O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [53]
Fortunately, this night we had outlasted the village children, and we could speak amongst ourselves in low voices without fear of being overheard. Somewhat to my surprise, Holmes did not hesitate to share what he had been told. I half expected him to pretend fatigue or at least surprise when the three of us rounded on him as soon as the door was shut, particularly following Mahmoud’s stunt with the Conan Doyle story, but he did not. He would, of course, have told us what the men had said, even if grudgingly and with gaps, but I thought afterwards that the readiness of his response was by way of recognising the debt he owed Mahmoud for so willingly taking on the lesser rôle, distracting the others while Holmes questioned the men who might know something. He dropped to his heels, tucked back his kuffiyah, and started talking—in English, to my relief.
“The men I was with were all soldiers for the Turk during the first three years of the war. They deserted when the Arab independence movement began to make real headway.”
“Do not call it desertion,” Ali objected, also using English. “They were slaves reaching for their freedom, not traitors.”
Holmes waved aside the niceties of definition. “That is not important. What matters is that the three conscripts, even as long ago as 1917, were aware that within the Turkish Army, certain men were laying plans for what was to happen in this country if Turkey lost.”
“But in 1917, Turkey was winning,” protested Ali.
“So it appeared, but to a small group of officers, it was far from decided. One of these three was a member of a work party hiding supplies in a remote cave: food, clothing, weapons and ammunition, medical supplies, and detailed maps. Some of the maps, he remembers, were of El Quds. Jerusalem.”
“Wallah,” Ali breathed. Mahmoud smoothed his beard thoughtfully and dug his prayer beads from his robe.
“The supplies are no longer there—having been, shall we say, liberated by the men on their way home.
“But if there was one cache…” Ali did not bother finishing the thought.
“Who were the officers?” I asked Holmes.
“These men knew the names, but said that, having had such a personal interest in the fates of their former superior officers, they made a point of hunting them out after the war. Of the half dozen they knew were in on it, all were either dead or in the custody of the British. Now all are dead.”
“Unfortunate,” commented Mahmoud laconically.
“Yes. They did say, however, that the six officers were not acting on their own, that orders came to them. And not from Damascus but from Jerusalem.”
We meditated on this for some time, and then Mahmoud asked, “You have the names of the Turkish officers?”
“I do. Perhaps they will have left administrative tracks that could lead to their superior. Had the Germans actually been in charge of the army rather than merely advising, we could certainly depend on records having been kept. The Turks, however, were less concerned with order. I suppose Joshua is the one to follow that particular lead; can a message be got to him?”
“It can,” Mahmoud replied.
Ali shifted slightly, but before he could rise and signal that the day’s events were ended, I stopped him with two questions aimed at Mahmoud.
“Are you suggesting,” I said carefully, because I wanted this quite clear, “that what we are looking for is a group of Turkish officers who have escaped capture and gone underground? And that these officers are plotting to take the country back from the British?”
Mahmoud clearly disliked being put on the spot, but after a moment he answered. “It is not so simple. It may be more a matter of encouraging the disorder and dissatisfaction that already exist here, hidden beneath the British rule of order. ‘A dust cloud hides all.’ Think of a man stirring up a cloud of dust so as to move around without being observed. When the dust settles, the man is where he wishes to be, with no-one the wiser.”
It was a picturesque image, if inaccurate (would not a stirred-up dust cloud attract suspicion?) and not terribly informative.
“His purpose being… ?” I