They’d managed to cover the distance to Jesi in a night, without bumping into the Hun or Itie militias. They’d found this hill, with a view over the prison camp: the place had good cover on the leeward side: they’d camouflaged the jeeps in trees along a deep valley, well before dawn.
Copeland regretted Lombard’s death: he’d been a good man, and his Italian had been useful. He refused to get nostalgic about it, though: war was war, and casualties happened. You had to accept it and live to fight another day. If he were to carry the cross for every man they’d lost, he’d be like Tom Caine.
He shifted his mind back to the convoy. Wherever the wagons were going, it was likely to be outside Jesi, almost certainly the main Ancona–Fabriano road. Attacking a party in the open would be a better option than assaulting the camp: there’d only be a skeleton crew of guards, and it would be easier to find Caine – if he was there.
It would have to be in daylight – that was the dicey bit. There was an airfield at Jesi: it wouldn’t take Fritz long to put a few kites up. Getting away would be a nightmare, too, on these mountain roads. It wasn’t as if you could just belt cross-country like you could in the desert. No, it was going to be a chancey do, whichever way you looked at it.
Chancey do? It’s bleedin’ oo dares wins, innit, mate?
Cope grinned to himself: he could hear Fred Wallace’s voice as clearly as if the big dollop had been standing there. He felt a rush of sadness for Fred and Taff, for the breaking up of their little band of brothers, born of the desert. That had been real SAS fighting, he thought: before David Stirling got bagged, before 1st Regiment got turned into a do-or-die stormtrooper mob, which was everything Stirling detested. Some of the desert boys were dead now – Fred and Taff among them, maybe. He’d thought about them a lot since Tunisia: he just couldn’t see how they could be alive. Mostly, he told himself that it had been right to leave them: they’d been too badly wounded to move. In any case, it had been Caine’s call, not his. Sometimes, though, he felt a pang of guilt: maybe he could have done something: maybe they could have got them out. But that was war, after all: comrades came, comrades went, they got bagged, they got wounded, they died. No good getting misty-eyed about it. If it’s as simple as that, why the hell am I here, busting a gut to find Tom Caine?
As he watched the wagons disappear into the tunnel of trees and poles, it occurred to him that he might have actually seen Caine on the back of one of them. Don’t worry, mate, he said under his breath: I’m going to get you out.
As he slid down through the underbrush, he almost ran into Trooper Bill Harris climbing upwards, on time for his stag. Harris was carrying an Mi carbine tight across his chest: his blond hair was concealed by a face-veil as thick as a turban and his face was blacked. Cope paused, passed him the field-glasses.
Harris looped the binos round his neck ‘Anything happening, sir?’
‘A convoy of seven wagons left the camp about twenty minutes ago, going in the direction of Jesi. Carrying prisoners, military and civilian, and work tools. Working-party by the look of it.’
‘They’re making the blighters skivvy then.’
‘Yep. How’s the boss doing?’
‘Not looking too chipper.’
‘Keep your eyes peeled.’
Copeland pushed on through the scrub, slid down banks among tree-roots, clambered over boulders, dropped into a narrow gully where water trickled beneath a jumble of moss-patinaed blocks, edged by a stand of ropy pines. He pushed through thorny tangles, came out into a wider gorge, dipped into the groves where the jeeps were cammed up.
Most of the patrol were still in their sleeping bags: Sergeant Tony Griffen was on watch, perched on a jerry can near Cavanaugh with a mug of tea in one hand and a Tommy gun across his knees. Cavanaugh was lying under a blanket, his tousled head on a haversack and only his features showing: his face was drawn and bloodless: his lips were blue.
Griffen squinted belligerently at Cope as he sat down.
‘How’re you doing, sir?’ Copeland asked Cavanaugh.
The captain made a sour face: Copeland noticed that he was breathing heavily: beads of sweat trickled down his cheeks.
‘Been better,’ Cavanaugh muttered. ‘Did you get a . . . shufti . . . at the camp?’
‘Yep, I did, and –’ He broke off as Griffen passed him a mug of milky tea and a ready-lit cigarette.
Copeland sipped the tea, blew on it, took a puff of the fag.
Cavanaugh’s eyes, hard and bloodshot, didn’t leave Cope’s face.
‘What are . . . our chances . . . of getting in?’
Copeland let smoke trickle from his nostrils. ‘Pretty slim, I’d say. The place is on the edge of a sheer escarpment, with a steep rise up to the gate. We could go in all guns firing, but there are towers with spotlights and machine-guns guarding all approaches. Surprise might help us, but we’d still have to get out: I reckon we’d be looking at losing half our chaps.’
Cavanaugh pulled a face. ‘That bad? Is there . . . any other way? What about . . . working parties?’
‘You were right about that. A convoy left the camp at about 0745 carrying prisoners. Seven lorries, one loaded with tools. Must be a regular thing every day at that time. Like you told Paddy, it’d be a lot simpler to bump them than the camp.’
‘Only . . . how do we know . . . Caine will be . . . there?’
Copeland could see that Cavanaugh was straining to keep his eyes open: his breath was coming in pants. ‘You all right, sir?’ Griffen demanded gruffly: it sounded as though he were swearing at him, Cope thought.
Cavanaugh closed his eyes. Copeland crouched next to him, slid his arms under his shoulders, pulled his torso upright: he jerked the sleeping-bag down. ‘I’ll take a look at that wound,’ he said.
It wasn’t good: under the fresh dressing, on the left side of Cavanaugh’s chest, was a hole the size of a ha’penny, breathing garish pink fluid. It looked like a sucking pneumothorax. Cope didn’t know if the round was still lodged inside but, whatever the case, there wasn’t much he could do. He fetched the medical bag from the nearest jeep, cleaned the wound and re-dressed it. Then he gave Cavanaugh a morphia shot.
They sat with him in silence until his eyelids began to flicker: Griffen gave him water from his canteen. Cavanaugh coughed, spluttered, opened his eyes.
‘You’ll be all right, sir,’ Griffen growled. ‘Just keep that wound closed.’
‘Could do with a fag . . . more than . . . anything else,’ Cavanaugh panted. ‘Not such a wonderful idea . . . what?’
Griffen gave him a swig of rum instead.
‘What were you . . . saying . . . about Caine?’ Cavanaugh asked. ‘I drifted off a bit there.’
Copeland scratched his cornfield hair.
‘I was going to say that we can’t be sure Tom Caine’s with the working-party. He might not even be at the camp. I think we should just take our chance. At the very least we’ll be able to liberate the others.’ He stood up. ‘Tell you what – why don’t we do it now? We could skirt around Jesi, follow the Fabriano road. They’ve got to be along there somewhere, and it’s going to be a daylight job anyway.’
Cavanaugh smiled weakly at him. ‘I do . . . appreciate . . . your keenness to pull out your chum, Harry. But I don’t think it’s wise to rush. No, we’ll lay up here till it’s dark, move in the early hours. We’ll find out where they’re working. When they get there tomorrow, guess who’ll be waiting for them?’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Near Montefalcone, Le Marche, Italy
10 October 1943
There was something familiar about the footprints, Caine thought: not many men had feet that big. He realized he was thinking of Fred Wallace – he’d had the giant’s tracks around him constantly in the desert, and there was a certain resemblance – in the length of the stride as well as the shape of the feet. Interestingly, the smaller prints followed at a distance, lagging ever further behind: the outline of a rectangular rim at intervals showed that th
e laggard had frequently stopped to rest.
Emilia dogged Caine up a slope through a stand of black pines – old trees, bent and distorted, their trunks obscured by many-layered flakes of bark that curled at the edges like reams of blackened paper. They looked like grotesque monuments – totem-poles sprouting leaves, bushy-haired wicker-men with elongated arms and legs. At the top of the rise the going levelled out among ancient beeches with stained and fluted trunks, presenting boughs laden with foliage in bright, metallic colours, like trays of garlands and gaudy fruit. Fallen leaves lay beneath the spreading canopy in deep-pile carpets of red gold.
Caine paused by a big beech, showed Emilia tell-tale disturbances in the leaf-pattern underfoot: men had sat down here. ‘They left the jerry cans over there,’ he said, pointing. He scrutinized the ground carefully, came up with a tiny twist of burnt paper with a microscopic amount of tobacco-ash inside. He spread it out on his fingers. ‘Newspaper,’ he commented. ‘If they’re rolling fags out of newspaper, they must be hard up.’
‘How far ahead are they?’
‘These tracks are fresh. Can’t be more than an hour.’
Further on, stacks of mossy stones erupted out of the forest floor – trapezoids and oblong blocks, like the relics of a ruined castle. The trees were young and slimmer here: soon they thinned out along a deep grassy bank which gave way to more stands of beech on the far side. Caine crouched behind boulders on the lip of the bank.
‘What is it?’ Emilia whispered.
He couldn’t say exactly. Something wasn’t right: maybe it was just a feeling, or maybe he’d heard or seen or felt something that hadn’t registered consciously.
Before he could answer, Emilia froze, shoulders hunched, attention riveted like a pointer on something ahead. Caine followed her gaze: a Jerry in field-grey was standing at the base of the bank, on the opposite side, where the trees thickened. A Schmeisser was slung muzzle-forward over his right shoulder: he carried no equipment but a fluted ammo-box on a strap. He wore knee-length boots: his coalscuttle helmet was unbuckled and tilted back: he was smoking a cigarette, but he looked alert. Caine focused on the cigarette: that was it. I smelt tobacco smoke.
The soldier turned aside, shouted an order in German. Caine pulled Emilia down next to him. Other men were emerging from the thickets now – a pair of Krauts carrying a casualty between them on a stretcher, another three escorting a couple of civilian captives. The civvies were dressed in rough peasant clothes and broken shoes: their hands were tied behind them with rope, their heads covered with hessian sacks. One of them was short and podgy-looking, the other stood head and shoulders above him – a massive figure with bowsprit shoulders and limbs like telegraph poles.
It didn’t take a second glance for Caine to know that he’d found the authors of the tracks they’d followed from the stream: the giant with the size-thirteen shoes: the smaller one who’d lagged behind. They must be partisans, he thought: why else would the Hun be taking them in?
The first Jerry gestured to his left: the procession turned away from Caine and Emilia: the Krauts began to make their way along the base of the bank. Caine saw one of the captives – the big man – stumble over a tree root and fall to his knees. The guards jeered, bawled at him, took turns to deliver languid kicks to his body, dragged him up like a pig. The man didn’t utter a word, but Caine felt incensed. There’s only half a dozen of them, he thought. I could bump them now.
He hesitated, though: first of all, the fact that this was a small detachment meant there’d be vehicles nearby, with a lot more Krauts: any shooting was likely to bring reinforcements. Then there was his mission: he couldn’t deviate from it to liberate partisans from the Hun. But isn’t that my mission now, anyhow? To liberate Emilia’s brother – a partisan? If he and Emilia managed to turn up at the partisan camp having snatched a few of their chaps from Fritz, it wouldn’t be a bad start, especially if the Nazi-uniform business came up.
He watched the Jerries, realized his opportunity was slipping away: it was now or never.
He nudged Emilia. ‘I’m going to get them,’ he said. ‘You stay here.’
Emilia poked his arm: Caine noticed that her hair had come loose: it hung around her face in wavy tresses. ‘There are six of them,’ she said.
‘Two are carrying a stretcher.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘If you’re going, I’m coming.’
‘All right, but we have to move.’
They progressed stealthily through the forest, kept parallel with the path that ran along the foot of the grassy bank. The going would be easier for the Huns, Caine knew, but the stretcher-party would slow them down. At one point they were near enough to the enemy to hear their voices: Caine signalled Emilia to pass on: they hurried ahead until the way was blocked by a stream flowing fast in a shallow gully – dark water streaked with white spume as it scoured the polished basalt chunks that straddled its surface. It wasn’t a major obstacle, but the Krauts would have to negotiate it with the stretcher: it was exactly the kind of bottleneck Caine had been hoping for.
They cut left through the trees to the place where the track crossed the flow, where the grassy bank had become a low step of earth interspersed with mossy stones and protruding roots. They hovered in the trees, shuftied the crossing-point: the torrent was wider here and looked deep: it was edged on their side by water-carved hunks of granite, some smooth, others cushioned with moss, scattered with fallen twigs and stranded leaves like soft magenta stars. Flattish boulders lay in the stream, close enough together to form stepping-stones, giving way to a beach of black gravel, bordered by dense and murky trees on the opposite side. Lichen-crusted branches and forked boughs criss-crossed the watercourse above head-height: the track followed a natural break in the forest that widened as it reached the brook, narrowing on their left to a leafy tunnel through the trees.
They had only just taken up a position behind tangled, denuded beech-roots when the Jerry patrol rounded a bend in the track a hundred yards away. Caine and Emilia ducked: Caine peered through a gap in the roots, dekkoed the approaching squad. The Jerry who’d been smoking was now in the lead: a red-cheeked soldier with brilliant blue eyes and a determined set of jaw, moving warily, Schmeisser ready in both hands. Behind him came the stretcher-party, and behind them the civvies in their blindfold sacks, nudged forward by three Jerry guards.
Caine and Emilia pressed themselves flat as the Krauts passed their position, held their bodies rigid as they moved down to the stream. Caine craned his neck, took in the scene at the crossing-point: the leader had already scrambled across: he was poised on the gravel beach, SMG slung on his back, ready to help the stretcher-bearers: they were struggling to get the casualty across the stepping-stones. The two civilians – Little and Large, Caine had dubbed them – were standing very upright, their heads raised, as if trying to peer through their sacks into the blankness beyond. Two guards stood a little behind them, with a third – a tail-end Charlie – positioned some way to the rear. He was the nearest to Caine: a broad-shouldered soldier with a fat-jowled face and a mouth like a tulip. He was doing his job: facing away from his patrol, rifle at the ready, eyes casting left and right.
Caine took a deep breath, closed his eyes, felt a surge of power rush through him: his heart ramped, his blood steamed: he glimpsed a thousand mirror-images of himself leaping into the open, with his Schmeisser popping. A part of him was dismayed by what he was about to do: there was another part, though, that craved with savage wildness to get it over, to be out there among them, gouging blood. He held on to that wave of feeling, tensed his muscles, ground his teeth. You ain’t Captain Caine. You’re the devil.
He tapped Emilia on the arm, nodded, counted, one, two, three. Then he was up, his weapon blattering tack-tack-tack-tack. The first burst was fast and accurate: three rounds slammed into the tail-end Charlie’s lower abdomen, diverged, ripped through his liver, punctured his bladder, demolished his kidneys. The Jerry staggered, looked mildly indignant, eyebrows ra
ised, tulip mouth puckered. He dropped his rifle, clutched his belly, gazed enraptured at the thick red mashings welling through his fingers, genuflected gracefully and bowed out.
By the time he was down Caine was running: he took in Little and Large in the eternal process of falling prone, saw the two Jerry guards swivel towards him in slow motion, saw them bring up their weapons, saw their faces pass through a sequence of expressions – surprise, fear, fighting resolution. The first Jerry was an oldish man with wide nostrils and pinpoint eyes, carrying a Schmeisser: Caine fired his machine-pistol one-handed on the run, drew Cesare’s knife from his belt as he pulled iron. The burst went high: he knew it before he eased metal. Two of the rounds missed Fritz completely: the third struck him spack in the front teeth, sawed a gully across his soft palate, drilled through his brain, exploded from the back of his cranium in a splurge of mincemeat and sparks.
Caine flipped his knife at the other German, a wiry-looking boy with a prominent Adam’s apple and eyes like dinner-plates. The throw didn’t look much – the merest flick of the wrist – but Caine was a master of ballistic cutlery: the blade flew with deceptive force. The boy already had his rifle at the shoulder when the steel pranged into his neck just above the Adam’s apple, severed his windpipe, cut through the nerves in his spinal column. His trigger-finger spasmed: the rifle spat: a shot whinged past Caine’s ear.
Code of Combat Page 19
