Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield

you’re fine and that she’ll see you soon.”
    â€œWill they evacuate her?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    The fuelling point was nothing but a half-circle of tankers parked under blackout lamps on a flat beneath the Muqattam hills, with queues of tanks, lorries, quads and Bren carriers snaking round hoping to suck up a few gallons. Petrol was supposed to be dispensed only by requisition and only at appointed hours, but a new order had arisen with the imminence of Rommel’s assault; currency had become whisky and cigarettes, English pounds (not Egyptian currency), and running into friends who actually had requisitions and would let you pump a few gallons on their ticket before the indignation of others made them stop.
    I asked Jock whether Rose had told him anything about the baby. My wife, as I said, was pregnant—nearly six months. “She’s fine, Chap. Better than we are.” Jock’s citation for valour had come with a twelve-hour pass. He gave it to me, to use to try to reach Rose.
    I got through by phone the next morning; we made plans to meet at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo in two days. As for Rose’s own safety, she begged me not to be anxious; her section was being withdrawn to Haifa as soon as transport could be arranged.
    Jock’s pass turned out to be useless. You had to be cleared by your commanding officer. I couldn’t get another. Phone lines had now been restricted to emergency calls only. Four more days went by; finally on the fifth, still unable to get through by telephone, I caught a ride in to Shepheard’s, hoping against hope that Rose had left me a note.
    She was there.
    Everything they say about wartime romance is true. When I saw my bride, she was in the most unravishing pose possible—slouched against the wall in a windowless alcove, with both shoes off and her hair, which had become dishevelled when she had taken off her hat to adjust it, falling across one eye. She was in civilian clothes. She hadn’t seen me yet. Shepheard’s at that time was one of the most glamorous hotels in the world. The atmosphere of peril had been screwed to an almost unbearable pitch by Rommel’s approach, rendering every sound and sensation precious. Amidst this stood Rose. I suppose every fellow must believe his sweetheart the most beautiful in the world. I rushed to her. We crashed together and hung on for dear life. “How long have you been here?”
    â€œEvery night. I knew you wouldn’t be able to get a phone line.” We kissed crazily. “Are you all right, darling?”
    â€œMe? Are
you
?”
    She said she had got us a room. I pulled her to me. I felt her resist. For a moment I thought it was because of the baby. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
    She took a breath and straightened.
    â€œIt’s Stein.”
    I felt the floor open beneath me.
    â€œHe’s dead,” Rose said. “The report came across my desk. I saw it.”
    I felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Rose told me she had tried to get a carbon of the report, but regulations forbade removing anything from the office.
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” I said.
    We worked through the crush of the main salon. Some colonel was playing the grand piano. A group was singing a university song. Outside, the terrace was mobbed with drunken Aussies and South Africans. Gharries and taxis were coming and going. Two New Zealand majors, noting Rose’s swollen belly and her state of agitation, stood at once and offered their table. When I shook their hands, I was trembling.
    Stein had been killed, Rose said, at a place called Bir Hamet, south of Fuka. A high-explosive shell had taken him and two others. “I tracked down the reporting officer and made him confirm that he’d seen the event with his own eyes. I verified the name and checked it against all the rosters in Eighth Army. Captain Zachary Aaron