They Came to Baghdad (6 page)

R
ichard Baker sat in the outer office of the British Consulate waiting until the Consul was disengaged.

He had come ashore from the
Indian Queen
that morning and seen his baggage through the Customs. It consisted almost entirely of books. Pyjamas and shirts were strewed amongst them rather as an afterthought.

The
Indian Queen
had arrived on time and Richard, who had allowed a margin of two days since small cargo boats such as the
Indian Queen
were frequently delayed, had now two days in hand before he need proceed, via Baghdad, to his ultimate destination, Tell Aswad, the site of the ancient city of Murik.

His plans were already made as to what to do with these two days. A mound reputed to contain ancient remains at a spot near the seashore in Kuwait had long excited his curiosity. This was a heaven-sent opportunity to investigate it.

He drove to the Airport Hotel and inquired as to the meth
ods of getting to Kuwait. A plane left at ten o'clock the following morning, he was told, and he could return the following day. Everything therefore was plain sailing. There were, of course, the inevitable formalities, exit visa and entry visa for Kuwait. For these he would have to repair to the British Consulate. The Consul-General at Basrah, Mr. Clayton, Richard had met some years previously in Persia. It would be pleasant, Richard thought, to meet him again.

The Consulate had several entrances. A main gate for cars. Another small gate leading out from the garden to the road that lay alongside the Shatt el Arab. The business entrance to the Consulate was in the main street. Richard went in, gave his card to the man on duty, was told the Consul-General was engaged at the moment but would soon be free, and was shown into a small waiting room to the left of the passage which ran straight through from the entrance to the garden beyond.

There were several people already in the waiting room. Richard hardly glanced at them. He was, in any case, seldom interested by members of the human race. A fragment of antique pottery was always more exciting to him than a mere human being born somewhere in the twentieth century
AD.

He allowed his thoughts to dwell pleasantly on some aspects of the Mari letters and the movements of the Benjaminite tribes in 1750
BC.

It would be hard to say exactly what awoke him to a vivid sense of the present and of his fellow human beings. It was, first, an uneasiness, a sense of tension. It came to him, he thought, though he could not be sure, through his nose. Nothing he could diagnose in concrete terms—but it was there, unmistakable, taking him back
to days in the late war. One occasion in particular when he, and two others, had been parachuted from a plane, and had waited in the small cold hours of dawn for the moment to do their stuff. A moment when morale was low, when the full hazards of the undertaking were clearly perceived, a moment of dread lest one might not be adequate, a shrinking of the flesh. The same acrid, almost imperceptible tang in the air.

The smell of
fear.
…

For some moments, this registered only subconsciously. Half of his mind still obstinately strove to focus itself
BC.
But the pull of the present was too strong.

Someone in this small room was in deadly fear….

He looked around. An Arab in a ragged khaki tunic, his fingers idly slipping over the amber beads he held. A stoutish Englishman with a grey moustache—the commercial traveller type—who was jotting down figures in a small notebook and looking absorbed and important. A lean tired-looking man, very dark-skinned, who was leaning back in a reposeful attitude, his face placid and uninterested. A man who looked like an Iraqi clerk. An elderly Persian in flowing snowy robes. They all seemed quite unconcerned.

The clicking of the amber beads fell into a definite rhythm. It seemed, in an odd way, familiar. Richard jerked himself to attention. He had been nearly asleep. Short—long—long—short—that was Morse—definite Morse signalling. He was familiar with Morse, part of his job during the war had dealt with signalling. He could read it easily enough.
OWL.
F-L-O-R-E-A-T-E-T-O-N-A. What the devil! Yes, that was it. It was being repeated
Floreat Etona.
Tapped out (or rather clicked out) by a ragged Arab. Hallo, what was this? “Owl. Eton. Owl.”

His own nickname at Eton—where he had been sent with an unusually large and solid pair of spectacles.

He looked across the room at the Arab, noting every detail of his appearance—the striped robe—the old khaki tunic—the ragged hand-knitted red scarf full of dropped stitches. A figure such as you saw hundreds of on the waterfront. The eyes met his vacantly with no sign of recognition. But the beads continued to click.

Fakir here. Stand by. Trouble.

Fakir?
Fakir?
Of course! Fakir Carmichael! A boy who had been born or who had lived in some outlandish part of the world—Turkestan, Afghanistan?

Richard took out his pipe. He took an exploratory pull at it—peered into the bowl and then tapped it on an adjacent ashtray:
Message received.

After that, things happened very fast. Later, Richard was at pains to sort them out.

The Arab in the torn army jacket got up and crossed towards the door. He stumbled as he was passing Richard, his hand went out and clutched Richard to steady himself. Then he righted himself, apologized and moved towards the door.

It was so surprising and happened so quickly that it seemed to Richard like a cinema scene rather than a scene in real life. The stout commercial traveller dropped his notebook and tugged at something in his coat pocket. Because of his plumpness and the tight fit of the coat, he was a second or two in getting it out and in that second or two Richard acted. As the man brought the revolver up, Richard struck it out of his hand. It went off and a bullet buried itself in the floor.

The Arab had passed through the doorway and had turned to
wards the Consul's office, but he paused suddenly, and turning he ran swiftly the other way to the door by which he had entered and into the busy street.

The kavass ran to Richard's side where he stood holding the stout man's arm. Of the other occupants of the room, the Iraqi clerk was dancing excitedly on his feet, the dark thin man was staring and the elderly Persian gazed into space unmoved.

Richard said:

“What the devil are you doing, brandishing a revolver like that?”

There was just a moment's pause, and then the stout man said in a plaintive Cockney voice:

“Sorry, old man. Absolute accident. Just clumsy.”

“Nonsense. You were going to shoot at that Arab fellow who's just run out.”

“No, no, old man, not shoot him. Just give him a fright. Recognized him suddenly as a fellow who swindled me over some antikas. Just a bit of fun.”

Richard Baker was a fastidious soul who disliked publicity of any kind. His instincts were to accept the explanation at its face value. After all, what could he prove? And would old Fakir Carmichael thank him for making a song and dance about the matter. Presumably if he were on some hush-hush, cloak-and-dagger business he would not.

Richard relaxed his grasp on the man's arm. The fellow was sweating, he noticed.

The kavass was talking excitedly. It was very wrong, he was saying, to bring firearms into the British Consulate. It was not allowed. The Consul would be very angry.

“I apologize,” said the fat man. “Little accident—that's all.” He thrust some money into the kavass's hand who pushed it back again indignantly.

“I'd better get out of this,” said the stout man. “I won't wait to see the Consul.” He thrust a card suddenly on Richard. “That's me and I'm at the Airport Hotel if there's any fuss, but actually it was a pure accident. Just a joke if you know what I mean.”

Reluctantly, Richard watched him walk with an uneasy swagger out of the room and turn towards the street.

He hoped he had done right, but it was a difficult thing to know what to do when one was as much in the dark as he was.

“Mr. Clayton, he is disengaged now,” said the kavass.

Richard followed the man along the corridor. The open circle of sunlight at the end grew larger. The Consul's room was on the right at the extreme end of the passage.

Mr. Clayton was sitting behind his desk. He was a quiet grey-haired man with a thoughtful face.

“I don't know whether you remember me?” said Richard. “I met you in Tehran two years ago.”

“Of course. You were with Dr. Pauncefoot Jones, weren't you? Are you joining him again this year?”

“Yes. I'm on my way there now, but I've got a few days to spare, and I rather wanted to run down to Kuwait. There's no difficulty I suppose?”

“Oh, no. There's a plane tomorrow morning. It's only about an hour and a half. I'll wire to Archie Gaunt—he's the Resident there. He'll put you up. And we can put you up here for the night.”

Richard protested slightly.

“Really—I don't want to bother you and Mrs. Clayton. I can go to the hotel.”

“The Airport Hotel's very full. We'd be delighted to have you here. I know my wife would like to meet you again. At the moment—let me see—we've got Crosbie of the Oil Company and some young sprig of Dr. Rathbone's who's down here clearing some cases of books through the customs. Come upstairs and see Rosa.”

He got up and escorted Richard out through the door and into the sunlit garden. A flight of steps led up to the living quarters of the Consulate.

Gerald Clayton pushed open the wire door at the top of the steps and ushered his guest into a long dim hallway with attractive rugs on the floor and choice examples of furniture on either side. It was pleasant coming into the cold dimness after the glare outside.

Clayton called, “Rosa, Rosa,” and Mrs. Clayton, whom Richard remembered as a buoyant personality with abounding vitality, came out of an end room.

“You remember Richard Baker, dear? He came to see us with Dr. Pauncefoot Jones in Tehran.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Clayton shaking hands. “We went to the bazaars together and you bought some lovely rugs.”

It was Mrs. Clayton's delight when not buying things herself to urge on her friends and acquaintances to seek for bargains in the local souks. She had a wonderful knowledge of values and was an excellent bargainer.

“One of the best purchases I've ever made,” said Richard. “And entirely owing to your good offices.”

“Baker wants to fly to Kuwait tomorrow,” said Gerald Clayton. “I've said that we can put him up here for tonight.”

“But if it's any trouble,” began Richard.

“Of course it's no trouble,” said Mrs. Clayton. “You can't have the best spare room, because Captain Crosbie has got it, but we can make you quite comfortable. You don't want to buy a nice Kuwait chest, do you? Because they've got some lovely ones in the souk just now. Gerald wouldn't let me buy another one for here though it would be quite useful to keep extra blankets in.”

“You've got three already, dear,” said Clayton mildly. “Now, if you'll excuse me, Baker. I must get back to the office. There seems to have been a spot of trouble in the outer office. Somebody let off a revolver, I understand.”

“One of the local sheikhs, I suppose,” said Mrs. Clayton. “They are so excitable and they do so love firearms.”

“On the contrary,” said Richard. “It was an Englishman. His intention seemed to be to take a potshot at an Arab.” He added gently, “I knocked his arm up.”

“So you were in it all,” said Clayton. “I didn't realize that.” He fished a card out of his pocket. “Robert Hall, Achilles Works, Enfield, seems to be his name. I don't know what he wanted to see me about. He wasn't drunk, was he?”

“He said it was a joke,” said Richard drily, “and that the gun went off by accident.”

Clayton raised his eyebrows.

“Commercial travellers don't usually carry loaded guns in their pockets,” he said.

Clayton, Richard thought, was no fool.

“Perhaps I ought to have stopped him going away.”

“It's difficult to know what one should do when these things happen. The man he fired at wasn't hurt?”

“No.”

“Probably was better to let the thing slide, then.”

“I wonder what was behind it?”

“Yes, yes…I wonder too.”

Clayton looked a little distrait.

“Well, I must be getting back,” he said and hurried away.

Mrs. Clayton took Richard into the drawing room, a large inside room, with green cushions and curtains and offered him a choice of coffee or beer. He chose beer and it came deliciously iced.

She asked him why he was going to Kuwait and he told her.

She asked him why he hadn't got married yet and Richard said he didn't think he was the marrying kind, to which Mrs. Clayton said briskly, “Nonsense.” Archaeologists, she said, made splendid husbands—and were there any young women coming out to the Dig this season? One or two, Richard said, and Mrs. Pauncefoot Jones of course.

Mrs. Clayton asked hopefully if they were nice girls who were coming out, and Richard said he didn't know because he hadn't met them yet. They were very inexperienced, he said.

For some reason this made Mrs. Clayton laugh.

Then a short stocky man with an abrupt manner came in and was introduced as Captain Crosbie. Mr. Baker, said Mrs. Clayton, was an archaeologist and dug up the most wildly interesting things thousands of years old. Captain Crosbie said he never could understand how archaeologists were able to say so definitely how old these things were. Always used to think they must be the most awful liars, ha ha, said Captain Crosbie. Richard looked at him in
a rather tired kind of way. No, said Captain Crosbie, but how
did
an archaeologist know how old a thing was? Richard said that that would take a long time to explain, and Mrs. Clayton quickly took him away to see his room.