It was not what he had come into policing for. But then, when he had first become Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedive’s Secret Police, there hadn’t been a war on.
War had come to Egypt like a bolt from the blue. Looking back, Owen could see that there had been plenty of signs that it was coming, but at the time he, like everyone else in Egypt, had not taken them seriously. He had put them down to the infantile war games that the Great Powers were forever engaging in, manoeuvres which were merely ritual. And then, suddenly, barely more than a month ago, the manoeuvres had turned out to be not merely ritual.
What had made it even more of a surprise was that no one in Egypt had been paying much attention. The declaration had come during the hottest part of the year, when everything in Egypt had closed down. Most members of the Government were on holiday on the Riviera. Those British officials whose turn had come round had left for England. Egyptian officials had headed for the coast. Kitchener himself, the Englishman in whose hands most of the strings of power in Egypt lay, had departed for Europe; for which relief Owen, who had not got on with the Consul-General, had been giving much thanks.
The great Government offices were largely empty, their occupants having migrated, like the rest of the population of Cairo, to the cafés, where the Mamur Zapt, confident that in the extreme heat even the most desperate of criminals would not be thinking of crime, tended to join them.
And so when the news hit Egypt it did not at first really register. After the initial shock, Egypt had shrugged its shoulders and got on with doing what it normally did in August. That is, nothing.
But then the first orders began to arrive from London and among them was the instruction to arrest, detain and place in internment all German nationals and other suspicious foreigners. In the cafés, unkind Egyptians asked if that included Englishmen.
Owen had hardly got into his office when he heard the phone ringing; and he had hardly got it into his hand before the person on the other end was speaking, or, rather, bellowing.
‘Owen, is that you? Look, this is damned silly! They’ve taken Becker.’
‘Becker?’
‘Sluices. He’s the one who knows about sluices. Do you know about sluices? No, I’m not surprised. Not many do. They’re tricky things. And once you’ve got someone who knows about them, you don’t muck him about! What is more, you hang on to him. Because if he goes, you won’t find another.
‘Now this chap’s really good. He’s been working for us for fifteen years. It’s got so now that I can’t do without him. With him gone, the whole bloody system will close down. Sluices, dams, then the lot.
‘How would they like that, then? You tell me. The whole country depends on water, the water depends on the dams, the dams depend on the sluices and the sluices depend on – yes, you’re right: this man Becker!’
‘I take it he’s German.’
‘Of course he’s German! Or something. What the hell’s that got to do with it? He does his job, like everyone else. Only much better, that’s the point.’
‘Yes, I know, but there’s a war on, and there’s this policy of intern –’
‘Sod the war! The whole system will collapse, I tell you. Look, Owen, you’ve got to do something, make an exception …
‘You can’t? It’s nothing to do with you? Then who the hell is it to do with? Don’t tell me. I know. It’s London, is it? I might have guessed. Well, look, you can bloody tell London –
‘Yes, I know, but they’ll listen to you more than they will to me. I’m just a stupid engineer, just someone who makes everything work. You’ve got the gift of the gab, their gab –
‘They won’t? All right, talk to someone here, then. How about Kitchener? He’s not entirely without sense, have a go at him –
‘He’s not here? He’s in London, too? I might have bloody known it! Look, there must be someone you can talk to about this man of mine –
‘All right, all right, I know there’s a policy of internment, and it’s got to be general, I can see that. But surely it can be applied sensibly? Surely people can be reasonable, surely you –
‘Why should you be an exception, Owen?!’
He decided, nevertheless, that he ought to do something. Calls like this were coming in all the time. He took his helmet and went across to the Consulate to have a word with his friend, Paul. Paul had been one of Kitchener’s ADCs and was now the Oriental Secretary.
He found him in Kitchener’s office; sitting indeed, in Kitchener’s chair.
‘At last!’ said Paul, with a dramatic sweep of his hand. ‘They held me back, but now I’ve made it!’
‘You’re not really in charge?’
‘Cunningham is nominally.’ Cunningham was the Financial Adviser. ‘But, as always, the reality of power is different.’
He wriggled in his seat.
‘Just trying it out for size,’ he said. ‘I find it a little small for me.’
‘All right, if you’re really in charge, there’s something you can do. It’s this damned internment policy.’
‘Laid down by Whitehall,’ murmured Paul. ‘Can’t touch it.’
‘What I want is power of discretion. That wouldn’t solve everything, but it might help.’
‘Discretion is normally understood,’ said Paul. ‘You’ve got to leave some latitude to the man on the spot. However …’
He thought about it.
‘However, I’d be a bit careful about it, if I were you. Have you read the newspapers lately? The English ones? They’re full of spy scares. There’s all sorts of panic at home and some of it is spilling over here.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘And then there’s another thing: they’re making changes. They’re bringing some new people out here. One of them is something to do with security.’
‘That’s my job.’
‘Sure. I expect he’ll be working to you. But, Gareth, he’ll have contacts back at home and he, too –’ he waved his hand again – ‘might be wanting to try other people’s seats. I daresay he’ll be no problem, but you see what I mean when I say that you ought to be a bit careful just at the moment.’
‘Don’t use too much discretion – is that what you’re saying?’
‘That, and also that you ought to get some kind of formal approval, in writing, of your powers.’
‘You can give me that, can’t you?’
‘Yes. But I think it would be better if it came from Cunningham.’
‘OK, I’ll try and have a word with him.’
The bar at the Sporting Club was much less crowded than it usually was at lunch-time. This was because so many people were on holiday. Owen had been hoping to find Cunningham, but he wasn’t there. However, he did find someone he knew from the Ministry of the Interior, a man named McKitterick.
‘Guns?’ McKitterick said, leaning his arm easily on the bar. ‘Well, yes, and not before time. Look what the ghaffirs had to make do with up till now.’
‘Yes, but these are service rifles. You don’t want to put them in the hands of untrained men.’
‘They won’t be untrained. We’ve got a big training programme going.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard about that. But it’s the wrong sort of training. It’s