Death or Glory III

by Michael Asher

  Caine snatched his carbine. ‘Get out of it, Harry,’ he bellowed.

  He fell flat, dug the carbine into his shoulder, rocked a round into the chamber, beelined the cameljawed Kraut. The soldier spotted him, halted, bawled something in German. Caine ignored it, pulled iron, knobbed a .30 calibre needle smack in the Jerry’s midriff. A puzzled expression came over the man’s face. He looked down, noticed blood on his uniform, sank slowly to his knees.

  Shouts went up left and right: Jerries were advancing from both sides: bullets zinged, hooked sandspouts, hit the tree behind Caine with a pluck pluck. Caine braced the carbine. A forest of fieldgrey legs sprouted around him: a size-twelve jackboot punted his weapon out of his hands, a rifle-butt smacked him between the temple and the bridge of the nose. For a second he was stunned: hands yanked him to his feet, relieved him of his pistol and bayonet, dug into his pockets, came out with his compass, his clasp knife – even his precious Zippo lighter. There was blood in his eyes: he tried to wipe it away, found himself staring at a torpedo-shaped Jerry with a square head, full lips, sunreddened cheeks and hard luminous eyes. He was older than the others: his face had the battle-scathed look of a veteran. He wore the SS collar-tab, and the rank insignia of a warrant officer first-class. He was holding a Walther pistol inches away from Caine’s face.

  ‘I am SS Sturmscharführer Lohman,’ he said, ‘and you are a prisoner of the Waffen-SS. Raise your hands.’

  Caine raised his right hand, made an aborted effort to lift his left.

  Lohman noticed the bloodstains on the torn arm of Caine’s smock. ‘All right,’ he said. He snapped orders: someone tied Caine’s hands behind him: another wiped the blood off his face.

  Lohman holstered his pistol, unbuckled his helmet, removed it. Caine saw that his hair was straw blond, almost exactly like Copeland’s. He wondered where Cope was, guessed he’d gone off to relieve himself before the Hun had arrived. He hoped he’d heard the warning shout and got away. He looked round for a sign of the Arabs, saw Totenkopf troopers forcing the two men and the girl out of the shacks at gunpoint: one of the Krauts was carrying the old rifle Caine had seen earlier.

  Caine heard a howl of agony, saw it came from the cameljawed Jerry he’d shot in the guts: a group of Totenkopf was trying to lift him on to a stretcher: he was screeching, writhing, trying to fight them off. Caine felt a twinge of sympathy: there was nothing worse than a gut wound.

  One of the stretcher-bearers shouted to Lohman. As he turned towards them, Caine saw something astonishing. Slung on the Sturmscharführer’s back was a Tommy-gun: not just any Tommy-gun, but his Tommy-gun, with its fat magazine and bayonet lug. He flushed, remembered he’d last seen it in Quinnell’s hands. Lohman must have been at the blockhouse. He must know if Quinnell, Wallace and Trubman are alive.

  Lohman pivoted round to face Caine. ‘That soldier you shot was asking you to surrender,’ he said. ‘Now he is dying. We can do nothing for him. It is a bad way to die.’

  Caine didn’t move or speak.

  ‘What is your name?’ Lohman demanded.

  ‘Captain Thomas Caine.’

  ‘Your unit?’

  ‘I can’t answer that.’

  ‘No, of course not. I do not care. I want only the blek box. Where is it?’

  For a moment Caine was surprised: then he realized he shouldn’t be. They didn’t come all this way just to pick up a couple of stray Tommies. They must have a good reason to deploy a unit behind enemy lines when their whole army’s in retreat. The black box. That’s what they wanted all along.

  ‘I don’t know anything about a black box,’ he said.

  Lohman sighed. ‘Captain, you came here after a … deserter … who took the blek box yesterday morning.’

  This time, Caine had to struggle to keep the astonishment off his face. He knows about Fiske? One of the lads talked. That means at least one of them’s alive.

  ‘You hev come for the blek box,’ Lohman declared. ‘There were two of you. You were easy to follow. There is only one road, no? We find your vehicle. We find your treks. Now we find you. Where is your comrade, I do not care. I want to know where is going the man with the blek box?’

  Caine remembered that he still had Jizzard’s map stowed inside his overalls. They hadn’t found it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  There was a chorus of shouts from the direction of the Hun lorries. A trooper jumped down from one of them, bawled and gesticulated at Lohman. The Sturmscharführer shouted back: when he twirled round again, Caine saw smudges of anger in the hard blue eyes.

  ‘The man you shot hes died,’ he said. ‘He hes died in very great pain. Now my men say you must pay.’

  Caine stared at the ground. You always pay for everything, he thought.

  Lohman beckoned to the soldiers guarding the three Arabs: the troopers dragged them over, paraded them in front him. The old man’s dead eye gleamed whitely: he and the younger one stood up straight, stared Lohman out. The girl was trembling, but doing her best to control herself. At Lohman’s order, the Death’s Head troopers tied their hands behind their backs, made them kneel.

  ‘We hev not time for nonsense,’ Lohman said. ‘You will tell me where is the blek box, Captain, or I shall shoot these people.’

  He drew his pistol.

  ‘Last chance, Captain.’

  Caine glanced at the Arabs. For a second he locked eyes with the girl: her face was bewildered and confused. Caine felt a flush of pity. He’d brought humiliation to her and her people, who had no part in the war, whose only crime was to offer him hospitality.

  Lohman grunted. He took a step closer to the younger man, held the Walther against his temple. Caine was just opening his mouth to protest when Lohman pumped a round into the man’s skull at point-blank range. The Arab’s eyes went out like lights: blood dropped from his nostrils: his body keeled over. The girl shrieked, set up an eery high-pitched keening, raked her head hysterically from side to side. The old man’s good eye blazed: he bull-bellowed, struggled to his feet. Jerries wrestled him down: one kicked him in the stomach, another cuffed his head.

  Caine felt as if he’d been punched in the gut: the air drained from his lungs. His throat went tight. ‘You … you …’ were the only words he could get out.

  Lohman wheeled round on him. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘This is your doing. The girl will be next.’

  He pointed the pistol at the girl. Her eyes almost burst from their sockets. She thrashed, retched, spat, cursed, tried to get up. Krauts grabbed her slim shoulders, snatched at her hair, wrenched her down, stretched her head back. She squealed, frothed at the mouth, snapped at their hands with her teeth. Lohman leaned closer to her, laid the muzzle of the pistol under her jaw. She went quiet: her body quivered.

  Lohman turned his head to Caine, raised a blond eyebrow.

  Blood beat a harsh tattoo in Caine’s ears. An innocent civilian had just paid the price of his silence: one more death added to the long list of dead souls he was responsible for. Now another, a young girl. What am I doing here? Bringing suffering to the harmless. I don’t care what’s in the black box. It’s not worth it. The whole world’s not worth this child’s life. He felt deeply ashamed: not only had he brought death to this family, he was also helpless to defend them.

  Lohman focused on the girl: his lips trembled slightly.

  ‘Don’t,’ Caine yelled. ‘Don’t kill her. I’ll tell you where the black box is. Just give me your word that you won’t do any more harm to these people.’

  Lohman stared at him, his palefire eyes curious.

  ‘You hev my word. Now, where is the blek box?’

  ‘You’ll find it at Bir Souffra,’ Caine said in a rush. ‘Inside my overalls, there’s a map.’

  Lohman lifted his pistol from the girl’s throat, spoke to the soldiers in German. A couple of them frisked Caine, tore off his smock, tugged at the buttons of his overalls. Hands wormed over his chest, found the map, ripped it from its hiding place. One of th
em handed it to the Sturmscharführer.

  He put away his pistol, examined the map, nodded with satisfaction. He glanced at the dead Arab, shook his head. ‘A pity you didn’t speak earlier. You could have saved him.’

  He folded the map, placed it inside his tunic, strutted away.

  The girl was sobbing: the old man was mumbling to himself. Caine heard Lohman snap orders: Jerries hustled the Arabs to their feet, marched them back towards their shacks. Caine eyed them anxiously, wondering if Lohman would keep his promise. He looked away, knowing that, whatever happened, he couldn’t stop it. He wished to hell he knew where Cope was. He forced himself to concentrate: Lohman’s next move would be Bir Souffra – LG120. Maybe he’d find the black box there, maybe he wouldn’t. Would he let Caine go now? More likely he’d take him along as insurance. Lohman had left two troopers to watch him: he tried to weigh up his chances of making a break.

  He was distracted by the sound of shovels hitting earth, looked up to see Jerries digging pits about midway between the tamarix grove and the wagons. It was a burial party, he realized: the pits were graves. He watched the Germans with riveted eyes. There were six men in the party: they were working in pairs, two men to a grave. A shiver ran through him. Three graves. One for the Jerry he’d shot. One for the dead Arab. Whose was the third grave? Lohman wasn’t taking him along for insurance after all.

  Caine rose shakily to his feet, felt hands clamp his shoulders. ‘I have to piss,’ he bawled. He made a hissing noise. The Krauts kicked his legs, slapped him down. The pain in his side flared up: his left arm burned. He remembered his last meal – the stew the Arabs had brought them. If they hadn’t eaten it, they might not have fallen asleep. He was going to pay for that meal with his life. He made a second attempt to get up: a Jerry booted him in the kidneys, another cracked his head with a rifle-butt.

  Caine didn’t know how long he’d sprawled there dazed, but when he sat up, he saw that the burial-party was already filling in the first two graves. Lohman was standing in front of him, surveying the boughs of the tamarix tree. The Sturmscharführer gazed around as if looking for something: his eyes alighted on the well-rope coiled on the frame of one of the shacks. He pointed to it, instructed a soldier to bring it over. He had the man tie a slip-knot in the rope, sling it over the lowest bough of the tree. The soldier succeeded on the second attempt. When the loop came down, Lohman draped it over Caine’s head, called four or five more Totenkopf men over to brace the rope.

  Caine felt the loop tighten round his neck, tried to struggle. The two guards held his arms fast.

  Lohman examined him with polished flint eyes. ‘You are a brave man, Captain Caine. Your defence at el-Fayya was admirable. On the other hand, you shot one of my men when he asked you to surrender. This is not so good. I dislike hanging a fellow soldier, but …’

  Caine clamped his lips shut. He wasn’t going to demand a court-martial, plead for his life. He was guilty: he’d known deep down that the cameljawed Jerry had been calling on him to surrender. He’d shot him anyway, just like Lohman had shot the Arab. There was no difference in the end.

  Lohman barked a low order to the men on the end of the rope.

  The loop constricted, cut into the flesh of Caine’s neck, burnt his skin, choked off his breath. He felt helpless, paralysed with fear, felt pressure on the blood vessels in the cavity beneath his jaw, felt his spine stretch as his feet were lifted off the ground, felt his blood pound in his ears, felt his head loll like a dead weight. His throat was bonded with flame: his lungs were burning. His eyes blacked out, his senses dimmed. Over the drum of his heartbeat he heard the hammer of iron on iron, the familiar sound of his father shaping metal in the forge, the reassuring rhythm of his childhood. Since his father had died, he’d only heard that sound when he was in mortal danger This was it, then. He’d be with his dad, and his mother now – and with all the lads he’d had to bury up the Blue. Goodbye, Betty, he said.

  It wasn’t the forge, though, it was a cool place – a church, maybe. It was quiet: he made no sound on the floor. He was moving silently up an aisle between great pillars like the trunks of living trees. Was it a forest? It was shady: light spread in brindles through the foliage. He could smell the trees, could see the leaves and branches, but there were arched windows among them, as if the forest were inside the church, or the church were part of the forest, or the church and the forest were one.

  He was moving towards a stained-glass window, a mandala of light and colour. He saw that the glass mosaic formed the image of a man in a monk’s robe: a saint with a gold halo, and a long white beard divided in two. The saint seemed to be floating in the air above pale water and dark rocks. He was surrounded by monsters: hairy-limbed apes with hyena-like heads, spiny seahorse demons with cockatrice skulls and bat’s wings, creatures with scaly fish bodies, leering red mouths and forked tails. The monsters were quivering around the saint: they seemed to be trying to tear him apart. Caine’s gaze was drawn to the saint’s face, in the centre of the tableau: despite the demons clamouring around him, he wore a countenance of utter serenity.

  Caine was transfixed. He knew he’d seen this image before: had viewed the whole scene somewhere else. Then he remembered. It was in the room where he’d met Caversham, in St Anthony’s monastery. He’d glimpsed it over Caversham’s shoulder – a painting on the wall. That was what? … four, five days ago? … seems like a lifetime. It had grabbed his attention momentarily because he’d felt some sympathy with the subject, harassed by devils. Caine had felt himself in the same position. What had Caversham said about it? It was called the Temptation – no, the Torment – of St Anthony. He was a hermit who lived in the Sinai two thousand years ago. He had struggled with demons and monsters. They’d named a cluster of plagues after him – St Anthony’s Fire. He’d left his bleached bones in the desert.

  Left bleached bones in the desert. It was the last phrase that stood out: it was familiar. He’d heard that somewhere else recently. Who’d said it? Harry Copeland? No, not Cope. It was Maurice Pickney. The ghost of Pickney he’d seen in his dream. He’d asked him what was in the black box, and he’d recited a verse.

  He left bleached bones in the desert,

  Wrestled with centaur and satyr,

  Defied the demon hosts,

  Put out the Holy Fire.

  Of course: the Pickney apparition had been talking about St Anthony. The saint had left his bleached bones in the desert. He’d defied demons, tangled with monsters, given his name to a cluster of plagues collectively known as St Anthony’s Fire.

  Were Holy Fire and St Anthony’s Fire one and the same? Pickney’s ghost had recited that verse when he’d asked what was in the black box. What had Holy Fire got to do with it? He tried to recall what Pickney had said when Caine first encountered him in the derelict aircraft? 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 … whatever you do, skipper, don’t open the black box …

  He’d warned Caine not to open the black box, because there was something terrible inside. Something that might ravage the world. Not an ordinary weapon. Something small enough to be carried in a box: the smallest thing you could think of: plague, disease, bacteria, bacilli, germs: St Anthony’s Fire, Holy Fire. Once let loose they could could wipe out an entire army, devastate a whole population.

  Holy Fire. That was what the black box contained.

  Then the lights went out. The image on the stained-glass window faded. Caine was in limbo, in a ghostly no-man’s land between worlds. He groped forward: there was a featureless wall in front of him, with a single black door set in it. There was no other exit. That’s it, then. He moved to the door, opened it, fell out into a starless universe.

  42

  He hit the earth with a thump, inhaled a choking breath. His eyelids flickered: he saw Harry Copeland moving towards him with his SMLE in one hand, his bayonet in the other. Cope knelt down by his head, sheathed the blade, laid his rifle aside, start
ed groping at something tied round his neck. ‘Jesus wept,’ he said.

  Caine remembered the noose, lifted his hand, felt the shape of the taut rope. He tried to speak, made only a gurgle in his throat.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ Cope said. He pulled the rest of the rope off.

  Caine coughed, touched his neck, felt the flesh sting. He sat up, took in the huge tamarix tree, the mats they’d slept on, the Arab shacks, the dead dog, the freshly dug graves with the third one still unfilled. He wasn’t dead and buried, then? There was no sign of Lohman or the Totenkopf men – perhaps they’d decided to come back and bury him later?

  ‘You were dangling about three minutes, I reckon.’ Copeland whistled through his teeth. ‘Thought you’d had it, mate.’

  Caine remembered the black door he’d stepped through: it had seemed pretty final to him, too. ‘I was dead,’ he croaked huskily. ‘I was really fucking dead.’ His throat ached when he spoke. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I went for a piss. Heard motors, Kraut voices, then you shouted at me to get out. I took cover, couldn’t see what was going on.’ He gave Caine a mouthful of water from his canteen.

  ‘Soon as I heard motors gunning, I came in. Found you hanging from this bloody tree: the rope end was tied round the trunk. Cut you down.’

  Caine coughed. ‘Jerries pushed off, then?’

  ‘Yep. What were they after?’

  ‘The black box. I gave them the map. They shot one of the Arabs, threatened to kill the girl …’

  In a rush Caine recalled his vision – the apparition of Pickney, Holy Fire. He grabbed Copeland’s wrist, dragged himself to his feet. ‘Harry, I know what’s in the black box. If they open it there’s going to be hell to pay.’

  Copeland watched him with worried eyes. ‘You all right, Tom? Better take it easy, mate.’

  ‘No, we’ve got to get to the box before the Krauts do. There’ll be a catastrophe.’