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

by Michael Asher

  ‘No,’ Wallace’s voice boomed.

  Caine gawked at him, thinking that, for some reason, the big gunner was making an objection. He saw at once that Wallace’s blackglassed eyes weren’t focused on him at all but on something over his shoulder. ‘No, no, no,’ the giant repeated, a look of horror on his craggy face. He sprang to his feet, grabbing at his Bren-gun with his shovelblade hand, still gaping like a man in a trance. ‘Never in a million years, you says. I don’t fucking believe it.’

  A frisson of alarm ran round the crew like a bushfire: they were up on their feet in an instant with their weapons and kit in their hands, staring wildeyed at the western sky. Caine whipped round to see what they were looking at, and his heart kettledrummed. Not far away, three Stukas were already falling into a bombing configuration, humming directly in on them out of the gunmetal sky.

  22

  Wallace took a couple of sevenleague strides towards Doris, and Caine knew he was aiming to brace the twin Vickers. The two jeeps were parked cheek by jowl, but none of the guns was loaded or cocked, nor had they been cleaned after the sandstorm. Chances were they’d jam, and Wallace would be dogmeat. Caine gripped the giant’s trunk-thick arm. ‘Leave it, mate,’ he bellowed. ‘It’s too late.’ He pivoted towards the others. ‘Take cover – under the overhang – there.’ He gestured to the spot from which he’d just seen the sandgrouse taking off – the only place, he reckoned, where they had a ghost of a chance. Wallace yanked his arm back furiously, but Caine was distracted by the sight of Sam Dumper racing for Veronica, bowlegs stumping, feet kicking dust. ‘Sam! ’ he screamed. ‘For Christ’s sake …’

  The rest of the boys were sprinting for the overhang humping weapons and manpacks. Wallace lifted the halfinch Browning off Doris and lumped after them in leagueboot paces, hefting the big weapon onehanded as if it were a toy. He and Caine were the last into the shade of the overhang, throwing themselves down just in time to see sunlight flashing like rapiers on gullwings and gondolas as Stukas stripped air in their final jump, engines snarling, sirens bansheeing, jumplights blinking like bloodswilled eyes, twentymil needleguns shuddering rimfire blat blat blat blat. Caine watched helplessly: the aircraft were so close he could see the pimpleheads of pilots rocking in their seats in the teeth of G-force blackout, the sunspot pulse of their cannon. Fifty-pound bombs dripped off gondolas like giant oildrops, the kites swallowtailing out of the jump, engines rasping with the strain, churning air with a dreadbolt thunder as violent as the storm.

  Caine saw Doris’s bonnet splinched in a radiant octagon of fire, her rear wheels, kicking up off the ground, almost vertical before vanishing into smoke. The air quivered, scraped breath from his lungs, the ground paddled madly, a tsunami of choking grit and dust spliffed over him. Caine portcullised eyelids against it, snapshotted the second jeep, Dorothy, coming apart at the seams on his retina, quills of light from the bombbursts pinsticking his blind senses like stilettos, a spiral galaxy of glittering shards, of warped shrapnel flying, wheels revolving like melting tops in four different directions, in multiple vortices of flaring red and black.

  Caine opened his eyes, blinked, heard the Jericho trumpets die, the aeroengines level into a purr as the planes went into a long orbit, out of sight. He knew it wasn’t over, knew how it would be – how it always was. The Stukas worked like a wolfpack, picking off one element of the convoy at a time, destroying it, then coming back for another bite. They’d taken out both jeeps – they would circle and come in for the 3-tonner. He crawled a few feet forward, clocked a single pyre of black smoke where Doris and Dorothy had been, burning debris splattered across the ground. He heard a motor hiccup and fire, made out Veronica, a topheavy turtle lumbering through the dust and smoke towards the overhang. Caine could see Dumper’s oversized head in the cab. He felt his eyes smart – the little NCO was making a magnificent attempt to salvage the stores and kit and so rescue Sandhog: the Lewes bombs, the demolitions gear, without which they couldn’t pull off the stunt, were all in the 3-tonner. Caine bit stormchapped lips till blood ran, hearing the Stukas’ engines shifting frequency above, knowing the Kraut pilots had already spotted Veronica moving, knowing Dumper wasn’t going to make it.

  For a moment it seemed he was wrong. For a long minute it looked almost possible that the little fitter might bring it off. Caine’s eyes were riveted on the storm-mauled hull of the lorry as she growled towards them, wobbling slightly, her canvas cover flapping, balloon tyres smoking dust. He could see Dumper’s face through the aeroscreen, eyes glazed with concentration as he battled the gears, jaw set, grim with resolve. Caine suckered a disbelieving breath. Seventy yards, sixty yards. He was going to do it. He was going to make it. Then the screech of aeroengines and the wail of jump sirens flogged Caine’s ears like hunting cries of sadistic triumph: he clocked the Stukas coming in directly behind the truck, waggling their gullwings in anticipation, their fuselages now burnished silver, now dull, like sharks turning slowly from dark to shade in undersea light. Caine ducked, heard the blump-blump-blump of cannon, heard the toot of bombs, the low barooooomffff as they struck. He heard the clank of mangled iron, sniffed scorched air and burnt petrol, felt the earth rock, glimpsed the Stukas still reaming towards him with their guns sprattling. He felt Fred Wallace yank him backwards into cover as the big rounds whomped up dirt and gravel all along the overhang where the SAS men were hidden.

  When he opened his eyes he saw that Veronica lay on her side, blue smoke billowing from her bonnet and her cab on fire. There was a three-foot smouldering crater in the desert surface in front of her where the nearest bomb had plumped home, but Caine could see that the 3-tonner hadn’t taken a direct hit – she’d been blown off her wheels by the blast and hit by cannon rounds but otherwise she was still intact. He could see a figure in the cab haloed in fire but struggling. It was Dumper. He was still alive, in danger of being roasted to death.

  ‘We’ve got to get him out of there,’ Copeland yelled. ‘If that fire reaches the detonators, he’s had it.’

  Caine jumped to his feet, listening for aeroengines, realizing that they’d already faded into the distance. It struck him as strange that the hawks hadn’t come in for the kill, but perhaps the sight of the truck on her side, bleeding smoke, had been enough for them. Copeland was already dashing for the lorry on marathon runner’s legs, and Caine struggled to keep up with him, with Larousse, Pickney, Gibson and Rossi panting behind. Caine reached the overturned cab just as Cope was smashing the aeroscreen with his riflebutt. Hands pulled Dumper clear: Rossi and Gibson worked on the flames with fire extinguishers grabbed from inside the cab, already so hot the handles singed their fingers. Dumper was still talking, but was worse than Caine had expected: rounds as big as candles had chunked his thigh and groin and he was losing blood rapidly: the fire in the cab had charred both feet down to the bone, burning off most of his toes.

  ‘Damn it,’ Dumper swore. ‘I could of made it. I was nearly there.’

  His voice sounded even, but his face was feverish, his eyes white with shock. ‘You did brilliant,’ Caine said. ‘You saved the kit.’

  Pickney crouched down next to Dumper with his medical pack. He brought out two shell dressings, handed one to Caine, slit the other open. He cut away Dumper’s BD trousers from the crutch, saw a pulsing red curry in place of his testicles. Caine saw it and swallowed hard, exchanging a silent glance with the orderly. Behind them, the lads turned away.

  Dumper’s thigh was spritzing arterial blood. Caine staunched the bleeding and covered the hole, then, while Pickney worked on the more difficult wounds, stood up. ‘Let’s start unloading,’ he told the others. ‘Larousse, Gibson, set up OPs in case those buggers come back. The rest of you, get all the gear out, starting with the demo kit. Get everything under the overhang.’

  When Caine turned back to Dumper, Pickney was administering a shot of morphia: the little corporal seemed perfectly clearheaded, despite his horrific wounds.

  ‘I s’pose this is as far as I go,
boss,’ he said. ‘Better leave me ’ere for the crows.’ He sobbed suddenly. ‘What’ll Queenie say?’

  ‘Leave you here?’ Caine said. ‘After what you did? Never. You’re going with us, mate, if I have to carry you myself.’

  Pickney had just loaded Dumper on to a stretcher when there was a shout: Caine saw the cowboy running towards him, holding his Garand across his body, his face wild. ‘Axis column,’ he panted when he reached Caine, crouching down on one knee, using his riflebutt as a crutch. ‘Half a dozen wagons, skipper. One AFV. Coming straight for us – must be homing in on the smoke.’

  ‘How far away?’

  ‘The AFV is leading, about five hundred –’

  He was cut off by a crack like the earth’s gut being wrenched open: a shell sawed air over their heads, crumped into the desert three hundred yards away with a tympanic boom that set a forked tongue of dust and debris licking up fifty feet. Caine and Gibson both fell flat: Caine felt the shockwave, squinted around. The enemy column was shielded from view by a low rise: Veronica was only part unloaded – the lads had dropped their burdens and thrown themselves prone. Pickney was lying next to Dumper’s stretcher with an arm over the wounded corporal. Caine was about to get up when another round peeled back air with a blastfurnace haw, skittling into a brake of flat-topped acacias with a whuumffff, setting them ablaze. The shell was still overranged, but they were getting warmer. Caine rolled over and came up in a crouch, his Tommy-gun in his hands. ‘Gibbo,’ he ordered. ‘You and Rossi get the bazooka and knock out that bloody AFV. Fred, Cope, look for a defensive position along the ridge. The rest of you, take whatever’s nearest and get back to the overhang. Maurice – you and I’ll hump the stretcher. Somebody call Larousse back in.’

  The men hefted their loads back towards the overhang as more shells creased over their heads, scooped air, shook earth, lumped up dirt, spread red fire in the bush. Then, just as Caine and Pickney set the stretcher down in the shade, the enemy got the range and Veronica took a direct hit, boosting four feet into the air as if jerked up by concealed strings, her body distending and disintegrating in a swastika of black smoke and crossed white limbs. The detonation was followed almost immediately by the thunk of the bazooka, flat and hollow in the distance. Caine waited tensely for more shooting: none came, and he reasoned that the cowboy and Rossi had nailed the AFV and the rest of the Kraut column was hanging back.

  He scrambled to Copeland and Wallace, fifty yards down the ridge in a place where the stone had crumbled away to a low, fractured wall between high shoulders. It was an ideal defensive position: they wouldn’t be skylined here. Caine arrived just in time to see the enemy armoured car smoking three hundred yards distant, a sixwheeler with her turret bent and crippled. He saw two smouldering Huns clamber out of the turret and roll in the sand. He saw them stand and raise their hands, clocked the cowboy and Rossi and Larousse approach them: Gibbo still had the bazooka in his hands. Caine saw blades flash like forked lightning in Larousse’s and Rossi’s hands, again and again and again, as the two SAS men plunged their daggers into shoulder, neck and chest. Caine saw blood gush, saw the Jerries drop, heard enemy rounds slash and pizzle around his men. ‘Here they come,’ Copeland warned.

  Caine peered to his right, saw Afrika Korps infantry skirmishing in precise formation across the dun and toasted desert towards the SAS trio, four hundred yards away and closing. The SAS boys bunked. Caine lifted his Tommy-gun, fired a burst at the advancing Germans – whomp, whomp, whomp, whomp. To his far right, big Wallace rattattatted .303 ball and tracer, his Bren pulled in tight to a giant armpit: Caine saw the tracer flare, saw Krauts skittle. Cope had his sniperscope to his eye: Caine heard the breath intake, clocked the gentle stroke of the trigger, heard the crack, saw a Hun head explode in a furry raft of red tissue. Audley, Pickney, Trubman and Netanya ramped up beside them, slouched against the rock wall: Audley and Netanya cranked up Brens, blabbered fire. Pickney shoved a Garand and a bandolier of .30 ammo into Caine’s hands: Pickney and Trubman eyehunted Jerries, rattled rapid fire, squeezed iron so fast that in seconds Caine heard the plink of ejected clips. He lamped off aimed rounds to fill the hiatus: the three Brens crackled. Cope worked his bolt: his Lee-Enfield plumped.

  The Huns had halted their advance, gone to ground behind low ridges, nests of boulders, swordgrass reefs: muzzlesmoke spliffed, rounds blimped and crickled around the SAS men, severed rock chips droned. A stone fragment clipped Caine’s ear, drew blood. He pulled iron ferociously, swearing, blam-blam-blamming .30 slugs. He saw a goth helmet pop up behind a tuft of swordgrass, put an aimed round straight through it at four hundred paces, saw the helmet jerk and tumble. He heard his empty clip ping, scrabbled in the bandolier for another. Three Brens, three Garands and an SMLE were jacking out an irresistible wave of fire: Huns were crawling back, pepperpotting out in pairs, withdrawing out of range. The cowboy, Rossi and Larousse wafted along the rock overhang, yelling in relief, but by the time they reached Caine’s position the shooting had stopped. They’d won the first firefight, but Caine knew it wouldn’t be the last. He roved the desert with his glasses, looking for the enemy column: he saw dustcloud, but now the AFV outrider was down, the wagons were staying out of sight.

  ‘They’ll try and encircle us, skipper,’ Copeland said. ‘If we stay here we’ve shot our bolt. We’ve got to get out.’

  Caine nodded, knowing it was true. ‘Bren-gunners keep stag,’ he said. ‘Keep your eyes skinned. Rest of you get back to the overhang. Pack as many Lewes bombs, dets, primers, fuse and timepencils as you can carry. Take as much ammo as possible, even if you have to make room for it by dumping personal kit. Pack water and spare rations …’

  ‘There are no spare rations, skipper,’ Pickney growled. ‘We never got them out. And we’ve only got the water we’re carrying.’

  Caine spat. ‘That’s easy then: more space for the demolitions gear.’

  Caine made his way back to the overhang with the others: Dumper was still on his stretcher, his eyes wide, flaring at the flawless sky. ‘Hey boss,’ he croaked as Caine appeared. ‘Don’t leave me out. All right, I’m hit, but I don’t feel a damn’ fing: I can still shoot.’

  Caine, Copeland and Pickney crouched down next to him. Pickney gave him water from his canteen. Dumper took a swallow, pushed the canteen away, his blood-drilled eyes on Caine. ‘Listen, boss,’ he grated. ‘I got an idea. You bug out, the Huns’ll be on you like flies on a turd. They got wagons and you ain’t. Leave me ’ere, boss. I’ll ’old the fort, won’ I? Gimme the bazooka – you won’t be needin’ it. Set up a grenade daisychain, rigged up with No. 2 mines. Gimme the Browning .50 and a spare Bren. I’ll keep the fire so ’ot they’ll fink the lot of us is still ’oled up. By the time they click, you’ll be well away. When they moves in on my position, I’ll pull the bleedin’ ripcord.’

  Caine stared at him, a lump in his throat preventing speech. The knifewound in his arm burned: the blood from his clipped ear dripped down his neck, soaked his shirt. The little NCO, who’d already shown so much bravery, the husband of an impossibly beautiful wife and father of two children, was soberly offering his life for theirs. Offering to save the operation he’d already rescued once. Caine sniffed, felt liquid prick his eyes, caustic with salt. He hadn’t had time to think about it during the contact, but what had happened to Dumper was entirely down to his, Caine’s, own incompetence. His decision to go to the leaguer to get the camshaft fixed: his negligence in failing to scrim up as soon as they’d halted, as per his own SOP. Dumper had even suggested it, but Caine had waved the idea away, shattered after the drive through the storm. If anyone should stay to hold off the enemy, it ought to be Caine.

  ‘No way, Sam,’ he said, his voice thick. ‘You’re coming with us.’

  Dumper cackled hoarsely. ‘Oh yeah, right you are, boss. An’ I’m just gonna flit up that four-hundred-foot cliff like a fairy, ain’ I ?’

  ‘We’ll get you up. Gibbo knows ways.’

  Dumper’s smooth white
face collapsed. He looked angry now. ‘You’re talkin’ daft, skipper. You’re talkin’ out yer arse. If you take me you might as well wave the white flag now, ’cos you ain’t gonna make it. I don’t wanna debate about it. There ain’t no time: Krauts’ll be back any minute. I ain’t goin’ wiv yer. I’m stayin’ ’ere wevver you likes it or not: stop actin’ the amatooer and start bein’ a pro for Chrissake.’

  Caine wiped moisture from his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but words wouldn’t come. He thought of Dumper’s Queenie: of the two pretty girls fatherless. Why the hell did it have to be him?

  ‘Skipper,’ Copeland said softly, ‘Sam’s right. Time’s getting on.’

  Caine looked up at Cope, saw his blueblade eyes gleaming like brilliants. ‘What do you reckon?’ he asked.

  Copeland took a deep breath. ‘I was thinking about Maskelyne – you know, the decoy leaguer. Illusions. We salvaged our decoy kit from the truck before she was hit. The pintail bombs give off flashes, and the noisemakers sound like smallarms fire. There’s a mobile smoke generator. Like Sam said, we could … we could leave him … with a daisychain of grenades and mines. Leave the spare Brens and the bazooka – set ’em up in a rank, you know, so he could reach them all. With Sam shooting for real and the dummy stuff going off, it’d look like there’s a whole section waiting for them – and they’ve already had a taste of our firepower. If we just withdraw, they’ll know it and be on our tails like greased lightning. We’ll never make the landfall. But if we set Sam up with the decoy gear, they’ll be convinced we’re still here, all of us. It could hold them back for hours – maybe even till dark.’

  ‘There, Lieutenant,’ Dumper cut in. ‘There’s a man as talks sense.’

  Caine looked at Pickney, who shook his head. ‘It’s your decision, skipper,’ he said. ‘It’s down to you.’

  He glanced at Dumper, saw his eyes, two fathomless pits, willing him to decide. He sensed that the rest of the lads had stopped packing their manpacks to watch him. He was aware of the clock ticking. He thought again of Queenie and the girls, of that anonymous telegram dropping like a bombshell into their lives: I regret to inform you that your husband, Corporal Samuel Brian Dumper, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, has been killed in action … I am charged to express His Majesty’s high appreciation … He thought of Moshe Naiman, whom he’d helped to die, and of Giancarlo Cavazzi, the mortally wounded man he’d once shot dead. He shivered. He’d sworn that he would never do it again, yet here he was. It’s your decision, skipper. It’s down to you. For a moment, he felt desperately alone.