The Strange Land

CHAPTER FOUR

The trek out of that gorge was a nightmare. It wasn’t that we were followed. The men who had screamed their need of vengeance at us were fully occupied searching the debris for their dead. But the sun was setting fast and if darkness overtook us before we had climbed out of the gorge, we should be trapped there, and when dawn came we should be hunted down amongst the rocks of the mountainsides and killed.

The ledge up which we were moving gradually narrowed until it finished abruptly at a sheer rock climb of twenty feet or more. It sloped slightly and there were hand-and footholds, but except for Ed we were all wearing shoes, and we had nothing with which to rope ourselves together. Below us was an almost vertical drop of some four hundred feet to the bottom of the gorge. We paused there a moment, looking back. The slide filled the whole mouth of the gorge and water was already building up against this natural dam to form a wider and deeper lake, red like a gaping wound. The flowing robes of Berber men moved ghostlike amongst the debris of the fall, searching for their dead.

There was no going back and we turned to face the cliff of rock that towered above us. ‘We’ll never get up there,’ Karen said.

‘Sure you will,’ Ed said cheerfully. ‘There’s nothing to it.’ He had her take her shoes off. ‘I’ll be right behind you,’ he said as he started her off. His tough, rubber-soled boots gripped the rock as he climbed, encouraging her all the time, sometimes bracing her foot with his hand. Jan stood with his head back, watching her until she reached the top. ‘Come on,’ Ed called down to us. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’ He climbed back down the face of the rock and met Julie halfway, helping her up as he’d helped Karen.

The climb wasn’t really difficult, but it took time. The sun had already set before we had all gathered at the top. The gorge was cold and dark now, and, above us, the slopes of the mountain seemed to stretch into infinity. We started up, climbing as quickly as we could. But we made slow progress. Karen slipped a great deal in her leather soles and Jan was out of training for this sort of thing. ‘Latham!’ Ed called back to me. I’ll go ahead to find the track. It’ll be too dark to see soon. I’ll call directions down to you. Okay?’

It was the only thing to do. ‘Yes, you go ahead,’ I told him.

He was fit and seemed to have the feel of the mountains. He climbed fast and in a few minutes he was lost to sight over the brow of a hump. Darkness fell swiftly. It was odd the way it came. Our eyes adjusted themselves to the diminishing light and even when the stars were out I could still see my way ahead. Then I looked down to negotiate a tumbled patch of rock and when I looked up again I could see nothing — only the vague shape of the mountain humped against the studded velvet of the sky.

I shouted and Ed’s voice hallooed back to us, very faint and far away. Sound was deceptive, curving round the larger rock buttresses, so that we worked too much to the left and found ourselves up against a cliff. It took us a long time to negotiate it and then, when we could climb again, we found ourselves in an area of massive great rocks as big as houses with deep gashes between that appeared as dangerous as crevasses in a glacier. We called and called, but could hear no response.

I worked away to the right then, calling all the time. But a wind had sprung up from off the top of the mountain and we heard nothing. I kept on working to the right, hoping to get downwind from Ed and hear his calls, but I must have gone too far, for we reached an area where the rocks were piled in absolute confusion. I tried to cross this, still attempting to get downwind, but it was a very bad patch. Loose rubble slid away from under our feet and even some of the bigger rocks showed a tendency to move. And then, as I was climbing round an extra large piece of rock, my foot braced against it, the thing moved. I shouted a warning to the others and clutched hold of the ground above me. The rock crunched as it moved. I could see it as a vague shape moving gently over on to its side. It hung there a moment and then moved again, dropping away out of my field of vision. We stood there, braced against the slope, listening to the sound of it crashing and banging down the mountain, gathering stones in its path so that there was a rustling, slithering sound of rubble behind it. There was a heavy splash and then silence.

I knew then where I was. I had come much too far and we were right out on the face of the new slide with the broken, crumbling cliff above us. It was already past nine. We had been clambering and stumbling across the face of the mountain for almost three hours. I tried to estimate how far across the face of the slide we had come. ‘Do we go forward or back?’ I asked Jan, trying to remember which side of that cliff face was the better going.

‘If we go forward,’ Jan said, ‘we’ll be on the route Karen and I came down last night. With luck I might be able to find my way back to the piste.’

‘And if we go back?’

‘I don’t know.’ His voice sounded nervous. We were both thinking about the chances of getting across the slide without disturbing it and starting the whole new slope on the move.

I asked the two girls which they would prefer to do. They both agreed. ‘Let’s go on.’ And so we inched our way forward across the face of the slide, scarcely daring to breathe, let alone put our weight on to any of the rocks. Stones clattered down, little drifts of scree and dirt were started. Occasionally a larger rock shifted and then went bouncing and thudding down the slope. And each time the sound ended in a splash of water.

It took us nearly two hours to cross the face of that slide and all the time the retina of my memory carried the picture of how the slide had been after Kostos hurled that stick of dynamite. The picture was appallingly vivid and every time I heard a stone shift or a trickle of rubble start, my heart was in my mouth and the sweat stood cold on my forehead. And each time I cursed myself for having led them too far to the right, for not having realised that we hadn’t climbed above this obstruction.

But a little after ten-thirty we came out on to undisturbed _ mountainside and lay there, panting and exhausted, with a bitter cold wind drying the sweat of physical and nervous exhaustion on our tired bodies.

After that Jan took the lead. We moved very slowly. He was just about all in and so was Karen. She was slipping a lot and she had cut her head open on a rock. Her hand, when I helped her over a bad patch, was sticky with blood.

About an hour later we heard Ed calling from higher up the mountain. The sound of it came to us quite clearly on the wind. But I knew it was a waste of breath to answer him and we climbed doggedly on until we found the piste. I left the others there and trudged on up to the bend where the piste had been repaired. From that point I was able to make contact with Ed. A few minutes later he joined me. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve been waiting up there for hours, bawling my head off. What happened to you?’

I explained as we went down to join the others. ‘Well, thank God you’re here now,’ he said. ‘I’d just about given you up. Once I heard some rocks crashing down…’ He didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he murmured, ‘It’s a terrible business, that landslide. There must have been thirty or forty of them buried under it. But it wasn’t our fault,’ he added quickly.

‘They’re not to know that,’ I reminded him.

‘No, I guess not.’

When we rejoined the others, we found them discussing whether we should make for the Post or go on up over the pass towards Agdz. It was over forty kilometres to Agdz and the Berber tribesmen from Foum-Skhira could easily overtake us on the piste. At the same time there would probably be a road gang working on the break in the piste higher up the mountainside. There might be transport there. But even so, it was a stiff climb and I wasn’t sure we could make it. ‘What do you think, Ed?’ I asked.

There was a long pause and then he said, ‘I didn’t tell you this before, but the reason why you lost me was that I had to stop calling down to you. I’d almost reached the piste when I heard mules coming up from the direction of Foum-Skhira. They were Berbers and they passed quite close to me, about ten of them, going up towards the pass and riding hard.’

That decided us. We headed downhill, back towards Foum-Skhira and the Post.

It was then just on midnight. It didn’t take us long to reach the foot of the mountain, but from then on the going was heavy in the deep sand of the piste and our progress became slower and slower, our stops more frequent. According to the map it was five kilometres from the foot of the mountains to the Post, but it seemed infinitely farther and it took us nearly three hours. And for the last hour of that journey we could hear the sound of wailing from Foum-Skhira. It was a high-pitched, quavering sound, strangely animal in the darkness of the night, and it grew steadily louder as we approached the Post.

At last the dark shape of the first fort loomed up, the domed roofs curved like some Eastern temple against the stars. We left the piste, making a wide detour round it, so that we approached the Post from the south. We went slowly, not talking, moving cautiously. They might have a lookout posted to watch for us. I didn’t think it likely, but it was just possible. A dog barked — a sudden, harsh sound in the stillness. And beyond the sound of the dog was the remote, persistent sound of the women of Foum-Skhira keening for their dead.

I think we were all a little scared. We were bunched close together and I could just see that Ed had his gun in his hand. We were braced mentally against the sudden, blood-curdling yell, the rush of an attack out of the night. It is easy to be frightened at night in a strange country among a strange people. Darkness should be the same everywhere. But it isn’t. This was desert country. These were desert people. We could feel the difference in the sand under our feet, see it in the brightness of the stars, the shadowed shape of the bare mountains. The chill of it was in our bones. It was as alien as the moon, as cold and naked. And the agony of that death-wailing froze our blood. The dog barked incessantly.

‘Goddammit!’ Ed muttered. ‘Why can’t that bloody dog keep quiet?’

A hand gripped my arm. It was Julie. ‘I wish we’d crossed the mountains and made for Agdz,’ she whispered.

We were in the open space between the two forts now. The shape of one of the towers was outlined against Orion. ‘Where do we go now?’ Ed asked. ‘The Bureau?’

‘That’s no good,’ I said. There won’t be anybody there.’

‘No, but there’s the telephone. We need to get on to the Commandant at Agdz, and quick.’

‘Well, we can try,’ I said. ‘But they probably lock the Bureau at night.’

‘What about Bilvidic?’ Jan asked. ‘He’ll be at the house, I imagine.’

We turned the corner of the fort and struck the beaten path that led to the Bureau. The French truck was still parked outside. The door of the Bureau was locked. ‘Let’s try the sleeping quarters,’ Ed said. ‘Maybe your friend Bilvidic is there.’ The guest rooms were built on to the Bureau in the form of an L. The door was locked and Ed beat on the wooden panels with the butt of his gun. The noise seemed shatteringly loud in the night stillness. The dog’s barking became frantic. The sound of the wailing continued unchanged — insistent and agonised. The building outside which we were clustered remained silent as the grave.

‘We’d better try the house,’ Jan said.

Ed beat once more upon the door, but nobody answered, and we trudged, coldly, wearily, through the sand to the house. The dog barked his fury at us from the wired-in enclosure. Once more Ed shattered the night with the hollow thudding of his gun-butt against wood. A window was thrown open and a voice demanded, ‘Qui va la?’ It was Bilvidic. I never thought I should be glad to hear his voice. ‘I’ll come down immediately,’ he said as soon as he discovered who we were.

It was bitterly cold standing there waiting outside that door. The sweat lay against my body like a coating of steel. The dog had stopped barking now and there was utter silence except for the sound of wailing which came to us loud and clear on a chill breath of wind. A light showed between the chinks of the heat-contracted woodwork of the door. The bolts were drawn back and there was Bilvidic. He peered at us in the beam of the torch he carried. ‘Come in,’ he said. His face was puffed with sleep and his voice sounded irritable.

It was as cold inside as it was out, except that there was no wind. ‘You must phone Agdz immediately,’ Ed said in his halting French. ‘They must send troops. Something terrible has happened.’ He glanced quickly round the room. It looked bare and chill in the hard beam of the torch. ‘Where’s the telephone?’

‘The telephone is broken,’ Bilvidic said. ‘It is cut when the piste is destroyed.’

So that was that. ‘We should have gone over the mountains,’ Jan said.

‘If we’d done that we might all be dead by now,’ I answered sharply.

Karen had slumped into an easy-chair. ‘It’s so cold,’ she said. She was shivering and I glanced at Julie. Her face was pale and she looked desperately tired. We were all of us tired.

Bilvidic’s assistant joined us then. He was angry at having been got out of bed. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded. ‘Why have you returned here at this time of the — ‘

But Bilvidic cut him short. ‘Georges. Go to the Capitaine’s room and bring the cognac and some glasses.’ He turned to us. ‘First you have something to warm you and we get a fire lit. Afterwards we talk, eh?’ He went to a door leading out to the back and shouted, ‘Mohammed! Mohammed! Venez ici. Vite, utter My estimation of him soared then, for he must have been consumed with curiosity and a man is seldom at his best when rudely woken in the small hours.

Mohammed came and was ordered to produce a fire immediately. We moved into Legard’s study. Paraffin blazed in the wood-piled grate and Bilvidic handed each of us a quarter tumbler of neat cognac. ‘Eh, bien. Now we will talk. What happened last night at Kasbah Foum? There were rumours that the Caid was dead and that several indigenes had lost their lives. What happened, monsieur?’ He was looking at me.

I told him the whole thing then, sitting there by the fire, sipping my drink, my body gradually relaxing with the warmth.

When I had finished he sat quite silent for a long time. He was frowning and his fingers were beating a tattoo on the desk where he was seated. At length he said to me, ‘Do you know this country? Do you understand the people here?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘This is the first time I have been south of the Atlas.’

He clicked his tongue. ‘That is a pity, for I also do not know it. This is a military area and there is seldom any reason for us to come down here.’ He scratched his thinning hair. ‘It is a pity because it would be helpful if we had some idea what they would do. It is an extraordinary situation, quite extraordinary.’ He was using the word in its literal sense. ‘First there is the failure of the dates, then the piste is cut so that the food trucks, which are delayed anyway, cannot get through. Then they are frightened by the change in the colour of the water that feeds their palmerie and the wells. Their Caid is dead. And now this. It is too much — too much for any primitive and warlike people.’ He looked across at me. ‘I agree with you, monsieur. There is likely to be trouble.’ He paused and scratched his head again. ‘The question is — what do we do? Soon they will know that you are here.’

‘If we could get to Agdz,’ Ed said.

But Bilvidic shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, the only vehicle here has something the matter with it. And you cannot go on foot. It is a long way. Also it is too dangerous.’ He pulled a pack of American cigarettes out of the pocket of his jacket which he was wearing over his vest. He made a spill from a strip of paper and lit it from the fire. Then he started pacing up and down, taking quick, nervous puffs at the cigarette.

I leaned back and closed my eyes. The drink and the warmth of the fire were enveloping me with sleep. I seemed to slide away into darkness, engulfed by a beautiful lethargy.

I awoke to the sound of voices raised in argument. I opened my eyes and blinked in the brilliance of the light. It was morning and the room was full of sunshine. Jan lay asleep in the chair opposite me. The grate was piled white with wood ash. A single log was still burning, its flames obliterated by the brightness of the sunshine. ‘I have sent a runner to Agdz by mule,’ Bilvidic was saying. ‘What else can I do?’

‘But it’ll take him all day to get there,’ Ed cried.

‘Perhaps.’ Bilvidic shrugged his shoulders. ‘But there is a chance that he will find transport up there where they are repairing the piste. Also I have told him to get the road gang to try and repair the telephone.’

‘Yeah, but that’ll take hours. Meantime anything can happen.’

‘What’s the trouble?’

Ed swung round. ‘Take a look out of the window.’

I crossed the room and peered out. The open space between the forts was full of people. They stood or sat in little isolated groups, silently watching the house as though waiting for something to happen. And from the direction of Foum-Skhira came the sound of tam-tams beating. It was a sound without rhythm, an insistent, urgent tattoo like drums beating to quarters. I glanced at my watch. It was just after nine. ‘You should have woken me earlier,’ I said.

‘There was nothing you could do,’ Bilvidic declared quietly. ‘There is nothing any of us can do now except wait here and hope they do not attack.’

‘Attack?’ I stared at him, my brain still dulled with sleep. ‘Do you mean you think they may attack the Post?’

He nodded his head slowly. ‘Yes. I have just had a visit from Hassan — that is the Caid’s second son, the man who is now, in fact, the Caid. He came at some risk to himself to warn us that he had not the influence to hold his people back and that we were in imminent danger.’

‘They know we’re here at the Post then?’

He nodded. ‘I cannot understand how they know, but they do.’ He swung round at the sound of the front door opening. It was Georges. He carried a rifle slung over his shoulder. ‘You found the armoury then?’ Bilvidic said.

But Georges shook his head. He had searched the Bureau building, but he had failed to find it. The rifle he had found in the orderly’s room, but there had been no ammunition with it. Bilvidic went through into the main room where Julie and Karen were peacefully asleep in easy-chairs with blankets wrapped round them. He pulled open the door leading to the back premises and shouted, ‘Mohammed! Mohammed!’ But there was no answer. We searched the whole place, but there was no sign of him.

‘Looks like he’s cleared out while the going was good,’ Ed said. ‘Isn’t there somebody else around here to tell us where they keep their weapons?’

‘Only the orderly,’ Bilvidic said. ‘And that is the man I sent to Agdz.’

‘But there is a Military Post,’ I said. ‘There must be some troops here.’

Bilvidic shook his head. ‘Not at the Post. Farther south there is the Camel Patrol. But here Legard has only two orderlies and the other is away.’

‘And you didn’t ask the man you sent to Agdz where the armoury was?’

‘Why should I? I had no reason then to believe that we should be attacked.’

‘But we told you there’d be trouble. We told you that a party had been sent out into the mountains — ‘

‘Yes, yes, but that does not mean they will attack a French Post. It is many years now since a Post was attacked.’

‘Monsieur. Here. Quick!’ It was Georges and his voice was urgent. He was standing by the front door, his head on one side. ‘Listen! Do you hear?’ He turned the key in the lock and pulled open the door. We heard it then. It was a sound like the sea breaking along the sands, the murmur of many voices and the tramp of many feet. The tattoo of the tam-tams had ceased and in its place was the single, menacing beat of a drum giving the time to an army on the march. And then we saw them, coming up out of the palmerie just to the left of the souk. They were a great mob of people and they flowed over the sand towards the house like a tide. There must have been a thousand or more, including the children running on the outskirts. I felt my heart hammering and my mouth was dry. If they attack in a body … I glanced at Julie, still sleeping peacefully in her chair.

‘What are we going to do?’ It was Jan. He had come through from the study and was standing, looking first at his wife and then through the open door at the advancing mob. ‘We must do something.’ He rubbed his eyes, half-dazed with sleep, blinking owlishly. ‘Shall I wake them?’ He was looking at the girls again.

‘Let them sleep on,’ I said. ‘There’s no point in their knowing about this till they have to.’ I turned to Bilvidic. ‘Exactly what arms have we got?’ I asked.

He put his hand into his pocket and brought out a French service pistol which he tossed across to me. ‘That is Legard’s. We have plenty of rounds for that. Also Georges and I have each an automatic with a full magazine and one spare.’

‘And I have my Luger,’ Ed said.

Four pistols! I stared out of the door at the approaching mob. It wasn’t much if they really meant business. ‘We ought to move to the fort,’ Ed said.

But Bilvidic shook his head. ‘It is too big. We could never hold it.’

‘But we could hold one of the towers.’

‘Yes, but we must be near the telephone. That is essential.’

‘The Bureau then,’ I suggested.

But again he shook his head. ‘They could come at us across the roof from the fort. Here we have an all round field of fire. It is not good, but it is the best we can do. Close the door now, Georges.’

The door slammed to. The key grated in the lock. We could no longer hear the angry sound of the mob. Only the beat of the drum penetrated the room. ‘I think,’ Bilvidic said to me, ‘that you should get all your people upstairs.’ He was staring at the advancing mob, searching it with his eyes narrowed over their little pouches. ‘I do not think they have a leader. Without a leader they will not attack unless they are given cause. They have only been told that you are here. They do not know. And if they do not see you, then they will begin to doubt and lose their nerve. Get your people upstairs.’ His voice was more urgent now. ‘Vite! Hurry! And when you are up there, do not show yourselves at the windows.’

‘But that leaves only the two of you down here,’ Ed said. ‘If they once get inside this place …’ He hesitated. ‘What makes you so sure they won’t attack?’

Bilvidic turned and looked at him. ‘I know about mobs, monsieur,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘In Casablanca I have had to do with many riots. Now hurry, please.’

I knew he was right. It was no time to argue, anyway. I woke Julie and Karen and bundled them up the stairs, explaining the position to them as we went. Jan followed close at my heels and Ed was behind him.

There were Venetian blinds in one of the upper rooms and through the slats we watched the mob slow down and come to a halt in front of the house. Bilvidic was right. It had no leader. It was moved only by the sense of being a mob. Those behind pushed forward and spilled out to the sides, spreading round the house. The people who had been watching and waiting in the space between the forts moved into the herd as though drawn by instinct. The inarticulate murmur of the mass gradually died into silence. It was like a brute beast standing with his head down, wondering whether to charge.

I could pick out individual faces now. They were curiously blank. Many of those in front were young men. They were awed by the stillness of the house, by the Tricolour floating from its flagstaff and by the looming mass of the forts behind, mute evidence of France’s mastery of this land. A little knot gathered in the centre and a young man was pushed forward. He was too young to have any hair on his face and he was scared. But he had women behind him who goaded him on and he suddenly clutched the silver hilt of the knife at his waist and ran forward.

But all he did was to peer in at the windows and then he ran back to the crowd, which opened out and sucked him into its bosom. He was shaking his head and then the mob had closed up again and I could no longer see him. But it wasn’t a silent crowd now. The people were talking and becoming individuals again in the process. It was no longer a headless, dangerous mass, but a thousand individuals all full of their own opinions. Looking down on it was like looking at some disease through a microscope. It writhed and seethed, splitting up into little eager groups.

The danger, for the moment, was over.

I breathed a sigh of relief, for there were women in the crowd, many of whom would have lost menfolk in the disaster at Kasbah Foum. If this bonfire was to catch fire, it was they who would set the match to it. And the mob was armed. Apart from the knife which every Berber carries at his waist, I counted at least two dozen, perhaps more, with long-barrelled, old-fashioned guns.

‘What will they do now?’ Julie asked. And it was only then, as I glanced at her and saw her face close to mine, that I realised that I had my arm round her shoulder. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘They will talk and talk. And then they will get hungry and go home.’

A buzzer sounded downstairs. It was an odd, mechanical little sound in the stillness that had descended on the house. It stopped and then started again. I heard the scrape of a chair on the tiles and a man’s tread as he crossed the main room towards the study. ‘By God, it’s the telephone,’ Ed cried. ‘We’re through to Agdz.’ And he went clattering down the stairs. I shouted at him to stop, but all he said was, ‘I want a word with the Commandant myself.’

‘Ed! Come back!’ I flung myself down the stairs after him.

The stairs descended into a recess between the main room and the study. As I reached the bottom Ed was already in the study. Bilvidic was seated at the desk with the field telephone pulled in front of him and the receiver to his ear, and behind him, framed in the window, was the lined, gaunt face of an old Berber. He was staring into the room and he saw Ed moving towards the desk, his mouth opened slightly to reveal a solitary tooth, like a fang hanging in the muzzle of an old dog; and then the face was gone and I heard Bilvidic saying, ‘Oui, out, tout de suite.”

‘Let me talk to him,’ Ed said. I think he thought they’d take more notice of an American.

But Bilvidic waved him away. ‘Get back upstairs.’

There was the sudden crack of a gun and a splintering crash. A bullet thudded into the woodwork above my head. Glass from the shattered window-pane rained on to the desk. Bilvidic shouted to us to get down. But Ed was standing dazed in front of the desk with blood welling from a cut on the side of his head and trickling down his face. He turned slowly to the shattered window. A big, wild-eyed man was standing staring at us, the long-barrelled gun with which he had fired the shot still smoking in his hand.

Ed’s reaction was instantaneous. His hand grabbed at his Luger. ‘Don’t fire!’ Bilvidic screamed at him. ‘For God’s sake don’t fire!’

For an awful moment there was a stillness in the room. Then Ed lowered the gun. He put his hand up to the side of his head and stared at the blood on his fingers. ‘He tried to kill me,’ he said in a dazed voice.

I didn’t say anything. Bilvidic wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘If you had fired,’ he said slowly in a small, quiet voice, ‘the lust for blood would have entered into that mob out there. You would have been committing suicide — for yourself and for all of us.’ He turned to me. ‘You take the gun, monsieur; and get him upstairs out of sight of these people.’

, Ed turned to me then and gave a little shaken laugh. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I guess I shouldn’t have come down.’ He glanced towards the window, listening to the roar of the crowd who had become excited at the sound of the shot. Blood dripped from his chin to the floor. Then he turned to Bilvidic who was busy explaining to the man at the other end of the line what had happened. ‘Monsieur. You must get them to send troops. That’s what I came down to tell you. We need troops here, and we need them quick.’

Bilvidic looked at me and nodded towards the door. ‘Get him upstairs,’ he said. ‘And get one of the ladies to see to that cut.’ And then he was back on the telephone. ‘Allo. Allo. Monsieur le Commandant? Est-ce que vous avez…’ Ed stood there listening to Bilvidic’s request for a military detachment to be despatched immediately.

‘Come on,’ I said.

He nodded and moved towards the door, his handkerchief held to the side of his head. ‘Well, at least they know what’s going on. They’ll send troops now.’

I got him back up the stairs and handed him over to Julie. Fortunately it was only a superficial cut from a piece of flying glass and it had missed his eye.

‘So they know we’re in the house now,’ Jan said when I had explained what had happened.

I nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

He turned on Ed. ‘You damned fool!’ And then he was looking at Karen. He was scared and angry, for he was standing by the window and the roar of the crowd came up to him.

‘It wasn’t his fault,’ Julie said. ‘He did it for the best.’ She was bandaging Ed’s head with a strip torn from a sheet.

I went over to the window and looked out at the crowd. They were like cattle, bawling and milling around, waiting to stampede. And then suddenly, above the solid, heavy roar came a liquid sound, an ululation made with the tongue like a yodel. It was just a little sound at first, but it swelled rapidly, a female sound that swamped the male.

My blood ran cold, for I knew that sound. I had heard it in the High Atlas. But then it had been a greeting, a ceremonial welcome. Now I was hearing it for the first time as I had been told it was really used: a repetitive sound like the singing of crickets to drive the men to a frenzy of excitement, to goad them into battle.

I went to the window and saw that the women were gathering together, closing up behind the men, their mouths open, their tongues moving; and the shrill, insistent cry gathered greater and greater volume.

I turned then and ran down the stairs.

‘Where are you going?’ Julie cried out.

I didn’t answer her. I think I was too scared of what I knew had to be done to say anything. But she seemed to sense what was in my mind, for she came after me. ‘No, Philip. No.’ She caught hold of my arm. ‘Please.’

Bilvidic met me at the foot of the stairs. His face looked very pale and he had his gun in his hand. ‘You can give the American back his gun,’ he said.

‘You know that sound then?’

‘I know what it means — yes. But it is the first time I have heard it.’ He smiled a little wryly. ‘Get your men down here. The ladies should remain upstairs. We may beat back the first rush. After that…’ He shrugged his shoulders. Ed came down the stairs then, his face very pale under the blood-stained bandage. Bilvidic made no attempt to blame him for what was going to happen.

I stared out of the window at the gathering men standing silent, staring at the door. That throbbing, tongued cry of the women seemed to fill the air. ‘You understand mobs,’ I said, turning to Bilvidic. ‘There must be something that would stop them?’

‘Yes,’ he said, his pale eyes staring into mine. ‘If I went out there and faced them and told them why their men had been killed in the gorge — that would stop them.’

‘Then why don’t you do it?’ Julie said quickly, breathlessly.

, ‘Because, mademoiselle, I do not speak Berber, only Arab, and the mass of them would not understand that.’ His eyes came back to me and I knew he was thinking that I must speak Berber since I’d been a missionary at Enfida.

‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’ I turned and walked towards the door.

But Julie caught hold of my arm. ‘Not alone. Not like that.’

‘I must.’ I was trembling and my stomach felt cold and empty.

‘I won’t let you.’ She was dragging at my arm.

‘Let me go!‘I cried.

‘I won’t.’ Her face was white and her dark eyes looked at me with a steady gaze. ‘I love you, Philip.’

I stared at her and a sudden glow of warmth filled me. It was as though her declaration had set light to something inside me. I felt suddenly calm and at peace. Gently I released her fingers from my arm. ‘You’d better have this,’ I said, and handed her Legard’s pistol. And then I walked to the door and opened it and went out into the hard sunlight and the noise to face the stare of a thousand hostile, half-animal eyes.

They were bunched out fifty feet back from the house, a compact, solid mass of men that thinned out towards the edges, spreading in a crescent round the house as though formed by instinct into some old order of battle. I was not conscious of their individual faces. They were just a blur in the hot sunlight, a solid mass of flowing robes that ranged from white to brown and matched the arid sand. I was only conscious that they were of this naked land, a living and integral part of it, and that I was an alien.

I tried to marshal my thoughts, but my mind was a blank as I walked out towards them. I couldn’t even pray. And they watched me walk out to them like a herd of animals, pressed shoulder to shoulder; and there wasn’t a single individual among them — they were a mass and they felt as a mass, not thinking, only feeling. That mass feeling seemed to hang in the air. I sensed it physically, the way you can smell something mad. And behind it all, behind the evil expression of their mass feeling, was that damned female noise, that many-tongued liquid, frenzy-making sound, beating at my brain, thrumming through it until I could feel it against the raw ends of my nerves, stretching them beyond the limits of strain.

And I was afraid; desperately, horribly afraid. My mouth felt dry and there was a weakness in the marrow of my bones. I prayed God to stop me being afraid. But the prayer was not a real prayer and I stopped and looked at the sea of faces, that blur of figures, and I was afraid then that they would know I was afraid.

For a moment I could say nothing. I could think of nothing. I stood there twenty paces from them and stared at them. And they stared back at me, silent and motionless, but strong in the strength of their mass feeling. And behind them was that sound that seemed an expression of the very wildness and primitiveness of the land.

And suddenly it maddened me. I was angry, with myself and with them, and my anger killed my fear. I found my voice then and heard myself shout at them for silence in their own language. I shouted several times for the women to be quiet and gradually the sound lessened and died away. Abruptly the silence was complete, the whole crowd of them so still that I could hear the small sound of the breeze blowing through the dark green sprays of the tamarisks that acted as a windbreak for the house.

I had them then, I could have talked to them. But my eye was caught by an individual face. It was the bearded, wild-eyed face of the man who had fired into the study. He was standing right in front of me and as our eyes met, I was conscious of the hatred and violence that seethed inside him, and it appalled me. He had his gun clutched in his left hand and with his right he pointed a finger at me. He cursed me in the name of Allah. ‘You have killed my son and my brother and my brother’s son,’ he accused me.

‘I have not killed anyone,’ I said. ‘The men who came to Kasbah Foum died because of Ali d’Es-Skhira.’

My voice was steady and it gave me confidence. I began to tell them exactly what had happened there in the gorge. But in spite of myself I found I was speaking to this one man and not to the whole crowd of them, and I saw his face become set and wooden as he made himself deaf to what I was saying.

Slowly he shifted the gun to his right hand and slowly he raised it to his shoulder, moving it slightly so that the long, heavy barrel pointed straight at me. I tried to ignore him. I tried to look at the sea of faces, to talk to them as one composite individual. But my eyes were fascinated by the round hole of that barrel. It didn’t waver and it pointed straight into my eyes and I heard my voice falter and slow. His eyes were looking straight at me along the barrel. They glinted with sudden triumph, and in that instant I knew he was going to fire.

I ducked, flinging myself sideways. There was a report and the bullet hit my shoulder, spinning me round. Somehow I kept my feet. Pain shot through my arm and my whole body seemed to grow numb with the shock. I could feel the blood flowing. I could feel, too, the blood lust of that crowd growing.

What came to me then, I don’t know. I would like to think that it was courage. But it may only have been the instinct of survival, the knowledge that if I failed to face them now, they would charge and trample me underfoot. I felt suddenly quite cool and a little light-headed, and I was walking towards them.

I walked straight towards the man who had fired at me, never shifting my gaze from his face. His eyes stared back at me for a moment and then I saw guilt and fear in them and he looked down, shuffling his feet and beginning to back away from me. The crowd opened up, so that a narrow gully formed in the mass of it. I walked straight into it. They could have killed me then with their bare hands, but nobody moved, and I felt the power of dominating them, of holding their attention with what I was doing.

The man backed until he could retreat no farther. He was held there by the weight of people behind him. I walked straight up to him and took the gun from him. I didn’t say anything to him. I just turned my back and walked out till I was clear of them. The concrete signpost stood at the entrance to the house. I swung the gun by the barrel and brought the breech down across the post, using all the strength of my sound arm, and the stock splintered and broke off. I tossed the useless thing on the sand and walked down the path and in through the open door of the house.

In the sudden shade of the room I could see nothing. I felt my brain reeling. I heard a murmur like surf as the crowd gave voice to its reaction and the door closed, shutting it out. A hand touched mine. I heard a sob. And then my legs gave under me and I passed out.

When I came to I was lying on the couch. There were voices talking. ‘But there must be troops down here.’ It was Ed speaking. ‘How else would you hold the country? If you’re properly organised you should be able to have troops at the top of the pass by — ‘

‘I tell you, there are no Goumiers nearer than Boumalne.’ Bilvidic’s voice sounded cold and angry. ‘That is more than a hundred and fifty kilometres away, and they are not motorised.’

‘What about the Legion?’

‘The Legion is in Indo-China. All our troops are in Indo-China.’

‘Oh, to hell with that for a story. You’ll see. The Commandant knows there’s trouble. He’ll have troops here fast enough. It’s just a question of whether they get here in time.’

I closed my eyes, wondering what there was about the Americans and the French. They always seemed to get on each other’s nerves. I felt a little weak and my left arm was cold. It had been bared by cutting away the sleeve of my jacket and shirt at the shoulder. I moved it gently, flexing my fingers. The muscles seemed all right. I was conscious of somebody close beside me. Fingers gripped hold of the arm and there was a stinging pain in the wound halfway between elbow and shoulder. I cried out, more with surprise than with pain, and Julie’s voice, close to my ear, said, ‘I’m sorry. I thought you were still unconscious. There’s no damage. It’s just a flesh wound and I’m swabbing it out with iodine. The bullet nicked your arm.’ Her voice was cool and soothing.

‘I lost my nerve,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly.’ She gripped the arm as she began to bandage it.

But I was remembering how I had ducked and the man had fired. ‘If I’d walked up to him, he’d never have fired. I let him dominate me.’ My voice sounded shaky.

The others crowded round me, salving my wounded pride with kind words. ‘It requires courage, mon ami, to face a mob like that,’ Bilvidic said. There was a warmth in his voice that soothed me, but I had a feeling that if he’d been the one who had spoken Berber, he would have outfaced them.

As soon as Julie had finished bandaging my arm, I swung my feet off the couch and sat up. ‘What’s happening outside?’ I asked.

‘C’est ca,’ Bildivic said. ‘You have given them something to talk about. For the moment they are no longer a mob.’

I got up and went over to the window. It was true. They were no longer bunched together in a solid mass. They had split up into groups. Some were sitting down well away from the house as though content to be merely spectators. Others were drifting back to Ksar Foum-Skhira. ‘It is very hot today.’ Bilvidic had come to my side. ‘I do not think they will do anything during the heat of the day.’ There was a note of reservation in his voice.

‘And afterwards?’ I asked.

‘Afterwards…’ He spread his hands with a Gallic shrug. ‘Afterwards, we shall see.’

‘Where’s the man who fired at me? Is he still out there?’

There was a momentary hesitation, and then he said, ‘He has gone back to the village.’

‘Because he was ashamed or afraid, or what?’

It was Jan who answered. ‘He couldn’t stand their taunts.’

‘Their taunts?’

He nodded. ‘They jeered at him because you had taken his gun from him.’

‘If you hadn’t taken his gun away, he would have reloaded it and killed you,’ Bilvidic said. ‘They laughed at him and threw stones at him because he had been afraid of you.’ He turned abruptly away as though he were afraid to talk about the incident. ‘I think we should have some food.’

We split into two watches, one half keeping guard, the other half feeding. The time passed slowly. It was a weird business. We dared not go out of the house and, it seemed, the mob dared not attack it. We played through all Legard’s records on the gramophone, opening the windows so that the people outside could hear our music and would know that we weren’t afraid. By midday the crowd had thinned to no more than a few hundred who sat or lay stretched out quite peacefully on the sand. The rest had gone back to Foum-Skhira. We had lunch and played cards. It was cool in the house, but we could feel the heat outside — the heat and the stillness. ‘Why the hell don’t they send those troops?’ Ed cried, suddenly throwing down his cards. ‘This waiting is getting on my nerves.’

Nobody answered him. The waiting was getting on everybody’s nerves. ‘They must have a garrison at Agdz. Why don’t they send them?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ I said angrily. My arm was stiff and painful. That and the waiting was making me irritable.

A sound drifted through the open windows, the beat of drums coming faintly across the sands to us from Foum-Skhira. The tam-tams had started again. And almost immediately that harsh, wailing chant of the women took up the rhythm. Ayee-ya-i-ee Ayee-ya-i-ee. Ed, who had been pacing up and down, stopped to listen. ‘Can’t you do something? Get on the phone again to Agdz. Tell them to hurry. Tell that darn fool commandant — ‘

‘What is the good?’ Bilvidic asked. His voice was calm. ‘He knows what the situation is.’

‘Jesus!’ Ed’s fists were clenched with anger. ‘Are you going to sit there and do nothing while they whip themselves up into a frenzy again? Will you telephone Agdz or will I?’

Bilvidic shrugged his shoulders. ‘Do as you please,’ he said. ‘But I assure you that everything that can be done — ‘

‘Okay. Then I guess it’s up to me.’ And Ed turned and stumped off into the study.

Bilvidic looked almost apologetically at the rest of us. ‘He is very young,’ he murmured. ‘It is over forty kilometres from Agdz to this place and the piste is cut up near the pass.’

‘They could send planes,’ Jan suggested.

Bilvidic turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘This territory is controlled by the AI. It is a military responsibility. They will handle it themselves.’

‘Well, they’d better hurry,’ Jan muttered. He looked across at Karen. Bilvidic was watching him. ‘It’s a pity you had to bring Madame Kavan into this,’ Jan said.

We listened to Ed trying to get through to Agdz. He tried for almost a quarter of an hour. Then he came back into the room. ‘The line’s out of action again.’

Bilvidic nodded. ‘Yes, I know. I tried to telephone them after Latham was wounded. I could not get any reply.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

‘There is no point in telling you,’ Bilvidic answered quietly.

Georges called down the stairs then. He was acting as lookout on the roof. ‘There are some riders coming in now,’ he said.

‘Troops?’ Jan asked hopefully.

‘No. Berbers on mules.’

We went to the windows. They were riding in across the open space between the forts, their robes billowing out behind them. They paused to speak to some of the people squatting on the sand. Then they rode on towards Foum-Skhira. ‘I guess those are the guys that passed me up on the mountain road last night,’ Ed said.

‘It is possible.’ Bilvidic was staring through the window towards the palmerie. Then he turned abruptly. ‘Georges. Go back to the roof. Watch the palmerie.’

‘Out, oui. Ca va.’ His assistant hurried back up the stairs.

‘Let us continue our game of cards,’ Bilvidic said and took up his hand again.

But we couldn’t concentrate any more. The drums were beating faster now and the sound, though faint, seemed to throb through the room. It was nearly four. ‘I’m going to make some coffee,’ Julie said. Her voice sounded small and taut. She and Karen went out together into the kitchen.

We had ceased all pretence at playing. We were just sitting, listening to the drums. ‘It won’t be long now,’ Jan murmured. He rubbed his hand across his face. ‘It’s funny,’ he said to me, speaking softly. ‘For more than five years I have been wishing for Karen to be with me. And now …’ He half closed his eyes. ‘Now I wish she weren’t.’ He looked across at Bilvidic who had joined Ed at the window. ‘I’m sorry for him, too.’ The detective came towards us across the room. ‘Are you married?’ Jan asked him.

Bilvidic nodded. ‘Yes, and I have two children also — a boy aged eleven and a girl nine.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jan said.

Bilvidic’s face softened into a friendly smile. ‘It does not matter. It is my work. There is always some danger. The boy — Francois,’ he added, ‘is in France now. He has gone to Dijon to stay with his grandmother for the New Year.’

The drums were growing louder and a moment later Georges called down that the mob was coming out of the palmerie. Bilvidic muttered a curse as we went towards the windows. ‘It is those men who came in from the mountains. They have whipped up the people into a fury again.’ The mob looked different this time as it swept past the ruins of the souk. It was led by a man on mule-back, and it seemed to have more purpose. ‘There is going to be trouble this time.’ Bilvidic turned to the stairs. ‘Georges! Can you see anything moving on the piste from Agdz?’

‘No, nothing. Un moment. Yes, I think so. Just one man; riding a mule, I think.’

Presumably it was a straggler from the party who had already arrived. ‘Ecoutez!’ Bilvidic said. ‘There is to be no shooting. You understand? No shooting. We retreat up the stairs and then up to the roof. Only then do we fight. As long as there is no shooting we have a chance.’

Julie came in with the coffee. She poured us each a cup and took the rest upstairs. We drank it scalding hot, conscious of the growing murmur of the advancing mob. It wasn’t such a large mob, but it seemed more compact. It was bunched up behind the man on the mule and there were very few women in it. Knives flashed in the sunshine as they neared the house. Several men carried swords and one a lance. There were guns, too.

There was no hesitation this time. They came straight on towards the house. The leader trotted his mule up to the door and shouted, ‘Give us the men who killed Ali. Give us the slayers of the men in the gorge.’ He was a tall, bearded man with dark, aquiline features. He was the man who had shaken his fist at us from the entrance to the gorge after the slide.

‘Get up the stairs,’ Bilvidic said to me. And when I hesitated, he added, ‘There is nothing you can do to stop them this time. Get upstairs. Georges and I will hold them. Take everybody up to the roof. Hurry, monsieur. I don’t think they will hurt the women.’

The man was looking in at us now. I saw recognition in his eyes and the blaze of a fierce hatred. He shouted something and then his face vanished abruptly. The next instant a lump of concrete was flung with a crash through the window. He was screaming at the crowd and they answered with a deep, baying roar, split by wild cries as they swarmed forward.

‘Up the stairs, all of you,’ Bilvidic shouted.

We backed away from the room. I motioned Jan and Ed to go on ahead. The two Frenchmen were also backing across the room, their guns in their hands. The tide of the Berber mob rolled against the house, breaking against it, lapping round it. Windows crashed in, the frames splintered under heavy blows. Men climbed through over the sills. The door fell open with a crash. The room was suddenly full of them.

Bilvidic and Georges were in the archway between the main room and the study. The Berbers, finding themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, hesitated — uncertain and suspicious like animals. They stood, silent and baffled, facing the two Frenchmen. Their momentary stillness was full of fear.

Then the study windows were broken in and Bilvidic was forced to move back to the stairs. The tribesmen thrust forward, milling into the alcove between the two rooms. A gun was fired and a bullet slapped the wall above our heads. Bilvidic was backing steadily. It was only a matter of time. I turned, gripping my gun, and ordered everybody up to the roof top. ‘Keep down though,’ I shouted. ‘Keep down below the parapet.’

A ladder led from the top storey on to the flat roof. Julie was waiting for me there and our hands gripped. Karen went up and then Jan and then Ed. We were alone on the landing with the guttural jabber of the Berbers lapping the house. She was looking up at me and my grip on her hand tightened. And then suddenly she was in my arms and our lips touched, a kiss that was without passion, that was a physical expression of what we were suddenly feeling for each other, of the love we had found. Then the door behind us was flung open and crashed to again as Bilvidic and Georges thrust their shoulders against it and turned the key. ‘Montez! Montez!’ Bilvidic shouted. ‘Up on to the roof. Quick!’

I pushed Julie up and followed quickly after her. And as my head emerged into the slanting sunlight, I heard Jan shouting something excitedly. Georges followed me and then Bilvidic. The noise of the mob milling round the house was terrifying. A gun fired and a bullet whined over our heads. I pulled Julie down. Bilvidic and Georges were hauling up the ladder whilst blows rained on the door they had locked against pursuit. It splintered and burst open and at the same moment they dropped the trap-door leading on to the roof.

And then I heard what Jan was shouting. ‘Look! Philip. Look!’

I lifted my head above the parapet. A lone horseman was galloping across the open space between the two forts. It was a French officer. He rode bent low over the horse’s neck, his round, pale blue hat screening his face, his cloak streaming out behind him. The horse, a big black, was lathered white with sweat and dust.

Julie and I stood up then. It was so magnificent. He was riding straight for the house, urging his horse on as though he intended to ride the mob down.

The roar of voices that circled the house gradually died as the horse, almost foundering, was pulled on to its haunches on the very edge of the thickest of the mob where they milled around the front door. ‘Abdul! Hassan!’ The rider had singled out two men from the mob and ordered them to take charge and clear the crowd from the doorway. ‘You. Mohammed. Drop that gun!’

It was Legard. His body sagged with exhaustion, his eyes blazed with tiredness. His horse could barely stand. Yet he and the horse moved into the mob as though they were reviewing troops on parade. Here and there he singled out a man and gave an order.

In a moment the mob was moving back away from the house. They were going sheepishly, their eyes turned away from the Capitaine. They were no longer a mass. They were just a crowd of rather subdued individuals moving quickly away from the scene, anxious to avoid recognition. They were like children and he scolded them like children. ‘Moha! Why are you not looking to your goats? Abdul! You should be teaching the children today. Youssef! Mohammed!’

, He picked them out, one by one, riding his horse in amongst them. He seemed to know them all by name and what they should be doing. And at no time was his voice raised in anger. It was only pained.

‘Mohammed Ali. You here, too? Why do you make me ride so hard today? Yakoub. I have been to get food for you and now you have brought me back.’

He knew them all and they ducked past him, their heads bowed in respect and contrition. ‘Llah ihennik, O Sidi — Allah keep you in peace, O master.’ And they scuttled away across the sands in ones and twos, like whipped dogs with their tails between their legs.

The noise of the mob died into the whisper of individuals and then into silence. Even the voices immediately below us, searching for a way up to the roof top, became subdued and receded into silence. One by one the men who had invaded the house came out, and Legard sat his horse, watching them — and to them he said nothing. They murmured their greetings, grovelling before the sternness of his face, and then they slunk away.

The last to come out was the man who had been their leader. He stood for a moment facing Legard. Neither spoke and the man’s head dropped and he ran quickly to his mule and left.

We rigged the ladder then and went down. Legard was standing in the door of the house surveying the wreckage as we came down the stairs. He looked at us in silence. He was drooping with tiredness and I saw that it wasn’t only the dust of travel that made his face grey. He looked desperately ill. His eyes glittered as they fastened on us. ‘Imbeciles!’ he cried, his voice savage with anger. ‘You are here two days and you cause trouble.’ He began to cough. ‘My relief has arrived and now I have to come here and deal with this. All because of you, because you are so stupid that you …’ His words were lost in a fit of coughing. He staggered forward to the settee and collapsed into it, clutching at his stomach, his eyes half closed. ‘See to my horse,’ he croaked. ‘Somebody see to that poor devil of a horse.’ He began to cough again.

Bilvidic sent Georges out to look after the animal. ‘What can I do for him?’ Julie whispered.

‘Get him some water,’ I said. I went over to him. ‘Monsieur le Capitaine,’ I said. ‘I’d like to thank you — for us all.’

His eyes stared at me coldly.

‘I’d like to thank you, too,’ Ed said. ‘But why the hell did you have to come alone?’ he added. ‘What happened to the troops?’

‘What troops?’ Legard asked harshly.

Ed turned to Bilvidic. ‘Didn’t the Commandant promise to send troops?’

‘Why should he?’ Legard pushed himself up on to his elbow. ‘What did you want troops for? These men aren’t vicious. They’re like little children. Anyway, there aren’t any troops. We have no troops down here.’

Ed hesitated and then he grinned and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Okay. Whatever you say. But thanks all the same.’

Legard didn’t say anything, but I saw the severe lines of his mouth relax into the ghost of a smile which spread up into his eyes so that they were slightly crinkled at the corners and he looked younger and less ill. Julie brought him the water and he gulped it down. ‘Alors.’ He pushed himself up into a sitting position. ‘Now explain to me everything that has happened. I have already sent for Caid Hassan and for the Khailifa. What happened? Monsieur Latham, suppose you tell me.’

‘Caid Hassan is dead,’ I said.

‘Yes, of course. I had forgotten.’ He closed his eyes, screwing them up as though they were still half-blinded by sun and sand. ‘It is a pity. He was a fine old man.’ He pressed his fingers against the balls of his eyes and then got to his feet with an abrupt, determined movement. ‘Bilvidic. A word with you, please.’ The two Frenchmen went through into the study.

A sudden stillness descended upon the room. It was an uneasy stillness and I glanced across at Jan. He was standing with his back to the fire, his hands behind him, the palms open to the blaze. The muscles of his face were rigid and his head was thrust a little forward. He was frowning and there was a look of concentration on his face — as though he were listening to their conversation. But the curtain had been drawn across the study entrance and all we could hear was the drone of their voices. There was a question I wanted to ask him, but I couldn’t because Ed was there.

Mohammed came in, his sandals slapping the tiles as he crossed the room. He went into the study and announced that the Khailifa and the old Caid’s son had arrived. ‘Tell them to wait for me at the Bureau,’ Legard said and Mohammed went out again. The stillness of the room became unbearable. Ed walked over to the window and stared out towards the mountains. ‘Well, that’s that, I guess.’ He was speaking to himself.

Jan’s head jerked up. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? That shaft will never be opened up now.’ He was still gazing towards the mountains, seeing in his mind again the landslide thundering into the mouth of the gorge. ‘All that work for nothing.’

‘You mean you’re giving up?’ There was a note of surprise in Jan’s voice.

Ed turned towards him with a quick, irritable movement of his body. ‘What else can I do? I can’t clear that slide away. There’s too much of it.’

‘We know the position of the shaft. We could tunnel down to it.’

‘How? I’ve no equipment and I’m just about broke.’

‘We could use local labour. As for money, there’s the insurance on your bulldozers.’

‘They weren’t insured. I didn’t think there was any reason to insure them.’

He had turned back to the window. Silence descended again on the room. Jan was standing very still. His hands behind his back were clenched now and I saw that his gaze had shifted back to the entrance to the study. And then the curtains were pulled aside and Legard and Bilvidic came out. ‘I will arrange for the mules to be ready at nine o’clock,’ Legard said, ‘Ca va?’

Bilvidic nodded. Legard picked his blue stiff hat up off the table where he had flung it and slung his cape round his shoulders. As he went towards the door he paused and looked at Jan. ‘At least, monsieur, you seem to have succeeded in carrying out Duprez’s wishes.’ He stared at him for a moment and I realised with a shock that Jan was incapable of meeting the man’s gaze. Then Legard twitched his cloak closer round his body and went out. The door banged to behind him.

The sun had set now and night was closing in. The room was growing dark and I could no longer see Jan’s face clearly. My shoulder hurt and I was feeling drained of energy, wishing we were away from the place. Bilvidic shouted for Mohammed and ordered him to light the lamps. But even in the soft lamp-glow the room had a cold, alien look. The sense of tension was still there.

And then the telephone buzzer sounded. Bilvidic went through into the study to answer it. He was gone a long while and when he came back he paused in the archway between the two rooms. He was looking at Jan. ‘Monsieur Wade. You will please come through into the study. There are some questions I have to ask you. You, too, Latham,’ he added, turning to me.

The, moment I had been dreading had arrived. I pulled myself to my feet. Jan was already following Bilvidic into the study. Karen was staring after him, her body rigid, her face pale and taut with strain. Her small hands were clenched as though she were trying to will with all the strength of her body that everything would be all right.

I went through into the study, conscious that my footsteps sounded very loud on the bare tiles. Bilvidic was already seated at the desk. ‘Asseyez-vous, monsieur.’ He waved me to a chair. ‘That telephone call was from Casablanca. I have orders to phone through a preliminary report on this matter to my headquarters tonight.’ He pulled out his pack of American cigarettes and lit one. ‘Monsieur Wade.’ He was looking across at Jan. ‘From the time you entered French Morocco until I confronted you with Madame Kavan you had assumed the name and identity of Dr Kavan. Why? Explain please.’ He was the policeman again: cold, precise, logical.

I looked at Jan. His hands gripped the arms of his chair and his body was braced. He hesitated momentarily. It seemed an age. Then he shifted his position. ‘Because I had to,’ he said.

‘Why?’ Bilvidic’s voice was still and hard.

‘What else was I to do? Kostos had taken my passport. But I still had Kavan’s papers and I had to get to Kasbah Foum.’ His voice sounded nervous.

‘Why did you not report the loss of your passport to the authorities? The International Police were the proper people to deal with the matter.’

‘But that would have taken time. Listen, monsieur.’ Jan leaned forward and the nervousness was suddenly gone from his voice. ‘I was with Kavan over two weeks in the confined space of a small boat. He told me the whole story — how Duprez had given him the deeds and had made him promise to get his title to Kasbah Foum confirmed before Caid Hassan died. If he didn’t, the property, with all its potential wealth, would have passed to Ali. You know the sort of man Ali was. He would have used that wealth against France. He would have purchased arms. Kavan was dead. I accepted his responsibility as though it were my own. It was the least I could do.’ He stopped then. He was breathing heavily.

‘Nevertheless,’ Bilvidic said, ‘you should have reported the loss of your passport to the police.’

‘Damn it, man. Don’t you understand?’ Jan’s anger was genuine. ‘Kostos was waiting for me there on the beach at Tangier. The matter was urgent. Latham understood. That was why he agreed to get me out on Kavan’s papers.’

‘Very well, monsieur. It is understood. But why do you have to go on calling yourself Kavan?’

‘What else could I do? I was here in Morocco on Kavan’s papers. Besides, Caid Hassan wouldn’t have confirmed the title to anyone but Kavan.’

‘Ah. That is the real point, eh?’ There was a cold glint in Bilvidic’s eyes. ‘You had to be Kavan in order to obtain the title to Kasbah Foum.’

‘Are you suggesting I arranged for Kostos to steal my passport?’ Jan demanded. ‘Do you think I enjoyed getting out of Tangier the way I did and coming down here under an assumed name? It was dangerous. But I had to do it.’ He got up suddenly and walked over to the desk, leaning on it and staring down at Bilvidic. ‘What you’re implying is a motive of personal gain. What you should be considering is the alternative. Your troops are all fighting in Indo-China. Caid Hassan is dead, and if Ali were now alive and the owner of Kasbah Foum …’ He thrust his head forward slightly, staring at Bilvidic. ‘Be thankful, monsieur, that it has turned out the way it has. If there is silver there, then it will be developed for the benefit of the people. It was what Kavan wanted. It is what I promised Caid Hassan.’

I glanced at Bilvidic. The whole thing was so logical that I almost believed it myself. The detective was staring at Jan. He didn’t say anything and a silence settled on the room. Jan had turned away from the desk. I wondered how long he could stand the silence. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. And then I saw Bilvidic relax in his chair. He drew gently on his cigarette. ‘Perhaps you will go and join the others now,’ he said to Jan. ‘I would like a word with Latham alone.’

Jan hesitated and glanced at me. He looked tired.

Then he turned without a word and went out through the curtains. I moved uneasily in my chair, turning to face Bilvidic. He was watching me, his cigarette held vertical between two fingers and a thumb. ‘How is the shoulder?’ he asked me. ‘Painful?’

‘A little,’ I said, waiting.

His face softened to a smile and he offered me a cigarette. ‘There are one or two questions I would like to ask you. First, who suggested that method of getting him out of the International Zone — you or he?’

‘I did.’

He nodded. ‘That is what I thought. I have seen your security report. Perhaps you have had previous experience of that method, eh?’

‘Perhaps,’ I said.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, that is for Tangier to worry about. Now, this matter of Kavan being lost overboard from the yacht. Did our friend tell you how it happened?’

‘Yes.’

‘In detail?’

‘Yes.’ I explained when he had told me and he nodded. ‘Good. He would have been tired then. Will you repeat it to me in the exact words he used, as far as you can remember them.’ I did so and he sat for a long time, tapping his pencil against his teeth. ‘Have you sailed yachts at all?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Quite a lot when I was a boy.’

‘And do you believe this story? Could a man fall overboard like that — or would it be necessary to push him? Remember, the storm was finished.’

‘You don’t need a storm for a thing like that to happen,’ I said. ‘It can happen quite easily.’ I was determined to convince him on this point. ‘The guardrails are often no more than thirty inches high — less than a metre,’ I explained. ‘Even in a quiet sea a man can go overboard, if he’s careless — especially if there isn’t much wind and the boat is rolling.’ He made no comment and I added quickly, ‘In this case, though the storm was over, there was still a big sea running. If you make a quick move out of the cockpit in such conditions and the stern of the boat falls away in a trough…’ He still said nothing. ‘They were both very tired,’ I said. ‘That was confirmed by the log.’

‘Ah. So you have seen the log, eh? Where is it? Has he got it?’

‘No.’

‘Where is it then?’

I explained how I had burned it and he said, ‘Why? Why do you do that?’

‘He asked me to.’

‘Why?’

I didn’t know what to say. For a moment there was a tense silence. And then he gave me the answer himself. ‘Was it because he was afraid Kostos might get hold of it?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think that was it.’

He leaned slowly forward across the desk. ‘Why should that matter, monsieur?’

It was a trap. I realised that too late. There was no earthly reason why Kostos shouldn’t have seen the log. If it were Kavan who had gone overboard, then the writing in the log would have remained unaltered. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Bilvidic waited a moment and then he got up and crossed the room and pulled back the curtain. ‘Wade. A moment please.’ Jan’s eyes were fixed on my face as he came in, walking jerkily, his hands thrust into his pockets. ‘There is something I don’t understand,’ Bilvidic said. ‘Why did you ask Latham to destroy the log?’

Jan’s hesitation was only momentary, then he turned slowly to face the detective. ‘It was the handwriting, monsieur,’ he said in a tone of surprise. ‘I could not take Kavan’s identity and still carry about with me all those pages of my own handwriting.’

It was so simple, so logical. I felt a sense of relief. Bilvidic wasn’t to know that the decision to get out on Kavan’s papers had been taken after the log had been destroyed. The detective turned back to the desk. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘let us get this down in the form of a statement.’ He looked across at me. ‘I think perhaps, Latham, you would be more comfortable in the other room. Keep warm by the fire.’ His expression was almost friendly.

Julie and Karen were standing by the hearth. There was no one else in the room. The lamps and the fire gave a glow of warmth to the bare walls. Karen turned and moved slowly, almost reluctantly to meet me. ‘Is it all right?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think so.’

Her lips trembled slightly and then she turned away her head. I think she was close to tears. Julie’s fingers closed on my hand. ‘You’re cold,’ she said. ‘Come and get warm.’

Ed came back soon after and we sat and waited in silence. It seemed a long time before Jan came out. He was talking to Bilvidic. ‘And you’ll make it clear that I had no alternative, won’t you?’

‘I don’t think you need worry,’ Bilvidic answered.

‘Thanks. And I’m glad you reminded me about the yacht.’ He came towards us then, and he was smiling.

‘Monsieur White.’ Bilvidic’s cold, official voice cut across the mood of relief that had filled the room. ‘If you will come in here, I would like a short statement.’

Ed went into the study and as the curtains fell to behind him, Jan came towards Karen. ‘Well, madame.’ For the first time since I had known him I saw him completely relaxed. His blue eyes were twinkling. He looked young, almost a boy again.

‘It’s all right then?’ Karen whispered.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Everything is going to be all right now — for always, darling.’ Their hands touched and gripped.

‘You understand, Karen,’ he said. ‘We shall have to start courting again. After a decent interval, of course.’ And then he turned to me. ‘Philip. You will be best man at our wedding, eh?’ He was suddenly laughing. ‘Tell me. What is the opposite to your saying — It never rains but it pours?’ But he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Listen. Gay Juliet was insured for Ł15,000. As Wade I collect that money. Isn’t that damn funny?’ His laugh was a little. nervous, as though it were all too good to be true. ‘You come and help us open up that shaft, and after that we’ll do something about your Mission.’

The door opened behind us and Jan and Karen moved quickly apart. It was Legard. He put his cloak and his hat on the table and came over to the fire. He stood warming himself for a moment and then he turned to Jan. ‘I have been talking to Caid Hassan’s son,’ he said. ‘He was present at your meeting with his father.’ He paused and then added significantly. ‘He speaks French.’

The sudden look of shock on Jan’s face showed me that he had understood the implication.

Legard stared at the fire for a long time and then he gave a little shrug. ‘Eh bien,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, if you stay here long enough, you will cure me of the amibe, eh?’ He looked at Jan, his tough, leathery face unsmiling — but the corners of his eyes were crinkled up. Then he walked to the door and shouted for Mohammed to bring him some water.