(Curie mentions that only the unexpected presence of Auchinleck could shut him up.) By this stage of the book one is getting a better picture of Curie. It would perhaps have helped had this happened more often in his life. This was especially so in the desert, where the situation could change rapidly in a few hours – as she and Churchill would soon find Operation Crusader has stumbled somewhat, and communiques describe the situation as “confused” as both sides used armoured columns to probe each other’s defences.Ĭurie and her party emerge unscathed from the desert the only casualty is Randolph Churchill’s silver whisky flask, crushed by someone’s typewriter. Moreover, while Curie is never afraid to be near the fighting, she does not always seem to think too hard whether she might cause complications there. “Now remember,” says Lyttleton at dinner, “I have not heard that you are going to the desert tomorrow.” One wonders how the old-fashioned war correspondents feel about this. “In the preceding twelve hours,” she writes, quite a few obstacles to my trip had been levelled.” She is told Randolph Churchill, the Prime Minister’s son, will pick her up at seven. She also had “off the record” talks with a number of “the great and the good”, including Air Marshal Tedder, who commanded the RAF in the Middle East Sir Walter Monckton, a future Minister of Defence who was head of propaganda in Cairo and Oliver Lyttleton, Minister of State in the Middle East. She is staying with diplomat Michael Wright, who ha s been a friend when posted in Paris, and who she describes as “now secretary at the British Embassy in Cairo” (actually he was First Secretary and would later, as Sir Michael Wright, serve as ambassador to Iraq). However, as always, Curie is well-connected.

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