom the hope of fifty million people rests that
he'd better pull up stakes and eat crow in exile for the present. I'd
naturally hate to be a king, but if I were one I don't think quitting
would look good, and I think I'd feel like kicking the fellow who
suggested it.
But the view from the train, and Grim's talk with Hadad put me in a mood
in which Syria didn't seem good enough for a soap-box politician, let
alone a man of Feisul's fame and character. And when at last a few
lights in a cluster down the track proclaimed that we were drawing near
Damascus, I was ready to advise everybody, Feisul included, to get out
in a hurry while a chance remained.
CHAPTER VIII
"Bismillah! What a mercy that I met you!"
While the fireman scraped the iron floor for his last two shovelfuls of
coal-dust and the train wheezed wearily into the dark station, Grim
began to busy himself in mysterious ways. Part of his own costume
consisted of a short, curved scimitar attached to an embroidered belt--
the sort of thing that Arabs wear for ornament rather than use. He took
it off and, groping in the dark, helped Mabel put it on, without a word
of explanation.
Then, instead of putting on his own Moslem over-cloak he threw that over
her shoulders and, digging down into his bag for a spare head-dress,
snatched her hat off and bound on the white kerchief in its place with
the usual double, gold-covered cord of camel-hair.
Then came my friend the train conductor and addressed me as Colonel,
offering to carry out the bags. The moment he had grabbed his load and
gone Grim broke silence:
"Call her Colonel and me Grim. Don't forget how!"
We became aware of faces under helmets peering through the window-
officers of Feisul's army on the watch for unwelcome visitors. From
behind them came the conductor's voice again, airing his English:
"Any more bags inside there, Colonel?"
"Get out quick, Jeremy, and make a fuss about the Colonel coming!"
ordered Grim.
Jeremy suddenly became the arch-efficient servitor, establishing
importance for his chief, and never a newly made millionaire or modern
demagog had such skillful advertisement. The Shereefian officers stood
back at a respectful distance, ready to salute when the personage should
deign to alight.
"What shall be done with the memsahib's hat?" demanded Narayan Singh.
You could only see the whites of his eyes, but he shook something in his
right hand.
"Eat it!" Grim answered.
"Heavens! That's my best hat!" objected Mabel. "Give it here. I'll
carry it under the cloak."
"Get rid of it!" Grim ordered; and Narayan Singh strode off to
contribute yellow Leghorn straw and poppies to the engine furnace.
I gave him ten piastres to fee the engineer, and five for the fireman,
so you might say that was high-priced fuel.
"What kind of bunk are you throwing this time?" I asked Grim.
He didn't answer, but gave orders to Mabel in short, crisp syllables.
"You're Colonel Lawrence. Answer no questions. If anyone salutes, just
move your hand and bow your head a bit. You're just his height. Look
straight in front of you and take long strides. Bend your head forward
a little; there, that's it."
"I'm scared!" announced Mabel, by way of asking for more particulars.
She wasn't scared in the least.
"Piffle!" Grim answered. "Remember you're Lawrence, that's all. They'd
give you Damascus if you asked for it. Follow Jeremy, and leave the
rest to us."
I don't doubt that Grim had been turning over the whole plan in his mind
for hours past, but when I taxed him with it afterward his reply was
characteristic:
"If we'd rehearsed it, Mabel and Hadad would both have been
self-conscious. The game is to study your man--or woman, as the case
may be--and sometimes drill 'em, sometimes spring it on 'em, according
to circumstances. The only rule is to study people; there are no two
quite alike."
Hadad was surprised into silence, too thoughtful a man to do anything
except hold his tongue until the next move should throw more light on
the situation. He followed us out of the car, saying nothing; and
being recognized by the light of one dim lantern as an intimate friend
of Feisul, he accomplished all that Grim could have asked of him.
He was known to have been in Europe until recently. Rumours about
Lawrence had been tossed from mouth to mouth for days past, and here was
somebody who looked like Lawrence in the dark, followed by Grim and
Hadad and addressed as "Colonel." Why shouldn't those three Shereefian
officers jump to conclusions, salute like automatons and grin like loyal
men who have surprised a secret and won't tell anyone but their bosom
friends? It was all over Damascus within the hour that Lawrence had
come from England to stand by Feisul in the last ditch. The secret was
kept perfectly!
We let Mabel walk ahead of us, and there was no trouble at the customs
barrier, where normally every piastre that could be wrung from
protesting passengers were mulcted to support a starving treasury; for
the officers strode behind us, and trade signs to the customs clerk, who
immediately swore at everyone in sight and sent all his minions to yell
for the best cabs in Damascus.
Narayan Singh distributed largesse to about a hundred touts and
hangers-on and we splashed off toward the hotel in two open landaus,
through streets six inches deep in water except at the cross-gutters,
where the horses jumped for fear of losing soundings. Abana and
Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, were in flood as usual at that time of
year, and the scavenging street curs had to swim from one garbage heap
to the next. There was a gorgeous battle going on opposite the hotel
door, where half a dozen white-ivoried mongrels with their backs to a
heap of kitchen leavings held a ford against a dozen others, each beast
that made good his passage joining with the defenders to fight off the
rest. I stood on the hotel steps and watched the war for several
minutes, while Grim went in with the others and registered as "Rupert
Ramsden of Chicago, U.S.A., and party."
The flood, and darkness owing to the lack of fuel, were all in our
favour, for such folk as were abroad were hardly of the sort whose
gossip would carry weight; nevertheless, we hadn't been in the hotel
twenty minutes before an agent of the bank put in his appearance,
speaking French volubly. Seeing my name on the register, he made the
mistake of confining his attention to me, which enabled Grim to get
Mabel safely away into a big room on the second floor.
The Frenchman (if he was one--he had a Hebrew nose) made bold to corner
me on a seat near the dining-room door. He was nervous rather than
affable--a little pompous, as behooved the representative of money
power--and evidently used to having his impertinences answered humbly.
"You are from the South? Did you have a good journey? Was the train
attacked? Did you hear any interesting rumors on the way?"
Those were all preliminary questions, thrown out at random to break ice.
As he sat down beside me you could feel the next one coming just as
easily as see that he wasn't interested in the answers to the first.
"You are here on business? What business?"
"Private business," said I, with an eye on Jeremy just coming down the
stairs. "You talk Arabic?"
He nodded, eyeing me keenly.
"That man is my servant and knows my affairs. I'm too tired to talk
after the journey. Suppose you ask him."
So Jeremy came and sat beside us, and threw the cow's husband around as
blithely as he juggles billiard balls. I wasn't supposed to understand
what he was saying.
"The big effendi is a prizefighter, who has heard there is money to be
made at Feisul's court. At least, that is what he says. Between you and
me, I think he is a spy for the French Government, because when he
engaged me in Jerusalem he gave me a fist-full of paper francs with
which to send a telegram to Paris. What was in the telegram? I don't
know; it was a mass of figures, and I mixed them up on purpose, being
an honest fellow averse to spy's work. Oh, I've kept an eye on him,
believe me! Ever since he killed a Syrian in the train I've had my
doubts of him. Mashallah, what a murderous disposition the fellow has!
Kill a man as soon as look at him--indeed he would. Are you a prince in
these parts?"
"A banker."
"Bismillah! What a mercy that I met you! I overheard him say that he
will visit the bank tomorrow morning to cash a draft for fifty thousand
francs. I'd examine the draft carefully if I were you. It wouldn't
surprise me to learn it was stolen or forged. Is there any other bank
that he could go to?"
"No, only mine; the others have suspended business on account of the
crisis."
"Then, in the name of Allah don't forget me! You ought to give me a
thousand francs for the information. I am a poor man, but honest. At
what time shall I come for the money in the morning? Perhaps you could
give me a little on account at once, for my wages are due tonight and
I'm not at all certain of getting them."
"Well, see me in the morning," said the banker.
He got up and left us at once, hardly troubling to excuse himself; and
Grim heard him tell the hotel proprietor that our whole party would be
locked up in jail before midnight. That rumour went the rounds like
wild-fire, so that we were given a wide berth and had a table all to
ourselves in the darkest corner of the big dim dining-room.
There were more than a hundred people eating dinner, and Narayan Singh,
Hadad and I were the only ones in western clothes. Every seat at the
other tables was occupied by some Syrian dignitary in flowing robes--
rows and rows of stately looking notables, scant of speech and noisy at
their food. Many of them seemed hardly to know the use of knife and
fork, but they could all look as dignified as owls, even when crowding
in spaghetti with their fingers.
We provided them with a sensation before the second course was finished.
A fine-looking Syrian officer in khaki, with the usual cloth flap behind
his helmet that forms a compromise between western smartness and eastern
comfort, strode into the room and bore down on us. He invited us out
into the corridor with an air that suggested we would better not refuse,
and we filed out after him in an atmosphere of frigid disapproval.
Mabel was honestly scared half out of her wits now. Not even the smiles
of the hotel proprietor in the doorway reassured her, nor his deep bow
as she passed. She was even more scared, if that were possible, when
two officers, obviously of high rank, came forward in the hall to greet
her, and one addressed her in Arabic as Colonel Lawrence. Luckily one
oil lamp per wall was doing duty in place of electric light, or there
might have been an awkward incident. She had presence of mind enough to
disguise her alarm by a fit of coughing, bending nearly double and
covering the lower part of her face with the ends of the headdress
folded over.
The officers had no time to waste and gave their message to Grim
instead.
"The Emir Feisul is astonished, Jimgrim, that Colonel Lawrence and you
should visit Damascus without claiming his hospitality. We have two
autos waiting to take you to the palace."
Well, the luggage didn't amount to much; Narayan Singh brought that
down in a jiffy; and when I went to settle with the hotel-keeper one of
the Syrian officers interfered.
"These are guests of the Emir Feisul," he announced. "Send the bill to
me."
We were piled into the waiting autos. Mabel, Grim and I rode in the
first one, with the Syrian officers up beside the driver; Jeremy,
Narayan Singh and Hadad followed; and we went through the dark streets
like sea-monsters splashing over shoals, unseen I think--certainly
unrecognized.
The streets were almost deserted and I didn't catch sight of one armed
man, which was a thing to marvel at when you consider that fifty
thousand or so were supposed to be concentrated in the neighbourhood,
with conscription working full-blast and the foreign consuls solely
occupied in procuring exemption for their nationals.
It wasn't my first visit to a reigning prince, for if you travel much in
India you're bound to come in contact with numbers of them; so I
naturally formed a mental picture of what was in store for us, made up
from a mixture of memories of Gwalior, Baroda, Bikanir, Hyderabad, Poona
and Baghdad of the Arabian-Nights. It just as naturally vanished in
presence of the quiet, latter-day dignity of the real thing.
The palace turned out to be a villa on the outskirts of the city, no
bigger and hardly more pretentious than a well-to-do commuter's place at
Bronxville or Mount Vernon. There was a short semi-circular drive in
front, with one sentry and one small lantern burning at each gate; but
their khaki uniforms and puttees didn't disguise the fact that the
sentries were dark, dyed-in-wool Arabs from the desert country, and
though they presented arms, they did it as men who make concessions
without pretending to admire such foolishness. I wouldn't have given
ten cents for an unescorted stranger's chance of getting by them,
whatever his nationality.
Surely there was never less formality in a king's house since the world
began. We were ushered straight into a narrow, rather ordinary hall,
and through that into a sitting-room about twenty feet square. The
light was from oil lamps hanging by brass chains from the curved beams;
but the only other Oriental suggestions were the cushioned seats in each
corner, small octagonal tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a mighty
good Persian carpet.
Narayan Singh and Jeremy, supposedly being servants, offered to stay in
the hall, but were told that Feisul wouldn't approve of that.
"Whatever they shouldn't hear can be said in another room," was the
explanation.
So we all sat down together on one of the corner seats, and were kept
waiting about sixty seconds until Feisul entered by a door in the far
corner. And when he came he took your breath away.
It always prejudices me against a man to be told that he is dignified
and stately. Those adjectives smack of too much self-esteem and of a
claim to be made of different clay from most of us. He was both, yet he
wasn't either. And he didn't look like a priest, although if ever
integrity and righteousness shone from a man, with their effect
heightened by the severely simple Arab robes, I swear that man was he.
Just about Jeremy's height and build--rather tall and thin that is--with
a slight stoop forward from the shoulders due to thoughtfulness and
camel-riding and a genuine intention not to hold his head too high, he
looked like a shepherd in a Bible picture, only with good humour added,
that brought him forward out of a world of dreams on to the same plane
with you, face to face--understanding meeting understanding--man to man.
I wish I could describe his smile as he entered, believing he was coming
to meet Lawrence, but it can't be done. Maybe you can imagine it if you
bear in mind that this man was captain of a cause as good as lost,
hedged about by treason and well aware of it; and that Colonel Lawrence
was the one man in the world who had proved himself capable of bridging
the division between East and West and making possible the Arab dream of
independence.
But unhappily it's easier to record unpleasant things. He knew at the
first glance--even before she drew back the kuffiyi--that Mabel wasn't
Lawrence, and I've never seen a man more disappointed in all my
wanderings. The smile didn't vanish; he had too much pluck and
self-control for that; but you might say that iron entered into it, as
if for a second he was mocking destiny, willing to face all odds alone
since he couldn't have his friend.
And he threw off disappointment like a man--dismissed it as a rock sheds
water, coming forward briskly to shake hands with Grim and bowing as
Grim introduced us.
"At least here are two good friends," he said in Arabic, sitting down
between Grim and Hadad. "Tell me what this means, and why you deceived
us about Lawrence."
"We've something to show you," Grim answered. "Mrs. Ticknor brought it;
otherwise it might have been seen by the wrong people."
Feisul took the hint and dismissed the Syrian officers, calling them by
their first names as he gave them "leave to go." Then Mabel produced
the letter and Feisul read it, crossing one thin leg over the other and
leaning back easily. But he sat forward again and laughed bitterly when
he had read it twice over.
"I didn't write this. I never saw it before, or heard of it," he said
simply.
"I know that," said Grim. "But we thought you'd better look at it."
Feisul laid the letter across his knee and paused to light a cigarette.
I thought he was going to do what nine men out of ten in a tight place
would certainly have done; but he blew out the match, and went on
smoking.
"You mean your government has seen the thing, and sent you to confront
me with it?"
It was Grim's turn to laugh, and he was jubilant without a trace of
bitterness.
"No. The chief and I have risked our jobs by not reporting it. This
visit is strictly unofficial."
Feisul handed the letter back to him, and it was Grim who struck a match
and burned it, after tearing off the seal for a memento.
"You know what it means, of course?" Grim trod the ash into the carpet.
"If the French could have come by that letter in Jerusalem, they'd have
Dreyfussed you--put you on trial for your life on trumped-up evidence.
They'd send a sworn copy of it to the British to keep them from taking
your part."
"I am grateful to you for burning it," Feisul answered.
He didn't look helpless, hopeless, or bewildered, but dumb and clinging
on; like a man who holds an insecure footing against a hurricane.
"It means that the men all about you are traitors--" Grim went on.
"Not all of them," Feisul interrupted.
"But many of them," answered Grim. "Your Arabs are loyal hot-heads;
some of your Syrians are dogs whom anyone can hire."
It was straight speaking. From a major in foreign service, uninvited,
to a king, it sounded near the knuckle. Feisul took it quite
pleasantly.
"I know one from the other, Jimgrim."
Grim got up and took a chair opposite Feisul. He was all worked up and
sweating at self-mastery, hotter under the collar than I had ever seen
him.
"It means," he went on, with a hand on each knee and his strange eyes
fixed steadily on Feisul's, "that the French are ready to attack you.
It means they're sure of capturing your person--and bent on seeing your
finish. They'll give you a drumhead court martial and make excuses
afterward."
"Inshallah," Feisul answered, meaning "If Allah permits it."
"That is exactly the right word!" Grim exploded; and Lord, he was hard
put to it to keep excitement within bounds.
I could see his neck trembling, and there were little beads of sweat on
his temple. It was Grim at last without the mask on. "Allah marks the
destiny of all of us. Do you suppose we're here for nothing--at this
time?"
Feisul smiled.
"I am glad to see you," he said simply.
"Are you planning to fight the French?" Grim asked him suddenly, in the
sort of way that a man at close quarters lets rip an upper-cut.
"I must fight or yield. They have sent an ultimatum, but delayed it so
as not to permit me time to answer. It has expired already. They are
probably advancing."
"And you intend to sit here and wait for them?"
"I shall be at the front."
"You know you haven't a chance!"
"My advisers think that my presence at the front will encourage our men
sufficiently to win the day."
"Have you a charm against mustard gas?"
"That is our weakness. No, we have no masks."
"And the wind setting up from the sea at this time of year! Your army
is going straight into a trap, and you along with it. Half of the men
who advise you to go to the front will fight like lions against a net,
and the other half will sell you to the French! Your fifty thousand men
will melt like butter in the sun and your Arab cause will be left
without a leader!"
Feisul pondered that for about a minute, leaning back and watching
Grim's face.
"We held a council of war, Jimgrim," he said at last. "It was the
unanimous opinion of the staff that we ought to fight and the cabinet
upheld them. I couldn't cancel the order if I wished. What would you
think of a king who left his army in the lurch?"
"Nobody will ever accuse you of cowardice," Grim answered. "You're a
proven brave man if ever there was one. The point is, do you want all
your bravery and hard work for the Arab cause to go for nothing? Do you
want the prospect of Arab independence to go up in smoke on a gas-swept
battlefield?"
"It would break my heart," said Feisul, "although one heart hardly
matters."
"It would break more hearts than yours," Grim retorted. "There are
millions looking to you for leadership. Leave me out of it. Leave
Lawrence out of it, and all the other non-Moslems who have done their
bit for you. Leave most of these Syrians out of it; for they're simply
politicians making use of you--a mess of breeds and creeds so mixed and
corrupted that they don't know which end up they stand! If the Syrians
had guts they'd have rallied so hard to you long ago that no outsider
would have had a chance."
"What do you mean? What are you proposing?" Feisul asked quietly.
"Baghdad is your place, not Damascus!"
"But here I am in Damascus," Feisul retorted; and for the first time
there was a note of impatience in his voice. "I came here at the
request of the Allies, on the strength of their promises. I did not ask
to be king. I would rather not be. Let any man be ruler whom the Arabs
choose, and I will work for him loyally. But the Arabs chose me and the
Allies consented. It was only after they had won their war with our
help that the French began raising objections and, the British deserted
me. It is too late to talk of Baghdad now."
"It isn't! It's too soon!" Grim answered, bringing down a clenched fist
on his knee, and Feisul laughed in spite of himself.
"You talk like a prophet, Jimgrim, but let me tell you something. It is
mainly a question of money after all. The British paid us a subsidy
until they withdrew from Syria. They did their best for us even then,
for they left behind guns, ammunition, wagons and supplies. When the
French seized the ports they promised to continue the subsidy, because
they are collecting the customs dues and we have no other revenue worth
mentioning. But rather than send us money the French have told our
people not to pay taxes; so our treasury is empty. Nevertheless, we
contrived by one means and another. We arranged a bank credit, and
ordered supplies from abroad. The supplies have reached Beirut, but the
French have ordered the bank to cancel the credit, and until we pay for
the supplies they are withheld."
"Any gas masks among the supplies you ordered?" Grim asked him; and
Feisul nodded.
"That banker has played fast and loose with us until the last minute.
Relying on our undertaking not to molest foreigners he has resided in
Damascus, making promises one day and breaking them the next, keeping
his funds in Beirut and his agency here, draining money out of the
country all the while."
"Why didn't you arrest him?"
"We gave our word to the French that he should have complete protection
and immunity. It seemed a good thing to us to have such an influential
banker here; he has international connections. As recently as
yesterday, twenty minutes before that ultimatum came, he was in this
room assuring me that he would be able to solve the credit difficulty
within a day or two."