about their experiences, the former in Tobruk, the latter along the Cyrenaican coast, and speculating on the outcome of the war and how best it might be won. Stirling was a man who liked conversation and was brimful of energy. Greaves liked him a lot.
‘The problem with Rommel,’ Stirling said, taking up a favourite theme, ‘is not that he’s invincible, but that we’re going about him the wrong way.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, for instance, take those raids we made with Laycock along the coast of Cyrenaica. Bloody disasters, practically all of them! Why?’
Greaves thought he knew the answer. He and the energetic former Scots Guards officer had been members of 8 Commando, posted to General Wavell’s Middle Eastern Army with other commandos on attachment to ‘Layforce’, the special unit formed by Colonel Robert Laycock to mount raids against the Axis forces in Rhodes, Crete, Syria, around Tobruk, and all along the coast of Cyrenaica. However, after a series of disasters which were blamed on a chronic shortage of manpower and equipment, Layforce was disbanded and the men and ships used for other, presumably more fruitful, missions.
‘Bad weather,’ Greaves began, echoing his own thoughts. ‘Shortage of manpower and…’
‘No! That’s damned nonsense cooked up by MEHQ to save face. The raids were disasters because we took too many men, inserted by orthodox means – in other words, by sea – and so couldn’t keep ourselves hidden; usually being observed well in advance of the raids by Axis reconnaissance planes. The Krauts or Eyeties on the ground were therefore waiting for us to arrive, all set to cut us to pieces and send what was left of us packing. The very idea of using up to 2000 men for raiding parties landing by boat is ridiculous. Impossible to keep such an op secret. Just begging for trouble.’
‘We’re back to your idea of hitting the enemy with small groups of men rather than whole regiments.’ Greaves said, completing his packing, tightening the ropes of his rucksack, and glancing along the ward, his eyes settling on a pretty RAMC nurse, Frances Beamish, whom he hoped to get to know better once he was on convalescent leave in Cairo. ‘It’s become an obsession.’
Stirling laughed. ‘What’s a man without an obsession? How do you think I ended up in this hospital? By trying to prove a point! You don’t use large groups of men, which are bound to attract attention. You use small groups of no more than four or five and insert them as invisibly as possible. If you land them well away from the target area, letting them hike the rest of the way, they can really take the enemy by surprise. That’s the point I was trying to prove – and that’s how I ended up in this damned hospital, wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy, as stiff as a board.’
Greaves had heard the story before. Learning that another former Layforce officer, Captain ‘Jock’ Lewes, Welsh Guards, had acquired fifty static-line parachutes offloaded in Alexandria, Egypt, for shipment to India, Stirling had charmed the taciturn but adventurous Welshman into joining him in experimental jumps with the chutes. Unfortunately, he and Lewes made two of the first jumps from a Valentia, an aircraft quite unsuitable for this purpose. To make matters worse, both men lacked the experience required for the task. After tying his static line to the legs of a passenger seat, because the Valentia did not have the proper overhead suspension for the static lines, Stirling jumped out the wrong way, snagged and tore his ’chute on the tailplane, dropped like a stone and practically crashed to the ground. He was lucky to be alive. In the event, he had been knocked unconscious by the fall and came to in the Scottish Military Hospital, badly bruised and with two damaged legs. Now, after weeks of treatment and exercise, he was, like Greaves, about to leave for a period of convalescence.
‘Look,’ he said, lifting a clipboard off his still opened rucksack and waving it dramatically in the air, ‘I even wrote some notes on the subject. Want to hear them?’
‘I’m all ears.’
Stirling grinned. ‘The Germans and Italians,’ he read, ‘are vulnerable to attacks on their transports, vehicle parks and aerodromes along the coast. However, plans to land the 200 men of a commando for such raids against a single target inevitably destroy the element of surprise when their ship has to be escorted along the coast – a high risk in itself for the Navy.’
‘I agree with that,’ Greaves interjected, recalling many of his own doomed ventures with 8 Commando along the coast around Tobruk, when the boats had been attacked by Stukas or Italian fighters.
Stirling nodded, then continued reading. ‘On the other hand, landing five-man teams with the element of surprise could destroy about fifty aircraft on an airfield which a commando would have to fight like blazes to reach. Such a team could be inserted by parachute, submarine or even a disguised fishing boat. They would then approach the enemy by crossing the Great Sand Sea, south of the Jalo and Siwa oases, which Jerry doesn’t have under surveillance. By making the approach from that unwatched flank, moving overland under cover of darkness, the element of surprise would be total.’
‘Makes sense to me,’ Greaves said, ‘except for one problem. The Great Sand Sea presents enormous difficulties of navigation and survival. I don’t think we could cross it.’
Grinning like a schoolboy, Stirling held his forefinger up in the air, calling for silence. ‘Ah, yes!’ he exclaimed. ‘But that problem’s already solved. I’ve been hearing stories about a little-known unit called the Long Range Desert Group, composed mostly of old hands from Major Ralph Bagnold’s desert expeditions of the 1920s and 30s. It’s now being used as a reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering unit that operates in the desert with the aid of ten open-topped Chevrolet lorries. Those men know the desert like the back of their hands and could be used as a taxi service for us. We parachute in, make our raid against the enemy, then rendezvous with the LRDG at a preselected RV and get driven back to base by them. I think it would work.’
‘Sounds fair enough,’ Greaves said. ‘The only problem remaining is to keep your newly formed group under your own command. I think it should be separate from the main body of the Army and devise its own methods of training.’
‘I don’t think the top brass would wear that,’ Stirling said, placing the clipboard on top of the other gear in his rucksack and tightening the rope to close it up.
‘Well,’ Greaves said, smiling automatically when he saw Nurse Beamish coming along the ward towards him, ‘tell them you want the raiding force to come under the Commander-in-Chief Middle East. In real terms that doesn’t mean a damned thing – the raiding party would soon get conveniently lost in that command and you’d have virtual autonomy over your own men.’ He grinned at Stirling. ‘Naturally that presents you with another problem: how on earth do you persuade them to let you do it?’
‘Oh, I think I can manage,’ Stirling replied deadpan. ‘I’ve already written a detailed memorandum on the subject for the attention of the Commander-in-Chief Middle East Forces. Once he’s read it, I’m sure he’ll agree.’
While recognizing Stirling’s boldness, Greaves was struck by his naïvety. ‘Are you joking?’
‘No,’ Stirling replied. ‘Why would I joke about it?’
‘If you submit that memo through normal channels, it will almost certainly get buried by a staff officer and never be seen again.’
‘Which is why I’m going to deliver it personally,’ Stirling said with a big, cocky grin.
Greaves was opening his mouth to reply when Nurse Beamish, petite, with black hair and green eyes, stopped between him and Stirling, smiling warmly at each in turn but giving most of her attention to Greaves, who had flirted relentlessly with her during his stay here.
‘So you two are ready to leave,’ she said.
‘Yes, dear,’ answered Stirling.
‘Corporal,’ Nurse Beamish corrected him.
‘Yes, dear Corporal,’ Stirling replied.
‘Where do you plan to stay in Cairo?’ Nurse Beamish asked of Greaves.
‘Shepheard’s