The Face in the Cemetery

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Well, mistakes occur—’

  ‘By two hundred.’

  ‘Two hundred! No! That is not possible.’

  ‘I am afraid so.’

  ‘But that is not possible. There are controls, safeguards. Signatures. It is not possible!’

  ‘Nevertheless…’

  Fricker looked worried.

  ‘But this is not possible. Not in terms of the system. The system has been designed—I took very great care—’

  ‘Nevertheless, there has been an over-issue by two hundred guns.’

  ‘But—’

  Fricker stopped, now looking very worried.

  ‘But this is serious,’ he said. ‘All those guns!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I cannot understand how it happened. How it could have happened. The system—’

  ***

  ‘I agree with you,’ said Cavendish afterwards.

  ‘About him not having any deep designs?’

  ‘He’s just a low-level inspector,’ said Cavendish. ‘He couldn’t have any if he tried!’

  Chapter Nine

  As the steamer drew into the jetty at Minya, that same jetty from which the Germans whom Owen had rounded up on his previous visit had set out into internment, and where the woman had held out her hands to him, Owen heard shots; not one or two isolated ones but a scattered barrage.

  He was the only one who seemed to take any notice. There was a crowd waiting on the jetty: men in long white gowns talking earnestly, women with large bundles on their heads, porters with the skirts of their galabeahs tucked up, waiting to unload and load, and the usual extras in any Egyptian crowd scene, children and beggars. Not one of them turned a head.

  There was a policeman standing at the end of the gangplank. He saluted Owen, the only effendi.

  ‘Those shots,’ said Owen, ‘what are they?’

  The policeman smiled.

  ‘It’s the ghaffirs,’ he said, ‘learning how to shoot.’

  A man came pushing up to them.

  ‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘you want donkey?’

  ‘How far is the mudiriya?’

  ‘Oh, Effendi, too far! Donkey is better.’

  ‘It’s the other end of town,’ said the constable.

  ‘Only fifty piastres!’ said the man.

  ‘Fifty piastres!’ said the constable, reeling. There was an audible gasp from the people nearby.

  ‘Fifty it is,’ said Owen, in Arabic. ‘Milliemes, not piastres.’

  ‘Millienes it is,’ said the man, with a broad grin.

  They set off up the incline into the town, the man walking beside, leading the donkey, Owen, doubtfully, on its back. He was used to riding horses but with donkeys the technique was different. You sat well back, perching yourself above its haunches. The ordinary Egyptians sat cross-legged. Owen, unpractised, did not go so far and let his legs dangle down on either side. His feet almost brushed the ground.

  The narrow, enclosed street was like an oven. It was full of people, women with great baskets buying vegetables at the stalls, their baskets blocking the way, craftsmen sitting outside their shops sewing leather or turning pegs with a bow held in their toes, men in doorways chatting. The donkey was frequently brought to a stop. Whenever it stopped, a swarm of flies rose from the patches of dung on the ground and settled on the donkey’s head, the driver’s arms, and on Owen’s sleeves. Overhead, the kite hawks wheeled.

  The mudiriya, residence of the provincial governor, the mudir, was on the very edge of the town looking out on to the desert. Next to it was the large white block of the police station and a vast parade ground on which men were drilling. They advanced, turned, wheeled and re-turned, not very expertly. None of them were in uniform. Owen guessed they were the ghaffirs on their training course.

  Over to one side were extensive firing ranges, which was where the shooting was coming from. Men were lying down firing enthusiastically at targets, again not very expertly—the sand all round the targets and often quite some distance away was being continually puffed up.

  The salvoes came to an end. The instructors shouted out orders and each man put his carbine down on the ground in front of him. The instructors went round checking that the safety catches were on. Then the men got up, picked up their guns and moved on to the next range.

  Owen stopped for a moment to watch them. It all came back to him, from those days in India when, as a junior subaltern, he had done these very things himself, gone round checking that the safety catches were on.

  The men settled down in their new positions and began firing again. The donkey man put his hands over his ears and grimaced.

  ‘Bang-bang!’ he said.

  Owen’s own ears began to ring and they moved on. How many ghaffirs were there here? Thirty? Forty?

  The mudiriya was surrounded by a high, whitewashed wall. Behind it was a courtyard and then the building itself, a long, single-storeyed mud-brick house with a narrow roof thatched with sugar cane jutting out from it to make a kind of verandah.

  The mudir was sitting on a wickerwork chair in the shade, his bare feet on a small table. He stood up when he saw Owen and then waved in recognition.

  ‘Again?’ he said, smiling. ‘Didn’t you get them all last time?’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve come for,’ said Owen.

  ‘No,’ agreed the mudir, still smiling. ‘I suppose not.’

  They sat down at the table and a man brought them native beer.

  ‘It’s the guns, isn’t it?’ said the mudir.

  ‘That’s right.’

  The mudir gestured towards the ranges.

  ‘Well, as you can hear, they’re all properly in use.’

  ‘Not all of them.’

  The mudir finished his glass and poured himself some more.

  ‘Well, that,’ he said, ‘is just what we need to talk about.’

  He filled Owen’s glass.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘All I’ve had so far are paper-pushing effendis who push the paper around so fast you don’t know where the hell you are. Then suddenly they stop and say: “Right, you bastard, you’re in the shit.” When all you’ve tried to do is exactly what they told you to.’

  He put the glass down.

  ‘I’ll show you. Abdul!’

  A man came out of the house.

  ‘Bring me the papers. The ones we’ve got out. Everything we’ve got on those damned guns that are supposed to be missing.’

  The man disappeared inside and returned with a file.

  The mudir took out a paper.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘This is where it all started. They asked me how many ghaffirs there were in the province. I told them.’ He pointed. ‘Eight hundred and fifty. There are a lot of villages in Minya. But there’s the number, see? And—’

  He pulled out another paper.

  ‘—here is the consignment note that came with the guns when they were delivered. How many? Eight hundred and fifty. They sent me what I asked for. Now…’

  He rummaged in the file again.

  ‘Where the hell is it, Abdul? Oh, here.’ He took out another piece of paper. ‘This is the list of ghaffirs. See? Every man jack of them. Listed by name. And beside each name is a tick, which tells you they have been issued with one of the new guns. Not only that. Here—’

  He laid his finger on the list.

  ‘—is the column where they say they have received it.’

  There were a few signatures in the column. For the most part they had made marks.

  ‘I know what you are going to say: how do we know the marks are genuine? That’s just the question Fricker Effendi put to me when we were going through it all beforehand. “Well, how the hell do I know?” I said. “The marks have got to be witnessed,” he said. “What, each mark?” I sa
id. “God, we’ll be here for hours.” “It has to be,” he said, “and someone has to sign to say they’ve witnessed.” So,’ said the mudir triumphantly—

  He took up the pages and showed them one by one to Owen.

  ‘At the bottom of each page Abdul has signed it, to say he has witnessed the marks. That’s right, isn’t it, Abdul?’

  Abdul nodded.

  ‘And here, believe it or not, is Osman’s signature. Osman is the chief instructor. Two signatures. As Fricker Effendi said. He said that was very important. “The system’s got to be watertight,” he said. “Otherwise someone will land you in the shit.” And, do you know, he was dead right. Because that boss-eyed little prick from the Ministry came down and reckoned he’d found two hundred guns were missing. Two hundred guns! “What a load of bollocks!” I said. “We’ve got a system here, set up by one of your own men, Fricker Effendi, and I can tell you it’s bloody watertight. Eight hundred and fifty I asked for, eight hundred and fifty I received. Eight hundred and fifty I issued. So what’s all this about guns that are supposed to have gone missing?”’

  Owen went through it all again inside, this time alone with Abdul. He wasn’t good with paperwork—Nikos was the man for that—but as far as he could see, everything was in order. So what was all this about guns that were supposed to have gone missing?

  It was extremely hot in the clerk’s office. It was small and airless. There was one tiny window, high up in the wall, looking out on to the courtyard.

  Abdul went out to refill the water jug and Owen began to go through the papers once again.

  From outside, through the window, he heard the sound of people arriving and then what seemed like the beginning of an altercation.

  ‘You again, you little prick? What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to go through your files again.’

  ‘Again? You’ve done it twice already! Haven’t you bastards up in Cairo got anything better to do?’

  ‘Not when two hundred guns have gone missing, no.’

  ‘They haven’t gone missing! It’s only on paper that they’ve gone missing. Your paper.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said another voice. ‘Our paper. Something you can rely upon.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve come, too, have you? What’s that for? To hold his hand?’

  ‘To find out how it comes about that your paperwork differs from ours.’

  ‘If there’s any difference, it’ll be because you bastards up in Cairo have got it wrong! Hello, here’s another of them! What the hell do you want? Are you from the Ministry, too?’

  ‘A different Ministry,’ said a new voice. ‘Finance.’

  ‘A different one! My God, the whole Government will be here soon. Is there something the matter up in Cairo? The plague, or something? Haven’t you lot got anything to do? I know what it is! It’s got a bit hot, and you’ve said to yourselves, oh dear, it’s all getting a bit too much for me, I think I need a holiday. And then off you go. Brought your families with you, have you?’

  ‘If we were going on holiday, it wouldn’t be to Minya, I can tell you.’

  ‘No, I’ll bet it wouldn’t. Minya is the asshole of the world to a person like you, isn’t it? I wish I had your job! Well, let me tell you something: there’s someone here already going through the files. The Mamur Zapt. So if you’re expecting me to slip you something, if that’s the big idea, then you’d better think again. And you can tell that to whoever it was that sent you!’

  ***

  They filed into Abdul’s office a few minutes later, three Egyptians, all in the dark suits of the city and all dripping with sweat. The short one in spectacles, Latif, must be the boss-eyed little prick who had first spotted that something was wrong. The taller one, Hoseini, smarter, more politically wise—one of the Ministry’s brightest and best, according to McKitterick—was the one McKitterick had sent down to check. The third one, Kattim, was from the Ministry of Finance and this was his first time in Minya.

  ‘And last, I hope,’ he said, mopping his forehead.

  ‘Abdulla has asked us to take him through the books,’ said Latif.

  ‘You won’t find anything,’ warned Hoseini. ‘That clerk of his knows his stuff.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Kattim, slightly condescendingly, Owen thought. ‘If there’s something funny going on, it usually shows up somewhere in the books.’

  ‘Is there something funny going on?’ asked Owen.

  ‘There’s certainly something funny going on with the paperwork,’ said Latif. ‘There were two requisition notes.’

  Requisition notes? He didn’t recall seeing one of those in the paperwork the mudir had shown him.

  ‘It’s what starts the process,’ Hoseini explained. ‘In accounting terms, at least. It says how many guns are required.’

  ‘Eight hundred and fifty?’ said Owen. He’d got it now.

  ‘Well,’ said Hoseini, ‘he sent in two of them. The first was for eight hundred and fifty. The second, which was for one thousand and fifty, came in afterwards.’

  ‘They thought it was an amendment,’ said Latif, ‘so that was the one they worked to.’

  ‘Sending one thousand and fifty?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘According to our people,’ said Hoseini. ‘But not according to the mudir. He denies having sent the second note. He says he only asked for eight hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Which was what he got,’ said Owen. ‘According to the consignment note.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a puzzle, too,’ said Latif. ‘The ship’s captain says he never saw it. He doesn’t work to notes, anyway. As far as he’s concerned, he just loads and unloads. The checking is done on shore at both ends.’

  ‘A shipping clerk did the checking at the Cairo end,’ said Hoseini. ‘He worked to our paperwork and the consignment note for one thousand and fifty. He’s adamant that one thousand and fifty were loaded.’

  ‘What about at the Minya end?’ asked Owen.

  ‘That’s where the consignment note for eight hundred and fifty comes in,’ said Latif. ‘They say that was the one that was with the cargo and they worked to that.’

  ‘Was not the first requisition note cancelled when the second one came in?’ asked Kattim.

  There was a little silence.

  ‘Apparently not,’ conceded Hoseini.

  ‘It ought to have been,’ said Kattim severely.

  ‘But that doesn’t explain the consignment note,’ said Owen.

  ‘I suspect,’ said Hoseini, ‘that, just as there were two requisition notes, so there were two consignment notes. The shipping clerk in Cairo worked to ours for one thousand and fifty, and a quite different one, for eight hundred and fifty, was produced at the Minya end.’

  ‘The two hundred guns disappearing in between?’

  Hoseini shook his head.

  ‘I think it more likely,’ he said, ‘that they went on to Minya and were unloaded there with the others. Then all that would be necessary would be to switch the consignment notes and send the second one to the mudiriya together with the eight hundred and fifty guns originally asked for.’

  ‘And the others?’

  Hoseini smiled.

  ‘That, I think, Mamur Zapt, is a question for you, not for us.’

  ***

  Owen decided to leave them to it. The office was too small for them all to work together comfortably and, besides, they were clearly much better at this sort of thing than he was. These finance people were all the same: like terriers. Once they got their teeth into something they didn’t let go. The thought of that long unanswered memo back in his office came uncomfortably into his mind.

  He emerged blinking into the sunlight of the courtyard. The mudir was back in his chair in the shade, a fresh bottle of beer on the table before him. He looked gloomily up as Owen
went past.

  ‘You see how it is, Effendi? Three of them! And all here for one reason only: to show that whatever went wrong, went wrong at this end and not up in Cairo. The bastards!’

  ***

  On the way out he went past the ranges again. The ghaffirs were still firing away. He stopped again to watch them, feeling twinges of nostalgia. It was all so familiar.

  Then a thought suddenly struck him. Ought it to be?

  He walked over to one of the instructors.

  ‘What ranges are you firing at?’

  ‘Two hundred yards, five hundred, and up to a thousand, Effendi.’

  ‘Aren’t those ranges a bit long for ghaffirs?’

  The instructor shrugged.

  ‘It’s what we were told to practise on, Effendi.’

  ‘Those are military ranges.’

  The instructor shrugged again.

  ***

  The afternoon heat lay over the town. The streets were deserted. Only down by the river were there people, a few women with baskets on their heads, who, having taken their produce to the market, were waiting for the ferry to go home to the other side of the river.

  The constable came sauntering down.

  ‘Hello, girls!’ he said. ‘Have you got anything for me?’

  ‘What would we have for you, Mustapha? Our baskets are empty.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of what you carry in your baskets.’

  ‘What could he be thinking of?’ said one woman to another.

  ‘I don’t know. Melons, do you think?’

  ‘No, I think it must be bananas. One particular banana, at any rate.’

  ‘Now, now, girls! I just thought you might fancy a happy moment before you went home.’

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Mustapha. I shall have to ask your wife.’

  The ferry was just putting out from the other side of the river. It was a heavy, ungainly boat with a squat, square sail, quite unlike the graceful feluccas with their curved lateen rigs. For some time it hardly seemed to move. From somewhere across on that side came the faint bleating of goats.

  On this side of the river all was still. There wasn’t a movement in the town. The waterfront, which had been so crowded when he arrived, was empty, apart from the women, fallen silent now, and a solitary tea seller higher up the bank, sitting beside his brazier oblivious of the heat, his teacups spread out on the sand in front of him. From somewhere, far away, came the faint drone of an engine.