“Isn’t it absurd the way these clerks and shop assistants who live almost in squalour at home put on such affectations as soon as they arrive out here.”
“My father tells me it was the same in the last war.” The Lefkaris family had made its living in the middle East for many years. “Laugh at it, my dear chap; don’t let them annoy you.”
“But they do annoy me with their fly-whisks and suede desert boots and big moustaches.”
“It’s the grammar school element aping the public school men, as they always have. None of them would have set foot in one of your officers’ messes but for the accident of a war. They’re making the most of it while they have the chance. I’m afraid it’s the British class system that’s responsible, Geoffrey. Regular officers mostly come from schools like you and I went to. These chaps are no end bucked to get into what they think are upper class circles. They’re the chaps who wear scuffed suede shoes and porkpie hats and belong to obscure rugger clubs.”
“I wish they’d stay at home. Part of their act is to pretend a familiarity with the East that particularly gets on my wick. You never hear one of them refer to a female by any word but ‘bint’ or to money except as ‘akkers’, we’re getting a few of them in the R.A.F., I’m sorry to say: but most of them are brown jobs, thank God. That’s because many of them were in the Territorials before the war.”
“They’re not popular with the civilians, I can tell you. We notice that they manage to get all the safe jobs in Cairo. Very few of them seem to want to do any actual fighting.”
“And you still think they’re to be laughed at?”
“Laughed at and despised. Don’t let them irritate you: they aren’t worth it.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to stand England after the war if it’s going to be infested with types all saying ‘stan a shwar’ when they mean ‘wait a moment’ and think they’re saying ‘istan’na shuwai’ye’, or ‘marlish’ when they mean ‘ma’aleesh’ and actually mean that they’re indifferent to something. I’ll want to kick them; as I do now.”
“Ah, well, it’ll brighten the saloon-bar banter which is about the only sort of conversation they can conduct.”
“And what a line they’ll shoot about being in the desert. The only sand they’ll ever see is around the Pyramids.”
“Yes, there have always been a lot of bad smells in Cairo, but the worst stink in my nostrils is created by some of your countrymen, I’m afraid, Geoffrey.”
Denton voiced these criticisms to Jean one evening at Shepheard’s. He was surprised by her reaction; and the sudden broadening of her Scottish accent.
“Och, you’re a snob, Geoffrey Denton. They’re all doing their bit, aren’t they?”
“Very few of them. The great majority hang on to cushy jobs at base.”
“Someone has to do them.”
“Someone has to do the dirty jobs in the front line, too.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you that that’s another form of snobbery? You squadron boys and the laddies in the infantry and the armoured cars and tanks enjoy looking down on the ones who don’t actually do any fighting. It gives you something more to feel superior about.”
“It’s not superiority, it’s self-respect.”
“Pride comes before a fall.”
With a pang of annoyance Denton was about to tell her that she had succeeded in being obscure and platitudinous at the same time: but she impatiently shifted her position so that her skirt rode up her shapely legs and her breasts bounced under the thin silk of her dress, and his irritation melted more quickly than it had arisen.
On the night before his return to the squadron, taking, her home from an evening of dining and dancing, he began to lay serious siege to what he took for granted was her virginity. It was impossible to sneak into her room at the nurses’ home and the linen cupboard held no allure for him. When he could take some leave in Cairo perhaps he would be able to persuade Jean to spend an afternoon or evening or even a whole night with him in a hotel room. The warmth of her kisses in the taxi made him think so.
“Jean, I love you.”
“Now dinna be silly, Geoffrey. You don’t have to say that. You know how fond I am of you.”
“It’s true. I’m in love with you.”
“It’s the champagne, my dear.”
“I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”
“You’re very sweet and I’m very fond of you.”
“Then will you be engaged to me?”
“Och, darling, there’s no need for that. There’s lots of time for us to think about being engaged.”
There was not. Denton thought of his burned-out Blenheim and of the flak and enemy fighters.
“But do you love me?”
“I’m very fond of you ... look, we’re there. Let me go, dear; my hair’s a mess and I’ve got to repair my lipstick.”
“I’ll come and see you as often as I can. I’ll write to you. You will write to me, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
*
Denton got a lift to Alexandria in a 15 cwt truck. From there he, Critchley and Butler continued their journey in a three-ton lorry.
The road ran parallel to the coast and the single railway line. It took them past places which were destined to become familiar names to the British public and to go down in history. They drove by a lonely railway station called Alamein, where the lovely beach of white sand ran down to a sea that shone with a peculiar sapphire brightness where the sun was reflected off the sand on the bottom through the clear shallow water. They passed Fuka and El Daba, which were merely names given by nomadic desert tribesmen to places where no men lived and which had no more sign of existence than a well.
They arrived at Mersa Matruh, a small resort renowned for its beaches and pellucid water even in the days of Antony and Cleopatra, who lingered there. They stopped for lunch at Hillier’s Hotel, a cluster of single-storey buildings on the shore, shaded by a few defeated-looking palm trees and given a touch of green by a patch of rough grass here and there.
When they resumed their way they drove into a sandstorm. Gritty dust forced itself through every aperture of the lorry and into their noses and ears. They wore sunglasses to protect their eyes. They had to take them off again to see more than a few yards through the swirling thick yellowness that clogged the air. They tied coloured scarves over the lower parts of their faces, but even so some sand found its way into their mouths. It penetrated the buttonholes of their shirts and layered their skins. It got into their shoes. They were thirsty and kept sipping tepid water from their water bottles.
They emerged from the khamsin into gradually clearing air. Military vehicles bound for forward Army units rumbled along the same road: supply lorries and water bowsers, mostly. On their right hand side the Mediterranean shone placidly. On their left the desert gave back the sun’s rays in its many shades of grey and yellow, fading into the distance with no visible sign of man’s presence. Those vehicles which would presently turn off the road towards the brigade, battalion and company headquarters and positions would travel by compass bearing alone, without benefit of signposts. Denton found it hard to believe that thousands of men lived out there, somewhere, in that frightening wilderness. Now and again they passed an overturned lorry, victim of a collision or of a driver who had fallen asleep from the sheer monotony of the landscape.
The squadron had moved further west than Bir Sazara, to a patch of desert bordering the coast which had no name other than Landing Ground Gamma. Why a letter of the Greek alphabet had been chosen to designate a British airstrip was not clear. Perhaps the fact that the word was short and could not easily be mistaken for another had something to do with. It was a name easily passed by field telephone or radio.
They arrived shortly before sunset. Wing Commander Nash, to their amazement, greeted them wearing an Arab head-dress. He glowered at them as though daring them to make some comment. None of them would have dared. He carried, as usual, a
fly whisk; but this was a different one, the longest they had ever seen. He flicked it restlessly about even when there were no flies.
Almost the first words he said to them were “Stan a shwar” and Denton’s heart sank.
Squadron Leader Fry, standing by with a resigned look on his face, led them away to his own office tent as quickly as he could. He, too, had a long fly whisk and wore suede desert boots. He had acquired a wide-brimmed felt hat from the New Zealanders who had recently arrived, and replaced their red and black ribbon around the crown with an R.A.F. one. It made him look like an overweight and dissipated boy scout.
He leaned back in his Harrods folding canvas chair, waving his horsehair fly whisk from side to side, and beamed at them.
“You’ve come back in time for what should be rather a good p-party. Graziani is bound to make a move soon. He has s-six divisions now, supported by two hundred and fifty bombers, two hundred and fifty fighters and a couple of hundred odds and sods of aircraft. We’ve just received enough Hurricanes to re-equip one Gladiator s-squadron, but there are more on the way. Unfortunately, one Blenheim squadron is being sent to the Sudan; not ours, thank God, we’ve been promised.”
Marshal Graziani, the Italian Commander-in-Chief, attacked on 13th September; by which time Denton’s crew had flown on three more operations, none of which was strongly opposed.
Wing Commander Nash, briefing his squadron once the Italian offensive had started, looked like a bull terrier eager to start a fight.
The wing commander jabbed at a map with his fly whisk.
“General Wavell has thirty thousand men with which to face old Graziani’s eighty thousand. And we’ve got a bloody small air force, as you know. So every bomb and every bullet has got to kill. The enemy is advancing along the coast road. We’re going to hit him between Sollum and Buq Buq. He’s still got most of his fighters tied up on standing patrols but he’s bound to have some of them in support of the Army and of course there’ll be mobile flak.”
Buq Buq lay about 25 miles east of the frontier between Egypt and Libya. Sollum stood almost right on the frontier. The squadron knew both places well by now. Buq Buq was another of those featureless spots given a name by the Bedouin only because it boasted a well. Sollum was a different matter. It stood on the Egyptian shore of a deep bay, facing across to Bardia. The most arresting feature of the immediate hinterland was the steep escarpment soaring over 6000 ft in sheer cliffs and hillsides, to the great plateau of the Libyan desert.
Sollum itself was divided into two. Lower Sollum lay on the shore of the bay. Upper Sollum was situated on the heights: an airfield and an Egyptian Army barracks.
British tanks and armoured cars and British infantry were in position on the heights for the Italians’ first move. If it did not come during the next 12 hours, they would themselves attack by night with Fort Capuzzo a few miles across the border as their objective.
The Blenheims took off in the usual flurry of dust and sand that left a haze over the airstrip. Some Gladiators passed them high overhead on their way to deal with enemy bombers attacking the forward British troops on top of the escarpment. A flight of Hurricanes overtook the Blenheims, then turned south to cover the 7th Armoured Division which was moving forward somewhere out of the Blenheims’ range of vision.
There was a new feeling about this sortie. At last the war in North Africa had started in earnest. Soon the Blenheim crews were able to see sand raised by the advancing armour near Sollum. Beyond that the dust created by the enemy’s advance hung in the air.
“Look out for fighters,” Denton warned.
“Flak at two-o’clock,” Critchley reported.
Denton looked to his right front. Brilliant clusters of reddish yellow pinpoints on the ground marked the anti-aircraft guns’ muzzle flashes. Black smoke stained the air where their shells were bursting. Nash led them in a shallow dive towards the guns.
A column of lorries and armoured cars snaked along the road towards Sollum, the lorries laden with Italian infantry. To the south tall columns of smoke rose from the bombs of other British aircraft. Clots of smoke hung in the air, slowly dissipating.
Nash took them down again, in a steeper dive. Machinegun fire came at them from the enemy column, adding to the fire from the mobile cannons.
Denton said “I’m going to drop one at a time bang down the centre line.”
The first was a statement of fact, the second of hope. At 1000 ft he could smell and taste the smoke coming in at the open windows. With it was mingled sand thrown up by exploding bombs. He held his dive to 500 ft. His first bomb fell among a group of stationary lorries crammed with troops. Other lorries were driving off the road on both sides, in haste.
He enjoyed seeing the panic from so close. Men were leaping from the vehicles in terror, landing on top of one another, sprawling in heaps, tripping and falling as they ran, bringing others down.
The rest of his bombs exploded down the road, destroying cars and lorries, killing and wounding scores, perhaps hundreds, of the enemy.
He followed the other Blenheims down to strafe and saw his bullets scattering men and riddling vehicles, setting some of them alight. Petrol tanks erupted into flame. Soldiers with their uniforms on fire ran helter-skelter in all directions. While he climbed away, Butler flailed the enemy in his turn.
The whole formation wheeled and made for Landing Ground Gamma. C.R. 42s whirled around them for a while but the air gunners kept up a heavy crossfire that brought three of them down before the others abandoned the attack. No Blenheims were lost.
The Italians drove their way past the British defences 50 miles deep into Egypt, as far as Sidi Barrani, and halted to dig in and await reinforcements.
*
In their advance to Sidi Barrani the Italians had captured several villages. These they turned into forts which formed a line running south-west from the coast. In their positions they remained static, leaving all the initiative to the British, while General Graziani built up his forces for the next lunge forward.
In the meanwhile General Wavell was increasing his strength. New Zealand, Australian, South African and Indian Army units poured in through Port Said and Suez as well as contingents from Britain.
For ten weeks the campaign in the Western Desert was fought at an unhurried pace. The ground forces made forays behind the enemy lines in light strength. The air forces carried out raids on targets where it would harass them most. Casualties among both sides were light. The war had not come to a standstill and men died and were grievously wounded at every hour of the day, but it was stewing gently, not boiling over.
The relationship between Denton and his crew changed. They had been three individuals who had all undergone a strict and thorough training and acquired a high standard of efficiency, but were held together by discipline and the fact that they had been brought together arbitrarily. Their common misfortunes and adventures, their wounds and the time they had spent in hospital together had brought them closer to one another and increased their mutual respect and friendship.
Flying together daily in less demanding conditions than they had first known gave them time to become a smoothly co-ordinated unit and to make each of them realise the extent to which his life depended on the others. On many of the sorties they flew alone, so Critchley had frequent opportunities to test and improve his navigation. Denton let him do as much of the flying as possible. They both took turns in the turret to improve their shooting; in case Butler were killed or too badly wounded to do his job.
Wing Commander Nash, who had served in the Middle East in peacetime and fancied himself something of an Arabist, with his ungrammatical and sparse Arabic, took to playing with a string of amber worry beads. He wore his Arab head-dress in the mess to breakfast and lunch, and Critchley said it was only a matter of time before he took to flying in it.
Denton suggested that he would soon be seen mounted on a camel.
He did not acquire a camel. but he did take to drinking araq instead of
whisky or gin and could be seen gazing thoughtfully towards Mecca in apparent rumination. Arabs contented themselves with turning in the general direction of their holy city. Teddie Nash took a compass bearing on it.
“D’you think the C.O’s going to turn Muslim?” Denton asked Fry.
“Too painful, I should think.”
The officers shared a rough communal shower. It was obvious that Nash would have to undergo an uncomfortable operation if he embraced Islam.
The shower was almost more ornamental than useful. At times they were reduced to living on a gallon of water a day per officer and man, for all purposes. But the sea was always near at hand.
It was not a bad way to fight a war, Denton often reflected.
He wrote to Jean twice in the first fortnight after his return to the squadron but had no answer. He wrote again and had a brief, impersonal reply. She said, however, that she was looking forward to seeing him when he could get some leave. Her style was as cool as the comfort it gave him.
Five
Whatever was prolonging the stalemate, whether lack of enterprise or courage, General Wavell, Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, decided to end it by carrying the war to a seemingly reluctant and indecisive enemy. The Blenheim crews had the prodigious experience of fighting in a full-scale battle in which all arms, land, sea and air, participated.
On the night of 7th December a force of 30000 men and 275 tanks under the command of General O’Connor set off from Mersa Matruh on its 75-mile advance to meet the enemy’s 80000; but the enemy had only 120 tanks and therein lay a decisive factor.
When Denton took off in company with five other aircraft to attack their usual targets at Tobruk, Gazala, Derna, Appollonia, Sollum and Bardia they flew over armoured cars, tanks, field guns and lorried infantry far out in the desert and along the coastal road well to the west of Mersa Matruh. From many miles away they could see the rolling dust clouds that followed and enveloped each column and every lone vehicle.
The Eagle's Cry Page 7
