Kitabı oku: «They Came to Baghdad», sayfa 3
This Victoria agreed to do.
As the door of the apartment closed behind her, she heard Mrs Hamilton Clipp say to Mr Hamilton Clipp:
‘Such a nice straightforward girl. We really are in luck.’
Victoria had the grace to blush.
She hurried back to her flat and sat glued to the telephone prepared to assume the gracious refined accents of a Bishop’s secretary in case Mrs Clipp should seek confirmation of her capability. But Mrs Clipp had obviously been so impressed by Victoria’s straightforward personality that she was not going to bother with these technicalities. After all, the engagement was only for a few days as a travelling companion.
In due course, papers were filled up and signed, the necessary visas were obtained and Victoria was bidden to spend the final night at the Savoy so as to be on hand to help Mrs Clipp get off at 7 a.m. on the following morning for Airways House and Heathrow Airport.
CHAPTER 5
The boat that had left the marshes two days before paddled gently along the Shatt el Arab. The stream was swift and the old man who was propelling the boat needed to do very little. His movements were gentle and rhythmic. His eyes were half closed. Almost under his breath he sang very softly, a sad unending Arab chant:
‘Asri bi lel ya yamali
Hadhi alek ya ibn Ali.’
Thus, on innumerable other occasions, had Abdul Suleiman of the Marsh Arabs come down the river to Basrah. There was another man in the boat, a figure often seen nowadays with a pathetic mingling of West and East in his clothing. Over his long robe of striped cotton he wore a discarded khaki tunic, old and stained and torn. A faded red knitted scarf was tucked into the ragged coat. His head showed again the dignity of the Arab dress, the inevitable keffiyah of black and white held in place by the black silk agal. His eyes, unfocused in a wide stare, looked out blearily over the river bend. Presently he too began to hum in the same key and tone. He was a figure like thousands of other figures in the Mesopotamian landscape. There was nothing to show that he was an Englishman, and that he carried with him a secret that influential men in almost every country in the world were striving to intercept and to destroy along with the man who carried it.
His mind went hazily back over the last weeks. The ambush in the mountains. The ice-cold of the snow coming over the Pass. The caravan of camels. The four days spent trudging on foot over bare desert in company with two men carrying a portable ‘cinema.’ The days in the black tent and the journeying with the Aneizeh tribe, old friends of his. All difficult, all fraught with danger—slipping again and again through the cordon spread out to look for him and intercept him.
‘Henry Carmichael. British Agent. Age about thirty. Brown hair, dark eyes, five-foot-ten. Speaks Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Armenian, Hindustani, Turkish and many mountain dialects. Befriended by the tribesmen. Dangerous.’
Carmichael had been born in Kashgar where his father was a Government official. His childish tongue had lisped various dialects and patois—his nurses, and later his bearers, had been natives of many different races. In nearly all the wild places of the Middle East he had friends.
Only in the cities and the towns did his contacts fail him. Now, approaching Basrah, he knew that the critical moment of his mission had come. Sooner or later he had got to re-enter the civilized zone. Though Baghdad was his ultimate destination, he had judged it wise not to approach it direct. In every town in Iraq facilities were awaiting him, carefully discussed and arranged many months beforehand. It had had to be left to his own judgement where he should, so to speak, make his landing ground. He had sent no word to his superiors, even through the indirect channels where he could have done so. It was safer thus. The easy plan—the aeroplane waiting at the appointed rendezvous—had failed, as he had suspected it would fail. That rendezvous had been known to his enemies. Leakage! Always that deadly, that incomprehensible, leakage.
And so it was that his apprehensions of danger were heightened. Here in Basrah, in sight of safety, he felt instinctively sure that the danger would be greater than during the wild hazards of his journey. And to fail at the last lap—that would hardly bear thinking about.
Rhythmically pulling at his oars, the old Arab murmured without turning his head.
‘The moment approaches, my son. May Allah prosper you.’
‘Do not tarry long in the city, my father. Return to the marshes. I would not have harm befall you.’
‘That is as Allah decrees. It is in his hands.’
‘Inshallah,’ the other repeated.
For a moment he longed intensely to be a man of Eastern and not of Western blood. Not to worry over the chances of success or of failure, not to calculate again and again the hazards, repeatedly asking himself if he had planned wisely and with forethought. To throw responsibility on the All Merciful, the All Wise. Inshallah, I shall succeed!
Even saying the words over to himself he felt the calmness and the fatalism of the country overwhelming him and he welcomed it. Now, in a few moments, he must step from the haven of the boat, walk the streets of the city, run the gauntlet of keen eyes. Only by feeling as well as looking like an Arab could he succeed.
The boat turned gently into the waterway that ran at right angles to the river. Here all kinds of river craft were tied up and other boats were coming in before and after them. It was a lovely, almost Venetian scene; the boats with their high scrolled prows and the soft faded colours of their paintwork. There were hundreds of them tied up close alongside each other.
The old man asked softly:
‘The moment has come. There are preparations made for you?’
‘Yes, indeed my plans are set. The hour has come for me to leave.’
‘May God make your path straight, and may He lengthen the years of your life.’
Carmichael gathered his striped skirts about him and went up the slippery stone steps to the wharf above.
All about him were the usual waterside figures. Small boys, orange-sellers squatting down by their trays of merchandise. Sticky squares of cakes and sweetmeats, trays of bootlaces and cheap combs and pieces of elastic. Contemplative strollers, spitting raucously from time to time, wandering along with their beads clicking in their hands. On the opposite side of the street where the shops were and the banks, busy young effendis walked briskly in European suits of a slightly purplish tinge. There were Europeans, too, English and foreigners. And nowhere was there interest shown, or curiosity, because one amongst fifty or so Arabs had just climbed on to the wharf from a boat.
Carmichael strolled along very quietly, his eyes taking in the scene with just the right touch of childlike pleasure in his surroundings. Every now and then he hawked and spat, not too violently, just to be in the picture. Twice he blew his nose with his fingers.
And so, the stranger come to town, he reached the bridge at the top of the canal, and turned over it and passed into the souk.
Here all was noise and movement. Energetic tribesmen strode along pushing others out of their way—laden donkeys made their way along, their drivers calling out raucously. Balek—balek … Children quarrelled and squealed and ran after Europeans calling hopefully, Baksheesh, madame, Baksheesh. Meskin-meskin …
Here the produce of the West and the East were equally for sale side by side. Aluminium saucepans, cups and saucers and teapots, hammered copperware, silverwork from Amara, cheap watches, enamel mugs, embroideries and gay patterned rugs from Persia. Brass-bound chests from Kuwait, second-hand coats and trousers and children’s woolly cardigans. Local quilted bedcovers, painted glass lamps, stacks of clay water-jars and pots. All the cheap merchandise of civilization together with the native products.
All as normal and as usual. After his long sojourn in the wilder spaces, the bustle and confusion seemed strange to Carmichael, but it was all as it should be, he could detect no jarring note, no sign of interest in his presence. And yet, with the instinct of one who has for some years known what it is to be a hunted man, he felt a growing uneasiness—a vague sense of menace. He could detect nothing amiss. No one had looked at him. No one, he was almost sure, was following him or keeping him under observation. Yet he had that indefinable certainty of danger.
He turned up a narrow dark turning, again to the right, then to the left. Here among the small booths, he came to the opening of a khan, he stepped through the doorway into the court. Various shops were all round it. Carmichael went to one where ferwahs were hanging—the sheepskin coats of the north. He stood there handling them tentatively. The owner of the store was offering coffee to a customer, a tall bearded man of fine presence who wore green round his tarbush showing him to be a Hajji who had been to Mecca.
Carmichael stood there fingering the ferwah.
‘Besh hadha?’ he asked.
‘Seven dinars.’
‘Too much.’
The Hajji said, ‘You will deliver the carpets at my khan?’
‘Without fail,’ said the merchant. ‘You start tomorrow?’
‘At dawn for Kerbela.’
‘It is my city, Kerbela,’ said Carmichael. ‘It is fifteen years now since I have seen the Tomb of the Hussein.’
‘It is a holy city,’ said the Hajji.
The shopkeeper said over his shoulder to Carmichael:
‘There are cheaper ferwahs in the inner room.’
‘A white ferwah from the north is what I need.’
‘I have such a one in the farther room.’
The merchant indicated the door set back in the inner wall.
The ritual had gone according to pattern—a conversation such as might be heard any day in any souk—but the sequence was exact—the keywords all there—Kerbela—white ferwah.
Only, as Carmichael passed to cross the room and enter the inner enclosure, he raised his eyes to the merchant’s face—and knew instantly that the face was not the one he expected to see. Though he had seen this particular man only once before, his keen memory was not at fault. There was a resemblance, a very close resemblance, but it was not the same man.
He stopped. He said, his tone one of mild surprise, ‘Where, then, is Salah Hassan?’
‘He was my brother. He died three days ago. His affairs are in my hands.’
Yes, this was probably a brother. The resemblance was very close. And it was possible that the brother was also employed by the department. Certainly the responses had been correct. Yet it was with an increased awareness that Carmichael passed through into the dim inner chamber. Here again was merchandise piled on shelves, coffee pots and sugar hammers of brass and copper, old Persian silver, heaps of embroideries, folded abas, enamelled Damascus trays and coffee sets.
A white ferwah lay carefully folded by itself on a small coffee table. Carmichael went to it and picked it up. Underneath it was a set of European clothes, a worn, slightly flashy business suit. The pocket-book with money and credentials was already in the breast pocket. An unknown Arab had entered the store, Mr Walter Williams of Messrs Cross and Co., Importers and Shipping Agents would emerge and would keep certain appointments made for him in advance. There was, of course, a real Mr Walter Williams—it was as careful as that—a man with a respectable open business past. All according to plan. With a sigh of relief Carmichael started to unbutton his ragged army jacket. All was well.
If a revolver had been chosen as the weapon, Carmichael’s mission would have failed then and there. But there are advantages in a knife—noticeably noiselessness.
On the shelf in front of Carmichael was a big copper coffee pot and that coffee pot had been recently polished to the order of an American tourist who was coming in to collect it. The gleam of the knife was reflected in that shining rounded surface—a whole picture, distorted but apparent was reflected there. The man slipping through the hangings behind Carmichael, the long curved knife he had just pulled from beneath his garments. In another moment that knife would have been buried in Carmichael’s back.
Like a flash Carmichael wheeled round. With a low flying tackle he brought the other to the ground. The knife flew across the room. Carmichael disentangled himself quickly, leaped over the other’s body, rushed through the outer room where he caught a glimpse of the merchant’s startled malevolent face and the placid surprise of the fat Hajji. Then he was out, across the khan, back into the crowded souk, turning first one way, then another, strolling again now, showing no signs of haste in a country where to hurry is to appear unusual.
And walking thus, almost aimlessly, stopping to examine a piece of stuff, to feel a texture, his brain was working with furious activity. The machinery had broken down! Once more he was on his own, in hostile country. And he was disagreeably aware of the significance of what had just happened.
It was not only the enemies on his trail he had to fear. Nor was it the enemies guarding the approaches to civilization. There were enemies to fear within the system. For the passwords had been known, the responses had come pat and correct. The attack had been timed for exactly the moment when he had been lulled into security. Not surprising, perhaps, that there was treachery from within. It must have always been the aim of the enemy to introduce one or more of their own number into the system. Or, perhaps, to buy the man that they needed. Buying a man was easier than one might think—one could buy with other things than money.
Well, no matter how it had come about, there it was. He was on the run—back on his own resources. Without money, without the help of a new personality, and his appearance known. Perhaps at this very moment he was being quietly followed.
He did not turn his head. Of what use would that be? Those who followed were not novices at the game.
Quietly, aimlessly, he continued to stroll. Behind his listless manner he was reviewing various possibilities. He came out of the souk at last and crossed the little bridge over the canal. He walked on until he saw the big painted hatchment over the doorway and the legend: British Consulate.
He looked up the street and down. No one seemed to be paying the least attention to him. Nothing, it appeared, was easier than just to step into the British Consulate. He thought for a moment, of a mousetrap, an open mousetrap with its enticing piece of cheese. That, too, was easy and simple for the mouse …
Well, the risk had to be taken. He didn’t see what else he could do.
He went through the doorway.
CHAPTER 6
Richard Baker sat in the outer office of the British Consulate waiting until the Consul was disengaged.
He had come ashore from the Indian Queen that morning and seen his baggage through the Customs. It consisted almost entirely of books. Pyjamas and shirts were strewed amongst them rather as an afterthought.
The Indian Queen had arrived on time and Richard, who had allowed a margin of two days since small cargo boats such as the Indian Queen were frequently delayed, had now two days in hand before he need proceed, via Baghdad, to his ultimate destination, Tell Aswad, the site of the ancient city of Murik.
His plans were already made as to what to do with these two days. A mound reputed to contain ancient remains at a spot near the seashore in Kuwait had long excited his curiosity. This was a heaven-sent opportunity to investigate it.
He drove to the Airport Hotel and inquired as to the methods of getting to Kuwait. A plane left at ten o’clock the following morning, he was told, and he could return the following day. Everything therefore was plain sailing. There were, of course, the inevitable formalities, exit visa and entry visa for Kuwait. For these he would have to repair to the British Consulate. The Consul-General at Basrah, Mr Clayton, Richard had met some years previously in Persia. It would be pleasant, Richard thought, to meet him again.
The Consulate had several entrances. A main gate for cars. Another small gate leading out from the garden to the road that lay alongside the Shatt el Arab. The business entrance to the Consulate was in the main street. Richard went in, gave his card to the man on duty, was told the Consul-General was engaged at the moment but would soon be free, and was shown into a small waiting-room to the left of the passage which ran straight through from the entrance to the garden beyond.
There were several people already in the waiting-room. Richard hardly glanced at them. He was, in any case, seldom interested by members of the human race. A fragment of antique pottery was always more exciting to him than a mere human being born somewhere in the twentieth century AD.
He allowed his thoughts to dwell pleasantly on some aspects of the Mari letters and the movements of the Benjaminite tribes in 1750 BC.
It would be hard to say exactly what awoke him to a vivid sense of the present and of his fellow human beings. It was, first, an uneasiness, a sense of tension. It came to him, he thought, though he could not be sure, through his nose. Nothing he could diagnose in concrete terms—but it was there, unmistakable, taking him back to days in the late war. One occasion in particular when he, and two others, had been parachuted from a plane, and had waited in the small cold hours of dawn for the moment to do their stuff. A moment when morale was low, when the full hazards of the undertaking were clearly perceived, a moment of dread lest one might not be adequate, a shrinking of the flesh. The same acrid, almost imperceptible tang in the air.
The smell of fear …
For some moments, this registered only subconsciously. Half of his mind still obstinately strove to focus itself BC. But the pull of the present was too strong.
Someone in this small room was in deadly fear …
He looked around. An Arab in a ragged khaki tunic, his fingers idly slipping over the amber beads he held. A stoutish Englishman with a grey moustache—the commercial traveller type—who was jotting down figures in a small notebook and looking absorbed and important. A lean tired-looking man, very dark-skinned, who was leaning back in a reposeful attitude, his face placid and uninterested. A man who looked like an Iraqi clerk. An elderly Persian in flowing snowy robes. They all seemed quite unconcerned.
The clicking of the amber beads fell into a definite rhythm. It seemed, in an odd way, familiar. Richard jerked himself to attention. He had been nearly asleep. Short—long—long—short—that was Morse—definite Morse signalling. He was familiar with Morse, part of his job during the war had dealt with signalling. He could read it easily enough. OWL. F-L-O-R-E-A-T-E-T-O-N-A. What the devil! Yes, that was it. It was being repeated. Floreat Etona. Tapped out (or rather clicked out) by a ragged Arab. Hallo, what was this? ‘Owl. Eton. Owl.’
His own nickname at Eton—where he had been sent with an unusually large and solid pair of spectacles.
He looked across the room at the Arab, noting every detail of his appearance—the striped robe—the old khaki tunic—the ragged hand-knitted red scarf full of dropped stitches. A figure such as you saw hundreds of on the waterfront. The eyes met his vacantly with no sign of recognition. But the beads continued to click.
Fakir here. Stand by. Trouble.
Fakir? Fakir? Of course! Fakir Carmichael! A boy who had been born or who had lived in some outlandish part of the world—Turkestan, Afghanistan?
Richard took out his pipe. He took an exploratory pull at it—peered into the bowl and then tapped it on an adjacent ashtray:Message received.
After that, things happened very fast. Later, Richard was at pains to sort them out.
The Arab in the torn army jacket got up and crossed towards the door. He stumbled as he was passing Richard, his hand went out and clutched Richard to steady himself. Then he righted himself, apologized and moved towards the door.
It was so surprising and happened so quickly that it seemed to Richard like a cinema scene rather than a scene in real life. The stout commercial traveller dropped his notebook and tugged at something in his coat pocket. Because of his plumpness and the tight fit of the coat, he was a second or two in getting it out and in that second or two Richard acted. As the man brought the revolver up, Richard struck it out of his hand. It went off and a bullet buried itself in the floor.
The Arab had passed through the doorway and had turned towards the Consul’s office, but he paused suddenly, and turning he ran swiftly the other way to the door by which he had entered and into the busy street.
The kavass ran to Richard’s side where he stood holding the stout man’s arm. Of the other occupants of the room, the Iraqi clerk was dancing excitedly on his feet, the dark thin man was staring and the elderly Persian gazed into space unmoved.
Richard said:
‘What the devil are you doing, brandishing a revolver like that?’
There was just a moment’s pause, and then the stout man said in a plaintive Cockney voice:
‘Sorry, old man. Absolute accident. Just clumsy.’
‘Nonsense. You were going to shoot at that Arab fellow who’s just run out.’
‘No, no, old man, not shoot him. Just give him a fright. Recognized him suddenly as a fellow who swindled me over some antikas. Just a bit of fun.’
Richard Baker was a fastidious soul who disliked publicity of any kind. His instincts were to accept the explanation at its face value. After all, what could he prove? And would old Fakir Carmichael thank him for making a song and dance about the matter? Presumably if he were on some hush-hush, cloak-and-dagger business he would not.
Richard relaxed his grasp on the man’s arm. The fellow was sweating, he noticed.
The kavass was talking excitedly. It was very wrong, he was saying, to bring firearms into the British Consulate. It was not allowed. The Consul would be very angry.
‘I apologize,’ said the fat man. ‘Little accident—that’s all.’ He thrust some money into the kavass’s hand who pushed it back again indignantly.
‘I’d better get out of this,’ said the stout man. ‘I won’t wait to see the Consul.’ He thrust a card suddenly on Richard. ‘That’s me and I’m at the Airport Hotel if there’s any fuss, but actually it was a pure accident. Just a joke if you know what I mean.’
Reluctantly, Richard watched him walk with an uneasy swagger out of the room and turn towards the street.
He hoped he had done right, but it was a difficult thing to know what to do when one was as much in the dark as he was.
‘Mr Clayton, he is disengaged now,’ said the kavass.
Richard followed the man along the corridor. The open circle of sunlight at the end grew larger. The Consul’s room was on the right at the extreme end of the passage.
Mr Clayton was sitting behind his desk. He was a quiet grey-haired man with a thoughtful face.
‘I don’t know whether you remember me?’ said Richard. ‘I met you in Tehran two years ago.’
‘Of course. You were with Dr Pauncefoot Jones, weren’t you? Are you joining him again this year?’
‘Yes. I’m on my way there now, but I’ve got a few days to spare, and I rather wanted to run down to Kuwait. There’s no difficulty I suppose?’
‘Oh, no. There’s a plane tomorrow morning. It’s only about an hour and a half. I’ll wire to Archie Gaunt—he’s the Resident there. He’ll put you up. And we can put you up here for the night.’
Richard protested slightly.
‘Really—I don’t want to bother you and Mrs Clayton. I can go to the hotel.’
‘The Airport Hotel’s very full. We’d be delighted to have you here. I know my wife would like to meet you again. At the moment—let me see—we’ve got Crosbie of the Oil Company and some young sprig of Dr Rathbone’s who’s down here clearing some cases of books through the customs. Come upstairs and see Rosa.’
He got up and escorted Richard out through the door and into the sunlit garden. A flight of steps led up to the living quarters of the Consulate.
Gerald Clayton pushed open the wire door at the top of the steps and ushered his guest into a long dim hallway with attractive rugs on the floor and choice examples of furniture on either side. It was pleasant coming into the cold dimness after the glare outside.
Clayton called, ‘Rosa, Rosa,’ and Mrs Clayton, whom Richard remembered as a buoyant personality with abounding vitality, came out of an end room.
‘You remember Richard Baker, dear? He came to see us with Dr Pauncefoot Jones in Tehran.’
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Clayton, shaking hands. ‘We went to the bazaars together and you bought some lovely rugs.’
It was Mrs Clayton’s delight when not buying things herself to urge on her friends and acquaintances to seek for bargains in the local souks. She had a wonderful knowledge of values and was an excellent bargainer.
‘One of the best purchases I’ve ever made,’ said Richard. ‘And entirely owing to your good offices.’
‘Baker wants to fly to Kuwait tomorrow,’ said Gerald Clayton. ‘I’ve said that we can put him up here for tonight.’
‘But if it’s any trouble …’ began Richard.
‘Of course it’s no trouble,’ said Mrs Clayton. ‘You can’t have the best spare room, because Captain Crosbie has got it, but we can make you quite comfortable. You don’t want to buy a nice Kuwait chest, do you? Because they’ve got some lovely ones in the souk just now. Gerald wouldn’t let me buy another one for here though it would be quite useful to keep extra blankets in.’
‘You’ve got three already, dear,’ said Clayton mildly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, Baker. I must get back to the office. There seems to have been a spot of trouble in the outer office. Somebody let off a revolver, I understand.’
‘One of the local sheikhs, I suppose,’ said Mrs Clayton. ‘They are so excitable and they do so love firearms.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Richard. ‘It was an Englishman. His intention seemed to be to take a potshot at an Arab.’ He added gently, ‘I knocked his arm up.’
‘So you were in it all,’ said Clayton. ‘I didn’t realize that.’ He fished a card out of his pocket. ‘Robert Hall, Achilles Works, Enfield, seems to be his name. I don’t know what he wanted to see me about. He wasn’t drunk, was he?’
‘He said it was a joke,’ said Richard drily, ‘and that the gun went off by accident.’
Clayton raised his eyebrows.
‘Commercial travellers don’t usually carry loaded guns in their pockets,’ he said.
Clayton, Richard thought, was no fool.
‘Perhaps I ought to have stopped him going away.’
‘It’s difficult to know what one should do when these things happen. The man he fired at wasn’t hurt?’
‘No.’
‘Probably was better to let the thing slide, then.’
‘I wonder what was behind it?’
‘Yes, yes … I wonder too.’
Clayton looked a little distrait.
‘Well, I must be getting back,’ he said and hurried away.
Mrs Clayton took Richard into the drawing-room, a large inside room, with green cushions and curtains and offered him a choice of coffee or beer. He chose beer and it came deliciously iced.
She asked him why he was going to Kuwait and he told her.
She asked him why he hadn’t got married yet and Richard said he didn’t think he was the marrying kind, to which Mrs Clayton said briskly, ‘Nonsense.’ Archaeologists, she said, made splendid husbands—and were there any young women coming out to the Dig this season? One or two, Richard said, and Mrs Pauncefoot Jones of course.
Mrs Clayton asked hopefully if they were nice girls who were coming out, and Richard said he didn’t know because he hadn’t met them yet. They were very inexperienced, he said.
For some reason this made Mrs Clayton laugh.
Then a short stocky man with an abrupt manner came in and was introduced as Captain Crosbie. Mr Baker, said Mrs Clayton, was an archaeologist and dug up the most wildly interesting things thousands of years old. Captain Crosbie said he never could understand how archaeologists were able to say so definitely how old these things were. Always used to think they must be the most awful liars, ha ha, said Captain Crosbie. Richard looked at him in a rather tired kind of way. No, said Captain Crosbie, but how did an archaeologist know how old a thing was? Richard said that that would take a long time to explain, and Mrs Clayton quickly took him away to see his room.
‘He’s very nice,’ said Mrs Clayton, ‘but not quite quite, you know. Hasn’t got any idea of culture.’
Richard found his room exceedingly comfortable, and his appreciation of Mrs Clayton as a hostess rose still higher.
Feeling in the pocket of his coat, he drew out a folded-up piece of dirty paper. He looked at it with surprise, for he knew quite well that it had not been there earlier in the morning.
He remembered how the Arab had clutched him when he stumbled. A man with deft fingers might have slipped this into his pocket without his being aware of it.
He unfolded the paper. It was dirty and seemed to have been folded and refolded many times.
In six lines of rather crabbed handwriting, Major John Wilberforce recommended one Ahmed Mohammed as an industrious and willing worker, able to drive a lorry and do minor repairs and strictly honest—it was, in fact, the usual type of ‘chit’ or recommendation given in the East. It was dated eighteen months back, which again is not unusual as these chits are hoarded carefully by their possessors.
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