We didn’t carry straight over towards the camps: we stopped at the roundabout to let a bunch of cyclists past. They were heading towards Famagusta – about ten of them, equal numbers men and women. Most of them were blonds, and their skins were tanned a nice healthy brown. I knew that because they weren’t wearing any clothes. My mouth had probably dropped open: it does that when I’m not looking. I said, ‘Pat . . . ?’
‘That’s a Danish UN contingent – must be off duty. They cycle everywhere.’
‘In the buff ?’
‘Frequently. Funny thing is . . .’
‘What?’
‘EOKA never seems to target them.’
‘Maybe we should stop, and take our clothes off.’
Pat didn’t take me straight to work: he took me back towards Nicosia and a big base camp called Wayne’s Keep. The road appeared almost white and glared back at me in the sun. I’d have to get some shades.
If you go to Wayne’s Keep today all you will find is a big cemetery. It’s where the British men, women and children murdered in the Cyprus emergencies were buried. There was a cemetery there in my day as well, a base camp, and a military prison. As we were passed in I pointed out to Pat, ‘Didn’t you introduce me to Egypt by taking me to a British cemetery in Ismailia and marking my card, Pat?’
‘I did, as it ’appens, but that’s not why you’re here. I reckoned you learned that lesson first time round. You’re here to see Captain Collins. Captain Collins is a military policeman, and if you’re a clever man, Charlie, you’ll make him your friend.’
In Egypt Pat had been in the black market up to his pointy ears; he’d even run his own bank. I couldn’t see him knocking about with a copper . . . but you never know, do you?
‘Why would I want him to be my friend?’
‘Because you wouldn’t want him to be your enemy – geddit?’
I nodded. I got it.
Captain Collins had a black moustache as big as a broom head. Military policemen seemed to go in for them; it wasn’t the first I’d seen. Maybe he was trying to look like a Cypriot. It didn’t quite go with his big bald head. He looked like a Potato Man. He waved me to a chair and said, ‘Happy birthday, as of yesterday.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘This came for you.’ He tossed an envelope across his desk to me. It had been opened. ‘I opened it. We censor mail in and out on a random basis. It’s a birthday card.’ It was from Dieter and Carly. They hadn’t my Cyprus address, so they had sent it to the administrative HQ. It was a decent drawing of a DC-6, the front of which had been replaced with a smiling face that looked like me: Dieter’s work. I put it back in the envelope for later. I wondered what the boys would say when I told them I’d spent my birthday in a cell. He waved an African fly whisk ineffectually at a dozen flies in orbit just above us.
‘Welcome to Cyprus.’
‘Thank you. You wished to see me, Captain. My driver brought me here.’
‘No, you need to see me, as it happens . . . although I admit I was curious – every bit of paper we have on you indicates that you’re a pain in the proverbial.’
‘I’ll try not to be.’
‘Gratified. At least you’re saying what I wanted to hear. How much do you know about the situation on the ground in Cyprus?’
‘Not much. I had a bit of a briefing from a bod at the Foreign Office, but it was all old boys, and old things. Made it sound like Mandalay in the 1860s. When I was through here three years ago, it was more or less peaceful, and we were using it for a staging post to Suez.’
‘We’re using it as a staging post from Suez this week. The UN has made us abandon the canal, but I suppose you knew that?’
‘Yes.’
‘So the island is temporarily chock-a-block with squaddies on their way home, and the tensions we already had have ratcheted up ten clicks. The Greek government has claimed that the invasion of Suez was only a feint to justify us trebling the size of the garrison here.’
‘Are they wrong?’
‘Not wholly, I suspect. I’m sure the powers that be will use the opportunity to keep our numbers out here up to scratch. More work for my people of course, so I can’t say I’m overjoyed.’
I made my mind up then. I rather liked this big bastard, and I suspected that most of his crew liked him as well. I reached him a hand, and said, ‘My name’s Charlie, and I’m pleased to meet you. I’ll try my best to stay out of trouble.’ Then I asked, ‘What exactly is going on out here, and what do I do to make sure I get home again in one piece?’
‘What you do, Charlie, is follow Army rules. You may have been in the RAF – and worked with the Navy and the Funny Folk in the past – but the Army is the only mob which really understands what’s what out here.’
‘What is what?’
He paused before he replied, and made a steeple of his hands.
‘The Greek Cypriot has conceived of an unnatural need to be politically reunited with his brother in Greece. He calls the movement for union with Greece Enosis. It has a legitimate political wing, and an illegitimate armed terrorist wing, just like the Irish did in the 1920s. Unfortunately, or fortunately – I haven’t worked out which – a third of the Cypriots are still Turkish, not Greek . . . and they don’t want anything to do with it. We happy Brits sit between the two, guaranteeing
