Birds of the Nile Read Online Free PDF Page B

table (somewhere to write up his notes, he thought) and in the corner by the plate-glass window, a chair faced out toward the river, a position from which he could view sunrise or sunset. Although personally, he’d have preferred to have been up on the sun-deck, out in the fresh air…
    He’d hoped to get in an hour’s birding before dinner. There were sandbanks close to the moorings and they should have provided a good selection of waders – godwits, sandpipers and stints etc. But it was gone half past six and the light was against him. The conditions would make viewing impossible and it meant he would have to wait until the morning for his first sighting.
    He still had to unpack his bags so it was not until after seven that he was able to get changed and go down for the evening meal. Outside the dining room, a seating plan showed he had been placed at a table for eight in the far corner. As he approached, a familiar voice could be heard as the infamous lady in cream was holding forth in a loud and belligerent tone in stark contrast to the deferential manner she had employed earlier on.
    “…but do you know, he was as good as his word because as soon as I got to the cabin, there it was on the dressing table. I couldn’t believe it after all those goings-on with the bus. I was relieved, I don’t mind telling you. It’s nice to find someone in this damned country you can trust.”
    Her companion was an older man whom Blake took to be herhusband. Both his hair and his moustache were of the same silvery colour – as were his eyebrows which he was in the process of raising as if in protest.
    “Look, dear, I’m sure it would have turned up eventually. I know these people, they’re really not that bad.”
    “Don’t you believe it, David. They had their eye on it from the moment we got off the plane. Mark my words, they’re a shifty lot, if you ask me.”
    Blake pulled out one of the two remaining chairs and sat down. His arrival seemed to come as a welcome relief as the other two couples looked up and gave him a weak smile of welcome. Up until then they’d presumably been forced to sit and suffer in silence as the argument raged back and forth between the lady and her husband (whom he’d already christened Mr & Mrs White). But if the others had hoped that his incursion would put an end to the discussion they were disappointed. The conversation continued in the same vein for some while with Mrs White continually attacking their hosts and Mr White continually defending them.
    “Look, dear, I was stationed here for eighteen months, remember. I do know what I’m talking about.
    “Yes, but that was years ago – things have changed since then.”
    “I don’t see that it’s changed that much. It’s still the same country – and it’s still the same people.”
    “But it’s different now. When you were here we were in charge – today we’re just visitors and they think they can treat us how they like. Anyway, I don’t care what you say, I still don’t trust them.”
    It was a debate Blake had heard before, both within the Embassy and beyond it. Either diplomatically or on a personal basis, were the Egyptians to be trusted? Or anyone else from the Middle East for that matter. These apprehensions arose from a fear of the unknown – what you didn’t understand, you treatedwith suspicion. The first barrier was the language – because if you couldn’t understand the language, how could you understand the people that spoke it? Which was why, unlike so many of his colleagues, he’d taken such trouble over it himself. The British were notoriously bad at talking in other people’s tongues and it was not just the Egyptians who were vilified, it was the world that existed beyond the English Channel. Johnny Foreigner was a rum lot and had to be treated as such.
    His thoughts were confirmed when the lady seated immediately to Mrs White’s right suddenly chimed in. She’d been anxious to break into the