‘It wasn’t a massacre, Charlie; it was a police action in Ismailia in January last year. The Army was ordered to disarm a group of Muslim Brotherhood policemen holed up in their barracks and in a clinic of some sort. At the end of the day they’d killed three or four of us . . . and we’d killed forty or fifty of them. We used Centurion tanks to winkle them out, shelled their building to smithereens, and even fired on the Governor’s mansion.’
‘If we killed fifty Egyptian policemen for the loss of three, it sounds a bit like a massacre to me. They were probably armed with bows and arrows. Is there anyone around who was there at the time?’
‘Why, Charlie?’
‘I’d like to ask someone how it happened, sir. Maybe it explains the strange looks most of the wogs have been giving me since I arrived.’
‘And what kind of look would that be?’
‘. . . as if they bloody hate me, and want me dead, sir.’
‘Can’t you just accept that they do, and leave it at that?’ As I left his office he asked me to send Nancy over to see him – that boy’s going flying again – and added, ‘Don’t go asking silly questions, Charlie. You don’t want our side to end up hating you as well.’
That was exactly the sort of attitude that had put Hitler into the Reichstag, and I wondered why we had forgotten that so quickly.
With the erk who drove the runway sweeper I watched Nancy take off. I had cycled out to the edge of the strip like others used to do in the old days when I was setting off for Germany. Even when it was raining there had always been someone there to wave goodbye: we British can be a sentimental folk. Oliver was sitting in the back seat of one of those new Gloster Meteor trainers, which had a long glazed cockpit cover that looked like a humped greenhouse. The aircraft itself was unpainted, and in places the aluminium bloom had dulled its surfaces.
Nancy turned to look at me, and raised one hand in salute. So did the pilot. Nancy himself was wearing a canvas helmet and dark grey rubber ox mask, so I could only see his eyes. I think he was smiling, but I had that horrible feeling: Ave Cæsar, morituri te salutant. Then the noise level from the twin Rolls-Royce jet engines took over, and dust and sand was lifted in a cloud behind it. Once the pilot let the brakes off they thundered away past me like shit off a shovel. The aircraft lifted from the runway, catching the light a couple of times with a couple of brilliant dazzling flashes, then banked, turned to starboard and disappeared – still low – out into the northwest.
Nancy had raised his hand once more, as they passed me. I never saw him alive again.
They were overdue after three hours, and an hour later Control started the process of phoning around all the other RAF stations with runways on the Canal Zone – seven or eight in all – as well as a couple of emergency strips. I walked out to the end of our strip in the twilight, sat in the dirt, and watched out to the north and west. After an hour I saw a shooting star: a meteor perhaps. For a while the lion sat opposite me on the other side of the runway, maybe twenty yards away. In profile she was like a miniature sphinx. Her tongue lolled out, and she was also looking out to the northwest. When she thought it was no longer worth waiting, she got stiffly up, and slid away into the shadows. Minutes later I heard a jeep’s engine. It was dark, and Pat Tobin had come out looking for me. We drove to the stores shed, and had a bit of a party with the lads.
I was hung-over when I drove the radio truck out of the compound at Deversoir, and clipped one of the concrete-filled oil-drum barriers that did little to protect us from homicidal natives on camels. The drum burst, rolled some distance and ended up alongside the shack everyone used as a bus shelter. Small pieces of shattered concrete now littered the gate. An RAF Regiment corporal tumbled out of the guardhouse, followed by a couple of his gunners who wanted to know what the fuss was about. I stopped the Austin and climbed down.
Anyone can make a mistake I suppose. I’d just made mine, but next that same morning it was the corporal’s turn, for he screamed that immortal military phrase at me, ‘You dozy little man, what the fuck do you think you’re up to?’
Like most corporals, he had been promoted on account of the distance he could get his voice to carry, and as usual it was the word little that actually did it for me. They had probably heard him in Cairo. I had my back to him as I climbed down, so all he could see was a slightly undersized driver, dressed in clean but rumpled KDs. I reached into the cab for my old RAF peaked cap as I turned to him, and pulled it on, not with a flourish, but with that tug which says You’re stuffed, sonny. You should have seen his mug when his instincts kicked in. Bollocks, an officer! One of the Gunners went white and froze, and the other disappeared back inside again as fast as a ferret down a rabbit hole. I spoke quietly; that always sticks the knife in further. ‘If you ever speak to an officer like that again, Corporal, I’ll take your stripes and push them so far up your arse they’ll come down your bloody nostrils. Savvy?’
‘Yessir.’
‘And clear this fucking mess up.’
‘Yessir.’
The Austin was scraped but not bent, so I remounted. The corporal remained rooted to the spot until I beckoned him over and said, ‘One of your men made himself scarce as soon as he saw I was going to be awkward . . .’
‘Yessir.’
‘Get rid of him. You want someone who’ll back you up in a spot; not someone who scrams at the first sign of trouble.’
He blinked, said, ‘Yessir,’ again, and saluted. I touched the peak of my cap to him, and put the rusty old box into gear.
When I was out of sight of the camp, I stashed the RAF cap behind the passenger seat, and pulled on the Jerry job. I thought I looked quite dashing, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I had to sit at the end of our junction with the Ismailia–Suez road, and wait there for the rest of the convoy, which was late. They were running on Army time, which is not quite the same as yours.
When they turned up Sergeant Clare was in the lead jeep, which was a relief . . . and a fresh-faced second lieutenant sat alongside him, which wasn’t. Clare brought the convoy to a halt, but it was the officer who walked over to me. He was a lanky, bony specimen with a gangly walk. I imagined his joints spontaneously disarticulating, and him collapsing in an India-rubber heap on the road. I didn’t get down, so for once my conversation was conducted from the position of power: I began to understand how all those six-footers felt when they were dressing me down. His KDs looked new. They were immaculate.
He touched his immaculate cap with his immaculate leather-clad stick, and smiled an immaculate smile. ‘Smart-Watkins. Edward . . .’ Obviously he’d had problems with his English language lessons at school, since his sentences came out back to front.
‘Bonaparte-Bassett. Charles . . . you can call me Charlie.’ It did not raise a smile, except from the guy with the gun in the back of Clare’s jeep.
‘One of the French Bonapartes?’
‘No. One of the Belgian ones. We danced at the ball in Brussels on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, and then we left the French ones to fight it. They lost.’
‘I see. Jolly good.’
‘That’s what we thought, too.’
He had a curious little smile, which sat under a curious little moustache. Fussy. If I had been his CO I wouldn’t have let him get away with anything as daft-looking as that.
‘I’ll send over a driver . . .’
‘It’s OK, Edward . . . I can manage. Sergeant Clare taught me last month.’
He twitched. He definitely twitched, and lowered his voice so that we were the only two who could hear him, ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t use my Christian name in front of the men, Charles . . . technically I outrank you: it’s a matter of courtesy.’
‘I’m in a completely different service, but technically you could be right. What do you want me to call you then?’
‘I thought about that problem on the drive here. Perhaps we could call each other nothing: honours even.’
‘I still don’t need a driver.’<
br />
‘But I need you to need one. Officers don’t drive in our mob . . .’
‘Matter of courtesy again, I suppose?’
‘Precisely.’
He touched his cap peak with his stick again as he walked back to the jeep. I suppose that he’d won the first round. Roy Rogers had been climbing down from the back of one of the wagons anyway. I didn’t mind that. I shifted over to make room for him. He was wearing a regulation forage cap which looked old, but almost unused, and balanced precariously on his thatch. What had happened to the Afrika Korps?
‘Hello, Roy.’
‘Hello, sir. Ready to roll?’
‘Yes. Who is that guy?’
‘New officer sir. The Sergeant was asked to take him out and familiarize him with the terrain.’
‘He’s an idiot.’
‘I can’t argue with an officer, sir, an’ you’re an officer. The lads are saying he’s from that strange county in the middle of England, sir.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Cuntshire, sir.’ He made me laugh, and the laughter made my head ache, so I leaned back in my seat, and pulled my hat over my eyes. Trigger placed us in the middle of the small convoy. There was something deliberate about the way he lunged for a gap in the line which I was sure the following vehicle had not intended to leave for us.
Before I closed my eyes I asked him, ‘What was that about? We could have waited until the others were past.’
‘No we couldn’t, sir. If the Gyppo ’as a go at us, he’ll either go for the lead lorry, to stop the convoy, and make us all a target . . . or for Tail End Charlie, ’oping we’ll be too far down the road to fight back properly. You and I will quite happily bowl along in the middle, sir, where the wise men are.’
‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you?’
‘With respect, sir; you may have sand in your shoes, but you still have a lot to learn.’
‘Ave Cæsar,’ I replied, but the words made me think about Nansen, and I didn’t speak a lot for the next hour.
We stopped at the roadside beyond Mile Twelve, and had a brew-up . . . obviously waiting for something because Smart-Whatsit was clearly in no hurry to get going again. After twenty minutes 4 RTR, in three tired-looking Centurion tanks, lurched out of the seaside, crossed the road in front of us, and set off into the blue. They made good time in the rough hard ground, and were soon out of sight, although for a while you could track their progress on the near horizon from the dust clouds. Get-Smart called us all together.
‘We’re running into the desert now, lads.’ He made it sound as if we were trying to round Cape Horn in the dead of winter. ‘Therefore I want maximum vigilance from everyone. Who knows what may lie beyond the next ridge.’
Trigger played dumb, and treated that like a question. He held up his hand and said, ‘I do, sir.’
Clare, standing behind his officer’s line of sight, shook his head in warning, but Trigger ignored him.
The officer asked, ‘What would that be, Rogers?’
‘Another bleeding ridge, sir – beggin’ your pardon. There’s thousands of the buggers out there.’ . . . and at least three tanks, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.
‘Thank you, Rogers.’ Was he brighter than he sounded? Did he know when the piss was being taken of him? ‘See me tonight. I might have a small task for you.’ Yes, he did.
Before we mounted up he pulled me to one side, and asked, ‘Mind if we lose the Jerry titfer, Charles? Not good for discipline if an officer gets away with something the oiks have been hauled over the coals for.’ I didn’t answer. I just flung my cap over my shoulder, and in through the radio wagon’s open cab window, and turned away. This man could seriously get on my wick if I let him.
Up alongside Roy Rogers I asked, ‘Why didn’t you say something about the cap?’
‘Testing yer powers of observation, sir. I wondered when you were going to ask me why I was wearing this regulation apology for a piece of headwear, issued by the British Army.’
‘I noticed, but decided not to embarrass you by asking. It looks like a khaki banana skin balanced on top of your head. Why are you wearing it, then?’
‘Because the officer insisted, Mr Bassett . . . and put me on report for questioning his decision.’
Smart stood up on the seat of his jeep, and waved us forward, like wagon master Ward Bond in those Wagon Train television programmes, or Lash Larue at the Saturday morning pictures.
Trigger must have agreed with me because he muttered, ‘Wagons-ho!’ I wondered if anyone had ever said that sort of thing in real life.
I looked out of the window and muttered to myself. I didn’t intend anyone to hear me, but Roy must have picked it up. What I said was, ‘We’re going to have to do something about this mad bastard.’
To which Roy responded, ‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, sir . . . and I’m going to pretend even harder that there isn’t a man out on this scheme who won’t agree with you.’
It looked as if I was in for a fun few days.
We turned into the blue, following the tracks left by the tanks. You can’t mistake a place a tank has been because it knocks flat everything it can’t merely pulverize with its weight. My old major used to call it tank spoor . . . and had taught me how to track them across Europe. Anyone with an educated eye could do the same out here. To begin with, we made three times the speed that Clare had managed on my previous scheme, but there were two prices to be paid for that. First it ripped the tyres of the bigger wagons to shreds. We had to change three of them, and at that wastage rate we wouldn’t get through the first day . . . and, second, we lost so much time hanging about changing wheels, that overall we travelled less distance than going at the slower pace.
During one of these unscheduled stops – the stricken truck needed to be partially unloaded before it could be lifted – Trigger wandered over to a couple of the others who were grabbing a swift fag, talked for ten minutes and sauntered back.
He must have decided I was an ally because he said, ‘Apparently Smart Alec has told the Sergeant that we’re getting these blow-outs deliberately because we don’t like him forcing the pace. He says we’ve got to quote, be kicked out of our customary complacency, and turned into proper soldiers, unquote.’
‘Don’t look at me: I’m in the RAF.’
‘I’ll let that pass, sir, seeing as some of us is not so sure about that . . . but I will say that for the first time I might be seriously envious of you.’
‘Don’t be. You lot are occasionally killed by the wogs. My lot are occasionally killed by the wogs as well, but then more frequently killed by our own mistakes. When you fuck up at twelve thousand feet the only place left to go is down.’
‘Might I ’ave ’eard that you lost one of your fighter planes yesterday, sir?’
‘You might have.’
‘Anyone you knew?’
‘I share a tent with him.’
‘Bad luck, sir. I’m sorry to ’ear that.’
Bad luck, sir. Last words on Oliver Nansen, photographer. I can still picture him today, and wonder what he would have made of his life if it had got any further.
We got going again soon after that, lurching more slowly this time – maybe Sergeant Clare had been able to talk sense into our bold leader. The cab got hotter. I spread a handkerchief over my head, under my old RAF peaked cap, and let it cover my neck. Trigger did the same, but his small forage cap couldn’t hold it in place. We both stripped to the waist, and still sweated. I don’t know of any proper serviceman who gained weight in the Canal Zone: the only fat people you met were senior officers and wealthy Arabs. By the time we stopped for a breather, we were both all in.
Smart Alec called us all together after we had fed and watered. He was good at calling people together: they get taught that in Brown Jobs officer school. He’d placed a small table top of wood over the desert stove I’ve told you about before – a small Castrol oil drum full of sand, topped off with petrol and set ali
ght. The hot sand retained the heat, and you could brew up on it in minutes. It could also burn things, but no one had told him that. He opened a map on the impromptu table.
‘Gather round, lads, I want to show you where we are, and what we’re doing.’
He placed the point of a silver propelling pencil at a position on the map. Even with my rudimentary navigational skills I could see he was about an inch out. The point rested on a ridge point: we were actually in a wadi at least three miles away.
He said, ‘We’re here . . .’
I sensed Trigger’s arm being raised. He was alongside me, and we were behind the Lieutenant, so I firmly pulled it down again. He’d done himself enough damage for one day; let someone else try. No one did immediately.
‘We’re going into the blue up here . . .’ Somehow the words didn’t work the way he used them. Maybe he hadn’t earned them yet; it was as simple as that. ‘. . . following the three tanks which preceded us. This is an exercise – a proper military exercise – and I intend that we shall win.’
‘Win what?’ one of the squaddies muttered. Smart Alec picked him up.
‘Win over the other side – another patrol that’s coming into the desert from the Suez – Cairo road. They are supposed to ambush us, and we are not going to allow ourselves to be ambushed. Anyone from my patrol who ends up ‘killed’ or ‘captured’ in this exercise will be up on a charge. We need to know that we can fight and win in the desert – and therefore this area of desert has been certified available for exercises for the first four months of the year.’
One of the unwary asked, ‘Do the Gyppoes know that, sir?’
‘Don’t call them Gyppoes, Green. Try Egyptians. In answer to your question the Egyptians do know that. They won’t interfere because this area is under British protection.’ We were protecting several thousand square miles of absolutely fuck-all with a canal running through it. ‘And because this is an exercise, most of you will be issued with blank ammunition before we move on. Keep your live rounds in your ammo pouches, and your weapons loaded with blanks.’
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