City of Gold

by Len Deighton

  ‘Ponsonby expressed his scepticism very clearly. He told the secretary that she might well be a spy for all he knew. But the lady at the other end recognised Ponsonby’s Yorkshire accent. It was Mrs Smythson, Colonel Smythson’s wife. She’s working in GHQ.’

  ‘To avoid the evacuation order.’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  The brigadier screwed up his face for a moment before laughing heartily. ‘That old bitch! I’ll bet she gave Ponsonby a flea in his ear.’

  ‘She did indeed, sir.’

  ‘He told Colonel Smythson’s wife she was a spy!’ As the full import of this struck the brigadier, he slapped his knee briefly and laughed again. ‘You’ve made my day, Cutler. Good old Ponsonby. I knew he’d meet his match one day. I’d love to have heard it.’

  ‘She was very upset.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good one.’

  The brigadier got to his feet and went to the filing cabinet. This time he didn’t open it. He leaned an arm on it while he gazed across the square to the railway station. The square and gardens in front of the railway station – Midan al Mahatta – was one of the most frantically lively places in a frantically lively city. That’s why the military police had chosen to be so close to it in the first place. Not all the people in the Midan were travellers. There were some men in khaki and some military policemen, but mostly the crowd consisted of natives: porters and men selling beads and souvenirs and brightly coloured drinks, snake charmers, conjurors, jugglers, pickpockets, whores and thieves. It was a distracting sight, and the brigadier found it difficult to take his eyes away from it.

  ‘What a place it is! It never stops, does it? I don’t know how you ever get any work done, Cutler.’

  ‘It’s not easy, sir,’ said Ross feelingly.

  ‘Ever look at that statue?’ said the brigadier, waving vaguely in the direction of the station.

  ‘Statue? I don’t believe I have, sir.’

  ‘Egypt awakens. Kitchener was going to haul the statue of Rameses Second all the way from Memphis, but someone stopped him. Now instead we’ve got a statue of Egypt awakening.’ The brigadier screwed up his eyes as he looked at it in the distance. ‘A woman getting up from a chair. Do we want her to awaken? That’s what I ask myself, Cutler. And what will she do when she’s awake? Boot us out. That’s what she’ll do, Cutler, she’ll boot us all out.’

  Ross decided he’d rather not comment one way or the other upon the woman in the statue. He nodded.

  In one of his inexplicable leaps of thought, the brigadier said, ‘Do you have any daughters, Cutler?’ He turned round to face into the room again.

  ‘No, sir. I’m not married.’ He’d discovered that Major Albert Cutler was not married from a close reading of his diary.

  ‘Girls are a worry, I can tell you. I’ve come to a point where I almost dread to open the letters from home. My eighteen-year-old doesn’t want to go on studying; she wants to join the army – the ATS. I ask you, Cutler. What the hell does she think she’s playing at?’

  ‘She probably wants to help win the war,’ said Ross, without thinking too much about his answer.

  ‘That’s exactly what she said in her letter.’ The brigadier looked at him, amazed at his prescience. ‘Stupid girl. What am I supposed to say in reply? If I tell her to stay with her studies, I’m not patriotic; if I tell her to join the army, she gives up all she’s worked for.’

  ‘It’s very difficult, sir.’

  ‘She’s supposed to be studying law. It makes me livid. God knows who’s been filling her head with all this patriotic balderdash.’

  Ross gave a sympathetic sort of grunt.

  ‘It’s no place for a decent girl,’ said the brigadier sullenly. Then he looked up and, in another sudden change of course, said, ‘What are you doing about the Jews, Cutler?’

  ‘About the Jews, sir?’

  ‘Spaulding has gone to Tel Aviv to be briefed on the activities of the Jewish nationalists in Palestine: the Haganah, the Stern Gang, and so on. The word was that they’d put all this Jewish Homeland stuff on the shelf until after we’d beaten the Hun. But not all the Jews are prepared to play by the same rules, it seems.’

  ‘The Jewish population here in Cairo is small and law-abiding,’ said Ross.

  ‘Well, wouldn’t anyone be? They’re outnumbered ten thousand to one by the Arabs. Of course they’re law-abiding. But what about secret activity?’

  The brigadier could be exasperating at times. ‘They are successfully keeping that secret,’ said Ross.

  The brigadier looked at him and for a moment seemed as if he would react angrily. But instead he tugged at his belt and said: ‘Jesus was a Jew. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And Jesus clearly stated that “not one tittle” of the laws of Moses, the Torah, should be changed. Have you ever given that a thought, Cutler?’

  ‘Not for a long time, sir.’

  ‘Saint Paul was a Jew too. He was a Pharisee: that’s a select school of Judaism. Paul was a disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, an important Jewish leader. Apparently it was this fellow Paul who created the whole Christian business: the whole rigmarole.’ The brigadier stopped suddenly. ‘Not religious, are you, Cutler?’

  ‘Not excessively, sir.’

  ‘Good. Don’t want to step on your toes. Yes, Saint Paul ignored what Jesus had said about not changing the Torah. Paul put together a religion that would suit as many people as possible. He incorporated into Christianity every old sect and religion, every pagan myth and legend he came across. He said he’d make it all things to all men – those were his very words.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that you were so interested in religion, sir.’ In their previous encounters, the brigadier had not shown such passion.

  ‘It wasn’t until Spaulding briefed me on all this that I got the picture.’

  ‘Lieutenant Spaulding. I see.’ That explained it.

  ‘You don’t like him, I know, but he’s a brainy fellow, Cutler. The modern army needs all the brains it can muster. I’ve never been one of these chaps who tell soldiers they are not permitted to think.’

  ‘No, sir.’ He thought that the brigadier’s fervour had run its course, but after a moment for reflection he started again.

  ‘Jesus had always preached God the Father. It was Paul who started to put all this emphasis upon Jesus Christ. In effect, he laid Christianity open to the charge of having several gods, like the Hindus and so on. That’s why the Muslims look down on us.’

  ‘I didn’t know they did,’ said Ross. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the door open a crack and then close again; surely that was Captain Marker making his escape to the canteen.

  ‘Spaulding says they do,’ said the brigadier, evidently regarding that as the decisive word on the matter. ‘Spaulding told me that the Ancient Roman occupying army found the Jews to be the only ones strongly resisting their rule. The Christians didn’t give much trouble, and if they did they were thrown to the lions, right?’

  ‘I believe so, sir.’

  ‘When Rome became Christian, the Jews were isolated as the only opponents of the rule of Rome. Roma locuta est – Rome has spoken – meant no opposition would be tolerated. That was how anti-Semitism began. Did you do Latin at school, Cutler?’

  ‘French and German, sir.’

  ‘Roma locuta est – Rome has spoken.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I know you don’t like him, Cutler, I can tell that when I see you together, but you could learn a lot from Spaulding.’

  ‘This matter of the Jews, sir. Was there something specific?’

  ‘So you see what I’m getting at? I thought you would.’ The brigadier found the view irresistible and went back to the window and stared out.

  ‘I’m not sure I do, sir,’ said Ross, when he realised the brigadier was going to leave it at that.

  The brigadier turned his head towards him, ‘Occupying army, Cutler. We are the occupying army, aren’t we?’ He
smiled knowingly.

  ‘But there are not many Jews in Cairo, sir.’

  The brigadier was staring out of the window again, totally absorbed by the activity around the railway station. When he spoke it was as if his thoughts arose from the sight of the crowds. ‘It makes you wonder if the Jews weren’t right, Cutler. It makes you wonder what Paul was up to, worshipping Jesus Christ, cobbling together all this pagan stuff and so on. Christmas is a pagan feast, you know that, I’m sure.’

  ‘Did Spaulding say that?’

  ‘Everyone knows that, Cutler. Candles, robins and fir trees and all that heathen nonsense. And the resurrection is pagan too: the coming of spring after the death of the soil in winter. Easter is an old pagan feast too.’

  ‘It’s hard to see that the Jews offer any threat to the army here in Egypt, sir.’

  The brigadier came back to his desk, tapped a finger on it and said sadly, ‘We can’t afford to be complacent, Cutler.’

  ‘No, of course not, sir.’

  ‘When Spaulding gets back from Tel Aviv he’ll have all the latest gen. I’m going to push through a promotion for him, and put him in charge of a new department that will be monitoring this dimension. Religious Subversives, I’m going to call it.’

  Ross suddenly saw a warning signal. It was as if the brigadier was flashing on and off and emitting an intermittent shriek. The prospect of Spaulding being promoted was bad. He’d come here, be given a department, and come sniffing and snooping in everything. That was danger. ‘You’d miss him, sir. Spaulding is a systematic organiser and awfully reliable.’

  ‘Ummm,’ said the brigadier. He looked up quizzically. ‘Well, I haven’t made my mind up yet.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘I think I’ll cut my next appointment, it’s nearly lunchtime.’ He looked at his wristwatch and then shook his fist as if wondering if it had stopped. ‘I’m lunching with a general who is going back to London. My guess is that he’ll get some good number in the War Office. I want to make sure he knows what we need over here. Sometimes you can get more done over lunch than by the regular channels.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Where did you put my hat?’

  Ross picked it up from where the brigadier’s careless disposal of it had left it on the floor, and dusted it off before handing it over.

  ‘What’s it doing on the floor?’ said the Brigadier. He looked at his hat suspiciously and then put it on as if it might explode.

  ‘I can’t imagine, sir.’

  ‘Germs get everywhere, Cutler. That’s how these diseases spread. You can’t be too careful in a place like this.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Well, press on with this business and keep it all to yourself for the time being. Understood?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  He escorted the brigadier through the door on to the open balcony which connected all the offices. The brigadier stopped and looked down at the parade ground. A platoon of impeccably turned-out military policemen were being inspected by their officer.

  ‘You never saw anything like that in Glasgow, did you Cutler?’ said the brigadier proudly.

  ‘No, sir, indeed I didn’t,’ said Ross.

  When the brigadier went downstairs, Ross returned to his office window to watch the brigadier get into his car and drive away. He wanted to be quite sure he’d departed.

  ‘Ponsonby!’ he called very loudly as the car pulled away in the busy traffic that swirled around the Midan Bab-el-Hadid.

  ‘Yes, sir. A cup of tea coming up, sir,’ said Ponsonby, putting his head round the door.

  ‘Where’s Marker?’ he yelled as Ponsonby withdrew.

  ‘Captain Marker, sir?’ said Ponsonby as he entered bearing a large steaming mug of tea.

  ‘How many Markers have we got in this office?’ said Ross, venting his wrath upon the unfortunate Ponsonby.

  Captain Marker came in. He had heard the commotion from where he was: along the balcony in the radio room, avoiding the brigadier and talking on the phone to one of his many ‘contacts’.

  ‘Hell, Lionel. Must you always be missing when the old man pays us a visit? I have to invent reasons why you’re not here.’

  ‘Sorry, major.’

  Ponsonby came in with a second large mug of sweet tea, placed it in front of Marker and withdrew without a word.

  ‘You missed a tirade of monumental proportions.’

  ‘A tirade?’ Marker’s legal training had left him with the infuriating habit of taking such words at face value.

  ‘That’s not the right word. He’s been pacing around the office analysing just where St Paul went wrong in inventing Christianity.’

  Marker sipped tea. From the parade ground came the staccato cries of a drill sergeant. Marker went to the door and pulled it closed, but this didn’t much diminish the sounds of the men marching up and down.

  ‘He’s become obsessed with the Jews. He seems to want us to find out what they are doing. No, worse than that.’ Ross corrected himself as he remembered more far-reaching aspects of the brigadier’s plans. ‘He’s sent Spaulding to some conference in Tel Aviv, and that wretch is going to come back and stamp his heels all over us.’

  ‘The Jews?’

  ‘Someone has obviously put a bee into his bonnet. Spaulding, I suppose. The brigadier said something about getting him a promotion and creating a department to deal with “religious subversives”.’

  ‘I think I know what’s happened, major.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was just on the phone to Colonel Stevens, the first viol –’

  ‘The first who?’

  ‘The quintet, major. We’re rehearsing the Mozart K.516 for next month. Stevens says the second violin has been posted to Khartoum. It’s dreadful. Stevens thinks we’ll never be able to replace him, and he’s probably right.’ Marker stopped as he realised that his major had very limited interest in the problems of GHQ’s amateur string players. He collected his thoughts. ‘Yes. Stevens is on the political staff of the C in C. They are all in a flap about an article which was just published in a Washington newspaper. It was written by that American fellow who was sniffing around at Al Jaghbub, Harry Wechsler; he’s a big name in America, they say. He goes into a lot of detail about the Haganah: the secret Jewish organisation in Palestine. The article says that the British army used units of their Palmah, the Jewish military arm, for intelligence and sabotage operations behind the lines in Lebanon and Syria as far back as 1940, long before we fought the Vichy French there.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Ross sipped his tea. He was getting to like Ponsonby’s strong brews with condensed milk. He wondered how many other awful things he was getting used to.

  ‘Probably. They’d be able to supply people who can pass themselves off as natives. Where would we get people like that, if not from the Palestine Jews?’

  ‘Is that what got GHQ excited?’

  ‘No. The article went on to say that the Haganah are now asking for guns and other military equipment in return for all the help they provided. The writer of the article said that the British were now reneging on their promise. They were denying the Jews a chance to defend themselves against the Arabs. So the Jews had sent men into Egypt to get German and Italian armaments that were to be found abandoned on the old desert battlefields.’

  Marker had expected his major to react to this complication in some demonstrative way – to groan or swear – but he sat there and sipped tea and for a long time said nothing.

  When he did speak, he spoke quietly and soberly. ‘I’m going to start a religious subversion desk, and you will take charge of it, Marker.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Marker, as he thought about what such a job would entail.

  ‘I’m supposed to be worrying about the general leakage of high-grade intelligence: “Rommel’s spy”, as I hear it called everywhere. I’m determined not to let up on it.’

  ‘Set up a department before Spaulding gets back? Is that wise, sir?
If the brigadier –’

  ‘It will be enough to spike Spaulding’s guns. Even if the brigadier takes complete leave of his senses and gets Spaulding a captaincy, you’ll have unassailable seniority.’ He sipped more tea. ‘And I’ll ask the brigadier to put you in for a promotion too. Get some files and reference material together. If they want a Jewish conspiracy, let’s have a few big fat files to prove we have been thinking about it before saying there isn’t one.’

  ‘It’s just a newspaper story, sir. I’m sure there’s nothing in it.’

  ‘How did Wechsler get this story through the censor?’ said Ross.

  ‘GHQ say the censor’s office swear it was never submitted. He must have found some way of getting it out without using the telegraph service. It’s what newspapers call a think piece; it wouldn’t matter if it was delayed by a few days. It had Wechsler’s name on it but no dateline. His editor will just say it was written before Wechsler arrived in Egypt. In any case, I can’t imagine even Winston Churchill would be reckless enough to get into a row with a US newspaper.’

  ‘You’d better look at this newspaper article and then see if you can find this Wechsler. I should have given him a grilling when we found him poking around at Siwa the other day.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Don’t make any contact with Jewish religious leaders or anyone of that sort. If you must talk to Wechsler, watch your step. I’ve seen him in action; he gets somewhat emotional. If there are any Haganah people in this town, they are probably keeping well away from him.’

  ‘I’ll be very circumspect, major.’ Marker got up to go.

  Ross said, ‘Anything on that naval bod?’

  ‘Is Wallingford his real name?’

  ‘Sure to be. That other little tick Darymple knew him at school.’

  ‘Then we’ve drawn a blank. No lieutenant commander of that name, they say. That’s the trouble with having navy records at Alex. You have to rely on someone else to do the search.’

  ‘At Alex, of course. Perhaps that’s why he likes to wear a navy outfit.’

  ‘There is that possibility, sir.’