Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  The clod-throwing ceased because, unlike the curses that did not cease, one could not throw them any longer without hitting Jim. So Jim had to pause a minute to shake the persistent little nuisance off. And as most of the other twelve were shouting coarse obscenities, that gave him a chance to whisper without being overhead.

  “Get away, you little — !” Then, in sotto voce —

  “Where is Captain Catesby?”

  “He is in sight. Oh, in the name of Allah—”

  “Let Allah feed you! (Follow me then.) Go and scavenge. Go and steal. Am I God that I should feed you?”

  Bleating piteously, and shedding tears that would have made the fabulous weeping crocodile look like a very poor actor indeed, Suliman turned aside to squat by the side of what had once been a cart-road but had grown to a mere track since bombardment wiped the village out. But he did not stay in that position much longer than was needed to be out of range of missiles.

  * * * * *

  The normal daylight activity of camp and town was under way. Bugles were blowing. Guards had been relieved. Long strings of mules and horses were being led to water at the troughs. Engines were moving in the station yard, and strings of Egyptian laborers were slouching sullenly to work in the railroad sheds. Donkeys, women and other beasts of burden were emerging from the town, where the muezzin had long since finished wailing his injunction to the four winds.

  One cartload of merchandise was already on its way from railway to town, and the kites were patrolling overhead on the watch for offal and remains. Suliman had a perfect right to head for the town, too, if he saw fit.

  So had Catesby, looking like any other shiftless Arab mediating breakfast. He strolled along the cart track leisurely with his head down, imitating the measured native gait that looks so dignified but oftener than not means merely pride in laziness.

  As he walked, fingering the pistol under his heavy brown cloak, he began wondering just how much the night’s work had accomplished in the matter between Jenkins and himself. Adding it all up he could not make the total come to anything at all.

  Suddenly he laughed, though. There was a hundred-piaster bank-note taken from a dead man! But Narayan Singh had found that, and if the real ownership should never be established no doubt it would be awarded to the Sikh. He took out the crumpled note and examined it, taking care to keep Suliman in sight.

  He was not at all expert in Arabic, but presently he whistled, for he could spell out the thin, cramped, right-to-left writing when he took the time. An Arab writing with a fine pen can condense a deal of information on a half- sheet of ordinary notepaper.

  The strip that fastened the halves of the note together was of generous proportions; it had been cut off with scissors, and looked like the lower third of a half-sheet. The gum used was very ordinary office paste, with the result that one corner had come loose and curled upward, betraying writing on both sides.

  And because of the fact that Arabs write from right to left and, like some careless Westerners, reverse the sheet by turning it end over end, the name of the man to whom the document had originally been addressed and of the man who wrote it were both on the cut-off strip of paper. The fist name — that on the gummed side — was Brigadier-General Jenkins. The other name was “your honor’s humble servant, Ibrahim Charkas.”

  Having spelled out the information, Catesby returned the note to his pocket and hurried forward, for Suliman was just entering the town street. He was not going to be fool enough to trust Suliman with the hundred piasters to pass along to Jim, having considerable less than Jim’s high opinion of the boy. That was reciprocated.

  Catesby’s specialty was Sikhs. Being an Arab, Suliman’s gift lay in personal devotion to whoever fed, clothed and favored him. It is not a bad gift, that personal loyalty, but there is nothing in it of the Sikh’s wider idealism that attaches him to persons only because those persons stand for honorable service. Catesby lacked Jim’s ability, which is wholly American, to ferret out the strong points of any breed whatever and play those sky-high.

  The result was unfortunate. Suliman followed the party of thirteen to a small shed that stood beside a big one near the farther limit of the town. Into that they disappeared, donkey and all.

  Suliman lurked in the doorway a hundred yards off, and Catesby watched him from a point of vantage behind the awning of a fruit-seller’s shop. From where he stood he could read the name of the Zionist Commission on the door of the big shed.

  At the end of about twenty minutes the donkey and the thirteen men emerged, Jim last again. The twelve went about their business separate ways, but Jim sat down to warm himself, Arab-fashion, in the early sun and lighted a cigarette.

  When the last of the twelve was out of sight Suliman approached Jim with the beggar’s whine again. They talked for about two minutes, and a coin changed hands for appearance’s sake. Then Suliman came up-street to beg from Catesby. There was no one to overhear them — no need to beat about the bush.

  “Jimgrim says you are to go back to Narayan Singh and tell him not to kill the iblis, who is in that place he is watching. He says you should stay with Narayan Singh, so that when Jimgrim wants you he can find you.”

  * * * * *

  Now if a Sikh had brought that message Catesby would have accepted it without demur. Moreover, he would have given that hundred-piaster note to a Sikh to give to Jim. But the eight-year-old Arab was different.

  “Go back and say I have something for him. Ask him whether I shall go to him, or will he come to me. Say it’s important.”

  “Give me whatever it is. He told me to come back to him.”

  “Do as I say.”

  There followed a considerable waste of time. Suliman did not dare to go running back with the message, knowing well enough that inquisitive observers might draw conclusions. He had the practical common sense to enter a shop and buy two native cigarettes “for the khawaja sitting yonder in the sun,” as he was careful to explain.

  The shopman was inquisitive, and had to be lied to in extenso, which took up more time. Finally Jim received the cigarettes and returned one to the messenger as gratuity. Thanks to Suliman there was nothing to call for comment.

  But Jim had to sit and smoke the cigarette in order to complete the innocent picture, and it was several minutes before he strolled up the street to where Catesby waiting and went through the forms of pleased surprise and the lengthy Arab greeting of an unexpected friend. After that they strolled side by side, very slowly as befitted Arabs in the circumstances, and that entailed further delay.

  Catesby gave him the hundred-piaster note. Jim examined it and whistled softly — a thing no Arab ever does; but the revelation startled him, and there was no one to overhear. Catesby explained briefly how he came by it; and then they went through the formula of leave-taking for the benefit of onlookers, which consumed another minute or two.

  At last, however, Catesby went off alone to share Narayan Singh’s vigil, and took his time on the way because no Arab ever hurries if that can possibly be helped. So it was twenty minutes more before he reached the deserted village and another five minutes after than before he discovered Narayan Singh.

  The Sikh was lying in a dead man’s tortured posture on the ground, and just beginning to recover consciousness. A stone the size of a coconut lay beside his head. It was ten more minutes before Catesby could get a word out of him.

  “The door opened, sahib, and the iblis showed his head. I ordered him in again. He shut the door, and I watched it. A few minutes after that he showed himself over the top of the wall, and I, having orders not to shoot him, merely observed. Then he threw three stones at me, and the third one struck my head.

  “How long ago did this happen? Soon after I left?”

  “Nay. A long time after you left. I have been stunned — how should I know how long? But I think it happened just a very little while ago.”

  Catesby tried the door, but it was locked. So he set a charred beam against the wall and climb
ed, to peer in through the window. As far as he could see the place was empty; and presently, scouting about, he found the imprints of two enormous naked feet in the dust. They were pointed away from the door, and he hardly could doubt they were those of the escaping iblis.

  CHAPTER X

  “Acting on information received.”

  ALL the ambitious men and women of history have come to grief finally by walking straight ahead into the same old simple trap. It is painted differently for different men, and the bait is big or little as the case may be. The goads that made them restless, so that they move when the trap is ready instead of staying still are pretty much the same in most cases; and, just as in the case of the tiger in his prime, there are usually jackals giving bad advice.

  Jenkins was no exception. Taking advantage of the long-drawn interim between the armistice and the issuing of mandates, he had made of that camp at Ludd a very breeding-ground of politics.

  As a fighter he had obtained distinction by stealing the credit for other men’s successes for himself and by contriving to blame others for his failures. And he had no use for credit except as a means for making profit. So of course he had jackals tugging his heels impatiently, men who admired his disrespect for all the accepted rules of fair play and who would have outdone his methods if they had dared. One of them was Captain Aloysius Ticknor.

  Ticknor likewise had ambitions, and was perfectly ready to sacrifice Jenkins at any moment for their attainment. But for the present Ticknor saw more immediate profit in working for his chief’s advancement, like a man who rears a ladder to climb by, meaning to kick it down afterward or leave it leaning, just as suits him.

  They were not in each other’s secrets, because Jenkins never trusted anyone if he could help it. He preferred to make hints and innuendoes, on the strength of which a subordinate made good, then Jenkins got the credit; if the subordinate failed there was only one more victim on the long list of ruined youngsters “Jinks” had left behind him.

  So Aloysius Ticknor, who would lose money to Jenkins at cards, for instance, and generally win it back with something added from junior subalterns, was exactly in the position of a jackal craving meat who did not know the tiger’s real intentions although sure of the tiger’s hunger. Jackal fashion he diagnosed the brigadier’s nervous restlessness and offered the sort of advice he felt sure would be acceptable.

  He was another pro-Arab, anti-Zionist, of course. You had to be that if you hoped to stay in Jenkins’ good books for a minute.

  “Why don’t you send me into town, sir, to look things over.”

  “Might fall foul of the provost-marshal,” Jenkins answered. “He’s one of those stuffy shits who resent what they call interference.”

  “If you show him up as incompetent by finding a cache of rifles under his very nose—” suggested Ticknor.

  “Hm-m-m! Be a joke, wouldn’t it? Not difficult either. The fool has his eye on Arabs all the time. There isn’t an Arab store or dwelling that he hasn’t searched. If the Arabs had one rifle hidden he’d have found it. He seems to think Jews are gentle angels who wouldn’t do anything secretive if you paid them money for it.”

  “Suppose I look the Zionist quarters over, sir?”

  “I’m not going to give you orders over the provost-marshal’s head, if that’s what you’re driving at. If you can think of another excuse—”

  “Oh, easily. You remember those three condemned huts? They’re to be advertised for sale. I could go and inquire whether the Zionists would like to have them — promise nothing, of course, but offer to use influence.”

  “Yes, you might do that. But be sure you promise nothing. I shan’t need you this morning. You can go for a stroll if you like,” he added. “Buy yourself some souvenirs.”

  And he made a note in his diary there and then that he had given Ticknor personal leave of absence. He did it in pencil to be inked in later, so that he might change “personal” to “particular” if he should see fit.

  * * * * *

  So Captain Aloysius Ticknor, with nice red tables on his collar and the glow of astuteness radiating from him till he looked like light personified, started out with two dogs at his heels, swinging his service cane. Half an hour later, sweating rather more than he liked, because it offset his studied air of omniscient aloofness, he arrived in front of the Zionist store-shed on the far end of the town.

  The door was locked, but a short, broad-shouldered, sweaty little Jew in black New York-made pants and a gray shirt was busy nailing scrap tin over a broken window-pane.

  “Are you in charge here?” Ticknor asked him.

  The Jew laid down the hammer and eyed his suspiciously. It was no more than hereditary mistrust of uniform because officialdom has always meant oppression for the Jew; but it was enough in itself to stir the lees of Ticknor’s racial arrogance.

  “Can’t you answer? I asked, are you in charge here?”

  “In charge of this hammer, yes. It is not my hammer. I make repairs — see?”

  “Where’s the key of the place?”

  “I have it.”

  “Open the door then.”

  The Jew did not cringe, having left that uningratiating voice behind him in Moscow when he emigrated to America, but he obeyed with alacrity that might have disarmed Ticknor’s suspicion. But Ticknor was feeling jubilant. He had come prepared to hide his real mission under a cloak of friendly interest and was naturally relieved to find that he could lay aside the hypocrisy. There might have been someone there who would have resented intrusion — some Zionist official on his dignity; and of all things in the world that he hated, he worst was having to be polite to people he disliked.

  He walked straight into the great musty-smelling shed the instant the door opened, seeing in imagination a sort of pirates’ stronghold piled full of contraband. But when his eyes grew used to the dim light he saw only very ordinary stores — spare hospital supplies, flour in barrels, clothing in bundles, tar, tools and calico in bales — extremely disappointing.

  However, Jews are secretive and cunning. Doubtless there were rifles hidden in the bales — ammunition in the barrels. He nosed about all over the place, pushing things aside to see what lay behind or underneath them. Presently he found a bale that had been opened and wired up again.

  “Come here, you!” he called. “Here, open this!”

  The overstepped the limit of forbearance even of the individual in black pants. He came in, scratched the back of his head, rubbed his nose and went through the motions with his other hand suggestive of deference and blunt refusal that fought one with the other. A slight shrug of the shoulders indication absence of responsibility; but he said nothing.

  “D’you hear me? Open it!”

  “But why?”

  The answer aroused suspicion to the danger-point. Where prejudice is strong judgment is always weak. Ticknor set to work to do the job himself, twisting at the wires with impatient fingers under the eyes of the bewildered Jew. He had got one wire undone when someone else darkened the doorway.

  * * * * *

  “What is this?”

  Ticknor turned impatiently to see a Jew of another type altogether watching him from the door through gold-rimmed pince-nez — the very man he did not want to meet that morning, but for whose benefit he had come prepared with the plausible excuse about the condemned huts. Aaronsohn was one of the intellectuals, a man of considerable private means, journalist and poet, who had thrown his whole fortune and energy into the Zionist movement.

  Caught in the act of trespass without authority, and with dust clinging to the sweat on his face and neck, he felt at a disadvantage that Aaronsohn appreciated fully. There seemed nothing for it but to bluff the thing through.

  “Acting on information received,” he said, “I am searching for stolen Government property.”

  “Acting on circumstantial evidence, I am now on my way to General Anthony to lodge a complaint against you,” Aaronsohn answered with a grim smile. “But perhaps
you have something in writing?”

  “No need of it,” Ticknor answered.

  “No? We will see about that. Perhaps I had better see first what damage you have done.”

  “Perhaps you’d better open that bale and satisfy me what’s inside it,” sneered Ticknor.

  Aaronsohn obliged him. And because the bale stood wedged between others, which made it awkward to unbind, he and the man in black pants dragged it out to the middle of the floor between them. There proved to be nothing in it but gray flannel shirts, each marked at the neck with the name of a New York manufacturer.

  Aaronsohn chose to be sarcastic, twenty-five years’ use of an acid pen having left that habit on the surface.

  “I will leave you in charge of the plunder,” he said, smiling with thin lips. “Stay here, and let me ask General Anthony to send you assistance.”

  Conscious of the strength of his position, and too old a hand at reprisals to waste invective on a man he could annihilate by much more concrete means, he walked straight out at that, leaving the door wide open.

  Ticknor swore under his breath, reviewing his own position without getting any comfort from it. He knew he might depend on Jenkins to let him down completely, for he was under no delusion as to the brigadier’s method of self- preservation.

  It occurred to him presently that his one meager chance lay in still discovering what he came to find. It might be after all that Aaronsohn’s indignation was a well-acted bluff.

  What had brought the Jew there at that critical moment? What could possibly have brought him there but nervousness? What could have sent him hurrying off to Anthony but the hope of stopping the search before the secret was uncovered.

  Thinking thus, his eye fell on the twelve square feet of floor where the bale had stood before they dragged it clear. He saw hinges — the butt-ends of long strap hinges passing under the next bale on the left.