and arrested all the men in the village.
The soldiers made a thing out of wood called a scaffold. I don’t know what a scaffold is but it is used to hang people. I don’t know what happens to people when they are hanged. Some of the villagers were hanged and the others were flogged. I know about flogging. It is the worst thing in the world, even worse than hanging, I should think.
Zahran was the first to be hanged, for he had fought the hardest against the soldiers. He walked to the scaffold with his head high, proud that he had killed the man who set fire to the barn.
I wish I were Zahran.
I have never seen a British soldier, but I know that I hate them.
My name is Anwar el-Sadat, and I am going to be a hero.
Sadat fingered his mustache. He was rather pleased with it. He was only twenty-two years old, and in his captain’s uniform he looked a bit like a boy soldier: the mustache made him seem older. He needed all the authority he could get, for what he was about to propose was—as usual—faintly ludicrous. At these little meetings he was at pains to talk and act as if the handful of hotheads in the room really were going to throw the British out of Egypt any day now.
He deliberately made his voice a little deeper as he began to speak. “We have all been hoping that Rommel would defeat the British in the desert and so liberate our country.” He looked around the room: a good trick, that, in large or small meetings, for it made each one think Sadat was talking to him personally. “Now we have some very bad news. Hitler has agreed to give Egypt to the Italians.”
Sadat was exaggerating: this was not news, it was a rumor. Furthermore most of the audience knew it to be a rumor. However, melodrama was the order of the day, and they responded with angry murmurs.
Sadat continued: “I propose that the Free Officers Movement should negotiate a treaty with Germany, under which we would organize an uprising against the British in Cairo, and they would guarantee the independence and sovereignty of Egypt after the defeat of the British.” As he spoke the risibility of the situation struck him afresh: here he was, a peasant boy just off the farm, talking to half a dozen discontented subalterns about negotiations with the German Reich. And yet, who else would represent the Egyptian people? The British were conquerors, the Parliament was a puppet and the King was a foreigner.
There was another reason for the proposal, one which would not be discussed here, one which Sadat would not admit to himself except in the middle of the night: Abdel Nasser had been posted to the Sudan with his unit, and his absence gave Sadat a chance to win for himself the position of leader of the rebel movement.
He pushed the thought out of his mind, for it was ignoble. He had to get the others to agree to the proposal, then to agree to the means of carrying it out.
It was Kernel who spoke first. “But will the Germans take us seriously?” he asked. Sadat nodded, as if he too thought that was an important consideration. In fact he and Kernel had agreed beforehand that Kernel should ask this question, for it was a red herring. The real question was whether the Germans could be trusted to keep to any agreement they made with a group of unofficial rebels: Sadat did not want the meeting to discuss that. It was unlikely that the Germans would stick to their part of the bargain: but if the Egyptians did rise up against the British, and if they were then betrayed by the Germans, they would see that nothing but independence was good enough—and perhaps, too, they would turn for leadership to the man who had organized the uprising. Such hard political realities were not for meetings such as this: they were too sophisticated, too calculating. Kernel was the only person with whom Sadat could discuss tactics. Kernel was a policeman, a detective with the Cairo force, a shrewd, careful man: perhaps police work had made him cynical.
The others
The soldiers made a thing out of wood called a scaffold. I don’t know what a scaffold is but it is used to hang people. I don’t know what happens to people when they are hanged. Some of the villagers were hanged and the others were flogged. I know about flogging. It is the worst thing in the world, even worse than hanging, I should think.
Zahran was the first to be hanged, for he had fought the hardest against the soldiers. He walked to the scaffold with his head high, proud that he had killed the man who set fire to the barn.
I wish I were Zahran.
I have never seen a British soldier, but I know that I hate them.
My name is Anwar el-Sadat, and I am going to be a hero.
Sadat fingered his mustache. He was rather pleased with it. He was only twenty-two years old, and in his captain’s uniform he looked a bit like a boy soldier: the mustache made him seem older. He needed all the authority he could get, for what he was about to propose was—as usual—faintly ludicrous. At these little meetings he was at pains to talk and act as if the handful of hotheads in the room really were going to throw the British out of Egypt any day now.
He deliberately made his voice a little deeper as he began to speak. “We have all been hoping that Rommel would defeat the British in the desert and so liberate our country.” He looked around the room: a good trick, that, in large or small meetings, for it made each one think Sadat was talking to him personally. “Now we have some very bad news. Hitler has agreed to give Egypt to the Italians.”
Sadat was exaggerating: this was not news, it was a rumor. Furthermore most of the audience knew it to be a rumor. However, melodrama was the order of the day, and they responded with angry murmurs.
Sadat continued: “I propose that the Free Officers Movement should negotiate a treaty with Germany, under which we would organize an uprising against the British in Cairo, and they would guarantee the independence and sovereignty of Egypt after the defeat of the British.” As he spoke the risibility of the situation struck him afresh: here he was, a peasant boy just off the farm, talking to half a dozen discontented subalterns about negotiations with the German Reich. And yet, who else would represent the Egyptian people? The British were conquerors, the Parliament was a puppet and the King was a foreigner.
There was another reason for the proposal, one which would not be discussed here, one which Sadat would not admit to himself except in the middle of the night: Abdel Nasser had been posted to the Sudan with his unit, and his absence gave Sadat a chance to win for himself the position of leader of the rebel movement.
He pushed the thought out of his mind, for it was ignoble. He had to get the others to agree to the proposal, then to agree to the means of carrying it out.
It was Kernel who spoke first. “But will the Germans take us seriously?” he asked. Sadat nodded, as if he too thought that was an important consideration. In fact he and Kernel had agreed beforehand that Kernel should ask this question, for it was a red herring. The real question was whether the Germans could be trusted to keep to any agreement they made with a group of unofficial rebels: Sadat did not want the meeting to discuss that. It was unlikely that the Germans would stick to their part of the bargain: but if the Egyptians did rise up against the British, and if they were then betrayed by the Germans, they would see that nothing but independence was good enough—and perhaps, too, they would turn for leadership to the man who had organized the uprising. Such hard political realities were not for meetings such as this: they were too sophisticated, too calculating. Kernel was the only person with whom Sadat could discuss tactics. Kernel was a policeman, a detective with the Cairo force, a shrewd, careful man: perhaps police work had made him cynical.
The others
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