A Good Clean Fight

by Derek Robinson

  “Everybody else found some cover. They jumped us in the open and we ran like hell. Went tearing up this wadi and got inside some little cliffs. Under the overhangs. Tony was a bit slow, I suppose.”

  Kerr straightened the pages and banged a staple through the corner. “Twenty-seven kites,” he said. “Bloody good show.”

  Lampard placed two letters on the desk. “Next-of-kin,” he said. “Will you forward them?”

  “I’ll forward one,” Kerr said. “Harris’s family is in London. The other you can deliver yourself, if you wouldn’t mind. Mrs. Waterman lives quite near here.” He wrote on the envelope and handed it back. “Nice lady, so I’m told. Rotten luck for her.”

  Lampard read the address and nodded sombrely. He picked up his cap and spun it on his finger. “No fun for me, either,” he said.

  * * *

  Even in North Africa little children like to play in the sand, which was why the infants’ school on the outskirts of Derna had a sandbox. The building had lost half its roof, and two walls were ventilated by shell-holes big enough to drive a tank through. This was proved by the remains of a burned-out British tank inside a classroom. But the remains of the infants’ school suited General Schaefer’s staff. They kicked out an Italian signals unit and took over. A few tarpaulins made a discreet tent over the sandbox, and the sandbox—fifteen feet by six—was perfect for a multicolored sand-map of seven hundred miles of coastline, with Derna more or less in the middle.

  The sand-map was a work of art. It began with Alexandria (big black blob) on the extreme right and traced the coastline westward through El Alamein and all the old familiar battle honors, Mersa Matruh, Sidi Barrani, Sollum, Bardia, Tobruk and Gazala, which marked the line that separated the opposing armies. West of Gazala came the most populated part of Libya, the Jebel el Akhdar, which means Green Mountain. It was peppered with bases and aerodromes and landing-grounds: Bomba and Tmimi, Martuba and Derna, Slonta and Barce, all across the Jebel to Benghazi with the airfields of Benina and Regima and Berka clustered around it; then southward down the bulge, past Beda Fomm and Antelat to Agedabia, which was about as far as the British got on their last offensive, until Rommel caught them off balance and shoved them back to Gazala. (Tripoli, Rommel’s big supply port, was a further four hundred miles westward.) The Mediterranean was blue sand, the Jebel was a bump of green sand, and all along the coastal strip there were more red stars and blue squares and silver circles than you could count, each telling part of the recent history of Rommel’s Afrika Armee. It was a hell of a good sand-map.

  General Schaefer had ordered this conference on behind-the-line security, which everyone knew meant insecurity. He had summoned the officers responsible for protecting sections of the seven-hundred-mile stretch of coastline. They numbered thirty-seven, and they sat on ammunition boxes while Schaefer stood beside the sand-map and put them in the picture.

  “It’s simple, gentlemen,” he said. “While we are preparing to win at the front, we are losing at the rear.”

  That got their full attention. Schaefer was a hard, unsmiling man. He had a small silver plate in his skull, compliments of a French artillery attack at Verdun in 1916, and his work-rate occasionally drove his staff officers to a state of collapse. It was said that he had been transferred here from Russia because of a row with Hitler. Schaefer had won the debate but (inevitably) lost the argument. Now he was telling them they were losing in Africa! Major Jakowski (third row, second from left) was impressed.

  “Losing does not mean lost,” Schaefer said. “It means the enemy is doing far better than he should. And that must stop.” An aide handed him a clipboard. “I am aware that the enemy has been raiding behind our lines for a long time. But this year the raiding has intensified.” He handed the clipboard back. “I won’t waste time with statistics. Aircraft destroyed. Fuel-dumps destroyed. Vehicle parks destroyed. Men destroyed. Look down here. Each red star is an airfield raid. Each blue square is a fuel-dump raid or, worse still, a fuel-tanker destroyed. Each silver circle is a raid on an ammunition-dump. Of course the enemy raiders have suffered losses too. But they are losing a few jeeps and a handful of men while we lose a squadron of fighters. So it must stop. And you are here today to help me find a way to stop it.”

  It turned out to be a long day.

  Many officers had prepared proposals in advance and they submitted these ideas along with plans, maps, charts and graphs to support them.

  The first man up proposed a total sunset-to-dawn curfew all along the coast road; during curfew, heavily armed motor patrols would be free to shoot anything that moved. At first this appealed to many, but then the questions began. What happens when something is needed urgently at the front? What about our Italian allies, notorious nightbirds? How many motor patrols would you need to be sure of catching every raid? Enthusiasm faded. The next suggestion was for the floodlighting of all aerodromes and similar targets. It was pointed out that the RAF would enjoy bombing illuminated targets. Yes, the officer agreed, that was a factor; but on radar warning of incoming bombers the lights would of course be switched off until . . .

  Until the SAS coordinated its raids with RAF attacks?

  “I never claimed it was perfect,” the officer said.

  “Very wise,” General Schaefer said. “Thank you.”

  Next up was a newly-arrived officer with a plan to recruit all the Senussi Arabs as a well-paid corps of observers and informers. Imagine the effect of two hundred thousand informers and bounty-hunters, and all for what? A couple of million marks?

  He stopped because Schaefer had raised his hand. “Butcher Graziani conquered these people in the twenties by slaughtering them. The Arabs loathe the Italians and they hate us because if we win the Italians will stay here. The Arabs will take your money and still help the British. So would I, if I were an Arab. Next?”

  Next came electrified barbed wire plus packs of Rottweiler guard dogs. After that, a proposal to build a string of big, raid-proof compounds for all Axis forces in the coastal strip. Then a plan for standing patrols by the Luftwaffe, dusk to dawn. Someone asked: “How can the Luftwaffe find a raiding party in the dark, let alone identify it?” This led to a discussion of airborne searchlights and the use of paratroops. The idea died.

  Slump. Only the flies remained brisk.

  Jakowski had ignored all this chatter and concentrated on the sand-map. He had never liked it. The thing was perfect, but it was all wrong.

  There were a couple of buckets of sand on the floor behind General Schaefer, left over from the map-making. Jakowski had always been impetuous; it was one reason he was still only a major among these colonels and brigadiers. He walked behind Schaefer and grabbed a bucket. “With your permission, sir?”

  Schaefer waved him on. Jakowski stepped into the Mediterranean. “We’ve all been looking in the wrong place!” he declared. “That’s where the trouble comes from!” He swung the bucket and shot the sand over the top of the Jebel el Akhdar and out of the sand box. It spread wide and fan-like, lapping the boots of the front row. There was silence as he got the second bucket and flung out a further forty thousand square miles of Sahara. “The way to stop these raids is to hunt them down in the desert before they can do any damage. Give me five hundred men and fifty vehicles, sir, and I guarantee results.”

  General Schaefer almost smiled. “What is your name, major?” he asked.

  An hour later Jakowski flew back to Barce. In the mess he met Schramm, propped up on his new crutches. Jakowski described the conference. “Don’t say he’s given you five hundred men,” Schramm said.

  “No, that wasn’t possible,” Jakowski said, “but he’s given me a hundred and fifty, plus thirty desert vehicles. It’s a start. In fact we start tomorrow. Into the desert.”

  “Would you like some advice?” Schramm asked.

  “No.” It was an impulsive reply, but now Jakowski couldn’t take it back.

  “No,” Schramm said. “I didn’t think you would.”

 
Jakowski linked his fingers behind his back, squared his shoulders, pulled in his stomach and made his knuckles crack. “Schaefer asked me who would be in charge of airfield security here while I’m away. I recommended you.”

  “What a kind thought,” Schramm said. “Hurry back, won’t you?”

  * * *

  Captain Kerr could smell the presence of a serious lie; literally smell it. It smelled to him like bad fish, like fish that had begun to rot. This is a foul and disgusting smell and he had learned to control and conceal his instant revulsion. Nevertheless, the smell was indisputable.

  Kerr was rational and intelligent and he resented being bullied by his senses when there was no obvious cause, so he consulted the family doctor. “Olfactory hallucinations,” his doctor said with the utter confidence of a man who, by lucky chance, has read all about it in a new book only the night before. “Some people hear things, some see things, others taste things. You smell ’em. Perfectly harmless.”

  “Good God,” Kerr said, weakly.

  “Jolly useful in your line of work, I should think.”

  Kerr was a solicitor and he defended a lot of criminals. Alleged criminals. Like all solicitors he was an officer of the court with an obligation to the truth. If a defendant came to him and said, “This is the story I’m going to tell in court,” Kerr refused to represent him. He was a serious young man and a good lawyer, and word soon got around that if you wanted Mr. Kerr to defend you it was smart to assure him you were telling the truth.

  As a result Kerr made a living and heard a lot of lies.

  Small lies didn’t worry him. It was the gross distortions of fact, the lies that stood truth on its head, which made him angry. He usually knew them when he heard them: most people are bad liars. And quite soon he began to notice this sudden whiff of stinking fish in his office as a new client told his tale. He trusted his judgment. When the case came to court, Kerr had a way of slightly lowering an eyebrow, or sometimes he might put a slightly different inflection in his voice. It was enough. The magistrates knew. He knew they knew. He had done his duty by his client and by the court.

  Came the war. As soon as he put on khaki the olfactory hallucinations stopped. Kerr had almost forgotten what bad fish smelt like until he sat listening to Jack Lampard describe the deaths of Corporal Harris, stabbed by a German sentry, and Lieutenant Waterman, bombed by Stukas. The stench of dishonesty was in his nostrils again. He actually recoiled an inch, so great was the shock; and then he disguised the movement with a sympathetic nod.

  After Lampard had gone, Kerr sat and wondered what to do. He could always question Mike Dunn or Corky Gibbon, perhaps even Sergeant Davis or Corporal Pocock. What if their answers proved that Lampard had been lying? What then? If he took no action it was all a waste of effort. If he took action, the trust between Lampard and his patrol was badly damaged. Obviously something peculiar had happened out there in the blue. On the other hand, the raid on Barce airfield had been highly successful: aerial reconnaissance showed many burned-out wrecks. So Lampard had told the truth about that. Kerr tossed Lampard’s report into his out-tray and put the matter out of his mind.

  But it refused to go; it drifted back and made a quiet nuisance of itself. He opened a desk drawer and took out a battered copy of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. He found the story of the battle at Tefila, with T. E. Lawrence’s account of how he got a DSO on the strength of a report he himself had written “mainly for effect.” Someone had underlined Lawrence’s final remark: We should have more bright breasts in the Army if each man was able without witness to write out his own dispatch. Kerr grunted. He took the report from the out-tray and stuffed it in his briefcase.

  * * *

  It took Jack Lampard ten minutes to walk from Captain Kerr’s office to Mrs. Waterman’s address. He hated every minute of it. Unpleasant people kept trying to sell him things: fly whisks, Arab chewing gum, sunglasses, perfume, shaving brushes, cigarettes, hand-tinted pornography and twenty other sorts of rubbish. They ran backward in front of him, shouting upward, they smiled with broken and blackened teeth, they shoved and kicked each other and, worst of all, they touched him, pawing his arms and stroking his shoulders until their dirty little hands infuriated him and he struck out. But they were almost always too quick. He hit only one, an insistent, whining cripple whose nose had been half eaten away by disease. Lampard’s knuckles smacked his nose and sent him sprawling, and Lampard strode on, feeling stained and contaminated.

  If the Arab street-salesmen were bad, the general noise was worse. Cairo was always clogged with traffic. Cars with broken exhausts revved and roared as they tried to fight their way through tangles of foul-tempered camels and overloaded donkeys and stinking motor-bikes and people, people, always too many people, all of them shouting to make themselves heard above the racket of the shouting of the rest. Those with horns or hooters or whistles used them ceaselessly. Radios blared. Lampard didn’t like noise, filth or tradesmen at the best of times. Cairo was loud and squalid and a constant pest. He clenched his teeth and thought of the purity of the desert.

  Mrs. Waterman took a long time answering the doorbell of her flat. When she did she was barefoot, her black hair was tousled and she was wearing a white cotton frock misbuttoned down the front. “I beg your pardon,” Lampard said brusquely. He hadn’t wanted to come in the first place.

  She held the door handle while she rubbed the back of her right calf with her left foot. “You’re the best-looking man I’ve seen all day,” she said, “but then you’re the only man I’ve seen all day so don’t get excited about it.” Her voice was Home Counties English, pleasant enough but with a touch of huskiness that added strength. She looked twenty-three.

  “Captain Lampard. I’ve come—”

  “Don’t tell me why you’ve come, I shan’t remember and I honestly don’t care.” She walked away, arms outstretched for balance because she was on the balls of her feet. It brought out the best in her legs. “I’ve already had the chaplain and a man from some benevolent fund and a rather grim type who asked if Tony kept a diary and two army widows who seemed to want to form a club, God help us, so you see I’ve been thoroughly taken care of. Debriefed. Isn’t that the word?”

  Lampard felt awkward, left standing in the doorway, so he came in and shut the door. “Yes. Debriefed.”

  She sat on a couch and tucked her legs under her. “Very silly word,” she said. “You couldn’t debrief me if you tried, could you?”

  “Couldn’t I?” He found a chair.

  “Certainly not. I haven’t worn any briefs since the really hot weather began. It was one of the things that used to make Tony very nervous. One of the many things.”

  “Oh?” That reply seemed inadequate, so he said, “Your husband was a brave and conscientious officer, Mrs. Waterman. He will be much missed.”

  “Not by me.” It was said flatly.

  “I see.” But all that Lampard saw was her good looks. Although she didn’t smile, hadn’t smiled since she opened the door, Mrs. Waterman—gray eyes, clear white skin, neat, square-boned features—was attractive. “This has been a very painful time for you, Mrs. Waterman,” he said.

  “Look, if you can’t talk like a normal human being you might as well buzz off. In the past few days I’ve heard enough platitudes to stuff a sofa. What’s this?”

  Lampard, now thoroughly rattled, had got up and given her his letter. “I’ve brought it, so you might as well read it,” he said. He went past the couch and stood at the french windows.

  She read the letter. “You make him sound like Lawrence of Arabia. Tony wasn’t like Lawrence of Arabia. Florence of Arabia, perhaps. Old Flo. Dear old Flo.” She stood up and gave him back the letter. “Tony was a bit of an old woman, really.”

  This angered Lampard. “The man was a gallant comrade,” he said sharply, “and a splendid servant of king and country.”

  “And a lousy husband.”

  Lampard tore the letter in half, and then in half again.

&n
bsp; “Bet you can’t do it three times,” she said. He tore the letter again. “Now give me the pieces,” she said.

  “Go to hell,” Lampard said.

  She grabbed his hand and tried to pry the fingers open, but he squeezed harder until she suddenly stooped and bit him on the wrist. “You bitch!” he shouted in a curious thin, high-pitched voice; but his grip had relaxed and now she had the pieces of paper. “Happy New Year!” she cried, and flung them in the air. “Goodbye, Tony, it wasn’t nice while it lasted, so thank God it didn’t last long.”

  Blood was running down Lampard’s fingers. “Well I’m damned,” he whispered.

  “That looks nasty,” she said. “You’re lucky I’m a nurse. Come this way.”

  Grudgingly he followed her into the bathroom, where she was filling the basin with hot water. She added antiseptic and ordered: “Stick your hand in there and don’t move it.” He obeyed. They stood and looked at each other in the mirror for the best part of a minute. “I don’t know why you’re so angry,” she said. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “It took me two hours to write that letter,” Lampard said.

  She pulled down his head and kissed him on the mouth. He took his hand from the water. “You’ll probably die,” she said. “You know what nurses’ teeth are like. Riddled with plague.”

  “In that case I might as well die in bed.”

  They spent much of the day in bed. He bled a little onto the sheets, but not much.

  Before he left, he asked: “Why on earth did you marry Tony if you didn’t like him?”

  “Because he kept asking,” she said, “and I got sick of saying no.”

  * * *

  In April 1942 the British were losing badly, the Americans were still stunned by Pearl Harbor and the Russians were in the most terrible mess. It was, as has been said, Hitler’s finest hour.

  His allies the Japanese weren’t doing badly, either. They had just conquered an empire that reached from the boundaries of India to within striking distance of Australia, and they had done it all in three months, at virtually no cost. They had taken Hong Kong in December, Malaya in January and Singapore in February. The fall of Singapore was the biggest single surrender in British military history. The Japanese also sank a battleship, the Prince of Wales, and a battle-cruiser, the Repulse; destroyed an entire Anglo-Dutch fleet; and sent a fleet of their own marauding into the Indian ocean. This was not good for the prestige of the white man.