Somebody laughed wheezily from the shadow. At least it wasn’t Trigger. I didn’t want him in more trouble than he was.
Smart Whatsit frowned, and said, ‘I’ll come with you. Wouldn’t want anyone wandering off into the dark, and getting lost.’ He sighed as he got up, as if my bodily functions should have a more considerate sense of timing.
As we stepped out of the cover of the lorries I said, ‘It didn’t have to be you. One of the others could have come.’
‘And have an oik sniggering over the sight of an officer’s bare backside? I don’t think so, Charles.’
‘Not good for morale?’
‘Absolutely.’
We were halfway between his two fire trenches when some bastard opened up on us from a half-mile away. At first I thought that the patrol he said wouldn’t reach us for days had worked around our flank, and ambushed us. Two officers heading out into the blue for a dump must have seemed like a godsend to them.
I said, ‘Bastards!’ Then I heard the bullets zipping past. They make a peculiarly personal sound when they’re close to you. I turned on Smart and pushed him backwards away from me. He ran until he found the first trench, and dropped in it. I followed this from his bobbing torchlight. I ran about seven paces in the other direction until I literally fell into the outer trench. The initial shouts and clattering around coming from our small circle of trucks descended into order. I heard Clare conducting some sort of a roll call, and getting a satisfactory answer.
Smart Alec shouted out, ‘Who is it, Sergeant Clare?’
There was an immediate fusillade of incoming rifle fire. I heard the bullets pattering around me, and made myself as small as I could.
‘Gyppoes, sir . . . and for God’s sake keep quiet. They’re firing at your voices now.’
‘Give us covering fire’ . . . another half-dozen shots.
‘No point, sir. I wouldn’t know where to fire. I can’t see any muzzle flashes. The lads are reloading with live ammo now. You OK, Mr Bassett?’
‘Yes.’ I kept it low, but there was a single shot, and it came too bloody close.
‘Keep your heads down, sirs, and I’ll try to work out how to get you back. You may have to stay there until they withdraw . . . there’s another load of fireworks over to the west; they must be having a go at the tanks.’
The hole I was in was just big enough if I drew my knees up and lay three quarters on my side, with my head below the parapet. Once I’d sorted out the noises, and fitted them to what Clare had said to us, I could work out what was happening. It looked as if a number of wogs were having a go at the three tanks which were ahead of us. They must have seen our lights and left a few friendly natives the task of keeping us out of it. I just hoped someone had been able to get to the radio.
I was there for hours, and staving off the cramp became the second worst problem. My worst problem was the reason I’d landed up out there in the first place. Whether I liked it or not, my body was about to evacuate on a grand scale, and there was nothing I could do about it . . . but, wogs or no wogs, I was damned if I was going to lie in my own excrement all night. So I pulled down my trousers, shat on my own hand, and flung it over my shoulder and out of the trench. Then I wiped my backside with that bloody horrible great services handkerchief – I always knew it would come in handy for something – and rubbed my hand in the sand until it was clean. That occurred four or five times before my belly stopped aching. The trots I’d been warned to look out for on the trip to Istanbul had finally caught up with me in the desert triangle between Suez, Ismailia and Cairo. Believe it or not I eventually went to sleep. There was nothing else to do.
When I awoke it was light, and the ground was shaking like the aftershock of a small earthquake. After a session of overtures and beginners, gentlemen please, my brain told me the tanks were coming back down their original track.
Clare’s voice carried to us . . . ‘I think you’re OK now, sirs, the Seventh Cavalry’s arriving . . . you can get back here in a couple of ticks.’
Then I heard a howl of rage that might have been the scream of a demented tiger, or a second lieutenant tried beyond endurance, as Smart Alec shouted, ‘Mr Bassett . . . Mr Bastard Bassett, sir . . .’
It was only old habits that made me stand stiffly to, swing round to face him and answer, ‘Yes, sir?’
‘You’re on a fucking charge, sir!’
He was standing in his slit trench literally shaking with rage. Spitting with it . . . covered in it, actually. Covered in diarrhoea. The brown stains and streaks, all over his beautiful KDs, told their own story. Ah well, Charlie. You can’t win ’em all. Bloody good shots all the same, even if the thought of deliberately taking aim had never entered my head.
He glowered at me throughout breakfast, but never said another word. Perhaps he didn’t trust himself. On the other hand several of the blokes contrived to touch me on the shoulder or the head as they passed me. A curious show of solidarity. It was as if I had passed the initiation ceremony, and had been admitted into the Lodge. Even Sergeant Clare brought me another mug of char, and winked before he turned away.
I thought that
