A Sheepish Man

By Maurice Segal

The hero an air force pilot who flew fighter aircraft in WW 1. He is a colonel in WW 2, based in Cairo and part of his job is to help select suitable targets for destruction by bombing. He is serving in the South African Air Force. And he is very opposed to the British policy of concentrating on civilian targets.

My hero whose wife was killed in an accident, is 48 years old and falls madly in love with a beautiful Canadian nurse aged 28 who has had a previous 4 year love affair with a famous plastic surgeon who is in charge of treatment of badly burned aircrew during the bombing of London.

Robert, the name of the Colonel, has a 19 year old son Peter who arrives in Cairo to join the main South African heavy bomber squadron.The last pages of the book decide whether Joan, the heroine agrees, to marry Robert or the Surgeon. There are other characters. Peter has a close friend. Joan meets a younger lady from Alexandria who became a close friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456789503

Maurice Segal

A novel, but myAir Force experience is still in my 86 year old brain and I have checked it fully with just about every book that has been published.on Air Force bomber Command.

Book preview

Chapter one

You could call me Bob he said.

But I like Robert she replied.

I don’t mind Robert, but people who like me end up calling me Bob

I like you, Bob.

Mission accomplished, he declared, and they both laughed.

Early in December 1944 a couple sat at a table under a window of the dining room of Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. All the tables in the spacious, high-ceilinged room were occupied. Officers in barathea and gabardine uniforms displayed their colorful medal ribbons, there were men wearing dinner jackets and suits and all the women wore evening dresses.

The lady at the table under the window wore a dark blue dress, elegant and unadorned. Her large deep blue eyes and long eye lashes begged attention. She wore a long pearl necklace doubled, so that it comfortably circled her neck twice. Her hair was chestnut-colored, cut short. Her name was Joan Tyler. She was head nurse at the military hospital in Cairo, serving as a captain in the Canadian army. Her escort thought she was beautiful. When he’d first met her in June 1944, he’d thought she was among the three most beautiful women he had ever met. With time he upgraded her to the most beautiful.

Colonel Robert Thornton White wore a barathea uniform with South African Air Force wings hovering over two rows of medal ribbons earned in two world wars. His hair and his generous moustache were dark brown and flecked with gray. His light blues eyes and sun-burned skin lent him a youthful appearance which belied his graying hair.

The room buzzed with lively chatter, while a pianist and a violinist were playing English, Italian and German melodies at the far end of the room. A rotating fan hummed discreetly above this particular table.

This is the first time I’ve seen you out of uniform, said Robert. Whenever we met at the Gezira Club and the Officers’ Club you were in uniform. I always admired you in the swimming pool at the Gezira Sports Club. You look great in everything you wear, no matter how skimpy.

I guess you have a way with compliments, said Joan, smiling. Don’t tell anybody, but this is the only dress I brought with me. It’s so good to be out of uniform. This is the first time I’ve been invited to dinner at Shepheard’s. The first and only time I was here was the day after I arrived and Dr. Lewis took me on a tour of ‘things to see in Cairo’ and he invited me here for coffee. We walked into the lobby, past the massive, elegant Egyptian columns and the two statues on pedestals on either side of the main stairs. What a great entrance

It is one of Cairo’s most beautiful hotels. When I arrived in Egypt I was astonished by the gigantic scale of the Sphinx and the pyramids and the perfect proportions of the ancient temples. Have you visited the Egyptian Museum? You shake your head. It is not officially opened but the front door is usually unlocked and you are allowed in if you are in uniform. All the exhibits are dusty and neglected but to be alone with Tutankhamen’s tomb and mask is an experience you will never forget. I’d be happy to go there with you. The Museum is a great introduction to the arts and sculpture of ancient Egypt.

I’d love to go there with you. I guess I have missed many opportunities to visit the wonders of Cairo.

Well that’s something to look forward to said Robert happily. Now regarding your one dress. You make me feel like a capitalist with my two sets of uniforms, my two suits, six shirts and sportswear for squash, tennis and golf. Oh I forgot my swimwear which is even skimpier than yours.

There’s a reason for that laughed Joan. I hear you’re a good golfer,.

Einstein said, ‘Everything is relative.’ Bobby Locke from South Africa is an international golf champion who’s also a bomber pilot on 34 Squadron, He gave me a stroke on all the holes except the short holes just last week at Gezira, and beat me. If you know anything about golf, that should warn you against listening to what people say. I play tennis on my court at home in Cape Town. In Cairo I play squash with Mahmoud Khadim on his private court. He’s an Egyptian and a world champion and I’ve never beaten him, maybe I will one day, if I’m lucky enough to play against him when he’s off form. He’s a great sport and wonderful friend.

Jack Richards told me you were an ace pilot in the First World War.

That’s not true, retorted Robert. When they set ten victories instead of five to qualify as an ace in that horrible war, I ceased to qualify. Do you think I should be proud of my ability to kill men I didn’t know and didn’t hate before they could kill me? He immediately regretted his tone of voice, and added quietly: To kill in a war may be justified in order to survive, but it should never be a source of pride.

Joan was dismayed by his reply to her question. She had wanted to make a good impression on this man who had attracted her from the first time they had met, and she had innocently touched a nerve. She knew very little about him. He was a loner, very reserved when he was in a crowd, and was seldom seen with the same woman twice. She sensed a certain sadness which he hid behind a façade of good humor. She decided there and then to set about learning more about him.

When I told my friend Mary, the receptionist at the officers’ club, that you’d dated me, she smiled and said: ‘He’s so old, but I wish it were me he’d invited.’ She told me you have your favorite chair at the club, reserved just for you, except when you’re away. She says you very seldom raise your voice. She says you read a lot. She doesn’t know how old you are, but she could find out. I think you must be about 50, but you look much younger.

That’s not a bad guess. I’ll be 48 the day before Christmas - which reminds me, You are hereby invited. to the South African squadron’s Christmas celebrations. Regarding your age, I know that women are not obliged to reveal that secret.

I turned 28 on the 25th of January, she said. And your invitation is happily accepted. Now please tell me more about yourself.

I was almost 20 when you were born. said Robert almost apologetically Which will come as no surprise to you. My father was an engineer in London and my mother worked as a secretary when they married. When I was little, my mother was a leader in the fight for women’s suffrage. When I was ten-years-old my father took me to an air show in Hendon aerodrome. There were a few very primitive aircraft that actually flew. The two best ones were a plane designed and flown by Henry Farman, an Englishman living in France, and a plane designed and flown by de Havilland, a young Englishman who later in my life became my friend. I watched both planes flying steadily, climbing, diving and turning and landing safely. From that day on I wanted to be a pilot. My father helped me make models that really flew, using the power of twisted rubber. I wasn’t a great scholar, but I read a lot and I did well on the sport field. I also loved photography and music.

I flew in the Royal Flying Corps, which later became the Royal Air Force, in the latter part of World War l. I was shot down by an ace German pilot and badly injured. I couldn’t settle down in England after the war, so I took a ship to Cape Town, in South Africa. From the moment I stood on the deck heading into Cape Town harbor and saw Table Mountain with its white-cloud tablecloth, I knew I was going to live there.

"I bought a beautiful but neglected vineyard in Constantia and a few years later I married a South African-born lady of French parentage. She taught piano, which she played beautifully. My wife Pam bore me a son, our only child Peter, who recently earned his wings and just today I learned that he’ll soon be joining his squadron in Italy. He’ll be passing through Cairo and I’d like you to meet him.

Pam was killed in a freak car accident eight years ago. I was driving our Jaguar in Cape Town, and Pam was driving home in a new Nash. There’s a gate on our sloping driveway and Pam stopped the car and went down the slope to open the gate. Our car had one of the first automatic drives, and she’d left it in forward drive and the handbrake had not been fully applied; the car ran over her and she was killed. Joan, I’m so sorry I’m telling you this, he said as he saw tears well up in her eyes. You can imagine how much Pam’s death changed my life and the lives of my son and my mother. My father had died shortly before the tragedy."

I’m glad you told me. How unbearably sad, Joan whispered softly. She stretched both her arms across the table and he clasped her hands in his. They looked into each other’s eyes wordlessly as their fingers and palms touched, and gentle waves of longing flowed and receded. Each felt the unexpected wonder of their touching and they were silent for a while before Robert proceeded.

The next change of my life was this tragic war. I joined the South African Air Force the day after the British and French declared war on Germany. It was exciting and challenging to help establish training bases for our air force and the Royal Air Force all over South Africa and then witnessing how our courageous aircrews played an important role in fighting the Luftwaffe. I will never forget the fine young men who lost their lives and are still losing their lives in our squadrons’ actions, particularly as I’m involved in approving the selection of enemy targets. Sorry to end on this unhappy note. I hope there is nothing unhappy about your story.

I don’t have a very interesting history, said Joan. I was born in Toronto. My father is a doctor, and my mother was an actress before she married. She became a successful photographer long after I was born. When I left school, I devoted myself to ballet for three years, but I realized I was too tall for a ballet dancer and I could never make it my career. I worked as a psychiatrist’s secretary, and I believe that he himself would have benefited from therapy during the three years I worked for him, she smiled. I’m convinced it wasn’t my fault. One day while visiting my father, who was a member of the staff of the Toronto General Hospital, I met a handsome man, a plastic surgeon. I was bowled over and immediately decided to join the hospital’s nurses’ training course. Alex and I had a serious affair which lasted four years, by which time I had qualified as a nurse. Then the war broke out and he volunteered to join Queen Mary’s Hospital in London, where he treats seriously burned pilots and aircrew. We kept in touch and after a month he sent me a letter saying that he was working 18 hours a day; that it was extremely dangerous to live in London with bombs exploding everywhere night and day and it was unfair to keep me waiting indefinitely. I guessed he had another lover and I found that although I wasn’t upset too much, I worried about him until the Battle of Britain was won. Alex gave me the idea of volunteering for war service and here I am.

Alex McDonald, said Robert as Joan stared at him wide-eyed and open mouthed, is famous for improving the treatment of critically burned airmen. Two of those he saved are friends of mine who were very badly burned. I was considering hitching a flight to England when the war ends, as Alex has offered to improve the appearance of my injured legs. You loved a good and special man with an inspired taste in women.

The fact that Robert knew Alex caught Joan off-balance. How would the friendship of two wonderful men and the love for her of one, affect the other? Robert’s words were reassuring but her admission that Alex had broken their relationship after four years was worrying. Her hands were tightly clasped together while she longed to hold Robert’s hand and assure him that she had been loyal to Alex and had not given him any reason to leave her.

They’d ordered Musakhan, a tasty dish of small Egyptian chickens baked in olive oil. When the dish was served to them, the waiter warned them that the metal holders on which the chickens had been baked were very hot as the smoke emanating from the wooden holders attested. Each serving included a generous helping of mashed potatoes surrounding a small baked chicken smothered in stewed onions. The aroma drifted up to them and they reached for their knives and forks and only then realized how hungry they were. The chatter in the dining room died down as the guests concentrated on their food while the pianist and the violinist continued playing. For a while the setting sun was hidden by a dhow gliding down the Nile as the sun glowed faintly behind its triangular sail. A tall Egyptian waiter walked from table to table, lighting a candle on each one. The tassel on his red fez flipped over every time he bent down.

Joan and Robert cleaned their plates with the remains of the rolls which had been served with the chicken. These plates don’t have to be washed, said Robert to the waiter, who laughed as he filled their glasses with a South African wine, one of a number of bottles from Robert’s vineyard he’d brought back on his last leave in South Africa. The couple studied a list of desserts and selected their favorites

"I received a