The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [134]
“They’d stop me before I got out of Khan Yunus. You haven’t heard the worst of it. General Chetwode, the commander of the Desert Column, is our lad’s uncle. I was dragged off to his office, where I was required to report to him and his chief of field intelligence.”
“Hell and damnation! Who else knows about your ‘secret’ mission?”
“God knows.” Ramses picked up a shirt, grinned, and put it aside. “Mother would say He does. If the word has come down the chain of command, Chetwode’s superior Dobell must also have been informed. There’s nothing here I can use, Father.”
“What about that parcel you asked me to bring along?”
“I’ll take it with me, but I don’t want to wear those things in Khan Yunus. Selim must have a change of clothing he’ll lend me.”
“You mean to let him in on this?” Emerson asked.
“How much does he know?”
“Only that we are obviously bent on mischief of some sort. Selim doesn’t ask questions.”
“He deserves to be told—some of it, at any rate. It’s a poor return for his friendship and loyalty to be treated as if he were not completely trustworthy. Especially,” Ramses added bitterly, “when every idiot and his bloody uncle knows. I think Selim may have spotted me when I arrived; he gave me a very fishy look when I was arguing with the doorman.”
Selim had spotted him, but not, as he was careful to explain, because of any inadequacy in Ramses’s disguise. “Who else could it be, though?” he demanded. “I do not ask questions of the Father of Curses, but I expected you would join the others sooner or later.”
“You must have wondered what this is all about, though.” The clothes Selim had given him would suit well enough; Arab garments were not designed to be form-fitting.
Selim folded his arms and said stiffly, “It is not my place to wonder.”
Ramses grinned and slapped him on the back. “You sound exactly like your father. I and another man are going into Gaza, Selim. There have been rumors about a certain Ismail Pasha—that he’s a British agent who has gone over to the enemy. Since I am, er, acquainted with the gentleman in question, they are sending me to get a look at Ismail and find out whether the rumors are true.”
“Acquainted,” Selim repeated. “Ah. Is it possible, Ramses, that I am also, er, acquainted with him?”
“You can’t go with me,” Ramses said. He hadn’t answered the question. Selim accepted this with a shrug and a nod, and Ramses went on, “Thank you for the clothes. I’ll try to return them in good condition.”
“Tonight’s the night, then,” Emerson said.
“Yes. Chetwode—our Chetwode—and I are meeting after nightfall in an abandoned house in Dir el Balah, just north of here. I hope to God he can find it. It will take me a while to get there by roundabout ways, since I don’t want to be recruited by some lad looking for laborers. I had better go. Do you want to send me on my way with a few curses and kicks, Selim?”
Selim did not return his smile. “If you say I should. Be careful. Do not take foolish chances.”
“As your father would have said. I’ll try not to. Watch over them, Selim.”
Chetwode was late. He stood squinting into the darkness of the half-ruined building, his form outlined against the starry sky. Ramses waited only long enough to make sure the other man was alone before he moved out of the shadows.
“Didn’t they teach you not to make a target of yourself in an open doorway?” he asked caustically.
“Since it was you—”
“You hoped it was me. Get out of that uniform and put these on.”
He made certain he had covered Chetwode’s face, neck, hands, and forearms with the dark dye, and got all his hair concealed under the turban. There wasn’t anything he could do about the blue eyes that looked trustingly into his, but when the boy grinned, cheerful as a hound pup, the expanse of healthy white teeth was another reason to remind him to keep his mouth shut. Patiently Ramses went over it again.
“If anybody speaks to you, drool and babble and bob your head. Idiots are under the protection of God. Stick close to me . . .” He hesitated, gripped by one of those illogical premonitions—or maybe it wasn’t