‘Kinda neat, isn’t it? Remember your pal Nansen back in Egypt?’ Yes, I did. Oliver was an RAF photographer who was killed when a Gloster Meteor went in somewhere over the Sinai Desert. I’d shared a tent with him for a while.
‘Yes.’
‘He built it. We kept it because the wing commander always knew it would come in handy. We’ve used it a few times in the last coupla months.’
We were rolling now – out to the roundabout, and turn left: heading for Nicosia. No traffic on the road. One of the good things about the Land Rover was its high windscreen – the Indians were unlikely to catch us with the wire-across-the-road-at-neck-height trick. We had to shout to make ourselves heard by each other. When I asked, ‘Tell me what happened to the Auster,’ Collins leaned back and shouted.
‘Nobody’s sure. They were reccying some of the tracks that go in and out of the trees on the mountainsides. The goons move their stores around at last and first light, on the backs of mules. The mules get spooked by the sound of a low-flying aircraft, and sometimes break cover. It tells us which paths are active.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘They went off the air.’
‘Any last messages?’
Collins consulted one of those small policeman’s notebooks held shut by a piece of elastic. Then he shouted back at me, ‘The observer broke into a routine check-in with, quote, Christ, they’re shooting at us, unquote.’
‘And?’
‘The pilot’s voice about thirty seconds later: Stall, stall!’ After that there was nothing . . . just the automatic positioning signal, until the control room lost that too.’
‘If the observer knew they were being fired on, it must have been because they were being struck by bullets – it would be too noisy up there to hear small-arms fire from the ground.’
‘Worked that out for ourselves, Charlie,’ Pat butted in. ‘Hang on.’
The road was empty. Miles of dusty tarmac. We hit a chicken outside an isolated farmhouse west beyond the northern outskirts of Nicosia, and for a moment we drove through a feather storm. The sun was out, and low behind us. The feathers danced in clouds of reds and browns. One settled by the radio. I picked it up before it blew away, and placed it in my pocket. Don’t know why: just one of those irrational things. We slowed down when we overtook a small purposeful convoy head and tailed by a couple of Dingo armoured cars sporting Brens, and nervous-looking gunners. There was another Land Rover of MPs, and a one-tonner with a canvas-skinned wagon bed. You could get half a dozen squaddies and their kit in there. Pat slotted us in to head the convoy. I’d driven in convoy in Egypt three years ago, so I knew the form – if it was going to be attacked the enemy always went for the first or last vehicle. I was now in the first, and didn’t like it. Bollocks.
We stopped in an olive grove in the foothills of the Troodos mountains an hour and a half later. We had been delayed by a puncture to the other Land Rover, and the need to change its wheel. Stopping in olive groves for a brew-up is something that the British Army has become very good at over the years. The sun was up, and it was getting hot. I left my jacket in the wagon, reflecting that in Britain people were beginning to pay good money for winter holidays in places as warm as this. Maybe Cyprus had a future when we all packed up and fucked off home . . . Billy Butlin could buy it.
I split a tin of cold baked beans with Pat. Collins went into conclave with his military policemen and a lieutenant who had climbed stiffly over the tailboard of the covered lorry. Tobin said, ‘Don’t let the sun fool you – it’s goin’ to be bleedin’ cold if we have to go up into the bleedin’ mountains.’
‘I’m familiar with mountains, Pat. Watson sent me into Kurdistan a few years ago, didn’t he? It was freezing cold at nights there too. Do you know if the positioner from the aircraft just faded, or was it cut off suddenly?’
‘No. Is that important?’
‘Could be. Can you find out?’ He finished the beans, and threw the can away. We Brits travel around the world leaving our rubbish behind us; no wonder we aren’t all that popular. He asked, ‘Weren’t you shot in Turkey?’
‘You know I was.’
‘Still hurt?’
‘Only in the cold.’ He could take that how he liked. Sometimes I limped quite badly, but it wasn’t something I discussed freely.
We split. Pat wandered over to the back of the lorry, and chatted to the guys inside. He was probably trying to sell them something. He must have drifted past Collins at some point, because the big man pulled me aside before we mounted up and asked, ‘Why did you want to know if the signal faded, or was cut short?’
‘If it only faded it means they could still be alive – drained batteries. If it was cut off it’s more likely that the set was smashed up, and them with it.’
‘It faded,’ he told me. ‘That’s why you’re here. Don’t worry. I’ll hurry things along now.’ If it faded there was a chance the radio was still pumping out a weakening signal. If they could get me near enough, I might be able to pick it up . . . and if Nansen’s compass worked we had a chance of finding them. Not
