by Alec Waugh
Next morning’s mail brought him an airgraph from his lawyer, Jenkins.
‘You may not have heard, I myself only heard last week, that Rachel’s American has been killed in action. I also learnt that he had left a trust fund for her children. I suspect it will be quite a substantial sum; two-thirds of his estate; the remainder to be divided between his fraternity in Harvard and something in New York called the Century Association, whatever that may be. Rachel, with her own money and the use of the children’s money till they come of age, will be very comfortably off. So no new responsibilities will devolve on you. Rather chivalrous of that American, don’t you think? Your decree absolute, by the way, is due next month.
‘I suppose that you will be coming home quite soon. You are well out of London at this moment. Every month it becomes a more Scudderish war. These V.I bombs have ceased to be amusing. Did you ever meet Sir Francis Faversham; an old friend of mine? He was in the Savoy Chapel when it was hit. Oddly enough the last time I saw him was the morning when Rachel’s American came round to see me.
‘Well, see you soon. Make the most of your flesh pots. There’s precious little to eat here and not much to drink. The Athenaeum has taken its champagne off the wine list and is keeping it for the victory dinner to Eisenhower. You may cash in on that. Good luck.’
Rather chivalrous of that American. It was more than chivalrous, it was highly sensitive. He was thinking of Rachel imaginatively. If he were killed and she remarried, her husband might have had qualms about enjoying money left to her by a lover, but he would have no qualms about being spared the support of another man’s children. Rachel’s American must have been a pretty decent fellow. ‘Poor Rachel,’ he thought, ‘poor, poor Rachel.’ He had no doubt whatever of what he had to do. He wrote out two cables:
One to Jenkins: CANCEL APPLICATION DECREE ABSOLUTE.
The other to Rachel: DEEPEST SYMPATHY YOUR GRIEF. I EXPECT TO RETURN NEXT SUMMER. LET US START AGAIN WHERE WE LEFT OFF IN SEPTEMBER 1941.
Chapter Eleven
‘M.E.F. Men England Forgot.’ Stallard was to prove a good prophet during the long slow passing autumn of 1944 and the winter of 1945. The war was not ending as suddenly as it had begun. The check at Arnheim was followed by the Battle of the Bulge. In Europe it was a cold bleak winter; the patience of the English had reached breaking point. Another winter of the blackout, of food shortages, of restrictions. They had been so certain it would end that summer. The men in the Middle East, well fed and warm and sex-starved, felt the mounting irritation in the airgraphs that now poured through in such a steady flow; no one was bothering about them, they thought; they were all restless and discontented, except those who had achieved a kind of bland ‘sand-happiness.’ There were quite a few of these in Paiforce. They admitted they were ‘round the bend.’ They diagnosed their complaint as ‘Paiforcitis.’ While the Americans in the south, working on Aid to Russia, in their own Persian Gulf Command, said that P.G.C. stood for People Going Crazy. Reid knew that his main job now was maintenance of morale among his staff: of keeping spirits high; of convincing his officers and men that their work was of value.
In August, when the strain of the long summer was at its keenest, when autumn was still a long way off and tempers right through the Command were getting frayed, he assembled the entire Centre in the cool of the evening, on the terrace of the mess. ‘There are meetings like this,’ he said, ‘going on all over Paiforce. Your friends will have told you of them. We are all of us getting homesick; we have been here, most of us, a long time. We are asking why we are still kept on here, when the war in the area is over. We are all “browned off” and commanding officers have been instructed to explain to their units why their presence here continues to be important. You’ve heard about those meetings; so have I. The men have listened respectfully, as good soldiers should, but they have gone away grumbling: “That’s all bull,” they’ve said. “We aren’t doing any good here. We’re only here because there aren’t any spare ships to take us back and everyone’s forgotten all about us.” I can understand how they can feel that, in a regiment, let us say, that was withdrawn from the Western Desert two years ago to meet a drive through the Caucasus, and ever since, while their friends have been charging across Africa and then sweeping over Europe, have done nothing but change billets and go on manoeuvres that seem pointless because they aren’t in training for a battle. Who can be surprised if they are “browned off”?
‘But we luckily aren’t in that position. We are not soldiers in the line; we are chairborne warriors and our work is every bit as important now as it was a year ago. We are still responsible for the security of Iraq. That security is of great importance to Great Britain. The scale of prosperity that we enjoy in Britain is going to depend after the war on the money that is brought to us from abroad. We are a small country that cannot of itself support a high standard of living. That high standard can only be maintained by our investments overseas. We have a very heavy investment in Iraq. That investment is no longer threatened by the Germans, but it is threatened by a number of subversive elements here in this country and on our frontiers. We have to watch those elements and the system of files that we are building up today will be of great value to the guardians of this country’s freedom long after you and I have returned to our civilian employments.’
He hoped he had made his point. He had anyhow spoken with conviction. He had believed what he had said, and the conviction in one’s voice was more important than the arguments one used.
In the New Year, his name appeared in the Honours List with an O.B.E. Once again he assembled the Centre. ‘This pretty piece of colour on my tunic is due entirely to you,’ he said. ‘It is a recognition of the Centre’s work. It is given not to me but to the Centre. And I consider it marks an occasion for the Centre to take a holiday. There will be no work on Wednesday after lunch. The office will be closed except for the duty officer and duty corporal.’
As far as he could see, the Centre was working hard and working happily. Himself, he had a good deal of spare time on his hands. He did not make work for himself, the Centre could function smoothly, scarcely noticing his absence. It was a period of tidying up and rounding off. He went over some of the back files, destroying a number of entries that might be misunderstood by or confuse his successors; conjectures that led into blind alleys, ‘notional characters’ that a future staff might endeavour to identify, causing unjust injury to individuals.
He did a certain amount of private reading. He found one of his own books in the British Council Library. He read it with detached curiosity. It dealt with Britain’s colonial trade during the Commonwealth. It had been highly praised, and it had involved him in a great deal of research; he had spent many hours in the Record Office. He had consulted every available source of information and it would be, he believed, of value to any serious student of the period. It was a standard authority and it was very dull. Was it necessary, he now asked himself, to concentrate upon a short period, following every side path? Would it not have been more interesting to have worked on a broad canvas with large strokes, taking a philosophical view of history, showing the interdependence of events? A comprehensive account, for instance, of British trade in the eighteenth century showing how the claims of the East India Company dovetailed with and were on occasions in conflict with the demands of the West Indian sugar planters. He wondered whether for that kind of book, for someone like himself, so much preliminary research was needed. Why not write straight ahead out of his memory, out of the reference books that lay immediately to hand, and when he had finished his first draft, check up on doubtful points and fill in gaps? It was a possible solution. He remembered how he had compared Nigel Farrar’s summaries with his own. He must get more life into his histories. So he brooded as the German forces broke and the Russians swept into Austria.
He was living in a vacuum. And he found it not unpleasant. He had resumed with Rachel the weekly interchange of letters that had been abandoned after her
declaration of independence. They were as they had always been, cordial and affectionate. They dealt, as they had always done, with the varied interests that they shared. Twenty years was a long time. He wondered if he would find her very different. You would expect an experience such as hers to have made her a different person. But would the difference be apparent to him? Would it show upon the surface? Had he himself seemed a different person after that first night in Damascus? He had been a different person. But had it been discernible? Would he seem different now to Rachel? He shrugged. Either way there was nothing to be done about it now. Everything would solve itself in its due season. In the meantime it was pleasant living in a vacuum; with winter passing; with the Tigris in full flood, with the little walled-in gardens bright with flowers, and the radio, morning after morning, reporting fresh victories on every front.
March became April; it could not be very distant now. G.H.Q. in Cairo was drawing up lists as to the speed at which demobilization would proceed. Officers and men were being registered under different classes in accordance with their age and length of service. Reid, at the age of forty-seven, who had been called up in August 1939, was in class 6. The first five classes were to leave together. Reid therefore was in the second batch. It could not be much longer now. When the day of unconditional surrender arrived, he let the tension slacken. Now he could start planning for himself. He was entitled to pull strings if he had access to them. The first repatriation class had drifted to Alexandria by dilatory and ‘laid-on’ transport. He could do better for himself than that. Why not a few days in Beirut first? He wanted to say good-bye to Farrar. He had not seen him since that acrimonious conference in Beirut. There had not been another congress; which was proof enough of how unimportant Middle East had become; Stallard had not thought himself justified in taking a free holiday in a congenial climate. His life in the Middle East had begun with Farrar. Of all the men that he had met here, Farrar was the one whom he had liked the most. And Farrar was the one with whom he had found himself ‘at outs.’ He would be happier if he could wipe that slate clean.
One of the advantages of working in ‘cloak and dagger’ was that no one quite knew under whose ultimate authority one came. One said: ‘I’m Broadway,’ or ‘I’m Baker Street,’ or ‘I’m Maida Vale,’ and the recognized legitimate channels of instruction and promotion would say: ‘Of course, ah, yes.’
Reid went to the D.M.I. and said, ‘I think it would be simpler from the point of view of the drill of the thing if I handed over to Barnet right away, then went back to Beirut on a liaison visit and sent back to Barnet a report on anything I may find out; there are one or two loose threads that I’d like to get tidied up. Then I could go straight on independently to Alexandria and pick my ship up there.’
‘Fine. Fine. A very good idea.’
The D.M.I. could not have cared less. He was concerned both about his own repatriation and how he was so to organize it that his present acting rank of Brigadier become confirmed as a temporary rank, thereby assuring that he acquired the war substantive rank of Lt.-Colonel.
‘A sound idea, Prof., very sound idea. Good luck to you.’
So once again Reid, his head heavy after a good-bye party, on an evening in early June was being carried westwards across the desert at the Government’s expense in the comfort of an air-conditioned Nairn Transport bus instead of limping in open vehicles on a scorched five-day trek. And once again at Damascus there was Farrar waiting; a much livelier Farrar than the one he had seen twenty months before; there were no longer taut lines about his eyes and mouth; his cheeks had a ruddy glow and gloss that went with the scarlet flashes on his bush shirt. He looked happy, on the crest of the wave.
All the way over the mountains, across the Bekaa Valley, they gossiped about mutual friends. ‘Annabelle?’ Reid asked.
‘You’ll be seeing her tomorrow. I’ve a cocktail party.’
‘Aziz?’
‘The one that got away? They tell me he’s passing all his exams with flying colours.’
‘And Gustave, any news of him?’
‘I haven’t seen him for a while. They’ve let him put up a star to join his crown, so they must be satisfied with him.’
‘I’ve never quite known what he does for us in Cairo.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure that he knows himself. It’s useful to have someone who can wear mufti and look Levantine. In uniform he looks an Englishman, but put him in fawn coloured gaberdines and he looks a “gypo”. Have you ever seen him dressed up to kill?’
‘I saw him the day he went to Ankara. How did that work out by the way?’
‘Supremely well.’
‘You wouldn’t like to tell me about that, would you?’
‘My dear Prof. I’d hate to.’
‘I shall be in Alexandria for a couple of days before I sail. I’ll try to get in touch with him.’
‘Do that. He’s a very soft spot for you.’
‘Shall I ask him about that mission?’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you; no, on second thoughts, I wish you would. Then write and tell me what he says. I’d be amused. Did you hear what happened to that man before you? Mallet...’
So it ran on as that car swung down out of the hills towards the haze of heat in which the gay, frivolous little city smouldered. At the sight of its towers and minarets, Reid felt a quickening of his nerves. Of all the places he had seen in the last forty months, Beirut lay nearest to his heart.
They arrived shortly after five. ‘You’ve got your old room in the flat,’ said Farrar. ‘What a pity we had to break up that arrangement. I’ve got to look in at the office. I’ll leave you to your own devices. Let’s meet at eight on the St. Georges terrace. Then dine at the Cercle. And we’ll put you on the house for the last time, as we did the first. “With thee begun with thee shall end the day.” I don’t expect you’ve had anything but Palestinian wine to drink for several months. They’ve still got some champagne at the Cercle.’
It was a very good bottle of champagne. He had not tasted anything to touch it since the last conference. ‘That’s what I’ve missed more than anything,’ he said. ‘Good wine. When my house in England was requisitioned, I got the agent who made the inventory to send out my cellar list. I used to read it over when I felt depressed. That’s something to look forward to, I’d think. Now I’m wondering how they’ll have stood up to it. Burgundies age fast; I’ve got some ‘23s and ‘26s. They should have been drunk five years ago.’
‘How are you feeling about going back? Excited?’
‘Yes, but apprehensive too.’
‘Well, aren’t we all? But for you it’s different. You are established, going back to a settled niche, picking up the threads where you dropped them.’
Reid smiled. There it went again; the conviction that his case was completely different because he was over forty, established, with a family. In point of fact, was anyone in Middle East returning to a more uncertain future?
‘Apprehensive’s the right word, Prof. We’ve all of us been away too long. It’s nearly six years in my case. So many changes have taken place in England, I feel they’ll have been going six years in one direction and six years in another. That’s a twelve-year gap. And there’s another thing in my case, my age. Nearly all of my contemporaries will have seen fighting service. Do you remember that first talk we had when I said that someone had to pick up the good hand in every deal. I wasn’t boasting. I believed that then. Moreover, I was doing much more important work out here than they were at home in England, waiting to be called up or learning elementary musketry. Besides I thought there would be real fighting here, and I’d be in it. But there wasn’t; not here at least; while as for all those others who were idling around in England in offices and barracks during the phoney war, think of what they’ve been through since, in the desert, at Anzio, in France, and now there’s Japan waiting. While me, in all this time I haven’t even heard a bomb fall. One’ll feel so out of everything. One’ll have lost all contac
t.’