'You've been out here all night?' The captain looked more closely at Wolffs, face. 'Good Lord, I believe you have. You'd better have a lift with us.' He turned to the jeep. 'Corporal, take the gentleman's cases.' Wolff opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again abruptly. A man who had been walking all night would be only too glad to have someone take his luggage. To object would not only discredit his story, it would draw attention to the bags. As the corporal hefted them into the back of the jeep, Wolff realized with a sinking feeling that he bad not even bothered to lock them. How could I be so stupid? he thought. He knew the answer.
He was still in tune with the desert, where you were lucky to see other people once a week, and the last thing they wanted to steal was a radio transmitter that had to be plugged in to a power outlet. His senses were alert to all the wrong things: he was watching the movement of the sun, smelling the air for water, measuring the distances he was traveling, and scanning the horizon as if searching for a lone tree in whose shade he could rest during the beat of the day. He had to forget all that now, and think instead of policemen and papers and locks and lies.
He resolved to take more care, and climbed into the jeep.
The captain got in beside him and said to the driver: 'Back into town.' Wolff decided to bolster his story. As the jeep turned in the dusty road he said: 'Have you got any water?'
'Of course.' The captain reached beneath his seat and pulled up a tin bottle covered in felt, like a large whiskey flask. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Wolff.
Wolff drank deeply, swallowing at least a pint. 'Thanks,' he said, and handed it back.
'Quite a thirst you had. Not surprising. Oh, by the way I'm Captain Newman.' He stuck out his hand.
Wolff shook it and looked more closely at the man. He was young-early twenties, at a guess-and fresh-faced, with a boyish forelock and a ready smile; but there was in his demeanor that weary maturity that comes early to fighting men. Wolff asked him: 'Seen any action?'
'Some.' Captain Newman touched his own knee. 'Did the leg at Cyrenaica, that's why they sent me to this one-horse town.' He grinned. 'I can't honestly say I'm panting to get back into the desert, but I'd like to be doing something a bit more positive than this, minding the shop hundreds of miles from the war. The only fighting we ever see is between the Christians and the Moslems in the town. Where does your accent come from?'
The sudden question, unconnected with what had gone before, took Wolff by surprise. It had surely been intended to, he thought: Captain Newman was a sharp-witted young man. Fortunately Wolff had a prepared answer.
'My parents were Boers who came from South Africa to Egypt. I grew up speaking Afrikaans and Arabic.' He hesitated, nervous of overplaying his hand by seeming too eager to explain. 'The name Wolff is Dutch, originally; and I was christened Alex after the town where I was born.' Newman seemed politely interested. 'What brings you here?'
Wolff had prepared for that one, too. 'I have business interests in several towns in Upper Egypt.' He smiled. 'I like to pay them surprise visits.'
They were entering Assyut. By Egyptian standards it was a large town, with factories, hospitals, a Muslim university, a famous convent and some sixty thousand inhabitants. Wolff was about to ask to be dropped at the railway station when Newman saved him from that error. 'You need a garage,' the captain said. 'We'll take you to Nasif's: he has a tow truck.'
Wolff forced himself to say: 'Thank you.' He swallowed drily. He was still not thinking hard enough or fast enough. I wish I could pull myself together, he thought; it's the damn desert, it's slowed me down. He looked at his watch. He had time to go through a charade at the garage and still catch the daily train to Cairo. He considered what he would do. He would have to go into the place, for Newman would watch. Then the soldiers would drive away. Wolff would have to make some inquiries about car parts or something, then take his leave and walk to the station. With luck, Nasif and Newman might never compare notes on the subject of Alex Wolff.
The jeep drove through the busy, narrow streets. The familiar sights of an Egyptian town pleased Wolff: the gay cotton clothes, the women carrying bundles on their heads, the officious policemen, the sharp characters in sunglasses, the tiny shops spilling out into the rutted streets, the stalls, the battered cars and the overloaded asses. They stopped in front of a row of low mud-brick buildings. The road was half blocked by an ancient truck and the remains of a cannibalized Fiat. A small boy was working on a cylinder block with a wrench, sitting on the ground outside the entrance.
Newman said: 'I'll have to leave you here, rm. afraid; duty calls.'
Wolff shook his hand. 'You've been very kind.'
'I don't like to dump you this way,' Newman continued. 'You've had a bad time.' He frowned, then his face cleared 'Tell you what-I'll leave Corporal Cox to look after you.'
Wolff said: 'It's kind, but really'
Newman was not listening. 'Get the man's bags, Cox, and look sharp. I want you to take care of him-and don't you leave anything to the wogs, understand?'
'Yes, sir!' said Cox.
Wolff groaned inwardly. Now there would be more delay while he got rid of the corporal. Captain Newman's kindness was becoming a nuisance-could that possibly be intentional?
Wolff and Cox got out, and the jeep pulled away. Wolff walked into Nasif's workshop, and Cox followed, carrying the cases.
Nasif was a smiling young man in a Mthy galabiya, working on a car battery by the light of an oil lamp. He spoke to them in English. 'You want to rent a beautiful automobile? My brother have Bentley' Wolff interrupted him in rapid Egyptian Arabic. 'My car has broken down. They say you have a tow truck.'
'Yes. We can leave right away. Where is the car?'
'On the desert road, forty or fifty miles out. Ifs a Ford. But we're not coming with you.' He took out his wallet and gave Nasif an English pound note. 'You'll find me at the Grand Hotel by the railway station when you return.'
Nasif took the money with alacrity. 'Very good I leave immediately' Wolff nodded curtly and turned around. Walking out of the workshop with Cox in tow, he considered the implications of his short conversation with Nasif. The mechanic would go out into the desert with his tow truck and search the road for the car. Eventually he would
