every Arab friend weâve got between Persia and Gib. Lose them, lose our oil supplies, lose the supply line to Indiaâhow do you think weâre going to fight a war with Germany on that basis? Iâll lay you five to one in fivers that we let the Grand Mufti back into Jerusalem by this time next year. Now, a young officer who showed himself, however unwillingly, aware that this is the true situation might do himself a power of good in certain quarters.â
âAnd a power of harm in others.â
âA young officer who already has an entry into the councils of the ruling family of Sorah. The Emir â¦â
âLook, I hardly know the blighter. I hardly even played cricket with him because he wasnât at the wicket for more than five minutes. I got him l.b.w. almost at once in both innings.â
âAll the better. Heâll be eager â¦â
âLay off, Hal. I donât want to get involved in the politics of it. Iâm a soldier, pure and simple. My job is to do what Iâm told by the politicians. Matter of fact, our second battalion was in Palestine till âthirty-five, so I could keep my end up if I had to, but this week-end I donât propose to make any noises, right or wrong, while the statesmen are holding forth.â
âOkey-doke. Iâll tell you my own views some time. Iâm really looking forward to meeting Blech. We might get a book out of himâprovided, that is, I can persuade bloody old Throck itâs his own idea and not mine. I wonder who else sheâs roped in.â
âPush off and look at Mrs Dubignyâs list. Iâm going to hang around here, I think. I donât feel like facing Zena till Iâve cooled off.â
âSee you at tea, then. Donât let her get your goat, Vinceâsheâs sure to give it a go.â
âI can cope.â
âGood man.â
When Harry had left Vincent finished putting his clothes away, re-folding every article, even those which would not spoil by creasing, and then placing it with great exactitude in the drawer. When he had finished he slid his case under his bed and did the sane for the one Harry had left lying open on the floor. He went to the window and glanced out as if to check that the garden was also in its proper location, the series of long narrow terraces descending in steps westward along the slant of the hill, all planted out with hybrid tea roses in geometric beds, making a strong but at the same time strangely dead effect with their rather meaty shadesâmeaty at least when seen from above, en masse, however individually perfect and subtle each single bloom might have proved on closer inspection. Lord Snailwood was visible on the second terrace, personally selecting and cutting the flowers that would greet his week-end visitors in stunning masses all around the house. Thring, the rose gardener, was with him, but only to pull the peculiar trolley built by McGrigor for the special purpose of cradling the cut flowers unblemished. Vincent watched for a couple of minutes, seeming to relax slightly from the stance of soldier pure and simple, as though the sight of his uncle engaged in this familiar ritual allowed him to make contact with the period of his life before his military training had begun. Then he turned, looked round the room, grunted approvingly and went out.
The upper floors of Snailwoodâthat is those above the levels complicated by the need to accommodate the Great Hall and other high, romantic vaultsâwere very simple in lay-out. A corridor ran the whole way round, its windows looking out over the cloister roof and the courtyard. Doors in the opposite wall led into the various bedrooms. At each corner where the east and west wings met the south front another passage, dark and windowless, slanted off to serve the room that filled that level of one of the two massive corner towers. What had been known for the last twenty years as âThe
Sherwood Smith, Dave Trowbridge