Silent War

by David Fiddimore

  ‘I found him. He was cooling his whatsits in a military prison in Germany.’

  I was in an old swivelling wooden office chair, so it was easy to turn and look at M’smith, who frowned before he smiled.

  ‘What did you do, Hector?’

  Watson answered for him.

  ‘A rather clumsy fraud in the Paymaster General’s Office. M’smith comes from a long line of successful forgers and clumsy fraudsters. A family should always stick with what they’re good at, don’t you think?’

  ‘Weren’t you even in the RAF?’ I asked Hector.

  He shook his head, and told me, ‘Nor are you, Charlie. None of us are. Haven’t you worked that one out yet?’ I probably had but I wanted to ignore it.

  ‘OK. I know you can navigate. What else do you do?’

  Watson jumped in for him again. He probably thought I wouldn’t understand unless it was said in small words. ‘Creative accounting for my military radio spares store, and he’s very good at recognizing funny money, if ever I’m lucky enough to lay my hands on any . . .’

  ‘. . . and what am I, in your private circus?’

  ‘You’re the gold prospector . . . and, before you start whining all over again, I’m going to send you to see an officer who works out of Fayid. He can give you the briefing now that your security clearance has come through. Although, if you’ve half a brain, you’ll have it all worked out for yourself by the time you get there.’

  ‘Where, sir?’

  ‘The Officers’ Club on the Great Bitter Lake. He’s expecting you for lunch; they do a good lunch there.’ He waved a chitty at me. Watson had chitties for everything. He probably signed off one each time he went to the bog. A chitty for a shitty: that’s not bad. ‘Requisition one of those horrible beige Standards, and drive down right now. M’smith will give you directions.’

  ‘Did my security clearance take a long time, sir?’

  ‘Far longer than anyone else’s that I’ve heard of. Even M’smith here was done in a fortnight, and he’s a criminal. Yours has taken seven times as long as that – and even then it was touch and go. You’ve packed an awful lot of dubious characters into a very short life, haven’t you, Charlie?’ There is this well-known phrase about the pot and the kettle, isn’t there?

  ‘If I failed it, would you have had to send me home?’

  ‘No . . . Either shot you, or tossed you into jail until it’s all over. Wouldn’t have risked you telling anyone.’

  ‘Until what is over, sir?’

  ‘What you’ll be told about in an hour’s time. Mr Levy is the man you’re looking for. Captain Levy that is. Can’t mistake him; he wears dark glasses you can’t see through. Enjoy your lunch.’ When I didn’t move fast enough, he waved his hand at me like a man warding off flies, and said, ‘Run along now.’

  It’s not like me to try to have the last word, but I tried . . . and bloody failed, as usual. I popped my head back inside the door from outside, and told him, ‘By the way sir; there’s a lion inside the compound. I saw it in Ismailia, and I think it’s following me around.’

  ‘No lions in Egypt, Charlie.’

  ‘That’s what people keep telling me.’

  ‘Big lion, is it?’

  ‘It is, as a matter of fact. Why?’

  ‘I saw a James Stewart film once – Harvey. He was followed around by an animal in it: invisible giant rabbit as far as I remember. Perhaps you’ve got a touch of the same thing.’

  I’d met Major James Stewart once; in Paris in 1945. In fact he’d got me out of a bit of a jam. But this wasn’t the time to bring it up.

  The road went ever on and on. That reminded me of something – The Seven Pillars of Wisdom perhaps. Half the guys you saw carrying books around for effect had that one. It was required reading for the desert warrior, which is how we all saw ourselves, of course. Another Lawrence of Arabia effect had been the proliferation of motorbikes, and endless motorcycle trials events in the desert. I blamed Lawrence for all of it, and none of our witless born-again motorcyclists seemed to recall that the only thing a motorcycle had done for the saviour of Arabia (and, incidentally, the architect of every problem we’ve had there ever since) was to kill him.

  Maybe that’s where all the new wooden crosses in the cemeteries actually came from.

  I was passed by two motorcycle dispatch riders on the road down to Fayid, and hoped they’d learned to keep their heads down. I overtook a couple of small convoys trundling along at a snail’s pace, waved past by their armed escort. The only vehicles I met on the road in either direction were British and military. If we owned all the bloody cars, it was no wonder the home-grown bastards hated us.

  After half an hour I passed an Arab walking a string of pack camels parallel to the tarmac, and heading in the same direction as me. The camels didn’t fancy me. They looked at me and sneered. One spat a gob the size of a cricket ball. Was it trained to do that, or did it just improvise? The Arab rode the lead camel of six. A small boy rode the last one. I slowed down, smiled, and waved to them. The boy flashed me a quick V sign, and then threw a stone. He had a bagful hanging from the wooden saddle. He was a good shot because it clattered off the boot of my car, and I prayed he would never get his hands on a decent gun.

  People really were getting a bit twitchy. Two armed Egyptian policemen guarded the car park where I left the Standard Vanguard. I wondered if they were on our side, their side, or undecided. There’s almost a pun in there if you look for it hard enough. It was a newer, less ill-used example of the car, and once I got used to the column change I was quite keen on it. At one point I had rolled it up to seventy, but was waved down by the wagging finger of one of our cops. A white-suited be-fezed Egyptian signed me in to the Officers’ Club – which had been designed by someone who’d read too many Somerset Maugham stories for my liking – and pointed me to the Smoking Room where this year’s fate awaited me.

  I’d overtaken a blind officer as I went in; he had a tall Arab walking on one side of him and a guide dog in a harness like a baby walker in front of him. I guess he had it covered from all angles. I hadn’t, though; because my brain wasn’t working fast enough. Blind men wear dark glasses, don’t they? . . . and he was the only man with shades in the whole bloody room. He sat down in a big cane peacock chair; his man stood beside and slightly behind him, and the dog was soon lying at his feet. It lifted its lip, and showed me its front teeth as if to say, when I approached, I could bite you if I wanted to, you bastard, but I can’t be arsed: it’s too hot. I have that effect on animals all the time. It also had one milky white eye. I had a thought that was simultaneously cruel and funny: about the blind leading the fucking blind. The blind man was wearing a nicely spruced tropical rig, with a one-word shoulder flash. I read Intelligence. I had travelled the country without finding much so far, so that was a nice change.

  He said, ‘Easy girl,’ and bent to lay his hand on the dog’s napper. The dog covered its teeth again. It almost smiled. As he bent to the dog I saw behind the dark glasses. Empty eye sockets. Ah, one of those. The Arab took half a step forward, and placed his hand on the European’s shoulder. I used to do exactly the same in the office of our Lancaster bomber; it would signal to Grease, our pilot, that I was there. The blind man said, ‘Pilot Officer Bassett, I presume,’ and lifted his right paw for the ritual shake. Firm and quick; the way it should be.

  ‘Yes, sir. I walked past you on the way in. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be, although if you make the blind leading the blind joke I’ll have Chig knife you. Say hello to Chig. He’s my boy.’ I started to hold my hand out to the Arab, but he just bowed his head very slightly; a nod. He might have been smiling or he might not. He had a face which was impossible to age or read, and a square, black beard shot with grey. Your noble Arab. He belonged in the desert on a camel, with a hawk on his wrist, just like the King of the Riffs in The Desert Song: I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures. He did not, however, have a speaking part in this drama . . . and he wasn’t a
boy.

  ‘Draw up a chair,’ Levy said . . . ‘and call me Peter. I can’t tell anything about you except that you are either small, or that your mouth is somewhere between your tits, because your voice is coming from much nearer the ground than usual.’

  ‘Less than five feet four, sir. Well done.’

  ‘Nearer to five two . . . and don’t bloody patronize me . . . and Call me Peter was an order by the way. Care for a gin and it before we eat?’

  ‘Thank you. Love one.’

  He addressed his Arab. ‘Two long ones please, Chig; and bring yourself an orange juice.’ The Arab gave his nervy little bow again, and cruised off to the bar. Dignified.

  Levy told me, ‘His proper name’s Chigaru, which means hound. So I’m the first blind man you’ll meet who has two dogs. Chig’s dumb, by the way – some friendly tribesmen cut his tongue out, and all he can make is a gurgling sound. If you hear that, duck. He might have imperfect English in the understanding department, but he has acute hearing and I trust him, so you don’t need to worry.’

  ‘What about your blind dog?’

  ‘Why do people persist in calling guide dogs, “blind dogs”? A blind dog would be no bloody use to me, would it? I need one which can see.’

  ‘Yours has a bad eye . . .’

  ‘. . . and also one particularly good one; don’t overlook that. She belonged to some other beggar who traded her in when she began to go blind herself. The Society wanted to put her down. That seemed skew-whiff to me, so I took her on. After all, they didn’t put me down when I lost my eyes, did they?’

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘Nothing heroic. Lost control of my motorcycle on the way back to camp from Sidcup one night. I was loaded. When I woke up I had no eyes and no nose. They managed to rebuild the schnozzle, but no chance with the eyes – popped and gone to heaven.’ I knew I’d been right about motorbikes all along. But after I heard him I winced, and instinctively said, ‘I’m sorry.’ It’s almost a reflex reaction to apologize to the disabled for their own disability, isn’t it? I don’t think they love us for it.

  ‘Don’t be. They weren’t particularly good eyes.’

  ‘Your man is coming back.’

  ‘How many glasses on the tray?’

  ‘Five: two each for us, I think, and one for him.’

  ‘Marvellous people these Egyptians. Great sense of anticipation. We’ll drink one here, and take one through with us.’

  ‘And we can talk in front of your man?’

  ‘Christ yes; no problem. But be careful what you say in front of the dog though: I think she’s a spy.’

  The one-eyed Labrador lay under the table throughout the meal. Occasionally she’d let out a heartfelt sigh, and Levy would surreptitiously drop her a morsel of food. Her mouth of yellowing teeth was rarely less than nine inches from my naked leg, which unnerved me. Levy insisted on eating his lunch without talking shop. Fish, fish and fish, and all of it good. Better than good: memorable.

  When I remarked on it he said,

  ‘Surprised you haven’t been here before. You’re an automatic member; it’s only an extension of the Mess.’

  ‘Nobody told me about it.’

  ‘Then you’ve something to thank me for already, and I love starting off relationships with the other person in my debt. I like to finish lunch with Egyptian-style coffee, by the way – all right by you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Some of the old wallahs disapprove, of course. They stick to English tea – something to do with a sense of empire.’

  ‘Who are the old wallahs?’

  ‘The nabobs? Generals, colonels and AVMs. We used to see the occasional admiral, but I think it’s too far from the real sea for them: unless they’re near something salty which drowns people, they feel insecure. We’ll take coffee out on the veranda: your pipe smoke may keep the flies at bay.’

  ‘You can smell my pipe on me.’

  ‘. . . and the fact that you washed with Palmolive this morning, are wearing suede desert boots, and use neither an aftershave nor Brylcreem. The nabobs wouldn’t like your boots in the club either.’

  ‘How can you smell the difference between suede and ordinary leather?’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t smell boot polish from you either, so the suedes were a deduction. Was I right?’ He made me smile.

  ‘Yes, you were, but what if I had no shoes on at all?’

  ‘My dog would have smelled your feet, and set up a terrible howl. Within weeks of losing my eyes, my senses of smell and hearing improved until they were almost painful. Compensation I think, but a whole new world just the same. I’d probably make a better tracker dog than Mary.’ The dog – that must have been her name.

  We sat in the shade, in another couple of peacock chairs. His Arab stood about twenty feet from us at the end of the veranda, scanning the gardens, the Bitter Lake and the people around us. His eyes never stopped moving. More of a bodyguard than a bearer or a guide.

  Maybe Levy picked up on what I was thinking because he asked me, ‘Do you think he can hear us from there?’

  ‘I didn’t think you cared.’

  ‘I don’t. I just want to know how good you are.’

  ‘He’s about twenty feet away, so I’d say we were safe.’

  ‘. . . and you’d be wrong. The conversational human voice can be heard easily up to thirty feet away by anyone who tries. Unless you are locked with one other person in a soundproofed room, or out in the wilderness with a clear view of what’s around you, you are always going to be overheard. That’s a fact, and you’d better remember it.’

  I let that sink in. How many stupid things had I said in my life that would now appear to have been overheard? Millions.

  I quietly said, ‘Thank you. I will.’

  ‘You dropped your voice immediately. Quick learner. I like that.’ I wasn’t sure that I did.

  ‘The Wing Commander said you were going to brief me on what I’m doing out here – which isn’t what the RAF originally told me, apparently.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I expected to see you earlier but there were problems with your screening. Are you really a Commie?’

  ‘No, I’m a paid-up member of the Party, but that happened by accident in 1947. Do you need to know the story?’

  ‘Yes; I think I do. Don’t worry: we have all afternoon if we want.’

  So I told him. If you’ve got this far, you’ve probably already read my earlier memoir, so I don’t need to tell you again, do I? If you’ve forgotten the story, go back and read it again . . . and see your doctor about your failing memory: you have a problem. Levy thought it was highly amusing. Maybe you will too.

  Then I said to him, ‘Your turn, Captain. You can talk while I light my pipe.’ He had been right; the flies had begun to pay amorous attention to us, and God did not create me to be copulated upon by hairy Egyptian flies.

  ‘In 1945 you were posted to RAF Tempsford, weren’t you? Some ground job after you’d got through your first tour.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Smoke away. Let me do the talking.’

  ‘OK.’

  He frowned. I took the hint, and lit up. I was soon making as much smoke as the battleship Warspite. After two world wars she broke her back on St Michael’s Mount in the Fifties I think; poor old girl.

  ‘One of the wireless operators you retrained was a man named Albert Grost. His pilot was called Frohlich. Their whole crew was Jewish, according to the record.’

  ‘They were pacifists. Claimed they were Buddhists. They flew without ammo in their guns, and delivered stores and people to the Resistance. I remember being amazed that the RAF was flexible enough to find a job for a bunch of conchies.’

  ‘Shut up, Charlie; your pipe has gone out. These little bastards will eat us alive.’ I took the hint, shut up and lit up again. ‘Frohlich and his crew stole their aircraft; right?’ I nodded, which produced puffballs of smoke from my pipe. I wondered if the Arab was any good at reading smoke si
gnals. Back in the dining room someone had put a record on, Cab Calloway, and a couple danced urgently to it between the tables. I guess they wanted to be noticed. He asked me, ‘Do you know what was in the aircraft when they stole it?’

  I couldn’t keep up with rhetorical questions for long. ‘Apart from enough gas to get them to Israel, stores for the partisans, I suppose – that’s what they usually flew. They parachuted them in in containers we called containers.’ He didn’t stop me that time.

  ‘But what was in the containers when they went missing, Charlie?’

  ‘I never asked. Guns, ammo and explosives. Detonators; that sort of thing . . .’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Uniforms? Clothes . . . or equipment the Maquis couldn’t make for themselves?’

  ‘. . . and?’

  I gave up. ‘Buggered if I know. I told you, I never asked and they never told me.’

  ‘Money, Charlie. Oodles and oodles of dosh.’

  I settled down then for a good old listen. As my dead pal Tommo would have said, Levy was speaking our language. I looked at my watch when he started, and again when he finished. It took him three quarters of an hour to tell the story. Chig brought us another drink when he thought it had gone on long enough, but it was only lemonade, so I was still supposed to concentrate. I ran the story back at Levy in short sentences, to make sure I had it right.

  ‘When Frohlich and his band of Buddhists stole their aircraft in 1945, and flew it to Israel, they stole their cargo as well. That was enough Stens, .303s and ammo to start a small war . . .’

  ‘They probably armed the Stern Gang.’

  ‘. . . and enough plastic explosive to take down the Empire State building . . .’

  ‘. . . or the King David Hotel.’

  ‘. . . and a load of money intended for the Resistance groups mopping up Jerry in the Cévennes. How much?’

  He paused for effect, which must be an officer thing. It never actually works, but nobody tells them that.

  ‘One hundred thousand pounds in francs, and another hundred thousand in old English gold sovereigns – they had been requisitioned from the British Museum, which is still mumping on about it. I don’t know why they expected to get through the war without us converting some of their collections into cash for the war effort.’