The Gabriel Hounds (26 page)

There wasn’t the profusion of flowers that I had seen along the Afka road, but the hillside was green enough, with sparse grass moving in the breeze, and the grey whorls of thistles, and drifts of some small white flowers that looked from the distance like frost. Over this in violent contrast, blinding over grey stone, went
the blazing, cascading gold of the broom; and everywhere, thrusting up boldly from the hoar-frost veils of the white flowers, were hollyhocks – the simple familiar hollyhock of the English cottage garden, red and yellow and white, crowding wild among the rocks of a mountainside in Lebanon.

And a quarter of a mile away, where the same hollyhocks and the same broom flowered above the same rocks, that was Syria.

I had climbed, I suppose, about a hundred feet, and from this height I could see away beyond the no-man’s-land, beyond the Syrian frontier post, to where the road curved round underneath a rocky bluff and dropped down to cross the water at the bottom of the valley.

As always in this thirsty country, the green of the trees and cultivation followed the water, and the river wound its way south in a thick sash of trees and corn and vines which crowded along the valley bottom. Here and there, like green veins threading a dry leaf, the small tributary valleys ran down to join the main stream. I could see – perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond the Syrian frontier – one such tributary, curling down through the bare hillside with its ribbon of green, its few patches of growing corn, the bone-white stems of poplars with young leaves whitening in the breeze, and the dusty track where a donkey plodded with a woman beside it carrying a jar on her head. I was watching her idly, when I suddenly stiffened and stared, all attention now, at the point where that distant dusty track met the main road.

Just off the road was a small thicket of trees. And under those trees something white, metallic. A car. A familiar car, parked there in the shade, nose to the south.

I think I have mentioned before that I am very longsighted. It did not take me more than a minute or two’s staring to convince me that this was indeed Charles’s Porsche. The screen of leaves prevented me from seeing if he was in the car, but soon I was almost sure I had caught a glimpse of movement beyond the bushes.

I turned and began to make my hasty way down to the road, arriving with a thump in the dust beside the car just as Hamid came out of the buildings.

He started without preliminary. ‘I think it will be all right. It is the Sûreté we must go to, so if we go back now – Is something the matter?’

Excitement and the sharp scramble had made me breathless. ‘I’ve just seen his car – Charles’s – my cousin’s! It’s parked about a quarter of a mile past the other frontier. I went up there,’ pointing, ‘and you can see over that bluff down towards the river, and it’s there, parked behind some trees. You don’t suppose Ben’s told him I’m coming, and he came to wait for me?’

‘Perhaps, but it doesn’t make much sense to me,’ said Hamid. ‘You’re sure it’s his car?’

‘Pretty sure. At any rate it’s a white Porsche, and they can’t be all that common hereabouts. It must be his!’

‘Which way is it facing?’

‘South.’ Near us the barrier shut with a bang behind a south-bound car, and the Arab guarding it squatted down by the roadside and lit another cigarette. Beyond the farther frontier the sun dazzled on the waiting windscreens. I frowned into the glare. ‘But you’re right it doesn’t make sense. If he was all that eager to see me, he’d have waited for me yesterday, or else telephoned, not left it to a chancy pick-up. But then what
is
he doing here? If he did get to Damascus last night, he’d hardly come straight up again before Mr Sifara gets home, and Ben’ll have told him I’m expected. Anyway he was facing south.’

Hamid said slowly: ‘I’ve been thinking … he may be going south from Homs. Did you not say that this friend, this Mr Sifara, would be coming from Homs? It is possible that when your cousin telephoned Damascus he found this out, so he went to Homs instead.’

‘And spent last night there? I suppose so … but then why didn’t he come back to Beirut this morning? You’d have thought, even if he still had business in Damascus, he’d have come for me, or at least telephoned.’

‘He probably did. If he rang up from Homs this morning and heard you had gone, he may have decided to drive down this way instead of the desert road, and catch you at the frontier. If they told him you hadn’t yet passed here, then he would perhaps get himself through, and settle down to wait for you.’

‘I suppose so … or it may be pure chance, and he’s just come this way to avoid the desert road. And now this happens!’ I glared at the dusty road in an agony of
frustration. ‘He may be gone at any moment, and I can’t even get through to tell him!’

‘No,’ said Hamid, ‘but I can.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t distress yourself, Miss Mansel, it’s very simple. I will go through now and see your cousin.’

‘You? Would you?’

‘Well of course. I’ll tell him you’re here and can’t get through the frontier. He may want to come back and take you to the Sûreté in Beirut himself, and if he does, I’ll go straight on to Damascus and pick up my return job there. If not, I’ll come back for you. You don’t mind being left here?’

‘Of course not. I’m terribly grateful. Yes, you’re right, let’s hurry in case he goes. I’ll take the rest of my lunch packet up the hill and wait.’

‘And your handbag – and the jacket in case you need it—’ He was already fishing for them in the car. ‘The coffee, yes? And fruit … so. If there is a crowd at the frontier, it may be a long wait.’

‘Please don’t worry about me. In any case I’ll be able to see from up there.’

‘Does he drive fast?’

‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘Only that if he doesn’t know you’re here, if it is just chance that he stopped there – he may be gone.’

‘Would you try to catch him.’

‘If it seemed possible. Now, can you carry these yourself? I think I should go straight away.’

‘Of course I can. Don’t wait for me, you go.’

He got into his car and started the engine. ‘You said
he was parked behind trees? Can I see him from the road, do you think? Exactly where?’

‘A quarter of a mile past the other frontier, some trees on the right, and just beyond them a humped-backed bridge. You can’t miss it. There, the way’s clear, you can get through. And thank you, Hamid, thank you—’

‘Please … at your service …’ A smile, a quick disclaiming wave of the hand, and he was off. I panted back to my perch above the road.

The Porsche was still there. I dumped my things among the flowers and shaded my eyes to watch. Since he had not already gone, my fear that this was just a brief ‘comfort stop’ must be unfounded. He must either have paused to eat, or in fact be waiting for me.

I peered down at the stretch of road immediately below me. The second Lebanese barrier was lifting to Hamid’s bribe, and the big car sailed, windows flashing, through the stretch of no-man’s-land. It checked at the Syrian barrier, and I saw Hamid jump out and hurry across to the buildings to show his papers. Since he was alone, and went this way frequently, they would surely let him go without more than a moment’s checking.

I looked the other way at the Porsche.

Just in time to see the white car break out of the trees like a greyhound out of the slips, wheel right-handed in a swirl of dust, and shoot off down the road towards Damascus. Seconds later I heard the snarl of a racing change as he whipped over the bridge.

But by the time the sound reached me, the car was already out of sight.

As sure as heaven shall rescue me

I have no thought what men they be …

S. T. Coleridge:
Christabel

I
DON
’
T
know how long I must have stood there on the breezy hillside, staring at the empty stretch of road where the white car had been. It was as if I had been lifted up into the vacuum of its wake, and then dropped, dazed, into its dust.

I pulled myself together, and looked to see how far Hamid had got.

He was already at the second Syrian barrier, and showing papers – the car’s papers presumably – at the car window. The man on duty took them, glanced, and gave them back. A bribe passed. A few moments later the barrier was pulled open, and the car was through and had gathered speed down the road till it disappeared from my view behind the bluff.

I suppose he cannot have missed the Porsche by much more than four minutes. In a matter of seconds he had reappeared on the stretch of road leading to the bridge, and I saw the dust mushroom up as he braked and brought the big car in to the verge by the clump of
trees. He got out, must have seen straight away that the cover was not thick enough to hide the Porsche completely, and turned, hand to eyes, to stare south down the valley. He stood like that for only a second or two before he whipped back into the car, slammed the door, and was gone in his turn over the bridge and out of sight down the twisting road.

It was a safe guess that he had glimpsed the white car on the road ahead. And it was anybody’s guess how long it would take for him to catch it. I reflected that a professional driver who must know the road like the palm of his hand might well be able to cancel out Charles’s start, and even the difference in performance between the town car and the Porsche. Four minutes is a long time on the road, but if Charles had really been in a hurry he would hardly have spent so much time in the grove. The racing start could only have been due to high spirits; by now Charles was probably idling happily along admiring the wild hollyhocks on the slopes of the Djebel Ech Sheikh Mandour.

I sat down beside a patch of broom that smelled of wild honey, and ate my lunch. They had given me (besides the rolls stuffed with meat) a paper of black olives and some creamy white cheese and some little ravioli-like pastry envelopes filled with a kind of sausage mixed with herbs. By the time I had eaten as much as I wanted and started on a peach, the road below me was clear of traffic except for another bus – southbound this time – and the gatekeeper was obviously well away on his afternoon snooze. I glanced at my
watch. Half past one. And the road still empty either of Hamid or the returning Charles.

And at two o’clock it was still empty. And at half past two.

Nor was there any question, even on the flowery hillside, of a peaceful siesta for me. Two of the Arab youths who had been lounging idly at the corner of the customs buildings had decided at length, after a grinning, nudging conference which I had pretended not to notice, to come up and talk to me. It was probably nothing more than curiosity which drove them, but they had only three or four words of American English, and I had no Arabic at all, so they hung around grinning and staring till my nerve broke and in sheer irritation I got to my feet and began to pick up my things.

I thought I knew what must have happened. Hamid, misled by my outburst of exasperation at the delay, had construed it as acute anxiety for Charles, and imagined trouble where I only saw annoyance. Either he was still determinedly pursuing the Porsche, or there had been some sort of mishap delaying whichever car was on its way back to me. And if I waited much longer and neither of them came, there would be no possibility of my getting to Beirut in time to visit the Sûreté office about a visa, and that would be that.

So when one of the Arab youths, leering, sat down a yard from me on a dusty boulder and said for the dozenth time, ‘New York? London? Miss?’ and then made some remark in Arabic which sent his companion off into fits of mirth, and at the same moment a
bus labelled Baalbek ground to a halt below me. I picked up the last of my things, said ‘Goodbye’ politely and finally, walked downhill to the road.

The thin dog was lying in the shadow of a parked car. He watched me with recognition, but (I thought) without much hope. I dropped the last of the meat rolls beside him as I passed, and saw him snatch it and bolt out of the way of the youths who were following me downhill. The crowd of passengers from the bus were standing about in the heat, apathetically watching as the customs men rifled the household goods of what looked like the entire Exodus. Someone was half-heartedly checking their papers. The gatekeeper let another car through, then relapsed into sleep. Nobody was bothering very much about anything. Even the two youths had abandoned the chase.

I went into the buildings, to be met by the slightly glazed and wholly unwelcoming stare of the olive-coloured gentleman behind the counter. It took a few minutes before I could find someone in the crowd with sufficient English to pass on what I wanted to ask, but I managed eventually.

‘The bus,’ I said, ‘what time does it get to Baalbek?’

‘Half past three.’

‘Is there one that goes from here to Beirut?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘At what time?’

‘Five.’ A shrug. ‘Perhaps a little later. It gets there at six.’

I thought for a moment. Baalbek was well off the direct road home, but there would be a good chance of
getting a car there, and taking the shorter route back to Beirut through the mountains. That way I should be there long before the problematic five o’clock bus. In any case I had no desire to sit here for another two hours or so. Even the bus would be preferable.

‘Will there be a taxi to hire, or a self-drive car, in Baalbek?’

‘Surely.’ But he qualified it with a shrug. ‘Well, you must understand, it is late in the day, but possibly …’

‘Where do I find the taxis?’

‘At the temples, or in the main street. Or ask at the Adonis Hotel, just where the bus stops.’

I remembered the Adonis Hotel. It was where the group had gone for lunch on Friday, and the manager, I remembered, had spoken reasonably good English.

I asked: ‘Where is the Sûreté in Beirut?’

‘In the Rue Badaro.’

‘What time does it close?’

But here we stuck. ‘One o’clock’ was the first, dismaying answer. Then, from someone else, ‘Five o’clock.’ Then again, ‘It opens again at five o’clock till eight.’ ‘No, no, till seven.’ Then, with shrugs all round, ‘Who knows?’