“No confessions now until three o’clock. The fathers are resting.”
“I have been to confession to this father. I want to know his name. He speaks English.”
“I speak English. I do not know what father you want.”
“I want his name.”
“You must come at three o’clock, please, when the fathers have rested.”
Guy turned away. The beggars settled on him. He strode into the busy street and the darkness of Egypt closed on him in the dazzling sunlight. Perhaps he had imagined the whole incident, and if he had not, what profit was there in pursuit? There were priests in France working for the allies. Why not a priest in Egypt, in exile, doing his humble bit for his own side? Egypt teemed with spies. Every troop movement was open to the scrutiny of a million ophthalmic eyes. The British order of battle must be known in minute detail from countless sources. What could that priest accomplish except perhaps gain kinder treatment for his community if Rommel reached Alexandria? Probably the only result, if Guy made a report, would be an order forbidding H.M. forces to frequent civilian churches.
Ivor Claire’s nursing-home overlooked the Municipal Gardens. Guy walked there through the crowded streets so despondently that the touts looking at him despaired and let him pass unsolicited.
He found Claire in a wheeled-chair on his balcony.
“Much better,” he said in answer to Guy’s inquiry. “They are all very pleased with me. I may be able to get up to Cairo next week for the races.”
“Colonel Tommy is getting a little restive.”
“Who wouldn’t be at Sidi Bishr? Well, he knows where to find me when he wants me.”
“He seems rather to want you now.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’d be much use to him until I’m fit, you know. My troop is in good hands. When Tommy kindly relieved me of Corporal-Major Ludovic my anxieties came to an end. But we must keep in touch. I can’t have you doing a McTavish on me.”
“Two flaps since you went away. Once we were at two hours’ notice for three days.”
“I know. Greek nonsense. When there’s anything really up I shall hear from Julia Stitch before Tommy does. She is a mine of indiscretion. You know she’s here?”
“Half X Commando spend their evenings with her.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Oh, she wouldn’t remember me.”
“My dear Guy, she remembers everyone. Algie has some sort of job keeping his eye on the King. They’re very well installed. I thought of moving in on them but one can’t be sure that Julia will give an invalid quite all he needs. There’s rather too much coming and going, too—generals and people. Julia pops in most mornings and brings me the gossip.”
Then Guy recounted that morning’s incident in the church.
“Not much to shoot a chap on,” said Claire. “Even a clergyman.”
“Ought I to do anything about it?”
“Ask Tommy. It might prove a great bore, you know. Everyone is a spy in this country.”
“That’s rather what I thought.”
“I’m sure the nurses here are. They walk out with the Vichy French from that ship in the harbor. What’s the news from Sidi Bishr?”
“Worse. A little worse every day. B Commando are on the verge of mutiny. Prentice has confined them to camp until every man has swum a hundred yards in boots and equipment. They’ll shoot him when they go into action. Major Graves still thinks he ought to command X Commando.”
“He must be insane to want to.”
“Yes. Tony is having a bad time. The Grenadiers are all down with Gyppy tummy. Five Coldstreamers put in to be returned to their regiment. Corporal-Major Ludovic is suspected of writing poetry.”
“More than probable.”
“Our Catalan refugees have even got Tommy worried. An Arab mess waiter went off with A Commando’s medical stores. We’ve got four courts martial pending and ten men adrift. God knows how many arms stolen. The N.A.A.F.I. till has been burgled twice. Someone tried to set the camp cinema on fire. Nothing has been heard of the brigadier.”
“That at least is good news.”
“Not for me, Ivor.”
They were interrupted by a shrill guttersnipe whistle from the street below.
“Julia,” said Claire.
“I’d better go.”
“Don’t.”
A minute later Mrs. Algernon Stitch was with them. She wore linen and a Mexican sombrero; a laden shopping basket hung over one white arm. She inclined the huge straw disc of her hat over Claire and kissed his forehead.
“Why are your nurses so disagreeable, Ivor?”
“Politics. They all claim to have lost brothers at Oran. You remember Guy?”
She turned her eyes, her true blue, portable and compendious oceans upon Guy, absorbed him and then very loudly, in rich Genoese accents, proclaimed:
“C’è scappata la mucca.”
“You see,” said Ivor, as though displaying a clever trick of Freda’s, “I told you she would remember.”
“Why wasn’t I told you were here? Come to lunch?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly. It’s awfully kind of you…”
“Good. Are you coming, Ivor?”
“Is it a party?”
“I forget who.”
“Perhaps I’m best where I am.”
Mrs. Stitch gazed over the balcony into the gardens.
“Forster says they ought to be ‘thoroughly explored,’ ” she said. “Something for another day.” To Guy. “You’ve got his Guide?”
“I’ve always wanted a copy. It’s very scarce.”
“Just been reprinted. Here, take mine. I can always get another.”
She produced from her basket a copy of E. M. Forster’s Alexandria.
“I didn’t know. In that case I can get one for myself. Thanks awfully, though.”
“Take it, fool,” she said.
“Well, thanks awfully. I know his Pharos and Pharillon, of course.”
“Of course; the Guide is topping too.”
“Have you brought me anything, Julia?” Claire asked.
“Not today, unless you’d care for some Turkish delight.”
“Yes, please.”
“Here you are. I haven’t finished shopping yet. In fact, I must go now.” To Guy. “Come on.”
“Not much of a visit.”
“You should come to lunch when you’re asked.”
“Well, thank you for the sweets.”
“I’ll be back. Come on.”
She led Guy down and out. He tried to circumvent her at the door of her little open car but was peremptorily ordered away.
“Other side, fool. Jump in.”
Off she drove, darting between camels and trams and cabs and tanks, down the Rue Sultan, spinning left at the Nebi Daniel, stopping abruptly in the center of the crossing and saying: “Just look. The Soma. In the days of Cleopatra the streets ran from the Gate of the Moon to the Gate of the Sun and from the lake harbor to the sea harbor with colonnades all the way. White marble and green silk awnings. Perhaps you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
She stood up in the car and pointed. “Alexander’s tomb,” she said. “Somewhere under that monstrosity.”
Motor-horns competed with police whistles and loud human voices in half a dozen tongues. A uniformed Egyptian armed with a little trumpet performed a ritual dance of rage before her. A gallant R.A.S.C. driver drew up beside her.
“Stalled has she, lady?”
Two guides attempted to enter the car beside them.
“I show you mosky. I show you all moskies.”
“Forster says the marble was so bright that you could thread a needle at midnight. Why are they making such a fuss? There is all the time in the world. No one here ever lunches before two.”
Mrs. Stitch, Guy reflected, did not seem to require much conversation from him. He sat silent, quite soaked up by her.
“I’d never set foot in Egypt until now. It’
s been a great disappointment. I can’t get to like the people,” she said sadly, drenching the rabble in her great eyes. “Except the King—and it’s not policy to like him much. Well, we must get on. I’ve got to find some shoes.”
She sat down, sounded her horn, and thrust the little car relentlessly forward.
Soon she turned off into a side street marked OUT OF BOUNDS TO ALL RANKS OF H.M. FORCES.
“Two Australians were picked up dead here the other morning,” Guy explained.
Mrs. Stitch had many interests but only one interest at a time. That morning it was Alexandrian history.
“Hypatia,” she said, turning into an alley. “I’ll tell you an odd thing about Hypatia. I was brought up to believe she was murdered with oyster shells, weren’t you? Forster says tiles.”
“Are you sure we can get down this street?”
“Not sure. I’ve never been here before. Someone told me about a little man.”
The way narrowed until both mudguards grated against the walls.
“We’ll have to walk the last bit,” said Mrs. Stitch, climbing over the windscreen and sliding down the hot bonnet.
Contrary to Guy’s expectation they found the shop. The “little man” was enormous, bulging over a small stool at his doorway, smoking a hubble-bubble. He rose affably and Mrs. Stitch immediately sat in the place he vacated.
“Hot sit-upon,” she remarked.
Shoes of various shapes and colors hung on strings all about them. When Mrs. Stitch did not see what she wanted, she took a pad and pencil from her basket and drew, while the shoemaker beamed and breathed down her neck. He bowed and nodded and produced a pair of crimson slippers which were both fine and funny, with high curling toes.
“Bang right,” said Mrs. Stitch. “Got it in one.”
She removed her white leather shoes and put them in her basket. Her toe nails were pale pink and brilliantly polished. She donned the slippers, paid and made off. Guy followed at her side. After three steps she stopped and leaned on him, light and balmy, while she again changed shoes.
“Not for street wear,” she said.
When they reached the car they found it covered with children who greeted them by sounding the horn.
“Can you drive?” asked Mrs. Stitch.
“Not awfully well.”
“Can you back out from here?”
Guy gazed over the little car down the dusty populous ravine.
“No,” he said.
“Neither can I. We’ll have to send someone to collect it. Algie doesn’t like my driving myself anyhow. What’s the time?”
“Quarter to two.”
“Damn. We’ll have to take a taxi. A tram might have been fun. Something for another day.”
The villa provided for the Stitches lay beyond Ramleh, beyond Sidi Bishr, among stone-pine and bougainvillea. The white-robed, red-sashed Berber servants alone were African. All else smacked of the Alpes Maritimes. The party assembled on the verandah was small but heterogeneous. Algernon Stitch lurked in the background; in front were two local millionairesses, sisters, who darted towards Mrs. Stitch a-tiptoe with adulation.
“Ah, chère madame, ce que vous avez l’air star, aujourd’hui.”
“Lady Steetch, Lady Steetch, your hat. Je crois bien que vous n’avez pas trouvé cela en Egypte.”
“Chère madame, quel drôle de panier. I find it original.”
“Lady Steech, your shoes.”
“Five piastres in the bazaar,” said Mrs. Stitch (she had changed again in the taxi), leading Guy on.
“Ça, madame, c’est génial.”
“Algie, you remember the underground cow?”
Algernon Stitch looked at Guy with blank benevolence. His wife’s introductions were more often allusive than definitive. “Hullo,” he said. “Very glad to see you again. You know the Commander-in-Chief, I expect.”
The rich sisters looked at one another, on the spot yet all at sea. Who was this officer of such undistinguished rank? Son amant, sans doute. How had their hostess described him? La vache souterraine? Ou la vache au Métro? This, then, was the new chic euphemism. They would remember and employ it with effect elsewhere. “… My dear, I believe her chauffeur is her underground cow…” It had the tang of the great world.
Besides the Commander-in-Chief there were in the party a young Maharaja in the uniform of the Red Cross, a roving English cabinet minister, and an urbane pasha. Mrs. Stitch, never the slave of etiquette, put Guy on her right at table, but thereafter talked beyond him at large. She started a topic.
“Mahmoud Pasha, explain Cavafy to us.”
Mahmoud Pasha, a sad exile from Monte Carlo and Biarritz, replied with complete composure:
“Such questions I leave to His Excellency.”
“Who is Cavafy? What is he?” passed from dark eye to dark eye of the sisters as they sat on either side of their host, but they held their little scarlet tongues.
The roving minister, it appeared, had read the complete works in the Greek. He expounded. The lady on Guy’s right said:
“Do they perhaps speak of Constantine Cavafis?” pronouncing the name quite differently from Mrs. Stitch. “We are not greatly admiring him nowadays in Alexandria. He is of the past, you understand.”
The Commander-in-Chief was despondent as he had good reason to be. Everything was out of his control and everything was going wrong. He ate in silence. At length he said:
“I’ll tell you the best poem ever written in Alexandria.”
“Recitation,” said Mrs. Stitch.
“ ‘They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead…’ ”
“I find it so sympathetic,” said the Greek lady. “How all your men of affairs are poetic. And they are not socialist, I believe?”
“Hush,” said Mrs. Stitch.
“ ‘… For death he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.’ ”
“Very prettily spoken,” said Mrs. Stitch.
“I can do it in Greek,” said the Cabinet minister.
“To be Greek, at this moment,” said the lady next to Guy, “is to live in mourning. My country is being murdered. I come here because I love our hostess. I do not love parties now. My heart is with my people in my own country. My son is there, my two brothers, my nephew. My husband is too old. He has given up cards. I have given up cigarettes. It is not much. It is all we can do. It is—would you say emblematic?”
“Symbolic.”
“It is symbolic. It does not help my country. It helps us a little here.” She laid her jeweled hand upon her heart.
The Commander-in-Chief listened in silence. His heart, too, was in the passes of Thessaly.
The Maharaja spoke of racing. He had two horses running next week at Cairo.
Presently they all left the table. The Commander-in-Chief moved across the verandah to Guy.
“Second Halberdiers?”
“Not now, sir. Hookforce.”
“Oh, yes. Bad business about your brigadier. I’m afraid you fellows have got rather left out of things. Shipping is the trouble. Always is. Well, I’m supposed to be on my way to Cairo. Where are you going?”
“Sidi Bishr.”
“Right on my way. Want a lift?”
The A.D.C. was put in front with the driver. Guy sat in the back with the Commander-in-Chief. They very quickly reached the gates of the camp. Guy made to get out.
“I’ll take you in,” said the Commander-in-Chief.
The Catalan refugees were duty-troop that day. They crowded round the Commander-in-Chief’s great car with furious, unshaven faces. They poked tommy-guns through the open windows. Then, satisfied that these were temporary allies, they fell back, opened the gates and raised their clenched fists in salutation.
The brigade major was smoking in a deck-chair at the flap of his tent when he recognized the flag on the passing car. He leaped to his looking-glass, buckled himself up, pulled himself together, crowned himself with a sun helmet, armed himself with a cane and broke into a doubl
e as he approached the sandy space where Guy had that morning drilled his section. The big car was driving away. Guy strolled towards him holding his guide-book.
“Oh, it’s you back at last, Crouchback. Thought for a moment that was the C.-in-C.’s car?”
“Yes, it was.”
“What was it doing here?”
“Gave me a lift.”
“The driver had no business to fly the C.-in-C.’s flag without the C.-in-C. being inside. You should know that.”
“He was inside.”
Hound looked hard at Guy.
“You aren’t by any chance trying to pull my leg, are you, Crouchback?”
“I should never dare. The C.-in-C. asked me to apologize to the colonel. He would have liked to stop but he had to get on to Cairo.”
“Who’s mounting guard today?”
“The Spaniards.”
“Oh, God. Did they turn out properly?”
“No.”
“Oh, God.”
Hound stood suspended, anguished by conflicting pride and curiosity. Curiosity won.
“What did he say?”
“He recited poetry.”
“Nothing else?”
“We spoke of the problems of shipping,” said Guy. “They plague him.” The brigade major turned away. “By the way,” Guy added, “I think I detected an enemy agent in church today.”
“Most amusing,” said Hound over his shoulder.
*
Holy Saturday in Matchet; Mr. Crouchback broke his Lenten fast. He had given up, as he always did, wine and tobacco. During the preceding weeks two parcels had come from his wine merchant, badly pilfered on the railway, but still with a few bottles intact. At luncheon Mr. Crouchback drank a pint of burgundy. It was what his merchant cared to send him, not what he would have ordered, but he took it gratefully. After luncheon he filled his pipe. Now that he had no sitting-room, he was obliged to smoke downstairs. That afternoon seemed warm enough for sitting out. In a sheltered seat above the beaches, he lit the first pipe of Easter, thinking of that morning’s new fire.
II
No. 6 Transit Camp, London District, was a camp in name only. It had been a large, unfashionable, entirely respectable hotel. The air was one of easy well-being. No bomb had yet broken a window-pane. Here Movement Control sent lost detachments. Here occasionally was brought a chaplain under close arrest. In this green pasture Trimmer and his section for a time lay down. Here Kerstie Kilbannock elected to do her war-work.