The Talbot Mundy Megapack. Talbot Mundy
afternoon religious service.
They received their guests in a huge, well-furnished room on the upper floor of a stone house built around a courtyard filled with flowers. I think they were a little proud of the number of fierce-looking Arabs, who had traveled long distances in order to be present. Ten Arab chieftains in full costume, with fifteen or twenty of their followers, all there at great expense of trouble, time and money, for friends sake, were, after all, something to feel a bit chesty about. Every member of the Colony seemed able to talk Arabic like a native and, as they used to say in the up-state papers, a good time was being had by all. The Near East adores ice-cream, and there was lots of it.
Two of the Arab chiefs were Christians; the rest were not. The peace and war record of the Colony was what had brought them all there. Hardly an Arab in the country was not the Colony’s debtor for disinterested help, direct or indirect, at some time in some way. The American Colony was the one place in the country where a man of any creed could go and be sure that whatever he might say would not be used against him. So they were talking their heads off. Hot air and Arab politics have quite a lot in common. But there was a broad desert-breath about it all. It wasn’t like the little gusty yaps you hear in the city coffee-shops. A lot of the talk was foolish, but it was all magnificent.
There was one sheikh named Mustapha ben Nasir dressed in a blue serge suit and patent-leather boots, with nothing to show his nationality except a striped silk head-dress with the camel-hair band around the forehead. He was a handsome fellow, with a black beard trimmed to a point, and perfect manners, polished no doubt in a dozen countries, but still Eastern in slow, deferential dignity. He could talk good French. I fell in conversation with him.
The frankness with which treason is mooted, admitted and discussed in the Near East is one of the first things that amaze you. They are so open about it that nobody takes them seriously. Apparently it is only when they don’t talk treason openly that the ruling authorities get curious and make arrests. To me, a total stranger, with nothing to recommend me but that for an hour or two that afternoon I was a guest of the American Colony, Mustapha ben Nasir made no bones whatever about the fact that the was being paid by the French to stir up feeling over Jordan against the British.
“I receive a monthly salary,” he boasted. “I am just from Damascus, where the French Liaison-officer paid me and gave me some instructions.”
“Where is your home?” I asked him.
“At El-Kerak, in the mountains of Moab, across the Dead Sea. I start this evening. Will you come with me?”
“Je m’en bien garderai!”
He smiled. “Myself, I am in favor of the British. The French pay my expenses, that is all. What we all want is an independent Arab government—some say kingdom, some say republic. If it is not time for that yet, then we would choose an American mandate. But America has deserted us. Failing America, we prefer the English for the present. Anything except France! We do not want to become a new Algeria.”
“What is the condition now at El-Kerak?”
“Condition? There is none. There is chaos. You see, the British say their authority ceases at the River Jordan and at a line drawn down the middle of the Dead Sea. That leaves us with a choice between two other governments—King Hussein’s government of Mecca, and Feisul’s in Syria. But Hussein’s arm is not long enough to reach us from the South, and Feisul’s is not nearly strong enough to interfere from the North. So there is no government, and each man is keeping the peace with his own sword.”
“You mean; each man on his own account?”
“Yes. So there is peace. Five—fifteen—thirty throats are cut daily; and if you go down to the Jordan and listen, you will hear the shots being fired from ambush any day.”
“And you invite me to make the trip with you?”
“Oh, that is nothing. In the first place, you are American. Nobody will interfere with an American. They are welcome. In the second place, there is a good reason for bringing you; we all want an American school at El-Kerak.”
“But I am no teacher.”
“But you will be returning to America? It is enough, then, that you look the situation over, and tell what you know on your return. We will provide a building, a proper salary, and guarantee the teacher’s life. We would prefer a woman, but it would be wisest to send a man.”
“How so? The woman might not shoot straight? I’ve some of our Western women do tricks with a gun that would—”
“There would be no need. She would have our word of honour. But every sheikh who has only three wives would want to make her his fourth. A man would be best. Will you come with me?”
“On your single undertaking to protect me? Are you king of all that countryside?”
“If you will come, you shall have an escort, every man of whom will die before he would let you be killed. And if they, and you, should all be killed, their sons and grandsons would avenge you to the third generation of your murderers.”
“That’s undoubtedly handsome, but—”
“Believe me, effendi,” he urged, “many a soul has been consoled in hell-fire by the knowledge that his adversaries would be cut off in their prime by friends who are true to their given word.”
Meaning to back out politely, I assured him I would think the offer over.
“Well and good,” he answered. “You have my promise. Should you decide to come, leave word here with the American Colony. They will get word to me. Then I will send for you, and the escort shall meet you at the Dead Sea.”
I talked it over with two or three members of the Colony, and they assured me the promise could be depended on. One of them added:
“Besides, you ought to see El-Kerak. It’s an old crusader city, rather ruined, but more or less the way the crusaders left it. And that craving of theirs for a school is worth doing something about, if you ever have an opportunity. They say they have too much religion already, and no enlightenment at all. A teacher who knew Arabic would have a first-class time, and would be well paid and protected, if he could keep his hands off politics. Why not talk with Major Grim?”
It was a half hour’s walk to Grim’s place, but I had the good fortune to catch him in again. He was sitting in the same chair, studying the same book, and this time I saw the title of it—Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean—a strange book for a soldier to be reading, and cutting its pages with an inlaid dagger, in a Jerusalem semi-military boarding-house. But he was a man of unexpectedly assorted moods.
He laughed when I told of ben Nasir. He looked serious when I mooted El-Kerak—serious, then interested, them speculative. From where I sat I could watch the changes in his eyes.
“What would the escort amount to?” I asked him.
“Absolute security.”
“And what’s this bunk about Americans being welcome anywhere?”
“Perfectly true. All the way from Aleppo down to Beersheba. Men like Dr. Bliss2 have made such an impression that an occasional rotter might easily take advantage of it. Americans in this country—so far—stand for altruism without ulterior motive. If we’d accepted the mandate they might have found us out! Meanwhile, an American is safe.”
“Then I think I’ll go to El-Kerak.”
Again his eyes grew speculative. I could not tell whether he was considering me or some problem of his own.
“Speaking unofficially,” he said, “there are two possibilities. You might go without permission—easy enough, provided you don’t talk beforehand. In that case, you’d get there and back; after which, the Administration would label and index you. The remainder of your stay in Palestine would be about as exciting as pushing a perambulator in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. You’d be canned.”
“I’d