Code of Combat

by Michael Asher

  ‘Squadron adjutant!’ he heard big Wallace exclaim. ‘Talk about scrapin’ the barrel. Paddy musta bin desperate.’

  He looked up to see Wallace, Trubman and Copeland in a triple clinch: Cope had an arm round each of them, hugging them incredulously. ‘Who said you could go AWOL?’ he demanded. ‘Some blokes will do anything to get out of a scrap.’

  Wallace’s chortle was like broken glass. ‘That’s good, that is. If certain parties ’adn’t of abandoned us in that flamin’ gunpit, I’d of bin a flamin’ colonel by now.’

  Copeland’s eyes glittered. ‘There’s hardly a day gone by that me and Tom haven’t thought about it, mate. We let you down: we should have got you out, even if it killed us.’

  ‘The big dollop’s pulling your plonker, see,’ Trubman cut in. ‘If you’d tried to shift us, none of us would be here now. Me, all I remember is lying in that pit with half my back hanging off and a couple of Blenheims going into a bombing run.’

  ‘We never blamed yer, Harry,’ Wallace growled. ‘You might of made it a bit sooner this mornin’, mind. I don’t call this much of a taxi service.’

  Copeland looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘We’ll try to do better next time, Your Honour: these 2nd Regiment greenhorns haven’t got the hang of it yet.’

  ‘2nd Regiment? Never ’eard of it.’

  There was a sudden ripple of applause from the jeep crews. The big gunner looked round, clocked five men of 2nd SAS clapping enthusiastically: he flushed, realized they were applauding him and Trubman. ‘’Ere, wot’s this?’ he said.

  Tony Griffen stalked up to them, his pugilist’s face set in a scowl as if he intended to punch someone. ‘Trooper Fred Wallace, MM and bar, Royal Horse Artillery,’ he announced solemnly, ‘and Corporal Taff Trubman, double MM, Royal Sigs. You was with the Nighthawk patrol in Tunisia. You an’ Mr Caine and Mr Copeland ’ere held the bridge at el-Fayya against a Jerry recon battalion for forty-eight hours. You was badly wounded, captured by the Krauts, and ’ere you are, still fightin’.’

  The men clapped again: Wallace made an ungainly bow: Trubman’s pale cheeks came out in rose-coloured blobs. ‘I s’pose the way you ’andled them jeeps this mornin’ weren’t bad for amachewers,’ Wallace said grudgingly. ‘Could do with a bit of trainin’, mind you.’

  The men hooted and tittered: most had been combat vets long before they’d joined 2nd SAS: they knew – and they knew Wallace knew – that they’d put on a sterling performance that morning – won the firefight against a superior force, snatched Caine and his crew from under the noses of the enemy.

  Bill Harris called Copeland over to look at Cavanaugh: they unstrapped his stretcher, laid him down on the leaf-strewn forest floor in a burst of yellow sunlight. He looked pale and distant, his eyes standing out on the pewter features like burnished black eggs. His chest-wound didn’t seem any worse, but he’d been hit again during the contact: Griffen showed Cope the hole in his upper thigh where a stray round had entered. ‘No exit wound,’ he growled.

  Caine came over to shake hands. ‘Honoured,’ Cavanaugh whispered. ‘Heard a lot about you, Tom. Sorry I’m not in a better state to greet you.’

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ Caine told him. He didn’t believe it, though: the bullet was lodged in Cavanaugh’s gut and he was no doubt bleeding internally: he had the resigned look of someone ready to make his peace with dying. ‘Hold on,’ Caine told him. ‘We’ll get you out.’

  Cavanaugh began to cough blood.

  They left him with Griffen: at Emilia’s request, they went over to examine Furetto, who was sitting propped against a grassy bank. Emilia and her brother were carefully removing his gore-soaked shirt. The youth looked a fright, his hair singed to a black stubble, his left arm caked with blood from the shrapnel that had pierced it in half-a-dozen places: he had other wounds in the chest and neck. Caine introduced Copeland to the three of them: Furetto mustered a bravado grin, a flash of red-flecked teeth in a face dark with dirt and powder-burns. ‘Was good, no?’ he rasped. ‘We get Ettore, kill Krauts.’

  Caine gave him a hatless salute. ‘You deserve a medal,’ he said. ‘You all do.’

  Ettore chuckled. ‘When I saw you in that Kraut get-up I nearly wet myself laughing. You looked like a military scarecrow tied with string. Salutieren Sie nicht vor einem Offizier? That means don’t you salute an officer? in Kraut.’

  ‘Is OK, I salute him now he dead.’

  ‘How’re you feeling?’ Cope asked, hunkering down with the medical pack.

  The youth’s eyes rolled upwards. ‘Is like they knock a spike in my back with a hammer.’ He hiked a shaky breath. ‘Is nothing pori – is only scratch.’ His grin faded: his bright eyes dimmed.

  Caine knelt down beside him, pulled the knife from his belt. ‘Your father, Cesare, gave me this,’ he said. ‘I met him on my way to the villa: he helped me. It’s a good knife. It’s killed two Jerries, at least: Fred Wallace used it at the checkpoint to stick the driver. Your father is a brave man, and you are a very brave man: your sister, Lucia, is brave too.’

  Furetto gawked at the knife, smiled wanly. ‘You keep it,’ he whispered. ‘Is for you.’

  While Cope tried to make Furetto more comfortable, Caine took care of Emilia: she had two grazes – a shallow one on the forehead and a slightly deeper one on the neck where the round had tracked the flesh all the way up to the cleft below the ear: by the merest chance, it had spun off before penetrating the jugular vein. It would leave a scar, but she’d survived by the merest luck, he thought. He dusted her wounds with sulphonamide powder: Ettore looked on, his expression alternating between pride and concern. ‘You’re tougher than any of us,’ he told his sister. ‘Dad would have been so proud of you.’

  ‘We haven’t got the Codex yet,’ Emilia said. ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten the signal-phrase?’

  Ettore shook his head. ‘What is sought lies in a room with no doors or windows. You are the door: I am the key.’

  Caine glanced at him. ‘So it’s true, then? The location of the Codex is locked in your sister’s memory? And you know how to get it out?’

  Ettore nodded. ‘Dad had some weird ideas, but yes, it’s true.’

  Caine wound a bandage gently around Emilia’s neck: she searched his face as if looking for something, fluttered delicate eyelids. Now he was near her again he felt the tidal draw of her presence. He regretted that he’d disbelieved her over the Codex. It still seemed fantastic, but he supposed the war had thrown up stranger things than that.

  They found Trubman and Wallace sitting with the others around a small fire of deadwood Bill Harris had made: the 2nd Reg. men had their mugs out: a sooty, misshapen kettle was already rattling on three stones. Trubman had superficial wounds in the wrist and throat: the round that had hit Wallace’s thigh had torn out a chunk of flesh but missed the major blood-vessels. ‘Same flamin’ leg as last time,’ the big man cursed as Caine spread a fresh field-dressing on it. ‘An’ the old wound ain’t even right yet. Cor, would yer believe it?’

  Caine had Cope dress the wound in his bicep: it was sore and inflamed, but not serious.

  ‘Char’s up,’ Harris called.

  ‘Ain’t got no mug,’ grumbled Wallace.

  ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ Copeland said. ‘You can always drink it with your arse.’

  As they sat down, chuckling, with the others, Griffen came waltzing across with an armful of brown-paper packages, tossed one to each of them. Wallace caught his with panhandle hands. ‘Just like Christmas, innit,’ he crowed. The parcels contained battledress suits, fresh from the stores.

  ‘Our task was to help escaped POWs,’ Griffen explained. ‘We brought a dozen sets of BD along in case any of ’em was in rags. No insignia, o’ course.’

  Wallace held up the khaki blouse and trousers, examined them dubiously, his cliff of a brow furrowed. ‘I just ’ope it fits, mate. This looks like sommat out of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’

  ‘I got scissors,’ G
riffen grinned. ‘You can cut ’em up if yer want, but they’ll charge yer for the damage when you get back.’

  Emilia and Ettore joined them, looking worried: the morphine had put Furetto to sleep, but his pulse was high and his breathing shallow.

  Griffen found mugs for everyone, slopped out tea. The SAS-men lit pipes, handed round cigarettes. Wallace tasted the tea, spat it out. ‘What the ’ell is this?’ he demanded.

  ‘All right, it’s dogpiss,’ Harris assented. ‘After six months in Jerry clink, I’d’ve thought you’d be used to it.’

  ‘You must be the on’y bloke in the British Army as makes char worse than the Krauts.’

  ‘And that’s saying something,’ Trubman added.

  The men cackled: Wallace drank the rest of his tea with apparent relish.

  Harris opened six or seven tins of bully-beef stew, bacon and sausages, tipped their contents into a blackened cooking pot. ‘I bet you ’aven’t got mess-tins or spoons ’ave you, lads?’ he said. ‘I’ve got a few spare but you’ll have to sign for ’em in triplicate.’

  When the food was ready, they ate ravenously: Caine took mess-tins over to Cavanaugh and Furetto, but came back with them. ‘Both out for the count,’ he said. ‘If Roy doesn’t get proper medical attention soon, he’s going to be in trouble. The boy’s in a bad way, too.’

  They finished their meal in silence.

  Copeland put down his mess-tin, cleared his throat. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Programme for the rest of the day. Before we start, though, I just want to be clear about the chain of command –’

  Wallace snorted powerfully through nostrils the size of golf-balls.

  Copeland ignored him. ‘– Captain Caine is senior rank but, as I’m acting patrol leader on this mission, I retain command.’

  Caine grinned to himself. Cope was correct: the patrol was his responsibility – Caine and the others were technically passengers. He wondered, though, if Copeland was remembering old times, when he’d had to go along with what he called Caine’s impulses. With his own command, he wouldn’t have that problem. Maybe.

  ‘We’ll go into exfiltration directly,’ Cope said. ‘Make for Allied lines. I’ve already thought about the route. If we get moving now, we can be back with our own forces within forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Hold your horses, Harry,’ Caine said. ‘We’ve got a mission – at least I have. The countess and Ettore are part of it.’

  ‘We’re in, too, mate,’ Wallace announced. He glared at Trubman, who winked a wan eye behind thick lenses.

  Copeland looked taken aback. ‘Escaped POWs don’t get tasked for missions,’ he protested. ‘You’re officially non-combatants until you’ve been debriefed.’

  ‘Same old Harry,’ Wallace huffed. ‘By the book and as per field-regulations. What did yer think we was doin’ in that ditch this mornin’ then – playin’ Ludo?’

  Cope swallowed. ‘What is this mission?’

  For the second time Caine described what had happened to him since he’d last seen Copeland in the dyke near the Senarca bridge – Jesi, Butterfield, the Codex, the partisan ambush, his lone mission to snatch Emilia, their liberation of Wallace and Trubman, how they’d taken over the checkpoint, snatched Ettore from the Hun.

  When he’d finished, Copeland seemed deflated: he looked wary, as if wondering if he was going to be asked to bow to yet another of Caine’s whims.

  ‘’Ow come you just ’appened to appear when we needed yer, then?’ Wallace enquired. ‘Surely you musta known we was there?’

  Copeland opened his mouth to speak, but it was Griffen who took up the story. ‘We set up an OP on the Jesi camp – the original idea was to bump the place, but it were too well guarded. So we decides to go for the workin’ parties they send out in the mornin’: we reckoned it’d be a pushover.’

  ‘And was it?’ Caine asked.

  ‘Weren’t nowt to push over. See, we thought they sent out workin’ parties every day, but they don’t. They ’ave Sunday off.’ He paused.

  ‘Well?’ Wallace interjected.

  Griffen’s pugnacious features softened: his ‘O’-shaped mouth twitched with suppressed mirth. ‘Talk about cock-up: we snatches an Itie, who tells us that the Krauts are workin’ on the Ancona–Fabriano road, between Jesi and Orsini. The sod don’t mention that it’s Sunday today, and they don’t work Sundays. We drove right along the main road, bold as brass, never found a sniff of ’em. Then we’ve nearly got to the Orsini junction when we ’ears a reg’lar ding-dong goin’ on. Well, it ’ad to be the ’Un against partisans, didn’t it? So we wades in with all guns blazin’ and lo and behold, we picks up three 1st Regiment wallahs, a countess and two trogs.’

  The company burst into hoots of laughter.

  ‘Well, there’s one thing, mate,’ Wallace snickered. ‘You can say that’s the best mistake you ever made in yer life.’

  ‘There’s something I don’t get,’ Caine said when the laughter had died down. ‘Why were you planning to bump Jesi camp – or even a working-party come to that? You said your mission was to assist escaped POWs, not to liberate them. What was your objective?’

  Copeland blinked at him: there was a look of embarassment on his face. ‘We were aiming to liberate you, mate. Call it a side-mission.’

  For a moment, Caine was overawed. He saw it all now. There he was, Lieutenant Harold J. Copeland, no-bullshit, by-the-book subaltern, fresh from OCTU, wanting to make good, and he’d joined a perilous mission behind enemy lines, given up the chance of going back with his squadron, to rescue him, Tom Caine. How did he deserve to have friends like that?

  He caught Copeland’s eye. ‘Thanks, Harry,’ he said.

  Copeland’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘You still owe me a crate of beer for favours done, Tom. I wasn’t letting you off the hook that easy.’ He paused. ‘Oh, and that reminds me, I’ve got something for you . . .’

  He pitched a small shiny object at him: Caine caught it deftly. It was his Zippo lighter – minus its protective condom, but his all right: he found the initials TEC – Thomas Edward Caine – on its base. ‘The Jerry Airborne took this off me when I was captured,’ he said. ‘How did you get it?’

  ‘We fought an action against the Airborne on the way: village called Santa Lucia, Abruzzo region. I talked to a wounded Jerry: he gave me that. Roy already suspected they might have taken you to Jesi: this chap confirmed it. That’s how we knew you were here.’

  Caine flicked open the lighter, thumbed the wheel: a yellow flame sparked and flickered. He remembered the condom he’d taken from the effects of the couple in the forest: he still had it. He blew out the flame, closed the lid, found the rubber in his pocket, inserted the lighter into it. It was a small thing, but he was happy to have it back: the Zippo had saved his life at least once: he considered it a good-luck charm. He put it away, smiling. ‘Things are looking up,’ he said.

  ‘So what are your plans, then?’ asked Copeland.

  Caine considered it for a moment. ‘We have to find the Codex.’

  ‘Well, where is it?’

  ‘That’s the problem: it could be anywhere.’

  Copeland looked confused, glanced at Emilia. ‘You and your brother must know, surely?’

  ‘We do and we don’t,’ she said. ‘I mean, we don’t know individually, only together . . .’

  She quailed under Copeland’s gaze, flashed a plaintive glance at Caine.

  He took a deep breath. ‘There’s no easy way of explaining this,’ he said, ‘so I’ll just say it. Emilia’s father planted the location of the Codex in her head while she was under hypnosis: when she came out, she couldn’t remember it. It’s still there, locked in her memory: it can be unlocked by Ettore, using a signal-phrase. The signal-phrase is ho good unless it comes from him: no one else can unlock the secret.’

  Copeland looked less surprised that Caine had expected. ‘Sounds like Svengali,’ he commented. ‘I’ve heard of experiments like that.’

  ‘But why is this flam
in’ Codex important?’ Griffen barged in. ‘I mean, it’s on’y a book, ain’t it?’

  ‘It’s a priceless artefact,’ Emilia said. ‘Something Hitler asked for personally before the war. Mussolini refused to give it up but, now he’s gone, the SS are after it. They sent an official – a Dr Wolfram Stengel – to get it. He . . . well, he tried to force me to tell, but I couldn’t, obviously . . . anyway, if the Germans get it, it’ll be a big propaganda victory for them.’

  Copeland nodded slowly. ‘You said it could be anywhere. Does that entail gallivanting all over the place behind enemy lines?’

  ‘Wot if it’s somewhere ’eavily guarded?’ Griffen suggested.

  Copeland nodded. ‘I can’t commit the patrol to this, Tom: if we take casualties, the brass will want to know what we’ve been playing at.’

  There was silence for a moment, then Griffen said, ‘Wouldn’t it be worth at least findin’ out, sir? I mean, at least we’d know what we might be up against.’

  Copeland considered it reluctantly, cocked an eyebrow at Emilia.

  She cast a look at Ettore, who shrugged. ‘We’re both here,’ he said. ‘Why not give it a whirl?’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Light showed through the branches in scallopings of firegold, drifting like the sails of burning galleons through a haze of lilac and ethereal blue – a sky shawled with feathers of candy-floss pink, edged along the dark horizon with a wine-coloured band, like hot sealing-wax. The trees had lost their depth now: they stood starkly outlined like black candelabra against the solemn and furious sunset colours.