They Came to Baghdad. Agatha Christie
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too uncomfortable—but there it is, I’m kind of helpless, and however I’d manage travelling, I don’t know. And George here, is just tied up with business, and simply can’t get away for at least another three weeks. He suggested that I should take a nurse along with me—but after all, once I’m out there I don’t need a nurse hanging around, Sadie can do all that’s necessary—and it means paying her fare back as well, and so I thought I’d ring up the agencies and see if I couldn’t find someone who’d be willing to come along just for the fare out.’
‘I’m not exactly a nurse,’ said Victoria, managing to imply that that was practically what she was. ‘But I’ve had a good deal of experience of nursing.’ She produced the first testimonial. ‘I was with Lady Cynthia Bradbury for over a year. And if you should want any correspondence or secretarial work done, I acted as my uncle’s secretary for some months. My uncle,’ said Victoria modestly, ‘is the Bishop of Llangow.’
‘So your uncle’s a Bishop. Dear me, how interesting.’
Both the Hamilton Clipps were, Victoria thought, decidedly impressed. (And so they should be after the trouble she had taken!)
Mrs Hamilton Clipp handed the two testimonials to her husband.
‘It really seems quite wonderful,’ she said reverently. ‘Quite providential. It’s an answer to prayer.’
Which, indeed, was exactly what it was, thought Victoria.
‘You’re taking up a position of some kind out there? Or joining a relative?’ asked Mrs Hamilton Clipp.
In the flurry of manufacturing testimonials, Victoria had quite forgotten that she might have to account for her reasons for travelling to Baghdad. Caught unprepared, she had to improvise rapidly. The paragraph she had read yesterday came to her mind.
‘I’m joining my uncle out there. Dr Pauncefoot Jones,’ she explained.
‘Indeed? The archaeologist?’
‘Yes.’ For one moment Victoria wondered whether she were perhaps endowing herself with too many distinguished uncles. ‘I’m terribly interested in his work, but of course I’ve no special qualifications so it was out of the question for the Expedition to pay my fare out. They’re not too well off for funds. But if I can get out on my own, I can join them and make myself useful.’
‘It must be very interesting work,’ said Mr Hamilton Clipp, ‘and Mesopotamia is certainly a great field for archaeology.’
‘I’m afraid,’ said Victoria, turning to Mrs Clipp, ‘that my uncle the Bishop is up in Scotland at this moment. But I can give you his secretary’s telephone number. She is staying in London at the moment. Pimlico 87693—one of the Fulham Palace extensions. She’ll be there any time from (Victoria’s eyes slid to the clock on the mantelpiece) 11.30 onwards if you would like to ring her up and ask about me.’
‘Why, I’m sure—’ Mrs Clipp began, but her husband interrupted.
‘Time’s very short, you know. This plane leaves day after tomorrow. Now have you got a passport, Miss Jones?’
‘Yes.’ Victoria felt thankful that owing to a short holiday trip to France last year, her passport was up to date. ‘I brought it with me in case,’ she added.
‘Now that’s what I call businesslike,’ said Mr Clipp approvingly. If any other candidate had been in the running, she had obviously dropped out now. Victoria with her good recommendations, and her uncles, and her passport on the spot had successfully made the grade.
‘You’ll want the necessary visas,’ said Mr Clipp, taking the passport. ‘I’ll run round to our friend Mr Burgeon in American Express, and he’ll get everything fixed up. Perhaps you’d better call round this afternoon, so you can sign whatever’s necessary.’
This Victoria agreed to do.
As the door of the apartment closed behind her, she heard Mrs Hamilton Clipp say to Mr Hamilton Clipp:
‘Such a nice straightforward girl. We really are in luck.’
Victoria had the grace to blush.
She hurried back to her flat and sat glued to the telephone prepared to assume the gracious refined accents of a Bishop’s secretary in case Mrs Clipp should seek confirmation of her capability. But Mrs Clipp had obviously been so impressed by Victoria’s straightforward personality that she was not going to bother with these technicalities. After all, the engagement was only for a few days as a travelling companion.
In due course, papers were filled up and signed, the necessary visas were obtained and Victoria was bidden to spend the final night at the Savoy so as to be on hand to help Mrs Clipp get off at 7 a.m. on the following morning for Airways House and Heathrow Airport.
The boat that had left the marshes two days before paddled gently along the Shatt el Arab. The stream was swift and the old man who was propelling the boat needed to do very little. His movements were gentle and rhythmic. His eyes were half closed. Almost under his breath he sang very softly, a sad unending Arab chant:
‘Asri bi lel ya yamali
Hadhi alek ya ibn Ali.’
Thus, on innumerable other occasions, had Abdul Suleiman of the Marsh Arabs come down the river to Basrah. There was another man in the boat, a figure often seen nowadays with a pathetic mingling of West and East in his clothing. Over his long robe of striped cotton he wore a discarded khaki tunic, old and stained and torn. A faded red knitted scarf was tucked into the ragged coat. His head showed again the dignity of the Arab dress, the inevitable keffiyah of black and white held in place by the black silk agal. His eyes, unfocused in a wide stare, looked out blearily over the river bend. Presently he too began to hum in the same key and tone. He was a figure like thousands of other figures in the Mesopotamian landscape. There was nothing to show that he was an Englishman, and that he carried with him a secret that influential men in almost every country in the world were striving to intercept and to destroy along with the man who carried it.
His mind went hazily back over the last weeks. The ambush in the mountains. The ice-cold of the snow coming over the Pass. The caravan of camels. The four days spent trudging on foot over bare desert in company with two men carrying a portable ‘cinema.’ The days in the black tent and the journeying with the Aneizeh tribe, old friends of his. All difficult, all fraught with danger—slipping again and again through the cordon spread out to look for him and intercept him.
‘Henry Carmichael. British Agent. Age about thirty. Brown hair, dark eyes, five-foot-ten. Speaks Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Armenian, Hindustani, Turkish and many mountain dialects. Befriended by the tribesmen. Dangerous.’
Carmichael had been born in Kashgar where his father was a Government official. His childish tongue had lisped various dialects and patois—his nurses, and later his bearers, had been natives of many different races. In nearly all the wild places of the Middle East he had friends.
Only in the cities and the towns did his contacts fail him. Now, approaching Basrah, he knew that the critical moment of his mission had come. Sooner or later he had got to re-enter the civilized zone. Though Baghdad was his ultimate destination, he had judged it wise not to approach it direct. In every town in Iraq facilities were awaiting him, carefully discussed and arranged many months beforehand. It had had to be left to his own judgement where he should, so to speak, make his landing ground. He had sent no word to his superiors, even through the indirect channels where he could have done so. It was safer thus. The easy plan—the aeroplane waiting at the appointed rendezvous—had failed, as he had suspected it would fail. That rendezvous had been known to his enemies. Leakage! Always that deadly, that incomprehensible, leakage.
And so it was that his apprehensions of danger were heightened.