Code of Combat

by Michael Asher

  He directed a burst of harsh syllables at Karloff: the rifleman looked abashed, swayed on his feet. The officer turned back to Emilia.

  ‘You vill return to your rooms, Fräulein. But first I hev a message for you. It was for the morning, but now you are here . . . It is your brother . . . Ettore? He has been arrested . . . as terrorist. Tomorrow, Herr Stengel vill visit you . . . to discuss his execution.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jesi, Le Marche, Italy

  4 October 1943

  Bunny Butterfield huddled in the corner of his cell, listened for footfalls in the corridor. It was about an hour since they’d marched Caine off. He wondered what they were doing to him, decided he didn’t want to know.

  He’d been in the punishment block a month, with only brief stints out in the exercise yard: it had become so monotonous that he almost looked forward to the interrogations, despite the routine knocking-about that went with them. Grolsch was better than Stengel, though. While Grolsch was ready to hurt people because it was part of his job, you could tell that Stengel enjoyed it. That, with his constant twitching, grunting, mumbling, and whistling, was enough to put the wind up anyone.

  Stengel suspected he’d been sent to snatch the Codex. Butterfield was convinced that was why he’d been left when the others had been taken away. So far, he’d managed to keep the story under his hat, but how much longer he could do it, he wasn’t certain. Now, Stengel had given him three days to admit that he was here for the manuscript and to reveal where it was hidden. If he didn’t come up with answers by then, he’d go the way of the others.

  He wondered if the operation had been worth it. The whole team missing, presumed dead: myself on the condemned list? Is a book worth the lives of those men? He decided it was. The Nazis had already gobbled up half of Europe’s art treasures. Why should Hitler get away with the only extant manuscript of Tacitus’s Germania?

  Butterfield longed to get his hands on the Codex. He loved beautiful, old things: it gave him a thrill just to be near a medieval artwork, to caress a Greek amphora, to handle a book written before London even existed. As a child in prep school, ignored by his parents, he’d found solace in paintings, sculptures, carvings, leather-bound volumes, archaeological treasures – they gave him the satisfaction of knowing that material objects could outlast a few short lives. After school he’d pulled strings to get a job with Sotheby’s: while working there he’d started to build up a small collection of his own.

  As a Sotheby’s insider, it hadn’t been difficult to locate precious artefacts – a manuscript here, a miniature there, a statuette somewhere else: it had to be small and easy to conceal. Neither had it been hard to case the joint – protesting Sotheby’s concern for the security of the objects they were to auction. It was remarkable how lax some clients were. He did sell a few items to keep his funds topped up, but he didn’t do it for the money: he did it because he was a collector – and because he enjoyed the thrill.

  When the war came along he’d signed up for the Int. Corps, expecting to get a cushy number. Instead they’d posted him as Assistant IO to 2nd SAS in Algeria. When he’d found out it was a special-service unit, he’d almost blown a gasket. He’d quickly stowed it, though, when they’d told him that part of his job would be collecting art treasures in Italy. It was as if a chest of bright wonders had just opened up. The parachute course had almost killed him, but luckily he’d been inducted into the unit without having to endure the rest of the blood, sweat and carry-on.

  The Codex wasn’t just any old book. It was regarded by SS-Chief Himmler as the German bible. The int. that the Nazis were about to grab it had galvanized Butterfield into overcoming his antipathy to combat: not that he was afraid – he just didn’t see much point in risking one’s life unless one got something out of it. He’d been in the Int. Corps two years and this was his first taste of action. Well, the action didn’t last long. Landed behind enemy lines: Jerry bagged me in the first minute.

  He hadn’t given up the idea of snatching the Codex. If I ever get out of here, that is. The chances of that, though, were slim. He thought about Tom Caine. Could it be coincidence that an officer so renowned for his ability to get himself and others out of tight corners had dropped from the blue into his very cell? Hadn’t Caine brought back that female SOE agent from behind enemy lines? Hadn’t he survived an op in Libya where the Nazis had exposed him to a nerve toxin? And another in Tunisia, where his section had held a bridge against a Kraut advance? Caine may not know it, but he’s going to help me. If anyone can find a way out of this place, it’s him. He heard the creak of Jerry boots along the corridor outside.

  The guards shoved Caine into the door of his cell, jerked him back, unlocked it. They kicked him inside, tripped him over for good measure. He headbutted the floor, felt blood spurt from his nose again. He rolled over on his back, groaned: the door slammed shut.

  Butterfield crept over to him. ‘You all right, old fellow?’

  Caine sat up, pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger, peered at the blood on his hand. ‘I’ve been better.’

  ‘Who was it? What did they do?’

  ‘Chap with a face like a vicar: Grolsch, I think his name was. Never touched me, though. Only showed me an order from Hitler saying that all captured British commandos are to be executed.’

  Butterfield stiffened. ‘What? They never showed me that. It’s official, then?’

  ‘That’s what he said: it might be a bluff.’

  He wiped blood off his nose with the sleeve of his blouse.

  ‘It’s no bluff, I tell you.’ Butterfield wobbled his bulbous head. ‘Howard and the others are six feet under, and I’m next on the list.’

  Caine remembered his dream: a girl in a white dress. Five graves, five sacred ibises, five dandelion seeds buried in the forest.

  ‘There was another bloke in the office with Grolsch,’ he said. ‘An Englishman in SS uniform. Name of Amray. Queerest thing I’ve ever seen. He actually tried to get me to join the Nazis – British Free Corps he called it.’

  ‘Traitor bastard,’ Butterfield said. ‘Don’t have anything to do with him.’

  ‘Did he give you the same proposition?’

  ‘Never met him, but I heard he had a go at my team.’

  ‘He said that, if they’d accepted, he could have saved them.’

  Butterfield stared at Caine, his sound eye gleaming. ‘Saved them from what? That’s as good as an admission that they are dead.’ He examined his small hands. ‘I’ve got three days to come up with the goods – you heard what Stengel said.’ He searched Caine’s face. ‘Do you think there might be any way out of this, old man? I hear you’re rather handy at that sort of thing. Didn’t you once climb out of a hundred-foot well Fritz dropped you into and slaughter three of them with a rusty knife?’

  ‘My finest hour,’ Caine scoffed. ‘I wasn’t locked in a cell, though. The Jerries thought I was dead: they never expected me to get out.’

  He sat up straight, pushed himself back until his spine touched the wall. He leaned against it, eyed the major’s pudding-like face: the bulging neck, the drooping dewlaps. He couldn’t get used to the idea that this was an SAS officer he was looking at. He didn’t blame the fellow for being windy, but the continual harping on the fact that he was next on the list put Caine on his guard. It gave him the feeling that Butterfield was trying to manipulate him. For what? To help him escape, probably. Yet, looked at in another way, it could all be an act. Today he’d met an Englishman in Nazi uniform: if that was possible, anything was. True, Butterfield had known about Blaney, but then he might have got it from anywhere. And if he was being pumped for int., why not just spill it? Holding out might be heroic, but SAS operational procedure was to drop a cover story after the first forty-eight hours. Butterfield had been in here a month now.

  He pressed himself against the wall, raised his shoulders, squeezed his nose. ‘If this Stengel is threatening to have you shot, why not tell him what he wants to know? No
point holding on if your life is in the balance. Any strategic stuff you can tell him will have been stale for weeks.’

  Butterfield gave him a hunted look. ‘That presupposes I know the answer to his question, old man. The fact is, I don’t.’

  Caine shook his head. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘You’ve just asked me to help you get out of this place. I might consider it, but first I want to know what it is you can’t tell Jerry. Why is an Assistant IO working behind enemy lines? What are you doing here?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Termoli, Puglia, Italy

  6 October 1943

  The streets of Termoli lay in smoking ruins: jagged holes in walls, roofs demolished, entire house-façades crumbled and strewn across the streets in fans of broken glass, matchwood and rubble. Smashed shutters were festooned with torn sheets and curtains, flapping like celebration flags. Some houses were still smouldering: children cried, families fussed around sticks of furniture they’d managed to pull out. On the way back from the defence, Harry Copeland clocked a knot of Tommies in a side-street trying to blow open a safe, saw another bunch gleefully carrying off a piano. It was looting pure and simple, but neither Paddy Mayne nor he had the energy to stop it.

  The Commando Brigade had not only taken Termoli, they’d also defended the town all night against a savage Jerry counter-attack. The boys played a blinder, as Mayne put it. In three days, the SAS had sustained more casualties than they’d taken in the entire desert campaign. They’d done the job, though. You couldn’t blame them for letting off steam.

  The aid post was in the Franciscan monastery near the waterfront. After they’d checked the wounded there, they crossed the road to the palazzo where Mayne had set up his command post. They found a spontaneous frat-session in full swing: British commandos, town big-wigs, local belles in best party-frocks hugging, smooching, squeezing, back-slapping, babbling in incoherent voices. At least some of these Ities must have supported the Nazis, Copeland thought: now they were celebrating the British victory with gusto. Cigarette smoke danced along shafts of sunlight: flagons of vino went round: couples waltzed tipsily to the tune of a little man with a walrus moustache playing a piano-accordion.

  When the noise became unbearable, Mayne and Copeland took mugs of wine through wide double doors into the salon, a room opulently furnished with Persian rugs, brocaded armchairs and settees, a gramophone, a long mirror and, to Mayne’s delight, a full-sized billiard table.

  ‘Who’s for a wee game nauy?’

  Copeland gaped at him: Mayne’s enthusiasm for any kind of game or sport was legendary, and he wasn’t the kind of person you turned down, not even if you were dropping on your feet after three days’ combat. Right now, though, the last thing Cope wanted was to knock little balls into holes. He caught sight of himself in the mirror: gore-soiled battledress hanging from his lean shoulders, clawed hands, field-dressing on his wrist, face black with dirt, dried blood on his teeth. He shuddered.

  Mayne set his mug on the mantelpiece, chose a snooker cue from the rack, gauged its straightness. He cocked an eye at Cope.

  ‘All right, sir.’

  Mayne unslung his Mi carbine, stood it against the wall. He moved to the table, scooped the red snooker balls together, set them in the triangular frame. Copeland put down his mug, leaned his sniper’s weapon against the table, placed the coloured balls, chalked a cue. ‘Go for the break, Major,’ he said.

  Mayne inclined his scrum-forward’s torso, lined up the white ball with the wedge of reds: his hands moved with a delicacy Copeland always found startling in such a slab of a man. He watched fascinated as Mayne drew back the cue between his thumb and finger, paused for a split second, as if he were taking first pressure on a trigger. He hit the white in exactly the right spot, with exactly the right force: balls clacked: reds spun in all directions.

  Cope didn’t see snooker balls fly, though, he saw blinding streamers of flame flash from the muzzle of a Kraut gun, saw Smith’s jaw come apart in scarlet rivets, saw red claws of fire that ripped Sergeant Hardman limb from limb, saw crimson gore spume out of a man with a carbine stuck through his neck. He shivered, gasped at the vividness of the images. He’d left Caine in that dyke with Wade and Slocum. All right, it was an order, and he’d got the boys back to Termoli, but still, he could have stayed. Now Caine was in the bag: a recce patrol had returned to the position later, accounted for everybody but him. What with the shelling of the town, and the all-night defensive action, he hadn’t had much chance to think about it. Now it hit him that he might not see Caine again for the rest of the war, maybe never.

  Mayne cradled the cue along the crook of his left elbow, sent him a quizzical glance. ‘I thought we had a game, Harry?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I was just thinking about Tom Caine. The recce patrol didn’t recover his body – must be in the bag.’

  Mayne let out a long sigh. ‘That’s a third of the squadron lost since we landed in Italy, so it is.’

  ‘We shouldn’t have been used as storm-troopers, sir. Colonel Stirling said that the idea of the SAS was stealth if possible, force if necessary. He ruled out stand-up battles.’

  Mayne’s face screwed up. ‘You’re telling me about it? A mon out of OCTU six weeks?’

  Cope flushed: for a moment he thought he’d overstepped the mark. I opened my big trap again. He knew Mayne could flip in an instant, lash out with big fists: Copeland got ready to duck. Then he saw the faraway look in Mayne’s eyes, remembered that the hard-punching – bruiser legend was only half the story: the Ulsterman’s loyalty to his men was a byword – no one took the losses more personally than he.

  Mayne sighed again. ‘You’re right, Harry, but this was the last match of the season. It’s back to Blighty and retraining for the invasion of Europe for us: the brass say we’re going to be a brigade. Nauy, if ye’ve no more pearls of wisdom to impart, for Pete’s sake play your –’

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  An elegant young captain in khaki drill trousers and shirt and an SAS beret marched smartly through the double doors carrying a Schmeisser sub-machine gun under his arm.

  Mayne grimaced, sloped his cue over a ship’s-mast shoulder.

  ‘Sure, if it isn’t Roy Cavanaugh. Make yourself at home, why don’t ye, Roy? Harry, Roy here is with that other unit – the one we never talk about.’

  Cavanaugh made a wry face. ‘With due respect, sir, our lads fought beside yours at the cemetery last night. Of course, it was our first engagement as a unit, but I don’t believe we were found wanting.’

  ‘Och, you were found all right for greenhorns.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Personally, I’ve been wounded twice since Dunkirk.’

  ‘Cavalry doesn’t count,’ Mayne grinned, holding out a broad hand, ‘but since you’re a fellow Irishman, I’ll excuse ye. What’s your parent mob?’

  ‘Inniskillen Dragoons.’

  ‘Sure, now you’re talking. There’s the boys who know how to fight.’

  Cavanaugh had the look of an overgrown leprechaun, Cope thought – broad, flat Slavic cheeks, slitted eyes, slim-arched nose, a sardonic mouth that curled up at the corners, giving him an expression somewhere between mischievousness and arrogance. Despite the all-night battle, he was neatly dressed.

  ‘Where’s the famous Tom Caine?’ Cavanaugh asked. ‘I came to shake hands with him.’

  ‘Bagged,’ Copeland said morosely. ‘Not long after the landing. We advanced to contact at the Senarca bridge, found the Krauts waiting for us. Luftwaffe Airborne – good fighters.’

  ‘That’s bad news. If we had any idea where he’s been taken to, I might be able to help.’

  Copeland raised his eyebrows. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I’ve got orders from Bill Stirling to take jeep-borne patrols behind enemy lines to look for escaped POWs. There are a lot of Allied soldiers wandering around – ex-POWs who took the chance to do a bunk when the Ities surrendered. If we had any idea where Caine might be, we could look for him.’

&nb
sp; He slung the Schmeisser, drew a folded map from the patch pocket of his trousers, spread it out on a chair. Copeland squatted next to him, snooker cue across his knees. ‘Here’s Ancona, capital of Le Marche region.’ Cavanaugh pointed a slim finger. ‘This is Jesi, about fifteen miles due west. It has an airstrip and a prison camp. We’ve had int. from our “A” Force operator, Savarin, that SAS personnel are being held there, including a section we sent in by parachute a month ago. Our Assistant IO, Major Butterfield, is with them.’

  ‘Butterfield?’ Mayne chuckled. ‘That fat desk-wallah with the cushy job collecting church paintings? If he’s jumping behind the lines, you must be hard up.’

  Cavanaugh narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m not privy to his mission, sir. Anyway, he might be there and, if that’s where Jerry’s sending SAS-men, so might Caine.’

  He tapped the map. ‘There’s a road from Termoli to Ancona: it follows the coast, then dips into the mountains. It’s a fair way, but if I was Fritz, and I was going to take Caine anywhere, Jesi’s where it would be.’ He considered Copeland appraisingly. ‘Why don’t you come with us? I’ve got four jeeps. We’re going to split up into pairs: with your experience, you could take charge of the Jesi party. It would be an honour to have you.’

  ‘Hold ye horses, nauy, Roy,’ Mayne cut in indignantly. ‘What makes you think you can poach my officers? Harry here is my adjutant. I need him.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Cavanaugh’s eyes glittered. ‘I understood your mob was due back in Blighty.’

  ‘So it is. But maybe Harry would prefer to ride back with the boys, rather than swanning around Italy on a wild-goose chase.’

  Through the open doors, Copeland could see couples dancing in the smoky light of the next room: the accordion-man had been replaced by a gramophone, again playing ‘Lili Marlene’ – the German version. Two drunken subalterns were smooching with a couple of dark-haired, doe-eyed beauties.