A Good Clean Fight

by Derek Robinson

  It was full daylight when they reached the map reference. The Luftwaffe DF stations had done quite well: the wreck was only five miles away. It stuck out like a dead fly on a white carpet.

  They went down and buzzed it. Nothing moved. It was the most ripped-up, torn-apart wreck that Barton had ever seen.

  Hooper saw the wheel tracks. “Heading east,” he said.

  “Jerry got here first,” Barton said.

  Following the tracks was child’s play: from a hundred feet they were as clear as tramlines. The trucks appeared on the horizon as soft blobs of black. Soon they began to make feathery tails of dust. Then the details emerged: wheels, canvas tops, cabs. Someone saw or heard the fighters coming, for suddenly the trucks turned away from each other. It was all too late. Barton strafed one, Hooper strafed the other. It was an old familiar routine and the streams of tracer chased and found their targets as if the trucks were magnets that wanted to be hit.

  Both trucks were on fire after the first pass. The Kittyhawks came back and killed all the men who were running away. Some were aircrew, some were not. Hooper wasn’t concerned to distinguish. He had three .50-caliber machine guns in each wing and he gave the area a thorough hosing. If they were running, he killed them. If they were lying, he made sure they were dead. Barton did the same. Twelve machine guns killed everyone on the ground several times over. Toward the end, one of the trucks exploded. Hooper was not impressed. He had seen ambulances blow up with far greater effect.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Chaps Come and Go

  The Benghazi blackout was less than perfect. Malplacket began to see specks of light perforating the night far ahead. He drove the Fiat off the road and stopped. “I need to pee,” he said.

  “Again?”

  “You have an objection?”

  “Hell, no, you go ahead. Who am I to stand between a man and his bladder?”

  When Malplacket came back he said, “We should have a plan. We’re sure to meet some kind of barrier. What do we say then? Who do we claim we are?”

  “What do we look like?”

  “Two middle-aged German officers in dirty uniforms.”

  “Then that’s what we are. We play it by ear, my friend. That’s our plan. You got a better one?” Lester reached across and turned the ignition key. For the first time in years he was free. Life was an adventure. He wanted action.

  Malplacket eased the car back on the road and cautiously put on speed. He was driving, not because he was a good driver, but because he was sure that Lester would be a reckless one. The headlights were dimmed with metal grills and their beams made only a small dent in the darkness. He was afraid of running into something: a truck parked without lights, a squad of soldiers on the march, he didn’t know what. His feet danced gingerly on the pedals. In the end, something nearly ran into him. A blare like a monster foghorn erupted close behind the Fiat and both men jumped as if stung. Malplacket’s foot slammed and the rear wheels spun, gripped and flung the car away from this deafening threat. Lester turned and looked back. “It’s a truck,” he said. “Jesus, it’s big as a goddamn house.” Malplacket said nothing. Soon his fingers ached from squeezing the wheel. Once, he almost ran out of road and the wheels jolted and bounced on broken tarmac. “Hey, hey!” Lester complained. His voice shook like jelly.

  “I can’t see him.” Malplacket’s eyes were flickering to and from the wing mirror. “Is he still behind us?”

  “Slow down. Pull over, let him pass, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I can’t pull over, not at this speed. What’s that?”

  Lester turned and looked at the road ahead. He saw a small red glow, magnifying rapidly. “Tail light!” he shouted, and snatched the handbrake. Malplacket was flung forward. His face whacked the top of the steering wheel. The Fiat drifted crabwise across the road leaving four tracks of hot rubber. It bucketed up the bank and stalled with a crush of bushes choking the chassis.

  “Oooh,” Malplacket said. “Ow.” The sounds were juvenile, they could not describe his serious pain, but they were the best his voice could do. “Oh, oh.” It sounded like somebody else’s voice. He wished it were somebody else’s pain.

  Lester found a flashlight.

  “You took a smack on the hooter, looks like.” Blood was rippling down Malplacket’s upper lip and chin. “That great schnoz of yours is a couple of sizes bigger than it was.”

  Lester got out and began freeing the front wheels. “Some skid, eh?” he said. “Handbrake special. One of Capone’s men taught me.”

  “I don’t care if I never see Benghazi.” Malplacket lay face up on the front seats and breathed through his mouth. “Benghazi is not worth a tenth of that frightful experience. Not a tenth of a tenth.”

  “It’s just a bloody nose. It’s nothing.”

  “Indeed? Bring your nose here and I’ll show you how painful nothing can be.”

  “Listen, don’t get mad at me, fella. You were the guy who was driving like a maniac. I was the one who saved our skins.”

  “Tosh,” Malplacket said heavily. “Total transatlantic tosh.”

  “I like that. I can use that. As we diced with death on our way into the Forbidden City, Malplacket, showing typical English phlegm, dismissed the risks as tosh. Reader’s Digest is gonna love that.”

  “Never mind English phlegm. It’s gore I’m losing.”

  “Oh boy. Gore. I got to get this stuff down before I forget it.”

  It was a long time before Malplacket’s nose stopped bleeding and he was able to stand. “I can’t possibly drive,” he said. “My head feels like a pumpkin.”

  “This is war, Hans. Ve must all sacrifice ourselfs for ze Muzzerland. It’s your job to drive. I’m a captain, you’re only a lousy leutnant. Sieg Heil!”

  Malplacket stared at his silhouette. “Lester: have you been taking benzedrine, or something?”

  “Nein, nein, mein Wagenfuhrer. Look, we gonna stand around and talk all night, or what?”

  Malplacket drove. The Fiat seemed undamaged. The moon was up, and he could see much more of the road now. The flow of traffic carried him smoothly along. More and more, the countryside was dotted with small white farmhouses, homes of Italian colonists. After twenty minutes the traffic began to slow. Ahead they could see a modern triumphal gateway, a tall concrete arch in the massive Fascist style. Lights flickered beneath it where troops were operating a checkpoint.

  “This is the beginning and the end,” Malplacket said. “They will take us out and shoot us.” His nose itched. He held his breath and shut his eyes, but that did no good. He sneezed violently. Blood gushed from his nostrils again. “Hell and damnation,” he said thickly.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” Lester told him. “You’re just a lousy leutnant, remember?”

  The traffic moved. The station-wagon inched forward. An Italian corporal came over and asked a question. Lester ignored him and Malplacket was looking at the floor. The corporal asked it again. Lester suddenly roused himself, in a blazing rage. “Who the fuck you think you are, asshole?” he rasped. The raw violence in his voice took the soldier aback. He said something that sounded apologetic. Lester turned sideways, grabbed Malplacket’s face with one hand and thrust it toward the Italian. “Get a load of this gore!” he shouted. Blood trickled over his splayed fingers, and Malplacket saw the man wince. “Deutschland über Alles” Lester snarled. “Ain’t that a fact?” He released Malplacket and aimed a bloody finger forward. “Move it!” The barrier went up. They drove through.

  * * *

  Half an hour’s driving left them hopelessly baffled.

  At night, Benghazi was like any other well-fought-over town. The blackout combined with bomb damage to make driving difficult. If you didn’t know exactly where to go, you ended up going in long, confused circles. The second time they drove past the cathedral, Lester said, “Hold it. This is getting us nowhere.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I told you: wherever the action is. See if you can find
the harbor. That should be good for a few laughs.”

  Malplacket tried, but the streets wandered hither and yon, and ten minutes later the Fiat was back at the cathedral. “Shit,” Lester said. “No disrespect, God . . . Look, let’s at least find a bar.”

  “Certainly. What does a Benghazi bar look like?”

  “Just drive. Pick a new route. Anywhere at all. I’ll look.”

  Eventually Lester found a place that might have been a bar. A large and furious fight was taking place outside it. Malplacket slowed long enough to see feld polizei whacking skulls and kicking ribs, and then he accelerated away. Neither of them spoke.

  The street they were on merged with a wider road of gleaming white concrete. Malplacket made good speed. The suburbs slipped behind them; now the countryside was largely farmland. “So much for Benghazi,” Malplacket said. He pulled over and stopped.

  “What’s so special about this bit?” Lester asked.

  “There’s a roadblock ahead.” A red light glowed, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. It was hard to be sure. Malplacket rested his head against the side window and closed his eyes. “Furthermore, I am quite, quite exhausted.”

  “I’m not sleeping here! No sir.” Lester pointed at the dim, square shape of a house. “Get us up there. Must be a drive or a track or something.”

  There was a drive. When Malplacket stopped at the top, Lester whacked the horn. “Me, sleep in a car? I’m a captain in the goddamn Waffen SS, for Christ’s sake! Watch me use my powers of requisition.”

  They found the front door and he beat on it with the butt of his pistol until an upper window opened. “Afrika Korps” he snapped. “Rommel Panzer Luftwaffe Blitzkrieg Gezundheit, so get your ass down here fast.”

  She was middle-aged, Italian and alone. Lester saluted, clicking his heels. She did not seem frightened or even surprised, and she immediately set about cooking a meal for them.

  “See, it’s all in your tone of voice,” Lester said. “People expect to be kicked around. Just shout, and half the world jumps. You want to know why? Because half the world feels guilty for being alive, that’s why.”

  Malplacket watched Lester drum his fingers on the arm of his chair. His cap rested on one knee. One boot was propped on the toe of the other. He was more like an officer of the Third Reich than the real thing. Malplacket looked away.

  They ate spaghetti. “You got to be a wop to cook this stuff right,” Lester said. “My wife, the way she served it up, it tasted like string.”

  “That’s exactly what it means. Spaghetti is Italian for string.”

  “So what?”

  Malplacket carefully placed his fork on his plate. He wiped his mouth, and dislodged some flakes of blackened blood. They fell on the table. He brushed them onto the floor with his hand. “Since you are absolutely determined to find fault with everything and everyone,” he said, “I suggest we abandon conversation for the present.”

  Lester stared while he chewed his pasta. He washed it down with wine. “You know your trouble?” he said. “You give up too easily, that’s your trouble. My old man—”

  Far away, a siren growled and climbed and wound itself up to a high wail. The Italian woman stopped washing a pot and crossed herself.

  “Action!” Lester said. “This I gotta see.” He crammed spaghetti into his mouth, found his cap and the car keys, and hurried out.

  A dozen searchlights were fumbling and groping for the incoming bombers. Lester stood by the Fiat and tried to pinpoint the rumble of engines, but the noise was too high and too vague. Soon the harsh bark of flak batteries overwhelmed it. He backed the car down to the road and drove toward the center of town.

  The first stick of bombs marched across the harbor area. The explosions cracked the blackness with their brilliance and the thunderclaps followed almost as an afterthought. Lester realized that he was looking down on Benghazi; this was as good a view as he was going to get. He pulled over and began making notes.

  The searchlights found a bomber. It was so high that all he could see was a glowing speck trapped in the cone. Then he saw bursts of flak in the beams; they resembled little smuts of soot. He recorded that. When the bomber began to burn it left a tail of flame, similar to a comet. It did not dive straight down: it fell in a long spiral, patiently tracked by the searchlights. When it crashed, the violence was so great that he felt it through his feet. Bombs still on board, he thought. Either that, or they hit the gasworks.

  He counted eighty-four bomb-bursts. The flak tailed off, the searchlights quit, the sky was empty. Benghazi was quiet again, except for the distant, tinny clang of ambulances and the tireless barking of every dog in town. They should be used to the bombing by now, Lester thought. He made a note of it. Dogs were always good copy.

  * * *

  Next morning Malplacket woke up to the life-giving aroma of coffee. He had slept well, his nose had healed, and nobody was trying to kill him. Despite himself, he began to feel cheerful. Perhaps this mad act of derring-do would turn out for the best after all. And by eleven-fifteen that morning, when he was photographing Lester walking past a building festooned with large Nazi flags, he felt as happy as a boy on his first bicycle.

  While he and Lester had shaved and showered and breakfasted, the Italian woman had sponged and pressed their uniforms. She was touchingly grateful when Lester gave her some paper money, so he added another couple of notes.

  “Where on earth did you get all that?” Malplacket asked him.

  “I looted those bodies in the desert. Some of it’s a bit bloodstained. She didn’t seem to mind that, did she?” He bowed from the waist and kissed her hand.

  They drove into Benghazi and hid the Fiat inside a villa that looked as if, long ago, it had been shelled or bombed. The roof had gone and one end-wall was missing. Bushes had invaded the rooms; they filled the gaps that had once been windows with foliage and blossom.

  Lester took the distributor cap. “Lotta shady characters about this sorta town,” he said.

  They walked down the street. Malplacket noticed that Lester had acquired something of a strut; also, he kept his left thumb hooked inside his belt. Coming the opposite way were three German soldiers; they stopped talking as they approached, and saluted. Lester’s salute hit the peak of his cap and flew outward as if on springs. Malplacket saw a soldier smirk.

  When they were out of earshot, he said: “Don’t salute like that, old chap. It’s not done.”

  “That’s how they do it in the movies.”

  “Forget Hollywood. You gave the impression that you were trying to swat a rather dull wasp. Come with me.” They went into an alley, where some Arab children were playing. “Bring your hand the long way up, and let it fall the short way down. Like this.” He demonstrated. “It’s a mere acknowledgment, you see. Not physical training.” Lester practiced. So did the Arab children. “Casual, huh?” he said.

  “Of course. You are an officer.” They went back into the street. “And try not to goose-step, old chap,” Malplacket said. The children were following them, saluting hard. He turned and stamped. They fled.

  That was the turning point for Malplacket. Suddenly he felt in command. “From what little I saw last night,” he said, “the custom here is that officers who are out for a stroll walk arm-in-arm.”

  Reluctantly, Lester linked arms. “Where I come from, this means we’re as good as married.”

  “Yes? How quaint.”

  “You ditch me, my brothers break your legs.”

  They sauntered through the town, merging with the crowds of servicemen. Lester counted a dozen different uniforms in a wide range of colors. He saw carabiniere, and Luftwaffe aircrew, and black soldiers, presumably recruited from the far corners of Mussolini’s empire. He returned every salute as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Then they walked into a square and he saw the wreckage of a crashed fighter.

  It was stacked on a recovery vehicle, with its wings folded alongside its fuselage. The RAF roundels stood out like bull
seyes. “I gotta get a picture of that thing,” Lester said hungrily.

  He showed Malplacket how to use his camera, and he posed, hands on hips, in front of the wreck. He was not alone. Other cameras were capturing the scene.

  “That’s gonna be worth a thousand bucks,” he said.

  “Goodness. Money for old rope, isn’t it? We should seek to enlarge your portfolio.”

  Malplacket shot Lester drinking coffee at an outdoor café, surrounded by bronzed German officers. He shot him standing with his arms folded in front of an 88 mm antiaircraft gun. He shot him shading his eyes as he watched the gunners of a German navy patrol-boat detonate a British mine, creating a tower of white water. He had used up half the film when they chanced upon a building that could only have been a military headquarters. Dispatch riders came and went, and clusters of officers stood on the steps, talking. Swastika flags drooped from the upper windows and a swastika banner—long and pointed—billowed elegantly from the balcony. Machine guns on tripods flanked the door. A screen of sentries checked everyone who entered. Lester and Malplacket stopped and studied the place from a distance. “No,” Lester said. “That’s pushing our luck too hard.”