by Colin Smith
So at shortly after six that morning Davison, in tan suit and panama hat, and feeling a bit a bit thick-headed from the whisky and lack of sleep, had boarded an identical transport aircraft to the one he now found himself on and flown from Jerusalem to the RAF aerodrome at Heliopolis in Cairo. With him was a brown leather briefcase containing the various proposals and position papers for dealing with a defeat that would make Tobruk look like a very minor setback.
While waiting there for his connecting flight he had read the Egyptian Gazette’s report about Churchill’s unexpected day trip to El Alamein the day before, news delayed by the censor’s office until the prime minister’s safe return to Cairo. The Gazette’s front page showed the prime minister clad in his famous and perfectly hideous zip-fronted boiler suit topped with an ancient sola topi he probably last wore when he charged the Mahdi’s horde at Omdurman. Not for the first time Davison thought that the man looked as if he was playing Baby Bunting at a fancy dress party though he had to admit he made damn good speeches and was popular with the hoi polloi.
His flight to Cairo had been a sedate affair compared to this second leg of his journey to Burg el-Arab, the landing strip west of Alexandria closest to the El Alamein front and Auchinleck’s headquarters where Churchill himself must have landed. It had not helped that the co-pilot was off sick - “khaki throat,” the sergeant-pilot had offered by way of explanation - and Davison had been invited up front to take his place in the cockpit of the Bombay transport.
It would have been churlish to refuse but, if fly he must, Davison liked to be blinkered from alarming juxtapositions of land and sky and equipped with a stout paper bag for those gallows drops into air pockets. How he envied the Royal Army Medical Corps sergeant and two RAF aircraftsmen seated behind him whose main task would be loading the stretcher cases they would be taking back to Cairo. Their portholes offered nothing like his vista. In the cockpit, with its unlikely dials and fluttering needles, Davison saw far more than he had ever wished to see.
Nonetheless, the first twenty minutes or so north-west across the water fissured land of the Nile Delta had not been too bad. Flat brown cotton fields and a railway were visible below. The sky was cloudless and the child at his side assured him that the Bombay was the best and safest workhorse the RAF had: its twin engines could cruise all day at one hundred and sixty miles on hour, which was about its top speed, and you could put its fixed undercarriage down almost anywhere that was reasonably flat. Apparently, his squadron were all up in arms because they were about to be re-equipped with some very second hand Dakotas and not impressed by retractable undercarriages and the American machine’s ability to carry more faster.
The Bombay’s Bristol engines droned reassuringly on. Only very occasionally was there enough turbulence to remind a nervous passenger that he was in a heavier than air machine and the air is being fooled by the engines. After a while Davison began to congratulate himself on his new found confidence and even allowed his eyelids to droop. It was then, as if to punish him for his presumption, that his host announced that he was going to “take her down”. Without more ado he put the Bombay into a steep dive that instantly brought Davison’s somewhat inadequate pocket handkerchief to his mouth though wisely his breakfast had been no more than a cup of tea.
“Sorry sir,” the child had said as they levelled off at a height from where Davison, wiping himself, could distinctly make out the upturned faces of startled fellaheen distracted from their toil in the fields below. “Should have warned you. We’ve been getting the odd Jerry fighter nosing about lately. Since Tobruk went they’ve moved their airfields up. One of our chaps was bounced last week. So now we try to stay well below two hundred feet all the way to Burg. Lower if we can manage it,” he said, neatly vaulting a line of telegraph poles while Davison hung onto his seat and tried to keep his stomach out of his throat by swallowing hard. “Much harder for Jerry to spot us while we’re down here. We’re the same colour as the ground top side.”
As he spoke the wireless operator squeezed between them and descended into the small turret below. “We man the front guns from here until Burg,” he told Davison who had his eyes glued to a frolic of camels already feeling the draught from their propellers. “We don’t have real guns at the back of this ship. They’re wooden dummies. We sometimes take a few more stretcher case than we’re supposed to and we found it alters the trim if we have real ones there. Whoops!”
The nose of the Bombay leapfrogged a small hill on which Davison glimpsed a square white building and what appeared to be high altitude chickens and a stampeding donkey. It was like being trapped in a small, storm tossed greenhouse. Once over the desert travelling dust clouds gave away some of the 8th Army’s vehicle movements. These were cause for the Bombay to suddenly climb and turn before descending to its route while Davison could hear the RAMC man in the back cursing and somebody being sick. “Bad news getting too close to the Brown Jobs,” explained their tormentor. “Some of them are a bit jumpy. Fire at anything in the air.”
Then the turquoise Mediterranean was ahead of them and soon, much too soon, Davison found himself examining its white caps in which wallowed a small vessel painted battle ship grey. Some wavering red and yellow dots began to rise from it. “Tracer,” grunted the pilot. “Navy’s even more trigger happy than the Brown Jobs. Don’t worry. They hardly ever hit anything.”
They banked and turned back towards the land. The radio swished into life, a call sign was given and a request for landing clearance that was signalled with the red and white smoke of Verey flares. Below them was a couple of building and a runway levelled off in an otherwise bumpy looking patch of desert. Seconds before touch down Davison saw that, more often than not, these bumps were vehicles under camouflage nets. Some Bofors anti-aircraft gunners, stripped to the waist, stood around their gun in its sandbagged emplacement. Then, lined up by some low buildings, were the red and white crosses of four ambulances.
While they taxied off the runway onto the rougher ground beyond it Davison saw the line of ambulances begin to move. The first was backing towards them before the propellers had come to a standstill while just aft of the wings the aircraftsmen were already slipping the Bombay’s main door off its hinges and laying it alongside the wall of the fuselage to make it easier to bring the wounded aboard. Once this was done they started to adjust the webbing slings that allowed some of the stretchers to be carried like hammocks. The rest would lie beneath them on the floor of the fuselage. The wireless operator went to help. “Tell them we want to beat that six minute turnaround,” yelled the pilot after him.
“Is that really all the time you’re going to be here?” asked Davison, carefully extricating himself from his seat harness and wondering how many extra creases it had applied to his linen suit.
“I’d go now if I could sir. We think Jerry can spot us landing here from his forward positions. We try to get away before he can lay on the Messerschmitts and catch us on the way back.”
“Well good luck,” said Davison who was thinking that it must be possible to take the overland route back.
“Same to you sir,” said the pilot who had decided that his passenger was probably on Churchill’s staff, come to check something out for him or pick up a forgotten cigar cutter. He wished he had been in on that trip but apparently the RAF hadn’t considered a Bombay suitable and provided a Wellington bomber with a Spitfire escort.
Davison left the Bombay down some steps that had been brought up to the cockpit floor hatch. He expected that his suit and briefcase would make identification easy for the major from Auchinleck’s HQ who was supposed to be meeting him. But once off the aircraft the first thing Davison heard was an American voice saying, “Just hold it right there.” This was followed by a low groan.
He immediately came to a halt thinking he was about to walk into a propeller or something equally lethal. Then he realised the voice came from slightly above him. He looked up and saw a pale skinned man standing inside the aircraft on the e
dge of the hole, which accommodated the Bombay’s main door from which a metal ladder had been lowered. He was not wearing shorts but khaki drill trousers and shirt with war correspondent flashes on the shoulders and the kind of cap with a long stiff peak he had seen in magazine photographs of American airmen and baseball players. He had a large camera over one shoulder and a much smaller one on a short strap around his neck which he was now using to take pictures of a stretcher case being lifted onto the Bombay from one of the ambulances which was at least four foot lower than the aircraft.
The ambulance was a Chevrolet and its sand coloured yellow paintwork was not quite the 8th Army norm any more than its left hand drive and the white lettering just behind the driver’s door. When he was close enough to read it Davison saw that this declared the vehicle to be a gift from a Quaker community somewhere in Pennsylvania. It was awkward getting the stretcher cases aboard because they had to be lifted at an angle of almost forty-five degrees. From where he was standing Davison could just see that the head of the man lying on it was swathed in one of the new light brown desert camouflage field dressings he had heard about. The two aircraftsmen were crouched on the Bombay holding one end of the stretcher while the other was being raised by two lanky figures in nondescript khaki drill, presumably the American civilian volunteers crewing the ambulance. Arms above their heads, they were each lifting the end of one of the stretcher’s poles.
Davison noticed that one of them had on the same kind of black baseball hat as the photographer who was chanting, “Great, great, great,” while he kept turning the film advance on the little black camera which Davison now recognised as a Leica for he had a professional interest in photography. The wounded soldier on the stretcher groaned again and Davison thought he might have mumbled something about his eyes. Little rivulets of sweat coursed down the cheeks of one of the American volunteers.
“Hold it,” said the photographer looking up from his viewfinder. “Will somebody close the back doors of the ambulance? Not fully, just so we can see what’s written on them.”
“I’ll do it,” said another American voice. For the first time Davison became aware of a second man with war correspondent flashes on his bush jacket leaning against the door of the ambulance, hatless with an open notebook in his hand. He had a square, pleasant face with slightly flap ears that Davison recalled seeing around the bar at the King David from time to time. Now Pickett poked his head inside the ambulance. “Sorry about this fellahs,” he said to some blanket covered forms inside before gently closing the doors and, with a hasty rub of his palm, removed the dust obscuring the words American Field Service.
“OK Malley?” he said. “Let’s get this over with and get these poor guys on board!”
The wireless operator, who had been delayed on his way to the door by the Medical Corps sergeant who had an idea for getting more stretchers aboard and wanted to know if it would affect the trim, now appeared. He asked Malley what he was doing.
“What’s it look like?” snapped Malley clicking away, his back to him. The stretcher with the man with the head wound, who also seemed to have face burns for his cheeks glistened with some sort of green coloured ointment, was put into position, the sergeant working with difficulty around Malley’s feet. The wireless operator, who like the pilot held the rank of sergeant, drew a deep breath and tapped Malley on the shoulder.
“You’re trespassing,” he said. “I’ll give you exactly ten seconds to get off this aircraft.”
“Get off my back fly boy,” snarled Malley, half turning. “Some of us have to work for a living.”
“Aw c’mon Malley. You’ve got enough and we all have work to do,” said Pickett quickly. “Here, let me take that camera.” And he came up and held out a hand, neatly removing any temptation the wireless operator might have had to boot Malley the Magician off his aircraft while his hands were still full of equipment. The photographer passed the Speed-Graphic down to Pickett then spurned the steps and sat on the edge of the door and pushed himself off.
Once on the ground Malley turned to face the wireless operator, legs apart, slapping his baseball cap against his thigh. “It may interest you to know,” he said, “that the reason I had the temerity to trespass on your aircraft old boy was because this ambulance here is a gift from the American people to our gallant British allies. Its crew, who get a darn sight nearer the places where the nasty things happen than flyboys on a milk run, also happen to be American. Which is why I was taking pictures of them with the ambulance. OK. It’s a gift from America. Just like all those Grant tanks making dust out there, not to speak of the Stuarts and those jeeps you’re all getting so fond of. So I’m sorry I was trespassing on your airplane. What sort of aircraft is it anyway? Did you find it in a museum? Never mind. Pretty soon they’re going to give you some of those nice new Dakotas. That’s an American airplane by the way, sorry aircraft. Just like all those P40’s you have. And maybe you heard the 8th Army’s getting some brand new Sherman tanks. Maybe we should give you some American crews to go with them? That’s if you forgive them trespassing on your sand. That’s the bit that Rommel isn’t already trespassing on of course.”
“Somebody take this idiot away before I remember where I left my revolver,” snapped the RAF man.
“I wish you would,” said Pickett. Then vowing that this really was the last time he was ever going on a story with the Irish yahoo he followed him back to the jeep where the convalescing Hussars captain who was acting as their escort office was waiting.
“Guys like him remind me why I’m in no hurry to get back home,” said one of the American volunteers, staring at Malley’s back. He had just helped lift the last of their four wounded on board and was unscrewing his canteen for a gulp of warm water.
But as Davison watched the American ambulance drive off and a British vehicle take its place he found that Malley’s outburst had given him food for thought. It was true that both the 8thArmy and even the Desert Air Force, despite its Hurricanes and recently arrived Spitfires, did seem to have an awful lot of American equipment and be getting more. In the last war he couldn’t remember anything they had that hadn’t been made in Britain.
These observations were immediately reinforced by the major from Auchinleck’s headquarters who was also using a jeep. “Other side,” he said cheerfully as Davison went to get in what should have been the front passenger seat. “Left hand drive.”
It took them the best part of twenty minutes to get out of the immediate vicinity of the airstrip, weaving their way around bulky objects under camouflages nets, some of them tanks, or taking tracks that took them below ground level into vehicle scrapes, clusters of aerials indicating various command centres. “What are these tiger traps?” asked Davison as they reversed hurriedly sway from a large hole where the indignant crew of a Crusader tank were brewing up. They had come within inches of dropping in on their tea.
“It’s an armoured brigade,” explained the staff officer. “They’re dispersed like this against air attack. It’s absolute hell driving around here at night I can tell you.”
“I can imagine,” said Davison.
22 - Making Their Luck
Dawn, the same dawn that saw Davison reporting to RAF Jerusalem to begin his trip to Egypt, found the Templer and Lang alone in the Humber which was stationary with its engine off. The American carbine his colonel had entrusted to Private Hawkins lay beneath the legs of the Templer who was in the front passenger seat. From Hebron they had driven almost a hundred miles of twisting bad road passing through Beersheba, the market town for the Negev Bedouin, and then headed west towards the coast south of Gaza. Now they had stopped under a grove of ancient date palms not far from Khan Yunnis and the Egyptian border crossing at Rafah. The palms grew where a road had once been and were about two hundred yards from where the road was now. The adrenalin that had fuelled their escape from Jerusalem was long spent. They had red-rimmed eyes and throats kippered from tobacco smoke yet were fighting off the sleep they craved fearful
of the price it might exact.
“We could try crossing on foot,” said Lang.
“We could,” said the Templer. “But it would mean dumping the set which is far too heavy to carry any distance and I don’t want to do that. Besides, we would look suspicious, two travel stained officers walking into Egypt.
“The best thing would be to get hold of another vehicle. But if we can’t do that there is probably still a good chance that they haven’t notified the Rafah checkpoint about a missing Humber staff car because they’ll be convinced we’re hiding out in Tel Aviv or Haifa or even still in Jerusalem. It is going to take them a while to work out we’re heading for Rommel. Meanwhile, we’re going to be on the British main supply route to their El Alamein front. There should be an enormous amount of traffic both ways with impatient military policemen mostly interested in keeping it moving. With any luck, if we get in between the trucks of a convoy we’ll be waved through. This car is covered in dust, you can hardly read the number plate on the front and it doesn’t have one in the rear.”
Lang was not convinced and showed it, turning his mouth down, saying nothing. Behind him thre first pink streaks of sunrise were coming up.
“Can you think of anything better?”
“I’ll see if I can remove those badges on the wings,” said Lang by way of reply.
“Good idea,” said the Templer who felt the need to jolly his companion along. “We’ll make it look a bit more front line. It’s much too smart for where we’re going.”
