Part 20 (1/2)

Play his game, in fact, and lose.

'Yes, comrade Salah.'

By playing so wildly that he was obliged for once to do the obvious, I managed to lose two games in a row; but even that didn't 'please him.

'If you were a front-fighter,' he nagged, 'you would soon learn when to attack and when to hold your fire, when to a.s.sault and when to ambush.'

He had had quite a lot to drink by then, much more, probably, than he was used to in one evening, and the effects were showing.

I gave some non-committal reply and he glared at me. The suspicion that I had let him win those last two games was beginning to surface now. Someone had to be punished. He used Teresa to start with.

'You do not comment, Miss Malandra.' The 'Miss' was a sneer. 'Would you not like, perhaps, to be a front-fighter, as some of the Zionist women are? Do you have no ambition to imitate them?'

Teresa replied coolly. 'I have no particular wish to imitate anyone, comrade Salah.'

'Then perhaps we can change your mind. Perhaps when you see what the Zionist women can do you will think differently.'

He had reached for his briefcase and was plucking clumsily at the zipper. My guess that he carried a gun there had been right, but it was not the only thing in the briefcase. When at last he got it open I saw that it contained papers and a leather wallet as well. It was the wallet he thrust at Teresa.

'Look. Look and see for yourself. You, too, comrade Michael. See what the Zionist women can do.'

From what I saw during the next few minutes, and from later reading of Lewis Prescott's description, I am fairly certain that the photographs Ghaled showed us were the ones he produced at the Prescott interview. In other words, the same photographs shown to Mr Prescott as evidence of Druse commando atrocities were shown to Teresa and me as evidence of atrocities committed by Israeli women.

As a former war correspondent, Lewis Prescott may, as he says have found it necessary to become used to horrors. I am glad that he also found it possible. I had not, at that stage, found it necessary; with the result that I was not only completely unprepared for what I saw, but also when my nose was rubbed in it, quite unable to cope. I don't know, or care, who was really responsible for the things shown in those photographs. I thought at the time, insofar as I was able to think, that the 'Zionist women' claim had to be false, and Mr Prescott's account suggests that I was right. Obviously Ghaled would change his story about the photographs to suit his audience.

But changing the story didn't change the photographs. I wished I could have done what Teresa did. After one glance she just got up and moved right away, saying that she would get more coffee. She stayed away, and Ghaled took no more notice of her. But he made me sit there and look at the lot; not just once, but three times with no skipping; and all the time he watched my face.

The only defence I could think of was to take my gla.s.ses off as if to see better; he could not know that without my gla.s.ses everything blurred a bit; but I had left it too late, because, having once seen what was there, I could not blur what was already clear in my mind's eye.

'Front-fighting, comrade Michael, front-fighting.'

He kept intoning the words as if they were an incantation. In the end I managed to break the spell. I did that by straightening up suddenly, putting my gla.s.ses on, handing him back the wallet with one hand and reaching with the other for the brandy bottle.

'Very instructive, comrade Salah,' I said as briskly as I could, and refilled his gla.s.s.

He smiled as he took the wallet. I hadn't deceived him; he knew all right that he'd shaken me.

'Let us say inspirational, comrade Michael,' he corrected me. 'You know now the kind of thing we, and you with us, have to avenge.' He dropped the wallet back into the briefcase and took something else out. 'You were asking about your orders. Clear and practical you said they must be.' He shoved a wad of paper at me. 'Are those orders clear and practical enough for you?'

What he gave me was a copy of the standard British Admiralty chart number 2634. That number covers the Eastern Mediterranean sea-coast from Sour in the north down to El-Arish. Tel Aviv-Yafo is about halfway up.

The cartridge paper on which it was printed was limp and grubby from much handling and it had been folded and refolded too often, but it was still readable. On it, someone had plotted, in purple ink, a course for a south-bound vessel.

As far south as the Caesarea parallel the course was normal enough, about twenty miles off-sh.o.r.e on a heading of 195 degrees in deep water. Then, there was a 20 degree swing to the east which continued as far as the hundred fathom line. At that point the course changed again, running parallel to the coast on a 190 degree heading for about twelve miles. Just south of Tel Aviv it turned west again, rejoining the original open-sea course somewhere off Ashdod.

In the blank s.p.a.ce above the compa.s.s rose, the plotter of the course had written out in Arabic a precise description of the change sequence and the timing of it. The description ended with this instruction: 'On 190 south heading from 21.15 hrs. until 23.00 hrs. s.h.i.+p's speed is on no account to exceed 6 knots.'

I didn't take all this in at once, of course; but I didn't want to display too keen an interest. After a brief glance I refolded the chart.

'Well?' he asked.

'No difficulty, I think, comrade Salah. The instructions seem perfectly clear to me. I am not a seaman myself but this looks like the work of a trained navigator.'

'It is.'

'If the captain has any questions, answers can be obtained, I imagine?'

'There should be no questions. Just see that the captain understands that he is to obey those orders strictly.'

'Yes, comrade Salah. The captain will have to choose his own sailing time, however. Otherwise he cannot be in the correct position on the evening of the third. In the port of Latakia all movement of s.h.i.+pping is prohibited between sunset and sunrise. Embarkation should probably take place, I think, before sunset on the second of July so that departure can be very early on the third. But the captain must be consulted on these points.'

'Very well, consult him and submit your proposals. But understand this. The timings of the course changes must be strictly adhered to.'

'I understand.'

'Then I will thank you for your hospitality and ask you to drive me back. Before I can sleep there is work to be done.'

As he spoke he leaned forward with his hand outstretched. The briefcase was still open and for a moment I thought that he wanted to take the chart back. Then, I realised that he was simply reaching for his brandy gla.s.s; but the movement had made me nervous.

'If you will excuse me,' I said, 'I will put these orders in my private safe.'

He shrugged. 'Very well.'

I was gone several minutes because, before putting the chart in the safe, I scribbled out a copy of the sailing instructions written on it. I was afraid, you see, that he might suddenly change his mind about letting me hold on to it. The fact that I took this unnecessary precaution is a good indication of my own state of mind at the time-edgy, over-anxious, reacting instead of thinking calmly, and all set to make cra.s.s errors of judgement.

They were already in the car when I went down, Teresa in the driver's seat, Ghaled in the back. He had his door still open as if expecting me to get in beside him, so I did so.

For a time he spoke only to Teresa. He was the worst sort of back-seat driver; he told her not only which way to go, even though she obviously knew the way, but how. 'Slow, this corner is dangerous. Turn here, turn here! Keep right. Now you can go faster. Are your headlights on?' Teresa kept her temper very well. Of course, she had had him earlier in the evening and so knew what to expect. Even so, her 'Yes, comrade Salah's' became quite curt. It was a relief when, on our reaching the Der'a road, he turned his attention to me.

'What experience have you with diesel engines?' he asked.

The question was so unexpected that I was off balance for a moment.

'Of using them, comrade Salah?'

'Of maintaining and repairing them.'

And then the penny dropped, or seemed to. I remembered what Abouti had said about the little c.o.c.kroach who drove a Mercedes diesel truck. They must be having trouble with the thing. It was a natural enough conclusion to jump to. How was I to know that it was the wrong conclusion and that I had jumped too hastily?

'My only experience of diesel engines,' I said, 'is of what you must not do. That is to allow any untrained person, however resourceful he may be, to lay a finger on them. Diesel engines do not respond to semi-skilled tinkering.'

'If it were a question of repairing a fuel injection pump?'

'Don't try to repair it. Have it replaced, and have the work done by the maker's agent.'

'And if this is not possible?'

That puzzled me, because I was reasonably certain that there was a Mercedes agent in Damascus. Then, I thought I saw what the trouble was. The truck didn't belong to Ghaled, he was only 'borrowing' it. Even if he had the owner's willing 'consent', direct dealing with the Mercedes agent might present a problem.

'You could order the replacement pump from Beirut and employ a local diesel fitter to do the work.'