‘I’d much rather, if I’m honest.’
‘Good. We can go to the Union. No one will get sniffy about officers and NCOs drinking together there.’
They walked down to the embassy, then climbed into one of the gharries waiting there and headed across the bridge on to Gezira Island and round the edge of the Sporting Club. In twenty minutes they had reached the Union. Unlike the Gezira Sporting Club, which was Europeans and officers only, the Union Club had been created to promote friendship between the British and the Egyptians, although as they pulled up outside and walked to the front of the clubhouse, Tanner could see only a couple of Egyptians, deep in conversation, wearing western suits and red tarbooshes.
‘I know, I know,’ said Peploe, when Tanner pointed this out. ‘But it’s not as stuffy as some of the others. There are as many desk-wallahs and civvies as there are uniforms.’ He nodded towards a table of three men a few yards away. ‘And learned types with spectacles. At least Egyptians are allowed to come here.’
The grounds at the rear bordered the massive lawns of the Sporting Club, and were shaded by a row of vast, ancient trees. Peploe led Tanner to a table, and sat down. He sighed and briefly closed his eyes. ‘I know it’s not the done thing to whinge about desert life, but you’ve got to admit this is rather pleasant.’
Tanner smiled.
‘A decent bit of shade and birds chirping away merrily in the foliage above. I miss the lack of natural noise in the desert. It’s all shouting and engines.’
‘What about the flies buzzing?’ asked Tanner.
‘Very funny. You know what I mean.’ A white-coated suffragi approached them. ‘Two Stellas, please,’ said Peploe. ‘And put it on my tab, will you?’
They were silent a moment. Tanner pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Peploe, who took it. Having lit both, he said, ‘So. What’s the news from the battalion?’
Peploe exhaled heavily. ‘Not much, really. Replacements are coming in, green as hell, but we’re still understrength. Ivo’s taken over D Company, which is re-forming. He wanted to take Mac, but I put my foot down about that.’ He grinned. ‘Said he could have Hepworth, but he turned his nose up at him.’
Tanner laughed. ‘Good. I like Hep. Bloody whiner, but he usually comes good in a scrap. Who’s taking over as second in command?’
‘Dunno yet. I’m having to fend on my own, although Sykes is making a pretty good fist of being acting CSM.’
‘Not too good, I hope. I want my job back.’
The beers arrived and Peploe raised his glass. ‘Here’s how,’ he said. ‘Good to see you up and smiling, Jack. You had us all worried there. How are you feeling – honestly?’
‘Just a bit stiff and sore. My arm hurts when I raise it, but it’s improving each day. I’m not worried, put it that way.’
‘Good. It looks like we might be getting a few gongs, by the way. Croix de Guerres all round for those of us at Bir Hacheim.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I’m getting a bar to the MC and I think you’re up for something too. You, Sykes and Brown. Might only be MID, though.’
Tanner pulled a loose piece of tobacco from his lips. ‘Congratulations, but as we all know, it’s a load of old bollocks, really.’
‘Old Man Vigar keeps putting in for them. It makes his battalion look good. Still, I reckon we’re as deserving as anyone.’
Their attention was caught by a couple of uniformed men hurrying over to one of the tables, followed by exclamations of astonishment.
‘Christ, what’s happened now?’ said Peploe. One of the men turned and ran his hands through his hair in what seemed to be disbelief. ‘Hey, I know him – I met him a few days ago at Mena House.’
‘Who is he?’ asked Tanner.
‘A Kiwi squadron leader. Archie Flynn.’ He waved and caught Flynn’s eye. Flynn waved back, then came over.
‘Archie,’ said Peploe, holding out his hand. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ he said, pushing back his cap and wiping his brow. ‘Strafer Gott’s been killed.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, poor bastard. Only made Eighth Army commander last night or this morning, or something. Must be the shortest appointment ever.’
‘How?’ asked Tanner.
Peploe sat there, incredulity written on his face, then remembered himself. ‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘Archie, this is Jack Tanner. Jack, this is Squadron Leader Flynn.’
Flynn nodded at him. ‘Seems like he was shot down this afternoon on his way up here.’
‘Didn’t he have an escort?’ asked Peploe.
‘No. Just jumped on a routine transport trip at the last minute.’ Flynn glanced towards his friends. ‘Look, I’d better get back. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.’
The two men sat in silence for a moment. Then Tanner said, ‘I wonder who’ll take over now. Someone already out here, or someone from home?’
‘Home,’ said Peploe. ‘I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like. I don’t know about you, Jack, but I feel so detached from home out here. The desert, our battles with Rommel – it’s all pretty narrow, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well – for us, the desert war is everything, but there’s a much larger war going on in Russia, isn’t there? There are all those convoys and now there’s a war in the Pacific as well, but we don’t know anything about that, do we? We just know our own little battles here. I mean, I have no idea what England’s like now, after all this time. I know they’ve been suffering with the Blitz, but what do you think it’s done to London and all those other cities? I wonder whether my parents have aged and what my sister looks like now. It’s been nearly two years. Two years! That’s a long time.’
‘We’ve got to believe we’re playing an important part here, though.’
‘I’m sure we are, but don’t you ever wonder where it’s going to end? We’ve been back and forth across this desert, and every time there’s a battle lots of good men get killed – but there never seems to be that one decisive action, does there? We can’t keep up this ding-dong for ever. I just feel so in the dark, as though there’s no real plan and no light at the end of the tunnel. I worry that the war will never end.’ He drank some of his beer. ‘By the way,’ he added, ‘have you heard who’s taking over from the Auk?’
‘Lucie told me.’
‘Your old friend General Alexander.’
‘That’s good news, I reckon. He’ll sort things out.’
‘Maybe.’
Tanner took out another cigarette and lit it. ‘I feel quite hopeful, really. I’m sorry about old Strafer, but I reckon it’ll be all right now. Back at the end of June I really did think it might be all over out here, but we’ve held Rommel now and it’ll be a hell of a lot easier to reinforce our lot with the front line just up the road than it will be for them. And the Yanks are in now. They’ve got to play a part soon. Actually, I heard there are some Yankee pilots in the Desert Air Force already. America’s a big place, isn’t it?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Lots of manpower, lots of factories.’
‘Lots of money.’
‘There you go, then.’
Peploe smiled. ‘Maybe you’re right.’
‘You need a bit of leave. You should get yourself wounded and you’ll get given convalescence. I recommend it.’
Peploe laughed. ‘It helps when you’ve got a lovely popsie like Lucie to look after you and a swanky flat near the river. She doesn’t have a sister, does she?’
They talked on, then had something to eat and decided to call it a day. ‘There is one other thing, Jack,’ said Peploe, as they walked out to the front of the club towards the waiting gharries and taxis.
‘Yes?’ said Tanner.
‘The colonel wants to see you. Any chance you could get yourself out to Mena tomorrow?’
‘Of course. What time?’
‘Six o’clock sound all right?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.’
‘What, then?’
Peploe grinned. ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’ He held out his hand. ‘Good night, Jack.’
3
Saturday, 8 August 1942, around 7.45 a.m. The day always began early at the headquarters of Secret Intelligence Middle East, just as it did in all the offices of the sprawling General Headquarters, Middle East. Despite the fans that whirred from the ceilings, the shutters and blinds, it was only during the first few hours of daylight that the heat of the day could be avoided. By mid-morning, energy levels were ebbing, as was the ability to think clearly and cogently. That was why Major Alex Vaughan had already been in his office an hour and a half, at first reading the latest sitreps and the reports on the death of General Gott the day before, and now continuing work on a paper he had been preparing for a couple of weeks.
It was a proposal to establish coastal raiding parties. Working for SIME was interesting enough, but he was still only twenty-nine and had fully recovered from the wounds he had suffered back in February. He felt his age and front-line experience were wasted while he had to work as an intelligence ‘operative’, as Maunsell liked to call them, in Cairo. More than that, he was well aware that a number of his old Middle East Commando comrades had recently been having spectacular successes with their so-called SAS operations behind enemy lines. It had made him thirst for more obvious action.
He had talked to David Stirling about these raids several times. Rather than operating hundreds of miles south in the desert, Vaughan believed there was scope for using the new fast motor torpedo boats based at Alexandria in a similar fashion, on ports rather than the landing grounds that were the primary targets of the SAS. His idea was to put together small squads of four to six men, who would infiltrate Axis-held ports, blow up as much shipping and port facilities as possible, and get out under cover of the ensuing mayhem. A little more than a year before, on Crete, he had performed a not dissimilar action in the port of Heraklion. That had carried plenty of risks, but they had pulled it off. He saw no reason why it could not be repeated, and yet was well aware that there was no point in suggesting such a scheme until he had prepared his case thoroughly. There was much scepticism about special operations within GHQ: it was why Middle East Commando had been disbanded the previous year.
Admittedly, Stirling’s SAS had been successful – spectacularly so just a few weeks earlier when they had smashed the landing ground of Sidi Haniesh – but many viewed Stirling and his band as little more than a bunch of unreliable mavericks. Then there was the Long Range Desert Group, and also the Special Operations Executive. None of those outfits could offer what Vaughan had in mind, but persuading the powers-that-be to back another special-ops force would not be easy.
But it was worth a try. He blew away a fly, then looked out of the window towards the high palms outside. His office was on the second floor of an old block of flats at the southern end of Garden City. To those in SIME it was known as Red Pillars, partly due to the brick entrance portico, and partly as a nod to Grey Pillars, the original GHQ building across the way in Tolombat Street. Vaughan lit a cigarette, but no sooner had he begun writing again than the phone rang. It was Brigadier Bill Williams, the director of Military Intelligence.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said Vaughan.
‘I’ve just had RJ on the phone,’ said Williams, ‘asking to see the survivors from the Gott crash. Any idea what that’s all about?’
‘Er, no, but we haven’t had morning prayers yet. You want me to find out?’
‘Yes – sharpish. I need to be on top of this immediately, especially with the PM and CIGS still in town.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Vaughan put the receiver down and leaned back in his chair. Damn it. Maunsell hadn’t mentioned anything about it to him. He was supposed to be one of Maunsell’s deputies – one of the senior officers in SIME – yet all too often he felt out of the loop. ‘Christ, what am I doing here?’ he muttered to himself. He’d been in the job two months now – it had been a sideways move from working as assistant to the then DMI, Brigadier de Guingand, at GHQ. That had always been a stop-gap and Vaughan, fully recovered from being wounded during Crusader, had found it frustrating in the extreme. He had liked de Guingand well enough, but being a desk-wallah, with the endless bureaucracy and red tape, had been more than he could stomach. The chance to work for Maunsell had seemed like a step in the right direction.
He liked and respected Maunsell, who had shown nothing but cheerful encouragement from the outset. ‘Most SIME operatives when first recruited,’ he had told Vaughan, ‘have had little or no experience of counter-espionage work and have to learn on the job. And, in my humble opinion, that’s the best way. You’ll be fine, Alex. It’s all about common sense.’ He had held up a pink folder and waved it at him. ‘Judging from your file, you’ve got plenty of that.’
Even so, understanding the myriad components of SIME, who did what and under whom, had been a challenge in itself. After his experiences as an agent operating on Crete, he had believed he understood something of the arcana of counter-intelligence work, yet he soon discovered that counted for little.
SOE, with whom he had worked on Crete, were quite separate. ‘A different beast altogether,’ Maunsell had explained, over lunch at the Sporting Club on Vaughan’s first day in the job. ‘They’re all about stirring up trouble in enemy-occupied territories. Our task is to catch any enemy should they come here. It’s also to knock subversion on the head. We’re fortunate that most Egyptians seem happy enough with the Wafd Government, but there are subversive elements – anti-British dissidents who are prepared to help the Axis if they feel it will support their cause. But I expect you know something of these types.’
Vaughan had nodded. ‘Young Egypt, the Ring of Iron, the Muslim Brotherhood.’
‘Exactly – those are the main ones. Mind you, they’d have an almighty shock if the Germans ever did take over Egypt. We don’t have quite the same level of intolerance as the Nazis.’
There were other intelligence organizations, Maunsell explained: A Force, which was responsible for enemy deception measures; and the Inter-Services Liaison Department, which was, to all intents and purposes, MI6’s Middle East wing, broadly responsible for intelligence gathering from within Axis-held territories. ‘We help each other,’ Maunsell had told him, ‘but when it comes to counter-intelligence, we rule the roost, so to speak. It’s important work. I hope you’ll find it rewarding, too.’
Vaughan rubbed his eyes. Ah, such hopes. So much for racing down side-streets on the trail of enemy spies! Most of the active fieldwork – tailing suspects, handling informers – was carried out by Major Sansom’s Field Security teams, based on the third floor. ‘Our active arm in Cairo,’ Maunsell had told him. True, Vaughan had interrogated a number of suspects, and had played a peripheral role in the recent Eppler case, but it was accepted within SIME that Major Tilly, Berlin born of English parents and an expert in German phonetics, and Captain Henry Krichewsky, a Sephardi Jew and Egyptian, as well as an old friend of Maunsell, were the masters of interrogation. There had not yet been an Axis suspect whom Tilly had been unable to break. It was also true that Vaughan had discovered the wife of a British general was sleeping with a known dissident member of Young Egypt, but he’d felt no elation in arresting both. Rather, it had seemed sordid.
He had also discovered that while some of the defence security officers within SIME had distinct roles and areas of expertise, the four principal officers, of whom he was now one, had less specific roles and operated independently. ‘Think of it as barristers’ chambers,’ Maunsell had told him. ‘We’re all here to help each other, we’re all in it together, but we also do our own thing.’
As the new boy, Vaughan had found this frustrating because, rather than learning on the job, he felt he was left in the dark. And now de Guingand’s successor, Bill Williams,
had rung about the Gott plane survivors and he had known nothing. It was irritating. No, it was humiliating.
Vaughan stood up and walked out of his office, down a short stretch of corridor and paused by a wooden door with a brown plaque that said, ‘Colonel R. J. Maunsell’. He rapped lightly.
‘Come,’ said a voice.
Vaughan entered to see Maunsell looking up at him expectantly from behind his desk. It was a simple room, but spacious and light; the shutters were back, the twin windows open. Outside, starlings chattered in the trees, while beyond he could hear the faint drone of the city, a near constant low rumble. On one wall, there was a large map of Egypt, and on another, a street-map of Cairo. The furniture comprised some filing cabinets, an easy chair and side-table, a desk surrounded by several teak and rattan chairs, and another desk, on which stood several trays, a jug of water, and an ash-tray crammed with cigarette stubs.
‘Morning, Alex,’ said Maunsell. He was a tall man, and immaculately dressed in a dove-grey flannel suit, with a tie-pin in his green, red and brown Royal Tank Regiment tie, his only nod to an active soldiering past. Vaughan had rarely seen Maunsell in uniform, despite the regular commission he still held; he had let it be known that he did not mind what his team wore – civvies or uniform – but Vaughan preferred khaki drill. He liked to think of himself as a soldier still and felt the uniform helped. However, as Maunsell had told him when he had first joined, secret intelligence work was not at all like normal soldiering, and indeed, although there were a number of regular officers at SIME, most were not. One of Maunsell’s informalities was his use of first names. Among his senior staff – and that included Vaughan – there was no saluting, no use of ‘sir’. Maunsell was not ‘Colonel’ but ‘RJ’, as his wife and friends in civvy life knew him. ‘There’s nothing to be gained by having military-type discipline here, Alex,’ Maunsell had told him, when he’d first joined. ‘We’ve got RAF and RNVR types, civilians with honorary or temporary commissions, to say nothing of the extremely hard-working and efficient lady civilians – they’re all part of the show and we all work together and for each other.’
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