Terry whispered to Tony, ‘D’you think the balloon’s going up? I’ll mingle — see what’s cooking.’
Simon watched respectfully as Terry moved among the officers looking for one of his own rank. He, himself, would not have dared to speak to any of them.
Returning, Terry said quietly, his face expressionless: ‘Something’s happening, all right, but they don’t know what it is. Reconnaissance planes’ve seen preparations in the southern sector. Feeling is, jerry’s all set for the big breakthrough.’
Tony permitted himself a little excitement: ‘Then we’ll be in at the kill?’
Simon, stuck in Cairo for a week, wondered if he would ever be in on anything. He had reached Suez during an emergency and been sent straight to the front amid the turmoil of an army that had been routed, or nearly routed. An army of remnants, someone called it.
He said, ‘I suppose they had to break through sooner or later. I could see how thin our line was. I asked my CO why they didn’t come on and he thought they just needed a rest.’
‘Needed a rest? Like hell they needed a rest,’ Terry said. ‘I don’t know how much action you’ve seen, old chap, but in our area we fought back and stopped the blighters in their tracks. That’s why they didn’t come on. We wouldn’t give them another inch.’
‘I see.’ Simon spoke meekly, aware he had seen too little action to be any sort of judge of events. His sector, the great open tract south of the Ruweisat Ridge, was patrolled by mobile columns ordered to ‘sting the jerries wherever and whenever they got the chance’. Simon, a junior officer in the dullest part of the line, had only once had a chance to sting anyone.
He said, ‘When I was given leave, things seemed, to be at a standstill.’ He had imagined the whole line becalmed for ever in the treacle heat of summer and now, it seemed, he had only to leave the desert for the war to come to life. Despondently, he said, ‘My sector’s south. Wish I was going with you.’
But why should he not go with them? His stay in Cairo, short though it was, had been a disaster. He wanted no more of it. At the thought of returning to the front, he rose for the first time since Hugo’s death out of total desolation. To be in at the kill! To kill the killers! Everything else — Edwina’s perfidy, the wretched party at the night club, the exhibition in the brothel — went from his mind and he eagerly asked: ‘Can I come with you? I suppose you’ve got transport?’
‘Yep, we managed to scrounge a pick-up. We could squeeze you in, but supposing it’s only a twitch? You’d lose your leave for nothing.’ Terry looked to Tony and laughed: ‘If I had another week, I’d take it.’
Tony laughed, too: ‘Leave doesn’t come all that often!’
Simon did not explain his urgent desire to return to the desert but said, ‘I’d be grateful for a lift.’
‘OK. We’re making an early start, so let’s get that drink and call it a day.’
The Cherrypickers called for Simon at 06.30 hours next morning. Conditioned to rising at dawn, he was ready, waiting on the hotel steps. The pick-up, an eight-hundred-weight truck, was roomy enough. The three could travel in comfort.
The Cherrypickers had nothing to say that morning. Terry was at the wheel with Tony beside him. Neither had a word for Simon as he settled into the back with the baggage. He, for his part, knew he should speak only when spoken to, so they drove in silence through the empty streets in the pale morning sunlight.
The road out of Cairo was already a commonplace to Simon: the mud brick villas, the roadside trees holding out discs of flame-coloured florets, the scented bean fields, then the pyramids and the staring, blunted face of the sphinx. None of it stirred him now. He sank into a doze but outside Mena, where they ran into open desert, he was jerked awake as Terry braked to a stop. A man had been killed on the road. The body lay on the verge, wrapped in white cloth, and other men, workmen in galabiahs, seeing the truck approach, had run in front of it and held up their hands.
Terry shouted down to them, ‘How’d it happen?’
The men, crowding round the truck, did not look very dangerous. Unable to understand the question, they glanced at each other then one said, ‘Poor man dead’, and from a habit of courtesy, grinned and put a hand over his mouth.
Saying, ‘Oh, lord!’ Terry put his fingers into his shirt pocket and pulled out some folded notes. Giving the man a pound, he said, ‘For the wife and kids.’ The spokesman, accepting it and touching his brow and breast in gratitude, waved to the others to let the truck through.
Driving on, Terry asked, ‘What did you make of that?’
Tony laughed. ‘Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike. They’re easily bought off.’
‘Fellow killed by an army lorry, I’d guess.’
Simon returned to sleep. Outside Alexandria, on the shore road near the soda lakes, Tony shook him awake, saying, ‘How about brekker?’
The Cherrypickers had a picnic basket with them, packed by their hotel. The three men sat on the seaside rocks in the warm sea breeze. The food — portions of cold roast duck, fresh rolls, butter, coffee in a thermos flask — was far above the army fare to which Simon was used, but he was too self-conscious to express any opinion.
Terry asked, rather irritably, ‘This all right for you?’
‘I’ll say. It’s super.’
‘Good. Thought perhaps you were tired of roast duck.’
‘Never tasted it before.’
Simon was left to eat his fill while Terry and Tony discussed duck-shooting, a sport that was, they decided, carried to excess in diplomatic circles.
‘Soon won’t be a damned duck left,’ Terry grumbled as he cleaned off a drumstick and started on a wing.
Tony gave him a sly, sidelong smile: ‘Jolly nice, though, to have a bird in the fridge to pick at when you come in late.’
The meal finished, the Cherrypickers lay, eyes closed, in the sun while Simon, awaiting the order to move, threw stones into the slowly moving sea. At the eastern end of the shore road the traffic was light and the three men rested in a quiet that was almost peace. But the heat was growing and Terry, rousing himself, said, ‘Better get underway.’ For twenty miles or so he was able to keep a steady sixty miles an hour but reaching the forward area, they were slowed not only by trucks and cars but by infantry moving west.
Tony said, ‘Certainly seems things are moving.’
When the sound of gunfire could be heard, Simon felt a familiar fear, yet, seeing about him the equipment of war, he had a sense of returning to the known world.
The petrol cans, set at intervals beside the road, indicated the direction of the different corps and divisions. None of this had relevance for the three men whose units were a good way south. Observing tanks in the distance, Terry raised his brows: ‘Wonder what they’re up to? Looks like training exercises.’ A mile further on, he drew up by a supply dump and gave Simon a casual order: ‘Care to go in and ask if they’ll fill us up? Might get some gen while you’re there.’
Dropping down off the back of the truck, Simon crossed to the wire enclosure. It was mid-day, the time of burning heat, and the smell of the dump hit him while he was several yards from it. The Column’s signalman, Ridley, purveyor of scandals and rumours, had told him that food intended for the British civilians in Palestine was usually seized by the ordnance officers at Kantara: ‘They take their whack and the rest goes into the blue to rot. Dead waste, I call it.’ Ridley had no love for British officials but he had an acute dislike for ordnance officers who, he said, ‘grow fat on what we don’t get — which is proper grub.’
Admitted into the compound, Simon was directed to the command truck where he found the officer in charge at a desk beneath a lean-to. The stench trapped under the canvas was sickening but the officer, flushed and flustered, had other things to worry about. Hearing Simon approach, he said over his shoulder, ‘What the hell do you want?’
‘Petrol, sir.’
‘Ah!’ Simon’s inoffensive request caused the officer to relax for the moment.
Pushing back from the desk and wiping his face, he took out a cigarette: ‘First today. Bloody circus here since that new chap took over.’
‘We could see tanks in training. We wondered what was up.’
‘It’s the new chap, Monty they call him. He wants everyone fighting fit. Says he’ll put 8th Army on its toes, so it seems things are hotting up.’
‘There was a belief in Cairo that the show had started.’
‘Not up here, it hasn’t.’
‘In the southern sector perhaps?’
‘Could be. Nobody tells me anything.’ The officer, not telling anything himself, took one more puff at his cigarette then squashed it into a tin where half-smoked cigarettes were twisted together like a nest of caterpillars. He stared about him, fearing some other demand would be made on him, but seeing only Simon, he lit another cigarette.
‘Right. I’ll give you a chitty then bring her in and fill her up. There’ll be a Naafi truck round shortly if you feel like a snack.’
In mid-afternoon Ruweisat Ridge appeared like a shadow through the fog of heat with immense clouds of dust rising and turning into the sky behind it. Tony said, ‘Someone’s getting it over there.’
Formations of Wellingtons were going south and Terry said with delight, ‘We’ll drive straight into it,’ but a mile further on, when they had begun to feel the vibrations of heavy artillery, a military police car blocked the route and a policeman directed them to take a barrel track that ran eastwards, away from the battle.
Terry put up an angry protest: ‘That’s no good to us. We’re not going that way. The llth Hussars are down in Himeimat and we’ve got to join them.’
‘No, sir, you must get on the track and stay on it. Himeimat’s under heavy fire. Doubt if any of your chaps are left there now. You follow the track and you’ll get to Samaket — if Samaket’s still there.’
‘If there’s a barney on, we ought to be in it. If the Hussars are not at Himeimat, where are they?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, sir.’
Forced to turn eastwards, the three men grumbled at each other, disappointed yet excited. Terry said, ‘We were almost in it — and now where are we going? It’s like being chucked out of the theatre half-way through the show.’
In late afternoon the track, which had dropped south, brought them into a flat stretch of sand marked out with barrels to form enclosures for tank repair units, supply dumps, vehicle workshops, dressing stations and mortuary huts. Simon had seen something similar in his early desert days and knew it was a depot for the battle in progress. They stopped at the command vehicle where a captain hurried towards them with the excited air of a man who brings good news. The enemy, he said, had attempted a breakthrough just north of Himeimat.
Terry struck the wheel in a rage: ‘We’ve missed it. We’ve ruddy well missed it.’
The captain laughed. ‘You haven’t missed a thing.’
‘Where are the jerries now, then?’
‘Stuck in the mine fields.’
Terry swung round to face Tony: ‘We must get in on this,’ then asked the captain: ‘You think they’ll get any further?’
‘There’s no knowing. They’ve put in a fair bit of armour. Our reconnaissance reported a hundred or more Mark IIIs in the gap, but there’s a storm blowing up. Dust so thick you can’t tell sand from shit.’
In the general good fellowship, Simon found courage to enquire about his Column which he had left to the east of Ragil.
‘What! Hardy’s lot?’ the captain gave a laugh that was almost a gibe: ‘Last seen on the Cairo barrel track.’
‘Not in action, I suppose?’
‘Rather not. Seems like they were looking for rabbits.’
Simon jumped down from the pick-up. He could not get in on the fight and he had no excuse for staying with the Cherrypickers. He must wait for a vehicle that would take him to wherever the Column was now.
As the hussars set off again, the captain shouted after them: ‘Mind you don’t drive straight into the bag.’ He gave Simon a look and said, ‘I’ve known that happen before now,’ then, having nothing more to say to an inexperienced second lieutenant, he walked back to the command vehicle.
Simon carried his kit into the shade of a hut and sat down beside it. He could see the pick-up disappearing down the track in a cloud of dust. He envied the Cherrypickers but felt no regrets at parting with them. He had learnt independence during his months in the desert. In early days, he had attached himself to anyone who could, in some way, replace the lost relationships of home, but the need for those relationships had died as his friends died. He had become wary of affections that seemed always to end in tragedy. This last death, Hugo’s death, had, he felt, brought his emotional life to a close. He no longer wanted intimates or cronies. He told himself he could manage very well on his own.
Three
Dissatisfaction — chiefly Harriet’s — was eroding the Pringles’ marriage. Harriet had not enough to do, Guy too much. Feeling a need to justify his civilian status, he worked outside of normal hours at the Institute, organizing lectures, entertainments for troops and any other activity that could give him a sense of purpose. Harriet saw in his tireless bustle an attempt to escape a situation that did not exist. Even had he been free to join the army, his short sight would have failed him. He thought himself into guilt in order to justify his exertions, and his exertions saved him from facing obnoxious realities.
Or so she thought. So thinking, she felt not so much resentment as a profound disappointment. Perhaps she had expected too much from marriage, but were her expectations unreasonable? Did all married couples spend their evenings apart? She felt that their relationship had reached an impasse but Guy was content enough. Things were much as he wanted them to be and if he noticed her discontent, it was only to wonder at it. He felt concern, seeing her too thin for health, but saw no reason to blame himself. He blamed the Egyptian climate and suggested she take passage on a boat due, some time soon, to sail round the Cape to England.
She had been dumbfounded by the suggestion. She would not consider it for a moment but said: ‘We came together and when we leave, we’ll leave together.’ And that, she thought, decided that.
Guy seldom came in for meals and when he returned to the flat one lunch-time, she asked with pleasurable surprise: ‘Are you home for the rest of the day?’
He laughed at the idea. Of course he was not home for the rest of the day. He had come to change his clothes. He was to attend a ceremony at the Moslem cemetery and had to hurry. Harriet, following him to their room, said, ‘But you will stay for lunch?’
‘No. Before I go to the cemetery, I have to interview a couple of men who want to teach at the Institute.’
‘So you’re going to the City of the Dead?’ Harriet was amazed. During their early days in Cairo, when he had had time to see the sights, he had rejected the City of the Dead as a ‘morbid show’, so what was taking him there now? He was going from a sense of duty. One of his pupils had been killed in a car accident and he was to attend, not the funeral, but the arba’in, the visit to the dead that ended the forty days of official mourning.
‘Can I come with you?’
Guy, harassed by the need to dress himself all over again that day, said, ‘No. It’s probably only for men. But why not? It won’t hurt them to be reminded that women exist. Yes, come if you like.’
He was a large, bespectacled, untidy man, now much improved by his well-cut dark blue suit, but he could not leave it like that. Stuffing his pockets with books and papers, he managed to revert to his usual negligent appearance, and becoming more cheerful, said, ‘Meet me at Groppi’s at three.’
‘But will you be there at three?’
‘Of course. Now, don’t be late. I’ve a busy evening ahead, so we’ll go early and leave early.’
As he left the room, she saw his wallet half out of his rear pocket and shouted, ‘Put your wallet in before it gets nicked.’
‘Thanks. Must hurry. Go
t a taxi waiting. Remember, don’t be late. If you’re late, I’ll have to start without you.’
During September, the heat of summer had settled, layer upon layer, in the streets until they were compacted under a dead weight of heat which veiled the city like a yellow fog. Groppi’s garden, a gravelled, open space surrounded by house walls and scented by coffee and cakes, was like a vast cube of Turkish delight.
Wandering into it at the sticky, blazing hour of three in the afternoon, Harriet saw that Guy was not there. She asked herself why had she ever thought he would be? He was always late yet his assurances were so convincing, she still believed he would come when he said he would.
Army men saw Groppi’s as a good place for picking up girls and Harriet disliked being alone there. She had chosen a table close to the wall and felt herself to be an object of too much interest. She would, if she could, have hidden herself altogether.
The sun, immediately overhead, poured down through the cloth of the umbrellas like molten brass. Creepers, kept alive by water seeping from a perforated hose, rustled their mat of papery leaves. With nothing but creepers for company, she sat with downcast eyes and told herself she could murder Guy.
Someone said, ‘Hello,’ and, looking up, she saw Dobson had come to sit with her. They met at almost every meal time in the flat yet she welcomed him as a dear friend unseen for months and her spirits rose.
Dobson, as usual, had an amusing story to tell: ‘They say things are so bad in Russia, they’ve started opening the churches. What I heard was: Stalin was driving out of the Kremlin one night and the headlights of his car lit a poster that said “Religion — the opium of the masses!” “My God,” said Stalin, “That’s just what we want these days: opium” and he ordered the churches to be reopened.’
‘Did he really say “My God”?’
Dobson’s soft sloping shoulders shook as he laughed: ‘Oh, Harriet, how sharp you are!’ He brushed a hand over his puffs of hair and asked, ‘What would he say? He’d say “Oh, Russian winter!’”
Fortunes of War Page 27
