SBS, page 3
They had made it to perhaps halfway to the beach when there was a stifled cry from Jenkins, who had been bringing up the rear. Spinning round, Hunter saw the man lying on the ground, writhing in agony. His first reaction was that he had been shot, but he had heard no riddle crack. Crouching, he and Woods moved back towards him.
‘My leg, sir. My bloody ankle. Went over on that mound.’
He was gripping the limb tightly and only released his hands when Woods went to look.
His foot was lying at an unusual angle to the leg and it was clear at once that he had broken his ankle. Woods shook his head. ‘Christ. I don’t bloody believe it. Can you stand?’
‘Don’t know, sir. I’ll try.’
Jenkins, helped by the others, attempted to get to his feet, but the moment he attempted to put any weight on the injured leg, he winced in pain. ‘Sorry, sir. It’s useless. I’m done.’
They laid him back down in the grass.
As Jenkins stared at his ruined ankle, Woods drew Hunter to one side. ‘He’s right, Sarn’t – it is useless. He can’t come with us.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I know that.’
There was a pause, then Woods spoke, quiet and expressionless: ‘We’ll just have to leave him here.’
‘They’ll get him, sir. You know what that’ll mean.’
‘And so does he, Sarn’t. We’ll leave him a pistol and two rounds. He can take the decision as to how he does it. That’s the decent thing to do, wouldn’t you say? He can either use them both on the enemy, or save one for himself. He knows the drill.’
Hunter nodded. Woods was right. It was the only thing to do, aside from shooting Jenkins themselves. And both men knew that neither of them was going to volunteer to do that.
Woods went over and briefed Jenkins, although there was no need. All of them had always been well aware of the potential dangers. Jenkins nodded and took the pistol from the officer. Hunter went over to him. ‘Cheerio, Jenkins. See you in Cairo I expect.’
‘Yes. Sure of it. I’ll stand you a beer at Groppi’s.’
‘Not if I can help it. I’m paying.’
Jenkins smiled. ‘Righto, Hunter. I’ll hold you to it.’
They moved off fast and quickly put thoughts of Jenkins behind them.
The route down the hillside to the beach grew increasingly steep and perilous as they went but at last they were close enough to hear the sea. Cautiously, they slipped down the final few feet to the beach and found the cave where on arrival they had hidden lifebelts and a signal torch. Grabbing this and two of the belts they began to climb back up the hill in search of cover.
In their desperation to get to the cave, they had lost track of time and the dawn was now coming up fast. They were perhaps halfway back to Jenkins’ position when they heard voices from above. Shouts in Italian. They froze and dropped to the ground.
Clearly one of the search parties had got between them and their helpless comrade. Perhaps, thought Hunter, they were still looking for members of the other landing party.
The chattering continued. Evidently their pursuers had decided to halt where they were.
Woods looked at Hunter and raised his eyes heavenwards. Their safe area had just shrunk from small to almost non-existent. The two men lay down in the long grass and pressed their forms against the earth in an attempt to camouflage the outline of their bodies. They had been there for around three hours when the Italians moved off. Woods looked up slowly and then dropped down. Whispered: ‘There’s an overhang about forty yards up the hill. If we can get in there we stand a much better chance of not being seen. We won’t move down to the beach till dusk.’
Hunter nodded. He too had noticed the overhanging rock. The morning sunlight was now upon them and it was their only hope.
After waiting for the Italian voices to die away, the two men crawled slowly up the hillside, their lifebelts strapped to their belts. At length they reached the shelter of the rock and tucked themselves inside the small gap with seconds to spare before the Italians appeared again below them. Hunter counted fifty of them, moving methodically across the brush and rocks. Ten minutes later he watched as one of them peeled away to relieve himself, close to their position, before sitting down on a rock to light a cigarette. He was no more than twenty yards away. Clearly his absence had not been noticed by his commanding officer, for the man sat on his rock for a good twenty minutes, smoking another cigarette, before moving off. After he had gone the two men sat very still in their hideout for, Hunter guessed, around another three hours.
It was almost midday now and the sun was at its hottest. Hunter’s mouth was parched. His limbs too were beginning to seize up, contorted as they were in their cramped quarters.
Suddenly, there was a series of shots from above them, followed by furious shouting. Then silence. The searchers had found Jenkins.
The two men looked away from each other into nothingness and Hunter took the opportunity of the noise to stretch his painful limbs and manoeuvre himself into a slightly more comfortable position.
And so they waited. Two, three, five, seven hours passed with excruciating slowness. Hunter licked his lips, dry and cracked from lack of water, and squeezed the final tiny drops from his long-empty bottle, allowing each one to linger for a moment on his swollen tongue.
Finally, as dusk enveloped the hillside, Woods raised his hand to signal the ‘off’.
Slowly, being conscious that to move too fast might bring on a cramp in their limbs that could mean disaster, each man slowly stretched out legs and arms before crawling out of the little cave.
The night was unexpectedly cold and Hunter shivered as they began to make their way downhill towards the beach. Both men now knew that they had a narrow window of opportunity before the sentries on night patrol would take their posts. As they neared the sea again there was no sign of the enemy and Hunter scarcely dared to breathe lest the slightest noise might bring down a hail of bullets from an unseen observer.
After half an hour they set foot upon the sand and quickly made for the cave where the torch and belts had been hidden. The rest of the kit was still there, undiscovered, which was surely a good sign. Woods looked at his watch and signed to Hunter with his hand. Fifteen. He would have a go at signalling to any rescue vessel in fifteen minutes.
It seemed like forever, but at length Woods moved to the mouth of the cave, switched on the torch and flashed it up and down and on and off in the prearranged signal pattern.
Hunter went after him and strained his eyes for any sign of a reply from the water. Woods flashed the sign a second time and Hunter froze. Surely, that had been a light. He spoke in a whisper: ‘Sir, over there. One o’clock. D’you see it?’
‘Where? Are you sure?’
‘Not certain, but… Look. There.’
He pointed and both men looked hard in the direction of his finger.
But there was nothing. Hunter looked away. ‘Sorry, sir. I could have sworn.’
Woods said nothing. Perhaps Hunter was right. He flashed the torch again.
But another twenty minutes passed, with no sign of any reply.
Half an hour. Woods flashed again. Surely, thought Hunter. Surely now they must see them? There had to be a boat out there, waiting for them. Didn’t there? If not then…
Suddenly Woods gasped. ‘There, Hunter. Did you see that. There. At two o’clock. Look, man. D’you see?’
Hunter looked intently towards the horizon and, through the darkness saw what might just have been the glimmer of a light.
‘Yes, sir. A light. It’s a light. Just there.’
Woods was sure of it now. He flashed the signal again, and then a third time. And now both men could see the light being flashed back at them. Hope at last.
Woods began to signal a message. ‘Folboats gone. Swimming to you. Come in.’
Both men reached for their Mae West life jackets and, after putting them over their heads, began to inflate them. Then, taking with them just the essentials, they left the cave.
Hunter glanced back up the hillside, expecting to see a search party waiting for them. But there was no one to be seen. They padded across the sand towards the sea and waded in until they were neck-deep in the surprisingly cold water and the waves began to pull them out to sea. After a while they began to swim, in the general direction of the light. Woods had kept his signal torch, fastening it around his wrist with a cord, and whenever they made out a flash from the rescue ship, he flashed out their call sign in return.
The sea was dead calm, but for some reason, Hunter found that swimming was almost impossible. Wondering why, he realised that they were simply exhausted. They had not eaten for the past day and no water had passed their lips for over twenty-four hours.
Woods too was shivering now and his hands had started to go numb. He prayed that neither of them would pass out before the ship reached them. He had no idea how far they had swum or rather floated, but turning to look back at the beach, he realised that it was some distance. Perhaps a mile or more.
Suddenly there was a rumble, like thunder. Hunter tried to shout to Woods, ‘Engines, sir.’
But he wasn’t sure whether the officer had heard. Or indeed, if he was still conscious, for the signal torch had stopped flashing.
He tried to paddle over to Woods and found him semi-comatose. He shook his shoulder. ‘Sir, engines.’
Woods started awake. ‘What? Engines. Are you sure?’
They could both hear it now. A ship. But then, as quickly as it had come, the noise went. Hunter was instantly overwhelmed by disappointment and despair.
Woods yelled, ‘Christ almighty!’
Hunter grasped him. ‘Come on, sir. They’re just circling. Coming about. They haven’t gone. They know we’re here. We know that.’
‘Yes. You’re right. Just circling. That’s it. Coming about. That’s right.’
For minutes that seemed like an hour, in which Woods drifted in and out of consciousness, they waited. And waited.
And then, with a huge roar of water, like some God-given miracle monster rising from the deep, as Hunter watched, the periscope, conning tower and black metal hull of HMS Traveller broke the surface of the water to their left.
Within minutes they were aboard the submarine, pulled up the hull by the strong, gentle hands of men with English voices.
2
‘What is it, exactly, you’re trying to tell me, Sergeant Hunter?’
Hunter stared at the man opposite him across the desk and wondered quite how this somewhat jowly, rubicund major in the Intelligence Corps had not yet managed to understand his meaning.
With Woods beside him, Hunter had been sitting in the major’s office for the last fifteen minutes and his patience was wearing thin. Over his head a rusty fan whirred slowly with an annoying hum, its pathetic breeze incapable of alleviating the oppressive heat. The ‘office’ had until a year ago been the junior housekeeper’s quarters of a shabby Edwardian hotel on the Sharia Khedive Ismail.
Now, commandeered by the army, it had been transformed into a busy debriefing room in British Intelligence Headquarters and, thought Hunter, it was clear that its current occupant would clearly have much preferred to have been anywhere else but here.
Taking his time, Hunter spoke the words again, in a slow, measured voice: ‘What I’m trying to tell you, sir, is that the mission was a total fuck-up. A shambles. A bloody Horlicks. Call it what you like.’
The major started and stared at the other man in the room. ‘Lieutenant Woods. Did you hear that? Will you stand for that? It’s rank insubordination. Put this man on a charge.’
Woods shook his head. ‘No can do, sir, I’m afraid.’
‘What?’
‘Can’t do that, sir. I am really sorry – but I can’t.’
The major’s already red face began to deepen in colour now and he pressed his palms into the leather of his desktop. Finally he managed to speak, barely audible through his rage. ‘Why the devil not?’
Peter Woods smiled at him, then began: ‘Because, sir, I’m afraid that I agree with him. The whole op was an utter fuck-up. From its shambolic beginning to its ghastly, bloody end. In fact, if you ask me, it’s a bloody miracle we came back at all. Two hours that sub was in those waters. Two bloody hours. And they really should have left us and scarpered. The minute we get on board she’s depth charged. Bloody brave to hang around, if you ask me. We owe those matelots our lives. No one else. Without them we would all be dead, sir. Not just Jenkins. So you see… that’s why I won’t put Sarn’t Hunter on a charge, sir. D’you see?’
*
Five minutes later, as the two men were walking away from Intelligence HQ, Hunter turned to Woods. ‘Christ, sir, I thought for a moment I’d gone too far.’
Woods was smiling. ‘Don’t worry. He’s powerless, and he knows it. You can bet that he won’t be sitting there behind that desk for long. That man’s long overdue a front-line post. Once he slims down a bit of course. And I know someone who can make both of those things happen. But that’s not our concern right now. You were right, Hunter.’
Woods looked at him and smiled. ‘Quite right about the op. And right to speak up too.’
‘Thanks, sir. Felt that I may have overstepped the mark.’
‘No. You said exactly what any officer worth his salt would have said.’
The word hit home. ‘Sir?’
‘I won’t tell you again, Jim. You must be commissioned.’
Hunter opened his mouth to speak, but Woods put up his hand, determined not to let the moment pass.
‘No, don’t protest. I’ve heard it all before. You and I both know it, Jim. Your time’s finally come. You’re too good a man to waste.’
They had been heading east, along the main street, in the direction of Groppi’s. But suddenly, Woods took a sharp right turn and Hunter went with him, and before long the streets became less familiar. As far as Hunter could tell, they were heading not into the centre of town, but to the south and Garden City. After a short while they turned into Sharia Kasr el Aini.
‘Where are we going, sir? Groppi’s is the other way, isn’t it?’
‘I’m well aware of that. Don’t worry, we’ll go to Groppi’s soon enough. We’ve both earnt a beer. First though, Sarn’t Hunter, we have another, rather more important rendezvous to keep.’
*
Just over an hour later the two men emerged again into the bright light of midday Cairo from a discreetly anonymous block of flats on Sharia Tolombat. It had all happened so fast that Hunter’s head was still reeling. Woods had waved him off the street, past the salutes of the two red-capped military police sentries, into the gloomy interior of the modern apartment block, which quickly proved to be ‘Grey Pillars’, GHQ, British Army in Egypt. Needless to say, Hunter had never before set foot within its hallowed walls.
The place bore all the hallmarks of a hasty conversion to suit its new purpose. There were seemingly endless flights of concrete stairs and once on the second floor, the two men made their way past innumerable boarded-up doorways and ragged holes punched through walls to create open offices. Everywhere were signposts bearing mysterious initials, acronyms that Hunter presumed must have meant something to the people who worked there. Men and women in various variations of khaki and tropical uniforms bustled past them, purposefully hurrying away on vital errands. It bore a resemblance, he thought, to a huge department store, an Egyptian Derry and Toms, in which the staff vastly outnumbered the shoppers.
At length they reached their destination. Woods knocked on an unmarked wooden door and they entered a small, overheated office, which had clearly and rather badly, been converted from a kitchen. A brief conversation followed, between Woods and a lean, moustachioed brigadier, in immaculate tropical kit, who bore a long scar on his left cheek and struggled with a stammer. He greeted Woods by his Christian name and was clearly an old friend.
Woods motioned Hunter towards the window. ‘Shan’t be long, old chap. Just wait over there. See what’s going on in the street. Just need to acquaint Brigadier Miles with the facts.’
Hunter did as he was told and moved to the window, which looked directly down on to the street. He watched as a small drama played out before him in which a pretty, well-dressed Arab girl was arguing with a young Egyptian. Clearly it was a matter of the heart and as she began to remonstrate the young man’s face grew more and more serious.
At length she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving the boy to gaze after her until she had disappeared in the crowd. Just another everyday tragedy. War or no war, love prevailed. The others had stopped talking now and Hunter turned back to them. Woods smiled at him and motioned him to join them.
*
The brigadier was writing something on headed paper. Moving closer to the desk, Hunter tried to read it, upside down, but after a while he gave up on what, even the right way up, was an illegible scrawl. Eventually, the brigadier signed it and then rang a little silver hand bell on his desk. A woman entered, a uniformed warrant officer in the Women’s Royal Navy, the WRNS – presumably his secretary – and brusquely whipped the letter away. She returned a few minutes later bearing the original and three meticulously written copies, which she gave to the brigadier before leaving.
The brigadier turned to Hunter and held out one of the copies.
‘There you are, Mister Hunter. Field commission. If anyone questions it just refer them to me. Now go and find yourself some pips. Oh, and congratulations.’
*
Finding a set of lieutenant’s shoulder pips proved rather more difficult in Cairo than the brigadier had suggested, but eventually, after a lucky scrounge from a friendly, if predictably expensive quartermaster sergeant, Hunter managed to get to work with a needle and thread. Now, an hour later, he was just finishing the job, sitting on his metal bed in the small shared NCOs’ quarter of the British barracks situated in the Citadel, high up on a hill above the centre of Cairo. He looked admiringly at his handiwork, and was holding it up when the door flew open and Woods entered, in a flap.
