Erwin waved away the offer. ‘Don’t bother, tenente. We’ve brought food for the day.’ He gestured at the driver of the second car. ‘Obergefreiter Bomberg there has prepared something. We’ll pick up the car on the way back.’
Confident of his skill with Erwin’s language, Morton decided it might be wiser if he didn’t. Jones the Song might well be singing ‘I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas’ by then. ‘I’ll bring it to you, excellency,’ he said. ‘As soon as it’s repaired. An hour or so, no more. Perhaps I might be permitted to see your work. I’ve always been interested in watercolours.’
Erwin was flattered. ‘Wunderbar! Splendid. Do that. I’ll be pleased to show you.’ He dabbed at his face with a handkerchief. ‘What a pity it’s so hot. The washes don’t run as they should. The paper’s brittle and tinder dry. It soaks up the colour. And the sand—’ He gestured vaguely.
Easels and drawing boards and boxes of paints were transferred to the second car and Erwin and Stracka climbed in with them. As Erwin settled in his seat, he gestured to the tent where Jones’s voice was suddenly ominously silent.
‘You should never stop your men singing, tenente,’ he said reproachfully. ‘That man has a splendid voice.’
‘He should be giving his attention to his work, excellency.’
Erwin smiled. ‘He should sing, too, tenente. Let him have the pleasure of his voice. I’d like to hear more of him. Italians are so lucky. Their climate makes for clear chests and splendid vocal cords.’
As Erwin jabbed the driver in the back and the car moved off, Rafferty and Dampier appeared warily from the tent.
‘What did he want?’
Morton grinned. ‘He wanted to listen to Taffy Jones singing,’ he said.
When they had repaired the punctured tyre and the indignant Jones had been bullied into blowing it up, Morton climbed into the car and, followed by Caccia in Dampier’s Humber to bring him back, drove it into the desert. The scene that greeted them was bucolic and peaceful. Erwin and Stracka were seated on camp stools with easels erected in front of them, a large striped sun umbrella leaning over their heads. Alongside them a portable gramophone – once British – was playing. Erwin had discarded his peaked cap and wore a wide-brimmed straw hat tilted over his eyes and was busy sloshing colour on to the paper in front of him. In ochres and blues, a passable reproduction of the desert with the roofs and palms of Zuq just appearing over the horizon was emerging. Stracka was sitting alongside doing the same, though his painting was considerably less skilful than Erwin’s. Both men were utterly absorbed and thoroughly enjoying themselves.
As the car came to a stop, Erwin went on painting for a moment. The gramophone finished playing and Bomberg, the driver, replaced the record with another and rewound it. Morton recognized the music as Mendelssohn.
‘A Jew, excellency?’ He couldn’t resist it.
Erwin grinned, an honest mischievous grin. ‘We keep that one for Italian generals,’ he said. ‘They worry about what to do, what to say, where to look, because they’re puzzled yet they’re afraid of offending. Are you afraid, tenente?’
‘I like Mendelssohn, excellency. His music is kind. But, then, I like Mozart and Puccini and St Saëns and Elgar.’
Erwin smiled. ‘All preferable to “Deutschland Über Alles” which sounds like ten thousand Lutheran choirs trumpeting a protest. Or the “Horstwessellied”, which only reminds us of a thug killed in a street brawl.’
‘You’re not a Nazi, general?’
Erwin’s smile came again. ‘I shouldn’t be painting deserts if I were,’ he smiled. ‘I should be painting good Nazi supermen with strong faces and bronzed arms. Perhaps even good Nazi superwomen with full breasts and buttocks and a fanatic look of hope in their eyes that they’ll produce good Nazi superchildren.’
Morton’s face was blank. This was one for the book, he was thinking. A German sergeant who didn’t think much of fascism and a German general who enjoyed Mendelssohn.
‘We Germans are a strange race,’ Erwin continued. ‘We have all the virtues except the arts. Our arts are leaden. The British produced Shakespeare. The Italians Puccini. What did we produce? Our beloved Führer.’
He looked at Stracka and laughed. ‘Art’s so important,’ he went on, bending over his easel. ‘Especially here. The desert saturates the mind and makes it as sterile as itself. Which is why we must keep up with the things that make us use our intelligence.’ He frowned at his work. ‘I could do better in oils. Perhaps you’ll take a drink, tenente, with my thanks for the repair work.’
Clicking his fingers, Erwin directed Obergefreiter Bomberg forward. He held a bottle of German wine, frosted with cold.
‘We managed to get ice,’ Erwin smiled. ‘It’s our day off and we like to get away from time to time.’ He passed the glass to Morton and gestured at Caccia. ‘See the sergeant gets a beer, Stracka.’
He was studying Dampier’s car. ‘An English car?’ he said. ‘A Humber?’
‘Captured, excellency,’ Morton agreed. ‘Everybody uses what they can get.’
‘Soon it’ll be impossible to identify each other,’ Erwin admitted. ‘We shall all look alike. As it is, we all wear khaki drill shirts and khaki drill shorts or trousers. The only difference is in the caps we wear.’
‘Even our boots are British, excellency.’
‘You’re wise, tenente. The British have splendid equipment even if their weapons are inferior. They still have nothing to touch our 88 which, as you’ll know, is anti-aircraft, anti-tank and, for the British, anti-social.’ He laughed, then his smile died as he went on in the same vein as Schwartzheiss. ‘But otherwise we’re sadly lacking in many things. Our German corps here was a child of chance so that our food leaves a lot to be desired.’
He gestured with his glass. ‘At Mechili there were stacks of canned beer, huts bursting with white flour, cigarettes, tobacco, jam, gallons of Scotch whisky, Indian tea, Bohnkaffee – bean coffee, not ersatz – tinned food of
