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

by Michael Asher

  Nolan let her hand go limp. ‘Gone? You mean they’ve already started?’

  ‘He told me you were dead,’ Layla said sullenly. ‘Now you have come to take him back.’

  Nolan shook her head, mystified. She was about to say something when she heard dogs bark, heard women’s voices lash out like whipcracks, heard the dogs whimper as they were kicked or beaten off. A bevy of Senussi ladies pushed through the trees towards her: sablehaired women with oiled plaits and tattooed faces, copperskinned and hawkfaced, like a squad of Red Indian squaws from a storybook. They were lean and sinuous in rags of blue or patterned cotton, and they glided barefoot with the grace of catwalk models. Some carried homemade rifles, others curved throwingsticks, but they didn’t look hostile. They gathered around her chirruping like birds, touched her golden hair, poked at her breasts as if to make sure she were really female. Close up, they smelled of baby milk, goatgrease and smoke.

  They hustled her out of the undergrowth to where the tents were pitched under the trees on the wadi bank like yawning goatshair caverns. Naked children peeped out of the shadows, pointing and chattering. Nolan didn’t see any adult men: the entire male population of the camp must have gone off with Caine, she thought. Someone lit a woodfire. The women squatted near Nolan: one of them brought a wooden bowl of cold mashed potato and sour goatsmilk, pressed her to eat. Nolan couldn’t resist the women’s hospitality without seeming churlish: their menfolk were as much part of Sandhog as the SAS team, and if she was going to get to Caine in time, she would need their help.

  The women crouched close together around the bowl. Nolan copied them as they dug out balls of mash with their fingers, rolled the balls deftly into their mouths without touching their lips. When they’d eaten their fill they sat back on their haunches, licked potato off their fingers, wiped them on the sleeves of their rags, passed a bowl of water from hand to hand. A wedge of half-savage watchdogs sallied in scavenging: the women tossed them leftovers, sent them away with sticks and stones. They took out calfskin pouches of tobacco, passed them round, filled little pipes made of brass cartridge cases, lit them with spills from the fire. The tobacco smelled like burnt vinegar, pungent against the background odours of smoke and uncured hide.

  The women didn’t ask where Nolan had come from, why she’d come, or even how she’d managed to appear from nowhere in the night like an evil spirit. In any case, only Layla spoke English, and she had been silent throughout the meal, glowering at Nolan with suppressed passion, occasionally sweeping her hair across her face as if resenting her own attractiveness.

  Nolan sat down on the sand, licked her fingers, cast puzzled glances Layla’s way. This wasn’t the kind of reception she’d counted on from the Senussi girl. She remembered her as cheerful and bright: Caine had extolled her tracking skills, had described with admiration how she’d suggested the use of a Senussi poison on the Runefish stunt. The other women had received her with grace and hospitality: only Layla had hung back. And it was Layla she really needed: the girl was the only one with whom she could communicate.

  ‘How long since they left?’ she asked.

  The girl tossed her cape of black hair, puffed bitter smoke from her brass pipe. ‘You are too late.’

  ‘How long?’

  Layla shrugged insolently. Nolan saw she was stalling, felt suddenly furious. Caine’s life hung in the balance: so did the fate of the Lightfoot offensive. She was tempted to grab the little hussy by the scruff of the neck, give her a hard kick, yell in her ear that she was a filthy, ignorant little nigger who ought to be swinging in the trees with the monkeys. She opened her mouth to say something cutting, but checked herself: there was nothing to be gained by alienating allies. Instead, she stood up, hefted her manpack with one hand, fixed her eyes on Layla. ‘I’m going after Caine,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m going to warn him. Are you coming with me or shall I go alone?’

  Layla flicked back her shroud of hair, put aside her brass pipe: her eyes were leopard-like in the firelight. ‘Alone you will not succeed,’ she said. She stood up with a gymnast’s grace, swept back her hair with both hands, displayed an oval face that was, Nolan thought, alarmingly beautiful. Layla surveyed her disparagingly from head to foot. ‘You are dressed like an English soldier,’ she snorted. ‘As soon as the Tedesci see you, they kill you. Anyway, you are too late now. Caine’s men, they go over the wall of the Citadello by ropes. You cannot follow them, even if you could find the way they go.’

  Nolan wasn’t surprised: she’d guessed Caine would go in across the eastern wall, especially since he had a couple of cliff-climbing specialists with him. She was certain, though, that Adud’s Senussi wouldn’t have gone in that way: she’d never heard of a Bedouin cliff-climber. ‘Your father and his men?’ she asked, twisting her face at the girl. ‘They didn’t go in with ropes, did they?’

  Layla scowled. The other women looked on, sensing conflict, tilting their heads as if trying to make sense of the body language, the expressions, the tone of voice.

  ‘They go to the main gate on the western side,’ Layla said at last. ‘They wait for the Ingleezi there.’

  Nolan smiled, showing her charmingly overlapping front teeth. ‘Then that is the way I’ll go,’ she said. She dumped the pack and took a step over to the Senussi girl, put a hand on her arm. ‘You have to go with me,’ she said. ‘You have to show me the way.’

  Layla shook off her hand angrily, glaring at her. ‘Have to?’ she hissed. ‘I don’t have to do anything. By God, the Tedesci can shoot you, for all I care.’

  Nolan was shocked at the vitriol in her voice. She rubbed the bruise on her shoulder where Layla had hit her with the club: she was starting to think the attack had been personal. ‘Why do you hate me?’ she asked.

  The girl turned away. ‘Because you will try to take Caine away,’ she muttered. She swivelled round abruptly, her eyes glittering. ‘Caine wants me: he told me so.’

  Nolan froze, hardly able to believe what she’d just heard. Layla and Caine? It was impossible, surely? But it would explain Layla’s behaviour. The girl had certainly developed a crush on Caine after he’d saved her life on the Runefish mission: Nolan had told him so herself. She hadn’t taken it seriously, though: Caine and Layla belonged to different worlds.

  For an instant, she was completely at a loss: the last thing she’d ever expected to find here was a rival for Caine’s affections. Her throat felt suddenly parched. She realized that she’d underestimated the girl: Layla was clever, brave and beautiful enough for any man, no matter what world he belonged to.

  She swallowed hard. ‘So … Caine told you he wanted you …’

  Layla clenched her fists: Nolan saw that she was shaking. ‘He thought you were dead,’ she blared. ‘He would have taken me, I know he would.’

  Nolan gasped. She hadn’t understood the first time Layla had said it: now it all clicked neatly into place. Caine had believed Nolan dead. He’d turned to Layla for consolation, believing that she wasn’t coming back. What horrified her was the thought that he might have committed himself, might have made promises: they might even have made love. She hesitated, trapped between jealousy and compassion for the young girl. Whatever Caine’s feelings now, she still had to warn him about the traitor, Audley, and there was Lightfoot to think of. Monty’s advance was due to begin tomorrow night: the Olzon-13 had to be out of the way by then.

  She retreated back to her pack and picked it up again, took a breath to steady her racing emotions. The Senussi women were watching her with big eyes. She looked at Layla, who seemed to be making an equally large effort to control herself. ‘What Caine decides to do … I mean, after this,’ Nolan stammered. She broke down, realizing that there was no point beating about the bush: ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Whether he wants you or he wants me, or he wants neither of us, that’s Caine’s business. Now, his life is in danger. If you love him, then you’ll help me save him.’

  Layla cupped her face with her hands, shook her head violently as if trying t
o shake off a horde of jinns. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’

  Nolan slammed her manpack down in the sand, making the other women jump. She waved her hand towards the plateau. ‘If you search up there,’ she said harshly, ‘you’ll find Eric Hooker …’

  ‘Hooker?’ Layla gasped. ‘The Ingleezi who speaks Arabic like an Egyptian? The one who comes dressed as a Senussi?’

  ‘That’s him. Well, Hooker won’t be coming any more. Because he’s dead. He died trying to help me get to Caine. He didn’t have to come, but he risked his life for Caine’s sake, and he died for it. You say Caine … wants you … but you aren’t ready to do anything to save his life, even though he saved yours. And what about your father? He and – judging by what I see here – most of your men, have gone with Caine. They’re in danger too, but you won’t lift a finger to help them? What kind of Senussiyya are you?’

  Layla watched Nolan with scorching eyes. For a moment it seemed as though she would either attack her again, or walk away. Then Nolan saw a silver-filigree pattern of tears streaking her ebony face. ‘He told me you were dead,’ she smouldered, ‘and now you are here.’

  Nolan felt a disturbing pang of sympathy. Layla was in love with Caine: her hopes had been raised, and Caine hadn’t done anything to dampen them. It was Nolan’s sudden arrival that had put the whole thing in doubt. She almost felt moved to comfort Layla, but stopped herself. How sure could she be that Caine hadn’t transferred his affections to this lovely and exotic girl? In any case, the feeling was soon swamped by a deeper desire – to find Caine, to take him in her arms, to reassure him that she, Nolan, was still there for him, still alive: a real, breathing, living person, not a corpse.

  Layla wiped her eyes, raised her chin. ‘There are Tedesci soldiers on the western side,’ she said broodingly. ‘I tell you, when the Tedesci see you, they will shoot you at once …’ She paused, snagged air through her highbridged nose. ‘Why not you dress like a Senussi girl? We give you clothes, we black your face. You go dressed like me, and when you arrive, you tell the Boche you have come to search for lost husband or brothers in the Citadello …’

  Nolan noted Layla’s sudden shift of ground: she wondered if the girl were just trying to get rid of her. ‘I’m ready to go alone,’ she said, ‘but we would stand more chance of saving Caine if there were two of us. Of course, I know it will be very dangerous: perhaps you aren’t willing to risk it …’

  She tapered off, observing the hesitation on Layla’s face: the girl was fighting a desperate battle between guilt, love and pride. To let Nolan go alone might be construed as cowardice, especially if she succeeded. Caine had saved Layla’s life and the lives of many of her people: what would he think of her if she refused to help save his? Any chance she had of replacing Nolan would be finished.

  The girl swept back her silken hair, sniffed, straightened her back. ‘I am Senussi,’ she said stiffly. ‘I am not afraid … I will go with you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Nolan said, striving to clear her voice of all smugness. With Layla by her side, her chances of saving Sandhog were doubled: what happened afterwards was in God’s hands.

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ Layla pouted. ‘The thanks is to Allah. And Allah knows I do it for Caine and for my father, not for you.’

  Nolan nodded, not trusting herself to comment. She was already thinking about tactics. Layla’s suggestion of her going in disguised as a Senussiyya was sound: that Nolan would be shot as a spy if caught seemed the least of her worries. A practical problem occurred to her, though. ‘Even if we are both dressed as Senussi,’ she said, ‘why should the Germans let us in? I mean, they aren’t noted for their charity.’

  She looked up to see Layla smiling bloodlessly. ‘They are men without women. It is not for charity that they will let us pass.’

  32

  They parted with Audley and the Senussi in the wadi below the skirts of the rockwall, hiked up the sandslope doubled under the weight of their manpacks: even through their shirts the straps chafed their shoulders like sawgrass. The moon was a luminous orb in a limegreen splotch: the rise was steep, wooded in cork oaks and junipers with trunks like plaited hawsers, bowed from the waist by the prevailing winds as if in mockery of the team’s effort. The men slunk with sombre strides through the bobs of treeshadow, weapons at the ready, taking an eternity over every step, senses sharp as icepicks. Once they heard owl wings whisper through the foliage, and once a hare snuffling. Both times they froze, scanning the shadows with sootblacked faces until lead scout Gibson waved them on.

  The cowboy led them up to the base of the cliff – fifty feet of scalloped, fluted rock rearing clear out of the sandswell. The Arab guide had gone to join Adud, but Rossi was waiting for them, guarding the line he and Gibson had already fixed in place. The two of them had scaled the cliff earlier, secured the rope, lain motionless on the stone shelf, scanned the Axis sangar with their binos. The guardpost was a hundred yards off, but the light had been clear enough for them to clock the German sentry, the field-telephone cable, the unlit searchlight, the MG30 machine-gun mounted on the sandbagged parapet: they’d seen the sentry relieved at 0200 hours sharp, seen him descend a series of stone steps to the valley floor.

  Now, lurking in greenbanded shadows under the cliff, the SAS men helped each other lower their manpacks, lay them carefully against the cliffwall. They had only twenty minutes before the next change of guard. Taking out the sentry was going to be the riskiest action of the mission: if the Jerry managed to talk on the phone, work the searchlight, open fire before they got to him, Sandhog would be shot.

  The SAS team was poised ready at the rope: Rossi and the cowboy shinned up with the sureness of geckos, sprawled in the camelthorn on the granite shelf. The cowboy took a pebble from his pocket, weighed it in his beef-jerky fingers, met Rossi’s glance. His mate nodded. Gibson lobbed the stone overarm as hard as he could towards the sangar: stone struck rock with a clunk that sounded as loud as a bell to their sensitized ears. There was no way the sentry could have missed it. The Reapers knew he would have three choices: report it to the guardroom, work the searchlight and punch bullets blindly into the dark, or come out and investigate. It was a gamble they’d taken often before: it almost always paid off. For a few long seconds, nothing happened: they lay spraddled in the scrub, damming up their breath, fingers tickling iron, knowing that, if the gambit failed, Sandhog could easily end here. Then they saw the sentry emerge from the sangar – a mallet-headed, ratfaced Jerry in peaked cap and greatcoat edging in their direction with his rifle set.

  He came straight towards them, high-laced boots creaking on stones. He spotted the rope belayed to a stone pillar, stopped, crouched, peered down into the night. The instant his attention was drawn, they moved in. The Jerry felt both arms seized in a tourniquet grip, felt a calloused palm clamp his mouth. He capered frantically, snaffled nosebreath, tried to wrench his arms free, gnashed at the hand stifling him, tried to bring up his rifle. He felt a crushing smack in the chest, staggered, felt the guncotton night skeeter away from him, felt the slateblue light drain slowly from his senses until sheer blackness reigned. The cowboy felt him limp out, whipped the rifle from his hands; Rossi withdrew the gore-smeared blade from his ribcradle, continued to cover his mouth until his body lay twitching on the rock floor. He took a step back, watched blood blurge from the punctured aorta. Gibson knelt over the corpse, scrimshawed throatflesh with his Bowie knife until steel shuddered on bone. He hoiked the rope twice, wiped bloody hands on the sentry’s greatcoat: Rossi cleaned his blade on the dead man’s cap.

  The team below irrupted into motion: they scaled the rope, they let down a second for the manpacks, they hoisted manpacks up. On top, Caine and Copeland moved forward to clear the sangar, catwalked into the position with weapons abutted at the shoulder. Cope cut the phone cable, severed the searchlight’s connecting wire, stripped down the MG30, threw away the firing pin. Caine hunkered at the narrow doorgap at the head of the steps, surveyed the forest b
elow – a dark weft of thorntangle pierced by steel colossi of radar towers, stretching away from the base of the cliff for over a mile. Caine could make out beyond it the Citadel’s core, the vast, cave-ridden buttress where he’d once attended a drunken feast: it was under this great rock plug that the Olzon-13 bunker lay.

  He shuftied his watch: only ten minutes until the relief sentry arrived. Cope tapped his shoulder: they moved out of the sangar, cleared the steps down to the forest edge. When they were in position, Copeland gave an owlhoot. Wallace and Trubman sloped down towards them, panting under the weight of two manpacks each. They set them down in the bush, sat on their heels with their weapons ready: Caine and Copeland made for the stairs to help with the other packs. Caine had only taken two steps when Trubman squawked. He wheeled round: a big bear of a Jerry with Pancho Sanza whiskers had stepped out of the forest, had run into Trubman, slicked his bayonet into the signaller’s belly as he jumped up. Trubman was frozen against the Hun, broad head bowed, dewlaps convulsing, a dumpy hand round the Jerry’s rifle stock: the Jerry wasn’t making any noise, though, because Fred Wallace had his great basket of a hand around the man’s mouth and nose. Caine watched the big gunner drive his bayonet into the Jerry’s kidneys with all the strength of his giant arms and chest. It wasn’t as expertly done as the Reapers’ job: the Jerry groped and scrabbled onehanded, spat, bit, snorted snot from his nostrils, tried to scream. Wallace plunged the bayonet into his gut again and again until he slumped. His rifle came away with him. The bayonet slipped out of Trubman’s gut with a gush of blood: the signaller tried to shore up his slit stomach with his hand, gave a low sigh, sank shalefaced to his knees. Wallace made sure the Jerry was dead then hunkered down over Trubman, pulled out the shell dressing from his top pocket, tried to staunch the bleeding. ‘I’ve got him, skipper,’ he mouthed.