‘How much longer will you need those things?’ Greaves asked.
‘I can actually walk without them,’ Stirling replied, ‘but for short distances only. Then my legs start hurting. However, I should be finished with them in a week or so. Well, let’s get at it.’
They left the room, took the lift down, crossed the lobby and went out of the hotel. Immediately, on the pavement outside, they were assailed by the bedlam of Cairo: blaring music, clattering backgammon pieces, the babble of conversation; the clanging and rattling of trams with conductors blowing their horns; and the roaring and honking of cars and military vehicles of all kinds, including the troop trucks of the Allied forces. To this deafening cacophony was added the growling and occasional screeching of the many aircraft flying overhead. They were also assailed by the city’s many pungent aromas: sweat and piss, tobacco and hashish, petrol and the smoke from charcoal braziers and exhausts; roasting kebabs, kuftas and ears of corn; rich spices and flowers.
‘The Land of the Four S’s,’ Greaves said, waving his hand to indicate the busy road and pavements, which were packed with Arabs in jellabas, women in black robes and veils, grimy, school-aged bootblacks, and the troops of many nations, most of them swarming through the city in search of a good time. ‘Sun, sand, sin and syphilis.’
‘You can think about those while you take your pleasure,’ Stirling replied. ‘For now, let’s stick to business.’ He turned to the jellaba-clad hotel doorman and spoke one word to him: ‘Taxi.’
‘Yes, sir!’ the doorman said in English, flashing his teeth and waving his hand frantically even before reaching the edge of the pavement.
Less than a minute later, Greaves and Stirling were sitting in the back of a sweltering taxi, heading for Middle East Headquarters.
As Greaves soon found out, even on crutches Stirling was both agile and adroit. When the taxi dropped them off at the main gates of MEHQ, he attempted to bluff his way in by pretending he had forgotten his papers and hoping that the sight of his crutches would dispel any doubts the guard might be harbouring. The ruse did not work, and although perfectly polite and sympathetic, the guard was adamant that Stirling could not enter without proper papers.
Unfazed, Stirling thanked the guard, turned away, manœuvred himself on his crutches to one end of the long double gates, then glanced up and down the road, ostensibly looking for another taxi. But, as his nod indicated to Greaves, he had noticed that there was a gap between the end of the guardhouse and the beginning of the barbed-wire fence, and clearly he intended slipping through it when the guard was not looking.
His chance came within minutes, when the guard was leaning down, his back turned to Stirling and Greaves, to check the papers of some officers in a staff car. As soon as the guard turned away, leaning down towards the side window of the car, Stirling dropped his crutches, waved to Greaves, then led him through the gap.
‘Act naturally,’ he said to Greaves while gritting his teeth against the pain of his unsupported legs and trying to walk as normally as possible. ‘Behave as if you belong here.’
Feeling an odd excitement, like a naughty schoolboy, Greaves followed Stirling across the field to the main building of MEHQ. Just as Stirling reached it, one of the guards called out to him – either he had recognized him or seen his crutches in the road – ordering him to return to the main gate. With surprising alacrity, considering the state of his legs, Stirling ignored the guard and hurried up the steps to enter the main building, with an excited and amused Greaves right behind him.
Once inside, Stirling marched resolutely, if at times unsteadily, along the first corridor he saw, searching for the office of the C-in-C. Before he found it, however, he heard the guard behind him, asking in a loud voice if anyone had seen two 8 Commando officers enter the building.
Immediately, Stirling opened the first door he saw, which was marked ‘Adjutant-General’. He came face to face with a startled Army major, who demanded to know what the hell he was doing bursting in unannounced. As Stirling was trying to explain who he was and what he wanted, the major, who turned out to be one of his old instructors from Pirbright, where Stirling had done his basic training, recognized him and became even angrier.
‘Still acting the bloody fool, are you?’ he climaxed after a lengthy tirade about Stirling’s unorthodox behaviour, past and present. ‘Well, not in this office, you don’t. Get out of here instantly!’
Greaves backed out first, followed by Stirling, who was, to his amazement, grinning broadly.
‘Worst instructor I ever had,’ he said coolly. ‘Come on, Dirk, let’s keep searching.’
‘I think we might be pushing our luck,’ Greaves warned him.
‘Tosh!’ Stirling barked.
Wincing occasionally from the pain in his unsupported legs, he led Greaves further along the corridor, brushing past many senior staff officers, looking for the office of the C-in-C.
‘That guard’s bound to be trying to find us,’ Greaves said, ‘so if we don’t come across the office of the C-in-C soon, he’ll be on our backs.’
Stirling stopped at a door marked ‘DCGS’. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Dirk. Let’s try our luck in here.’ Boldly, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Greaves followed him in and closed the door behind him. Though bold in war, Greaves now suffered a racing heart at the thought of facing the Deputy Chief of General Staff without an appointment, let alone a pass into the building. His heart thumped even more when he saw the DCGS, General Neil Ritchie, looking up in surprise from his cluttered desk.
‘Who…?’
‘Lieutenant Stirling, Scots Guards, sir,’ Stirling interrupted breathlessly. ‘And Lieutenant Greaves, also Scots Guards. Both with 8 Commando and formerly part of Layforce.’
Before the general could respond or get over his surprise, Stirling apologized for bursting into the office, explained that there had been no time to arrange it and said that he had come on a matter of particular urgency.
‘It had better be,’ General Ritchie replied darkly. Then, distracted by Stirling’s ungainly stance, he asked, ‘Why are you standing in such an odd way, Lieutenant?’
‘Spot of bother with the legs, sir. Parachute drop. Just got out of the Scottish Military Hospital and had to leave my crutches at the gate when we sneaked into the camp.’
‘You came here on crutches?’ General Ritchie gazed at Stirling in disbelief, then smiled a little and leaned back in his chair. ‘You have five minutes, Lieutenant. Take that chair and rest your legs. Then you’d better start talking.’
Relieved, Stirling withdrew his memorandum from the inside pocket of his tunic, handed it to Greaves, then gratefully sank into the soft chair facing the desk while Greaves handed the memo to the DCGS. Ritchie read it carefully, taking rather longer than five minutes, then spread it carefully on the desk and looked up again.
‘Interesting.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘It could work, but I’m not at all sure that the C-in-C would welcome such an unorthodox approach. A sniff of guerrilla operations there, Stirling, and General Wavell doesn’t approve of that business.’
‘That
