The officer frowned, then he gestured with the fly whisk. ‘This is bloody nonsense!’ he said. ‘We didn’t come here to talk to you lot. We came to pick up two or three Italian uniforms.’
‘That’s all right,’ Clegg said. ‘We’ve got plenty of those. German ones, too, if you want ’em.’
The officer looked at the sergeant. ‘Where?’
Morton gestured in the general direction of 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit. ‘Over there. We’ve got enough enemy uniforms to dress the lot of you if you want ’em.’
The officer thought for a moment, then he introduced himself. ‘My name’s Coffin,’ he said. ‘Miles Coffin. Not a particularly appropriate name in wartime. After all, it’s not the cough that carries you off, it’s the coffin they carry you off in. This is Sergeant Grady.’ He turned again to Morton. ‘Did you say you could fit us all up with a uniform?’
‘German or Italian. One or the other. Take your pick. We’ve got plenty of spares.’
Coffin beamed at Grady. ‘Well, that’s better than just three of us, Tom. We can all go now. Safety in numbers, what?’
‘What are you up to, anyway?’ Clegg asked.
Coffin shrugged. ‘Well, we came originally to knock off the airstrip here near the Wadi Sghiara. There’s a squadron of Fiats there. We can polish the lot off with a bit of luck. Then we heard about the general. We heard he was coming to Zuq. So we decided we might as well kill two birds with one stone. Well, not kill ’em. First we knock off the airstrip, then we kidnap the general.’
‘Which general?’
‘Which general do you think? Erwin. The man himself. Taking him prisoner would make ’em sit up a bit, wouldn’t it? They wouldn’t know whether they were sittin’ on pos or piano stools.’
Clegg, Morton and Jones exchanged glances. ‘You’re too late,’ Clegg said. ‘He’s already gone into Zuq.’
Coffin frowned. ‘We heard he wasn’t coming until the day after tomorrow. We heard he was due to make an inspection.’
‘He never said anything to me,’ Morton pointed out.
Coffin’s eyes widened. ‘Do you know him?’
‘We’ve just been singing to him.’
‘You’ve – what the Christ is this?’ Lieutenant Coffin, like everyone else they met, seemed to become a little bogged down in their explanations.
‘He’s a painter,’ Morton said. ‘Watercolour.’
‘I never heard that.’ Coffin stared at Sergeant Grady, then back at Morton. ‘You’re not having us on, are you?’
Morton shook his head. ‘I’ve just been watching him,’ he said. ‘At the end of the wadi there. He was splashing the stuff all over the shop. You could pick him up easily. He said he’d be back around this time tomorrow to finish his picture.’
Chapter 5
With the arrival of a British officer who hadn’t a bad back and seemed to know what he was doing, it seemed to Morton to be time to hand over command.
Within half an hour, the Long Range Desert Group had met Dampier and Rafferty, and the planned kidnap had been brought forward to the following night, particularly in view of the half-map which Dampier produced.
‘The girl will bring the other half tonight,’ he said.
‘Which girl?’ Coffin asked.
‘The girl Caccia married.’
‘Who’s Caccia?’
‘One of our people. He has an Italian name, but he comes from London. He got married this afternoon.’
The glazed look returned to Coffin’s eyes and Rafferty explained quickly, starting at the beginning and taking everything in its proper order.
‘Christ,’ Coffin said when he’d finished. ‘You’ve been having quite a time, haven’t you?’
‘You could say that, sir,’ Rafferty agreed.
‘And this girl’s going to be taken through our lines with the map?’
‘When we get the other half. We promised she’d go with us.’
‘Can’t you just leave her?’
‘She could get shot if anybody finds out,’ Morton explained.
Coffin didn’t seem unduly disturbed by the possibility. ‘How’re you going to get this map to our people?’ he asked.
‘The Italians are going to open the minefield the other side of Sofi. We thought we’d try to get through with them.’
‘Sounds a bit dicey. Be a bit late, too. Why don’t we radio the details? We’ve got a couple of trucks out in the blue waiting for us.’ Coffin gestured towards the desert. ‘Down there. One’s a radio truck – with a No. 11 high-powered set. We often signal a distance of several hundred miles. Once somebody managed fourteen hundred. No plain language, of course. It’d save a lot of trouble. We could have all the grid references in their hands within an hour or two. They expect us to come up every evening and they’re listening out for us. We could send two of our vehicles off with it – we always move in twos – and have them back in the morning ready to pick up our little German friend, the general, when he appears.’
Two of the LRDG Chevrolets had just departed southwards when a Lancia truck appeared over the rise. Just ahead of it was Faiani’s little Fiat.
It was Morton who spotted them first. ‘You know,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘this looks to me remarkably like trouble.’
Faiani was smiling grimly as he clapped on the brakes of the Fiat. The little car slid sideways in a spectacular stop, throwing sand, dust and small stones on to Morton’s boots. The truck drew to a more sedate halt just behind and, as the tailgate slammed down, half a dozen men with rifles jumped out.
‘Faiani,’ Morton said, moving forward. ‘To what do we owe this splendid visit?’
‘To me,’ Faiani snapped. ‘And to General Erwin! He suspected you of being something other than what you claim to be, and what he suspected confirmed not only what Sergeant Schwartzheiss suspected but what I myself suspected from the minute you arrived.’ His eyes swept over the group of men who formed 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit.
‘First of all, we’ll have your hands up. All of you. Then, please, we’ll have everybody in a line.’
As he
