“We got left a bit behind, sir.”
The avuncular Fry gave him a far from avuncular look. “S-so I noticed. The rest of us managed to come home together. What kept you?”
“I had to go round twice. Couldn’t line up a decent target the first time around.”
Fry looked relieved and glanced at Nash, whose pop-eyed glower changed from suspicion to interest. “What went wrong?” Nash asked.
“Bit out of practice, I suppose, sir. Made a bit of a box-up of my first run over the target. Didn’t want to make a complete muck of it, so it seemed to make sense to go round again.”
“Hit anything?”
“We dropped a stick along the last line of parked aircraft and brewed up a hut, sir.”
Nash nodded, which was from him a sign of tacit approval.
Fry looked quite pleased. “You got a G. Fifty somewhere on the way back?”
“I think we spotted where he came from too, sir. Ian’s got the co-ordinates. -
Fry turned to Critchley. “Show it to me on the m-map.
Critchley reached into his navigation bag and several people gathered around.
Nash turned on his heel. “Let’s go to my office. I’ll let Air Commodore Collishaw know. He’ll probably want to lay on a strike straight away.” He paused. “You’re sure about this, Denton?”
Denton’s stomach quailed before those minatory bulging eyes and that belligerent moustache.
He didn’t hesitate. “Must have been the place, sir. There were no other airstrips within miles. And some C.R. 42s came up from there to take a look.”
“So it’s worth pranging anyway.” Nash nodded again.
Fry, with Denton’s crew and the squadron Intelligence officer, followed the wing commander to his office.
On the day before Italy entered the war, No. 202 Group had moved its headquarters from Cairo to a place on the coast at Maaten Bagush, between Mersa Matruh and Berg El Arab. The Air Officer Commanding, Air Commodore Raymond Collishaw, was a Canadian, a famous fighter pilot who had scored 63 victories in the Great War. He had been among the first to visit Denton, Critchley and Butler in hospital.
The others realised that whomever Nash had first spoken to at Group H.Q. had handed over to the A.O.C. himself. Presently Nash turned his gaze on Denton “Yes, sir, he’s with me now.” He held out the telephone. An ironical glint came into his eyes. “The A.O.C. wants a word with you, Geoffrey.”
Denton put the instrument to his ear with a rather trembly hand.
The familiar quiet voice sounded faintly amused about something. “You seem to have made quite a recovery from your spell in hospital, Denton.”
“Yes, sir ... thank you, sir.”
“Your squadron commander tells me you’ve stolen a march on the Intelligence types.”
“I expect the enemy sneaked a few G. Fifties into Sidi Riha at night, sir.”
“Your air gunner’s a good shot.”
“I made sure of that before I persuaded him to fly with me, sir.”
The air commodore laughed. “How many rounds did he fire at the G. Fifty?”
“About two hundred, sir.” Which meant about 20 seconds’ shooting, in bursts of from two to five seconds.
“Not bad. And you didn’t see any more G. Fifties?”
“No, sir.”
“What makes you sure this one came from Sidi Riha?”
“He was climbing from that direction when we first spotted him, sir. And that was where he made for when Sergeant Butler hit him.”
“All right.”
“I ... my observer ... can show the squadron the best approach to the target, sir.”
The A.O.C. laughed again. “O.K., Denton, I can take a hint. Let me speak to the wing commander again.”
When Wing Commander Nash put the telephone down a minute or so later, he gave Denton a long, expressionless stare, then spoke to Squadron Leader Fry.
“Put Denton on the roster for tonight. And tell him next time he asks the A.O.C. to let him fly on a particular op, I’ll make him orderly officer for a week.” Then he looked at each of Denton’s crew in turn. “Come and have a drink. You too, Sergeant Butler.”
This was unwonted recognition indeed. The only time in the year when sergeants were invited to the officers’ mess, as a rule, was on Christmas Day.
At lunch, Denton was aware of being under scrutiny and probably covert discussion. He knew why. The coming raid on the airstrip at Sidi Riha would be hot work. Nobody looked favourably on a comrade who provoked extra risks. There was also the suspicion of glory-seeking, of being a gong-hunter. That always seemed illogical to Denton. Why object to anyone doing his best in order to advance his career? Promotion meant more pay. Medals were a help along this path. He didn’t care about anyone’s opinion, anyway. He looked around the long table. He wasn’t the biggest man among them but he was the only one who could box. He could have handled any three of his comrades simultaneously and knocked them all out in thirty seconds. Less, most probably.
Ivens, sitting next to him, wondered why he was looking so dour. Denton’s face, with the eyebrows beetling on scar tissue, the blunt nose much-massaged by straight lefts and right hooks, could look formidably angry and challenging. His hefty shoulders gave promise of considerable power.
“What’s biting you, Geoffrey?”
“I feel like a pork chop in Mecca. A bit resented, one might say.”
“It’s just that people are a bit tired, that’s all. Night flying isn’t exactly popular.”
The squadron had trained for both day and night operations. With the contemporary bomb sights, accuracy at night was seldom better than a few hundred yards at over 5000 ft. Night navigation was far from accurate, also. In that part of the world the weather was usually good enough to allow navigators to take star shots with the sextant from a fairly steady platform, but crews flying over Europe could not always see the stars and were usually in turbulent air. Their navigational errors could be as much as 50 miles out on a 400-mile flight. At least, flying over Egypt and Libya, there was the coastline as a guide; and there was good visibility.
Denton made no comment on what Ivens had said. “It’ll be a low-level, I suppose.”
“Makes sense.” Ivens was always cheerful. It was clear that he had no worries about the coming operation. Having been hit that morning did not, apparently, perturb him. “No fighters to bother us, anyway. Can we sneak in from the sea?”
“The only way, I should think.”
“Piece of cake, then. Easy navigation.” He grinned at Denton, pulling his leg. “And with you right in front to show us exactly where the target is ...”
Denton grinned faintly in return. “The C.O’s leading: he won’t expect any help from me. And as for low-level being a piece of cake: you know what his idea of low flying is.”
Ivens pulled a face. “If we approach from the sea, he’ll frighten the living daylights out of the fish.”
Teddie Nash had been known to slice the water with his propeller tips; more than once.
“Better that than screaming over the desert at nought feet and bumping into a string of camels.”
“Thank you, Geoffrey. You’ve made me feel a whole lot better. All the time I’m scared out of my wits with the sea washing into the cockpit, I’ll remind myself how lucky I am that I’m not scooping up sand as I go along.”
“Blood, sweat and tears, Hugh.”
“I thought that was meant for the folks back in U.K. Anyway, with Teddie commanding, we get our fair measure of all three every blasted day. We ought to be let off at night.”
*
Eight Blenheims took off that night, led by Wing Commander Nash. They had to make a rendezvous with six more, from another squadron. A searchlight beam shining vertically from a site on the coast was their marker. Denton watched with some uneasiness as the wingtip lights of the other aircraft came wheeling towards the meeting place. Despite two hundred feet of separation between the two formations, these were the condit
ions in which aircraft collided. The other six formed up behind Nash’s eight, navigation lights were switched off. The whole formation set course out to sea before turning west to fly parallel to the coast.
The two or three nearest aeroplanes showed as silhouettes against the starlight. The darkness was stippled with the stabbing glow of exhaust flames. The air was still and the Blenheims flew comfortably towards their objective. Denton’s mind strayed and he began to think about Jean MacGregor. He could taste her lipstick. He wondered who was sharing the taste in his absence. Who? How many would be more to the point! The thought dejected him. Perhaps he hadn’t been bold enough while he had the chance. Ian Critchley would ridicule him if he knew that his love-making with Jean had stopped at kissing. Not even the tips of his fingers had touched her bare flesh under her clothes. Critchley reminded him of the man in the story who stood on a corner and asked every passing girl if she screwed. He got a lot of slaps in the face; but he got a lot of screws too. Critchley could have been the original of that apocryphal importuner.
This was hardly the time or place for letting his mind drift to Jean.
“Two minutes to target.”
Critchley might be an incorrigible rake, a satyr in fact, but he was also a damn good navigator.
“Thank you.”
The Italians were wide awake. Flak was bursting around the Blenheims while they were still a mile or two off the coast. Searchlights were fanning around the dark sky, seeking them. The ground was a blur in which no feature was clearly discernible. The hills to the south of their target were a black threat against the moon. They would have to turn tightly or climb sharply to clear them after they bombed.
Nash dropped a flare. Its pale brilliance lit the eastern side of the enemy airstrip. Some C. R. 42s were ranged along the far boundary. No sign of any G. 50s. They were probably in one of the three small hangars.
Bombs fell from the wing commander’s bomb bays. Their explosions sent smoke rolling over the hangars. Flames licked through the smoke.
Denton told his observer to drop a flare. He was not satisfied that he had seen enough to decide where to bomb. The air was pocked with the red bursts of anti-aircraft shells. The ground defence gunners were firing everything they could at the raiders. Denton turned away from Nash and flew around the boundary of the airstrip. Two other Blenheims zipped past a few feet ahead.
“Another flare, Ian.”
“Christ! Can’t you make up your mind? We nearly flew into another kite ...”
“Another flare, I said. Be quick.”
Bullets and fragments of shell casing were hitting the aircraft. Denton did not intend to be panicked into wasting his bombs. The second flare added its glare to the scene. One hangar remained undamaged. Down went Denton’s bombs and as he skidded round in a flat turn he could see the hangar collapsing, wreathed in smoke and flames.
A lurid light flashed across the sky. Denton blinked, dazzled. A mass of flame was sinking towards the ground.
“God! A bloody collision.”
Critchley’s voice was quavering like an old maid’s who has dropped a stitch, Denton thought.
Somebody had hit a tyre dump. Evil-smelling black smoke penetrated the cockpit. Denton sneezed. The smoke stung his eyes and made them water.
Butler gasped “Can I come out of the turret, sir? Been hit.”
“Go and help him, Ian.”
I can’t throw the kite about now, Denton thought. He flew straight and level, eastward. The hills were close on his starboard. The flak pursued the retreating Blenheims.
“How bad is he, Ian?”
“Got it in both arms ... he’ll be O.K.”
Then came a scream from Critchley. “Je-e-e-sus! My f-ing leg ...”
Tracer from a 30-millimetre antiaircraft cannon tore through the cockpit. A red hot skewer pierced the calf of Denton’s leg. The Blenheim swung to port. He shoved at the rudder pedal with a numb leg. The aircraft began to yaw. Feeling returned to his leg and it throbbed all the way up to his groin.
His head began to feel muzzy as he lost blood ... he wondered vaguely about the other two ... flak had made the intercom useless.
Four
“You’re making a habit of it!”
Denton wished that Nurse MacGregor had made a less trite remark, but she was too pretty to be annoyed with.
Nurse Kinch was more amusing; and provocative.
“This is a drastic way of getting back to see us.”
Denton reflected that it was not seeing that Critchley was after; and well she knew it.
None of the crew was seriously wounded but they would have to stay in hospital for two or three weeks. No doubt they would be given another week or so of convalescence by the sea. All of them found their injuries painful and having them dressed was the worst time of every day. They lay morosely in their beds, brooding on their bad luck. Denton, who despised superstition, wondered whether the other two were suspecting that they were destined to be an unlucky crew. Did they think he was jinxed? Critchley, maybe. Actors, he had heard, were full of superstitions. It was bad luck to whistle in a dressing room or mention “Macbeth”. Lots more taboos as well, no doubt. But Critchley spent most of his time acting the wounded warrior and casting hot looks at the nurses. He didn’t express any superstitions. Butler was surely too phlegmatic: and any superstitions he might have were probably to do with greyhounds or racing pigeons.
Jean came to perch on Denton’s bed frequently and flirted with him. He had long ago formed the opinion that all human behaviour was to some extent conditioned by money. Her interest in him, he used to believe, was founded on the expectation of outings in Cairo and the status conferred on those few who were genuine battlefield casualties. He had revised that view during the brief time they had been apart and now felt sure that she was fonder of him than her cool, gregarious, self-assured manner suggested.
Although Critchley was insatiable in his pursuit of variety, enforced celibacy must have rekindled his lust for Audrey Kinch. Her encouragement of his unsubtle and proprietorial manner aroused a jealous turbulence in Denton. Why was it that he could not get on the same terms with Jean?
In the middle of their second week in hospital Critchley hobbled out of the ward one night when Audrey was on duty. He came back looking pleased with himself.
“Linen room?”
Critchley winked and tapped the side of his nose: a gesture which Denton found peculiarly repellent.
“They’ve got a stack of mattresses in there now.”
Denton envied him.
He was bored. All his life he had been a bookman and although the hospital had a fairly satisfactory library he found that reading was not occupation enough.
This time they were not in a small private room but in a ward of six beds. One of the other patients was a Greek who had been in a car accident: “I like to drive fast” he had admitted cheerfully. Denton took an immediate liking to Creon Lefkaris. He was a jolly, plumpish and friendly man in his thirties who worked for a trading company. There was a large Greek community in Egypt and before the war there had been a large Italian one: now interned.
When Denton had first come to Egypt he had engaged a teacher from whom to learn spoken and written Arabic. It occurred to him now that as he had such a gift for languages he should benefit from Creon’s presence.
“How different is modern Greek from classical?”
“You learned classical Greek at school?”
“For six years.”
“Then you will find the demotic easy. The alphabet is the same but the pronunciation is different from the one they teach in British schools. Or at least from the way they taught us at Harrow. Like me to teach you?”
“If it wouldn’t be too much of a bore.”
“It would be a pleasure. Cyrene will buy you a grammar book and a phrase book in town and we will begin tomorrow. In the meantime let’s go through the alphabet and I’ll teach you the right pronunciation of the letters. And some useful sentenc
es like ‘Nurse MacGregor, I think you have beautiful legs.’ ”
When Creon’s pretty wife, Cyrene, visited that evening Denton gave her some money and the next morning she brought the two books. By the time Creon Lefkaris was discharged, Denton had devoted many hours to study and made quick progress.
The first time Denton was allowed out he took Jean to the Gezira Club to swim in the pool and have lunch and tea on the lawn. She knew a great number of people, almost exclusively male, who constantly interrupted their conversation. His jealousy thrived on her popularity.
Marriage had no place in his plans for the next few years. To start with, he could not afford it. Nor did he think it fair to involve the emotions of any young woman while he ran the risk of being killed every day. And after the war he planned to roam the world as a reporter, which did not seem to be the best basis for a marriage. Despite this, he felt proprietorial about Jean and if he couldn’t have her as a wife, he decided, he would make sure that she became his mistress. The prospect of going to Alex to recuperate in the nursing home and leaving her behind to be courted by every senior officer in Cairo made him fret.
Creon, visiting him in hospital, had the solution.
“We’ve got a big house in Garden City. Why don’t you come and stay with us?”
“Cyrene won’t want two of us hobbling around on crutches.”
“She suggested it. She’ll give me hell if you don’t accept.”
It was impossible to visualise the cheerful Cyrene giving anyone hell.
“Besides, Geoffrey, think of all the Greek you’ll learn.”
Denton accepted the invitation gratefully. Not the least attraction was that it would give him a rest from the other two for a while. He had the impression that this would be as great a relief to them as to him.
His week with the Lefkarises introduced him to a segment of Cairene society he would not otherwise have entered. Through them he met other Greeks, Egyptians, French and some British civilians whose life was greatly different from a serving officer’s in peacetime or war.
In the past few months Cairo had suffered an influx of raffish ex-civilians. temporarily disguised as Army officers, who irritated Denton. He was discussing them one day with Creon.
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