The High Place Read Online Free PDF Page B

privacy in that delightful house. The owner had but to close the staircase door, and not a slit nor window could command his love, his business or his riotous nights.
    On the following morning Boulos set out drinks and a cold meal for two by the garden well, and returned to his quarters, smirking lasciviously. I unbolted the gate into the lane, and about nine
o’clock Ashkar came in. He was wearing civilian dress and a tarboosh on his head. I was impressed by this exaggerated discretion. The captain in civilian clothes was in­conceivable; he
lived in and of his uniform. Had I wished to form a mental picture of Ashkar in bed, my imagination would certainly have dressed him in boots and breeches until common sense protested that a
night-shirt (not, I think, pyjamas) was by far the more probable wear.
    We talked personalities and politics, horses and silkworms, while I waited for Ashkar to decide that the proper atmosphere of disinterested friendship had been created. He had obviously been
attacked by one of those fevers of caution to which policemen and frontier guards, poised as they usually were be­tween the threat of dismissal if they did their duty and of black­mail if
they did not, could have no resistance.
    It was not uncommon, he began at last, for a gendarme in his position to receive unofficial instructions—that, of course, I, as a former political officer, would understand. Sometimes it
was in the interests of governments that their frontiers should not be too zealously guarded. Individuals had to be let out or let in, and it was left to the discretion of the officer in
charge—very properly, didn’t I agree?—to arrange such delicate matters with or without the help of his Turkish colleague across the border.
    He had had, he said, a request, an indication—nothing so unmannerly as a definite order—that if his patrols were to pick up anyone with a temporary identity card proving residence at
Kasr-el-Sittat, they might—if Ashkar had no objection—take it for granted that he was a colonist and in the frontier hills on innocent business. Twice his patrols had in fact run into
such wandering foreigners, and it was fair to assume that they had crossed or intended to cross the border.
    Ashkar declared with pride that he was no hidebound police­man, but, as I knew, the very soul of tact. He stopped for con­firmation, and I assured him, with extensive mental
reserva­tions, that so he was. In view of his long experience, he went on, he was as ready to obey a wish as an order; but it was essen­tial he should know what was going on. His frontier
was wide open. Anybody and anything could travel between Turkey and Kasr-el-Sittat, and the colony itself was certainly immune from search. If the government fell or policy changed or a politician
retired on his winnings, Ashkar would be left holding the baby.
    He had therefore been compelled to carry out his responsi­bilities as best he could. He did not apologize at all, he told me, for being on friendly terms with a few Turkish smugglers and
hashish runners for just so long as he had insufficient proof to arrest them; in his job one might be exchanging shots with an unknown traveller at dawn, and drinking peacefully with him in the
evening. He believed that European police, too, were often on good terms with criminals, were they not? It was per­missible to allow a man liberty to do a little petty crime him­self in
return for gossip about bigger criminals.
    The next time a traveller from Kasr-el-Sittat was seen riding towards the frontier, Ashkar dutifully looked the other way but sent immediate word to one of his friendly enemies over the
border—a free-lance bandit named Selim—that if the traveller were followed and discreetly high-jacked, and the contents of his saddle-bags handed to Ashkar in person, there might be
favours to come.
    I had no doubt his tale was true. There must have been plenty of picturesque scoundrels in the Turkish