Arabesque (17 page)

The report was carefully written on the right-hand side of the page; on the left-hand side, separated from the narrative by a vertical line, were conjecture in red pencil and auxiliary facts in
blue pencil. Attached, as Appendix A, was a graph neatly drawn on the squared paper, showing Armande’s moods in terms of her movements. After two hours of most satisfying craftsmanship, he
pinned together the sheets of the report and Appendix A, and looked over its colours and neat handwriting with loving pride. It might, he considered, have been the work of an able and original
staff officer. Everything was there, and, helped by judicious colour and arrangement, everything was in the smallest possible space.

The Scots sergeant obtained for him a seat in the Signals truck, which started at 5 a.m. and travelled fast and direct from Jerusalem to Beirut. Prayle thanked him warmly, but privately
considered such efficiency most unwelcome. He had the amateur soldier’s irremediable objection to early rising, and his natural inclination was to accept any form of transport so long as it
started after seven. Regular soldiers, however, held that the hours immediately before and after dawn were quite normal periods for human activity; in peacetime, as the French said, they did
nothing, but did it early.

The road back, along the coast, was Jewish as the road up, over the hills, had been Arab. Even the smells were different. From Tel Aviv to Haifa the wind carried scents of petrol and acacia and
oranges; from Jerusalem to Haifa, it carried sage and dust. The Arab villages by the wayside smelled of donkeys and cooking spices; the Jewish settlements of boiling cabbage and pickled cucumber;
or, if a settlement were new and hygienic, its desolate neatness was rendered more inhuman than ever by smelling of nothing at all.

Prayle, lying sleepily back upon the mailbags, watched the orange groves and Jewish colonies reel off behind the truck. It was odd, he thought, how Biblical history—in which he was well
and unwillingly grounded at a grammar school of true Puritan tradition—had been reversed. Then the Jews had inhabited the hills, and the Philistines the coast; now the Jews held the coast,
and the Arabs the hills. The Jews, in fact, had no historical right to the whole of Palestine. Jehovah might have promised them the land, but, except perhaps to Solomon (and offhand he
couldn’t say whether even Solomon had ruled over the Philistines), Jehovah had been well content with partition.

The truck roared through Ras Naqura, and over the hill into familiar Lebanon. Under the peaceful pagan influence of the High Places and the sea, Prayle’s mind forgot the problems of the
Holy Land, pausing only to inquire at the frontier whether Mussolini’s claim to the lands of Augustus was not as good as the Jewish claim to the lands of Solomon. He decided that it was not,
but that it would be if the Italians still worshipped the Gods of the Empire. Then, in that case, did the Nazi reverence for old geezers with wings on their hats and saucepans on their bosoms
improve their claim to all Teutonic lands? And, anyway, what was a Jew? Suppose a man was a churchwarden, but his name was Levy and he looked like King David with a hang-over? Suppose he was of
pure English blood, but decided that the synagogue was the place for him?

Sergeant Prayle stopped the truck on the outskirts of Beirut, explaining to the driver, in his most cryptic and confidential manner, that he had reason to enter the city on foot and alone. He
then strolled to the wineshop where he had left his motorcycle and triumphantly rode it, for half a mile and without any sort of incident, to the section billet. In the yard he straightened his
footrest, and fussed over his mount with a little oil and water, until the sergeant-major came out, attracted by such industry, and congratulated him on the excellent condition of his machine after
so long a ride.

Major Rains was an honest man; he knew very well that of all the branches of the staff, Intelligence was that which fitted his abilities the least. On the other hand it was his
duty, as an experienced regular officer, to do the best he could in any situation to which his profession had called him; and one could not, after all, go far wrong if one worked really hard and
took pains to obey orders.

He found it difficult, especially in so complicated a business as this Montagne affair, to follow at short notice such a gifted and, he feared, irresponsible amateur as Guy Furney. Rains did not
complain—the first duty of a staffofficer was to be able to take over from anybody anywhere—but Guy’s handling of the office had been eccentric. The files were excellent and
comprehensive, but it wasn’t much help to read through the utterly damning dossier of some prominent Arab politician and to find at the end a short minute:
“This is tripe. I know
him. G.F.”
Furney’s personal opinions carried no authority, and were destructive of all system. Both he and the Field Security seemed to have taken their obligations much too
casually. Rains himself hoped to set better standards both of obedience and of caution.

Ordered away so suddenly and importantly, Furney had had little time to explain the current investigations. All were vague and unsatisfactory—security cases usually were. About the Beit
Chabab arms Guy simply said that an explanation was due to Montagne, and that as yet there wasn’t any. It now looked as if Montagne were the only person who knew the explanation.

In the presence of David Nachmias, Rains had no need to look again at Montagne’s record. He had already learned it by heart, and it was not impressive. Political agitator in civil life.
Fought with International Brigade in Spain. Insubordinate. Suspected of conducting a personal intelligence service. Possible communist agent.

To this last hypothesis—supplied, he observed, by a Major Loujon—Rains dutifully closed his eyes. Since the Nazi-Soviet alliance had ended in the way of all German alliances, army
orders were to think no evil. Rains kept upon his desk an ashtray in the shape of three inhibited apes who neither heard, saw nor spoke the inconvenient. He tried to model himself upon them.

Rains’s courtesy visit to Montagne’s office had left no clear impression of the man beyond dislike of his appearance. Furney, conducting his successor on a very short tour of files
and personalties, had said little of his opposite number in the French Army except that he was a good chap. The two seemed to be on terms of intimacy and affection.

This, however, meant nothing, for Guy was well known to be unusual in his tastes and friendships. Certain it was that the dominant clique of the French were sound, solid folks, and that Montagne
was very unsound indeed. The man was reputed to be an intriguer and a fanatic. Such people were a nuisance in any army. The opinion of his enemies among the French was easy to understand. Montagne,
in any decent mess, would be an impossible bore—the sort of chap who could never talk anything but his own brand of politics.

“It seems very likely, David,” Rains said.

Abu Tisein slowly opened his brown eyes with an expression of patient sadness.

“I hear so much,” he complained.

“Of course. Of course.”

Before this sturdy Palestinian, Jew, Turk—whatever he liked to call himself—unmoved, uncondemning, tolerant of a thousand Oriental treacheries that would have a shocked a European,
Rains felt himself to be a perky little fellow of no experience. Self-consciously he smoothed his very fair moustache.

“You’re sure Wadiah wasn’t in it?” he asked.

“Yes. That is why I advised him to come and see you,” answered David Nachmias in his steady, simple English. “He detests the French. Never would he give them arms! Never!
Wadiah thought the troops were British.”

“And this Herne woman? Where does she come in? Knocking about the St. Georges Hotel for a long time, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“She knew Montagne?”

“Yes. She knew many officers.”

“But David,” Rains protested uncomfortably, “I can’t believe this of an Englishwoman. I mean—it isn’t as if one didn’t know who she was. I mean,
she’s what one would call a lady. I mean …”

“She is half French,” said Nachmias sombrely.

“Ah! That accounts for it.”

“I cannot say that Major Montagne employed her. There is no evidence. It was perhaps coincidence that she was in Beit Chabab for so long. Who can tell? The trouble is, Major Rains, that
you put too many people in British battle dress.”

“The Jews too,” Rains replied, with an awkward military laugh.

“The Jews, of course. We are a fighting people now, Major Rains.”

“First-class guerrillas,” answered Rains professionally, “but no discipline. However, they seem to obey you people allright.”

“For the present. But when the danger to Palestine is past we may not be able to control our extremists. Give us free immigration. Then you can be sure of us.”

Rains swallowed. The question had to be asked.

“What is your own connection with Armande Herne?”

“I used her. I use her still. Such a woman is rare.”

“It’s all very difficult,” Rains sighed. “What on earth am I to do?”

“Do? Do? You English always want to do. But there is nothing to do. Leave it all to the French.”

“Do they know?”

“No more than I. But the same rumour has come to them.”

“I might have to interfere,” Rains insisted.

“Why?”

“But really I should have more evidence.”

“Of course,” began Abu Tisein, “I do not know what control you have over the French Army—”

“None,” said Rains hastily. “Absolutely none! For heaven’s sake don’t get that idea into your head—it might cause infinite trouble. Their internal discipline
is entirely their own affair.”

“Then leave them alone. You are a real Englishman. You want to take all troubles on your shoulders. If they believe this story against Major Montagne, what is it to you? If one of your own
officers had to be dismissed, would you like the French to interfere?”

“Most certainly not!” exclaimed Rains indignantly.

“Very well. Then look at this affair with the eyes of a French general. Major Montagne is difficult. Major Montagne has no respect for his superiors. There is now a very strong rumour that
Major Montagne acquired arms for his own faction. Perhaps they have found the troops that collected them. They would never say. In any case, they have every right to send Major Montagne to command
Negroes in West Africa.”

“On suspicion only?”

“An Intelligence officer must be above suspicion. And if he plays politics, he is not. It may be that Major Montagne did not meant to keep the arms at all. Perhaps he meant to raise funds
for his party by selling them to Arabs or Jews.”

Rains seized quickly upon this hint with a conscious pride in his own cleverness.

“So that’s how you know the story, David!”

“Dear Major Rains, I know nothing. Would you like to see Sheikh Wadiah now? I think you have kept him waiting just long enough to show your importance.”

“Yes, yes. Of course. On
those
matters, David, I am always so glad to have your advice.”

Major Rains had little conceit. He was conscientiously eager to improve his Arab manners. They were already good. He felt, however, that spontaneity was lacking, and sought to replace it by ever
more exact observance of the social customs.

“Will you see him alone?” asked Abu Tisein.

“No, no. You are friends, and you would be a great help to me.”

The smooth opening of the interview with Sheikh Wadiad was faultless. The cups of coffee, the cigarettes, the polite, unhurried talk about nothing whatever for a quarter of an hour, all were
matters for self-congratulation, more especially since Rains did not, could not, like Wadiah. This so-called sheikh too closely resembled a fatherly bookmaker who had absorbed, throughout a
disastrous summer at Sandhurst, far more of young Rains’ allowance than he could afford. The bookmaker had had heartiness. The bookmaker had had dignity. He wasn’t always pressing hands
to head and heart with the graceful and hypocritical gestures of Wadiah, but he used to advise Rains, in the most presumptuous and patronising way, not to bet on the impossible. And that was
offensive. After all he had known that the man was out to make money, just as he knew that Wadiah’s protestations of loyalty and affection were meaningless.

Wadiah’s account of the whole transaction was quite straight-forward. The trick that had been played on him he treated neither lightly nor angrily, but with an impersonal appreciation of
its part in the general richness of life. His majestic confidence that it was proper and even right for him to possess arms prohibited all discussion of the means by which they had been obtained.
He tactfully referred to Armande as “a certain person” or “a charming agent”.

“But what made you believe her?” asked Rains with a short laugh.

“Major Rains, I am older”—Sheikh Wadiah stoked an imaginary beard with a beautiful flow of his hand—“but I am not to be compared with you in knowledge. You have had
Englishwomen in your bed, and I never.”

Rains was disgusted.
I
should hope not, indeed,
he declared to himself.

“Therefore I am a child in experience of them. But men I understand, for I am a leader of men. I know when a man is lying and when he is not. And I ask myself—is a woman very
different? If a woman of charm and culture should say to me: ‘Wadiah, you are the only man I have ever loved,’ I would of course believe her. But that is a lie I want to believe. If,
however, there is no question of love, but only of policy, of expediency, of duty, then I can judge a woman’s lie from a woman’s truth.”

“And Major Montagne, Sheikh Wadiah?” asked Rains. “You who know men, tell me—when he came to collect your arms and you informed him that you had already given them up,
was his surprise genuine or pretended?”

“He insulted me,” answered Wadiah. “He was beside himself—a madman. I cannot judge the afflicted. But I tell you Mme. Herne was not lying. When she said she was a British
agent, she believed she was a British agent.”