The Levant Trilogy (72 page)

It was mid-September before Simon was declared
fit for active service. Impatient and eager for action, he went straight from
the MO's office to his ward and started to put his belongings together. He
wanted to leave the hospital at once but would have to stay until he was posted
somewhere.

Greening, who had been waiting for him, said:
'We'll be sorry to see you go, sir,' but Simon was too excited to regret his
separation from Greening or anyone else.

Laughing, he said: 'This time next week, I'll be
in the thick of it.'

'I wouldn't bank on that, sir. The
MO
recommends you take it easy for a bit.
They'll find you a nice, cushy office job, I expect.'

'Not for me. "Active service" means
"active service" and that's what I want. I've been pampered long
enough.'

'Don't forget we had to remake you - that takes
time.'

'I'll tell them I've been remade good as new. I
need a fresh start. Fresh country. I've had enough of Egypt.'

The country Simon had in mind was Italy. Recently
Allied forces had landed near Reggio, taking the precaution to come ashore in
the middle of the night. It proved unnecessary for the Italians were only
waiting to surrender. As a result the Germans occupied Rome, sank their
battleship, the
Roma,
and sent
the whole Italian fleet full speed for Malta.

Italy was where things were happening. It was
the place for Simon. Ordered to Movement Control, he said gleefully to
Greening: 'I know a chap there who'll wangle anything for me.'

The chap was Perry, a fat, jovial major,
smelling of whisky, to whom Simon had had to report the day after Tobruk fell.
Impressed by his youth and eager desire to reach the front, Perry had promised
to send him into the desert 'at the double'.

The promise had been kept. Perry would see to it
that Simon was properly fixed up.

But times had changed. Army personnel had been
cut to a minimum and many offices had closed. Movement Control, once at Helwan,
was now in Abbasia Barracks again and Simon found that Major Perry had been
posted to Bari. The middle-aged captain who interviewed him was far from
jovial. He stared a long time at the medical report and said: 'I see you're
down for an office job, Mr Boulderstone.'

'Well, sir, I'd much rather see some action. I'm
no good at office work and I'm perfectly fit. I want to be back in the fight.'

The captain, not unsympathetic, gave him a
glance: 'You look all right to me, but we've got to fall in with the MO's
advice. We've arranged for you to go to Ordnance. Stationery Office. You won't find
it too bad.'

'How long will I have to stay there, sir?'

'Not long. It's just a token job. Anyway, we'll
all be out of here soon.'

Appeased, Simon asked for accommodation in the
barracks and was given a room identical with that he had occupied on his first
night in Egypt: bare, with three camp beds and reeking of fumigating smoke. The
sense of life repeating itself made him the more determined to get away.

Simon was now drawn to the Garden City flat, no
longer in hope of seeing Edwina, but because it was the only place he could
call a home.

Guy and Harriet had taken over Edwina's room at
the end of the corridor, which for months remained redolent of Edwina's
gardenia scent, and Harriet suggested that Simon move into their old room. He
said: 'It's not worth the bother. I'll be off any day now.'

She knew what he meant for they all felt
themselves transient, living on expectations though not knowing what to expect.
The events that occurred about them no longer related to them. Like the captain
at Abbasia Barracks, they all believed they would be 'out of here soon'.

Edwina came only once to the flat after her
marriage. Finding Dobson and Harriet in the living-room, she confided to them
that Tony was a bore with no sense of fun and, giggling ruefully, she said she
was already pregnant. After she left, Dobson shook his head sadly: 'I suppose
that accounts for the hasty marriage! Poor girl! To think that men once waved
guns about and threatened to kill for her sake, and here she is stuck with a
dull dog like Tony Brody!'

'I don't imagine she'll be stuck for very long,'
Harriet said. 'I bet, once the baby's born, she'll find another major; one with
a more highly developed sense of fun. But
did
men threaten to kill for her sake?'

'I believe someone waved a gun about once, but
it was a long time ago, when she was eighteen and quite exquisite.'

Dobson stared unseeing, distracted by the
memory, and Harriet marvelled that beneath his ironical sufferance of Edwina's
foibles, he had kept hidden this knowledge of her dramatic past.

Simon's job, that he described as 'stamp
Licking', did not last long. Early in October he was ordered to Alexandria to
take charge of two hundred men bound for an unnamed destination. So far as
Simon was concerned there could be only one possible destination. He would be
off to Italy at last.

Guy, who went to the station with him, said: 'I
envy you going to Alex at this time of the year,' but Simon, all prepared to
fight his way up to Rome, had no interest in Alex. He was now a full
lieutenant, rising into authority, but to Guy he was still a charge and one he
did not want to lose.

'How long are you likely to be in Alex?'

'I don't know. Probably a week.'

'We might come up and see you.'

'Yes, do come.'

As the whistle blew, Guy put his hand on Simon's
arm and Simon, covering it with his own hand, said: 'Thanks for everything.'
It was a detached valediction - he felt as remote from Guy as he had from
Greening - but to Guy it was gratitude enough. The visit to Alexandria, posed
as a vague possibility, now became an imperative and as soon as he saw Harriet,
he asked her to come with him. He was surprised that she did not immediately
agree.

'You want to go, don't you?'

'I've wanted to go to a good many places since
we married, but you've never had time to go with me.'

'Oh, darling, this is different. Don't be
unreasonable. We may never see Simon again.'

They set out on the following Saturday, starting
early when the light, now fading into the cool topaz of winter, gave a
particular delicacy to the delta. Looking out at the belt of green cut into
sections by glistening water channels, Harriet thought of their arrival in
Egypt and said: 'Do you remember our first camel?'

Guy, intent on the
Egyptian Mail,
murmured 'Yes' and Harriet watched for a
camel. One appeared, led by a boy on a very long rope. It moved slowly,
planting leisurely feet into the dust beside the railway track, and slowed down
when the rope was jerked, holding its head back, refusing to be hurried.

'Guy, look!'

Guy, coming out from behind the paper, adjusted
his glasses and tried to see what she was showing him: 'You said something
about our first camel - what did you mean?'

'Don't you remember? After we left the ship at
Alex, when we were on the train, we saw a camel. Our first camel. It could have
been the very same camel.' After a pause, she said: 'Egypt is beautiful,' and
she felt sorry that they must one day part from it.

Guy laughed and went back to his paper and
Harriet realized he could not see what was beyond the window. Beneath his confident
belief in himself, beneath his certainty that he was loved and wanted wherever
he went, he was deprived. She saw the world as a reality and he did not. She
put her hand on his knee and he patted it and let it lie there, keeping his
gaze on the lines of newsprint. Deprived or not, he was content; but was she
content?

She was free to think her own thoughts. She
could develop her own mind. Could she, after all, have borne with some
possessive, interfering, jealous fellow who would have wanted her to account
for every breath she breathed?

Not for long.

In an imperfect world, marriage was a matter of
making do with what one had chosen. As this thought came into her head, she
pressed Guy's knee and he patted her hand again.

Alexandria, when they arrived, was nothing like
the city Harriet had visited during the 'flap'. Then, with the Afrika Korps
one day's drive away, people were on edge, speaking German yet buying up food
against a probable occupation, or else piling goods on cars, ready for a
getaway. It had been a grey city under a grey sky, the shore deserted beside
the grey, plashy sea. Now in the breezy, sparkling October air, people looked
carefree, the most carefree being the young naval men still in their summer
uniforms of white duck. 'I'm glad we came.'

Guy answered with serene certainty: 'I knew you
would be.'

They were to meet Simon in the bar of the Cecil
and they found him already there, a lone khaki figure among the naval crowd. He
did his best to greet them cheerfully but they saw his spirits were low.
Something, no doubt to do with his transfer, had disappointed him, but he was
not free to speak of it and they were not free to question him. Though they might
never see him again, there was nothing to talk about but the war and the
Italian surrender.

To relieve the atmosphere of dejection, Harriet
said: 'I think things will go our way in future.'

Simon asked: 'What makes you think that?'

'The Italians wouldn't have changed sides if
they weren't pretty certain we'd win. Won't it be wonderful when the war ends?
We'll be able to go wherever we like. Think of seeing Greece again!'

Struck by the mention of Greece, Simon said:
'You lived there, didn't you? What was it like?'

'We loved it.' Harriet turned to Guy: 'Do you
remember how we climbed Pendeli on the day the Italians declared war?'

'Will I ever forget it?'

'Or those two old tramp steamers, the
Erebus
and
Nox,
that took us from the Piraeus? You sat on the deck
singing: "If your engine cuts out over Hellfire Pass, you can stick your
twin Browning guns right up your arse." Did you really think we'd make
it?'

'Yes. I knew we'd make it somehow or other. We
always do.'

Guy and Harriet smiled at each other, aware that
they were joined by these shared memories and the memories would never be lost.
Then Harriet looked at Simon for he, too, was part of their memories and they
of his. She said: 'When we climbed the pyramid, the war was at its worst. Now
it's turned round.'

'Yes, you're right. Things
are
going our way.' He laughed and for
a moment he looked like the very young man of a year ago who, newly off a
troopship, said of the desert: 'I don't know what it's like out there' and next
day was sent to find out.

Then, giving his watch a glance, he sobered and
stood up. 'I've got to rush. Sorry to leave you so soon, but we'll meet when
it's all over.'

'Yes, when it's all over,' Guy and Harriet both
agreed.

They watched him go. A shadow of anxiety had
come down on his face and as he passed between the tables, he seemed older than
the white-clad naval officers who might never have had a care in the world.

He went out through the door and the Pringles
were left looking at the room's faded cream and gold, and its war-weary fawn
carpet.

Guy dropped his gaze and sighed. There was
another friend gone. As he called for the bill, he said: 'We might as well take
the next train back to Cairo.'

Outside, where the light was deepening, they
walked along the Corniche, watching the silver kidney shapes of the barrage balloons
rising into position above the docks.

Putting his arm through Harriet's, Guy said:
'You'll never leave me again, will you?'

'Don't know. Can't promise.' Harriet laughed and
squeezed his arm: 'Probably not.'

That morning, Simon had been briefed about his
impending move. He was not, after all, conducting his men to Italy. They were
bound for an island in the Aegean called Leros where they might never hear a
shot fired.

Noting his downcast expression, the commanding
officer said: 'This is an important assignment, Boulderstone. You'll be accompanied
by a military mission with orders to put heart into the chaps on Leros.'

'I'd been hoping for a bit of a barney, sir.'

'You may well get it. The island is to be
defended at all costs.'

Simon assented: 'Sir,' but he was not impressed.
He was to be marooned in the Aegean and likely to be left there till the war
ended.

After his luncheon with the Pringles, he spent the
rest of the day organizing his men and their equipment on to the destroyer.
Told where they were going, the men grinned and one of them said: 'Piece of
cake, sir.'

Remembering how Harriet had said of Greece, 'We
loved it,' he began to think that Leros might not be so bad after all. The
convoy that was taking provisions to the Leros garrison sailed at midnight.
Standing at the rail of the destroyer, Simon watched the glimmer of the
blacked-out shore, the last of Egypt. He felt he had left his youth behind and
was taking with him nothing but his memory of Hugo; and even that was sinking
back in his mind like a face disappearing under water.