Hellfire (2011)

by James Holland

  General Gott had had his fair share of close calls – during the last war, and on several occasions in the desert. As soon as the bullets had started to hit the aircraft, he had known the situation was critical yet the seconds passed and still the Bombay was airborne. Then the enemy aircraft appeared to have flown on by and it was quickly apparent that the young pilot was doing a superb job. When the great hulk touched down, Gott felt certain all would be well, despite the smoke and faint lick of flames coming from the cockpit.

  ‘We’re in good hands,’ he said, smiling reassuringly. ‘We’ll be all right. Soon out of here.’

  The co-pilot and medical orderly appeared, coughing and spluttering.

  ‘We need to get the door off,’ said the co-pilot.

  Gott turned to the two ground crew who had accompanied the flight. ‘You boys know what to do?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ they replied.

  Like the pilot, they were young. Barely men at all, thought Gott. ‘Good,’ he said, then turned back to the co-pilot and medical orderly. ‘You two get back to the pilot. He needs you more than we do. We’re all right here.’

  Gott watched as the two crewmen opened the door and latched it backwards, then sat down again. The Bombay was slowing but suddenly the aircraft lurched, the catch on the door broke free and the door slammed shut again.

  ‘Damn it!’ said one of the ground crew. ‘Excuse my French, sir.’

  Gott smiled. ‘Let’s just get it open again quickly.’

  The young man stood but the handle would not turn. A look of panic spread over his face. ‘It won’t budge, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Here,’ said Gott, ‘let me have a try.’ He stood and gripped the handle, but it was no use, it was wedged. The sudden force of it slamming back had jammed it. ‘Have you got a wrench or a hammer or something?’ Gott asked.

  His voice was drowned by another burst of bullets and cannon-shells raking across the aircraft, followed by the roar of planes hurtling past. Gott glanced up and saw a ball of flame erupt just a few yards away.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he muttered, and then the wall of fire was upon him.

  The same ball of flame now engulfing the fuselage had forced the pilot backwards, and so, with his shoes still on fire, his face and hands blistering, he went down through the hatch in the cockpit floor just as the undercarriage buckled and collapsed. Groping his way through thick clouds of smoke and past a burning tyre, he managed to get clear into blinding sunshine only for there to be another bang and the Bombay collapsed. He had avoided being crushed to death by a few seconds.

  Staggering towards the rear of the plane, he looked for the crew and passengers, but saw only four men: Mackay, the medical officer, the wireless operator and one soldier, all blackened and bloodied.

  ‘What?’ he mumbled. ‘Where are the others? Where are they? Where are they?’

  ‘In there,’ said Mackay, pointing to the burning wreck.

  The aircraft was now a ball of fire, changing shape before James’s eyes. Melting.

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘No!’ He looked at the others, then at his smouldering boots, his blackened hands, his singed uniform. For a moment he could not take in what had happened. Then his mind slowly cleared. Turning to the medical orderly, he said, ‘You do your best for everyone. I’m going to try and get help.’

  North. He had to head northwards, towards the coast. Head north and, with luck, he might bump into someone. Above, the sun beat down. He felt light-headed, disoriented, but strangely no pain. Come on, he told himself, it’s your only chance.

  James staggered across the desert, once tripping over a stone he had failed to notice, another time snagging his shredded shorts on some desert vetch. Numbed and still in shock, he managed several miles until, cresting a shallow ridge, he stumbled again and fell, fainting as he did so.

  As his senses returned, he looked up to see a Bedouin standing over him.

  ‘Inglese,’ rasped James. ‘Inglese.’ The Bedouin put some water to his mouth, then hoisted him to his feet and helped him on to a camel. Jolting. James smelt the thick hide of the camel, then closed his eyes. When he woke again he was still moving, the sun still beating down mercilessly. He closed his eyes again.

  He was awake. The camel had stopped. Beside him the Bedouin had taken off his turban and was waving it and shouting. James slid off the camel, staggered to his feet. The Bedouin was pointing furiously and there, a few hundred yards ahead, was a small cloud of dust and vehicle.

  Thank God, thought James, taking off his shirt. It was completely red. The truck now changed direction and began moving towards them. James watched it approach, and then there it was, a miracle, stopped in front of them, men getting out.

  ‘Christ!’ said a man from the RASC. ‘You’ve got no hair. Your face is burned and look at your bloody hands! What the hell happened to you?’

  James sank to his knees. ‘General Gott,’ he muttered. ‘Bristol Bombay shot down.’

  ‘Shot down? Christ, where is he?’

  ‘Still in the plane,’ gasped James. ‘He’s dead.’

  2

  Jack Tanner was awake, conscious of a fly crawling across his back. He lay face down on the bed, the thin sheet covering his legs and backside. His back and arms were bare, his tanned torso still livid with ugly red scars. Above him, the fan whirred, a faint warm breeze wafting over him, but there was no escape from the afternoon heat, not even with the shutters closed. Outside, the city throbbed, but here, in this compact room, the air was still. The fly flew off, but Tanner lay still, his eyes open, watching Lucie wash herself in the adjoining bathroom.

  He had been wounded more than a month before when a shell had exploded nearby. He had been lucky not to be severely maimed – or even killed – but shrapnel had peppered his back and left arm and one piece had lodged just below his left shoulder-blade. At the time he’d felt nothing and although it had made a bit of a mess and there had been a lot of blood, he had not been anything like as concerned as the men who had picked him up and seen his shredded behind.

  On the journey back by field ambulance the pain had kicked in. Jolting up and down across the desert had been torture, made worse by the man on top slowly dying, his blood dripping through the canvas on to Tanner’s front. Eventually he had been transferred to an old Bombay transport plane, flown to Heliopolis and then had suffered another brutal ambulance ride. By the time he had reached the 9th Scottish General Hospital, he had been dipping in and out of consciousness, his wounds were beginning to smell, and for a day or so, it had been touch and go as to whether or not he would pull through.

  But he had and, with the piece of shell casing safely excavated, had made swift progress. After two and a half weeks in hospital, he had finally been discharged, thanks largely to Lucie Richoux. Good God, he had hated that hospital. He did not mind the heat normally, but in there it had been oppressive, and it had smelt of carbolic, faeces and festering wounds – the kind of cocktail it was hard to clear from the nose. The place specialized in burns, and certainly most of those in the beds alongside him were either airmen or cavalry – men who had screamed by day and even more so by night. Others had lain silently, swathed in bandages, legs, arms, and parts of their heads blown away. Tanner was not squeamish, but to see those men cut down and helpless, their lives ripped apart, was more than he could stomach.

  To make matters worse, streams of women had been constantly parading through the wards. Wives of Cairo dignitaries, some wearing bright dresses, others sporting VAD and Red Cross uniforms, pushing trolleys filled with sandwiches or books, and urging those fit enough to take up embroidery. Tanner knew it was all well meant but he groaned inwardly when he saw them coming. He had no intention of sewing – he did enough of that mending his uniform without being chivvied into more by some middle-aged woman with a plum up her arse. There had been one lady who had repeatedly singled him out. She had obviously been of a determined nature and was not going to be denied by a taciturn infantryman. Patiently, Tanner had explained t
hat he was perfectly capable of sewing, that he had nothing against anyone who wanted to sew, but that he did not wish to spend his convalescence embroidering regimental badges. Despite this, she refused to give up, accosting him every time she came in, which was every other day. Eventually he had hidden in the toilet whenever he saw her coming.

  The one consolation had been Lucie. They had met more than two years earlier, during the retreat to Dunkirk when she had been working as a QA nurse. With an English mother and a French father, she had been brought up mostly in France, and although Tanner had lost track of her following his return to England, they had met again at the end of May during the Gazala battles when Tanner and a patrol of Yorks Rangers had had to pull back to the Free French fort at Bir Hacheim. As the British line crumbled, so Bir Hacheim had been left isolated, but after ten long days, the entire brigade, medical staff and attached Rangers had made a successful break-out.

  After safely falling back to the Alamein position, Tanner had left Lucie once more to rejoin the rest of the battalion, while she had made her way to Cairo. After he’d spent ten days in hospital, though, there she had been, dressed in a nurse’s uniform and standing by his bed, smiling. She had heard he was wounded and had been looking for him. Following their escape from Bir Hacheim, General König had decided that women would not accompany the Free French in future – not even nurses. Having discovered that Tanner had been sent to the 9th Scottish, she had offered her services, which had been gratefully accepted.

  ‘I’ve got to get out of here, Luce,’ he had told her, as she had sat by his bed, squeezing his hand.

  ‘Soon,’ she had told him. ‘I’ve just got to sort out my flat. As soon as I’m in, I’ll get you discharged and you can convalesce there. They’ll be delighted. There aren’t enough beds as it is.’

  That had been true. Nine weeks of the heaviest fighting the desert war had seen had stretched the medical services in the Middle East to bursting point. As Lucie had predicted, the doctors at the 9th Scottish had discharged Tanner with no more than a cursory examination and a scrawled signature on his medical notes.

  Stiff-backed and aching, Tanner had gingerly put on a fresh uniform and, with Lucie’s help, had made his way back out into the dazzlingly bright city, hailed a taxi and headed south-west through the pulsating streets to the Midan. From there he went south towards Garden City and the embassy. Just to the north, in a street edging the banks of the Nile south of the Kasr El Nil Bridge, Lucie’s second-floor flat was in a block that was not even ten years old. It was small and compact, but modern enough to have its own toilet and bathroom. Short of being in Garden City, it was positioned in one of the best locations in all of Cairo. It belonged to an uncle of Lucie’s – a British uncle – who had been posted back to England at the outbreak of war. It had been let ever since, but after a long and time-consuming exchange of letters, Lucie had been granted permission to terminate the lease on the existing tenant and move in.

  ‘I’ve been rather lucky, haven’t I?’ she had said, as she led him out on to the balcony.

  ‘Not as lucky as me,’ Tanner had replied. ‘The timing’s been faultless.’

  ‘It has rather. It should have been last week, but the poor man was struggling to find new digs and pleaded with me to let him stay on a few more days.’

  Tanner had leaned on the metal balcony rail to look out over the city. He could glimpse the Nile and the Gezira Sporting Club to the left, while ahead and to his right, the city shimmered in the morning haze. In the desert there was nothing: vast, mostly featureless scrub. Patrolling in their stripped-down trucks, he and his men had often spent days without seeing a soul. Even in the heat of battle, there was still plenty of space. But in Cairo everything – people, beasts, buildings, vehicles – was crammed together. The contrast could not have been greater.

  For the first week, Tanner had done as Lucie instructed. He had remained in the flat, resting and, for once in his life, reading. In hospital he had leafed through a few magazines and copies of Crusader, but he had never had much call to read. His boyhood education had been limited, and even in winter there had always been other things to do during the long nights and short days. With his mother gone, Tanner had preferred to help his father in his job as a gamekeeper. In winter that had meant spending much of his time outside.

  Now, however, as he had begun to feel more himself and, accordingly, more restless, he had picked up the books Lucie had brought home. The first had been Under the Greenwood Tree, which he enjoyed with mixed feelings of nostalgia and regret: the descriptions of the Wessex countryside had reminded him of the home he had not seen in ten years, while he recognized some of the characters in the older folk he had known as a boy. Then Lucie had brought two more, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Far From the Madding Crowd. Again, he had experienced the same sensations of delight, yearning and regret. The books had also taken him away from the war. Ever since he had sailed for Norway two years before, Tanner had been in almost continuous front-line operations. Of course, there had been brief moments of leave in England and in Cairo, but for the most part he had spent his time with other soldiers, and the war had never seemed very far away. Passing idle days reading and walking, then lying close with Lucie at night had made him feel cocooned, as though he belonged to a different world in which he was not expected to fight.

  He had recognized that his enforced convalescence had done him good, but now, ten days on, he was restless. Lucie had begun a two-week stint of night duty, and although he was happy to spend the day in her arms, he struggled during the long nights. His wounds ached, but not enough to dampen his mind. Suddenly the world seemed to be carrying on without him.

  Salvation was at hand, however. The 2nd Battalion, the King’s Own Yorkshire Rangers, had suffered less than some units during the recent fighting, but still had casualties of around a third. Since they had been at the front line continuously since the Crusader offensive of the previous November, they had now been withdrawn for refitting at Mena Camp, just outside the city, next to the Pyramids. The previous day, he had sent a note to his company commander and friend, Captain Peploe, informing him of his steady progress and his hope that he would soon be passed fit for active service. That morning a reply had arrived: Peploe would visit him that evening. Tanner was surprised by how much he was looking forward to seeing him.

  Tanner lay still, watching Lucie. She had a slight frame, with dark hair cut at the shoulders, and a neat, compact face with full lips and large brown eyes. He had thought her pretty the first time he had laid eyes on her in that farmhouse in Flanders, and he had not changed his mind.

  Sensing him watching her, she turned and smiled.

  ‘You’re very lovely, you know,’ he said.

  She blew him a kiss. ‘Are you sure you feel up to going out tonight?’

  ‘Yes. I won’t go mad.’

  She wrapped herself in a towel, then sat on the edge of the bed beside him and ran a hand over his shoulders. The towel fell away, revealing her naked body. ‘I know you want to get back to them,’ she said, ‘so I really wouldn’t overdo it. You’re doing so well, but you could easily have a setback.’

  ‘I might just have a drink with him here.’

  She raised an eyebrow and smiled again, and Tanner reached out and pulled her towards him.

  ‘Tempting though this is, I must get dressed.’

  Tanner sighed and eased himself on to his side, so that he could watch her. Knickers, bra, white cotton uniform with claret shoulder pips denoting her rank as captain in the QAIMNS.

  ‘It’s rude to stare,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t help it. You know I love a girl in uniform.’

  Lucie laughed. ‘What time is Captain Peploe coming?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Hopefully not too late.’ He picked up the wristwatch from the small cabinet beside the bed. The strap had been white once but was now grey with sweat and grime. ‘Quarter past five,’ he said.

  She gathered her hair into a clasp. ‘I
must go. Have a good evening, Jack. See you in the morning.’ She bent down and kissed him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, clasping her hand. ‘I mean it. For everything. For these past days, for finding me in that hospital and rescuing me.’

  ‘Trouble is,’ she said, ‘I know it’s not going to last. You’ll be off again soon and I’m dreading it. I’ll miss you, Jack. You’ve been lucky so far and I’m worried you might not be next time.’

  ‘I’ll be all right. I’ve got a guardian angel – didn’t I tell you?’

  Tanner knew that Captain Peploe was not the most punctual of people, and had been preparing himself not to see his friend until much later. However, a little more than an hour after Lucie had departed, there was a knock on the door, and Tanner, already dressed, opened it to see Peploe standing before him, hair as dishevelled as ever and wearing the grin he had come to know so well.

  ‘Well, you’ve landed on your feet!’ he said, clasping Tanner’s hand and making a quick visual sweep of the flat. ‘How are you? Feeling better?’

  ‘Much, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Oh, less of the “sir”,’ said Peploe, slapping him on the arm. Then, seeing Tanner wince, ‘Sorry about that.’

  Tanner laughed. ‘It’s all right. Honestly, I’m almost as good as new. I’m hoping I might get signed off next week.’

  ‘We’re missing you, of course, but don’t rush it.’

  ‘You sound like Lucie.’

  ‘She’s right. You should listen to her.’

  ‘Drink?’ said Tanner.

  Peploe clapped his hands together. ‘Shall we go out? You’re dressed so that means you must be feeling up to it.’