sleep. Professor
Beaker's alarm clock wakened him to darkness and silence. He had no idea how
he was to find his way through the unknown, sleeping city but down by the river
a taxi was parked with the driver curled up on the back seat. He reached Kasr
el Nil barracks as the first red of dawn broke across the sky, and saw the
convoy strung out along the embankment.
There was no sign
of movement. He had had to go first to Abbasia for his kit and was relieved to
find himself in time. He wondered if he looked a fool, turning up in a taxi
but, reaching the lorries, he realized no one knew or cared how he had got
there.
The lorries were
a mixed lot, made up from one unit or another, but on most of them the jerboa,
the desert rat, could be discerned through the grime. They had arrived
sand-choked from the desert and were returning sand-choked, but here and there
a glint of new metal showed where a make-do-and-mend job had been done. Among
the men packed on board them, he recognized faces he had seen on the Queen
Mary and he felt less dejected. Finding the sergeant in charge, he said, to
show he was not a complete novice, 'I suppose a lot of your chaps were on leave
when the trains stopped?'
That's right ...'
there was the usual pause before the 'sir' was added.
It was up to
Simon to take over now. He counted the lorries and said, 'Thirty. That's the
lot then, sergeant?'
That's the koulou
... sir.'
The sergeant
strolled off with the blank remoteness of a man to whom war was an everyday
affair. Simon, with no idea of what lay ahead, looked about him as though
seeing everything for the last time. There was an island in mid-river, one end
of it directly opposite the barracks. In the uncertain light it looked like a
great schooner decked out with greenery. The light was growing. The island,
touched by the pink of the sky, was taking shape, its buildings quivering as
though forming themselves out of liquid pearl. Palms and tall, tenuous trees
grew from the shadows at the water's edge. Nothing moved. The island hung on
the air like a mirage or an uninhabited place.
A wind, cool
enough to be pleasurable, blew into Simon's face and he said to himself, 'Why,
it's beautiful!' The whole city was beautiful and for a few minutes the beauty
remained, then the pearl hardened and lost its lustre. The sun had topped the
horizon. The air was already warm. The terrible crescendo of the day had begun.
Major Hardy,
arriving at the barracks square, chose to place his staff car half-way down the
column. Simon, given no order to join him, climbed in beside the driver of the
leading lorry. Trying to sound knowledgeable, he asked, 'How are we going out,
corporal?'
The corporal,
whose round, sunburnt face was even younger than his own, replied, 'Oh, the
usual way, sir,' and Simon waited to see what way that was. It proved to be
familiar. They went, as Clifford's party had done, past Mena House and the
pyramids. The corporal did not give the pyramids a look and Simon, seeing for
the second time the small one sliding out from behind the greater, felt less
wonder and said nothing. When they passed the excavated village, only Simon
noticed it. They were travelling slowly so the lorries would keep together. At
first the pace - it seldom exceeded ten miles an hour - was tolerable but when
they faced the open desert, with the sun rising and shining into the cab
window, tedium came down on them. Until then, Simon had still been attached to
the known world but now it was disappearing behind him. He felt apprehensive,
disconnected and rootless, and asked himself what on earth he was doing, going
off like this into the unknown? Then, it came to him that, though he was
vulnerable, he was not alone. He was a man among other men who, if they had to
act, would act together. Yet the apprehension, fixed in his stomach, could not
be moved. To reassure himself, he asked the driver, 'What's it like out there?'
'Oh,' the driver,
called Arnold, decked his head in a
Beaker's alarm clock wakened him to darkness and silence. He had no idea how
he was to find his way through the unknown, sleeping city but down by the river
a taxi was parked with the driver curled up on the back seat. He reached Kasr
el Nil barracks as the first red of dawn broke across the sky, and saw the
convoy strung out along the embankment.
There was no sign
of movement. He had had to go first to Abbasia for his kit and was relieved to
find himself in time. He wondered if he looked a fool, turning up in a taxi
but, reaching the lorries, he realized no one knew or cared how he had got
there.
The lorries were
a mixed lot, made up from one unit or another, but on most of them the jerboa,
the desert rat, could be discerned through the grime. They had arrived
sand-choked from the desert and were returning sand-choked, but here and there
a glint of new metal showed where a make-do-and-mend job had been done. Among
the men packed on board them, he recognized faces he had seen on the Queen
Mary and he felt less dejected. Finding the sergeant in charge, he said, to
show he was not a complete novice, 'I suppose a lot of your chaps were on leave
when the trains stopped?'
That's right ...'
there was the usual pause before the 'sir' was added.
It was up to
Simon to take over now. He counted the lorries and said, 'Thirty. That's the
lot then, sergeant?'
That's the koulou
... sir.'
The sergeant
strolled off with the blank remoteness of a man to whom war was an everyday
affair. Simon, with no idea of what lay ahead, looked about him as though
seeing everything for the last time. There was an island in mid-river, one end
of it directly opposite the barracks. In the uncertain light it looked like a
great schooner decked out with greenery. The light was growing. The island,
touched by the pink of the sky, was taking shape, its buildings quivering as
though forming themselves out of liquid pearl. Palms and tall, tenuous trees
grew from the shadows at the water's edge. Nothing moved. The island hung on
the air like a mirage or an uninhabited place.
A wind, cool
enough to be pleasurable, blew into Simon's face and he said to himself, 'Why,
it's beautiful!' The whole city was beautiful and for a few minutes the beauty
remained, then the pearl hardened and lost its lustre. The sun had topped the
horizon. The air was already warm. The terrible crescendo of the day had begun.
Major Hardy,
arriving at the barracks square, chose to place his staff car half-way down the
column. Simon, given no order to join him, climbed in beside the driver of the
leading lorry. Trying to sound knowledgeable, he asked, 'How are we going out,
corporal?'
The corporal,
whose round, sunburnt face was even younger than his own, replied, 'Oh, the
usual way, sir,' and Simon waited to see what way that was. It proved to be
familiar. They went, as Clifford's party had done, past Mena House and the
pyramids. The corporal did not give the pyramids a look and Simon, seeing for
the second time the small one sliding out from behind the greater, felt less
wonder and said nothing. When they passed the excavated village, only Simon
noticed it. They were travelling slowly so the lorries would keep together. At
first the pace - it seldom exceeded ten miles an hour - was tolerable but when
they faced the open desert, with the sun rising and shining into the cab
window, tedium came down on them. Until then, Simon had still been attached to
the known world but now it was disappearing behind him. He felt apprehensive,
disconnected and rootless, and asked himself what on earth he was doing, going
off like this into the unknown? Then, it came to him that, though he was
vulnerable, he was not alone. He was a man among other men who, if they had to
act, would act together. Yet the apprehension, fixed in his stomach, could not
be moved. To reassure himself, he asked the driver, 'What's it like out there?'
'Oh,' the driver,
called Arnold, decked his head in a
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