Death or Glory I: The Last Commando: The Last Commando

by Michael Asher

  ‘Where are the rest?’

  Campbell pointed weakly to a low rise only a few yards away. ‘In all-round defence,’ he cackled.

  ‘Listen, Jake,’ Caine told him gently. ‘Go down the slope, and you'll find our 3-tonner in the wadi. Get in the cab and rest. You've done enough. We'll take it from here.’

  ‘Aye, well you'd best put a move on, because we spotted enemy patrols creeping through the minefield just before last light.’

  Campbell staggered off. Caine and the others moved to the bank, where half a dozen commandos sat or lay on ground like the surface of a cheese-grater, in a rough semicircle. They had abandoned their slit-trenches at sunset, re-assigning them to the dead, whom they'd buried there in sand and gravel as best they could. The ridge-top was grooved and pitted by enemy rounds, and the thicket of thorn-trees that had once ringed the position had been reduced to a nest of groping, skeletal claws. Of the twelve men Green had posted on the ridge that morning, only these six were left alive: many were barely conscious, others begged through swollen lips for water their rescuers couldn't give them. Some were shockingly wounded. Private Dick Grafton's leg was a raw mass of bloody pulp from which the bones protruded. Private John Pearson's right arm had been shattered, the bones crushed, the blood vessels hanging out. Private Arthur Norris sat holding a shell-dressing to the side of his skull, a good proportion of which appeared to be missing.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Wallace gasped. ‘What the hell happened here?’

  ‘Hell happened,’ someone gasped, and Caine recognized ‘Quiff’ Smithers, the section medical orderly. He was lying in a huddle on the ground, his khaki drill heavy with dried blood. ‘I tried to patch 'em up,’ Smithers said, ‘till I took three rounds in the leg.’

  Caine gulped, realizing that Smithers was virtually paralysed. ‘You've done a cracking job,’ he said. ‘You deserve a medal for this. You all deserve a medal.’

  ‘They can stuff their medals,’ Smithers groaned. ‘Just get us out of this shit-hole.’ He squinted at Wallace and, noticing the giant's heavily bandaged arms for the first time, exploded with hysterical laughter that turned quickly into racking coughs. ‘You don't look too bloody good yourself,’ he spluttered. ‘Talk about the blind leading the blind.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we're the best you're going to get, mate,’ Wallace grunted, slightly miffed. ‘You can either put up with us or stay here.’

  They had no stretchers, but they scoured the dead men's haversacks for ponchos and used them to ferry the wounded downhill, worst cases first. To spare Wallace's arms, Cope and Caine did the carrying, while Wallace covered them with the Bren. As they ferried the last casualty – Smithers – over the brow of the ridge, the giant said softly, ‘There's a light.’

  Caine and Copeland laid the wounded man down and hunkered next to Wallace, peering into the night. Caine was just beginning to think that the big man had imagined it, when he spotted the faintest flicker of flame. ‘A match,’ he said.

  Copeland nodded and fingered his sniper rifle. ‘Lighting fags,’ he said. ‘Ideal sniper bait.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Caine said. ‘Let's get this man in the wagon.’ They moved the medical orderly downhill, with Wallace walking backwards, covering them. While Cope was making Smithers comfortable with the others, Caine pulled out of his haversack a small surprise he had been saving for this moment. It was a No. 76 Hawkins grenade – a flat canister of explosive like an oversized brandy flask – with a time-pencil attached. He half-buried the bomb in the sand and crushed the time-pencil. The fuse gave them five minutes to clear out.

  Caine hauled himself into the driver's seat, noting that Wallace was already positioned at the hatch above, his Bren fixed on the pintle-mount. ‘Here we go,’ he said.

  He hit the starter. There was a dead click. He tried again: the mechanism failed to respond. He tried and failed a third time, then hurled himself out of the cab, head swimming, wondering what twisted logic had persuaded him to plant the Hawkins grenade before he'd even started the engine. The time-pencil was set to five minutes. If he couldn't start the lorry within that time, the bomb would blast the wagon and the wounded men to kingdom come.

  For a split second he hovered between decisions – whether to try and remove the time-pencil, to clear everyone out of the lorry or to fix the problem. He took a deep breath and realized that he knew what the trouble was. He'd been working with engines all his adolescence and adult life, and had an instinctive feel for them. For him, motor vehicles were dependable creatures that would perform any duty required of them so long as they were treated with respect, and their needs supplied. He decided to trust his instinct: at once he felt calmer.

  He opened the bonnet, stared into the gaping darkness and took another deep breath. He didn't need a torch to deal with a 3-tonner engine: over the years he'd trained himself to inspect them by touch. Knowing there would be no second chance, his fingers walked deftly from spark plugs to carburettor, radiator, fan belt and engine block, feeling for faults, testing connections. Finally, he felt the battery. Exactly as he had thought: one of the leads had come loose. As he strove to tighten the screw, he heard Wallace shout, ‘Enemy on the ridge!’ There was a clatter of sub-machine-gun fire, still out of range, but getting closer. Caine closed his eyes, praying that no stray round would hit the petrol in the back.

  He finished screwing, slammed the bonnet, rushed back to the cab. He hoisted himself into the driver's seat, hit the starter. The engine roared.

  He had just shifted into first gear, when something hard clunked stone not ten yards from his window. ‘Grenade!’ Wallace yelled from the hatchway. Caine rammed down the accelerator and the lorry jerked forward, just as the grenade erupted in a whoosh of fire. ‘Enemy coming down the ridge!’ Wallace bawled.

  Caine revved the engine and changed into second gear, dimly aware of the rat-tat-tat of Schmeisser 9mm sub-machine pistols, the pop of Gewehr 41 semi-autos. He twisted the steering wheel, desperately veering left, then right, already going faster than was safe in this terrain. There were screams from the wounded men in the back. Above him, Wallace had started firing a steady stream of single shots. Caine noticed the pause as he changed magazines, and knew his ammo wouldn't last much longer. At the tailboard, Cope was punching off aimed rounds as steadily as was possible from the bucking vehicle. ‘They're nearly down,’ Wallace roared.

  Right then, Caine heard a stomach-churning whine of air like a high-pitched siren, followed by a detonation that seemed to lift the world up and flip it over, ripping the night into a million brilliant shards. The lorry jiggered as a blast wave belched over it and Caine gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned ivory. He was just thinking that it was an awfully big blast for a Hawkins bomb when he heard another rasp like a giant razor slicing through canvas, and a second shattering explosion sent the night wobbling, followed by a third, smaller one. For a moment there was no sound but for the droning engine, then Caine heard Wallace yell. ‘Yaah! The Gunners! God bless the Horse-Gunners!’

  It struck him like a slap in the face that they had just been saved by shells fired by the Royal Horse Artillery, from the last 25-pounder on the Box. The third explosion had been the Hawkins bomb going up. If he had ever in his life made any disparaging comment about the Artillery, he begged silent forgiveness. The gun crews up there must have seen them from the start. He didn't know how the hell they'd done it in the dark, but it was the finest damn' gunnery he'd ever seen.

  The truck roared down the wadi, and Caine strained his eyes to make out the step where they'd built the ramp. It came up in less than a minute, and Caine slowed down and changed to first. The lorry took the step without a hitch. Caine changed back to second and was just accelerating, congratulating himself on his foresight in preparing the ramp, when something big and soft thunked on the bonnet. Caine's eyes popped out in disbelief. It was an Afrika Korps soldier, his face pressed hard against the windscreen and twisted into a horrific leer. He was struggling to bring a Schmeisser
to bear with one hand while holding on desperately with the other. Caine, blinded by the obstruction, felt the lorry's wheels shuddering and fought to right her. He shot a sideways glance at the now-comatose Jake Campbell in the passenger seat, and as he did so noticed Wallace's twelve-bore sawn-off leaning against the gear lever. He didn't know why the giant had left it there: he remembered Wallace loading it, though, and was certain he hadn't used it since. He grabbed it, cocked the hammers one-handed, pointed it at the ghastly face only inches away from his and fired both barrels The windscreen shattered; the German's face seemed to burst into flames and was gone. Caine kept his head low, ducking glass shards, almost lying on the steering wheel. For a moment he thought she was going over. Then the big balloon tyres got a purchase. Caine took the curve in second, changed up to third, and accelerated onwards into the desert night.

  4

  Lieutenant General Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief, Middle East Forces, stood under a lazily circling fan in his war room, in shirt-sleeve order against the heat, studying one of the huge maps tacked to his wall. The defeat of the Eighth Army on the ‘impregnable’ Gazala Line was the worst reverse he had suffered in his thirty-year military career. Allied forces were now in full retreat, and the Axis would soon turn its attention to Tobruk, the last Libyan port in British hands.

  The ‘Auk’ had been up until two o'clock that morning, presiding over an agitated conference on the fate of Tobruk. Now, though, his gaze was focused on what appeared to be a green blob on the vast blue expanse of the Mediterranean – the island of Malta. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that Malta was the key. ‘Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues,’ he recited to himself.

  ‘Thomas Hobbes,’ a voice grated behind him. The Auk swung round to see Major General ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith, his Deputy Chief of the General Staff, waiting by the conference table. ‘I didn't hear you come in, Chink,’ he said.

  Dorman-Smith saluted and removed his field-cap. A lean Anglo-Irishman with a pugnacious face that many a staff officer longed to punch, he and Auchinleck had been close since they had served together in India. Chink could be charming, but he was disliked at GHQ because of his caustic wit and his ability to pinpoint a fool at a thousand paces. The Auk considered him the most original strategist of his time.

  ‘I was just thinking about Malta,’ the C-in-C said.

  ‘So I gathered. Is it to be force or fraud?’

  ‘This may be the time for fraud. Why? What do you think Rommel will do?’

  Dorman-Smith glanced at his chief, trying to assess his state of mind. Most commanders would have been bowed by the traumatic defeats of the last few days, but the Auk still stood poised like Horatio on the bridge – cool, imperturbable, fighting fit. With his immense physique, stone-carved head and electric-blue eyes, he had always seemed to the cerebral Chink someone larger than life – an exile from an epic tale of gods and heroes. He could well imagine the Auk in breastplate and plumed helmet, marshalling the phalanx at Thermopylae.

  The DCGS took a step nearer the map and surveyed it with a penetrating gaze. ‘He'll take Tobruk,’ he said incisively. ‘We won't stop him now. But then he'll be faced with a dilemma. Does he go for Malta or for the Nile? He can't do both, because Malta is a job for the Luftwaffe, and he doesn't have the airpower to execute two operations at once. The Malta option would leave the Panzer Army twiddling its thumbs, and if there's one thing Rommel cannot stand, it's inaction. His successes have all come from speed and aggression – remember the dash for the Wire during Crusader? No, he'll race for the Nile like a bat out of hell, and try to catch us with our pants down. I'm sorry to say, sir, that judging by the current state of the Eighth Army, he may well succeed.’

  The Auk nodded: as usual, Dorman-Smith's reading of Rommel's character coincided closely with his own. He was about to add something when three staff officers entered. They were Brigadier Francis de Guingand, Director of Military Intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke, chief of the Deception Service – ‘A’ Force, and Captain Julian Avery, of the Special Operations Executive's G(R). wing. Auchinleck glanced at his watch. ‘Is it that time already, Tom?’ he asked de Guingand.

  The brigadier, a tall, black-haired officer with humorous features, nodded. ‘I'm afraid so, sir. Runefish is outside – shall I wheel her in?’

  ‘By all means – I'm looking forward to meeting her.’

  Auchinleck sat down at the head of the conference table, but the others remained standing. Dorman-Smith shifted uncomfortably, aware that he hadn't got round to saying what he had come for, and unsure if he was still welcome. ‘Do you mind if I stay for this one?’ he asked.

  The Auk considered it for a moment. The DCGS had been indoctrinated to a low level in the Runefish project, but the C-in-C didn't want him making any untoward comments during what would be a sensitive meeting. He decided to risk it. ‘No, stay if you wish, Chink,’ he said. ‘You might find it interesting.’ Before he had finished the sentence, Runefish glided into the room.

  To full-blooded men largely deprived of the company of women, First Officer Maddaleine ‘Maddy’ Rose, Women's Royal Naval Service, was a provocative sight. She wore an immaculately starched khaki drill uniform that only served to enhance her striking figure – high, firm breasts, long legs, lean shoulders, lithe hips carrying not a gramme of surplus weight. As graceful and supple in her movements as an acrobat, she possessed an air of elegance that was set off by the blue officer's rings on her shoulders, the blue chiffon scarf and the blue and white tricorne hat cocked jauntily on her boyishly cropped golden hair. Her features were strong but pliant, her full lips expressive, her eyes – an almost supernatural shade of aquamarine – seemed to conjure depths of solemnity beyond her years. Her hands and feet were surprisingly small and delicately formed. On a webbing belt at her waist she wore a .45-calibre Colt automatic, holstered on the right for a left-handed draw. She gave the C-in-C a brisk naval salute, and the faintest whiff of perfume drifted by.

  ‘Good afternoon, First Officer,’ Auchinleck said. ‘It's a pleasure to meet you at last.’ He sat back in his chair and looked her up and down. Maddy endured the appraisal patiently, wondering if the C-in-C was a ladies' man. He was certainly handsome, and looked far younger than his fifty-eight years. She'd been told that he was a loner who never went to cocktail parties, and that he had a young and pretty American wife at home. Maddy was accustomed to men undressing her mentally, but she felt that the Auk's appraisal was not of that kind. He was interested only in whether or not she was right for the job. ‘My dear,’ he said finally, ‘you are far too charming to be a Jack Tar.’

  For a moment Maddy wondered if this was a criticism, but the sniggers of the other officers told her it was a jibe against the Senior Service. Dorman-Smith pointed to the weapon she was carrying. ‘That's rather ambitious for a lady,’ he said drily. ‘Can you use it?’

  Rose gave him a shy smile, showing two front teeth with a minuscule but rather fetching overlap. ‘I'm close-quarter-battle trained, sir. I did the Grant-Taylor course at Jerusalem.’ Her voice was a girlish contralto with a husky edge. There was, the C-in-C noted with approval, no trace in it of either nerves or cockiness.

  Dorman-Smith raised a single eyebrow. ‘And?’ he enquired.

  Maddy blushed. ‘I qualified as marksman,’ she said. She made it sound as if her accomplishment were a random event that astonished her as much as anyone else. There was little that was in-your-face about Maddy Rose, Auchinleck decided – she was wistful without being aloof, modest and yielding without being feeble: a willow tree, he thought.

  Dorman-Smith seemed impervious to her charm. ‘I see,’ he commented, ‘and what else can you do that an ordinary officer can't?’

  Maddy glanced appealingly at Dudley Clarke, a small, rotund Gunner whose unassuming exterior concealed the gifted and unorthodox mind that had created the commandos. It was Clarke who had selected Maddy for the Runefish mission, and her training was
his responsibility.

  Clarke looked daggers at the DCGS. ‘Now, General,’ he said, in a manner that was borderline insubordinate, ‘I think you can safely assume that First Officer Rose is up to the job. She is a qualified parachutist, she's trained in signals and medical skills, she's au fait with infantry small-arms, including foreign weapons, and she speaks German, French and Italian fluently.’

  Dorman-Smith shot him an amused glance. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘And all that just to escort some dispatches to London?’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ Clarke said acidly. ‘I think we should do well to remember how vital this job is. First Officer Rose is a volunteer, and is exposing herself to considerable risk.’ He turned his eyes to the Auk, and there was a twinkle in them now. ‘After all, even the best-laid plans of mice and men go oft astray.’

  The Auk waved a massive hand, making a mental note never to invite the DCGS to such a meeting again. ‘Quite, quite,’ he said. ‘Point well taken, Dudley.’

  He gestured to a chair. ‘Sit down, Miss Rose.’

  As Maddy posted herself beside him, her starched trousers crackled, and she worried for a moment that opting for trousers instead of a skirt had been too risqué. All sartorial thoughts were dismissed from her mind, though, when the Auk leaned towards her. At close quarters he was every bit as impressive as she'd been told. There was a dignity about him that was almost regal. Outside, in the offices and corridors of GHQ, there was suppressed panic, but in here, around the Auk, tranquillity held sway.

  ‘You've been briefed on the current situation?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘Colonel Clarke briefed me earlier.’

  ‘You realize that this is a first. I have never entrusted such a mission to a woman before. A great deal depends on you. Colonel Clarke tells me that you are fully dedicated to your assignment. Is that so?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir.’

  ‘Excellent. The attaché case, Tom.’