The Levant Trilogy (52 page)

Unaware that she was mourned for dead, Harriet
was alive in the Levant. She had not boarded the evacuation ship. Instead, she
had begged a lift on an army lorry that would take her to Damascus. The two
women with whom she absconded, members of a para-military service, made regular
trips to Iraq, taking ammunition and other supplies.

They would admit only to surnames. For the
duration they were Mortimer and Phillips, or rather Mort and Phil, two strongly-built
young females, their faces burnt by the sun and wind and worn down to a
ruddy-brown similarity. Sitting together in the cabin of the lorry, they took
it in turns to drive or sleep so they could keep going all day and all night.

Harriet, in the back among cases of ammunition,
hardly slept at all. The road over the desert was little more than a track and
full of pot-holes. Each time she drifted into sleep, she was jolted awake as
the lorry bumped or skidded or swayed into the sandy verge. In the end, she sat
up and stared into darkness, seeing waterfalls tumbling black through the black
air, huge birds sweeping to and fro across the night, enormous animals that
paused to stare back at her before lumbering away out of sight. When the dawn
came, she saw none of these things, only the empty road stretching from her,
away into the desert hills.

Soon after daybreak, they stopped at a frontier
barrier, then the lorry moved on to tarmac and Harriet, exhausted by the uneasy
night, fell into a heavy slumber. When she woke again, the lorry was standing
on a rocky shoulder that overlooked the sea. There was no sign of Mort and
Phil.

She had left Egypt and was in another country.
In Egypt the sun shone every day in a cloudless sky. Here the sky was blotted
over with patches of cloud and the wind had an unfamiliar smell, the smell of
rain. Because of the rain, grass was coming up, a thin shadow of green over the
pinkish hills. In Egypt there had been rain only once during her time there: a
freak storm that hit Cairo like a portent and turned the roads to rivers.
Winter in Egypt was like a fine English summer but here it was really winter,
wet and cold. Revived by the freshness of the air, she stood up, stretched her
stiff muscles, then jumped down to the road. She had been ill but now she felt
well, and free in a new world.

The rocks hid the foreshore but she could see,
rising above them, the bastion of a castle that breasted the water of a bay.
The water, glassy smooth, reflected every stone and crevice in the wall so
there seemed to be two castles, one inverted below the other.

Climbing up the rocks, she saw Mort and Phil
barefoot by the edge of the sea. She was about to call out to them but was
checked by the sense of intimacy between them. She realized how little she
knew about them. Of Phil she knew nothing at all. Mortimer she had met only
twice but each time there had come from her such a sense of warmth, that,
seeing her on the quay at Suez, she had run to her, calling out: 'Mortimer!
Mortimer! God has sent you to save me.'

She walked away from them towards the other side
of the bay. The sand was firm and brown, like baked clay, and her feet sank
into it, leaving behind her a string of footprints. She took off her shoes and
waded into the torpid water and walked until she came on a half-buried piece of
fluted pilaster. Sitting down, she could observe Mort and Phil from a safe
distance. They were standing close together, looking into each other's faces
and she began to suspect that they would have preferred to be alone. When she
asked Mortimer to save her from the evacuation ship, she had not considered
Phil as an obstacle. She had not considered Phil at all. That was a mistake.
Turning away from them, she wondered what she would do if they decided to drive
off without her. Some time passed, then she glanced back at them. As the sun
came and went among clouds, the figures merged and wavered against the dazzle
of the sea. They remained locked together for several minutes then began to
walk back towards the lorry.

As she watched them go, she realized how
precarious her position was. She had fifty pounds that was to have been her
spending money on board the ship. Now she would have to live on it while she
found herself a job of some sort. She had one friend in Syria, Aidan Pratt, who
was a captain in the Pay Corps and might find her work. He was, in a way,
responsible for her escapade because he had suggested she visit him in
Damascus. He had hoped Guy would come with her. Now she would have to explain
why she was alone and why she had to earn her own living.

She kept her face turned to the sea, giving Mort
and Phil the chance to go without her, and was startled by Mortimer's lively,
baritone voice speaking behind her: 'How d'you feel after that bumpy ride?'

Harriet rose, again caught up in Mortimer's
friendly warmth: 'It wasn't too bad.'

'Come on, then.' Contrite perhaps at having left
her alone so long, Mortimer linked her arm and walked her back to the lorry: 'I
expect you're hungry? We brought food with us. We'll have a picnic'

There were packets of sandwiches in the cabin
and two flasks of canteen tea. They sat on the rocks to eat their meal. The
sandwiches, slabs of corned beef between slabs of bread, were dry and roughly
cut but Mort and Phil devoured them with the appetite of old campaigners.
Harriet, who was recovering from amoebic dysentery, envied their vigour and
wondered if she would ever feel well again.

After eating, they sat for a while, made sleepy
by the food and sea air, until Phil started up: 'Holy Mary, what's that?'

A grunting and rustling was coming from behind
the slopes on the other side of the road, then a large, dark, dirty pig
swaggered towards them, followed pell-mell by a dozen other pigs and a
swine-herd equally dirty and dark. Midges clouded about them and a strong smell
of the sty filled the air.

The man's eyes shone out from behind a fringe of
black curls. Bold and curious, he stared at the three women. He was naked to
the waist, his broad shoulders and chest burnt to a purple-red, his bare feet
grey with dust.

Mort shouted: 'Hello there. How are you and all
the pigs?'

Hearing a strange language, the man grunted and
hurried his herd down to the sea.

'I say!' Mort's eyes opened in admiration: 'What
a splendid figure! He might be Ulysses on the island of the Phaeacians.'

Phil asked in her wondering Irish voice: 'Did
Ulysses keep pigs?'

'Not exactly, but his followers were turned into
pigs somewhere along the line. This is an heroic shore, isn't it? I bet that
castle was built by the Crusaders.'

Harriet said: 'Have you ever been inside?'

'Yes, but there's not much to see. The Bedu have
taken it over. They've burrowed into it like rabbits and live in holes in the
wall, but there's a café. Phil and I had coffee there once. We might go in
again.'

They entered through a gateway. Large hinges
showed where the gates had hung but the gates had gone and as Mortimer said,
there was not much to see. A lane followed the outer wall, pitted with dark
cells that served as dwelling places. At the sight of the strangers, children
ran out to clamour for baksheesh and followed the women wherever they went.
They came to a cavern that was no more than a hole in the original fabric. This
was the café. Inside men in grimy galabiahs sat at grimy tables. The place
depended for light on a break in the wall through which gleamed the motionless
silver of the sea.

Mortimer led Harriet and Phil inside and ordered
coffee. The men stared in silence, obviously confounded by this female presumption
and Harriet felt proud of Mort and Phil and their confidence in the world.

On their way back to the lorry, a sharp burst of
rain sent them running and Mortimer, climbing up among the cases of ammunition,
pulled out a tarpaulin to shelter Harriet who was wearing only the blouse,
skirt and cardigan that had been her winter wear in Egypt. Sitting with the
tarpaulin over her hair, she looked out on wild and empty hill country patched
light and dark by the sun and cloud. On one side the sea, disturbed by the
wind, rolled in on a deserted shore. On the other were hills, rocky and bare
except for the fur of grass. Black clouds and white clouds wound and unwound,
sometimes revealing a stretch of clear blue sky. The rain slanted this way and
that, cutting through broad rays of light, one moment pouring down, the next
coming abruptly to a stop.

It was evening when they reached the Haifa
headland and skirting the town by the coast road, drove up on to the downs
before the Lebanon frontier. The officials, who saw Mort and Phil once a week,
waved them on.

As the wet sunset faded into twilight, the lorry
was stopped on the verge of the road and driver and co-driver, without a word
to Harriet, jumped down and walked away among the shadowed hills. Some twenty
minutes later they returned and, looking up at Harriet, Mortimer said: 'How
about some supper?'

Descending, Harriet took the tarpaulin with her,
intending to spread it out for the three of them but Mort and Phil, whose
slacks were already soaked by the wet ground, laughed at her precaution.

There was a tinkle of bells in the distance and
Phil said: 'More pigs?' But this time the visitants were camels laden with
bundles and decked out with fringes and tassels and camel bells. One after the
other, tall and stately, they came swaying out of the twilight to cross the
road. As their feet touched the tarmac, they grumbled and grunted then,
catching sight of the women, they shied away and the drovers, shouting, pulled
at the lofty heads. The men made a show of ignoring the women but came to a
stop nearby. The camels, forced to kneel, gave indignant snorts as though even
rest was a form of servitude.

While they ate corned-beef sandwiches and drank
the second flask of tea, the three women watched the camp's braziers being lit
and skewers of meat being laid across the charcoal.

Phil said: 'How about Arab hospitality? D'you
think we'll get an invite to supper?'

'Heaven forbid,' said Mortimer, 'I've heard
pretty hair-raising stories about these chaps. Some British officials stopped
their car to watch a Bedu wedding party and were invited to join in. They said
they were in a hurry and after they'd driven off, the Bedu got together and
decided the refusal was an insult. They galloped after them, and slaughtered
the lot.'

'Women as well?' Harriet asked.

'There weren't any women but if there had been
they would have escaped.'

'Why, I wonder?'

'Apparently Lady Hester Stanhope so impressed
the Arab world, English women have been treated as special ever since.'

Harriet laughed: 'That's a comfort. I'll feel safer
now.'

But alone in the back of the lorry, she did not
feel very safe. The countryside was silent, the sky heavily clouded and there
was no light but their own head-lights. There were few houses and those were in
darkness. The villages seemed to be deserted yet twice, passing through a
village street, there were conflagrations, produced by lighted petrol poured
into the gutters of some main building. If these displays marked an occasion,
there were no witnesses, no one to rejoice. Each time, after the raw brilliance
of the flames, they returned to dense and silent darkness. Harriet became
nervous at the thought of leaving Mort and Phil, and wished she could keep the
comfort of their company.

Perhaps they, too, were unnerved by the black,
endless road to Damascus for they began to sing together, loudly and
aggressively:

Sing high, sing low,

Wherever we go,

We're Artillery ladies,

We never say 'No'.

There was another verse that ended:

At night on the boat
deck

We always say 'Yes'.

They sang the two verses over and over again,
their blended voices conveying to Harriet a union she could never hope to
share.

Damascus appeared at last, a map of lights
spread high on the darkness. As the road rose up among gardens and orchards, a
scent of foliage came to her and her fears faded. Here she was in the oldest of
the world's inhabited cities. The oasis on which it was built was said to be
the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were created here and here Cain killed Abel.
Damascus had been a city before Abraham was born and had been one of the
wonders of the Ancient world. Who knew what pleasures awaited her in such a
magical place?

A sound of rifle fire came to them. As they
drove into the main square, they saw through the yellowish haze of the street
lights that men were rushing about, screaming and firing pistols into the air.
The large buildings on either side looked ominous and unwelcoming.

The lorry stopped at the kerb. Harriet could go
no farther and perhaps Mort and Phil would not want her to go farther. Whether
she liked it or not, she had arrived.

They were outside a shabby, flat-fronted
building that had the word 'Hotel' above the door. Mortimer jumped down and
lifted Harriet's suitcase to the pavement. She said: 'I know it doesn't look
very encouraging, but it's the only hotel I know. I expect it will do till you
find something better.'

Harriet nervously asked: 'Is there revolution
here?'