Nothing was more important now, thought Steadfast, than keeping the sea-lanes to Britain open and denying the Mediterranean to the Italians and Germans. Yet he was kicking his heels in Alexandria and all that was in prospect for him was a ferrying job to an uninhabited island. What a come-down from standing on the bridge of HMS Defiant and chasing E-boats.
The bar owner came over to Steadfast’s table to collect the payment for the tea. As Steadfast reached into his pocket for a coin, he felt the crumpled cable that he had so carelessly shoved in there. He slipped the coin to the bar owner and pulled the cable out of his pocket. I might as well read it now, he decided. He opened the envelope, unfolded the paper, straightened the worst of the creases and read ‘ARRIVE CAIRO 22 JAN CALL YMCA SERVICES CLUB – VIRGINIA’.
*
The cable had reached Steadfast on 23 January. When he phoned the YMCA Services Club the receptionist told him that Miss Ranelagh was out. ‘Please inform Miss Ranelagh that I will meet her at the club at 3.00pm tomorrow,’ he responded.
‘I don’t know that Miss Ranelagh is expecting you, sir’ answered the officious receptionist.
‘I do,’ replied Steadfast in the put-down voice that he had honed on warship bridges.
‘Very good, sir,’ replied the telephonist in an offended tone. ‘I’ll give Miss Ranelagh your message.’
Early the next day Steadfast, along with hundreds of assorted service personnel, entered the grand portal of the newly built Misr railway station in the centre of Alexandria, with its stone columns and arches. Behind the grand façade was the single line to Cairo, built by Robert Stephenson in the days when Britain really did control the Mediterranean. He fought his way to the ticket window and bought a first class return. Then he turned to elbow his way through the seething mass of soldiers, sailors and Egyptian civilians. The service men were hampered by their bulging kitbags, while the locals struggled with miscellaneous packages of every conceivable shape and size. Some even carried crates of squawking chickens which left a trail of discarded feathers across the station forecourt. He pushed aside both the many supplicant porters who competed to carry his modest overnight bag and the army of filthy mendicants with their outstretched begging bowls. When he reached his platform his train was ready for boarding. He forced his way through the mass of travellers, climbed up the steps of his compartment and slammed the door behind him. The tiresome noise of the Babel-like station sank to a background murmur. Steadfast settled into a corner-seat and thought of Virginia. Why on earth was she coming to Alexandria? But when he thought about it a bit more he realised that he had no idea just what Virginia’s job was. All she had told him was that she worked at an outpost of the Admiralty in London. He was so used to not prying into people’s wartime duties that he had never probed for more detail. Whatever it was that she did, it was not the routine office job that he had assumed from their earlier conversations.
Despite the wartime conditions the long train was clean and comfortable, although most of the soldiers were sitting on or leaning against their kit bags. While the train was still standing in the airless station, the crowded conditions were hard to bear. But as the gigantic Atlantic locomotive picked up speed, a refreshing breeze flowed through the carriages. The train now moved effortlessly through the lush farmlands that were irrigated by the Nile. It passed neat square fields, bristling with green young crops, all watered by the criss-crossing irrigation channels fed by the Nile. In places, clumps of trees varied the monotony of the flat delta. Date palms with their top-heavy canopies soared high over the fields, leaning this way and that. Now and again the train ran alongside the Nile. After winter in England it seemed like Paradise. Steadfast sat back to enjoy the journey.
*
At first the servicemen were quiet as they smoked their Craven As, swapped saucy magazines and exchanged smutty stories. Away from their officers the men wallowed in their coarse language and colourful sexual innuendoes – an aspect of service life that always grated with Steadfast. Gradually the conversations grew louder and, as boredom set in, men began to move up and down the carriages.
The orderly nature of Steadfast’s journey was interrupted by a loud voice in the next carriage.
‘Get your stinking kit bag off my foot, you arsehole!’
‘Who does ’e think ’e is?’ appealed a sailor to one of his mates.
‘Stuck up old fart,’ responded a second sailor.
‘I’ll have you on a charge, my man!’
‘Listen to him. Thinks the Army can tell the Navy what to do.’
‘Are you going to move that kit bag or not?’ demanded the officer.
‘Are you going to move your boozy body, you mean.’
‘Fucking cheek!’ yelled the officer.
Hardly were the words out of the officer’s mouth than Steadfast heard the sound of smashing glass. He leapt from his seat and barged his way down the heaving carriage shouting ‘Make way! Make way!’ while pushing the crush of men to one side. When he reached the next carriage he saw the slumped body of an Army captain with a whisky bottle still in his hand. His head was propped against the frame of the now glassless window. A perplexed and youthful lance corporal glanced up at Steadfast:
‘He’s dead drunk, sir.’
‘I can see that,’ replied Steadfast. ‘Help me take him to my compartment.’
It took three soldiers to drag the semi-comatose captain along the corridor. As they entered Steadfast’s compartment, the other occupants grudgingly made way for the hulk of heavy flesh that the soldiers dropped down onto the upholstered seat. The captain’s flaccid head fell back with a thud onto the wall behind. Steadfast signalled to his fellow travellers to leave.
After some considerable efforts of shaking and slapping, Steadfast managed to bring the captain to a state of sufficient consciousness to speak.
‘Sorry. Bad time. Bad time.’
‘What is a bad time?’ asked Steadfast.
‘Was a bad time. The raid. All wrong. All wrong, it was.’
This half-conversation continued for several minutes until the captain rallied enough to tell Steadfast his story.
‘We were sent to do a small recce on an island. It was a simple intelligence gathering op. In and out, you know. Well the sub took us close in, we got in the dinghies and made landfall. We did what we had to do – survey stuff for a possible landing – and went back to the beach. And there they were.’
‘Who?’
‘The Jerries – a great row of them along the shoreline. Our boats were gone, of course.’
‘And?’
‘There were six of us. Perhaps ten of them. I looked at my men with a “fight or surrender?” gesture. I could see that they all wanted to fight, so we just ran screaming down the beach, guns blazing.’
‘Well, you got back, didn’t you?’
‘I did – all the men were gunned down. I don’t know how I did it. I think I fell off a rock. Must have gone under in the sea and Jerry took me for dead. Didn’t know anything more until I came round inside a sub.’
The captain paused. Steadfast waited. He could see that something else was coming. Then the captain bent over and put his head low in front of Steadfast’s face. With that false intimacy of the inebriated he whispered: ‘We were betrayed.’
Steadfast waited a moment before responding. He could see fear and anger in the captain’s eyes. But he had to ask:
‘How do you know?’
‘Because,’ said the captain, ‘they knew our unit number and my name. I heard them on the beach.’
‘Which means?’
‘That they knew we were coming. Someone told them.’
Steadfast wondered how much to believe of all this. The captain had been drinking very heavily and in daytime on a train. (He wasn’t likely to remain in the Army much longer in his present condition, Steadfast thought.) Was he drinking because he really was betrayed, or was it the drink that made him imagine such things?
The captain turned again to Stea
dfast.
‘Are you new out here?’
‘Yes, sort of,’ said Steadfast.
‘Then watch out. There’s something wrong in the networks. Don’t trust them. Whatever you do, don’t trust them. Don’t trust the networks.’
And with that the captain fell into a deep sleep. Steadfast relieved him of his whisky bottle and poured the remaining contents out of the window. He settled back into his corner seat and dozed for a while. He woke to the cry of “Cairo, Cairo”. Yet somewhere else in his head the words “Don’t trust the networks” were still ringing. He looked up. The captain had gone. And Steadfast had never even asked him his name.
4. In the shadow of the pyramids
As Steadfast walked into the concourse of Rameses Station, the gun on the hill behind the citadel sounded midday. The concourse itself was a sight Steadfast had never expected to see in any railway station: filled with light from the street ahead and from a partly-glazed roof above, it was dominated by a gigantic ornamental roof with circles of browns and blues. From it hung an elongated upside-down pyramid-pendant in yellow-gold. At the sides of the concourse huge brown and gold pillar uplighters that looked as if they had come straight from a Pharaoh’s temple, lit up the roof. Yet it was in some sense vaguely familiar. He wracked his brain for an explanation, and then he realised what it reminded him of: Brighton Pavilion – or rather how the Pavilion would have looked if it had been designed by one of the Egyptian temple architects. It was an unforgettable spectacle, made even more so by its contrast to the drabness of the war.
From the station Steadfast took a horse-drawn carriage to the YMCA on Sharia Soliman Pasha. Inside the front door was a small lounge, where tea was being served. The place was packed with young women in uniform, some huddled at tables, others standing in loose groups. The noise of their chatter, their laughter and the rattle of tea cups and spoons was deafening. Heads turned as the striking naval officer entered the room – he could have chosen any one of them for dinner that night – but he had eyes for only one. A glance was all that he needed to pick out Virginia’s radiant chestnut hair in the crowded room. He walked over to her and detached her from a small group of Wrens and ATSs. They embraced discreetly.
‘Shall we go out?’ shouted Steadfast above the strident voices.
‘Oh do let’s,’ shouted Virginia. ‘It’s like a school dorm in this place. All giggly girls talking about lipstick and boyfriends.’
They walked out into the bustling street and took a carriage to the old quarter. After paying off the driver they wandered the streets until they came to a small café with tables on the pavement.
‘I’m famished,’ said Steadfast. ‘Have you had any lunch?’
‘Only a nibble. I was too excited waiting for you.’
They ordered falafel with vegetables and bread. As they tucked into their meal there was an awkward silence. Both of them had complicated agendas to discuss. Neither knew where to start. Virginia broke the silence while avoiding what she really wanted to talk about.
‘I’ve been checking out what Cairo has to offer.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Just about everything. There’s open-air cinemas and concerts. There’s tea and tea-dances at Groppi’s or the Forest Hill Tennis Club. We could play golf. Or watch the belly-dancing in Ezbekiyya Square. Then there’s cabarets… and you can buy whatever you want. All the food you can imagine: steaks, grapes, melons. And drink: as much as you want of whisky, French wines, beer…’
‘Stop!’ cried Steadfast. ‘That’s enough for a week. I’ve only got tonight and tomorrow for the moment. We ought to do one extra special thing – something we’ll remember for a very long time.’
‘Like what?’
‘A trip to the pyramids: camels, dinner under the stars…’
‘Gosh! That would be marvellous. An evening without the war, away from dining at the Shepheards Hotel with its stuck-up officers with their swagger-sticks, all swigging down cocktails and ordering roast quail.’
‘And away from drunken captains like the one on the train today,’ added Steadfast. He was about to say more when a feeling of unease came over him. There was something sinister about what the captain had said. It was a warning, yet one that Steadfast could not yet understand. He decided that it was better not to alarm Virginia over what was, so far, no more than a suggestion of danger to come.
Having agreed on what they were going to do, Steadfast and Virginia settled down to enjoying their coffee. They carefully kept their conversation to Egyptian cuisine and old town street life. Steadfast was now even more tempted to tell Virginia about what the captain had said, but he restrained himself. Had he done so he would have been most surprised at her response.
*
Steadfast looked at his watch. ‘Two o’clock. Time we were moving. There’s lots to organise: food, blankets and a lamp for a start.’
‘How are we going to manage all that?’ asked Virginia.
‘We just need an enterprising taxi driver. What we want is an all-in price for running round Cairo to collect our supplies and take us to the pyramids.’
‘But they’ll rook us – it’ll cost the earth!’
‘Are you any good at amateur dramatics?’
‘I was Viola in The Merchant of Venice at school. And I’m a whizz at charades. But what’s that got to do with our taxi?’
‘Everything. You stand back while I do the bartering. When I get near a price, you rush in and loudly abuse me for agreeing to such an extortionate sum. I’ll look bewildered and you go off in a sulk. A few doses of that and we’ll have the price nicely down.’
‘Sounds fun. It seems my acting career still has a future.’
They soon found a taxi driver who did trips to the pyramids and the bargaining began. Virginia had no need to be modest about her acting abilities. Steadfast winced as she called him variously “a pathetic push-over”, “a dupe”, “not to be trusted with the office tea money”… on and on she went. Indeed she was rather carried away with her own performance. As to the astonished taxi driver, he was cowered into submission by Virginia’s tirade. The sight of a screaming, scolding woman was too much for him. When Virginia walked off screeching ‘Sixty piasters, my God!’ the driver immediately settled for fifty.
‘That was a magnificent performance! You’ll be in the West End in no time,’ said Steadfast as the taxi moved off with the two of them in the back seat.
‘Not bad, though I say it myself. The official half-day rate for a taxi for four to the Great Pyramids is 23 piastre per person – that’s 92 piastre.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Research – I read the Services Guide to Cairo.’
‘I can see you are a resourceful woman.’
‘With a war on, a woman has no other choice,’ retorted Virginia.
*
With the battle of the bartering now over to the satisfaction of both sides, the taxi driver stopped at various shops for the expedition’s provisions. Soon Steadfast and Virginia were loaded with blankets, food and an oil lamp.
‘Tally Ho!’ cried Steadfast as he waved to the driver to move off towards the desert.
The rickety old taxi coughed and spluttered through the streets of Cairo, bumping and banging on the rough pot-holed road surface. Whatever springs it or the seats once had, had long since expired. As they reached the outskirts of the city the road became more like an alleyway, lined with ramshackle self-built houses. Then it gave way to the desert and they caught their first sight of the main pyramids, lying in a huddled group under the vast sky.
*
While the taxi rumbled on, Virginia turned to Steadfast:
‘You haven’t told me what you’re doing here, George. Didn’t you say that you only had until tomorrow?’
‘That’s right, old girl. I’m off on another you-know-what soon.’
‘To where?’
‘You know I can’t tell you that, darling.’
‘Is it… is it as dan
gerous as last time, George?’
‘Shouldn’t be. Not if the intelligence can be trusted.’
‘George, are you being straight with me? Did you volunteer or are you being sent?’
‘That’s an easy one. I asked for a destroyer on North Sea convoy duty, and I got this.’
‘Oh, George, they must think you’re the bees-knees at Admiralty House.’
‘Or maybe they just want me out of the way.’
‘Well, I don’t, George,’ said Virginia as she nestled her glistening hair into his shoulder.’ Steadfast saw the tears welling up and said, ‘I’ll be back, darling. You know I will.’ Virginia shuddered as she thought of what she knew, but now was not the moment to tell him.
*
Once they were near the pyramids the taxi stopped. They unloaded their supplies and the taxi returned to the city.
‘Camels first?’ said Steadfast.
‘I don’t ride,’ replied Virginia.
‘Well, I’ve never ridden a camel before either. We’ll be beginners together.’
After more bartering, a wizened old guide called Osman helped the two tourists to mount two of his skinny old camels. No doubt the heaps of carpet with which they were draped were as much to disguise their scrawny neglected bodies as for the benefit of the riders. But no amount of padding could reduce the discomfort of riding on a camel. Their mounts jerked, bumped and wobbled beneath them as they inspected the Sphinx, the pyramid of Khufu, the pyramid of Khafre and the pyramid of Menkaure. It was with some relief that they finally dismounted.
The day was drawing to a close as the guide led them into the Great Pyramid. The internal lighting was out of order so they each held candles as they clambered through the various chambers until they came to the sarcophagus in the centre of the pyramid. Their shadows played macabre dances on the walls of the tunnels and the chamber, as if the pyramid were filled with other, sinister, beings. When they finally came out, the sun was disappearing over the horizon. A loan military plane flew overhead – the only reminder that the pyramids lay in a war zone.
Enemy In Sight (A Commander Steadfast Naval Thriller) Page 3