The Hundred Days (23 page)

‘I am afraid not. Nor even in the near future. The
Dey is hunting the lion of the Atlas, his favourite pursuit; and the Vizier, if
not actually with him - for the pursuit of the lion is not to his taste - will
be at the nearest oasis of comfort.’

‘Consul,’ said Stephen, after a considering pause,
‘does it seem to you reasonably prudent for a usurper to go gadding after lions
within a few weeks of winning power and so leaving his capital open to the
enemies and rivals that his usurpation must necessarily have brought into
being?’

‘It seems unlikely, even absurd; but Omar is a case
apart. He was brought up among the janissaries - he knows them through and through
- and although he is illiterate he was a particularly successful head of what
might be called the former Agha’s intelligence service. I am of opinion that he
has made this journey into the Atlas to learn who among the janissaries are
likely to form parties in his absence. He has informants everywhere and I am persuaded that when he judges the moment right he will
silently return, summon a body of those devoted to his interest and take off a
score of ambitious heads.’

 Jacob had
taken no part in the conversation other than by nods and smiles that showed his
keen attention: but at these last words he uttered a most emphatic ‘Yes,
indeed.’

‘Can you tell me, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘how much
influence the Vizier may possess?’

‘My impression is that it is very great. He was the
equivalent of the present Dey’s chief of staff and his main support, a highly
intelligent and literate man with highly-placed connexions in Constantinople. Although, as you are
aware, the deys have long since thrown off all but a purely nominal allegiance
to the Sublime Porte, the Sultan’s titles, orders and decorations have a very
real value here, particularly to men like Omar: and quite apart from that
Hashin has a wide acquaintance with the chief men in the Muslim states of
Africa and the Levant. He is also, I may add, fluent in French.’

‘In that case,’ said Stephen, ‘it seems to me that
Dr Jacob and I should make our way into the Atlas with the utmost dispatch, if
not to the Dey himself. .

‘An approach to the Dey himself without official standing
or former acquaintance would be contrary to local etiquette: may I advise a
call on the Vizier?’

‘Then to the Vizier, to do what can be done to
prevent this shipment, which might well be fatal to our cause. Is he
incorruptible, do you think?’

‘I cannot honestly speak to that. But in these
parts, as you know very well, a present is rarely unwelcome. I have seen him
with an aquamarine in his turban. Oh, oh ...’ The
consul bent forward, his face twisted with pain. They turned him on his .side,
took off his clothes, felt for and found the source of the spasm. Jacob was
about to open the door when Lady Clifford appeared, looking extremely anxious.
Jacob asked the way to the kitchen, prepared a hot, a very hot poultice,
clapped it on and hurried out into the town, returning with a phial of Thebaic
tincture.

~Thebaic tincture,’ he murmured to Stephen, who
nodded and called for a spoon: raising the poor consul’s head he administered
the dose and laid him gently back.

In a little while the consul said, ‘Thank you,
thank you, gentlemen. I already feel it receding...oh Lord, the relief! My dear
Isabel, I have never known so short a bout: do you think we might all have a
cup of tea - or coffee, if these gentlemen prefer it?’

While they were drinking their tea there came the sound of a perfectly regular series of shots fired
from great guns in the inner bay, twenty-one of them: it was Commodore Aubrey
saluting the castle. Hardly had the echo of the twenty-first died away along
the walls, towers and batteries of Algiers than the entire series of
fortifications facing the sea erupted into an enormous, enormous, thunder by
way of reply, one set of rounds merging into the next and a truly prodigious
bank of powder-smoke drifting out over the water.

‘Heavens!’ cried Lady Clifford, taking her hands
from her ears, ‘I have never heard anything like that before.’

‘It was the new Agha showing his zeal. If he had
left a single piece unfired, the Dey would have had him impaled.’

‘About how many guns took part, do you suppose?’ asked
Stephen.

‘Something between eight hundred and a thousand,’
said the consul. ‘I was having a count made some time ago, but my man was
stopped just before the Half-Moon battery, which was just as well for him,
since lions and leopards are kept there on chains which the gunners know how to
work but nobody else. He had reached about eight hundred and forty, as my
recollection goes. I could let you have a copy of his list, if it would
interest you.’

‘Thank you, sir: you are very good, but I had
rather not run the risk of being found with such a paper - an almost certain
prelude to being impaled and then fed to the lions and leopards. Above all on such a journey as we contemplate, to view the lions on
their native heath. If you are not too tired, sir, after that cruel bout
of what resembled sciatica but which may prove to be something I shall not say
benign but at least more transitory and less malignant - if you are not too
tired, may we speak of means, destination, mules, even God preserve us camels,
guards, equipment, and of anything else that occurs to your far greater
experience?’

‘I am not at all tired now,
I thank you, after your wonderful draught, your capital poultice - which is
still charmingly warm - and above all your comfortable words. But I do not
think you mentioned a dragoman?’

‘No. Dr Jacob has spoken Arabic and Turkish from
his childhood.’

‘Oh, very good,’ said the consul, bowing. ‘Indeed, far better. As for means, you may certainly draw on
the consulate for a thousand pounds, if you think it safe to travel with so
much gold. Where destination is concerned - and of course the necessary guide -
we must look at a map. Horses, pack-mules, and for some stretches I believe
camels, can undoubtedly be hired: I shall speak to my head groom. Guards may
not be absolutely necessary, the Dey and his escort having so recently passed
that way; but I should be sorry to see you set off without them.’

‘May I put in a word for Turks?’ asked Jacob,
speaking for almost the first time. ‘They may not shine as rulers, but your
medium Turk seems to me a very fine fellow. I have often travelled with them in
the Levant.’

‘I quite agree with you, sir,’ said the consul.
‘According to my experience the Turk is a man of his word. Most of my guards
are Turks. And now that I come to think of it, one of our people knows the
nearer Atlas intimately well. When he was not working on the reports, records
and correspondence here, he pursued the great wild boar, and various other creatures.
And he was particularly well acquainted with the country round the Shatt el
Khadna, where I believe the Dey intends to go.’

‘Do you refer to the young man who received us
today?’

 ‘Oh Lord,
no. The gentleman in question was secretary to the consulate. I am so sorry you
had to see that youth: most of the Algerine clerks are absent, taking their
families out of the city, and I had to put him at the desk. He is the son of an
intimate friend, a late friend I am very sorry to say. He is nothing remotely like
his father, he was sent away from school as a drunken, stupid, pragmatical ass
- sent away although his father and grandfather had been there. So as his
family intended him for a diplomatic career - his father had been ambassador in
Berlin and Petersburg - they begged me to have him here for a while, so that he
might at least learn the rudiments of the business: his mother, God bless her,
had been given to understand that in Mahometan countries neither wine nor
spirits were allowed, nor even beer. No, no: the former secretary of whom I was
speaking was a scholar as well as a hunter and a botanist.’

‘Would he come with us at least part of the way, do
you think?’

‘He would certainly go with you in spirit, I am
sure. But a huge wild boar that he had wounded so mangled and ploughed up his
leg that it mortified and had to be cut off. But he will certainly tell you of
a wholly reliable guide.’

Chapter Seven

‘How homely it is, how agreeably familiar,’ said
Stephen Maturin. They were sitting in a row on a high, grass-covered slope
overlooking the range of country they had already traversed with Stephen on the
left, Jacob in the middle and then the wholly reliable guide. ‘The same species
of cistus, thyme, rosemary, various brooms, the same sweet-scented peonies here
and there among them on the screes, the same homely rock-thrushes, wheatears
and chats.’

‘Did the gentleman say homely?’ asked the guide in
a discontented voice. He had long frequented the consulate and his English was
remarkably good; but he was so used to astonishing foreigners with the wonders
of his country that a lack of amazement angered him.

‘I believe he did,’ said Jacob.

‘In his home do they have those huge birds?’ He
pointed to a group of griffon vultures circling on an upward current.

‘Oh yes,’ said Stephen. ‘We have many vultures,
bearded, black, fulvous and Egyptian.’

‘Eagles?’

‘Certainly: several kinds.’

‘Bears?’

‘Of course.’

‘Boars?’

‘Only too many, alas.’

‘Apes?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Scorpions?’

‘Under every flat stone.’

‘Where is the gentleman’s home?’ asked the
indignant guide.

‘Spain.’

‘Ah, Spain! My fourth great
grandfather came from Spain, from a little village
just outside Cordova. He had nearly sixteen acres of watered land and several
date-palms: a second paradise.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Stephen, ‘and in Cordova itself
the mosque of Abd-ar-Rahman still stands, the glory of the western world.’

‘Tomorrow, sir,’ said the guide, leaning forward
and speaking across Jacob, ‘I hope to show you a lion or a leopard - perhaps with
God’s blessing both: or at least their tracks by the stream Arpad that flows
into the Shatt, where the Dey is sure to have his quarters.’

‘We must be getting along,’ said Jacob. ‘The sun is
very near the mountain-tops.’

They rejoined their company and, when the camels’
reluctance to get up could be overcome, they moved on, following the now quite
well beaten track up and over a cold pass and down to Khadna and its fields,
the last village before the oasis, then the Shatt and the wilderness. Dusk was
falling before they reached it and they hardly noticed the blue-clad figure of
a little girl waiting outside the thorn-hedge; but clearly she could see them,
and as they came out on to the straight she called out, ‘Sara!’

At this a tall, gaunt camel, a particularly ugly,
awkward and ill-tempered creature that had carried Stephen over a broad stretch
of shale and sand, broke into a lumbering run and on reaching the child lowered
its great head to be embraced. These were camels that belonged to the village
and they moved off to their usual place even before their trifling return-loads
were unstrapped, while the guards and attendants set up tents. Stephen and
Jacob were taken to the chief man’s house, where they were regaled with coffee
and biscuits sopped in warm honey, extremely difficult to keep from dripping on
to the beautiful rugs upon which they sat.

Jacob was perfectly at home; he spoke for the right
length of time, drank the proper number of minute cups, and distributed the
customary little presents, blessing the house as he left it, followed by
Stephen. As they crossed the dark enclosure to their tent they heard a hyena,
not without satisfaction. ‘I used to imitate them when I was a boy,’ said
Jacob. ‘And sometimes they would answer.’

The next day was hard going, up and down, but very
much more of the up, more and more stony and barren: quite often they had to
lead their horses. Now there were more unfamiliar plants, a wheatear that
Stephen could not certainly identify, some tortoises,
and a surprising number of birds of prey, shrikes and the smaller falcons,
almost one to every moderate bush or tree in an exceptionally desolate region.

At the top of this barren rise, while the Turks
made a fire for their coffee, Stephen watched a brown-necked African raven fly
right across the vast pure expanse of sky, talking in its harsh deep voice all
the way, addressing his mate at least a mile ahead. ‘That is a bird I have
always wished to see,’ he said to the guide, ‘a bird that does not exist in Spain.’ This pleased the guide
more than Stephen had expected, and he led his charges fifty yards or so along
the track to a point where the rock tell precipitously and the path wound down
and down to a dry valley with one green spot in it - an oasis with a solitary
spring that never spread beyond those limits. Beyond the dry valley the ground
rose again, yet beyond it and to the left there shone a fine great sheet of
water, the Shatt el Khadna, fed by a stream that could just be made out on the
right, before the mountain hid it.

‘Right down at the bottom, before the flat, do you
see a horseman?’ asked Stephen, reaching for his little telescope. ‘Is he not
riding for a fall?’

‘It is Hafiz, on his sure-footed mare,’ said Jacob.
‘I sent him forward to give the Vizier word of our coming, while you were
gazing at your raven. It is a usual civility in these parts.’

‘Well, God speed him,’ said Stephen. ‘I would not
go down that slope at such a pace, unless I were
riding Pegasus.’

‘I have been thinking,’ said Jacob, about a furlong
later, when the going was not quite so anxious and the oasis was perceptibly
nearer, ‘I have been thinking...’

‘...that we are on
limestone now, with a change in vegetation - the thyme, the entirely different
cistus?’

‘Certainly. But it also occurred to me
that it might be better if I appeared as a mere dragoman. Since the Vizier is
perfectly fluent in French, there is no need for my presence; and you would
more readily reach an understanding, the two of you alone. As I am sure you
have noticed, a man facing two interlocutors is at something of a disadvantage:
he feels he must assert himself. I am dressed in such a manner that I could be
anyone or anything. You will do better on your own, particularly if you
conciliate his good will with the lapis lazuli turban-brooch - a very striking
cabochon with golden flecks that a Cainite cousin let me have, a merchant in Algiers, almost next to the
pharmacy. He told me that there was another Cainite, one of the Beni Mzab, a
calligrapher in the Vizier’s suite; and that is another reason why I suggest
being a dragoman, no more, on this occasion.’