The Snake-Catcher’s Daughter

‘Er … yes,’ he said.

The cobra tried to snap at him but the girl was holding it too firmly.

‘Selim,’ said Abdul’s worried voice, ‘shall I strike?’

The girl tossed the snake back into the cistern and then dropped down after it. Owen saw her flinging the snakes aside. She put her hands under McPhee’s armpits and lifted his shoulders.

‘Can you take him?’

Owen grabbed hold of him. Selim, bold, reached over and caught up McPhee’s legs.

They lifted him down to the ground.

Something moved under his shirt. A snake put its head out. The girl plucked it out and threw it nonchalantly into the cistern.

‘It’s the warmth,’ she said. ‘They like to go where it’s warm.’

‘Warm?’ said Owen, and dropped on his knees.

McPhee was still alive. Alive, but very unconscious. Owen tipped his head back and looked at his eyes.

The girl knelt down beside him.

‘He’s overdone it, if you ask me,’ she said. ‘Taken a bit too much this time.’

‘Someone else gave it him,’ said Owen harshly.

He tore open McPhee’s shirt and put an ear to his chest. A strong, snaky smell, a mixture of snake and palm oil and spices, clung to the shirt. The girl caught it, too, and looked puzzled.

The heartbeat was slow but regular. Owen looked around. The tiny yard was packed to overflowing. He was suddenly conscious of the extreme heat and lack of air.

‘We must get the Bimbashi to the hospital,’ he said.

There were no arabeahs in that part of the city so the constables improvised a litter out of some of the planks lying against the wall. They had just pushed their way out into the street when the owner came rushing after them.

‘Hey!’ he said. ‘What are you doing? You can’t take those!’

‘Mean bastard!’ said the crowd indignantly.

The owner stepped back and hurriedly changed tack.

‘It’s not seemly,’ he said. ‘He’s a Bimbashi, after all!’

This was an argument which weighed with the crowd. And with the constables, who stopped uncertainly and lowered the litter to the ground.

‘Come on,’ said Owen, ‘we’ve got to get a move on.’

The crowd, however, now grown to even larger proportions, would not be moved. A lively debate ensued, the outcome of which was that an angareeb, the universal bed, was produced and McPhee laid gently upon it. The whole crowd then accompanied them to the hospital, which Owen could have done without.

‘But what was he doing there?’ asked Garvin.

‘I’ll ask him when he wakes up,’ said Owen.

McPhee, having awoken, did not respond at once. He seemed to be thinking about it.

‘I don’t think I can say, old man,’ he said at last, rather stuffily, ‘I really don’t think I can say.’

2 (#ulink_dc52cb5e-d020-5075-ab45-6c927c38113d)

‘Can’t say?’ said Garvin in a fury. ‘Get him here!’

McPhee insisted on standing to attention. This irked Owen because he did not know how to do it properly. He had been, such were the ways of the British Administration, a schoolmaster before being translated into a senior post in the police. Owen had been in the army in India before coming to Egypt and while this was something he now tried to forget, it still irritated him mildly to see what looked like a parody of military drill. McPhee, however, was determined to take his medicine like a man.

‘I would prefer, sir, to regard the matter as closed,’ he said pompously.

‘Closed?’ said Garvin, affecting to fall back in his chair with astonishment. ‘Found drugged up to the eyeballs? Regards the matter as closed?’

‘I accept that I am to blame, sir. I take full responsibility.’

‘You mean you took the drug knowingly?’

McPhee was a great stickler for the truth.

‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, sir,’ he said uncomfortably.

‘Then what do you mean, you take responsibility?’

‘I shouldn’t have put myself in the position, sir,’ said McPhee, hot and bothered.

‘What position?’

‘I – I’d rather not say, sir.’

Garvin sighed.

‘McPhee,’ he said, ‘you are the Deputy Commandant of Police. You are found in a backyard heavily drugged. Does it not occur to you that some might regard this as anomalous?’

‘It was in off-duty hours, sir.’

‘You were doing this as a recreation?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Taking the drug?’

‘No, no, no, no, sir.’

‘Then?’