Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet

He looked back down the Mohammed Ali. At the far end was a dense cloud. The street had been heavily watered that morning but already the sun was drying it out and the wheels of the gun carriages were stirring the dust.

The whole of the column was in the Mohammed Ali now and the front of the procession-he could just see the mounted figures-was about half way along, approaching the point where the street suddenly narrowed and ran between blocks of residential houses. Owen urged his horse. It was here if anywhere that there might be trouble.

It was to a house in that part of the sharia that the two men had moved when they left the room above the printer’s. They had taken a room on the first floor with heavy latticed windows hanging over the street. The edge of the procession would pass directly under them.

Georgiades would have all that well in hand. In fact-Owen looked at his watch-he would already have acted.

The head of the procession was about level with the house now. Owen stood up on his stirrups to see better. Yes, it was almost exactly parallel. Nothing happened. It was now definitely past.

He relaxed back into his saddle. A small boy squeezed between a constable’s knees and ran out into the street. Scandalized, the constable grabbed him and thrust him back into the crowd.

Owen had had to rein in. He paused now and looked along the crowd. It was intent on the spectacle, relaxed, enjoying itself. The sweet-sellers, sherbet-sellers, lemonade-sellers and souvenir-hawkers were doing good business. A few youths were distributing political leaflets. One of them seemed familiar. The boy turned and Owen saw that it was Ahmed. He was thrusting leaflets into the hands of the onlookers. They took them blindly, their eyes on the soldiers.

I don’t think you’ll do a lot of trade today! thought Owen, and urged his horse on up the line.

And then suddenly, right on top of him it seemed, there was an enormous bang.

For a moment or two he could not quite take in what had happened. He became aware that his horse was shying and twisting. Almost automatically he brought it back under control. Then he grew conscious of the ringing in his ears and of that distinctive after-echo and realized.

There had been an explosion, a bomb had been thrown. A grenade.

And yet the procession was marching on as if nothing had happened.

An acrid cloud of smoke drifted across him. He looked round, bewildered.

And then he saw.

Behind him, a little way down the sharia, a horse, one of the police horses, was on its knees in a pool of blood. Its rider lay to one side in a crumpled heap, and everywhere, all over the pavement, people were lying. Police were running towards them, and children were crying, and the soldiers went on marching past.

Someone was plucking at his stirrup. It was one of the policemen.

“I saw him, effendi!” His eyes were round with shock. “I saw him! He threw something!”

The horse dropped its head and turned over on its side. Great shudders ran along its flanks and each shudder widened the gap in its belly from which blood and something else was pouring out. A leg seemed to have become detached from the horse and lay at a strange angle as if it did not belong to its owner.

Owen took a grip on himself.

“You saw him?” he said.

The constable was still clinging to his stirrup.

“Yes, effendi,” the man almost pleaded.

“Who was it?” Then, seeing the man was not taking it in, he gestured towards the crowd. “Which one?”

The constable had to force himself to look.

“I don’t know,” he said. And then: “He ran away. I saw him.”

McPhee appeared, distressed, efficient.

“You straighten things out here,” Owen said harshly. “I’ve got to see what’s happening up front.”

McPhee began at once to issue orders.

Owen called to him.

“This man says he saw who did it.” He indicated the constable beside him. “Get someone after them if you can.”

“Right,” said McPhee, and came across.

Owen had to prise the constable’s fingers open to get him to release the stirrup.

As he prepared to ride away, Owen caught sight of Ahmed. He was sitting among the people on the pavement, his head on his knees, weeping.

Owen called to one of the policemen.

"Get that one!” he said, pointing.

He did not wait to see what happened but touched his heels to his horse’s sides and cantered up towards the front of the column.

It was proceeding as if nothing had happened. The heels clipped in smartly, the arms swung, the faces were as impassive as ever. And up here, seeing only what they expected, the crowd, which obviously had heard the explosion, assumed that it was somehow part of the procession and cheered and shouted and waved as before.

Georgiades stepped out into the street.

“What’s happened?” he said.

“Did you get them?”

“Yes.”

“The grenades?”

“Two of them.”

“That was the third, then,” said Owen.

“Anyone hurt?”

“Yes.”

Georgiades grimaced.

“It was probably intended as a decoy,” he said, “to distract attention from what was going to happen up this end.”

“You got the men?” asked Owen again.

“Sure thing,” Georgiades soothed him. “Two men and a boy.”

“A boy?”

“A walad. To run messages, perhaps? Anyway, we’ve got them.” Owen cantered on.

Two horses detached themselves from the front of the column. One of them turned back to meet him. It was Brooker.

“What’s gone wrong?” he said.

“Sirdar OK?’’

“Yes.” Brooker looked at him. “Why shouldn’t he be?”

The other horse was John’s.

“Christ, Gareth!” he said. “What’s up?”

“Decoy-we think. The main business was to happen up here.” “Bloody hell.”

John prepared to speed back to the Sirdar.

“We’ve got them,” said Owen. “The ones who were to do the business up here.”

“The grenades?”

“All three accounted for. That was one of them you heard.”

“The others-”

“We’ve got. With their owners.”

“Thank Christ for that, anyway.”

He and Brooker rode back to the Sirdar.

The procession was approaching the Bab el Khalk, where it would swing left into the Sharia Ghane. The streets were wider here. There was less likelihood of an attack. Owen watched for a moment and then cantered back the way he had come.

The rear of the column was passing the dead horse now. Some of the horses shied a little as they sensed the carcase.

The pavement was clear. People were being helped into ambulances.

“No one much hurt, actually,” said McPhee. “Concussed, shocked, but nothing more. So far as we can tell. OK up front?”

“Yes. All according to plan.”

“Up front, yes,” said McPhee.

The horse was still. The blood was dark with flies, and other flies were dense about the entrails.

The rider had been moved.

“What about him?” said Owen, gesturing.

“Concussed. Just, we think. Alive, anyway.”

It could have been a lot worse.

They were enveloped in a great cloud of dust as the artillery went by. They emerged coughing and choking.

“Did Georgiades get the others?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve got this silly bugger,” said McPhee, waving his hand, “if he had anything to do with it.”

Ahmed still sat on the ground, hunched up, his head buried in his arms. The thin shoulders were shaking.

Owen dismounted and walked across to him. Ahmed became aware of the boots and looked up.

“I never thought it would be like this!” he said, weeping.

“Like what?” said Owen.

Ahmed’s eyes traveled out to where the horse was lying and then were quickly drawn away again.