Only When I Larf. Len Deighton

Glover that I will be back in time to take that call to Nassau. Meanwhile look after the key of the safe, there’s a Pentagon Contract in there.’ I turned when I was at the door. ‘Goodness, and my pen from Winnie. No matter, I’ll be back in a moment.’ Karl put the key into his pocket and nodded to me.

      I left my roll brim hat ($30), umbrella ($46.50), some leather framed pictures and my old two dollar fountain pen (total $78.50), on the desk.

      I went next door. Everything was there waiting for me. I retied my necktie in a loose knot, then I pinned the collar with a large gold pin. A jewelled stickpin went into the front of the tie and onto my fingers I slipped four flashy rings.

      I took off my braces and loosened my belt one notch. Then I walked across the room to let my trousers settle on my hips. It changes one’s style of walking quite considerably, or at least it did mine.

      I removed the watch chain from my waistcoat and fixed it to my trousers like a key chain. I emptied a small flask of heavily scented oil into my palm and put it on my hair. I rubbed it in, and parted my hair nearer to the middle. I dabbed lotion on my chin and followed it with talc. I climbed into my vicuna coat that Bob had worn earlier. I tied the belt, turned up my collar and put on a white fedora and dark glasses. Sal Lombardo. The whole process took less than sixty seconds.

      I hit the button for the express lift. Mick was in it. I saw his nose wrinkle as my perfumes wafted over to him.

      ‘Going to the big fight?’

      ‘Ya,’ I said hoarsely, ‘I sure am buddy.’

      ‘That Zapello will get a beating I’m thinking.’

      ‘Beating smeeting. The champ’s going into da tank. Don’t waste your money on dat bum.’

      ‘Is that right? Do you know him?’

      ‘Know him? I own both dose bambinos.’

      ‘Is that right,’ said Mick respectfully. We travelled on in silence. On the street level I got out. Mick said, ‘Goodbye mister.’

      ‘Ciao,’ I shouted. ‘Ciao baby, ciao.’ I hurried across the lobby. The Lincoln hire car was waiting outside. ‘I’m Sal Lombardo,’ I told him. ‘The Pan Am Building and make it snappy.’

      ‘Sure thing,’ said the driver.

      The Pan Am building was just a couple of minutes away, from its roof the scheduled helicopter was about to leave. I didn’t hurry, my seat was booked and young Bob and Liz were already seated. In separate seats of course. I looked at my watch. The whole operation had been timed and costed out to perfection, apart from a small matter of 25 cents on the cab bill because of a traffic jam. That was entirely Bob’s responsibility and I decided to make him pay it out of his own pocket. From Kennedy there was the connecting jet for London, everything was exactly on schedule.

      My God I was tired. My dark glasses blacked out the world, and I was appreciative of that. I’d had enough of the world for a few hours. From a few rows behind me I could hear Bob’s voice. He was teaching the stewardess a trick with two dice, and they were both giggling. They were annoying all the other passengers, as well as being far too conspicuous for my taste. My God, Bob was carrying all the money in that case of his. You’d think that just for once he would have been content to be quiet. I wish I had let him bring that damn book about archaeology with him, but it would have looked suspicious, a security guard in uniform carrying ‘Our Civilisation Begins – an illustrated encyclopedia for little folk.’

      I tipped the white fedora over my eyes. I had tired of being Sal Lombardo. I wished that I had remained Sir Stephen Latimer for the plane journey to London. I’d have got better service as Latimer, especially on a British airline.

      Each of us was travelling alone. God I was tired. I’m always tired when it’s over. It’s the responsibility, the planning, the tension and judgment. Sometimes a last minute decision can throw the whole strategy into reverse. It was no use looking to the others for help or guidance. Bob was a child. At best he was a waif with the moral judgment of a five year old, at worst a young felon. Liz was older and more responsible and I loved her, but she was still in her twenties, and still a young, silly impressionable girl, behind the thin veneer of sophistication that I had supplied. I loved Liz and I was fond of Bob but sometimes I wondered what I was doing with them. Tonight I would have given everything I owned for an evening’s conversation. I missed that, more than anything. Sometimes I’d try to remember old conversations I’d had many years ago, arguments in the mess, long long discussions sitting in a tank in the middle of the desert. They were all gone now, the replacements were never the same as the men you had trained with.

      That’s true of life too, the friends you make after you are twenty-five are not like your old friends. My old friends are gone. Still in the desert. They all went the same night, at least nearly all of them did. Liz’s father died that night. The Regiment lost twenty officers, and the regiment never truly recovered. Neither did I.

      ‘Wake up Silas,’ said Captain Leadbetter. I hadn’t fully recovered from the explosion and fire. I opened my eyes, Leadbetter looked quite a mess. His face was covered with grey dust, his chin unshaven, hair messed up, and the front of his shirt was caked with dark brown blotches. He saw me staring at it. ‘Not mine,’ he said. ‘My gunner’s.’ He spoke in that anxious, top-speed way, that children bring home news from school.

      ‘Colonel Mason, Dusty, Perce, Major Graham, Major Little, Sergeant Hughes and Chichester in the first five minutes. Bloody eighty eight of course. Should see them. Turrets just fly off and land twenty yards away. Bertie led C Squadron in then, but it took him a few minutes to form up, so they had ranged him in. I got out riding on the back of Frogmorton’s tank. Bloody hot, I’ll tell you, with those 88’s chucking it over. Froggie didn’t know I was there for half a mile, what a lark. We’ve lost eighteen tanks destroyed and another three damaged and abandoned. Jerry will have them repaired and in action again tomorrow, you see. They’ll be shooting at us.’

      I got to my feet. Leadbetter started to talk again, but I silenced him. ‘We’ve lost the colonel?’

      ‘That’s what I’m telling you; the Colonel, Dusty, Perce, Graham and Major Little, and Sergeant Pearce, Sergeant Brophy, Staff Foreman.’

      ‘You mean their tanks, didn’t they get out?’

      ‘You haven’t seen these 88’s Silas. There’s no getting out, they just blow you apart, bits fly like feathers from a pheasant hit fair and square. They laid down H.E. after they’d clobbered us, and then they put infantry in. We won’t see any of them again Silas.’

      ‘Get a drink, and that’s an order,’ I’d seen it before; the high-pitched voice, and fluent talk, just an inch away from hysteria. He’d break in an hour or so.

      ‘O.K. chief,’ he said happily. ‘You are the C.O. now that Mason, Bertie, and Dusty Miller and Little have copped it.’

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That makes me the senior officer.’

      Leadbetter stared out through the tent flap for a long time, then he spoke again. ‘Old Mason must have guessed what we were heading into. I wondered why he left you here at HQ Squadron yesterday. The C.O. was a good old stick wasn’t he?’ I’d been reprimanded by the colonel only a few hours before, I could almost see him standing where Leadbetter now stood.

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He was.’

      Funny to think of Colonel Mason as the father of Liz. I wondered what he would have thought of both of us today. What would any of our fathers think of any of us? I wished my father had lived longer. I was only a child when he died, and I had never had a real chance to become his friend. He was a wise man, everyone agreed about that, and everyone had gone to him for advice. If only he had given me more. A reserved man, for no one knew how sick he was until it was too late; no one knew, not even my mother. I remembered being angry that he would not carry me home the day before he died. Poor father.

      I was fond of Liz and Bob but I couldn’t really talk with them. If only there was someone to whom I could talk.