O Jerusalem by Laurie R. King

into the flesh of his hands—dressed in unadorned khaki and seated on a camp chair. He did not look up at our entrance, merely continuing his task, which appeared to be holding something on a stick a few inches above a paraffin stove. A plate with a few round objects sat on a tea-chest at his left knee, and another heaped high was at his right, but the incongruity of the sight kept me from acknowledging what he was doing until my nose brought me the smell, evocative of my Oxford lodging-house with its mugs of cocoa and of Mrs Hudson’s kitchen in far-off Sussex: The man was toasting crumpets.
    When he finished with the muffin on his toasting fork he removed it, laid down the fork, took up a knife and smeared the crisp round with butter from a tin, and then balanced it on top of the plate at his right. He pushed the plate a fraction of an inch towards Ali, who with Mahmoud had gone up to the man and dropped to his heels across the small stove from him. Ali took two muffins, passed one to Mahmoud, and as they began to eat, the man reached down for his fork and proceeded to spear it into another muffin.
    Holmes and I made our way down the room to the scene of domesticity and source of meagre warmth, followinga path through the stores and shrouded equipment. We ducked our heads around a hanging oil lamp, settled onto a rough bench, and waited.
    When our host was satisfied with the current muffin, he buttered it, put it with his others, and then picked up the plate and handed it to Holmes.
    “There’s honey in here somewhere,” were his introductory words to us. “I’ll find it if you like. I haven’t any jam, I’m afraid. I can’t bear the stuff any longer, not since they started providing it in the trenches every night before a big push. I was only in France six months, but I can’t even look at a bowl of jam now without smelling mud and urine and unburied bodies. If you will excuse the reference. Shall I go digging for the honey?”
    We reassured him that buttered crumpets were sufficient, and set to demolishing our share of the crisp, buttery, delicious, and utterly English fare. Fortunately, the crumpets were solid enough evidence to restore a degree of reality to the setting.
    The left-hand plate was soon empty, the right-hand one containing the toasted crumpets nearly so. The round man reached behind him for a kettle, set it over the flame, took a khaki handkerchief from his shirt pocket, dusted his hands, and folded it away.
    “I must say,” he mused, sounding as if he were continuing a conversation, “I was intrigued when I received word that you were coming here, Mr Holmes. Particularly when your brother suggested that we might put you to use. You and Miss Russell, of course,” he added, with a small bow in my direction. “However, I will admit to a certain hesitation. After all, there is some difference between London and Palestine.”
    “But I take it our two guides have set your mind at ease that we will not commit some glaring faux pas and do not actually require nursemaids to help us survive our time here,” Holmes said evenly, sounding more amused than perturbed.
    “You have passed their little tests satisfactorily,” the man replied, his eyes crinkling in his round face. “You did not drop from exhaustion or limp with sore feet, you did not lose your tempers or put your hands on a scorpion, you retained the appearance of who you are dressed to be, and you saw through the facade of the letter in the safe. And, Miss Russell, you make lovely maps. By the way, do call me Joshua. Everyone does.”
    “‘Sending spies into the land,’” I murmured in Hebrew, thinking how appropriate the word “spy” was here, since in Hebrew its root meaning is one who wanders about on foot. I had the blisters to testify that this was what we had been doing ever since we arrived.
    “Quite right,” he said in English, sounding pleased.
    “And do your spies gather information, or spread rumours?” I asked him.