In no time they had recovered a complete consignment of radio valves, turned up a deserter who had acquired thirty thousand gallons of petrol by the simple process of appearing at an army filling station and filling his lorry with fuel which he then promptly sold in the Cairo black market before going back for more, and discovered that, at a time when army tyres were fetching ninety pounds apiece, civilians could get new ones merely by leaving their cars in a certain square in Cairo with a sum of money hidden under the dashboard.
‘Given a chance,’ Dampier pointed out, ‘they’d steal an anvil.’
Rafferty smiled. ‘One did,’ he said. ‘I caught him staggering home bow-legged with it strapped round his waist and hanging between his knees.’
When they were ordered into the desert, where the forward troops were complaining that when they sent a vehicle back for repair it never returned, it was a challenge that pleased Dampier. In his own small way, he felt that at last he was contributing to the winning of the war, if only by putting behind bars a few of the people who seemed intent on losing it. But he wasn’t deluded.
‘I suppose,’ he said cynically, ‘the truth is that somebody decided we were getting too close to his own pet little racket and were best out of the way.’
Chapter 3
Because they were going to be away from the bright lights for a while, the Desert Ratbags each in his own way made a point of having a good night-out before setting off for Zuq. Jones the Song, his heart aching for the Land of his Fathers, looked up another Welshman from Swansea, his home town, and got drunk singing Welsh songs. Caccia, who was a great one for the girls, especially in such a randy-making climate, headed for a dance hall he knew. Clegg and Morton ate at an Egyptian night club, where Clegg tried to set fire to the muslin drapes of the belly dancer. He was always inclined to be aggressively mischievous when he’d had one or two.
The following morning they drove out of the city past the single-decker trams hooked together like trains, the gharries, the crowding fellahin, the businessmen in tarbooshes, the beggars asleep in the gutters, the befezzed policemen with whips, and the inane Arab music from the cafés where the customers crouched over their hookahs and dominoes. At the level crossing outside the city the usual hold-up was taking place. Clad in stolen army boots, a discarded British topee worn backwards, several days’ growth of beard, and two frilly women’s dresses circa 1905 draped over plus-fours, the gatekeeper seemed to be enjoying the uproar.
The queue was a quarter of a mile long. Among the camels and donkeys blinking at the flies, small boys were darting about offering their sisters to anybody who would listen. Egyptian labourers were asleep in the shade, their heads on the rails, knowing that the vibration when the train came, or Allah, or both, would warn them in good time. A tatty-looking fruit cart, its wheels sagging at weird angles to the frame, stood nearby, its driver asleep underneath. Just astern, a donkey, its backside tattooed with its owner’s name, dozed in the shafts of a cart as big as a wheelbarrow. There were also a flock of fat-tailed sheep that seemed to draw their sustenance from discarded cigarette ends; a field gun on a truck; a funeral coach pulled by two sway-backed horses; a youth on a bicycle with a small trussed pig lashed to the handlebars; carts laden with sand apparently on their way to top up the desert; an Arab stallion which kept trying to mount a donkey mare; and a camel with a load of straw, a bell on its neck, a red lamp slung to its behind for after dark, and wearing an expression of considerable unease because it was closely backed up by a tank whose driver kept revving the engine to show his impatience.
Despite the non-arrival of a train, the level-crossing keeper, having obviously decided he had collected enough customers, opened the gate at last and they all went away like the field heading for the first fence at a point-to-point. The donkey’s legs seemed to twang like harp strings as it took the strain; it was followed by the wobbling cyclists impeded by their robes and the addition of a pillion passenger – sometimes even two. And the whole tribe of them trailed away to the west.
After their night-out, none of the Desert Ratbags, all dressed in shirts and shorts like everybody else in the desert – even the Germans and Italians – was feeling at his best, but they found the sign to Zuq and headed west, careful to keep plenty of distance between them and other units because, to a man, they had no wish to get too involved with the army in case someone thought of making them soldiers again. They spent the night at a camp run by the Military Police, who weren’t expecting them and weren’t interested, taking the view that they were an unnecessary appendage to the war and even begrudging them food and drink.
‘Where do we sleep?’ Clegg demanded.
The policeman he asked gestured at the empty desert. ‘Anywhere you like,’ he said. ‘There’s plenty of room.’
They woke to a violet-streaked dawn with a smudge in the south that grew rapidly, spreading outwards at either end. It rushed towards them, an enormous crimson cloud
