‘We hope so, sir. The signal says: “Move only after dark”.’
‘Will do. Received and understood.’
As Simon drove back, Edwina was still on his mind. He tried to order her away but she stayed where she was, smiling down on him from the balcony. The desert air was a sort of anaphrodisiac, and he and the other men were detached from sex, yet he could not reject the romantic enhancement of love. He took out his wallet to distract himself, and, opening it, looked for the photograph of his wife. He could not find it. He could not even remember when he had last seen it. At some time during the past weeks, perhaps during the last months, it had fallen out, and now it was lost. He tried to recreate her in his mind but all he could see was a thin, small figure standing, weeping, on the station platform. She had no face. He struggled with his memory but no face came to him and he wondered, were he to meet her unexpectedly, would he know who she was?
Five
In October, when the evenings grew cool, Dobson ordered the servants to take blankets out of store. A smell of moth-balls filled the flat as he distributed them, saying again and again: ‘So delicious to have a bit of weight on one at night.’
The Garden City foliage scarcely marked the change of season. A few deciduous trees, hidden among the evergreens and palms, dropped their leaves. These went unnoticed but one tree — the students called it the Examination Tree — made a dramatic appearance out of nowhere, feathering its bare branches with mauve blossom, mistaking the autumn for spring.
The morning air became gentle as silk and a delicate mist hung over the old banyans on the riverside walk. The heat, that had dulled the senses like a physical pressure, now lifted and minds and bodies felt renewed. Lovers, no longer suffering the wet and sticky sheets that were cover enough during the summer, became invigorated: and the one most invigorated, it seemed, was Castlebar.
The inmates of the flat were astonished when Angela first led him through the living-room to her bedroom where they remained closeted all afternoon. Castlebar, on his way out, passed Harriet and Edwina with a very smug smile. Angela, appearing later for her evening drink, was not discomposed and made no comment on Castlebar’s visit. The next day he was back again.
Edwina, who had not seen Castlebar before, said to Harriet, ‘Where did Angela pick up that scruffy old has-been?’
Harriet could not believe the infatuation would last, but it was lasting and becoming more fervent. Castlebar was with Angela every afternoon. She confided to Harriet that the keeper of the cheap pension where Castlebar lived had objected to her presence in Castlebar’s room. The woman had demanded double payment for what she called ‘the accommodation of two persons’. Angela would have paid the required sum but Castlebar argued that he had a right to bring in a friend. He said he would not be cheated by ‘a greedy Levantine hag’ and they settled the matter by changing ground.
Harriet and Angela were neighbours in the bedroom corridor and Harriet overheard more than she wanted of the chambering next door. She had no hope of a siesta and went to the living-room to read in peace. Dobson, whose room was in the main part of the flat, once or twice wandered out, a towel tied like a sarong round his waist, and realizing why Harriet had retreated, shook his head over Angela’s fall from grace.
‘The goings-on!’ he grumbled after they had been going on for a week: ‘To think she would take up with a shocker like Castlebar! And I’m told he’s got a wife somewhere. What does she see in him?’
Harriet tried to imagine what Angela saw in him. In the picture that came to her mind, Castlebar, worn down by self-indulgence, middle-age and the Egyptian climate, had a folded yellow skin and a mouth that looked unappetizingly soft, like decayed fruit.
She shook her head: ‘I don’t know. But what does anyone see in anyone? Perhaps that’s what Yeats meant by “love’s bitter mystery”!’
Dobson, though he had never objected to Peter Lisdoonvarna’s presence in Edwina’s room, said he meant to be firm with Angela. ‘It’s going too far. You might drop her a word. Tell her I don’t like it.’
When Harriet attempted to drop the word, Angela broke in to ask, ‘What has it got to do with him? Perhaps he wants me to pay double expenses?’
‘Angela, you’re being disingenuous. He feels that Castlebar’s not worthy of you — he debases you socially.’
The two women laughed and Harriet felt it best to avoid Dobson and his complaints. A few afternoons later, keeping to her room, she was startled by a ringing crash followed by Castlebar’s half-stifled snuffling titter. After he had gone, Harriet, passing Angela’s door, found her on her knees, mopping water from the floor.
‘Sorry if we disturbed you.’
‘I didn’t hear a thing.’
‘Bill knocked down a dish of water. He keeps it by the bed because he’s inclined to come too soon so, when he’s over excited, he dips his wrist in the water and it cools him down.’
This explanation, unblushing and matter-of-fact, took for granted Harriet’s acceptance of the situation and she could only say, ‘I see.’
‘And you can tell bloody Dobson that Bill won’t be here much longer. He’s found himself a flat.’
‘He’s been very clever. When we wanted one, we couldn’t find a thing.’
‘The situation’s easier now as some of the officers are going. And the university has a few flats for its men. Bill put his name down for one as soon as he heard his wife was determined to get back. He had to. He said if he didn’t stir himself on her behalf, she’d raise hell.’
‘You mean, he’s frightened of her?’
‘Terrified. Poor Bill!’
Angela smiled in amused contempt, and yet the enchantment remained. Their afternoons together were not enough for her, she had to see him again in the evening. If, by chance, they had not made an arrangement to meet later, she would go to the Union in search of him, always taking Harriet with her. She was generous with her friends who, in return, were required to support her in her caprices.
Now that the nights were growing cold, the Union members were retiring from the lawn into the club house and there Angela chose a corner table and held it as her own. The chief safragi, heavily tipped, would place an ‘Engaged’ notice on the table and she would sit for as long as need be, awaiting Castlebar.
Her friends were not the only ones to marvel at her intimacy with him. When he appeared, as he did sooner or later, those sitting around would glance askance at the two of them and then at each other.
None of this worried Angela and Castlebar, who openly held hands, Castlebar cleverly manipulating his cigarette and drink with his right hand while his left kept its hold upon Angela. They would put their heads together and whisper. They giggled over jokes known only to themselves.
Harriet, feeling an intruder, gave her attention to Jackman, tolerating him for want of better company. Jackman, himself, resenting Castlebar’s preoccupation with Angela, came for the drink and pretended he had an audience of three. At that time his talk was all about movements in the desert. There were rumours of vast quantities of equipment arriving at Suez and being sent to the front. Always after dark, he said. A man with a famous name, one of a family of prestidigitators, had been flown out to Cairo and was met at parties. He was quiet and pleasant, but gave nothing away. If no one else knew why he was there, Jackman knew.
‘If you hear the hun’s belting back to Libya as fast as his wheels’ll take him, it’s because this chap has fixed up a magic show.’
‘What sort of magic show?’
‘Ah, that would be telling. But he creates illusions. This time, it’ll be millions of them.’
‘And when is this going to happen?’
‘All in good time, my child.’
Meanwhile the Germans were fifty miles from Alexandria, which was exactly where they had been for the last four months. There, like the luckless engineers of some too long drawn out siege, they seemed likely to remain until boredom or starvation sent them home again.
Cookso
n, searching for drink and company, tracked Angela down to her table at the Union and was admitted to the company. He came intermittently at first then, thinking he had confirmed his position, began to appear nightly to the annoyance of Castlebar who whispered to Angela. Angela murmured, ‘Poor old thing, I can’t tell him he’s not wanted.’
‘Let me do it, darling.’
‘Well, if you must — but be tactful.’
‘Naturally, I will.’
The next night Cookson thought he could go further: he brought a friend. He knew several people in Cairo whom no one else wanted to know and one of these was a youth who had no name but Tootsie. Before the war Tootsie had come on holiday to Egypt with his widowed mother. The mother had died, her pension had died with her and Tootsie, cut off by war from the rest of the world, wandered around, looking for someone to keep him. The sight of Tootsie lurking behind Cookson caused Castlebar to lower his eye-tooth. He made a noise in his throat like the warning growl of a guard-dog about to bark.
Cookson, aware of danger, paused nervously, then made a darting sally towards the table, saying on a high, exalted note: ‘Hello, Lady H! Hello, Bill! I knew you wouldn’t mind poor Tootsie . . .’
Castlebar spoke: ‘Go away, Cookson. Nothing for you here.’
‘Go away?’ Cookson appeared flabbergasted: ‘Oh, Bill, how could you be such a meanie? Tootsie and I have had such a tiring day around the bars.’
‘Go away, Cookson.’
‘Please, Bill, don’t be horrid!’ Cookson, near tears, took out his handkerchief and rolled it between his hands while Tootsie, unaware of the contention, made himself agreeable to Harriet. He had a favourite, and, indeed, an only interest in life: the state of his bowels.
He bent over Harriet to tell her: ‘It’s been such a week! Senna pods every night and nothing in the morning. But nothing! Then, only an hour ago, what a surprise! The whole bowel emptied out, and not before time, I can tell you . . .’
Harriet, who had heard about Tootsie’s bowels before, held up a hand to check him while she watched Cookson, now pressing the handkerchief to his cheek, shifting from one foot to the other in shame. Tootsie, taking no notice of Harriet’s appeal, continued in a small, breathy voice, asking her whether she thought the recent evacuation would be a daily event.
She shook her head and Cookson, driven beyond bearing, called to Angela: ‘Dear Lady Hooper, please . . .’
Angela, who had sat with eyes lowered, was forced to look up. She said ‘I’m sorry, Major Cookson. You heard what Bill said.’
‘But do you want me to go, Lady Hooper?’
‘I want what Bill wants.’
Cookson, crestfallen, plucked at Tootsie, saying, ‘I understand. Come along, Tootsie. We have to go.’
As they went in confusion, Angela said with mock severity to Castlebar, ‘You weren’t very tactful, were you? You dreadful, lovely brute!’ and she gave him an admiring kiss on the side of his mouth.
This incident had been observed by some thirty Union members, among them an oil agent called Clifford who had been one of the intruders present when Angela brought home her dead child. As Clifford keenly watched and heard Cookson’s dismissal, Harriet remembered how he had recounted the story of the boy’s death to the first people he met.
She was not surprised when Dobson complained to her a day or two later: ‘Angela’s outrageous. The whole of Cairo’s talking about her wretched liaison. It’s getting the flat a bad name. And where, oh where, will it all end?’
Six
In the third week of October, the junior officers, NCOs and men were briefed for battle. Calling his three liaison officers together, Major Fitzwilliams addressed them in his flat, pleasant voice: ‘We’ve all known the party was due to begin. It was just a question of how soon; and with the moon already waning, it had to be damned soon. Well, no need to tell you, it’s any day now. Not tomorrow. I’d say the day after. You may feel this is short notice, but that’s how Monty wants it. So, keep your traps shut, even among yourselves. There’ll be plenty for you to do at the off. Meanwhile, chaps, carry on.’
Blair remained sunk into silence during the next two days and Donaldson bustled about as though preparing for action. Simon, when he sat with Blair, did not attempt to break into his abstraction. In their different ways, they suffered the tension of waiting. Simon had once led a platoon into action and experienced again the accumulating apprehension of the event ahead. But this time he did not expect to face danger, and could allow himself a self-indulgent excitement.
On the second day, they saw the reconnaissance parties going out at twilight and Blair whispered to Simon: ‘This is it. Their job is to mark the starting point with tape. Then there’ll be the barrage. Then the infantry go in — poor fuckers!’
‘Don’t the sappers go first?’
‘No. The sappers clear the lanes for the tanks but the infantry have to take their chance.’
The camp emptied as the different units moved forward. There was nothing for the liaison officers at that time and they stood by the command truck like stage hands waiting for the show to commence. Donaldson, having no opportunity to flaunt his superiority, walked backwards and forwards, occasionally pausing to kick at the sand with one heel. Fitzwilliams had given each of them a copy of Montgomery’s message to his troops. Simon, reading by the light of a torch, was moved by the commander’s invocation to ‘the Lord mighty in battle’ and said fervently: ‘Wish I was out there with them.’
Donaldson gave a guffaw of contempt: ‘Don’t you know the infantry went forward at daybreak? Been stuck in the slitties all day. Had to keep their heads down, too; couldn’t even come up for a piss. How’d you like that? Bet you’d soon be pretty sick. What do you think, Blair?’ Blair made no reply to Donaldson’s perky show of knowledge but stared before him with a distracted expression as though stupefied by the onset of action.
At 19.00 hours there had been a special treat for officers and men; a hot meal of beef and carrots. Blair had not touched it and when Simon urged him to eat up, he shook his head, ‘Don’t fancy it, somehow.’
The moon, the great white Egyptian moon, rising above the horizon, was sharpening every object into sections of silver or black. According to rumour the attack would start at 21.00 hours but 21.00 hours came and went and there was nothing but an expectant silence. The men that remained in the camp had gathered about the command truck, all facing westwards like sightseers awaiting a firework display.
As the brilliance increased, Simon began to feel a fearful impatience, certain that the moon would reveal to the enemy the great concourse of guns and tanks moving towards the tapes. But the night, a windless and quiet night, remained still and, imagining the Germans asleep, he pitied their unsuspecting repose.
Donaldson, making approaches to his seniors, kept looking at his watch and saying knowingly: ‘It’ll be 22.00 hours, you see if it isn’t,’ but he was wrong. The barrage started twenty minutes before the predicted time.
It opened with so deafening a roar that some of the men round the truck, a mile or more from the guns, stepped back in trepidation. The timing had been perfect. Every gun had fired on the instant.
Donaldson giggled: ‘Enough to make you wet your pants. What’ve they got out there, for God’s sake?’
No one else spoke. The noise, a supreme awfulness of noise, went on. There was no increase of volume because there could be no increase: the pitch was at its height from the start. It shocked the nerves and its effect was made more awesome by the gun-flashes that stabbed on the horizon, orange and red, an unceasing frenzy of lights.
Simon turned to Blair and found he was no longer beside him. He was leaning against the side of the truck, hands over ears, shoulders raised as though he were being beaten about the head. Simon went to him: ‘You all right, Blair?’
Blair did not reply. Simon, putting a hand on his shoulder, felt the man’s body shaking and left him, unwilling to be a witness to such terror.
For fifteen minute
s the uproar continued without a pause, then ended as abruptly as it had begun. The sudden silence was as unnerving as the noise, then came a sense of release. The men began excitedly to discuss what might happen next but in a moment the guns started up again.
Simon looked at Blair and saw that under this renewed onslaught, he had sunk down and was now kneeling, head against a truck wheel, about to collapse altogether. One of Fitzwilliams’s messengers was bending over him and, realizing his condition, returned to the office. The man reappeared a minute or two later and called Simon in.
Fitzwilliams said: ‘I’ve a job for you, Boulderstone. I would have sent Blair but seems he’s under the weather. Tanks are due to move in at 02.00 hours when the sappers have cleared the lanes. I want you to take a signal to CO, Engineers. You’ll have to negotiate the mine field but they’ll have gone over the near section by now. No great danger.’ He looked at Simon and as though struck by his youth and inexperience, added: ‘Sorry it had to be you. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Want you back here in one piece, old chap.’
The ‘old chap’ produced in Simon a choking sense of gratitude. The chance to go forward was enough. He needed no apology. He said, ‘Don’t worry about me, sir,’ and turning, he made for the jeep at a run.
Crosbie, at the wheel, was awake simply because no living creature could sleep through the din. Yawning, he asked, ‘Where are we going, sir?’
Simon scarcely knew himself but said, ‘We’re to take “boat” track and hope for the best.’
Fortunes of War Page 30
