‘We’ll go to the saloon, I think, for a confab, shall we?’ says Captain Quelch with firm determination, for some reason wanting his brother off the deck. And we all troop down to the liar, where Captain Quelch himself acts as jerk and serves us our choices. His brother takes a soda-water and Captain Quelch does the same, in deference, no doubt, to their dead parents. And the first thing we do is toast the King of England, the King of Egypt, the President of the United States and Samuel Goldfish. The ice broken, we gather round a rather more relaxed Professor Quelch, who does not seem to mind being entirely surrounded by people with cocktails in their hands, who listen to the phonograph and try to help him join in the choruses of the songs. ‘Vive la bagatelle!’ he pronounces, and proves himself less of a prude than I had at first supposed. But he will not be, I fear, the comrade that Captain Quelch has been to me.
The celebration settled down as lunch was served by our happy laskars, who were no doubt looking forward to their own shore-leave. Professor Quelch was an expert on all things Egyptian. Indeed, the Ancient World seemed more familiar to him than the Modern and it was easy to see that he felt considerably more enthusiasm for problems of hieroglyphic interpretation than for the passing heroes and heroines of the moving-picture theatre, while Romance, I suspected, found fullest expression in the mystery of an oddly-coloured ankh held by one of the less prominent Egyptian deities. He also had a rather confusing narrative style. Nonetheless Malcolm Quelch seemed the man we needed to guide us through both the shadow-realms of the distant past and the alleys and temptations of our immediate present. Certainly as shore beckoned there was much talk of temptation amongst the film-crew. Malcolm Quelch won the approval of our team and displayed his ability to respond to practical needs by recommending a salon des poules which, he guaranteed, was both safe and versatile. Only Esmé did not take to him and went below almost immediately to see, she said, to her packing. Seaman, too, divorced himself early from the happy table, needing solitude, he said, in which to mature his ideas. His absence displeased nobody. There was a noticeably looser atmosphere amongst us when he had gone. Goaded by Mrs Cornelius, the good-natured professor regaled us with a little of the Cairo gossip, which concerned people of whom we had never heard and mostly revolved around buggery and adultery, with a touch of incest for variety. I grew bored with this. I made an excuse to go back to my cabin where my bags were carefully packed, having passed inspection by a customs officer whose curiosity about my Georgian pistols was satisfied when I explained they were for use in the film. Tapping on the connecting door, I called out to Esmé so that she should not be startled. I heard something crash. I tried to open the door but it was locked. I asked if she had hurt herself and, after a moment, she replied that her case had fallen off her bunk. She began to murmur to herself as if embarrassed. I offered to help but she insisted shrilly that she could manage. She was a resourceful little creature, no matter what Mrs Cornelius believed. Reassured, I strolled up on deck and found Captain Quelch enjoying a pipe with the chief immigration officer, a sandy-haired man called Prestagne who handed my passport back to me saying he was honoured to make the acquaintance of such a talented man. (My passport gave my occupation as engineer, but my entry card, of course, explained my current employment.) For me the stamps and visa gave the passport a substance and validity it had never previously possessed. I had the approval of His Majesty’s Government. In those days, of course, such approval also meant complete security. The British Empire took that responsibility for its dominions and protectorates, to maintain the law equally for all. That was why the Empire was the admiration of the world. I have always been contemptuous of those people who drag up a few obscure incidents to indict the British, to prove they were no better than the French, say, or the Dutch, at running an empire. I disagree. While they ran their Empire on Roman lines they knew nothing but success, the spread of a common justice. They had to be stern, both in Egypt as well as India and parts of Africa, in particular, for that was all the natives would recognise as authority. They had no conception of the institutions which protected them. I have often wondered at this notion of nationalism, of freedom. All they ever seem to want, when it comes down to it, is the freedom to slaughter one another in acts of horrible sectarian violence. They were taught about the institutions. They claimed to envy them, to desire them for themselves. But they did not have the appropriate history, experience or intellect to understand them. A few Indians might well have died at Amritsar. How many more died in 1948 when the British were gone? They are greedy for ‘freedom’ the way our ancestors were greedy for the millennium. And, as when the millennium failed to come, they are inclined to riot if disappointed. Yet your fellaheen, your basic descendant of the people who built the pyramids and conquered much of Africa and Asia Minor, is without doubt the salt of the earth, a willing worker and a cheerful servant, if not unmanned by the bilharzia which now infects the whole Nile, thanks to the British dam, or by the hasheesh he smokes to forget his troubles. ‘It is the same in China, with the coolies,’ Professor Quelch told me. He had been on more than one archaeological expedition to the Far East. ‘I was little more than a youth, then. But I can tell you, Mr Peters, that neither Alexandria nor Cairo can compete with the fleshpots of Macao or Shanghai. Such sweet little creatures. You would not think them of this planet at all! I am old-fashioned in my tastes, I’m afraid. The modern girl does nothing for me.’
‘It depends what you want, dunnit,’ says Mrs Cornelius, ready in Gainsborough hat and blue-trimmed lace, to face the pleasures and the pressures of Alexandria. She winked at her new ‘beau’. I was almost jealous, but I knew there was a deeper bond between Mrs Cornelius and myself than any passing fancy. She was followed at a distance by sailor-suited Esmé, escorted by a somewhat more cheerful Wolf Seaman, no doubt pleased at the prospect of taking charge again. He wore a pale blue suit that looked a size too small for him. He had put on at least a stone since we had left Los Angeles. I wondered, since he had been so frequently sick, how he had managed to hold so much food. Esmé, with a smile to Seaman, whom she was clearly lobbying for a substantial part, took my offered arm. I handed her over the side in Mrs Cornelius’s wake. She fluttered into the swaying launch like a paper doll. Billowing awful black smoke, the boat took us to the passenger dock where a car from the hotel took us to our lodgings. When I saw the round Nubian face behind the car’s wheel I almost thought Mr Mix had come back, to reveal an elaborate trick. But I quickly realised this negro, while handsome and cheerful enough, was nothing like my friend who was an altogether more refined type.
‘I fear you’ll find the people here something of a rudis indigestaque moles,’ called Professor Quelch beside the river brushing back the touts with his malacca. ‘And the city itself is almost completely bereft of archaeological interest. It was torn down by various victors, you know.’ He hid a titter behind his long fingers, as if he had said something rather infra dig.
His brother had come with me to the quay. I shook hands briefly, unsuccessfully trying to stop my tears. ‘Good luck,’ I said.
‘And the same to you, lad. Malcolm’s picked up a lot, don’t you think, since I doctored his soda water with a spot of Gordons?’ He winked and gave me a hearty buffet on the arm. ‘Good luck to you, too, old chum. If I hear about your films and your darkie I’ll find a way to let you know.’