Death or Glory II: The Flaming Sword: The Flaming Sword

by Michael Asher

  Monty looked up. ‘Who is this woman?’ he demanded. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Brunetto is the wife of an Italian deserter,’ Airey explained. ‘She helped Caine and his crew escape during the Runefish operation. In fact, she probably saved their lives. Sergeant Harry Copeland was Caine’s 2 i/c on that mission: he and the woman obviously had some sort of thing going. The “Thomas” mentioned is Tom Caine.’

  The GOC sat back, scratched his head. ‘So we have a personal plea for help addressed to this … Copeland … a debt of honour to one of the victims of the atrocities, who asks him directly to set them free. You’re saying that we should send Caine to do the job – blow up the chemical stocks, take out this “Angel of Death” fellow, liberate the prisoners?’

  Airey’s eyes lit up: he leaned forward eagerly. ‘It could work, sir. Caine is the only officer who has actually been in the Citadel. He and his crew owe this Brunetto woman, so they’ll have a private incentive for going in there. The clincher, though, is that Caine has already proved he’s mustard at this kind of stunt. If anyone can pull it off, it’s him.’

  Monty’s expression remained sceptical. He fidgeted. He pursed his lips. He scratched his chin. ‘I don’t know,’ he drawled. ‘Didn’t you say Caine’s SAS now? I don’t want to get into bed with Stirling’s bunglers.’

  De Guingand cleared his throat nervously. ‘Why not request Caine for the mission,’ he said, ‘but give Stirling the planning and support role? Whatever you may think of him, he’s actually not bad at organizing this kind of scheme. Let David provide the backup.’

  Monty frowned at him. ‘You know Stirling, do you, Freddie?’

  De Guingand decided to declare his interest. ‘Actually, I do, sir,’ he said, smiling a big, beaming, good-natured smile. ‘I’ve known him since we were at Ampleforth together. With all due respect, sir, I feel you’ve misjudged him. It’s true that he’s over the top sometimes. He’s used to getting his own way. He gasconades, thinking he can charm people into doing anything he likes. At the end of the day, though, he’s got some damned bright ideas.’

  ‘Yes,’ the GOC sneered. ‘I’ve seen them. He walked right into a trap at Benghazi – Luftwaffe made mincemeat of him.’

  He paused, examined de Guingand’s broad, good-humoured face intently: he came to a decision. ‘Very well then, Freddie,’ he growled. ‘I’ll give Stirling a bash at it, but you will make it clear to your chum that the operation will be commanded in the field by Caine, and Caine alone. I do not want it hijacked by some twit whose only qualification is that he was born with a silver spoon. Stirling’s role is purely organizational. And I’ll tell you one thing, Freddie: if he cocks this one up like he did the Benghazi scheme, he’ll be out on his shell-like ear.’

  8

  In a holding cell at Military Police barracks, Bab el-Hadid, Caine stalked from wall to wall cursing himself for having assaulted Sears-Beach and his sergeant. Not that he didn’t believe the MPs had had it coming: it was only that his reckless act had got him stuck in the pokey, when he should have been scouring the city for Betty Nolan.

  He’d known Nolan a few short months but couldn’t contemplate life without her now. Neither of them had expected to survive Runefish: up the Blue, facing death, they’d bonded with the unstickable glue of the condemned. During the past few weeks, the thought that he had her to come back to was all that had kept him going. Now she was gone, it felt as if the whole world had crashed and burned. He beat his fists against stark brick walls as though he could break them down. If he could only get out of there, he would find her: no one and nothing would stand in his way.

  The lock snapped, the iron door cranked open: Sears-Beach came in. Caine noted with a passing trace of pleasure that his jaw was swollen, his nose dressed with sticking plaster. The major had doffed his battledress and donned khaki drill – boots, knee-high socks, shorts, bush shirt, peaked service cap, scarlet cover. He carried his favourite plaything, a silver-topped swaggerstick, wedged tightly under his right elbow.

  The MP bared wirethin lips, displaying his hare’s teeth as if they were trophies. ‘Your war is over, my friend,’ he told Caine. ‘Assault on a senior officer? You aren’t going to wriggle out of this one. Any luck and the court-martial will hit you with ten years’ hard labour. You are about to become the only man in the annals of the British Army to be reduced from lieutenant to private twice.’

  Sears-Beach looked so smug that Caine had to fight to stop himself punching him again. He clenched his fists. ‘They can do what they like to me,’ he said, ‘but you’re not getting away with calling Betty Nolan a tart or a stoolpigeon. If it wasn’t for her, Mussolini would be king of Egypt now. And let me tell you this, my friend: she’s twice the man you’ll ever be.’

  Sears-Beach’s wire lips quivered: the hand gripping the swaggerstick shook with suppressed rage. ‘All right, Caine,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do – there’s an empty cell at the end of this block. Meet me there in five minutes, and we’ll have it out. You and me – no spectators. A fair fight, no rank, no privilege: face to face, man to man. Strictly between us, and no comebacks whichever way it goes. It’s high time you learned the correct way to address a superior officer.’

  Caine bristled, raising his chin. ‘You’re on.’

  A wolverine smile played across Sears-Beach’s face. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave your cell door open.’

  After he’d gone, it crossed Caine’s mind that this might be a trick. At a court-martial, his leaving the cell could certainly be made to look like an escape attempt, could aggravate the case against him. He didn’t trust Sears-Beach: on the other hand, if he failed to show up, it would seem as if he were afraid to face him: the sneer that was sure to decorate the idiot’s features in that case was something he couldn’t bear to think about.

  The moment he stepped into the empty cell, though, knew he’d made the wrong move. Sears-Beach stood with his back to the far wall, stripped down to his shorts and a white PT vest. His rodent features, rendered slightly ridiculous by the sticking plaster, twisted into a triumphant leer. He was trying to conceal something behind his back. Too late, Caine saw that it was a heavy rubber baton.

  The cell door slammed shut: Caine half turned to glimpse two gigantic Redcaps behind him. ‘Hold him,’ Sears-Beach yelped. The MPs grabbed his arms in a steel grip: Sears-Beach whacked him hard in the belly. He doubled over, gasping with pain and shock. A hand snaked around his chin, yanked his head up. ‘I warned you,’ Sears-Beach crooned. ‘I told you.’ He leaned so near that Caine could smell his sweat. ‘You think I don’t know about the trick you and Stirling pulled on me? That night at Shepheard’s, eh? You were still only a sergeant then. You lied to me, and that high-and-mighty Stirling lied, too. Thought you’d made a fool of me, Caine, didn’t you? You and that Nolan bitch … you hear me, Caine? I hope they find the bitch’s body in a drain, with her guts hanging out and a broken bottle up her cunt. No one makes a fool of me, Caine. There’s only one fool here, and that’s you.’

  Caine roared, flexed his great chest muscles, stamped down savagely on the feet of his captors. He felt their grip on his arms loosen: before he could take advantage of it, though, Sears-Beach sprang at him, whacked him again in the stomach. He whunked Caine’s shoulders and arms, thrashed his knees, his thighs, his shins, in lightning succession, his face manic with pleasure. Pain coursed through Caine’s body: he struggled for breath, found himself unable to hold back the screams. He tried to kick out at Sears-Beach, to dodge out of the baton’s trajectory, to roll with the hits. The big MPs twisted his arms high behind his back, holding him rigid: the major whacked him with practised precision, hard enough to raise angry weals, not quite hard enough to fracture bone.

  Caine’s head sparked electric, blitzed red and yellow. A glancing clout on the skull cut him loose: his senses fuzzed, faded out. When he came round he was on his hands and knees, vomiting on the floor. He was aware that his arms were no longer pinioned: he saw
Sears-Beach’s rat face in front of him, saw bloodless, stringy lips working over the wedgelike teeth. The major was panting with exertion, reptile eyes glittering. ‘Had enough, Caine?’ he sneered.

  Caine fought to speak, found his mouth choked with vomit. He coughed up paste, snorted blood.

  ‘I want to hear you say it, Caine,’ Sears-Beach grated. ‘I want to hear you beg me to stop. Go on. Beg.’

  He touched Caine’s neck with the end of the club, lifted his chin. Caine’s stonewashed eyes bored into him. ‘Not so tough now, are we, Caine?’ Sears-Beach scoffed. ‘Not such a hard man now? Come on, I want to hear you beg.’

  Caine remembered Moshe Naiman, the Jewish interpreter mutilated by the Germans on the Runefish mission. This was nothing compared to what Naiman had suffered, yet his friend had remained defiant till the end. Caine retched, hoiked spats of gore, lunged suddenly forward with all his strength. The hard bone of his temple connected with the major’s nose in precisely the same place where he’d landed a punch earlier that day. Caine heard the septum crunch, saw flesh squidge, saw blood gush from gunbore nostrils. Sears-Beach shrieked, reeled, gabbled. Bellowing, the big MPs heaved Caine up: one of them kneed him in the groin, the other stomped his legs from under him, sent him lurching to the floor. Sears-Beach squeaked with fury. All restraint gone, he put the boot into Caine’s belly, chopped at his testicles with the baton. Caine felt red agony surge, felt his head swim, felt his senses slip. He tried to curl up: another kick landed in his ribs. Sears-Beach jumped on his stomach, stamped on his hands. Caine attempted to crawl away, fought to stay conscious: hands yanked him up again. They beat him until his universe was alight with exploding moons and bursting stars, and then darkness absorbed him completely.

  9

  The warden unlocked the cell door: the clank roused Caine from his doze. David Stirling stalked in stoopshouldered, spruce in KD slacks, battledress blouse and service cap, his unlit pipe stuck upside down in his mouth. Caine tried to stand up, felt a bell clapper in his skull, felt his pulse ramp like a steamshovel. ‘Don’t bother, Tom,’ Stirling said.

  Caine sat down heavily on the bunk. Stirling stood peering down at him, his continuous ridge of dark eyebrow knitted. He looked at the mess of bloodstains on Caine’s blouse, inspected the purple weals on his arms and face: Caine saw fury in the coffee-coloured eyes. Stirling drew the pipe from his mouth. ‘What did that bastard do to you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Nothing,’ Caine said: his tongue was swollen, his lips felt like lorry innertubes.

  Stirling shook his head, sucked his teeth, made a tutting sound. ‘Sears-Beach is a bastard,’ he said. ‘It was about time he got his head punched …’ He broke off, and Caine saw sympathy in his expression. ‘Problem is, you assaulted him in front of witnesses. You played right into his grubby paws.’

  Caine touched the shrapnel wound on his scalp. The dressing was gone and the stitches were broken: it gaped like a crater under his groping hand.

  ‘He called Nolan a tart. He suggested she was a Nazi stoolpigeon, sir. I wasn’t going to stand for that.’

  Stirling shook his head in disbelief. ‘You put your commission on the line for sticks and stones? You’re a bloody fool, boy.’

  His eyes didn’t leave Caine. He knocked his pipe against an open palm. ‘I took a gamble in getting you your pips back, Tom. The fossilized shit at GHQ don’t like field commissions, especially for a bloke who’s already proved himself a loose cannon. You brought off a coup on Runefish, though, and I was able to push it through. Now you’ve gone and thumped a superior officer. I thought Paddy Mayne was bad, but you …’

  Caine blinked giddily, wiped mucus off bloated lips with the back of a hand. His head felt as if it had been scoured inside by steel wire. Stirling stuck his pipe in his mouth, started pacing up and down the cell as if he himself were the prisoner. He stopped at the wall, pivoted abruptly back to face Caine. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I can get you out of here, but on one condition. You’re needed to lead a special operation in the Green Mountains: it’s going to be as tight as Runefish or even tighter. Monty asked for you personally …’

  Caine’s soapfilled eyes widened: before he could comment, though, Stirling went on. ‘I’m going to cut the bullshit, Tom. The SAS is in the GOC’s bad books, thanks to the setbacks we’ve had lately. Monty isn’t big on special service ops, and this might be our last chance of staying on the orbat. More than that, though: this op could be vital to his next push …’

  Caine tried to smirk, found his mouth wouldn’t work properly. ‘Surely, sir,’ he mumbled, ‘there’re plenty of good men who could …’

  ‘I said he’s asked for you personally,’ Stirling snapped. ‘He was impressed with your record on Runefish: he doesn’t want anyone else. Now, am I supposed to tell him that my best man is in the chokey for belting an MP officer?’

  Stirling looked excited and angry, as if he’d been fought into a corner. Caine watched him struggle to control his indignation. ‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ Stirling said. ‘You are going to accept the mission. I am going to get you out of here: we are going to drive to Kabrit, where you will be briefed. Is that clear?’

  Caine eyed him, his body rigid. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t do it. Betty Nolan has been abducted. Eisner may be behind it. If I get out of here, the first thing I’m going to do is track her down and scrag that Nazi swine …’

  Stirling’s eyes blazed darkly. ‘Sears-Beach must have addled your brain,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Haven’t you got it? You either take the mission, or you stay on jankers for the rest of the war. That’s you finished: dishonourable discharge, DCM retracted, branded for life. For all we know, Nolan might be dead by now, but even if she isn’t, even if she miraculously comes through, you’ll only ever see her through the bars of the chokeyhole. Is that what you want?’ He paused for breath. ‘They’ve put DSO Stocker on her case. If anyone can get her back, he can. I said I could get you out on one condition, but actually there are two: the second is that, if I do, you’ll give me your word that you won’t even think about chasing after Nolan.’

  Caine put a hand to his forehead: the bellclapper in there was clanging against his skull like a wrecking ball. Nothing was free in this man’s army, he thought. He’d laid his life on the line over and over again, and yet here he was, in jail. He’d heard all the gab before: the way he felt now, they could stuff their mission; damn the SAS, damn Monty, damn his next push – all that mattered was getting Nolan back. For a moment he considered hedging: he could agree to take the stunt then do a bunk at the earliest convenience. Didn’t they say that all was fair in love and war? Yet he knew he wasn’t capable of such a deception: belting a man who’d insulted Nolan was one thing, lying was another.

  He considered it for a long, hard moment. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t do it. I’ve been in the army since I was sixteen: it’s my family and my home. I’ve always been willing to do whatever was asked of me. I’m a professional soldier, and I don’t expect gratitude …’ He paused and stood up. ‘Look, sir, I am ready to accept the mission, but I have a condition of my own: that I’m allowed to look for Nolan first.’

  Stirling’s eyes popped in disbelief. ‘The bloody impudence,’ he gasped. ‘You think you can set conditions? In your position? You must be raving bonkers.’

  Caine swallowed dryly. ‘I probably am, sir. But I owe it to Nolan to get her back: if I can’t do it with the army’s sanction, I’ll do it without. I’m afraid you’ll have to tell the GOC it’s no dice.’

  For a moment it looked as if Stirling might explode: his sharp face was grey with frustration. Instead, he stabbed the empty pipe back in his mouth, marched towards the door with a look of utter disgust on his face. He banged on the door with his fist: Caine heard the warden unlock it from the other side. Before he went out, Stirling turned on his heel.

  ‘Caine,’ he said, ‘you have just made the biggest mistake of your bloody life.’

  10
>
  The warden brought lukewarm tea, bully beef, hardtack biscuits. The medical officer, a nervous captain with glasses like whirlpools, treated his wounds with sulfapowder, raised an eyebrow when he saw how many old battlescars Caine’s body carried. ‘It’s a wonder you’re still on your feet,’ he said.

  When Caine woke next morning the soreness and the swelling had eased. He got up and splashed cold water on his face from the bucket. The door rattled: he wheeled round ready to meet Sears-Beach’s rabbit teeth, found instead the snowblue eyes of Sergeant Harry Copeland. Caine was amazed to see him: they didn’t allow social visits in the holding cells. Cope wore battledress: SAS wings and MM ribbon on his chest, sergeant’s chevrons up, sandhued beret perched on bogbrush hair.

  They stared at each other, stuck for words: Cope handed him a packet of army-issue ‘V’ cigarettes. Caine shook out two, gave one to Cope. ‘Let’s see who gets the maggot,’ he said, tamping his. Copeland snickered: army lore had it that you would always find at least one dead maggot in a packet of ‘V’s.

  Cope lit the smokes with a Swan Vesta. There was nowhere to sit but the bunk, so they took an end each.

  Caine let smoke trickle through his nostrils, eyes fixed on Copeland: his mate was on edge and obviously had a disagreeable message to deliver. ‘You didn’t come here just to give me fags, did you?’ he said lightly. ‘You must have got special permission. Anyway, I thought “A” Squadron was with Paddy up the Blue.’

  Copeland’s eyes were steel opals in the cell-light. He blustered smoke, stared down at the redlead floor. ‘We were,’ he said, ‘but Stirling pulled us back to Kabrit. There’s going to be a new stunt in Tripolitania ahead of Monty’s push. “A” and “B” Squadrons both.’