‘You’re suggesting we actually do repairs for the Italians, Mr Rafferty?’ Dampier asked.
‘If we say we’re a light aid unit, somebody’s going to ask for light aid.’
‘But, dammit, Mr Rafferty! Putting Italian vehicles to rights!’
‘Can you think of anything better, sir?’
Dampier did a bit of huffing and puffing but he couldn’t.
Rafferty nodded. ‘At the very least we ought to have a few more tents. One for the office, for instance, and one for the officer.’
‘We can get tents easy enough,’ Clutterbuck said.
They swung round on him. ‘How?’
‘Half-inch ’em. Pinch ’em. I could get you a tent easy as winkin’. I know ’ow. They was always liftin’ ’em. I once saw a ’ospital marquee got down in an hour. Next day it was sails on a dhow on the Nile. They didn’t even find the tent pegs.’
Dampier looked at Rafferty then back at Clutterbuck. ‘It occurs to me, Clutterbuck,’ he said soberly, ‘that at the moment, despite our different ranks and positions, we’re all in the same boat and in grave danger of becoming prisoners. We could do with a tent or two to make us look more official for a few days and, if you pull your weight and we make it back to our friends, I’m prepared to forget the circumstances in which we met.’
Clutterbuck eyed him warily. ‘Straight up?’
‘I’ve given my word. We might need every man. We might even need what few skills you seem to possess.’
‘I’m good with Lancias, I say it myself.’
Dampier coughed. ‘I was thinking more of knowing how to live unofficially as long as you did without getting caught. If we wish to reach our lines in safety, we might have to rely on you occasionally and it’s no time to have to wonder if you’re going to bolt.’
Clutterbuck stared at him for a while. ‘Gawd knows what Dow and Raye’ll say.’
‘Dow and Raye might well prove more unlucky than you. They might already have been picked up by the Military Police.’
Clutterbuck considered for a few moments. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘Sir,’ he added for good measure. He paused. ‘I’ll need some money.’
‘What for?’
‘Arabs. Nobody like Arabs for gettin’ things done. They’ll need bribin’.’
Dampier fished in his pocket and produced the roll of notes from the Italian officer’s jacket. ‘Do we trust you with it?’ he asked.
Clutterbuck’s smooth ugly face split in a grin. ‘You’ve got no option,’ he pointed out.
As they watched Clutterbuck drive off in the Bedford with Clegg and Caccia, Dampier’s eyes were narrow.
‘God knows what we’ve done, Mr Rafferty,’ he said. ‘We’ve just given him a great deal of money and a British army vehicle. We’ll probably never see him again.’
‘Clegg and Caccia’ll watch him, sir.’
‘Clegg’s a music-hall comedian. Caccia was a grocer.’
It took two days for them to return – two nervous days when everybody was on edge; then on the third day just as it grew light they heard a vehicle approaching. As they turned out to see who it was, they realized it wasn’t the Bedford. It wasn’t even one lorry, but two, both Lancias. Clutterbuck, in the cab of the first, stuck up a thumb.
‘Easy as eatin’ your dinner,’ he said.
They had been to Derna, fifty-odd miles away, and not only had they managed to exchange – unofficially – one British vehicle for two Italian vehicles, they had also acquired an assortment of light hand tools, among them screw cutters, tin cutters and wire cutters, and a marquee and two tents.
‘We can ’ave as many lorries as we like now,’ Clutterbuck said cheerfully. ‘Once we’re in business, they’ll bring ’em to us.’
‘That man’s growing ambitious, Mr Rafferty,’ Dampier observed darkly. ‘He’ll land us in trouble.’
Clutterbuck had also found out exactly what the dump at Derna contained and exactly where things were kept.
‘Everything we want,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Artillery wheels, cavalry sabres, pistol ’olsters, rifle stocks, anti-aircraft cannon barrels, gas cylinders, acres o’ mule saddlery, Mercedes Benz engines – even a ’orse’s gasmask.’
‘A horse’s gasmask, for God’s sake!’
‘I saw it.’ Clutterbuck’s sly smile appeared. ‘The bloke told Caccia and we went and looked. There’s face powder—’
‘Who in God’s name uses face powder?’
They had also seen sugar, scent, cosmetics, corsets, uniforms, cameras, Lee Enfield rifles of the latest mark, which the British army hadn’t yet received, soap, dress swords, male and female civilian clothing, ski boots – ‘Ski boots, for God’s sake!’ Dampier said. ‘In the desert?’ – boxes of guidebooks on Italy and Sicily, several of which Clutterbuck, with a surprising amount of intelligence, had managed to steal, coffee, tinned meat, wine, and British cigarettes by the thousand. They had also noticed a general’s dress uniform, complete with polished field boots, silk shirt and hat, all being carefully preserved for its owner’s return from the desert, to say nothing of a patent-leather holster which contained not a real weapon but a child’s toy pistol, as if the general hadn’t enjoyed supporting the weight of the real thing. There was even a register of the prostitutes in Tripoli and Derna, each name followed by revealing photographs, measurements and various other intimate details.
Dampier gasped. ‘I’m thinking of the mass of base clerks they’ll need,’ he said.
‘Sure, sir,’ Rafferty pointed out, ‘I’m thinkin’ that it’s obvious why the Italians never win their wars.’
Clutterbuck had also brought back coffee, tinned milk –
