How I Won the War Page 12

  “Jeez, boss!” he said, “I never heard nobody wanting to collect that goddammed stuff before. What the hell your general going to do with it?”

  “Analyse it.”

  “Come again, boss.”

  “Analyse it. Break it down into tiny pieces so that he can tell what it’s made of.”

  He was amazed.

  “But everybody knows what it’s made of. It’s just plain….”

  “That’s all it may be to unscientific minds like yours, Bubilya. But to the Director of Medical Services it is chock full of fascinating information.”

  He looked wonderingly into the depths of a tin, shrugged helplessly and got on with the unpacking. The minds of the British were impenetrable.

  On Saturday morning he got all hundred and fifty of the traders on parade. I had covered a table with the Union Jack and the glinting cylinders were ranged along it. I put on Service dress for the occasion. There is nothing like a bit of pomp to impress the natives.

  “Tell them, Bubilya,” I said, “that I bring them greetings from the Great White Father Across the Water.”

  “Come again, boss. They ain’t Red Indians. They god-dammed Arabs.”

  “Tell them, then, that the Civil Liaison Officer sends them greetings and desires that each of them shall bring me his sample in one of those tins.”

  The proposition apparently took a lot of Arabic and Bubilya harangued them for a dramatic five minutes. He handed out the tins and they looked at them for a long time in bewildered silence. Then a hubbub of Arabian doubt beat up as each turned to the other for confirmation of his own ears. A plum pedlar, half hidden behind three feet of beard, tossed his can glittering up in the air, caught it, gestured at me and made a highly aspirated remark. A chuckle of appreciation rewarded him and suddenly the whole crowd burst in a wild gale of laughter, all hands pointing my way and hichoccing in delight.

  “What are they saying, Bubilya?”

  “Everybody say you very funny man. They say you please go on with next funny joke. They not had good laugh like you in Kalougie since muezzin fell off minaret.”

  “Tell them,” I said, putting on my fiercest military expression, “that I am quite serious and that no one will be allowed to trade in the camp unless he has given me his … his personal contribution.”

  They hung on Bubilya’s words as if he were Bob Hope and dissolved in fresh peals of hilarity when he finished.

  “They say, boss, you ought to be on Radio Tunis. They say they give you money to let them come into camp. That all O. K. But they not give you lumps of that goddammed stuff. They got respect for British officer. Worst insult you can pay a man round Kalougie is to go to post office and send him packet of that goddammed stuff.”

  “Persist, Bubilya. Convince them that I am serious. Demonstrate to them the simplicity of my request.”

  When he took a tin and demonstrated, they went lunatic with laughter, stamping around hysterically, leaning on each other for support and collapsing in pairs to the ground when mirth became too much. The racket brought half the population of Kalougie to the fence in curiosity. A seventeen-stone, Semitic monster tottered forward to ask advice of Bubilya.

  “This man, boss, he say he got big problem. He say tin too small. He very big man. How the hell, he say, you expect him to balance on tiny tin like that?”

  “You have clearly failed to communicate my requirements, Bubilya. Demonstrate again.”

  While he went into his encore, the adjutant came up.

  “Don’t let me interrupt you, my dear chap,” he said. “Just carry on with the good work.”

  He settled himself under an olive tree to watch. A confabulation of four elders talked earnestly to Bubilya.

  “These very wise men, boss, they worried about you. They say you don’t do yourself no good collecting up all this goddammed stuff in cigarette tins. It not natural for grown man. They say you do better for yourself if you collect stamps or beads or funny-shaped stones … anything but this goddammed stuff.”

  A wild-eyed dervish came raving angrily out of the crowd. Bubilya ran behind me for protection.

  “This man very angry, boss. He not bright in the head. He say you insult him, you spit on his manhood. He say little tin like that all right for child or small weak woman, but no good for him. He could fill twenty tins like that, no trouble at all, maybe more …”

  The four elders dragged the wild one back on to parade and Captain Tablet smiled seraphically in the shade of his tree. Colonel Plaster and Major Arkdust were coming towards me from the orderly room. My reputation for leadership and discipline was at stake. My business training stood me in good stead and inspiration hit me happily. Everything has a price to an Arab; he would sell his own mother for ready money.

  “Silence!” I yelled, crashing my stick on the table. The giggle and hubble-bubble died away.

  “Tell them, Bubilya,” I commanded, “that I will pay twenty francs to every one of them who comes to the camp gates at eight o’clock on Monday morning and brings me the required personal sample. Until then they must all leave the camp. And the offer will be withdrawn from anyone who is not outside the fence within two minutes flat.”

  At that rate, the lot would cost me about three pounds. It would be cheap at the price.

  And the scent of money worked the miracle. They all jumped once in the air, crotched up their burnouses and flap footed through the gates and back to Kalougie. Their townsfolk ran beside them whooping in financial excitement. I saluted smartly as the colonel came by and I could see, as he wiped the dust of their passing from his eyebrows, that he was clearly impressed by the instant obedience of the natives to my authority. Captain Tablet went back to his office, disappointment darkening the lantern of his jaws.

  “Dammed shop-keeper’s mentality,” he muttered. “Tradesman’s outlook. Put a price on anything. Even a handful of

  It was my invariable practice during the war, and one which I can commend from experience to any young officer to confirm verbal orders in writing at the earliest opportunity. Had I not given Sergeant Transom a written summary of my beach-landing plan, Twelve Platoon would never have taken Cleptha in time in my temporary absence. The spoken order, particularly when passed through an interpreter trained linguistically on an American tanker, to a collection of Arabs of indeterminate dialects may be misunderstood or forgotten. Put it in writing and it’s there for all to see and remember. Also if you keep a copy in file you can always produce it as evidence of your own innocence at your subordinate’s court-martial.

  “To make sure, Bubilya, that everybody is quite clear about my requirements, you must write out a notice in Arabic and get the mayor to post it on the corporation noticeboard.”

  Our efforts were rewarded on Monday morning by overwhelming success. There was a queue a quarter of a mile long at the camp gates, men, women, and children, hundreds of them, the whole Arab population of Kalougie, each holding on high a little round tin and bellowing for twenty francs baksheesh. As I came into their view a happy cry of welcome went up.

  “Himal-el-kebrouti! … Himal-el-kebrouti!”

  “What are they shouting, Bubilya?”

  “You famous man now, boss. That’s their name for you. Himal-el-kebrouti.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means, boss, the Rich Man Who Saves That Which All the World Throws Away.”

  “Why are there so many of them? There must be a couple of thousand or more.”

  Bubilya jabbered through the wire at the front rank.

  “They say yesterday you say everybody who brings personal sample gets twenty francs. You don’t say only Arabs that trade in camp.”

  “But what about your notice? Wasn’t that clear enough?”

  He shrugged apologetically.

  “I don’t know for sure, boss. I don’t write so good. Goddammed difficult writing in Arabic. They say notice say everybody, too.”

  “But where did they get all those tins?”

 
“Very smart blacksmiths in Kalougie, boss. Been working all over weekend making tins at two francs each. Everybody reckon on eighteen francs profit.”

  Someone opened the gate. I couldn’t be sure but it looked like Captain Tablet. The brown, tin-bearing sea burst inwards with a great cry of triumph.

  “Himal! … Himal-el-kebrouti!”

  Bubilya and I turned and ran for it. The regiment was just formed up on morning parade and the direct line of our jeep lay between the colonel and his command.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” I shouted, saluting as best I could and giving him a placatory eyes-right as we shot by. Our multitude of anxious customers came swarming through the regimental ranks and the place looked like a miniature Fall of Khartoum. We made the jeep and my start would have taken medals at Le Mans. As we rolled away, the leading sample-seller latched on to the hood and Bubilya had to beat him off with his official helmet.

  I had to drive right round the square to get back to the gate and when they saw my intent, the whole body about-turned and tore back to cut me off, bursting, en route, once more through the recovering ranks of the Commanding Officer’s Parade. We scraped through inches before the rearguard could do a Gandhi on us, and I headed like a mechanized Arabian pied piper for Kalougie Town Hall. I made a lightning appreciation of the situation and gave out my orders as we switchbacked over the potholes.

  “First, Bubilya, you must take down that notice. Second, the mayor will address the people explaining our requirements. Third, you must get a qualified scribe to write out a new notice. Any questions?”

  “Yes, boss. Can’t you go no faster? They’re catching us up on goddammed mules.”

  I gave it all I could on the corrugated surface and we swung into the municipal yard with a good furlong lead over the enemy cavalry. Bubilya yelled the alarm and the burnoused beadles slammed shut the gates behind us. Panic, I could see, was about to set in, so I deliberately took my time alighting from the jeep. A leader of men must inspire by example, soothing with sangfroid the hysterics of his subordinates. I applied at Kalougie a trick which I used throughout my Army career to keep a cool top-knot in tight corners. As I walked slowly across the forecourt, I recited appropriate passages from Rudyard Kipling’s If. The baying crowd swept up to the gate and I had just got to “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,” when someone threw his personal sample and hit me painfully under the right ear. Up went the clarion cry … “Himal-el-kebrouti!” … and I was forced to run the last five yards to cover as a hail of little tins came twinkling over the wall and burst fragrantly about me.

  The mayor was quite useless. If I had been a Kalougian I would certainly not have voted for him at the next election. He would not obey my orders to address his townsfolk from the balcony and ran up and down his parlour wringing his pudgy, grocer’s palms and squeaking fearfully. When the gates came down under the pressure of customers he dived under his desk and I was forced to take command. Fortunately, I remembered my O.C.T.U. legal training and the necessity for martial law to be declared before the Army could take over from the local authorities.

  “Mr. Mayor,” I said, kneeling down to find his ear beside the wastepaper basket, “I hereby proclaim martial law in Kalougie. As the senior officer present I am taking responsibility for the restoration of law and order.”

  The clerks were barricading the doors with furniture as a thousand fists beat on them outside.

  “Stop that,” I commanded crisply. “We will make a strategic withdrawal out through the back door.”

  “We won’t, boss,” said Bubilya. “There’s more of them out back than up front.”

  We were surrounded. It was a time for quick decision.

  “Withdrawal orders cancelled,” I snapped. “Start in barricading the doors with furniture.”

  From the top back window we could see out across the coastal plain and up to the mountains. Black columns of people were descending on Kalougie from all directions. Half Tunisia was on the move. As they came from the cover of the hills, the sun flashed on the little round tin each pilgrim was bearing reverently before him and the winding caravans shimmered like vast, chromium-plated snakes.

  “Great Scott! Bubilya,” I said. “Where on earth are they all coming from?”

  “From the villages, Lieutenant,” said a globular man in an off-white suit. “Word of your remarkable offer has spread through the district like wild fire…. The like of Himal-elkebrouti has never passed this way before. May I have your confirmation, sir, that the Allied Forces have declared martial law in Kalougie?”

  “Who is this man, Bubilya?”

  “He newspaper man, boss, from Tunis Express. He come special for news about Himal-el-kebrouti.”

  A military man cannot be too careful in dealing with the Press. Look at all the trouble Montgomery had with them. I decided, for the time being, that a security blackout would be safest.

  “Having been forced by circumstances to take over the maintenance of law and order from the civil authorities, I must temporarily prohibit the publication of any information likely to …”

  An Arab face appeared suddenly at our second floor window and a fist bearing a tin came shattering through the glass.

  “Mahmoud Abassa, chief,” croaked the face. “Me not lousy bastard. Twenty francs, sir, thank you so much.”

  He had climbed up a pole leaned against the windowsill and swayed perilously from side to side as his competitors fought to mount beneath him. A dozen other poles came rearing out of the crowd.

  “All hands on deck to repel boarders,” I cried.

  They were bringing the poles up from the docks in relays and as fast as we hurled them back from one window, they spiked up at another. The windows below were all barred and shuttered and, so far, had defied the attacks of the lower-level brigades.

  When I got out the fire hoses and beat them back with heavy water, my customers finally decided they were being welshed. Their baying lost its ingratiating, huckster note and roared now. with cheated anger and hunger for revenge. They turned their poles as battering rams on the ground floor defences and began hurling fusillades of little tins through our broken windows. The hail of canned samples bruised down upon us like cannonballs.

  “Everybody take cover,” I commanded, “and be ready to counterattack when the bombardment lifts.”

  I dived under the desk where the mayor had fallen fast asleep. The reporter was already there talking on the telephone. I took it from him.

  “You are under arrest, my man,” I snapped. “Charged with breach of security instructions.”

  There was a thunderous crash and the Bastille fell down below.

  “They’re through, boss,” quaked Bubilya, “and working their way up the goddammed stairs.”

  “To the roof!” I cried.

  “They’re up there already.”

  I made a rapid appreciation of the situation.

  “Reinforcements,” I said. “We must have reinforcements.”

  After five minutes’ wrestling with the telephone I managed to get through to the regiment. Captain Tablet answered.

  “Goodbody reporting, sir. We are beleagured by a large force of Arab civilians in Kalougie Town Hall, map reference 874912. Please send reinforcements.”

  “C Company is already on the way. To be followed by the colonel as soon as he can get off the line from the Corps Commander demanding why the hell he’s declared martial law in Kalougie.”

  “The Corps Commander? How does he know?”

  “The Tunis Express told him. What have you been doing? Holding a Press conference?”

  “No, sir. I can explain everything. There is a reporter here in my garrison. But it’s all right. I’ve put him under arrest …’

  “And you’ll be joining him, cocky, unless the bedouins get you before the colonel arrives.”

  And he hung up.

  The mob was on the second floor now and hammering at our door with what sounded
like the butt ends of spears. Overhead, angry men were battering through the roof. The floor was ankle-deep in little tins and dark faces were gibbering at every window. I drew my revolver and broke it to count the rounds.

  “What’s that for,” asked the reporter, “Hari-kari?”

  “Bubilya,” I said, “is there a woman in the house?”

  “A woman, boss,” he said incredulously. “You want a woman? Now? This ain’t no time, boss. And besides, there’s no room under this desk.”

  “There are two women,” said the reporter. “They’ve locked themselves in the stationery store. Why do you want to know?”

  “For military purposes,” I said tartly. “In order to allocate the proper reserve of ammunition. It is the custom in the British Army when surrounded by hostile natives to keep the last rounds for the women.”

  “Why?”

  “To save them from a fate worse than death.”

  He watched slyly as I feverishly searched my pouch and pockets.

  “But your gun’s empty. You’ve got no ammunition.”

  “That is none of your business. It is due to gross inefficiency which I will take up with my batman later.”

  “You won’t be able to shoot the women then, will you? You’ll just have to stone them to death with your little tins.”

  “I have stood just about enough of your impudence, my man, and warn you that—”

  The door came splintering in and a cascade of Arabs shot through, wailing and whooping around the office, hopping and hobbling painfully over the roller-bearing floor, scattering all ways to escape from the flailing pickaxe handles of Sergeant Transom, Privates Drogue, Spool, Clapper, and the rest of my trusty Twelve Platoon.

  I came out from under the desk.

  “Well done, Twelve Platoon,” I said. “I knew you’d hasten to my succour.”