Death or Glory III

by Michael Asher

  Fiske watched him from behind the steering wheel of the wireless jeep: apart from a slight pallor around the eyes, his face gave nothing away. Quinnell and Jizzard, though, were gawping at him as if he’d gone batty. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Jizzard warbled. ‘We cannae face a whole battalion of them. I shoulda known it would come to this. I shoulda known never to volunteer.’

  ‘Put a sock in it, Jizzard.’ This time it was Quinnell who spoke. ‘I’m sick of your whinging, so I am.’

  Caine’s face snapped shut: ‘All right,’ he said calmly. ‘Start those motors, now. Jizzard, I want you on the Vickers; you drive Quinnell. Taff, you’re driving – let Fiske take the Browning. Fred, you man the guns, Cope drives. And keep your bloody eyes peeled.’

  To Caine’s satisfaction, no one succumbed to the temptation to speed: the jeeps spread out in file, twenty yards apart. Wallace, gunner on the lead jeep, covered the forward arc: on the trailing jeep, Jizzard watched the rear. The knobbly tyres spunked boulders, clanked on volcanic shards, ratcheted across dry creek beds and ditches. Caine prayed that they wouldn’t land a puncture. He scanned the landscape ahead, navigated the small convoy around tufa reefs, along a flat plate of ribbed lavastone, so weathered at the edges that it appeared to be the sinuous, rawhide flank of a half-buried creature. They wove through an avenue of stone pillars, distorted helixes like immense treeboles, tilted over at a weird slant by the wind; they rounded the elbow of a butte, found themselves on a beach of white chalk pebbles like seashells, scattered among the roots of grass tussocks and clawbone trees. ‘Christ, skipper,’ Wallace grunted. ‘Just look at that.’

  At the same moment, Caine caught sight of the aircraft – a dark hulk lying crippled and broken on the undulating plain. He gasped, ordered Copeland to stop, stood up to get a better view.

  He knew at once that he’d never seen anything like it. The aircraft lay no more than two hundred paces away: Caine thought the light must be playing tricks – no aircraft could be that big. She was huge – perhaps a hundred and fifty feet from nose to tail: it was difficult to say exactly how long, because she had broken up into two segments. The tailplane section lay some distance away, its fuselage frayed and torn at the edges where it had fractured off – there was a corresponding ragged edge at the end of the main section.

  The aircraft’s shape was unfamiliar – she was all planes and angles, as if built of a series of welded flat sheets: more like an armoured car than an aeroplane. The nose was a truncated pyramid: the wings seemed angled back from the fuselage like huge chevrons. The nose appeared undamaged, despite the fact that it had buried itself at least a foot into the earth: the aeroscreens were intact, except for one knocked-out panel from which the blimp was suspended – and there was a cockpit door. That was the only entrance Caine could make out, though: there were no other doors in the fuselage, which meant that she couldn’t have been designed to drop paratroops.

  He examined the one wing he could see: the wingtip was dug deep into the ground, but must have been a good sixty feet from the main body. The wing supported two massive engine nacelles of a size Caine had never seen before. The whole aircraft was an almost supernatural matt black from nose to tail, as if she had been steeped in ink and smoked with charcoal – the kind of blackness found in the deepest, darkest hole.

  ‘What the bloody hell is it?’ Copeland wheezed.

  ‘Looks like a giant bat.’ Wallace whistled from behind him. ‘Maybe some kind of airborne coffin?’

  Caine chuckled, glanced at Cope, noticed he was staring at the aircraft with awe. The other jeeps had pulled up alongside: the men took in the sight with open mouths.

  ‘We’ll move in,’ Caine told them. ‘Keep your eyes skinned. We don’t know whose she is – she doesn’t seem to have any markings – so be ready.’

  As they drew closer, it struck Caine that not only did the aircraft have no recognition symbols, she also had no armaments – no gunturrets, wing cannons or bomb-bays – as far as he could see, anyway. He wondered how many crew a kite like that would need: a B24 bomber had ten, but five of them were gunners, one a bombardier. He had the jeeps pull up only fifty paces from the plane, ordered the drivers to take up tactical positions. ‘Be ready to pull out sharpish,’ he told them. ‘We’re off as soon as we pick up those boys.’

  ‘What boys?’ Copeland whispered. ‘There’s no one home, skipper.’

  Caine drew his Thompson from its brace, cocked it. ‘Maybe gone to ground,’ he said. ‘Maybe think we’re the Hun.’

  ‘Or maybe they’re the Hun.’

  ‘Anything’s possible.’

  Caine detailed Copeland and Trubman to accompany him. ‘What about me?’ Fiske demanded. ‘You might need a booby-traps expert.’

  Wallace let out a snort. Caine nodded.

  They approached the black plane in an untactical gaggle: it was risky, but she exuded an aura of menace that caused them instinctively to bunch. Caine felt a renewed twinge of apprehension: the same dreamlike sensation he’d felt back at the monastery was starting to creep in. Close up, the aircraft looked even more gigantic: the dark fuselage towered above them – perhaps twice the height of the biggest aircraft Caine had ever seen. He found himself wondering what kind of cargo she might carry: she had to be a cargo plane, he reasoned: she wasn’t a bomber, and she didn’t look like any troop transport he’d ever seen.

  He abutted his Tommy-gun against his shoulder, touched the plane’s skin with an open palm. It was warm, but it wasn’t metal, he was certain. It felt coarse, like animal hide, and there was a grain to it, as if it were pitted with invisible cracks, scabs and corrugations. It was, he thought, almost animal in texture, like tortoiseshell: as if the whole massive craft was some sort of brooding black turtle that might any moment wake up and devour them.

  ‘It feels like resin,’ he heard Truman say. ‘Some charcoal mix, maybe, dried rock hard.’

  ‘Why would they build a plane out of resin?’ Cope demanded.

  Trubman blinked beneath his thick glasses. ‘Radar. Radar detects metal, see. If an aircraft was made out of non-metallic material, she would pass through radar defences like a ghost.’

  ‘A ghost,’ Caine repeated silently. That was right, he thought – the whole thing gave him the feel of a ghost craft.

  Copeland nodded, stared around mystified. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘There’s no sign anyone’s been here – you noticed, skipper? You’d expect tracks, remains of fires, bits of clothing, maybe rations, shelters, recognition panels. Even if the crew had done a bunk, they’d have left something, surely.’

  ‘What if they bailed before she hit the deck?’

  ‘Possible. But then who’s cranking the rescue beacon?’

  Fiske and Trubman went to inspect the wing. ‘Hey, what about this?’ Trubman called. Caine and Copeland stalked over to where the signaller was crouching by one of the titanic engine nacelles. Caine was fascinated: it looked like a gigantic black bell: its propellers, now warped and twisted, must originally have been six feet long. He had no idea of the engine’s capacity, but since the plane carried four of these huge motors she must generate tremendous power. He peered closely at the nacelle, wondering if he could identify its origin: he found no serial numbers, no maker’s nameplate.

  ‘Look here,’ Trubman insisted.

  Caine and Copeland squatted down beside him, saw that the dark underside of the wing was peppered with rough knobs of hardened red clay, each about six inches long, scored with tiny holes. ‘Paperwasps,’ Truman announced. He pushed back his glasses. ‘Old nests, too.’

  Copeland scratched his blond crop. ‘How long does it take to build a wasps’ nest?’

  ‘That’s not all,’ Fiske cut in. ‘See the earth where the wingtip’s buried? It’s got grass growing on it – same with the nose section. If the ground is settled enough to sprout, this kite must have been here for donkey’s years.’

  Caine sucked a breath: it was true, he thought: the aircraft looked as if she might have been
here since the dinosaurs, as if she might even have sprung fully formed from the bowels of the earth.

  He stood up, remembered why they’d come, remembered the Jerries. He swung round. ‘Taffy, you and Fiske check the cockpit. Find out if there’s anyone working that Gibson Girl setup. Cope – have a gander at the tail section. I’m going to have a peek inside the main fuselage. Watch out for tripwires, booby traps – if you see anything untoward, for God’s sake don’t touch it.’

  11

  Caine watched them shuffle off, levelled his Tommy-gun, approached the jagged end of the cabin, where the tail section had broken off. He paused by the opening, reluctant to enter: his heart raced, perspiration trickled down his forehead. He glanced at the serrated edges of the fuselage, saw that it had been torn like flesh rather than snapped off like steel. When he stepped through the yawning mouth, it felt as if he’d entered a tomb. It was cool and dark – the matt walls seemed to absorb heat and light. The fuselage went on and on, a tunnel built on successive arched frames like a great ribcage, with odd fans of tubing at intervals along it, like sets of organpipes. It was silent, too, as if the walls also soaked up sound. Caine found himself treading deferentially as if he were in church – it had that feeling, like an ancient cathedral, a holy place. There were no seats, no electrics, no wires, no wireless gear, no lockers, no fuel tanks: there were no doors, no windows, no hatches, as if it had been designed to keep something in rather than out.

  The dim tunnel wasn’t entirely empty, though: a cuboid object was fixed in the centre of the deck, between two of the weird organpipe agglomerations. Caine inched nearer: it was a black box, with the same dull finish as the fuselage itself. He crouched down to examine it: it wasn’t big – maybe two feet by eighteen inches – but it had no handles, no lock, no hinges, not even a seamline along which it might open. Caine saw to his surprise, though, that there was single word whitestencilled on its top: STENDEC. He remembered the word – the one repeated in the Mayday signal Trubman had picked up.

  The box was the only separate object in the whole fuselage, the only thing that had anything written on it: he felt a sudden urge to know what was inside. He noticed that it was fixed in place by clips at each corner, attached to hooks. He was about to release one of them, when he recalled his last order to the others: if you see anything untoward, for God’s sake don’t touch it.

  He retracted his hand: at that moment he sensed movement along the fuselage, smelt something that reminded him of scorched iron. He glanced up, saw a man standing there, staring at him – a man in dark, soiled combat dress, with a waxy face so grained with wrinkles and creases it could have belonged to a corpse. The man carried no weapon, made no move towards him. ‘Hello, Tom,’ a whispery voice said. Caine staggered backwards, almost fell over: he stared back into the dull, bloodshot eyes of Maurice Pickney, the RAMC medical orderly killed in action almost six months earlier.

  Icewater ran down his spine: he felt sweat drip off his chin: he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. ‘Don’t try to talk,’ Pickney told him.

  Frozen in a crouch, Caine tried to raise himself: his muscles weren’t following orders, his whole body was rigid. He attempted to squeeze words out by sheer willpower, achieved only a gargling in the throat.

  ‘Listen, Tom,’ Pickney went on. ‘The Hun are on their way. You’ve got to clear out while you still can.’

  Pickney moved his wizened head slightly, blinked at the fuselage around him. ‘Don’t ask what STENDEC is, or where it came from. You don’t want to know.’ He peered down at Caine, his eyes narrow slots. ‘There’s a lot going on here, Tom. More than you think. David Stirling, MO4, Sears-Beach, Betty Nolan … they’re all mixed up with STENDEC in one way or another, even your crew. One more thing, Tom. Don’t touch the black box. Don’t try to open it. Leave it where it is. You’d be doing the world a favour. Remember, whatever you do, skipper, don’t open the black box …’

  ‘Hey, skipper!’ a different voice yelled. ‘We found the transmitter …’

  Caine heard footfalls coming up the deck behind him, found that he could move. He glanced back at Pickney, found the apparition had vanished. He stood up shakily; perspiration poured off him. He turned to find Trubman and Fiske, ogling him curiously.

  ‘You all right, skipper?’ the signaller asked. ‘You look white as a sheet.’

  ‘I’m OK …’ Caine stammered, touching his throat. He struggled to find some way of explaining what had just happened. Maurice Pickney was dead. He’d been killed covering their retreat on Sandhog. Caine hadn’t seen it happen, but he was sure of it all the same: Pickney’s name had never cropped up in any POW list. Even if he was alive, he couldn’t possibly have been here, in a derelict aircraft in the wilds of Tunisia.

  It couldn’t have happened, but he’d seen it all the same: that was the frightening part. If he was honest with himself, it wasn’t the first time he’d experienced such things. There had been that business in Cairo – the phantom phone calls, the glimpses of Betty Nolan and Eisner. When the quack had refused to pass him fit for active service, he’d scoffed. Now he wasn’t so sure. He thought of the Olzon-13, the disorienting agent he and Wallace had ingested: maybe, after all, it had caused some nerve damage. And what had Pickney meant that they were all mixed up with STENDEC? Stirling was in the bag; Sears-Beach had been busted and posted to duty at the detention centre. What had his crew got to do with anything? What about Betty Nolan? What the hell was STENDEC anyway?

  ‘What’s this?’ Fiske said. He was eyeing the black box with interest.

  Trubman bent over it, wiped steam from his glasses. ‘STENDEC,’ he read. ‘Hey, skipper – that was in the Mayday code sequence. What the heck is this?’

  ‘We’d better get it outside,’ Fiske said. He was already crouching, releasing the hooks one by one.

  Caine watched him wide-eyed. ‘No.’

  It was too late. Fiske had unhasped the clips, and was dragging the black box out of its place. ‘Relax, Captain,’ he said patronizingly. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  There was no explosion, but Caine felt livid. The RAOC man could easily have killed them all. He knew he could order Fiske to dump the box, but he didn’t: that would mean admitting that what he thought he had just seen was real. He was just as curious about the box as Fiske was: he wasn’t going to stop him on the grounds that he’d been warned off by a dead man.

  He snagged a breath, slung his Tommy. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Give me that thing.’

  Fiske flashed him an irritated glance, released the box. Caine picked it up: it was about the weight of a full jerrycan – not featherlight, but lighter than he’d expected. He carried it solemnly towards the fractured opening, with the others following. Outside, they almost ran into Copeland, jaunting back from the tailplane. Cope stared at the black box. ‘What’s that?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s the only thing on the payload.’

  Copeland peered at it. ‘This great big bird just to carry that?’

  Caine put it down, Cope crouched to get a better look. ‘STENDEC,’ he read aloud, squinting at Trubman. ‘Wasn’t that on the Mayday code?’

  ‘Yep. God knows what it means, though.’

  ‘It must be something important,’ Fiske said.

  ‘What’re we going to do with it?’ Copeland enquired.

  ‘Take it with us,’ said Caine. He dekkoed his watch, looked around to see that the jeeps were spaced out in a covering perimeter: Jizzard, Quinnell and Wallace were waiting impatiently behind their steering wheels. The sky had turned leaden: the sun was sinking over the escarpment in a turmoil of angry dark cloud.

  ‘Nothing in the tail section, Harry?’

  Copeland shook his head: Caine peered at Trubman. ‘What about the cockpit?’

  Trubman pressed his glasses back with a stubby finger. ‘No sign of anyone, skipper. There were no seats, just rows of instruments – I counted forty different gauges and twenty levers – masses of gear I didn�
�t recognize – a lot of it like those organpipe things in the cabin: pipes and tubes and rigid cables with no joints, as if they came in one piece …’

  ‘But what about the Gibson Girl?’

  Trubman blinked shyly. ‘It wasn’t a Gibson Girl, after all, skipper. I got that wrong. There’s no cranking handle. Signal must be produced automatically on some kind of loop, battery powered – maybe works like a musical box or a pianola or something, I dunno. See, when I tried to open it …’

  ‘Look at that,’ Copeland hissed. He gestured at the black box with his rifle muzzle.

  The box was no longer black: it was turning a rich and glowing fire-red: a scarcely audible rumbling came from inside. Cope touched the top, jerked his hand back at once. ‘Shit,’ he gasped. ‘It’s bloody hot.’

  Caine saw that Cope’s hand had a livid red blister on it. ‘Run,’ he bawled. ‘Get away, now.’

  The four men bunked off like greyhounds, threw themselves flat twenty paces away. Caine lay with his chin in the dust, expecting the box to go kerbluey any moment. Minutes passed. Caine chanced a shufti, saw that the orange glow had already faded – the box was returning to its original hue.

  ‘Jesus wept,’ Copeland swore.

  Caine got to his feet, slapped dust off his smock. ‘We haven’t got time for this,’ he grunted. ‘The Hun is coming. Let’s bugger off.’

  ‘But wait a minute, sir,’ Fiske objected. ‘Whatever that box is, it’s obviously valuable. We can’t just leave it. We ought to take it back for the boffins –’

  ‘You blind or what?’ Copeland cut him off. ‘Didn’t you see what just happened? We’re not taking the thing – it might go off any second.’

  ‘If it was going to go off, sir, it already would have,’ Fiske argued. He stared back at Cope with unreadable eyes. ‘It doesn’t look like any bomb I’ve ever seen. Engines get hot, but they don’t explode, do they?’

  ‘It doesn’t look like any engine I’ve ever seen,’ Copeland mimicked him.