Michael Pearce - The Mingrelian Conspiracy

There was the Royal Carriage, with the plumes and tufted lances of the Royal Guard riding alongside. Owen had strongly advocated this arrangement, not on the grounds of their fighting qualities but because there was a better chance of them intercepting a bullet meant for the royal pair. So far as military action went, he had a great deal more faith in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, a point which had not escaped the Welsh Fusiliers when they had suggested them for the Guard of Honour.

The Fusiliers were standing a little to the right of Owen, lining both sides of the street at the entrance to Abdin Square. They were placing bets on how many of the Light Infantry would collapse before the procession reached the cool harbour of the Palace grounds.

‘Two gaps second rank from the rear-there must be more than that!’

‘They’ve closed ranks. At least four!’

‘No, no, I make it six!’

‘There’s another going to go at any moment-there he goes!’

One of the Fusiliers stepped out and dragged him into the side out of the way of the horses.

‘You’re all right now, mate. Just lie there. You’re well out of it. They’ll be marking time in the square for the next half hour.’

The rest of the escort went past. With the exception of the Light Infantry, they were all from the Egyptian Army, and very picturesque they looked: the Mounted Camel Brigade, the Mounted Horse, the Sudanese infantry with their tall red fezzes and their long bayonets, sundry Egyptian regiments under the Khedive’s banner.

Meanwhile, the British soldiers lined the streets, their sun helmets blocking the view for the crowd massed behind them.

The Royal Carriage swept at last into the Square, the Khedive waving a royal hand, the Grand Duke inclining a ducal back. The Guard closed in around it. As the other detachments came into the Square they took up positions to the left and right until eventually the royal carriage was barely visible.

The Fusiliers had been right. The Guard had to mark time while the rest of the escort was deploying into the Square. Two more Light Infantry fell over.

At last the Royal Carriage rumbled forward and entered the Palace gates, the Light Infantry now running behind, with the Royal Guard still strung alongside. The detachments in the Square came to a halt.

‘Very satisfactory,’ said Shearer at the debriefing next day.

‘Casualties?’

‘About fifty down with sunstroke, sir.’

‘Oh, not bad!’ said the major.

‘All British?’ asked Paul.

‘If we exclude what went on in the cafes and bars last night,’ said Owen.

‘Understandable reaction,’ said the major hastily. ‘Men been on parade since dawn.’

‘But I thought Captain Shearer still held responsibility? Until midnight?’

‘I don’t feel, sir,’ said Shearer unhappily, ‘that we should abandon the concept of unified policing just because of this one instance-’

‘Unified policing?’ said Paul. ‘Ah, yes, but under whom?’

‘I think the Army has shown what it can do, sir.’

‘But the crucial arrest, I understood, took place on water. Now, I believe the views of the Navy are-’

‘Again, perhaps?’ murmured Zeinab.

‘Certainly,’ said Owen.

Afterwards, Zeinab was disposed to chat.

‘I could, I suppose, become an opera singer,’ she said.

‘You’ve got everything it takes,’ said Owen encouragingly. ‘Bar the voice, of course.’

‘Does that really matter?’ asked Zeinab. ‘Couldn’t I hire a claque? Oh, of course, I was forgetting! That would cost money and rather destroy the point.’

‘What point?’ asked Owen drowsily. ‘Why do you want to become an opera singer, anyway?’

‘To make money.’

‘What’s happened to the allowance from your father?’

‘Nothing’s happened to it. I just need more, that’s all.’

‘What for?’

‘To support you.’

‘Support me?’ said Owen, waking up. ‘Why are you going to have to do that?’

‘Well, you’re certainly not going to support me, are you? Not on the pitiful pay you get.’

Owen knew where he was now. Zeinab was talking about marriage. Or was she? Seriously? As opposed to merely entertaining the idea? Zeinab liked, he knew, to entertain the idea of marriage, especially in moments of tenderness; but that was not quite the same as really thinking about it. When they really thought about it, they tended to shy away from the sheer difficulty of the whole business. Zeinab at these moments took refuge behind such apparently practical problems as where would they find enough money to live on. For Owen, who never thought about money anyway, that wasn’t the problem at all. What was the problem was how a British official could marry an Egyptian and stay in his job, particularly a job as sensitive as that of the Mamur Zapt. What effect would it have on his career? And what, come to think of it, was happening to his career anyway? In British service overseas you retired early. You’d hardly got there before they were heaving you out. Wherever you were going to get to, you had to get there quick. Had he already got there? If so, what had happened to that period of affluence which he had always supposed would intervene between impecunious apprenticeship and equally impecunious superannuation? With these and similar considerations it was easy to deflect the more serious issues which clustered around their relationship.

Entertaining the idea of marriage, as opposed to seriously facing it, was, perhaps, what they both did. It occurred to him that Zeinab had been entertaining the idea rather more often lately. God, what did that mean-?

He stole a glance at her as she lay beside him. Relaxed, now, she lay back comfortably with a half smile on her lips.

He was thoroughly awake now. God, this was serious. He had some real thinking to do. What would the Consul-General say? What the Khedive? Would it have to go to the Secretary of State? How would they manage? If he had to get another job? What job? But he would do it if she asked him. Wait a minute: wasn’t that the wrong way round? Oughtn’t he to be asking her? God, this was serious, much more serious than Grand Dukes or any of that stuff, you could massacre the whole damned lot for all he cared. This was serious!

Or was it? Highly satisfied, Zeinab lay back and enjoyed the game.

It was the very last engagement of the Grand Duke’s visit.

The Fusiliers stood stiff and straight in the Grand Hall of the Palace.

‘Services to the Tsar!’ intoned the Russian Charge.

The Grand Duke pinned on another medal. He came to the end of the line.

‘Captain Owen, sir,’ whispered the Charge.

‘Order of Saint Vasili and Saint Vladimir!’

‘Well deserved!’ said the Grand Duke. ‘Well deserved! What was it for?’ he whispered to the Charge.

‘Suppressing the Mingrelian Conspiracy,’ said the Charge.