They Came to Baghdad

He allowed his thoughts to dwell pleasantly on some aspects of the Mari letters and the movements of the Benjaminite tribes in 1750 BC.

It would be hard to say exactly what awoke him to a vivid sense of the present and of his fellow human beings. It was, first, an uneasiness, a sense of tension. It came to him, he thought, though he could not be sure, through his nose. Nothing he could diagnose in concrete terms—but it was there, unmistakable, taking him back to days in the late war. One occasion in particular when he, and two others, had been parachuted from a plane, and had waited in the small cold hours of dawn for the moment to do their stuff. A moment when morale was low, when the full hazards of the undertaking were clearly perceived, a moment of dread lest one might not be adequate, a shrinking of the flesh. The same acrid, almost imperceptible tang in the air.

The smell of fear …

For some moments, this registered only subconsciously. Half of his mind still obstinately strove to focus itself BC. But the pull of the present was too strong.

Someone in this small room was in deadly fear …

He looked around. An Arab in a ragged khaki tunic, his fingers idly slipping over the amber beads he held. A stoutish Englishman with a grey moustache—the commercial traveller type—who was jotting down figures in a small notebook and looking absorbed and important. A lean tired-looking man, very dark-skinned, who was leaning back in a reposeful attitude, his face placid and uninterested. A man who looked like an Iraqi clerk. An elderly Persian in flowing snowy robes. They all seemed quite unconcerned.

The clicking of the amber beads fell into a definite rhythm. It seemed, in an odd way, familiar. Richard jerked himself to attention. He had been nearly asleep. Short—long—long—short—that was Morse—definite Morse signalling. He was familiar with Morse, part of his job during the war had dealt with signalling. He could read it easily enough. OWL. F-L-O-R-E-A-T-E-T-O-N-A. What the devil! Yes, that was it. It was being repeated. Floreat Etona. Tapped out (or rather clicked out) by a ragged Arab. Hallo, what was this? ‘Owl. Eton. Owl.’

His own nickname at Eton—where he had been sent with an unusually large and solid pair of spectacles.

He looked across the room at the Arab, noting every detail of his appearance—the striped robe—the old khaki tunic—the ragged hand-knitted red scarf full of dropped stitches. A figure such as you saw hundreds of on the waterfront. The eyes met his vacantly with no sign of recognition. But the beads continued to click.

Fakir here. Stand by. Trouble.

Fakir? Fakir? Of course! Fakir Carmichael! A boy who had been born or who had lived in some outlandish part of the world—Turkestan, Afghanistan?

Richard took out his pipe. He took an exploratory pull at it—peered into the bowl and then tapped it on an adjacent ashtray:Message received.

After that, things happened very fast. Later, Richard was at pains to sort them out.

The Arab in the torn army jacket got up and crossed towards the door. He stumbled as he was passing Richard, his hand went out and clutched Richard to steady himself. Then he righted himself, apologized and moved towards the door.

It was so surprising and happened so quickly that it seemed to Richard like a cinema scene rather than a scene in real life. The stout commercial traveller dropped his notebook and tugged at something in his coat pocket. Because of his plumpness and the tight fit of the coat, he was a second or two in getting it out and in that second or two Richard acted. As the man brought the revolver up, Richard struck it out of his hand. It went off and a bullet buried itself in the floor.

The Arab had passed through the doorway and had turned towards the Consul’s office, but he paused suddenly, and turning he ran swiftly the other way to the door by which he had entered and into the busy street.

The kavass ran to Richard’s side where he stood holding the stout man’s arm. Of the other occupants of the room, the Iraqi clerk was dancing excitedly on his feet, the dark thin man was staring and the elderly Persian gazed into space unmoved.

Richard said:

‘What the devil are you doing, brandishing a revolver like that?’

There was just a moment’s pause, and then the stout man said in a plaintive Cockney voice:

‘Sorry, old man. Absolute accident. Just clumsy.’

‘Nonsense. You were going to shoot at that Arab fellow who’s just run out.’

‘No, no, old man, not shoot him. Just give him a fright. Recognized him suddenly as a fellow who swindled me over some antikas. Just a bit of fun.’

Richard Baker was a fastidious soul who disliked publicity of any kind. His instincts were to accept the explanation at its face value. After all, what could he prove? And would old Fakir Carmichael thank him for making a song and dance about the matter? Presumably if he were on some hush-hush, cloak-and-dagger business he would not.

Richard relaxed his grasp on the man’s arm. The fellow was sweating, he noticed.

The kavass was talking excitedly. It was very wrong, he was saying, to bring firearms into the British Consulate. It was not allowed. The Consul would be very angry.

‘I apologize,’ said the fat man. ‘Little accident—that’s all.’ He thrust some money into the kavass’s hand who pushed it back again indignantly.

‘I’d better get out of this,’ said the stout man. ‘I won’t wait to see the Consul.’ He thrust a card suddenly on Richard. ‘That’s me and I’m at the Airport Hotel if there’s any fuss, but actually it was a pure accident. Just a joke if you know what I mean.’

Reluctantly, Richard watched him walk with an uneasy swagger out of the room and turn towards the street.

He hoped he had done right, but it was a difficult thing to know what to do when one was as much in the dark as he was.

‘Mr Clayton, he is disengaged now,’ said the kavass.

Richard followed the man along the corridor. The open circle of sunlight at the end grew larger. The Consul’s room was on the right at the extreme end of the passage.

Mr Clayton was sitting behind his desk. He was a quiet grey-haired man with a thoughtful face.

‘I don’t know whether you remember me?’ said Richard. ‘I met you in Tehran two years ago.’

‘Of course. You were with Dr Pauncefoot Jones, weren’t you? Are you joining him again this year?’

‘Yes. I’m on my way there now, but I’ve got a few days to spare, and I rather wanted to run down to Kuwait. There’s no difficulty I suppose?’

‘Oh, no. There’s a plane tomorrow morning. It’s only about an hour and a half. I’ll wire to Archie Gaunt—he’s the Resident there. He’ll put you up. And we can put you up here for the night.’

Richard protested slightly.

‘Really—I don’t want to bother you and Mrs Clayton. I can go to the hotel.’

‘The Airport Hotel’s very full. We’d be delighted to have you here. I know my wife would like to meet you again. At the moment—let me see—we’ve got Crosbie of the Oil Company and some young sprig of Dr Rathbone’s who’s down here clearing some cases of books through the customs. Come upstairs and see Rosa.’

He got up and escorted Richard out through the door and into the sunlit garden. A flight of steps led up to the living quarters of the Consulate.

Gerald Clayton pushed open the wire door at the top of the steps and ushered his guest into a long dim hallway with attractive rugs on the floor and choice examples of furniture on either side. It was pleasant coming into the cold dimness after the glare outside.

Clayton called, ‘Rosa, Rosa,’ and Mrs Clayton, whom Richard remembered as a buoyant personality with abounding vitality, came out of an end room.

‘You remember Richard Baker, dear? He came to see us with Dr Pauncefoot Jones in Tehran.’

‘Of course,’ said Mrs Clayton, shaking hands. ‘We went to the bazaars together and you bought some lovely rugs.’

It was Mrs Clayton’s delight when not buying things herself to urge on her friends and acquaintances to seek for bargains in the local souks. She had a wonderful knowledge of values and was an excellent bargainer.

‘One of the best purchases I’ve ever made,’ said Richard. ‘And entirely owing to your good offices.’

‘Baker wants to fly to Kuwait tomorrow,’ said Gerald Clayton. ‘I’ve said that we can put him up here for tonight.’

‘But if it’s any trouble …’ began Richard.

‘Of course it’s no trouble,’ said Mrs Clayton. ‘You can’t have the best spare room, because Captain Crosbie has got it, but we can make you quite comfortable. You don’t want to buy a nice Kuwait chest, do you? Because they’ve got some lovely ones in the souk just now. Gerald wouldn’t let me buy another one for here though it would be quite useful to keep extra blankets in.’