Caine cocked an eyebrow. ‘Tripolitania? That far? I thought “B” Squadron hadn’t even finished training yet.’
‘They haven’t. Talk about getting your knees brown: a lot of those “B” Squadron boys wouldn’t know the desert from a seaside jaunt.’
There was a pause. Copeland shifted, stood up, stamped out his cigarette. He took off his beret and ran long fingers through his goatgrass hair. ‘I want to show you something, Tom,’ he said.
‘All right.’
He brought sheets of pink writing paper from his breast pocket, unfolded them, passed them over. Caine took them. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, smirking. ‘Not another dear John?’
Copeland gave him an anaemic grin. ‘Just read the damn thing,’ he said.
Caine read the letter: it was a catalogue of abduction, torture, murder and massacres in the Green Mountains of Cyrenaica, ending in a harrowing account of the death of a girl named Lina: a band of Jerries had gang-raped her, cut her throat, hurled her body over a cliff.
Caine stared at Copeland. ‘Lina?’ he said. ‘What the … ?’
‘Finish it,’ Cope snapped.
‘You, my dear Harry, and your good friends, Thomas and Fred, and the other boys. You must help us as we helped you when you were here. You are our only hope. For the love of Jesus Christ, I beg you to come and set us free.’
It was signed Angela Brunetto.
Caine read the name, darted an uncertain shufti at Cope. ‘What the heck is this about?’ he asked.
Cope shook his head, drew a breath. ‘Since we were in the Green Mountains in June, the whole place has gone ratshit,’ he said. ‘It’s all in the letter – Huns carrying out massacres, abductions, suicide, crazy Senussi butchering women and children. You remember that girl Lina?’
‘Of course I do. The one I almost …’ He bit back his words, choked by a memory of deep brown eyes, high oriental cheekbones. ‘Fucking animals,’ he whispered.
He handed back the letter, eyes still glued to Copeland’s face. ‘So what’s behind this?’ he asked.
Cope held his long, stringy arms akimbo. ‘Jerry’s brewing up some kind of chemical weapon in the Citadello – you remember, Angela’s place? Fact is, Tom, they’re using the Senussi and the Italian deserters as guineapigs, testing this stuff out on them. According to the DMI, all the ructions are spinoffs from that. There’s at least one company of a special Hun mob called 999 Leichte stationed there …’
Caine sniffed. ‘All right,’ he said slowly, ‘but who briefed you? The DMI?’
Cope’s shoulders drooped. ‘It was Stirling. Stirling briefed me.’
‘I see,’ Caine said stiffly. ‘So Stirling sent you here?’
Cope’s face reddened. ‘Not exactly, no. I mean, yes, sort of … I wanted to come.’ Sweat popped his brow, but Caine didn’t make it any easier for him. Cope’s eyes flared suddenly. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘All crap aside, you know how I felt … how I feel … about Angela. She’s in deep shit, dammit. Not only her, everyone – Itie deserters, the Senussi – the lot. You’ve read the letter. Angela begged for my help – for our help. Remember how she got us away from the Boche on Runefish? Even though it meant putting her life on the line, even though it meant endangering her people’s safety? Do you reckon it’s a coincidence that the Axis moved in there just after we left? No way. It was our fault. We drew Jerry’s attention to the deserters, to the Citadel. We owe Angela, you know we do.’
Caine clicked his tongue, sucked his teeth. ‘So you showed the letter to Stirling?’
‘Not just Stirling. It’s done the rounds: DMO, DMI – even Monty’s seen it. It isn’t only the letter, skipper. The Brylcreem Boys have recced the place: we’ve got reports from G(R) agents, even aerial shots. There’s no doubt about it: a chemical weapon is being produced there. Stirling reckons Monty’s worried as hell. This stuff could put the kibosh on his advance. It could shift the whole balance: wreck the whole campaign.’
‘So this is the mission,’ Caine said, almost to himself, ‘the mission Stirling tried to foist on me yesterday. He briefed you on it, didn’t he? He told you, Go in there, use the old pals act, badger him to take it? Didn’t he?’
Cope’s brow puckered. He wiped away sweat with a bare palm. ‘All right,’ he said, almost shouting, eyelids blinking like shutters. ‘Yes, it is the mission. Of course it’s the bloody mission. Of course Stirling sent me, Tom. How else would I have got here? You’re facing ten years in the pokeyhole. Who’s that good for? You? Betty? Stirling? Me? His Britannic Majesty? You should be doing what you’re good at, not rotting away in clink.’
Caine looked furious. ‘So you and Stirling cooked this up between you?’
‘Don’t talk soft, mate: this is a serious stunt. You’ll take a small crew: me, Wallace, Pickney, Trubman, Larousse, a few other blokes. We go in by wagon, penetrate the Citadel on foot. We take out the chemical weapon. We liberate the prisoners. We bump off the commander, and we run for it.’
‘Just like that, eh?’ Caine sniggered. ‘Stirling’s got you on his team now, eh? Convinced you it’s all going to be easy?’
‘Who’s talking easy? When did we ever do easy? Like when we stormed that Senussi village on Runefish. When you saved that girl … Layla. It wasn’t our business, but you said, I won’t be able to live with myself if we don’t go in. Well, that’s how I feel right now, Tom. All right, yes, Stirling did set me up. All right, I did agree to do it. But only because I know he’s right. You can’t blame Stirling, Tom – he’s stuck: Monty asked for you by name. If you don’t do it, the GOC could easily bin the regiment the way they binned the commandos. But I’m not asking you to do this for Stirling: forget Stirling, forget Monty, forget the DMO. Call it the old pals act if you want. Call it what you bloody well like: I’m asking you to do it for Angela, for Lina, for the folks at the mercy of the Hun out there, but most of all for me.’
He broke off, and Caine saw that he was desperate. He knew Stirling liked to get his way: he’d used Cope all right, but that didn’t mean his mate wasn’t sincere. Copeland wouldn’t have done it unless he felt it was right: he was as straight as a die.
Caine stood up, squared his wide shoulders, his face grim behind the purpled eyes, the mask of scars. ‘I can’t, Harry,’ he said. ‘Betty’s been taken: Eisner’s probably behind it. I can’t let it slide.’
Cope screwed up his face. ‘I heard about Betty,’ he said. ‘It’s bad. I’m sorry, and I know exactly how you feel.’ He stopped, groping for words. ‘But there’s nothing you can do about that now, Tom. This stunt is your only way out. If you jib, they’ll dump you in nick and throw away the key. Stirling won’t be able to do anything – he’s pushed the boat out too far already. Your getting stuck in the detention camp won’t save Betty, and Angela’s people will be up the spout, not to mention Monty’s push. It all depends on you.’
Caine sighed. Copeland had a knack for seeing the big picture, for expressing it clearly: it probably came from his schoolmaster years, Caine thought. Taking the mission might scupper his chances of finding Betty Nolan, but Cope was right: staying behind bars wouldn’t do much for her either. And Cope was right about another thing: a lot of people’s lives might depend on him. He shrugged, knowing that Copeland would have done the same for him: he couldn’t let his friend down. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Tell Stirling I’m in.’
Copeland had himself let out: he was back with Stirling inside ten minutes. The warden accompanied them to the office, handed over Caine’s kit. Then the three SAS men marched across the square together, Caine limping slightly. They’d almost made the main entrance when a lean, bucktoothed figure barred their way: it was Sears-Beach. Caine saw to his satisfaction that the major now wore a field dressing on his nose. He peered squinteyed at Caine, then at Stirling. ‘What the devil are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘You’ve got no authority to remove my prisoner.’ His voice sounded so comically nasal that Caine had to snigger.
Sears-Beach sent him a murderous glare
, scratched his nose under the dressing, forced himself to look back at Stirling. The colonel gave him a disdainful smile of the type he reserved for duffers and imbeciles. ‘Now, that’s just where you’re wrong, Major,’ he said, removing a snuffcoloured field envelope from his pocket. ‘And unless a major now outranks a half-colonel, I would appreciate it if you’d address me as either Colonel or sir.’
He handed over the letter. Sears-Beach stared at it as if it were infectious. ‘What’s this – sir.’
‘It’s a letter,’ Stirling sighed. ‘It states that Lieutenant Thomas Caine DCM, 1st SAS Regiment, is considered too valuable a military asset to go before a court-martial. It further states that this officer is to be released forthwith.’
Sears-Beach looked as if he were too stunned to open it. He gazed from the envelope back to Stirling, his breath coming in snorts. ‘Where … where did you get this, sir?’ he stammered.
Stirling’s eyes crinkled. ‘As you will see, if you would be so good as to read it, the letter is signed by the General Officer Commanding, Eighth Army, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery. It is also endorsed by the Commander-in-Chief, General Alexander, and your immediate superior, Colonel Edward Bagfellow, Chief Provost Marshal of the Military Police.’
Sears-Beach’s eyes bulged: he poked fretfully at the field dressing. He tore open the letter, scoped the text as if scouring it for loopholes. His shoulders sagged. He shifted his feet. He cast cobralike glances at Caine through hooded eyes.
‘Do move aside, Major,’ Stirling told him wearily. ‘You rear-echelon deskwallahs may have all day, but we do not.’
Sears-Beach slouched out of the way, his eyes on fire. Stirling put out a hand as if to take the letter: instead, he seized the major’s shirtcollar with steelhard fingers. He yanked Sears-Beach’s head down savagely, hissed in his ear. ‘I promise you this, you cocksucking bastard. You lay so much as a finger on one of my boys again, I’ll send Paddy Mayne to cut off your prick and ram it so far down your gullet you’ll choke to death on the soggy bellend. Paddy loves coppers, preferably dead or maimed for life.’
11
The No. 12 targets popped up left, right and centre. Tom Caine snapshotted slugs blindfold towards the sound of bells, clicks, drills, with no idea whether his rounds had struck home. It was his first time on the simulated nightshooting range, and his introduction to the .30-calibre Garand semiautomatic. It had already made one thing very clear to him: how damned hard it was to hit a target you couldn’t see.
He’d fired four clips, eight rounds a clip. The Garand wasn’t magazine fed like the Lee-Enfield: fresh clips had to be inserted from the top. But there was no cocking handle, either – recycled gases from the detonation process cocked the mechanism, facilitating an incredibly rapid rate of fire. Caine heard the ping as the last clip selfejected, laid the rifle on the mat. He whipped off his balaclava blindfold, blinked in raw ochre light, breathed in odours of brimstone, salt and dust. Stirling and Mayne emerged from the concrete bunker fifty paces to the rear.
They were at Kabrit, an old commando camp in the Canal Zone, now SAS homebase – a few acres of saltcrust desert with a board at the gate bearing the legend ‘1st Special Air Service Regiment’: jerrybuilt huts, parachute-training gantries like relics of some antique fairground, ragged rows of tents set in depressions sandbagged against air attack. The camp backed on to the Suez Canal, a razorslash of supernatural blue sliced through the leopard-hued promontory of the desert. From the opposite bank, Sinai’s blasted wilderness rolled on and on till it melted into the spectral fata morgana of the eastern sky.
Caine paddled air, flexed outsized biceps and pectorals, stretched his shoulders. In the two days since Stirling had sprung him from Bab el-Hadid, the stiffness in his joints had faded. His blunt, freckled face still bore the livid mauve tracks of Sears-Beach’s treachery but he’d tucked the attack into the lumber room of his mind. Sears-Beach would get his just desserts in time: for now, only Nolan mattered. At night, he lay in his camp bed staring at the canvas roof, tortured by images of her broken body. At times he was seized by an almost overwhelming impulse to break out of camp, rampage through Cairo leaving no stone unturned till he had her back in his arms. He’d given Stirling his word, but still it took a huge effort of will to restrain himself.
Caine went forward to the butts with Mayne and Stirling to examine the Figure 12s. He was amazed to find he’d hit them all. ‘Not bad,’ Stirling commented.
Mayne smirked at his CO’s understatement, knowing that not bad was his highest accolade. He slapped Caine’s shoulder. ‘Best damn nightshooting I’ve ever seen,’ he growled.
Stirling stuck his unlit pipe in his mouth. ‘So how’d you rate the Garand, Tom?’
Caine crinkled his forehead. ‘Nice weapon, sir, but I wouldn’t swap it for my trenchsweeper. That ping when the clip’s ejected is a dead giveaway. Can’t fault it for speed, of course.’
Mayne looked doubtful. ‘Sure, ’tis hard to beat the old SMLE. A good shooter like your Sarn’t Copeland there can fire it nearly as fast as a machine-gun. A marksman can bring down a man at two thousand paces.’
Stirling scoffed. ‘That’s peanuts, Paddy. With M2 ball ammo, a Garand will hit a target at three and a half thousand paces. You can probe reverse slopes of hills at two thousand, using the drop of the shot. How’s that for a game of soldiers?’
Mayne pursed sulky lips: he didn’t look impressed.
They walked back through Caine’s firing position. Stirling picked up the discarded rifle. ‘Firepower is what it’s about, Tom,’ he said. ‘Half your section will have Garands, half Brens. Of course, I’m not saying you can’t take your Thompson.’
‘How many men do I get, sir?’
‘Eleven – two groups of five, plus yourself as section commander. Doesn’t sound a lot, I know, but SAS style is to go in small and carry a very big mallet.’
They marched towards the HQ area through a maze of ranges that swarmed with SAS men. The place was electric with the rattle of smallarms fire, the pancake thump of antitank weapons, airshredding detonations of grenades and Lewes bombs, the bitterlemon scents of cordite and scorched dust. ‘ “B” Squadron going through its paces,’ Stirling observed. ‘They were supposed to be ready before Lightfoot, but there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of it. I asked Monty for three hundred Eighth Army combat vets who wouldn’t need training. Blighter laughed in my face. That’s another good reason why we have to bring Sandhog off.’
Sandhog was the designation of Caine’s new mission: Stirling and Mayne had briefed him on it the previous day and, for no logical reason, he’d acquired a bad feeling about it. Maybe it was due to his brooding over Nolan, or maybe it was the fact that he’d survived against the odds so many times he felt his luck was due to run out. Or it might have been the overblown air of cloak-and-dagger that surrounded it: Stirling had instructed him to keep the target under his hat until he was up the Blue. ‘I’m not saying there’s a leak,’ he’d said, ‘but you know the saying – three men can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead.’
At the armoury tent Caine exchanged the Garand for his Tommy-gun. They moved on to the admin area: HQ personnel in shorts and chapplie sandals were prepping four wagons in yellow Eighth Army colours – loading compo rations, water tins, ammo boxes; changing wheels, chugging petrol, cleaning guns. Caine knew there was a shortage of everything, including desertworthy vehicles; he was impressed that Stirling had provided what he’d asked for: a pair of longbonnet Bedford 3-tonners and two Willys Bantam jeeps, all with strengthened springs and aeroscreens, equipped with Bagnold-type suncompasses, sandchannels, sandmats, and condensers like oversized compo tins. The jeeps were an SAS speciality – small, mobile, four-wheel-drive gun platforms, each with a pair of Vickers ‘K’ aircraft-type machine-guns mounted on the back and a big .50-calibre Browning on the front.
On the other side of the wagons a canvas awning had been strung up: half a dozen men were trafficking along trestle table
s, stripping, cleaning, assembling Bren-guns, Garands, pistols; testing mags, loading rounds, priming No. 36 grenades, lapping Lewes bombs in hessian, coiling fuse. ‘These are your lads,’ Stirling told Caine. ‘I’ve given you your men from Runefish, plus one or two extra.’
Caine noted the molelike head of signaller Taffy Trubman: he was leaning against a table piled with wireless spares, connecting batteries to a circuit tester. Maurice Pickney was working through the men, doling out syrettes of morphia and Benzedrine pills in brown envelopes. Caine spotted Gaston Larousse – the surly Canuck whose covering fire had bailed them out at el-Gala. He was hunched roundshouldered over another table, giving all his attention to a two-inch mortar. Caine hadn’t seen Larousse since the el-Gala op. ‘Grand job you did back there, mate,’ he said.
Larousse looked up; his lynxlike eyes flashed. A powerful shank of a man with a blue jaw and an air of smouldering superiority, he’d acquired a reputation as a savage in hand-to-hand combat: the kind of soldier who liked to get up close with a knife or bayonet, who notched up enemy kills on his riflebutt. A Quebeçois by birth, his story went that he’d married a Jewish Frenchwoman, with whom he’d had two boys. His wife and sons had been caught in Paris during the Nazi invasion and had vanished off the face of the earth – murdered by the Gestapo. Cloaked in his own mantle of brooding cynicism, Larousse seemed to regard the war as an affair of honour between himself and the Nazis: other participants were merely incidental. The lads respected him, Caine knew, but he didn’t have any close buddies. The exception was big Fred Wallace, who had a penchant for adopting oddballs and outsiders. The Canadian shrugged his stooped shoulders. ‘Who cares who wins,’ he growled.
On the next table, two lanky, illmatched men were sorting out climbing gear – ropes, lightlines, pulleywheels, grappling hooks – conversing in whispers as if an invisible wall separated them from their comrades. Caine sensed that they were men who’d depended on each other for so long that they’d become like two arms on the same body. ‘Gibson and Rossi,’ Stirling told him. ‘Your cliff-climbing and demolitions specialists.’
Death or Glory II: The Flaming Sword: The Flaming Sword Page 7
