Death or Glory I: The Last Commando: The Last Commando

by Michael Asher

  It occurred to Eisner that this might be a good opportunity for a photograph. He applied the hand brake and fished in his bag for his Leica. Balancing it on his knees, he turned sharply out of the line of traffic and pulled forward in first gear until he was abreast of the staff car's back windows. He glanced ahead to make sure nothing was approaching from the opposite direction: fortunately the oncoming traffic had also been halted by the sheep. To his right, he could see the woman through the back window of the Humber – khaki drill shirt, blond hair, perky Wren's hat. He took a second to check that the Leica was ready, aware that he was taking a chance – if he were spotted photographing a GHQ staff car, it could land him in very hot water indeed.

  He was about to lift the camera for a quick shot, when the woman turned her face towards him. He almost dropped the Leica in shock. It lasted only a split second, but he was certain that he had seen her face before, and in a context that couldn't have been more different. It was the face, not of a Wren officer, but of an exotic dancer he'd once seen in a Cairo nightclub.

  Eisner looked away instantly, his pulse racing. Their eyes hadn't locked, and he was almost sure she hadn't noticed anything unusual. He waited a fraction of a second before chancing another peek. She was gazing straight ahead now, and the sheep-flock was thinning. He raised the Leica, and without bothering to frame it properly, clicked off a shot. He placed the camera back on the seat next to him. The column of traffic was stirring, and he let the Humber pull away. With a great deal of bellowing, gesticulating and honking of his horn, he managed to squeeze his car back into the traffic.

  In a few moments he was out of Maadi and back on the Nile. His pulse was returning to normal. The staff vehicle was toddling along at the same unvarying pace, displaying no sign that he had been made. As he drove he strained to dredge up a name and a background for the face he'd seen. His first impression had been of a cabaret girl – a hostess or a dancer – but he tried out several times and places and none of them seemed to fit. It was as if his memory was deliberately blocking him, and he felt exasperated. He normally had an excellent recall of faces, especially those of pretty girls, but the more he pondered it, the less sure he was. He knew the mind sometimes played tricks, and he had glimpsed the Wren for only a fraction of a second, from some distance away. Perhaps she had one of those faces that always seem familiar, or perhaps she only looked like someone he'd seen before. What he could not get over, though, was that spontaneous and instinctive sense of recognition he'd felt.

  He snapped out of this mental tug of war to see that the Humber was slowing again, this time for the Military Police checkpoint outside Helwan airstrip. He was aware that it was the first of several. Security here was tight, and though his papers were in order there was still the camera to consider. He came to a halt and turned his vehicle round slowly enough to make sure that the staff car had passed through the barrier.

  As he headed back towards the city, he decided that, whoever the woman was, her mission was worth reporting to his Abwehr controller. Eisner belonged to the Abwehr's Abteilung No. 1, the department handling special military intelligence, which, in North Africa, was commanded by Major Heinrich Rohde. Rohde was a martinet – no, Eisner corrected himself mentally, he was a thug. He felt apprehensive about handing him incomplete data, yet he had no choice. For now the girl's identity would have to remain uncertain: he could not commit himself without a name or something more definite than a hunch. He had the photograph, though, and one never knew what a little discreet investigation might turn up.

  Eisner drove mechanically, preoccupied with his ruminations, and it was a good five minutes before he became fully aware that he'd acquired a shadow. A small saloon – a black Vauxhall – was trailing him one car back, maintaining her distance at a rock-steady pace. Eisner knew he'd registered her presence subconsciously in the rearview mirror just after he'd turned back at Helwan: he could have kicked himself for his amateurish behaviour in changing direction in sight of a military post. It would have looked suspicious anywhere, and these were dangerous times. British Field Security would be keeping their eyes skinned for actions like this.

  Turning round at a checkpoint, and carrying an expensive camera for no good reason: these were enough to get him bagged. Once he was in custody the Field Security swine would develop the film, find the shot of the female staff-officer in the GHQ car, and his goose would be well and truly barbecued.

  Eisner was too seasoned a hand to panic, though. First, he had to be certain that the Vauxhall really was a tail: he began to work methodically through his list of surveillance-spotting measures. He speeded up: the Vauxhall accelerated. He slowed down to a crawl: the Vauxhall slowed. He took the next right abruptly, without indicating: the small car stayed with him. He pulled up by the side of the road: the Vauxhall stopped a discreet distance behind. Peering hard in the mirror, he could just make out the driver. He appeared to be a lean-faced, tight-lipped Egyptian in a dark jacket, but that meant nothing: at least half the strength of British Field Security were Arabs. Eisner put the car in first gear and moved off hastily into the traffic. The Vauxhall followed.

  They were in the back-streets of Maadi, full of jostling crowds in ragged pyjama-cloth, goats, sheep, donkeys, handcarts, squint-wheeled push-bikes, smoky, backfiring motorcycles, down-at-heel vans – a ponderous procession of humanity streaming through alternating blocks of shade and molten gold from the lowering sun. It was an area Eisner knew well – but then he knew most of Cairo well. As a boy he'd spent much of his time wandering around the city on foot or riding trams and buses: with its successive waves of the oriental and the western, its continuous surge of life, the city had never ceased to fascinate him. Now, the detailed mental map he'd acquired as a youth paid off. For ten minutes he played hide and seek with his pursuer, hanging sharp lefts and rights at the last moment. The man in the Vauxhall stuck doggedly on his tail. Finally, having created an interval between them he judged long enough, Eisner turned sharply down an alley he knew to be a derelict cul-de-sac.

  His tyres crunched on rubble, broken plaster, glass shards, torn newspaper. The place was lined with derelict tenements that had been due for demolition for decades. Vacant windows stared down at him like blank eyes. He drove as far as he could go, stopped the car, checked that the place was deserted. A glance in the mirror told him that the Vauxhall hadn't yet entered the alley. He cut the engine, opened the glove compartment, pulled out an ordinary-looking length of wire. He jumped out of the car, and leaving the door unlocked and the Leica on the passenger seat, sprinted for the shadow of the nearest broken-down doorway. He had just made it when he heard the purr of the Vauxhall's engine behind him.

  The small black car pulled up about six yards from his Standard. The door opened and the driver emerged – a slope-shouldered, spindly-limbed man with a sad face and a drooping moustache, whose oversized dark suit flapped loosely on his lean limbs. He was carrying a .38-calibre Enfield six-shooter, cocked and ready. As Eisner watched, Spindle-shanks moved cautiously over to the Standard, peered through the side window. Seeing no one inside, he tried the door on the driver's side, opened it, and bending over the driver's seat, groped with his left hand for the Leica.

  It was all the opportunity Eisner needed. He was on the man in three silent bounds, looping his wire garotte round the Egyptian's throat and pulling tight. The man tried to scream but only a sickening gurgle emerged. He dropped his pistol, attempted to get his fingers under the wire that was already digging a quarter of an inch into his flesh, and failed. Eisner jerked him backwards, wrenching him to the ground, driving his face into the dirt. Getting his knees in the pit of the man's back for purchase, he heaved on the wire with all his weight. The Egyptian tried to push himself up, his legs thrashing frantically, but Eisner held on as if riding a bucking horse. He strained on the wire until an artery in the man's neck popped, shooting spritzes of blood four feet along the road surface. The Egyptian's eyes became red gashes, his legs ceased thrashing: the gargling
sound in his throat stopped. He went limp.

  Eisner didn't relax his grip until he was certain the man wasn't faking. Then, leaving the garotte in place, he got up, panting, siezed the dead man by the armpits, and dragged him over to the Vauxhall. He opened the rear door, flung the body on to the back seat, and trotted back to his own vehicle. He picked up the dead man's pistol, stuffed it into a pocket, then opened his boot and took out a tin of petrol.

  He scurried back to the Vauxhall, flung the Enfield revolver on top of the corpse, then sprinkled the interior of the car with petrol. He doused the tyres and bonnet, then laid a ten-yard trail across the uneven ground. Moving fast so that the petrol wouldn't have time to evaporate in the heat, Eisner returned the empty tin to his boot, got back behind the steering wheel, gunned the engine. He drove past the Vauxhall to the end of the petrol-trail, opened his door, struck a match, dropped it on the dark stain. He waited a second to see that it had ignited, then slammed the door and sped off. Just as his car turned out of the cul-de-sac, Eisner heard the whoosh of the Vauxhall bursting into flame, followed almost at once by the ear-splitting karump of her gas tank going up.

  Forty minutes later, as Eisner was tapping out a coded message to Heinrich Rohde from the hidden cubicle in his houseboat off Zamalek, an RAF Bombay, with First Officer Maddy Rose on board, took off from Helwan.

  7

  By day, Jaghbub bore little resemblance to the ideal of a desert oasis – it was a sandy depression with a few palms, straggling clumps of acacia and tamarisk, and the ruins of a monastery that had once been the stronghold of the Senussi Islamic Brotherhood. It was flyblown and mosquito-infested, its water so brackish it might have been the inspiration for Epsom salts. By night, though, when Caine's 3-tonner limped in on three good tyres at the tail end of a 50th Division convoy, none of this was apparent. It was as teeming as Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night, and twice as rowdy – men caterwauling, engines churning, gears grating, wheels spinning, as a score of Allied units milled around trying to lick themselves into some kind of shape.

  Thankfully, Caine had no need to locate the Aid Post, because he had long since transferred his wounded to the 50th Div. convoy's field ambulances. Of the half-dozen men they had snatched from the ridge, only five had made it. The sixth, medical orderly Quiff Smithers, had been last on the lorry, and had been hit twice on the break-out in the wadi. The man who had helped save the lives of his comrades was now buried in a nameless grave on the gravel plains.

  Caine's only task was to locate Middle East Commando lines, and surrender to the blessed luxury of sleep. Until they had run into the convoy, he'd stayed awake almost continuously with the help of the Benzedrine, navigating by dead-reckoning while Wallace and Copeland took it in turns at the wheel. He reckoned he'd had four hours sleep in the last forty-eight. Now, he had Cope stop the lorry while he asked at a Military Police post for the whereabouts of the Commando. ‘You'll find them over by the monastery,’ the Redcap on duty said. ‘What's left of 'em. Poor sods took a hammering, and no mistake.’

  Dog weary, they had almost given up looking when they came across the leaguer – a dismal assembly of lorries, jeeps, AFVs and tents, pitched in the lee of the ruined wall. They reported their names to the duty NCO, then unrolled their ‘flea-bags’ and slept off their Benzedrine hangovers for fifteen hours.

  Heat and flies woke them at mid-day. Caine found himself wolfishly hungry and began to sort through their compo rations. He came up with tea, sugar, Carnation milk, oatmeal, margarine, tinned jam, tinned bacon and hard-tack biscuits, the size of saucers. While they were eating, Todd Sweeney appeared with a couple of the boys from No. 1 Troop, bringing back their personal kit and fannies. Caine was delighted to see them, but despite the yells of recognition and back-slapping the cheerfulness was pumped-up, overshadowed by the loss of so many comrades. Sweeney said he'd withdrawn the remnants of the troop to Battle Group RV without a hitch, until, waiting to get on the transport, Sears-Beach had appeared and demanded to see Caine. ‘I told him you were missing in action,’ Sweeney reported, ‘but he wasn't convinced.’

  ‘Just how hard did you try and convince him?’ Wallace demanded.

  Sweeney shrugged. ‘I did my best, but he didn't believe it. He said he was going to report you to the commanding officer when he got back.’

  ‘That bonehead,’ Wallace swore. ‘They should never of allowed a berk like him in the commandos. Rear-echelon pen-pusher if ever I saw one. Ex-Pay Corps or sommat – God's gift to us mortals, you know.’

  Sweeney's face stayed deadpan. ‘He's ex-Military Police,’ he said. ‘Like me.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ Wallace drawled, beaming with mock surprise. ‘Now, how could I have forgotten that? Oh, I remember now. Weren't you one of them ex-Redcap boys that Sears-Beach insisted on recruiting for the Commando, even though the CO said he didn't want the ranks full of dirty, snooping ex-coppers?’

  ‘You'd better watch it, Private Wallace,’ Sweeney growled, his cheeks scarlet.

  ‘Or what? You going to put me on Dixie? This is the Middle East Commando, mate, not the bleedin' woodentops. Maybe you ain't heard, but we don't have no bowin' and scrapin' here. And it's Gunner Wallace to you, anyway.’

  Sweeney stuck out his chin, squared his oil-barrel chest, glowered at Wallace through pinball eyes. He weighed up the big man's colossal proportions, his dark-stubbled jowls, his jungle of matted hair. He let his eyes drop, pivoted on his heels and walked away, his thick arms swinging, matching his rolling, simian gait.

  Harry Copeland watched him until he was out of sight, then turned back to Wallace. ‘What was all that about?’ he enquired.

  ‘The blighter never even tried to cover up for us,’ Wallace scoffed. ‘Too busy brown-nosing Sears-Beach.’

  ‘What's that chap got against the skipper, anyway?’

  Wallace grinned at Caine, who caught his eye and snorted. The giant glanced back at Cope. ‘It was before you come to the Commando. See, when Sears-Beach first arrived he got hisself a servant – big chap called Dennis Twigley. Ex-Gunner. Nice bloke. Sears-Beach used to call him Sylvia, and when they was up the Blue, in winter, he used to have Twigley bring him a hot-water bottle every night. Wouldn't sleep without it. ‘Where's my bottle, Sylvia?’ he used to say in this hoochie-coochie voice. If I'd have been Twiggers, I know where I'd have stuck the bloody bottle. Anyway, you soon put the kibosh on that, didn't you, skipper?’

  Caine couldn't help chuckling at the memory. During a regimental ‘chunter session’, when anyone was allowed to bring up any subject, he'd asked about the propriety of officers in a commando unit having servants in the field. A master–servant relationship didn't sit right with the commando ideal of comradeship between officers and men. In reply, Sears-Beach had stood up and awarded Caine a disdainful glare. ‘You of all people should know, Sergeant Caine,’ he said pointedly, ‘that as an officer, one has to be liberated from such trivial duties as cleaning one's own kit, so that one's mind remains free for making the decisions that save lives.’

  Caine resented the barbed reference to his terminated commission, and amid cheers of approval from the enlisted men, asked, ‘Does cleaning kit include preparing hot-water bottles, sir? And perhaps you'd kindly explain to the lads here just how many lives your decisions have saved?’ Sears-Beach had never forgiven him for that. He had been doubly incensed when, the following day, the commanding officer had posted a notice on regimental orders, declaring that the practice of officers having servants in the field was henceforth forbidden.

  After lunch, Medical Orderly Maurice Pickney arrived with his magic chest. A mildly spoken ex-merchant seaman from Birmingham, Pickney was noted for his kindness and compassion: he had a reputation for being as ready to help Axis wounded as his own. He wasn't much older than thirty, but he looked like someone's granny, his face as lined and wrinkled as an old prune.

  Pickney examined Wallace's shrapnel wounds and told him that they were already healing nicely. He advised him not to keep them b
andaged up, and gave him sulphenamide ointment. Feeling as if he'd just been paroled from a long jail sentence, Wallace went off happily to hunt down a Royal Army Ordnance Corps field workshop. He was back thirty minutes later, rolling a spare balloon tyre with his foot and carrying a replacement windscreen unit. He, Caine and Copeland stripped down to their shorts and set about restoring the lorry they'd picked up at the Box. After the way she'd got them clear of the Boche that night and brought them home safely, they'd acquired a certain affection for her: Caine had christened her Marlene, after Marlene Dietrich. He fretted that she would now be returned to her owners – the King's Royal Rifle Corps – until Wallace scrounged paint and a stencil, painted out her KRRC insignia and stencilled in the ME Commando's ‘fanny’ badge.

  They had completed the truck repairs and had just sat down to clean their weapons when they were confronted by the ramrod-straight figure of HQ Squadron Staff Sergeant, ‘Frosty’ Greaves – a sallow-skinned Scotsman, wearing battledress tunic with khaki drill trousers, desert boots, light web-order.

  ‘Morning, Frosty,’ Caine said.

  ‘Afternoon, Sergeant Caine,’ Greaves replied.

  Caine noted the emphasis on sergeant. He stood up, flexed cable-like pectorals, flipped strapping shoulders, tensed hardball-sized biceps. He knew what was coming. The Commando, being an irregular unit, had no provost-staff like a line-infantry mob: whenever internal discipline was required they sent along poor old Frosty Greaves, who lacked the truculence of the natural policeman. Caine often thought that Greaves and Sweeney should have swapped places.