Code of Combat

by Michael Asher

  He watched the Jerry mooch towards them: he was fully in the sidelights now – a bony soldier with a yellow face, a black gash for a mouth, dark smudges for eyes. He moved loosely, his Schmeisser slung underarm in the easy-access position, a torch in his left hand. As he approached, Caine saw two more figures detach themselves from the shadows, move in their direction.

  ‘Here comes backup,’ he said, ‘and there’re another two Krauts at the barrier. Furetto, you kill that Spandau – it’s on your side.’

  ‘Si, si, va bene.’

  ‘Fred, you do the lorry: there’s a wireless in there.’

  ‘Got it, mate.’

  ‘Taffy, loft a grenade at the Kubelwagen. We’ll deal with the other Krauts between us.’

  ‘Right you are, skipper.’

  ‘Wait till I scrag Mr Nosey Parker, though.’

  Caine watched the Jerry’s torch-beam flit as he inspected the car, no doubt taking in its quality, wondering at its battered and muddied chassis. Caine began to wind his window down. ‘He’ll come right, to me,’ he murmured. ‘Wind your windows down: make sure those grenades are handy.’

  ‘Oh shite,’ Wallace groused. ‘I forgot to arm ’em.’

  ‘You great turnip,’ Trubman smirked. ‘Here, have one of mine.’

  The beam of the Jerry’s torch fell directly on Caine’s face: he blinked. That’s my night-vision gone. The Jerry had paused at the bonnet: he was probing the car’s interior with the torch-beam: a cold slug slithered down Caine’s spine. The Jerry cut the light, sidled towards the open window. Caine braced his feet, pressed his back tight against the seat: he got a glimpse of a headless grey-blue torso, a glint of metal. Even before Fritz bent down to look inside, Caine’s hand was on his weapon. He saw the yellow face framed in the window, took in knotted brows, skinned-grape eyes, teeth like a gobful of blue light, heard the words. ‘Wo gehst du bin?’, lifted the Schmeisser, punched two rounds point-blank into the Kraut’s mouth.

  The crash creased Caine’s eardrums: the Jerry’s face swelled out of shape, split apart like a mashed watermelon, burst into a mush of wet red tissue and curlicues of shattered teeth. The soldier slumped backwards: gore snaked in long threads from a mouth like a raddled red tunnel, splatted Caine’s face.

  ‘Go. Go. Go!’ Furetto bawled.

  Caine hit the accelerator: the car lurched forward, took them abreast of the two Jerry vehicles. Furetto leaned out of his window, boosted a long burst at the Kubelwagen: Caine felt the deep-bellied crompa-crompa-cromp of the Beretta, clocked a blag of fire like a blunt orange bludgeon, felt the tearing squeal of metal as the rounds chomped the wagon’s chassis, saw the ghost of the Kraut gunner jig like a dancing puppet. They were almost past the vehicle when Trubman lobbed his grenade: Caine heard the fuse pop, heard the pause, heard the bomb rip out in a spray of shrapnel, felt the air bend, traileyed the gorgeous fireball of flame and smoke that wrapped the Kubelwagen like a gush of molten lava, felt the gut-churning kaaathwompppp as the jeep’s tank blew.

  On the left, Wallace had hurled his grenade at almost the same instant. The detonation kicked in as a delayed backslam, just as the other dampened itself out: baaaaawwuuummmppppphhhh. Caine felt the car rock on her springs, felt the blast whack his chest like a heavy board, felt a hot vacuum suck at his lungs: he shuftied the mirror, saw a monstrous mountain of fire leap into the night, open out like a vast apricot-coloured flower, snap back with the spastic jerk of cramped red-black fingers.

  The car was plunging towards the oildrums in a headlong rush: Caine saw the two trailing Krauts turn and run: saw the other pair at the barrier crouch down in firing positions, saw sharp cones of fire sprout from their weapons, heard rounds rack and tweeter, scorch air, piffle dust, prong hub-caps. Caine’s fingers closed on the stock of his Schmeisser: before he could raise it, big Wallace had laid the muzzle of his Breda across the back of his seat, pulled iron: a single shot shattered the windscreen, sent glass chips riffling. Night air slapped Caine’s face: Wallace triggered a long spread chacka-chacka-chacka-chack: Caine saw the tracer weave a basket of light in front of him, saw the two Jerries crouching by the oildrums buckle and roll, grope air, twist and fly. His ears had gone numb: his eyes were watering from glass-flecks and gun-gas: the car swerved, tyres shrieked. Caine righted her, homed in on the oildrums, saw the two Kraut runners proned out in the shadows on the verge. He gripped the steering wheel with his right hand, lifted his SMG with his left, let fly through the broken windscreen at full arm-extension, heard the mechanism crank like a rotor, heard rounds blister air, tack-tack-tack-tack.

  He didn’t have time to see if his shots struck home: the barrier was only feet away. He stabbed hard on the brakes, felt the tyres quiver, felt the car slew, come to rest left side on to the oil barrels.

  ‘Shift those drums, Fred!’ he yodelled: his voice sounded muffled and distant to his own ears.

  The big man was already out of the door, taking seven-league strides to the barrier: Caine saw his great lateen-rig shoulders strain against the weight of the first drum, saw him lift it, toss it aside like a skittle. The giant had turned towards the second when a Kraut came pounding out of the darkness, a lump of a man, almost as big as Wallace himself, hefting a pistol so small it looked comical in his plate-sized mitt. It might have been, if he hadn’t fired point-blank at Wallace’s wild-fuzzed capstone of a head. The bullet took the top off the big gunner’s left ear. Wallace roared, but his Schmeisser was already braced. Bommfff. One shot: the round went in at the base of the Jerry’s nose, made his face crumple inwards like a burst balloon. As he went down, thrashing like a sperm-whale, Wallace shot him in the head. Then, with blood from his damaged ear soaking his tattered peasant’s shirt, he heaved the other oildrum out of the way: the car was already moving when he hopped into the back.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Caine drove fast, followed a pale ribbon of road that twisted through relict copses of forest, climbed low hill-crests, descended through straight stretches along tangled hedgerows, past vineyards and fields. When he could no longer see the fires behind him, he pulled up in a gateway among hedges and pencil-cedars.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘Get a dressing on that ear, Fred.’

  Wallace had been holding a piece of rag to his ear, but the bleeding hadn’t stopped: his clothes – and Emilia’s – were soaked with gore.

  ‘Let me out,’ Emilia wailed.

  Wallace had hardly scrambled through the blood-streaked door than she pushed past him, clutching her mouth, making retching noises. Caine got out stiffly, stretched, brushed spent cases and glass-chips off his seat. Furetto opened the boot, brought them bottles of water.

  Caine’s throat was like parchment: he took the bottle thankfully, drank in slow gulps. Wallace sank down on his haunches, pulled at a cigarette while Trubman strapped a field-dressing over his ear with surgical tape. ‘Most useless part of yer body,’ he guttered, ‘and yer bleed like a stuck pig.’

  Furetto smoked jauntily, his eyes alive with excitement, his big ears waggling. ‘Is good, yes? We blow Kraut vehicles . . . bwommffff . . . We kill all Krauts.’

  ‘Won’t make any difference,’ Trubman mouthed. ‘When they don’t answer their wireless-check, their base’ll despatch a squad to find out what’s going on. Might be on their way now.’

  The others stared at him: Furetto nodded gravely. ‘Is true,’ he said.

  Emilia appeared out of the bushes, head bowed, wiping her mouth with a handkerchief: she looked shaken. Caine gave her water. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  She took bird-like sips, spat, drank more. She became aware of Wallace’s blood on her trousers, made a feeble attempt to wipe it off with her handkerchief.

  ‘Fred’s blood is enough to make anyone throw up,’ Caine said.

  ‘It’s not just the blood. Seeing a guy shot in the face close-up like that . . . it was awful. I know it had to be done, but that doesn’t make it easier. I can’t believe that I’ve shot men. Before the war, I ne
ver shot anything but partridges and hares.’

  Caine felt suddenly weary. ‘It’s when you start enjoying it that you’ve got to watch out,’ he said: his words sounded empty to his own ears.

  ‘There’s gonna be more of it,’ Wallace grunted. He picked up his weapon, rose to full height, pushed a lock of stiffwire hair away from the dressing on his ear. ‘The Krauts ain’t gonna hand yer brother to us on a plate with chips. Just think about it.’

  ‘But isn’t there a way we could do it without all this . . . butchery?’ Emilia persisted. ‘There’s been too much of it lately.’ She shivered: If Stengel were in front of me now, would I kill him? Maybe. I don’t know.

  ‘What’s that they say about omelettes and crackin’ eggs?’ Wallace chortled.

  ‘No, no, la contessa ha ragione,’ Furetto cut in. ‘Is right. We only five: Krauts many more.’ He tapped a tapered forefinger against his fragile-looking skull. ‘Is better to be clever – usa il cervello, no?’

  ‘Out of the mouths of babes, skipper,’ Trubman said. ‘We can’t take on big battalions.’

  ‘Why not?’ Wallace argued. ‘We did it at el-Fayya, didn’t we?’

  ‘At el-Fayya we had a good defensive position,’ Trubman countered. ‘But slogging it out till one of you falls down – that isn’t SAS, is it?’

  ‘Stealth if possible.’ Caine nodded. ‘Force only if there’s no other way.’

  They were quiet for a moment. Suddenly, Furetto wagged his ears. ‘Is a way,’ he said. He dropped his fag-end in the dirt, ground it out under his heel, dug in his knapsack, came out with a torch, a field-pad with a pencil attached. He handed the torch to Emilia, nodded to her, leaned across the bonnet of the car, started drawing frantically: the others gathered round, huddled close in the torchlight. ‘Road from Orsini come down hill on our left, like this,’ he said. ‘Very steep. At bottom is Kraut checkpoint, but small: three men, maybe four, with motorcycles . . . and wireless.’

  Caine remembered seeing the post on the journey out with Butterfield.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I get it. We take over the checkpoint.’

  ‘Is only three, four men. Is easy, no?’

  ‘We wait for the convoy. When they halt at the checkpoint, we bump them.’

  ‘Bump them?’ Emilia said. ‘Doesn’t that mean you’re going to shoot them?’

  Caine shook his head. ‘Not necessarily: it depends on how they react. But if we have to kill them to save your brother, we will.’

  Furetto touched his arm suddenly. ‘You hear?’

  Caine cocked his ears, caught the distant drumming of engines coming from the direction of Orsini: he shuftied the dark road to his left, picked up the faintest drift of headlight-beams.

  ‘It’s the Hun,’ Wallace growled. ‘Got to be.’

  ‘Get in the car,’ Caine ordered.

  He had the vehicle moving before the doors were shut, switched on the headlights, changed gear, accelerated steadily up to forty-five mph: the stream of air through the gaping windscreen was cold, but a degree warmer than it had been, Caine thought. ‘Keep your weapons hidden,’ he said. ‘As far as the Krauts are concerned, we’re a car-load of peasants.’

  ‘In an Alfa Romeo?’ Emilia giggled. ‘Isn’t the broken windscreen a bit obvious?’

  ‘Never mind. We’ll be past them before they know it.’

  He scanned the road ahead: the headlight-glow was nearer now, but the oncoming vehicles weren’t in line of sight. A moment later, though, they veered round a bend: lights blazed out at them like burning white eyes. For an instant Caine was blinded: he slowed down, tried to navigate from the verge, switched his own lights to dipped.

  A moment later, the leading vehicle dipped. ‘Danke schön, Kamerad,’ Caine muttered. He increased speed a little, focused on the ribbon of the road ahead, forced himself not to look at the approaching motors. His fingers gripped the steering-wheel: he was aware only of the splash of light across the road, the dark-humped mass of the vehicles behind it. A second later the lights whisked past in the corner of his eye: he kept the Alfa Romeo going steadily, glanced in the mirror, watched the lights recede into the night.

  ‘Kraut patrol,’ Wallace rasped. ‘One 3-tonner, one Kubelwagen.’

  ‘Dozy buggers,’ Trubman said.

  ‘Diciamo grazie a Dio,’ Coniglio said. ‘We say thanks to God.’

  ‘Yep,’ Caine agreed. ‘Let’s just hope there’s no more where they came from.’

  Chapter Forty

  Orsini, Le Marche, Italy

  11 October 1943

  The carabinieri station in Orsini was a wing of rain-blackened stone attached to the dilapidated fortress that stood on the cobbled square in front of the San Giuseppe church. It was eight thirty sharp when they marched Ettore Falcone out of the arched doorway to the waiting transport: Stengel watched from some distance away, behind the wheel of his Horch staff-car. Parked directly behind him were a Kubelwagen and two lorries with machine-guns mounted on their cabs. Karl Grolsch was sitting in the Kubelwagen: the lorries carried a heavily armed Sipo-SD platoon and what was left of Kaltenbraun’s Waffen-SS detachment, withdrawn from the Villa Montefalcone.

  Kaltenbraun was to escort the prisoner in a separate Kubelwagen, which would go on ahead. Stengel’s convoy would follow five minutes behind, staying just out of sight: Grolsch’s informer hadn’t told them where the ambush was to take place, but they would be close enough to slap down any attack with overwhelming force.

  The guards manhandled Ettore into the back of Kaltenbraun’s Kubelwagen, sandwiched him between two burly SS guards. His hands were cuffed in front of him: he felt drained and dizzy, made an effort to stay alert. He was under no illusions about what was happening: they were taking him to Jesi to be shot. If there were any chance of escape it had to be between here and the camp. Once through those gates, there would be no coming back.

  On the one hand, Ettore told himself, he was ready to face death. He was the last male heir of the Falconi – a family whose history stretched back to ancient Rome. There was Emilia, of course – she was tomboy enough to be called an honorary man. The name would die with him, though: his death would be remembered.

  On the other, he was aware that this was self-dramatizing bravado: he was a kid, and he was terrified. If he was able to face the idea of execution at all, it was only because he didn’t really believe it was going to come to that: it was all a bad dream. He was only sixteen, for God’s sake: he had his whole life in front of him. Even the Krauts didn’t execute kids. Then he remembered the five youths who’d been arrested with him: they’d all quietly disappeared over the past couple of days. He might find them in Jesi camp, but he wouldn’t have wanted to bet money on it.

  He forced himself to concentrate on what was going on around him. The guards on either side were big men who sat poised and silent with their Schmeissers across their knees, gazing straight ahead. The passenger seat in front was occupied by the foxy-looking young officer called SS-Hauptsturmführer Kaltenbraun. The driver next to him was a stout corporal with a face like undercooked meat. There was a Spandau machine-gun mounted on the bonnet in front of Kaltenbraun’s seat.

  Ettore understood German pretty well: he knew that Kaltenbraun was in charge of the SS-squad sent to escort him. What he couldn’t understand, though, was what the other two Nazi big bananas were doing here – the bearded creep with the fish-eyes and the blond-haired, balding SS-Sturmbannführer who’d first identified him as Ettore Falcone. He’d recognized them even though their vehicles had been parked some way off: they looked terrible – the guy with the beard had a badly bruised and scarred face and wore a dressing on his head: the bald guy had his arm in a sling. Was he, Ettore Falcone, so special that these officers had come to oversee his transfer personally? Why the two lorries, armed with machine-guns, packed with troops? Only a VIP would need such an escort – unless they were expecting trouble, of course.

  Kaltenbraun gave an order: the car started, jounced across the co
bbled square. Ettore noted that Stengel’s convoy wasn’t moving. Perhaps they aren’t escorting me at all.

  The road into the valley followed a winding pass – a configuration of sharply twisting switchbacks running out along grassy spurs. The driver decreased speed to negotiate them. The landscape spread out below – sparse scrubland in explosive colours – dazzling orange, canary yellow, shocking pink – copses like green islands, strips of dun and pinkish earth raked with tight furrows, and in the far distance the gunmetal greyness of the mountains, merging into a pale sky painted with clouds like fine white eyebrows, flurries, fractured hoops.

  The car rounded a tight bend: Ettore glimpsed a group of vehicles on a limb above them. It was only for a second, but he knew it was Stengel’s column: the shiny black Horch in the lead was too distinctive to mistake. They’re coming with us after all. Why are they lingering behind, out of sight? The answer hit him almost at once. It’s a trap. They send a single car ahead unprotected: the main escort follows at a distance, ready to close in when the bait is taken. If the Germans were expecting an attack, it had to be from the partisans. I bet Emilia’s behind it. She’d never let me go without a fight.

  Ever since their parents had been killed in the air-crash, Emilia had been his sole caretaker. She was only six years older than him, and he knew it had been hard on her, coming to terms with her loss and having to be both mother and father to him when she was hardly out of adolescence herself. She’d been tough on him, too, he thought: no playing hookey from school, no skimping on homework. Sometimes they’d quarrelled: he’d called her names, threatened to leave, but he’d always known that she was there for him when he needed her.

  Ettore had been happy in New York: he’d loved the movies and the music – swing was his passion: he’d started to learn jazz clarinet in emulation of his hero, Benny Goodman. Goodman’s Carnegie Hall concert had been one of the most poignant events of his life. That had been the last occasion on which the four of them had been out together as a family: the crash had occurred a few days later.