Glossary

A and S	Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
AOC	Air Officer Commanding
baksheesh	change, money
bundook	rifle
bawaeb	doorkeeper
bint	woman
blue, the	slang term for the desert
CIGS	Chief of the Imperial General Staff
COS	Chief of Staff
CQM	Camp Quarter Master
dahabiya	houseboat
DAF	Desert Air Force
dekko	have a look
DMI	Director of Military Intelligence
DMO	Director of Military Operations
effiyeh	cotton scarf, usually wrapped around head
feloose	money
FOO	Forward Observation Officer
GC and CS	Government Code and Cypher School
G(R)	branch of the DMO’s office dealing with raiding parties, e.g. SAS, LRDG
GS	General Service, or General Staff
GSO(I)	General Staff Officer (Intelligence)
HE	High Explosive
iggery	hurry up, get a move on
intel	intelligence
IO	Intelligence Officer
ISLD	Inter-Services Liaison Department
ISOS	Intelligence Service Oliver Strachey
KRRC	King’s Royal Rifle Corps
LRDG	Long Range Desert Group
LOC	Lines of Communication
MEIC	Middle East Intelligence Centre
MID	Mentioned in Despatches
MO4	Military Operations, Department 4
M/T	motor transport
MTB	Motor Torpedo Boat
musquois	bad
OC	Officer Commanding
OP	Observation Post
QA	Queen Alexandra (Imperial Military Nursing Service)
RAMC	Royal Army Medical Corps
RASC	Royal Army Service Corps
RAP	Regimental Aid Post
2 RB	2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade
SAS	Special Air Service
Schmeisser	British term for an MP38 or MP40 sub-machine gun
SIME	Secret Intelligence Middle East
sitrep	situation report
SOE	Special Operations Executive
Spandau	British term for German machine-gun
suffragi	waiter, servant
Wafd	British-backed Egyptian Government
W/T	wireless telegraphy (radio)

CAIRO

August 1942

1

Friday, 7 August 1942, around eleven in the morning. The heat hung heavily over the city, like a shroud. However, in the first-floor flat just off Sharia El Maghrabi, which was home to the Polish Red Cross, the air was close and certainly hot, but not oppressively so. In part this was due to its position. Although east-facing, the apartment block stood in a small street behind the Continental Hotel. Since they were on the first floor, the grand nineteenth-century building shielded them from the worst of the morning sun, while by the afternoon it was almost entirely in the shade. The women had also worked out that by having the windows open, the shutters closed and both overhead fans whirring at full speed, the heat was manageable. One of the fans squeaked irritatingly, and the draught they made caused loose paper to flap listlessly, but this was a small price to pay.

The flat had four rooms: a living room, a single bedroom, a bathroom and a small kitchen. It had been donated anonymously the previous October, when General Sikorski had suggested that the few Polish ladies in Cairo set up their own Red Cross office. With countless Poles now freed from Russian internment, making their way south through the Soviet Union, then heading west towards the Middle East, it seemed only right that the tiny Polish contingent in Cairo should do what they could to help their countrymen.

There were four full-time staff, led by Countess Sophie Tarnowska, and ten volunteers. Work began early, before the heat of the day. That was when the packages were made up in the bedroom – bundles of clothes, shoes, perhaps even some other basics, including tins of food, toothbrushes and cigarettes. When this was done, the women would spend their time writing letters, or purloining more supplies. As the central Allied hub in the Middle East, Cairo was about as well stocked with supplies as anywhere, but everything had to be donated, and there was a war on, and they were vying with the International Red Cross and numerous other charity organizations for what could be spared. They had quickly discovered that the personal touch worked best, collaring men of influence at parties, or even making appointments to see them during the day. Face to face, a bit of flirting, a generous display of leg and cleavage, and determined eye contact made all the difference.

It was because Sophie and her sister-in-law, Chouquette, had just set off to see the new United States assistant military attaché, and because the morning volunteers had already left, that only two of the staff remained in the flat. Both were at their desks in the main living room, writing letters to go into the packages. Boxes of goods filled the centre of the room, giving it a cluttered air that the rest of its contents did not: four differing tables made up as desks, four chairs, a tall metal filing cabinet, on which stood a tray of drinks, and a small chest of drawers. A signed picture of Sikorski and a map of Poland hung on the whitewashed walls, and that was it.

Tanja Zanowski drew another piece of writing-paper from the drawer in her desk and placed it in front of her. It was white, with a stark red cross at the top, headed ‘Polski Czerwony Krzyz’ on one side and ‘Polish Red Cross’ on the other. She paused for a moment and looked up towards the window. She could hear outside the endless hubbub of the city: the traffic, the horns, the muezzin making the call to prayer, his reedy, wailing voice carrying over the din. Yet the shutters muted the noise so that in the flat the air seemed quite still, despite the fans – so quiet that she could hear a fly buzzing noisily.

She looked down again at the paper in front of her. My brave fellow countrymen, she wrote, please take heart that there are Poles here, in Cairo, working on your behalf. Working to help you. We know you have suffered under the cruel yoke of the Bolsheviks but you are free of them now. They were lines she had written a hundred times before, but now, as the fly settled on her bare arm, she stopped and whisked it away.

‘Hold on,’ said Ewa, from the other side of the room. She stood up, clutching a fly swat, then moved towards the wall beside Tanja’s desk, where she paused, her eyes following the fly. At last it settled, and she struck, with a loud crack. ‘Got it!’ she exclaimed, looking at the squashed fly stuck to the bare wall.

Tanja smiled. ‘Good shot.’

The lone telephone rang, and Tanja started. Ewa was already standing so she stepped quickly towards Sophie’s desk and picked up the receiver.

‘Polish Red Cross,’ she said, in English. Pause. ‘Yes, one moment.’ She held it out to Tanja, and mouthed, ‘It’s for you.’

Tanja pushed back her chair, stood and took the phone. ‘Yes?’ she said.

‘Hello, darling.’ Her heart quickened.

‘Oh, Harry, how lovely!’ she said, smiling.

‘Let’s meet in the usual place. In half an hour?’

‘But of course! I’ll be there. Don’t start without me!’

She put the receiver down, then glanced at Ewa, a smile on her face.

‘A date?’ grinned Ewa.

‘Oh – just a man I’m having lunch with.’

‘Who? Is it the one who was all over you last night at Madame Badia’s?’

Tanja went back to her desk, picked up cigarettes, compact and lipstick and put them into her bag. ‘Might be.’ She flashed another grin at Ewa.

‘He was very handsome. You are lucky, Tanja.’ Ewa turned back to her desk, then added, ‘I wish I had your looks.’

‘Don’t be silly, Ewa. Anyway, he’s off duty earlier than he expected, so I’m going to join him. You never know, maybe he can fix some provisions for us.’

‘If he’s a cavalry officer, perhaps he can.’ Ewa faced Tanja. ‘At least tell me his name. It’s hardly as though it’s a state secret.’

‘All right,’ said Tanja, as she looked into the mirror of her compact and repainted her lips. ‘He’s called Harry Rhodes-Morton. I really don’t know much more about him than that, but he seemed very sweet and he’s offered me lunch and I’m not going to turn down a free meal. Not at the Continental, at any rate.’ She shut her compact, put it back in her bag, said, ‘See you a bit later on,’ and walked out of the flat.

She sighed heavily. Thank God for the Polish Red Cross. A job in which slipping out to meet people – whether young officers or military attachés – was part of the brief. An additional rendezvous could easily be hidden …

Outside, the heat hit her like the opening of an oven door. She could feel it coursing through her flesh. She could smell Cairo too – the stench of animal dung and refuse, of scented smoke and dust – and the sound of the city, which had been clear yet remote in the flat, was now a dramatic cacophony. And there was the familiar stark hue, which seemed to be permanently washed over everything during the day: pounding sunlight filtered by smoke, dust and fumes. Cars and carts jostled with people. In front of her, a cart laden with green tobacco leaves rumbled past, the man whipping the mule and calling out to someone on the far side of the street. Several men in suits and tarbooshes walked past, while a street hawker in traditional robes squatted at the side of the road, a box of partly green oranges beside him. Across the road, several Australian troops, distinct in their wide-brimmed hats, were arguing with an Egyptian.

Tanja took a deep breath and walked on down Sharia El Maghrabi in the direction of the opera house. She was wearing khaki drill, a light shirt and narrow skirt that came down below her knee, and on her head a soft peaked khaki cap. It was something Sophie had insisted upon when General Sikorski had asked her to set up the Polish branch of the Red Cross. She had done so because the light clothes were so well suited to the heat, and Tanja had been grateful, partly because they were, as Sophie had insisted, practical, but more because they made her inconspicuous, despite her striking looks. One barely could walk twenty yards in Cairo without seeing another serviceman or -woman. Khaki drill had become as common as the flowing white cotton galabhiyas worn by most Egyptian men.

Reaching Opera Square, she crossed the road and turned right, down Sharia Abdin, then after a hundred yards, she turned, at the edge of the old Islamic Quarter, down a narrow side-street, which was sheltered from the sun by the buildings either side and by the many canopies that stretched out from under the balconies above. The muezzin called again from a mosque as she walked past men and women sitting in doorways, past shops and yet more carts. A mule brayed, someone shouted, and the wail of the muezzin droned out once more. Good God, but it was hot. She paused outside a general store, saw a cat eyeing her suspiciously, then looked briefly around and stepped inside, heartbeat quickening. The smell of incense and food was strong. It was dark inside and cooler – much cooler. Stacked shelves lined the walls, while below the counter was piled with fruit, beans and nuts. Flies buzzed lazily.

The old man sitting silently behind it indicated that she should go through to the back of the shop. No one else seemed to be around.

She pushed through a beaded curtain into a room scented powerfully with incense. The floor was thick with rugs and lined with cushions, and lying against the far wall, smoking a hookah, was an Egyptian in a suit and tarboosh, about thirty years old with a lean, lined face and a neat, pencil-thin moustache.

‘Madame,’ he said. ‘A pleasure as always.’

Tanja stood where she was. ‘Hello, Artus. You have a message for me.’ A statement not a request.

Artus reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I took the trouble to write it out for you first.’

Tanja took it, read it, reread it, then passed it back.

‘You had better be quick,’ said Artus. ‘There’s not much time.’

‘No,’ said Tanja. Without another word, she left.

Back through the shop, out on to the street. Another quick glance either side. Good. No one about. She turned right, back the way she had come before rejoining Sharia Adli Pasha, then nimbly crossing the busy thoroughfare. Thirty yards further on, she turned down Sharia Al Khasa, a quieter residential street. A row of gum trees lined one side, providing dappled shade and sheltering the apartment blocks behind. Passing through a gate, Tanja trotted up a small path, climbed the half-dozen steps past the bougainvillaea and nodded curtly at the bawaeb, a beady-eyed old man who stared up at her from his mat just inside the entrance. A few more yards, and – yes – the lift was down. She wrenched back the lattice metal door, stepped inside and pressed the button ‘7’. The lift began to rise, ticking as it did so, each floor passing as though in cross-section. Tanja tapped her feet and clicked her tongue against her teeth. With a jolt, the lift came to a halt, and Tanja stepped out, fumbling her key from her bag.

The dark corridor was deserted. Good. Key in the cream-coloured door, and then she was inside the familiar surroundings of her flat, with its odour of compressed heat and scent. She walked briskly into her bedroom and to the tall wardrobe. Reaching up, she felt about and pulled down the book – a comic German novel for children called Hausboot Muschepusche. Of course, the content was irrelevant: it was the pages, words and letters within it that mattered. She took it to the table in the kitchenette and began to work out the code.

It took a short while – five minutes – but with the numbers all written down in pencil on a scrap of paper, she returned to her bedroom and this time opened the wardrobe. The door creaked and from behind her dresses she pulled out a battered suitcase – it had accompanied her on the long, traumatic journey south from Poland nearly three years earlier. Back then, it had been stuffed with a few clothes, family photographs and treasures – jewels that had mostly been sold since. Now, however, it contained a small transmitter-receiver, around six inches wide and nine long, which she carefully took out and brought through to the living room. Setting down the case on the sideboard, she took out the small metal box, connected it to the accompanying battery pack, fixed the antenna, then took out the Morse tapper and screwed it in. It was a familiar process, but her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking. Come on, she told herself. Calm down.

She switched the set on, heard it buzz, checked it was tuned to the correct frequency, then held out her hands. They were still shaking, so she took a cigarette from the box on the table, lit it, inhaled and closed her eyes. Another deep breath. Then she began to tap out the numbers: 716, 713, 719, 717, 725, 715, 762. GENERAL. 821, 817, 842, 864. GOTT. 783, 744, 725, 743, 736, 762, 721, 753, 732, 783. BURG EL ARAB. 638, 629. ZU. 971, 972, 996, 922, 968, 8510, 967, 996, 915, 966. HELIOPOLIS. It took a little time.

638.813.811.824. ZWEI.

735. 834. 952. 842. 921. HEUTE.

755.623.763.942.823.913. SIEBEN

919, 947, 954, 744, 767, 714. AUGUST

When she had finished, she switched the radio to receive, placed the flimsy headphones over her ears and waited.

A minute passed, then another. ‘Come on,’ she mouthed. ‘Come on.’ She tapped her fingers on the table. The flat was so still, so quiet. Dark too. Only faint light managed to force its way through the shutters. Outside the sounds of the city rumbled faintly.

Suddenly there was a crackle of static. Tanja snatched up her pencil, listening to the coded numbers: 811, 925, 617, 618, 927, 923, 821, 943, 923, 853, 863, 881, 911, 943, 982, 841, 864, 831, 951, 961, 975, 856. The static stopped with a whine and, after a moment, Tanja turned off the set. Taking the book, she began to decode the message, each set of numbers a single letter. EMPFANGEN UND VERSTANDEN, it read. Received and understood.

Five minutes later, Tanja was back down on the street, engulfed by the midday heat once more. She put on her sunglasses, tried to resist the urge to glance around and behind her, and instead determinedly looked straight ahead. She thought about the impact her transmitted message would have. She knew perfectly well who General Gott was: formerly the British commander of XIII Corps and, as of yesterday, the new commander of Eighth Army. The sweeping changes had been the talk of Cairo the previous evening. At Shepheard’s and then Madame Badia’s there had been talk of little else – until Harry Rhodes-Morton and his friends had descended on her. Even they had been unable to resist telling of their glimpse of the Prime Minister. Churchill had certainly shaken things up during his few brief days in the Middle East: Auchinleck fired, a number of other senior commanders fired, and now a new army commander and a new C-in-C Middle East.

She was wondering what von Mellenthin would plan to do with the information when she heard her name called. She looked around and saw Ewa hurrying towards her across Sharia Kamil Adli.

Surprised, Tanja instinctively put her hand to her chest, then immediately regretted it, knowing it revealed a guilty conscience.

‘Caught you!’ said Ewa.

For a brief moment Tanja froze, but then she saw Ewa was smiling. Relief. ‘Damn!’ she said, with as much composure as she could muster. ‘Yes, you have, rather.’

‘Just thought you’d nip back home first?’

‘Yes – a quick change of knickers. I’m sorry, Ewa.’ She glanced at her conspiratorially. ‘I suppose I didn’t strictly need to but I’m just so bored of writing those letters. Is that a terrible thing to admit?’ She placed a hand on Ewa’s arm. ‘Are you very cross with me?’

Ewa laughed. ‘Of course not.’

‘You won’t tell Sophie, will you?’

‘Really, Tanja! What do you take me for? In any case, I don’t know what you’re worrying about. Sophie would hardly have minded.’

‘Maybe not, but I’d hate her to think I’m not pulling my weight. Or you, for that matter.’

Ewa smiled. ‘Forget it. It’s hardly the world’s worst crime, is it?’

‘Thank you,’ said Tanja. Then, looking at her watch, she added, ‘I must get going.’

‘Do you think you’ll still like him?’

‘I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter if he can get us some more supplies, does it?’

‘And if he pays for lunch.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, have fun. I’ll see you later.’ Ewa winked and walked on.

As Tanja crossed the road, her heart was still hammering. She was certain Ewa had suspected nothing – after all, why should she? – but that didn’t stop her worrying. Thank God Ewa had not seen her stepping into the shop. Come on, pull yourself together. She reminded herself that she was following all the right safety procedures, and that the chances of anyone ever catching her out were surely small. She sighed. It was always like this: the rational side of her brain forever in conflict with the part that produced intense panic and fear.

By the time she reached the Continental, her heart rate had slowed and her panic had evaporated. She stopped briefly to check her makeup in her compact mirror, then sauntered into the canopied restaurant at the front of the grand old building. She scanned the faces and saw a hand waving in the air.

‘Well done, you made it.’ Harry Rhodes-Morton stood up as she drew near.

‘Of course.’ She smiled, offering her cheek. ‘I was never going to pass up the chance of lunch with a handsome cavalry captain.’

Rhodes-Morton grinned and his cheeks reddened. He helped her into her chair, sat down opposite her and nodded to the waiter.

‘Champagne?’ he said, turning back to Tanja.

‘Oh, Harry, how lovely!’ said Tanja. ‘Are we celebrating something?’

He cleared his throat. ‘Well, I suppose so. It’s our first lunch together, after all. And it’s a new start for Eighth Army too. A new commander, and Jerry and the Wops held at Alamein. All our chaps think the same – that this time we really will send Rommel packing. And I rate Gott. I reckon he’s got what it takes, you know?’ He held up his glass.

Tanja lifted hers. ‘So who are we toasting?’

‘Would it be too forward to toast us?’

‘Yes, definitely. We’ve only just met.’

Rhodes-Morton blushed again. ‘Of course. How about to General Gott and Eighth Army, then?’

‘All right.’ Tanja smiled. The champagne was ice-cold, sparkling and delicious. General Gott. She wondered where he was now. Ah, well, it was out of her hands.

As it was, General Gott was fit, well, and looking forward to a couple of days’ leave in Cairo. The last time he’d been there had been in April, some weeks before the Gazala battles; four months in the desert was a long time, and although he was well used to living in a tent, everyone suffered their fair share of privations, generals included. The lack of running water, latrines that were no more than a hole in the ground, and the millions of flies were the same for all ranks. Even in the last war, for all its ghastliness, Gott had never spent more than a few weeks without a hot bath; and only in summer, during an offensive, had flies been anything to worry about – even then their numbers were nothing compared to those in the Western Desert.

Even so, Gott had been determined to brief his new corps and divisional commanders who had, until the previous momentous day, been colleagues but were now his subordinates as well. Confidence was low. They had taken a hammering since the fighting had begun at the end of May. Eighth Army’s battle plans had failed spectacularly. The Gazala Line had been overrun, British armour decimated, and Tobruk had fallen – Tobruk, a coastal town of smashed buildings with a wrecked harbour of half-sunken ships, but a town in which much British pride had been invested. Although Rommel and his Panzer Army had been held at Alamein, there was no disguising the depth of the defeat.

Some had already been moved on, replaced as the Auk was being replaced. The PM and General Brooke had broken the news to Corbett, Dorman-Smith and Ramsden, but all the divisional commanders remained. There were personal tensions between them and national tensions too. Eighth Army might have been British in name, but in reality it was a polyglot force of Indians, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans as well as British. Gott understood that these tensions needed ironing out, and fast. The new commander needed to clear the air, and if that meant delaying his leave by a few hours, then so be it.

Most important, he was conscious that the ongoing spat between himself and Dan Pienaar, the Afrikaner commander of the 1st South African Division, needed to be resolved. They had to put aside their differences. Eighth Army needed to gel once more, to fight as one. Pienaar had been the last to arrive at Eighth Army’s Tactical Headquarters and their conversation had taken longest, as Gott had suspected it would – that was why he had postponed his flight back to Cairo.

Now, however, at a little after half past two, his last meeting was over. Some plain speaking and an apology had achieved his goal. The air had been cleared. He and Pienaar had even shared a joke or two before they had launched into a series of planning conversations that had certainly renewed Gott’s confidence.

Seeing Pienaar’s staff car rumble off in a cloud of dust, Gott felt both relieved and invigorated. He was only a week short of his forty-fifth birthday, yet just a few days ago he had felt washed-out – physically and mentally. Command was an exhausting business, but doubly so during defeat. When the Prime Minister and General Brooke had visited him, he had confessed as much to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and had wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to get some new blood in. He had even suggested it might be time for him to be sent home. He had begun to think about seeing his wife and children again – God only knew, it had been a long time since he had glimpsed their sweet faces.

But he had not been sent home. He had been promoted and made Army Commander, initially a daunting and forbidding prospect, but now it excited him, and seemed to have infused him with new energy and purpose. More tanks were on their way – new American models – as were more men, more aircraft, more vehicles. In the flush of bitter defeat it was easy to view matters from a half-empty cup but, he realized, there was now much in their favour. Rommel had been held: his lines of supply were over-extended and the RAF were making a damn good fist of ensuring that as little as possible reached the front. In contrast, Gott’s own supplies had a comparatively short distance to run. Not only was there now no reason why Rommel could not be held, should he attack again, there was also every reason to believe the Panzer Army could be defeated once and for all. It was ironic, but the run of defeats had given them the chance of ultimate victory.

Gott smiled to himself, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then turned to one of his ADCs, hovering beside him. ‘Right, Whitworth,’ he said. ‘I think it’s safe for me to go.’

‘That’s good, sir,’ said Whitworth, a young captain and Guardsman. ‘The Bombay should be touching down at any moment.’

Gott looked at his watch. ‘Gosh, yes – we’d better get a move on. We don’t want to keep it waiting.’

‘No, sir.’

Gott disappeared into his tent, grabbed a small suitcase, then strode out towards the waiting car. He would be at Heliopolis in under an hour, and safely ensconced at Shepheard’s in two. A bath, a nap, then drinks and dinner.

As Tanja Zanowski proffered both cheeks to Lieutenant Rhodes-Morton after a delicious lunch at the Continental, a young nineteen-year-old sergeant-pilot was approaching the roughly cleared landing ground at Burg El Arab, some thirty-five miles along the coast, west of Alexandria. It had not been an easy flight. There was always plenty of turbulence over the Western Desert, but it was generally worse in the middle of the day, especially when it was sizzling hot and you were flying at only fifty feet off the deck in an ageing Bristol Bombay transport plane. Still, it was better to risk a sudden lurch and drop twenty feet at the hands of swirling thermals than it was to be shot down by marauding German fighters.

Sergeant Pilot Jimmy James eyed the landing ground, which was only just visible, thanks to the lines of old fuel cans marking out the strip and a few camouflaged tents and vehicles. Away to his right was the village of Burg El Arab – a cluster of mud-brick houses. The desert, as ever, looked impenetrable, sun-blasted and bleached. After a tight circuit over the landing ground, James brought the Bombay in to land with a light bump. Then came the familiar jolting as he taxied towards the few tents at the far end, and turned the aircraft ready to take off again. That was the golden rule: never switch off the engines. Keep them running, ready for an almost immediate departure.

James climbed down through the hatch in the cockpit floor and strode towards the operations tent to report to the duty operations officer, Flying Officer ‘Jonah’ Whale. Lorries and ambulances were already hurrying out to the waiting Bombay. Speed was imperative: the cargo was unloaded, then mailbags, personnel and wounded men were hoisted into the aircraft. The aim was to be airborne again in five minutes or less.

‘You need to switch off,’ Whale called, as James approached.

‘What?’ James replied. ‘You know we’re not allowed.’

Whale shrugged. ‘It’s orders.’

‘Orders from whom?’

‘Air HQ. You’ve got a VIP coming.’

Inside the operations tent, James took off his helmet and wiped his brow. ‘Jesus,’ he said.

‘I know. Sorry, but orders are orders.’

James looked at his watch – 1438 – then glanced towards his second pilot and signalled to him to switch off. ‘Damn, damn, damn,’ he muttered, pacing up and down the stony sand outside the tent. Switching off the engines was a worry in itself. They quickly overheated when stationary in this kind of heat and could be bloody difficult to restart. Scanning the skies, he slapped at several flies that were buzzing around his sweating face, then strode back towards the Bombay.

‘You’d better get the wounded off again,’ he told the ground crew, who had just finished loading a number of stretchers on board. ‘We don’t want them to die from overheating in there,’ he added, as one of the erks rolled his eyes with irritation.

James glanced at his watch again. It had been a frustrating day already. At six that morning he’d reported to the flight commander’s tent at Heliopolis to be told he’d not be flying until after eleven. That was unusual in itself, but then eleven had come and gone, and still he’d not been ordered to take off. At noon, they’d been told to take a quick lunch, but an hour later, they still hadn’t been given the go-ahead. Not until two that afternoon had James been given the orders to take off for Burg El Arab. Now it seemed it was a VIP who had caused all the delay.

He watched the wounded being unloaded, then ambled across to the ops tent once more, still scanning the skies above him. Was that a faint buzz in the distance? His heart lurched. Nothing. Just a vast empty expanse of blue. A phone rang in the ops tent and a few moments later, Whale called, ‘They’ll be here in a short while. It’s Gott, by the way – General “Strafer” Gott. He’s the new commander of Eighth Army.’

Good God. James nodded acknowledgement, then ran back to the Bombay. He’d no sooner ordered the wounded on board again than two Humber staff cars drew up in a cloud of dust. A number of people got out, but he spotted the new army commander, who walked briskly towards the waiting plane.

‘Are you the captain?’ he asked James.

‘Yes, sir,’ James replied, suddenly conscious that he looked hot, sweat-streaked and – he had left his flying helmet on his seat. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he stammered, ‘but I can’t salute you without a cap.’

Gott smiled. ‘Don’t worry about that, my boy.’ He glanced up at the ageing Bombay. ‘Are you ready to go?’

‘Yes, sir. We’re just starting up the engines now.’ No sooner had he said this than the twin propellers whined and clicked, then spluttered into life, whirring loudly, kicking up clouds of dust and rocking the airframe.

Gott turned towards the hatch just behind the wing, while James hurried forward to the cockpit. Clambering in, he glanced at Mackay, his co-pilot, wiped the sweat from his face, then hurriedly put on his helmet and plugged in his radio leads.

‘Engine temperature’s already rising horribly,’ Mackay said.

James glanced at the dials. Damn it. ‘Well, let’s get going quickly then,’ he muttered. Glancing down from the cockpit, he saw the ground crew signal his clearance to take off. He opened the throttles, the Bombay began to roar and shake, and then they were speeding over the rough ground. James eased the control column towards him and the violent shaking stopped. The shadow of the great plane eased away and they were airborne. He breathed out heavily and glanced again at his dials. Engine temperature was still dangerously high. Christ, he thought. This is not good. And yet he had levelled out at just fifty feet – they were barely off the desert floor, and he dared not go any higher. They were within easy range of any roaming enemy aircraft. It was the middle of the afternoon and he had been stuck on the ground for more than half an hour. This really is not good. Sweat trickled down his face and back.

‘Make sure you keep a sharp watch on the engines,’ he told Mackay. ‘If one of them seizes from overheating, I’m going to need to gain height quickly for cooler air.’

‘I’m on it, Jimmy,’ said Mackay.

James looked at the air speed. One hundred and forty. The desert spread either side of him. Far away to his left, he could see the vivid turquoise of the Mediterranean. Up ahead, nothing but bleached desert.

Suddenly there was a loud bang, a whiplashing noise and his starboard engine stopped dead.

‘You fool!’ James shouted at his co-pilot. ‘I told you to—’

‘But look!’ Mackay screamed.

Cannon and machine-gun tracers were whooshing past the cockpit and over the wings. Flames leaped from the starboard engine, thick smoke billowing.

Christ. James felt paralysed, unable to think clearly, or move. His hands were glued to the control column and he was vaguely conscious that all sound had gone. A strange, unknown streak of yellowish-green seemed to enfold him, then run down the back of his head and through his body. His paralysis vanished.

‘Get your head down, Mac,’ he shouted, ‘and get the medical orderly.’ The cockpit was filling with smoke. He pulled back the Perspex window catch, then saw the port engine stop. Cursing, he pulled back the stick, hoping he might use what remaining speed he had to gain some crucial height. An enemy fighter plane hurtled past, then another. Black crosses. Frantically, James glanced around him. He could see at least two more and they were still firing. More bullets and cannon tracer whooshed past, clattering across the wings. A fuel tank was punctured. A hundred feet, a hundred and twenty. The ground still looked frighteningly close. He gasped and glanced backwards. His wireless operator had been badly hit in the arm. There were a few flames now between the cockpit and the main body of the plane, but Mackay and the medical orderly managed to get past the bulkhead into the cockpit behind him.

‘Get all the wounded off the stretcher hooks,’ James ordered, ‘and lay them on the floor.’

While the two men battled their way back into the fuselage, James watched as six Messerschmitts flew on, disappearing into small black dots ahead of him. The Bombay had no power at all; it was gliding. Scanning forward, James saw that the desert sloped slightly downwards in a long, gradual descent. The ground looked far from even and there was also a difficult cross-wind, but he was able to glide the stricken aircraft lower and lower. Closer and closer came the desert floor until James tensed. A moment later, the wheels touched.

‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Please, God.’ The Bombay hurtled onwards, running forward down the desert slope, speed barely decreasing.

‘Everyone’s all right,’ said Mackay, behind him. ‘We’ve got them on the floor.’

‘I can’t get the damn tail down,’ muttered James. ‘The cross-wind’s too strong.’

‘What about the brakes?’

‘I daren’t use them. Not at this speed. It’ll tip us over.’ He grimaced, the muscles in his arms straining as he gripped the stick. ‘Damn it, this is hard. Like driving a ten-ton truck through sand.’ Smoke was still swirling around the cockpit, but there were flames now too. A sickly smell of burning hair and skin reached James’s nose and pain now coursed through him.

But the Bombay was at last beginning to slow. ‘All right,’ he gasped, ‘get back there again, and take off the door. Make sure it’s completely off its hinge, and when I give the word, drop them out on to the sand.’

Smoke choked his lungs. His gloveless hands were reddening and blackening and he could feel his face burning – but then, with horror, he saw the Messerschmitts coming back, low, like a small swarm of wasps. The bastards! They’re going to attack again. ‘Why?’ he said out loud. The Bombay was down, it was clearly never going to fly again, and aircraft on both sides knew better than to hang around once an aircraft had been destroyed.

‘Skip?’ It was Mackay, with the medical orderly.

Ahead, the Messerschmitts were speeding ever nearer.

‘Stand by!’ James called. ‘Get the hatch on the cockpit floor open!’

Mackay nodded. ‘We’ve told them what to do back there.’

‘Get the wireless operator out through the floor first, all right?’ shouted James, looking back behind him into the main body of the Bombay. He could see Gott – the general raised a hand in acknowledgement. Thank God.

A whoosh of air and dust blasted into the cockpit as the hatch opened, fanning the flames further inside. James cried out in pain, but they had now hit some softer sand, and as he kept the control column close into his stomach, the Bombay slowed. Thirty miles per hour, twenty-five, twenty.

‘Now!’ shouted James. He slid off his seat and, as he did so, the enemy fighters opened fire again, bullets and cannon-shells tearing into the cockpit. The instrument panel disintegrated, bits of glass and metal shattering and zipping around the narrow confines. James crouched, then saw that the heels of his boots were on fire. Around him, the Perspex was melting. He needed to get out, and fast – Mackay and the wireless op are out. Good – but he knew he had to make sure the general was safe. If I can just get into the fuselage…

General Gott had had his fair share of close calls – during the last war, and on several occasions in the desert. As soon as the bullets had started to hit the aircraft, he had known the situation was critical yet the seconds passed and still the Bombay was airborne. Then the enemy aircraft appeared to have flown on by and it was quickly apparent that the young pilot was doing a superb job. When the great hulk touched down, Gott felt certain all would be well, despite the smoke and faint lick of flames coming from the cockpit.

‘We’re in good hands,’ he said, smiling reassuringly. ‘We’ll be all right. Soon out of here.’

The co-pilot and medical orderly appeared, coughing and spluttering.

‘We need to get the door off,’ said the co-pilot.

Gott turned to the two ground crew who had accompanied the flight. ‘You boys know what to do?’

‘Yes, sir,’ they replied.

Like the pilot, they were young. Barely men at all, thought Gott. ‘Good,’ he said, then turned back to the co-pilot and medical orderly. ‘You two get back to the pilot. He needs you more than we do. We’re all right here.’

Gott watched as the two crewmen opened the door and latched it backwards, then sat down again. The Bombay was slowing but suddenly the aircraft lurched, the catch on the door broke free and the door slammed shut again.

‘Damn it!’ said one of the ground crew. ‘Excuse my French, sir.’

Gott smiled. ‘Let’s just get it open again quickly.’

The young man stood but the handle would not turn. A look of panic spread over his face. ‘It won’t budge, sir,’ he said.

‘Here,’ said Gott, ‘let me have a try.’ He stood and gripped the handle, but it was no use, it was wedged. The sudden force of it slamming back had jammed it. ‘Have you got a wrench or a hammer or something?’ Gott asked.

His voice was drowned by another burst of bullets and cannon-shells raking across the aircraft, followed by the roar of planes hurtling past. Gott glanced up and saw a ball of flame erupt just a few yards away.

‘Oh, no,’ he muttered, and then the wall of fire was upon him.

The same ball of flame now engulfing the fuselage had forced the pilot backwards, and so, with his shoes still on fire, his face and hands blistering, he went down through the hatch in the cockpit floor just as the undercarriage buckled and collapsed. Groping his way through thick clouds of smoke and past a burning tyre, he managed to get clear into blinding sunshine only for there to be another bang and the Bombay collapsed. He had avoided being crushed to death by a few seconds.

Staggering towards the rear of the plane, he looked for the crew and passengers, but saw only four men: Mackay, the medical officer, the wireless operator and one soldier, all blackened and bloodied.

‘What?’ he mumbled. ‘Where are the others? Where are they? Where are they?’

‘In there,’ said Mackay, pointing to the burning wreck.

The aircraft was now a ball of fire, changing shape before James’s eyes. Melting.

‘No!’ he said. ‘No!’ He looked at the others, then at his smouldering boots, his blackened hands, his singed uniform. For a moment he could not take in what had happened. Then his mind slowly cleared. Turning to the medical orderly, he said, ‘You do your best for everyone. I’m going to try and get help.’

North. He had to head northwards, towards the coast. Head north and, with luck, he might bump into someone. Above, the sun beat down. He felt light-headed, disoriented, but strangely no pain. Come on, he told himself, it’s your only chance.

James staggered across the desert, once tripping over a stone he had failed to notice, another time snagging his shredded shorts on some desert vetch. Numbed and still in shock, he managed several miles until, cresting a shallow ridge, he stumbled again and fell, fainting as he did so.

As his senses returned, he looked up to see a Bedouin standing over him.

‘Inglese,’ rasped James. ‘Inglese.’ The Bedouin put some water to his mouth, then hoisted him to his feet and helped him on to a camel. Jolting. James smelt the thick hide of the camel, then closed his eyes. When he woke again he was still moving, the sun still beating down mercilessly. He closed his eyes again.

He was awake. The camel had stopped. Beside him the Bedouin had taken off his turban and was waving it and shouting. James slid off the camel, staggered to his feet. The Bedouin was pointing furiously and there, a few hundred yards ahead, was a small cloud of dust and vehicle.

Thank God, thought James, taking off his shirt. It was completely red. The truck now changed direction and began moving towards them. James watched it approach, and then there it was, a miracle, stopped in front of them, men getting out.

‘Christ!’ said a man from the RASC. ‘You’ve got no hair. Your face is burned and look at your bloody hands! What the hell happened to you?’

James sank to his knees. ‘General Gott,’ he muttered. ‘Bristol Bombay shot down.’

‘Shot down? Christ, where is he?’

‘Still in the plane,’ gasped James. ‘He’s dead.’

2

Jack Tanner was awake, conscious of a fly crawling across his back. He lay face down on the bed, the thin sheet covering his legs and backside. His back and arms were bare, his tanned torso still livid with ugly red scars. Above him, the fan whirred, a faint warm breeze wafting over him, but there was no escape from the afternoon heat, not even with the shutters closed. Outside, the city throbbed, but here, in this compact room, the air was still. The fly flew off, but Tanner lay still, his eyes open, watching Lucie wash herself in the adjoining bathroom.