The Mule on the Minaret (65 page)

And that referred to Gustave, Reid presumed. In a week or so he would be able to apply for another adjutant, which would be a relief. Whenever he went into Gustave, he found him at work upon a crossword puzzle, and Gustave always left the office at the official hour of 6.30. Reid suspected that the office was like a car that is not getting proper maintenance. Sooner or later, there would be a breakdown.

Reid was at work on his own next summary. It was usual for the heads of organizations to leave the writing of summaries to their juniors. But Reid preferred to write personally anything that he was going himself to sign. Though he wondered sometimes whether he might not get better results if he handed them over to one of his staff. There was a certain aridity about his reports. Farrar's were much more readable; there was a sense of anticipation, a feeling of suspense, of dramatic action waiting in the wings. His own reports were bulletins of facts. Perhaps that was what was wrong with his published books. They lacked suspense. He read over the opening paragraphs of his current summary. They were
set out in tabulated form; the trial of the officers of the Golden Square who had organized the Rashid Ali revolution was proceeding slowly. Censorship had discovered that a former Turkish national resident in Baghdad was sending up messages in secret ink to a friend in Ankara. A check was being placed on all the acquaintances of this former Turkish resident; also on his family. The correspondence would be watched for a little while; if it provided any useful information, it would be allowed to continue. If it did not, the man would be arrested and cross-examined.

Reid paused as he re-read the paragraph. Farrar would have made more of that. Farrar's approach would have been different; he would have whetted the reader's appetite; he would have written in a far earlier summary: ‘We have become suspicious of a man in his early seventies who had close links with the Ottoman Empire and himself graduated in Constantinople. He is writing long letters every week to a friend in Istanbul. They are very boring letters; they do not contain friendly or family gossip. There is a lot about the weather and there are a number of comments on current international events. It is hard to see why such an old man should be bothering to write such long, impersonal letters, particularly as he never seems to get an answer to them. We are going to submit his next letter to a test with a V.I. lamp.' Then ten days later, Farrar would have written: ‘As we suspected, a V.I. lamp showed that there was writing in secret ink between the lines in the letter sent up to Ankara by our elderly ex-Turkish correspondent. In appendix A we give a translation of the letter in secret ink. We are clearly on the brink of a most significant discovery.'

That was how Farrar had dealt with the case of Aziz. He had written: ‘We are about to make a use at last of Aziz.' His readers were therefore impatient for the next summary. He himself, in contrast, would not have referred to Aziz until he had something definite to report; and he had not referred to his ex-Turk until the correspondence had been submitted to treatment under the V.I. lamp. His reports were shorter than Farrar's and more factual; but they were less interesting. He could imagine a general at G.H.Q. saying: ‘Ah, good, another summary from Beirut. Let's see what's happening there,' while a report from Baghdad would be a routine entry on a file. And one of the objects of a summary was to keep G.H.Q. interested in one's work.

He had now to compose a paragraph about the wireless transmitter set. He had planned to send in a nil report; to say that
there had been no developments in this case during the last two weeks. That was the truth. Yet he knew that Farrar would not have been satisfied with such an unvarnished truth. How would Farrar have treated it? Like this, perhaps?

‘We are distinctly worried by the lack of development in the wireless transmitter case. We have now seventy-three individuals under observation, but from none of them are we receiving any helpful signs. We are checking on the friends of friends of friends. This is taking up a lot of staff time that could be employed more profitably somewhere else. We have not progressed beyond our first discovery, that Mulla Hassun was in 1938 linked with the Fattuwa, the youth movement that had been started under the influence of the German Consul, Grobba, on the Hitler model. Hassun was associated in this with a fellow schoolmaster and an Army officer. He is still associated with those friends. We are convinced Hassun had accomplices in this operation. And we still consider that these three were the ringleaders. The Fattuwa movement had backing from certain politicians, but we have been unable to detect any links between those politicians and our three suspects. Nor have we found any links between the three suspects and any of the extreme left-wing factions in the city. Such links may exist. But our chances of detecting them are slight. We are in fact bogged down. And we feel that the time has almost come when we should take Hassun into custody for cross-examination.'

That was the way Farrar would have handled it; and after all why not? The story had been told in less than half a page and it could be read in less than half a minute. It was redundant in that it recapitulated information about the Fattuwa movement that had been told in a previous summary. But a busy man could not be expected to remember everything that he had read two months ago. He did not want to check back to previous summaries. A recapitulation saved him time. Was it not part of the technique of the detective story to assemble the evidence half-way through the book so as to refresh the reader's memory? Perhaps that was what had been wrong about his books. He had not made things easy for the reader; and he had not quickened the reader's appetite by a maintenance of suspense. He might do worse than remember this when he sat down to unravel the intricacies of Philip II's diplomacy towards the Vatican.

Two days later, there arrived on Reid's desk an envelope in
which clearly a number of envelopes were concealed. The penultimate envelope was addressed
Most Secret: Personal.
He opened it. Inside was another envelope addressed to Major Sargent. Reid read the covering letter. It was personal; from Farrar. ‘Prof., old boy, this is the works. I only wish that you were here with us to pull the lever. Will you hand the enclosed envelope to Gustave? He is to open it in your presence. You are not to read it. It will be much easier if you do not. The less one knows... you know the drill, old boy. When he has read the letter, ask him if he completely understands its implications. He will say “Yes”; but insist that he re-reads it. When he has, ask him if he completely understands it. It is a short letter. It will not be hard for him to memorize it.

‘When he assures you that he knows exactly what is in it instruct him to burn it in your presence. When the paper is burnt, ensure that not a cinder of it remains. When you are satisfied stretch out your hand, say “Congratulations, Gustave, and good luck.”

‘You will then have set on for him immediate transport by the Taurus Express to Ankara. Signal to Ankara and Istanbul the expected time of his arrival. He will be travelling, of course, in mufti. If his clothes do not seem appropriate to a Major on the General Staff, get a suit laid on for him at once. You could buy a length of R.A.F. uniform material and have a “civvie” suit made out of it almost overnight. Those boys work fast when their palms are greased.

‘I do not fancy that this mission will take very long. Within six days, at the most, you should have your adjutant back with you. But it will not be for long. That's not the kind of work that he's best fitted for. As you suggested, two or three months ago, what you want is a regular officer, promoted from the ranks, who knows his way about Army orders and allowances, maintenance of vehicles and all that kind of thing. I don't think Gustave will be away a week; and the sooner you can contrive to send him back to us, the better it will be for all of us. Give Gustave time for the handing over and then switch him over.

‘Once again, good luck, old boy. I wish we were working on this game together. It's terrific; the works!'

Reid read the letter over, shrugged, then walked on to the balcony. If this wasn't cloak-and-dagger stuff, what was?

Gustave's door was open. He tapped on it and went in. He got the impression that Gustave, from the angle at which he was sitting and the way his right knee was pressed against his desk, had
been reading a novel inside a drawer which he had closed as his Colonel had come in. Reid smiled. Poor old Gustave; he wasn't made for paper work. Well, he hadn't got much more of it.

Reid held out the envelope. ‘Your orders at last,' he said. ‘Congratulations.'

He watched Gustave read the letter; he watched his expression change as he read the letter. Gustave looked eager, buoyant, excited. Gustave raised his head; he was grinning; with a broad wide grin that showed all his gleaming teeth.

‘Have you got it clear?' Reid asked.

‘I have.'

‘Better read it again.'

From the speed with which he re-read it, it could not have been very long.

‘Are you ready to burn it now?'

‘I've a good memory.'

‘Have you got a match?'

‘I've got a lighter. I'll start the conflagration.'

As the sheet of paper shrivelled, Reid remembered how so few weeks ago now he had burnt Johnson's letter. If Johnson had not had to write that letter, Gustave would not be in this room now.

‘There was a covering letter,' Reid explained. He told Gustave what was in it. ‘Have you got any mufti here?' he asked.

‘Plenty. I wore it most of the time in Alexandria.'

‘Then in that case you can make it your job as adjutant to book yourself a ticket to Ankara. It'll be your last job as adjutant.'

‘I suppose it will be.'

‘We'll be sorry to lose you here, but I imagine this new kind of work is more in your line than checking up on lodging, fuel and light allowances.'

‘I'd say it was.'

‘I hope you are happy about this'; Reid had a sudden qualm of responsibility. ‘I don't know what this job is,' he said, ‘but it's not an order. You don't have to go unless you want. It's something you volunteer for.'

‘I had that explained to me in Beirut.'

‘Then there's nothing for me to do except wish you the best of luck.'

There was a train running two days later. On the night before they gave Gustave a good-bye dinner.

‘It's not really a good-bye dinner,' Reid explained in his good luck speech. ‘Because we shall be seeing him back here the week after next; but we are seeing the last of him as adjutant. He's leaving on a mission; I don't know what it's all about. I don't want to know what it's about. But knowing our good friend, Gustave, I can assume that it must be devious. If it wasn't devious, why should they have chosen Gustave? I've known him longer than you have. I travelled out in the same ship with him, and I almost saw too much of him. He has few secrets from me. Devious is the adjective for Beirut. And Gustave was the right man for Beirut. I don't know why they ever moved him from there, except that I've noticed that the Army makes a practice of posting a temporary officer to the kind of work for which, by taste and training, he is most unfitted, and for which no civilian employer would think of using him. I hope they have found him some really devious work to do in Ankara; but I suspect they haven't. It is something honourable and straightforward; for which they have presumed that with his open, grinning countenance he is temperamentally suited. You and I know how wrong they are. I hope that he will not get into too much mischief. I hope that the damage he does there to the war effort will not be irreparable.'

It was a facetious speech. Gustave's reply was even more facetious. He was a little drunk, his face was glistening. Yes, he said, he was going on a mission. He wished that he could take them into his confidence. But under section 5, paragraph 2B of the Army Act he was precluded from such action. He had also testified to having read the Official Secrets Act. They would not therefore expect him to tell them in exact detail what he planned to do; but they knew as well as he did that laws were made to be bent where they could not be broken. And this he could tell them; that he was going on the kind of mission with which they had all been familiar in school days. How often had they not on Sunday evenings subscribed their pennies to missions for the Fiji Islanders? That was the kind of mission on which he was going—to convert the heathen. ‘You would have expected,' he said, ‘that one of the officers in the Chaplain's department would have been more suitable for such a posting, but the mission on which I am being sent would not, I am afraid, appeal to the Lord Bishop of the Diocese and those ordained ministers who serve under him. It is not my hope to lead our Turkish Brethren into the Arms of Mother Church, but to redeem them in the eyes of Islam; to bring them back to the sacred teachings
of Allah's prophet; to cajole them back on to the road from which they strayed during the powerful but mistaken leadership of Mustapha Kemel. It is the belief of our higher command, not only in Cairo but in London and in Washington, that the restoration in Turkey of the true faith would be a secret weapon driven at the heart of the misguided Führer. Why the higher command should believe that, I do not know; they move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform. It is not for us to question what they, in their infinite wisdom, have decided; the wisdom that passeth man's understanding. Ours not to reason why. I go on my sacred and secret mission to lead back our deluded Brethren into the pure ways of that great, that supreme sultan, Abdul the Damned. How I propose to do it, I may not under the Official Secrets Act divulge, but I go with a clear conscience to rescue the Turks from heresy: to restore the harem and the fez.'

The speech went very well. Gustave's high spirits were contagious. He was so pleased himself that the others could not help being happy for his sake. ‘It'll be my turn next,' each one of them was thinking. Reid, as he laughed and clapped, wondered what on earth it was that Farrar had found for this engaging clown to do. He remembered Mallet's warning. But there was nothing that he could do about it.