VI

 

The airplane stooped and began to slant slowly downwards, earthwards into the violet evening.  The brown desert with its monotony of windcarved dunes had given place now to a remembered relief-map of the delta.  The slow loops and tangents of the brown river lay directly below, with small craft drifting about upon it like seeds.  Deserted estuaries and sandbars - the empty unpopulated areas of the hinterland where the fish and birds congregated in secret.  Here and there the river split like a bamboo, to bend and coil round an island with fig-trees, a minaret, some dying palms - the feather-softness of the palms furrowing the flat exhausted landscape with its hot airs and mirages and humid silences.  Squares of cultivation laboriously darned it here and there like a worn tweed plaid; between segments of bituminous swamp embraced by slow contours of the brown water.  Here and there, too, rose knuckles of rosy limestone.

      It was frightfully hot in the little cabin of the airplane.  Mountolive wrestled in a desultory tormented fashion with his uniform.  Skinners had done wonders with it - it fitted like a glove; but the weight of it.  It was like being dressed in a boxing-glove.  He would be parboiled.  He felt the sweat pouring down his chest, tickling him.  His mixed elation and alarm translated itself into queasiness.  Was he going to be airsick - and for the first time in his life?  He hoped not.  It would be awful to be sick into this impressive refurbished hat.  'Five minutes to touchdown'; words scribbled on a page torn from an operations pad.  Good.  Good.  He nodded mechanically and found himself fanning his face with this musical-comedy object.  At any rate, it became him.  He was quite surprised to see how handsome he looked in a mirror.

      They circled softly down and the mauve dusk rose to meet them.  It was as if the whole of Egypt were settling softly into an inkwell.  Then flowering out of the golden whirls sent up by stray dust-devils he glimpsed the nippled minarets and towers of the famous tombs; the Moquattam hills were pink and nacreous as a fingernail.

      On the airfield were grouped the dignitaries who had been detailed to receive him officially.  They were flanked by the members of his own staff with their wives - all wearing garden-party hats and gloves as if they were in the paddock at Longchamps.  Everyone was nevertheless perspiring freely, indeed in streams.  Mountolive felt terra firma under his polished dress shoes and drew a sigh of relief.  The ground was almost hotter than the plane; but his nausea had vanished.  He stepped forward tentatively to shake hands and realized that now, as an Ambassador, he must forever renounce the friendship of ordinary human beings in exchange for their deference.  His uniform encased him like a suit of chain-armour.  It shut him off from the ordinary world of human exchanges.  'God!' he thought.  'I shall be forever soliciting a normal human reaction from people who are bound to defer to my rank!  I shall become like that dreadful parson in Sussex who always feebly swears in order to prove that he is really quite an ordinary human being despite the dog-collar!'

      But the momentary spasm of loneliness passed in the joys of a new self-possession.  There was nothing to do now but to exploit his charm to the full; to be handsome, to be capable, surely one had the right to enjoy the consciousness of these things without self-reproach?  He proved himself upon the outer circle of Egyptian officials whom he greeted in excellent Arabic.  Smiles broke out everywhere, at once merging into a confluence of self-congratulatory looks.  He knew also how to present himself in half-profile to the sudden stare of flashbulbs as he made his first speech - a tissue of heart-warming platitudes pronounced with charming diffidence in Arabic which won murmurs of delight and excitement from the raffish circle of journalists.

      A band suddenly struck up raggedly, playing woefully out of key; and under the plaintive iterations of a European melody played somehow in quartertones he recognized his own National Anthem.  It was startling, and he had difficulty in not smiling.  The police mission had been diligently training the Egyptian force in the uses of the slide-trombone.  But the whole performance had a desultory and impromptu air, as of some rare form of ancient music (Palestrina?) were being interpreted on a set of fire-irons.  He stood stiffly to attention.  And aged Bimbashi with a glass eye stood before the band, also at attention - albeit rather shakily.  Then it was over.  'I'm sorry about the band,' said Nimrod Pasha under his breath.  'You see, sir, it was a scratch team.  Most of the musicians are ill.'  Mountolive nodded gravely, sympathetically, and addressed himself to the next task.  He walked with profuse keenness up and down a guard of honour to inspect their bearing; the men smelt strongly of sesame oil and sweat and one or two smiled affably.  This was delightful.  He restrained the impulse to grin back.  Then, turning, he completed his devoirs to the Protocol section, warm and smelly too in its brilliant red flowerpot hats.  Here the smiles rolled about, scattered all over the place like slices of unripe watermelon.  An Ambassador who spoke Arabic!  He put on the air of smiling diffidence which he knew best charmed.  He had learned this.  His crooked smile was appealing - even his own staff was visibly much taken with him, he noted with pride; but particularly the wives.  They relaxed and turned their faces towards him like flower-traps.  He had a few words for each of the secretaries.

      Then at last the great car bore him smoothly away to the Residence on the banks of the Nile.  Errol came with him to show him around and make the necessary introductions to the house-staff.  The size and elegance of the building were exciting, and also rather intimidating.  To have all these rooms at one's disposal was enough to deter any bachelor.  'Still, for entertaining,' he said almost sorrowfully, 'I suppose they are necessary.'  But the place echoed around him as he walked about the magnificent ballroom, across the conservatories, the terraces, peering out on the grassy lawns which went right down to the bank of the cocoa-coloured Nile water.  Outside, goose-necked sprinklers whirled and hissed night and day, keeping the coarse emerald grass fresh with moisture.  He heard their sighing as he undressed and had a cold shower in the beautiful bathroom with its vitreous glass baubles; Errol was soon dismissed with an invitation to return after dinner and discuss plans and projects.  'I'm tired,' said Mountolive truthfully, 'I want to have a quiet dinner alone.  This heat - I should remember it; but I'd forgotten.'

      The Nile was rising, filling the air with the dark summer moisture of its yearly inundations, climbing the stone wall at the bottom of the Embassy garden inch by slimy inch.  He lay on his bed for half and hour and listened to the cars drawing up at the Chancery entrance and the sound of voices and footsteps in the hall.  His staff were busily autographing the handsome red visitors' book, bound in expensive morocco.  Only Pursewarden had not put in an appearance.  He was presumably still in hiding?  Mountolive planned to give him a shaking-up at the first opportunity; he could not now afford absurdities which might put him in a difficult position with the rest of the staff.  He hoped that his friend would not force him to become authoritative and unpleasant - he shrank from the thought.  Nevertheless....

      After a rest he dined alone on a corner of the long terrace, dressed only in trousers and a shirt, his feet clad in sandals.  Then he shed the latter and walked barefoot across the floodlit lawns down to the river, feeling the brilliant grass spiky under his bare feet.  But it was of a coarse, African variety and its roots were dusty, even under the sprays, as if it were suffering from dandruff.  There were three peacocks wandering in the shadows with their brilliant Argus-eyed tails.  The black soft sky was powdered with stars.  Well, he had arrived - in every sense of the word.  He remembered a phrase from one of Pursewarden's books: 'The writer, most solitary of animals....'  The glass of whisky in his hand was icy-cold.  He lay down in that airless darkness on the grass and gazed straight upwards into the sky, hardly thinking any more, but letting the drowsiness gradually creep up over him, inch by inch, like the rising tide of the river-water at the garden's end.  Why should he feel a sadness at the heart of things when he was so confident of powers, so full of resolution?  He did not know.

      Errol duly returned after a hastily eaten dinner and was charmed to find his chief spread out like a starfish on the elegant lawn, almost asleep.  The informalities were excellent signs.  'Ring for drink,' said Mountolive benevolently, 'and come and sit out here: it is more or less cool.  There's a breath of wind off the river.'  Errol obeyed and came to seat himself diffidently on the grass.  They talked about the general design of things.  'I know,' said Mountolive, 'that the whole staff is trembling with anticipation about the summer move to Alexandria.  I used to when I was a junior in the Commission.  Well, we'll move out of this swelter just as soon as I've presented my credentials.  The King will be in Divan three days hence?  Yes, I gathered from Abdel Latif at the airport.  Good.  Then tomorrow I want to bid all chancery secretaries and wives to tea; and in the evening the junior staff for a cocktail.  Everything else can wait until you fix the special train and load up the despatch boxes.  How about Alexandria?'

      Errol smiled mistily.  'It is all in order, sir.  There has been the usual scramble with incoming missions; but the Egyptians have been very good.  Protocol has found an excellent residence with a good summer Chancery and other offices we could use.  Everything is splendid.  You'll only need a couple of Chancery staff apart from the house; I've fixed a duty roster so that we all get a chance to spend three weeks up there in rotation.  The house staff can go ahead.  You'll be doing some entertaining, I expect.  The Court will leave in about another fortnight.  No problems.'

      No problems!  It was a cheering phrase.  Mountolive sighed and fell silent.  On the darkness across the expanse of river-water a faint noise broke out, as with a patter like a swarming of bees, laughter and singing mingled with the harsh thrilling rattle of the sistrum.  'I had forgotten,' he said with a pang.  'The tears of Isis!  It is the Night of the Drop, isn't it?'  Errol nodded wisely.  'Yes, sir.'  The river would be alive with slender feluccas full of singers and loud with guitars and voices.  Isis-Diana would be bright in the heavens, but here the floodlit lawns created a cone of white light which dimmed the night-sky outside it.  He gazed vaguely round, searching for the constellations.  'Then that is all,' he said, and Errol stood up.  He cleared his throat and said: 'Pursewarden didn't appear because he had 'flu.'  Mountolive thought this kind of loyalty a good sign.  'No,' he said smiling, 'I know he is giving you trouble.  I'm going to see he stops it.'  Errol looked at him with delighted surprise.  'Thank you, sir.'  Mountolive walked him slowly to the house.  'I also want to dine Maskelyne.  Tomorrow night, if convenient.'

      Errol nodded slowly.  'He was at the airport, sir.'  'I didn't notice.  Please get my secretary to make out a card for tomorrow night.  But ring him first and tell him if it is inconvenient to let me know.  For eight-fifteen, black tie.'

      'I will, sir.'

      'I want particularly to talk to him as we are taking up some new dispositions and I want his cooperation.  He is a brilliant officer, I have been told.'

      Errol looked doubtful.  'He has had some rather fierce exchanges with Pursewarden.  Indeed, this last week he has more or less besieged the Embassy.  He is clever, but ... somewhat hard-headed?'  Errol was tentative, appeared unwilling to go too far.  'Well,' said Mountolive, 'let me talk to him and see for myself.  I think the new arrangement will suit everyone, even Master Pursewarden.'

      They said goodnight.

      The next day was full of familiar routines for Mountolive, but conducted, so to speak, from a new angle - the unfamiliar angle of a position which brought people immediately to their feet.  It was exciting and also disturbing; even up to the rank of councillor he had managed to have a comfortably-based relationship with the junior staff at every level.  Even the hulking Marines who staffed the section of Chancery Guards were friendly and equable towards him in the happiest of colloquial manners.  Now they shrank into postures of reserve, almost of self-defence.  These were the bitter fruits of power, he reflected, accepting his new role with resignation.

      However, the opening moves were smoothly played; and even his staff party of the evening went off so well that people seemed reluctant to leave.  He was late in changing for his dinner-party and Maskelyne had already been shown into the anodyne drawing-room when he finally appeared, bathed and changed.  'Ah, Mountolive!' said the soldier, standing up and extending his hand with a dry expressionless calm.  'I have been waiting for your arrival with some anxiety.'  Mountolive felt a sudden sting of pique after all the deference shown to him during the day to be left thus untitled by this personage.  ('Heavens,' he thought, 'am I really a provincial at heart?')

      'My dear Brigadier,' his opening remarks carried a small but perceptible coolness as a result.  Perhaps the soldier simply wished to make it clear that he was a War Office body, and not a Foreign Office one?  It was a clumsy way to do it.  Nevertheless, and somewhat to his own annoyance, Mountolive felt himself rather drawn to this lean and solitary-looking figure with its tired eyes and lustreless voice.  His ugliness had a certain determined elegance.  His ancient dinner-clothes were not very carefully pressed and brushed, but the quality of the material and cut were both excellent.  Maskelyne sipped his drink slowly and calmly, lowering his greyhound's muzzle towards his glass circumspectly.  He scrutinized Mountolive with the utmost coolness.  They exchanged the formal politeness of host and guest for a while, and somewhat to his own annoyance, Mountolive found himself liking him despite the dry precarious manner.  He suddenly seemed to see in him one who, like himself, had hesitated to ascribe any particular meaning to life.

      The presence of servants excluded any but the most general exchanges during the dinner they shared, seated out upon the lawn, and Maskelyne seemed content to bide his time.  Only once the name of Pursewarden came up and he said with his offhand air: 'Yes.  I hardly know him, of course, except officially.  The odd thing is that his father - surely the name is too uncommon for me to be wrong? - his father was in my company during the war.  He picked up an M.C.  Indeed, I actually composed the citation which put him up for it: and of course I had the disagreeable next-of-kin jobs.  The son must have been a mere child then, I suppose.  Of course, I may be wrong - not that it matters.'

      Mountolive was intrigued.  'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'I think you are right - he mentioned something of the kind to me once.  Have you ever talked to him about it?'

      'Good Heavens, no!  Why should I?'  Maskelyne seemed very faintly shocked.  'The son isn't really ... my kind of person,' he said quietly but without animus, simply as a statement of fact.  'He ... I ... well, I read a book of his once.'  He stopped abruptly as if everything had been said; as if the subject had been disposed of for all time.

      'He must have been a brave man,' said Mountolive after an interval.

      'Yes - or perhaps not,' said the guest slowly, thoughtfully.  He paused.  'One wonders.  He wasn't a real soldier.  One saw it quite often at the front.  Sometimes acts of gallantry come as much out of cowardice as bravery - that is the queer thing.  His act, particularly, I mean, was really an unsoldierly one.  Oddly enough.'

      'But ----' protested Mountolive.

      'Let me make myself clear.  There is a difference between a necessary act of bravery and an unnecessary one.  If he had remembered his training as a soldier, he would not have done what he did.  It may sound like a quibble.  He lost his head, quite literally, and acted without thinking.  I admire him enormously as a man, but as a soldier.  Our life is a good deal more exacting - it is a science, you know, or should be.'

      He spoke thoughtfully in his dry, clearly enunciated way.  It was clear that the topic was one which he had often debated in his own mind.

      'I wonder,' said Mountolive.

      'I may be wrong,' admitted the solider.

      The soft-footed servants had withdrawn at last, leaving them to their wine and cigars, and Maskelyne felt free to touch upon the real subject of his visit.  'I expect you've studied all the differences which have arisen between ourselves and your political branch.  They have been extremely sharp; and we are all waiting for you to resolve them.'

      Mountolive nodded.  'They have all been resolved as far as I am concerned,' he said with the faintest tinge of annoyance (he disliked being hurried).  'I had a conference with your General on Tuesday and set out a new grouping which I am sure will please you.  You will get a confirming signal this week ordering you to transfer your show to Jerusalem, which is to become the senior post and headquarters.  This will obviate questions of rank and precedence; you can leave a staging post here under Telford, who is a civilian, but it will of course be a junior post.  For convenience it can work to us and liaise with our Service Departments.'

      A silence fell.  Maskelyne studied the ash of his cigar while the faintest trace of a smile hovered at the edges of his mouth.

      'So Pursewarden wins,' he said quietly.  'Well, well!  Mountolive was both surprised and insulted by his smile, though in truth it seemed entirely without malice.

      'Pursewarden,' he said quietly, 'has been reprimanded for suppressing a War Office paper; on the other hand, I happen to know the subject of the paper rather well and I agree that you should supplement it more fully before asking us to take action.'

      'We are trying, as a matter of fact; Telford is putting down a grid about this Hosnani man - but some of the candidates put forward by Pursewarden seem to be rather ... well, prejudicial, to put it mildly.  However, Telford is trying to humour him by engaging them.  But ... well, there's one who sells information to the Press, and one who is at present consoling the Hosnani lady.  Then there's another, Scobie, who spends his time dressed as a woman walking about the harbour at Alexandria - it would be a charity to suppose him in quest of police information.  Altogether, I shall be quite glad to confide the net to Telford and tackle something a bit more serious.  What people!'

      'As I don't know the circumstances yet,' said Mountolive quietly, 'I can't comment.  But I shall look into it.'

      'I'll give you an example,' said Maskelyne, 'of their general efficiency.  Last week Telford detailed this policeman called Scobie to do a routine job.  When the Syrians want to be clever, they don't use a diplomatic courier; they confide their pouch to a lady, the vice-consul's niece, who takes it down to Cairo by train.  We wanted to see the contents of one particular pouch - details of arms shipments, we thought.  Gave Scobie some doped chocolates - with the doped one clearly marked.  His job was to send the lady to sleep for a couple of hours and walk off with her pouch.  Do you know what happened?  He was found doped in the train when it got to Cairo and couldn't be wakened for nearly twenty-four hours.  We had to put him into the American hospital.  Apparently as he sat down in the lady's compartment, the train gave a sudden jolt and all the chocolates turned over in their wrappers.  The one we had so carefully marked was now upside down; he could not remember which it was.  In his panic, he ate it himself.  Now I ask you....' Maskelyne's humourless eye flashed as he retailed this story.  'Such people are not to be trusted,' he added acidly.

      'I promise you I'll investigate the suitability of anyone proposed by Pursewarden; I also promise that if you mark papers to me there will be no hitch, and no repetition of this unauthorized behaviour.'

      'Thank you.'  He seemed genuinely grateful as he rose to take his leave.  He waved away the beflagged duty car at the front door, muttering something about 'an evening constitutional', and walked off down the drive, putting on a light overcoat to hide his dinner-jacket.  Mountolive stood at the front door and watched his tall, lean figure moving in and out of the yellow pools of lamplight, absurdly elongated by distance.  He sighed with relief and weariness.  It had been a heavy day.  'So much for Maskelyne.'

      He returned to the deserted lawns to have one last drink in the silence before he retired to bed.  Altogether, the work completed that day had not been unsatisfactory.  He had disposed of a dozen disagreeable duties of which telling Maskelyne about his future had been perhaps the hardest.  Now he could relax.

      Yet before climbing the staircase, he walked about for a while in the silent house, going from room to room, thinking; hugging the knowledge of his accession to power with all the secret pride of a woman who has discovered that she is pregnant.

 

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