‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Knew y’d like it. We’re going to be driving around all that sandy stuff in North Africa and the Sinai, eavesdropping on the wog army and police force. They mean us no good.’
‘When you say we, sir, you actually mean poor buggers like me, don’t you?’
He turned to face M’smith, and told him, ‘See, I was right. Almost insubordinate.’ Then he looked back and said, ‘Yes, Charlie. I mean poor buggers like you.’
‘You’re sending me out into the desert?’
‘Yes, Charlie. It’s not our desert really; but the bold British Army is out there holding the foe at bay. You will be a passenger on some of their patrols; all on account of your skills with the old knobs and switches. Your training CO at, where was it again . . . ?’
‘Dungeness, sir.’
‘Yes, Dungeness. She wrote that you were the best she’d seen, and recommended you specifically for desert-penetration patrols to the most dangerous places. Did you upset her? She seems to have it in for you.’ Ah, the revenge of the dark blue woolly knicker brigade.
The radios against the wall suddenly started to chatter Morse. Watson said, ‘Get that, will you . . . then acknowledge.’
Whoever the sender was he was quite handy. He had a fast, musical signature. One of the immaculate hands. I relayed to Watson, ‘It’s from someone good called Broadstairs. He reported it as a positioning reflex, and then signed off. What do you want me to send?’
‘Just acknowledge, and sign off Harrogate. As fast as you can, please, Charlie. The Gyppoes are listening to us back.’
‘Broadstairs?’
‘Field radios are all seaside resorts, and controls are inland spa towns . . . I shall find you something suitably plebeian. Morecambe, maybe. I never liked Morecambe.’
Personally I’ve never had a problem with Morecambe, so maybe it was a class thing.
Less than a minute later, the green telephone on Watson’s desk rang – he always managed to get green telephones – and he listened to it, wrote something on a pad, grunted and put the telephone down. Then he got up and passed what he’d written to M’smith, who stood up in turn, went across and made a pencil mark on one of the charts on the wall. Somewhere southeast of Tripoli. In bloody Libya . . . I wondered if their King Idris knew about that. I also wondered why the king of Libya had a Welsh name. Maybe he was a secret Taff.
‘Triangulation,’ Watson explained to me. ‘The patrols have a broadcasting schedule, rather like the BBC. They just send the words we’ve briefed them with, which tells us they are still in contact . . . but we’ve got a sub and surface vessels off the coast who tell us where they are.’
‘But if we can do that, so can the opposition!’
‘I know; that’s why we lose an operator from time to time. The man you’re replacing went off the air more than a month ago.’
Bollocks – or probably without any, if half what I’d been told about the Arabs was true.
‘Who knows that we’re doing this, sir?’
‘Apart from the wogs? Not many people. Careless talk still costs lives, you know.’
Idiot. My dad was right about us; not content with winning one decent war, we’d been losing others ever since, and it was time to stop. The reason I’d asked Watson the question was because he’d already implied that we were wandering all over other people’s countries again, provoking the neighbours and pretending we weren’t doing any harm. Police action my arse; we were the ones who needed bloody policing.
As if Watson had read my mind he said, ‘Ah yes, your father.’
‘Yes, sir?’ What now?
‘I had a call about him yesterday. I was asked to tell you he’d been arrested in London.’
‘Again?’
‘They didn’t tell me that. I assumed that it was for the first time.’
‘No. The same thing happened a month ago. He’s become a militant pacifist.’
‘Contradiction in terms, Charlie boy. Anyway; I’ve arranged that you’ll speak to the police officer involved. Privately, from here this afternoon. OK?’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘. . . and you’ll let us know if we can help?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I just needed some time to think. ‘When do I fly out?’
‘You don’t. You leave for Port Said in three days. It should have been two, but the Navy’s been late for everything since Trafalgar, and it even almost missed that.’
‘The Navy?’
‘Yes, Charlie, the Navy. Port Said is a port, as its name implies – so you will travel in style in one of Her Majesty’s ships. I understand that this one is called a corvette, and it’s probably very smart.’
‘A corvette . . . ?’
‘You’ve begun to repeat everything I’m saying, Charlie. Are you all right?’
‘I don’t like boats, boss, and I can’t swim.’
‘Soon do something about that . . .’
Later I asked him, ‘So what is going to happen to me for the next few months, sir? Can’t you give me any more details?’
‘No. But when you get to Port Said, you’ll be allocated a camp up-country, which in Egypt is down – somewhere in the south . . . probably RAF Fayid. But before that you’ll have a week’s Middle East acclimatization training – that’s like a school for surviving Egypt. After that you’ll be in a camp with the other wallahs, but listening to whom I tell you, when I tell you . . . and occasionally you will going out into the blue with a patrol, or on a scheme . . .’
‘. . . and on those?’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’ve already got it. You’ll do whatever I tell you to, whenever I tell you. Couldn’t be plainer, could it?’
‘No, sir. What do you want me to do while I’m waiting here?’
‘Don’t go off the base, but otherwise enjoy yourself. Relax. There’s a half-decent beach club, a couple of bars, some sports facilities . . . even a bit
