‘I’m afraid we could not talk much. We have no common gauge.’
‘What does that matter? Ladies do not need language. They look at each other and they understand.’
Walking back through the souk, Halal eagerly asked: ‘Was she beautiful, Halal’s wife?’
Harriet replied: ‘She was very nice’ and Halal was satisfied.
Reaching the lane that led to the pension, Halal stopped and said: ‘I wish to show you something’ and led her to a cul-de-sac at the side of the souk: ‘Come. Look in here.’
Harriet peered into an area of darkness that might have been the interior of a great cathedral. There was light only in one corner where three Arabs sat with their camels round a charcoal brazier.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘The greatest caravanserai in the world. Once, at this time of night, it would have been filled with camel trains settled in round their fires, all eating, all talking, then lying down to sleep. Here every route converged and it was called the Hub of the World. But now, you see: only the one small caravan, and soon no more. Perhaps that is the last to come here. It is sad, is it not?’
‘Yes.’ Harriet gazed into the vast darkness with its one corner of light and felt the sadness of things passing.
Halal said: ‘Mohammed must have slept on this ground many times. His caravan went from Mecca to Aqaba and back to Mecca. When he conquered Damascus, he called it Bab Allah, the Gate of God, because from here the road runs straight to Mecca.’
‘No doubt you have seen many things in Damascus?’ Halal asked as they went towards the pension. When Harriet had to admit that as a woman and alone, she had been nervous of entering the Moslem sites, he said: ‘If you would permit, I could be your escort. There is, I assure you, much to see.’
Harriet, not wanting to encourage Halal, said: ‘Thank you,’ and was glad that a distant burst of rifle fire interrupted him when he started to speak again.
‘What are these demonstrations about?’
‘Oh, it is just doleur. Food is scarce, prices keep rising and they blame the military, the Free French or the British. They do not harm. It is nothing to worry you. But, Mrs Harriet, you have not said “Yes” or “No”. So tell me, may I call tomorrow and take you to see the Azem palace?’
‘Well, not tomorrow. Perhaps another day.’ Harriet knew she should be thankful for his company but leaving him, she hoped he would understand that that ‘another day’ was meant as a refusal.
Nine
Ross was the first to tell Simon that he would be transferred to the 15th Scottish hospital.
‘But why?’
‘Can’t say, sir. Not exactly. I believe they’ve got a rehabilitation unit there where you’ll get proper treatment.’
Simon, heartsick over Edwina’s defection, felt this move was another blow. He was so despondent that Ross tried to coax him into a better humour: ‘You wouldn’t want to stay here for ever, now, would you, sir?’
‘No, but I don’t want to go anywhere else. I want to stay with the people I know. I thought they’d keep me here till I was back on my feet.’
Of the people he knew — the doctor, the sister, the nurses — Ross was the one who meant most to him. Ross had become a friend, more than a friend. He was like a faithful lover whom he might hope to keep about him for the foreseeable future. Now, for no reasonable reason, he would be taken from him, not by enemy action, against which there were no arguments, but on the orders of some administrator who had never seen Simon or Ross, and cared nothing for either of them.
But it was not only the separation from Ross that vexed him. Here, in his small area of Plegics, he was an important patient. The doctor, nurses and Ross were all concerned for his recovery and so closely related to his needs, emotions, fears and uncertainties, they were like members of his own family. To break with them would cause him anguish.
Simon took his appeal to the doctor: ‘Surely, sir, I could stay till I’m better? It shouldn’t take long.’
The doctor agreed that Simon was ‘on the mend’. He could now get around on crutches. ‘But when you can walk without them, I just cannot say. You need exercises and there’s a proper unit at the 15th Scottish. There you’ll get better faster, you wait and see.’
Simon’s next appeal was to the sister who was brisker and blunter than Ross or the doctor: ‘You’ve got to go, young man. We need your bed. This is a New Zealand hospital and we must put our own lads first. We’ve had a signal warning us to prepare for casualties. Our lads have taken a beating on the Mareth Line and they’ll be coming in soon from the dressing-stations. So, there’s nothing for it. We have to accommodate them.’
‘The Mareth Line? Where is it? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Somewhere in Tunisia. That’s where the Kiwis are now.’
Simon had to realize that while he had been lying there disabled, the fighting had moved a long way west. He felt resentful that he had been left behind and he was eager to be back in the desert. He asked Ross: ‘How long before I’m fit again for active service?’
‘That depends, sir. It’s what the doc said. The thing you need now is exercise. If you keep at it, you’ll be fit sooner than you think.’
Simon still hoped that the move, if it must come, would be delayed so he was shocked when Ross told him the ambulance was waiting for him. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he put on his clothes and fitted his few possessions into the box that held his dress uniform. Then he swung himself on to his crutches and made his way out of Plegics. The other men, though his officer status had kept him separate from them, said goodbye to him. One even said: ‘Sorry to see you go, sir.’
Simon could only nod, too affected to speak.
The ambulance men helped him up the steps and sat him on a bunk. There, looking out at Ross, he said: ‘You’ll come and see me, won’t you, Ross?’
‘You bet, sir.’ Ross smiled and saluted, then turned away. He did not look back as the ambulance was started up. Instinctively, Simon knew that Ross had finished with him. The physio had other work to do. New patients were due and there would be another special case in Simon’s cubicle. So far as Ross was concerned, Simon had ceased to exist.
The 15th Scottish was bigger and better equipped than the New Zealand hutments but Simon disliked it from the start. The place seemed to him impersonal. The new team attendant on him had no great interest in him. They had had no part in his recovery. To them he was merely another wounded man half-way to health.
As the hospital was only a tram-ride from the Institute, Guy could visit Simon more often now. He found him peevish and resentful of his changed life. He was passing through a difficult stage of convalescence when he was expected to do more for himself and make an effort to adjust to the normal world. He longed for Ross to take responsibility for him and knowing he would never see Ross again, he turned to Guy, looking to him as to a much older man on whom he could lean. Guy could not have this. Simon had to face his own independence and his own future. He had too much time in which to feel sorry for himself and Guy urged him to spend it in study of some sort.
‘What was your job before you were called up?’
‘I didn’t have a job. I’d just left school when the war started. My dad was keen for me to become a teacher. I was entered for a teachers’ training college but I never got there.’
Guy said: ‘Splendid!’ He would have encouraged Simon to prepare for any profession but none seemed to him as worthy as teaching. He said with enthusiasm: ‘I’ll apply for the preliminary examination papers and you can begin work here and now. What were your best subjects at school?’
Simon shook his head vaguely: ‘I was all right at some things, I think.’ Looking back at his last days in the sixth form, he could remember only the excitement of waiting for the war to break out. He had excelled in the officers’ training course and he had come to see warfare as his natural occupation.
He said: ‘I was never keen on mugging up school books. I liked games. I lik
ed the OTC.’
‘Well, now’s your chance to train your mind. There’s a well-stocked library at the Institute and I’ve a collection of books on teaching methods. I’ll give you all the help I can.’
‘What’s the point?’ Simon was dismayed by Guy’s plans for his further education: ‘It may be years before I’m demobbed. I’d forget everything I’d learnt. It would just be a waste of time.’
‘Learning is never a waste of time. Even if the war does drag on, you should keep your mind active so when you return to civilian life . . .’
‘But I don’t want to return to civilian life. The army’s my life. All I want now is to get back into the fight. Out there no one thinks of the future because, well, there may not be any future.’
Guy argued but all Simon would say was: ‘Let’s leave it, Guy. Just now I’ve got to concentrate on getting better.’
And he was getting better, but not as fast as his new physio wished. Though he now had every sort of exercising device, his feet would not support him on the floor. The physio, Greening, had him fitted with callipers and ordered him to take his hands off the parallel bars. The result was he toppled forward and struck his chest on a bar. Greening, barely suppressing his anger, knelt down and savagely pulled Simon’s feet forward, one after the other, requiring him to place them firmly on the ground.
Simon was out of sympathy with Greening who had been a sergeant drill-instructor in the regular army. Middle-aged, more experienced than Ross, he had a habit of command rather than persuasion. He was irascible, even brutal, and had little patience.
‘It’s up to you,’ he told Simon: ‘You’ve got to work at it.’
As Simon strained to keep himself upright, his hands would return to the bars and Greening would bawl: ‘Take your hand off.’ His face distorted with the effort, Simon managed at last to shift his right foot forward but the left refused to follow.
Greening, relenting, said more amicably: ‘All you have to do is forget you can’t do it. You can feel your feet, can’t you?’
‘Yes. I know they’re there but they’re sort of ghostly.’
‘Well, you think of them as solid flesh and blood, and tell them to get on with it.’
That night he again had the dream of running across fields unbroken except for some giant trees that rose out of the ground and quivered in front of him. As he ran, he could see the flash of his feet but not the feet themselves. Suddenly fearful, he slowed down to look and seeing them there, solid flesh and blood, he sped on in sheer delight of being whole again. He shouted out and waking himself, realizing his condition, he gave a cry that brought the night nurse running to him.
Now that he was regaining energy, he was bored by the claustrophobic routine of hospital life. Details of his time in the desert came back to him and he felt an intense nostalgia for events that had once meant nothing to him: brewing-up, making a fire of scrubwood between stones, boiling the brew can and throwing tea in by the handful; the whiplash crack of bursting shells, even the sandstorms and the pre-dawn awakening.
When Guy again tried to interest him in a teaching course, he said: ‘I know teaching’s fine. My dad thought the same, but it’s not for me. I want to be with the chaps. I’d like to join a regiment stationed somewhere like India or Cyprus. I want to see the world.’
‘But you’ll want to settle down later. You’ll want to marry and have a home of your own.’
‘Later, perhaps.’ Simon had not told Guy that he was already married because that marriage did not count, but another thought came into his head and he said as lightly as he could: ‘How’s Edwina? Is she still seeing Major Brody?’
‘I expect so but she’ll soon get tired of him.’
‘Really? You think so?’
‘Oh, yes. Edwina aspires towards a title. She’s looking for another Lord Lisdoonvarna.’
Simon laughed. He did not consider that Edwina’s aspirations lessened his own chances but was happy to think that Major Brody would soon be out of the way.
Guy sometimes asked Greening about Simon’s progress and discussed what could be done to hasten his recovery. Greening said he intended trying electrotherapy and thought it a pity there was no swimming-pool at the hospital. Hydrotherapy often proved useful in these cases.
Giving this some thought, Guy decided to take Simon to the Gezira pool, a place he would not visit on his own. Having grown up far from the coast, he could not swim and saw water as an unreliable element. He had first thought of taking Simon to Alexandria but realized the dangers of the open sea. He applied to the Gezira Club for temporary membership and when this was granted, he thought all difficulties Were at an end.
Intending to surprise Simon, Guy did not say where they were going. The winter was petering out and the afternoons were very warm. When they reached the club garden, a sound of laughter and splashing came from the pool and Simon looked alarmed.
‘We’re not going in there, are we?’
‘Yes. We’ll probably see Edwina. She’s always in the pool.’
Simon left the car unwillingly and self-conscious on his crutches, let himself be led inside the enclosure. As he feared, the pool was full of girls and able-bodied men and he would, if he could, have fled, but Guy wanted him to be there and saying nothing, he sank into the deck-chair that Guy placed for him.
Guy had imagined that the sight of Simon would arouse sympathy and there would be willing helpers to induce him into the water, but those who noticed the disabled man seemed discomforted and embarrassed by his presence. And Guy realized he had not thought the plan through. Before he could swim, Simon had to undress. Bathing trunks and towels would have to be found for him and he would need a clear stretch of water in which to try and propel himself. As it was, there were not two square feet of it free of bodies.
Sitting beside Simon, Guy said: ‘Later, when they’ve gone into tea, there’ll be more room for you . . .’
Realizing what was intended, Simon said fiercely: ‘Good heavens, I’m not going in there.’
‘But some of them will help you.’
‘I don’t want their help. I’d only be a nuisance among that crowd.’
That, Guy feared, was true. Simon, gazing with sombre fixity at the merriment in the water, twitched as though in pain. Guy, following his gaze, saw that Edwina had appeared on the diving-board. In a white bathing-dress, her hair caught up in a white cap formed of rubber petals, she stood, a tall, golden girl, poised to dive. Tony Brody was clearing a space in the water, officiously asserting his claim on her. She dived, came up, saw Guy and swam across to him: ‘Hello. I haven’t seen you here before.’
‘I’ve never been before. I brought Simon for an airing.’
‘What a good idea!’ Edwina, startled to see Simon with his crutches, said: ‘Oh Simon, how well you look!’
Simon knew that was not true. Thin and pallid from his days in bed, he was also exhausted by his efforts under Greening. He blushed, hung his head and did not reply.
Edwina cajoled him: ‘It’s great fun here, isn’t it?’
Guy began to say: ‘Can’t you persuade him to join in?’ But Edwina, whether she heard or not, pushed off from the side and went to join Brody who was waiting for her, a medicine ball held above his head. She jumped up to seize it and they scuffled together, churning the water and shrieking in their excitement.
Simon watched so intently he did not hear when Guy spoke to him.
‘Shall we go?’
Simon, becoming aware of the question, shook his head. Miserable though he was, he could not leave while Edwina was there, and so they sat until the sun began its descent towards the west. Near them lay one of the young women known to officers as ‘Gezira lovelies’. Plump, round-faced, not pretty but with a bloomy look, she stretched and roused herself as a safragi came to serve her with iced coffee.
To Guy, the whole idle, sensual, self-indulgent ambience of the pool was unbearably boring. Had it not been for Simon, nothing would have kept him there, and as the af
ternoon advanced, he felt he could tolerate no more of it.
‘I’ll have to take you back. I’m due at a staff meeting at five.’
In the car, fearing he had cut short Simon’s pleasure, Guy said: ‘We’ll come again another day.’
‘No, thank you. I don’t want to go there again.’
‘I expect you felt as I did: messing about there is just a waste of time?’
Simon was surprised: ‘No, I didn’t think that. I felt envious. I longed to be like them.’
Guy was surprised but said to encourage him: ‘You will be, soon enough. It’s only a question of time.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ Simon said bitterly, thinking of the time he had lost, the time that had been taken from him.
Ten
A few days after the party at the khan, Halal turned up at the pension with a taxi. The inmates of the pension were still at breakfast and Beltado, seeing Halal making his shadowy, uncertain way into the room, began: ‘Hi, there, Halal!’ then realized the visitor was not for him. Watching Halal, his case under his arm, moving warily towards Harriet, Beltado smiled a salacious smile.
‘Mrs Harriet, may I sit down?’
‘Yes, but my name is not Mrs Harriet. I am a married woman. My husband is called Guy Pringle.’
‘Ah, I understand — so you are Mrs Pringle. I have come to ask if you would care to make a visit to some place of interest? The big mosque, or the castle, perhaps? I can tell you about them. I would be your guide.’
Unable to think of a reason for refusing, Harriet said: ‘I would like to see the mosque.’ As she left the pension in Halal’s company, she heard Beltado chuckling with satisfaction.
In the taxi, Halal said: ‘I have made bold to hire this driver for a week in the hope we may make many excursions together.’ After a pause, he added: ‘So your husband is in this part of the world? Where, may I ask?’
‘He is in Cairo.’
Fortunes of War Page 49