‘And for officers?’ Bentley murmured. He had at least been at Dunkirk. ‘I’d like to have a look at Cairo, while we’re here.’
‘I’ll see what the Colonel has to say,’ Fergus told them. ‘But get those sentries posted by nightfall.’
*
Wilkinson was naturally very amenable to granting leave; he wanted to have a look at Cairo himself. ‘I mean to say, Fergus, it would be stupid to go home from service in Egypt and have to admit we’d never seen the pyramids.’
‘With respect, sir,’ Fergus pointed out, ‘the record indicates that the pyramids are going to be there for a while yet no matter what happens in this war. But home might just not be if we don’t win it.’
‘Fergus, you take life too seriously,’ Wilkinson remarked. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Even Wellington spent his time fox hunting in the Peninsula when not actually fighting the French.’
Next day a rota was set up, and sixty men were allowed into Alexandria, while Allack and two lieutenants drew the first pass down to Cairo, driving away in one of the command cars with a great deal of glee.
‘My turn tomorrow,’ Romerill said with satisfaction. ‘But today we’ll work,’ Fergus told him.
He had the entire regiment doing callisthenics on the beach for an hour after breakfast. Then he held a rigorous kit inspection, and tank inspection too; even after twenty-four hours sand was starting to appear everywhere. ‘That rifle will never fire,’ he pointed out to one of Corporal Manly-Smith’s men, Trooper Griffiths. ‘You get that sand out, and you keep that sand out, understood?’
At lunch time Sergeant-Major Blair arrived in a truck, accompanied by a sergeant and two privates. His uniform was faded to a sort of whitish yellow and his boots had seen better days, but he wore medal ribbons and his red face suggested the wearying experience of war. ‘Driving practice, sir!’ he informed Wilkinson.
‘Well, have a bite of lunch first,’ the Colonel suggested, ‘and then I suppose we’d better wait until it cools off a little, eh?’
‘The Eyeties don’t always take a siesta, sir!’
Wilkinson looked at Fergus, eyebrows raised.
‘I think the Sergeant-Major has a point, sir,’ Fergus said. ‘Oh, very well. Driving practice! Whatever will they think of next? Carry on, Major.’
*
Fergus assembled all the officers left in the camp, and all the NCOs as well, to listen to what Blair had to say.
‘Over there is a large lake, you may have noticed,’ the Sergeant-Major announced, pointing behind the city. ‘That’s the last water any of you are going to see, except the sea, for the next few months. And even that is brackish, not fresh. Out there’ — thumbing over his right shoulder — ‘is the desert. It is miles and miles of damn all, and then more miles and miles of damn all. There ain’t no water out there, and there ain’t no food. So a regiment, a brigade, a division, an army, travels with everything it needs. That means where you go with your tanks, your trucks go with you. There ain’t no signposts neither, and don’t bother to make a note of physical features for future identification; you get a breeze, next time you come by it’ll all have changed. So you travel with your compasses, everywhere, and you note your mileage, all the time. Now, sir,’ he turned to Fergus. ‘If you’d like to come with me?’
He indicated his own truck, and Fergus and most of the officers got in with him. Sergeant-Major Brothers and Sergeant Butler divided the NCOs between them in two of the regimental trucks.
‘Do come back for dinner,’ Wilkinson suggested with a grin as they set off.
The three trucks left the road within two miles of the camp and bounced over uneven ground, which rose and fell in gentle undulations, until all sign of life had disappeared. Then the Sergeant-Major braked, and summoned his class. Fergus had already made a note that movement in the desert was impossible to conceal; the plumes of dust which had arisen from their wheels hung on the still air. Now he made another note, that the mid-afternoon heat was lethal; it seemed able to burn right through his tropical jacket, and as this was in any event short-sleeved, he could feel his forearms scorching. His beret seemed glued to his head and he hastily changed it for his pith helmet — but the relief was only marginal. Another must, he was realizing, was some kind of tinted glasses to repel the glare.
That would make them look even more like bloody tourists, he thought.
Now, gentlemen,’ Blair announced. ‘This is the terrain over which you gentlemen will be doing most of your fighting. Down there is a wadi. That’s a dry riverbed. Up there is a gebel. That’s a hill. There ain’t nothing else. And what we’re standing on is the desert. The stony desert. You won’t have no difficulty in driving across this. But the desert ain’t always stony. Some places it has sand. Over there’ — he pointed to the south-west — ‘is what they call the Quattara Depression. That’s soft sand, miles and miles of it. Not even a tank can get through that without bogging down. Further west, in Libya, there’s the Great Sand Sea. Even the Touaregs don’t attempt to cross that, on camels. But mostly the desert is a mixture of sand and stone. The trick is being able to tell which is which. Now, then, who’s going to volunteer?’
Sergeant Butler stepped forward, accompanied by Corporals Clarke, Manly-Smith and Roberts.
‘Right-ho. What I would like you to do, Sergeant, is take that truck and drive to that gebel over there and back. It’s not more than a mile.’
Butler himself got behind the wheel.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Fergus said, and sat next to the sergeant.
‘You follow us,’ Blair told the sergeant who was driving his own truck, and got in beside Fergus; the corporals climbed into the back.
‘Off you go,’ Blair said.
Butler engaged gear, and the huge truck began to move. Butler drove with due caution for the first minute, then changed into top and began to bounce at about thirty miles an hour, steering straight at the hillock.
Blair pulled his nose. ‘I should slow down if I were you, Sergeant,’ he remarked.
Butler turned his head to look at him, fortunately taking his foot off the accelerator as he did so, for before he could speak the truck suddenly slewed sideways so violently Fergus thought it was going over. However, Butler was a very good driver, and turned into the skid, bringing them to a halt facing back the way they had come. ‘I see what you mean, Sergeant-Major,’ he acknowledged.
‘Sand,’ Blair commented. ‘Didn’t spot it, did you?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Neither did I,’ Fergus admitted. ‘But your people did.’ The truck which had been following them had turned away, and was some fifty yards to their right, also stopped. ‘Well, sir, they’ve been trained to it. By me,’ Blair added modestly.
‘Yes. Well, Sergeant, I think we had better get over there and join them,’ Fergus said.
‘Yes, sir.’ Butler engaged gear, and released the clutch. The engine roared and the wheels churned. Butler increased speed, and the roaring grew louder.
‘Sand,’ Blair commented again.
Perspiring, Butler put the truck into reverse. The roaring grew louder yet, and sand flew in every direction. But the truck didn’t move.
‘If you keep that up, you’ll bury her,’ Blair told him.
‘Then what the bloody hell do I do?’ Butler shouted, red in the face. ‘Begging your pardon, Mr Mackinder.’
‘What does he do, Sergeant-Major?’ Fergus asked.
‘He digs it out, sir.’
Fergus looked at Butler, who looked back. ‘We don’t have any spades.’
‘Pays to be equipped, in the desert, sir.’ Blair jerked his thumb, and Fergus saw the sergeant and the two privates leaving their truck to walk towards them. They carried spades and strips of reinforced canvas. ‘Sand channels,’ Blair explained.
They all disembarked, and two of the corporals were given a spade each. They were certainly going to need it; the truck had sunk to its axles, and Fergus discovered the ground w
as so soft he very rapidly sank to the uppers of his boots.
Sweating and muttering, Manly-Smith and Clarke began to dig the sand away from the rear wheels, watched by their instructors and their comrades.
‘You have to catch it right,’ Blair explained, ‘or it all slides back in. Now! Haste, Sergeant. Get those channels in.’
Butler and Roberts dropped to their hands and knees, forcing the canvas down against and in front of the tyres. ‘Other side, quickly,’ Blair commanded.
They hurried over and did the other side.
‘Right,’ Blair said. ‘Now you three fellows push, and you drive, Sergeant. Once you get on to the channels you’ll be all right.’
Fergus stood to one side with the instructors, while the corporals, red in the face and dripping perspiration, put their shoulders to the back of the truck. Butler got behind the wheel and revved the engine, sand flew into the faces and uniforms of the unfortunate corporals, but at last the wheels were got on to the canvas, gripped, and the truck moved forward — twelve feet, or the length of the channels, before promptly bogging down again.
Butler glared at Blair, who had been walking beside him. ‘What now?’
‘You do it all over again. You’re lucky, Sergeant. There’s firm ground only twenty feet away. Two more digs, and you’re there.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Bert Manly-Smith muttered.
‘Some sand patches can be several hundred feet across,’ Blair remarked. ‘Drive into one of them at speed and you’re there for the night.’
Fergus thought they might very well be there for the night anyway; it was now an hour since they had left the rest of the class, who were watching them through binoculars. It took them another hour to get out of the sand, and then Butler drove very cautiously up to the foot of the hill, while Blair, having made his point, told him what to look for to avoid entering another sand patch. Then they drove back to the rest of the class.
‘Time for a cuppa, I would say, sir,’ Blair suggested to Fergus.
‘Unfortunately, we didn’t bring any tea with us,’ Fergus pointed out.
Blair winked. ‘Always be prepared in the desert, sir.’ His sergeant produced various bags from the back of his truck, while his two troopers took an empty four-gallon petrol can, made of thin sheet metal, and cut it in half. One half they punched full of holes with their bayonets, and filled it with sand and gravel. Then, from another petrol can, this one half full, they poured a liberal splash into the primitive stove. A match was struck, and the can flared into flame.
Watched in fascination by the class, the sergeant’s water bottle was emptied into the other half of the can, and this was placed upon the flames. It boiled in seconds, and then from the various bags tea, sugar and powdered milk were added, and stirred vigorously, again with a bayonet. Blair tested it, and then, using a rag to stop himself from being scalded, lifted the can and held it out to Fergus. ‘You first, sir.’
Tentatively Fergus took both rag and tin, and raised it to his lips. It was boiling hot, but amazingly tasty, and refreshing. He swallowed, and handed it to Bentley. It then made the rounds, each man taking a swig, before the last of it came back to Blair, who finished it. He grinned at Fergus. ‘It ain’t a bad life, sir, if you don’t let it get you down.’
*
‘We have one hell of a lot to learn,’ Fergus told the Colonel. ‘And not all that much time.’
He put his drivers to work every day, cursing and sweating, but learning. And he put his officers through their paces as well. ‘You normally won’t have more than three men with you,’ he told them when they complained. ‘So you’ll have to give a hand if you get stuck. You may as well know what it’s like.’
The men grumbled even more, but he could watch them becoming more fit with every day, as their white bodies tanned and in the heat their chests and shoulders expanded, and their legs grew more muscular as they jogged round and round the camp and in and out of sand traps. When their friendly staff Major arrived to warn them that General Wavell was going to pay them a visit the next day, accompanied by the commander of the army in the field, Major General O’Connor, Fergus felt the regiment might just be up to scratch.
General Sir Archibald Wavell turned out to be a tall man with a little moustache and a somewhat abrupt manner. He wore breeches and old-fashioned boots and leggings. Major General Richard O’Connor was altogether shorter and more compact, and more casually dressed, in trousers. Both wore mufflers and heavy coats, for the weather had suddenly turned decidedly chilly; it was now mid-November.
They were met by Wilkinson and Fergus, and then driven on an inspection of the regiment, which stood to attention in front of its tanks and trucks.
‘Fine-looking men,’ Wavell commented when they returned to the command tent for lunch. ‘How many were at Dunkirk?’
‘Only about fifty per cent,’ Wilkinson told him. ‘But the rest are coming on well.’
‘How soon can you move up?’ O’Connor asked.
‘One more week should do it,’ Wilkinson said.
‘We can move up sooner if necessary, sir,’ Fergus said.
Wavell looked from one to the other. ‘One more week will be fine,’ he agreed. ‘But I want you in position with the armoured brigade by the end of this month.’ He looked at O’Connor.
‘The Italians have been reinforced to a total of ten divisions, so far as we are aware,’ O’Connor said. ‘They had five when they advanced in September. They’ve made no move since crossing the frontier, but with such an accretion of strength it seems likely that they will do so now. We propose to pre-empt them and counter-attack at the beginning of next month.’
‘In what strength, sir?’ Wilkinson asked.
O’Connor gave a brief smile. ‘We muster two divisions, Colonel. But with your chaps we have an armoured brigade, which is better than anything on the other side. I think we have every chance of success, if only because they won’t expect us to start anything with such inferior forces. What I am telling you is in the strictest confidence, of course. Not even your squadron commanders are to know. You are merely moving up to take your places in the defensive line. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Wilkinson and Fergus said together.
‘Action at last,’ Fergus said, when the generals had left. ‘Yes. I think the lads are just about ready for it,’ Wilkinson conceded.
‘Then why wait another week?’
‘Because I haven’t got down to Cairo yet. And I mean to do that, tomorrow. We’ll go together, Fergus.’
‘Really, John, I’d rather...’
‘I insist upon it. You have been working far too hard. You simply have to take a break before we go into action. It could be weeks before we get back here. So we will take two nights off. Bentley can command here for two nights. Don’t argue, Fergus. This is an order.’
*
‘Brass,’ Bert Manly-Smith remarked, as he fitted himself into the crowded truck and watched the command car disappearing down the road to Cairo. ‘They get to visit the pyramids while we get to visit Alexandria.’
‘Alexandria is older than Cairo,’ Trooper Payne protested. He was a well-read fellow. ‘Much older.’
‘So Bath is older than Bristol,’ Bert retorted. ‘I know which one I’d rather visit on a pass.’
His men merely exchanged glances and raised their eyebrows. The corporal had changed over the past couple of months. Since leaving England, in fact. When they had first joined the regiment, and been stationed at the depot and then in East Anglia, he had been full of good humour and advice. But on the voyage out to Alexandria he had become more and more morose, and since landing had been very difficult to share a tent with. Much less an afternoon on the town.
But it was the last afternoon on the town, any town, they were going to get for some time. For some of them, perhaps, for ever. The troopers hadn’t been deceived by the information they had been given, that they were to move up and take over a section of the defensive perimeter facing Sidi Barran
i. They had no doubt at all that the brass knew the Eyeties were about to launch another offensive, and they were required to try to stop them. The recruits were about to fight their first battle. They reached Alexandria in a strange mixture of apprehension and euphoria.
‘Christ, you wouldn’t think there was a war on,’ Bert growled as they marched through the crowded streets. The souk was in full swing, they were surrounded by eager vendors anxious to sell them anything from carpets to paintings, and they soon accumulated a gaggle of little boys, some of whom had a smattering of English. ‘You want house, effendi?’ one asked Bert.
‘That’s exactly it,’ Bert said. He wanted to fuck the pants of the plumpest Gyppo bint he could find, and stop himself thinking about Annaliese.
‘I show,’ the boy offered.
‘You think he knows a good place?’ Griffiths asked.
‘What the hell?’ Bert replied. ‘They’re all alike.’
‘The sergeant gave you a list,’ Payne complained.
‘What the hell does he know about it? Lead on, son.’
The boy held Bert’s hand, led him through the crowd. The other three exchanged glances, shrugged, and then followed. Everyone seemed to know where they were going, and grinned at them and offered advice, in Egyptian.
So they had no idea what it was.
Then the boy led them out of the crowds and down a narrow and dark side alley, which smelt of drains. ‘You think we’re going to be sandbagged?’ Mullings asked nervously.
‘They’d never take on four troopers,’ Griffiths protested. ‘Oops! Three troopers and a corporal.’
The boy had stopped before a door set in the wall, and knocked once.
‘You’re sure this is a good house?’ Bert demanded.
‘The best,’ the boy asserted.
The door was opened by a woman shrouded in a haik; it was difficult to ascertain her age. The boy spoke in Egyptian, and she stepped aside to allow the four troopers inside. The darkened hall into which they had been admitted smelt very little better than the street outside. But there were giggles from somewhere beyond the inner door, which sounded promising.
The Triumph Page 6
