Dampier found a major at a base ordnance depot who was selling rifles to Palestinians for use against British troops in Tel Aviv, and even turned up a group of Italian prisoners of war who, unknown to anybody, had set themselves up as a base repair depot on the outskirts of Alexandria. Wearing Arab galabiyahs, they had infiltrated themselves among the local workers who went every day to labour in one of the base stores depots and, with the tools and equipment they managed to steal, had gone into business on their own. Having all at one time worked in England or America, they could speak English, and they finally went so far as to change their galabiyahs for British uniforms, pose as Maltese and employ their own Arab labour. There was, Dampier noted, far less stealing from their base than from others.
Finally, incredible as it seemed, he had discovered that a contractor whom he’d been watching for weeks over missing consignments of steel was a German. Small, dark-haired and swarthy, he had been clerk to a German liaison officer with the Italians and had been captured in Wavell’s advance in 1941. Having escaped, as a means of earning money he had set himself up as a shoe-shine boy and fly-whisk seller. Becoming a waiter, the German had decided it would be more profitable to own a restaurant himself and, when he resolved to enlarge his premises and had met the contractors, had finally realized that, if he wanted to be really in the money, he ought to be a contractor himself. He was running half a dozen rackets when he was picked up by the Military Police for no other reason than that he had one night parked his car outside the flat where he lived with his Egyptian mistress, and it happened to be passed by a Special Investigation Branch officer with a keen sense of smell who had detected the scent of musty hay which meant smuggled hashish.
While the fighting units roosted austerely on sand, and in winter wore drill despite having begged for greatcoats and leather jerkins, the base units helped themselves to the rubber cushions of ambulances to make mattresses, to driving mirrors to hold photographs of their girlfriends, and to batteries to power bedside lights; and cut up tents, tarpaulins and signal cable to make bed springs on stolen rifle racks. As many as thirteen blankets were found to be possessed by some men, while others used them as curtains and tablecloths or, nailed to walls, as makeshift wardrobes to keep best uniforms clean. Despite the shortage of timber, enormous bedsteads had been erected for the comfort of both officers and men, some even with a tier beneath for books and boots and clothing. It was a wonder, Dampier thought, that they didn’t paint the bloody things to match their pyjamas.
‘This war,’ he growled, ‘will not be won on soft beds, tea and buns and moaning for cigarettes. And I intend to see that it isn’t lost.’
He had finally found his niche. He had been successful enough to draw attention to himself and, with Churchill now complaining indignantly that the number of vehicles the Eighth Army claimed to have in the field was nowhere near the number which had been sent out from England and asking what the Eighth Army intended to do about it, Dampier was upped a step in rank, designated Inspector of Equipment to the Eighth Army, and told to find out which units were holding stores and vehicles they were not supposed to have.
By this time the gleam had reappeared in his eye and he was beginning to enjoy himself. He smelled with the eagerness of an old warhorse, if not the enemy, at least his own kind of battle; his unit now consisted of a warrant to hold inspections without warning, a group of clerks and storemen in Cairo, and a couple of expert assistants.
Warrant Officer Patrick Rafferty was an ex-quartermaster and a first-class fitter who could unravel enormous and complicated lists of spares and tools without blinking an eye. Utterly confident in his own ability, he was reputed once to have visited a desert-based cavalry regiment which, as soon as he’d been sighted, had driven all the vehicles they weren’t supposed to have out into the blue. Rafferty had made no comment, done his inspection and gone away, only to return at full speed half an hour later just as the vehicles all returned.
He was a short nutty-faced Irishman, a regular soldier who looked a little like a leprechaun with his thin blue-jowled face, black hair and pale blue eyes. He had a marked Irish accent, a mischievous sense of humour, and, for a man who had reached warrant rank, took an odd delight in seeing senior officers make asses of themselves.
He had a briefcase full of documents, both British and foreign, to which he constantly referred and there was little he didn’t know about the supplies and supply methods of any army – British, French, Italian or German. He knew backwards the G1098, the booklet which set out in detail what arms, equipment, vehicles and stores each unit should hold, reckoned about forty thousand items could be scrapped from it without being noticed, and could spot at once what a quartermaster’s store was holding that it shouldn’t be holding. ‘I was once bet a fiver by an RASC adjutant,’ he said with a smile, ‘that I’d find nothing irregular. At half-time he retired to his room, saying he felt ill.’
In addition, because radio
