O Jerusalem

the children dropped, or was driven, from our tail, I turned to Holmes.

“Why do we go in this direction?” I demanded, in Arabic.

“You heard the talk last night, when Ali asked about the Wadi Estemoa. We are continuing to investigate the death of Mikhail the Druse,”

“I did catch the word haramiyeh, did I not? Bandits? To the south-east?”

“You heard correctly.”

“You think bandits murdered Mikhail?” I asked doubtfully. “But he wasn’t robbed.”

“They may or may not have been responsible, but if there are bandits, they will surely know who was moving through their territory at the time Mikhail was shot. Bandits are territorial creatures. They take careful note of who moves through their land.”

“They may know, but will they tell us?” I wondered.

He did not reply.

As soon as we were out of sight of the village we shifted direction, heading due south. That whole day we saw only innocent forms of life: women tending goats, a few clusters of black tents, once on the horizon a long caravan of camels wavering in the heat, going north towards Jerusalem. In the afternoon we dropped into a wadi to return to the lowlands, on the theory that robbers must eventually go where there are people to rob, and half an hour later a piece of rock in front of my feet popped into the air, followed in an instant by the crack of a rifle echoing hugely down the canyon walls.

The mules squealed in terror and sent me flying as they shot away down the wadi, and would have trampled the men in front of me had they not already leapt as one for the protection of boulders.

I followed their example with alacrity, and we all cowered in silence, except for Ali, who cursed the mules bitterly until Mahmoud shouted at him to shut his mouth. Another bullet pinged off a rock and another gunshot boomed through the wadi. A few minutes later a third one came, with no result other than to keep us pinned down.

I began to hear voices then, and thought at first that they came from above our heads, which would have meant real trouble, until I identified the lower tones as those of Mahmoud. I inched around to the back of my rock and could see the two Arabs arguing around the backs of their respective boulders. Actually, they did not seem to be arguing so much as Ali pleading for something and Mahmoud refusing to give permission. After six or eight minutes of this, punctuated by the odd bullet from above, Ali wore his partner down; Mahmoud, with the incongruous air of a parent giving in to a child’s peremptory demands, flipped the back of his hand in the direction in which the mules had fled, then reached into his robe and pulled out his authoritative American pistol. He rose, pointed the long barrel in the general direction of our assailant, and commenced to fire.

Ali took off, racing down the rough wadi floor in the wake of our mules, his robes and huffiyah whipping around him. However, the ploy was only marginally successful. After Mahmoud’s fourth round, the man above must have risked a look and seen the fleeing Ali. Fortunately he was a terrible shot: none of his rounds came anywhere near the fleet-footed Arab.

After Ali had disappeared and the excitement died down, I wondered how long we had before the man above summoned reinforcements. One rifle we could hide from; two or three could prove uncomfortable. I could only hope Ali found the mules quickly and returned with our Lee Enfield, or else darkness fell, before the bandits regrouped.

“Holmes,” I whispered loudly.

“Oui,” came his reply. Yes, that would certainly confuse any listeners, to speak in French. I asked in that same language: “I think I am in a better position to gain the top unseen. Shall I try?”

“Non !” That was Mahmoud’s voice, not that of Holmes. “Il ne peut pas le faire,” he said. I wondered idly if his use of the masculine pronoun in referring to me was deliberate or due to an ignorance of French grammar.

“Pourquoi pas?” I asked. Why must I not go?

“Ali va revenir. ” Ali will return.

“Holmes?” I asked for confirmation.

“Oui,” he said. “Ca va.”

Fine, I thought, and dug a little deeper into the lee of the boulder. We’ll all just wait here for Ali to rescue us, or until we’re picked off one by one.

We lay, cramped and still. Every so often the man above us would fire a couple of bullets into the wadi, and once he moved, forcing the three of us to scuttle around to the more protective sides of our rocks. However, he was such a bad marksman that we were in more danger from a ricochet than a direct shot. The day faded, my bladder filled, and then in a distinct anti-climax came a noise from above, followed by Ali’s voice calling the all-clear.

We climbed stiffly up the steep wall and found Ali along with a man firmly bound by what seemed to be gardening twine. A rifle lay on the ground beside them, a piece of armament so antique it explained the man’s wretched marksmanship. Ali was seated comfortably on the man’s back, smoking a cigarette, and I looked in wonder at the surrounding landscape, which seemed to me utterly open, flat, and devoid of objects to hide behind. The same thought obviously occurred to Holmes.

“How did you manage to come up on him?” he asked Ali, who merely grinned at him.

“As invisible as a rock,” commented Mahmoud drily.

“That was Ali, who took out the gun over Jerusalem?” Holmes asked.

“That was Ali.” Mahmoud shook his head as if at the prank of a high-spirited son, then looked at his partner sternly to ask, “The others?”

“A camp with three horses, two of them gone. This fool”—he paused to swat an all-too-conscious head with his open palm— “thought he could act on his own.”

Mahmoud squatted down to peer into the bandit’s face. “When will they return?” he asked the man.

The man began to snarl threats and bluster, despite his position, until suddenly he screeched and began to buck his body up and down in an attempt to dislodge Ali from his back. Ali calmly took his cigarette from the man’s backside and put it back between his lips. The air smelt of burning wool. The bandit groaned and began to curse, then went very still as the hot end of Ali’s cigarette appeared three inches above his cheek-bone.

“When will they return?” repeated Mahmoud, his voice even more gentle. The man stared through his one visible eye at the cigarette, and jerked violently when it dropped an inch closer to his face. Ali laughed; Mahmoud waited; Holmes looked on in stony silence; I tried not to look at all.

“When?” Mahmoud said for the third time. There was no answer. Showing no emotion, he took the cigarette from Ali’s fingers, drew deeply on it, tapped off the ashes, and then whirled his bulky body around the man in a swift movement that trapped the bandit’s head underneath one knee and against the other, grinding his left cheek into the ground. The cigarette end approached the man’s eye, slowly, inexorably. I gulped and looked away.

The bandit began to scream, but in fear, not in pain, and there were words in his voice. His Arabic was too rapid for me to understand, but whatever he said seemed to satisfy Mahmoud because when I looked again the hand holding the cigarette was resting on the man’s shoulder.

“Good,” he said in a soothing voice. “I have one other question, then we will leave. Tell me about the men who killed a man in the Wadi Estemoa.”

“I did not kill him,” the bandit gabbled. “I don’t know anything about a killing in the Wadi Estemoa.”

“You did not kill him, no, but you do know who did. Tell me.” He lifted his hand, took another draw from the now-short cigarette, and touched it briefly to the man’s ear. The man jerked as if he’d been shot. When the burning tip came back to hover above his face, he tried to focus on it with an eye as white rimmed and staring as that of a colicked horse. “Who were they?” asked Mahmoud, his voice ever more soft and dangerous.

“Strangers. I have seen them!” the man shouted, almost sobbing as the burning tobacco came closer. “Farther east, near the sea, I’ve seen them before. With the salt [something].” I missed the key word, but Mahmoud knew what the bandit was talking about, and so did Ali. Even Holmes nodded briefly.

“Those who work near Sedom, or Safi?”

“Mazra. On the [something].”

“Good. I thank you, my brother. And I hope very much that you have told me the truth because by the Prophet, if you have not, I shall come back and burn out both of your eyes.”

The man winced, but he held Mahmoud’s gaze. Satisfied that he was hearing the truth, Mahmoud withdrew his hand. The man closed his eyes and shuddered in relief. Mahmoud patted his shoulder, and stepped away.