I turned to ask him, ‘You call him Ali. You often buy from him?’
‘Never seen him before in me life, sir. I call all the wogs Ali – saves time. Ali Baba, see?’
I looked back at my first Egyptian again, but he was gone. Simply vanished. There was half a mile of empty narrow stone jetty on either side of us – it was like a bony finger pointing from Port Said into the Mediterranean. It was now completely empty, and there was no cover.
‘Where did he go?’
The cook shook his head. ‘They do that all the time.’
‘How did he do it?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a mystery.’
The Captain came back on Sunday afternoon. I happened to be on deck as he stepped on board. He turned to face the bridge, put down his suitcase, and saluted rather smartly. I happened to be in his way so I saluted back.
He smiled and said, ‘No, you don’t have to. It’s what we do every time we board a commissioned ship.’
‘Why, sir?’
‘Damned if I know. I must have been told once, but I’ve forgotten. Feeling better?’
His tropical whites were immaculate: they almost gleamed. One of the benefits of a trip home, I supposed. He had a wavy line beside the straight gold ones on his epaulettes: so, a reservist like me.
‘Yes, sir. I’d make a very good sailor as long as we stayed tied up alongside.’
‘And I get sick each time I climb into an aeroplane. Odd, what?’
‘Most people do, sooner or later: it depends on the type, I find.’
‘Thanks for minding the shop. My wife sends her thanks as well – promises you tiffin if you find yourself down there. I always say An unexpected home leave is an unexpected pleasure: points all round. Anything happen?’
‘Egyptians trying to sell us things; no one else came near us. I’ve put copies of the radio signals in your cabin. You’ve been warned for some time next week.’
‘Good. We’ll move up to the basin tomorrow, and declare our presence.’
‘Did they really not know we’ve been here all weekend, sir?’
He produced a gentle smile. Apparently he approved of whoever was running the naval side of the port. ‘Oh, they knew all right. Just looked the other way. It’s accepted practice – it suits everyone.’ I thought about Cyprus; that seemed to be the way things were done out here. ‘Thought we’d have a little party tonight: welcome you to Egypt and thank you for our weekend off. I know my people are keen.’ Party. Now that was a word I understood.
I was hung-over the following morning. The Wallflower’s ward room wasn’t short of pink gins, and then before I turned in the NCOs wanted to toast me in grog . . . which is over-proof rum diluted with water until it has the consistency of a sweet-tasting paint stripper. It’s absolutely fucking deadly. When I woke up the clothes I had passed out in were sticking to me, and we were already alongside the quay in the Port Said basin.
I needn’t have worried about reporting because a young Navy medic came to collect me from the ship. It was already hot, and he drove his jeep fast. With the windscreen laid flat on the bonnet we were cooled by our own passing. There was a thin steel girder with a cutting edge mounted vertically on the jeep’s front bumper, supported by a couple of metal stays. It must have reached clear six feet above the ground.
‘What’s that for?’ I shouted.
He shouted back. ‘The fucking wogs string wire across the roads neck-high to a motorcyclist. We’ve lost several dispatch riders that way. A major hit one in his jeep last month, and took the top of his head off: he drove into the base hospital with his brain showing.’
‘Did he make it?’
‘Yeah. He was a Brown Job major, like I said, so the general consensus is that although he lost most of his brain, nobody will notice.’
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘PMO, sir: Port Medical Officer.’ Balls, had I caught something already?
I hadn’t, as it turned out, and what’s more the War Office didn’t want me to. The old PMO, a kindly-looking retread with tufts of white hair and wire-framed glasses, had to explain:
‘We had a signal about you, Pilot Officer. Although you were given your Tab One and Tab Twos, and most of the rest in the UK, before you left, some dozy doctor forgot to check your medical record. You haven’t had the separate yellow fever vaccination, and we can’t let you loose until you have. Roll your sleeve up now, there’s a good chap.’
While he was preparing me for the ordeal he observed, ‘I was in the Royal Veterinary Corps once. Before the war, that was . . . in Afghanistan and Iraq. I learned my trade injecting donkeys’ bums, and whipping their goolies off.’
‘You came down-market, then, sir. What happened?’
‘I transferred to the RMC because soldiers and sailors don’t kick or bite as much as donkeys. It’s noticeably safer.’ And while he was saying that he gave me the jab in my upper arm. He had a nice touch, and I didn’t even feel it. At the time. Then the orderly took me out to a sand-coloured bus devoid of regimental flashes, and as I got on, pulling my kitbag after me, an RASC lance jack handed me my transit order in a sealed envelope.
‘Where am I going?’ I asked him.
‘Down Treaty Road and Canal Road, sir . . . about seventy mile.’
‘Where to?’
‘Spinney Wood Camp, sir, just outside Ismailia. It’s the RAF Comms HQ. I expect you’ll be posted on from there. Most of the RAF lads end up at Deversoir or Fayid. You aircrew, sir?’
‘Sometimes – if I can’t get out of it.’
‘That’s the style, sir: you shouldn’t have joined up
