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

by Michael Asher

  Caine felt himself carried away by her rhetoric. He puckered his brow, trying to block his elation, trying to decide what he felt. He and his men had been sacrificed, that was certain. St Aubin should have informed him – should have given him the choice. Yet he wasn't sure whether, after all, being ignorant of the truth hadn't been for the better. He stared at Nolan with new eyes: he'd believed that she'd thrown away the Allied war effort on a whim. Instead, she – a woman – had volunteered for the operation knowing full well that she wouldn't survive. He tried to grasp the astonishing devotion to the cause, the amazing courage it must have taken to step deliberately into the enemy's lair without any hope of coming back. ‘I don't care what your name is,’ he said. ‘I don't care if you're an officer or a grunt or a civvie. All I know is, you're one bloody hell of a woman.’

  She chuckled. ‘So the Voice worked after all?’

  Laughing, he threw his arms around her, enveloped her body, felt the warmth of it, felt her muscles tense and relax under the loose khakis. She shivered, gasped, closed her eyes, held on to him so strongly that Caine sensed she was feeling exactly as he had, that she was being carried away on a tidal wave, pulled in by some unstoppable magnetic force, so violent that it left you helpless and breathless. Their lips clenched: they melted into one another. They might have stayed that way all day if Wallace hadn't grunted, ‘Hey, skipper. They're on their way.’

  The German soft-skin wagons that had withdrawn from Murray's bombardment – five or six of them – were trolling cautiously through the burning wrecks on the wadi bed, following at least half a company of Brandenburgers in disciplined formation. The Jerries evidently knew that Caine and his comrades were there.

  This time there were no mines, no daisy-chains, no support weapons: no mortars, no Vickers, no 20mm cannon. Caine knew it had to be a whites-of-the-eyes job. True, the Brens were effective to a thousand yards, but they had so little ammunition left that it would be pointless to engage the enemy at anything but close range.

  Caine stuck a Player's Navy Cut in his mouth, passed his last few flattened, blood-stained cigarettes to the others. He lit the fag with his Zippo, cocked his Bren. There was a rattle of working-parts as the others followed suit. ‘Stand fast,’ he said. ‘Wait till they're up close, then take as many of the buggers with you as you can. Watch my tracer.’ That, he thought, was the last order he was ever likely to give. He grinned as first Cope and Wallace, then Trubman and Pickney, flashed him the thumbs-up, their cigarettes clenched in their teeth. He felt overwhelmed: forced back sobs. He wanted to tell them how proud he was to have served with them, but they knew it anyway, and the time for speeches was done.

  The enemy abandoned the trucks at the foot of the ridge. Caine surmised that the footsloggers might try to work round, to outflank his position, but they didn't – they came straight up the slope towards it. Traversing his barrel, Caine watched them coming on with grim, unhurried movements and felt a wave of admiration. Good men, he thought. Steady. If it weren't for those bloody Nazis… He stopped traversing; he backtracked. There, among the khaki ranks, he made out the tall, hood-eyed figure of Major Heinrich Rohde. He blinked and stared hard: it was too far to make out the Black Widow's features but there was something about the walk that was familiar – that sidling, feminine gait. It was Rohde all right. Caine thought of telling Copeland to take him out with his sniper-rifle, but no, this was personal. In any case, Rohde was only two hundred yards away – a snap shot for a Bren.

  He lined up his sights on Rohde's torso, saw – or imagined he saw – the major's arrogant leer. He took the first pressure; he smiled, whispered, This is for you, Moshe, squeezed iron. The weapon burped twice. At precisely that moment a heavy-calibre field-gun bazookered behind him like a volcanic eruption – three sharp stabs of crumping ordnance clawed the air, stomped the ground like thunder. Caine heard shells frizzle, breathed in propellant, ducked, looked up to see three spirals of white spume and red dust sand-spouting among the enemy. He saw bodies tossed head over heels, saw the entire Jerry squad hit the deck.

  The world went feral with noise – the rumpa-dumpa-dump of Vickers ‘K’s, the higher-pitched telegraphic ruckle of Lewis guns, the solid boxgrinding throb of Thompsons, the steady basso-profundo lump of a Bofors, the tuneless haw of mortar bombs. Caine dekkoed over his shoulder, and his mouth fell open. Behind them, a little to the left, no more than fifteen yards away, six stripped-down Ford trucks were raking through sand and gravel straight towards the escarpment edge, throbbing with automatic fire. One of the trucks was hefting a Bofors 20mm gun and a three-inch mortar on its back, but each of the others was manned by four or five men: all but the drivers were crouched intently over machine guns or SMGs, spitting tracer and ball. The men were wearing khaki shirts and shorts, and flowing Arab headcloths, and they looked mean, determined, deadly. There could be no doubt that they were Tommies

  ‘It's them,’ Caine heard Copeland bawl. ‘It's the LRDG.’

  ‘I don't think much of the service,’ Wallace roared.

  The trucks screeched to a halt on the lip of the ridge and belted down fire at the Brandenburgers. The driver of the nearest Ford grinned through a mask of fine dust, beckoned to them – the most welcome gesture Caine had ever seen. It crossed his mind that, had the LRDG turned up on time, this whole last chapter of bloodshed might have been avoided, but a closer shufti showed him that the wagons were battered by shrapnel and peppered with bullet holes, and many of the men wounded. He didn't doubt that they'd risked their lives a dozen times over to get here. He was about to grab Nolan when he heard the drone of aero-engines directly above them. He drooped, thinking the Stukas that had bounced them earlier were back, but peering up, he got his second surprise. Only a thousand feet overhead, a brace of RAF Blenheim light bombers was gyring on thermals. They were identical to the bombers that had shot up his column – how many days ago, Caine couldn't recall. This time, though, the Brylcreem Boys knew their enemy: they were flattening out into a bombing configuration, reaming in with spine-chilling purpose.

  Seconds later, Caine, Nolan, Copeland and Wallace were lifting the almost comatose Trubman and Pickney aboard the nearest wagon. A second truck pulled up near by and they helped each other to clamber in. Friendly hands pulled them aboard, English voices enveloped them in a bubble of cheeriness. Before they were even half in, the lorry had gone into a skeetering reverse. Clear of the edge, the driver did a racing three-point turn, and as the wagon spun, Caine saw that the other trucks were withdrawing in a blaze of covering fire. The lorry wobbled over stones, splashed up sandwaves, hit the serir: smiling LRDG men passed him a flagon of rum, pressed a cigarette into his mouth. Caine dekkoed back towards the ridge where he'd almost hung out his bones to bleach. The last thing he saw was the dark moths of RAF Blenheims dipping into attack mode, going in for the kill. He turned his back on them and took Nolan's small hand in his. By the time the flat crump of the bombs drifted to his ears the tiny column had already been eaten up by the Sahara.

  46

  Cairo had lost its bustle: shops were bolted and boarded up, offices shuttered. There was a curfew. The streetlights were out. The city was meant to be blacked out day and night, but was only dimmed. Barrage blimps were moored like captive dolphins over the city, ready to repel Axis air-attack. Except for queues outside the banks, the crowds had faded from the streets. Rommel was only two short hours from the Nile Delta, and Cairenes were hedging their bets. At GHQ quiet desperation was in the air. The desk-wallahs of Groppi's Horse and the Shepheard's Hotel Short Range Desert Group had already withdrawn tactically to Jerusalem, together with cook-and-bottlewasher units not required for the fight. From Alex, it was rumoured that the Royal Navy's entire Mediterranean fleet was about to weigh anchor.

  If there was disquiet, though, Betty Nolan saw no panic. The Tommies on the streets retained an appearance of phlegmatic unconcern that was typically British. When she'd met Auchinleck at Grey Pillars, soon after their arrival, he'd seemed cool and con
fident. He'd kissed her, praised her courage, informed her that he was recommending her for the George Cross. Tom Caine was up for the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and Copeland, Wallace, Trubman and Pickney were all in line for a Military Medal apiece. Nolan was grateful for the honour, but her main concern was to discover when she could have her cyanide capsule pulled out.

  When Caine, Wallace and Copeland had turned up at the LRDG rear echelon base at Abbassia barracks, they'd found it electric with activity: crews swarming like ants over scores of mint-new Sherman tanks, infantry reinforcements hotfoot from the Tenth Army in Palestine, whole convoys of trucks being loaded with tons of stores, hundreds of thousands of shells and mines for the Alamein front. St Aubin and his headquarters squadron had vanished without trace, and the camp's admin. staff had no time to deal with dislocated units. ‘See,’ Wallace had grumbled. ‘If we'd holed up with Michele's lot, no one would have been any the wiser.’

  Caine saw Harry Copeland's eyes fill with wistful yearning. He clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don't worry, mate,’ he said. ‘You'll find her.’

  The far-away look vanished. ‘Who?’ Cope enquired.

  On a moonlit evening two days after their return, Caine and Nolan met for their long-planned celebration dinner at Shepheard's Hotel. Despite the dearth of regular bar-proppers, it was business at usual. They sat in wicker chairs on the mosaic terrace. They drank Rye highballs, they drank Scotches and soda. They nodded to the concierge, read unclaimed cables on the bulletin board. They marched into the dining room, were shown to a table decked with roses, covered in clean white linen. The other tables were crowded with men and a few women, most of them in Allied uniform. Waiters in brilliant white gallabiyyas and crimson cummerbunds worked silver service around them. Caine and Nolan polished off thick, juicy steaks. They drank wine. They basked in the hum of familiar voices – a luxury neither of them had thought to enjoy again. Outside, in gilded moonlight, the city's thoroughfares were crammed with tank-transporters and lorries moving up to Alamein.

  The restaurant was ‘officers only’, but Caine was clad for the occasion in Sam Browne belt and service-dress, with lieutenant's pips on the shoulder-straps. He looked the part. So far, no one had found any reason to challenge him. Nolan looked charming in a sheer black evening dress that displayed her sleek hips, slim waist, deep cleavage, the alluring architecture of her bare shoulders. Her boyish quiff of golden hair had been trimmed: her long lashes tremored, her wide blue eyes prismed. She wore no jewellery but a pair of gold studs in her ears. Her wrists and ankles were still bandaged, and a silk scarf of the deepest blue disguised the dressing at the base of her neck.

  ‘Did you hear what happened here the other day?’ she asked, laughing. ‘Apparently a group of Australian enlisted men broke into the Long Bar, which is reserved for senior officers. There was a general in there, and when he stepped up to explain the situation, they grabbed him and threw him out.’

  ‘I bet that had the Redcaps swarming,’ Caine chortled. ‘Terrible people, those enlisted men.’

  Nolan studied Caine's uniform, noticed that it was a tight fit around the shoulders. She giggled deliciously. ‘Where did you dig that up?’ she asked.

  Caine watched her, entranced by the sultry red lips, the exotically crooked front teeth, the dreamy eyes. He'd become well acquainted with her face and body over the past couple of days, and his fascination with her had increased almost to an obsession. He didn't believe it would ever diminish. Despite the torture, the carnage, the stress, she continued to exude that waif-like air – that hint of dreamy vulnerability that he knew was so deceptive but found almost maddeningly seductive.

  Caine pointed a burn-scarred finger at one of the lapel-badges on his tunic – an insignia that Nolan hadn't seen before. ‘Looks like a flying dagger,’ she commented.

  ‘It does, but actually it's a flaming sword. I'm told it's meant to be Excalibur – you know, King Arthur, Knights of the Round Table?’

  She nodded, peered closer at the scrolled motto. ‘Who Dares Wins,’ she read. ‘At least it's positive. Maybe it should read, ‘Who Dares Wins If They're Lucky, though.’

  Caine's forehead crinkled. ‘It's the only special-service mob left in the theatre, now Middle East Commando has broken up. It's officially “ ‘L’ Detachment of the Special Air Service Brigade”, or SAS, but I gather that's just a propaganda exercise. They call it “Stirling's Parashots” after the chap who set it up: David Stirling, a Guardsman. They're all para-trained. The idea is to deploy them behind enemy lines as a sort of airborne commando. With our old outfit being disbanded, I've been told that the Parashots are taking on a bunch of our lads. I've been thinking about applying – it's either the SAS or RTU, and I don't fancy going back to the Sappers or returning to Blighty. Anyway, to answer your question, I borrowed these togs off a pal who transferred to the SAS.’ He frowned and wiggled his right shoulder, still bandaged under the uniform. ‘I admit that the shoulders are a bit tight.’

  Nolan beamed, sipped wine. She took in Caine's tousled hair, the hard-core face, the steady, slate-grey eyes, the strong nose and jaw, the scarred, freckled features, the deep crescent of his chest. His way of talking – in enthusiastic bursts – was almost childlike, and very endearing. She felt a wave of tenderness, tilted her head to one side. ‘You don't look quite at home in service dress,’ she said.

  Caine guffawed. ‘Not surprising. Since I lost my commission, this is the first time I've ever worn it.’

  On the ride back to Cairo with the LRDG, a bumpy, eventful journey of nearly a week, Caine had told her almost all there was to tell about himself. She had known he'd once held a commission in the Royal Engineers, but he'd never explained how he'd come to lose it. Now, Nolan's eyes sun-slitted, her lips parted, cheekily erotic. ‘So how did you lose it? You promised to tell me.’

  Caine took a sip of wine, put his glass down on the table. ‘It's not that interesting,’ he said. ‘I suppose I should really be ashamed…’

  She drummed the table, mock baby-like. ‘Come on. Tell.’

  ‘All right,’ Caine sighed, rippling his shoulders uncomfortably under the tight jacket. He paused, composed himself, spoke hesitantly. ‘About a year ago, we were being pushed out of Cyrenaica by Rommel. We were withdrawing fast, but we kept running helter-skelter into our own minefields. They were supposed to be mapped, but a lot of them had been laid in haste and no one had bothered. An armoured brigade was held up by an unmapped minefield west of Benghazi, and I was sent with my Sapper detachment to pull the mines. A few miles out of town we passed through an Italian colonial settlement – a bit like the one where we ran into Michele. The Itie civilians were still there – just peasant families – but the place was being looted by an Allied infantry mob, I won't say who they were.’

  Nolan's face dropped in surprise. ‘Looted? That's not like our men.’

  ‘Looting's bad enough, but these boys were also beating the Ities to a pulp for no good reason, and dragging women and young girls out and gang-raping them. It was disgusting. I tried to stop them, but they told me where to stick myself…’

  He paused awkwardly and gazed back at her, saw that she was both enthralled and horrified.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  He sighed. ‘Look, it's not that I'm putting myself on a pedestal… I just couldn't stand it, that's all. War is war, all right, but what do women and kids have to do with it?’ He took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, I went to the CP to inform the battalion commander – a young half-colonel. He just waved me away as though it was nothing. Then I got mad.’ An embarrassed smile crossed Caine's mouth as he recalled the incident. ‘I pulled my Colt pistol, grabbed him by the throat, and told him that if he didn't order his boys to desist, and send his provost staff down to make sure they did, I'd blow his bloody block off…’

  Nolan gasped, looked appalled. ‘And did he?’ she asked.

  Caine blinked. ‘Yes, he did, but by the time I got my detachment to the minefield, the armoured brigade I'd bee
n sent to help had been bumped by the Hun. Oh, we got them through eventually, but not before they lost some men. I was blamed for that, and of course, I was guilty. I was lucky I only lost my commission: I could have been jankered for dereliction of duty. Then there was the business of threatening a superior officer. They went easy on me because they reckoned I'd acted with creditable motives.’

  He furrowed his brow. ‘They said I'd got my priorities wrong: protecting enemy civvies instead of our own boys. They reckoned that I'd treated my orders as a “basis for discussion”. I suppose they were right in a way, but if I hadn't stepped in to protect those girls, who was going to? When I saw what our men – our men – were doing to them, something snapped. I had to stop them. I couldn't help it.’

  He paused, his face flushed as though he'd just given away a big secret. Nolan studied him, nodded her golden head. ‘That's it,’ she said. ‘That's why they roped you in for Runefish. Your record. I knew there had to be something…’ She thought it over for a moment, drank some wine. Caine was looking uncertain, and his expression made her want to hold him, comfort him. Instead she covered his large hand with her smaller one. ‘Some things are more important than orders,’ she said. ‘What you did showed real integrity – integrity as a human being, I mean. Deep down, your top brass knew it. You were ideal for the Runefish mission, because this time they didn't want blind obedience. They wanted someone who would second-guess his orders to take me out.’

  They sat in silence for a moment, chewing it over. Caine's revelation of his past had reminded Nolan of recent news she'd acquired at GHQ. ‘Julian Avery's dead,’ she told him. ‘That was the G(R) officer who trained me for the mission. He was tortured and shot by the same psychopath I came across in the act of raping and killing Lady Mary Goddard…’