Up For Grabs

faces were grey with dust and blank of expression like the faces of all prisoners – as if being a prisoner stopped the emotions. Soldiers were ill fitted by their training to defeat and there was something embarrassing about seeing them. They looked exhausted and distressed and were watched in their turn by Arabs and heavily veiled women in black robes. A donkey in the last stages of debilitation, its ribs like the strings of a harp, and with running sores on its rump, strained in the shafts of a cart whose load almost lifted it from the ground. The Arab owner was whacking at it with a heavy stick, raising a cloud of dust as he pounded the wretched animal’s flank as if he were beating a carpet.

‘Let the poor bastard alone, you shit!’ one of the prisoners yelled and the Italian guards made menacing movements with their rifles as the shabby men showed signs of breaking their ranks to go to the aid of the donkey.

‘I know those faces,’ Clegg said quietly. ‘They’re that lot of Australians we gave a show to near Fayoum a week ago. They were due to move forward. They obviously did.’ He frowned and looked the other way. ‘The tall lance-jack with the chops there gave me a cigarette.’

The lorry, moving forward an inch at a time, was now alongside the column of prisoners. There were a few jeers at the supposed Italians, which they tried to ignore, then the tall lance-corporal with the lantern jaw stared.

‘I’ve seen that sod before,’ he said, looking up at Clegg. ‘He looks like that big Pommy bastard who came up with that concert party and did a soft shoe shuffle in an Arab nightshirt.’

Clegg said nothing but when the lance-corporal repeated his comment he could contain himself no longer. ‘I am that big Pommy bastard who came up with the concert party and did a soft shoe shuffle in an Arab nightshirt,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth.

The Australian’s jaw dropped. ‘What in Christ’s name are you doing in that get-up?’ he asked softly.

‘I’m escaping,’ Clegg said. ‘We all are.’

As he spoke the wretched donkey collapsed with a crash and the slowly inching traffic came to a stop. The Italian guards gestured with their rifles and the column of prisoners began to thread their way between the stalled vehicles. The tall lance-corporal winked slowly at Clegg as he passed.

‘You lucky lot of Poms,’ he said loudly to the empty air.

Chapter 4

Morton, whose success seemed to be going to his head, stopped to talk to the Italian sottotenente in charge of the prisoners.

‘Che cosa c’è di nuovo oggi?’

The Italian gestured and pointed, screwing his eyes up against the low sun.

‘He says our lot have pulled back sixty kilometres,’ Morton explained to Dampier. ‘That’s a long way. He also said the fighting’s slowing down now but that there’s to be a follow-up attack. But they need supplies and they’ve come up against our minefields on the other side of Sofi, so they’ve been ordered to regroup and re-equip. They’re expecting more prisoners and they’ll eventually be going to Zuq for shipment to Italy.’

‘Pity we can’t organize them and take the place,’ Dampier growled.

He was itching to go to war in some way or other but he was well aware that moving east now that the line had stabilized and the area was packed with men was going to be harder than they had expected, and they had to have a base until the time was opportune for another shot.

‘What about Zuq?’ Morton suggested. ‘So far, nobody’s looked twice at us and we could go back there and try our luck.’

There was something in what he said, because by this time they were all growing hungry and none of them wanted to stay in Sofi, which was small enough for them to stick out like sore thumbs.

‘We might be able to buy food in Zuq.’

Clegg’s throat worked. ‘Think they’ll have beer?’

‘Perhaps we could steal a boat,’ Dampier offered. ‘Anybody know anything about boats?’

It appeared that every man-jack of them had come from districts that were as far from the sea as it was possible to get, and nobody did.

A few Bedou traders huddled in their galabiyahs in a group of palms near the mosque, their heads down, unmoved by the war that racketed backwards and forwards along the northern coast of Africa. Their rope-haltered camels knelt beside them in the shade, gurgling, belching and farting in the manner of all camels, and they parked in the shade alongside, hoping the Arabs might have food to sell. But, since the Arabs promptly approached them for food, it was obvious they weren’t going to get much; weak with hunger, they realized by the middle of the morning that before they could make another foray eastwards they would need to replenish their supplies, water and petrol. Finally, reluctantly, it was decided there was nothing for it but to do as Morton suggested and head back to Zuq.

They arrived at noon. The town lay reflected in the still dark water of the harbour, its square white buildings sharp against the shadows. The civilian population had returned now that the fighting was over, and the place had come to life. Shops had taken down their shutters and among the Arabs were a few Italians too old to be called up into the army. Someone, it seemed, had finally towed out the smouldering ammunition ship and had just got it clear when it had blown up, so that a pall of smoke hung over the town. Along the water’s edge a crowd of people were still staring out to sea where it was possible to see the bow of the ship sticking out of the water, its name clear in the sunshine through the masts and rusty upperworks of the sunken vessels. A large freighter had appeared during the night and was anchored offshore, its cargo being transferred by motor lighters