A Good Clean Fight

by Derek Robinson

  The troops watched impassively as the truck returned to them.

  “Schneeberger’s back again,” Bruno said.

  “Forgot his handbag, I expect,” Oskar said.

  Major Jakowski had a brief conference with Captain Rinkart and Lieutenant Schneeberger. “I’m tired of this,” he said. “We take the direct route from now on. The enemy’s over there.” He looked eastward. “That’s where we go.” His fists were on his hips, his cap was on the back of his head. “Up and over.”

  “I’ve never seen a truck climb anything as steep as that,” Rinkart said. “Not even in bottom gear.”

  “Perhaps if the truck were unloaded first, sir,” Schneeberger suggested.

  “Then what?” Jakowski asked. “Do we carry the load up to it on our shoulders? Use your tiny brain, man.”

  Rinkart focused his binoculars on the upper reaches of the dune. It was as smooth as a snowbank and almost as white. He breathed shallowly, trying to keep the baking heat out of his lungs. There was sweat inside his ears; it slid about as he moved his head. “The conventional way to climb a mountain,” he said, “is to zigzag up.”

  “Try it.”

  Sergeant Nocken was the best driver. He took a small, powerful truck with good tires and made it climb across the slope from right to left. The lower part of the dune made a gentle rise, so the first leg was easy. He accelerated into the turn. The rear wheels flung out a fantail of sand and the truck swung onto the second leg. Now the climb was steeper and the truck began to drift sideways. Nocken gave it more revs. “Good man,” Jakowski said. “Good man.” The bellow of the engine echoed back and forth across the valley. “It’s not going to work,” Rinkart said. “The slope’s getting steeper all the time. He won’t make the next turn.”

  “Shut up!” Jakowski flung his cap at him, and missed.

  “Don’t fight me, major,” Rinkart said. “Fight the desert.”

  Sergeant Nocken could feel the slope getting worse. The truck was leaning hard on its downhill wheels, which left the uphill wheels with little thrust. He launched a long, brave charge at the next turn, made the engine howl, spun the wheel and attacked the gradient, but the sand crumbled and gave no grip. Nocken was defeated. The truck stalled. So much for Rinkart’s idea.

  Schneeberger dusted the major’s cap and returned it to him.

  “If we could only get the salvage truck to the top,” Jakowski said, “we could winch all the rest up.”

  “Captain Lessing has the salvage truck, sir,” Schneeberger said. “We didn’t bring it.”

  “I know that, you fool. Spare me your brilliant analysis of the impossible. I need a solution.”

  “The dunes might be flatter further on,” Rinkart said. “Or lower. Or both.”

  “I’m not going where the desert prefers me to go. I’m going where I damn well want to go.”

  Sergeant Nocken backed, and turned, and let the truck trundle down to where the officers were standing. “Permission to try again, sir?” he said. Jakowski was impressed. He liked the man’s spirit. “Granted.” he said.

  This time Nocken made no attempt to ease the gradient by zigzagging. He pointed the truck squarely at the dune and drove up it as fast as he could. He surprised the watchers by racing past the point where the truck had stalled; but soon his impetus faded to nothing. The roar sank to a growl. The truck was just a box on wheels, clinging to the face of the dune.

  “If they wanted it to fly,” Oskar said, “they should have put wings on it.”

  “Go and tell the major that,” Bruno said. “It’s the sort of thing he likes to know.”

  “Not me,” Oskar said. “Let him work it out for himself.”

  Jakowski took the map from Schneeberger. He didn’t want to look at it, but he was sick of looking at all this sand. It infuriated him with its conspiracy to force him to drive north (or south) when the enemy was squarely to the east. Rinkart was right, damn him: the desert was the enemy. And all these men were standing around, waiting for their orders. What orders? To retire? Quit? Admit failure? Even the thought brought a bitter taste to his throat. He spat, hard.

  “Look, sir,” Schneeberger said.

  Sergeant Nocken had brought his truck back, had crossed the floor of the valley and driven far up the opposite dune. Now he turned and came barreling down, the engine whooping and shouting as he slammed through the gears. The valley floor rose to meet him and the truck surged up the lower slopes on the eastern side. Nocken worked the clutch and the gears to preserve every ounce of momentum. He need not have worried. The truck climbed like a bird. It had power to spare when he stopped it on the crest line. He hooted his horn and waved. They waved and cheered. He looked around; to the east there was nothing to be seen but the Sand Sea. Its colossal waves repeated themselves to the horizon, utterly still, mountainous and painfully silent. Sergeant Nocken, who had about as much imagination as an adjustable wrench, was startled. He had never before seen anything so lovely or so frightening.

  Dune-driving was a special skill. The big thing was the initial charge: if you could get up enough speed to rush the lower slopes, after that it was all a matter of not losing your nerve as the slope got steeper and threatened to turn the truck on its back. Even on the steepest sections, a dune gave remarkably good driving surface, provided you chose fresh, unbroken sand and got the most out of your engine. Above all, it was a matter of faith. Once Nocken had proved it could be done, the others did it too. it too.

  After they got to the top, of course, they used their descent to speed them up the next dune. Compared with grinding along in convoy, this was exciting stuff. The drivers began to challenge each other. The best drivers found that they could hit the top at speed and never need to stop, happy in the knowledge that there were no rocks or trees or obstacles of any kind in the Sand Sea. It was like a colossal, endless roller-coaster.

  Only one truck could not be persuaded to climb the dunes, and that was the water-tanker. The men filled every water-bottle and spare container and left the tanker to be collected on the way back.

  It was a minor inconvenience. By nightfall they had crossed twenty-seven rows of dunes. Jakowski was very pleased. “We’re in striking distance,” he said. “Tomorrow’s going to be interesting.” He ordered an issue of rum for everyone, with a double for Sergeant Nocken.

  * * *

  Butcher Bailey hid his water-bottle under his parachute so that he wouldn’t be tempted to cheat. He was rationing himself to one sip every four hours. His body resented this decision. It wanted everything now, poured down its throat in one long gurgling, soaking rush; and when he refused, his brain retaliated with tantalizing images of bubbling streams and splashing fountains. Meanwhile the dust-storm was an endless dreary brown-gray blur, slamming against the cockpit canopy, and his legs ached to stretch themselves.

  It blew itself out after a day and a half. Bailey stumbled down from the cockpit. He took all his clothes off and beat them against the Tomahawk, but he could not clear the fine grit from his ears and eyes and nose. He celebrated his release with a double sip of water and a malted milk tablet. His body needed more, much more. Hunger and thirst nagged him throughout the weary night.

  Dawn produced the usual silent extravaganza of colors on the usual empty stage.

  He stood on top of the engine cowling and looked at mile upon mile of slightly undulating nothing, and despair seized him so that for a moment his breath got trapped in his throat. He couldn’t walk his way out of this problem, not on the tiny amount of water he had left, not in this murderous heat. And even supposing he could, how far would he have to walk? Fifty miles? A hundred? Don’t be stupid. “Is that all there is to life?” he said aloud. “All over, already?” To his surprise there were tears in his eyes. “It doesn’t seem much,” he said, and climbed down. At least the tears washed some of the grit away.

  * * *

  Three days after his forced landing, Butcher Bailey was lying underneath the Tomahawk, brooding on fate and the memory of
Groppi’s ice cream, when he heard the faint buzz of an engine. The buzz deepened to a growl, and out of the quivering heat-haze emerged a motorcycle with sidecar. It took many minutes to arrive, and when it did Bailey saw on it the sign of the Afrika Korps: a palm tree and some forked lightning in the shape of a swastika. The man in the sidecar got out and said, “You are our prisoner. Give me your weapons.”

  “Haven’t got any,” Bailey said. He was surprised how thin and husky he sounded. “Except for the machine guns, and they’re a bit hard to get at.”

  They searched him and gave him a full water-bottle. He drank half of it slowly and felt enormously better. “This is a surprise,” he said.

  The sidecar passenger introduced himself as Hauptmann Winkler. The other man was a corporal; he spoke no English. “We saw your machine from a big distance,” Winkler said. “We were part of a training exercise. Then the storm came. Now we are lost.”

  “That’s jolly bad luck.” Bailey poured a little water into his palm and washed his eyes. They were immensely grateful.

  “You have a compass?” Winkler asked. “Good. You will . . . What is the word?”

  “Navigate.”

  “Thank you. Yes. You will navigate us to the nearest German camp.”

  “It’s the very least I can do,” Bailey said.

  * * *

  Now that he was feeling slightly better, George the Greek noticed the flies. At some stage he had fouled his trousers and the flies thought he was the greatest invention since camel-dung. George couldn’t remember doing it, but he wasn’t surprised that it had happened. The crash was a long time ago. Nobody’s bowels waited forever.

  The flies were a torment. When they got bored with his stinking trousers they went on walking tours of his arms and neck and face. They buzzed with gratification.

  When the dust-storm died and daylight reached into the cave, he managed to show the old Arab man that he wanted to be rid of his trousers. The man tugged them off. He did it very cautiously, as if afraid of worsening some injury. George stood up to show everyone he was well again. His heart panicked and his legs wandered in various directions. The Arabs caught him as he fell.

  Nevertheless he was able to clean off the filth, using handfuls of grit from the cave floor. One of the children brought him some fresh sand and he completed the job with that. The flies didn’t like it. All but a few hundred left in disgust.

  From time to time he heard the roar of engines. Some were low-flying aircraft; others he guessed to be armored cars. None of the Arabs spoke English, but one drew a swastika in the dust and signaled the need for silence.

  At the end of the afternoon, the serious little girl brought him more sour milk and a little bread. Then everyone helped to lift him onto a stretcher, a real army stretcher except that one corner of it was missing and his leg flopped down. The serious little girl held his foot. Dusk rapidly turned into night. They carried him out of the cave and along the wadi. There were no flies. Libyan flies were not qualified for night-flying. That was a blessing.

  * * *

  The German corporal drove the motorcycle-combination. That was his job. Everything else was not his concern. Hauptmann Winkler sat in the sidecar and watched Bailey, who was on the pillion with the Tomahawk’s compass. Winkler had his pistol out, in case Bailey tried to attack the corporal with his compass.

  They drove for two hours, due east. The going was good. If the corporal wandered off course Bailey had only to point and they swung back at once. There was no shadow. The sun roasted all color from the world, but their speed created an agreeable breeze.

  They stopped to refuel the engine.

  “One travels and one goes nowhere,” Winkler said, rubbing his backside. It was true. The desert here was no different from the place they had left. He gave Bailey a water-bottle. “How much further?”

  “An hour.”

  “Any camp is good. German army or Italian. Luftwaffe, even.”

  “I know.”

  The corporal locked the cap on the jerrican. “Drei liter, Herr Hauptmann,” he said, tapping the can.

  “Ample,” Bailey said.

  An hour later, Winkler suddenly shouted and the corporal stopped. The sun had moved on; there was a shadow. Winkler got out, looked at the tracks they had made, turned and looked at the shadow he cast, and said in a child’s voice: “This is all wrong!” The safety-catch on his pistol clicked. “This way is east. We must go north.”

  Bailey rested his arms on the corporal’s shoulders and rested his head on his arms. “Too late,” he said.

  “You lied to me,” Winkler said. “You are an officer and you lied.”

  “Awfully sorry, sir,” Bailey mumbled. “And that’s another lie.”

  * * *

  Benghazi did rather well out of the desert war.

  It was originally an Arab port, but by 1942 the Italians had been there for twenty years and it was like a little Naples in Africa. In the ping-pong war, Benghazi changed hands at least once a year, sometimes twice. This meant that there was always a fresh influx of thirsty men who had slogged east or west across the desert and who were delighted to find the comforts of civilization. For its part, Benghazi was happy to serve them. Good pasta was good pasta, whether it was eaten by a German or an Australian. Inevitably the town got knocked about by bombs, but the target was usually the docks. If a bomb-aimer had a fit of twitch when searchlights coned his machine and he pressed the tit too soon, it might be the end of a decent little restaurant or a hardworking brothel; but that was an acceptable business risk. Like Londoners during the Blitz, the Italian colonists of Benghazi took pride in maintaining service as usual. War was hell, of course, but it was no excuse for badly-cooked spaghetti.

  Maria Grandinetti told Schramm that he was taking her out for dinner. “It’s time you started paying for your treatment,” she said.

  “All right.” He thought hard for a few seconds and said, “There’s a restaurant called the Sorrento which I sometimes pass . . .”

  “Very wise.”

  “Oh.” That flattened him. “I’ll take you to the Officers’ Club, then.”

  “No you won’t.” She picked up the phone and dialed. “It’s full of boring uniforms and I see more than enough . . . Ah, Pietro, come sta? . . . Benissimo, grazie. Per questa sera . . .” Her rippling Italian was far too fast for Schramm. He moved away and took a seat, and watched her lively, intelligent face in a mirror, because he did not wish to be seen to stare but he enjoyed looking.

  She hung up. “Tutto va bene. Dinner is arranged. Very expensive, but you have conquered Europe, you can afford it. Now it’s time for me to go round the wards. Come.”

  “I hate your damned wards.”

  “Which just shows how dishonest you are.” She took his arm and steered him out of her room.

  As she made her way down the wards, moving from bed to bed, talking quietly with nurses and doctors, examining wounds, asking questions, Schramm stayed well in the background. He kept to the center of the ward and looked to his front. Pain was a fact, but he didn’t have to see its suffering face. Bad enough having to breathe the tainted air and hear the occasional groan. This is not your job, he told himself. Leave it to the professionals.

  “Paul,” she said. He strolled across and looked at her. There was something lying on a bed, but it was none of his business. “This I think is one of your men,” she said.

  Schramm took the clipboard holding the patient’s record. Debratz, Kurt. Aged twenty. Gefreiter, which meant airman, lowest form of life in the Luftwaffe. The date he got his wounds was the day the SAS raided Barce. Kurt Debratz. Must be the lad who was working a fire hose when a 109 exploded and blew him over the fire truck. Burns, fractures, internal damage: the works. Recommended for a decoration, God knows why. All he did was point a hose.

  Schramm returned the clipboard. “One of ours,” he agreed.

  “Perhaps not one,” she said. “More like seventy percent.”

  Now Schramm had to loo
k. The head and chest were all bandages. One leg had gone and one hand. “That won’t do his love life any good,” he said flatly.

  “It’s not a problem any more. His love life was blown off with his leg.” She was totally matter-of-fact.

  “What do you expect me to do?” he asked. He tried to match her tone, but his voice sounded harsh.

  “Enjoy yourself,” she said. One of the nurses looked startled and immediately busied herself with tidying a loose dressing. Schramm frowned and hunched his shoulders, and felt the fire of guilt seep into his face. Dr. Grandinetti moved on.

  The afternoon was slowly ending: running out of heat and light and energy. He took her to her flat, only a couple of blocks away. She said she wanted to wash her hair. He knew that, if he asked, he could stay while she did it. That was what he wanted; but he was still stiff with anger and he produced a clumsy lie: he had to go to the Officers’ Club in case there were any messages waiting that required immediate action . . . She cocked her head and smiled. “Don’t let the war get cold,” she said. He turned and left her, trying hard not to march.

  Since he had gone to the trouble of lying, he lived up to it and went to the Officers’ Club, took a shower, shaved, had his uniform pressed, his shoes polished (a waste of time in the Benghazi dust) and his hair trimmed, and drove back to the flat feeling at least two ranks senior to himself.

  She was ready. Green silk dress, scarlet scarf knotted at the neck, no hat, gold bangle on the right wrist. Maybe a hint of perfume, or perhaps that was the scent of some flower in the night.

  “You look,” he said, and cleared his throat, “all right.”

  Her mouth curled up at the corners. “I bet you’ve been practicing that all afternoon.” She got into his car. “Hotel Garibaldi. Take the Benina road, it’s on the left.”

  He drove ten yards and stopped. “We can’t go there. That’s General Schaefer’s headquarters.”

  “Trust me.”