They passed ten or fifteen donkeys laden down with fire wood. Not even a jeep could have gotten through these streets.
Meg said, “Has it changed any since you were here last, Bryan?”
He snorted and in a take-off of the Irish brogue said, “Shure, Colleen, and it’s been twenty years since oiv been here. But it hasn’t changed a mite. And I’m after suspectin’ that it hasn’t changed in the past thousand.”
Meg nodded, dodging a prehistoric beggar who looked as though he had, at least, leprosy. She said, “I saw one of those movie film revivals the other day. It was about the Kasbah. Charles Boyer played Pepe Le Moko, or whatever his name was, and Hedy LaMarr was the girl. And, you know, it looked exactly the way it does now.”
They wound their way down hill and, as Bryan had prophesied, emerged into a modern section of the North African city.
It was too far to walk, so they took a hovercab to the heights of Mustapha Supérieure and to the once deluxe St. Georges hotel, at 24 Avenue Foureau Lamy. These days, there were better hotels in town, but Saul Saidi had suggested this one for the officers of his expedition, his ‘commando’ raid.
Sean, Bryan and Meg had gotten together only a short time before.
The same day Saul Saidi had met him at the Pearl Bar in Dublin, Sean had taken the train south to Cork. His wallet was heavy with more money, advanced toward expenses, than he had seen in years. There was no doubting the reality of the mission.
At Cork, which was only a few hours on the Express, he took the bus to Blarney, five miles out, and transferred to the bus to the little village of Coachford to the southwest.
From the village of some twenty cottages and one inn, he took the narrow dirt road which led to Bryan O’Casey’s thatch roof farmstead cottage.
He hadn’t been here for some six months—the last time, he had come to borrow from his former comrade-in-arms—and he paused for a moment outside the waist-high rock wall, and his eyes took in the fact that, if anything, it was more run-down than ever. Meg’s ancient Austin wasn’t in sight, and he wondered worriedly if the two had given up and left.
He went through the gate and found the cottage door open and yelled through it, as he approached, “And is anybody at home?”
Bryan came up, grinning, as Sean passed over the threshhold.
They went through the usual hand grinding and pounding and joyfully calling of each other’s names and then both stood back and took the other in.
Bryan said, “You’ve lost weight and you look like you’ve got a hangover going back through the months.”
And Sean grunted deprecation and said, “And it’s a fact that any weight I’ve lost, you’ve put on. And where would Meg be?”
Bryan led the way into the kitchen. He had an ancient portable typewriter on the table, surrounded with disordered papers. The floor was littered with further crumpled sheets.
Bryan pushed a chair back for his visitor and said, “Believe it or not, Sean, she’s out making a house call.”
Bryan O’Casey was as Irish-looking an Irishman as was likely to be found. About forty, an inch or two over six, and born to be lanky, though now carrying a few more pounds than called for, he was blue of eye, sandy of hair, and smiling of mouth. He didn’t appear the fish-cold-blooded soldier of fortune Sean had known him to be for a decade and more.
Sean sat and when his host had seated himself behind the typewriter, said, frowning lack of understanding, “Why, believe it or not? She’s still in practice, isn’t she?”
Bryan scowled, picked up a semi-burnt out Peterson shell briar and loaded it from the leather pouch that had been sitting next to the typewriter.
He said, disgust in his words, “Can you imagine any Irishman in the whole country who would allow a woman doctor to come near enough to examine him beyond the point of advocating a few shots of Vitamin B for his shakes? Not even the women, even her relatives, will come to her as patients. They want a man doctor, not a handsome young woman.”
Sean could imagine that. Meg McDaid was the only woman Irish M.D. he had ever met. And he suspected that the fact that she and Bryan were living out of wedlock didn’t help any in this hundred percent Catholic community.
He dropped it and said, “And how’s the book going?”
Bryan tried to smile and look enthusiastic but dropped that and shrugged unhappily as he lit the pipe. The shag he was smoking smelled a horror. It must have been the cheapest on the market. He said, around the pipe stem, “With all I’ve been through, with all I’ve seen myself and heard of from such as yourself, sure and I thought the writing of my memoirs, Soldier of Misfortune, would be a cinch. It isn’t.”
“What chapter are you on?”
“Number Two, but every time I reread Chapter One, I realize that it’s got to be rewritten.”
Sean stared at him. “What’ve you done with all your time since I saw you last?”
His friend looked embarrassed. “About six months ago I decided that writing longhand was what was holding me up. Maybe it was all right for Shakespeare, but it gave me writer’s cramp. So I bought this antique and taught myself to type.” He said, lowly, “Sean, I hope that you’re not still on your uppers.” He was unhappy. “If you’ve come for a little loan…”
Sean grinned and shook his head and brought his wallet from his hip pocket and displayed the sheaf of banknotes. He said, “I’ll be paying up what I owe you, man dear. And how would you like a job?”
The other knew immediately what he was talking about and scowled. “I thought we were both retired, Sean. I thought we both retired while we were still breathing. Neither of us are exactly boys any more.”
“It’s three hundred ounces in gold for me Bryan, two hundred for you. Banked in Hong Kong, if we bring it off. All expenses, whether or not we do.”
Bryan stared at him.
Sean was still giving him the full story when they heard Meg’s car come up. And shortly after, Megan McDaid entered, black doctor’s medical kit in hand and discouragement in her face.
However, she brushed her difficulties aside on seeing Sean, who had come to his feet. She came into his arms and kissed him heartily. Actually, they were not too well acquainted, but she knew him to be her lover’s best friend and liked him, herself, thoroughly.
When greetings were through and the men in their chairs again, she said, “Bryan, you haven’t offered Sean a drink. We’ve got a few bottles of stout.” She looked at him suspiciously. “Unless you’ve been into them.”
Sean said, “I’ll not be having any, Meg dear. I’ve got to straighten up. This is a business call.”
Meg sank into a chair herself and frowned puzzlement.
Bryan told her the story. Then leaned back and relit his pipe, his face expressionless.
She said, “But you’re not going, Bryan? Who is this El Hassan? What government is it that…”
Bryan interrupted her, saying, “Mavoureen, do you know how much an ounce of gold brings in Irish pounds these days? We would have enough to migrate to Canada or the United States. We’d have enough for you to establish a practice and for me to take all the time in the world for my book… and other books after.”
Meg McDaid was of the beauty that only the Black Irish produce. The hair, which she wore long, was jet, the eyes green, the nose, chin and ears near perfection. She was past her girlish years but still the most handsome woman, in face and figure, that Sean Ryan could ever remember having seen.
She looked full into the face of the man she loved and said, “If you go, I go too.”
Saul Saidi was already awaiting them on the terrace with another, when they came up.