D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

heavy breasts with their large, nearly black aureolas and taut nipples advertise their availability.

“We’ve got to be at the barracks in forty minutes, Corwin. Let’s get cracking.”

Brady groaned again, motioning Thorley away with a limp-wristed wave.

“Not on your life, let’s go.”

“Bloody Christ, why don’t you just shoot me and get it over with,” Brady said, rolling over onto his back. He spotted his companion, and rolled his eyes. She smiled, revealing a broken front tooth. “Go on, me darlin’, time to be shovin’ off.”

The woman threw off the bedclothes and reached for her dress, a shabby print that had seen better days. Thorley spotted a tattoo on her capacious rump, the design both inscrutable and unfamiliar. After she dressed and left, Brady crawled from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom, where he doused his head under a stream of tepid, faintly brown water.

Soon, they were outside the hotel, where they hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take them to Abbassia Barracks.

Located in the center of Cairo, the barracks had been built in the late nineteenth century; and its imposing edifice of stone and iron occupied an entire city block. Home to various regiments over the years, it was now the main headquarters of the Long Range Desert Group, as well as the Officer Cadet Training Unit.

After a mad dash through downtown Cairo, narrowly avoiding catastrophe no less than five times, the cab pulled up in a cloud of dust and deposited Thorley and Brady at the main gate. Thorley paid the driver, who thanked him profusely in a rapid stutter, and roared off.

After identifying themselves at the gate, they reported to Lieutenant Owen in the main office overlooking the dun-colored quadrangle. Owen, a slight man of medium height with a warm, easy manner, gave them the cook’s tour of the barracks, ending up in what was to be their room, a narrow warren at the southwest corner they would share with two other men who had not yet arrived.

To Thorley’s surprise, the ensuing week went rapidly. Unlike the tyrannical Sergeant Bell, the officer in charge of training them in desert survival techniques, was calm and patient. He tutored them, making sure that every one of the fifteen men undergoing training understood what was at stake.

“Remember,” he said, over and over again, “the desert will never forgive the mistakes I will. If you want to survive out there, pay attention here.”

There were other, less vital, aspects that others had learned from bitter experience: The serge battle dress uniforms issued to the British army, for instance, were wholly inadequate for wear in the desert. Soldiers had found that while it would keep them warmer at night, sand coupled with sweat would become ingrained in the fabric, causing severe chafing. And once they were out in the field for weeks at a time, any discomfort would become magnified tenfold. In addition to the uniforms, the regulation leather shoes had given way to soft suede ankle boots with rubber soles, drill trousers at night, shorts during the day. For headgear, it varied. Some liked to wear berets—different colors to signify a particular unit—and others their issue peaked caps, the last vestiges of their official uniform. For the L.R.D.G., comfort was all-important.

At the end of the week of training, Lloyd Owen called Thorley into his office. With him in the tiny cramped space was another officer. Older by at least fifteen years, with salt and pepper hair and a stiff military bearing, it was obvious to Thorley that the man had seen the horrors of war firsthand: one sleeve of his immaculate uniform lay slack and empty.

Owen waved him to a chair, the only one unoccupied. “Good of you to come, Thorley,” he said. “This is Lieutenant-Colonel Callum Renton, my superior.”

Thorley made to stand, and the older man signaled for him to remain seated. “At ease, Major, you’ve earned a rest. From what Lloyd Owen tells me, you’ve done a first-rate job of acclimating yourself.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” he said, beginning to wonder what this impromptu meeting was all about. It was as if Renton had read his mind at that moment.

“Right, I’m sure you’re wondering why we’ve asked you up here, then,” he said.

He didn’t have a chance to speak before Renton continued in his clipped Oxonian accent. “Sir Basil has instructed us to fill you in on your mission....”

Thorley sat up straighter, his attention now riveted on the one-arm man.

“I thought I was being assigned to Colonel Prendergast.”

“Oh, quite right on that. However, Guy is in the midst of moving his entire base of operations to Siwa—getting a bit nasty, there, you see—and thought it best that we fill you in, as well.” He paused, and Thorley thought he would go out of his mind as he listened to the lazy squeaking of the ceiling fan overhead, the only sound to break the agony of silence. Finally, Renton cleared his throat and continued. “As you may have heard, we’re going on the offensive in just over a month. General Auchinleck is very concerned about security, and wants very much to be sure that Jerry hasn’t caught wind of our plans, or if he has, that it’s the disinformation we’ve been spreading.

“To that end, we’ve been sending out the patrols to key locations to do road watches. It’s their job to spot any and all enemy movement and to report it back via wireless.”

“So you want me to—”

Renton raised his one arm. “Hear me out. You’re much too valuable to send on a road watch, Major. We’re assigning you to one of the Guards patrols. It’s their mission to get you as close to Rommel’s Panzers as possible.

“It seems that something called ‘skip’ is being picked up from their tank radio traffic. It’s something I