Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

; . =. he 4 tot __ it took the British to clean them of vermin, and filth and untried prisoners. . ee _. The Hebron jail is outside the city for ___ more good reasons than one. Where ninety- _____ nine per cent of a city’s population is eligible _ for rigorous confinement on one ground or _- - another and the cleverest thieves on earth are trained besides, no mere iron bars within _ the city limits would serve the purpose; you eS need open spaces all around for rifle and machine-gun fire—except of course, in -. famine time, when most of the population _ plans to be arrested and fed two square tae meals a day, at the foreign tax-payers’ oem Captain. de Crespigny came out of the Governorate to greet us, smiling all over as. a man should whose only dependable ___ assistant has the tooth-ache. = “You know the wire is down behind your” ___-he said pleasantly. eo “Since when?”’ iS “An hour ago. I’m rather worried about -. a Jew named Cehen. I let him start for Jerusalem this morning. ’F raid now he . may get scuppered on the way.” ——-s Tt’s all right; we met him. He’s on his Pa way back.” Be “Oh, did you get wind of trouble here?” # “Not a thing. Wanted Cohen here for ae a special reason. What’s up?” ee “T tried to phone through to Jerusalem _ fora machine gun. There’s nobody to send. __ +We’ve a motor-cycle, but it’s mapoo. That = fellow Cohen lost his watch and I arrested a = local Arab on suspicion soon after Cohen had gone. He’s over there in the jail now and E _. four thousand of his friends have sworn an oath to take him out again by force. I’ve ten policemen—one first-class man and nine __ with the wind up them.” = “Are you sure the wire’s down?” Grim = asked him. “Perfectly. I’d call that luck, only now ~ you’ve come. They couldn’t exactly have blamed me for bluffing the business through without orders and I think I could have Sa | Fiery < yy - “Make over to me when you’ve had enough, - but no sooner.’ “Thanks. Come in and have a drink. -Who’s your friend?” ‘“‘“Ramsden—a countryman of mine.”’ Grim introduced me and for the hun- -dredth time in ‘that man’s land I experi- PE? TA i / ‘ ¥ VR ? Ms Judi WY f. » a ' 4 > » , Te, o> “ a > a f - Jas ~ be b] ’ Adventure _ enced the unmitigated delight of being ac- | cepted as an equal, instead of as a possibly on ce tackled it. However, I suppose you take . best ial EP “Not if I know it!” Grim answered. objectionable person, on the strength of his mere say-so. As a general rule you can’t get past that suave screen the British use to camouflage their real thoughts, without a guide whom they know and trust; but when you’re in, you're in. De Crespigny was nothing unusual; clean- shaven, almost always laughing about some- thing, looking about twe emiabivech really twenty-six, probably not brilliant, but capable of swift judgment and astounding Impudence in tight places. Obviously one of those well-bred young gentlemen, who have kept an empire’s borders by daring and straight dealing while the politicians did the bragging and the profiteers made hay. He wore several ribbons for distin- guished service, but the only thing he seemed really proud of was a mixture he called a Hebron cocktail, made without ice from a recipe of his own invention. It was a comfortable. room we entered, for the Germans had left their furniture behind them and the walls were hung be- sides with deadly weapons taken away from the local cut-throats by this de Crespigny child, his one assistant, the one bold native policeman and the “nine with the wind up them.” THE assistant came in while we watched the secret ritual of cocktail shaking in an ex-beer bottle; another boy, two years younger than his chief and, barring the tooth-ache, even more amused by the certainty that mass-murder was afoot. You could sum him up instantly. When a man thinks of his job first, and tooth-ache merely as a handicap, bet on’ him. Beside his name was Jones and that is a well-known label. “Just come from the jail,” he announced. “Had to put Ali ben Hamza in a cell by him- self; he was propaganding among the other prisoners. Perfectly friendly, though; as- sured me that you and I will both be dead before morning and offered to pull my tooth out with his fingers. Said he hated to see me suffer and that having your throat cut doesn’t hurt a bit.” “Thought you were going to the doctor,” said de Crespigny. ‘“‘No time. He has his hands full anyhow. Hospital’s chock-a-block, and no one to help him operate: Any news?” reo) Y = \ <S) (Eo) JOO .