by Len Deighton
‘The little bastard!’ said Peggy West looking over her shoulder to where the king was sitting. She caught a glimpse of him through the movement and blur of the couples dancing. The orchestra was playing ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’. A mirrored ball hung from the ceiling and revolved slowly. Flickers of light reflected from it, falling on the dancers like snow. Everyone was smiling; everyone on the dance floor seemed to be having a good time. Everyone, that is, but Robin Darymple. He was on his feet and standing well away from the table. He looked acutely embarrassed. He reached into his pocket for his gold cigarette case and lighter. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke in a way that revealed his agitation. Soon he edged away and wandered off.
‘But Sayed is not an American or British,’ said Piotr again.
‘And what about Zeinab?’ said Alice, trying desperately to conceal the full extent of her anger. ‘Doesn’t Zeinab have a say in whether she wants to go to bed with that stupid king?’ Having said it, she took a deep breath. Only a few minutes ago Alice would have rebuked anyone being so rude about the monarch in such a public place. Now she was shocked and furious in a way she’d never before been.
‘Please keep your voices down,’ said Sayed. They all looked at him. He seemed to have aged ten years.
‘I must do as he says,’ said Zeinab looking at them all.
Sayed reached out and touched her arm.
‘It is better that I go with the brute than that I make very bad trouble for my family,’ said Zeinab.
‘I regret to say I agree with you,’ said Prince Piotr. ‘For any Egyptian to defy the king is very dangerous.’
‘Don’t go!’ Alice was adamant; her voice showed the others how strongly she felt about it. Piotr raised an eyebrow. So this was the real Alice Stanhope.
Peggy West was concerned about Alice, frightened that she was going to make a scene. ‘We can’t advise them, Alice. This is their country and their king.’
‘But we run it,’ said Alice. ‘We run it and let this rotten corruption flourish: bribes and threats and injustice. How can you say we must stay out of it?’
Peggy was calm; she had the clinical restraint that is part of being a nurse. ‘It must be their decision, Alice. Let Sayed and Zeinab decide for themselves. Our comments only make it more difficult for them.’ The music stopped and the dancers left the floor. There was some good-mannered applause, and the orchestra took a few minutes’ break.
Alice said, ‘Can’t you do something, Prince Piotr?’
Piotr looked at her and slowly shook his head. ‘I wish I could. You know that. Zeinab and Sayed are my friends.’
Alice saw that by choosing a woman at Prince Piotr’s table the king was challenging him to interfere. Perhaps the king’s choice was in some way influenced by animosity between the two men. Or perhaps such personal circumstances increased the king’s sadistic pleasure, or his lust.
‘Where is he?’ said Peggy.
The king’s party was still sitting at their specially positioned table at the dance floor, but the king was nowhere to be seen. Prince Piotr watched Peggy craning her neck to see the whole floor. ‘His Majesty will have gone,’ he said. ‘I know him. He is like that sometimes. He comes in to look around.’
‘To find a woman?’
Prince Piotr gave a weary smile. ‘Yes.’
‘What a pig!’
‘Shall we dance?’ said Piotr.
Peggy was about to decline, but it was no use railing at Piotr. Robin Darymple had returned and asked Alice to dance. Obviously Piotr wanted to give the Shazlis a chance to talk in private. ‘I’d love to,’ said Peggy. It was a slow waltz. Peggy could see Alice across the dance floor with Darymple, her face composed and beautiful, as if her spasm of anger had never occurred. The Shazlis were still at the table. Sayed had brought his chair closer to his sister.
‘I’d love to,’ mused Prince Piotr as they moved smoothly round the dance floor. ‘Why do we keep to these absurd expressions? When I first went to England I used to say, Pleased to meet you. All my friends laughed at me. But why should How do you do? be better than Pleased to meet you?’
As Darymple danced past them, he called ‘Wotcher mates!’ and grinned at them. His face was flushed. He’d had a lot to drink.
‘It’s a silly language,’ said Peggy.
‘No, it’s the language of Shakespeare and Milton and Wordsworth.’
‘Yes. Only the people are silly.’
They danced in silence. Perhaps, she thought, Prince Piotr hated returning to Sayed and Zeinab as much as she did. They kept dancing for the next dance too. So did Alice and Darymple. When they returned to the table, only Sayed was there.
‘Say nothing,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to talk of it.’
They all sat down. Prince Piotr ordered another bottle of champagne, but despite all the effervescence of the waiter, they sat there like mourners round a coffin.
Soon Prince Piotr proposed that they leave, and go back to the Magnifico. ‘We will have one last drink in my apartment,’ he said.
But when they got back to the Magnifico no one wanted a last drink. The evening had been devastating for all of them. There were elaborate good nights and thank-yous before they made their polite excuses and went to their own rooms.
Only Sayed had something more to say. He pulled Alice aside and took her into the dining room, the same place where she had sat with her corporal on that evening in January when she’d first arrived at the Magnifico.
Sayed switched on the lights. There was a faint smell of disinfectant. Bentwood dining chairs were standing on the tables, as if some mad prankster had arranged the room. Over each table there was a light fitting – a green glass shade – with a sticky flypaper suspended from it. On the wall there was a heavily retouched sepia photo of the late Signor Magnifico and a large coloured litho of the Bay of Naples in a decorative ebony frame. Silver-plated pepper and salt pots were lined up on the counter in a very straight line. So were some bottles of tomato ketchup. The fanlights that surmounted the windows were slightly open to provide a movement of air. From outside in the street there was the sound of English voices singing in a discordant, drunken way, ‘My old man’s a dustman…’ The voices faded as the soldiers lurched off back towards the bright lights of Sharia Kasr el Aini.
Alice faced Sayed and waited for him to speak. He looked at her and then looked away again. She knew she must give him time to collect his thoughts, however long it took.
‘Miss Alice,’ said Sayed formally, ‘tomorrow I want to talk to your friend Bert.’ As if craving some sort of displacement activity, he grabbed a dining chair from the table. He placed it on the floor so that Alice could sit down, and then got a chair for himself. As if feeling the necessity to explain the strange arrangement of the chairs, he said, ‘They are put on the tables after dinner each evening, so that the floor can be swept and mopped.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Alice.
Once Alice was seated, Sayed sat down in the other chair. He clasped his hands, wringing them in a torment that the fixed expression on his face disavowed. ‘I will –’ he stopped and there was another silence.
‘Yes?’ said Alice.
‘I will work for him … work for the British … anything. I will do anything you wish.’ He wet his lips. ‘The king! That beast! That such people rule my country. It is a disgrace. Even the British do not do such things to us.’
Above his head there was a flypaper hanging from the ceiling. Upon its sticky surface, a fly was beating its wings angrily, trying to break free. ‘Perhaps you should think about it tonight, Sayed. Perhaps we should speak again tomorrow,’ said Alice.
Sayed laughed as if she had made a good joke. ‘That you should say such a thing! You are not supposed to say that. You are supposed to welcome me to work for you in secrecy and be your agent.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’ She touched her pearl necklace, only with difficulty resisting the inclination to twist it in her fingers; her mother was always nagging her abo
ut that bad habit.
‘Strike while the iron is hot. Is that not the expression?’
‘Yes, it is. Your English is very good, Sayed.’
‘Then strike while the iron is hot, Miss Alice. I know your friend Bert is in the British Secret Service … I will join him. I will tell him everything.’
‘No, no, no –’
‘It is no use saying no, Miss Alice. I say yes.’ He hadn’t moved. He sat in his chair staring at her. ‘You will tell him?’
‘I will tell him, Sayed.’ He was seated at the table with a hand propped under his chin.
Suddenly, Alice recognised that this was an important moment in her life. It was for this moment that she had defied her mother, argued with her father, and coaxed and wheedled family and friends to get herself an interesting and important job in the Cairo administration. Now, amazingly, she was actually being given a chance to influence events. She was recruiting a man who would spy upon the revolutionary movement that the Egyptian army officers had formed. She must stop being the little girl her mother had created and become a woman of account. She must be professional, the sort of police officer Bert Cutler would approve of and respect.
With a new brisk voice, she said, ‘Very well! I don’t want to risk your being seen and recognised in the police barracks, Sayed. Better that Bert comes here. What time shall I try and arrange it for?’
Sayed seemed not to notice the change that had come about in Alice. He looked down at his hands for a couple of minutes, as if considering what was at stake for the very first time. This was of course the point of no return. After this he would not be able to change his mind or laugh and say that Miss Alice must have misunderstood him. He raised his eyes so that he looked at her directly and said, ‘As early as possible.’
‘I’ll get a message to him. Come and have a cup of tea in my room. Say, eight o’clock tomorrow morning?’
‘Eight o’clock,’ he confirmed dolefully.
She stood up. She didn’t want to give him time to modify his decision. ‘It’s settled then. Good night, Sayed. Get some sleep.’
‘Good night, Miss Alice.’ Politely he got to his feet as she stood up. She wanted to put her arms round him and comfort him. She loved them both. What could she say that would adequately express her feelings? It was the most tragic thing she’d ever seen.
They stood there awkwardly. Then he guessed that Alice was waiting for him to leave, so she could phone the night duty officer at the military police barracks. He bowed, turned and left the dining room without adding another word.
Alice gave him a few minutes to walk upstairs before going into the lobby to use the telephone. She closed the door of the booth carefully so that she could not be overheard. ‘Hello? Hello?’
It was never easy to get through on an Egyptian phone. She tried several times, then sought the help of the operator. A newspaper had been left behind in the booth. She glanced at it while she was waiting to be connected. There had been a big naval battle in the Java Sea with ‘severe Allied losses’. The newspaper account gave few facts, but apparently the Japanese invasion force had got through. Soon, it seemed, the Dutch East Indies would fall. The official communiqués were obviously preparing the public for the next lot of bad news. Everywhere the Allies were losing the war.
She pushed the paper aside and flicked the phone rest a couple of times. The operator seemed to have abandoned her. She dialled the barracks number again. After two more tries she heard the ringing tone. Sergeant Ponsonby was acting as NDO; she recognised the voice.
‘Night duty officer.’
The police and military were on twenty-four-hour alert. There had been extra shifts of duty ever since the night when, according to the legend that was now well established, British tanks surrounded Abdin Palace and the king was held at pistol point.
Alice was guarded in her conversation. She knew Bert would understand her cryptic message, even if Ponsonby failed to. ‘He must have breakfast with me at seven thirty in the morning. He must. You must find him. Tell him it’s very very important. He mustn’t be a minute late.’ She would have to speak with him before he saw Sayed; that was imperative.
Ponsonby refused to be moved by the urgency. Dolefully and slowly he said, ‘Seven thirty hours ack emma. Affirmative. I will get a messenger and make sure Major Cutler gets your communication within the hour.’ Ponsonby was being especially pompous tonight. Alice decided he’d been drinking.
As she went upstairs she passed the apartment that Sayed and Zeinab shared. She thought she heard someone sobbing, but it might have been the water pipes. The plumbing in the hotel was very old.
When Andy Anderson occupied the little room on the second floor, he’d fixed up shelves and installed an electric cooking ring and electric kettle. So equipped, he could make tea in the middle of the night and shave in the mornings without going to the bathroom down the hall.
The sun was shining brightly, falling across the card table upon which Alice had put a cloth and set out an English breakfast. Andy had used the table for his poker games, which had often continued into the small hours of the morning. Andy supplied booze for his friends, but he himself preferred tea. He was somewhat addicted to tea. Some said that tea drinking was the secret of Andy’s good fortune at card games. Despite the drunken parties held in his room, no one had ever seen Andy drunk or even slightly tipsy.
Now that Alice Stanhope was occupying the room, she had transformed it with colourful curtains and a new rug. The Wedgwood tea set, cut-glass marmalade jar, and much else on the table, had been borrowed from her mother’s apartment in Alexandria.
‘I’d always wondered what it would be like to breakfast with you, Alice,’ said Jimmy Ross. He was dressed in khaki drill with his white corporal’s chevrons on the short sleeves. He found it easier to move about on the streets, and do the things he wanted to do, dressed as a ranker. Anyway, he didn’t want to suddenly abandon his disguise; the Magnifico residents had come to know him as Corporal Cutler.
Alice looked at him sharply but she couldn’t be sure there was no innuendo. He smiled, and she poured tea for him.
‘No milk,’ said Sayed, and shielded his cup with his flattened hand. ‘It is good of you to see me, Bert.’
‘I’ll have the grapefruit,’ he told Alice, ‘but for breakfast in Cairo I draw the line at hot porridge.’
‘Then I’ll eat it all myself,’ said Alice. ‘Sugar?’
‘I am in charge of the secret intelligence,’ said Sayed quickly, blurting it out so that there could be no going back.
‘For the Free Officers?’
‘So you know of us?’
‘It’s not a closely guarded secret,’ said Ross. ‘But I didn’t know you were the intelligence chief.’
‘I handle it. We do not have an intelligence chief.’
‘You’ll have to give me names,’ said Ross. It was probably best to start with the hardest bit. When a man had passed his friends’ names to you, his allegiance came with them.
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘I’ll give you a code name. Your real name will never be written down. Only the three of us will ever know of this meeting.’
Before Sayed could respond, there was a light tap at the door. Peggy West stuck her head in and let out a gasp of surprise. ‘Alice! Sayed! And Bert Cutler!’ said Peggy. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’
‘What is it, Peggy?’ Alice was trying to remain calm, but it wasn’t easy. She hadn’t allowed for the possibility of Peggy barging into their secret meeting. She always met Peggy downstairs in the lobby.
‘And what lovely china!’ said Peggy coming into the room to look more closely at the spread on the table. ‘I wanted to remind you we should leave for work at eight thirty sharp. All the shifts are being changed.’
‘I know. I’m almost ready,’ said Alice.
Peggy remained standing there as if expecting to be asked to sit down and take breakfast with them. But no one invited her to sit down. They had been s
urprised, and it showed. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting something important,’ said Peggy.
Alice got her hat and put it on carefully while looking in the mirror. For a moment she could think of no response. She stared at her reflection, a hat pin held in her mouth. Then she recovered herself, fixed her hat into position and said, ‘Not at all. It’s just a little celebration for Bert.’ She paused and in the silence she realised that they were expecting her to explain further. Desperately she searched her imagination for something to acclaim. ‘He’s being made a sergeant,’ she said.
‘That’s wonderful, Bert,’ said Peggy. ‘Congratulations.’ It was impossible to know from her tone of voice if she believed Alice’s explanation. Peggy was obviously wondering why Sayed would be included in such a celebration.
‘Zeinab will go back to her mother and live there. I asked Sayed to have breakfast,’ Alice explained.
Peggy West stood there, looking at Sayed and trying to think of some appropriate solace, but no words came to her.
‘We’d better be going,’ Alice told her. ‘I’ll let you two finish breakfast in peace.’
As soon as the door had closed upon them, Ross took from his shirt pocket a plain sheet of paper which had been folded twice. He passed it to Sayed, and with it a wooden pencil. ‘Write the names,’ he said.
17
‘It’s hush hush. Top damned secret, old boy.’ Wallingford grinned at Captain Robin Darymple. ‘The whole point is that I can’t tell you anything about what I’m doing. Or what we’re going to do.’
The two men, together with Percy, were in an office in Grey Pillars, the large stone building that was GHQ Middle East. From this curious example of Italian Fascist architectural style, Britain’s war was fought. From here the orders went out to British forces as far away as Ethiopia, Iraq and Palestine and to the fighting front in the Libyan desert.
‘Yes,’ said Darymple. Doubt was in his voice. He wondered how he’d explain why Wallingford – without any written authorisation from anyone – had taken possession of a large office next to his and equipped it with chairs and desks, filing cabinets, typewriters and even two female secretaries. ‘But what will I tell the others?’
