Gezira
swimming-bath! Where are they now?'
Harriet made a
wry face, knowing that one of the sights at Cairo at that time was the queue of
officers, half a mile long, waiting to draw their money from Barclay's Bank.
Having confounded her, Iqal was at once contrite and good-humoured and showed
her a news item he had been holding back. 'See here, Mrs Pringle,' he began to
giggle wildly, 'here they say the Afrika Korps reach Alexandria tonight. They
send a message to the ladies of Alexandria and this is what they say:
"Get out your party dresses and prepare to defend your honour."'
'Oh-ho, Mrs
Pringle, oh-ho!' Iqal's thick dark finger quivered with excitement as he
pointed to the item. 'These Germans are not deceived. Alexandria is a place of
brott-ells.'
'How do you feel
about a German occupation, Iqal?' Faced with this direct question, Iqal at once
became grave and declamatory. 'You ask me, Mrs Pringle, how do I feel? That is
an interesting consideration. What do these Germans promise us? - they promise
freedom and national sovereignty. What are those things? And what are these
Germans? They are invaders like all the invaders that have come here for one
thousand four hundred year. They come, they go, the English no worse than
others. But to govern ourselves! - that we have forgotten, so how do we do it?
And why should we believe these Germans, eh? For myself, I am brushing up my
German to be on the safe side, but all the time I am asking myself,
"Better the devil we know". In their hearts, Mrs Pringle, the
Egyptian people wish you no harm.'
'You mean, too
many people are doing too well out of us?'
'Ah, Mrs Pringle,
I see you know a thing or two.'
'Well, one thing
I do know, the Germans won't get to Alexandria. The British always fight best
with their backs to the wall, and we can't afford to lose the Middle East.'
'Can't afford?
Deary me, Mrs Pringle, how many people can’t afford? The French, the Poles, the
Dutch - could they afford?'
'Don't forget,
Iqal, we have the Americans with us now.'
At this mention
of his employers, Iqal sobered and nodding in reverential appreciation of this
truth, he whispered, 'Ah, it is so!'
Harriet worked in
a basement area too large to be called a room. Mr Buschman sat at a desk
between the French windows at the back. Harriet, who had an alcove to herself,
was in charge of a map of the eastern hemisphere that covered the whole of one
wall. Her daily job was to mark the position of the combatants with pins. There
were blue-headed pins for the allied forces, red for the Russians and Chinese,
and black for the Axis. Recently, having had to order them, Harriet had
obtained yellow pins for the Japanese.
On the morning
when news came of Pearl Harbor, Harriet had gone to work in high spirits,
seeing the war as more or less over. She found Mr
Buschman in quite a different state. White-faced and trembling, he said over
and over again, 'The bastards! The God-damn bastards!'
Harriet said,
'Well, it's something definite. You'll have to come in now.'
Mr Buschman
struck his desk in rage. 'Definite? God-damn, it's definite all right We'll
make the bastards pay. We'll blow them right out of the water.'
But the Japanese
were advancing and Harriet sticking yellow pins into Wenchow and Gona, began
to feel that the only change brought about by the American intervention in the
war was the change in her working hours.
That day, leaving
the office at one o'clock, she met Jackman who asked her the usual question:
'Any news?'
Harriet shook her
head.
'Where's Guy! Not
still in Alex? I'd get him out of there if I were you.'
Jackman drooping,
with concave chest and shoulders hunched, kept his hands in his pockets as he
talked. He had a thin, almost aesthetic, face, not unhandsome, but spoilt by a
surly expression and the long nose that he was always stroking and pulling as
though to make it longer. Looking at the ground in his hang-dog way, he said,
'I can tell you this, Rommel won't bother to take
swimming-bath! Where are they now?'
Harriet made a
wry face, knowing that one of the sights at Cairo at that time was the queue of
officers, half a mile long, waiting to draw their money from Barclay's Bank.
Having confounded her, Iqal was at once contrite and good-humoured and showed
her a news item he had been holding back. 'See here, Mrs Pringle,' he began to
giggle wildly, 'here they say the Afrika Korps reach Alexandria tonight. They
send a message to the ladies of Alexandria and this is what they say:
"Get out your party dresses and prepare to defend your honour."'
'Oh-ho, Mrs
Pringle, oh-ho!' Iqal's thick dark finger quivered with excitement as he
pointed to the item. 'These Germans are not deceived. Alexandria is a place of
brott-ells.'
'How do you feel
about a German occupation, Iqal?' Faced with this direct question, Iqal at once
became grave and declamatory. 'You ask me, Mrs Pringle, how do I feel? That is
an interesting consideration. What do these Germans promise us? - they promise
freedom and national sovereignty. What are those things? And what are these
Germans? They are invaders like all the invaders that have come here for one
thousand four hundred year. They come, they go, the English no worse than
others. But to govern ourselves! - that we have forgotten, so how do we do it?
And why should we believe these Germans, eh? For myself, I am brushing up my
German to be on the safe side, but all the time I am asking myself,
"Better the devil we know". In their hearts, Mrs Pringle, the
Egyptian people wish you no harm.'
'You mean, too
many people are doing too well out of us?'
'Ah, Mrs Pringle,
I see you know a thing or two.'
'Well, one thing
I do know, the Germans won't get to Alexandria. The British always fight best
with their backs to the wall, and we can't afford to lose the Middle East.'
'Can't afford?
Deary me, Mrs Pringle, how many people can’t afford? The French, the Poles, the
Dutch - could they afford?'
'Don't forget,
Iqal, we have the Americans with us now.'
At this mention
of his employers, Iqal sobered and nodding in reverential appreciation of this
truth, he whispered, 'Ah, it is so!'
Harriet worked in
a basement area too large to be called a room. Mr Buschman sat at a desk
between the French windows at the back. Harriet, who had an alcove to herself,
was in charge of a map of the eastern hemisphere that covered the whole of one
wall. Her daily job was to mark the position of the combatants with pins. There
were blue-headed pins for the allied forces, red for the Russians and Chinese,
and black for the Axis. Recently, having had to order them, Harriet had
obtained yellow pins for the Japanese.
On the morning
when news came of Pearl Harbor, Harriet had gone to work in high spirits,
seeing the war as more or less over. She found Mr
Buschman in quite a different state. White-faced and trembling, he said over
and over again, 'The bastards! The God-damn bastards!'
Harriet said,
'Well, it's something definite. You'll have to come in now.'
Mr Buschman
struck his desk in rage. 'Definite? God-damn, it's definite all right We'll
make the bastards pay. We'll blow them right out of the water.'
But the Japanese
were advancing and Harriet sticking yellow pins into Wenchow and Gona, began
to feel that the only change brought about by the American intervention in the
war was the change in her working hours.
That day, leaving
the office at one o'clock, she met Jackman who asked her the usual question:
'Any news?'
Harriet shook her
head.
'Where's Guy! Not
still in Alex? I'd get him out of there if I were you.'
Jackman drooping,
with concave chest and shoulders hunched, kept his hands in his pockets as he
talked. He had a thin, almost aesthetic, face, not unhandsome, but spoilt by a
surly expression and the long nose that he was always stroking and pulling as
though to make it longer. Looking at the ground in his hang-dog way, he said,
'I can tell you this, Rommel won't bother to take
Similar Books
