Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale (29 page)

‘It’s a blessing I am there to arrange everything,’ he said, ‘for I am the one who discusses business with the Bedouins. I know how to manage them; and when somebody has to go out and be tossed about in the Gulf, it’s always me. And yet, though I’m the one to take the risks, Gorgis puts most of the profits in his pocket. He is the big business man, established and respected, while I am looked on as a low smuggler. And when we are in the street together, I have to walk ten yards behind so as not to compromise him.’

‘But after all,’ I objected, ‘it is he who advances all the money.’

‘Oh, he told you that, too, did he? Don’t you believe it; you can bet your bottom dollar that not one sou comes out of his little pile. The money he gave you came out of the sum paid on account by his customers in view of the arrival of your merchandise. If anything went wrong, which God forbid, he would tell these people that all was lost, that it was a misfortune for which he was in no way responsible, and he wouldn’t refund their money for a long time, perhaps never.’

What Stavro had just told me made me see how skilfully these men managed to protect themselves against the risks of their trade, and how very badly protected I was against the risks of mine.

Stavro went on grumbling about his partner. To listen to them you would have thought that they endured each other with great difficulty, each one weighed down by a debt of gratitude, each one claiming to act generously by the other who was very mean. And yet they could not move a step without each other. At the first sign of trouble, they rushed to each other’s houses in order to calm their fears, and Stavro and Gorgis would have died rather than betray each other. Yet as soon as they were
separated, neither could resist running the other down. It was just their little way, and really meant nothing.

At last I set eyes on the
Fat-el-Rahman
, peacefully riding at anchor. Nothing untoward had occurred during my absence. It had been agreed in Cairo that I should take my cargo to a point on the coast which would be indicated to me by one of Omar’s men. He would be there waiting for me when I arrived, and would embark with me. I wondered how I could go out to sea without attracting attention. The simplest thing to do was to pretend to be going for a sail in the roads. The curiosity aroused by my
boutre
had already died away, and I hoped that my short absence would pass unnoticed. Just to be on the safe side I went to see Spiro and told him I meant to ask for permission to fish for mother-of-pearl in the Gulf. He telephoned to his ‘intimate friend’, the commander of the coastguards, to ask what I should do.

‘Go and see him; he is expecting you at Port Tewfik. He is a charming man,’ said little Spiro.

So here I was at the door of the coastguards’ barracks, between two cannon dating from the time of the Khedive Mohamed Ali. I gave my card to an orderly. At once a young Egyptian officer came out of the yellow building at the end of the courtyard, and took me to the commander, who was a fat and florid creature, fairish, badly shaved, but very neat. His fez made him look like a Turk, but he was a Maltese, and spoke Italian fairly well.

‘I was much interested in your idea,’ he said. ‘I should be delighted to have your vessel going backwards and forwards along the coast, for you could tell us many things that escape us in spite of all our vigilance.’

I wondered if he was going to ask me to keep my eyes open for hashish smugglers.

‘Yes’, I replied, ‘I have heard that a certain amount of smuggling
goes on. But tell me all about it, so that I can be useful to you in the matter.’

‘What interests me is the gun-running.’

‘What, that goes on here? And who buys the arms?’

‘Oh, you’ve no idea how eager the Bedouins always are to get arms. There are always agitators stirring up rebellions in Upper Egypt against the English.’

‘And is there hashish smuggling too?’

At the word ‘hashish’, thé commander started as if I had said something obscene. He looked involuntarily at the door to see if it were shut. Then he forced a smile.

‘Certainly there is, but we are not customs officers. Besides it doesn’t amount to a row of beans here. At Alexandria and Port Said it’s a different story. But what is really grave here is the traffic in arms.’

He hastened to change the conversation, and we spoke of fishing and the temperature, as one always must if one has come up from Djibouti. I noticed that this gallant soldier had rather vague notions of geography. He placed Djibouti in Madagascar, opposite the mouth of the Congol My question about hashish had shaken him a bit. No doubt this was too delicate a matter to be discussed with a stranger.

Of course I displayed the pearls I was supposed to have found in the Gulf, and presented him with one of them. It was agreed that I should make a written demand for permission to fish for mother-of-pearl. He would give it his warm support, and he did not think it would be refused. I was pretty sure, however, that the English, who would have to be consulted, would find some pretext for not granting my request.

The day before that fixed for my expedition, Djebeli brought a basket of vegetables as an excuse for coming to see me. Omar’s Bedouin had arrived from Cairo; he was at Stavro’s and they expected me that evening.

At nine o’clock I was knocking at the little door. Stavro looked worried. He had been warned that the coastguards had been doubled, that is to say, that there was a night patrol as well as a day one.

‘Has something leaked out? Are their suspicions aroused?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think it is for your benefit. For some time the authorities have been dreading a rising in Upper Egypt, and they are on the look-out for
gun-runners. Djebeli is on the watch, and will find out if there will be a patrol tomorrow night. You must go to the point of Ras-el-Adabieh, under the mountains of Ataqa, where he will be waiting for you, and will tell you what to do next. The Bedouin sent by Omar will be with him. He knows where you must put in to deliver the goods. Look, here he is, so that you will be able to recognize him.’

He advanced towards a form huddled in a comer of the room, and said:

‘Come on, Ahmed, you’ve slept long enough. Come here. It’s terrible,’ he added, ‘the way these people sleep when they have nothing to do. They curl up and drowse like hibernating dormice.’

A very dark-skinned Arab with a sunburnt face came out of the corner where he had been lying, wrapped in his
burnous
. He was dressed in the thick woollen stuffs worn by the mountaineers, because of the chilliness of the nights. He was very dirty, and smelt strongly of the stable, as do all those who live constantly among camels. He kept scratching himself, with so eloquent a gesture that when he touched my hand in greeting I began to scratch myself too, for I felt that his invisible vermin had invaded my garments.

I listened attentively to all the instructions about how the goods must be packed before they were landed, then I said good night to the black-robed women, who would no doubt pray for my success before the icon. As I went out, I noticed that a propitiatory candle of yellow wax was already burning. I stopped on the threshold, for it had just struck me that if there was any muddle and my guide didn’t manage to turn up the next day at the appointed hour at the point of Ras-el-Adabieh, all our plans would come to nothing. It would be wiser for him to accompany me at once on board the
Fat-el-Rahman.
Stavro quite agreed. There was no danger, for it was late and very dark. Besides, everybody was accustomed now to seeing my sailors coming and going, so I could embark him without attracting any attention. We took the precaution to remove his vast
burnous,
which might have attracted the notice of the sentinels on the quay, and he walked in front of me, lightly clad like the rest of my men. The sentinels took not the slightest notice of him. It was a triumph to have got him on board so unobtrusively, for there were no Bedouins at Suez, and it would have been remarked if one of them had been seen going on board my
boutre.

Spiro advised me to go and see the assistant harbour-master before I left. He was an Arab, and another ‘intimate friend’. In addition to his administrative functions, he did coasting for the Messageries with a large
boutre.
The agent of the Messageries Maritimes at Suez only had to do with arranging passages on the liners. He never had to arrange for important cargoes. So active and ambitious agents would not have liked this post. No coaling, no taking on of firemen, no provisioning; it was really more or less an honorary post, something like a consulship, an easy but not very remunerative situation. Naturally, only a man who was incapable of the little traffickings in which his colleagues of the other posts indulged would want such a post. Only a disinterested and honourable man who wanted to wind up peacefully an unblemished career would be found there, and such indeed was Monsieur Le Coufflet, who is probably there to this day.

The consul had his Spiro and Monsieur Le Coufflet had his Demartino. He did everything, and seemed to run the whole agency. He was treated as the son of the house, one might say, for everybody in this agency had an air of belonging to the same united family. The office with its old-fashioned desks never saw a stranger. Who could have guessed that Messageries had an agent in Old Suez? The native staff had been born on the premises and had succeeded their fathers, and their children would take their places when they died. Even the old tree in the courtyard seemed to be venerated as an ancestor, and though the branches had pushed their way right against the windows, nobody would have dreamed of pruning them.

The old tugboat, the
Helen,
had an aristocratic air, with her high, old-fashioned chimney. She wended her way sedately among the swift launches which crossed the roads in all directions, seeming to protest against the insolent tumult and feverishness of this twentieth century by her dignified leisureliness.

Monsieur Le Coufflet received me cordially. When I had explained what I wanted, he summoned the assistant harbour-master, whose
boutre
did the coasting of the rare cargoes confided to the Messageries here by eccentric traders. Introduced by Monsieur Le Coufflet and recommended by Spiro, I was able to come to an understanding with this Arab in no time. He was so fat and flabby that one felt vaguely uneasy if obliged to remain in his immediate vicinity. His belt had a helpless air as if it really couldn’t guarantee to control these vast billows of fat much longer. I
couldn’t help thinking of the hoops of my water-barrels, which had burst during the voyage. Demartino spoke the local Arabic much better than I, so he discussed the matter with the harbour-master and it was agreed that for two thalers I could go out for a short time from the harbour without anyone even noticing. The harbour-master was an Englishman, but all his faculties were absorbed by whisky-drinking, which left him just enough leisure to sign papers presented to him without bothering about their contents. His assistant attended to all the ordinary routine affairs. This had been an established custom for long, and the English are very conservative, so there was no reason to fear any sudden change.

After the two days I had just spent in Cairo, I felt delightfully soothed by the atmosphere of this agency of the Messageries Maritimes. There was an old-fashioned charm in the antique furniture, and something of the past seemed to linger within these walls, something of the days when the Chinese mail-packet spread billowing sails to the monsoon in the Indian Ocean. Then, too, I felt at home with Monsieur Le Coufflet; there was no longer any need to wear a mask. I was sorry to return to Port Tewfik, that modern town of Thomas Cook and his fellows. My
boutre,
which would soon take me away from all that, seemed a refuge.

I set sail discreetly in the afternoon. Only the Harbour and Lighthouse Service could have questioned my departure, and I knew that the fat Arab would make that all right. The pretext I had given was a fishing expedition to pass the time, for I was supposed to be waiting for the Admiralty’s reply to my application for a concession. I therefore made first of all for the reefs near the Mountains of Ataqa. As soon as twilight fell I was far enough off to be invisible from the coast. My Bedouin was slumbering in the foot of the hold, but as soon as we got outside, though there was very little swell, he became violently sick. This did not seem to suit his vermin, which spread all over the boat. My men did not seem to realize at first why they wanted to scratch, but when they did they shook all their possessions violently in the wind.

As soon as the sun had disappeared behind the mountains we crowded on sail and made for the south. I stopped the
boutre
opposite the point of Ras-el-Adabieh and sent the
pirogue
ashore to parley with Djebeli. He was crouching on the beach, as motionless as a rock.

‘Go away,’ he said; ‘a patrol coming from Suez is about due, and they must not see your ship.’

‘How many men?’

‘Two, no doubt, but that is enough. Even if they happened on us by accident they wouldn’t prevent us from doing what we have to do, for they know that the Bedouins are armed and they have no desire to be killed. They would take to their heels, but the frontier guards would be alarmed, and the police in Cairo would know in less than an hour, so that for at least a month we shouldn’t be able to budge. Come, be quick, I’m coming on board with you.’

Once more we were at sea. Djebeli had relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and sat smoking Abdi’s pipe. He indicated exactly what direction I must take in order to get to the meeting-place. About midnight, a chain of hills began to stand out against the sombre background of the high plateaux. They seemed to be fairly near the coast. It was there that the caravan was waiting for us. I anchored in sixty feet of water. According to the chart that meant I was about a mile from shore. That was far enough to ensure invisibility from land. Ali Omar, Djebeli, the Bedouin and I went on ahead of the others. Everything before us looked dark. It is always easier to see things on the water, especially if the watcher is low down. Djebeli stopped the
pirogue
as soon as the paddle touched bottom.