An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War (26 page)

“Cheeky bugger, that destroyer skipper,” Tom said with a grin, and went on, “Our capital ships, those that aren't at sea, are at this end. But see over there, up ahead, behind the land that the breakwater starts from?”

“Near the lighthouse?”

“Yes, just to the left. That's the cruiser anchorage. We've ships in there and so have the French. Their battleship
Lorraine
is over there. They have battleships at Oran in Algeria too.”

“Vive la France,”
Fingal said, and shook his head. “It sounds like their army and air force in Europe are taking a terrible pasting, the poor devils.”

“They'd better win, that's all I can say,” Tom muttered, “because if they lose, Cunningham and their Lordships of the Admiralty will have to decide what to do to stop the French warships in the Med from falling into German hands.”

“A cheerful thought for such a sunny day,” a familiar voice said.

Fingal turned to see Richard Wilcoxson. “Sorry I'm late, gentlemen. I had to stop a nosebleed.”

“You've time to spare,” Tom said. “We're still waiting for the next boat ashore.”

Richard stared at the anchorage and nodded. “I see old
Barham
's back.”

“Part of a convoy escort to and from Malta,” Tom said. “Got in early this morning.”

Fingal stared at what was nearly
Warspite
's doppelgänger, which was not surprising. They were sister
Queen Elizabeth
–class battleships. “Altogether, Tom, just how many ships are under ABC's command?” he asked.

Tom counted on his fingers. “Four fifteen-inch-gun battleships, but three really need massive refits.
Warspite
's the only fairly modern one. The aircraft carrier HMS
Eagle
and her Fleet Air Arm Swordfish torpedo bombers, the Seventh and Third Cruiser Squadrons, both made up of six-inch-gun-armed vessels, twenty-five destroyers, and twelve submarines and their depot ship HMS
Medway
. I'm not counting things like boom defence vessels, motor torpedo boats. Can't give you an exact number, but it's enough for the present.”

“And the Italians?” Richard asked. “Lord knows how Il Duce will jump, but if he did form an alliance with Germany, how big a threat would the Italian navy be?”

Tom shook his head. “We'd have our hands full. The Regia Marina has, in commission or ready for service, several modern battleships that all outclass the old vessels at Admiral Cunningham's disposal except
Warspite
. And its cruisers have eight-inch rifles. Ours have six. I know, because I saw the Italian ships when we were on goodwill visits before war broke out.”

Fingal shook his head. “I don't think I'll ever understand politics. Italy was on our side in '14 to '18.”

“But then they got the Fascisti and Mussolini.” Richard nodded toward the harbour where a pinnace was approaching
Warspite
's port quarter. “That's our boat, and right on time.” He glanced at his watch. “Benito Mussolini made Italy's trains run on time, they say. So does the Royal Navy with its liberty boats.” He stepped aside, outstretched one arm. “After you two,” and then in a fair imitation of Leading SBA Barker's Cockney accent remarked, “All ashore what's going ashore, gents, hif you please.”

*   *   *

A dappled grey horse that looked to Fingal to have nearly terminal swayback was solemnly clopping ahead, pulling their gharry along a bustling thoroughfare. It was noisy with the racket of hooves and wheels, the engines of ancient motorcars, horses whinnying and donkeys braying, all accompanyied by an endless symphony of honking horns. An Arab in flowing white robes guided a single-humped camel along the street.

“I can never remember,” Tom said, “if that's a dromedary or a bactrian camel.”

“Dromedary,” Richard said. “The bactrian ones live in China. They're the ones with the twin hump mount.”

Fingal inhaled. The most overpowering smell was of animal dung mingling with roasting coffee, and dashes of spices that he could not begin to identify. Their conveyance was bringing the three men from the dockside through the native quarter along the notorious Rue des Soeurs, the red-light district, to the more salubrious city centre. Alexandria's red-light district was out of bounds to all service personnel unless in transit, but Fingal was sure he'd seen a couple of sailors ducking back into an alley. They must have seen two regulators, as the naval police were called, marching along the street looking for men breaking the rules. Sailors cooped up at sea for months would pay little attention to out-of-bounds orders, and in about a week sick parade would be dominated by cases of the clap, or, worse, syphillis.

A thought struck him. “Suppose there's a sudden emergency. How do we get all the crews out of these warrens and back to their ships?”

Richard said, “Combination of things. The Jaunty—”

“What?”

“The masters at arms of the ships with men at liberty. The nickname's the Jaunty, a corruption of the French
gendarme.
Their naval police do a round-up and before that the ships' sirens will sound.” Richard smiled. “Sorry. Should have told you before we came ashore.”

Fingal stared around. On each side of the road, plastered square buildings were apparently built on top of each other with no obvious rhyme or reason. Some had domes and balconies. Some protruded onto the street. Most were open-fronted housing, small shops, coffeehouses.

“Those scruffy-looking blokes are Egyptians,” Richard said, nodding at a group of men sitting round a table. “You can tell by their loose smocks and fezzes. They sit all day drinking Turkish coffee. In Nelson's navy they'd have been called ‘idlers' because they send their missusses out to earn the crust while the men take their ease. Upper-class Egyptian men favour Western dress, and although the working-class women often wear the veil, their better-off sisters don't.”

The gharry stopped abruptly. The way was blocked by a man riding a donkey and one pushing a hand cart in a heated dispute over who had the right of way. Fingal had a flash of memory of old Lorcan O'Lunney, the tugger he'd befriended in Dublin.

The pavement underfoot was littered with horse apples from the innumerable draught animals, and flies swarmed around the ordure. Fingal had seen locals using fly whisks and determined to get one at the earliest opportunity. People on foot jostled by. He noticed one man of about fifty being led by the hand. His eyelids were scarred shut and puckered, and Fingal made a diagnosis of trachoma, better known as Egyptian opthalmia, the leading cause of blindness in the world. The human race would be a damn sight better off looking for a cure for it and other debilitating illnesses, than shooting at each other.

He was distracted by their driver yelling something in what Fingal assumed was Arabic and using his whip to threaten the donkey rider. Eventually the gharry was able to proceed. The driver shrugged, smiled, and said,
“Insha'Allah,”
obviously by way of apology.

“It means, ‘It's the will of Allah and can't be helped,'” Richard explained.

“I see,” Fingal said, drinking in with delight the sights and sounds. This really would be something to tell Deirdre about when next he saw her.

From somewhere farther inland, a voice began calling,
“Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar…”
and was echoed from several different directions.

“It means ‘God is good,'” Richard said. “Those are the
muezzins,
the men of the mosques who call the faithful to prayer. It's late afternoon so that's
Asr,
the third of the five daily devotions. The religions rub shoulders here and funnily enough, there's very little friction.”

Not like Ireland, Fingal thought, but stifled the idea.

“It's a pretty cosmopolitan place,” Tom said. “There are Egyptian, French, Italian, Greek, Jewish, and Armenian districts.”

“And English,” Richard said.

“Off-work you'll find them and their memsa'bs at one of the two sporting clubs,” Tom said. “Naval officers have automatic memberships.” He produced a leer that came as a surprise to Fingal, winked, and lowered his voice. “Used to be quite the places for a bit of the old Somerset Maughams.”

The English writer's short stories were rife with tales of colonial extramarital dalliances.

“—before I met Carol, of course.”

Fingal laughed. Interesting to know, but Deirdre was at no risk of his being tempted by bored, rich, excitement-seeking English wives who'd be waited on by servants at home and who, apart from their social whirl, had little to do to pass their days. “I'd not mind a day at the horses,” he said, and thought fondly of trips to Leopardstown racetrack with Bob Beresford in their student days. Bob was in the Royal Army Medical Corps attached to a light tank regiment now, somewhere in Europe.

“We're here,” said Richard, paying the driver a few piastres. “The famous Cecil Hotel. I suggest we nip in for a cold beer, then pick up another gharry or even do a bit of walking to sightsee before we come back here for dinner.”

“Fine by me,” Tom said, dismounting. “Fingal?”

“As they'd say in our part of the world, I'm yer man.” Fingal got down. He was immediately accosted by a street vendor in a red striped jellaba, fez, and sporting a huge drooping moustache. The man tugged at Fingal's short sleeve and said, “I am having a wonder of the East for sale,
effendi
.”

Fingal laughed. “Oh,” he said, knowing full well he'd been advised to avoid street vendors. “A wonder of the East?” He expected to be offered dirty postcards or perhaps a woman. It might make a good story for telling later in the wardroom. It was reputed that when one such mendicant had been told by a very upper-class Englishman that he did
not
want the man's sister, he wanted the British consul, the answer had been, “Very difficult, sir—but I'll try.”

“The master is a Christian?”

Fingal chuckled. It made a change from the Ulster, “Are ye Catholic or a Protestant?”

“I am.”

“Come on, Fingal,” Richard called.

“Just a tick.” Fingal bent his head to hear what the man was whispering. It was all he could do to keep from bursting out laughing before he straightened and said, “No, no thank you. I'm most grateful, but I really don't need a piece of the true cross from Calvary. No, not even if it does come with a certificate signed by Pontius Pilate himself.”

Richard Wilcoxson and Tom Laverty were being besieged by ragged urchins yelling for “
Baksheesh
,
baksheesh
,” or alms. The hotel doorman shooed the beggars away and Fingal, running his fingers inside his open collar and feeling the sweat, followed his friends into the Cecil heading for the bar. That beer would certainly hit the spot.

24

A Stranger in a Strange Land

Fingal followed his friends into the Cecil Hotel's foyer and through to a lounge bar. Richard was speaking to a waiter and Tom had already taken a seat at a circular filigree brass table.

“I for one,” said O'Reilly, dropping into a comfortable rattan chair beside his friend, “can take this climate after Norway and the North Atlantic. I'm sure all this is old hat to the pair of you, having been in Alex often before, but it's all new to me.”

“I like the place,” said Richard Wilcoxson. “It really is a cosmopolitan city. Some of the buildings like the Morsi Abou el Abbas Mosque and Saint Catherine's Cathedral are well worth a visit. And the place oozes history. Founded in 332 BC by Alexander the Great—”

The Egyptian waiter, smart in white jacket and red fez, coughed discreetly and said, “Your drinks,
effendim
.” He set three bottles of Blue Light Ale and glasses on the tabletop. There were beads of condensation on each glass.

“Used to get this stuff in Malta,” Tom said. “Tuppence halfpenny a glass. It's not a bad drop.”

Fingal lifted his bottle and glass, the cold welcome on his palm, and poured. Already there were damp patches on his shirt beneath his armpits, and he was looking forward to the chilled ale. Overhead, electrical fans circled soundlessly. Though civilians occupied a few tables the bar was largely full of officers; naval colleagues in whites, Royal Air Force men in slate blue, and army types whose shorts were much the same cut as Fingal's, but of faded khaki. There were French naval officers too, probably off the cruisers he'd been shown earlier. It was officers only here. There were plenty of pubs and clubs along a big thoroughfare, the Corniche, for “other ranks.” The murmurings of conversation rose and fell, punctuated by occasional bursts of laughter. Turkish tobacco smoke had its own distinctively acrid smell.

“Cheers,” said Richard, then lifted his glass and drank.

His sentiments and actions were mirrored by Fingal and Tom.

Fingal, who, like all naval personnel, had been repeatedly warned that many Egyptians were German sympathisers, was determined to keep the conversation in here on neutral subjects. “Careless talk costs lives,” after all. “You started to tell us a bit of the history of the place, Richard.”

“I did. When we were here before the war I read up on it. After Alexander died, one of his generals, Ptolemy, founded an Egyptian dynasty in 305 BC and they ruled here as Pharaohs until the Romans came in 80 BC.”

“Cleopatra was one of the Ptolemaic lot, wasn't she?” Tom said.

“That's right,” Fingal said. “Quite the lass, if you believe half the stories. Had affairs with Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony. Did for herself by clasping an asp to her bosom.” He fished out his pipe.

“It must have been quite a hotbed of Greek culture back then. But sadly, most of the ancient Grecian buildings like the famous Library and Alexander's mausoleum are gone. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Pharos lighthouse, stood not far from here. Earthquakes did for it. The palace of Ras el Tin is on that site now, beside the yacht club and not far from the coastal forces base. Actually it's a reasonable walk from here and the place is worth a look. I suggest that when we've finished these, we go out there.”