City of Gold. Len Deighton

it?’ said Peggy. ‘I thought the war was being fought to do away with class distinction and all that rubbish.’

      ‘Do you have soldiers and officers in the same wards at the hospital?’ said Piotr, who always liked to stir a dispute.

      ‘Corporals are worst of all,’ said Darymple, smiling provocatively. ‘They can’t hold their drink as well as the sergeants, and they lack the fawning subservience of the privates. I would never sit down for a game of bridge with a corporal.’

      ‘I hope he plays and beats you hollow,’ said Peggy.

      Darymple chortled.

      ‘What’s this I hear about you leaving us, Robin?’ the prince asked him.

      ‘Ah, that’s all very hush-hush, Piotr,’ said Darymple and lowered his voice. ‘I met an old chum in Shepheard’s bar last week. Toby Wallingford, RNVR, a very good pal. I thrashed him countless times at school; he says he still has the scars. Now the lucky brute has got himself lined up with some gangster outfit that chases the Hun way out in the blue. They raise a little hell and come back to town to raise hell again.’

      ‘It sounds very dangerous, Robin,’ said Peggy. She knew it was what any woman was expected to say when men were bragging. They were all like that: concerned with their little bits of coloured ribbon and their absurd egos. They had to tell you how brave they were, and it had to be done by means of infantile jokes. War seemed to bring out a man’s most tiresome side.

      The prince said, ‘We have their measure now, I think. We’ll stop them before they get very far. Benghazi is my bet.’

      ‘Yes, and I’m just shuffling bits of paper all day. It makes me livid to miss it all. And look at what those Eye-tie frogmen did last month; it’s all coming out now. Got right into Alex and blew the bottoms out of HMS Valiant and Queen Elizabeth too.’

      ‘Were they badly damaged?’

      ‘Damned right they were. The dark blue jobs are going through the motions of pretending the ships are in one piece – saluting the quarterdeck, raising the flags, and holding church services every Sunday – but the fact is that both those battleships are resting their hulls on the bottom of the harbour.’

      ‘Yes, that’s what I’d heard,’ said the prince.

      ‘I’ve got to get into the fight soon,’ said Darymple reaching over to the bowl of nuts and sifting them to find good ones. ‘A chap has to have a decent gong if he wants a career in the postwar army. Wally’s outfit is my big chance.’ He put a nut into his mouth and crunched on it.

      ‘Congratulations, old boy,’ said the prince.

      ‘And I’d go up a rank immediately, that’s the drill for anyone accepted by one of those mobs; major.’

      ‘Splendid. I wish I was young enough –.’

      ‘Combined services: soldiers, sailors, and bloody airmen too, they tell me. My pal Wally is a sailor. But that’s the way the war is going. We’ve got to give them a taste of their own blitzkrieg games. That’s the way I see it.’

      ‘What will you do with your room?’ asked the ever-practical Peggy.

      ‘Steady on, old girl. Don’t pick over my carcass yet.’

      ‘I’ve put the new girl – Alice, I mean – into that room Lieutenant Anderson said he wanted kept for him. I’m frightened he’ll suddenly appear.’

      ‘Andy was in the Tobruk show,’ said the prince.

      ‘Tobruk?’ said Darymple. ‘That was a sticky do.’ Darymple did not admire one-time Sergeant Anderson and the way in which he’d earned a Military Medal, a commission and then the Military Cross in the course of twelve months’ fighting. More than once he’d found reason to give Anderson a blistering rocket. One lunchtime, here in the hotel dining room, he’d admonished the lieutenant for his appalling table manners. And the night before Andy went into the blue, Darymple had summoned the military police here to quell his noisy drunken bottle party. All kinds of riffraff had gone wandering through the Magnifico that night: singing lewdly on the stairs, vomiting in one of the amphorae and breaking the chain in the downstairs toilet. Darymple had brought that celebration to a sudden conclusion and bawled Anderson out in front of his pals.

      ‘Yes,’ said the prince. ‘He’s with armoured cars, and they are always at the very front. He was supporting the New Zealanders. They took Ed Duda and linked up with the garrison. Andy did one of his lunatic acts and took his cars forward without waiting for orders. He was one of the first ones to break through the perimeter.’ Blank-faced, the prince looked at Peggy and looked at Darymple again. Everyone knew how jealous he was of Anderson.

      ‘How do you know that?’ said Darymple petulantly. ‘None of the official communiqués said who broke through.’ He reached for a handful of black olives.

      ‘Andy owed me a fiver,’ explained the prince. ‘One of his chaps – a delicious young lieutenant – had to bring captured enemy documents back to GHQ Cairo. Andy told him to pop in to see me. He brought me a crate of Italian brandy and a whole Parmesan cheese captured from an Italian headquarters. Lovely cheese; it’s on these biscuits you’ve been eating. And the brandy is not too bad. They live well, even in the desert. The Italians keep a sense of proportion: I’ve always said so.’

      This aside was calculated to prove that the prince had not suffered at the hands of Lucia.

      ‘And there was a scribbled note from Andy to say we were quits. It took me about an hour to decipher his writing, but that’s what I made it. He’s a good fellow, Andy. But I don’t think he’ll be back in the Magnifico for a bit. He’s probably capturing Rommel single-handed by now. His confrere said Andy had been made up to captain – acting, temporary and unpaid – and his divisional commander has put him in for a DSO.’

      Darymple had been chewing his way through the olives. Now he straightened up to stifle a sigh of exasperation. The prince gave Peggy a little wink. Peggy smiled. Piotr was an unsurpassed troublemaker.

      ‘The flowers on your balcony are lovely, Piotr,’ Peggy said, to change the subject. ‘The little orange bush is doing well: the blossom gives off such a perfume. Cairo is so glorious at this time of year.’