A Blind Man's War

by David Fiddimore

  I watched her car disappear towards the watch office, picked up my bag and wandered over to a sandy-coloured bus that would take us to a row of long huts where I reckoned the customs would be lurking. A plump corporal barred my way when I tried to board. He must have been a moonlighting cook: normal soldiers aren’t fed enough to get fat.

  ‘Mr Bassett, is it?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  ‘I’ve been asked to tell you to wait for your transport, sir. It’s a little late. There was a pipe bomb on the road – it backed up the traffic.’

  ‘Any idea how long it will be?’

  ‘Any minute now, I should expect, sir.’

  He ushered his charges onto the bus, and I watched that disappear as well. I was left alone with an aircraft that the terrorists probably wanted to blow up. I felt lonely there under its wing – which was the only proper shade I could find. The military, of course, runs on military time, which isn’t the same as yours and mine. My transport didn’t appear for another half-hour, and then I saw an Austin Champ barrelling towards me from the far side of the airfield in a cloud of dust. The driver either spun it sideways with a flourish as he stopped, or had lost it completely on a patch of oil-soaked tarmac and didn’t want me to notice. His face and visible hair were dusty, and under his black beret he wore goggles. He pulled them up, and grinned. Patrick Tobin. Pat. Our jack-of-all-trades and black-market king from Egypt three years ago.

  ‘Hello, Pat.’

  ‘Wotcha, Mr Bassett. Sorry I’m late.’

  ‘Bugger off, Pat. I’m not going to work with you lot again.’

  ‘Mr Watson’s compliments, sir. You remember the wing commander?’ Yes, I remembered the drink-sodden bastard. Only too well.

  The last time I’d worked for Watson he’d fooled me into thinking I’d been called up – recalled to the colours as a reservist. He must have known he couldn’t work that trick again, so he’d lured me in as a civvy. I might have guessed. I said, ‘Bugger the lot of you!’

  ‘Hop in, sir. I know a nice safe little bar on the way. Time to introduce you to Keo.’

  ‘Keo?’

  ‘K-E-O. The local beer. Smashing stuff and so cheap they’re almost giving it away. Much better than that make-believe Stella they served in the Zone.’

  Suez was the last time our paths had crossed.

  ‘I passed through Cyprus on the way there in ’53,’ I told him. ‘The Stella I drank here was pretty good if my memory is still OK.’

  ‘Just wait until you’ve a couple of glasses of Keo inside you, sir – life will look much better then.’

  I slung my kitbag into the back, and dropped my old flying jacket on top of it. In for a penny. I asked, ‘Where are we going, Pat?’

  ‘Out on the plain, just this side o’ Famagusta.’

  ‘And the natives don’t like us?’ I asked that because a reminder of my time in Egypt was right in front of us – a narrow vertical steel girder rising six feet from the jeep’s front fender: high enough to break any wire strung across the roads to decapitate the unwary.

  ‘Some does and some doesn’t, but soon we’ll have enough troops here to deal with anything the Greeks can chuck at us. Had you heard we was pulling all our people out of Egypt, and the UN is going in?’

  ‘Yes. I always thought the Gyppoes would win eventually.’

  ‘Cyprus is almost full to bursting with squaddies on their way back home already.’

  ‘Then what do they need me for?’

  I didn’t need to be sensitive to recognize that he ignored my question completely.

  We’d reached a side gate at the airport. It was guarded by two Royal Engineers, two Cyprus Police officers, and two other policemen in faded KDs. They were Brits.

  ‘From the Met,’ Pat explained. ‘They’re training the Cypriot police how to be policemen, and how to look after our boys.’

  ‘Isn’t that where we went wrong in Suez? We trained their policemen to take over, and they bloody did. They showed us the fucking door.’

  He didn’t answer that – that was twice. He just gunned the Champ down a narrow road not much better than a dirt track. It ran parallel to the airport chain-link and barbed-wire fence. From time to time we passed the burned-out shells of cars. Two, I noticed, were riddled with bullet holes. I asked him, ‘Ours or theirs?’

  ‘Theirs probably. If they’re challenged on this road at night, and fail to stop, we make the assumption they are terrorists, sir, let fly at them. Better safe than sorry . . . And to answer your question about why they need you back – I would hazard a guess that you have some sort of special skill, sir.’

  ‘We want you to listen to people, of course, Charlie. Eight hours on, sixteen off. Five-day weeks, but back to back – then four days off. Piece of piss.’ Piece of piss was Wing Commander Watson’s favourite phrase. Whenever he used it anyone who worked for him became very afraid.

  ‘Every time you sit me down in front of a radio, Mr Watson, I end up out on my own somewhere with people shooting at me. It’s not fair.’

  ‘And very good you are at it as well. Being shot at is your special skill.’

  I had called him Mr Watson deliberately to remind myself that I was a civvy. The expression on his face said he hadn’t liked it. Three years earlier I would have called him sir, or boss. He added, ‘I forgot that you bellyached all the time.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘And argued. You can call me sir, by the way – nothing’s changed that much.’

  ‘I shan’t. I’m a civvy.’

  Watson looked up at Pat Tobin who was standing at ease just inside the door. He was wearing a side arm. Why hadn’t I noticed that before?

  ‘Toss him in the cooler, Pat. Maybe I’ll see him again in the morning.’

  I followed Pat out onto the veranda because I knew Watson was joking: he had a dry sense of humour. Five minutes later I was sitting in a small wooden box made from railway sleepers, closed by a stout wooden door with a barred window. I had a bed with two old army blankets, a small saucepan full of tepid water, and a po. That was it. I doubt that hell will be as hot as it was in there. Tobin apologized for locking me up.

  I said, ‘Then bloody don’t – you know he’s mad. Since when did you start siding with the boss class?’

  ‘Since he gave me my second stripe, sir.’

  ‘You don’t have to call me sir, either, Pat. I’m a civvy now, and I’m going to stay one.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  Then he turned the key, and I was alone in the shadow. It was stifling. The last time I’d worked for Watson he’d welcomed me with a glass of Scotch; this time he’d locked me up in a wooden box. He was definitely getting worse. Maybe power had sent him off his head: it happens to most people with authority over you sooner or later. I removed my shirt and trousers, folded them to provide a pillow, and lay on the bed. A narrow band of light from the barred window in the door fell across the cell’s dirt floor. I watched a small grey scorpion shimmy across it. I was going to fucking love Cyprus, wasn’t I?

  Watson’s office looked for all the world like an old-fashioned wooden cricket pavilion. It was painted dark green, and was rather smart. To my knowledge it had followed him from Cheltenham and to an RAF camp on the Suez Canal so far. He was like a tortoise: he carried his shell wherever he went. The cell was a comparatively recent addition, I’d guess – hidden around the back of the pavilion, like a dog kennel.

  They brought me a plate of Spam and boiled potatoes, and another small saucepan of water at nightfall. By then I’d put my shirt and pants back on, and had wrapped the blankets around me. The potatoes were cold, and the flies in my cell became very excited at the smell of meat. Pat was accompanied by a small aircraftman who looked like Abbott of Abbott and Costello, and also looked a bit of a Greek – dark and swarthy. He leaked a lot, and I watched a drop of sweat from his brow fall on my food. He brought my provisions into the cell on a tin tray, while Pat waited outside. Holding the tray out to me he w
hispered, ‘Don’t worry, comrade, we’ll see you all right,’ and as my hand brushed his, he pushed something into it. A bar of wilting chocolate. He’d probably risked a slap in the chops for passing it to me. Comrade. They get everywhere, don’t they? I was being welcomed back to the Party.

  The next morning Pat let me out, and took me to the wooden hut I was supposed to live in. It had beds for four, but no sign that any were slept in.

  ‘This is one of the civilian blocks,’ he told me. ‘We used to have four civvy operators, but we lost them. I think that’s when Mr Watson thought it was time to get you back, sir.’

  ‘Charlie, not sir. I won’t talk to you if you can’t manage the word Charlie.’

  ‘OK, Charlie.’ That was better.

  ‘What do you mean you lost your civvies?’

  ‘Lost them. Just like that. They went out one night and never came back.’

  ‘Bodies?’

  ‘No, nothing. The general opinion is that EOKA got them, but . . .’ He looked away from me and out of one of the windows.

  ‘But what . . . ?’

  ‘Between you and me, I think they just decided to jack it in, and pissed off.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously, sir. The boredom drives you crazy after a while. There’s nothing to do out here.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, Pat. I suppose that Lord-God-Almighty wants to see me now?’

  ‘No, Charlie. You had your induction interview yesterday, on yer own in the can. Now I’ve got to show you the ropes.’ I glanced around as we left. My kitbag and jacket had been dumped on one bed – I’d be lucky if they hadn’t been robbed out – and I noted a half-decent washroom and latrine by the door. There was a hook in the ceiling above each bed for the mosquito net, and one big flat paddled fan revolved slowly with a monotonous click. That noise could get to you. Tobin locked the cabin behind us, and handed me the key. ‘Welcome to Camp Careless,’ he told me. Careless didn’t sound like a WD name to me.

  ‘Careless?’

  ‘We made that up ourselves – if we get careless we get killed.’ It was enough for me: I’m not that brave.

  ‘When can I go home?’

  ‘God knows, Charlie. After me, with a bit of luck.’ It’s one of those phrases that you remember afterwards.

  The Nicosia road from Famagusta hit a roundabout with four exits after about ten miles. The dirt road to the south led to our RAF camp, and the dirt road to the north to a couple of large army camps – including the comms HQ block – and the blockhouse they wanted me to work in. Continuing westward took you to Nic. In normal times I could have walked from where I slept to where I was to work in less than fifteen minutes. In normal times no one would have shot at me for doing so. These, everyone I met in the next few weeks assured me, were not normal times. In fact there was a street in Nicosia – Ledra Street – everyone called ‘Murder Mile’. If we had stopped going down it, I thought, no Brits would be murdered there . . . then we could have called it something else. I suppose they’d only have started killing us somewhere else though.

  We didn’t carry straight over towards the camps: we stopped at the roundabout to let a bunch of cyclists past. They were heading towards Famagusta – about ten of them, equal numbers men and women. Most of them were blonds, and their skins were tanned a nice healthy brown. I knew that because they weren’t wearing any clothes. My mouth had probably dropped open: it does that when I’m not looking. I said, ‘Pat . . . ?’

  ‘That’s a Danish UN contingent – must be off duty. They cycle everywhere.’

  ‘In the buff ?’

  ‘Frequently. Funny thing is . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘EOKA never seems to target them.’

  ‘Maybe we should stop, and take our clothes off.’

  Pat didn’t take me straight to work: he took me back towards Nicosia and a big base camp called Wayne’s Keep. The road appeared almost white and glared back at me in the sun. I’d have to get some shades.

  If you go to Wayne’s Keep today all you will find is a big cemetery. It’s where the British men, women and children murdered in the Cyprus emergencies were buried. There was a cemetery there in my day as well, a base camp, and a military prison. As we were passed in I pointed out to Pat, ‘Didn’t you introduce me to Egypt by taking me to a British cemetery in Ismailia and marking my card, Pat?’

  ‘I did, as it ’appens, but that’s not why you’re here. I reckoned you learned that lesson first time round. You’re here to see Captain Collins. Captain Collins is a military policeman, and if you’re a clever man, Charlie, you’ll make him your friend.’

  In Egypt Pat had been in the black market up to his pointy ears; he’d even run his own bank. I couldn’t see him knocking about with a copper . . . but you never know, do you?

  ‘Why would I want him to be my friend?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t want him to be your enemy – geddit?’

  I nodded. I got it.

  Captain Collins had a black moustache as big as a broom head. Military policemen seemed to go in for them; it wasn’t the first I’d seen. Maybe he was trying to look like a Cypriot. It didn’t quite go with his big bald head. He looked like a Potato Man. He waved me to a chair and said, ‘Happy birthday, as of yesterday.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘This came for you.’ He tossed an envelope across his desk to me. It had been opened. ‘I opened it. We censor mail in and out on a random basis. It’s a birthday card.’ It was from Dieter and Carly. They hadn’t my Cyprus address, so they had sent it to the administrative HQ. It was a decent drawing of a DC-6, the front of which had been replaced with a smiling face that looked like me: Dieter’s work. I put it back in the envelope for later. I wondered what the boys would say when I told them I’d spent my birthday in a cell. He waved an African fly whisk ineffectually at a dozen flies in orbit just above us.

  ‘Welcome to Cyprus.’

  ‘Thank you. You wished to see me, Captain. My driver brought me here.’

  ‘No, you need to see me, as it happens . . . although I admit I was curious – every bit of paper we have on you indicates that you’re a pain in the proverbial.’

  ‘I’ll try not to be.’

  ‘Gratified. At least you’re saying what I wanted to hear. How much do you know about the situation on the ground in Cyprus?’

  ‘Not much. I had a bit of a briefing from a bod at the Foreign Office, but it was all old boys, and old things. Made it sound like Mandalay in the 1860s. When I was through here three years ago, it was more or less peaceful, and we were using it for a staging post to Suez.’

  ‘We’re using it as a staging post from Suez this week. The UN has made us abandon the canal, but I suppose you knew that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So the island is temporarily chock-a-block with squaddies on their way home, and the tensions we already had have ratcheted up ten clicks. The Greek government has claimed that the invasion of Suez was only a feint to justify us trebling the size of the garrison here.’

  ‘Are they wrong?’

  ‘Not wholly, I suspect. I’m sure the powers that be will use the opportunity to keep our numbers out here up to scratch. More work for my people of course, so I can’t say I’m overjoyed.’

  I made my mind up then. I rather liked this big bastard, and I suspected that most of his crew liked him as well. I reached him a hand, and said, ‘My name’s Charlie, and I’m pleased to meet you. I’ll try my best to stay out of trouble.’ Then I asked, ‘What exactly is going on out here, and what do I do to make sure I get home again in one piece?’

  ‘What you do, Charlie, is follow Army rules. You may have been in the RAF – and worked with the Navy and the Funny Folk in the past – but the Army is the only mob which really understands what’s what out here.’

  ‘What is what?’

  He paused before he replied, and made a steeple of his hands.

  ‘The Greek Cypriot has conceived of an unnatural
need to be politically reunited with his brother in Greece. He calls the movement for union with Greece Enosis. It has a legitimate political wing, and an illegitimate armed terrorist wing, just like the Irish did in the 1920s. Unfortunately, or fortunately – I haven’t worked out which – a third of the Cypriots are still Turkish, not Greek . . . and they don’t want anything to do with it. We happy Brits sit between the two, guaranteeing the rights of both factions.’

  ‘There must be more to it than that?’

  ‘Of course there is. Cyprus is strategically placed to dominate the eastern Med – that’s why we’re here. Hence Turkey doesn’t want the Greeks to get it, and the Greeks don’t want the Turks to get it. We, of course, don’t want anyone to get it. If Cyprus becomes Greek the first thing that will happen is that we will get booted out, and the Greek government will give the Soviets our bases here . . . the last thing we want. Am I losing you?’

  ‘No, Captain, not so far. Surely America and Israel would have something to say about that?’

  ‘A Third World War, probably. Cup of char?’

  A young soldier with dull police flashes on his uniform had arrived with two enormous mugs of tea. I’ve told you before that the MPs make the best tea in the world. I sipped mine – it was as sweet as girls’ kisses. Then I asked him, ‘Tell me about the troubles. Who’s killing whom most frequently, and in what order?’

  ‘The Greek terrorists are killing us, and then we kill them back. We are killing more of them than they are of us, but sometimes it’s touch and go . . . then, they are killing our women and children as well.’

  ‘Then why don’t you send the civvies home, and reduce the number of targets? This is exactly what happened in Suez when I was out there – haven’t we learned anything from that?’

  ‘It so happens that I agree with you – which is why my family is still in Aldershot – but there are several reasons for not evacuating the non-coms, both political and cynical. The government is determined not to press the panic button, and declare what’s happening in Cyprus a civil insurrection – although it is. They argue that that would encourage the terrorist, the agitator and the bolshie Hellenic government. It would also bring us under pressure from home to crack down even harder here, and that, in turn, could bring the UN down on our heads again.’