Fortunes of War

by Olivia Manning

  ‘Not well. In fact, I gave up feeling well when I came to this country. Guy eats anything and everything, and he’s never ill. I am careful with food and yet my inside’s always upset.’

  ‘Egypt is unpredictable. You never know what it will do to you. I hated it at first, then it grew on me. It’s like a mother you detest, yet are tied to in spite of yourself. I think it’s the place where we all began. It’s here where we were born first and lived out the infancy of the soul.’

  Harriet was surprised, not by what he had said but the fact he had said it, then she laughed: ‘So you believe in reincarnation? Which pharaoh were you?’

  Aidan did not laugh. He seemed affronted for a moment, then, remembering she was Guy’s wife, he did his best to smile. Because she was Guy’s wife, he had been happy to find her in Luxor, he had invited her to dinner and now he permitted her to laugh at him.

  She responded by asking seriously: ‘Is that why you are drawn to Egypt? Would you stay on here after the war?’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s too far from the centre of things. If you’re an actor, you have to live in the world.’

  ‘And this isn’t the world?’

  ‘Not my world, though I am, as you say, drawn to it. I intend to see what I can of it while I’m out here. Tomorrow I’m going to Assuan to visit the gardens of Elephantine. They’re so ancient, they were there when Alexander came to Egypt three hundred years before Christ.’

  ‘What is Elephantine? An oasis?’

  ‘No, an island in the river. It’s called Elephantine because some king or other sacrificed an elephant there.’

  ‘Sacrificed an elephant? How abominable!’

  ‘It would be dead by now, anyway. It was a long time ago.’ He laughed to show her he was being humorous and when she smiled, he said, ‘Why don’t you come to Assuan tomorrow?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Harriet’s money did not allow for a visit to Assuan. Angela, with her usual belief that the dearest thing was the cheapest in the end, had chosen one of the most expensive hotels in Luxor. Harriet said, ‘I can’t stay long.’

  Aidan sighed enviously: ‘I suppose Guy wants you back.’

  Not sure what to say to that, Harriet smiled and Aidan, sympathizing with her uncertainty, said he would walk with her to her hotel. They stopped by a row of small riverside shops that sold Egyptian antiquities and African curios. Although it was nearly midnight and there were few customers these days, the windows were lit and the owners still inside. Aidan bent down, intently examining objects made of ebony or of ivory trimmed with gold. Harriet wondered if he were thinking of a gift for his mother and reminded him: ‘You know, I still have that little cat you bought in the Muski!’

  ‘A cat? Yes, I did buy a cat, but what did I do with it?’

  ‘You gave it to me to keep till you asked for it.’

  ‘So I did. Yes, so I did.’

  They left the shops and came to the Temple of Luxor. Harriet said, ‘A man told me there is a ghost here.’ They leant against the wall and peered down into darkness but no ghost moved through it. She said, ‘You said you had lost the sense that anything was worth keeping. You said that one day you would tell me what caused it. Suppose you tell me here and now, while it’s dark and I can’t see your face!’

  ‘I don’t know . . . I don’t think I can tell you.’ He hung his head over the temple site that was like a pit of darkness where nothing could be discerned except a faint star-glimmer on one of the colossi of Ramses II. When it seemed he had nothing more to say, she urged him:

  ‘Whatever it was: if you keep it to yourself, you’ll never get over it.’

  ‘I don’t expect to get over it. But what happened has no bearing on life as we know it. The dead are dead. There’s nothing to be done about it now.’

  ‘You mean, you don’t want to tell me?’

  ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. It’s not a secret. It’s only that I feel . . . I feel it’s unjust to burden another person with the story.’

  ‘Enough has happened to me. I don’t need to be protected. And you promised.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. I did promise,’ he considered this fact for some minutes before saying, ‘It’s not what happened to me: that wasn’t important. It’s what happened to other people, most of them children.’

  ‘That made it more terrible, of course.’

  ‘More terrible, yes. And yet I don’t know. As we have to die sooner or later, does it matter when we die?’

  Leaving that question to answer itself, Harriet waited and eventually he went on: ‘It was early in the war and I had declared myself a conscientious objector. I thought, being an actor, they might let me go on with my own work but, instead, I was directed on to a ship going to Canada. I had to act as a steward and waiter. I suppose the idea was to humiliate me. The other stewards were lascars, but we got on all right. In fact, I was rather enjoying the trip. There was a crowd of kids on board, being evacuated to Canada . . .’

  ‘I think I can guess which ship that was. You were torpedoed?’

  ‘Yes, just when we thought we were out of range of the U-boats. Our escorts had turned back. We took that to mean we were safe but the truth was, they turned back because they had used their quota of fuel. As soon as we were hit, the convoy scattered. That was according to orders. Whatever happened, the other ships had to save themselves and we were left to sink or swim. We were holed in the side and there was no hope for the ship itself. We had to get the kids into the boats and quick about it. We were going down fast. We tried to be cheerful — told the kids it was an adventure and we’d be picked up in no time. But there was no one to pick us up. It was a miserable night, cold, blowing a gale, pouring with rain. When daylight came, the convoy had vanished and there was no sign of the other boats. We were alone on the Atlantic. Nothing to be seen but the grey, empty sea. Absolutely alone.’ Aidan paused to swallow in his throat, then he asked, ‘Do you want to hear any more?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The children were in their night clothes. We’d got them into life-jackets but when we realized how bad things were, there was no time to go down for blankets. The storm went on, the sea slapping up on us so there was a foot of bilge water in the boat. The kids were seasick but everyone was packed together so they couldn’t get to the side. No one could move. There were nineteen children in our boat and two women helpers, volunteers. Then there were the lascars, fourteen of them . . . And there was an elderly man who was joining his wife in Canada. We had one of the officers with us, a retired navy man who’d been recalled to active service. Kirkbride. He was splendid. Without him, we’d all have died. He knew how to propel the boat, which no one else did. There were no oars. Instead, there were handles like beer-pulls that had to be worked backwards and forwards. We tried to put the lascars on to that job but all they would do was pray and beseech Allah to rescue them. Not that it mattered. There was nowhere to go. We had no idea where we were. Kirkbride said he could navigate by the stars, but there were no stars. Only the black sky and the sea and the wind howling round us. God, the cold! It was bitterly cold. I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘Did you have any special job?’

  ‘I doled out the food, what there was of it. There were iron rations in the boat: some tinned stuff and water. Not enough water. By the fourth day the ration was one mouthful of water and a sardine or a bit of bully on a ship’s biscuit. The women did what they could to keep the kids amused — played games: “Animal, vegetable and mineral”, that sort of thing, and got them to sing “Run rabbit” and “Roll out the barrel”. The old man told them stories. Then one night one of the women disappeared; no one knew what happened to her. The water ran out and the kids couldn’t swallow the biscuits because their throats were dry. I’d saved some condensed milk to the last but that wouldn’t go down, either: it was too thick. After we’d been in the boat a week, the lascars gave up and began to die . . .’

  Aidan stopped again and startled Harriet by laughing. She said �
��Yes?’

  ‘The storm got worse. We threw the dead lascars overboard and the waves threw them back again. We pretended this was funny but the kids had lost interest. They were dying, too. We always knew when a boy or girl was about to die, the kid would start having visions. One of them described an island covered with trees and kept pointing and saying, “Look, it’s just over there. Why don’t we go there?” Several times one of them would think he saw a ship coming to rescue us and the others would say they saw it, too.’

  ‘I suppose they died of thirst?’

  ‘Thirst and exposure. Their feet would go numb, then they’d sink into a coma and that was the end. Each morning, we’d find two or three of them dead. We used the tins to collect rainwater but it wasn’t enough. After about ten days — I’d lost count by then — the second woman died. She’d wrapped her coat round one of the dying girls and she died herself. Hypothermia. Next day the last two children died. There was no one left but Kirkbride, the old man, three of the lascars and me. We’d had nothing to eat for a week. The rain stopped so we hadn’t even rainwater. We decided we’d had it and Kirkbride began to wonder where the boat would be cast up. He thought Iceland or the Faroes, but we knew it would probably just break up and no one would know what had happened to any of us. We’d rigged up a shelter for the smallest children and when there were no children left, we took it in turns to sleep there. The last time I crawled in, I said to myself “Thank God, I needn’t wake up again!” ’

  Aidan’s voice broke and Harriet, seeing the outline of the Ramses statue, wondered what it was doing there out in the dark Atlantic. After a long pause, she said, ‘But that wasn’t the end of the story?’

  ‘Not quite, no. Kirkbride didn’t go to sleep. He stayed on watch and he was awake when a Sunderland flew over us and dived to see what we were. He stood up and waved his shirt and they dropped us a tin of peaches. He woke me up . . . forced me back from another world by pouring peach juice down my throat. The Sunderland radioed all the snips anywhere near — I think the nearest was two hundred miles away — and the first one that reached us, picked us up.’

  ‘And they were all alive: Kirkbride, the old man and the lascars?’

  ‘Yes, I was the only one who died. And I should have stayed dead like the poor little brats we threw overboard. Some of them too light to sink. It was ghastly, seeing them floating after us. I should have died. Instead I woke up, safe and warm, in a bunk on board an American destroyer. The very smell of peach juice makes me sick . . .’ Aidan pushed himself away from the wall and said in disgust: ‘Now, you’ve heard it. That’s the whole story.’ He had told it in a flat voice with none of the dramatic force of his profession. The story itself was enough.

  Harriet said, ‘And you ceased to be a conscientious objector?’

  ‘God, yes. One experience of that sort and I realized I’d be safer in the Pay Corps.’

  His bitterness kept her silent and she told herself she would never laugh at him again.

  As they walked on to Harriet’s hotel, he regained his composure and saying ‘goodnight’, he took her hand and persuasively asked, ‘Why not come to Assuan tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s impossible.’

  ‘Then what about Damascus? You thought you might visit me there.’

  ‘I would if I could persuade Guy to come with me.’

  ‘Yes, do persuade him!’ In his eagerness for Guy’s company, he took a step towards her: ‘And don’t forget to remember me to him.’

  ‘I’ll give him your love,’ Harriet said as she went into the hotel, and she realized she was laughing at him again.

  Harriet’s money ran out. There was nothing left for her to see in Luxor so she returned to Cairo a day earlier than expected. When she reached the flat, it was pervaded by an empty silence and she went to Angela’s room in the hope of finding her there. Angela, too, was out but her suitcases were there, piled so high under the window they partly hid the mango tree that stared into the room.

  Harriet went to her room and, lying on her bed, listened for someone to come in. She did not expect Guy, who seldom ate luncheon, but Angela, Edwina and Dobson were likely to arrive. She could imagine Angela laughing at the folly of her flight back to Cairo, or perhaps rejoicing because Castlebar had discovered he needed her. As for Harriet: all she wanted was a sense of welcome and an assurance that she was not as ill as she felt.

  The bedrooms, barely tolerable in summer, were now cool but the wood that had been baked and rebaked during the hot weather, still gave out a smell like ancient bone. From the garden outside the window came the herbal smell of dried foliage and the hiss of the hoses. She had been repeatedly wakened during the night by the railway servants who were under orders to spray the berths with disinfectant. She had argued that this was no way to prevent the spread of cholera but that did not stop them rapping on her door until she opened it. Half asleep on her bed, she heard a sound of sobbing and knew it came from the room of that other suffering lover: Edwina. She sat up with the intention of going to her, then realized she was not alone. Peter Lisdoonvarna, with joking gruffness, was telling her to ‘shut up’. The sobbing grew louder and gave rise to a slap and scuffle and Peter’s voice, contused with sexual intent, spoke hoarsely: ‘Come on, you little bitch. Turn over.’

  Harriet pushed her bedside chair so it crashed against the door, but the noise did not interrupt the lovers who, with squeaks, grunts and a rhythmic clicking of the bed, were locked together until Peter gave out a final groan and there was an interval of quiet before Edwina, in honeyed appeal, said ‘Teddy-bear, darling, you don’t really mean to go back to the desert?’

  ‘Fear so, old girl. Damned lucky to get back. Thought I was stuck in that God-damn office for the rest of the war.’

  ‘Oh, Peter!’ Edwina’s wail was anguished but it was also resigned. She knew she could not prevent Peter going back to the desert but behind her appeals there was covert intention. She changed her tone as she said: ‘When I passed the Cathedral yesterday, there was a military wedding and I waited to see them come out. The bridegroom was a major and the bride looked gorgeous. Her dress must have come from Cicurel’s. I did envy her. I’d love to be married in the Cathedral.’

  ‘In that yellow edifice beside Bulacq Bridge? You must be right off your rocker.’

  ‘Well, where else is there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.’

  Peter’s indifference to the subject was evident and Harriet wished she, too, could tell Edwina to ‘shut up’. But time was short and Edwina was desperate. However unwise it was, she had to force the pace: ‘Teddy-bear, darling, before you go . . .’ she paused then rushed her proposal: ‘Do let’s get married!’

  There was a creaking noise as Peter got off the bed. Abrupt with embarrassment, he said, ‘’Fraid I can’t do that. Sorry. Blame m’self. Know I should have told you sooner, but didn’t want to spoil things. Been a brute. Not fair to you. Didn’t realize you cared in that way.’

  ‘Peter! You’re not married already?’

  ‘’Fraid so, old girl. Married m’cousin, Pamela. Great girl. Childhood sweethearts.’

  ‘But how could you be married? People would know. Dobson would have told me.’

  ‘Oh, I see. You think it was a big affair: St Margaret’s, fully choral, dozen bridesmaids and pictures in the Tatler? Well, it was nothing like that. Didn’t tell a soul. Just slipped into the Bloomsbury Registry Office and then had a week-end at Brown’s. Only the family knew. With a war on, who cared, anyway?’

  ‘But, Peter, there were dozens of marriages like that and they’re breaking up all the time.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I’m not breaking up this one. Pamela and I always knew we would marry. It’s the real thing. So, be sensible. No reason why we shouldn’t go on being friends.’

  Edwina began to sob again, no doubt thinking that with Peter at the front and the British advancing towards Libya, there would not be much scope for friendship. Touched by h
er tears, Peter became impatient.

  ‘Oh, come on, old girl! We’ve had a lot of fun, haven’t we? Don’t make a fuss now it’s over.’

  At the words ‘it’s over’, Edwina broke down completely. Peter, unable to bear her violent weeping, opened the bedroom door and Harriet heard him mumbling as he went: ‘Got to go, old girl. Sorry and all that. See you some time. ’Bye, ’bye.’ He made off, his steps heavy in the corridor, then was gone, banging the front door after him. The departure was conclusive and Edwina was left to cry herself sick.

  Knowing no way to comfort her, Harriet took herself out of hearing. When Dobson came in, he found her lying on the sofa in the living-room and said, ‘Hello, you safely back?’

  ‘Not really. I feel worse than usual. Dobbie, it couldn’t be cholera, could it?’

  He had, of course, heard about the cholera from Angela. Harriet felt, rather than saw, his movement away from her and felt his fear that she had brought the disease into the flat. Still, he did his best to reassure her.

  ‘When I heard there was an epidemic down there, I made enquiries and was told there was no cholera anywhere in Egypt. The minister said there had been an outbreak of food poisoning in the south.’

  ‘That’s absurd. There were miles of graves and the funerals were passing the hotel all day.’

  ‘You were nowhere near them, I hope?’

  She was alarmed, remembering the corpse she had viewed from the gharry: ‘Why, are the bodies infectious?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but I don’t know much about it. You’d better have a drink.’

  With matter-of-fact kindliness, he gave her a half-tumbler of brandy which she gulped down. Becoming more cheerful, she said, ‘If I have to die, I might as well die drunk.’

  Dobson went out to the telephone. When he came back, he told her there was a taxi waiting for her at the door. He was sending her to the American Hospital for a check-up. He expected her to go at once and she did not blame him. The flat was an embassy flat and the last thing he wanted was to be responsible for spreading the epidemic in Cairo.