Agatha Christie - They Came to Baghdad

Her question seemed to be answered almost before the words were out of her mouth.

The door leading from the corridor out of the Customs and Passport Department swung open with a rush and a tall man came through with the effect of a gust of wind. Air officials of the line hovered around him. Two large canvas sacks sealed were carried by an officer of BOAC.

Mrs Clipp sat up with alacrity.

‘He’s certainly some big noise,’ she remarked.

‘ And knows it,’ thought Victoria.

There was something of calculated sensationalism about the late traveller. He wore a kind of dark-grey travelling cloak with a capacious hood at the back. On his head was what was in essence a wide sombrero, but in light grey. He had silver grey curling hair, worn rather long, and a beautiful silver grey moustache curling up at the ends. The effect was that of a handsome stage bandit. Victoria, who disliked theatrical men who posed, looked at him with disapproval.

The Air officials were, she noted with displeasure, all over him.

‘Yes, Sir Rupert.’ ‘Of course, Sir Rupert.’ ‘The plane is leaving immediately, Sir Rupert.’

With a swirl of his voluminous cloak, Sir Rupert passed out through the door leading to the aerodrome. The door swung to behind him with vehemence.

‘Sir Rupert,’ murmured Mrs Clipp. ‘Now who would he be, I wonder?’

Victoria shook her head, though she had a vague feeling that the face and general appearance were not unknown to her.

‘Somebody important in your Government,’ suggested Mrs Clipp.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Victoria.

The few members of the Government she had ever seen had impressed her as men anxious to apologize for being alive. Only on platforms did they spring into pompous and didactic life.

‘Now then, please,’ said the smart nursery governess air hostess. ‘Take your seats in the plane. This way. As quickly as you can, please.’

Her attitude implied that a lot of dawdling children had been keeping the patient grown-ups waiting.

Everybody filed out on to the aerodrome.

The great plane was waiting, its engine ticking over like the satisfied purring of a gigantic lion.

Victoria and a steward helped Mrs Clipp on board and settled her in her seat. Victoria sat next to her on the aisle. Not until Mrs Clipp was comfortably ensconced, and Victoria had fastened her safety-belt, did the girl have leisure to observe that in front of them was sitting the great man.

The doors closed. A few seconds later the plane began to move slowly along the ground.

‘We’re really going,’ thought Victoria in ecstasy. ‘Oh, isn’t it frightening? Suppose it never gets up off the ground? Really, I don’t see how it can !’

During what seemed an age the plane taxied along the aerodrome, then it turned slowly round and stopped. The engines rose to a ferocious roar. Chewing-gum, barley sugar and cotton wool were handed round.

Louder and louder, fiercer and fiercer. Then, once more, the aeroplane moved forward. Mincingly at first, then faster – faster still – they were rushing along the ground.

‘It will never go up,’ thought Victoria, ‘we’ll be killed.’

Faster – more smoothly – no jars – no bumps – they were off the ground skimming along up, round, back over the car park and the main road, up, higher – a silly little train puffing below – doll’s houses – toy cars on roads…Higher still – and suddenly the earth below lost interest, was no longer human or alive – just a large flat map with lines and circles and dots.

Inside the plane people undid their safety-belts, lit cigarettes, opened magazines. Victoria was in a new world – a world so many feet long, and a very few feet wide, inhabited by twenty to thirty people. Nothing else existed.

She peered out of the small window again. Below her were clouds, a fluffy pavement of clouds. The plane was in the sun. Below the clouds somewhere was the world she had known heretofore.

Victoria pulled herself together. Mrs Hamilton Clipp was talking. Victoria removed cotton wool from her ears and bent attentively towards her.

In the seat in front of her, Sir Rupert rose, tossed his wide-brimmed grey felt hat to the rack, drew up his hood over his head and relaxed into his seat.

‘Pompous ass,’ thought Victoria, unreasonably prejudiced.

Mrs Clipp was established with a magazine open in front of her. At intervals she nudged Victoria, when on trying to turn the page with one hand, the magazine slipped.

Victoria looked round her. She decided that air travel was really rather boring. She opened a magazine, found herself faced with an advertisement that said, ‘Do you want to increase your efficiency as a shorthand typist?’ shuddered, shut the magazine, leant back, and began to think of Edward.

They came down at Castel Benito Aerodrome in a storm of rain. Victoria was by now feeling slightly sick, and it took all her energies to accomplish her duties vis-а-vis her employer. They were driven through scurrying rain to the rest-house. The magnificent Sir Rupert, Victoria noted, had been met by an officer in uniform with red tabs, and hurried off in a staff car to some dwelling of the mighty in Tripolitania.

They were allotted rooms. Victoria helped Mrs Clipp with her toilet and left her to rest on her bed in a dressing-gown until it was time for the evening meal. Victoria retired to her own room, lay down and closed her eyes, grateful to be spared the sight of the heaving and sinking floor.

She awakened an hour later in good health and spirits and went to help Mrs Clipp. Presently a rather more peremptory air hostess instructed them that cars were ready to convey them to the evening meal. After dinner Mrs Clipp got into conversation with some of her fellow travellers. The man in the loud check coat seemed to have taken a fancy to Victoria and told her at some length all about the manufacture of lead pencils.

Later they were conveyed back to their sleeping quarters and told curtly that they must be ready to depart at 5.30 a.m. the following morning.

‘We haven’t seen much of Tripolitania, have we?’ said Victoria rather sadly. ‘Is air travel always like this?’

‘Why, yes, I’d say so. It’s just positively sadistic the way they get you up in the mornings. After that, often they keep you hanging round the aerodrome for an hour or two. Why, in Rome, I remember they called us at 3.30. Breakfast in the restaurant at 4 o’clock. And then actually at the Airport we didn’t leave until eight. Still the great thing is they get you to your destination right away with no fooling about on the way.’

Victoria sighed. She could have done with a good deal of fooling about. She wanted to see the world.

‘And what do you know, my dear,’ continued Mrs Clipp excitedly, ‘you know that interesting looking man? The Britisher? The one that there’s all the fuss about. I’ve found out who he is. That’s Sir Rupert Crofton Lee, the great traveller. You’ve heard of him, of course.’

Yes, Victoria remembered now. She had seen several pictures in the press about six months ago. Sir Rupert was a great authority upon the interior of China. He was one of the few people who had been to Tibet and visited Lhasa. He had travelled through the unknown parts of Kurdistan and Asia Minor. His books had had a wide sale, for they had been racily and wittily written. If Sir Rupert was just noticeably a self-advertiser, it was with good reason. He made no claims that were not fully justified. The cloak with the hood and the wide-brimmed hat were, Victoria remembered now, a deliberate fashion of his own choosing.

‘Isn’t that thrilling now?’ demanded Mrs Clipp with all a lion-hunter’s enthusiasm as Victoria adjusted the bedclothes over her recumbent form.