by Cecil Beaton
Tuesday, June 30th
Cable came from Air Ministry requesting I do job in Lisbon on way home: this makes my departure seem more probable. When I lunched at Gezira with Bruce Bennett he was so determined not to discuss the news as to be alarming. ‘I know naught,’ he said. But I nagged, ‘Would you say the news was hopeful or grim?’ ‘Grimmish,’ he said. But I was not fooled by his apparent calm when he asked, quite casually, if I would take back to England his gold cigarette case. He explained he didn’t want to pay for its being stored here in a bank.
Later: Houghton came in again. ‘Look here, you’re in luck, Beaton! You can get a plane to Lagos on Thursday.’ The photographs of my Palestine-Persia trip arrived and there was a lot of ordering and captioning to be done.
Wednesday, July 1st
Houghton came in again. ‘As things stand, on account of the mighty flap, it’s difficult to say for sure if you’ll be leaving tomorrow or not.’ Probably this office will be evacuated before tomorrow morning, in which event, should I remain and risk getting on to the plane, or retreat with the office staff?
Houghton and I looked at a map. A pencil line showed how perilously near to Alexandria we have now taken up our positions with back and flanks against the last wall. A heavy weight seemed to press against my diaphragm. It made me feel somewhat sick: how could I fill in the day? What was there to be done now? No work for me to do. After I had sorted some negatives and thrown away some old papers and letters it was only 10.15 in the morning. Still so much of the empty sickening day lay hopelessly before me.
The stage was set more in terms of defeat than in victory — why? Was it because we had lost confidence? Everyone carried his revolver; luggage was to be brought to headquarters in case hotels were picketed. In order to do something, in order to do anything, I walked round to the propaganda department of the embassy to submit my latest batch of pictures. The propaganda articles and magazines became a mockery. On the walls the posters proclaimed that we were ‘Mightier Yet’. One of the old women who has been working here was experiencing her second exodus, having escaped from Athens; but this was my initiation into the waste and despair of an evacuation. I left the bureau, my pile of photographs still under my arm; no one would look at them now.
The day passed with a few welcome opportunities of activity for me, luggage chores and visits about permits and tickets. The Passport Office was in an uproar: my passport had been sent, by mistake, for a Belgian visa instead of a Portuguese one. With difficulty, I managed to retrieve the passport and take it personally to the Portuguese.
At lunchtime I ate, by myself, an omelet at a French restaurant. Suddenly, the maître d’hôtel rushed out, waving his napkin, gesticulated wildly to an Egyptian soldier, who in turn picked up his revolver and left forthwith. ‘What’s the hurry?’ I asked. The maître d’hôtel said, ‘They’ve telephoned from Alexandria to say that the town is surrounded.’ ‘Nonsense!’ I argued with him furiously. It was disturbing, nevertheless, to realize how inflammable feelings were.
The ‘flap’ grew in intensity. ‘Flap’ was the word of the moment. Everyone put a stopper on his emotions by calling the crisis a ‘flap’.
At HQ still no news from the desert. Neither was there any personal news about my proposed flight. I long to leave Cairo, but feel guilty at being so selfish as to be worrying about my own departure in the face of such gigantic disasters. If ‘things go badly’, as the current phrase has it, other people’s lot will be so much more awful than mine. Those wretched men, for example, the ‘burnt-out’ cases, still, after many months in hospital in the throes of having new features grafted on their faces, what would happen to them?
HQ: Burn is convinced the Germans will conquer Egypt; thinks there is chaos in the desert; says a caterpillar of strength is arriving continuously from Germany through Crete, and that our best tank crews have gone. Watson, the Australian, and Denis Johnston of the BBC, and incidentally the author of that beautiful play, The Moon in the Yellow River, appeared from the desert. Johnston was riled and rattled: he had been badly looked after; couldn’t get transport for his electrical equipment. He thought the battle did not look too good, that Auchinleck had lined up in the wrong place, that our armies were too stolidly backed and had no flexibility. He says the Eighth Army is tired and discouraged, realizing their equipment is not as good as the Jerrys’: our shells just bounce off their tanks at 500 yards’ range, and once again we are out-distanced by their guns. Watson, on the contrary, was optimistic: he admitted our armament wasn’t as good as the Germans’, but thought the fresh troops would ‘make all the difference’. The RAF are doing as many sorties as they ever were, although we have not many landing grounds, and the German aircraft are never seen by day. Another comfort: we now have aircraft fitted with a cannon that dive on to tanks firing a gun as big as a Bofors. To score a direct hit is difficult: a tank does not look a very large target from the air. But if a success is scored the tank is not just put out of action, it is completely obliterated.
In case I do leave tomorrow I ordered some valedictory drinks in the office. Everyone was busy, but it was nice to know how friendly these chaps would be if I have to spend the next six months with them in Khartoum.
Thursday, July 2nd
I woke to find a light sky, and a dog on the roof outside my window gnawing a bone. The electric light was on in the service pantry so I rang to know the time: there was no answer. I walked down the corridors. No one about. Had they forgotten to call me for my aeroplane? I went down the main stairs and hung over the banisters looking into the oriental hall. There were a few servants moving quietly, and some luggage men sitting on trunks. They looked stupefied when they heard my voice echoing through the columns: ‘What time is it?’ They did not know: ‘Well, get someone to find out.’ At last, the reassuring answer came back. ‘3.10.’
The first rays of sun filtered through on to Heliopolis Airport. So this was escape! I suppose I am the first of the rats, but I prefer to think of myself as fortunate in having finished my contract perhaps just in the nick of time.
The aircraft was not yet fuelled, and even now I feared some general might start a row about reservations and have me thrown off the plane in his favour. What news of the battle? We heard nothing. At last the plane mounted the skies over Cairo. With what tremendous relief was I leaving this restless, corrupt, unfortunate, suburban town, with the Germans only ninety miles away, for England, where the Germans are only twenty miles distant.
Part VIII: Homeward Bound, 1942
Lagos
At Khartoum the hall of the Grand Hotel was stacked with the luggage of many English families, part of the evacuation scheme. Some sailors whose ships have been sunk, boarded our plane here to return home to join other ships. They cheered the atmosphere so that a general who had earlier been irate — after a late night — became merely petulant. ‘You don’t need much brains mucking about in the desert,’ he told us apropos our generals in Libya! ‘It’s an awful thing to send a general home. It means his military career is finished. Take Gort — a stupid man, but the men love him! What’s he doing now? Malta! Well, that’s not really a military job in any case. He deserves better — after all, he did get the BEF Army away from Dunkirk.’
We flew over desert — what the sailors called ‘Bugger All’ — for over 1,000 miles, and at sundown we arrived at El Faschir. From the radio in the rest house we heard Churchill paint the news in the darkest of colours. Fifty thousand men have been lost in Libya: over half are prisoners. In one day of battle we started with 350 tanks and ended with seventy. Any moment he might announce news ‘from the fertile valley of the Nile of grave importance’. After being away so long it was odd to hear the war interpreted from Whitehall. In Cairo news from the desert comes first-hand, but Whitehall’s version of what one has seen on the battlefield, relayed through the mouthpiece of a genteel BBC announcer, seemed far from reality.
It is only partially true to say we have flown across Africa. This, in f
act, we have done, but we have had no sensation of travel. The places at which we have stopped for refuelling are merely pinpoints chosen on the navigator’s map. The aerodrome is invariably impersonal, the meal anonymous. It is a way of travel that encourages ignorance, cynicism and boredom. One does not know or care how the aircraft is flown or how the route is found: one resignedly accepts the improbable and negatively achieves a result.
While we were flying through afternoon sunshine and I was reading War and Peace the wireless operator picked up the BBC message: ‘Forces are fighting seventy miles from Alexandria. German Army was repelled continuously throughout yesterday. British Army launched a surprise counter-attack from the south — results not known yet.’
After another 100 pages of Tolstoy, the scenery below changed. Hitherto unadorned desert now sprouted little trees; there were pools of water and hills. We cut through the bright blue sky into a floor of marshmallow pillow-clouds. These were the first cumuli we have seen for months. We had said good-bye to the dry, flaky dust and grey palm-trees of Egypt and had come back to the lushness of West Africa with the impenetrable jungle below like tightly-packed bunches of broccoli.
At Lagos, the rich earth smelt suddenly damp and good. On the way out to the RAF camp, seven miles away, blades of banana trees touched the roof of our van. The chocolate-brown natives in European shorts and shirts walked with incredible dignity and grace while balancing huge crates of melons or cutlery on their heads; the women lilting along in enormous fish-finned turbans and cotton draperies of barbaric colours and fantastic Braquelike designs. (It seems these materials come from Manchester and are not available in the UK. These fortunate women can choose a motif of fans, parachutes or even Singer’s sewing machines while their equivalents in England have Hobson’s choice.)
In the mess, RAF men of various ages and rank were sitting about in silence. All of them were waiting patiently to leave. Lagos is a bottleneck, and, without a ‘priority’, it often takes weeks, or even months, to board an aeroplane for home. Here was a wan-looking crow of a brigadier who had been waiting forlornly for ten days to go back to England; he pulled at a lock of his dark black hair, wondered if it would not be quicker to go by boat to Freetown. A squadron leader had been hanging about on call for three weeks. They looked at me, the latest arrival, with scorn or pity, or as a possible enemy. Suppose my ‘priority’ was better than theirs, then perhaps my presence here would delay their chances again. Not a pleasant place this — Lagos — famous for its humidity and mosquitoes — but nearer to home than Cairo.
There is not much to do, but last night I got a lift to see the outdoor movies. It was interesting to watch the reactions of the native populace to the entertainment. Two curiously unsuitable comedies with a snow background about winter sports. Snow is an element that most of these West Africans will never know; but the dark audience roared with laughter when someone fell from his skis on the white slopes. They applauded most when the comic strip showed thousands of little sheep tied with blue ribbon that someone was counting in order to attain slumber. During the big film, a clumsy effort at American whimsey — The Wizard of Oz — I slept; but not enough.
Sunday, July 5th
Everything is damp — the bed, clothing, papers. Soon one’s luggage becomes mildewed. The earth is red, so that the swamps are like lakes of tomato soup. It is an uncomfortable billet, too: the beds are granite, and the other men in the dormitory make such varied and horrible noises that one longs for earplugs. Even deep in the night there are continual disturbances with latecomers turning on lights and bawling at the top of raucous voices. Early calls start before dawn: again doors are banged, young men whistle bits of my least favourite ditties (‘A Wandering Minstrel I’ or ‘She was poor but she was honest’), and the songs are accompanied by the most explosive gurkings and lavatory noises.
The meals are in strange contrast to the tropical surroundings: everything comes out of a tin. Quite resigned to the unsympathetic surroundings is an old air commodore with a far-away look in his topaz-coloured eyes. He had been two and a half years in East Africa and is now going home on leave. He finds himself stranded here without any priority. This morning the ‘Movements’ people telephoned to say that the next bomber load is full, but would he tell them if his return was urgent or important. This sounds like an improbable story yet, miserably bored as this old man is here, he said, ‘No, I’m going home on leave, and I can’t honestly say I deserve any priority — or that there is any urgency in getting back.’
Radio latest: The desert battle has raged for five days: we are still holding the enemy. Dimbleby said, ‘There is no cause yet for optimism, but we need not be pessimistic,’ which seems a fair statement of the case.
Denton, the Information Officer, told me that the women journalists visiting the Middle East have made themselves pretty unpopular. One who is known as the WOV (World’s Oldest Virgin) boasted that she acquired most of her information in bed. Eve Curie was by far the most popular, and she was a beautiful, smiling woman until she transformed herself into a journalist; then her mouth became contorted and turned down at the corners, her eyes popped, and she barked, ‘How many aeroplanes are passing through here a week? I must have hard facts and figures for the great American public.’ Least loved of all was Clare Boothe. She had been so insulted that the red carpet of Lagos had not been unrolled for her that she made it her duty to tell everyone how to do their own particular jobs. She was full of machine-made epigrams, and did not ingratiate herself further by calling the fighter pilots ‘flying fairies’.
As Lagos is becoming a more important port each month, Denton thought some pictures of the wharfs might be of use to the Ministry of Information, so he put the Information van at my disposal and telephoned the military police for a permit. We must visit them straight away. No, the CID were not empowered to give me the permission to operate in a prohibited area. My papers reiterated ‘Every reasonable facility must be given’. Yet, in spite of the undertaking that they could have my negatives, a lobster-faced man named Titmus displayed himself as a first-rate histrionic obstructionist. As a result, the afternoon was spent photographing the more peacetime aspects of Lagos: the Rousseau-like scenes were not at all suitable for wartime propaganda, but a delight from the aesthetic point of view. Some of the women carrying bunches of frangipani, or clusters of squawking hens, fled from the camera. One woman threw some water at me while others hid behind stacks of plates; but a crowd of excited children longed to be taken and they cheered each time I clicked the camera. It was a strange Pied Piper’s progress surrounded by about fifty naked piccaninnies who clapped and shouted in unison.
There have been many opportunities recently in which to contemplate and take stock of one’s life. There is much about which to feel dissatisfied. Perhaps it was my greatest mistake to have spent so much time taking photographs. Not enough energy has been left for other activities. It was disturbing to me when Geoffrey Hoare, The Times correspondent, seeing my book of war photographs, said to me, ‘How you must hate doing this!’ In fact, he is wrong. I derive satisfaction from taking almost any sort of photograph, and photography has been the means of my seeing many exciting aspects of this war. Nevertheless, I do realize that only certain compartments of my mind are at work while dabbling with the camera, and this will find me out in the long run. Chunks of my brain-matter will have become petrified. Even when taking photographs one must use one’s intelligence over one’s instinct. A lot of my work could have been taken by the automatic pilot.
On my return to England I must shut myself up at Ashcombe and buckle under to some very hard work and quiet reading. Then, when I’ve got all the present assignments delivered, I shall try to get a whole-time war job: it is not good enough being free to carry on in the ways of peace.
Tuesday, July 7th
Perhaps as a result of the above, I decided to spend the day in a manner unlike any other since my travels started: so remained at the mess doing nothing but reading. It is quite
uncanny how Tolstoy, in War and Peace, has chronicled this war. The personal emotions are exactly the same. One can look up almost any aspect of today’s events in its pages as if it were a dictionary. How many must feel like the soldier who goes off thinking that war will be so gloriously exciting — that he will become a hero — and how events misfire leaving him terrified, helpless and unscathed.
I dressed only in time for the ‘News’ before lunch. The battle has reached a lull: the Germans have made no progress, but a lull is not very healthy if it allows the enemy to bring up reinforcements. However, the situation is so much better than it was a week ago: the onrushing tide has been stopped. Yet the Germans seem to have got a foothold in Russia: really, is it not astonishing what they have achieved? It is a terrifying thought that we should probably have been annihilated if Germany had taken us on before Russia.
‘There’s a place for you on the clipper to Lisbon. 2.30 start in the morning: you must be called at 1.30.’ Action again. The air commodore stirred his after-dinner coffee and wistfully mentioned the lucky people who were able to get on to an aircraft, but he himself would not wangle any pull, although it would be easy for him to do so — a most remarkable man.
At the last minute two Wellington crews were put off: they have been waiting for six weeks and are accustomed to last-minute disappointments.
The magazines in the mess are dog-eared to the point of falling to bits. A chap who had been looking through the torn pages of Country Life came up to me to chat about English houses. In memory we travelled from Wiltshire to Cumberland. One of the acutest pleasures for people stationed far from their home is to spend long hours reminiscing nostalgically. In fact, later, as I lay on my pallet unable to sleep with excitement at the prospect of the journey before me, and the anxiety lest I should not be called in time, I pulled out various drawers of memories and re-lived many happy events of the past: my earliest remembered holiday, as a child of two or three, trussed up in a starched suit, driving in a carriage under the trees at Shanklin in the Isle of Wight, to pay a teatime call — a rather plebeian dog came out to the gate to welcome us; my first visit to Scotland — where everything smelt so pure and fresh and the food was better than any; my initiation into Californian life and meeting my idol, Greta; then the long summer holidays spent motoring in Austria and Germany with Peter when we became habitués of the music festivals, and on the way to Munich were stopped at the frontier by a most brutish-looking Hun in uniform, with shaven head and leggings. ‘Why are you going to Munich?’ he demanded. ‘To see The Roseti- kavalier,’ Peter replied. In the most raucous tones he replied, ‘Aach, sie werden die schöne kostüme geniessen!’ Suddenly, my halfconscious reveries were broken by the nice native boy calling me and bringing me back to Lagos.