Affair in Araby Part 20

"It means that the men all about you are traitors--" Grim went on.

"Not all of them," Feisul interrupted.

"But many of them," answered Grim. "Your Arabs are loyal hot-heads; some of your Syrians are dogs whom anyone can hire."

It was straight speaking. From a major in foreign service, uninvited, to a king, it sounded near the knuckle. Feisul took it quite pleasantly.

"I know one from the other, Jimgrim."

Grim got up and took a chair opposite Feisul. He was all worked up and sweating at self-mastery, hotter under the collar than I had ever seen him.

"It means," he went on, with a hand on each knee and his strange eyes fixed steadily on Feisul's, "that the French are ready to attack you.

It means they're sure of capturing your person--and bent on seeing your finish. They'll give you a drumhead court martial and make excuses afterward."

"Inshallah," Feisul answered, meaning "If Allah permits it."

"That is exactly the right word!" Grim exploded; and Lord, he was hard put to it to keep excitement within bounds.

I could see his neck trembling, and there were little beads of sweat on his temple. It was Grim at last without the mask on. "Allah marks the destiny of all of us. Do you suppose we're here for nothing--at this time?"

Feisul smiled.

"I am glad to see you," he said simply.

"Are you planning to fight the French?" Grim asked him suddenly, in the sort of way that a man at close quarters lets rip an upper-cut.

"I must fight or yield. They have sent an ultimatum, but delayed it so as not to permit me time to answer. It has expired already. They are probably advancing."

"And you intend to sit here and wait for them?"

"I shall be at the front."

"You know you haven't a chance!"

"My advisers think that my presence at the front will encourage our men sufficiently to win the day."

"Have you a charm against mustard gas?"

"That is our weakness. No, we have no masks."

"And the wind setting up from the sea at this time of year! Your army is going straight into a trap, and you along with it. Half of the men who advise you to go to the front will fight like lions against a net, and the other half will sell you to the French! Your fifty thousand men will melt like b.u.t.ter in the sun and your Arab cause will be left without a leader!"

Feisul pondered that for about a minute, leaning back and watching Grim's face.

"We held a council of war, Jimgrim," he said at last. "It was the unanimous opinion of the staff that we ought to fight and the cabinet upheld them. I couldn't cancel the order if I wished. What would you think of a king who left his army in the lurch?"

"n.o.body will ever accuse you of cowardice," Grim answered. "You're a proven brave man if ever there was one. The point is, do you want all your bravery and hard work for the Arab cause to go for nothing? Do you want the prospect of Arab independence to go up in smoke on a gas-swept battlefield?"

"It would break my heart," said Feisul, "although one heart hardly matters."

"It would break more hearts than yours," Grim retorted. "There are millions looking to you for leadership. Leave me out of it. Leave Lawrence out of it, and all the other non-Moslems who have done their bit for you. Leave most of these Syrians out of it; for they're simply politicians making use of you--a mess of breeds and creeds so mixed and corrupted that they don't know which end up they stand! If the Syrians had guts they'd have rallied so hard to you long ago that no outsider would have had a chance."

"What do you mean? What are you proposing?" Feisul asked quietly.

"Baghdad is your place, not Damascus!"

"But here I am in Damascus," Feisul retorted; and for the first time there was a note of impatience in his voice. "I came here at the request of the Allies, on the strength of their promises. I did not ask to be king. I would rather not be. Let any man be ruler whom the Arabs choose, and I will work for him loyally. But the Arabs chose me and the Allies consented. It was only after they had won their war with our help that the French began raising objections and, the British deserted me. It is too late to talk of Baghdad now."

"It isn't! It's too soon!" Grim answered, bringing down a clenched fist on his knee, and Feisul laughed in spite of himself.

"You talk like a prophet, Jimgrim, but let me tell you something. It is mainly a question of money after all. The British paid us a subsidy until they withdrew from Syria. They did their best for us even then, for they left behind guns, ammunition, wagons and supplies. When the French seized the ports they promised to continue the subsidy, because they are collecting the customs dues and we have no other revenue worth mentioning. But rather than send us money the French have told our people not to pay taxes; so our treasury is empty. Nevertheless, we contrived by one means and another. We arranged a bank credit, and ordered supplies from abroad. The supplies have reached Beirut, but the French have ordered the bank to cancel the credit, and until we pay for the supplies they are withheld."

"Any gas masks among the supplies you ordered?" Grim asked him; and Feisul nodded.

"That banker has played fast and loose with us until the last minute.

Relying on our undertaking not to molest foreigners he has resided in Damascus, making promises one day and breaking them the next, keeping his funds in Beirut and his agency here, draining money out of the country all the while."

"Why didn't you arrest him?"

"We gave our word to the French that he should have complete protection and immunity. It seemed a good thing to us to have such an influential banker here; he has international connections. As recently as yesterday, twenty minutes before that ultimatum came, he was in this room a.s.suring me that he would be able to solve the credit difficulty within a day or two."

"Would you like to send for him now?" suggested Grim.

"I doubt if he would come."

"Well, have him fetched!"

Feisul shook his head.

"If other people break their promises, that is no reason why we should break ours. If we can defeat the French and force them to make other terms, then we will expel him from Syria. I leave at midnight, Jimgrim."

"To defeat the French? You go to your Waterloo! You're in check with only one move possible, and I'm here to make you realize it. You're a man after my own heart, Feisul, but you and your Arabs are children at dealing with these foreign exploiters!

"They can beat you at every game but honesty. And listen: If you did defeat the French--if you drove them into the sea tomorrow, they'd get away with all the money in Beirut and you'd still be at the mercy of foreign capitalists! Instead of an independent Arab kingdom here you'd have a mixture of peoples and religions all plotting against one another and you, with capitulations and foreign consuls getting in the way, and bond-holding bankers sitting on top of it all like the Old Man of the Sea in the story of Sindbad the Sailor!

"Leave that to the French! Let them have all Syria to stew in! Go to England where your friends are. Let the politicians alone. Meet real folk and talk with them. Tell them the truth; for they don't know it!

Talk with the men and women who haven't got political jobs to lose--with the fellows who did the fighting--with the men and women who have votes.

They'll believe you. They've given up believing politicians, and they're learning how to twist the politicians' tails. You'll find yourself in Baghdad within a year or two, with all Mesopotamia to make a garden of and none but Arabs to deal with. That's your field!"

Feisul smiled with the air of a man who recognizes but is unconvinced.

"There are always things that might have been," he answered. "As it is, I cannot desert the army."

"We'll save what we can of the army," Grim answered. "Your Syrians will save their own skins; it's only the Arabs we've got to look out for--a line of retreat for the Arab regiments, and another for you. It's not too late, and you know I'm right! Come on; let's get busy and do it!"

Feisul's smile was all affection and approval, but he shook his head.

"If what you say is true, I should only have the same problem in Mesopotamia--foreign financiers," he answered.