TWENTY-TWO

‘Of course I didn’t know!’ said Margaret Buhl. ‘How could I have known? I’ve never had so much as a letter from him. Just that one postcard three years ago.’

She dabbed at her eyes with a plain white handkerchief. Digger O’Brien should have expected the tears, genuine or not.

In the process of showing her Robert Dudley’s letters, he had studied Mrs Buhl’s face for any sign of surprise. Certainly she had looked startled when he explained the coded references but that, he thought cynically, could be because she realised the cat was out of the bag.

However, if she was acting now, the performance was impressive.

‘Will they send me to one of those awful camps?’ she asked him.

‘I can’t see how they can,’ Digger answered. ‘You’re a South African citizen, aren’t you?’

‘Born and bred.’

‘Where?’

‘Nelspruit, in the Eastern Transvaal. And I’ve got a birth certificate that shows it.’

‘Well, then. I don’t see how you can be held responsible for anything. If you haven’t done anything wrong.’

He was thinking: And if you have, we’d rather have you here where we can keep an eye on you than in some camp; to see if you can lead us to your mates.

“I just don’t know what to do,’ Margaret Buhl said. ‘Do you think he’ll ever be coming home?’

Digger felt he should say something that sounded sympathetic. ‘Have you thought that Fritz may have asked young Robert to try to get a message out to you?’ he said. ‘To let you know that he was okay?’

Margaret Buhl shook her head. ‘No, but it seems so hopeless anyway,’ she said. ‘He’s there and I’m stuck here. If we win the war, will I ever see him again? He could be killed in the fighting. And if Germany wins, will he be able to come back home? This world’s gone mad! I really don’t know what to do.’

Digger O’Brien noted that she referred to “Germany”, not the Nazis or the Jerries or the Huns, which were what most people called the enemy.

He mentioned that fact later that evening to Colonel Fyfe King. ‘But I really don’t know if we can read anything into it,’ Digger said.

The colonel had invited him along to the Umtata Club for a drink after the weekly NRV parade. The club was a men-only preserve, which Digger always found gloomy for that reason. They sat in a corner near the voluminous snooker room. Most of the illumination was provided by the shaded lights over the snooker tables. No one was playing.

‘Digger, look at it logically,’ said Fyfe King. ‘We discover that Buhl, with his wife right here, is guarding our chaps in that camp. At the same time, we know that there’s a Nazi spy around, maybe more than one. Who’s to say that the Nazis haven’t got to this Buhl woman, put pressure to her to work for them by threatening to do harm to her husband?

‘We know that they must have radio communication. Or maybe the message to her was delivered by one of those bloody subs. And she’s got a truck. And with the garage enough petrol whenever she’s wants it.’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Digger. ‘My money’s still on that Mostert fellow. He drinks at the Grosvenor, so he might well have heard about our files. And then there’s the broken leg he didn’t have. Also, I can’t see Margaret Buhl breaking into the Drill Hall.’

‘Well, maybe they’re in it together,’ the colonel said. ‘We’ve suspected for a while now that there’re probably more than one. I think we must watch her closely.’’

‘Will do, sir.’ He considered telling Fyfe King about Moses being in the Buhl cottage, well positioned to do some watching, but thought better of it.

‘Full and unlawful carnal knowledge!’ Gerald Wilson exclaimed.

‘What’d you say?’ asked George Trebble, instantly awake.

‘I’ve been told I mustn’t swear,’ said Gerald, ‘so I’m spelling it out. ‘But look here! There’s a bloke shooting through our windows!’

The three members of the ward had developed a routine. Woken at five to have their temperatures taken, given morning tea and a bed-bath half an hour later, they were grateful to be able to doze during the following hour before breakfast.

But this morning there was indeed an armed man standing between the lower beds. He raised his rifle and fired two more shots through an open window.

‘Don’t have a cadenza,’ he said. ‘I’m just killing the pigeons. They’ve been crapping in the operating theatre again.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ George demanded.

‘I’m the caretaker,’ the man said. ‘Just doing my job.’ He was tall and thin with a pate like a monk.

‘Why don’t you just close the theatre windows?’ asked Gerald Wilson.

‘Nah,’ said the man. ‘Matron says that would be unsanitary. The place must be aired, she says.’ He turned away.

‘Well,’ George Trebble told his departing back, ‘you can tell the matron to full – what was it again? – off.’

‘Now, now, George,’ said Gerald Wilson. ‘Don’t arouse that beast. Her hearing’s pretty acute. And it’s nearly time for breakfast anyway.’

‘Yes, I suppose. Sorry, old man, but I feel a bit crabby this morning. Didn’t sleep very well.’

Certainly, Danny thought, Mr Trebble didn’t look very comfortable. When he’d come back after his operation the previous day, two nurses had lifted his bottom on to something rather like one of those inflated rings little children paddled on in swimming pools.

Danny had become quite fond of the two old men, or rather of Mr Wilson because Mr Trebble had only been there for a day. Mr Wilson didn’t talk down to him, like some of his father’s friends. He was due to be discharged at the weekend, so he could wander around the hospital and get the nurses laughing. He was always checking to see if Danny was comfortable.

One evening, after lights out and before Mr Trebble came, a car had arrived and parked just outside the double doors of the ward that led to the gardens. Someone came in. It was dark but Danny thought he could recognise Mr Southwood, the mechanic. There was much whispering, and then Mr Wilson disappeared.

A long time later, he was back, bumping against the empty beds until he found his own. That night, Mr Wilson snored a lot.

With Mr Trebble there, the two men talked a great deal and told jokes. Danny didn’t mind. He laughed with them although some of the jokes, perhaps most, he didn’t really understand.

One sounded so funny, when Mr Trebble told it, that Danny decided to pass it on to his father when he came to visit at lunchtime, as he usually did.

‘Dad, have you heard this one?’ he said. ‘This man goes to the doctor for an, um, examination and the doctor tells him he should take more exercise on an empty stomach.’

‘Yes?’ said Digger, with some apprehension.

‘So he goes home and starves his wife!’ said Danny.

Digger nodded, and changed the subject to ask Danny if he had managed to do any of the schoolwork his teachers had set him. But a short while later he walked across to talk to George Trebble. Although Danny couldn’t hear the conversation, his father’s voice sounded angry.

After lunch that day, Danny had two visitors. One was Moses, with a bottle of ginger beer and the latest Argosy.

‘Keep it for me, Danny,’ he whispered. ‘I haven’t read it yet.’

The other visitor was Steyn Mostert who said he had a surprise. Steyn left the ward and returned with the broomstick crutch his cousin had used.

‘Nick says he heard about your accident,’ said Steyn, ‘and thought you could do with this when you start walking again. He says he’s sure your father can saw a bit off and make it shorter for you.’

Danny was astounded. A German spy giving him a present?

At first, his inclination was to turn down the offer, tell Steyn to take the crutch back to his cousin. Then he remembered what his father had ordered about not making Nick Mostert suspicious.

So he said, ‘Please say thank you very much.’

Billy, Alan and Charles had already been to see Danny and had received the message to stay out of the drains, or else the NRV and the police would be very upset. But Danny wasn’t sure if it sunk in with Billy.

He found the afternoons the longest part of the day, longer even than the nights. Mr Wilson and Mr Trebble said very little and what they did say he found hard to hear.

Later, however, after visiting hours, after the ward lights were lowered and he was supposed to be asleep, the two men raised their voices several notches.

‘So what else has happened out there, George?’ asked Gerald Wilson.

George Trebble was silent for a while. ‘Oh. One thing,’ he said then. ‘Arthur Davies, the scout master. He’s been given the push. The parents got together, well the mothers really because most of the fathers are away, and told him he had to go.’

‘It was only a matter of time,’ said Gerald Wilson.

‘But why would he do that kind of thing? That’s what I can’t understand. Good-looking wife. Reasonable job at Barclays.’

‘Well, you know what they say, George,’ said Wilson. ‘ “When wine and women lose their joys, try bottled beer and little boys”.’

‘And what else can you tell me?’ he asked.

Trebble was torn. Should he or should he not tell his friend about Fritz Buhl? He opted for a spell of coughing while he considered it. Eventually he thought: If I can’t trust Gerald, who on earth can I trust?

He said, ‘My friend, I’m passing this on in the strictest confidence. Digger O’Brien has already dumped on me from a dizzy height because I told the chaps in the bar about those bloody documents in the Drill Hall.’

‘Okay, George,’ said Gerald Wilson. ‘If I tell anyone at all, I’ll tell them in the strictest confidence too.’

‘Don’t joke, Gerald. Please, this is vital information.’

Then, as Danny listened with growing wonder, George Trebble proceeded to tell Gerald Wilson about the Buhls, about Fritz being a guard at Stalag VII where the Transkei boys were; about the suspicion that now must fall on his wife, Margaret.

The Mozambique government claims to have uplifted the thousands of landmines planted by opposing sides during the country’s two civil wars. However, while clashes still occur between its Frelimo troops and Renamo rebel elements, one must wonder.

CHIMOIO – The traffic flow towards us lends heart to the trip. There are private vehicles and trucks, coming east back to Beira. You like to believe they will have put the route to the landmine test.

But 30 kilometres out, the rate of passing vehicles falls dramatically. The driver of the Land Rover, a veteran of the Beira Corridor run, stops suddenly at a makeshift kiosk in the bush. Behind the counter, an emaciated woman appears to be dispensing urine in dusty bottles.

“Coconut wine,” says the driver. “Very good, very strong. Very necessary for this journey.”

It is seven o’clock in the morning, much too early for thoughts of Dutch courage. Better, anyway, to tackle the day with a clear head. The offer is declined. The driver, regardless, has half a bottle, downed with much smacking of lips and macho gestures at the road ahead. There is a suggestion in all this of tilting at windmills.

You begin to wonder what you have let yourself in for. Just after the next refreshment post, which the driver to his credit eschews, he brakes to take on three passengers. And, immediately, the risk factor seems to be reduced. Irrationally, for what safety can there be in numbers where landmines are concerned?

One of the passengers, an elderly man, must have all his movable possessions with him, including a live chicken. It ends up, trussed, on the seat next to you, staring banefully sideways.

The newcomers chatter in loud Portuguese, joke and laugh. Perhaps it is false levity to take their minds off the journey. Perhaps they have also been at the coconut wine.

The driver is more subdued, trying to steer a path between the potholes. He does so only with partial success for the road has deteriorated even further. Some of the potholes look deep enough to conceal a small cannon, let alone an explosive.

Around, the high grass is studded with pawpaw and citrus trees and, occasionally, under-nourished maize fields. Here and there are new settlements of huts, for there is a move among the Mozambican people to re-locate along lines of road and rail. Whatever the dangers of this route, they are much worse deeper in the bush.

Even as you ponder the relativity of safety in such outlandish country, the Land Rover rears off the road and on to a track. It seems we are to deliver the old man clear to his front door. The going now is soft sand and, incredibly, the vehicle actually accelerates.

The driver obviously believes he can escape mines planted in such terrain by the simple expedient of going as fast as he is able, detonating them at such speed that the Land Rover would end up ahead of the blast.

Fortunately the old man’s village is not far off. When we get there, he is met by several young women who embrace him, take care of his luggage and unleash the chicken.

Back on target for the Zimbabwe border, we run almost immediately into a roadblock. Renamo’s or Frelimo’s? Theirs or ours? It is Frelimo and the Sofala provincial police, in tandem, intent on searching for arms and spraying the wheels of vehicles against tsetse fly and malaria.

One of the Frelimo soldiers, a callow youngster cradling an aged AK47, commandeers a seat. His foot patrol has gone off without him because he overslept. You have heard that some of the bandits rampaging through Mozambique could be Frelimo by day, Renamo by night. This youth looks incapable of terrorising anyone. Or equally, as he loses himself in the concentration of picking his nose, protecting himself.

He meets up with his patrol just a few kilometres distant, a platoon of men with AK47s and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenade launchers), walking Indian file on the verge. No-one reprimands our soldier for being late.

Soon we will be reaching the most hazardous section of the trip. Gorongosa, and beyond. The piece of earth called Gorongosa, which encompasses a national park and often impenetrable bush, has bled more that most parts of Mozambique. In the first civil war, it was the scene of heavy fighting between Frelimo and the Portuguese.

Renamo had its headquarters in the area until 1985, when Frelimo and Zimbabwean forces overran the camp. But Renamo has re-established itself around here again. Inside the Land Rover, silence falls as we pick our way through the bush and between the potholes, kilometre by kilometre.

Suddenly, around a bend, we come upon two men with guns and there is a sharp intake of breath from the passengers. The rifles look like old FNs. The men wear no uniform. They come quickly upright as we draw level then, as quickly, appear to lose interest. Either these are someone else’s mercenaries or someone’s troops moonlighting.

Climbing into the western province of Manica the road becomes even worse, the environment more harsh with little soil and stunted trees. It is as Cromwell said of Connemara: “Not enough wood to hang a man, not enough water to drown a man, not enough soil to bury a man.”

But many a rock to hide a man. And no sign of Frelimo patrols.

We crawl on in silence. Life springs up again near the provincial capital of Chimoio where the rear passengers leave us. Chimoio has grown in population, but that is security rather than development. Nor has it escaped the war. Shattered buildings on the outskirts show where the rebels have attacked and looted. The town’s power supply was cut off by Renamo a week ago. Again.

The trip is almost over. Zimbabwe is only 70 kilometres away. That does not mean the area in between is safe. This year, more than 350 civilians have been killed by rebels or crossfire. The Zimbabwean troops responsible for defending the border have lost 22 men, Renamo 29.

Beyond Manica town, on the last leg, we encounter a Zimbabwean patrol walking towards Mutare. The major in charge tells me they are going home for the weekend. He and his troops are based at Garuzo, to the north-east.

How is it with the war?

“They thought they could overrun us but I think we are winning now,” says the major. “The trouble is finding an enemy to fight. They are invisible.”

With much less experience, you have had that feeling yourself.

From John Ryan’s One Man’s Africa.

Driving back from Cape Town along the coastal road through Muizenburg, we turn on to the N2 highway. As we do, the front right tyre goes flat.

There is a petrol station two kilometres away. Maybe we can ease our way there. But soon it appears not, not without shredding that tyre. Only one thing to do. Pull well off and change the wheel.

We have not had to do so on this particular car before. We open the boot, take out the spare, find a wheel spanner and the jack handle. But where is the jack itself? It is certainly not there.

A blue car passes, then reverses back to us. A large man gets out. This is a dangerous place to break down, he says. A policeman was stabbed to death near here, just days ago. Do we have a firearm?

We don’t. But does he perhaps have a jack that will fit our car? He doesn’t. VW tools and Toyota tools, chalk and cheese. Then will he take our daughter Katherine to the petrol station to get help? They set off.

We turn to the vehicle instruction book. Perhaps the jack is elsewhere. It is. Under the front passenger seat!

As we struggle to release it, a truck pulls up and two men get out. They take over. Remove the jack, set it in place and raise the car. A small problem. The spare, when in place, is low on air. But it should see us to the petrol station.

It doesn’t have to, for another truck pulls up. This one has all sorts of equipment on the back, including an air cylinder. The two occupants undertake that part of the operation. And not only do they inflate the tyre but, afterwards, find and attack the source of the flat.

Last week, the hubcap on that wheel was stolen and the culprit interrupted in the process of stealing the other three. But, in removing the hubcap, he had damaged the rim. So, on a tight turn, it was able to leak air.

Out comes a large hammer and, later, an even larger one. The rim is beaten back into shape.

Our daughter and the first Samaritan arrive with a mechanic from the petrol station and a universal jack, but the job is done. The job, and more.

In this turbulent age, who says there are no guardian angels?

Some people have a born talent for art or making money. My brother Terry had a born talent for dealing with people.

He made friends easily, wherever he happened to be, and kept them.

In Umtata, where we grew up, everybody knew Terry Ryan. If they knew me at all, I was Terry Ryan’s little brother.

Terry played cricket and rugby. I played the piano. Terry was the cadet bugler at Remembrance Day parades.

He played the Last Post and people cried.

Terry was dark-haired, good-looking and gregarious. I was red-haired and shy. Because of the difference in our natures, Terry seemed to believe that he was his brother’s keeper.

That belief may have been fuelled by two events in our early childhood.

When I was four, I was the passenger on Terry’s tricycle. Down our street, he rode into a drain and I broke my arm. Seven years later, I broke my femur badly playing backyard rugby with his friends.

But on my first day of school, I walked into the playground to find that the older boys had arranged a fight for me.

My opponent was my brother. I flailed at him with both arms. Terry just stood there. The boys tried to goad him into retaliating but he wouldn’t.

Terry didn’t mind looking foolish as long as I looked good.

That need to protect me extended way beyond school. In 1961, I met up with Terry and some friends here today for a protracted tour of Europe. My brother and I had been out of touch for some years.

We got to Pamplona in time for the fiesta of San Fermin. On the night before the first bullfight, Terry took me aside.

“I don’t want you to run with the bulls tomorrow,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because, knowing you, you’re bound to get gored.”

“Hang on,” I said. “I ran with the bulls two years ago. Three times!”

During that week, some of us were drawn into a fight in Pamplona’s main bar. The police came. Terry had dozed off in a corner after a long day watching matadors. Somebody woke him to say that his brother was being carted off to jail by the Garda Civilia. Terry ran out and banged on the doors of the Black Maria.

So they picked him up too.

After we both were married, we saw each other sporadically. We would meet if we lived in the same area. But there were years when we had no contact at all, apart from a phone call on birthdays or at Christmas.

Yet, occasionally, Terry would call with news. They were bulletins from a proud father. Brett was playing Benson and Hedges cricket. Dean and Chad were doing well overseas. Morag was turning into a fine athlete. He had another lovely granddaughter.

Two years ago, after Terry’s massive operation, we started calling each other regularly. I really came to look forward to those conversations.

For one thing it was good to be reassured that I was right about certain matters.

Such as: That all French referees were in the pay of the New Zealand Rugby Union.

That T20 cricket was destroying Test batsmanship.

But, above all, to know that my brother’s agile mind was still alive and well.

`

Survival is a constant battle in Africa. Many – perhaps most – Africans struggle to survive against one thing or another. Hunger, factional warfare, pestilence like malaria and tuberculosis. And, most recently, AIDS.

Generally, they are perceptible dangers. This is not about those. This is about survival against the elements and the odds and the unknown which, on the Dark Continent, lurks in manifold shadows.

Years ago, in Mozambique, I interviewed a young Portuguese girl who had an astounding tale to tell about survival. So astounding was it that I did not at first believe her. But, after checking her story against unequivocal facts, I had to accept that she was telling the truth.

She was sailing on a yacht with her parents on the edge of the Mozambique Channel, north of the island on Inhaca, when a freak storm struck. The vessel was swamped and sank before the family could secure their lifejackets or inflate the rubber dinghy.

The 13-year-old girl found herself alone in the ocean. She tried to swim but had no idea where the land lay. All she knew was that it was very far.

Exhausted and barely conscious, she suddenly discovered that she was being transported through the water. Several porpoises, bottle-nosed dolphins, had come to her rescue, bearing her weight as they swam.

The porpoises seemed to know precisely where they were headed. They nudged her against a navigational buoy and continued to swim around her while she clung to it. Then they left.

The buoy was in the middle of the main shipping channel east of Lourenco Marques, now Maputo. Not two hours later, the girl was spotted by the crew of a fishing boat and taken aboard.

Port authorities in Lourenco Marques had received a Mayday signal from the yacht before it sank. The skipper, the girl’s father, gave a position ten miles north-east of where she was found on the buoy. There was no way she could have swum that distance, in those seas, unassisted.

From One Man’s Africa

News from Scotland that the kilt is to make a comeback as a “symbol of Scottish pride” will raise more than a few laughs around certain public houses I know in Dublin. They will be merry in the Derry, levitated in the Liffey Arms, at the thought that the Scots have been sold the same pup a second time around.

The information this week from Edinburgh said the revival of the kilt had come about as the result of a “growing roots mania” among the Scottish nation.

Being part-Irish, part-Scots, part-English but mostly South African, I am often at odds with “root” feelings. A great grand-uncle on my mother’s side was one Thomas Pringle, an 1820 Settler Scot, who wrote poetry and also did something on local newspapers. Before my time.

My father always believed he was born in County Clare. After his death, I found documentation in Somerset House which showed he was not the pure-bred Irish peasant he prided himself on being.

Just before his birth, his family moved to Cheapside in London which (technically at least) made my father a Cockney. I don’t know how he would have responded to that revelation.

If I could have chosen my own antecedence, I wouldn’t mind being a bit Welsh as well. For a while, I lived in South Wales, dispensing beer in a pub called the Taffs Well Inn. The Welshmen I came to know were a total contradiction of the national caricature. They were stalwart, phlegmatic, humorous, healthily cynical.

“Think you could squeeze a large whisky into that pint of wallop, boyo?” “Certainly, sir.” “Well, fill the bloody glass up then!”

Or: “You got a ladder around here, Springbok?” “What for, Mr Jones?” “To get down to the level of my bloody beer!”

One old regular got stung in the summer trying to remove a bee from his mild-and-bitter. “H’mm,” he remarked. “Warm feet, them bees!”

Now the Welsh would never be seen dead in a kilt.

The Irish, of course, wore kilts long before the Scots. Then they realised what a foolish spectacle they were making of themselves and traded the habit across the Irish Sea. Thereafter, they did the same thing with the bagpipes.

It is a sociological fact that Scotsmen past and present have tended, and do tend, to immigrate more than any other nation – the Lebanese notwithstanding. I do not find that surprising.

If I were a member of a tribe that required grown men to bare their legs in public, devour (and consider a special treat) puddings made of sheep’s entrails, make cacophonous noises on pigs’ bladders and wear their handbogs in silly places, I would also seriously think of going away.

What Brendan Behan, that outrageous Irishman, thought of kilts may not be quoted in a family newspaper. But he once said of the bagpipes:  “The only good thing about them is that they don’t smell too.”

Someone told me, or else I read, that the bagpipes were actually invented by the Berbers. If so, the Berbers are being very quiet on the subject. Not that I blame them. It isn’t the sort of achievement a nation should bandy about.

Ah, I hear you cry, but the Scots have at least given something of value to the world. Fine Scotch whisky!

Another recent item in the overseas Press, pertinent to this little treatise, announces that the Scottish Football League will celebrate the start of the Cup Final by exploding a 15-inch shell packed with Bell’s whisky miniatures above the crowd at the stadium.

A nice gesture, you might say, all those bottles of the national elixir raining down on football fans, supporting the best traditions of soccer hooliganism.

The only point I would add is that the company which produces Bell’s whisky now belongs to the Irish firm of Guinness!

The laird giveth and the laird taketh away.

John Ryan’s Midweek column.Of

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column urging people over 50 not to be too disconsolate about the future and to remember that their best achievements could yet lie ahead of them. In the process, I let drop the fact that Hannibal was older than 50 when he crossed the Alps.

You could not imagine what response I have had to that statement. From all sides, I have been bombarded with demands that I set the record straight.

There were telephone calls throughout the weekend. I discovered e-mails, in similar tone, in number on my computer. One reader, B M of Walmer, quoted alleged extracts from the Encyclopaedia Britannica to support his contention that Hannibal was only 29 at the time. He referred to a Second Punic War and the struggle of Carthage in which, he claimed, Hannibal was somehow instrumental in securing a victory.

B M of Walmer also described Hannibal as one of the best military strategists of all time!

There must be some confusion here. These people cannot be referring to Fred  Hannibal, with whom I shared a bedsitter in London those many years ago. It seems a clear case of mistaken identity.

If Fred ever was a military strategist, even on a small scale in his native town of Port Morgan, Australia, I’m sure he would have told me. We kept few secrets between us. Indeed, it was something of a problem just getting to sleep at night, so forthright did Fred Hannibal become after a few games of darts in the White Swan (or Mucky Duck, as the locals called it). Friday nights were the worst. Mainly, his frankness concerned past encounters with women.

But Fred never said a word about Carthage or any Punic Wars.

On another point, B M of Walmer. Since receiving your e-mail, I have looked up Carthage in The Times Atlas of the World. There are eleven such places, all of them in the United States, apart from a small town in Tunisia. Now, to my certain knowledge, Fred Hannibal never visited the United States. He had a typical Australian attitude to all things American. He wouldn’t even eat Big Macs – unless I was buying and he didn’t wish to offend me.

As to Fred Hannibal’s age. I can state quite categorically that he was more than 50 when he crossed the Alps. I know because he showed me his passport before we went our separate ways to the Continent, with an arrangement to meet at a youth hostel in Florence.

Fred was old for a Youth Hosteller but his size, five foot two, allowed him to take advantage of YHA facilities. Also, he submitted an old photograph when he applied for a YHA card. Hostel wardens, seeing this cherubic picture over the injunction to “pick wild flowers sparingly, if at all”, concluded that Fred had merely had a rough day getting there, on his bicycle.

What the YHA wardens didn’t know (and could not be allowed to, since many of them barred Hostellers with motor vehicles) was that Fred Hannibal also possessed an old Fordson van, in which he stowed his bicycle for all but the last few hundred yards before the next youth hostel. So he would park the van around a corner and arrive, suitably puffed, on his bike.

Fred’s scheme eventually backfired. Halfway up the Alps, while he was overnighting in a hostel at the little mountaineering resort of Ober-Ingenflushenheimer, the van slipped its handbrake and was never seen again.

So Fred Hannibal was actually forced to cross the Alps by bicycle and by the time he got back to London he looked more over 50 than ever (29 indeed, B M of Walmer!).

Incidentally, we never did meet in Florence. Fred apparently couldn’t find it, although he told me later he had passed through a place called Firenze.

A final thing, B M of Walmer. You state in your e-mail that the Hannibal of your acquaintance crossed the Alps with elephants? Come, come, B M of Walmer! Pull the other leg!

John Ryan’s Time Wounds All Heels column

SEVENTEEN

 Towards the end of 1942, after the tragedy of Tobruk, rationing began to bite. Motorists needed coupons to buy petrol. The government introduced “meatless days”. Beef and lamb, anyway, were in short supply and the chickens that Nick Mostert and other local farmers produced were saved for Sunday lunches. In October, however, the gloom over such things as rationing was hugely lifted by the Allied victory at El Alamein in Egypt, where General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps was defeated by a superior force of tanks and many South Africans were cited for their bravery. On the Friday of that week, when Nick Mostert walked into the Grosvenor, the local celebration of the victory was at its height. Members of the NRV had all but taken over the bar. Among them was Digger O’Brien, the OC. Inevitably, through the crowd, Mostert was singled out by George Trebble and introduced to the local pilot, John Moore. Trebble suggested that the two of them should move into the adjacent lounge, where they would be able to talk more comfortably. They spoke for half an hour before Mostert excused himself, saying he had to go back to check on his incubator. When he had gone, Digger O’Brien and George Trebble joined Moore in the lounge. ‘Well, John?’ O’Brien asked. ‘All I can say is that he seems genuine enough,’ said Moore. ‘I questioned him about the layout of Twelve Squadron’s base. He knew it, down to the little wadi where the blokes go for their evening smoke. ‘He knows the workings of the Boston bomber, which is a flying incendiary, as he says. He even knows about the problems we’ve had with the rear gunner. That rear turret is so big that there’re blind spots all around it. We have to fly the Bostons in formation so that the rear gunners can watch one another’s backs. Mostert knows all about that. ‘But as a clincher, I asked him if he’d done a course on the new Mosquito light bomber. He would have had to, if he had been at the base when he says he was. The RAF sent one out so we could get familiar with it, and we should have a few more by the end of the year. ‘We were talking casually, of course, because I didn’t want him to get suspicious. I said, Do you remember the problem with arming the Mosquito’s guns before take-off? And he said, Yes, if you’re in the pilot’s seat you’ve got to move your head, otherwise a bloody great falling machinegun could give you a terrible headache. ‘His words, and exactly right,’ said Moore. ‘And how would anybody know about that unless they’d experienced it? But a strange chap isn’t he? Ask him a question and he looks up into his head for the answer. I found him a bit vague about people, and personalities. Although the squadron’s changed in just the time I’ve been there. But I’d say, yes, he’s been there as well.’ John Moore turned to O’Brien. ‘I’ll ask around when I get back if you like, sir. Maybe find out more about him. And his accident.’ O’Brien left, knowing that George Trebble would be conveying what Moore had told them to his chums in the pub, but knowing also that there was nothing he could do to stop it. Take it or leave it, that was George Trebble. Gerald Wilson and Ginger Southwood took the information with mixed reactions. ‘I’d say that lets him off the hook, then,’ said Wilson. ‘I couldn’t really picture young Mostert as a spy, anyway.’ ‘But how do you explain the leg that wasn’t broken?’ Southwood said. ‘Why would a man have his leg put in plaster unless he had something to hide? And he doesn’t mention any plans to rejoin the squadron.’ He pushed back from the counter and lit a cigarette. ‘And remember he’s a Dutchman. And that uncle, or whatever he is, fought for the Boers against the British.’ ‘It’s good to see young Moore,’ Gerald Wilson said. ‘You don’t see many chaps his age around these days. It’s the schoolboys and us, mainly.’ ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Ginger Southwood. ‘There’s me and there’s that Robert Fuller from the prisons department. What do they call his lot? Essential services? I see he’s having it off with Mavis Howlett, the low bastard.’ ‘Well, maybe while her husband’s away she considers him an essential service,’ said George Trebble, ‘She’s a bit of all right. Have you seen her in slacks? Like two little boys fighting under a blanket!’ ‘I wouldn’t like to be Fuller when Bernie Howlett gets back,’ Gerald Wilson said. ‘Bernie’s a tough little bugger. Jealous, too. He doesn’t like people to look at his wife.’ ‘He’s in the bag, is Bernie,’ said George Trebble. ‘He’s in that same stalag with the other Transkei blokes. So Fuller will be long gone by the time he gets out. Fuller and those chaps at the jail get moved around every two years or so.’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Wilson. ‘How long do you believe this bloody war’s going to last? With the Americans in Europe, and Rommel chased out of Africa now, it could all be over sooner than we imagine.’ ‘Wishful thinking, Gerald,’ said Ginger Southwood. ‘Wishful thinking.’ Later that night or early the next morning, according to Sergeant Jock Brown, a person or persons unknown broke into the Drill Hall, forced the lock on the door of the office of the National Reserve Volunteers and stole various items of office equipment as well as several documents. The Drill Hall had been closed and was apparently secure when the janitor, Melvyn Swanepoel, made his last round of the school premises shortly after 11 pm. Early on Saturday morning, Digger O’Brien was surveying the damage when Jock Brown walked in. ‘So what’s missing, Digger?’ asked Brown. ‘Have you been able to check?’ ‘Ag, bits and pieces of stationery,’ said Digger, ‘but those were just taken as a blind. What have gone are all our security files from Roberts Heights, the ones we’ve been getting weekly.’ ‘Who would want to steal that stuff?’ said Brown. ‘Who would indeed?’ said Digger.