The 92nd Tiger Read Online Free Page A

hours, when the weather was fine, he liked to walk there, across the Park, up Waterloo Place, and across Pall Mall into St. James’s Square. In the club, which was one of the last relics of the Raj, hung numerous portraits. They were portraits of men who had brought peace and progress to a warring and primitive sub-continent. Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Arthur Phayre. The incomparable Bobs. The black-bearded John Nicholson, who had threatened to shoot his own General if he refused to order an attack. They, too, were fighters. Were there any left? Could a nation of fighters lose its martial spirit within a mere hundred years? It had happened before. Rome had gone soft in less than a century. That man in front of him. What good could he possibly achieve? He was not a soldier. He was an actor. Probably a pansy. Most actors were pansies, or so he understood.
    He became aware that the silence had gone on rather a long time, and said, ‘I expect you have a lot of questions you’d like to ask.’
    ‘One certainly,’ said Hugo. ‘You’ve mentioned these possibilities and dangers. Why should they worry us. We’ve cleared out of the Gulf, haven’t we?’
    ‘Politically.’
    ‘And militarily.’
    ‘Not entirely. We are retaining certain airfields as staging posts for the R.A.F., and the Navy will pay courtesy visits from time to time. Also we have agreed to continue training the Oman Scouts. Broadly, I agree. Our main forces have gone. But that is far from being the whole picture. We still have very considerable commercial interests. In spite of recent discoveries in the North Sea, nearly two-thirds of the oil available to the non-communist world comes from the Gulf. And half of it is ours.’
    ‘Then I think we were crazy to take the army away.’
    Mr. Taverner smiled his diplomatic smile and said, ‘The decision did not rest with this office, Mr. Greest. But I can tell you this. If any man, in any position, is able to use what influence he has towards maintaining peace and the status quo and allowing the oil to flow through the pipe lines and the tankers to pass freely, he would not find the Government ungrateful. Of that I am sure.’
    C.M.G., thought Hugo, maybe a K.C.M.G. Well, that would be something to show them at Television Centre. He said, ‘I’d want time to think about it.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘What would you suggest would be the next step?’
    ‘I think you ought to have a word with the Ruler. He is staying at the Dorchester. Since his visit to this country is unofficial, he has registered under the name of Mr. Smith.’

 
Chapter Three
     
Sheik Ahmed bin Kashid al Ferini
     
    ‘Mr. Smith, sir?’ said the receptionist at the Dorchester, consulting a list. ‘Which Mr. Smith would that be?’
    ‘He’s an Arabian gentleman.’
    ‘That would be Sheik Ahmed of Umran, I expect.’
    ‘Right,’ said Hugo. He wondered who all the other Mr. Smiths were.
    ‘I’ll ring up and tell him you’re here, Mr. Greest. Would you like to wait in the reception hall?’
    Hugo retired to one of the comfortable chairs provided by the Dorchester for its visitors and sank back into it. Since leaving the Foreign Office he had spent a busy two hours. First he had called on Sam Maxfeldt in his untidy little office near Covent Garden. Sam had confirmed the rumour that there was no immediate prospect of an eighth series of the Tiger, and had listened impassively to an account of Hugo’s visit to the Foreign Office.
    ‘If it’s a temporary job,’ he said, ‘it might be a good idea. Producers are like cats. Make approaches to them, and they’re not interested. Ignore them, and they’re all over you. If I let it be known that you’re not available at any price for six months, their mouths’ll start watering.’
    ‘It didn’t sound to be like a six-month job.’
    ‘How long?’
    ‘We haven’t fixed up any details yet. But two or three years, I imagine.’
    ‘Then you mustn’t do it. No one can be off the stage