CHAPTER III
THE BARBER'S APPRENTICE
Firouz Ali, the barber of Bagdad, had just opened his shop near the south gate. There were many other barbers in the city, but none of them was so popular as Firouz Ali. Arabs, Turks, Greeks, Persians, Germans, and the hundred and one nondescripts of the population resorted to the well-known shop, not merely because Firouz Ali was dexterous in his craft, but because he was a chatty agreeable fellow and a fathomless well of information. Every customer of his who went to be shaved, or shampooed, or to have his nails trimmed or his ears cleaned (a very necessary toilet operation in a land of dust), came away feeling that he had spent a very pleasant quarter of an hour and gained knowledge at a trifling cost. He was not often aware that he had given more than he had received. The barber had just opened his shop, and, early as it was—the sun had risen no more than half an hour before—a customer had already presented himself in the person of a Turkish non-commissioned officer, come for a shampoo to brace him for the work of the day. Firouz Ali had spread his towels, and was shaking up his mixture.
"A most elegant preparation, by the Beard," he said, holding the bottle to his customer's nose. "You smell the oil of lavender? When you leave me your hair will diffuse a sweet savour, and perfume the street."
"Wallahi! I hope it will not attract the insects," said the Turk.
"Make your mind easy about that. There is here an essence that is bitter as death; insects shun it as you would the plague. You keep your hair well, O noble warrior; the wear and tear of war has not diminished your locks, Allah be praised! My own head, man of peace though I am, has a bald spot that is only prevented from spreading by the daily use of my own famous lotion. It is marvellous to me that you men of war, considering the strain upon your intelligence and the hardships you undergo, can preserve such bountiful locks without the aid of my unguents."
"Hardships! You speak truth, barber," grunted the soldier. "You men of peace know nothing about it. Bad food, hard work, pay always in arrears——"
"A dog's life, indeed," said the barber sympathetically. "And, if I am not deceived, the hard work is done by such as you, while the credit goes to the officers."
"You are not deceived, barber. If all goes well, how accomplished are the officers! If things go ill, where is the misbegotten dog of a non-commissioned officer who is to blame?"
"Wallahi! That is the very echo of my own thought. What labours are laid upon you! What responsibility is yours! Well for me that my years forbid my bearing arms, for without doubt the strain would wear me to a shadow and I should sink into my grave. Now bend your head, and let your nostrils inhale the delicate odour of this matchless preparation."
He was in the act of pouring lotion on the man's head when a young Arab in the dress of a boatman entered. Firouz Ali threw him a quick glance; an observer might have detected a mutual look of recognition between them; but the Turk's eyes were fixed on the basin.
"Enter, O kelakji, and wait your turn," said the barber. "A month ago, before my worthless dog of an apprentice left me, you might have been attended to by the boy while I myself was occupied with customers of importance; but now you must have patience until the demands of the officer of the Padishah are satisfied."
The newcomer sat himself down on a stool, and the barber went on:
"Said I not truly? Is not the aroma fragrant as the gardens of the Prophet? And the lather is white as the bloom of the tobacco plant. Wallahi! we were speaking of your toils and sorrows, noble warrior, when this young boatman entered. Truly your life is no bed of roses."
"Truth is on your tongue, O barber," said the Turk. "This week I have been able to snatch scarce an hour's sleep at a time. From morning till night, from night till morning, stores to be checked, a never-ending task. What with the railway and the river there is no rest. If it is not a barge-load of grain, it is a train-load of ammunition."
"And it falls upon you to count all these things? Surely it is like counting the ripples on a stream."
"A labour beyond any man. The ammunition comes in boxes—we number the boxes. I passed in 100,000 rounds yesterday, as many the day before; and to-day there are machine-guns."
"No wonder you come to be refreshed with a shampoo! You have charge of the guns too! A heavy charge—all those thousands."
"Ahi! I said not thousands—would there were! But in truth we have not so many machine-guns as could be wished. The Alemans have not sent us so many of late. But now they are beginning to come in again. There are twenty, so word came to me, now waiting to be unpacked."
"Verily it passes my understanding how you find room for all these engines of war, even in so great a city as Bagdad. Moreover, is there not great danger in the handling of them? I speak as a man of peace."
"We are in truth sometimes hard put to it for store room, and when the godowns are full, we have to keep our stores in the barges upon the river hard by. But they do not remain there long, so great is the demand for them from our brothers down the river. And as to danger——"
At this point the Turk found himself under the necessity of keeping his mouth shut. He was in the middle stage of the shampoo. To take part in the conversation was impossible when the barber was pouring floods of water over his head, or even later, when his head was smothered in a towel, and the barber was kneading it with his hands. Firouz Ali himself said, little during the final perfuming of his customer's hair, and the sound of a bugle reminded the Turk that he must hasten back to his duties.
When he was gone, the barber turned to the young Arab.
"Your father's son must always be welcome," he said, "but what of prudence? Is it not a necessary virtue? The Turk is stupid, Allah knows: witness the ass-head I have just anointed; but a watch is set upon all the approaches to the city, and you may tempt fortune too far. The house of Ionides was but lately occupied by a picket——"
The young Arab started.
"How did you know?" he asked.
"Peace, peace!" replied the barber, with a significant gesture. "The walls have ears; the dust carries tidings. Is it not my business to know?"
It was barely two hours since Burnet, slipping through the garden of a deserted house on the bank of the Tigris south of the city, found refuge in the building itself and watched for an opportunity, when, as he thought, no observer was near, to make an unobtrusive entrance into the streets. He knew of old how perfect was the barber's knowledge of what went on in Bagdad, and indeed throughout Mesopotamia; but this new illustration, this proof that his temporary shelter in the deserted house of the Greek merchant Ionides was already known to Firouz Ali, came upon him with something of a shock.
Roger Burnet, as some may remember, was the son of a Cambridge scholar who had devoted the latter years of his life to archæological research in Mesopotamia. There Roger had spent the greater part of his boyhood, learning to speak Arabic almost as well as a native. Just before the outbreak of war he had been recalled from school in England by a peremptory telegram from his father, whom he found very ill. Mr. Burnet lingered for more than eighteen months in the hill village of an Arab chief, and it was not until June 1916 that Roger, after his father's death, was able to set off with the intention of joining the British army. Disguised as an Arab, he had travelled to Bagdad with a party of the chief's men, and taken counsel with Firouz Ali, an old friend of his father, a man of quick wit, and an important member of an organisation that was working for the release of the Arabs from the Turkish yoke.
At that time the British attempt to relieve General Townshend in Kut had disastrously failed, and the cause of freedom lay under a heavy cloud. Burnet learnt that the Turks were organising an expedition to punish the chief whose hospitality he had enjoyed, for his refusal to furnish levies to the Sultan's army. It subsequently came to light that the expedition had been instigated by the Germans, its real object being the capture of a stronghold that commanded an important road of communication. Burnet decided to throw in his lot with the chief, escaped from Bagdad by the aid of Firouz Ali and of a mysterious dervish who turned out to be a British secret service agent, after many adventures assisted in the defence of the stronghold against a large force of German-led Turks, and ultimately reached the British lines below Kut. He wished to return to England by way of Bombay for the purpose of training for a commission; but a man with his knowledge of the native dialects was too valuable to be spared. The commander-in-chief made direct application to the War Office on his behalf, and he had in fact been gazetted a second lieutenant on the General List a few weeks before he set off with Captain Ellingford on his present mission to Bagdad.
Firouz Ali was too polite to make any direct enquiries of Burnet as to the object of his visit. The latter explained.
"You spoke of prudence, my friend," he said. "Well, I grant there are risks, but I have run risks before—for good cause. Of late we have had no news either from you or from the dervish Hezar."
"That is true, Aga," replied the barber, "and therefore is my heart heavy. But who can strive against Fate? Twice within the past month have I sent messengers. The first came back with a shattered arm: the Turkish dogs shot him as he tried to pass through their lines, and he was hard put to it to escape with his life. The second was drowned swimming the river to avoid them. And as for the dervish Hezar, did he not quit the city secretly some ten days ago, having reason to believe that some were looking upon him with suspicion?"
"I guessed there was a simple explanation: that there were difficulties. That is why I am here. We must know what the Turks are doing—whether they are receiving reinforcements and supplies, and where these are stored."
"By the Beard, you heard something from that addle-pate who has but now left us. But that is little. I can tell you more. There is at this time in the city a German, a very cunning fellow, who has gathered about him spies in number as the ants in an ant-hill. Ahi! but there is no buckle to his shoe; by which parable understand that he speaks not the tongue of those that he employs, and needs an interpreter. With him there is an Arab who has sold himself to the Turks, and moreover a German who speaks my tongue readily, though with a gurgling throat—a man who has lived many years in this land, digging for the treasures of old time. Is not his name Bukkad Bey?"
"Burckhardt! I know him. I met him with my father years ago." He smiled at some recollection. "So he's here, organising secret police! Well now, my friend——"
Firouz Ali interrupted him by a gesture. The barber's eyes were fixed on a water-seller who was passing the shop, going down the street. Burnet saw no glance exchanged, heard no word; but the man had no sooner gone by than Firouz Ali said in a hurried undertone—
"One of the German's spies approaches. It is not wise that you remain here. Leave me now: go up the street, and after the sun is gone down seek the caravanserai of our friend Yakoub: there will I meet you."
Burnet had barely risen from his stool when a carpet-mender passed, in the opposite direction to the water-seller.
"Wallahi!" muttered the barber, who had gazed at him with the same fixity. "Another spy approaches, from the other end. If you go now, verily you must meet one or the other. They would mark you as a stranger. Is it a time for questions? Haste now: that former day you became for a while my apprentice, and beguiled the Turkish dogs. So it shall be again."
He was already stripping off Burnet's travel-stained outer clothes and clumsy shoes. These he cast under his bench, and then with amazing quickness replaced them with a long white djellab and light sandals.
"Mark you, Aga," he said, "you are my nephew and new apprentice, in place of that misshapen Mahmoud who has left me. You have even now arrived from Bebejak." He named a village near the Persian frontier northward which was not likely to be well known to these agents of the secret service.
Burnet had just taken up a razor and was feeling its edge when a man in the dress of a city merchant passed the open shop, throwing a glance into the interior. Half a minute afterwards a second man appeared from the opposite direction. He stopped, mounted the two steps that led to the shop, and greeting the barber sat down on the chair.
"Comb my beard, barber," he said.
"In truth it needs the comb, effendi," said Firouz Ali. "A fine beard, of the fineness of silk, though its beauty is hidden by the thrice-accursed dust that defiles it. Yusuf, lay my whitest napkin about the effendi's throat."
"A new apprentice, barber?" said the customer, eyeing Burnet. "More agreeable to look at than that hunchback of yours."
"He has a straight back, Allah be praised," said the barber, "but what is that? A fair form may go with a foolish mind. Ahi! The ingratitude of man! Behold, Mahmoud left me without a moment's warning, enticed away by some flattering tongue. And here am I in a pitiful plight, for all likely youths are snapped up for the army, and I have had to summon my nephew from his mean village in the north, a mere country lout——"
"A lout, say you? Methinks his frame deserves a fairer word."
"A lout, I say again: clumsy as an untamed colt. Did he not break my best basin into a thousand and one fragments?"
"And why is he too not in the army?"
"In the army! By the tomb of my father, what should he do in the army? Where are his wits? Bid him go to the right, straightway he goes to the left. Ahi! it broke my poor brother's heart to find a witless mind in a body that, as you truly say, has some elements of graciousness. Will he repay me for all my pains in training him to my honourable craft? Who can tell? He has but just arrived; and I have yet to learn——"
Here the barber was interrupted by the hurried entrance of a young man in military uniform.
"Salaam, barber," he cried. "The barber of Bukkad Bey has fallen sick, and the Bey requires a cunning hand to smooth his cheeks. Whose hand is more cunning than Firouz Ali's? Haste, then, for time presses."
Firouz Ali briefly acknowledged the command, and apologised to his customer for spending less time on his silky beard than its beauty deserved. The secret service man, apparently satisfied with the barber's explanations about his new apprentice, left the shop.
"Woe is me!" exclaimed the barber. "What is to become of you, Aga? I dare not leave you here, and I fear some harm will befall you if you go alone through the streets."
"Take me with you, of course! I can carry your things."
"Mashallah! But Bukkad Bey may know you again."
"Not he! I was hardly more than a child when he saw me, just that once; and he was too busy with my father to notice me."
"Truly you are bold with an exceeding great boldness. But so it shall be. Gather up the basin, and soap, and the brush, and two razors, and the strop. I will bid my neighbour have an eye to the shop, and we will go together."