Talbot Mundy

“ The doctor was one of those tightly knit, dark-complexioned little men with large freckles and brown eyes, who surprize you with a mixture of intense domestic virtue and a capacity, that shouldn't mix with it at all, for turning up in all the unexpected places. You meet his sort everywhere, and they always have a wife along, who worships them and makes a home out of tin cans and packing cases that would put the stay-at-home housekeepers to shame. ”

“ Those baffling eyes of his twinkled with quiet amusement, and the man in bed resented it.
"You laugh, Jimgrim, but if you would listen I might tell you something."
But Grim only smiled more broadly than ever.
"Sidi bin Tagim, you're one of those fanatics who think the world is all leagued against you. Why should the Jews think you sufficiently important to be murdered?"
"Wallah! There are few who hold the reins of happenings as I do."
"If they'd killed you they'd have stopped the clock, eh?"
"That is as Allah may determine. I am not dead."
"Have you friends in Jerusalem?" ”

“ Get me?"
"Come on then," answered Jeremy, "I've promised him a shirt!"
Beyond the screen Narayan Singh stood like a statue, deaf, dumb, immovable. Even his eyes were fixed with a blank stare on the wall opposite.
"How much did you hear?" Grim asked him.
"I, sahib? I am a sick man. I have been asleep."
"Dream anything?"
"As your honor pleases!"
"Hospital's stuffy, isn't it? Think you could recover health more rapidly outdoors? Sick-leave continued of course, but—how about a little exercise?"
The Sikh's eyes twinkled.
"Sahib, you know I need exercise!"
"I'll speak to the doctor for you. ”

“ You see, there was a Sikh on guard outside, who respected nothing under heaven but his orders. He wouldn't have known Grim in any event, being only recently from India; Grim's uniform would have passed him in, but he and Jeremy were still arrayed as Arabs, and my civilian clothes entitled me in the sentry's opinion to protection lest I commit the heinous sin of impertinence. An Arab in his eyes was as an insect, and a white man, who consorted with such creatures, not a person to be taken seriously. ”

“ A Jew always hires another to do the killing. He who struck me was a hireling, who shall die by my hand, as Allah is my witness. But may Allah do more to me and bring me down into the dust unburied unless I make ten Jews pay for this! ”

“ Grim's authority is always at its height on the outbound trail, for then everybody knows that success, and even safety, depends on his swift thinking; on the way home afterward reaction sets in sometimes, because Arabs are made light-headed by success, and it isn't a simple matter to discipline free men when you have no obvious hold over them.
But that was where Jeremy came in. Jeremy could do tricks, and the Arabs were like children when he performed for them. They would be good if he would make one live chicken into two live ones by pulling it apart. ”

“ He jumps from one thing to another, finding all the world so interesting and amusing, and most folk so ready to make friends with him, that he always feels sure of landing softly somewhere over the horizon. ”

“ It was good advice, but Grim, standing behind the brigadier, made signals to Jeremy in vain. Few Australians talk peace when there is no peace, and when there's a fight in prospect they like to get it over. ”

“ Grim said a few words to Narayan Singh in Arabic, which so far as the sentry was concerned wasn't a language, but Narayan Singh spoke in turn in Punjabi, and the man just out from India began to droop like Jonah's gourd under the old soldier's scorn. ”

“ But Grim was humming to himself, playing piano on the bed-sheet with his fingers.
"Is that man not an Arab?" asked the fellow in bed, taking alarm all over again.
"Arab your aunt!" laughed Jeremy: "I eat Arabs! I'm the only original genuine woolly bad man from way back! ”

“ He's a good man.
"Say, Grim, there's a case in the Sikh hospital that ought to interest you," he said at last. "Fellow from Damascus—Arab—one of Feisul's crowd. He wouldn't let them take him to the Zionist hospital—swore a Jew knifed him and that the others would finish the job if they got half a chance. They'd have been arguing yet, and he dead and buried, if I hadn't gone shopping with Mabel. She saw the crowd first (I was in Noureddin's store) and jabbed her way in with her umbrella—she yelled to me and I bucked the line. ”

“ You trot up to the slaughter-shop, Grim, and interview that Arab—Sidi bin Something-or-other—forget his name—he lies in number nineteen cot on the left-hand side of the long ward, next to a Pathan who's shy both legs. You can't mistake him. I'll write out a medical certificate for Jeremy and follow. And say; wait a minute! What price the lot of you eating Mabel's chow tonight at our house? We don't keep a cook, so you won't get poisoned. That's settled; I'll tell Mabel you're coming. ”

“ But there was a chance that the brigadier might carry resentment to the point of sending up a provost-marshal's guard to arrest Jeremy on the well-known principle that a bird in the hand can be strafed more easily than one with a medical certificate. The bush was the place for our bird until such time as the P.M.O.'s signature should adorn the necessary piece of paper; so we three rode up in a cab together to the Sikh hospital, and had a rare time trying to get in. ”

“ They always have a picture on the wall of cows standing knee-deep in the water, and no matter what their circumstances are, there's always something in reserve, for guests, offered frankly without apology. Never hesitate with those folk, but don't let them go too far, for they'll beggar themselves to help you in a tight place, if you'll let them. ”

“ But he hasn't been yet in a predicament that he couldn't laugh or fight his way out of; he has never yet found a job that he cared to stick at for more than a year or two, and seldom one that could hold him for six months. ”