When I went to see Pat he did the usual thing of walking me down the stores shed away from his leader. The latter scowled but didn’t complain. I guessed that Tobin had his hooks into him as well. Before I could ask him anything he asked for my bank book, and credited me another thirty-two quid which he signed off with a flourish.
‘What was that for? I didn’t think I had anything left to sell,’ I asked him.
‘Several KD uniforms, four pairs of working boots and another set of blankets. The Gyppo tailors love ’em.’
‘I don’t have them.’
‘That’s the point, Mr Bassett. We indent for the stuff you don’t have, and flog them.’
‘Won’t Daisy figure out how much I’m using, and get worried?’
‘Do you know how much knickers and ladies’ pyjamas go for on the open market, sir?’
So Daisy was in on it as well.
‘Can you give me some wog money? Thirty quid should do. I’ve got a bit of leave coming.’
‘By this afternoon, sir, don’t worry. But that’s not what you came for . . . I can guess.’
‘No. I want a gander in Mr Nansen’s private locker. I’m sure you have a spare key.’
‘ ’ow could you ever be sure I’ll keep your private things private, if I shows you his? It wouldn’t be ethical . . . he’s only been gone a few days.’
‘I won’t care when I’m dead, Pat, and Nancy’s dead. Gone to heaven. I met him in a dream last night, and he told me so.’
RAF guys are a superstitious lot. He said, ‘You don’t mean that, sir.’
‘Yes, I do. He’s bloody dead – cooked to a turn . . . and he told me to look in his locker,’ I lied. ‘I want to lift anything embarrassing out of there before the CO gets his mitts on it. I’ll order you to, if you like.’
He gave up. ‘That won’t be necessary, sir. We’re all in this together, aren’t we?’
I left him all of Nansen’s clothes, and there were a bloody sight more than you might imagine – interesting knick-knacks – souvenirs he had picked up. A dozen unexposed rolls of film. Some bazaar leather suitcases and four rare bottles of Whyte and MacKay’s. In the bottom of the capacious locker – which was the size of a small cupboard – I found a carved rosewood box with a barrel-shaped lid. It was about a foot deep, and a foot and a half long. It was full of long, flat cardboard boxes of photographs and negatives, and a couple of notebooks. I left him the chest, and took the contents away stuffed into a nice leather music case. Honours even. I even had that warm mission accomplished feeling when I walked back into the tent. When I sat down on my bed with them, I thought I heard Oliver say Thanks, but when I looked up I was alone. I wish dead people wouldn’t do that.
I had looked in on Daisy as I passed back, and told her, ‘I found Oliver’s photographs; so no sweat,’ but was unprepared for her reaction. She played an absolutely straight bat. These days a youngster wouldn’t understand a cricketing metaphor, and would say she blanked me. In fact a youngster wouldn’t understand the word metaphor, would they? Our language has become peculiarly uncomplicated over these last few years.
‘What photographs?’
‘The ones you were wondering about.’
‘I don’t remember that, Charlie.’
There was one of those pauses I play the music in. This time it was one of those wog songs ‘Ah yaa zain’, which means Beautiful one.
Daisy dropped her eyes first, so I said, ‘Sorry. My mistake.’ I could have said I wasn’t born yesterday, either . . . but I was never that cruel. It did make me curious to see what I had.
I understood the problem as soon as I began to spread the pictures out on my bed. Nancy had a wonderful eye for his subject, no doubt about that. Very talented. Tired and ill-equipped British soldiers had never looked nobler, nor so tired or ill-equipped. Drunken matelots smashing up a bar in Port Said looked just as unpleasant as we truly know them to be. A Red Cap clubbing an Arab child looked just like a copper clubbing a child. Nansen had created an invaluable historical record of Brits at large in the Canal Zone, but not one the British War Office would ever want to come to light. But that wasn’t really a problem, because I knew I would eventually figure out what to do with them.
The real problem was that he’d photographed half the British women in the Canal Zone, as well – and most of them had taken their clothes off. Even a good number of Egyptian girls had fallen under the spell of his fancy Leica camera. In ten minutes I saw seven people I thought I’d met. Haye with an e was one of them, and so was the corvette skipper’s wife. I guessed that, if I persevered, I’d find Daisy in there somewhere. I shoved them quickly back into the case, and stuck it under my pillow. Christ!
I walked around with it for half a day, not daring to let it out of my sight. Who else knew they existed? What I had on the end of my arm was nothing less than a case full of dynamite, and Mrs Bassett’s son was bright enough to realize it. If I had been Nansen, I might have come back from the dead myself; just to find out what happened next.
I could have destroyed them all immediately, which might have been the clever thing to do . . . or I could think
