Read Online The Last Cut by Michael Pearce - Free Book Online Page A

when it’s full, it’s never still. It’s straining, you see, straining to break out. And when it presses, it finds all the weak spots.’
    They walked through the Gardens to the engineers’ office, built out of the same sun-baked clay as the houses of the workmen further down the canal. In the early days they had built it of wood but then had found that wood was much hotter than clay, particularly when the walls were thick and the windows small.
    Macrae was sitting at a table bent over a drawing. Overhead a fan was whirring. He looked up and pushed the drawing away.
    ‘So you’ve come,’ he said.
    ‘I came as soon as I got your message,’ said Owen.
    ‘Aye,’ said Macrae. He seemed unenthusiastic; even cast down.
    ‘We’d better have some coffee,’ he said. ‘This is a bad one.’
    He went to the door and called. A boy, who had clearly been waiting, promptly appeared with a tray. He set it down on the table with a beam of white teeth.
    Neither Ferguson nor Macrae were beaming.
    ‘Well,’ said Macrae abruptly, ‘you were right. It was one of our own.’
    Ferguson shook his head.
    ‘We told you we’d put it to them about the tools. “Someone must have had tools,” we said. “And if anyone brought a tool kit in with them one day, the chances are that one of you would have seen it. Now, we’re all in this together—it’s like the village back at home—and if you saw it, you must tell us. Otherwise it could happen again!” Well, that’s what we said, and then we left them with it. They like to talk these things over, you see, among themselves. One of them would never come to us on his own. They’re all part of the group, and it’s what the group decides. We just left it to them and, well, this morning they came back to us.’
    ‘With a name?’
    ‘Aye. Babikr.’
    ‘I’d never have thought it of him!’ said Ferguson.
    ‘It just shows how you can be deceived in people,’ said Macrae.
    ‘Aye.’
    They drank their coffee dispiritedly.
    ‘He’s always been quiet!’
    ‘I thought he just liked to get on with it.’
    ‘Well, he
does
like to get on with it. We’ve never had any complaints, have we?’
    Ferguson shook his head.
    ‘Babikr!’ he said bitterly.
    ‘They gave you his name?’ said Owen.
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘Does he know? That they’ve given his name?’
    ‘Must do.’
    ‘Then he’ll be off unless we—Where is he?’
    ‘They’ll be down by the regulator.’
    The men were taking their morning break. They were sitting up on the bank, unusually quiet.
    There was no need to ask about Babikr. He was sitting apart from the others, his knees drawn up to his chin, arms round them, head bowed.
    Owen went up to him.
    ‘Babikr,’ he said, you must come with me.’
    ‘You know why I have taken you?’
    ‘Yes, Effendi.’
    ‘You broke into the store?’
    ‘Yes, Effendi.’
    ‘And took the dynamite?’
    ‘Yes, Effendi.’
    ‘And what did you do with it?’
    ‘I put it beside the gate. In the culvert.’
    And detonated it?’
    Babikr nodded his head wordlessly.
    ‘Why, Babikr?’
    Babikr shook his head.
    ‘Was it because of something Macrae Effendi had done to
    you?’
    ‘No, no, Effendi—’
    ‘Or Ferguson Effendi?’
    ‘No, Effendi,’ said Babikr, distressed.
    ‘Someone else, perhaps? Here at the barrage?’
    The man shook his head.
    ‘Or in the Department?’
    Again the shake.
    ‘Why then, Babikr?’
    He waited a while and then repeated the question. The man did not reply.
    ‘No one does a thing like this without reason,’ said Owen. ‘What was your reason?’
    Babikr just tightened his lips.
    ‘Perhaps something bad had been done to you?’
    Babikr shook his head firmly.
    ‘No, Effendi. It was not that.’
    ‘Then what was it?’
    ‘The Effendis have always been good to me.’
    ‘Someone else?’
    ‘No one else.’
    Owen sat back bewildered.
    ‘Is it that you are angry against the Khedive?’
    ‘The Khedive?’
    It was almost as if the man had never heard of