Death or Glory II: The Flaming Sword: The Flaming Sword

by Michael Asher

  Both were sixfooters: Rossi, closed and silent, beanpole slim, with a downturned gash for a mouth and eyes like black studs, had the long, sallow face of an undertaker. Gibson gave an impression of manic energy: mobile features brown and cracked like sundried tobacco, a tightlipped mouth, quick to smile, and the slightly reproachful eyes of a goodnatured man to whom the world had not quite lived up to expectations. His hair was a crop of silver prickles, his body lean and hard, his muscles like twisted steel cables. He spoke with a cowboy’s drawl. Caine was wondering if he might be another Canadian when Stirling said, ‘Gibbo is our token Yank. US born, but he has dual French nationality thanks to service with the Foreign Legion. The original Beau Geste – decorated twice, wounded three times, reached the rank of master sergeant.’

  Gibson beamed like a rock splitting open.

  ‘How come you’re with us Brits, then?’ Caine enquired.

  ‘Refused to serve under the Vichy government, sir,’ the cowboy said. ‘Cleared out of Tunisia when Pétain took over, hitched a boatride to Egypt. Served with your commandos. When they got the old heaveho, I was twiddling my thumbs in Cairo, ran into Colonel Stirling. He said he was taking French volunteers for the SAS: since I’m technically Frog, the door was open.’

  ‘What about you, Rossi?’ Caine asked, turning to Gibson’s mate. ‘With a name like that, you ought to be an Itie.’

  Rossi’s glassbutton eyes gleamed. ‘I’m Swiss,’ he said wearily. ‘Not all Italian speakers are Ities.’

  ‘Ricardo was a well-known alpinist before the war,’ the cowboy cut in, as if he was accustomed to speak up for his mate. ‘He’s a naturalized Brit, though. He was a climbing instructor in the commando school, then transferred to active duty in the Middle East. We worked together in the commandos.’

  Caine noticed that both men were wearing non-regulation knives – the cowboy’s a Bowie with a blade as broad as a man’s wrist culminating in a fanged point; Rossi’s a slimbladed stiletto, almost like a Sykes-Fairbairn fighting knife but with a serrated edge on one side. Then it came to him: ‘I’ve heard of you two,’ he said. ‘When I was in the commandos. You’re the pair who used to go in along the Libyan coast by folboat, scale cliffs the enemy thought were inaccessible, lay charges and boobytraps. Yep, I remember now – they used to call you the Reapers. You were notorious for slitting Itie throats and fading into the dark.’

  Gibson and Rossi exchanged a look. Rossi drew his dagger and showed it to Caine. ‘Swiss Home Guard knife,’ he said. ‘She is my – how you say – my good luck charm.’ He kissed the blade in a way Caine didn’t quite like.

  ‘Always preferred a bayonet myself,’ he commented. ‘That’s a soldierly weapon. Personal knives are all right, as long as you know how to throw them. If you don’t, you might as well carry a penknife.’

  Caine picked up an item of kit he didn’t recognize, a short tube attached to a coil of line, with a multi-pronged grappling hook sticking out of one end. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘One of the new rocket-propelled grapples,’ Gibson explained. ‘I guess the stunt’s gonna entail some cliff-climbing, eh, skipper? If so, that’s supposed to be just what the doctor ordered.’

  As they moved off, Caine felt Rossi’s eyes follow him. ‘What are we doing with an Itie in our ranks, sir?’ he asked.

  Stirling chortled. ‘Rossi? A bit of a nutcase maybe, but then, who wouldn’t be after all the throat slittings he and the cowboy have done? It’s rumoured they used to saw enemy heads off with those knives, just to make sure the chap didn’t get up again. Mutilation’s not good form, of course, but sometimes it can’t be helped. Apart from that, there’re no flies on those boys: proved themselves time and time again.’

  Caine noticed Fred Wallace at the next table and excused himself from Stirling to share a word. The big gunner was cleaning what looked like a length of stovepipe about a yard long and four inches in diameter, funnelshaped at both ends, with handgrips underneath. As Caine approached, he saw that Wallace had a wound on the temple, covered with sticky tape. Before he could ask about it, though, the big man shoved the stovepipe reverently into his hands. ‘Seen this, skipper? M1 antitank rocket launcher. Yank design – they call it the bazooka. Daft name, innit? Replaces the Boys antitank rifle. Not before time, neither – that piece of dogshit couldn’t knock the skin off a banana.’

  Caine weighed the tube in his hands – it was surprisingly light. ‘Thirteen pounds,’ Wallace informed him. ‘Fires a 2.37-inch M6 rocket with a high explosive charge. Can penetrate four inches of armour plate at a hundred and fifty yards. Maximum range is about four hundred yards – you can deploy her to whack out tanks or AFVs, or for assault on a fixed position. Needs a two-man team, though.’

  Wallace took the launcher out of Caine’s hands as if he were jealous of him holding it too long. He hefted a black metal rocket from the table and passed it to Caine. The round seemed top-heavy: its explosive head was a bulge on a slim tube ending in balancing fins. Wallace pointed to a protrusion in the head. ‘Safety pin,’ he said. ‘Remove it and the rocket’s armed. Watch yer step, though – when armed, the M6 rocket’ll go kerbluey if you drop it even from a couple of feet.’

  Caine passed back the rocket with new respect. ‘You’ve fired it then?’ he asked.

  Wallace nodded proudly. ‘Trained on it yesterday, skipper. Only one drawback with the stovepipe – she’s got a fifteen-foot backblast. Stand behind her when she’s in operation and you get yer balls fried.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, mate.’

  Caine was on his way back to Stirling when he heard another familiar voice, this time raised in anger. Peering behind one of the 3-tonners, he found Harry Copeland in a dingdong with a stumpy, barrelchested corporal. Cope sported a spectacular black eye that hadn’t been there when Caine had last seen him: he connected it mentally with Wallace’s wound and guessed they’d been fighting. Copeland’s body was braced in the predatory stance that always made Caine think of a big wading bird about to take a fish, his eyes flashing, his blond hair bristling like yellow wire. ‘We’re not going up the Blue with those tyres,’ he was saying. The familiar schoolmasterish ring in his voice reminded Caine that, unlike Wallace, Cope was an ambitious man who was chuffed to have been promoted to sergeant and awarded the MM: he wanted to keep climbing the ranks, perhaps even gain a commission. Copeland hailed from a prosperous family: his father was an architect and his brother, Michael, a successful solicitor in Civvie Street, was now a captain in the Marines. Copeland possessed a sharp mind, had organizing skills as good as any officer’s and better than most. Caine knew that his assertive air wasn’t arrogance – it derived from the fact that, as one of six children, he’d always had to compete for attention. He had long ago guessed that Harry and his brother Michael were still fighting an undeclared war.

  ‘An’ I’m tellin’ you, Sarn’t,’ the little corporal raged, ‘it’s all we’ve bleedin’ got. Yer can take it or leave it.’

  Cope loomed over the NCO, a fitlooking bowlegged little man with a globeshaped head and the cheeky, puckish face of a monkey. Caine noticed that two fingers were missing from his left hand.

  Stirling came up to investigate. ‘What seems to be the trouble, Corporal?’ he enquired.

  The little NCO turned his football head towards his CO with an expression of indignation, as if he felt that Copeland, a newcomer in the regiment, had trespassed on his authority. ‘Sarn’t Copeland ’ere sez these tyres ain’t good enough for ’im, sir.’

  Stirling eyed Cope curiously. ‘What sort of tyres do you think we ought to have?’ he asked.

  ‘Dunlop or Goodyear, sir,’ Copeland replied without hesitation. ‘These synthetic things are useless. When the rubber gets hot they crack, and that could be fatal up the Blue.’

  Stirling nodded. ‘Ever since the Japs took Malaya there’s been a shortage of rubber,’ he said. He glanced at the corporal. ‘Have we got any Dunlop or Goodyear tyres?’ he asked.

  ‘We ’ave, s
ir, but you wanted to save ’em.’

  Stirling flushed slightly. ‘Have them broken out,’ he said. ‘Only the best for Op Sandhog.’

  The corporal waddled off to give instructions. ‘By the way, Tom,’ Stirling said, nodding after him, ‘that’s Corporal Sam Dumper, ex-RAOC ordnance mechanical engineer. He’s going to be your fitter and quartermaster on Sandhog.’

  ‘What happened to his hand?’

  Stirling blinked. ‘A timepencil attached to a Lewes bomb got activated by accident on the way back from one of our ops. The other lads evacuated the truck sharpish, but Dumper stayed, tried to defuse it. He managed to move the charge to a safe place but got his fingers blown off in the process.’

  Dumper was back in a moment, beaming, the altercation forgotten. He and Caine shook hands. Stirling gestured towards a nearby tent. ‘Corporal,’ he said, ‘I’d like you to show Mr Caine some of the special kit we got him.’

  ‘Trezz beans, sir.’

  The air inside the tent was hot, tart with odours of gunoil and hessian. The place was stacked with weaponry and ordnance. Dumper bypassed mortars, grenades, mines, explosives, fuse, detonators, primers and timepencils and showed Caine an assortment of oddlooking devices collected on a tabletop. ‘Decoy kit,’ he announced, tapping his nose. ‘Evens the odds when you’re outnumbered ’undreds to one. There’s a miniature smoke generator, noisemakers, pintail bombs – and some very nasty stuff that’ll suit them Reaper geezers down to the ground: pressure and pressure-release switches. I was all for getting’ explodin’ rats an’ camel turds, but the CO wouldn’t ’ave it.’

  Chuckling to himself, Dumper moved towards a corner of the tent, picked up a black box fitted with headphones and what looked like a telephone mouthpiece protruding from the front. ‘Tactical Ear,’ he declared. ‘Picks up and magnifies sound – just the job for night stag, when yer straining to ’ear the enemy creepin’ up on yer.’

  Caine listened to the headphones, amazed. ‘I can’t believe you managed to get all this kit,’ he commented. ‘I mean, Q staff are usually the most miserly swine on earth. Wouldn’t let you have the skin off their shit unless you gave them three good reasons why you wanted it.’

  ‘No truer word spoken,’ Dumper said, winking. ‘It’s Mister Stirlin’, yer see, boss. Such a charmin’ gent, no one can refuse ’im.’

  Caine examined what seemed to be a large oblong boxcamera with an eyepiece on the back. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘Oooh, careful with that, sir. It’s the most valuable fing in the ’ole show. Even I’m surprised the brass let us ’ave this one, but the colonel ain’t above ’alf-inchin’ kit if it takes ’is fancy. That’s an RG infrared nightsight, that is. God only knows ’ow it works, but you can see in the dark wiv it …’

  ‘Incredible,’ Caine said. ‘I heard they were working on a nightsight, but I’d no idea they’d perfected it.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it ain’t exactly perfected. This is a prototype. Do me a faver, and don’t bust it or lose it, or let Jerry get ’is ’ands on it, because it’s worth a bleedin’ mint.’

  ‘Guard it with my life.’

  Dumper nodded, his gaze falling on the Tommy-gun on Caine’s shoulder. ‘Bayonet lug?’ he enquired, raising a thick eyebrow. ‘You fit that yerself?’

  ‘Yep,’ Caine nodded proudly. ‘All my own work.’

  Dumper whistled, a smile of admiration on his lips. ‘That always was the problem with them big mags. Guaranteed to fall off just at the wrong moment. Good work, though – you an ex-Ordnance Corps man, sir?’

  ‘Get out of it. Blacksmith by birth, mechanic by profession, Sapper down to the maker’s nameplate.’

  ‘Shame, a good officer like you wasted on a crap mob like that. I’ll tell yer what, boss, I’ll swop yer a Garand for that trenchsweeper.’

  ‘No way. I’ll stick to my old faithful.’

  There was a moment’s silence: Dumper eyed the Tommy-gun wistfully. ‘You ain’t much like most officers we get ’ere, sir,’ he observed. ‘Where you from, anyway.’

  ‘East Anglia. Fen country. You know it?’

  Dumper nodded. He drew out an ancient calfskin wallet, opened it, showed Caine photos of a startlingly beautiful blond woman and two attractive strawhaired girls. For a second Caine wondered if the woman really belonged to this little gnome of a corporal – he’d known men to flash around snaps of filmstars as bogus ‘girlfriends’ just to impress. It couldn’t be the case here, though, because the two little girls, while very pretty, had an unmistakably Dumperish cast.

  ‘Katie and Leslie, my little princesses,’ Dumper said proudly. ‘And that’s Queenie, my wife. Me, I’m from the East End of London, see. Cockney born an’ bred. Usta be on the buses in Civvie Street. The girls got evacuated up your way durin’ the Blitz. Fens – back end o’ nowhere. First time they’d ever seen a cow. Usta think milk came out of a tap.’

  He put away his wallet, tittering, and Caine dekkoed his watch. ‘Well, if that’s all, Corporal, we’ve both got a briefing to attend.’

  ‘Half a mo, boss,’ Dumper protested. ‘There’s a barrerload of paperwork to be got through yet. You know the drill. Everything ’ere’s got to be signed for in triplicate. Every single round’s got to be accounted for. Just make sure you bring it all back in one piece, used cartridge cases an’ all, else you’ll be payin’ it off at a shillin’ a week for the rest of yer bleedin’ life.’

  Caine’s face dropped. He was about to stammer an objection when the tent flap was thrown back. Stirling entered, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I heard that,’ he said, hiccupping with laughter. ‘Loves to have his little joke does Dumper. He’s tickling your zonker, Tom. In the SAS we have no documents, no written plans, no records. Everything that counts is in my head.’

  ‘I just ’ope yer ’ead stays where it is, then, sir,’ Dumper commented, winking at Caine. ‘Otherwise we’re up Queer Street, an’ no mistake.’

  12

  Caine found his crew drinking tea and smoking in the briefing tent. No one called them to attention when he and Stirling entered. Caine bumped into Wallace and Copeland. ‘I see you two have been scrapping again,’ he said. ‘I can’t leave you alone for two minutes before you’re at each other’s throats.’

  ‘We wasn’t fightin’ each other,’ Wallace roared indignantly. ‘I had to pull Sergeant Cleverclogs here out of a very nasty corner. His own fault, mind. If he hadn’t insulted them ENSA girls, we’d have been in clover. That little darlin’ Sadie Jameson was all over me, till Turniphead opens his big trap.’

  ‘All over you?’ Copeland snorted. ‘She couldn’t get away from you quick enough, only you were too pissed to notice.’

  ‘All right,’ Caine said, nodding. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We was in Cairo on a forty-eight pass, and we goes to an ENSA show,’ Wallace explained, ‘starring Sadie Jameson and Gloria Fielding. Couple of little crackers. After the show, we goes into their dressin’ room …’

  ‘You mean you barged into their dressing room,’ Cope said, ‘which was out of bounds to enlisted men.’

  ‘So what? Who dares wins, innit? I wanted to give Sadie some flowers. She was tickled pink, and we was getting on like a house on fire, when Gloria asks Sergeant Cleverdick ’ere ’ow he likes the show. Know what he says? “I’ve heard ENSA stands for ‘Every Night Something Awful’,” he says, “but I never really believed it. I mean, do you actually get paid for that?” ’

  Despite himself, Caine guffawed. ‘Not very gentlemanly of you, Harry.’

  ‘Fred only went for the tits and bums,’ Copeland protested. ‘They weren’t short of those all right, but singing? It was a cats’ chorus – I mean, I could have done a better show myself.’

  Wallace glared at him, knotting camelthorn eyebrows. ‘Oh yeah, if people wanted to hear a bullfrog with a bellyache, you’d of done marvellous.’

  He turned back to Caine. ‘It weren’t funny, skipper, I can tell you. Next thing you know, the girls is screeching for their bo
dyguards to sort us out. Four or five bruisers turns up … and o’ course, there’s a bit of a shindig. If Harry hadn’t of been my mate, I’d a dumped the bugger for what he said. As it was, we downed the lot of ’em and scarpered quick before the rozzers arrived.’

  Caine fingered his own bruises unconsciously, and Wallace caught the movement. His indignant expression turned into one of concern. ‘Look who’s talkin’ about gettin’ in scraps,’ he said. ‘Pot callin’ the kettle black, that is.’

  ‘In my case it wasn’t exactly a scrap – more of a massacre. I did get one good one in, though.’

  ‘That gutless bastard Sears-Bitch. I swear I’ll kick his arse into next year if I get ’old of him.’

  Caine smiled, knowing that Wallace meant every word of it. If the big man believed he was avenging someone he cared about, consequences didn’t worry him. Caine could look after himself better than most, but he was always touched by the gunner’s loyalty. Wallace wasn’t a thinker like Copeland, neither did he have Cope’s ambition. He would volunteer for any dangerous job going just for the hell of it: even as a gunner in the RHA he’d opted to crew porteed Bofors guns for the Long Range Desert Group, despite the high casualty rate. When the Middle East Commando had asked for recruits, he’d been first in line.

  Wallace didn’t talk much about his background, but Caine knew that as a youth he’d done time in prison for thrashing two older boys in revenge for his pet mongrel, whom they’d kicked to death for amusement. He’d beaten them up so badly they’d both ended up with splinted limbs and wired jaws. His two years behind bars had been a devastating blow to the Wallace family: his father, Wilf, was a semi-invalid whose legs had been shattered in the Great War and who found it hard to get work. His mother, a quick-tempered battleaxe of a woman, had simply vanished one day, leaving Wilf with four young children, of whom Fred was the eldest.