City of Gold

by Len Deighton

  Solomon looked at them. The faces of the two Arabs were completely blank. If they held the consignment of guns he had no leverage. They would just keep the guns. ‘Let us not quarrel,’ said Solomon.

  The two Arabs drank tea and said nothing. Solomon shut his case and put it on a side table.

  ‘You can’t make me pay another man’s debts,’ said Solomon.

  ‘Admit the truth, Solomon. You are all in it together. You, Wallingford, Darymple. Perhaps others too.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong, Mahmoud. I am alone in this.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d be sensible,’ said Mahmoud. He took off his dark glasses and dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. The eyes were red-rimmed and dilated. The lights caused him such discomfort that he turned his head away from them. Solomon knew the signs of addiction. Mahmoud was said to be a dealer in drugs, but now it was evident that he sampled his own wares. His mercurial mood this evening was explained, and Solomon became more wary than ever.

  ‘It is a matter of honour,’ said Tahseen. ‘A bank cannot allow a customer to flaunt its rules. The word will get out … you understand?’ Solomon noticed that Mahmoud had drained his glass of tea. He did the same. No one poured more for him. The mint leaves, sticky with sugar, were glued against the side of the glass.

  ‘Wallingford and Darymple are nothing to do with me,’ said Solomon again.

  Mahmoud got to his feet suddenly. ‘Perhaps we should talk again tomorrow, when your blood is cooler. In this way we can part good friends, and you can have a night to reflect upon what I have told you.’

  Solomon got to his feet too. He was angry: ‘Tomorrow the answer will be –’

  Tahseen put his finger to his lips. ‘It is still the morning of our discussion. Tomorrow all will be well.’ Tahseen was always the moderator; that was his role.

  The servant brought Solomon’s hat and handed his bag to him. Mahmoud and Tahseen came to the door with them and bid them goodnight with all the care and courtesy that Arab hospitality requires.

  Only when the big outer door closed did Yigal speak his mind. ‘They are going to keep the guns. Those bastards are going to hold on to our guns.’

  Solomon didn’t reply. He got into the car and started the engine. As he did so a British officer leaned in through the window and said politely, ‘I’m sorry to intrude upon you gentlemen, but this area of the city has been closed to civilian traffic. We’ll have to search you and your vehicle. Would you please get out of the car?’

  Desperately Solomon tried to accelerate away, but his car rocked violently without moving forward. The engine revved loudly and backfired. ‘There are blocks against your wheels,’ explained the officer. ‘And my men are armed. Don’t do anything silly.’ In the darkness it was now evident that a dozen or more men – military policemen armed to the teeth – had blocked off the alley.

  Yigal and Solomon got out of the car. ‘I’ll take your attaché case,’ said the officer. ‘My sergeant will help you into the truck. We’re going to the Bab-el-Hadid barracks. One of my drivers will bring your car there. You will probably not be detained very long.’

  ‘That bastard Mahmoud!’ Yigal could not contain his anger.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Solomon told him. ‘Yes, of course, captain. We’ll do whatever you say. We have nothing to hide.’

  The next morning Alice went to give her weekly report to Jimmy Ross and found the SIB offices in a turmoil. Solomon and Yigal had been arrested late the previous evening, and Marker had been up all night, interrogating both suspects. Alice Stanhope’s activities were hardly worth reporting in the circumstances: Sayed, the innocuous activities of the prince, and so on. The only development was that Darymple had packed his bags and disappeared. She went quickly through her report with Ross and then started typing it out.

  While she was doing this, Captain Marker returned from a lengthy interrogation session.

  ‘Well?’ said Ross.

  ‘Not much,’ said Marker.

  ‘You showed them this?’ He picked up the cellophane-wrapped brown sticky treacle, and dumped it down again.

  ‘I showed them. It did no good.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The younger one obviously didn’t know what it was. The other one – Solomon – laughed and said that Mahmoud must be getting feebleminded to plant six ounces of raw opium on him, when even the small dealers are handling it by the hundredweight.’

  ‘Why do you think Mahmoud shopped them?’ said Ross.

  ‘We are not sure he did, are we?’ Marker looked round at Alice in case she had brought some fresh news. She met his eyes and shrugged.

  Ross was sitting with his feet up on his desk, his hands locked behind his head. ‘Oh, he covered his tracks with great care, but that’s what makes me so certain it was Mahmoud. It’s obvious what happened. Mahmoud sent his men out to Siwa and they got shot up. He sits around brooding about it and decides it was all part of some conspiracy that Solomon and Wallingford have hatched.’

  ‘A lot of funny things are happening as Rommel gets nearer,’ said Marker.

  ‘But not that funny. Did you get anything out of the younger one?’

  ‘At least he replies when you talk to him. The trouble is that he doesn’t know anything. He’s very much the junior partner. He’s kept in ignorance of their day-to-day work.’

  ‘We’ll hold them for a few days. Solitary. Unless they start talking we’ll have to release them.’

  ‘The young one did say something.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’s got the idea that Wallingford, the navy deserter, is Rommel’s spy.’

  Alice stopped typing; she wanted to hear.

  ‘Did he say that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marker. ‘In those same words. He seems to think that Wallingford and Mahmoud are in league. He thinks Wallingford tipped us off and had them arrested last night. He thinks it’s all part of Rommel’s planning.’

  ‘Wallingford. Yes, I’d like to talk to Wallingford.’ Ross swung his feet off the desk, and flipped open the Solomon file to look at it.

  Marker watched him. ‘He said Wallingford is a deserter and runs a gang of deserters. He moves around all the time. It makes sense.’

  ‘Well, that much may be true. But the brigadier has actual intercepts of the messages going to Rommel. If you’d seen that stuff, you’d know that Wallingford isn’t our spy. It’s not gossip from Cleo’s Club. It’s top-level stuff: strategic ideas, evaluation of weapons, appreciations, comments on morale and intentions. Arrival of convoys and what they are bringing. Unit movements are known before they are even started. A clown like Wallingford doesn’t move in those circles.’

  ‘No. Well, I knew it was absurd,’ said Marker sadly. He’d been secretly nursing a hope that he’d cracked the war’s biggest secret.

  ‘Go back and try some more,’ said Ross. ‘Keep the pressure up. If there is an effective Jewish network operating, we must find out all about it.’

  Marker looked at his watch. He’d planned to have a wash and a shave and perhaps even an hour’s sleep. But this was their big chance to spike Spaulding’s guns by showing they already knew about ‘religious subversives’. ‘Whatever you say, major.’ Marker swigged back his tea, got to his feet and left the room. Ross returned his feet to their place on the desk and leaned back in his chair.

  ‘Wallingford,’ Ross mused aloud. ‘I wish I could believe it.’

  Alice was watching him. She hadn’t resumed her typing. ‘But you do think he’s a deserter?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Wallingford? Probably. I asked navy records to do another complete check on him. But you know how long it takes to get anything from those people in Alexandria.’

  ‘Why are you so interested in Wallingford when you don’t think he’s the spy?’ said Alice.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He gave a brief laugh to admit that Wallingford was on his mind lately. ‘He’s about the only suspect we’ve got left.’

  ‘Isn’t the blood on the bank note evid
ence enough to charge him with murder?’

  ‘Not really. It’s completely circumstantial. But it’s enough to bring him in for questioning.’ She looked at him. He said, ‘You are right, Alice. Perhaps the time has come to sit Wallingford down and shine the bright light in his eyes.’ He resolved to concentrate on the SIB work: that was the best way to stop himself worrying.

  ‘What will you do if you catch the real spy?’ said Alice. She realised how much better it would have been to say when you catch the spy, but by that time it was too late.

  He swung his head round to see her. ‘It would have to be something very drastic,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll punch the brigadier on the nose and ask you to marry me.’

  She smiled and started typing again. She could see he was very very tired.

  20

  Robin Darymple was happier than he had been for months. The sand crunched under his feet and there was clear air to breathe. He was enjoying that feeling of well-being that greeted men when they arrived here. Darymple couldn’t believe his good luck. He was back in the desert with the fighting men. Not only that, he was with a decent battalion. It had all been easier than he’d ever supposed. He’d heard about men who discharged themselves from hospital, got back to their units, and carried on there without suffering any consequences. It was when he forged those documents for Wallingford that he thought of fixing himself up with some sort of paperwork to get up to the fighting line. Authority, it was rumoured, did not punish men who went and fought.

  Certainly there seemed no reason for him to worry right now. No one was paying much attention to him. Men were crawling all over the old armoured cars. Cleaning and greasing them, checking the transmissions, the suspensions, and the wheels. They were cleaning the guns and adjusting the telescopic sights. They were tuning the radio sets. Into the bins they were stowing spares and tools and extra rations. Everywhere around him there were shells, machine-gun ammunition, flare cartridges, water and food. ‘Bombing up’ they called the process. Darymple watched them with pride and affection. These were the men with whom he felt comfortable: simple straightforward men, unlike Wallingford and the hard-eyed ambitious pen-pushers he knew in Cairo.

  They were tired, of course, but this was an efficient unit. Darymple had a theory that a battalion’s discipline and morale could be judged from the camouflage netting overhead. Units like this one tightened the nets so that the cover made was flat and taut. Slack and sloppy units had slack and sloppy camouflage netting, and one was constantly ducking the head to avoid brushing against it.

  Darymple looked at the car nearest to him. The name BERYL had been stencilled upon its side. Darymple grabbed at the wheel guard and climbed up onto the front armour plate. The metal was hot to his hands and he could feel the heat through his shoes. For a moment he stood on the hull looking down through the open hatch into the driver’s compartment. He remembered this car BERYL. He’d been given command of it briefly when it first arrived from the workshops. It had arrived from England complete with its name. Was Beryl the wife or girlfriend of its former commander? They would never know, but by common consent the name remained. Crews believed it was unlucky to change a name. Yes, he knew Beryl very well but, like the soldiers around her, Beryl had changed. Layers of encrusted paint had dried and scabbed, like makeup on an aged face. Poor old Beryl; her age could not be concealed. There were half a dozen scars upon her armour plate, some of them deeply gouged by 5cm or even 7.5cm high-velocity shells that, striking only a few inches lower, would have turned Beryl into scrap metal and incinerated her crew.

  It was a hot day. Darymple could smell the inside of the car. It was an odour in which sweat, urine, excrement, oil, rubber, and cordite could all be detected. It was not a pleasant one, but it brought the past back to him with a suddenness that he’d not expected. He stroked the metal armour and looked down at torn leather, the dials – speedometer, rev counter and pressure gauges – their glass hazy and fractured, the gear lever, and the brake lever, now worn shiny by the driver’s caresses.

  Darymple wriggled around the turret and perched himself upon the little leather-topped commander’s seat that he’d sat upon so often. It was cramped. The gunner’s seat was close against his leg, so that there was scarcely room for another human frame to fit there. Now he could smell the sweaty foam rubber pad that the gunner’s face rested upon as he sighted the gun. Darymple reached for the traversing wheel to touch it lightly.

  From this position on the turret, Darymple could see the ‘soft-skinned’ echelon vehicles. They were being loaded with extra ammunition, food and petrol. Each day they came forward bringing replenishments. The echelon men had a rotten job; enemy gunners liked to pick off these vulnerable vehicles, which usually succumbed to the first hit.

  Darymple kept looking for old friends to greet, but few of the soldiers he’d served with six months before were still here. All around him there were fresh-faced newcomers, some of them little more than children. It was now May 1942. The war had been going for nearly two years: long enough for youngsters drafted after war began to be trained and arrive out here in the desert. Pimply schoolboys, their faces flushed by their first exposure to the harsh sunlight, were driving armoured cars, firing the guns and tuning the radios. Many such kids had even got stripes on their arms. All of them were noisy and active, spending recklessly the energy and confidence that is the currency of youth.

  Not so the old-timers. The men who had been with him in what were now called ‘the old days’ were difficult to recognise. Almost all of them had aged in a way that only stress ages men. Lined faces, thin unconvincing smiles, and troubled eyes set deep in their sockets were as much a mark of front-line service as were the dark tans, faded uniforms and such fashions as suede desert boots and fancy sweaters.

  Darymple was not unduly troubled by the depleted battalion he now found himself with. Darymple was not a particularly sensitive man and certainly not sentimental. It was a soldier’s job to fight and die. That the battalion’s men had been doing that troubled him not at all. His only regret was that he had missed so much of the action while sitting behind a desk in Cairo.

  The desert was glorious in May; still not unbearably hot. From his vantage point on the car he could see sprawling patches of desert flowers that had sprung up from the winter rains. Crushed by tank tracks, heavy-duty tyres and boots, the green patches gave off a scent of wild thyme. The hot springtime winds were late this year but soon they would come. The flowers would shrivel and disappear overnight. At last he spotted someone he knew: Lieutenant Copeland. ‘Piggy!’ Now it really was grand to be back.

  His friend Piggy came strolling over to him. Taking off his peaked cap the lieutenant scratched his head. ‘Are you still in love with Beryl?’

  Darymple smiled self-consciously. He knew he was making a fool of himself by such evident pleasure in returning to his own people, but he could not subdue it. He slapped the armour. ‘She’s a lucky old bitch.’

  ‘It’s true. Beryl always seems to pull through. By-the-by, did I tell you that Wally came through the other day?’

  ‘Wallingford?’ Darymple felt a sudden jar.

  ‘He said he’d seen you. Lieutenant commander and a DSO and all! How the devil does a chap get into one of those independent mobs? Mind you, Wally was always a lucky swine at school, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I suppose he was,’ said Darymple cautiously. He was expecting to see Wallingford today, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. When one day Wallingford was caught – as surely he would be – then Darymple would want to be completely disassociated from him. ‘I’ve seen him once or twice. He wasn’t in my house.’

  ‘No, not in your house, but you were on the school eleven with him. You went around together, didn’t you?’

  ‘Sometimes. I forget. It’s a long time ago.’

  ‘A long time is right. I think I’m going to end the war still a bloody lieutenant. Do you know how long I’ve been out here now?’

  ‘It’s probably just
the paperwork,’ said Darymple. ‘Your promotions will all come thudding through together, and you’ll be jumped to general or something.’

  ‘Can I have that in writing?’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Darymple. He pointed to the west. In the distance a wall of fine brown dust was moving slowly towards them. It looked solid, and only his common sense told him that it couldn’t be. The wall must have been three or four miles across and reached high, perhaps five hundred feet, into the air. ‘It’s not the khamsin?’ said Darymple, who knew it wasn’t like any dust storm he’d ever seen before.

  Piggy followed his stare. ‘No, it’s the Hun. He’s been stirring up dust almost every day for the past week. He kicks up that dust wall when he moves his tanks and vehicles. He must be concentrating a hell of a lot of armour down to the south of us.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be long then,’ said Darymple.

  ‘No, it won’t be long,’ said Piggy.

  As if to confirm these words Darymple heard the drone of engines and looked up to see a lone plane flying a steady straight line across their front.

  ‘That’s Hermann, photographing our postions. He must have enough photos by now; he comes over almost every day.’

  ‘Maybe it’s part of a plan to keep us twitchy,’ said Darymple.

  ‘Then he does it well,’ said Piggy. ‘It gives me the jitters to think the Hun can plot the position of every tank, car, truck, and dump we’ve got here.’

  ‘It’s the coastal railway they are interested in,’ said Darymple. ‘Our chaps are pushing the railway out as far as Tobruk.’

  ‘You fellows in Cairo are the only ones who know what is going on,’ said Piggy without resentment. ‘We never get to know anything out here at the sharp end.’

  ‘And there is a water pipeline too. They say the Corps area will have as much water as it can use.’

  ‘I’ll start washing again on a regular basis,’ said Piggy. ‘I just dry polish, the way the water ration is right now.’