20
ONE OF THESE DAYS, VANDAM THOUGHT, I’M GOING TO PUNCH BOGGE ON THE nose.
Today Lieutenant Colonel Bogge was at his worst: indecisive, sarcastic and touchy. He had a nervous cough which he used when he was afraid to speak, and he was coughing a lot now. He was also fidgeting: tidying piles of papers on his desk, crossing and uncrossing his legs and polishing his wretched cricket ball.
Vandam sat still and quiet, waiting for him to tie himself up in knots.
“Now look here, Vandam, strategy is for Auchinleck. Your job is personnel security—and you’re not doing very well.”
“Nor is Auchinleck,” Vandam said.
Bogge pretended not to hear. He picked up Vandam’s memo. Vandam had written out his deception plan and formally submitted it to Bogge, with a copy to the brigadier. “For one thing, this is full of holes,” Bogge said.
Vandam said nothing.
“Full of holes.” Bogge coughed. “For one thing, it involves letting old Rommel through the line, doesn’t it?”
Vandam said: “Perhaps the plan could be made contingent on his getting through.”
“Yes. Now, you see? This is the kind of thing I mean. If you put up a plan that’s full of holes like that, given that your reputation is at a pretty damn low point around here at the moment, well, you’ll be laughed out of Cairo. Now.” He coughed. “You want to encourage Rommel to attack the line at its weakest point—giving him a better chance of getting through! You see?”
“Yes. Some parts of the line are weaker than others, and since Rommel has air reconnaissance there’s a chance he’ll know which parts.”
“And you want to turn a chance into a certainty.”
“For the sake of the subsequent ambush, yes.”
“Now, it seems to me that we want old Rommel to attack the strongest part of the line, so that he won’t get through at all.”
“But if we repel him, he’ll just regroup and hit us again. Whereas if we trap him we could finish him off finally.”
“No, no, no. Risky. Risky. This is our last line of defense, laddie.” Bogge laughed. “After this, there’s nothing but one little canal between him and Cairo. You don’t seem to realize—”
“I realize very well, sir. Let me put it this way. One: if Rommel gets through the line he must be diverted to Alam Halfa by the false prospect of an easy victory. Two: it is preferable that he attack Alam Halfa from the south, because of the quicksand. Three: either we must wait and see which end of the line he attacks, and take the risk that he will go north; or we must encourage him to go south, and take the risk that we will thereby increase his chances of breaking through the line in the first place.”
“Well,” said Bogge, “now that we’ve rephrased it, the plan is beginning to make a bit more sense. Now look here: you’re going to have to leave it with me for a while. When I’ve got a moment I’ll go through the thing with a fine-toothed comb, and see if I can knock it into shape. Then perhaps we’ll put it up to the brass.”
I see, Vandam thought: the object of the exercise is to make it Bogge’s plan. Well, what the hell? If Bogge can be bothered to play politics at this stage, good luck to him. It’s winning that matters, not getting the credit.
Vandam said: “Very good, sir. If I might just emphasize the time factor... If the plan is to be put into operation, it must be done quickly.”
“I think I’m the best judge of its urgency, Major, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, after all, everything depends on catching the damn spy, something at which you have not so far been entirely successful, am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be taking charge of tonight’s operation myself, to ensure that there are no further foul-ups. Let me have your proposals this afternoon, and we’ll go over them together—”
There was a knock at the door and the brigadier walked in. Vandam and Bogge stood up.
Bogge said: “Good morning, sir.”
“At ease, gentlemen,” the brigadier said. “I’ve been looking for you, Vandam.”
Bogge said: “We were just working on an idea we had for a deception plan—”
“Yes, I saw the memo.”
“Ah, Vandam sent you a copy,” Bogge said. Vandam did not look at Bogge, but he knew the lieutenant colonel was furious with him.
“Yes, indeed,” said the brigadier. He turned to Vandam. “You’re supposed to be catching spies, Major, not advising generals on strategy. Perhaps if you spent less time telling us how to win the war you might be a better security officer.”
Vandam’s heart sank.
Bogge said: “I was just saying—”
The brigadier interrupted him. “However, since you have done this, and since it’s such a splendid plan, I want you to come with me and sell it to Auchinleck. You can spare him, Bogge, can’t you?”
“Of course, sir,” Bogge said through clenched teeth.
“All right, Vandam. The conference will be starting any minute. Let’s go.”
Vandam followed the brigadier out and shut the door very softly on Bogge.
On the day that Wolff was to see Elene again, Major Smith came to the houseboat at lunchtime.
The information he brought with him was the most valuable yet.
Wolff and Sonja went through their now-familiar routine. Wolff felt like an actor in a French farce, who has to hide in the same stage wardrobe night after night. Sonja and Smith, following the script, began on the couch and moved into the bedroom. When Wolff emerged from the cupboard the curtains were closed, and there on the floor were Smith’s briefcase, his shoes and his shorts with the key ring poking out of the pocket.
Wolff opened the briefcase and began to read.
Once again Smith had come to the houseboat straight from the morning conference at GHQ, at which Auchinleck and his staff discussed Allied strategy and decided what to do.
After a few minutes’ reading Wolff realized that what he held in his hand was a complete rundown of the Allies’ last-ditch defense on the El Alamein Line.
The line consisted of artillery on the ridges, tanks on the level ground and minefields all along. The Alam Halfa Ridge, five miles behind the center of the line, was also heavily fortified. Wolff noted that the southern end of the line was weaker, both in troops and mines.
Smith’s briefcase also contained an enemy-position paper. Allied Intelligence thought Rommel would probably try to break through the line at the southern end, but noted that the northern end was possible.
Beneath this, written in pencil in what was presumably Smith’s handwriting, was a note which Wolff found more exciting than all the rest of the stuff put together. It read: “Major Vandam proposes deception plan. Encourage Rommel to break through at southern end, lure him toward Alam Halfa, catch him in quicksand, then nutcracker. Plan accepted by Auk.”
“Auk” was Auchinleck, no doubt. What a discovery this was! Not only did Wolff hold in his hand the details of the Allied defense line—he also knew what they expected Rommel to do, and he knew their deception plan.
And the deception plan was Vandam’s!
This would be remembered as the greatest espionage coup of the century. Wolff himself would be responsible for assuring Rommel’s victory in North Africa.
They should make me King of Egypt for this, he thought, and he smiled.
He looked up and saw Smith standing between the curtains, staring down at him.
Smith roared: “Who the devil are you?”
Wolff realized angrily that he had not been paying attention to the noises from the bedroom. Something had gone wrong, the script had not been followed, there had been no champagne-cork warning. He had been totally absorbed in the strategic appreciation. The endless names of divisions and brigades, the numbers of men and tanks, the quantities of fuel and supplies, the ridges and depressions and quicksands had monopolized his attention to the exclusion of local sounds. He was suddenly terribly afraid that he might be thwarted in his moment of triumph.
Smith said: “That’s my bloody briefcase!”
He took a step forward.
Wolff reached out, caught Smith’s foot, and heaved sideways. The major toppled over and hit the floor with a heavy thud.
Sonja screamed.
Wolff and Smith both scrambled to their feet.
Smith was a small, thin man, ten years older than Wolff and in poor shape. He stepped backward, fear showing in his face. He bumped into a shelf, glanced sideways, saw a cut-glass fruit bowl on the shelf, picked it up and hurled it at Wolff.
It missed, fell into the kitchen sink, and shattered loudly.
The noise, Wolff thought: if he makes any more noise people will come to investigate. He moved toward Smith.
Smith, with his back to the wall, yelled: “Help!”
Wolff hit him once, on the point of the jaw, and he collapsed, sliding down the wall to sit, unconscious, on the floor.
Sonja came out and stared at him.
Wolff rubbed his knuckles. “It’s the first time I’ve ever done that,” he said.
“What?”
“Hit somebody on the chin and knocked him out. I thought only boxers could do that.”
“Never mind that, what are we going to do about him?”
“I don’t know.” Wolff considered the possibilities. To kill Smith would be dangerous, for the death of an officer—and the disappearance of his briefcase—would now cause a terrific rumpus throughout the city. There would be the problem of what to do with the body. And Smith would bring home no more secrets.
Smith groaned and stirred.
Wolff wondered whether it might be possible to let him go. After all, if Smith were to reveal what had been going on in the houseboat he would implicate himself. Not only would it ruin his career, he would probably be thrown in jail. He did not look like the kind of man to sacrifice himself for a higher cause.
Let him go free? No, the chance was too much to take. To know that there was a British officer in the city who possessed all of Wolff’s secrets... Impossible.
Smith had his eyes open. “You ... ” he said. “You’re Slaven burg ...” He looked at Sonja, then back at Wolff. “It was you who introduced ... in the Cha-Cha... this was all planned ...”
“Shut up,” Wolf said mildly. Kill him or let him go: what other options were there? Only one: to keep him here, bound and gagged, until Rommel reached Cairo.
“You’re damned spies,” Smith said. His face was white.
Sonja said nastily: “And you thought I was crazy for your miserable body.”
“Yes.” Smith was recovering. “I should have known better than to trust a wog bitch.”
Sonja stepped forward and kicked his face with her bare foot.
“Stop it!” Wolff said. “We’ve got to think what to do with him. Have we got any rope to tie him with?”
Sonja thought for a moment. “Up on deck, in that locker at the forward end.”
Wolff took from the kitchen drawer the heavy steel he used for sharpening the carving knife. He gave the steel to Sonja. “If he moves, hit him with that,” he said. He did not think Smith would move.
He was about to go up the ladder to the deck when he heard footsteps on the gangplank.
Sonja said: “Postman!”
Wolff knelt in front of Smith and drew his knife. “Open your mouth.”
Smith began to say something, and Wolff slid the knife between Smith’s teeth.
Wolff said: “Now, if you move or speak, I’ll cut out your tongue.”
Smith sat dead still, staring at Wolff with a horrified look.
Wolff realized that Sonja was stark naked. “Put something on, quickly!”
She pulled a sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her as she went to the foot of the ladder. The hatch was opening. Wolff knew that he and Smith could be seen from the hatch. Sonja let the sheet slide down a little as she reached up to take the letter from the postman’s outstretched hand.
“Good morning!” the postman said. His eyes were riveted on Sonja’s half-exposed breasts.
She went farther up the ladder toward him, so that he had to back away, and let the sheet slip even more. “Thank you,” she simpered. She reached for the hatch and pulled it shut.
Wolff breathed again.
The postman’s footsteps crossed the deck and descended the gangplank.
Wolff said to Sonja: “Give me that sheet.”
She unwrapped herself and stood naked again.
Wolff withdrew the knife from Smith’s mouth and used it to cut off a foot or two of the sheet. He crumpled the cotton into a ball and stuffed it into Smith’s mouth. Smith did not resist. Wolff slid the knife into its underarm sheath. He stood up. Smith closed his eyes. He seemed limp, defeated.
Sonja picked up the sharpening steel and stood ready to hit Smith while Wolff went up the ladder and onto the deck. The locker Sonja had mentioned was in the riser of a step in the prow. Wolff opened it. Inside was a coil of slender rope. It had perhaps been used to tie up the vessel in the days before she became a houseboat. Wolff took the rope out. It was strong, but not too thick: ideal for tying someone’s hands and feet.
He heard Sonja’s voice, from below, raised in a shout. There was a clatter of feet on the ladder.
Wolff dropped the rope and whirled around.
Smith, wearing only his underpants, came up through the hatch at a run.
He had not been as defeated as he looked—and Sonja must have missed him with the steel.
Wolff dashed across the deck to the gangplank to head him off.
Smith turned, ran to the other side of the boat, and jumped into the water.
Wolff said: “Shit!”
He looked all around quickly. There was no one on the decks of the other houseboats—it was the hour of the siesta. The towpath was deserted except for the “beggar”—Kemel would have to deal with him—and one man in the distance walking away. On the river there were a couple of feluccas, at least a quarter of a mile away, and a slow-moving steam barge beyond them.