— Thirty-one, sir. A scraggly, dark-haired chap. On the short side. But though he’s at most ten years older than me, he looks old enough to be my great-grandfather, with so many wrinkles you might think every one of his crooked thoughts had spilled out of his brain and over his face. Thirty-one, sir, but tough enough to be fifty, awfully earnest and not at all youthful. The morning he was caught he was wearing a peasant’s cloak and had three black goats in tow, which were a rather symbolic representation of the flock he was supposed to have. He headed straight up the hill to Sergeant McClane’s funk hole and woke him up from his sleep…
— Quite so, sir. And there, in those foggy wee hours, he was asked for his certificate; and when he didn’t have it, he was taken aside until there was enough light to see what matter of man he was. But before a few minutes went by, sir, he tried escaping under cover of the last darkness; so that now he was taken, goats and all, and put in a little room; where he sat all day long as the rain turned to snow, refusing to eat and cursing darkly in Arabic while waiting for the Ulstermen to get so bloody sick of him that they would tell him to clear out. Which was not, I daresay, an unreasonable hope, especially since, huddled in his corner, he understood every word that they said, although he never opened his mouth to let on. And in fact, they would have packed him off soon enough, since the snowstorm kept them from bringing him to headquarters in Ramallah, if Sergeant McClane hadn’t laid down the law and insisted on waiting for the military police to look him over.
— I should think you would be, sir; so was I. A fortnight ago, when we ran through with him what had happened prior to recommending him for promotion and a medal, I asked him what had aroused his suspicion. Shall I tell you what he said, sir? “Sure now, the goats didn’t like him. I know a thing or two about goats, and his didn’t like him one bit.” Tipped off that the man was a spy by three sulky goats, ha ha… that’s what I call a keen eye! The next day a deputation came slogging through the snow from Jerusalem: two military policemen and an interpreter, Roger Evans, a Queen’s man from Oxford — one of our university Orientalists who know the Koran inside out but lose their tongues when they have to ask for the time of day in Arabic, because their dons, who have never been east of the Thames in their lives, forgot to tell them there were Arabs in the world and thought they were teaching a dead language like Latin or Sanskrit. Well, there they were, the two of them, old Evans ruddy cross at having been dragged out in the cold for some daft shepherd, and the shepherd sitting in his corner, all huddled up in his cloak with his head bowed…
— Directly, sir. Picture him, if you can, huddled in a corner with that little Ulsterman sheepishly biting his nails; and old Evans jabbering away in his unspeakable Oxford Arabic; and the shepherd answering glumly; and the military policemen jotting it all down: a perfectly mad tale about some runaway goats whose tracks were washed out by the rain, and some village across the lines; and everyone ticked off at that obstinate Ulsterman who had raised the very devil for naught… and in fact, old Evans was already getting up to go when something about that shepherd rang a bell — by now he’s told us about it a thousand times, because I had to put him up for a promotion and a medal too; so you see, sir, this episode has helped to advance more than one military career. Well, Evans asked for more light and told the Arab to stand; and then he removed his head cloth and looked him straight in the eye and told him to take off his cloak; and when the chap refused and began to protest, the soldiers stripped it from him; and dashed if he wasn’t wearing a dark suit underneath with a little striped necktie; and there was a book in the pocket of the jacket with all sorts of papers falling out of it; so that old Evans burst out laughing and said, this time in proper Oxford English, “Why, Mr. Mani, is it you?”
— Mani, sir. That’s his name.
— Joseph Mani. Sounds rather like money, but it doesn’t mean that at all. Or like manic, but it doesn’t mean that either.
— As far as I know, it doesn’t mean anything, sir. It’s just one of your oriental Jewish names. Because you see, sir, the shepherd wasn’t a shepherd, and the Arab wasn’t an Arab but a Jew, who suddenly changed his tune and began to speak the king’s English in a Scots brogue so thick it could have been fished from a loch; and then, as if he had been simply playing a prank, threw his arms around Evans and began to walk out with him, because he too, sir, was an interpreter in His Majesty’s service.
— Yes, sir, a genuine Scots brogue. You’ll hear it yourself tomorrow when he enters his plea. He picked it up as a boy at St. Joseph’s in Jerusalem, back at the end of the last century, from a Scottish priest who hammered it into him until there’s no getting it out again. His father and mother were both British subjects, sir, which makes him one too, even though he’s never been to England. That’s why the prosecution will have to ask for the death penalty, since he’s a national who has betrayed his country… which is why I’ve come to you, Colonel, to ask your advice before the trial begins.
— Of course, sir. Pardon me.
— Quite, sir, quite, it was my mistake to jump ahead. I simply didn’t want to bore you with all kinds of details that I myself find endlessly fascinating.
— Utterly fascinating, sir. And I’ll be delighted to. Well, there he was in that room, minus his cloak and in his frayed suit, with all sorts of papers sticking out of his pockets. Straightways he began telling some cock-and-bull story about a woman behind Turkish lines, a totally garbled, outrageous yarn; but our stubborn Ulsterman, now triumphantly vindicated, snatched the papers away from him and discovered a bundle of maps of Palestine, as well as some proclamations in Arabic, which he didn’t need to read in order to know that they were not precisely what one brought one’s ladylove; and so off he went to fetch a rope, tied up his prisoner, and — not trusting the policemen or the interpreter — set out with him for headquarters in Ramallah, from where Mr. Mani was taken to Jerusalem. I remember the night of his arrival. It was still quite parky, although the snow had begun melting in the narrow streets, and a few of us officers were sitting in the club and warming ourselves by the hearth when the police duty officer entered and informed us that a spy had been caught near Ramallah and was now under interrogation. Quite naturally there was a great to-do, and you know, sir, it strikes me that we British make rather a fuss over espionage, no doubt because we are taught from childhood on to be so trusting…