LITMIR.BIZ

       2

      While Stirling went off to the British Embassy to collect the key to his brother’s rented flat in Cairo’s Garden City quarter, where he would be staying, Greaves booked into the opulent Shepheard’s Hotel, which was off-limits to other ranks and used mainly as a place where officers could meet their lady friends. Once booked in, Greaves shucked off his desert clothes, drank whisky while soaking in a hot bath, then shaved and put on his dress uniform. In fact, though Stirling did not know it, Greaves had a date that same evening with Nurse Beamish and would, when the time came, be wearing an immaculately tailored bush jacket and slacks. He was wearing his dress uniform for the sole purpose of escorting the cheeky Stirling to MEHQ in his bold attempt to take his memorandum personally to the Commander-in-Chief. While Greaves was of the opinion that Stirling did not stand a chance, he could not resist the opportunity of going along with him to see what transpired.

      Dressed, Greaves drank another whisky by the window while looking out on the great sprawl of Cairo, with its bustling pavements, open-fronted cafés, shops, bazaars and its white walls strewn with red peppers and purple bougainvillaea, covered in green vines and shaded by palm trees. Here many of the women still wore black robes and kept most of their face covered; the men dressed in jellabas and sandals. Around tables in the cafés, some of which were directly below, the men drank coffee, smoked hashish pipes, played backgammon and talked noisily all day, ignoring the soldiers swarming up and down the pavements, hotly pursued by filthy, screaming bootblacks. It was a dreadfully noisy city, with radios blaring out shrill music and high-pitched singing, trams clattering to and fro, horse-drawn gharries clattering over loose stones, water gurgling from pipes and splashing onto the streets, and cars, including many military vehicles, roaring and honking in a never-ending traffic jam. It was also, as Greaves knew, a smelly city, but the closed window spared him that.

      When he heard a knocking on the door, which was unlocked, he turned away from the window and told the visitor to enter. Stirling entered on crutches, his head almost scraping the top of the door frame. After kicking the door closed behind him, he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning the crutches against the bed beside him.

      ‘I’ll be glad to get rid of these things,’ he said. ‘What’s that you’re drinking?’

      ‘Whisky.’

      ‘Just the ticket,’ Stirling said. While Greaves was pouring him a drink, Stirling glanced around the room. ‘A nice hotel,’ he said without irony.

      ‘I think so,’ Greaves replied.

      ‘I notice it’s conveniently located almost directly opposite Sharia il Berka,’ Stirling continued, referring to the Berka quarter’s notorious street of brothels.

      ‘Quite so,’ Greaves replied solemnly. ‘That’s where the other ranks are commonly to be found with a much lower class of lady than you’ll find in this building.’

      ‘Such as Nurse Beamish.’

      Greaves grinned. ‘Let us pray.’ He handed Stirling the glass of whisky.

      ‘Are you ready to leave?’ Stirling asked.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Good. Let’s go.’ Stirling polished off the whisky in one gulp, handed the glass back to Greaves, picked up his crutches and awkwardly balanced himself between them.

      ‘How much longer will you need those things?’ Greaves asked.

      ‘I can actually walk without them,’ Stirling replied, ‘but for short distances only. Then my legs start hurting. However, I should be finished with them in a week or so. Well, let’s get at it.’

      They left the room, took the lift down, crossed the lobby and went out of the hotel. Immediately, on the pavement outside, they were assailed by the bedlam of Cairo: blaring music, clattering backgammon pieces, the babble of conversation; the clanging and rattling of trams with conductors blowing their horns; and the roaring and honking of cars and military vehicles of all kinds, including the troop trucks of the Allied forces. To this deafening cacophony was added the growling and occasional screeching of the many aircraft flying overhead. They were also assailed by the city’s many pungent aromas: sweat and piss, tobacco and hashish, petrol and the smoke from charcoal braziers and exhausts; roasting kebabs, kuftas and ears of corn; rich spices and flowers.

      ‘The Land of the Four S’s,’ Greaves said, waving his hand to indicate the busy road and pavements, which were packed with Arabs in jellabas, women in black robes and veils, grimy, school-aged bootblacks, and the troops of many nations, most of them swarming through the city in search of a good time. ‘Sun, sand, sin and syphilis.’

      ‘You can think about those while you take your pleasure,’ Stirling replied. ‘For now, let’s stick to business.’ He turned to the jellaba-clad hotel doorman and spoke one word to him: ‘Taxi.’

      ‘Yes, sir!’ the doorman said in English, flashing his teeth and waving his hand frantically even before reaching the edge of the pavement.

      Less than a minute later, Greaves and Stirling were sitting in the back of a sweltering taxi, heading for Middle East Headquarters.

      As Greaves soon found out, even on crutches Stirling was both agile and adroit. When the taxi dropped them off at the main gates of MEHQ, he attempted to bluff his way in by pretending he had forgotten his papers and hoping that the sight of his crutches would dispel any doubts the guard might be harbouring. The ruse did not work, and although perfectly polite and sympathetic, the guard was adamant that Stirling could not enter without proper papers.

      Unfazed, Stirling thanked the guard, turned away, manœuvred himself on his crutches to one end of the long double gates, then glanced up and down the road, ostensibly looking for another taxi. But, as his nod indicated to Greaves, he had noticed that there was a gap between the end of the guardhouse and the beginning of the barbed-wire fence, and clearly he intended slipping through it when the guard was not looking.

      His chance came within minutes, when the guard was leaning down, his back turned to Stirling and Greaves, to check the papers of some officers in a staff car. As soon as the guard turned away, leaning down towards the side window of the car, Stirling dropped his crutches, waved to Greaves, then led him through the gap.

      ‘Act naturally,’ he said to Greaves while gritting his teeth against the pain of his unsupported legs and trying to walk as normally as possible. ‘Behave as if you belong here.’

      Feeling an odd excitement, like a naughty schoolboy, Greaves followed Stirling across the field to the main building of MEHQ. Just as Stirling reached it, one of the guards called out to him – either he had recognized him or seen his crutches in the road – ordering him to return to the main gate. With surprising alacrity, considering the state of his legs, Stirling ignored the guard and hurried up the steps to enter the main building, with an excited and amused Greaves right behind him.

      Once inside, Stirling marched resolutely, if at times unsteadily, along the

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