They Came to Baghdad (11 page)

The word voluntary struck unpleasantly on Victoria's ear.

“I really wanted a paid position,” she said.

“Oh dear!” Dr. Rathbone's face fell. “That's rather more difficult. Our paid staff is very small—and for the moment, with the voluntary help, it's quite adequate.”

“I can't afford not to take a job,” explained Victoria. “I'm a competent shorthand typist,” she added without a blush.

“I'm sure you're competent, my dear young lady, you radiate competence, if I may say so. But with us it's a question of £.s.d. But even if you take a job elsewhere, I hope you'll help us in your spare time. Most of our workers have their own regular jobs. I'm sure you'll find helping us really inspiring. There must be an end of all the savagery in the world, the wars, the misunderstandings, the suspicions. A common meeting ground, that's what we all need. Drama, art, poetry—the great things of the spirit—no room there for petty jealousies or hatreds.”

“N-no,” said Victoria doubtfully, recalling friends of hers who were actresses and artists and whose lives seemed to be obsessed by jealousy of the most trivial kind, and by hatreds of a peculiarly virulent intensity.

“I've had
A Midsummer Night's Dream
translated into forty different languages,” said Dr. Rathbone. “Forty different sets of young people all reacting to the same wonderful piece of literature.
Young
people—that's the secret. I've no use for anybody but the young. Once the mind and spirit are muscle-bound, it's too late. No, it's the young who must get together. Take that girl downstairs, Catherine, the one who showed you up here. She's a Syrian from Damascus. You and she are probably about the same age. Normally you'd never come together, you'd have nothing in common. But at the Olive Branch you and she and many many others, Russians, Jewesses, Iraqis, Turkish girls, Armenians, Egyptians, Persians, all meet and like each other and read the same books and discuss pictures and music (we have excellent lecturers who come out) all of you finding out and being excited by encountering a different point of view—why, that's what the world is meant to be.”

Victoria could not help thinking that Dr. Rathbone was slightly overoptimistic in assuming that all those divergent elements who were coming together would necessarily like each other. She and Catherine, for instance, had not liked each other at all. And Victoria strongly suspected that the more they saw of each other the greater their dislike would grow.

“Edward's splendid,” said Dr. Rathbone. “Gets on with everybody. Better perhaps, with the girls than with the young men. The men students out here are apt to be difficult at first—suspicious—almost hostile. But the girls adore Edward, they'll do anything for him. He and Catherine get on particularly well.”

“Indeed,” said Victoria coldly. Her dislike of Catherine grew even more intense.

“Well,” said Dr. Rathbone, smiling, “come and help us if you can.”

It was a dismissal. He pressed her hand warmly. Victoria went out of the room and down the stairs. Catherine was standing near the door talking to a girl who had just come in with a small suitcase in her hand. She was a good-looking dark girl, and just for a moment Victoria fancied that she had seen her before somewhere. But the girl looked at her without any sign of recognition. The two young women had been talking eagerly together in some language Victoria did not know. They stopped when she appeared and remained silent, staring at her. She walked past them to the door, forcing herself to say “Good-bye” politely to Catherine as she went out.

She found her way out from the winding alley into Rashid Street and made her way slowly back to the hotel, her eyes unseeing of the throngs around her. She tried to keep her mind from dwelling on her own predicament (penniless in Baghdad) by fixing her mind on Dr. Rathbone and the general setup of the Olive Branch. Edward had had an idea in London that there was something “fishy” about his job. What was fishy? Dr. Rathbone? Or the Olive Branch itself?

Victoria could hardly believe that there was anything fishy about Dr. Rathbone. He appeared to her to be one of those misguided enthusiasts who insist on seeing the world in their own idealistic manner, regardless of realities.

What had Edward
meant
by fishy? He'd been very vague. Perhaps he didn't really know himself.

Could Dr. Rathbone be some kind of colossal fraud?

Victoria, fresh from the soothing charm of his manner, shook her head. His manner had certainly changed, ever so slightly, at the idea of paying her a salary. He clearly preferred people to work for nothing.

But that, thought Victoria, was a sign of common sense.

Mr. Greenholtz, for instance, would have felt just the same.

I

V
ictoria arrived back at the Tio, rather footsore, to be hailed enthusiastically by Marcus who was sitting out on the grass terrace overlooking the river and talking to a thin rather shabby middle-aged man.

“Come and have a drink with us, Miss Jones. Martini—sidecar? This is Mr. Dakin. Miss Jones from England. Now then, my dear, what will you have?”

Victoria said she would have a sidecar “and some of those lovely nuts?” she suggested hopefully, remembering that nuts were nutritious.

“You like nuts. Jesus!” He gave the order in rapid Arabic. Mr. Dakin said in a sad voice that he would have a lemonade.

“Ah,” cried Marcus, “but that is ridiculous. Ah, here is Mrs. Cardew Trench. You know Mr. Dakin? What will you have?”

“Gin and lime,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench, nodding to Dakin in an offhand manner. “You look hot,” she added to Victoria.

“I've been walking round seeing the sights.”

When the drinks came, Victoria ate a large plateful of pistachio nuts and also some potato chips.

Presently, a short thickset man came up the steps and the hospitable Marcus hailed him in his turn. He was introduced to Victoria as Captain Crosbie, and by the way his slightly protuberant eyes goggled at her, Victoria gathered that he was susceptible to feminine charm.

“Just come out?” he asked her.

“Yesterday.”

“Thought I hadn't seen you around.”

“She is very nice and beautiful, is she not?” said Marcus joyfully. “Oh yes, it is very nice to have Miss Victoria. I will give a party for her—a very nice party.”

“With baby chickens?” said Victoria hopefully.

“Yes, yes—and foie gras—Strasburg foie gras—and perhaps caviare—and then we have a dish with fish—very nice—a fish from the Tigris, but all with sauce and mushrooms. And then there is a turkey stuffed in the way we have it at my home—with rice and raisins and spice—and all cooked
so!
Oh it is very good—but you must eat very much of it—not just a tiny spoonful. Or if you like it better you shall have a steak—a really big steak and
tender
—I see to it. We will have a long dinner that goes on for hours. It will be very nice. I do not eat myself—I only drink.”

“That will be lovely,” said Victoria in a faint voice. The description of these viands made her feel quite giddy with hunger. She wondered if Marcus really meant to give this party and if so, how soon it could possibly happen.

“Thought you'd gone to Basrah,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench to Crosbie.

“Got back yesterday,” said Crosbie.

He looked up at the balcony.

“Who's the bandit?” he asked. “Feller in fancy dress in the big hat.”

“That, my dear, is Sir Rupert Crofton Lee,” said Marcus. “Mr. Shrivenham brought him here from the Embassy last night. He is a very nice man, very distinguished traveller. He rides on camels over the Sahara, and climbs up mountains. It is very uncomfortable and dangerous, that kind of life. I should not like it myself.”

“Oh he's that chap, is he?” said Crosbie. “I've read his book.”

“I came over on the plane with him,” said Victoria.

Both men, or so it seemed to her, looked at her with interest.

“He's frightfully stuck up and pleased with himself,” said Victoria with disparagement.

“Knew his aunt in Simla,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench. “The whole family is like that. Clever as they make them, but can't help boasting of it.”

“He's been sitting out there doing nothing all the morning,” said Victoria with slight disapproval.

“It is his stomach,” explained Marcus. “Today he cannot eat anything. It is sad.”

“I can't think,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench, “why you're the size you are, Marcus, when you never eat anything.”

“It is the drink,” said Marcus. He sighed deeply. “I drink far too much. Tonight my sister and her husband come. I will drink
and drink almost until morning.” He sighed again, then uttered his usual sudden roar. “Jesus! Jesus! Bring the same again.”

“Not for me,” said Victoria hastily, and Mr. Dakin refused also, finishing up his lemonade, and ambling gently away while Crosbie went up to his room.

Mrs. Cardew Trench flicked Dakin's glass with her fingernail. “Lemonade as usual?” she said. “Bad sign, that.”

Victoria asked why it was a bad sign.

“When a man only drinks when he's alone.”

“Yes, my dear,” said Marcus. “That is so.”

“Does he really drink, then?” asked Victoria.

“That's why he's never got on,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench. “Just manages to keep his job and that's all.”

“But he is a very nice man,” said the charitable Marcus.

“Pah,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench. “He's a wet fish. Potters and dillydallies about—no stamina—no grip on life. Just one more Englishman who's come out East and gone to seed.”

Thanking Marcus for the drink and again refusing a second, Victoria went up to her room, removed her shoes, and lay down on her bed to do some serious thinking. The three pounds odd to which her capital had dwindled was, she fancied, already due to Marcus for board and lodging. Owing to his generous disposition, and if she could sustain life mainly on alcoholic liquor assisted by nuts, olives and chip potatoes, she might solve the purely alimentary problem of the next few days. How long would it be before Marcus presented her with her bill, and how long would he allow it to run unpaid? She had no idea. He was not really, she thought, careless in business matters. She ought, of course, to find somewhere cheaper to live. But how would she find out
where to go? She ought to find herself a job—quickly. But where did one apply for jobs? What kind of a job? Whom could she ask about looking for one? How terribly handicapping to one's style it was to be dumped down practically penniless in a foreign city where one didn't know the ropes. With just a little knowledge of the terrain, Victoria felt confident (as always) that she could hold her own. When would Edward get back from Basrah? Perhaps (horror) Edward would have forgotten all about her. Why on earth had she come rushing out to Baghdad in this asinine way? Who and what was Edward after all? Just another young man with an engaging grin and an attractive way of saying things. And what—what—
what
was his surname? If she knew that, she might wire him—no good, she didn't even know where he was staying. She didn't know anything—that was the trouble—that was what was cramping her style.

And there was no one to whom she could go for advice. Not Marcus who was kind but never listened. Not Mrs. Cardew Trench (who had had suspicions from the first). Not Mrs. Hamilton Clipp who had vanished to Kirkuk. Not Dr. Rathbone.

She must get some money—or get a job—
any
job. Look after children, stick stamps on in an office, serve in a restaurant…Otherwise they would send her to a Consul and she would be repatriated to En gland and never see Edward again….

At this point, worn out with emotion, Victoria fell asleep.

II

She awoke some hours later and deciding that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, went down to the restaurant and
worked her way solidly through the entire menu—a generous one. When she had finished, she felt slightly like a boa constrictor, but definitely heartened.

“It's no good worrying anymore,” thought Victoria. “I'll leave it all till tomorrow. Something may turn up, or I may think of something, or Edward may come back.”

Before going to bed she strolled out onto the terrace by the river. Since in the feelings of those living in Baghdad it was arctic winter nobody else was out there except one of the waiters, who was leaning over a railing staring down into the water, and he sprang away guiltily when Victoria appeared and hurried back into the hotel by the service door.

Victoria, to whom, coming from England, it appeared to be an ordinary summer night with a slight nip in the air, was enchanted by the Tigris seen in the moonlight with the farther bank looking mysterious and Eastern with its fringes of palms.

“Well, anyway, I've got here,” said Victoria, cheering up a good deal, “and I'll manage somehow. Something is bound to turn up.”

With this Micawber-like pronouncement, she went up to bed, and the waiter slipped quietly out again and resumed his task of attaching a knotted rope so that it hung down to the river's edge.

Presently another figure came out of the shadows and joined him. Mr. Dakin said in a low voice:

“All in order?”

“Yes, sir, nothing suspicious to report.”

Having completed the task to his satisfaction, Mr. Dakin retreated into the shadows, exchanged his waiters' white coat for his own nondescript blue pinstripe and ambled gently along the terrace
until he stood outlined against the water's edge just where the steps led up from the street below.

“Getting pretty chilly in the evenings now,” said Crosbie, strolling out from the bar and down to join him. “Suppose you don't feel it so much, coming from Tehran.”

They stood there for a moment or two smoking. Unless they raised their voices, nobody could overhear them. Crosbie said quietly:

“Who's the girl?”

“Niece apparently of the archaeologist, Pauncefoot Jones.”

“Oh well—that should be all right. But coming on the same plane as Crofton Lee—”

“It's certainly as well,” said Dakin, “to take nothing for granted.”

The men smoked in silence for a few moments.

Crosbie said: “You really think it's advisable to shift the thing from the Embassy to here?”

“I think so, yes.”

“In spite of the whole thing being taped down to the smallest detail.”

“It was taped down to the smallest detail in Basrah—and that went wrong.”

“Oh, I know. Salah Hassan was poisoned, by the way.”

“Yes—he would be. Were there any signs of an approach to the Consulate?”

“I suspect there may have been. Bit of a shindy there, Chap drew a revolver.” He paused and added, “Richard Baker grabbed him and disarmed him.”

“Richard Baker,” said Dakin thoughtfully.

“Know him? He's—”

“Yes, I know him.”

There was a pause and then Dakin said:

“Improvisation. That's what I'm banking on. If we have, as you say, got everything taped—and our plans are known, then it's easy for the other side to have got us taped, too. I very much doubt if Carmichael would even so much as get near the Embassy—and even if he reached it—” He shook his head.

“Here, only you and I and Crofton Lee are wise to what's going on.”

“They'll know Crofton Lee moved here from the Embassy.”

“Oh of course. That was inevitable. But don't you see, Crosbie, that whatever show they put up against our improvisation has got to be improvised, too. It's got to be hastily thought of and hastily arranged. It's got to come, so to speak, from the
outside.
There's no question here of someone established in the Tio six months ago waiting. The Tio's never been in the picture until now. There's never been any idea or suggestion of using the Tio as the rendezvous.”

He looked at his watch. “I'll go up now and see Crofton Lee.”

Dakin's raised hand had no need to tap on Sir Rupert's door. It opened silently to let him in.

The traveller had only one small reading lamp alight and had placed his chair beside it. As he sat down again, he gently slipped a small automatic pistol onto the table within reach of his hand.

He said: “What about it, Dakin? Do you think he'll come?”

“I think so, yes, Sir Rupert.” Then he said, “You've never met him have you?”

The other shook his head.

“No. I'm looking forward to meeting him tonight. That young man, Dakin, must have got guts.”

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Dakin in his flat voice. “He's got guts.”

He sounded a little surprised at the fact needing to be stated.

“I don't mean only courage,” said the other. “Lots of courage in the war—magnificent. I mean—”

“Imagination?” suggested Dakin.

“Yes. To have the guts to believe something that isn't in the least degree probable. To risk your life finding out that a ridiculous story isn't ridiculous at all. That takes something that the modern young man usually hasn't got. I hope he'll come.”

“I think he'll come,” said Mr. Dakin.

Sir Rupert glanced at him sharply.

“You've got it all sewn up?”

“Crosbie's on the balcony, and I shall be watching the stairs. When Carmichael reaches you, tap on the wall and I'll come in.”

Crofton Lee nodded.

Dakin went softly out of the room. He went to the left and onto the balcony and walked to the extreme corner. Here, too, a knotted rope dropped over the edge and came to earth in the shade of a eucalyptus tree and some judas bushes.

Mr. Dakin went back past Crofton Lee's door and into his own room beyond. His room had a second door in it leading onto the passage behind the rooms and it opened within a few feet of the
head of the stairs. With this door unobtrusively ajar, Mr. Dakin settled down to his vigil.

It was about four hours later that a
gufa,
that primitive craft of the Tigris, dropped gently downstream and came to shore on the mudflat beneath the Tio Hotel. A few moments later a slim figure swarmed up the rope and crouched amongst the judas trees.