Death or Glory III

by Michael Asher

  ‘It might be valuable kit, though, Lieutenant,’ Trubman suggested tentatively. ‘If we don’t take it, we’ll have stuck our necks out for nothing.’

  Caine noticed that Wallace was standing up in the jeep – watching for the Jerry dust cloud, he presumed. It hit him in a rush that he’d made a bad decision in investigating the Mayday signal. Cope had been right all along. He’d risked the mission and put the patrol in danger, with nothing to show for it. The derelict aircraft gave him the creeps. How long she’d been here, where her crew was, he couldn’t say. Don’t ask what STENDEC is or where it came from. You don’t want to know. Caine shrugged off the words. Pickney hadn’t spoken to him: Pickney was dead.

  Maybe there never had been a crew, he thought – no seats, not even in the cockpit. Maybe she flew herself. Maybe the emergency beacon started up automatically. ‘STENDEC’ was the only writing they’d found: it revealed nothing about the kite’s origins. To Caine, though, the batnosed plane had Axis written all over her. They couldn’t take her with them, but they could take the black box. Taff was right: it might be valuable. He had to admit, too, that it fascinated him: the odd way the box had behaved only increased his desire to know what was inside.

  He soughed a long breath. ‘Taff, take the box to my jeep. Be quick about it – we want to make it back up the pass before last light.’

  Trubman loaded the box on Caine’s jeep: Caine waved aside Wallace’s questions. ‘Let’s get going,’ he said.

  He was about to jump into the passenger seat when the big man stiffened. ‘There, skipper.’ He inclined his deepfluted forehead.

  Caine looked round, saw a roil of dust rising above the scrub behind the derelict plane. He listened carefully: picked up the low drub of motors. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he cursed. He stared wide-eyed at Copeland, already manning the Vickers in the back. ‘They’re coming from the north.’

  ‘They must have circled round. I’ll bet they came to investigate the blimp.’

  Wallace tipped the starter: the motor roared. ‘Get in, skipper, for Chrissake …’

  Cope clacked the Vickers’ cocking handles, pivoted the guns towards the aircraft: Wallace turned the jeep on a sixpence. The other jeeps boomeranged towards them, Quinnell and Jizzard at the wheels. ‘The Krauts are coming,’ Caine yelled. ‘I’ll take the lead: Quinnell, you’re tail-end Charlie. Taffy and Fiske, man the guns. Drive like the clappers.’

  They steamed across the stony surface, hugged their previous tracks. It didn’t matter how much dust they kicked up, Caine decided. The enemy would soon find their tracks, would know they’d been at the aircraft. The crucial thing was to get up the pass before the Krauts caught them. They rounded the butte, skimmed up scarves of pumice between the arcade of twisted colonnades, shuddered across volcanic clinker, helterskeltered around devil’s slagheaps, skirted skewed and squinted cliffs, seared along rock walls dotted with spectral ghost faces, pockmarked with basins of shade. The sun was a smelter of brass above the escarpment, now strangled in sagging clouds, now breaking through to drizzle dark trails across the scree behind.

  The jeeps skeetered along the weatherscabbed canyon: sootblack parapets rose on either side, scalpelled into angles, inclines, knotted humps. They followed the cleft to its end, where the steep walls broke into shattered ridges, willowed out into spans of sandscraped scoria and freestanding stones. Beyond these relicts, a barren gravel fan extended as far as the pass: the Matmata peaks rose over the plain like lopshouldered skulls.

  Caine’s vehicle skidded to a halt: the others drew abreast. Caine leapt from his seat, looked backwards, listened. He saw the dustroil at once, heard engines gurning from within the labyrinth of rock. The enemy was right behind them. He felt a tightening in his guts: the hairs on his neck prickled. It was too late to withdraw up the pass. They still had two hours of light: they’d be easy targets from here.

  He hesitated, sucked breath: the classic defence against pursuit was ambush, and this was a good place. He surveyed the area for cover, saw that they could get the jeeps behind the relict screes to his left. ‘Hide the wagons behind those stones,’ he yelled. ‘The buggers’ll be here in five minutes.’

  12

  Everyone is doing time here, thought Robin Sears-Beach, even the staff. Three months back he’d been a major in the Military Police, Deputy Provost Marshal of Cairo. Now he was a paltry subaltern in the Provost Corps at the Military Detention Centre – the arsehole of Empire. He was nothing but a glorified screw.

  He’d had ample time to think in the months he’d been here, though, and he’d thought a lot about Caine. He’d thought about Nolan too: sometimes her naked body made unexpected appearances in his dreams. But he’d thought mainly about Caine. Caine flouted the rules, yet no one else seemed to recognize it. He’d had some successes, of course, but they were down to luck and opportunity: he hadn’t done anything others couldn’t have done given half the chance.

  Caine was the blue-eyed boy, of course: a favourite of Stirling and the GOC. Sears-Beach knew his type of old and had always loathed them – the star rugby players at school who’d got away with breaking rules because they were special. He’d detested that school ever since he’d been marooned there aged six by a mother whose main interest was having sordid affairs with older versions of exactly those rugged, sports-playing loudmouths he despised. She wasn’t particular: some of her boyfriends had been as vulgar as Caine.

  His father, who had abandoned her over her infidelities, had rightly called her a whore – a word that Sears-Beach still used with a frisson of pleasure. His mother had been a whore, a tart, a strumpet – just like that Nolan bitch. She had never once visited him at school, even though she’d promised, even though he’d sat waiting for her expectantly time after time. Even during holidays she had farmed him out to aunts and uncles, who generally couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

  Sears-Beach felt that the world hadn’t treated him right. He’d trusted people but in the end they’d all let him down: now he trusted no one. He’d been infuriated to learn that Caine had been promoted to captain and now outranked him. He shivered at the thought that he might one day have to salute that upstart and call him sir. The worst of it was that he’d almost bagged him last November: shooting Glenn and abducting Maskelyne should have been enough to hang him. Then Stirling and that delinquent Mayne had intervened: it was unlucky that the GOC had taken their side. Montgomery had reported Sears-Beach to his superior, who’d had him demoted, transferred to the Provost Corps and assigned duties here at the detention centre. Well, Stirling was in the bag now, and the SAS wouldn’t last five minutes without his old boys’ club to protect it. Nolan was out of the picture, of course, and now, thanks to Caversham, he’d acquired the perfect chance to deal with Caine.

  Sears-Beach stared out of the office window: a squad of prisoners in full battle kit was being doubled around the square, amid screamed orders and torrents of abuse from provost NCOs. He found the rhythmic crump of their boots jarring. This was the daily torture session: prisoners were made to bash in step round and round the square for hours on end, until they dropped with fatigue. With its brick walls, the place was a heat trap, especially on these hot mornings: it was like doing a route-march through a furnace. Some prisoners begged for it to stop: some had to be carried back to their cells. Although he would never admit it, Sears-Beach disliked this ritual: somewhere deep down, almost lost under time’s scar tissue, there was a small spark of sympathy for the prisoners’ ordeal. He knew what it was like to be a prisoner: he’d been one all his life.

  There was a rap on the door. Sears-Beach pulled down the peak of his service cap, gripped his silverknobbed stick under his left arm. The door opened: a sergeant in spruce KDs marched in a rakethin prisoner wearing overalls and ammunition boots. The sergeant had the man mark time for a little longer than necessary, just to make a point: Sears-Beach watched the spindly legs jerking, and was reminded of a mechanical toy. The sergeant ordered the man to halt. He saluted smartl
y.

  Sears-Beach returned the salute, dismissed the sergeant. The prisoner stood at stiff attention, his face blank, his mouth tight. There was something almost chilling in those gimlet eyes, Sears-Beach thought, something concealed there, whose true nature you’d never know until it was too late.

  ‘Private Fiske,’ he said. ‘So good of you to come.’

  Fiske eyed him coldly.

  ‘Stand easy.’

  Sears-Beach flipped off his cap, sat down at the battered table he used as a desk. He laid cap and stick neatly on the tabletop, opened a slim file, perused its contents: personal histories of Ptes Richard Fiske, Mitchell Jizzard and Dominic Quinnell. They made interesting reading. These were the men he’d selected for what he called the Caine Job, and whose names he’d given Caversham. They were perfect for this scheme because they were all ex-commando and all parachute trained.

  Jizzard he already knew: before the MPs had bagged him, he’d been a useful informer among the deserters in the Delta. Jizzard had been understandably indignant when he’d been arrested, but he was a hardened criminal whom no time in the glasshouse could reform: Quinnell was a disturbed psychopath whose penchant for violence was hidden under a girlishly soft voice and pretentions to honour.

  Fiske was altogether a darker horse, though, an ex-officer in the Ordnance Corps, from a similar background to his own, with a record of fraud and theft. Fiske possessed an almost robotlike lack of emotion, warmth, sympathy or even fear: it was Fiske he was trusting with the Caine Job: Jizzard and Quinnell were expendable adjuncts.

  Sears-Beach tapped the open file. ‘I have here the movement order for you and your two chums,’ he said. ‘At 1200 hours sharp, you are to leave for the MO4 base in Sinai with a Provost Corps escort. I warn you now not to try to abscond. If you do, you will be shot. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  Sears-Beach gave him a sliteyed glare. ‘Perfectly, sir.’

  ‘Perfectly, sir.’

  ‘Good. You have already received your orders, Fiske: I just want to make sure we understand each other …’ He raised an eyebrow, scratched his weak chin. ‘This operation is top secret. As far as the staff here is concerned, the three of you have volunteered for a dangerous secret mission behind enemy lines. If you mention your real objective to anyone, the consequences could be very, very unpleasant. Your experience here will be like a kindergarten by comparison.’

  ‘I’m not likely to tell anyone, sir.’

  Sears-Beach’s eyes gleamed in their mailbox slits. ‘When you have achieved your object, you are to split from Caine and his crew, first taking steps to ensure that they are … not in a position … to stop you.’

  ‘I’ve got it. You can rely on me, sir.’

  Sears-Beach was smiling, beaverlike front teeth bared. ‘Very good, Fiske. I think you appreciate the situation. Remember, even Jizzard and Quinnell don’t need to know the true purpose of your mission, not at first anyway. They need to know only that it involves putting Caine … out of the picture. You are to RV with an aircraft at a place called Bir Souffra, whose co-ordinates are marked on the map I gave you. You are not to make contact with any friendly troops once you have done your business. That is essential. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course I do … I mean, yes, sir.’

  Sears-Beach’s slabtooth smile flickered. ‘Let me repeat,’ he said. ‘If you are successful in this task, I can personally guarantee that you will be granted a free pardon for your crimes, and an honourable discharge.’ He sighed as if he had just made a concession costing him an arm and a leg. ‘You will also privately receive the princely sum of £1,000, to get yourself started in Civvie Street.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Fiske’s face remained impassive: Sears-Beach wished for once that he could fathom the man’s thoughts. He couldn’t trust him an inch, of course, but he reckoned the incentive would be enough to bring him back. After that, his position would be reassessed.

  He stood up, replaced his cap, stuck his swaggerstick under his arm. He expanded his chest, straightened his back. ‘Well, that’s it,’ he said. ‘I’m giving you the chance of your life here, Fiske. Don’t mess it up.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Do you have any last questions?’

  The zinc eyes remained unyielding. ‘Just one, sir. What is this operation really about?’

  Sears-Beach bit his lip, sucked air. ‘Just do your bit, Fiske. Whatever else it’s about, you do not want to know.’

  13

  Caine carried Wallace’s Bren into the lee of a crusted rock bulge, set the weapon down on its bipod. He piled stones around it, built a shallow rampart. When it was done, he squirmed into a firing position. The men were holed up in similar rockpiles under the outcroppings: the jeeps were concealed in the undulations directly behind him. Caine had taken the right-hand cutoff point of the killing ground: Fiske was spraddled behind a Bren on the far left, with Jizzard and Quinnell between him and big Wallace. The gunner crouched in the centre behind a slab of gneiss, the bazooka slatted across his meaty shoulder. Trubman knelt with his arms around the gunner’s big torso, like a disconsolate lover. Copeland was proned out in the scree to Caine’s left. There hadn’t been time to dismount the Vickers or Brownings: Caine reckoned that two Brens, three Lee-Enfields, an M1 Carbine and a bazooka would do the business, as long as they weren’t up against Panzer Mk IIIs.

  He checked the spring on a magazine, clicked it into place. He tightened his left hand round the stock, braced it to his shoulder, cocked the working parts. He peered down the sights at the curve in the canyon, not more than two hundred yards away. He could hear the whir and jangle of vehicles echoing off the canyon’s walls – the motors were pitched too high to be AFVs, he thought. There was no telltale slap and scuttle of tanktracks, either. He swallowed, moistened cracked lips, tweaked the set of the Bren’s muzzle. A bead of sweat hit the gun’s stock with an audible plop. The snarl of motors was louder: the Hun was seconds away. His body tensed: his scalp prickled. His mind was suddenly as sharp as a razor blade.

  A squad of Jerry motorcyclists swept round the curve – six of them, bike-and-sidecar combinations: riders and gunners in fieldgrey, with dustgoggles and Kaiser helmets: a pair of three-ton Gaz lorries pitched behind them trailing swales of dust. Caine touched the curve of the trigger, stalled an impulse to shoot. The motorcycles were in rough file, each with a rider and a spotter-gunner in the sidecar: three of the sidecars carried 30MG Schmeissers. Caine let them come deeper into the killing ground, zeroed in on the leading combination, stroked iron, unleashed a burst rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Tracer rounds torched in bright spliffs, ruptured the gunner’s belly, chewed red sutures across the rider’s leg and guts. The petrol tank baroommmfffed, the air spasmed, the combination blew in a blinding candlebomb, a reek of vapourized oil. The rider flipped off backwards, the gunner howled, the motorcycle hit gravel, came to rest a fiery bag of smoking rubber, scrambled wheelspokes, snarled steel.

  The second motorbike swerved, skidded away from the wreck. Caine slipped a grenade from his belt, pinned it, whaled it overarm: he heard it go babbbooooooom, felt the tremor, heard grit zap. He saw the combination spew flame, smelt burning oil, saw the rider writhing in the gravel. The gunner was on his feet wrestling with the MG30 on the sidecar. Caine spurted a double tap, slotted him through the helmet, saw him sledge over without a sound.

  Fiske’s Bren chattered out from the end of the defile: Lee-Enfields grumped, tracers shizzed. Motors squealed, exhausts trumped, gears chomped, dust soughed. A Schmeisser clittered, slugs wazzed, chinged snaps of rock around Caine’s head. He ducked, looked up again, saw motorcycle crews leaping into the scree on the other side of the killing ground. Rounds whined and kapowed, punked gravel: Krauts crouched and manoeuvred, chunka-chunked bursts.

  Caine traileyed the leading Gaz wagon, saw her gunner dealing swipes of crimson fire. He shifted his Bren, heard the whoooooomffffff of the bazooka, felt the air zip, saw flame rush fro
nt and rear, saw the bullseye strike on the radiator grille, saw the bonnet scintillate in a galaxy of steel coils, saw the lorry vault and slump. The cab blew, glass flecks shimmered, blue smoke huffed: a shrieking Jerry fell out, thrashed about in a mantle of fire. Copeland squinched a single shot through his brain.

  Totenkopf troopers dropped from the back of the burning wagon, limped, crawled, dragged each other into cover. The second Hun lorry went into reverse: the machine-gunner on her cab covered the runners with wefts of fire as she slewed back round the curve. An MG30 started up from screes opposite the ambush party: Jerry sub-machine guns blitzed SAS positions. Caine dodged, popped up, sighted in, hammered fire at the Jerries in the rocks. A smoke grenade burst, then another: wreaths of white dross drifted across Caine’s vision like slowly swirling bridal veils.

  Caine stopped shooting, breathed acrid smoke. Gunfire petered out, sidecars crackled, smoke whoffed. His body felt numb: a muscle in his shoulder throbbed. He tried to moisten his lips with a raw tongue, spat. He wanted to take a swallow from his waterbottle, but dared not relax. Hun shouts drifted across the battlefield: Caine guessed the enemy were using the smoke to withdraw – the whole canyon mouth was hidden from view. His patrol had won the firefight: he had to pull them out now, before the smoke cleared. He gave Cope the close on me signal: Cope passed it down the line. Caine saw Fiske crawl out of his position: Quinnell and Jizzard followed. Wallace, Trubman and Copeland jogged towards him, keeping low.

  They had almost reached him when there was an earshattering kaaathuuumppp. The boys fell flat: a shell scraped air, hit the desert fifty yards away in a ‘V’-shaped cascade. The earth rocked: Caine felt the air in his lungs cook. He shuftied up.

  ‘Jesus,’ Copeland hissed. ‘That was a 40 mil. There must be an AFV we haven’t seen.’

  Caine nodded, a sinking sensation in his gut. They’d lost the element of surprise: they’d be hard pressed to take on an armoured car.