SBS, page 5
Hunter took a long drink from the cool beer in his hand and listened as the gramophone wailed on with the unmistakable sound of Cole Porter’s Night and Day.
Quite suddenly, a female voice from behind him cut through the music and chatter with the distinctive clipped and polished tones of the English Home Counties, talking about the surprising potency of cheap music.
Hunter smiled and put a hand to his head, shaking it in disbelief. There was no need to look round. He recognised it instantly: low, feminine, effortlessly seductive, emphatically in charge. The reference to Noël Coward confirmed it and, rising to his feet, he turned to see a familiar face.
A young woman in her early twenties, plucked eyebrows above an aquiline nose and high cheekbones, her skin showing just the hint of a slight tan from the Egyptian sun, her exquisite lips defined by a cupid’s bow of harsh bright red and those eyes – sapphire blue, flashing and filled with mischief. He would have known her anywhere: the unforgettable, unmistakable, always unpredictable Lara Heatherly.
She grinned at him. ‘Good God, Jimmy Hunter, and you’re wearing pips.’
Hunter looked down at his right shoulder. Nodded. ‘Good God, Lara, so I am.’ He glanced at the other shoulder. ‘Four of them, to be precise.’
The girl let out a huge guffaw. ‘Christ Almighty. “Lieutenant bloody Hunter”. I never thought I’d see the day.’
‘Nor I, Lara, as you know. But, well, I held them off for as long as I could. But you know how it is.’
He was an officer now and, if he was going to wear those bloody pips he was damned well going to make the most of it. Rank was a powerful aphrodisiac. It might have been true that all the nice girls loved a soldier, but Hunter knew that the really nasty ones preferred officers. He was surprised to see Lara here, in Cairo. And, he had to admit to himself, pleased. It was almost as if his reflective mood had conjured her up from the smoke, like some genie from a bottle. Lara Heatherly. They’d had a brief, painfully passionate liaison in London, three years ago. Perhaps it would happen again?
She spoke, breaking his reverie and as she did so, he realised that she too, was in uniform.
‘Well, Jimmy, didn’t you hear? I said how long does a gal have to stand around here before someone buys her a drink?’
‘I’m so sorry, Lara.’ He clicked his fingers at a waiter and ordered what he remembered to be her preferred drink. ‘Campari and soda, please. And I’ll have another of these.’
Lara smiled at him. ‘I somehow knew you’d end up here. I just knew it. And you may remember, I’m never wrong. Chaps like you always end up in places like this.’
He laughed. ‘Well done, dear Lara. Of course, you’re always right. Always were. I see you’ve joined up too.’
She posed, twisting her body to show off her uniform. ‘Well we all have to do our bit, don’t we?’
‘Who are you with?’
‘Oh, nothing special, darling. I’m just a secretary to a dear old general.’
‘Well done, Lara. I’m sure he’s very lucky to have you.’
‘Careful, darling. You always were a shameless flatterer, Jimmy.’
She flashed him an electric smile and in an instant he was transported back to London, to a basement off Greek Street and to someone’s party, late into the early hours. Smoke rings, jazz on the gramophone and Lara kicking off her shoes to dance, her long arms twined around his neck. He clicked back to the present. She was talking to him again: ‘I said, what are you up to? Christ, Jimmy, are you listening at all?’
‘Yes, of course I am. Just had something on my mind.’
‘Or someone, no doubt. So, what are you up to?’
Hunter shrugged. ‘Can’t say really. You know how it is. Careless talk and all that.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, I say. I really do say. How t’rifically exciting. You old fox. You’re a spook aren’t you? SOE. They’re all over the place here. The waiter’s probably one of them. Out to catch Jerry agents masquerading as British officers.’
‘No Lara, not really a “spook”. But I just can’t say.’
‘Oh, I know all about that anyway. My general’s a “mister big” in all that sort of thing.’
‘He is?’
‘Oh yes. But I shouldn’t be telling you that should I? Though of course if you’re one of them too, well then I suppose it’s alright, sort of. Isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose it is. Sort of.’
‘I say, are you with Stirling’s lot? SAS? Out in the desert, “biffing the boche”. They’re frightfully brave, don’t you think? Well of course you do, if you’re one of them. Are you? Oh God. There I go again.’ She rapped herself on the knuckles. ‘Message to brain: “Mustn’t ask questions”. Careless talk and all that. You see. I told you. I’m utterly useless. A genuine security risk.’
She laughed and smiled at him. He didn’t believe her for a minute. One thing that Lara Heatherly was not was useless. Or stupid. If she was working for SOE or SIS or some other bunch of letters he didn’t know about, then you could be sure that it was not just as a secretary to ‘a dear old general’. Perhaps she was working for his new employers? Now that was a strange thought.
Unless, of course, she was lying about the whole thing. Perhaps it was a fantasy. Or perhaps she was an enemy agent. No, that was too absurd. Lara Heatherly a Nazi spy?
He realised that he hadn’t noticed that Lara had put her hand around his waist and was now swaying to the music, which had changed to another Cole Porter song: ‘You’d be so Easy to Love’.
She sang a line of it, then whispered in his ear, ‘Isn’t this lovely, Jimmy? Us being here, together I mean. How lucky we are.’
He was thunderstruck. Lara? Really?
She rested her head on his shoulder and, as she did so, he saw a British officer approaching them. The newcomer spoke: ‘Lara, darling. How wonderful. What can I get you? And who’s this?’
The man, a captain, lean and athletic in build, with a high forehead, looked at Hunter with a mixture of contempt, suspicion and envy.
Lara had straightened up and let go of Hunter’s waist.
‘This is Jimmy Hunter, Xan. Jimmy, have you met dear Xan? Xan Fielding, Lieutenant Hunter. There you are.’
Hunter had heard of Fielding. Of course he had. He was well known among the special forces for his work as an SOE agent. Along with Paddy Leigh Fermor. Hunter was familiar with their work. Leigh Fermor, who had famously walked his way around the Balkans and Greece before the war, living in Athens and Romania. Joining up he’d become an officer in the Irish Guards and fought in Crete before joining Special Operations. He had since run operations in Crete and had apparently helped hundreds of the men left behind after the evacuation to escape. God knew what else he had been up to, but in SOE it seemed that anything was possible. Hunter wondered whether Fielding too might be mixed up in his own new mob.
Fielding smiled at Lara and spoke, bubbling over with the unbridled enthusiasm of the English public schoolboy. ‘I say, Lara. What are you doing here? You’re in luck. There’s a bit of a “do” on at Tara this evening. The princess is throwing a party. Everyone’s going to be there. I’m off there now. Why don’t you come?’
He had heard of Tara too. It was the villa on Gezira island in the middle of the city that had quickly become the focus for the British ‘smart set’. It was crammed full of SOE. Basil Moss, another SOE man, had rented it from some Egyptian and filled it with his friends, their pets and countless hangers-on. Some Polish countess held court there. Whatever its owners had originally called it, the villa now took its new name from the palace of the High Kings of Ireland. Reports of the parties and balls held at Tara had already become almost legendary. It was, thought Hunter, as if all the bright young things who had haunted the London he had known in the years between the wars, now equally excited and terrified by the violence and destruction around them, had found their new spiritual home in the unlikely setting of Cairo.
Clearly, Fielding’s invitation was intended for Lara alone. And Hunter was taken aback when she looked at him for approval.
‘Jimmy? What do you think? Should we go? Might be fun.’ She squeezed his arm.
Suddenly, it appeared they had become a couple. A ‘we’. Hunter thought for a moment. While he was intrigued by the prospect of seeing the villa, he had also been thrown by Lara’s sudden, unexpected advances and had not yet decided what he should do about her. He decided on caution.
‘Perhaps not, Lara. Not this evening.’
She smiled at him, knowingly. Then, gently taking her hand from his arm turned to Fielding. ‘Well, I’m up for it. Come on then, Xan. To Tara! Jimmy, perhaps we could try again tomorrow?’
Unthinking, Hunter nodded and she smiled back at him and leant over to give him a kiss, full on the lips. As she did so he smelt her perfume again.
‘That’s settled then, darling. Tomorrow it is.’
Darling? Where had that come from? Hunter felt Fielding’s eyes narrowing as he waited to watch his response.
‘Yes. Of course, Lara… See you tomorrow.’
‘Here? Dinner? I’ll meet you here at eight.’
Before he could reply, she had smiled and kissed him again.
‘Till tomorrow, Jimmy. Promise me you’ll be a good boy till then.’
And then she was gone, clutching the arm of Xan Fielding, off into the Cairo night.
Hunter’s mind was reeling.
Seeking something different, he made his way through the narrow Cairo streets towards the poor side of town, far away from the jazz bars and the socialites. At length, he found what he was looking for. Joe’s was as run-down a bar as any wandering soldier could have hoped for. Tucked away in a corner of the Burqua, it was a mass of khaki uniforms and packed with drunken squaddies and NCOs. Hunter could not see a single other officer among them.
He pushed his way through to the bar, ignoring the glances as some of the less drunken men recognised a lieutenant in their midst. At length managed to get there and, catching the barman’s eye ordered a beer. He drank it down quickly, keen now to lose himself in the press of uniforms. Keen too to banish the worries that were increasingly haunting his mind. He wanted a justification for his new and still-unwanted promotion. He wanted an explanation for Lara’s sudden passion. Perhaps he should after all have gone with her to Tara. At least he wouldn’t have been alone. For here, in this packed bar, with men pressing from all sides, he had once again begun to feel alone. He knew it all too well, the gnawing loneliness that always took him when he found himself without company at this time of night. The loneliness that had been his life since childhood.
It had not, he thought, been the death of his parents that had affected him so much – he had hardly seen them as a child, banished to that Scottish boarding school, while his mother had accompanied his archaeologist father on trips to Greece and the Middle East. Of course their unexpected loss in a road accident here in Egypt almost ten years ago now had been a terrible shock, but the fact that he was already used to the concept of being alone had made it easier to bear.
Since then though, to his surprise, their absence had begun to affect him more and more and now Hunter’s loneliness hung about him like a shroud, and as the evening drew on it seemed, as so often it did, to weigh ever heavier on his shoulders.
There were, in his experience, only two things that lightened that weight: sex and alcohol. And when, on occasion, the former was not available, or as tonight had been somewhat confusing, the latter inevitably took over.
Hunter caught the barman’s eye again and ordered another drink, feeling his mood lighten as he did so.
He looked around the bar. It was typical of its type, with a polished zinc bar top, and behind the barman glass shelves boasting a dazzling array of bottles, including twenty famous malt whiskies and premium British brands, most of which, he guessed, contained alcohol that bore little or no relation to their purported contents. The whole thing was finished off with a red velvet pelmet over the shelves, hung with tassels, and black and white photographs of half-naked women, while at either end of the bar stood several stuffed camels and three large hashish pipes.
He peered at his fellow drinkers. They were a mixed lot, typical of the British Army in North Africa. He listened out for the accents: Scousers, Geordies, Scots, Welsh and Irish along with a smattering of New Zealanders.
He began to take stock of his own situation and was beginning to think that perhaps he might at last have found somewhere where he could find some sort of happiness, when without warning, his right elbow was knocked violently, sending the beer flying from his hand, drenching the man standing to his right.
Instinctively, Hunter turned to his left towards the man who had knocked him, but it was already too late, for as he did so the soldier crumpled to the floor, felled by a huge punch from some unseen hand. At the same time Hunter felt a hand on his shoulder, as the man behind him, now covered in beer, went to hit him. As he did so Hunter heard the man behind him shout, ‘Mick, no, don’t. He’s a bloody officer. Oh, fuck it.’
Then the punch connected and Hunter fell backwards into a group of soldiers. Shaking his head to clear it he stood up and stared at his assailant who was glowering back at him, his fist still clenched.
He was a big man, bigger certainly than Hunter, but Hunter knew that his weight and height would not always work to his advantage and that they could be used against him. For an instant Hunter considered the possibility of not reacting, but despite the entreaties of his mates, the man looked ready to have another go. There was nothing for it. Hunter made to punch him with his left fist and the man flailed his own fist towards him.
But before it connected, Hunter had ducked and shot out his powerful right fist to hit the man a full blow in the solar plexus.
The big man grabbed at his stomach and his knees gave way. But, as he did so, Hunter was hit from behind by a man’s shoulder crashing into him and pushing against the bar. He swung round and saw a smaller man, a sergeant, coming at him, his fist raised. Hunter clenched his own right fist and, raising his arm quickly, blocked the man’s jab, before hitting him with a swinging uppercut from his left arm that connected with his chin. The man hardly blinked, but let fly with another haymaker, which hit Hunter in the chest. Before he could respond, Hunter was being pulled round by the first man he had hit, who had now risen from the ground and was swaying groggily.
Before he could get another punch in, Hunter jabbed out a short rabbit punch and connected hard with his nose. Spurting blood, the man went down and this time he did not get back up. Hunter moved fast now. Turning back to where the sergeant had been, he saw the man had now gone, his place taken by a ferocious four-man fist-fight. Pushing down on the bar, Hunter pulled up his body and clambered onto the bar top before jumping down beside the cowering Egyptian barman. As he did so, a beer glass flew over his head and smashed against the row of bottles that lined the shelves at the back of the mirrored bar, bringing them down and smashing the mirror behind them.
From his right came a voice: ‘Oh dear. That’s bad luck, sir. And seven years of it too.’
Hunter looked to his right, in the direction of the voice, and found a soldier staring at him. It was the sergeant who had hit him. He didn’t seem as if he wanted to do it again. He spoke in a gentle, Scottish accent: ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, that was a bloody good thump you gave me, sir. You’ll have done that before, I reckon.’
‘You reckon right then. You too, Sarn’t, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Thank you, sir. Yes, I’m not afraid to handle myself.’ He smiled. ‘Now, sir, if you want my advice, you’d be best to get out of here before the redcaps arrive.’
‘Thank you, Sarn’t, I’ll take your advice.’
Hunter raised himself up till his eyes were level with the bar top and peered into the room at a chaotic mêlée of thumping fists and flying objects. He quickly ducked down. ‘Looks like I might have to fight my way out.’
‘Two might have a better chance than one, sir, would you say?’
Hunter nodded. ‘Agree. If you’re quite ready to go, Sarn’t. If I really can’t tempt you to another one, Sarn’t… your name?’
‘Name’s Knox, sir. James Knox, 1st Black Watch, but call me Jack, and thank you, no, sir. I think they’re about to call time.’
There was a flurry of noise as, on his words, the door of the bar flew open and a twelve-man squad of red-capped military police charged in, bowling over half a dozen of the brawling drunks nearest the door.
Hunter indicated to Knox to follow him and the two men trotted fast, bent over, along the rear of the bar, away from the cowering barman. Hunter had spotted a door leading from the bar into the kitchens and reaching this he pushed it open and headed through, followed by Knox. It swung shut behind them and, as it did so, both men stood up. Knox smiled. ‘Nice one, sir.’
‘My pleasure, Sergeant. Now let’s get out of here.’
They headed for the kitchen door and stepped out into the night, being careful to shut it behind them. Knox, seeing a large industrial-sized metal dustbin, pushed it towards the door, helped by Hunter, until they had blocked it off. Then together they ran down the alleyway and emerged on to the main road. They looked at each other and both smiled.
Hunter spoke first: ‘Well, goodnight, Sarn’t.’
‘Goodnight, sir. See you again.’
‘Not around here in a hurry, if I can help it, you won’t.’
Knox laughed and nodded. ‘Too right, sir. Goodnight.’
They split up and headed off in different directions, just as the MPS began to load their drunken, protesting prisoners on to two lorries parked outside the bar. Hunter didn’t dare look back, but keeping his head down, walked off until he was lost in the crowd.
