Soldier G: The Desert Raiders

by Shaun Clarke

  ‘Shepheard’s Hotel.’

  ‘Oh, very nice!’ the nurse said, raising her eyebrows. ‘My own leave starts on Friday, but I’m restricted to a miserable leave camp. Perhaps I’ll give you a call.’

  ‘That would be delightful,’ Greaves said. ‘I look forward to it.’

  Nurse Beamish smiled, nodded at Stirling, then turned away and walked off, her body very pleasantly emphasized by her tight-fitting uniform.

  ‘I think you’ve made it there, old son,’ Stirling said. ‘That woman is keen.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Greaves said softly, and then, after a pause: ‘You’re not really going to try delivering that memo personally to the C-in-C, are you?’

  ‘Who dares wins,’ Stirling said.

  Lieutenant Greaves picked up both rucksacks from the beds, waved goodbye to the other patients, then followed Stirling. In an instant the Scotsman was on his crutches and out of the hospital to catch a taxi to the station for the train to Cairo.

  2

  While Stirling went off to the British Embassy to collect the key to his brother’s rented flat in Cairo’s Garden City quarter, where he would be staying, Greaves booked into the opulent Shepheard’s Hotel, which was off-limits to other ranks and used mainly as a place where officers could meet their lady friends. Once booked in, Greaves shucked off his desert clothes, drank whisky while soaking in a hot bath, then shaved and put on his dress uniform. In fact, though Stirling did not know it, Greaves had a date that same evening with Nurse Beamish and would, when the time came, be wearing an immaculately tailored bush jacket and slacks. He was wearing his dress uniform for the sole purpose of escorting the cheeky Stirling to MEHQ in his bold attempt to take his memorandum personally to the Commander-in-Chief. While Greaves was of the opinion that Stirling did not stand a chance, he could not resist the opportunity of going along with him to see what transpired.

  Dressed, Greaves drank another whisky by the window while looking out on the great sprawl of Cairo, with its bustling pavements, open-fronted cafés, shops, bazaars and its white walls strewn with red peppers and purple bougainvillaea, covered in green vines and shaded by palm trees. Here many of the women still wore black robes and kept most of their face covered; the men dressed in jellabas and sandals. Around tables in the cafés, some of which were directly below, the men drank coffee, smoked hashish pipes, played backgammon and talked noisily all day, ignoring the soldiers swarming up and down the pavements, hotly pursued by filthy, screaming bootblacks. It was a dreadfully noisy city, with radios blaring out shrill music and high-pitched singing, trams clattering to and fro, horse-drawn gharries clattering over loose stones, water gurgling from pipes and splashing onto the streets, and cars, including many military vehicles, roaring and honking in a never-ending traffic jam. It was also, as Greaves knew, a smelly city, but the closed window spared him that.

  When he heard a knocking on the door, which was unlocked, he turned away from the window and told the visitor to enter. Stirling entered on crutches, his head almost scraping the top of the door frame. After kicking the door closed behind him, he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning the crutches against the bed beside him.

  ‘I’ll be glad to get rid of these things,’ he said. ‘What’s that you’re drinking?’

  ‘Whisky.’

  ‘Just the ticket,’ Stirling said. While Greaves was pouring him a drink, Stirling glanced around the room. ‘A nice hotel,’ he said without irony.

  ‘I think so,’ Greaves replied.

  ‘I notice it’s conveniently located almost directly opposite Sharia il Berka,’ Stirling continued, referring to the Berka quarter’s notorious street of brothels.

  ‘Quite so,’ Greaves replied solemnly. ‘That’s where the other ranks are commonly to be found with a much lower class of lady than you’ll find in this building.’

  ‘Such as Nurse Beamish.’

  Greaves grinned. ‘Let us pray.’ He handed Stirling the glass of whisky.

  ‘Are you ready to leave?’ Stirling asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go.’ Stirling polished off the whisky in one gulp, handed the glass back to Greaves, picked up his crutches and awkwardly balanced himself between them.

  ‘How much longer will you need those things?’ Greaves asked.

  ‘I can actually walk without them,’ Stirling replied, ‘but for short distances only. Then my legs start hurting. However, I should be finished with them in a week or so. Well, let’s get at it.’

  They left the room, took the lift down, crossed the lobby and went out of the hotel. Immediately, on the pavement outside, they were assailed by the bedlam of Cairo: blaring music, clattering backgammon pieces, the babble of conversation; the clanging and rattling of trams with conductors blowing their horns; and the roaring and honking of cars and military vehicles of all kinds, including the troop trucks of the Allied forces. To this deafening cacophony was added the growling and occasional screeching of the many aircraft flying overhead. They were also assailed by the city’s many pungent aromas: sweat and piss, tobacco and hashish, petrol and the smoke from charcoal braziers and exhausts; roasting kebabs, kuftas and ears of corn; rich spices and flowers.

  ‘The Land of the Four S’s,’ Greaves said, waving his hand to indicate the busy road and pavements, which were packed with Arabs in jellabas, women in black robes and veils, grimy, school-aged bootblacks, and the troops of many nations, most of them swarming through the city in search of a good time. ‘Sun, sand, sin and syphilis.’

  ‘You can think about those while you take your pleasure,’ Stirling replied. ‘For now, let’s stick to business.’ He turned to the jellaba-clad hotel doorman and spoke one word to him: ‘Taxi.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ the doorman said in English, flashing his teeth and waving his hand frantically even before reaching the edge of the pavement.

  Less than a minute later, Greaves and Stirling were sitting in the back of a sweltering taxi, heading for Middle East Headquarters.

  As Greaves soon found out, even on crutches Stirling was both agile and adroit. When the taxi dropped them off at the main gates of MEHQ, he attempted to bluff his way in by pretending he had forgotten his papers and hoping that the sight of his crutches would dispel any doubts the guard might be harbouring. The ruse did not work, and although perfectly polite and sympathetic, the guard was adamant that Stirling could not enter without proper papers.

  Unfazed, Stirling thanked the guard, turned away, manœuvred himself on his crutches to one end of the long double gates, then glanced up and down the road, ostensibly looking for another taxi. But, as his nod indicated to Greaves, he had noticed that there was a gap between the end of the guardhouse and the beginning of the barbed-wire fence, and clearly he intended slipping through it when the guard was not looking.

  His chance came within minutes, when the guard was leaning down, his back turned to Stirling and Greaves, to check the papers of some officers in a staff car. As soon as the guard turned away, leaning down towards the side window of the car, Stirling dropped his crutches, waved to Greaves, then led him through the gap.

  ‘Act naturally,’ he said to Greaves while gritting his teeth against the pain of his unsupported legs and trying to walk as normally as possible. ‘Behave as if you belong here.’

  Feeling an odd excitement, like a naughty schoolboy, Greaves followed Stirling across the field to the main building of MEHQ. Just as Stirling reached it, one of the guards called out to him – either he had recognized him or seen his crutches in the road – ordering him to return to the main gate. With surprising alacrity, considering the state of his legs, Stirling ignored the guard and hurried up the steps to enter the main building, with an excited and amused Greaves right behind him.

  Once inside, Stirling marched resolutely, if at times unsteadily, along the first corridor he saw, searching for the office of the C-in-C. Before he found it, however, he heard the guard behind him, asking in a loud voice if anyone had seen tw
o 8 Commando officers enter the building.

  Immediately, Stirling opened the first door he saw, which was marked ‘Adjutant-General’. He came face to face with a startled Army major, who demanded to know what the hell he was doing bursting in unannounced. As Stirling was trying to explain who he was and what he wanted, the major, who turned out to be one of his old instructors from Pirbright, where Stirling had done his basic training, recognized him and became even angrier.

  ‘Still acting the bloody fool, are you?’ he climaxed after a lengthy tirade about Stirling’s unorthodox behaviour, past and present. ‘Well, not in this office, you don’t. Get out of here instantly!’

  Greaves backed out first, followed by Stirling, who was, to his amazement, grinning broadly.

  ‘Worst instructor I ever had,’ he said coolly. ‘Come on, Dirk, let’s keep searching.’

  ‘I think we might be pushing our luck,’ Greaves warned him.

  ‘Tosh!’ Stirling barked.

  Wincing occasionally from the pain in his unsupported legs, he led Greaves further along the corridor, brushing past many senior staff officers, looking for the office of the C-in-C.

  ‘That guard’s bound to be trying to find us,’ Greaves said, ‘so if we don’t come across the office of the C-in-C soon, he’ll be on our backs.’

  Stirling stopped at a door marked ‘DCGS’. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Dirk. Let’s try our luck in here.’ Boldly, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  Greaves followed him in and closed the door behind him. Though bold in war, Greaves now suffered a racing heart at the thought of facing the Deputy Chief of General Staff without an appointment, let alone a pass into the building. His heart thumped even more when he saw the DCGS, General Neil Ritchie, looking up in surprise from his cluttered desk.

  ‘Who …?’

  ‘Lieutenant Stirling, Scots Guards, sir,’ Stirling interrupted breathlessly. ‘And Lieutenant Greaves, also Scots Guards. Both with 8 Commando and formerly part of Layforce.’

  Before the general could respond or get over his surprise, Stirling apologized for bursting into the office, explained that there had been no time to arrange it and said that he had come on a matter of particular urgency.

  ‘It had better be,’ General Ritchie replied darkly. Then, distracted by Stirling’s ungainly stance, he asked, ‘Why are you standing in such an odd way, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Spot of bother with the legs, sir. Parachute drop. Just got out of the Scottish Military Hospital and had to leave my crutches at the gate when we sneaked into the camp.’

  ‘You came here on crutches?’ General Ritchie gazed at Stirling in disbelief, then smiled a little and leaned back in his chair. ‘You have five minutes, Lieutenant. Take that chair and rest your legs. Then you’d better start talking.’

  Relieved, Stirling withdrew his memorandum from the inside pocket of his tunic, handed it to Greaves, then gratefully sank into the soft chair facing the desk while Greaves handed the memo to the DCGS. Ritchie read it carefully, taking rather longer than five minutes, then spread it carefully on the desk and looked up again.

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘It could work, but I’m not at all sure that the C-in-C would welcome such an unorthodox approach. A sniff of guerrilla operations there, Stirling, and General Wavell doesn’t approve of that business.’

  ‘That may be true, sir, but rumour has it that he’s under considerable pressure from Churchill to stop the relentless advance of Rommel.’

  ‘Those rumours are based on fact. Nevertheless, he may not thank me for this kind of proposal. A lot of risk involved, yes?’

  ‘It’s a safe bet for you, sir,’ Stirling said cleverly. ‘If things go wrong, the casualties will be few in number. If successful, they could change the course of the war in the desert and bring credit to all of us.’

  Ritchie thought about it, then nodded in agreement. ‘All right, Lieutenant, I’ll bring the subject up with the C-in-C. If he’s interested I’ll show him your memorandum. You should hear from me within a matter of days. In the meantime, no more nonsense from you – such as this break-in. I’ll get a sentry to escort both you men out. Next time get a pass.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Stirling and Greaves said at once, with big, dopey grins.

  The general picked up his phone and called for a guard. Five minutes later a triumphant Stirling and Greaves were being escorted out of MEHQ. As they passed through the main gates, the guard who had pursued them stepped out, grinning broadly, to hand Stirling his crutches.

  ‘Well done, sir,’ the guard said with a grin.

  Stirling smiled back at him, put the crutches under his armpits, and waited patiently beside Greaves while the latter hailed a passing taxi.

  ‘Now we can only wait,’ Stirling said, ‘so let’s have a good time.’

  Three days later, when Greaves and Stirling were beginning to feel more exhausted from having a good time than they ever had on an operation, Stirling received a call from the DCGS’s office, inviting him back to see General Ritchie.

  While Stirling was at that meeting, Greaves enjoyed a long lunch with his attractive nurse, Frances, whom he had been wining, dining and bedding for the past two days and nights in his hotel. In fact, she had just left his room when Stirling turned up, flushed with excitement.

  ‘The meeting wasn’t just with General Ritchie,’ he told Greaves. ‘The C-in-C, General Auchinleck, was also there. So was the Chief of the General Staff.’

  Greaves gave a low whistle of appreciation. ‘So, what transpired?’

  ‘Permission granted,’ Stirling said, ‘on the following conditions. ‘I’ve just been promoted to captain. Five officers and sixty other ranks will be recruited. For the time being, we’ll recruit only from former Layforce men. We’ll train the men ourselves and prepare them for raids against five airfields Jerry is using as bases for his latest Me 109F fighters. Auchinleck felt that five-man teams are too awkward, so teams of four instead of five will be the operational basis of the raiding parties. Our parent body will be a non-existent Special Air Service Brigade, or L Detachment …’

  ‘Why “L”?’ Greaves interrupted.

  Stirling’s grin was mischievous. ‘L for Learner. Anyway, that’s what we’re calling it: L Detachment, SAS Brigade. To Axis agents and others it should suggest that there are more than sixty-six parachutists in Egypt. Meanwhile, we can get on with the real business. Now let’s go and find some men.’

  Jubilant, they embarked on a search of Cairo to find the men who would be the bedrock of L Detachment.

  The first officer, Lieutenant William ‘Bill’ Bollington, they found immediately, in the bar of Shepheard’s Hotel, where Bollington was staying. A Gordon Highlander whose father and grandfather had been senior NCOs, he was instantly excited by the idea of a new raiding team and agreed to join them.

  ‘I strongly recommend Sergeant Ralph Lorrimer,’ he told them. ‘Dorset Regiment, but now with the LRDG. Apart from being a hell of an NCO in his own right, and an expert on the desert, he’d probably be your ticket to the LRDG. He’s also, incidentally, unbeatable with the Browning 12-gauge autoloader. A good man in a tight spot.’

  ‘Where will we find him?’

  Lieutenant Bollington grinned and pointed down through his room window, in the direction of the Sharia il Berka. ‘Down there. He practically lives in Tiger Lil’s place. I think he keeps a room there.’

  ‘Very good,’ Stirling said. He and Greaves left the hotel and walked across to the notorious street of brothels. Tiger Lil’s was a gloomy, echoing barn of a place where the men queued up at the doors of the rooms, often peeping through keyholes to see how the first man was getting on and shouting words of encouragement: ‘Come on! Get on with it! We’re all waiting out here!’ Tiger Lil, the immense, good-natured madam, who was sitting behind the cash desk by the front door, told them the number of Lorrimer’s room. As they climbed the stairs, they came across many young girls, no mo
re than eight or nine, who were running in and out of the rooms with towels, cleaning rags and bottles of Condy’s disinfectant.

  When Stirling and Greaves reached the room which was, according to Tiger Lil, rented permanently by Lorrimer, Greaves hammered on the door with his fist and a gravelly male voice bid him enter. Doing so, he and Stirling found Sergeant Lorrimer, wearing his shirt and trousers, though bare-footed, stretched out on his bed, propped up slightly with pillows, reading the latest edition of The Strand.

  Surprised to see two officers in his room, he slid his feet down to the floor and sat on the edge of his bed. He was of medium height, but broad-chested and muscular, with a handsome, world-weary face and a fearless, blue-eyed gaze.

  ‘Yes, sirs?’ he asked, clearly puzzled by their presence in his room.

  Stirling introduced himself and Greaves, then explained why they had come. As soon as he had finished, Lorrimer agreed to join up.

  ‘Can you get us the cooperation of the LRDG?’ Stirling asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Excellent. Please get in touch with them immediately, then contact me here.’ He scribbled his brother’s private phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to Lorrimer. ‘That’s where I’m staying while I’m in Cairo. Get in touch when you’ve fixed up a meeting with the LRDG. If it can’t be arranged immediately, fix it up for later.’ He was leaving the room with Greaves when the latter, unable to contain his curiosity, turned back and asked Lorrimer: ‘Do you rent this room on a full-time basis, Sergeant?’

  Lorrimer nodded. ‘Only during my leave periods,’ he said. ‘I’m a married man with three kids and a healthy sexual appetite. This room’s cheaper than anything else I could hire and the girls are conveniently located. What more could a man want?’

  ‘You’re a man of initiative,’ Greaves replied. ‘I think we made the right choice. See you soon, Sergeant.’

  Their next stop was the MP barracks at Bab el Hadid, where one of Greaves’s favourite men, Captain Patrick ‘Paddy’ Callaghan, No 3 Commando, was languishing in one of the cells, pending a court martial for knocking out his commanding officer. Formerly an Irish rugby international and accomplished boxer, Callaghan was normally an amiable, courteous man, but unfortunately he had a violent temper. Indeed, before actually striking his commanding officer, Callaghan had run him out of the officers’ mess at the point of a bayonet. He was, nevertheless, an exceptional soldier who had already been mentioned in dispatches for his bravery in action.