‘You really think it’s Frohlich’s crate?’
‘It’s black, and better eyes than mine say it’s a Stirling bomber.’
I felt like saying better eyes than yours wouldn’t be all that hard to come by, but the dog growled at me, so I thought better of it.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Identify the bloody thing, old son. You’ve been inside it before, and we can’t find anyone else who’ll admit to having been anywhere near it.’
Which is what I should have done if anyone asked me, shouldn’t I?
‘It will take us bloody weeks to trek up there, Peter. It’s on a small plateau in the middle of exactly nowhere.’ He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t say anything, so I repeated, ‘It will take us bloody weeks . . .’
When I looked up Levy was staring at me. Except he wasn’t, because of having no eyes. His sunspecs were looking at me. So was his dog, and so was the Arab.
Peter said, ‘No, not really.’
‘What do you mean not really?’
‘Hudd reckons that once you’re out of the aircraft, you’ll be on the ground in less than five minutes.’
It was one of those odd moments when all the sounds of the outside world fade to nothing. People’s mouths open and shut without speech: birds stop singing. I could no longer hear even the buzzing of the ruddy flies. Everything stops. It’s happened to me every time I’ve been arrested. Then I fully understood what he’d just said.
He had to be bloody joking.
Chapter Fifteen
Blue moon
I didn’t actually want to go back to Deversoir, and if you think about it for a minute, you won’t bloody blame me. Charlie Bassett – nobody’s fool. Play it, Sam. Play it again . . . these bastards were planning to fling me out of an aeroplane again, and I hadn’t even seen a pyramid yet. The problem was that we were still on red alert, so there was nowhere safe to go. My authorization from Watson covered me for a journey to the Bitter Lake Officers’ Club and back, not a Cook’s Tour of Lower Egypt. Even so I took a chance, and drove past my base, and on to El Kirsh. Sod the lot of them.
When Haye with an e saw me she said, ‘There must be a name for people like you . . . ghouls who can’t stop themselves from hanging around hospitals.’
‘I came to see you. Is your fellah in town?’
‘No; he’s on leave in Alex.’
‘I’m not sure he exists. You may have invented him to put men off.’
‘You may be right. It wouldn’t be a bad idea. What did you want?’
‘I told you: to see you. When are you off duty?’ A passing doctor who was too handsome for his own good – one of those James Mason types – frowned to see his nurse talking to a humble airman as if he was a human being. She ignored him: I’ll bet that did her career a lot of good.
She replied, ‘I was going to go for a swim. Have you trunks with you?’
‘I’ve nothing with me but my genius. Who said that?’
‘Nobody did, except you. Oscar Wilde may once have said something like it, but probably didn’t. I’ll find you something to swim in.’
I drove her to the club at Abu Sueir, where we lay around the pool. She taught me a few swimming strokes. I could manage about six feet, say two strokes, of breast stroke before I rolled over on one side and foundered like a torpedoed aircraft carrier. It was fun. I suddenly realized that, apart from being with my boys and Maggs and the Major, I almost never had any fun any more. The thought quietened me, and Susan picked up on it.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I have two boys. I suddenly missed them.’
‘Do they have a mother?’
‘One each probably; I only knew one of them, and she didn’t stick around for long enough.’
‘That’s sad . . .’
‘Not as sad as if they had. We’re probably better off without them. The boys are with my two best friends, who live on the South Coast. When I get back, I’m going to find ways of spending more time with them.’
‘Do they know that?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘You should tell them.’
We drank limejuice with native lemonade: it was cloudy and bitter. Just the thing for a warm day.
Eventually she asked me, ‘Why did you come up here, Charlie? It can’t only have been to see me.’
‘Technically I’m AWOL, I’m afraid; I’m getting rather good at it. I was supposed to return direct to base, but I suddenly didn’t want to. Totally brassed off at being bossed about, so I came out here.’
‘That was possibly a little stupid. I don’t know whether to be flattered or alarmed. What about your boss?’
‘He’ll be having a hairy canary, but he won’t do anything about it. I’ll phone him later.’
‘What brought this on?’
‘Somebody told me something which scared me; really scared me.’
‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘No. Need to know.’
‘Good. I hate other people’s secrets, but we nurses get told a lot.’
‘Can I stay with you tonight?’
‘. . . another girl shares with me.’
‘. . . and she’ll mind?’
‘Probably not. You’re masculine and reasonably young; she’s an Australian – the rest speaks for itself.’
We stopped at the RAF shops in Abu Sueir for a few things Susan needed, went on for a cool drink in Ali Osman’s cafe. I bought a couple of dirty postcards – Edwardian style – from the travelling hurdy-gurdy man winding his music outside. She dozed on the drive back to El Kirsh, even though it was only a short journey. Egypt looked colourful, primitive and peaceful. Who could get into trouble
