The Mozambique Channel

Abstract

[End Page 12] My childhood was spent in a garden. This garden was in Egypt, a few miles outside Cairo, but its furnishings were English—ponds and pergolas and rose beds. There were majestic eucalyptus trees, with which I communed—children are natural animists. Beyond the garden were fields of sugarcane, mud villages, palm trees, donkeys, and camels—the familiar trappings of my world. I had been born in Egypt and knew nowhere else; England was a vague memory of a cold, damp place visited when I was very young. And on the outer rim of this known landscape was the desert, to which we went for picnics, though not just now because it was out of bounds. It was full of soldiers, and battles were being fought there. I accepted this distant unrest as a normal procedure, and in any case it was nothing to do with me, busy with my fantasy life [End Page 13] beneath the eucalyptus trees. Except that it was, of course. In the spring of 1941 the German advance across Libya brought Rommel's army to Sollum, on the western edge of Egypt. The British garrison at Tobruk was encircled. A British offensive at the end of the year had Rommel in retreat, but in June 1942 his Panzer divisions came surging on again. Tobruk was taken. The Eighth Army fell back, and the Germans entered Egypt. They halted at El Alamein, a mere seventy miles from Alexandria. Everything pointed to a German assault on Cairo. An aerial invasion was anticipated, along with widespread bombing of the city. These were the days of "the Flap," when the burning of the files at the British Embassy and GHQ sent charred paper raining down onto the streets, the banks were besieged, and the railway station was packed with those seeking flight. The wives and children of military personnel had been evacuated the previous year, but British residents had stayed put, for the most [End Page 14] part. Now, there was a serious exodus. Family parties headed in different directions—the civilian expatriate families whose men worked for Shell and the other oil companies, the appendages of the engineers, the bureaucrats, the government administrators, the Embassy and Consulate staff, the bankers like my father, who worked for the National Bank of Egypt. Many went to Palestine, as it then was; others to Kenya, Tanganyika, Aden. And those who could get a passage boarded ships bound for South Africa. Cape Town was said to be delightful. She stood on the promenade deck, up against the rails, looking down at the water and quayside, keeping a careful hold on Jean. The rails had streaks of orange rust and she didn't want Jean's frock stained, clean on today, so she wouldn't let her hang over the top like some of the children were doing. There were native boys lined up on the quayside who would dive for piastres—they gesticulated and pointed and someone on the ship would throw a ten-piastre piece up in the air, and down it would go, flicking the water, and the boy would already have flung himself after it and time and again they'd surface, clutching the money. There were people still coming on board. She could see the Stannards making their way up the gangplank, with that Irish nanny holding the baby, who was yelling his head off, and Mrs. Stannard shouting at the porters. One of them had just dropped a hatbox. Thank goodness for having got on board early; she had already unpacked their things and Mrs. Leech was off at the Purser's office trying to get them changed from second sitting to first for lunch. Suez. She'd never been to Suez before. Port Said, lots of times. Ismailia. Qantara. Never Suez. [End Page 15] She was Shirley Manners, of Pinner, but no one called her Shirley now. She was Nanny. Or she was Film Star; that was what the other nannies called her because she was...