by Tony Roberts
Casca screamed in rage and threw the table aside in one heave, sending it hurtling to destruction against the wall. All conversation stopped and Begos came panting in to see the two men facing each other with blades in their hands. He was too late to stop it, and could only watch as the two circled each other, watching, searching for an opening.
Casca sucked in his breath through his teeth, fury directed at the bearded man who mocked him from three feet away. Suddenly he lunged forward, grabbing Bausset’s wrist that held the knife and plunging forward with his bayonet. Bausset caught his right wrist and stopped the blade inches from his face. Slowly they inched back towards the wall, Casca forcing the other man back step by step, tendons standing out bar taut on his neck and arms.
Bausset came up against the wall and desperately struggled to keep the wicked blade from his face. His own knife was making no progress and Casca’s fingers were digging deeper and deeper into his wrist, numbing the nerves and slowly forcing his fingers open. The knife clattered to the ground, witnessed by the fascinated people in the tavern, all of whom were standing watching, waiting to see the end of the contest.
“A failure, am I, you ugly bastard?” Casca hissed venomously. “Then what do you call someone who loses their own life?”
Bausset panted and looked up at the ice cold merciless look he was being given. His life was on a knife-edge. “Please, I-I didn’t mean to do it… take it, it’s yours!”
“I will, don’t you worry,” Casca breathed, and broke through Bausset’s grip. The bayonet sank deep into Bausset’s neck and he screamed in pain and fear. Casca plunged it in deep right to the hilt. Bausset sank to the ground, the bayonet an obscene sight in his neck, blood spraying out over the wall. Casca watched him dispassionately, then reached inside the dying man’s jacket and found what he was seeking. He pulled out the icon and compared it to the one he had. They matched.
He turned his back on the grisly sight and walked towards the door. Begos was looking slightly sick and others crowded round in fascination, wondering why they had fought so. “It’s over, Etienne,” Casca said softly, drained.
“It is, my friend,” a voice came menacingly from the left. Casca turned to see an officer standing there, a look of disgust on his face. “You’re under arrest for murder. You’ll be shot for this.”
Casca gave the captain a long look of contempt. “And what will that achieve?” As he spoke he pressed the two icons into Begos’ hand. “Keep them safe,” he said quietly. “Show no one.”
The captain waved two guardsmen over to take Casca away to the holding pen close to the tavern. “I’ll file a report to Colonel Pegot immediately. Don’t worry, we won’t hang about, I should think the sentence will be handed out this afternoon.”
They took him out, leaving a distraught Begos alone with the two icons in his hand.
Sentence was, as promised, short and concise. Colonel Pegot had been stunned by the news of the murder and demanded of Casca why. Casca had shrugged and explained it as a private feud. Pegot had then told him there was nothing he could do and that he would be shot later that afternoon. Casca had one last request, to see Begos. Pegot had granted him that, but under the watchful gaze of two men armed to the teeth.
“You wanted to see me?” Begos had asked, sitting down in the small secured cell opposite Casca.
“Yes, I have a few favors to ask you, lad. Please do this for the sake of my friendship and the memories of what we went through back there in Russia, you understand?”
“Of course! How could I refuse?”
Casca smiled tiredly. “Then please arrange for me to be placed in a church close to here after sentence has been carried out, and you will visit me, and place those two icons I gave you in one of my pockets. You promise to do that for me? No burial, no cremation, just place me in a church for the Russians to bury later.”
Begos had frowned at the unusual request but had nodded. “There is a church nearby and I shall ask the priest there as soon as I leave here. I will let you know if it is agreed. It is a catholic country and they don’t do cremations.” He had embraced Casca, tears in his eyes, and then left.
Casca was called for an hour later and escorted out into the yard next to the cell. A line of six men, all armed, stood quietly waiting. Against the wall stood a solitary wooden post. Colonel Pegot stood there, sadness in his face. “To come through all that madness, and yet to succumb to madness of a different sort here, is beyond my understanding. You are one of the bravest men I’ve ever met, yet I do not understand why you killed that man.”
“Colonel, he wasn’t a man. He deserved to die. Oh, and before I forget, Wolinski. I killed him too, a few days ago. He deserved to die too.”
Pegot shook his head slowly. “I don’t understand. Your own side?”
“Wolinski was never on my side. He was a Russian sympathizer. Take that memory with you back to France, Colonel.”
Pegot looked even more confused. He waved at the guards to tie Casca to the post, and stood at the end of the line of men as the disgraced man was tied. He sighed and nodded at the squad officer, the same captain who’d arrested Casca.
“Squad, aim!” Six muzzles raised and centered on Casca’s chest. Casca looked round and saw Begos at the yard entrance, unable to come any closer because two more guards were preventing him. But Begos nodded at Casca.
And Casca looked away, up at the sky, and smiled.
EPILOGUE
The deep growl of the Maybach engine cut out abruptly and the grassy flat plains once more knew silence. The lone Panzer IV struck a discordant note amongst the flowers, grasses and buzzing insects, the heat rising from it in barely discernable waves. Almost on cue, three hatches swung up and open, clanging against the hull, and three black-clad men wearing the distinctive insignia of the Wehrmacht’s tank corps popped their heads up and surveyed the scene.
“What the hell are we stopped in this boring place for?” Gus Beidemann, the giant Neanderthalic driver of the tank demanded, staring at the flat nothingness. He popped a spicy sausage into the maw he called a mouth and turned to stare up at the man sitting out of the turret’s hatch, Feldwebel Carl Langer. Langer looked at the horizon, as if seeking something, the scar running down the side of his face making a distinctive feature of his lean, hard face. He appeared to see something in the distance, nodded to himself and jumped down onto the ground, carrying a small satchel. He paused by the front of the tank and smiled at Beidemann. “Patience, Gus. Just a little break. You can relieve yourself out here before we carry on to the front.”
“Is that an order, Herr Feldwebel?” Beidemann boomed. “I have permission to piss for the greater glory of Germany in its struggle against the Untermensch of Eastern Europe?” He suddenly emerged from the tank, a bear of a man, and slammed into the earth, sending up a small cloud. He clicked his heels together and shot an arm up straight in a perfect imitation of the salute Hitler and his Nazi cronies demanded of their subjects. “Jawohl, Herr Feldwebel, I shall urinate here and add my contribution to the final victory. Sieg Heil!”
“Knock it off, Gus,” another man said from the turret. Teacher, the loader, had appeared in the wake of Langers and shook his head at Gus’s sarcasm. Langer, though, appeared not to take any notice, which, Teacher mused, was probably the best course of action. He looked away as Gus unbuttoned his trousers and proceeded to describe to anyone in hearing distance, which consisted only of the tank crew, what he was doing.
As Beidemann began writing his name in urine against the side of the tank, Langer strode away towards a particularly lumpy part of the land, rich with weeds and grasses. A sense of being here before came over him, which was no surprise as he recalled the only other time he’d been this way, over a hundred and twenty years before – nearly a hundred and thirty, he realized – he’d made a promise. Now he could fulfill that promise, finally.
He knelt and brushed the ground with one hand. The grass parted and the earth here seemed rough and crumbly. A stone was ju
st under the surface and Langer – or Casca – nodded to himself. Here was the place. He stood up and scanned slowly left to right. He saw what could be the remains of a wall and walked over to it, the satchel dangling idly from his right hand.
Beidemann had finished and was leaning against the front of the tank. Teacher came up to him, his lined and kindly face looking on with concern at the back of Langer. The scar-faced tankman had always been a little unusual, but his behavior in recent days had been odd even for him. His insistence at detouring to Königsberg and visiting the old cathedral, then making another detour afterwards to this place, nowhere, had all the crew scratching their heads. “Don’t ask, Gus,” he said softly, “I don’t know what he’s doing.”
Beidemann belched, patting his stomach. “Well, he’d better hurry, whatever he’s doing, I’m hungry and that waits for no one, not even Carl.”
Teacher shook his head again and walked away slowly, his thoughts on other things. Langer had by now reached a flat area and an experimental scrape with his jackboot revealed a stone floor. He looked about and slowly recognized the remnants of walls to left and right. He stepped forward and then knelt again and brushed aside weeds, dirt and a few stones. A step revealed itself and he scraped a small hollow and brought out from the satchel two red and white icons, identical to each other.
“I said I’d bring them back,” he said softly in Polish, “I’m just sorry it took so long.” He’d never intended to take so long to return the icons, but the situation in eastern Europe after the collapse of the French army in 1812 had meant he’d had to leave Poland behind and hide the icons in the cathedral in the fortress city of Königsberg. He’d taken a chance in retrieving them the previous week but Gus had happily agreed to detour off their main route at night with the bribe of visiting the brothels along the docklands. Langer had retrieved the icons and then had to go retrieve Gus who’d rampaged through the main brothel like a rutting elephant.
He placed the icons reverently in the hollow and then covered them up, patting dirt over the top of them. “Rest in peace, little one,” he said and stood up, staring down at the disturbed spot for a moment, then he turned about and strode purposefully back towards the Panzer. His heart was lighter now that he, Casca Rufio Longinus, once of the Imperial French army, now of the armed forces of the Third Reich, had completed a promise made to a dying girl in what had once been a church back there.
“About time,” Beidemann bellowed, jumping back into the tank. “I’m dying of starvation and need to get to camp before I pass away!”
“Scant chance of that,” Langer replied, reaching the tank and climbing up. One mission had been fulfilled, and now he and his buddies were going to start another; a war was about to break out and they would be in the vanguard of the attack. Langer settled into the hatch seat and stared out towards the church. Beidemann slammed the Panzer into life and it span on one track and shot off south-eastwards towards their destination.
Langer half-smiled. Yet again it was Russia.
Continuing Casca’s adventures, book 31 The Conqueror
Casca rises from the dead after his Normandy farm is senselessly burned, and the hunt for those responsible takes him to Caen where Duke William is gathering a mighty army to invade Saxon England.
His quest to get even is distracted by a beautiful woman, and Casca is torn between winning her heart or going after a ruthless member of the Norman army.
Casca follows both to England where the future of the kingdom will be decided on the battlefield and he will have the chance to gain honor, prestige and a title in order to win the woman for himself. But winning on the battlefield doesn’t mean his quest is over. Only when the man he
seeks lies broken at his feet will he finally achieve his aim.
For more information on the entire Casca series see www.casca.net
The Barry Sadler website www.barrysadler.com
