June 1942
Suez, a busy, dusty port at the top right corner of the map of Egypt on the ops room bulkhead. Because of the Axis domination of the Mediterranean, Paul’s convoy had had to slip down one side of Africa and up the other to reach it, a voyage lasting nearly eight hot and tedious weeks. They’d docked on several occasions for supplies and each time Paul had been glad to stretch his legs and see new places. He’d found himself in markets vibrant with colourfully dressed natives and chattering monkeys that swung down from palm trees to steal ripe fruit from angry stallholders. In Cape Town, Table Mountain had been obscured by mist, and he’d had to rescue one of his cabin mates, found huddled dead drunk outside a brothel, his wallet gone. And now here he was at his destination, and as they all crowded on deck waiting for the order to disembark, he felt a mixture of excitement and disappointment.
Paul had had his wish. He was on the high seas. And now, finally, they were in Egypt, that was the excitement, but what he could see did not accord with his mental expectations of the country. There was plenty of sand, indeed, but it was grey and stony, and the buildings were greyish, too, and functional in appearance.
‘Where are the pyramids then and the crocodiles?’ the chap next to him, Bob Black, known as Blackie, was asking, which was a more simply put version of what Paul was thinking.
He smiled. ‘At least there are camels, look.’ The beasts in question, three of them, were kneeling in the shade of a scrubby tree at the roadside below, and were also greyish, weary, patient beasts. Their drivers squatted beside them in the dust, playing a game of dice to pass the time. Further along the road, the late morning sun glinted off a long line of army trucks, waiting to ferry the troops onward.
The heat was already unbearable on the ship by the time the gangplank was fitted firmly into place. As the men began to swarm downwards, whispers spread back like wildfire.
‘Tobruk has fallen, yes, Tobruk. We surrendered to the Jerries.’ Paul digested this worrying news with a thrill of shock. Tobruk, everybody knew, was a key strategic port on Libya’s Mediterranean coast, right next to its border with Egypt. It had been besieged for months and bravely held by the Allies, but now . . .
‘That’s it, I suppose,’ pyramid-loving Blackie declared cheerfully. ‘They’ll be sending us right over to defend the road to Cairo. Cannon fodder, lads, that’s us.’
‘If that’s what we’re here to do then we’ll have to do it,’ Paul murmured. This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it, what he was trained for, to see action, to fight for his adopted country against the people in power who had killed his father. In a way, he was lucky to be here, he told himself, remembering how it had happened.
The second letter that he’d sent the adjutant more than a year ago now had initially not been answered. He’d written then to Sir Henry at the House of Lords, asking if it were possible to meet with him. He was surprised to receive a handwritten note from the man himself, inviting him to dinner one night in March at his club in St James’s.
The patrician figure of Sir Henry who rose from the leather seat in the bar to greet him was thinner and more worn than Paul remembered, but his grip when they shook hands was as firm as ever and his smile lit up his wise and wary eyes. ‘Ah, Hartmann, glad you could make it. Don’t suppose there’s much let up for you lads at the moment.’
For after a two-month lull the bombers had returned. Over the previous week thousands of incendiary bombs had been dropped over London and Paul’s company of Pioneers were scrambled to help with immediate clearance after the rescue teams had finished. It was dangerous, distressing work and there seemed no end to it. It was never long after darkness had fallen and they’d returned to barracks after a hard day that the sirens were in full cry for the next onslaught. Paul would lie awake in the crowded public shelter tensing at each explosion, astonished that so many of the people around him had fallen quickly back into the routine with their thermoses of hot soup, their blankets and their knitting. It was the frightened eyes of the children that got to him. It wasn’t right that little kids should go through this, he thought, and his mind wandered to Hamburg, where he fervently hoped the same thing wasn’t happening to German children.
‘What’ll you have?’ Sir Henry asked. ‘They manage a pretty decent Martini here. Shame there’s no ice, but you can’t have everything.’
The Martini was indeed sustaining and Paul began to relax a little. He asked after Lady Kelling and Robyn and was briskly told they were both quite well.
Over dinner, which included an actual pork chop and a range of spring vegetables, Sir Henry listened sympathetically to Paul’s request.
‘I should think they need good sports like you,’ he agreed, tapping salt onto the rim of his plate. ‘And your knowledge of the lingo could be invaluable. I can’t make any promises of course, but I’ll put in a word with the colonel.’
‘That’s very good of you, sir.’
‘Not at all. I’m sorry you’ve had such a thin time of it, especially during the, er, emergency last year, but my hands were tied on that front, you do understand?’
‘Perfectly, sir.’ The reminder of his internment was a painful one, but Paul no longer felt it so keenly.
‘That’s settled then. Now, do you have any news of that Richards boy? I gather his father—’
But whatever Sir Henry had been going to say about the Richards family was lost to the baying of the sirens and almost immediately there was a great whoosh and an explosion that cracked the front windows and made the building shake. Several pictures fell off the wall and the lights flashed, then went out.
Although the evening ended in chaos, Sir Henry did not forget their conversation. A month passed and Paul had started to lose hope when a letter arrived from the regiment. The style was formal, distant even, but friendly platitudes were not what he was looking for. He was to report to the barracks in Aldershot the following week. It was with great excitement that he showed it to his friend Horst in the room they shared with two others.
‘You lucky swine,’ Horst said gloomily, lighting a cigarette. ‘It won’t be the same without you here.’
‘You know what they say, the English: “Be careful what you wish for.” Who knows what will happen to either of us.’
‘I will most probably die of boredom here. Still, I wish you luck.’ They shook hands and turned it into a mock wrestle. Paul would sorely miss Horst. He’d been the best friend he’d made since he’d arrived in Britain – apart from Sarah, of course.
As he edged forward on the crowded deck, Paul reached into his top pocket, brought forth his wallet and slipped out a photograph of Sarah. It was a formal portrait from before the war, a spare of one taken for some official document or other, and slightly creased. He’d come to like it because although in it Sarah wasn’t smiling, there was a hint of a smile there, as though she found some private thought amusing. He preferred it to another she’d given him in which Ivor’s face could be seen in the background. Paul sighed and tucked it away, returning the wallet to his pocket. His last encounter with Sarah, two months ago, had been heart-rending for both of them. They’d stayed at the vampish Mrs Bert’s again and when the time came for them to part they clung together as though they feared never to meet again. The letter he’d written on the ship would have travelled in the military bag home from Cape Town and – assuming it made it to Britain at all – it might be ages before it reached her and even longer before officialdom tracked him down in Egypt with a reply. But enough, now he was nearly at the top of the gangplank and all thoughts of home receded.
On the dockside, a perspiring sergeant waved irritably at a fly and rustled through the pages on his clipboard.
‘Hartmann, you said? D Company. Follow the others over there, will you?’
Paul joined the men piling onto the lorries. Even under cover, with everyone squeezed so close together on the plank seats, it was stifling. Someone handed in a water container and they filled their bottles and splashed each other’s faces, laughing, though in truth the reality of the climate was starting to sink in. Engines roared into life in a cloud of petrol fumes and one by one the lorries began to lurch forward, leaving the ships and the grey-white quayside buildings, the patient camels and the scrubby hillside behind. Through the half-open rear of Paul’s vehicle a hot breeze wafted that failed to freshen and soon it brought with it a gagging stink of sewage as they passed through the slums of Suez.
It was a relief to rattle out onto a desert road and along the banks of a lake of startling blue, but then that too was behind them and they entered a sandy landscape that seemed to stretch on for ever with no relieving feature. Grit swirled into the truck and got into everyone’s eyes and throats, so they fastened the tarpaulin across the back opening and the lorries juddered on in sweltering semi-darkness for what seemed to be hours. The other men, none of whom Paul knew well, swapped quiet banter, but he sensed their underlying sense of dread. The news about Tobruk had subdued them. A remark about them keeping the local gravediggers busy was met with silence and they only perked up when the truck slowed and street sounds of what must surely be Cairo reached their ears. They rolled up the tarpaulin and gazed out eagerly upon a new world. They saw men in long white jellabas and flapping slippers, mangy dogs that all seemed to Paul varieties of one dog lying prostrate in the shade or madly barking at traffic. They passed huts built out of sand, bright-coloured rugs hanging in the sun, intriguing glimpses of dark interiors, doorways before which small, dark-eyed children crouched in the dust drawing pictures with sticks. The smell was an unspeakable mixture of exhaust fumes, cooking oil and manure, with an exotic top note of incense.
Soon the streets broadened out and the buildings, in a variety of styles, grew higher, wider and more opulent, sprouting little balconies and canopies. From some hung flags, sometimes the Union Jack, which drew cheers from the soldiers. The truck stopped and started, flung its occupants about at sharp corners, but finally it swung between a pair of large gates, rattled across an expanse of bare ground and drew up outside a great, ornate portico. Here they climbed out, tired and blinking, hauling their kit, under the cruel sun.
Once inside they passed through warm, echoing gloom then out the other side into the brightness of a large, sandy square lined with trees. This was bordered by two long, three-storeyed buildings on either side, decorated with rounded arches. The fourth side of the square was edged by the silvery-grey Nile where, like a stage set, white triangular sails of feluccas slid past a vista of palm trees and misty old buildings. This must once have been a beautiful spot, Paul thought, an old palace, perhaps.
More trucks arrived and disgorged soldiers until a couple of hundred men milled about the square with their belongings, perspiring in the heat. Then an irritable sergeant-major with a sunburned face and forearms, brandishing another list, marched out and began to dispatch the newcomers to various parts of the buildings. ‘Some of you will have to kip on the balconies,’ he told Paul’s little group. ‘We’re full to overflowing.’
‘Hartmann!’ a familiar voice roared and Paul turned to be blinded by the sun. Shading his eyes, the dazzle morphed into the figure of a handsome, confident, khaki-clad officer standing squarely several yards away. Paul caught a glimpse of his face as the man stepped forward and he realized with a shock who it was.
‘Richards!’
‘Captain Richards to you, Hartmann. I suppose you’d imagine yourself the last person I expected to see thousands of miles from home, but you’d be wrong. They gave me advance warning, you might say.’
‘Did they? Sir.’ This was his old adversary, but Paul was thrown by the new relationship. Richards was the officer here and he, Paul, only a private. And Richards was clearly enjoying the fact.
‘Yes, you’re in our company here. Major Goodall is in charge, you’ll meet him shortly. I’m his second in command.’ He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and consulted a sheet of paper. ‘And do you know a man called, let’s see, Robert Black? His name’s on the list, but it’s not been checked off.’
‘He was here a moment ago.’ Paul looked about, but he couldn’t see Blackie among the men lugging their kit tiredly towards their designated sleeping quarters. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead and forced himself to stay focused on Richards.
‘Right.’ He made a mark on his list. ‘You’d better get on, then. Nothing much to tell you boys at the moment. They say it’s chaos out there on the front line. We’re simply awaiting instructions.’
‘Yes. We heard about Tobruk. Do you think we’ve still a chance, sir?’
‘Of course. We mustn’t have any talk like that now.’
‘No, sorry. Sir.’
Richards was studying him now, as though playing with him. ‘How did you do it, eh, Hartmann? You must have pulled the wool over someone’s eyes to get here.’
‘Not at all, sir. I wrote to the adjutant several times and Sir Henry kindly provided a reference.’
‘Did he now? Well, I have to say I was concerned when I heard. I’ll be keeping my eye on you, remember, will you?’
‘You don’t have to do that, sir.’
‘Oh, but I do. There may be hand-to-hand fighting. Don’t come whingeing to me about killing your own countrymen.’
‘I am here because I want to fight the evil that has taken over my homeland, sir. I won’t be asking for any favours.’
‘We’ll see. And if I hear of you doing anything, anything at all, that affects morale, well, I’ll do what I need to, understand?’
‘Yes, sir, but you won’t.’ Every word felt ground out of him. He watched Captain Richards stroll away importantly in the direction of where he supposed the officers’ mess to be, and he hated him.
His dormitory stank of some noxious chemical that made his eyes water and since all the beds had been claimed he unrolled his sleeping bag on a shaded balcony where at least the smell wasn’t as bad, and lay down, soon slipping into an exhausted doze. When he awoke, the light was dim, but although the fierceness of the sun was gone, the air was still hot and treacly and his head ached. He stumbled inside to find some of the men still sleeping. A small, black-haired soldier by the name of Walters was sitting on his bed, tongue sticking out, laboriously writing a letter. ‘The message is we have the evening off,’ he told Paul, who nodded and asked the way to a bathroom.
Once he’d washed and tidied himself and found some water to drink, Paul felt better and went off to explore the barracks, eventually finding a clerk who furnished him with money and plenty of advice, some of it unwanted. Since there was no sign of Blackie or the others he’d grown friendly with he went out into the streets alone, determined to see round the city while he could. He signed out using his full name, Private Paul Nicholas Hartmann.
The adjustments to his name had been part of the conditions of acceptance into the regiment. If he was taken prisoner, he could be shot as a traitor if discovered to be German. He’d spent the last year practising a British accent, and if his fellows ever asked, he emphasized that his mother was English and they’d escaped the Nazis. He never spoke of his father or his childhood in Germany. It was partly self-preservation, but he still found the subject too painful for public airing.
It amazed him to see Allied troops of varying nationalities everywhere on the streets, enjoying an evening out. The clerk had warned him off the smart hotels, which were officers only, but he didn’t want such places anyway. He wished only to see the souks and the gardens and the architecture in peace, then find somewhere respectable for a quiet drink and something decent to eat.
Eventually he hailed a taxi, a broken coughing vehicle that dropped him near the packed terrace of Shepheard’s Hotel with its wicker tables and chairs. He wandered the pleasant fringes of the Ezbekieh Gardens for a while, enjoying the clamour of the birds and the sight of children playing. Afterwards, he visited a British club he had heard about and ate water buffalo steak, egg and chips, washed down with a pint of beer. He was surprised at how hungry he was.
It was dark when Paul came out of the club and the street lights shone with a soft blue light – no one here bothered to keep blackout. So it was that as he passed an archway which presented the vista of a garden with trees studded with coloured lights, he paused, thinking how pretty it was. English voices and the sound of laughter came from within, but a powerfully built Egyptian standing guard with arms folded stared at him in warning, so he prepared to move on.
It was at that moment that the archway darkened as the figures of two officers emerged, wreathed in the smoke from their cigars and reeking not unpleasantly of whisky.
‘Good Lord,’ one said, seeing Paul. ‘I know you from home, don’t I? Ivor Richards said your name was on the list.’
Despite the gloom, Paul recognized the friendly open face. It was sunburned, a little older, but there was no mistaking Harry Andrews. They shook hands warmly, Harry eagerly talking. ‘I’d heard from Jennifer that you’d joined up. I had a letter from her just last week, you know. She’s in the ATS.’
‘How is she?’
‘Rather enjoying being away from her mother.’
Paul laughed politely, remembering Sarah saying how infuriating Mrs Bulldock could be with her organizing and her tactless remarks.
‘I must say,’ Harry went on, ‘I’m surprised we’re here at all. Our company was kicking its heels in Aldershot back in March and all of a sudden they told us to pack our kit. There was to be an embarkation and they needed us to make up the numbers. Two days later we were steaming down the Channel.’
‘We were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ The other man, a lieutenant, like Harry, who’d been quietly listening, had a reserved but amiable way of speaking.
‘Charles Keegan, this is Paul Hartmann. He’s in my platoon.’
‘Am I, sir?’ Paul said. ‘I didn’t know that.’ He wasn’t displeased.
In the conversation that followed they discovered they were all staying at the same barracks. ‘Would you like to share our taxi? No, not at all.’ It was getting late and Charles didn’t seem to mind so Paul gladly agreed. A taxi was duly hailed and they all climbed in, Charles kindly offering to take the seat in front so that Paul and Harry could talk.
‘You’ve come at a particularly bad time. It’s been hell out there in the desert. We’re only back to regroup. Once they’ve repaired enough lorries we’ll be off to the front again. Shouldn’t be long now, a day or two they reckon.’
‘So the fall of Tobruk doesn’t mean the end?’
‘Far from it. We’ll give the Jerries a run for their money yet.’
‘That hasn’t stopped people packing up and leaving Cairo,’ Charles said from the front.
‘He means foreign civilians. Half of them are off to Alexandria. There’s a real old panic on.’
‘I haven’t seen any signs of that,’ Paul said, genuinely puzzled. ‘The locals don’t seem worried. They’d fight for us, wouldn’t they, if it came to it? After all we’ve done for them?’
Harry laughed. ‘That’s not how they see it. Most of them would like us out of here. Their king is one of them. They’d have the German and Italian flags whipped up the poles in no time. Wouldn’t you?’ he addressed the driver, who merely waved a dismissive hand. ‘He doesn’t understand. But it won’t come to it,’ he continued cheerfully. ‘You wait and see.’
It was this heroic English cheerfulness that always surprised Paul. At first, when he’d joined up he’d thought it was an act, then he’d decided that they believed in it and tried adopting it himself. It didn’t stop him feeling frightened underneath, but it helped him keep going.
After the taxi dropped them, Charles wished Paul and Harry goodnight in the lobby, leaving them to talk.
‘It’s good to see someone else from Westbury. Jennifer’s an excellent letter writer, but not all the post makes it through – and there are things she can’t say, of course. How is morale? What does the country think about what we’re doing out here?’
‘I haven’t been back to Westbury much. For a long time I wasn’t allowed to, the rules of my release, and now with the Kellings gone, my only connection there is Sarah.’
‘Sarah Bailey? I didn’t know you two were friends. Jennifer says she’s worked miracles at the Hall.’
‘She does work very hard, poor thing.’ There must have been something about the tone of his voice, a softness, perhaps, that Harry, who was a good reader of emotions, picked up on.
‘So that’s the size and shape of it. Sarah, eh? Jennifer didn’t tell me about that.’
‘I imagine that she doesn’t know. It’s a not a big secret, but I don’t think Sarah speaks about it in Westbury. Not everyone would understand.’ He didn’t like to say that Mrs Bailey was not altogether happy that Sarah was seeing him, although she’d not tried to prevent it. He was not a little hurt by this and by the fact that Sarah had not allowed the relationship to be known about, though he understood. Westbury had known him as the German gardener who’d been interned.
‘Listen, old man.’ Harry looked about at the soldiers passing through, signalled a greeting to one or two, then drew Paul to one side, where their conversation couldn’t easily be overheard. ‘I need to warn you.’
Paul felt a weariness, sensing what Harry was about to say. He approved of Harry, and trusted him, though he hardly knew him. He was straightforward and liked most people and wasn’t bothered if they didn’t like him back, though most did. His men would follow him because they trusted him, but he lacked, Paul guessed, a natural authority over them. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t seen promotion.
‘I shouldn’t mention Sarah to Richards, if I were you. It might add to your difficulties with him.’
‘I already know what he thinks of me,’ Paul said, trying not to sound bitter. ‘Thanks for the tip though.’
‘Major Goodall’s a fair sort. The men like him.’
Again, Paul took his point. Ivor Richards was only the second-in-command. He resolved at that moment to stay out of Richards’ way as much as possible.
When, the following evening, he found a quiet few minutes to begin a letter to Sarah, Paul wasn’t sure whether to mention the matter, but in the end found it impossible not to. You’ll understand that it’s not unexpected that I should come across them here, but that we should all three be in the same company was a surprise. I know that Richards is a friend of your family, but you understand my difficulties with him. He will always be watching me, and that is an extra strain.
It was dawn, two days after Paul’s arrival at the barracks, when the unit assembled in the parade ground ready to travel out into the desert. The army lorries were lined up nose to tail by the river, silvery silhouettes against a pearly veil of mist, through which glowed the great lemon disc of the rising sun. When Paul drew close he realized with concern how dented and worn the vehicles were, their famous Desert Rat logos almost erased. By the time the men had piled in and the supply truck was loaded, the mist had dispersed and the sun was beginning to blaze. One by one, engines fired into life, the lorries lurched forward and moved out of the gates into the awakening streets.
Despite the squash of men and possessions, Paul was thankful that they were actually on their way. The previous forty-eight hours had been onerous, a relentless round of packing kit, square-bashing on the parade ground and rifle training. The evenings had been free, but he’d felt too liverish to roam the streets much, and last night he’d felt the purging effects of some falafel he’d bought at a market stall.
‘What, are they them pyramids?’ Blackie cried suddenly, and they craned their necks to look, exclaiming at how rough-hewn they were close up, and what a dirty sandy colour, not the smooth gold that they’d imagined. There was much hilarity when they spied the Sphinx with its poor snubbed face. Paul guessed their next letters home would be full of it all. Some of those with him, he’d discovered, had never been outside their home county before the war, let alone beyond Britain’s shores. He felt a sudden sharp comradeship with them out here, all undoubtedly fearful of what they would endure, but determined to do whatever they had to with cheerful heroism.
The road bent north, or so he surmised from the direction of the sun, and after a couple of hours low white buildings began to appear on either side, harbingers of a city that rolled out towards a blue horizon. The city was Alexandria and the blue the Mediterranean. Though they quickly swung away from the buildings, the blue grew nearer and more glorious, and soon they were travelling alongside a wide stretch of beach and the cool breeze that blew set up a longing in them. At lunchtime the lorries bumped off the road to circle an oasis and the soldiers undressed as they ran, shouting ecstatically, leaving their clothes on the beach as they splashed into the cool water and cavorted in the waves. Paul struck out far from the shore and when he turned to look back, treading water, he was filled with an intense pleasure in the world and the beauties of the desert. He loved the sense of being accepted by these men and being a part of their endeavours.
It was to be a long time before he felt such joy again.
After tea and bully-beef sandwiches came the call to move on and, sticky with salt and sweat, the men scrambled back into the lorries. The sun had passed its full height and begun to descend. The long heat of the afternoon bore down. There was less energy for talking now and they had to hold on to their seats for the tarmac was full of potholes. From time to time they passed ominous signs of battle, twisted bits of metal on the side of the road, the wreck of a lorry or the burnt-out fuselage of a plane. A group of sappers who were fixing the road stepped back, waving their shovels and cheering as the lorries roared past with horns blaring.
Eventually, they left the tarmac behind and bumped out across the sand, following markers the engineers had left to show a safe route. The light deepened in colour towards sunset and still the desert rolled under the wheels. Everyone was heartily sick of the vast, grey expanses of sand with, apart from the abandoned rubbish of warfare, its featureless landscape.
He must have slept, because when Paul opened his eyes next it was dark, though he could make out, by the weak, shrouded headlamps, the solid shapes of tents. They had arrived at the camp.
‘Keep your head down, for Chrissake.’ Paul obeyed Harry Andrews’ harsh whisper. ‘Where’s Stuffy?’
‘Over here, sir.’ Private Stephen Duffy’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. There was no moon. Only the ancient stars stared down.
‘You and Hartmann, do a recce while we keep an eye on this little lot over here.’ Paul lowered himself carefully from his position as lookout, clutching his rifle. ‘Watch your backs now, will you, and don’t make a sound.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ Duffy whispered.
Paul rose silently on his haunches and followed Duffy along below the line of the ridge. He dreaded kicking any stones that might start a scree and advertise their presence to the German patrol they’d glimpsed a few moments before. How it had happened, he didn’t know, but his platoon had become separated from the rest of the company. One minute they were there, the next, they’d vanished without a shot fired. Now they were in danger of being surrounded, unless Harry Andrews’ idea was the right one, that this was a lone German patrol and not part of a bigger unit. They reached a break in the ridge and Paul sensed Duffy, ahead, sink down to negotiate their way round to the other side. Then Duffy froze and he froze, too. The seconds passed. ‘What’s happening?’ he started to say, but Duffy’s elbow jabbed him into silence.
Very faintly now he could hear soft sounds, breathing, the scuffle and scrape of boots on grit. Paul felt a chill shoot through him and his heart began to pound in his chest so loudly that he was sure others must hear it. How far away was this man, and was there only him or others? The scuffling was close now. He felt Duffy tense and his hand closed over his rifle. Then the man was upon them. Duffy leaped, Paul heard a whimper and a grunt as the bayonet went in. The man’s body hit him as he rolled past them, the life gurgling out of his lungs. It was the first time it had happened so close. He sensed the warmth of the man, the vain struggle against death, the terrible silence, then his mind snapped back alert, his hearing acute, listening out. There was another sound, someone trying to retreat silently, he thought, but Duffy was in action again, stabbing the air, and Paul followed, colliding with solid muscle and bone, a big man this time. He jabbed upwards and felt the blade slide in. The man gasped ‘Nein!’ and clutched at Paul’s weapon. Paul felt the full weight of him falling forward, the stink of hot sweat and blood and something else, fear. He lay there struggling uselessly beneath the dead man until Duffy pulled the body off him.
At that moment, further away, shots cracked the silence. Cries of pain went up and shouted instruction, then came a flare of light, an explosion, and sand rained down. ‘There’s a dozen of ’em there, did you see?’ Duffy whispered. ‘We must go back.’ He gripped Paul’s arm and dragged him away. Paul tripped over one of the bodies as he stumbled back the way they’d come to join the others.
Dim in the darkness they saw them, several hunched figures shooting from the top of the ridge, Andrews caught in silhouette tossing a grenade. Another explosion, more cries of grief. A German voice barked an order. Retreat. Paul and Duffy threw themselves beside their mates, rising and falling to shoot. A soft thud and Paul glanced to see someone along the line jerk forwards, collapse like a drunk, but he couldn’t see who. He raised his rifle, peeped over the top, sensed rather than saw the bulks of several figures scrambling away down the escarpment. He fired in their general direction then ducked again. Beside him, Duffy fired too, and then there was no more shooting. They listened, but all they could hear were fading footsteps and, close by, the grunts of one of their comrades abandoned and in pain.
A glimmer of light behind. ‘Briggsy, you poor old blighter.’ Duffy’s voice came cracked and shrill and Paul glanced down to see him bent over the ragdoll figure of Joe Briggs. Joe looked even slighter in death than he’d been in life and a lump came into Paul’s throat.
Andrews had appeared beside Paul and shone a torch down over the ridge, its shaded beam describing an arc of horror. There were corpses, Paul saw, six or seven, and a man curled up like a foetus, shaking in agony. He was the one making the awful sounds.
‘Let’s go down,’ Andrews said softly. ‘See if there’s anything we can do. Briggsy’s beyond help, I’m afraid.’
‘There are more of them out there,’ Paul remembered suddenly. ‘I mean there’s another patrol. When their officer told them to fall back, he said they should find the others, I heard him.’
‘Damn.’ Andrews killed the torch and was silent for a moment. Then, in the far distance, it was as though a firework display started up, cracks and explosions, sparks, then a plume of flame.
‘Do you think that’s the rest of our lot?’
‘Who can tell? They’re certainly having a party.’
Without a word, Andrews led the way down the escarpment, pistol in hand, Paul following with the torch. The wounded man tensed, tried to inch away. ‘Shh, we have come to help you,’ Andrews said, checking him quickly for weapons.
Paul started to speak to him softly in German. He was about Paul’s own age, a compact, muscular young man, his face distorted with pain. Ahead, another explosion lit up the sky. The blood over the clutching hands gleamed like metal.
‘Tell him we have to move him.’
Paul translated and asked him his name.
‘Hans.’
‘All right, Hans.’ He and Andrews each slid an arm under a shoulder and with much groaning and cursing they managed to drag him up to the others. There Andrews sent half a dozen of the men on various duties, while the remainder of the platoon crowded round their captive, and Paul, kneeling beside him, sensed their hostility. He ignored them and gently continued to reassure the young man as he applied pressure to the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Someone pushed a phial into his hand. Morphine. He felt for a fleshy part of the boy’s arm and jabbed the needle in.
‘What do we do with him now?’ Duffy asked, but nobody knew. They were marooned, and somewhere out in the darkness this man’s pals were undoubtedly searching for them.
Paul bound up Hans’ wound, but still the blood seeped through. He gave him sips of water from his own bottle and tried to keep him conscious by speaking to him in whispers. Hans mumbled that he had a brother, who was also in the army, but he didn’t know where.
First one, then the other of the patrols returned. They’d found no one. Water and biscuits were passed around, then the patrols dispatched again. Hans was quieter now, he found speaking more difficult. Paul soaked a handkerchief and mopped the sweat from the man’s brow. He could see Hans’ face more clearly, the gleam of his teeth as he shifted in discomfort. Gazing around, it seemed that the stars were fading and the sky was lightening. Dawn was on its way. The light grew stronger. Paul could see insects moving in the clumps of coarse desert grass. Ahead, all was quiet, but a great cloud of smoke hung over the horizon where the front line must be. He glanced down. The boy was more peaceful now. He seemed to be sleeping, though from time to time his mouth twisted and he whimpered.
It had been the longest night Paul could remember, worse even than after they’d taken his father. He had killed a man, but this rite of passage had not made him feel braver or more grown-up. It had simply happened, been the next thing he’d had to do, without thinking. And here he was trying to save the life of another who, for all he knew, he’d been responsible for wounding in the first place. He didn’t feel good about this either. It was so random, pointless, he thought. Why should one die and another live?
His thoughts were broken as he became aware of a low, continuous rumble. He was wondering where it came from when one of the others, Pounder, that was his name, leaped up, in his reckless, terrier-like eagerness, shading his eyes to look east, behind them, into the glare of the rising sun. ‘Lorries,’ he said in excitement. ‘They’re ours, lads. We’re saved.’
‘Get down, you fool,’ Andrews snarled and Pounder obeyed, but heads were snapping round to make out what was moving in the dusty distance. Soon it was clear. A convoy of trucks was advancing along the marked-out track. Oblivious to possible danger, the men rose and waved their hats at them until they slewed to a stop in the sand hundreds of yards away. An officer jumped out and began to jog towards them.
‘We’ll get you to a doctor soon,’ Paul told Hans, but the young man slept on, twitching and gasping in his dreams. When Paul inspected the bandage on the wound, he was shocked to see that the bloody mess was crawling with tiny glistening flies.