The Donkey-Vous

by Michael Pearce

  “Then come on up and join us! Please do. Mummy is desperate for someone to talk to. Daddy isn’t saying much today and Gerald is having a fit of the sulks.”

  The vendors had all resumed their places by the railings. There was no point in going on talking to them now. Business was business.

  Owen had got half way up the steps when he remembered Mahmoud and looked around for him. Mahmoud was walking off in the opposite direction.

  “And you, too, Mr. El Zaki!” Lucy hailed him.

  Mahmoud stopped. He half turned and then saw Naylor and Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley.

  “No, thank you,” he said and continued walking.

  “Damn cheek,” said Naylor.

  “Do be quiet, Gerald!” said Lucy Colthorpe Hartley. “He just didn’t want to talk to you, and I can understand anyone who feels like that.”

  “Will you have some tea, Captain Owen?” asked her mother. She poured a cup for him. “And how are your investigations getting on?” she inquired.

  The tea had the distinctive, insipid taste of tea drunk the English way with milk.

  “Slowly, I’m afraid.”

  “It seems bewildering,” said Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley. “You would have thought—”

  “They’re all in it,” said Naylor. “That’s the trouble.”

  Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley raised eyebrows at him. He took it not as a sign of reproof but as a request for expansion.

  “That’s why it’s hard to get anywhere. They’re all lying through their teeth.”

  “All?”

  “All. Or pretty damned nearly all. Work it out for yourself. That French chap was out here on the terrace, right? Now if he went back into the hotel the staff on Reception would have seen him. If he went down the steps the drivers would have seen him. And if he stayed where he was but someone came and took him the waiters would have seen it. Whichever way it happened, someone would have seen. But no one saw. That can’t be right. So,” Naylor concluded triumphantly, “they must be lying.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes,” said Naylor seriously. “You see, whichever way it happened there was always the risk that someone else would see, someone who wasn’t supposed to, who wasn’t in it. They wouldn’t have risked that. So they must all be in it.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Oh, not to the same extent, I grant you. I expect a lot of them were just bribed to keep their mouths shut. But they must all have known about it.”

  “I find it hard to believe—”

  “That’s because you don’t know these people, Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley. You haven’t had the advantage of being in this country for—”

  “Six months,” said Owen.

  “Over a year. Oh, you think they’re charming and friendly and polite and so they are: to your face. But behind your back they’re very different. Very different indeed, Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley. They resent us being here—”

  “So they should,” said Lucy.

  “Oh no. That’s—well, I was going to say it’s liberal talk, but it’s just that you haven’t been here for very long. They ought not to resent us, they ought to be well and truly grateful that we are here, for before we came they’d got themselves into a most frightful mess. They had to invite us in to get them out of the mess! Don’t forget that, don’t ever forget that: we’re here by invitation.”

  “Yes, but how exactly does that bear upon the present case, Mr. Naylor, the disappearance of this poor Frenchman?”

  “Well, it’s just that you can’t trust them. They resent us, you see, they all resent us. You can see it in their faces. Even that Zaki fellow. They’d have us out of Egypt in an instant if they could. Of course they can’t. We’re too strong for them. They don’t have the guts to face us directly. But behind our backs—well, as I was saying, behind our backs it’s a very different matter. Still, as long as they keep it behind our backs I don’t mind. It’s when they do it to our faces that I object. We call it dumb insolence, you know, in the army, Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley. And we ought to treat it in the same way. If I catch any of my fellows giving me or any of the sergeants a bit of dumb insolence, I give him whatfor, I can tell you. And we ought to do the same with these fellows. We’re letting them get out of hand, that’s the trouble. We ought to put them down and keep them down! That’s what I always say.”

  “Always?”

  “In the Mess.”

  “Very rousing, I am sure,” said Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley, who sounded occasionally very like her daughter. “But how exactly would you apply it to poor Monsieur Moulin?”

  “Arrest the lot of them,” said Naylor confidently.

  “But how exactly would that—”

  “They’re all lying, Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley, so we’ve got to get the truth out of them. Well, get them in our barracks for a day or two, Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley, and I can guarantee we’ll soon have it out of them.”

  “But Captain Owen has been working hard, I am sure, and he—”

  “It’s the difference between a civil administration and a military administration, Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley. The civilians are too soft. There! I’ve said it! It’s not what some of those at home would like to hear when you’re out on the Frontier—”

  “Egypt? The Frontier?” said Owen.

  “The trouble with civilians,” said Naylor, nettled and thinking he was being offensive by using the term, “is that they forget the realities of power.”

  “Gracious!” said Lucy, resting her elbows on the table. “And what are they?”

  “Britain governs Egypt because of her army.”

  “So?”

  “We ought to be allowed to get on with it.”

  It was a staple theme of the Messes, echoed not just by subalterns but by those higher up. The Sudan, to the south, had a purely military administration. There were those who felt that Egypt should have one too.

  Not just in the army.

  “You should talk to Madame Moulin,” Owen said to Naylor. “She had ideas which are not dissimilar.”

  “Madame Moulin?” Lucy looked surprised. “I thought she had—”

  “You’re thinking of Madame Chévènement. This is Monsieur Moulin’s wife. An elderly lady, dressed in black. She has only recently arrived. You may not have seen her.”

  “Poor woman!”

  Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley looked thoughtful. “Lucy, I think perhaps we should leave our cards.”

  “We should certainly do something. But how exactly does one leave cards in a hotel? Push them under the door?”

  “We will leave them at Reception,” said Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley with dignity. “And we will do it now,” she said, getting up from her chair.

  Everyone rose to their feet. Lucy went with her mother. Naylor, after a moment’s hesitation, followed them. Owen was about to depart when Mr. Colthorpe Hartley laid a hand on his sleeve.

  “Hold on,” he said. “Want to talk to you.”

  They sat down again. Having announced his intention, Mr. Colthorpe Hartley seemed a little at a loss how to proceed.

  “It’s this damned dragoman business,” he said at last.

  “Yes?”

  “Bad,” he said. “Can’t remember.”

  “Which one it was?”

  Mr. Colthorpe Hartley nodded. “All look alike to me.”

  “Perhaps it will come.”

  “Been trying. Know it’s important.”

  Owen tried some of the usual cues.

  “Any distinguishing features? Face? Hands? Marks? Scars, for instance? Personal jewelry? Rings? Clothes?”

  “These fellows all dress the same.”

  “You saw him walking. Think of him walking.”

  Mr. Colthorpe Hartley thought. After a while he shook his head.

  “Not that,” he said.

  If not that,
then something. Owen hardly dared to breathe.

  “Nearly got it,” said Mr. Colthorpe Hartley after a while.

  He thought on.

  “Gone again,” he said.

  “Would it help if you saw them? Would you like me to arrange a parade?”

  Colthorpe Hartley shook his head vigorously, possibly remembering Mahmoud’s reconstruction.

  “Good God, no!” he said.

  “Hello, Daddy,” said Lucy Colthorpe Hartley. “Are you helping Captain Owen?”

  “Trying to.”

  “Good!” said Lucy, sinking into a chair. “I’ve delivered my card. What a sweat! I’ve lost all mine but Mummy had some of mine spare.”

  “Not going to get it,” said Mr. Colthorpe Hartley. “Will come tomorrow.”

  “If it does, let me know,” said Owen.

  “Will do.”

  He levered himself out of his chair and went off shaking his head.

  “Poor Daddy!” said Lucy, looking after him. “He doesn’t remember so well these days, not since—”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, he’s much better. He’s getting better all the time. And he usually does remember things in the end.”

  “We’ll keep hoping.”

  The vendors jostled for Lucy’s attention. This time the strawberry-seller won. Lucy stretched out a hand toward the strawberries.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Owen hastily, remembering.

  ***

  The meeting had already gone on for some time. It was being chaired by Saunders, a Scot from the Ministry of Public Works, who was proceeding painfully slowly through the business, referring meticulously at every stage to a vast sheaf of papers assembled for him by the Coptic clerk to the committee, consulting at every turn the maps and diagrams spread out on the table in front of them. There was also Martin, another Scot, representing, however, the main contractors, Aird and Co., two civil servants from the Ministry, both Copts, Paul from the Consulate-General (what he was doing there Owen could not figure out) and Owen himself.

  What he was doing there Paul alone knew. He had rung up Owen the day before saying there was a meeting he would like Owen to attend.

  “But I don’t know anything about that sort of thing,” he had said.

  “You don’t have to. All you have to do is come in on cue.”

  “But I—”

  “I’ll tell you when. It will be pretty clear anyway.”

  “But what am I supposed to be saying?”

  “You’re supporting me. You’re supposed to be the voice of political wisdom.”

  “I thought you were?”

  “I am. But there are times when it is as well to have an independent voice saying the same thing. I’ll meet you half an hour before the meeting and explain it to you.”

  But in the event Paul had been held up at the Consulate-General and there had been no time for him to give the briefing. He had slipped into his chair only the minute before the meeting started (much to Owen’s relief) and had just had time to mutter to Owen “You support me,” before the Chairman opened the meeting.

  The subject of the meeting was the issuing of the remaining contracts for the next phase of construction at the Aswan Dam. The main ones had already been issued, mostly going to Aird and Co., but there were some subcontracts still to be placed for ancillary works. The most substantial of these was for the construction of a masonry apron downstream of the dam sluices.

  “Of course we could do this at the same time as we’re doing the others,” said the man from Aird and Co.

  “Haven’t you got enough on your plate as it is?” asked the Chairman.

  “There are advantages in doing the two together. There would be men and equipment already there.”

  “Would there be economies, then?” asked one of the civil servants.

  “Oh, certainly.”

  “Would they be reflected in the tender price?”

  “Up to a point, yes.”

  “That’s funny,” said Paul, “because the price Aird and Co. are tendering at is quite a bit higher than some of the other tenders we have received.”

  “You can always be undercut,” said the man from Aird and Co., “by fly-by-night outfits. If you’ll take my advice you’ll have nothing to do with any of them.”

  “Dassin, Laporte et Lebrun are hardly a fly-by-night outfit,” said Paul.

  The man from Aird and Co. made a dismissive gesture.

  “They’ve not been doing too well lately on some of their contracts in Turkey. Anyway, for a job like this it’s experience in Egypt that counts. The Nile can be a tricky river.”

  “They’re quite a lot cheaper,” said one of the civil servants.

  “Yes, but when you think of price you’ve got to think of quality too.”

  “We ought to be able to specify quality.”

  “Yes, but if you’re underfunded you might not be able to deliver the quality in the time available. This is an important part of the works. We can’t afford to have a delay in completion.”

  “I thought we were already running behind time on the main work?” said Paul.

  “Oh, surely not,” said the man from Aird and Co. “Not by much, anyway.”

  “Can we check?” asked Paul. “We’ve got the schedules there.”

  “I don’t think we need bother,” said the Chairman.

  “I think if you give it to Aird and Co. you’ll be pretty satisfied.”

  “We’ve certainly been satisfied up to now,” said the Chairman.

  “Yes,” said Paul, “but there are other considerations.”

  “Really?”

  “Political ones.”

  “I think you’ll find,” said the man from Aird and Co., “that there’s a lot of support for Aird and Co. back home.”

  “I’m sure there is. But we have to take an international view.”

  “Do you? I’m not sure a lot of people at home would think that. Wasn’t I reading in The Times just before I came out here that some questions have been asked in the House about the Foreign Office failing to support British industry abroad?”

  “I hardly think Aird and Co. are in a position to complain of lack of support when they have landed the lion’s share of the contracts.”

  “Ah, well,” said the man from Aird and Co. with a broad smile, “quality will tell.”

  Paul smiled too.

  “I think it does tell,” he said, “and will go on doing so. All the same, it would be unfortunate if because of its very success Aird and Co. began to suffer through being too—exposed.”

  The man from Aird and Co. looked thoughtful.

  “You think so?”

  “A question of proportion—that is all.”

  “But such a small contract—comparatively—”

  “Because it is small,” said Paul, “that makes it all the better.”

  “Well, yes, that’s certainly true, if you see it that way.”

  “You wouldn’t have to give up much. And Aird and Co. might get quite a lot of benefit.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we would wish to take a responsible view—”

  “I’m sure you would. And it’s because of that that I’ve brought Captain Owen along this morning. The Mamur Zapt, I should explain, is responsible for law and order in the city. He will be able to tell us about some of the present tensions in Cairo, the political scene, Nationalist pressure—”

  He paused invitingly.

  Owen responded to his cue and talked briefly about the current political scene in Egypt: the growing strength of nationalism, the rise of the Nationalist Party, increasing resentment of foreigners (“Why, only recently they went so far as to kidnap a foreign businessman: a Frenchman, fortunately
”), mounting hostility to wealth passing out of the country, as the Egyptians saw it, in the form of lucrative contracts awarded abroad. In this situation it was only too easy for unscrupulous interests, too often, regrettably, easily identifiable with foreign powers (“Shocking!” said Paul, “shocking!”), to stir up trouble.

  “And the trouble with that,” said Paul, coming in smoothly, “is that it could so easily have repercussions on agreed programs of development, which would be in no one’s interest.”

  “Quite so,” said the man from Aird and Co.

  In the circumstances, Paul went on, it was only prudent to head off trouble, not to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar, to cast a little bread upon the waters, etc., etc. Paul, who despised clichés, was a master of them when he chose and felt the opposition deserved.

  “Give the dogs a bone or two to fight over,” said the man from Aird and Co.

  “Exactly,” said Paul.

  The upshot was that the contract for constructing the masonry apron went to the French firm and another, smaller, contract to an Italian firm.

  “Three countries involved, I don’t think anyone can complain about that,” said the Chairman.

  “But not Egypt,” said one of the civil servants.

  “They’re hardly ready yet,” said the man from Aird and Co. “Give them a year or two, or perhaps a little longer, and they’ll be among the tenderers.”

  “There may be an Egyptian tenderer sooner than you think,” said the other civil servant.

  “Oh?” The man from Aird and Co. was interested.

  “If what I’ve heard is true.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “There’s a big deal in the offing. Egyptian interests only.”

  “I’ve not heard of a big deal,” said the man from Aird and Co. “Are you sure?”

  “It may be only talk.”

  “It would have to be a private development.”

  “I think it is.”

  “Public works is where the money is. Still, it would be interesting to know more.”

  “If I hear anything I’ll tell you.”

  After the meeting Paul and Owen walked out together.

  “Satisfied?” asked Owen.

  “Greedy buggers, aren’t they?” said Paul. “Yes, I’m satisfied. This will keep the French off our backs for a day or two. Want a drink? I’ll buy you one. It will have to be somewhere close because I’ve got something I’m going on to. Shepheard’s?”