The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [256]
Mountolive’s heart sank. He took out the cigarette holder which he only used in moments of perplexity, charged it from the silver box on the desk, and sat back in the heavy old-fashioned chair.
‘Have you any other reasons?’ he asked quietly. ‘Because I should personally like to keep him, at least for a time.’ Kenilworth’s small eyes narrowed. His heavy neck became contused by the blush of annoyance which was trying to find its way up to his face.
‘To be frank with you, yes’ he said shortly.
‘Do tell me.’
‘You will find a long report on him by Errol in the papers I’ve assembled. I don’t think he is altogether suitable. But then contract officers have never been as dependable as officers of the career. It’s a generalization, I know. I won’t say that our friend isn’t faithful to the firm — far from it. But I can say that he is opinionated and difficult. Well, soit! He’s a writer, isn’t he?’ Kenilworth ingratiated himself with the image of Pursewarden by a brief smile of un-conscious contempt. ‘There has been endless friction with Errol. You see, since the gradual break-up of the High Commission after the signing of the Treaty, there has been a huge gap created, a hiatus; all the agencies which have grown up there since 1918 and which worked to the Commission have been cut adrift now that the parent body is giving place to an Embassy. There will be some
thorough-going decisions for you to make. Everything is at sixes and sevens. Suspended animation has been the keynote of the last year and a half — and unsuspended hostilities between an Em-bassy lacking a Chief, and all these parentless bodies struggling against their own demise. Do you see? Now Pursewarden may be brilliant but he has put a lot of backs up — not only in the mission; people like Maskelyne, for example, who runs the War Office I.C. Branch and has this past five years. They are at each other’s throats.’
‘But what has an I. Branch to do with us?’
‘Exactly, nothing. But the High Commissioner’s Political Section depended on Maskelyne’s Intelligence reports. I.C. Intelligence Collation was the central agency for the Middle East Central Archives and all that sort of thing.’
‘Where’s the quarrel?’
‘Pursewarden as political feels that the Embassy has also in a way inherited Maskelyne’s department from the Commission. Maskelyne refuses to countenance this. He demands parity or even complete freedom for his show. It is military after all.’
‘Then set it under a military attaché for the time being.’
‘Good, but Maskelyne refuses to agree to become part of your mission as his seniority is greater than your attaché designate’s.’
‘What rubbish all this is. What is his rank?’
‘Brigadier. You see, since the end of the ’18 show, Cairo has been the senior post office of the intelligence network and all intelligence was funnelled through Maskelyne. Now Pursewarden is trying to appropriate him, bring him to heel. Battle royal, of course. Poor Errol, who I admit is rather weak in some ways, is flapping between them like a loose sail. That is why I thought your task would be easier if you shed Pursewarden.’
‘Or Maskelyne.’
‘Good, but he’s a War Office body. You couldn’t. At any rate, he is most eager for you to arrive and arbitrate. He feels sure you will establish his complete autonomy.’
‘I can’t tolerate an autonomous War Office Agency in a territory to which I am accredited, can I?’
‘I agree. I agree, my dear fellow.’
‘What does the War Office say?’
‘You know the military! They will stand by any decision you choose to make. They’ll have to. But they have been dug in there for years now. Own staff branches and their transmitter up in Alexandria. I think they would like to stay.’
‘Not independently. How could I?’
‘Exactly. That is what Pursewarden maintains. Good, but someone will have to go in the interests of equity. We can’t have all this pin-pr icking.’
‘What pin-pr icking?’
‘Well, Maskelyne withholding reports and being forced to disgorge them to Political Branch. Then Pursewarden criticizing their accuracy and questioning the value