And yet, who else would represent the Egyptian people? The British were conquerors, the Parliament was a puppet and the King was a foreigner. There was another reason for the proposal, one which would not be discussed here, one which Sadat would not admit to himself except in the middle of the night: Abdel Nasser had been posted to the Sudan with his unit, and his absence gave Sadat a chance to win for himself the position of leader of the rebel movement. He pushed the thought out of his mind, for it was ignoble. He had to get the others to agree to the proposal, then to agree to the means of carrying it out. It was Kemel who spoke first. “But will the Germans take us seriously?” he asked. Sadat nodded, as if he too thought that was an important consideration. In fact he and Ketnel had agreed beforehand that Kemel should ask this question, for it was a red herring. The real question was whether the Germans could be trusted to keep to any agreement they made with a group of unofficial rebels: Sadat did not want the meeting to discuss that. It was unlikely that the Germans would stick to their part of the bargain; but if the Egyptians did rise up against the British, and if they were then betrayed by the Germans, they would see that nothing but independence was good enough-and perhaps, too, they would turn for leadership to the man who had organized the uprising. Such hard political realities were not for meetings such as this: they were too sophisticated, too calculating. Kemel was the only person with whom Sadat could discuss tactics. Kemel was a policeman, a detective with the Cairo force, a shrewd, careful man: perhaps police work had made him cynical. The others began to talk about whether it would work. Sadat made no contribution to the discussion. Let them talk, he thought; it’s what they really like to do. When it came to action they usually let him down. As they argued, Sadat recalled the failed revolution of the previous summer. It had started with the sheik of a]-Azhar, who had preached: “We have nothing to do with the war.” Then the Egyptian Parliament, in a rare display of independence, had adopted the policy: “Save Egypt from the scourge of war.” Until then the Egyptian Army had been fighting side THE KEY TO REBECCA 73
by side with the British Army in the desert, but now the British ordered the Egyptians to lay down their arms and withdraw. The Egyptians were happy to witbdraw but did not want to be disarmed. Sadat saw a heaven-sent opportunity to foment strife. He and many other young officers refiised to hand in their guns and planned to march on Cairo. To Sadat’s great disappointment, the British immediately yielded and let them keep their weapons. Sadat continued to try to fan the spark of rebellion into the flame of revohition, but the British had outmaneuvered him by giving way. The march on Cairo was a fiasco: Sadat’s unit arrived at the assembly point but nobody else came. They washed their vehicles, sat down, waited awhile, then wcnt on to their camp. Six months later Sadat had suffered another failure. This time it centered on Egypt’s fat, licentious, Turkis1h King. The British gave an ultimatum to King Farouk: either he was to instruct his Premier to form a new, pro-British government, or he rwas to abdi-ate. Under pressure the King summoned Mustafa el-Nahas Pasha and ordered him to form a new government. Sadat was no royalist, but he was an opportunist: he announced that this was a violation of Egyptian sovereignty, and the young officers marched to the palace to salute the Kin ‘ g in protest. Once again Sadat tried to nush the rebellion further. His plan was to surround the palace in token defense of the King. Once again, he was the only one who turned up. He bad been bitterly disappointed on both occasions. He had felt like abandoning, the whole rebel cause: let the Egvptians go to bell their own way, he had thought in the moments of blackest despair. Yet those moments passed, for he knew the cause was right and he knew he was smart enough to serve it well. “But we haven’t any means of contacting the Germans.” It was Tmam speaking, one of the pilots. Sadat was pleased that they were already discussing how to do it rather than whether to. Kemel had the answer to the question. “We might send the message by plane.” “Yes!” Imam was young and fiery. “One of us could i go up on a routine patrol and then divert from the course and land behind German lines.” 74 Ken Follett