The Men Behind Read online

  “You’re probably right. It’s too much to hope for.”

  “What’ll probably happen, though, is that the Khedive will have to appoint someone sympathetic to the Nationalists.”

  “You think so? You don’t mind? You think the British will let it happen?”

  “We’d let it happen all right. In fact, if we could only bloody get it to happen!” said Owen, forgetting himself at the chance to expatiate on a favorite theme.

  He found Elbawi looking at him curiously.

  “It makes for stability,” he explained lamely.

  “Ah yes.” Elbawi fell silent.

  “It seems strange, though, all the same,” he said after a while, as much to himself as to Owen. “It makes you wonder…” He shrugged. “Things change. Or the way one sees them change.”

  His eyes met Owen’s.

  “Why have you brought me here?”

  “To see if the way you see things has changed.”

  “It has. But I still don’t know that I’m going to tell you anything.”

  “You still feel loyal to them?”

  Elbawi hesitated.

  “I wouldn’t say that. I just don’t think I’m going to tell you anything, that’s all.”

  “The reason why I’m asking is that I think they’re still doing it—using naïve young students in the way they used you. Only getting them killed.”

  “Killed?”

  Owen told him about the café and about the boys down at Hamada.

  Elbawi sat thinking for a long time. And, while he sat, Owen was thinking too.

  “What is it you want?” said Elbawi at last.

  “Not information. Because I think I already have that.”

  Elbawi looked puzzled.

  “In which case—?”

  “I want more. I want you to help me. And in return for that I will see that you are released.”

  “Tell me more,” said Elbawi.

  ***

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some help?” asked Paul.

  “Of course I’d like some help. God’s, preferably.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of going quite as far as that.” Paul hesitated. “I was thinking of the Army, actually.”

  “Look, I’ve told you—”

  “OK, OK.” Paul held up a hand soothingly. “But you’ve got to be reasonable. This is going to be very big. It’s going to stretch you everywhere. Not just at the Palace itself but right along the route. You haven’t got enough men.”

  “I’ll get some more in from outside Cairo.”

  “You’ve said yourself—often—that policemen from the provinces are next to bloody useless in Cairo.”

  “Why are you so keen on the Army all of a sudden?”

  Paul sighed. “We’re getting questions from home. Why have an Army if you’re going to lock it up all the time in barracks? If that’s what you do with it, do you really need an Army? One of that size? One at all? Savings might be made. The very mention of savings scares the wits out of the War Office. They’re on to us all the time, wanting to know what we’re doing. Get the Army out on the streets and show how important, nay, indispensable, it is!”

  “I’ve got enough problems policing Cairo without policing the bloody Army as well.”

  “There’s another thing. All those men cooped up in barracks. It’s very unhealthy. Suppose an epidemic breaks out? It’ll kill the lot. My God, Gareth, you’re carrying hostility to the point of vindictiveness. Will nothing satisfy you but the wholesale butchery of the British Army? And what about John’s tennis?”

  “That is a consideration, I must admit. We could relax the order for recreational purposes only. That ought to make them happy.”

  “No, it won’t. Unless brothels are included under the recreational heading.”

  “I want to keep them away from the Egyptians just at present.”

  “We won’t be able to keep it up for much longer. I’m giving you advance warning.”

  “Can’t you tell them that the Army is in fact deployed? It’s just being held in reserve, that’s all.”

  “Should be in the front line. That’s the Army’s proper place.”

  “Well, they are in the front line. Virtually.”

  “In barracks?”

  “That’s just a ruse on our part. In actual fact they’re all armed to the teeth and ready to rush out at a second’s notice.”

  “Actually,” said Paul, “it might not be a bad idea if they were. Just for the next day or two. Coinciding with these demonstrations.”

  “All right,” Owen conceded ungraciously. “If it will make you feel any better.”

  “Thank you. It will.”

  ***

  The demonstrations were to start, as demonstrations usually did, at El Azhar, the great Islamic university. From there the procession would march through the narrow streets of the Old City down to the Bab Zouweleh Gate, where it would turn right so that it could pass provocatively through the Place Bab el Khalk and in front of the Police Headquarters.

  It would then march past the Palace of Ali Basha Cherif on the right and the Law School on the left, where its numbers would be augmented considerably, until it turned left into the square in front of the Khedive’s Palace.

  There it would be addressed, for many hours, by eminent leaders of the Nationalist movement, including Sa’ad, the Minister of Justice.

  “Though how he squares that with being a Minister I fail to see,” said Garvin sourly.

  “Why don’t we pick him up?” suggested McPhee.

  “And make a hero of him? That’s just what he wants.”

  “It doesn’t seem right,” said McPhee obstinately. McPhee, despite his many years in the country, remained irredeemably straightforward, a quality which had handicapped him greatly when for a few months before Owen arrived he had taken over the post of Mamur Zapt in an acting capacity.

  “What does?” said Garvin shortly. While McPhee was thinking about that, Garvin turned to Owen.

  “At least his presence there means that things are unlikely to get out of hand.”

  “Does it?”

  “Yes. It’s one thing impressing the Khedive with the mass of support you’ve got behind you. It’s another thing letting them run amok in front of the Palace. That’s no way to convince the Khedive you’re just the chap to be his right-hand man.”

  “What I was doubting was whether Sa’ad had that degree of control over them.”

  Garvin looked down at his papers.

  “Well, if he hasn’t,” he said, “you’d better bloody have.”

  Owen and McPhee left together. As they went out, Owen said to McPhee: “All this wouldn’t be necessary if the Khedive could only make up his confounded mind.”

  McPhee grunted noncommittally.

  “There’s still a chance,” he said.

  “Is there?”

  “So I’ve heard. A new name has come to the fore.”

  “Which one’s that?”

  “Ali Osman,” said McPhee.

  ***

  “It’s true,” said Nuri Pasha glumly. “He’s made a comeback.”

  “How the hell did he do that? The last I heard he was down in Hamada.”

  “He returned to Cairo last week.”

  “When I saw him he didn’t reckon he had a chance.”

  “Things have changed since then.”

  “They’ve changed damned quickly! What has changed them?”

  “Money. Somehow Ali Osman has suddenly got hold of a lot of money. This always impresses the Khedive.”

  “Yes, but—Ali Osman!”

  “Quite so.” Nuri said it, however, without his usual vigor.

  “You really think he’s got a chance?”

  “He’s closeted with the Khedive
all the time now.”

  “What about the Nationalists? Ali Osman would be absolutely anathema to them.”

  “That, of course, is the purpose of the demonstrations: to point that out to the Khedive.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Zeinab, coming into the room and hearing the last bit. “The demonstrations will scare the Khedive off Ali Osman. But they’ll also scare him off the Nationalists. Then he’ll come back to you.”

  “You think so?” said Nuri Pasha, brightening.

  ***

  “I don’t like asking you,” said Owen, “but—”

  “I’ll do it,” said Mahmoud at once.

  Now Owen was even less sure. He felt he was taking advantage of Mahmoud; of their friendship, of Mahmoud’s sense of duty, of, well, Mahmoud’s sheer Arabness. There was an emotional impulsiveness about him, a tendency, in British eyes at least, to overrespond.

  Owen wanted to damp him down. This of all things ought to be approached coolly.

  Britishly.

  Unfortunately Mahmoud wasn’t at all British.

  “Yes,” he said, firing up with enthusiasm. “I’ll do it.”

  “We could catch the lot, you see.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “It’s a lot to ask.”

  “Nothing!” Mahmoud declared.

  “Well, it is,” Owen insisted. “The risk—”

  Mahmoud shrugged it aside. “For you, perhaps. No, certainly. It would be impossible for you. For me, however—”

  “There’s a real risk,” Owen insisted. In his anxiety to get Mahmoud to think about it properly before committing himself, he was now beginning to talk himself cold on the whole idea. “Suppose they know you, for a start?”

  “Why should they know me?”

  “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? You went to the School yourself.”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Someone is sure to remember you.”

  “What if they do?”

  “They’ll think you’re a plant.”

  “They may find out I’m in the Parquet. That doesn’t make me a plant.”

  Owen, however, with an inconsistency that was hardly Anglo-Saxon—though possibly Welsh—had now convinced himself to exactly the opposite point of view.

  “No, no. It’s a daft idea. Forget about it. I’ll find somebody else.”

  It had been irresponsible of him. Persuading someone else to risk his life. Someone who he knew was not likely to turn him down.

  “No, no. Forget about it. It was a stupid idea in the first place.”

  But as he had grown cold, Mahmoud had grown hot.

  “It’s a good idea,” he said enthusiastically. “We could get the lot. And it’s right, it’s proper, to come to me. To the Parquet.” Mahmoud had a great pride in his job. “It’s right that the Parquet should provide someone. That brings it into the normal processes of law and order.”

  Mahmoud viewed the operations of the Mamur Zapt with the disapproval of a strict constitutionalist. He liked the man but opposed the post on principle.

  “No,” he said definitely, “no, I will do it.”

  There was a moment’s silence after this declaration. Owen was trying to think how he could now persuade Mahmoud out of agreeing. Mahmoud, however, had gone on to think of other things.

  “There could even be advantages,” he said. “Think about it. What if they do check and find I’m a member of the Parquet? What else will they find? That I’m a Nationalist, yes? As you frequently complain. That last year I was taken off a case at British insistence because I was politically biased—”

  “That Senussi business? For Christ’s sake, everyone knows—”

  “No, they don’t. You know and Garvin knows and the people round the Consul-General know. The people in the Parquet know. At least, the ones high up do. But apart from that people don’t know. All they know is that I was very publicly taken off the case and might be excused for feeling bitter. Bitter enough to want to hit back.”

  Owen, despite himself, saw the logic.

  “You think it might work?” he said, half-persuaded.

  Mahmoud, now that he was faced with the prospect of action, had characteristically calmed down.

  “I think it’s worth a try,” he said. “Would you like me to see Elbawi?”

  ***

  Owen’s time was taken up preparing for the demonstration and Zeinab, who from her experience in her father’s household found it hard to take political crises seriously and felt that anyway they should yield precedence to her private life, complained.

  Owen offered opera but they had already been to all the opera houses in the past fortnight and Zeinab stuck out for something which would require him giving his attention exclusively to her.

  That meant dinner. Dancing would have suited Zeinab better, since she enjoyed it and also enjoyed establishing a position of superiority over Owen who didn’t and wasn’t very good at it. But the only places where men and women could dance together Western-style were the hotels and the regimental balls.

  Owen didn’t feel that the latter were a good idea just at the moment and Zeinab disdained the hotel dances on the grounds that they were too touristy and contained too many fresh English girls just out of London whom she regarded as potential rivals.

  That meant dinner, although they might manage to combine that with a little dancing if Zeinab felt soft and Owen felt softer.

  Here again, though, was a problem, for the hotels provided far and away the best food in Cairo. Apart, of course, from that served at the French Chargés, but there too one ran up against tourists and fresh young girls just out from England.

  In the end they settled for a nice spot known only to Cairo initiates, the roof garden at the Semiramis, small and intimate and possessing the most wonderful view over the river.

  Unfortunately, the Semiramis was known to initiates and was already quite full when they got there. Owen thought he could hear Paul’s voice over beyond the potted palms. The waiter brought them, however, to a solitary palm-protected table and Zeinab was quite prepared to be content.

  Owen was too. Zeinab was never a person to be overlooked, but she was more striking than conventionally pretty. She had a thin, bony face and a severe Arab nose. Seen in repose she looked rather ordinary.

  But then, Zeinab was very seldom seen in repose. Her normal state was fired up. Then the big eyes would flash, the brow would furrow wrathfully, the lips would quiver and her beauty became formidable.

  Owen was used to this and adored it. On the other hand it was sometimes a strain to live with. Sitting at the table in the Semiramis roof garden, with Zeinab’s face in the shadows and only the big eyes looking over the candles, with the moon already silvery on the river but with a touch of red and gold still lingering on the water in the west, with the big, red-sashed suffragis moving unobtrusively among the tables, Owen’s ever-impressionable Welsh heart plunged once again.

  Zeinab, perfectly aware of this, was pleased. What she required was not so much Owen’s subservience as at least his total attention, which, in her view, she seldom got.

  The meal proceeded in agreeable, leisurely fashion. In the center of the floor was a tiny space where couples were dancing. It was so small that however bad one’s dancing one could hardly come to grief; and Owen was sufficiently moved by the moonlight to take Zeinab onto the floor.

  As they threaded their way through the tables they passed a large group of Europeans sitting solidly in a recess. It was the visiting delegation, escorted by the Consul-General himself, his wife and Paul. The whole delegation was there; including Roper.

  He sat on the outskirts of the party, a little row of glasses already on the table in front of him, looking bored.

  His eyes lit up when he saw Owen.

  “You’re the lucky one,” he said, “what with he
r and that girl down in the desert.”

  “Girl in the desert?” said Zeinab.

  The rest of the evening was not a success.

  ***

  From where he sat, high up on his horse, Owen had a good view. So far—and it had been a long distance, the speeches were in their fourth hour now—the demonstrations had been orderly. The square in front of the Palace was a sea of people, but all the faces were turned raptly towards the speaker on the hastily erected makeshift stand in front of the Palace railings and there had been no trouble.

  If trouble came it would come from the fringes of the crowd where the zealots shook their banners. But there too, massed in the side streets, were policemen on foot, holding their clubs uneasily, and policemen on horse. The crack mounted police of the Cairo force, itching to display their prowess once again.

  And less than half a mile away, in the huge barracks beside the river, waited the Army.

  Owen intended them to wait a long time.

  So far all was well. The procession had marched good-humoredly through the streets gathering support as it went. By the time it had passed the Law School it was immense. If Sa’ad Pasha was seeking to impress the Khedive by the scale of his popular support he was probably succeeding.

  Not that the support, of course, was genuinely his. The demonstration would have gone ahead in much the same way if he had not been there at all. All that the Nationalist politicians had done was to insert themselves adroitly at the head of it.

  Sa’ad, even more adroitly, had inserted himself at the head of them. His speech was the climax of the whole affair and he made the most of every bit of it.

  He did not attack the Khedive directly but condemned his advisers, hinting that the Khedive himself was only too ready to place himself at the service of a Nationalist crusade but was held back and obstructed by men of the past. The Khedive would have liked that; Ali Osman wouldn’t.

  His fiercest attacks were naturally reserved for the British. The technique lay in spacing them out so that they could be used to revive slumbering attention and quickly abandoned if they showed signs of creating too much heat.

  At the beginning of his speech the incendiary passages had been well apart. Now they were following closely on each other. Sa’ad must be coming to the end. He would certainly finish on a major vituperative note.