The field telephone was on a telegraph pole at head height, inside the wire at the inner ditch, at the northwestern corner of the camp. Beyond it was the wire, the outer trench and hundreds of miles of fucking desert, lit up by the occasional small circle of one of our lights. Not that it was dark: the black sky above us was a sea of stars. Hoskins was out of the wagon before me. He crouched by the jeep, making a very low target. I thought he looked as if he knew what he was doing, so I copied him.
He whispered, ‘Where are they?’
There was a point to his question because the telephone handset attached to the box attached to the telegraph pole was dangling free. It had not been replaced. In fact it was even still swinging to and fro, although there was no hint of a breeze. The guard was not in sight.
‘Where are they?’ Hoskins whispered again. I could see he was scanning the desert for movement, and the wire for gaps. There were neither.
When he said it the third time he spoke louder. There was even a hint of exasperation in his voice. ‘Where the fuck are they?’
‘Down here . . .’ a weak voice replied. It wasn’t mine.
Hoskins and I were virtually on our knees by then. He because he was an efficient serviceman with a healthy respect for his own skin, and me out of sheer funk. We crawled over to the ditch that was on our side of the wire. It was about six feet deep at this point. Two pale faces looked up at us. ‘Down here.’
‘What are you doing down there?’ That was Hoskins of course. He was probably command material but no one had bothered to tell him.
‘Hiding from the lion. Can ye no see it?’
We pulled them out: two terrified servicemen who wanted nothing other than to go home. There was one named Scottie who sounded like one, and there was the other one. The other one didn’t sound like anything, because he didn’t say anything. He was shaking with huge tremors. When he dropped his rifle he let it lie there.
‘Pick it up, son.’ I hope I sounded kinder than the words look. He bent to pick it up, but still didn’t say a word, and wouldn’t look at me. ‘What lion?’ I asked the other.
‘A fucking great lion. It was in the compound. When I turned round, it was right behind us. Tell him, Daniel.’
The other man tried to speak, but his head was shaking and all that came out was a strange sound like ‘Day . . . day . . . day . . .’
‘Don’t bother,’ I told him, and asked the Scot, ‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘He could have reached out, and chuffed it under the chin, sir: it was that close. When Daniel jumped straight inta the trench I don’t know who was the more alarmed: me or the lion.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Jumped in after him. Sorry, sir, but I wasn’t facing that fucking thing on my own.’
I let them sit in the back of the jeep and smoke a couple of fags. I called in from the telephone. Toby, whoever the hell he was, said nothing else was happening.
‘What the hell do we do now?’ I asked Hoskins. I know that it should have been the other way round, but you have to let common sense come into these things: Hoskins knew what he was doing; I didn’t.
‘Why don’t you leave me here, sir? I’ll patrol up to the other team, and tell them you said for them to change over with me and take this section.’
‘They’ll know something’s up. They’ll want to know why.’
‘I’ll tell them Dan’s been taken sick; they don’t need to know anything until after you’ve sorted it out. Then you can send Toby out to join me, and we’ll finish the night that way.’ I couldn’t think of anything better. ‘Old Tobe will moan a bit if you give him a chance, sir, so make your orders direct and unambiguous. Don’t give him room to wriggle.’
The last thing I said to him before I drove off into the dark with my two Bravehearts was, ‘I get the feeling that maybe I owe you a couple of drinks the next time we’re off.’
‘That would be a pleasure, sir,’ and he saluted me. I’d have to get used to this saluting lark again.
The shaking man spoke to me for the first time before we left the jeep, right outside my office. He said, ‘Daniel.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ He might as well have said locomotive or coleus for all it meant to me.
‘Daniel, sir: my name. I knew it would get me into trouble one day.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’cha read yer Bible, sir? Daniel in the fucking lions’ den . . . sir?’ He actually didn’t look all that well: in fact he looked deranged. Maybe our excuse would hold.
‘Er . . . why don’t we all go inside and get some char?’
It wasn’t quite that straightforward because SWO Cox was sitting in my chair by the telephone. I sent Toby whatever-his-name-was to link up with Hoskins, and the others through to the galley.
Cox said, ‘Morning, sir. Spot of bother?’
‘Good morning, Mr Cox. Do you always come out this often?’ It was past four in the morning now; didn’t the man ever bloody sleep? He was immaculately turned out, and looked as if he’d just shaved.
‘No, sir. Only when I get a bad feeling. I had a good feeling about leaving you in charge, in fact, but then I had a bad feeling half an hour ago, and I woke up. I
