I was collected by an aircraftman in KD shirt and shorts driving an odd boxy jeep. It had small side doors. If even the jeeps had doors these days then the services were turning soft.
He announced, ‘The Wing Commander sent me for you, sir. Short drive to Deversoir.’
‘Thanks. I haven’t been here long enough yet to find out how the transport works.’
I only had my old jacket – and they’d either not found my pistol, or had decided to let sleeping dogs lie, because it was still in a pocket – and an empty kitbag. I also had a full kitbag: the one I’d started with was sitting in the rear foot well. The erk was wearing a side arm. That was interesting.
He said, ‘Your kit was handed in at Moascar after the bus got there, sir. I thought you’d want me to collect it en route.’
‘Thanks again. What’s this thing called?’
‘Land-Rover, sir. Haven’t you seen one before?’
‘I think I saw pictures of it in the Motor.’
‘We’re trialling this one, but I’ve heard the Army has bought a load of them. I like the old jeep meself, but this is lighter – made of aluminium – and very good in sand.’
‘. . . and the pole sticking up in front is for cutting cheese wire strung across the road?’
‘That’s right, sir. Very good. Your Gyppo terrorist is very brave when he doesn’t have to hang around and watch. No problem when you’re face to face though. They all have that American disease: what’s it called?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Givinitis. They drops their weapons, throws up their hands and gives in.’ He made me laugh. Maybe the Yanks were like that now. Certainly in general terms they appeared to have gone home and left all the fighting to us.
‘Er . . . what worries me is my kitbag you so thoughtfully retrieved. We believed it had been nicked, so the CO’s secretary has been getting replacements in for me.’
‘Miss Daisy?’
‘You know her?’
‘I drive her sometimes. Handsome woman.’
‘Yes; I knew her years ago . . . I suppose she is. I’ll have to give it all back to her.’
‘You don’t want to be doing that, sir. She won’t ask, so why don’t you see me once it’s all in, sir, and we’ll find something creative to do with it?’
The bastard was taking a chance, but, there again, maybe I had the look of someone not terribly good with regulations. Or maybe all junior officers were always short of dosh. I suppose it was a fair bet. I let him sweat for a couple of minutes before replying, ‘OK . . . what’s your name?’
‘Tobin, sir.’
‘OK, Mr Tobin; fifty-fifty. I’d shake on it except I want you to keep both hands on the wheel.’
We were driving into a town which had ramshackle mud shanties scattered around it, but grander old buildings with verandas on its main streets. And avenues of shady trees. I don’t know why, but after Port Said the last thing I expected of Egypt was more trees.
‘Where are we?’
‘Ismailia, sir . . . and seeing as the alert’s only red-amber, it’s safe enough to give you the Cook’s Tour, if you’d like to look around.’
‘Yes please.’
He saw me swivel to look at a boxy white building with the words Blue Kettle emblazoned on its façade, and said, ‘Hard lines, sir: she’s gone back to Alex. But she’ll be back in a couple of months if yer still here.’
I intended to be; but I didn’t tell him that.
Just outside Ismailia is a military cemetery. Tobin stopped the car at its main gate. A church poked its head above the trees. He turned to me.
‘Don’t mind me asking, sir, but did you get the dos-and-don’ts lecture from the Service Police or someone in the Regiment?’
‘I didn’t get anything. They gave me a yellow fever jab, and I passed out. I’m allergic to something they preserve it with, only we didn’t find out until after they’d tried.’
‘That’s what someone told me. Did you get the Never turn your back on a wog handbook?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll get you one. It’s about eighty pages of dos and don’ts and useful Arabic phrases, but it all boils down to Don’t turn your back on a wog.’
‘Thank you. I shall remember that.’
‘But all you needs to know is right in front of you, sir.’ He indicated the cemetery with a sweep of one hand. There were the usual discreet white services gravestones, and a number of more recent wooden crosses. Too bloody many of them. ‘All you needs to know, sir, is that if you fuck up, this is where you’ll spend the rest of your life.’ There was maybe a mixed metaphor in there, but he’d made his point.
‘How many people do we have out here?’
‘Mr Churchill says about fifty thousand, but if truth be known it’s never less than eighty-eight thousand, and when things brew up sometimes twice that many.’
‘And how often do things brew up?’
‘Every few months, sir.’
‘. . . and how many people do we lose?’
‘Two or three a week isn’t all that unusual, sir . . . and we don’t often get the bodies back. When it brews up, we lose two or
