Chapter Eleven
Blue kettle rag
Oliver shook me awake. Perspiration had run down my chin and pooled in that hollow at the base of the throat.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. You were shouting.’
‘Sorry, I was dreaming.’
‘What about?’
‘Snow. Isn’t that silly? I was dreaming I was in a snowball fight with my boys.’
I propped myself up on the camp bed, and he handed me a bottle of Stella. He always seemed to have a supply. We clinked bottles. ‘Thanks. What time is it?’
‘Past eleven. Time you got up anyway – you’ve slept fourteen hours.’
‘Christ! Has Watson been asking for me?’
‘He knows better. The desert really takes it out of you until you’re used to it. Anyway he’ll give you a few days’ leave after you’ve reported. A week in the blue always gets you time off. Tell me about the snow.’
‘It was crisp and new: the sort that moulds together for great snowballs and snowmen.’
‘I remember that. I was in Blighty in 1949 and I joined a party of volunteers digging trains out of snowdrifts up in the Pennines.’ He looked around with a rueful smile. The cheap thermometer hanging from the tent post had already hit 130 degrees, but I didn’t know if it was to be trusted. ‘Seems supremely surreal to be sitting in this bloody oven talking about snow, doesn’t it?’
I noticed that although he had hoisted the sides of the tent to allow whatever breeze there was to cool us, he’d left the side alongside my bed down to shield me sleeping. Considerate that, and not what I’d expected. There was a half-wing, not unlike my own, on the shirt he had dangling on a hanger in the tent eave, but it bore an ‘O’ for Observer. Mine was an ‘S’ for air signaller – which always conjured up the ridiculous image of some bod trying to communicate between aircraft by waving semaphore flags.
‘What do you do for Watson?’ I asked him.
‘Photographs mostly. I take pictures of rock formations, wadis, desert crossroads and way points.’
‘Can’t the Army do that?’
‘They tried, but they always came back with the wrong things. The RAF needs things they can identify from the air, not when they’re looking up at it.’
‘Do you do some of your stuff from the air, then?’
‘Most of it. You can expect to go up there as well, from time to time.’ He must have seen my grimace, because he asked, ‘What’s the matter? Gone off flying?’
‘Not entirely. I’ve just gone off flying the way the RAF does it – far too fucking uncomfortable.’
As I finished the beer, and put the bottle in the box of empties under the table he observed, ‘Very good time of day for taking a shower, if you don’t mind me saying it: you won’t need to queue. But you’ll have to break out a change. I gave the clothes you came back in to the dhobi man.’ For a moment I was startled. That wasn’t a familiar word, and I wondered if he meant something like a rag-and-bone merchant. Again he picked this up from just my expression, because he added, ‘No, don’t worry. You’ll get them back later, washed and pressed better than you’ve ever seen them before . . . and it’ll only cost you an acker.’
‘Are you telling me that I stink?’
‘The scent of the desert, old son. It was just a hint.’
‘And one I’ll take. Thanks.’
I’ll tell you something. It was in Egypt I learned to love the simple act of taking a shower; I still think of it as a luxury I haven’t really earned.
Watson offered me tea. That was a first. It came thin and boiling hot, with a sprig of mint floating on the surface.
‘Good trip?’
‘I feel I’ve learned a lot in a hurry, sir . . . if that makes sense.’
‘Egypt does that to you. I completely understand. Did you get anything?’
I handed him the small notebook of radio traffic. He scrutinized the numbered pages. I had used eight in all. He tore those out neatly against the edge of a ruler, and then took the next two blank sheets as well, explaining. ‘You can recover your last message as an impression from the pages that follow it. Better safe than sorry.’ Then he signed for the pages he’d removed on the inside cover, before handing the notebook back to me.
‘Thank you, Charlie.’
I knew him well enough not to ask what he would do with them. He’d tell me if I needed to know. That might sound like a bit of a cop-out to your modern ear, but it was actually strangely comforting.
‘Is this what I’m going to be doing out here, sir? Going out with small expeditions and monitoring hostile radio signals?’
‘. . . and providing their comms when they need it. Yes, you’ll often be doing that. The average scheme from here is five or six days long.’
‘And what will my other duties be?’
‘Bugger-all most of the time, my boy. The Army and the national service contingent will probably be very jealous, and may give you a hard time. I might ask you to do a bit of training, if the RAF Regiment has anyone promising, and occasionally you’ll pull a bit of stag. You won’t mind that, will you?’ It was a rhetorical question of course. I sipped my tea and waited for the next barrel. ‘. . . and you
