‘Intelligence bumf, sir – it’s all in the dossier there. Just came in this afternoon. Suleiman was picked up only two days ago, you see, by one of our long-range groups south of Yarhuna, acting on information from the French in Oran – ’
‘What the devil was he doing over here? We’re more than a thousand miles from Morocco!’
The P.M. looked perplexed. ‘Well, it’s rather odd, actually. When he escaped from Devil’s Island it was early in the war, about ’41. He managed to get back across the Atlantic, God knows how – he was nearly seventy then, and he’d had a pretty rough time in captivity, I believe. Anyway, he reached Morocco, got a few followers, and started pasting the French again, until our desert war was at its height in ‘42, when for some reason he came east and pitched in against Rommel.’ The P.M. spread his hands in wonder. ‘Why, no one knows . . . unless he regarded the Germans as allies of the Vichy Government. When the war ended the French were still after him, and for the past year or so he’s been hiding out down south, quite alone. There was no one with him in the village where our people found him.’
‘And the French still want him? At this time of day?’ The Colonel blew through his pipe. ‘What do they intend to do with him, d’you know?’
The P.M. hesitated. ‘Send him back to Devil’s Island . . . so Cairo tell me, anyway. It seems the French regard him as a dangerous public enemy – ’
‘In his seventies? Without followers? After he’s been on our side in the war?’
‘It’s up to the French, sir. We’re just co-operating.’ The P.M. shifted in his chair, avoiding the Colonel’s eye. ‘I ought to mention – there’s a note in the dossier – that Cairo regards this as a top security matter.’
‘Indeed?’ The Colonel’s tone was chilly. ‘Then why don’t they put him in Heliopolis, instead of my guardroom?’
The P.M. looked embarrassed. ‘Well, we’re convenient here, of course – next to French territory. If they took him to Cairo, it would be bound to get talked about – might get into the papers, even.’ He glanced round as though expecting to find reporters crouched behind his chair. ‘You see, sir, the French want to keep it hush-hush – security, I imagine – and Cairo agrees. So the transfer, when it’s made, is to be discreet. Without publicity.’ He smiled uneasily. ‘I’m sure that’s understood.’
The Colonel blew smoke, considering him, and just from the angle of his pipe I knew he was in one of his rare cold rages, though I wasn’t sure why. The P.M. knew it, too, and fidgeted. Finally the Colonel said:
‘We’ll look after your prisoner, Provost Marshal. And if we don’t come up to G.H.Q. Cairo’s expectation as turnkeys, I suggest they do the job themselves. Convey that, would you? Anything else?’
The P.M., who wasn’t used to mere Colonels who raised two fingers to Cairo, got quite flustered, but all he could think of to add was that Suleiman ibn Aziz spoke Arabic and Spanish but only a little French, so if we needed an interpreter . . .
‘Thank you, my Adjutant speaks fluent French,’ said the Colonel, and the Adjutant, who had spent a hiking holiday in the Pyrenees before the war, tried to look like an accomplished linguist. The P.M. said that was splendid, and made his escape, and we waited while the Colonel smoked grimly and stared at the wall. The second-in-command remarked that this chap Suleiman sounded like an interesting chap. Enterprising, too.
‘Imagine escaping from Devil’s Island, at the age of 70!’ The Adjutant shook his head in admiration. ‘Poor old blighter!’
‘You can probably save your sympathy,’ said the Colonel abruptly. ‘From what I’ve heard of the Riffs’ treatment of prisoners I doubt if our guest is Saladin, exactly.’ He gave a couple of impatient puffs and laid down his pipe. ‘Still, I’m damned if we’ll be any harsher than we must. You’re orderly officer, MacNeill? See McGarry has him properly bedded down and I’ll talk to him in the morning – you do speak French, don’t you, Michael? God knows you’ve said so often enough.’
The Adjutant said hastily that he’d always managed to make himself understood – of course, he couldn’t guarantee that an Arab would understand the Languedoc accent . . . why, in Perpignan they spoke French with a Glasgow accent, would you believe it, mong jew and tray bong, quite extraordinary . . . Listening to him babble, I resolved not to miss his interview with Suleiman next day. When the others had gone he began a frantic rummage for his French dictionary, muttering vaguely bon soir, mam’selle, voulez-vous avez un aperitif avec moi, bloody hell, some blighter’s knocked it, and generally getting distraught.
‘Never mind your aunt’s plume,’ I said. ‘What’s the old man so steamed up about?’
‘I’ll just have to speak very slowly, that’s all.’ He rumpled his fair hair, sighing. ‘Eh? The Colonel? Well, he doesn’t like having his guardroom turned into a political prison – especially not for the Frogs. You know how he loves them: “Brutes let us down in ’14, and again in ’40 – ” ’
‘I know that, but what’s wrong with having to look after an old buddoo for a week or two?’
‘It’s politics, clot. The Frogs want to fix this old brigand’s duff, and no doubt our politicians want to keep de Gaulle happy, so the word goes to Cairo to co-operate, and we lift him and hand him over – but quietly, without fuss, so it doesn’t get in the papers. See?’
‘What if it does?’
‘God, you’re innocent. Look, the old bugger’s past it, the Frogs are just being bloody-minded, we’re co-operating like loyal allies – but d’you think Cairo wants to be seen helping to give him a free ticket back to Devil’s Island? So we get the job, ‘cos we’re out here far beyond the notice of journalists and radicals – anti-colonialists and so on – who’d make a martyr of the old boy if they heard about it. Are you receiving me?’
‘Well . . . sort of . . . but he’s a rebel, isn’t he?’
‘Certainly, fathead, and ten years ago no one would have given a hoot about handing him over. But it’s different now. Don’t you read the papers? The old enemies are the new patriots. Gandhi’s a saint these days . . . so why shouldn’t this old villain be a hero? After all, he always has been, to some people – fighting for his independence, by his way of it. Suppose his name was William Wallace – or Hereward the Wake? See what I mean?’
It was new stuff to me, in 1947. Yes, I was an innocent.
‘So that’s why the Colonel gets wild,’ said the Adjutant. ‘Being used as a stooge, because Cairo hasn’t got the guts to pass this Suleiman on openly – or to tell the Frogs to take a running jump. Which is what the Colonel would do – partly because he can’t stand ’em, but also because he’s got a soft spot for the Suleimans of this world. God knows he fought them long enough, on the Frontier, and knows what a shower they are, but still . . . he respects ′em . . . and this one’s over the hill, anyway. That’s why he’s hopping mad at Cairo for giving him a dirty job, but it’s a lawful command, and he’s a soldier. So, incidentally, are you,’ added the Adjutant severely, ‘and you ought to have been in the guardroom hours ago, examining padlocks. I don’t suppose you speak French? No, you ruddy wouldn’t . . .’
All was well in the guardroom, and through the grille in his cell door I could see the prisoner on the bed, still wrapped in his burnous, snoring vigorously.
‘By, but that’s an angry yin!’ said Sergeant McGarry. ′Hear him snarl when I asked if he wantit anything? I offered tae get him some chuck, but I micht as weel ha’e been talkin’ tae mysel’. Who is he, sir?’
I was telling him, when the gargoyle features of Private McAuslan appeared at the grille of the neighbouring cell, a sight that made me feel I should have brought some nuts to throw through the bars.
‘Hullaw rerr, sur,’ said he, companionable as always. ‘Who’s ra auld wog next door? See him, Ah cannae get tae sleep fur him snorin’. Gaun like a biler, sure’n he is.’
‘He’s a reporter frae the Tripoli Ghibli, come tae interview ye an’ write yer life story,’ said McGarry, and suddenly snarled: ‘Shar
rap an’ gedoon on yer cot, ye animal, or I’ll flype ye!’ McAuslan disappeared as by magic. I finished telling McGarry what I knew about his prisoner, and he shook his head as we stood looking through the grille.
‘Black Hand o’ God, eh? He’s no verra handy noo, puir auld cratur. Mind you, he’ll have been a hard man in his time.’
That was surely true, I thought. In the dim light I could make out the hawk profile and the white stubble on the cropped skull where the kafilyeh had fallen away; he looked very frail and old now. The Lord of the Grey Mountain, who had led the great Riff harkas against the French invaders and fought the legendary Foreign Legion to a standstill, the drawn sword of Abd-el Krim, the last of the desert rebels . . . It was inevitable that I should find myself thinking of the glossy romance that had been shown at the garrison cinema not long ago, with its hordes of robed riders thundering over the California sandhills while Dennis Morgan sang the new words which, in the spirit of war-time, had been set to the stirring music of Romberg’s Riff Song:
Show them that surrender isn’t all!
There’s no barricade or prison wall
Can keep a free man enslaved . . .
It was pathetically ironic, looking in at the little old man who had been the anonymous inspiration for that verse, and had spent a lifetime fighting for the reality of its brave message, even taking part in the greater cause against Germany. The film fiction had ended in a blaze of glory; the tragic fact was asleep in a British Army cell, waiting to be shipped away to a felon’s death in exile, the scourge of the desert keeping McAuslan awake with his snoring.
His interview with the Colonel next day was a literal frost, for during fifteen minutes’ laboured interrogation by the Adjutant he spoke only once, and that was to say ‘Non!’ Seen in daylight he was a gaunt leathery ancient with a malevolent eye in a vulpine face whose only redeeming feature was that splendid hooked nose, but he carried himself with a defiant pride that was impressive. Seated in his cell, refusing even to notice his visitors, he might have been just a sullen little ruffian, but he wasn’t; there was a force in the spare small body and a dignity in the lifted head; whether he understood the Adjutant’s questions about his welfare (which sounded like a parody of French without Tears, with such atrocities as ‘Etait votre lit tendre . . . suffisant douce, I mean’, which I construed as an inquiry about the comfort of his bed) it was hard to say, since he just stared stonily ahead while the Adjutant got pinker and louder. That he was getting through became apparent only with the last question, when the Colonel, who had been getting restive, interrupted.
‘Ask him, if we give him the freedom of the barracks, will he give his word of honour not to try to escape?’
This was the Colonel sounding out his man, and it brought the first reaction. Suleiman stiffened, stared angrily at the Colonel, and fairly spat out ‘Non!’ before standing up abruptly and turning on his heel to stalk across to the window, thus indicating that the palaver was finished.
‘Well, he can give a straight answer when he wants,’ said the Colonel. ′He doesn’t lie at the first opportunity, either. Keep his cell locked at night, McGarry, with a sentry posted, but during the day he can sit on the verandah or in the little garden if he likes. The more he’s in open view, the easier he’ll be to watch. And he’s not to be stared at – see that that’s understood by all ranks, Michael. Very well, carry on.’
So we did, and in the following days the small black-robed figure became a familiar sight, seated under an arch of the guardroom verandah or in the little rock-garden at the side, the armed sentry at a tactful distance and McGarry as usual at the head of the steps. According to him Suleiman never uttered a word or showed any emotion except silent hatred of everything around him; at first he had even refused to sit outside, and only after McGarry had taken out the chair two or three times, leaving the cell door open, had he finally ventured forth, slowly, making a long survey of the parade square before seating himself. He would stay there, quite motionless, his hands folded before him, until it was time to go to his cell to pray, or the orderly brought his meals, which were prepared at an Arab eating-house down the road. He never seemed to see or hear the sights and sounds of the parade-ground; there was something not canny about the stillness of the small, frail figure, his face shaded from the sun by the silver-trimmed kafilyeh, as though he were under a spell of immobility, waiting with a furious patience for it to be lifted.
The Provost Marshal must have got word of the freedom he was being given, for he called to protest to the Colonel about such a focus of nationalist unrest being in full view from the gate where local natives were forever passing by. What the Colonel replied is not recorded, but the P.M. came out crimson and sweating, to the general satisfaction.
For there was no doubt of it, in spite of his hostile silence and cold refusal even to notice us, a sort of protective admiration was growing in the battalion for the ugly little Bedouin warlord. Everyone knew his story by now, and what was in store for him, and sympathy was openly expressed for ‘the wee wog’, while the French were reviled for their persecution, and our own High Command for being art and part in it.
‘Whit wye does the Colonel no′ jist turn his back an′ let him scarper?’ was how Private Fletcher put it. ‘So whit if he used tae pit the hems oan the Frogs? A helluva lot we owe them, an’ chance it. Onywye, they say the wee fellah got tore in oan oor side in the war – is that right, sur? Becuz if it is, then it’s a bluidy shame! We should be gi‘in’ him a medal, never mind sendin’ him back tae Duwil’s Island!’
‘Sooner him than me,’ said Daft Bob Brown. ‘Ever see that fillum, King o’ the Damned? That wis aboot Duvvil’s Island – scare the bluidy blue lights oot o’ ye, so it wud.’
‘We should gi’e him a pound oot the till an’ say “On yer way, Cherlie”,’ said Fletcher emphatically. ‘That’s whit Ah’d dae.’
You and the Colonel both, Fletcher, I thought. Scottish soldiers have a callous streak a mile wide, compensated by a band of pure marshmallow, and either is liable to surface unexpectedly, but if there is one thing they admire it is a fighting man, and it doesn’t matter whether he’s friend or foe, fellow or alien. Suleiman ibn Aziz was a wog – but he was a brave wog, who had gone his mile, and now he was old and done and alone and they were full of fury on his behalf. Barrack-room sentimentality, if you like, which overlooked the fact that he had been a fully-paid-up monster in his time; that didn’t matter, he wis a good wee fellah, so he wis.
Their regard showed itself in a quite astonishing way. It was a regimental tradition for Jocks entering or leaving barracks to salute the guardroom, a relic of the days when the colours were housed there. Now – and how it began we never discovered - they started to extend the time of their salutes to cover the small figure in the burnous seated in the garden; I even saw a sergeant give his marching platoon ‘Eyes left!’ well in advance so that Suleiman was included, and the Regimental Sergeant-Major, who happened to be passing (and missed nothing) didn’t bat an eyelid. Highland soldiers are a very strange law unto themselves.
I doubt whether Suleiman noticed, or was aware of the general sympathy. His own obvious hostility discouraged any approaches, and the only ones he got came from his fellow-prisoner McAuslan. The great janker-wallah was never one to deny his conversation to anybody unlucky enough to be within earshot, and since his defaulters’ duties included sweeping the verandah and weeding the garden, Suleiman was a captive audience, so to speak; the fact that he didn’t understand a word and paid not the slightest heed meant nothing to a blether of McAuslan’s persistence. He held forth like the never-wearied rook while he shambled about the flower-bed destroying things and besmirching himself, and the Lord of the Grey Mountain sat through it like a robed idol, his unwinking gaze fastened on the distance. It was a pity he didn’t speak Glasweigian, really, because McAuslan’s small-talk was designed to comfort and advise; I paused once on a guardroom visit to listen to his monologue floating in through the barred window
:
‘. . . mind you, auld yin, there’s this tae be said for bein’ in the nick, ye get yer room an’ board, an’ at your time o’ life the Frogs arenae gaun tae pit ye tae breakin’ rocks, sure’n they’re no’? O’ course, Ah dae ken whit it’s like in a French cooler, but ach! they’ll no’ be hard on ye. An’ ye never know, mebbe ye’ll get a chance tae go ower the wa’ again. They tell me ye’ve been ay-woll twice a’ready, is that right? Frae Duvvil’s Island? Jings, that’s sumpn! Aye, but – mah advice tae ye is, don’t try it while ye’re here, for any favour, becuz that big bastard McGarry’s got eyes in his erse, an’ ye widnae get by the gate. Naw, jist you wait till ra Frogs come for ye, an’ bide yer time an’ scram when their back’s turned – they’re no’ organised at a’, ra Frogs. Weel, ye ken that yersel’. Here, but! it’s a shame ye couldnae tak’ Phimister wi’ ye – him that wis in the cell next door tae me, the glaikit-lookin’ fella. He’s no’ sae glaikit, Ah’m tellin’ ye! Goad kens how many times he’s bust oot o’ close tack – he wid hiv ye oan a fast camel tae Wogland afore ra Frogs knew whit time it wis! Jeez, whit a man! Aye, but ye’ll no’ be as nippy as ye were . . . ach, but mebbe it’ll no’ be sae bad, auld boy! Whitever Duvvil’s Island’s like, it cannae be worse’n gettin’ liftit by the Marine Division in Gleska, no’ kiddin’. See them? Buncha animals, so they are. Did Ah no’ tell ye aboot the time Ah got done, after the Cup Final? It wis like this, see . . .’
To this stream of Govan consciousness Suleiman remained totally deaf, as he did to all the sounds around him – until the seventh day, when the pipe band held a practice behind the transport sheds in preparation for next day’s Retreat: at the first distant keening note his head turned sharply, and after a moment he got up and walked to the edge of the garden, evidently trying to catch a glimpse of the pipers. For a full half hour he stood, his hawk face turned towards the sound, and only when it ended did he walk slowly back to the guardroom, apparently deep in thought. There he suddenly rounded on McGarry, growling: ‘L’Adjutant! Monsieur l′Adjutant! ’. The Adjutant was summoned forthwith, and presently came to the mess with momentous news: Suleiman ibn Aziz had demanded curtly that he be allowed to witness the band’s next performance.