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

by Michael Asher

  Caine danced with a girl called Lina, a dreamy-eyed beauty with a long cascade of brown curls whose velvet dress seemed constantly in danger of slipping off her shapely figure. Her face was as brown and plump as a peach, but her high cheekbones gave her a pagan look – almost Mongolian. She'd once been married to an Italian settler, she said – he had been murdered by the Senussi after the British had pulled out of Benghazi. ‘A lot of bad things happened then,’ she told him. ‘Houses looted and burned, girls raped, people murdered. Those Arabs can be very bad.’

  As they floated round the floor, he saw Lina's eyes become slits, her slightly parted lips succulent and inviting. When he kissed her she responded with a searing blaze of passion, almost frightening in its intensity. It was like kissing Nobel's No. 808, Caine thought. He ran his hands gently down the arch of her back and along her perfectly rounded hips: her body quivered and she raked her small hand through his hair, tugging his head closer. Caine closed his eyes and gave himself up to the feeling, carried away on a tidal wave of desire. For a moment the whole world seemed to go out of focus, and Caine felt as if he'd been drawn into another dimension, a parallel universe far away from death and war. When their lips broke, he felt as if he'd known her for ever. Her brilliant dark eyes glittered, mesmeric in the lamplight. ‘Why don't you stay here with us,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘We need strong men like you.’

  Caine felt bewitched and bewildered. He hadn't been prepared for anything like this. The world beyond this dreamers' cave seemed to have no meaning any more – the war, the enemy, the commandos, Tobruk, Egypt: it all seemed like the remote and ridiculous petty posturing of silly small creatures on some anthill somewhere.

  He kissed Lina again, and it was as if he were being tugged down inexorably into a timeless garden of delight. The music from the gramophone, the blousy drawl of saxophones, a girl's thrilling, husky voice singing incomprehensible words that sounded as cloyingly sweet and heavy as syrup, seemed to express all the beauty, agony and sadness of his whole life.

  He opened his eyes and saw Wallace, looking more serene and peaceful than he'd ever seen him, swaying with a girl whose straight dark tresses fell almost to her waist, whose voluptuous breasts seemed to pop out of her badly fitting dress. She had her arms round his neck and her head laid comfortably on his enormous chest. Most of the commandos seemed to have acquired partners – some, like Copeland, had already vanished into the night. He watched George Padstowe, Flash Murray, Shirley Temple, all smooching with pretty girls on the dancefloor, wearing the expressions of men entranced. ‘Hey, skipper,’ Padstowe said to him in a low voice as he waltzed past with a lissome-looking woman clinging to him. ‘This is a better way of spending the war than fighting the Huns, eh? Makes you wonder why we killed all those Jerries this morning. What's it all for, anyway?’

  Caine thought about the Brandenburgers they'd slaughtered over the past two days: young, brave men like his own comrades, who would have had the rest of their lives in front of them, men with wives, maybe children, with sisters and mothers who would mourn them for ever. He realized suddenly that he had no personal grievance against the Brandenburgers he'd shot and blown up and slashed to pieces only hours earlier. Allies and Axis – in the end they were all numbers on a list, expendable tools with precious and unique lives that were being consumed in the fire of a faceless dragon called war. He suddenly understood what motivated Michele – why it didn't trouble him which side he looted, why he talked about the ‘class enemy’. Everything made sense, and he was astonished to find that there were tears in his eyes. Lina kissed him again, nuzzling close. ‘Would you like to come to my tent?’ she whispered.

  Caine looked into her huge eyes, hypnotized by their heady beam. ‘You don't really have to go tomorrow,’ she said, fluttering dark eyelids. ‘The war doesn't need you.’ Caine felt electric with desire. He closed his eyes, and in his mind he saw a door opening – a door into a world with no more fighting, a world with him and perhaps this girl, a small white-walled farm on a hill, with animals and crops in the fields. He only had to say ‘yes’, to turn his back on the blood and slaughter, lay down his big Tommy-gun and start a new life in the broad, sunlit uplands. He was about to whisper that he'd go with her and stay with her for eternity when there came a tap on his arm. It was as if someone was trying to wake him from a deep, pleasant sleep, and he resisted, ignored it, hoped it would go away. The tap came again, more urgently this time, and a familiar voice said, ‘Skipper, I've got something.’

  Caine opened his eyes and found himself staring into the unlovely bifocals of Taffy Trubman, his face twitching with excitement. Trubman was still dressed in his leather jerkin and scuzzy overalls, wearing battle-order webbing and carrying his Lee-Enfield. With his carp's head and dense lenses, his snowman figure, he seemed a bizarre messenger from the outside world – a world that Caine felt he had left far behind in the pleasures of the night. ‘Let it wait, Taffy,’ he groaned. ‘Can't you see I'm busy here?’

  Trubman didn't move. ‘This is important, skipper,’ he said.

  Caine turned back to Lina, but Trubman poked his arm again, this time with more force. ‘This young lady is very pretty,’ he said, ‘but is she more important than Runefish?’

  It was the name that made the difference. Caine disentangled himself from Lina's arms and stepped reluctantly away. He glanced at his watch and gasped. It was almost 0500 hours. He couldn't believe it: in the cave, time had stood still. It would soon be dawn – they had partied away the whole night.

  ‘Christ,’ he said. He looked back at the girl, touched her affectionately on the cheek. ‘I'm sorry,’ he said. ‘I would have loved it, but it just wasn't fated. I have to go.’

  She burst into tears, but instead of comforting her, Caine forced himself to turn away. As he did so, though, some sort of spell was broken. He was back in the cold grey wasteland of war. Trubman hustled him out of the cave and on to the slab. Outside, the night air was sobering. Caine shivered, but was glad of the cold, refreshing draught. ‘What is it, Taffy?’ he asked.

  ‘The emergency net, skipper. I've been picking up a message with Runefish's signature for the past fifteen minutes. I didn't try to answer, like you said. It's coming from a biscuit-tin transmitter, and the signal strength indicates that it's not far away.’

  Caine sighed and followed Trubman down to the leaguer, where Naiman, Pickney and the two other soldiers were wide awake, smoking cigarettes, drinking tea. It was a whole different little world down here, so close to where he'd come from, but as distant as the moon. Caine retrieved his Thompson from the makeshift armoury in the White, cleared it, eased springs, clicked on a mag. These small actions brought him crashing back to reality. He followed the rotund Welshman to the Dingo, whose engine was running to keep the wireless batteries charged, and saw that Trubman had erected a complex Windom antenna – a wire strung like a washing line between two poles, connected to the No. 11 set by a small device known as a balun interface.

  The two of them crawled into the scout-car's belly through the lower hatch. The Welshman plonked himself in the driver's seat and had Caine sit in the passenger's place. He handed him the headphones and adjusted the volume dial on the set. Caine heard it at once – the blip-blip-blip of Morse signals – the staccato rattle of dots and dashes like strange alien chatter from a far-away planet, combinations and patterns repeated over and over. ‘You sure it's her?’ he asked.

  Trubman scratched his double chin with delicate fingers. ‘It's her all right. It's the correct call-sign and the signature's very clear, see.’

  ‘But even if it is, couldn't she be sending under duress?’

  ‘Not likely, skipper. There's a security code that would be left out by anyone who didn't know the procedure, see. In this loop, the security code is extant.’

  Caine realized he had never heard Trubman talk like this before. His face glowed with the same enthusiasm Caine felt when he talked about engines – with a passion for the mysteries of his trade. Maint
aining wireless silence must have been a real penance for him, Caine thought.

  He put the headphones down. ‘Can you triangulate the signal?’

  Trubman hesitated, pulling a wry face. ‘You know, skipper, it's not that easy getting a fix with sky-wave, because of the skip distance. These No. 11s are delicate, and they've already taken a pounding. It'll require an adjustable aerial, so I'll have to take down the Windom dipoles and erect the nine-foot poles instead. I'll need some help to manoeuvre the AFV while I track the signal: in fact, it'd be better with two sets and two aerials, so I'll need Lance Sergeant Murray or Temple to handle the Daimler, see, because I can't calibrate both sets at once, and we need to angle the vehicles until we can lock on to the signal.’

  Caine listened to the breathless torrent of objections, bemused. ‘So in other words, you can't do it?’ he enquired.

  ‘Oh no, Sergeant,’ said Trubman, looking shocked. ‘I'm a signalman first class. It might take a while, but I can do it all right.’

  Caine chuckled with relief. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Get on it right away.’ He slipped out of the hatch, and Trubman followed. ‘By the way, skipper, the news from Rome Radio is that Rommel is poised to enter Tobruk at first light today – that's any moment now.’

  ‘What day is it?’ Caine enquired. ‘I've sort of lost count.’

  ‘21 June 1942,’ Trubman said.

  Caine grunted and waved Moshe Naiman and Maurice Pickney over. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We'll go and round up the boys.’

  ‘From what I saw,’ Trubman tittered, ‘that's going to take some doing.’

  While he tramped off with the spare lads to dismantle the Windom antenna, Caine led the medical orderly and the interpreter towards the cave.

  Trubman's warning proved correct. No sooner had Caine and Naiman reached the slab than they heard raised voices in the thickets near by – two men and a woman shrieking at each other. Caine looked at the others, lifting up his eyes. Here it was, the classic triangle: the inevitable consequence of the abandoned promiscuity of the night. The trouble was that one of the voices was Harry Copeland's.

  It was Michele and Angela who were really at loggerheads, though, poised outside what Caine took to be their tent, their teeth bared like fighting dogs', letting rip at each other with long streams of abuse. Cope was standing a few paces out of the line of fire, trying to calm them down, looking embarrassed. He was dressed only in his shorts, and Angela wore a skimpy nightdress that concealed nothing. When Michele saw Caine, he pointed at him. ‘This is how you repay our hospitality?’ he bawled. ‘I turn my back and this stronso’ – he jabbed a finger at Cope – ‘is fucking my wife?’

  ‘What about you?’ Angela screamed, her face contorted with fury. ‘I suppose you weren't fucking that little trollop Antonella – my poor Carlo's girlfriend – a girl young enough to be your daughter. You say, I missed you. I missed you, darling, and the same night I get back and Carlo just dead, you are making love with his girlfriend in front of everyone, even me. This is why you don't come looking for me, eh? Too busy fucking little Antonella? You are happy the Tedesci kill poor Carlo, eh, so you can fuck his girlfriend? You would be happy if the Tedesci kill me like Carlo, too, no? So you can go on fucking every trollop in the camp.’

  Michele stared at her through snake-like eyes, the expression on his face vicious. ‘That is a lie,’ he shouted. ‘What about you dropping your knickers for the first soldier who comes along? You aren't a whore, no?’

  ‘That's it,’ Angela screeched, hurling herself at Michele, scrabbling at his face with broken fingernails. Michele held her off for a second, sniggering, then belted her in the face, knocking her down. He was about to kick her when Caine cocked his Colt .45. Michele heard the click, and looked up to see that the pistol was trained at his head from not more than a yard away. ‘I don't like to interfere in domestic issues,’ Caine said carefully, ‘but I'm damned if I'm going to see ladies knocked down.’

  Michele halted in his tracks, his face a mask of blind fury. ‘You get out,’ he bellowed. ‘And you take that’ – he gestured at Copeland – ‘that cocksucker with you.’

  ‘We're going,’ Caine said. ‘There was just the little matter of petrol?’

  ‘Hah. Hah. You are funny man,’ Michele said. He spat contemptuously towards Cope. ‘You think I give you petrol after that bastard fucked my wife? He's had his reward, and you've had yours.’

  Caine didn't lower the pistol. ‘What happened to “Blood brothers for ever,” ’ he said slowly. ‘What about “My life is yours”? What about “Property is theft”? Where I come from, a promise is a promise. Either you give me the fuel, or I will make sure the RAF have the coordinates of this place and include it on their next bombing run. My government doesn't take kindly to people stealing material supplied by hard-working tax-payers. Capitalist pigs, you see.’

  Everyone stared at Caine in amazement. ‘You wouldn't…?’ Angela gasped, picking herself up. ‘There are women here… children.’

  Caine nodded grimly. ‘Try me,’ he said. He cocked an eye at Michele. ‘Well?’

  The Italian tossed his long hair arrogantly. ‘All right, but you’ – he jabbed a long finger at Copeland – ‘stay away from her.’

  Caine sent Naiman and Pickney to the leaguer with Michele, to collect one of the 3-tonners for the petrol. As soon as her husband was out of sight, Angela threw her arms round Copeland and kissed him. ‘Don't listen to that son-of-a-bitch Michele,’ she said. ‘It was so good with you. Better than that two-faced motherfucker.’ She spat on the ground where Michele had been standing. ‘Better a thousand times.’

  Copeland returned the kiss then broke away gently, facing Caine. ‘Give us a minute, skipper,’ he said.

  Caine waited for him at the entrance to the cave, where he saw that the party had already broken up. Copeland appeared, fully dressed and looking slightly bemused. Caine winked at him. ‘What happened to the Sirens, then?’

  ‘Don't start,’ Cope snapped, holding up a warning hand. ‘She's a… she's a very special person.’

  ‘I've no doubt she is. In case you're interested, though, Trubman picked up Runefish on the emergency net. We're in business.’

  Cope grunted, glancing wistfully back into the forest where he'd left Angela. For all his concern, Caine thought, he might have told him that the moon was green cheese. ‘Get a grip, mate,’ he snapped. ‘Let's get the men assembled and get going.’

  It took almost an hour to collect the commandos. A few of them were lying in the recesses of the cave in all stages of undress, mostly in the arms of young women. Caine told them the good news about Runefish, but like Copeland they didn't seem impressed. ‘Bugger Runefish,’ Todd Sweeney cursed, extracting himself from the embrace of a plump and attractive widow of about thirty-five. ‘I'm enjoying it here.’

  ‘What's the rush, skipper?’ Padstowe demanded blearily, as Caine yanked a blanket off him and his paramour. ‘Let's stay a few more days.’

  The hardest cases were those who had left the party and were scattered throughout the tents in the forest. Caine and Copeland had to force an entry and jerk some of them out of bed physically, hurling them on the floor and dousing them with cold water. When they tried this with Wallace, though, the giant reared up like a colossus, flattened Copeland with a bare-handed slap. ‘Take your hands off me,’ he bellowed. ‘I'm staying here. You can keep your stinking Runefish.’ He put his log-sized arms protectively around the girl Caine had seen him dancing with that night, and she buried her head in his chest. ‘I've been looking for a woman like Giovanna my whole life,’ Wallace growled. ‘I'm not leaving her now. Stuff the mission. You can do it without me.’ His eyes narrowed warily as Copeland moved towards him again, and he let go of the weeping girl. ‘So help me, Harry, I'll lamp you.’

  While his back was turned, Caine stepped behind him niftily, jammed the barrel of the Colt hard into his ear. The giant felt the chill of cold steel against his flesh: he raised his steam-shovel hands in surren
der, rumbling with laughter. ‘You're going to shoot me? Me? Cope and me saved your life yesterday. You forgotten so quick?’

  ‘Nope,’ Caine said. ‘In fact I'm returning the favour. It's just that you haven't realized it yet.’ He turned to Copeland. ‘You got parachute cord?’ he asked.

  ‘Right here, skipper,’ said Cope, drawing a hank of olive-green cord from his webbing.

  ‘Tie him up.’

  ‘What?’ Wallace trumpeted.

  ‘This is for your own good, Fred,’ Caine said.

  Cope fastened the big man's hands to a torrent of verbal abuse, and Caine frog-marched him down to the leaguer at gunpoint. There, he and Copeland secured him in the back of Judy, handcuffing him to the frame. As they emerged, Naiman swept past from the fuel dump at the wheel of the 3-tonner Vera. He halted the truck and gave Caine the thumbs-up from the open window. ‘Got it, skipper,’ he called. ‘All three hundred gallons, as ordered.’

  ‘Did Michele give you any trouble?’

  ‘No trouble. Just slunk off muttering about cocksuckers.’

  ‘Good. Let's get this circus on the road.’

  All the roll was now accounted for, and the commandos had settled down to man their guns and steering wheels with varying degrees of reluctance. A crowd of civilians – most of them scantily dressed girls – had gathered around the wagons. Some of them were crying, and Caine hoped fervently they wouldn't try to stop the column leaving: there was no way he was going to open fire on a cordon of nubile young women blocking the track. Dawn was creeping across the softly curving peaks of the Green Mountains, painting purple shadows in the crevices, giving the massif the look of a harem of giant, voluptuous female bodies in repose. The sky was marbled in cobalt and ethereal gas-blue, the open hillsides smeared with pink candyfloss light. Caine pushed through the crowd and found Trubman in the Dingo, tinkering with the No. 11 set. ‘How's it going?’ he enquired.