The Mingrelian Conspiracy. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ were selling pastries and selling Nationalist newspapers. Cairenes, lacking confidence, perhaps, in their public-transport system, believed in stocking up before embarking on a journey. But they also believed in not making a journey at all but just sitting around, and when they sat around, they liked to sit in a café and read scurrilous Nationalist newspapers. Just behind the Ataba were the big offices of Credit Lyonnais and the Mixed Tribunals and beyond them the headquarters of the Anglo-Egyptian Bank, and the countless young men who worked in them were all avid Nationalists.

      Owen looked around at the crowded café and thought: if other cafés, why not this one?

      He knew the proprietor of the café and beckoned him over.

      ‘Tell me, Yasin,’ he said. ‘Do you pay protection?’

      ‘Not yet,’ said the proprietor.

      ‘Is that because they have not asked? Or because you have not agreed?’

      ‘If they asked,’ said Yasin, diplomatically but evasively, ‘I would reply: I need no protection, for the Mamur Zapt sits every night at my tables.’

      The first stage of the café evening was coming to an end and at several tables people were standing up and shaking hands. It was time to be firm about that bill. Or perhaps, just before he left, an apéritif?

      ‘How about an apéritif?’ said a familiar voice, and Paul dropped into a chair beside him.

      ‘I reckon you owe me one,’ said Owen, ‘after that meeting this morning.’

      ‘Bloody awful, wasn’t it? It’s high time the Army went on manoeuvres. Preferably at the bottom of the Red Sea.’

      ‘What’s all this business about unifying the policing? I don’t like the sound of it.’

      ‘It won’t get anywhere. The Old Man will kill it dead.’

      Paul was one of the Consul-General’s aides and frequently, as this morning, chaired meetings on his behalf.

      ‘Will he, though? If they really push?’

      ‘They’ll only get his back up. He’ll see it as trespassing.’

      ‘Yes, but –’

      ‘It won’t get anywhere. At the end of the day, the Old Man’s a politician, and the one empire politicians will really fight for is their own. You can go back to sleep.’

      Paul sipped his apéritif.

      ‘All the same,’ he said reflectively, ‘on something like this it might be best if you didn’t.’

      ‘The gangs?’ Owen was surprised. ‘I really don’t think, Paul, you need worry too much about the guns. It’s pretty small –‘

      ‘Guns?’ said Paul, so steeped in the ways of the city that he considered himself a born-again Cairene. ‘Who the hell cares about guns? It’s the cafés I’m thinking of.’

2

      Later the same day Owen had moved on to the second stage of the café evening and was comfortably enjoying an after-dinner coffee outside a crowded Arab café when an orderly, who knew his habits, brought him a hurried message from the Deputy Commandant of Police. It said:

       Can you get down to the Ezbekiyeh quick? Trouble at a café. I’ve got my hands full at the Citadel. McPhee.

      Trouble at a café, thought Owen. Christ, they’re keeping on the go. But when he got to the place he found it was nothing to do with protection but just an ordinary common or garden incident such as disfigured Cairo’s streets most weekends. The Ezbekiyeh contained a number of houses of ill repute and was much frequented by British soldiers. Opposite the balconies from which scantily dressed ladies suggested their all were some very low-class cafés in which yet insufficiently aroused clients could sit and gaze.

      And drink. Which was exactly what a bunch of Welsh Fusiliers had been doing until they had spotted at the next café a group of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light. Relations between the regiments were not cordial, a matter, apparently, of the condition in which the DCLI had once left some barracks when the Welsh were due to move in, and merry banter was exchanged. As the evening wore on, and more drink was consumed, the banter became less merry. Remarks were made which, the Welsh considered, reflected on their nation (‘Couldn’t kick a ball near the posts, never mind through them’) and they had risen to defend theirs and their country’s honour. In the ensuing fracas a surprising number of bottles had been broken and a considerable amount of furniture damaged; so, too, had been a considerable number of soldiers.

      The police had been summoned and a constable had indeed arrived but had wisely confined himself to the role of a spectator. When he saw Owen he fell in – behind him – with considerable relief.

      Owen had no great desire to get involved in a brawl either. He doubted very much if the contestants were in a condition in which they could respond to the voice of command, much less a civilian voice of command; and then what would he do? He advanced slowly down the street towards them.

      The fighting seemed, fortunately, to have reached a slight lull. Those still on their feet paused for a moment, breathing heavily. They were just about to resume, however, when a voice came sharply from the other end of the street: ‘Stop that at once!’

      The combatants looked up, surprised.

      A slight, smartly dressed man came out of the darkness towards them.

      ‘Stop that at once! Stand apart!’

      ‘Blimey!’ said one of the soldiers incredulously. ‘A Gyppie!’

      ‘Bloody hell!’

      “Ere,’ said another voice, ‘what do you think you’re doing? Ordering us around?’

      ‘He needs bloody straightening out.’

      ‘He bloody does!’

      They began to move towards him.

      Owen, in a fury now, and forgetting himself, started forward.

      ‘Cut that out! None of that! Get back! Get back at once!’

      ‘Christ!’ said one of the soldiers. ‘Here’s another one!’

      ‘He’s bloody British, though.’

      ‘I am bloody British,’ snapped Owen, ‘and tomorrow morning I’ll have you bloody lot on jankers. I’ll have you bloody running round and round the parade ground until your bloody balls drop off –’

      ‘He speaks a bit like an officer,’ said one of the men doubtfully.

      ‘What’s he in civvies for?’

      ‘Must be off duty.’

      ‘– and drop on the ground and lie there till they fry – ‘raged Owen.

      The men, impressed, stopped fighting.

      ‘That СКАЧАТЬ