Hellfire (2011)

by James Holland

  Tanner eyed him carefully. ‘What does your boss think?’

  ‘He trusts my judgement.’ Vaughan had been to see Maunsell about Tanner after his return from Heliopolis – the colonel had needed little persuading: the idea was right for the now entirely autonomous and ad hoc nature of the SIME organization that Maunsell had established. ‘We’ll have to have him vetted first,’ RJ had said, ‘and he’ll have to sign the Official Secrets Act. Assuming he’s in the clear, I’ll want to interview him as soon as possible. But he sounds like a good man, Alex. And a pair of fresh eyes can often make all the difference. Our absolutely top priority is to break this circuit. If you think he can help, then let’s use him.’

  The vetting process had not taken long: Maunsell had spoken to Colonel Vigar, who had provided him with a reference and authorized him to use Tanner until he was fit to return to active duty. That, as Vaughan now explained, had been all there was to it.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Tanner. ‘I’d always thought GHQ was a minefield of red tape.’

  ‘Not if you know how to circumnavigate it.’ He looked at Tanner. ‘Well?’

  Tanner took a swig of his beer. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Why not? I’ll take your word for it, Alex. If you think I can help, that’s good enough for me. I’m curious, I’ll admit, but the moment I’m given the all-clear, I’m off.’

  ‘Understood.’ He clapped Tanner on the back. ‘Good man, Jack.’

  The pianist broke off, dabbed his brow with a handkerchief, had a drink, and was then joined by a violinist. With a nod from the pianist, the duo then struck up a version of ‘Cheek to Cheek’.

  ‘This place,’ mused Vaughan. ‘It’s full of madmen and eccentrics – a melting pot of refugees and émigrés, Arabs and Jews, Turks and Hungarians.’

  ‘And servicemen,’ said Tanner.

  ‘Yes, thousands of them, but how many are British?’

  Tanner shrugged.

  ‘Actually,’ said Vaughan, ‘it’s only with the new divisions that have been arriving that British have outnumbered Imperial troops.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Well, think about it: Eighth Army’s got a Kiwi, Aussie, South African and Indian Division, and half the Desert Air Force is South African. It’s an extraordinarily mixed bag.’

  Tanner’s eyes were on the steps to the terrace. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘do you think that’s the girl?’

  Vaughan turned in his seat. A tall, elegant young woman, with shoulder-length fair hair, stood there, clearly looking for someone.

  ‘It’s got to be, hasn’t it?’ said Vaughan. ‘She’s a cracker, isn’t she? Surely she can do better than that blockhead of a cavalry lieutenant.’

  ‘Like a decorated Guardsman major?’

  Vaughan pushed back his chair. ‘Exactly.’

  Tanner watched him hurry through the crowded terrace and saw her turn as he reached her. A brief conversation, her face indifferent, and then she smiled. Vaughan pointed to Tanner and she began to move towards him, Vaughan following.

  Tanner stood up as she approached. ‘Good evening,’ he said.

  ‘We were right, Jack,’ grinned Vaughan, as they reached their table. ‘She was looking for Rhodes-Morton, but he’s called Harry, not Henry. I’ve persuaded her to have a drink with us. After all, she’s only just got here. Who wants to turn around and head off to the Continental?’

  She laughed. ‘Not me.’

  Tanner eyed her: high cheekbones, pale blue eyes, neat, straight nose and full, reddened lips. Striking, certainly. He held out his hand. ‘My name’s Tanner. Jack Tanner.’

  She took it and held it lightly. ‘And I am Tanja. Tanja Zanowski.’

  6

  Tuesday, 11 August. Lucie arrived back just before six thirty a.m., just as Tanner was preparing to leave. She looked exhausted, so he held her tightly in his arms, then carried her to the bed and laid her down. He sat beside her and stroked her hair.

  ‘Mmm, don’t stop,’ she said.

  ‘Do you want me to run you a bath?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Just lie with me for five minutes.’

  Tanner looked at his watch. He had time. ‘All right.’

  She kissed him. ‘We’re like ships passing in the night at the moment, aren’t we?’

  ‘Can’t be helped, though, can it?’

  ‘Four more, then I’m back on the day shift, but you’ll have been given the all-clear and will be back with the battalion.’

  He kissed her.

  ‘I hate this bloody war,’ Lucie said, into his chest.

  ‘It won’t go on for ever.’

  ‘Won’t it? It seems like it will. Do you have to take this job?’

  ‘Yes, if they want me.’

  Lucie sighed. Tanner pushed her over gently and began to unbutton her white uniform. ‘How was it?’ he asked her. ‘Last night.’

  ‘Quieter. Now that the battle’s stopped for a bit, there are fewer coming in. I think they’ve cleared all the RAPs and field hospitals.’

  Tanner undid her belt. ‘And the Gott crash survivors?’ he said, easing each arm out of her dress so that she wore nothing but her underwear.

  ‘They’ll be all right. Do you really have to go?’

  ‘Yes.’ He rolled her over, lifted the freed uniform, then unclipped her brassiere. He moved close behind her, his hands cupping her breasts.

  They lay together for a few minutes, and then he said quietly, ‘Lucie, goodbye, sweet girl.’

  ‘Will you be back before I have to go again?’

  ‘Yes, if they don’t want me.’

  ‘But they will.’

  He kissed her shoulders and then her neck. ‘Get some sleep.’

  Outside, the sun was rising, casting a pink and orange glow over the city. There were already cars on the streets, trams too. Shops were beginning to open, tables of fruit brought out from the cavernous depths behind. Tanner found himself following a number of uniformed men and women heading towards GHQ. There’s hundreds of them. There were always jokes about the desk-wallahs when the men were on leave and it certainly seemed true that for all those soldiers in the firing line there were plenty in Cairo and Alexandria who never went anywhere near the sharp end.

  He reached the leafy suburbs of Garden City, the scent of jasmine strong on the air. From the dense foliage above birds were singing, a constant cacophony that rose above the noise of any passing traffic. He heard doves, sparrows and even a raven, with its low, distinctive cawing. A truck went by, a whirl of dust from the road in its wake. Tanner looked at his watch, saw that he was ahead of himself, cursed for not staying longer with Lucie, and slowed his step. No bad thing: he didn’t want to arrive with damp staining his shirt – it was already warm and sweat was pricking at his back and brow.

  His thoughts turned to the previous evening. Tanja Zanowski had been good company. She had deftly cajoled them into explaining what had happened to her cavalry officer and had laughed.

  ‘He’s just a kid,’ she had said. ‘He’s very full of himself, but he likes to buy champagne, so what’s a girl to do?’

  Vaughan had been captivated, and had asked her to stay for dinner. She had made her excuses, but as she had left, Vaughan had jumped up and walked with her to the terrace steps. When he returned, it had been with a broad grin on his face.

  ‘She said I could call her,’ he had said, then sat down again. ‘What a girl! Bloody gorgeous, funny, and with a fabulous accent.’

  Good luck to him, Tanner had thought, although he’d been quite glad she’d left them to it. There had been something else Vaughan had wanted to discuss and Tanner had wondered about it all day.

  At Tanner’s prompting, Vaughan had brought up the matter as they’d sat down to eat in the dining room.

  ‘It’s something I’ve been working on for a while,’ he said, then told him his idea for small coastal raiding parties. ‘The thing is,’ he explained, ‘the SAS travel bloody miles over tough desert terrain to get to their targets. Hitting airfields an
d supply columns is a great help to us and causes all sorts of havoc for the enemy, but it would be good to hit the ports as well. You know as well as I do that this fight’s all about supplies.’

  ‘Rommel’s overstretched himself, if you ask me,’ said Tanner. ‘I’ve no idea what his current supply situation is, but it can’t be great, otherwise he wouldn’t have called off the fight. What I do know is that Alexandria is a hell of a lot closer to the front than even Mersa Matruh – and that’s a pretty small port. Tobruk’s bloody miles away and Benghazi’s even further. He must be using half the fuel they land just getting the rest to the front.’

  ‘Which is why it’s so important to destroy as much as possible before it gets there.’

  ‘Aren’t our bombers hitting the ports?’

  ‘They are – but how accurately?’

  Tanner had nodded. ‘I wouldn’t know, but I take your point.’

  ‘We’ve also got the RAF attacking enemy ships at sea, but their efforts are hampered by the range and by the fact that Malta isn’t operational at the moment. It’s why this latest convoy is so crucial – and why these raiding parties could make such a difference.’

  ‘But you couldn’t destroy any ships, Alex. Not a four- or six-man team. First, how would you get the explosives on to them? And second, we couldn’t carry enough to do the job.’

  ‘I understand that, but we could carry enough to destroy a stack of stores. We could time our runs with the arrival of ships coming in. A few carefully placed packets of HE2 would soon get rid of any fuel that’s been freshly unloaded.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tanner nodded. ‘Those MTBs are pretty quick, aren’t they?’

  ‘And they’ve got decent firepower. They carry out mine-laying operations along the coast as it is.’

  They had discussed the idea at length. They would take folbots with them on the MTBs – small, collapsible canoes that would get them to the coast silently. Then they would put on German uniforms and infiltrate the ports. The operations would always be at night – the RAF’s bombing ensured all Axis-held ports would be blacked out.

  ‘When will you submit the plans?’ Tanner had asked.

  ‘As soon as I’ve got them typed up and I can get an audience with the chief of staff. This week, I hope.’

  Tanner had thought Vaughan’s idea was sound, although whether anyone in GHQ would authorize it was another matter. Vaughan had told him of how David Stirling had bulldozed his way to see General Ritchie, then Auchinleck’s chief of staff.

  Now Tanner saw he had reached Red Pillars. This time there was not even an Egyptian policeman outside, while on the other side of the road coils of wire and sentries barred the way to GHQ. Red tape and staff officers, he thought, as two prim-looking men walked past, their shoes polished and socks neatly drawn up to their knees. If Vaughan’s plans were turned down – and he would put money on it – it wouldn’t be the first time that initiative had been stifled by the desk-wallahs.

  It was eight thirty, and Tanner was now Maunsell’s latest ‘operative’ at SIME. He’d been interviewed by Maunsell and Maddox together, he’d signed the Official Secrets Act, and was now a temporary intelligence officer. Just for a few days. And he’d been fully briefed. Jesus. Spies, the Secret Intelligence Service: it was a world he’d barely considered, yet he was now caught up in what Maunsell had just described as one of the most critical counter-intelligence operations ever mounted in the Middle East theatre.

  They were in the colonel’s office: he, Vaughan, George Kirk and Paddy Maddox.

  ‘So, Jack,’ said Maunsell. ‘What do you make of what we’ve just told you? What’s your gut reaction?’

  ‘That I want to know how they’re getting their information. And I want to know what those numbers mean.’

  ‘We’re all agreed on that.’

  ‘But you still don’t have hard proof, do you? Not really – not until you can read that message.’

  ‘George would certainly agree with that viewpoint.’

  ‘All right, but assuming we do have a mole in GHQ, then why don’t you just arrest all those who knew about Gott’s movements?’

  Maunsell glanced at the others. ‘If only that were possible, Jack.’

  ‘But surely you’re only talking about a handful of people.’

  ‘There are a couple of difficulties here,’ said Maddox. ‘The first is that those who would know would all be GSIs and the C-in-C, the DMI and their staff. However, it might be possible that their secretaries and clerks also know. Then there are the cipher and signals people.’

  ‘So the numbers are mounting already,’ said Maunsell.

  ‘Second, as you know, we find ourselves at a delicate moment, with new commanders coming in, defeat still lingering heavy. You weren’t in Cairo for the Flap, but there was panic here at the beginning of July. It was pretty ugly.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Tanner.

  ‘Rumours spread that Rommel was about to reach Alexandria. A large number of staff officers believed it was all over and started burning official papers.’

  Tanner shook his head. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘It hardly reflected well on GHQ.’ He cleared his throat. ‘In any case, if we start suggesting there’s a spy at the very heart of GHQ, at this moment in time, I’m not certain how well that would go down.’

  ‘Especially when we don’t have any hard proof,’ added Kirk.

  Maddox bowed his head. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘We need to work from the outside in,’ said Maunsell.

  Tanner looked thoughtful. ‘I’m not really sure how a spy circuit works,’ he said. ‘Does it have to be a circuit? Could it not be just one person?’

  ‘It could,’ said Maunsell, ‘but it’s unlikely.’

  ‘When were the number messages sent?’

  ‘At about eleven hundred hours on the seventh of August, and at around ten a.m. two days ago.’

  ‘And if the information is coming from GHQ, presumably he, whoever he is, couldn’t just head out and make a radio transmission without arousing suspicion.’

  ‘He could,’ said Maddox, ‘but not repeatedly, no, and in any case he or she would be most likely to cover his or her tracks.’

  ‘So it would be safer for him to send a message to someone else, who would then make the radio transmission?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Maunsell.

  ‘All right,’ said Tanner. ‘This is what I’m thinking. I agree it looks very likely there is a spy network operating here. The coded messages, the nature of the attack on Gott’s plane, the timings and so on – it all adds up to something, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It does rather, yes.’

  ‘I’m trying to imagine what I would do if I were an enemy spy. We need to start somewhere, so I’m going to assume that I’m within GHQ where I get to see lots of highly confidential information. But sometimes, such as with General Gott taking a flight back to Cairo, I need to tell my Axis contact pretty damn quickly. How do I do that? I can’t telephone the information because someone on the switchboard will hear it and I’ll be arrested right away. So I have to give the information to someone. I have to do it face to face, don’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vaughan.

  Maunsell said, ‘Go on, Jack.’

  ‘Someone who’s easy to get hold of without arousing too much suspicion,’ said Tanner. ‘Who is that person going to be?’

  ‘Well, assuming the source is within GHQ, it’s going to be someone nearby but outside the wire,’ said Vaughan.

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘A tobacconist, a barman, a newspaper seller,’ said Vaughan. ‘Someone who’s always there.’

  ‘That’s what I’d have thought,’ continued Tanner. ‘A wink, or some such signal, and a piece of paper slipped in a folded pound note. That sort of thing.’

  ‘And then,’ said Vaughan, ‘that person nips to the back of the building, gets out a radio set and makes the signal.’

  ‘I think this is the right approach,’ said Maunsell, ‘bu
t I also think that there would be some further person involved. To be sending radio signals from just outside GHQ seems too risky to me.’

  ‘But you’re suggesting, are you not,’ said Maddox, turning to Tanner, ‘that outside GHQ the next person in the chain is an Egyptian – or a non-European at any rate?’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ said Tanner.

  ‘And his motive is that he’s a dissident,’ said Vaughan. ‘It might be completely wrong, but it’s a starting point.’

  ‘It’s the most obvious, I reckon,’ said Tanner.

  Maunsell leaned back in his chair. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘That’s as good a way to look at this as any. Sound common sense – it’s what we need.’

  ‘What we need is a chink, a foot in the door,’ said Vaughan. ‘We should have a look at all the traders around GHQ.’

  ‘I’d talk to Sammy’s lot upstairs first,’ said Maunsell.

  ‘And what about Burg El Arab?’ said Maddox. ‘Are you still planning to fly down there?’

  ‘I think you should,’ said Maunsell. ‘As I said, it’s a process of elimination. Satisfy yourself that nothing’s being leaked from our army and air HQs at the front – narrow the field a bit further.’

  ‘You can still go,’ said Maddox. ‘I can pay a visit to Field Security.’

  ‘All right, but what about Tanner here?’ asked Vaughan.

  ‘Can’t he go with you and Walker?’

  ‘No,’ said Maunsell. ‘Jack, I’d like you to meet Sammy. Alex, you go to Burg El Arab and, Jack, you spend the morning with Paddy. All right?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be back by the afternoon,’ said Vaughan. ‘I can meet up with you and Paddy then.’

  ‘And you should speak to Rolo,’ said Maunsell.

  ‘All right,’ said Vaughan. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Rolo?’ said Tanner.

  ‘Lieutenant Rolo,’ said Maunsell, ‘is the Defence Security officer dealing with Egyptian politics and subversive activities.’

  There was a light knock at the door.

  ‘Come,’ said Maunsell.

  His secretary entered. ‘This just came through, RJ,’ she said, passing him a piece of signal paper.