it will be a drawn game. I should let him win next time. I can play this game without thinking, more’s the pity. Wolff has a spare radio at Assyut. Perhaps I should stay with him, and try to prevent him using the radio. Some hopel I have to get Billy away, then contact Vandam and tell him where I am. I hope Vandarn mw the atlas. Perhaps the servant saw it, and called GHQ. Perhaps it will lie on the chair all day, unnoticed. Perhaps Vandam will not go home today. I have to get Billy away from Wolff, away from that knife. Billy makes a cross in the center of a new grid. I make a nought, then scribble hastily: We must escape-be ready. Billy makes another cross, and: OK. My nought. Billy’s cross and When? My nought and Next,itation. Billy’s third cross makes a line. He scores through the line of crosses, then smiles up at me jubilantly. He has won. The train slows down.
Vandam knew the train was still ahead of him. He had stopped at the station at ‘Giza, close to the pyramids, to ask how long ago the train had passed through; then he had stopped and asked the same question at three Babsequent stations. Now, after traveling for Rn hour, he had no need to stop and ask, for the road and the railway line ran parallel, on either side of a canal, and he would see the train when he caught up with it Each time he stopped he had taken a drink of water. With his uniform cap, his goggles and the scarf around his mouth and neck, he was protected from the worst of the dust; but the sun was terribly hot and he was continually thirsty. Eventually he realized he was running a slight fever. He thought he must have caught cold, last night, lying on the ground beside the river for hours. Ifis breath was hot in his throat, and the muscles of his back ached. He had to concentrate on the road. It was the only road which ran the length of Egypt, from Cairo to Aswan, and consequently much of it was paved; and in recent months the Army had done some repair work: but he still had to watch for bumps and potholes. Fortunately the road ran straight as an arrow, so he could see, far ahead, the hazards of cattle, wagons, camel trains and flocks of sheep. He drove very fast, except through the villages and towns, where at any moment 308 Ken Follett
people might wandeT Out into the Toad: he would not kill a child to save a child, not even to save his own child. So far he had passed only two cars-a ponderous RollsRoyce and a battered Ford. Tbe Rolls had been driven by a uniformed chauffeur, with an elderly English couple in the back seat; and the old Ford had contained at least a dozen Arabs. By now Vandam. was fairly sure Wolff was traveling by train. Suddenly he heard a distant hoot. Looking ahead and to his left he saw, at least a mile away, a rising plume of white smoke which waq, unmistakabli that of a steam engine. Billyl he thougbt. Elenel He went faster. Paradoidcally, the engine smoke made him think of England, of gentle slopes, endless greer fields, a square church tower peeping over the tops of a cluster of oak trees, and a railway line through the valley with a puffing engine disappearing into the distance. For a moment be was in that English valley, tasting the damp air of morning; then the vision passed, and he saw again the steel-blue African sky, the paddy fields, the palrr. trees and the far brown cliffs. The train was coming into a town. Vandam. did not know the names of the place-, anymore.- his geography was not that good, and he had rather lost track of the distance he had traveled. It was a small town. It would have three or four brick buildings and a market. The train was going to get there before him. He had made his plans, he knew what he was going to do: but he needed time, it was impossible for him to rush into the station and jump on the train without making preparations. He reached the town and slowed right down The street was blocked by a small Bock of sheep. From a doorway an old man smoking a hookah watched Vandam: a European on a motorcycle would be a rare, but not unknown sight. An ass tied to a tree snarled at the bike. A water buffalo drinking from a bucket did not even look up. Two filthy children in rags ran alongside, holding imaginary handlebars and saying “Brrrm, bilit ” in imitation. Vandam. saw the station. From the square be could not see the platform, for that was obscured by a long, low station building; but he could observe the exit and see anyone who came out. He would wait outside until the train left, just in case Wolff got off; then he would go THE KEY TO REBECCA 309