I had always wanted to travel in a flying boat, and experience the drag of the water as you lifted off, but this wasn’t to be my time. They tied me to a bunk, and wouldn’t let me watch the take-off. Two blokes worked on me; one may have been the old man from the medical section at Port Said. He peeled my jacket off, and tut-tutted at the state of the bandage on my arm. It can’t have been up to NATO standard. The other opened my pants from ankle to crotch with a pair of scissors, and observed, ‘This knee’s a bit of a mess.’
There was a prick in my upper arm – the good one – but I didn’t mind that. Soon I was flying above the water beside the aircraft. The black bomber was somewhere out to port and a bit behind us, flying a nice parallel: we were taking her home, but only in my head of course.
Sleep. Perfect sleep.
Hudd came to see me in the small hospital at El Kirsh. It was almost a goodbye.
He asked, ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Apart from being shot? I’ve woken up twice in a hospital on one trip. That’s good going, even for me.’
‘This place is full of nurses. I can’t see what you’re complaining about.’
‘I’m bored.’
He flung my small pack onto the bed. I winced when it banged up against my leg. He didn’t seem to notice.
‘Your pipe’s in there. I bunged in some fresh tobacco too, and a couple of books. OK?’
‘Thank you. Don’t mind me – I’ll be laughing as soon as I’m on my feet again.’
‘Mr Watson’s sending the rest of your kit on . . . and your mail. Apparently a big envelope addressed to you burst open in the post office, and it was full of dirty pictures: the Provost’s people might want to talk to you. How’s the knee: permanent damage?’
‘It’ll hurt in wet weather, the Doc says. Apart from that I’d be playing football again in a few weeks, if ever I played the damned silly game in the first place.’
‘Don’t you like soccer?’
‘No: it’s an idiotic way to spend an afternoon.’
Hudd and I were never going to be a marriage made in heaven.
He said, ‘I’ve got to ask you this . . . and this is for me, not for anyone else: it won’t go any further, OK?’
‘What?’
‘Do you know where the rest of the money is?’
If, before you answer a question, you ask yourself Can I trust this person? then you can’t. I thought that about Hudd, and then told him anyway. I reckoned I owed it to him.
‘Maybe . . . can we say I have a good idea where it is, and leave it at that?’
‘Thank God for that, I’d hate to think of Freddy going for nothing.’
‘Don’t you want to know where?’
‘No, Charlie, an’ you don’t want to tell me.’
I filled and lit a pipe. I’ve told you that Grace had bought it for me years ago, so it reproached me as soon as I touched it. Someone had told me about a good pipe shop in a bazaar in Port Said, and I resolved to buy a new one there as soon as I was on my feet again.
Hudd said, ‘I’m gonna come back with a coupla pals tomorrow, an’ have a bit of a party, OK? The Doc says it’s OK.’
‘Then you’re leaving?’
‘Yeah. Few weeks’ leave in Darwin. Blow my pay, an’ get arrested breakin’ up another bar.’
‘After that?’
‘We got some people up in Indonesia. I don’t know fer certain – it was just a hint.’
‘What’s it like out there?’
‘The women are hot, but their men are head-hunters. You pays your money and takes your choice.’ Someone else I knew used to say that, but I couldn’t remember who.
‘I can’t imagine you losing your head, Hudd.’ You could take that two ways, couldn’t you?
Daisy sat on the edge of my bed. I asked her, ‘Why hasn’t Watson come to see me? After all, he got me into this bloody mess.’
‘He saw you last time, and once is enough for David: he doesn’t like hospitals. He’s actually very squeamish.’
‘I’m going home after this, aren’t I?’
‘Of course you are. The rest of us’ll be out here another few months and then so will we.’
She’d brought me two halves of Red Hackle in her shoulder bag. As she tucked them under my pillow she said, ‘He wants to know if you know where the rest of the money is.’ She said it lightly, but there was a catch in her voice. That was interesting. It was the first time I wondered who was really running the show. I’d had a few days to make up my mind what I was going to say.
‘No, I think it was robbed out years ago, and split up into bits and pieces. That’s the only thing I can think of. So now it’s scattered – in small amounts probably – halfway around the world by now.’
‘He wants to know if there’s anything left undone; any t’s left to cross.’
‘That bloody aircraft is going to cause grief for as long as it’s sitting out there. Why doesn’t he get a Canberra in transit to pop a few thousand pounders into her by accident, and apologize to the Turks afterwards? Blow the blasted thing to Kingdom Come.’
‘Is that what you want me to tell him?’
‘Yes, I do, Daisy. Now, give me a nice peck on the cheek, and tell me what pictures you’ve seen recently.’
Haye with an e came to see me for half an hour each time she went off duty. The other guys in the ward were jealous. One night I asked her to
