by Leo Kessler
Now McLeod had his answer ready. "The Indians, I suspect, White. Who else, eh?"
"Well, let's go and get the buggers," the aircraftsman answered, grasping his rifle more tightly and preparing to rise, face set and hard in the silver light of the stars.
McLeod grabbed him hastily. "Let's take it easy, White. We don't want to go at it like a bull at a gate. We want to take some of them, at least, alive, and we can only do that if we don't engage in a shooting match. Besides, for all we know, they might outnumber us."
White spat drily into the sand. "Ay, sir, but they's darkies and we're white, ain't we? Besides, sir, we've got the two Vickers in the armoured cars." But McLeod wasn't listening. For he was already working out a plan of attack and it didn't include waking up half the countryside with the racket that the ancient armoured cars would make starting up. His RAF crewmen would complain, but there was no other way. They'd have to go in on foot, catching the Indians, if it was the Indians, by surprise. And the best time to do that was just before dawn, when the enemy would be still huddled in their blankets catching a last few minutes of sleep before yet another day in that harsh sun commenced. There was only one catch, he told himself. Whoever was sending that Morse might well be awake at dawn and give the alarm. But that was a chance McLeod was prepared to take. Suddenly he felt happy. It was like the times when he had been a young man, eager, in that silly way of young officers, to get into action. He smiled to himself and then started to give White his orders.
CHAPTER 4
Commandant Lestrade slumped in the easy chair, legs apart, flies open, and watched the plump Syrian girl, one of the many he ordered from the Damascus red-light district when he was on night duty and there were none of the damned Boche officers around, tut-tutting about lax morals like a lot of damned old maids. In the next room, the operators were still taking the Morse messages from the infiltrators. It was his job to ensure security was watertight and report anything urgent to the Germans of the so-called 'control commission', which, in reality, was a cover for the new masters of French Syria.
Not that he had minded. He had been working secretly for the Boche and other fascist organizations since 1938. Back before the war, he had reported to the right-wing French Calougards; then, when he had been posted to the Maginot Line a year later, he had transferred his allegiance totally to the Germans, betraying to them what he knew of the French fortifications in the Metz-Montmédy area. They had paid him well, especially after the Wehrmacht had been able to break through so easily in that area thanks, in part, to his information. After their victory, there had been little for him to do to earn enough francs to pay for the perverted girls he liked, and the rest of what he called his 'little luxuries'. A major's pay meant nothing, especially now that the franc had been effectively devalued.
It had been for this reason that he had jumped at the chance of a posting to Syria to replace an officer who had refused to pledge his loyalty to Vichy France, and had defected to the English swine to join that gawky traitor General de Gaulle.
Naturally the Boche had contacted him almost as soon as he had arrived in the French colony. They were well-organized swine. Still, their money was good and it meant that he could afford a regular supply of young Syrian whores and the like, who could perform for him during these long nights when he was on duty at this secret listening post.
Now, while the Morse buzzed in the next room, he fondled his flaccid penis, his red, pig-like eyes glistening as he watched the whore's every move, giving her instructions every now and again on how to excite him even more, though he was finding it increasingly difficult to get the satisfaction he sought. "Do it more slowly," he commanded, as the naked whore gyrated in front of him, her dark body sweating as if she were smeared with Vaseline. "You know how long it takes me to get really excited." He pulled hopefully at his organ. Nothing! He cursed and gazed at the woman once more, licking his thick red sensualist's lips as he did so.
Outside, a section of the Foreign Legion were marching by. Once they had chanted the slow march of the Legion, the Boudin, when they had marched. Now they sang one of those damned Boche marching songs: O, du schöner Westerwald or something like that. Naturally the Boche commission in Damascus had cultivated the Legion; half of the soldiers were German anyway. They'd be useful in the great battle to come, Lestrade told himself.
For a moment he forgot the naked girl attempting to seduce him. He didn't know the Boches' plan, of course. He was just a minor cog in the machinery, he realised that. But whatever it was, it was big, very big. Why else were these Indians out there in the desert on the other side of the Syrian border? They had some sort of important role in whatever was planned. They had to be important. Why else would the Boche pay him good money to record their messages and pass them on to the German commission here in Damascus? They would have been forced to bribe Colonel Joubert of the French Deuxième Bureau too, so that he, Lestrade, could use this facility – and it took money, big money, to bribe the head of the French secret service.
The whore had opened her legs wider now, revealing the black line of pubic hair and the faint pink behind it. He caught his breath. She was exciting him now. He already felt a slight tumescence in his flabby loins. "Agitate it," he ordered. "Play with it. That is really exciting."
"Oui, mon Commandant," she said obediently. She wet her middle finger and brushed it lightly between her legs. She pretended to shiver, as if with sexual pleasure.
"Good, good!" he choked, fat face turning red with excitement now, his lips suddenly dry. He pressed his penis more strongly. "You shall have it soon," he choked. "But you must wait till my great thing is ready to penetrate you. Then you'll scream, you damned little slut."
"Yes," she breathed in feigned ecstasy, moving her middle finger up and down more rapidly, as if she could barely contain her passion. Under her breath she whispered contemptuously, "Sale con."
"You can do it faster now," he called huskily. "I'm... getting there. Faster!" He touched his ugly member with his fat paw proudly, as if he had achieved something of great significance.
She did as he wished, groaning a little, her eyes half-closed. The sooner she got it over with, the better, she told herself. "How you torment me," she sighed, her mouth suddenly slack, as if she had been transported by overwhelming passion into a sexual world of her own.
His piggy eyes flashed greedily, taking in every detail of her writhing dark body. "You're enjoying it, aren't you?" he gasped throatily. "I wager you do it all the time... when I'm not here." He groaned. "Just waiting... till I can pleasure you down there with my great thing."
"Yes... yes!" she cried, twisting her head from side to side, her long hair swinging wildly with the movement of her body. "You must do it to me... I can't wait... please, I beg you... do it to me... Now!" The plea seemed to explode from her wet gaping mouth.
"Hold it... hold it... I shall do it," he gasped, pulling mightily at his penis, his face glazed with sweat, brick-red with the strain, as if he might have a stroke at any moment.
She risked a quick look at him, as he writhed in his chair. His fat body was trembling with lust as he tugged mightily at his organ. Clochon! she cursed to herself. How much longer? At that moment she wished she weren't here. Why didn't the bastard have a stroke and get it over with? Even the Unteroffizier from the Boche control commission, whom she 'serviced' every Saturday afternoon after he had received his pay, was better than this swine of a fellow countryman. He didn't make all this fuss. He paid his money, let her wash his loins and put on the stout German contraceptive, trademark Vulkan, and then got on with it. Afterwards he left her a little present, saluted her for some reason, and said, in the few words of French he spoke, "A bientôt," then departed.
"Allez... allez," he alerted her to her duties. "I am ready now. Come on top of it before it goes down... I shall give it to you... Vite!"
"Je viens," she responded, stopping playing with herself. She was already hurting down there as it was.
"Hu
rry, I'll give you it."
But Commandant Lestrade was not fated to give the Syrian whore 'it' this night, or any other night for that matter. In the next room, the frantic buzz of Morse had ceased abruptly. Then, while the whore positioned herself above the the gasping officer, his eyes screwed tightly shut as if he wished to blot out everything but his sexual fantasies, his pudgy hands feeling for her hips blindly, there was a sudden urgent hammering on the door of his little office, and an alarmed voice was crying, "Mon Commandant... Commandant... nous avons un probleme... la transmission d'Irak... the transmission is broken!"
***
He was waiting for her outside the Café de la Legion, kepi tilted rakishly to one side of his shaven head, woollen scarf thrown carelessly about his neck, cheap cigarette glued to the side of his mouth. She gave her tight little whore's smile. Her contact was doing his Jean Gabin act again. Still, 'Jo-Jo', as she called him, didn't demand anything from her but information, for which he paid; and, for some reason, she felt, he wasn't one of those turncoats and traitors who seemed to fill Damascus these days.
Jo-Jo shook her hand and then embraced her in the French fashion, though somehow she didn't think he was French, despite his fluent knowledge of the language, and the French style which he cultivated. "A drink?" he asked. "We've still got time before the curfew."
She shook her head. "I drink too much already."
He nodded his understanding. "Bon. What news from the fat commandant of the teleprinters? Did you get anything out of him – " he hesitated momentarily – "er – afterwards?"
She wondered at that 'afterwards' and the pause before it. Frenchmen, especially soldiers, weren't usually so sensitive. Was he a Boche? There were plenty of them in the Legion. She dismissed the idea. The Boche might be respectful, but they weren't modest in the matter of sex. Was he perhaps a Rosbif? Before she had time to answer that question to herself, he said: "Two flics!"
She knew what to do immediately. Neither of them wanted the two gendarmes sauntering down the darkened avenue, swinging their white clubs, to stop and question them, perhaps even ask for their papers. She swept into his arms, as they came closer, chatting softly to one another, that is, if flics could ever talk softly.
Jo-Jo, if that was his real name, also knew the drill. He put his arms around her and whispered into her ear, "I'll show 'em your arse. The flics always like to see a piece of rump flesh. Satisfies the pig in them."
She giggled and felt his big hand on her backside. She wasn't wearing knickers. She never did when she was working. Some pervert or so would have surely stolen them. The flics came closer. Jo-Jo worked his lower body closer to hers, as if he were already slipping it to her. She felt him raise her skirt even higher, so that the two cops could get an eyeful.
They did. One of them laughed coarsely and commented, "You've got it in the wrong place, sonny," and then, swinging their clubs, they passed on without any further comment.
Jo-Jo released her when they had turned the corner. She said, "Did you like that, Jo-Jo? And it didn't cost you anything."
"Yes. Of course. Many thanks."
She realised he had no interest in her sexual charms, though she could tell from his reaction as he had pressed close to her a moment before that he was straight. He said, "Anything then?"
Swiftly she told him what had transpired, just as the fat swine had been about to finish his piggery, and how his anger had changed to anxiety when the clerk had told him what had happened in the radio room. He hadn't even slapped her and blamed it all on her, as was often the case when she couldn't get him sexually aroused, or when anything else had gone wrong; he had been too concerned to get the information, whatever it was, to his German masters.
Jo-Jo listened attentively to what she had to say.
When she had finished, he asked, "And you're sure that the clerk said from Iraq? It's important, you know."
She didn't know, but all the same she nodded and assured him that was what the clerk had said.
For a moment, the two of them stood there in the gloom of the 'dim-out' while Jo-Jo obviously considered what she had said. Then, as the siren started to sound the approach of the nightly curfew for Damascus, he reached into his wallet and handed her the usual payment before saying, "Thank you for your help, chérie. You are a good girl." He tapped her pert rump playfully and, for a moment, she was tempted to ask him to come home with her and dance the mattress polka for free. But then she saw he was anxious to be on his way, though before he did so, he surprised her. Setting his white kepi at the regulation angle, just in case he met the military police on his way to the barracks, if that was where he was going now, he reached forward and pressed his lips against hers. She was caught completely by surprise. For when had even a common soldier kissed a whore? But before she could recover and ask him if he were suffering from the cafard or some other brain disease, he was gone with a murmured "au revoir, chérie", to disappear into the gloom.
CHAPTER 5
McLeod's little group of RAF men had come in on both flanks. The going had been tough, made tougher by the darkness. They had encountered a ridge on the left flank and had been forced to climb it. Digging their toes into the soft rock and sand, they had edged their way up it, fighting the sharp-bladed grass and camel thorn which ripped and tore at their uniforms and flesh cruelly.
McLeod was fit, but he was twice as old as his men and within seconds he was panting hard, desperately trying not to cry out when the thorn ripped his arms. Once he slipped and ripped off a nail. Red-hot agonizing pain shot through his body and he had to bite his bottom lip till the blood came to suppress a cry.
But in the end they made it and peered down at the little encampment. As McLeod had guessed, the Indians were enjoying the last minutes of their sleep before the dawn came, and the sole sentry was slumped in front of a flickering fire of camel thorn and dung, rifle resting between his skinny brown knees, a blanket thrown over his shoulders. It was obvious that the Indians anticipated no danger.
Still, McLeod, the old hand, was careful. As the rest of his group came in from the other flank, he surveyed the ground for any sign of enemy precautions – empty ration tins filled with pebbles dangling from wire, sharpened wooden stakes set at an angle in holes and the like. But there appeared to be none.
Slowly the squadron leader raised his clumsy-looking flare pistol. With it he would signal his two groups to attack, and at the same time signal the two men guarding the armoured cars that they were going in. He didn't want the two men some two hundred yards to the rear to get jumpy when the firing commenced.
He had curled his finger around the trigger, knowing, as he did on all such occasions, that by doing so he might start something in which good men could be killed. Then he dismissed the thought and took final pressure. The pistol barked. There had been a slithering hiss. Smoke ejected from the big brass muzzle. The flare shot into the pre-dawn sky. A second went by. Another. Below, in the little camp, nothing stirred. The bark of the Verey pistol had not even alerted the sentry swathed in his blanket at the camp fire.
A crack. Sharp like a bone-dry twig snapping underfoot in a summer forest. The Verey flare burst into a blossom of glowing incandescent green. Suddenly, startlingly, all hell had broken loose. From the flanks, the two groups of RAF men had started to advance, firing from the hip as they did so. At the fire, the Indian sentry threw off his blanket. Frantically he had grabbed for his rifle. Too late. McLeod rose and, tossing aside his Verey pistol, fired his .38. At that range he could not have missed. The Indian shrieked with agony. He threw up his skinny brown arms like someone attempting to cling to life as it was ripped away from him. But there was no escaping Death. He staggered. Next moment he slammed face forward into the wood fire. Abruptly the air was full of the sickening stench of burning human flesh.
Now a wild firefight had broken out. Like men advancing against a gale, crouched low and firing from the hip, the attackers advanced. An RAF man cursed. He went down clutching his shattered kn
ee, crying obscenities. Still the others came on, firing into the Indians, who, trained soldiers as they were, were milling around in confusion, as if they didn't know what to do next.
In truth they had little choice but to stand and fight it out. The RAF men had them trapped; and now they were enjoying that feeling that they were in charge. Perhaps it was an outlet for their frustrations at being stationed in this arse of the world, with its heat, flies, sickness and the lack of women. Now they took almost sadistic pleasure in gunning the trapped Indians down without mercy. Twice McLeod thought he heard someone shout in English. "Cease firing please... No shoot!" But the attackers took no notice. Neither did they when McLeod himself bellowed. "I want prisoners, men... For Chrissake, don't shoot all of 'em. I need prisoners..." The unreasoning lust of battle had taken over, that atavistic desire to kill and kill again. Undoubtedly they would have slaughtered the Indians to the last man but for the sudden flight of flares to the rear, where the two RAF men guarded the armoured cars, followed a moment later by an urgent burst of Vickers fire.
"Shit!" McLeod exclaimed, knowing instinctively that something had gone wrong. The flares signalled immediate return to base. More importantly, the burst of machine-gun fire indicated that the cars themselves seemed to be under attack. Abruptly his carefully planned attack on the unsuspecting Indians had gone horribly wrong.
McLeod hesitated no longer. He cupped his hands about his mouth and bellowed above the angry snap and crack of the small arms battle, "Pull back, lads... at the double now, pull back!"
His men needed no urging. No one wanted to be left behind in this desert waste and at the mercy of the Indians and the natives. They all knew what happened to lone Englishmen captured by the locals. A quick death was a blessing.
