I was collected by an aircraftman in KD shirt and shorts driving an odd boxy jeep. It had small side doors. If even the jeeps had doors these days then the services were turning soft.
He announced, ‘The Wing Commander sent me for you, sir. Short drive to Deversoir.’
‘Thanks. I haven’t been here long enough yet to find out how the transport works.’
I only had my old jacket – and they’d either not found my pistol, or had decided to let sleeping dogs lie, because it was still in a pocket – and an empty kitbag. I also had a full kitbag: the one I’d started with was sitting in the rear foot well. The erk was wearing a side arm. That was interesting.
He said, ‘Your kit was handed in at Moascar after the bus got there, sir. I thought you’d want me to collect it en route.’
‘Thanks again. What’s this thing called?’
‘Land-Rover, sir. Haven’t you seen one before?’
‘I think I saw pictures of it in the Motor.’
‘We’re trialling this one, but I’ve heard the Army has bought a load of them. I like the old jeep meself, but this is lighter – made of aluminium – and very good in sand.’
‘. . . and the pole sticking up in front is for cutting cheese wire strung across the road?’
‘That’s right, sir. Very good. Your Gyppo terrorist is very brave when he doesn’t have to hang around and watch. No problem when you’re face to face though. They all have that American disease: what’s it called?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Givinitis. They drops their weapons, throws up their hands and gives in.’ He made me laugh. Maybe the Yanks were like that now. Certainly in general terms they appeared to have gone home and left all the fighting to us.
‘Er . . . what worries me is my kitbag you so thoughtfully retrieved. We believed it had been nicked, so the CO’s secretary has been getting replacements in for me.’
‘Miss Daisy?’
‘You know her?’
‘I drive her sometimes. Handsome woman.’
‘Yes; I knew her years ago . . . I suppose she is. I’ll have to give it all back to her.’
‘You don’t want to be doing that, sir. She won’t ask, so why don’t you see me once it’s all in, sir, and we’ll find something creative to do with it?’
The bastard was taking a chance, but, there again, maybe I had the look of someone not terribly good with regulations. Or maybe all junior officers were always short of dosh. I suppose it was a fair bet. I let him sweat for a couple of minutes before replying, ‘OK . . . what’s your name?’
‘Tobin, sir.’
‘OK, Mr Tobin; fifty-fifty. I’d shake on it except I want you to keep both hands on the wheel.’
We were driving into a town which had ramshackle mud shanties scattered around it, but grander old buildings with verandas on its main streets. And avenues of shady trees. I don’t know why, but after Port Said the last thing I expected of Egypt was more trees.
‘Where are we?’
‘Ismailia, sir . . . and seeing as the alert’s only red-amber, it’s safe enough to give you the Cook’s Tour, if you’d like to look around.’
‘Yes please.’
He saw me swivel to look at a boxy white building with the words Blue Kettle emblazoned on its façade, and said, ‘Hard lines, sir: she’s gone back to Alex. But she’ll be back in a couple of months if yer still here.’
I intended to be; but I didn’t tell him that.
Just outside Ismailia is a military cemetery. Tobin stopped the car at its main gate. A church poked its head above the trees. He turned to me.
‘Don’t mind me asking, sir, but did you get the dos-and-don’ts lecture from the Service Police or someone in the Regiment?’
‘I didn’t get anything. They gave me a yellow fever jab, and I passed out. I’m allergic to something they preserve it with, only we didn’t find out until after they’d tried.’
‘That’s what someone told me. Did you get the Never turn your back on a wog handbook?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll get you one. It’s about eighty pages of dos and don’ts and useful Arabic phrases, but it all boils down to Don’t turn your back on a wog.’
‘Thank you. I shall remember that.’
‘But all you needs to know is right in front of you, sir.’ He indicated the cemetery with a sweep of one hand. There were the usual discreet white services gravestones, and a number of more recent wooden crosses. Too bloody many of them. ‘All you needs to know, sir, is that if you fuck up, this is where you’ll spend the rest of your life.’ There was maybe a mixed metaphor in there, but he’d made his point.
‘How many people do we have out here?’
‘Mr Churchill says about fifty thousand, but if truth be known it’s never less than eighty-eight thousand, and when things brew up sometimes twice that many.’
‘And how often do things brew up?’
‘Every few months, sir.’
‘. . . and how many people do we lose?’
‘Two or three a week isn’t all that unusual, sir . . . and we don’t often get the bodies back. When it brews up, we lose two or three at a time . . . sometimes more. Do you mind if I get going again, sir? I doesn’t like to sit still for too long when there’s not many people about.’
I nodded, and we set off south. He’d certainly given me something to think about. On the way he pointed out Lake Timsah and a couple of beach clubs. He said that sailing and swimming were usually safe there. I hated the word usually. The road was brutally hot, and decided to teach me my next Egyptian lesson . . . I’d lost count of them by then.
Just as we reached a place where two telegraph poles straddled the road, driving at about sixty, I caught a brief flash of light at about head height, and then there was a strange twanging sound – like a violin string breaking – as writhing bright sections of wire snaked by in the air on either side of us. The vehicle was tugged a few feet to the left, but Tobin held it, and floored the throttle. I noticed that he’d instinctively crouched down. So had I.
A mile later he breathed out and said, ‘Bastards!’ He must have thought me quiet, because he asked, ‘You OK, sir?’
‘Thank you, yes. I just have to get used to people trying to kill me again.’
‘Don’t worry, sir. That was Mile Twelve. They often strings those telegraph poles at Mile Twelve. What I’m worried about is that one day there’ll be a couple of bastards with Stens dug in alongside them; then we’ll cop it.’
‘These terrorists have got machine guns then?’
‘These terrorists are often off-duty Gyppo soldiers and policemen, sir. Sometimes I think they have more guns than we do. I does picket duties with a .303 and ten rounds; the wog trying to get through the wire has a Sten and thirty. The Gyppo cop guarding our gate one day will be trying to stab you in the bazaar the next. They are proper bastards, believe me.’
‘Why don’t we just knock down all the poles alongside the road?’
‘The ambassador doesn’t want us to do anything to annoy the Gyppoes, sir. It’s complicated, but you’ll quickly get used to it.’
‘Sounds stupid.’
‘Some Navy wag painted up a big sign on the dock at Port Said, where the big troopers come in. It read “Welcome to Wonderland”. Alice in Wonderland, geddit?’
‘What happened?’
‘They shipped him home in irons fer embarrassing the wogs. Surprised you needed to ask, sir.’
‘So am I. But don’t worry; I’m a quick learner.’
I’d bloody need to be at this rate.
The last time I saw somewhere that looked anything like RAF Deversoir it had been a concentration camp in Germany. The only difference from a superficial glance was that the inmates looked marginally better fed. It had a guardhouse, a functioning lift-arm gate and oil drums filled with concrete that Tobin had to weave around. There were two Egyptian policemen lounging under a scrubby tree outside. I committed their faces to memory in case I ever saw eit
her of them coming up behind me in a bazaar.
Apart from that, Deversoir had a few unhappy flower beds lining its main internal road, some runways in the distance, and about thirty miles of barbed wire around it with the occasional lookout post. I don’t know why they bothered: no one could police a perimeter that length with anything less than a brigade. There were the usual workshops and garages, accommodation huts . . . and rows and rows of bleeding tents. I assumed that the tents were where the enlisted men lived, and pitied them, until Tobin brought us decorously to a stop alongside one.
‘ . . .’ome sweet ’ome, sir.’
‘It’s a bloody tent!’
‘Most of us live in tents, sir. I share mine with five other buggers; begging your pardon, sir.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘This is a four-man tent, sir . . . and there’s only two of you in it. You don’t know when you’re well off.’ Then he repeated, ‘. . . begging your pardon, sir.’
I suppose that, as tents go, it wasn’t a bad tent. It was probably twelve feet square ridged up to a central pole, and didn’t have too many repair patches. There was even height enough to stand up inside. All four sides were brailed up to the ridges to let the air and the sun in. Two camp beds, assorted low lockers, a low table and a couple of camp chairs. A cheap radio wired to an old car battery, and a pack of cards.
As I got down and lifted out my clobber I asked Tobin, ‘A few questions . . .’
‘Go ahead, sir.’
‘Where do I find Mr Watson when I need him, and where do I find you?’
‘Along the main drag another hundred yards, sir, and take the first on the right – the Wing Commander’s office is right in front of you. It’s made of wood so you can’t miss it.’
‘And you?’
‘Either the MT workshop, or in me tent – that’s the big job behind the Wing Commander’s office.’
‘Who’s your immediate boss?’
‘LAC Raynes, sir. He also runs the tent.’
‘What’s he like?’
Tobin looked quickly in either direction: evasive. Then, ‘Tosser, sir. No use at all. Anything you want you’d better ask me.’
‘What’s your other name?’
‘Patrick, sir. The lads call me Pat.’
‘Then thanks, Pat; for the ride, and the advice. I’ll be in touch.’
‘I’m sure you will, sir.’
As I walked into the tent space, perspiration running down my back, Oscar Wilde was lying face-down on one of the two beds, wearing a pair of shorts too small for him, and no shirt. His back and his legs were the colour of a Cherokee Indian’s. He had ignored me while I was still in the Land-Rover. He ignored me now, except for saying, ‘You won’t like it here. Nobody does.’
There was a concentration of scents drifting high in the tent. I couldn’t make out if it was incense, wacky baccy, or an overdose of very expensive aftershave. Maybe there were the traces of all three up there.
‘Can I take any of the lockers?’
‘As many as you want, dearie, but if I was you I’d only put in them what you need day to day . . . anything else will get nicked. Pat will rent you out a locked cupboard in the MT section for your decent stuff. Only an acker a week.’
‘An acker?’
‘Local currency: worth bugger-all.’
‘I’m Charlie Bassett.’
‘I know: the bad news preceded you. Oliver Nansen: Olive or Nancy – I answer to both. I sleep naked; I hope you don’t mind.’
Nansen reminded me of a pilot I’d known on my squadron at Bawne during the war; but at least Quelch could fly. I wondered what this limp-wristed nitwit could possibly have going for him. You probably don’t realize how prejudiced my generation was – I would have happily flown with Quelch, you see, because he was bloody A1 at his job . . . but I’m buggered if I would have slept in the next bed. Forgive the pun. It’s just the way we were. That’s why I didn’t even bother to unpack.
‘I am not living in a fucking tent!’
‘. . . tent, sir.’ Watson corrected me. He didn’t seem particularly worried by the omission, but he waited for my acknowledgement.
‘Sorry; sir. Your driver dropped me off outside a tent with a queer in it, and said it was where I lived. I am not a fucking Arab, sir, and I won’t live in a tent in the desert with a queer. My mother wouldn’t like it.’
Watson sighed. ‘Your mother’s dead, Charlie. Which is it that offends you, the tent or the queer?’
‘The tent.’
‘This is Lawrence of Arabia country, son. Half the world lives in tents here, and thinks it the fashionable thing to do. You too. We haven’t any hard billets to spare; in any case my small mob comes right at the bottom of the pecking order. Even I haven’t a separate cabin – I live here.’ Here was a wooden shack that looked like a small cricket pavilion of bleached wood. That was odd: the last time I worked with him at Cheltenham in 1947, he operated out of a virtually identical building. I now suspected that he moved it with him wherever he went. Like a tortoise.
‘I’ll swap you, sir. You can have my tent.’
‘No I can’t. Make do with what you’ve got. Stop bloody bellyaching, and get yourself sorted out. You’ll be going out in a few days’ time.’
‘. . . the queer then? I’m objecting to sharing a tent with a homo. He says his name’s Nancy, which figures, and he’s cut his shorts back so far that the cheeks of his arse are showing. His hair reaches his shoulders, and he’s draped across his camp bed like Jane Russell saying Come up and see me sometime. He’s a bloody monstrosity.’
‘That was Mae West, actually . . . but I think you must have him wrong. He can’t be a homo. Homosexuality is illegal in the armed forces: he’d be cashiered for it. He is in the armed forces; therefore he cannot be a homosexual. QED; you must be wrong. Anyway his name’s not Nancy, it’s Nansen, like the explorer; you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’
‘The tent smells like a Berlin brothel: he has incense burning.’
‘Good idea: keeps the flies down. I saw one the size of a golf ball once. Don’t worry about Nancy. He has a useful function in the RAF, or he wouldn’t be here. Get used to him, get unpacked, and get yourself ready for the blue. Find out which vehicle you’re going out in – the Army leaves the radio vehicles here for us to maintain. Make sure the radios are OK, and that you have sufficient spares for a long trip. Ask Tobin to get you anything you need, but don’t give him money for bribes or he’ll have the shirt off your back.’
‘What about the little things, sir? Like food, fuel and water?’
‘Leave that to the Brown Jobs; they’ll be conducting you, doing all the rough stuff and carrying the cargo. All you have to do is listen. You’ll get bored, so take a book. Piece of piss.’
I hate it when people say something like that. It’s almost an invitation for the shit to begin flying. OK, time to eat humble pie, and make peace with my new room mate. Maybe he could give me enough tips to get me safely through my first patrol.
‘I’m stuck with you, aren’t I?’ Those were the words Nansen re-greeted me with. ‘The old man wouldn’t let you move on. That’s because everyone else who fetches up here asks to move, and there’s nowhere left to move you to.’
‘How many others?’
‘In the last few months? Four.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘Johnson lost his head; you’ve been told about clearing your throat with a line of telephone wire?’
‘Yes: someone tried it on me on the way here.’
‘Then there was Johnson Two . . . that’s Johnston with a t . . . he got VD from a girl he met in the Blue Kettle and is still hors de combat. A cultured Scotch git named Donnie something broke his arm and leg out in the blue, and was shipped out . . . and Denny is still here, but got himself shifted to a tent near the wire . . . no one else wanted it.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Why was what?’
‘Why did no one else wan
t his tent?’
‘. . . because, dearie, when your wog comes through the wire, looking for something to steal and a nice white boy to slice up, he makes for the nearest tent, doesn’t he? Just don’t go visiting Denny after dark – he sleeps with a loaded revolver in his hand. You don’t come from the East End, by any chance?’
‘No. Surrey. South of London – why?’
‘In that case, dearie, you are going to see things out here for which your experience has not prepared you. The Gyppoes have taken the art of the knife and the cut-throat razor to entirely a new level. If Jack the Ripper had fallen asleep, and awoken in the Canal Zone in 1953 he would have been as happy as a pig in shit.’
‘I was in Lancasters in the war. People got cut up in those as well.’
Nansen blinked. It was the first thing I’d said to give him pause. ‘Ah . . . sorry. Sometimes my tongue carries me away.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Somebody has to tell me these things if I’m to achieve my ambition.’
‘Which is?’
‘To get through these next months, and then get off home again with all my important body parts still attached.’
Nansen sat up, and held out his hand for a shake. He had a rather charming smile when he chose to use it, and a hard handshake.
‘At last: a realist! Welcome to my humble abode – and you are welcome to share it.’ Then he destroyed the words by adding, ‘You’ve already stayed ten minutes longer than any of your predecessors, anyway.’
‘Thank you. We can start by you showing me what to keep, and what to take to Pat Tobin. After that you can take me to a bar . . . I take it there is one around here somewhere?’
‘Several actually. The RAF is trying to recreate the Raj on the banks of the Great Bitter Lake, and no one has told them yet that it is about a hundred years too late for that.’
‘What do I call you? And it will be neither Nancy nor Olive, I can tell you for a start.’
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