The 92nd Tiger (18 page)

‘I don’t think—’

‘Because if we don’t want it, the Americans do. They’ve got a trade mission here right now. And the Russians have got one coming down from Iran next week. And the Chinese have got an Iraqi agent on the spot; at least, he was until he blotted his copybook and was booted out yesterday.
They
aren’t sitting round like a lot of desiccated old spinsters talking about attitudes—’

‘I don’t think,’ said Mr. Taverner coldly, ‘that we ought to continue this discussion. Please remember you’re speaking on an open line.’

The click with which he rang off added an impressive full stop to the sentence.

‘Nice work,’ said Cowcroft. ‘I loved desiccated old spinsters. Not that it’ll do a mite of good. I’ve been dealing with the Foreign Office for thirty years. You’ve as much chance of getting a positive decision out of them nowadays as you have of cutting your hair with a motor mower. They don’t recognise concrete problems any longer. Awkward, sordid, things like men and money. They think in terms of attitudes and aspects and tendencies.’ He paused, and added unexpectedly, ‘It’s the same thing with critics. Had you noticed? When they get old and tired they don’t bother to read the book they’re meant to be criticising. They hang it on to a convenient tendency. It’s less trouble.’

Hugo was only half attending. The other half was revising his opinion of Martin Cowcroft. It was interesting to discover a real mind behind that leathery facade.

‘Is that right about the Russians?’

‘I got it from Nawaf. He says one of their deputy trade ministers is coming on here next week from Teheran.’

‘I hope it keeps fine for him,’ said Cowcroft. ‘Where
is
Nawaf? There’s a rumour he cleared out when the trouble started.’

‘The Ruler didn’t seem to know that he’d gone. If he has bunked it’d mean he was in with Dr. Kassim. Funny. He didn’t seem that sort of person at all.’

‘Arabs are like that,’ said Cowcroft. ‘You can never tell what sort of people they are, until it’s too late to do anything about it. Come down and get some grub at the police canteen. I think we’ve earned it.’

Hugo slept well that night. The next morning after breakfast he walked down to the jetty. There were one or two purchases he still had to make for his house-warming party. He told himself that it was a matter of duty, to get to know Bob Ringbolt better. That was the reason for the party. ‘And if he brings Tammy with him, I’ll be very glad to see her too,’ he said to himself. ‘She’s a nice girl.’

Moharram was taking down his shutters. Hugo said, ‘I noticed you were shut yesterday. Mo. Why was that?’

Moharram grinned, and said, ‘Yesterday, I went out fishing.’

‘You’re a bloody liar. But if that’s your story, you stick to it. I want some olives and a jar of salted peanuts. And some packets of crisps. Have you got a boat?’

‘A boat?’

‘You said you went out fishing.’

‘Boats, you get them at the dhow harbour. Nice boats. They let you have one for the day or the week.’

‘A day would do.’

‘I fix it for you. When you want him?’

‘Her.’

‘You want a girl, too?’

‘No, no. Boats are female. We say “her”.’

‘Boats are like wives,’ said Moharram. They’re bloody awkward to handle when the wind gets up. I’ve got four wives. None of them any bloody use now.’

‘I want her tomorrow, I’m going over to look at the Ducks.’

‘Nothing to see there. Just sand.’

‘I’m fond of sand,’ said Hugo. ‘Let’s have a few of those stick sausages as well.’

He spent the morning in the office, half expecting a message from London but hearing nothing. He had no doubt that the ponderous machinery in Whitehall was grinding round, the attitude of the Afro-Asian block at UNO being predicted, the views of the opposition appreciated, the reactions in twenty different countries considered, if two companies of the Oman Scouts paid a courtesy visit to a neighbour in that remote corner of the Gulf.

At midday a messenger arrived from the Ruler. He had a note authorising the extension of the Beirut credit for a further fourteen days. Since he had signed it himself, Hugo gathered that Nawaf had not reappeared. He made the necessary arrangements to inform the Arab Bank in Beirut, and sent a cable to Colonel Rex at the Ambassador Hotel, giving him the good news.

After that he went home for lunch and took his afternoon siesta. He found himself slipping back easily into the routine which he had abandoned, as he thought forever, fifteen years before.

At five o’clock he had a shower and several cups of scalding sugarless tea. Then he strolled across to the next block and knocked on the door of Ringbolt’s flat.

He could hear voices inside, but it was a few moments before the door was opened. Closing down the wireless transmitter, thought Hugo. It was Bob himself, looking cool and neat in white shirt and shorts, with sandals on his bare feet.

He said, ‘Come along in, Hugo. We’ve got a compatriot of yours here.’

Charlie Wandyke was sharing a sofa with Tammy. He had a large glass of beer in his hand and looked happy. He said, ‘I hear you’ve been on the war path, Hugo.’ Tammy said, ‘The Tiger Goes to War,’ looked devoutly at him, and spoiled the effect by grinning. ‘I bet it was fun. Roaring along the road with your guns out. Storming the desert fortress. Beau Geste rides again.’

‘It wasn’t like that at all,’ said Hugo.

‘We’ve heard all sorts of stories. Is it true you volunteered to head the search of the harem?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Tell, tell. What
did
you do?’

‘Give the man a chance,’ said Ringbolt. ‘He hasn’t got a drink yet. What’ll it be?’

‘Beer please,’ said Hugo. ‘And I didn’t do anything, except keep one eye open for a place to duck into when the bullets started flying. Only they didn’t.’

‘No bullets?’

‘Not one. We went, we saw, we conquered. And we came back with the booty. One Sheik, discomposed but undamaged.’

‘It was a smart move that,’ said Ringbolt. ‘With their king in check, there aren’t a lot of gambits left to them. There’s some sort of cousin, I believe, but he’s no great shakes, by all accounts.’

‘According to my foreman,’ said Wandyke, ‘and I’ve never known him to be wrong about anything yet, Dr. Kassim hasn’t gone. He may not have been in the Palace, but he was hiding out somewhere. As long as he’s there, I shouldn’t count on a walkover. I’ve been hearing stories about that boy.’

‘You think he’s dangerous?’

‘I think he’s poison. Until I’ve seen his hide nailed up on the wall, I’m not taking any chances myself.’

‘What are you going to do, Charlie,’ said Ringbolt. ‘You can’t pack the mine up and take it away in your pocket.’

‘No. But I can immobilise the machinery and move everyone out. We had a practice evacuation yesterday. We did it in half an hour. And I bet you we’d halve that time if we had a crowd of wuzzies with knives up our backsides.’

‘You’ve got your boat, then,’ said Hugo. His beer suddenly seemed to have lost some of its flavour. He thought Charlie probably knew what he was talking about.

‘A thirty-foot diesel-engined dhow, with all modem conveniences.’

‘It sounds just the job,’ said Hugo. ‘And what arrangements are you making for getting your party out, Bob?’

This was something which could have been said in a lot of different ways. Hugo’s tone was fairly neutral, but it produced a moment of silence. Then Ringbolt said, ‘We shall be all right, Hugo. I guess you saw our wireless installation the other night. I’ve got Bernie on the set right now. He’s been talking to our fleet commander. He’ll send in a couple of helicopters if we want them.’

‘And if trouble starts, you’ll send for them?’

The silence this time was more marked. Then Ringbolt said equably, ‘All right, Hugo. I know what you’re thinking. I’m not making excuses. Right now, I’m acting under orders. Our State Department has got some pretty rigid ideas about a situation of this sort. There’s two ways of tackling it. You can stay put until the local inhabitants simply have to chop you. Then, when everyone’s steamed up about it, your real forces move in and knock hell out of the local opposition, and rely on everyone saying, “Serve the bastards right.” That’s what you did with your General Gordon in Khartoum, right?’

‘As far as I can remember, it took us about ten years to move in on the Mahdi. But that was roughly the principle, I agree.’

‘Things move faster nowadays. World opinion’s more mobilised. If we put the Marines ashore in Umran without a mighty good excuse the doves would be raising hell in the United Nations within twenty-four hours. They might even suggest we were out to collar the Smitherite concession by force.’

‘They’d be wrong, of course,’ said Wandyke with a grin.

‘You said
two
ways,’ said Hugo.

‘That’s right. Well, the preferred way nowadays is what you might call the dustpan-and-brush method. You keep well clear until the local factions have finished cutting each other’s throats, and then you arrive and sweep up the mess. You pat the winner on the back and tell him you’ve been backing him all along and you’ve come in to help him restore the economy of his ravaged country. The Marines arrive, same as in method A, but this time they’re not aiming to fight anyone. They’re there to see no one loots the essential supplies you’re bringing in, or rapes the Red Cross nurses.’ ‘But the end result’s the same?’

‘Right. Only you get patted on the back for being humanitarian instead of being kicked in the crutch for a colonialist pig.’

‘Well, thanks for explaining it.’

‘I should have made it clear, Hugo, that there’s a seat in the helicopter for you.’

Hugo hesitated. It was not that he was in any doubt as to his answer. He wanted to phrase it without sounding pompous. In the end he said, ‘I’m not really a free agent in the matter, Bob. Under my contract with the Ruler I think I have to give him three months’ notice.’

He caught a fleeting glimpse of the smile on Tammy’s face and saw her lips frame, ‘Hold that Tiger’. He added, quickly, ‘Anyway, if the worst comes to the worst, I’ve got a boat too. It’s not a very big one. I was planning to take it over to the Ducks tomorrow. I take it Friday’s a holiday for you as well.’

‘That’s right,’ said Ringbolt. There was a faint look of puzzlement on his face.

‘I only asked, because I didn’t want to rob you of your secretary if it was a working day. Would you care to come along, Tammy?’

Tammy said, without the least hesitation, ‘I most certainly would.’ And added, ‘Grrr, grrr, grrr-rh!’

Wednesday in Beirut brought up one of the sudden storms which sweeps in from the eastern end of the Mediterranean, smashes against the mountains, and disappears into the desert, leaving behind it a litter of torn sun-blinds, shredded travel posters, and a general feeling of freshness and well-being.

Colonel Rex spent the morning in his room at the Hotel Ambassador with Mr. Sharif, working through packing arrangements. He said, ‘It’s absolute nonsense to think of
flying
in the trucks, or the crated helicopters. With the small freight planes we’re using, you’d need one plane for each truck. If we were able to charter one of the American maxi-transporters we could get several trucks on each. But they couldn’t land on the runway at Mohara.’

Sharif nodded. He had come to the same conclusion. He said, ‘The trucks will have to go by sea. Your client will not object. What he needs now are guns, not trucks.’

‘Right. So we put all the small arms, automatic weapons, mortars and ammunition and perhaps one pack-howitzer on the first plane. The rest of the howitzers and the signalling and engineers’ stores on the second. The four remaining planes can take the light a-a, the anti-tank guns and anything else which is left. When will the first plane leave ?’

‘Tonight.’

‘How is Hafiz fixing it?’

‘The loading will be done in a spare bay at the far end of the terminal buildings. It is the old pilgrim compound. The stuff will be taken from the transit warehouse, by trucks, as soon as it is dusk. It will cost a great deal of money to organise, but he has a reliable foreman whose gang will do what they are told. They are all of them his sons and cousins.’

‘And the warehouse will release the cargo?’

‘Naturally. They will have an official order to do so. Hafiz has studied the regulations of the Israeli boycott. There is nothing to prevent goods being transported onwards as long as they remain in a state which itself subscribes to the boycott arrangements.’

‘Which Bahrain does?’

‘Most certainly.’

‘And when they are there?’

‘Equally, there will be no reason why they should not be sent forward to Umran. Umran is also a party to the boycott.’

‘Something tells me that the second leg will need a certain amount of fixing.’

‘I understand that a high official from Umran is already in Bahrain to expedite matters.’

‘Good,’ said the Colonel. He had, in the course of a long life, arranged for the transport of many different cargoes by many different routes. By road, by rail, by air, and by sea. By pack-mule, by camel, by barge and by canoe. Even, on one occasion, by aerial ropeway to the top of a mountain and down the other side by sledge. He had invariably found that the lubricant which eased the wheels around was money; money disbursed to the right person, in the right amounts at the right time. It seemed to be working here. Hafiz clearly knew his job and was earning the very large sum which he had paid him. And which he, in turn, had borrowed, at such risk from the Jannis.

He was reminded of his obligations by a telephone call which arrived whilst he was eating his lunch. It summoned him to a meeting that afternoon at the office of the Jannis’ lawyer. The Colonel protested, but was overruled so sharply that he said no more. He finished his meal and, unusually, ordered a large brandy. The drink did something to dispel a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. His instincts, which hardly ever deceived him, told him that he was running into trouble.