Hauptsturmführer Amray felt that Capt. Caine might make a good subject for turning, and proposed that he join the British Free Corps. Caine refused point blank, saying that he remained staunchly loyal to his country. Amray still felt that he might be turned, however, using a technique the Gestapo (Sipo-SD) had been experimenting with – a method whose aim was to prove that, by a combination of powerful drugs and hypnosis, an individual could be made to carry out actions contrary to his basic moral principles.
On the evening of 7 October, Amray introduced 3cc of a drug called Citodan into Capt. Caine’s food. Caine fell into a trance and was moved to another room, where I was present. He was asked to stare into the lamp of an opthalmoscope, and given certain suggestions – that he would join the British Free Corps, swear allegiance to the Führer, work as a trustee for Sipo-SD, and fight on behalf of the Third Reich. When he woke from the trance, he would have no memory of being hypnotized.
Capt. Caine reacted physically to these suggestions. His breathing became faster, his heart-rate jumped to 120: he clenched his teeth, screwed up his face, shouted. He was again instructed to stare into the opthalmoscope: the suggestions were repeated. He was then told that, when instructed, he would go into a deep sleep: when he woke the following morning, he would believe that he had joined the British Free Corps of his own choice, and would have memories of swearing an oath of allegiance to the Führer. He would also be led to believe that he had had sex with a young Italian girl as a ‘reward’ for his turning, which, it was believed, would help reinforce the post-hypnotic suggestions.
When Capt. Caine awoke on 8 October, he found himself in different surroundings, wearing SS uniform, with a naked girl in his bed, whom, he was led to believe, he had had sex with. He seemed to have accepted the hypnotic conditioning, to the extent that he agreed – or believed he had already agreed – to escort Major Butterfield, as a trustee, on a convoy transporting him to another destination. The convoy was subsequently ambushed by partisans. I was myself wounded in the attack, but I discovered later that, rather than fighting off the attackers in defence of his supposed ‘new comrades’, Capt. Caine actually killed several of my men, tried to help Major Butterfield escape, then ran off himself.
I believe that subsequent events show our hypnotic technique to have been flawed. Despite its powerful effect, Capt. Caine retained a strong resistance, and a deep sense of himself. In my opinion, he nursed that resistance quietly until he found a chance to escape. I can state categorically that Capt. Caine never actually took part in a ceremony swearing allegiance to our Führer, nor did he verbally accept the idea of joining the BFC. I have no more access to another’s thoughts than anyone else, but I do not believe that he made a conscious decision to carry out any action that might be interpreted as betraying his country. He was coerced by a process that he had not been trained to resist.
Caine read the statement with breathless incredulity: his first thought was that Blaney had made it up. He read it again, his heart bumping. This time, though, it rang true. The missing day, he thought. I woke up with the memory of a day that never was. I couldn’t work out why it was still only 8 October. He looked up into Blaney’s rose-and-ivory features. ‘How did you know?’ he whispered.
‘I knew you couldn’t have done it voluntarily,’ she said softly, ‘not even as a ruse. I guessed they’d coerced you in some way, but it was strange that you couldn’t remember, and I was sure you weren’t lying. Then you talked about hypnotic suggestion. It set me thinking. It was just a hunch, but I wondered –’
‘This is preposterous,’ the prosecuting officer boomed. ‘Are we supposed to believe this nonsense? Hypnosis, trance-inducing drugs . . . a fantasy concocted by a Nazi war-criminal whose only object is to show himself in a good light?’
Blaney smiled sweetly at him. ‘But it doesn’t show him in a good light, sir. Experimenting on POWs is a war-crime under the Geneva Convention.’
A buzz of voices built up behind them. ‘What the ’ell’s goin’ on, ’ere?’ Caine heard Wallace growl.
The president banged the table with his gavel. ‘Quiet!’ he ordered.
The babble died down: the room fell silent. The judge-advocate adjusted his glasses. ‘This is a remarkable document,’ he said. ‘It not only suggests a fascinating new concept of warfare, but, if true, it also exonerates Captain Caine from the charge of treason. I see no reason to disbelieve the statement simply because it was made by a German officer, especially, as Lt. Blaney says, as he has little to gain by it. I need to discuss it with my colleagues, but I am going to suggest that Captain Caine be acquitted –’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ Blaney cut in. ‘There is still the matter of why Major Butterfield should have accused Captain Caine in the first place.’
The president frowned. ‘I don’t believe that is relevant to this court-martial, Lieutenant.’
Blaney shook rust-coloured curls. ‘With all due respect, sir, I believe it is. A crime has been committed, not by Captain Caine, but by someone else, and I believe it’s the duty of this court to ascertain the nature of that crime.’ She turned, stared at Butterfield, her face serious now. He had gone pale and was drumming his puppet’s fingers on the table: his eyes bulged at her as if unable to tear himself away from her gaze.
‘Major Butterfield was sent on a mission of his own devising,’ Blaney announced, ‘to retrieve a medieval manuscript – the Codex Aesinias – the property of an Italian family. The Codex is not only a valuable instrument of German propaganda, it’s also worth a fortune. It was the major’s intention to steal it for himself –’
The room erupted with a new clamour of voices: Ferguson was on his feet, trying to catch the president’s attention, wiping his head with a handkerchief: Butterfield was white-faced: his eyes darted, his loose lips worked soundlessly.
‘. . . He requested Captain Caine to take over the mission from him, and when Mr Caine subsequently found the Codex, Major Butterfield stole it at gunpoint, wounding a civilian woman in the process. The relevant part, sir, is this: that Major Butterfield decided to expose Captain Caine as a traitor in order to discredit him and cover up his theft of the Codex. It worked. Mr Caine’s report was discounted, and he was arrested on the major’s testimony.’
‘It’s true, Your Honour,’ a voice cut in. Blaney glanced round: Ettore was on his feet, his hand raised like a schoolboy asking a question, his eggshell-coloured cheeks flushed. ‘I was there. That was my sister the fat guy shot . . .’
The president banged his gavel again: this time no one took any notice. The court usher roared, ‘Silence in the court-martial!’ His words were all but lost under the avalanche of noise.
‘If this is true, where is this so-called Codex now?’ Ferguson bawled.
The noise reached a crescendo: Blaney moved back to her table, a faint smile on her lips. She picked up the brown-paper package, undid the paper, brought out a cardboard box. Caine knew he’d seen the box before. The box the Codex was in when we found it.
Blaney laid the box back on the table, slid the lid off with a showman’s deliberation. She held up a slim volume covered in gnarled leather, blinking self-deprecatingly, as if she’d just brought a rabbit out of a hat but hadn’t expected to find it there.
‘Where is the Codex? It’s here. Right here in front of you. How did it get here? At first light this morning, my Field Security colleagues raided Major Butterfield’s store at the 2nd SAS base at Philippeville: they found the Codex hidden under the floorboards, together with several other art treasures that have been reported missing.’
The clamour rose to a riptide. The president stopped banging his gavel for quiet, whipped off his glasses, stared fixedly at the Codex. Butterfield pushed past the prosecuting officer, took a couple of lumbering steps towards the board’s table. There were jeers from the audience: Butterfield froze, cast around him in bewilderment as if trying to pinpoint the hecklers: with his beady eyes, his domed head and his sweeping dewlaps, he looked like a cornered tu
rkey, Caine thought.
‘Stop!’ the president snapped. ‘The witness has not been given permission to leave his seat.’
‘But come on, old boy,’ Butterfield gobbled. ‘What kind of a court-martial is this? It’s not me who’s on trial here.’
‘You’re accused of a serious offence. You have the right to remain silent. Any statement you do make may be used against you in a court-martial.’ The president signalled to the MPs at the back of the court. ‘Guard the prisoner,’ he ordered.
The MPs were like mountains: wedged between them, Butterfield was a deflated balloon. His bead-like eyes were pinned on Caine. ‘This is your doing,’ he wailed. ‘I risked my life to get that Codex.’
‘You’re a brave man, Major,’ Caine said. ‘You did risk your life, and you faced execution without batting an eyelid. I salute you for that. But you also risked the lives of others – the countess, Ettore, Lieutenant Howard and the 2nd SAS lads. What are you going to tell their families when they ask why their sons were sacrificed? So that you could spend the rest of your life gloating over some old book?’
Butterfield shook his head. ‘A man like you would never understand, Caine.’
Caine rose slowly to his feet, replaced his sand-coloured beret, jerked the flap down, over his right temple. He stood up straight, looked Butterfield in the eye. ‘You’re right, Major,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t.’
Chapter Forty-Nine
After the cheers and backslapping, Caine separated himself from the crowd, found Celia Blaney standing forlorn in the gravel driveway. She had her hands in her pockets and was taking in the view of the sea, a seam of scintillating blue-green stained glass set against minarets and stucco buildings. She turned to face him: a soft breeze ruffled her fiery hair.
‘I just wanted to thank you,’ Caine said. ‘You were magnificent.’
Blaney’s grey satin eyes were wary: she didn’t take her hands out of her pockets.
‘What now, Tom?’ she asked: there was a tremor in her voice that he’d never heard before. ‘What are you going to do?’
Caine wavered, not sure what she meant: after the brilliant, assured performance she’d put on in court, she seemed subdued, even hostile.
‘I don’t have a unit to go back to.’ He shrugged. ‘The SRS is back home: it’s due for disbandment, anyway. I can’t go back to the Regiment right this minute, but Paddy confirmed that the SAS is due to be expanded into a brigade, with two British regiments, two French, one Belgian. It’s going to be training in Britain for the invasion of Europe. He said he’d be looking for troop and squadron leaders: he wants to get all the old desert boys together for the final crack. So I suppose it’s back to Blighty for me.’
Blaney gave him a bleak smile. ‘So you haven’t given up, Tom?’
‘Nah, I suppose I’ll see the war out, if Fritz doesn’t get me first. Haven’t really got much choice, have I?’
‘It’s going to be tough on special troops – this Commando Order business. From now on, SAS soldiers will be shot on sight.’
Caine scowled. ‘I talked to Paddy about that, too. He says the DMI won’t accept there’s any such thing as the Commando Order. They say it’s just enemy propaganda.’
Blaney didn’t look surprised. ‘They want to suppress it, Tom. They know it’s true, but they think that, if it’s made public, it’ll affect morale. The DMI asked me to get rid of any reference to special handling in Grolsch’s statement or the court-martial. Grolsch isn’t even going to be tried as a war criminal.’
Caine nodded grimly. ‘Is that the deal you did with him to get his statement?’
‘No.’ Blaney frowned. ‘Maybe Grolsch thinks it is, but there’s no statute of limitations on war-crimes. He’ll get his when the war’s over.’
Yes, Caine thought. Whoever kills a sacred ibis shall die.
At that moment Ettore bustled past them, carrying the Codex under his arm in its cardboard box.
‘Isn’t it risky carrying that thing around?’ Blaney asked him. ‘Quite a few people have died, or nearly died, for it already.’
Ettore gave her a thin-lipped smile. ‘I guess we’ll put it in safe-keeping somewhere until the war’s over, then we’ll donate it to the National Museum of Italy – if it still exists.’ He lifted the box, weighed it in both hands. ‘It seems kind of lightweight, considering all the lives it’s cost. I’m tempted just to throw it into the sea.’
‘That would be a mistake,’ Blaney told him. ‘You know what Milton said: he who destroys a good book destroys reason itself.’
‘Except that it isn’t a good book.’ The youth rolled his shoulders. ‘It’s one of the most dangerous books ever written.’ He glanced at the box, stuck it back under his arm resolutely. ‘I’m off to see Emilia. Want to come?’
‘Perhaps later,’ Caine said.
They watched him lope off towards the gate: there was silence between them.
‘No. 6 Military Hospital,’ Blaney blurted out.
‘What?’
‘That’s where she is. If you hurry you can catch up with him.’
Caine turned to her, took in the large, moist eyes, the rose-and-vanilla features, the flaming hair, the soft face full of sadness.
‘You want to see her, don’t you?’ she said in a small voice.
Suddenly Caine understood: she was afraid that, now the court-martial was over, he would go back to Emilia and forget her. How could he? She’d saved his life. It was true that Emilia had also saved his life: it was true that in Italy he’d felt attracted to her: he could still taste that startling kiss in the most unexpected of places. He laid a hand on Blaney’s arm, pulled on it gently until she withdrew her fingers from her pocket. He linked the arm through his, clasped it firmly, felt no resistance.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll go together.’
Emilia had been a good companion in the field, but Blaney had waited for him, rescued him, been there for him. Emilia was beautiful and vivacious and a countess, but, after all, Blaney was . . . well, Blaney.
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