might help enemy interrogation teams fix their priorities. The cardboard box was full. He hefted it on to his shoulder and went outside. Jakes had the fire going in a rusty steel water tank propped up on bricks. A corporal was feeding papers to the flames. Vandam dumped his box and watched the blaze for a while. It reminded him of Guy Fawkes Night in England, fireworks and baked potatoes and the burning effigy of a seventeenthcentury traitor. Charred scraps of paper floated up on a pillar of hot air. Vandam turned away. He wanted to think, so be decided to walk. He left GHQ and headed downtown. His cheek was hurting. He thought he should welcome the pain, for it was supposed to be a sign of healing. He was growing a beard to cover the wound so that be would look a little less unsightly when the dressing came off – Every day he enjoyed not having to shave in the morning. He thought of Elene, and remembered her with her back arched and perspiration glistening on her naked breasts. He had been shocked by what had happened after he bad kissed her-shocked, but thrilled. It had been a night of firsts for him: first time he had made love anywhere other than on a bed, first time he had seen a woman have a climax like a man’s, first time sex had been a mutual indulgence rather than the imposition of his will on a more or less reluctant woman. It was, of course, a disaster that he and Elene had fallen so joyfully in love. His parents, his friends and the Army would be aghast at the idea of his marrying a wog. His mother would also feel bound to explain why the Jews were wrong to reject Jesus. Vandam decided not to worry over all that. He and Elene might be dead within a few days. We’ll bask in the sunshine while it lasts, he thought, and to bell with the future. His thoughts kept returning to the girl whose throat had been cut, apparently by Wolff, in Istanbul. He was terrified that something might go wrong on Thursday and Elene might find herself alone with Wolff again. Looking around him, he realized that there was a festive feeling in the air. He passed a hairdresser’s salon and noticed that it was packed out, with women standing waiting. The dress shops seemed to be doing good business. A woman 228 Ken Follett
came out of a grocer’s with a basket full of canned food, and Vandam saw that there was a queue stretching out of the shop and along the pavement. A sign in the window of the next shop said, in hasty scribble: “Sorry, no makeup.” Vandam realized that the Egyptians were preparing to be liber- ated, and looking forward to it. He could not escape a sense of impending doom. Even the sky seemed dark. He looked up: the sky was dark. There seemed to be a gray swirling mist, dotted with particles, over the city. He realized that it was smoke mixed with charred paper. All across Cairo the British were burning their files, and the sooty smoke had blotted out the sun. Vandarn was suddenly furious with himself and the rest of the Allied armies for preparing so equably for defeat. Where was the sp irit of the Battle of Britain? What had happened to that famous mixture of obstinacy, ingenuity and coura,ge which was supposed to characterize the nation? What, Vandam asked himself, are you planning to do about it? He turned around and walked back toward Garden City, where GHQ was billeted in commandeered villas. He visualized the map of the El Alamein Line, where the Allies would make their last stand, This was one line Rommel could not circumvent, for at its southern end was the vast impassable Qattara Depression. So Rommel would have to break the line. Where would he try to break through? If he came through the northern end, he would then have to choose between dashing straight for Alexandria and wheeling around and attacking the Allied forces from behind. If he came through the southern end he must either dash for Cairo or, again, wheel around and destroy the remains of the Allied forces. Immediately behind the line was the Alam Haifa ridge, which Vandam knew was heavily fortified. Clearly it would be better for the Allies if Rommel wheeled around after breaking through the line, for then he might well spend his strength attacking Alam Haifa. There was one more factor. The southern approach to Alarn Haifa was through treacherous soft sand. It was unlikely that Rommel knew about the quicksand, for he bad never penetrated this far east before, and only the Allies had good maps of the desert. THE KEY TO REBECCA 229