The Desert Falcons, page 6
The woman who had served their meal shuffled in, and Odile looked up in surprise. Above the veil that concealed the lower part of her face, the servant’s eyes were wide with alarm and one eye ticked agitatedly. She hurried across to bend over her mistress and whispered urgently.
Odile looked up and frowned. “The child is perfectly healthy: this is a very sudden illness; are you sure?”
“Please come quickly, ya Sitt.” The black eyes above the yashmak implored her, the woman was almost wringing her hands.
“Was ist los?” asked Dussel impatiently.
“Her child is sick, and she’s frightened.” She began to get up. “I’d better go and see what it’s all about.”
“You’re too kind to these savages. Don’t let her make a nuisance of herself. Let her look after her own sickly brats.”
Odile answered curtly. “These are my people, my friends, and they are no more savages than you are. They’re ignorant and dependent on me. It is as much my duty to look after them as it is yours to look after your soldiers.”
“Very well.” He rose. “It would be discreet if I returned to my officers, anyway, instead of staying here. Thank you for the goats’ meat you provided for their dinner; and the men’s.” He clicked his heels, bowed, and smiled. “I’ll see you later. In about an hour?”
Without answering, she brushed past him.
Her servant’s husband, the foreman, was waiting a few yards from the house. He stepped forward quickly. “Ya Sitt...”
“I’m coming, Selim, the child will be all right.”
“No, ya Sitt, there is nothing wrong with the child...” Crossly, reacting to the tension of the last hour, she demanded “Then what...?”
“Forgive me. I did not want the German officer to know...”
“To know what? He does not understand Arabic. What is going on?”
“I wanted you to come outside without making him suspicious. Hamed has caught a spy: I think he is Ingeliz...”
“An English spy? What nonsense is this? Where is he?”
Selim led her to a tent nearby, her thoughts in turmoil. The Senussi hated their Italian oppressors and had never willingly accepted their new allies, the Germans. It was no surprise to her that, if they thought they had caught an Englishman, they did not hand him over at once to Dussel. But she could not credit this story. The Allied forces had never reached this corner of the desert, even during their most successful advance before Rommel drove them back again. And now, with their front line so far to the east, she did not believe that they were in this area deep behind the German-Italian front.
She ducked under the low entrance to the big tent made of goat skins and camel hide. There were three low, wooden sofas covered with carpets and a few hard pillows. On one of them lay a young khaki-clad man who gave off a stench of sweat. His shirt bore stains that had stiffened the cloth in drying, and she thought that he had been wounded.
“Qui ‘etes-vous?” she asked.
Glashan looked at her unbelievingly. This was the last straw. He really must have gone off his rocker this time: wizard popsies like this just didn’t spring out of the desert. He continued to stare, and gulped.
“Qui etes-vous, Monsieur? Chi siete voi?” (A polite Italian would have said “Chi e lei?” but the Fascists had tried to abolish this form of address, and the only Italian Odile had learned she had acquired since coming to Libya; so she knew no better.)
Glashan knew a little French, no Italian, and was too taken by surprise to understand when she first spoke to him. He said “I’m a British officer. R.A.F. I was shot down.”
In her heavily accented English, still suspicious, Odile asked sternly ‘What do you do ‘ere?”
She saw the Englishman smile and come unsteadily to his feet, saying as he did so, “You speak English! Wizard.”
“A leetle. I am archeologue (she knew the word archeologist perfectly well, but hadn’t spoken English for the past three years and more, so her mind was slow to remember). It is necessary to read English, for my work.”
He was delighted. “You speak very well; for a French lady. My name’s Flight Lieutenant Glashan.” He pointed to the two strips of braid on each epaulette. “See? That’s my rank badge. I’m a Hurricane pilot, and I got shot down this morning...”
She held up her hand. “Please. Do not speak fast, my English is...is...”
“Rusty?”
She smiled. “Yes, rusty: I have not talked eet for more than t’ree year. And please, be very quiet.”
His face fell. “I’m sorry. Look, I don’t want to get you into any trouble with the Jerries...”
“Comment? What?” She frowned with the effort to understand.
“The German....” He remembered his Biggles, and other boyhood reading and many Great War films, and added, with sudden inspiration (and not a little pride at his cosmopolitan command of the language), “The Boches.”
“Ah, oui, ze Boches.” She paused. It was a long time since the term had so much as entered her head. “I must tell you, my name is von Choltitz...”
“Oh, Christ !” Von What-tits, had she said? Suited her to a T.
“It does not matter. I am French: by name I am born Vautier. My husband was German...not a Nazi...He was also archeologue...It was many years he had not lived in Germany...”
“Where is your husband...er . Madame?”
“He died two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” God, what a bloody silly conversation. Here he was, in the midst of a bunch of Jerries, and making polite remarks about some dead Kraut he’d never seen, when he ought to be trying to get the hell out of here...
She moved closer, concerned. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? There is blood...”
He looked embarrassed. “I’m fine, thank you. That’s not my blood...I was in a bit of a fix and someone got killed…the blood got on my clothes when I had to move him. D’you mind if I sit down?” He flopped onto the sofa.
“Tell me quickly what happened.”
“I was shot down this morning. I had to bale out.” He saw her look puzzled again. “Parachute, you understand?” She nodded. “My aeroplane got burned. Fire—you understand? I had to walk. Then a Me.109 saw me and landed, to try and put me in the bag...I mean, take me prisoner.” He paused. Bit awkward, if she’s been married to a Kraut, the next bit. “I...well, I managed to get hold of the aircraft...”
“I understand: that is how the blood is on your clothes...”
“Yes. So I took off...but the engine must have been shot up before I got hold of the aircraft, and it cut and caught fire. So I had to lob in...land...again. Then I started to walk once more. I found this place by accident.”
She was touched by his open, simple manner and his exhausted, filthy, bedraggled state.
“You can have a bath, and food, and we will give you clean clothes. You can sleep here, and tomorrow we will help you to get back to your friends.”
“You must be Lady Luck herself. Thank you. You’re as kind as you are beautiful. But are you sure you’ll he safe? Suppose the Boches find out?”
“They will not. We are very few people here, and everyone is completely loyal to me.” And it was sweet to be called beautiful and kind, in that direct and boyish way. She thought fleetingly of Dussel, with revulsion; as much for herself and what she had nearly done, as for him.
Fuad (al Fukr) had slithered right into the oasis and saw Odile go to the tent then leave a few minutes later to return to her own quarters. He saw the prisoner emerge cautiously, accompanied by the man who had surprised him, and another, who had come to the tent with the European woman. He moved silently after them and stopped when they entered another tent. Now there was more coming and going, and when he crept right up he heard the splash of water. He saw food brought in, and a bundle of what could only be Arab clothes. The second man, the one who had taken the Feringhi woman to the prisoner, eventually came away, leaving the prisoner with his original captor.
Evidently the prisoner was neither German nor Italian. The white woman was said to be French, a Fransawiyya, so per-haps this was a Frenchman and that was why she had hidden him from the Germans. If he were British, what reason would she have to keep him out of their hands? Talk about the excavations at Bir Zayid had spread as far as the coast: it was known that her man had died and left his widow to carry on; that she was French. All Europeans were Feringhi, and the Arabs scarcely bothered to differentiate between them; except for the Italians, whom they hated and feared for their cruelty: but it was said that her husband had been a German.
If the Fransawiyya was protecting the captive, whether he was French or British, it was a sign that she was not com-mitted to the Germans; that her reception of them had been forced rather than willing, a matter of discretion and survival.
He made his way back to the corporal and told him what he had seen.
Clinton-Reeves was already straining like a greyhound at the starting trap: he couldn’t wait to get back to the C.O. and persuade him to let him return and put bombs on the enemy armoured cars. When Fuad had given him the news, he said, “Stay here and I shall go and report.” He had three miles to go, but running and walking alternately, fresh after a day spent sitting in a lorry, he travelled fast.
Fuad resumed his vigil. He saw the big German officer who had taken food with the woman carefully rise from his blanket and go silently back to her dwelling place. He grinned lasciviously to himself and thought lewd thoughts. Almost at once the German emerged once more, and from the way he moved Fuad could tell he was in a towering rage. He stamped back to his bed, not caring to be discreet any more, and presently began to breathe deeply in sleep.
Some time later Fuad saw the Fransawiyya leave her house and go to the prisoner. Five minutes later they both came back to her quarters and went inside. Fuad began to enjoy indelicate thoughts again.
When Dussel tiptoed to his assignation he found Odile sitting calmly in a chair, reading.
She looked up, inwardly tense and terrified, praying she did not betray her fear and guilt.
“You are very beautiful, Odile.” Heavy Boche gallantry.
And France was under their iron heel. How she would relish seeing Hamed stick his dagger into that well fed stomach. Starved on ersatz butter and poor rations in their homeland, the Boches lived on the plunder of the countries they subjugated. While France went hungry, her tyrannous invaders waxed fat. Here, in Libya, they took everything they wanted and lived better than at home.
She regarded him without smiling. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
He leaned over her chair and tossed her book aside, then took both her hands in his. “You know what I would like.” He tugged at her and she let herself be half-lifted from the chair, with a cry.
“You’re hurting me. Be careful.”
He looked astonished. “What’s the matter?” Perhaps she enjoyed rough handling. All right, then. He heaved her to her feet and clumsily put his arms around her.
She struggled away and thrust her hands at his chest. “Please, don’t do that.”
“What the hell game is this you’re playing?” His voice came harshly, his face showed his anger.
“I’m sorry...Klaus...You have come at the wrong time...it is meine Regel...” She braced herself for his blow and flinched as he gripped her by both arms and shook her.
His face a few inches from hers, he said intensely “God damn you and your Regel...What the hell time is this to have your Regel...?”
“It started this morning,” she lied. “When you come so infrequently and irregularly, you cannot expect me to be always...available...”
He pushed her away. “Damn you, I ought to take you just the same...to teach you a lesson...”
What lesson? Is it my fault if Nature...?”
“To hell with you.”
Half an hour after he had gone she silently went outside, tense again but with excitement this time. At the entrance to the tent she called softly to Hamed, then reached in and shook him. In an instant he was there, knife in hand. “Oh, it is you, ya Sitt. What is the matter?”
“The German major came to molest me and I sent him away. I told him I am not well. He will not come back. But they will make a search of the whole place tomorrow before they leave. It is their way, as you know, and they never vary their routine. The English officer will be safest now in my quarters. Wake him and I will tell him.”
“That is wise, ya Sitt.”
She crawled in after him, and explained to a sleepy Glashan why she had come.
For a moment he was confused. Waking, he had taken several seconds to recollect and orient himself. Now this amazing poppet was back, inviting him to spend the night in her place. What she explained made sense: the Huns would go round checking everything in the morning, because they always did, and the only safe place would be in her quarters. Wrapped in an Arab shirt and jerd, bare-footed, he followed her.
Indoors, she turned to him shyly, in the faint light of a paraffin lamp turned low. “I hope you don’t mind, but it will be necessary for you to sleep in my bedroom. They would not dare come in there.”
He saw her narrow camp bed, but against one wall there was a broad divan with the usual carpet and pillows on it. He noticed that she had spread a rug there.
There was enough light for him to sec her eyes and to read their expression.
He told himself: By God, this has been one hell of a day, and I was dead beat when I fell asleep. But I feel fine now. This is your night, Glashan. It’s Christmas, eight months early.
He may not be a notorious stag like Ginger Morris or Buggerlugs Aylwood, who was a first rate C.O. into the bar-gain, but he was in the mood to give as good an account of himself as ever they could have. The boys would never believe it when he told them. This was the summit of line-shoots, and put the shooting of the Gerry pilot and escaping in his Messerschmitt in the shade. Derek, they’d say, if you fell in the bog you’d come up smelling of roses.
Freud was only a name to him, some Jerry type who was hung up on sex. He didn’t realise it, but he himself was now proving a well authenticated fact that would have caused that rather dreary old psychologist to nod his head in approval. A narrow escape from death heightens the instinct to perpetuate the species, hence sharpens the sexual appetite. Glashan was amazed to find himself as rampant as a stud bull, despite his tiring adventures of the past fourteen hours.
With a boldness that was made easier by the dim romantic light he took Odile’s hand and said “I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep again without some help. Will you stay close to me?”
Before he had finished speaking she had shed her clothes and was pulling his garment off.
Stockdale sat huddled in his jerd, cross-legged on the sand, with Lytton and his two other officers, listening to Cpl. Clinton-Reeves.
He knew of Bir Zayid with its oasis and Roman ruins, the French woman archaeologist and her dead German husband. He knew that the expedition was financed by an international foundation supported by funds bequeathed by an American philanthropist, and administered and financed from Geneva. All these facts had come to him long ago from his many friends among the Senussi Libyan Arabs of the Jebel and the adjacent desert and coast. Until now there had been no need to include Bir Zayid in the scope of R.S.R.S.’s operations: it would have been premature and therefore dangerous. But now that the Allies had been established for many months on the Gazala Line, and were planning a renewed and final assault to be launched in June, only a month ahead, to smash their way right through Libya and Tunisia into Algeria and achieve total defeat of the Afrika Korps and the Italian Divisions in North Africa, it was time to venture into the oasis, stealthily, and establish close contact with its inhabitants. He had intended to keep constant watch on it during the present mission and eventually go in and enlist the co-operation of the Arabs who lived there; and of the Frenchwoman if she could be trusted.
He knew that the Germans must already frequent the place, although probably not often, and the existence of the remote dump that had just been destroyed possibly had some connection with the fact that Bir Zayid lay where it did. But he had not intended to seek an engagement with the Germans on this trip, and their presence put him in a quandary by presenting him with an opportunity too good to ignore. He did not want to bring down their wrath on the people of the oasis, yet if he attack them while they leaguered there they would at once suspect that someone had betrayed them. They would not hesitate to shoot every man in the place, out of hand. The Italians would have massacred the women as well, and possibly the children.
“And you couldn’t identify anything about this chap they took prisoner, that might give us a clue about him?” Stockdale asked.
Clinton shook his head. “We weren’t close enough, sir.”
“Think, Corporal. How did he walk? Like a German? What did he wear on his feet? Was he in long trousers or shorts? What kind of headgear? Shirt or bush shirt?” He knew he was talking to his intellectual equal, but clever though Clinton-Reeves was, it was no insult to jog his memory.
“Shirt and slacks, sir. Scarf round his neck...”
“Then he’s more likely British...or South African, Australian or a New Zealander...than, say, a Frenchman. I mean, we know he’s not a German, unless he’s a deserter or traitor, otherwise he wouldn’t have been hiding from the Germans.”
Lytton said, “This is a long way from the line: he must belong to one of the other long range penetration units.”
“Or aircrew,” Stockdale said. “Someone out of a bomber or fighter that had to make an emergency landing, or baled out. Suppose an aeroplane went off course and either ran out of fuel or got shot up?”
