Then, at dawn one morning, someone comes to tell me the coast is clear. I have to hurry. I must be careful not to speak German. They dress me as a Turk, give me false papers, perhaps a message from my distant benefactor, the famous Jean 92, and send me off in a truck, a relic from the First World War. Are there other SS officers in the truck? Why not? After all, there are thousands of us trying to save our skins. Despite screams and threats, I refuse to hand over the knapsack that contains what no officer of the Reich should ever be without: my military record and my medals. After all, the war is not over – there are other ways to fight: resistance, sabotage. In planning for victory, one must necessarily plan for defeat too – perhaps the German High Command has plans set up for this eventuality. After all France – hardly the greatest military strategist in the world – after its defeat regrouped in London, in Algiers, and went on fighting. The trek across Turkey is long and difficult, there are constant alerts, then one day someone whispers that the border is just across the horizon and a Syrian guard is waiting for me there. Egypt is still a long way off, but I have already made it to the East, to the sun, the deserts, the caravans, the chaos, the motley colours. No one will go looking for a needle in a haystack here. When everyone wears a djelleba and a keffiyeh, everyone is anonymous. Egypt, of course, is still occupied by the British, but there is so much turmoil, so much confusion, that hope is possible, anything is possible – a man could easily disappear and reappear again, King Farouk has clearly had his day and no one knows what will come after him – rumours and speculation are rife but they corroborate and conflict until no one knows what the truth is. Spies from all over the world are already in Egypt posing as smiling diplomats, harried archaeologists, greedy businessmen, devotees of Islam, sheep-like tourists, they keep one eye on the derricks and the Suez Canal and the other on the other spies. This is the Middle East where, since the dawn of time, nothing has ever been straightforward. Having studied the possible routes to Egypt, I assume my father travelled overland. The sea route was shorter, but infinitely more dangerous. American and British marines everywhere were on constant alert, the war was over but the embers were still smouldering. Warships patrolled the Mediterranean, inspecting, checking, seizing cargo, the shipping lanes were teeming with smugglers trafficking opium, American cigarettes, alcohol, weapons, secret documents, forged papers, works of art, this was the hub of piracy and of a slave trade that affected even the faithful from Europe and North Africa making pilgrimage to Mecca, to Nadjaf, Qom, Karbala, Jerusalem. The British, furious with the Jews, were determined to stop them emigrating to Palestine where they wanted to establish a state encompassing Galilee and the desert of Negev – the State of Israel, something which would have incensed the Arabs already waging war on anything that moved, threatening, dreaming of independence, toying with communism, socialism, Pan-Arabism, fundamentalism, even going so far as to flirt with that ridiculous Judaeo-Christian concept, democracy. They would never agree on anything, being too divided, too rich for their dreams, too poor to make them reality, it was this which would push them into the arms of Moscow. As is often the case, the longest road is the least dangerous. I decided that my father and his guides had probably travelled via Adana, Dörtyol and Hassa in eastern Turkey, crossed the Syrian border at Afrin and from there travelled via Aleppo and Damascus to Mafraq in Jordan, and from there through Amman and Ramm in the south of the kingdom. All that remained, then, was to cross the Akaba Gulf to Sinai and travel by camel to Suez and on to their final destination, Cairo. A journey of thousands of miles beneath an ancient, implacable sun.