organisations. Furney himself had
said that he did not rule out the possibility of Armande working for some branch of G.H.Q. which had never taken the trouble to let the security people know what they were doing. And then they
raised hell when their agents were arrested!
Ten miles away a great bare headland sprawled across the horizon, and dropped sheer into the sea—Palestine and Armande on the other side of it. Prayle dryly reflected that she would be
completely at her ease, back in a nice, smug British civilisation. She was difficult enough when foot-loose in Beirut; now she would be calling on the High Commissioner’s wife, if he had a
wife, and strongly resentful of interference by sergeants—the more so as she was involved with David Nachmias in some conceited idea of her own.
He felt no guilt at suppressing Armande’s connection with Nachmias; until the connection was clearer, it was no business of Furney’s. To relate the mysterious behaviour of Armande to
the general mystery of Jewish activities might be embarrassing for her. The security people saw Zionists under their beds; once Armande had appeared on the files as mixed up in their intrigues, the
suspicion might remain for always.
Was she herself a Jewess? He was sure that she was not. She had none of the characteristics—except, perhaps, that she was sometimes unnecessarily anxious to show that she was intelligent.
As for David Nachmias, he was above suspicion. Prayle had checked his record, and it was clear. Abu Tisein had risked his life on one journey after another to Syria and the Balkans. He had served
most gallantly the garrison of the Middle East.
The truck bounded through the French Customs, waved on by an international committee of Lebanese gendarmes, of French
douaniers
, of British military police, and climbed the bare
headland to the British post of Ras Naqura. While the documents of the queue of service vehicles were being checked, Prayle looked down, suspiciously, upon the unfamiliar world of Palestine.
Beneath him lay the whole plain of Lower Galilee, closed in the south by Mount Carmel and the Nazareth hills. On the coast the Jewish settlement of Nahariya suggested a German seaside resort,
transported, trees, neat gardens and gabled roofs, to an oasis among the sand hills. Beyond was graceful Acre, and at the end of the sands, twenty miles away, the port of Haifa, its tall buildings
forming streaks of white, through the smoke of industry and the haze of the Mediterranean, against the dark green mass of Carmel. Gunfire rumbled across the bay as the A.A. defences and the
warships in the harbour opened up on a practice shoot or perhaps an unidentified aircraft. East of the city the cooling towers and storage tanks of the great refinery thrust up their huge and
unmistakable corpulence as proof of the inefficiency of Italian bombers or the excellence of the defences. It was a Jewish-British world that Prayle looked down upon, foreign to the Mediterranean.
Acre, a miniature city of towers and walls and minarets, was all that seemed to him to have sprung by a natural birth from the historic soil of Palestine.
A security corporal strolled down the line of waiting vehicles and noticed Prayle’s cap badge.
“On leave, Sergeant?”
“No. Bound for Jerusalem on special deatchment. Is there anything going direct? This friend stops at Haifa.”
“Can do. There’s a Palestine police truck leaving for Jerusalem after lunch. Come and have a bite at the canteen and I’ll fix you up.”
Prayle said good-bye to the driver, and pressed him warmly to drop in on Field Security when he was next in Beirut. His crooked smile assured him of a welcome, yet showed that he understood how
thirsty the driver would have to be before daring to set foot in such a den of striped tigers. The sergeant’s sympathetic curiosity led him to wish to see again everyone he met. He loved to
settle down in the evening with one of his pickups, and listen to
said that he did not rule out the possibility of Armande working for some branch of G.H.Q. which had never taken the trouble to let the security people know what they were doing. And then they
raised hell when their agents were arrested!
Ten miles away a great bare headland sprawled across the horizon, and dropped sheer into the sea—Palestine and Armande on the other side of it. Prayle dryly reflected that she would be
completely at her ease, back in a nice, smug British civilisation. She was difficult enough when foot-loose in Beirut; now she would be calling on the High Commissioner’s wife, if he had a
wife, and strongly resentful of interference by sergeants—the more so as she was involved with David Nachmias in some conceited idea of her own.
He felt no guilt at suppressing Armande’s connection with Nachmias; until the connection was clearer, it was no business of Furney’s. To relate the mysterious behaviour of Armande to
the general mystery of Jewish activities might be embarrassing for her. The security people saw Zionists under their beds; once Armande had appeared on the files as mixed up in their intrigues, the
suspicion might remain for always.
Was she herself a Jewess? He was sure that she was not. She had none of the characteristics—except, perhaps, that she was sometimes unnecessarily anxious to show that she was intelligent.
As for David Nachmias, he was above suspicion. Prayle had checked his record, and it was clear. Abu Tisein had risked his life on one journey after another to Syria and the Balkans. He had served
most gallantly the garrison of the Middle East.
The truck bounded through the French Customs, waved on by an international committee of Lebanese gendarmes, of French
douaniers
, of British military police, and climbed the bare
headland to the British post of Ras Naqura. While the documents of the queue of service vehicles were being checked, Prayle looked down, suspiciously, upon the unfamiliar world of Palestine.
Beneath him lay the whole plain of Lower Galilee, closed in the south by Mount Carmel and the Nazareth hills. On the coast the Jewish settlement of Nahariya suggested a German seaside resort,
transported, trees, neat gardens and gabled roofs, to an oasis among the sand hills. Beyond was graceful Acre, and at the end of the sands, twenty miles away, the port of Haifa, its tall buildings
forming streaks of white, through the smoke of industry and the haze of the Mediterranean, against the dark green mass of Carmel. Gunfire rumbled across the bay as the A.A. defences and the
warships in the harbour opened up on a practice shoot or perhaps an unidentified aircraft. East of the city the cooling towers and storage tanks of the great refinery thrust up their huge and
unmistakable corpulence as proof of the inefficiency of Italian bombers or the excellence of the defences. It was a Jewish-British world that Prayle looked down upon, foreign to the Mediterranean.
Acre, a miniature city of towers and walls and minarets, was all that seemed to him to have sprung by a natural birth from the historic soil of Palestine.
A security corporal strolled down the line of waiting vehicles and noticed Prayle’s cap badge.
“On leave, Sergeant?”
“No. Bound for Jerusalem on special deatchment. Is there anything going direct? This friend stops at Haifa.”
“Can do. There’s a Palestine police truck leaving for Jerusalem after lunch. Come and have a bite at the canteen and I’ll fix you up.”
Prayle said good-bye to the driver, and pressed him warmly to drop in on Field Security when he was next in Beirut. His crooked smile assured him of a welcome, yet showed that he understood how
thirsty the driver would have to be before daring to set foot in such a den of striped tigers. The sergeant’s sympathetic curiosity led him to wish to see again everyone he met. He loved to
settle down in the evening with one of his pickups, and listen to
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