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

by Michael Asher

  Half an hour later, Padstowe brought the Dingo back up the slope, halted it and sashayed down to Caine's position. ‘We laid the No. 2 mines and Hawkinses,’ he reported, ‘in a belt across the wadi bed, about five hundred yards from the base.’ He pointed out the place where Turner was holed up with the daisy-chain igniter, in a shallow dip behind a rock-pile at the foot of the slope. ‘That's as far as the fuse would take us,’ he said. ‘Wingnut will stay in cover until most of the Huns have passed by. He'll hit the switch as they come under defensive fire from your position.’

  Caine nodded. ‘Tell him not to leave it too late,’ he said. He cast an anxious glance at the steadily advancing dust-cloud: it appeared much closer now. ‘You marked a path through the minefield?’

  Padstowe clamped his pipe between his teeth. ‘Marked by spent cartridge-cases. I'll know what I'm looking for, but the Hun'll never see it.’ He held up a Very pistol. ‘I'll give it a green flare as soon as I see they're after me.’

  Caine clapped him on the shoulder. They shook hands. ‘We'll be covering you all the way, George,’ he said. ‘Don't worry about ditching the Dingo if you have to. Just make sure you get out alive.’

  ‘Ditch the Dingo,’ Padstowe said, making a face. ‘Good job old Pop Tobey isn't here to hear you say that, skipper. He'd have your guts for cheese-wire.’

  He removed the pipe from his mouth. ‘Tom,’ he said gravely, ‘I just want you to know, whatever happens, it's been a privilege –’

  ‘Tell me about it after we've got through it.’ Caine cut him short. He stopped himself, realizing that he was being boorish. ‘Anyway, George, the privilege is mine.’

  Padstowe scrambled back towards the Dingo and a moment later was guiding her down the slope.

  Wallace was making the finishing touches to his sangar when he heard two whistle-blasts. Ten yards away, to his left, Caine had gone rigid and was holding up a hand. ‘They're coming,’ he hissed.

  He blew three more blasts on the whistle. Wallace, Copeland and Rose scrambled madly to get into position. Further to their right, Trubman, Temple, Pickney, Raker and Graveman settled into their sangars, toggled sights, cocked weapons, trained muzzles down the wadi. On the far right, in the turret of the Daimler, Murray made final adjustments to his gunsights.

  All eyes were on the Dingo now, as she threaded her way across the wadi bed, nosing along like an eyeless dark tick through invisible mines towards the mouth of the gorge. Caine hoped that Padstowe would get there before the Hun, but on second thoughts reflected that it wouldn't matter either way. In fact, if it appeared that they weren't expected, so much the better.

  The Dingo cleared the curve in the wadi bed, and suddenly the ridge was very still. Nothing moved. There was silence but for the hum of distant Hun engines – a single tone, like a determined bee, growing louder every second. Caine heard the throb of the Dingo's motor as it faded almost to nothing. There was a brief pause, then a sudden staccato grating of gears and the blub-blub-blub of machine-gun fire, reverberating along the wadi's walls. A Very flare plopped, laddering the gas-blue screen of the sky, coalescing into a streaky green flower. ‘That's it,’ Caine said. ‘They've clocked him.’

  Almost at once the Dingo corkscrewed back round the bend, zig-zagging, spraying dust, as Padstowe hugged the path through the minefield. The lub-dub of gunfire came again, louder now, and round the curve swept half a dozen German armoured cars, mostly four-wheelers, but led by a massive Sdkfz 231 six-wheeler, hefting on its turret both an L/55 autocannon, and a Schmeisser MG30 machine gun. The AFVs were racing in two ranks of three abreast, and all but the 231 had scores of German soldiers hanging on to them. Caine gasped at the size of the enemy force: there were more men here than just the Brandenburger platoon at Biska – they'd been reinforced to at least company strength. The front rank of armoured cars was ricky-ticking shrill lines of tracer at the Dingo from mounted MG30s. From where he lay, Caine could see the quiffs of smoke, could hear the pop-pop-popping of automatic weapons.

  The Dingo raced nearer and nearer to the foot of the ridge. The 231, with her 8-cylinder engine, was faster, and closed the gap rapidly. Her 20mm gun blazed, a spike of fire blowtubed, a shell skirried air, sawed past the Dingo, hit the deck in a rumbling roooomfff. A claw of dust lurched up, gravel blebbed, iron frags blew. At the same moment the other Jerry AFVs stonked into the minefeld: the entire squadron gangrened-out in a fog of dust, peesashing smoke, line-squalling flame. Mines blowgunned, bombs sandspouted, the bed of the ravine heaved up in a belly-aching, head-drumming thunder. AFVs tore apart, scrap iron winged, smoke whorled, wheels blew off, armoured frames shambled and tilted. Germans shrieked, scrabbled, scarfed up fumes, tumbled off burning wagons. Flaming bodies hit the deck, twitched, squirmed, wallowed in gravel, dry-surfed sand. Survivors scuttled for cover, floundered into Hawkins bombs, went up in crimson mousse. Dismembered legs, roasted arms, intestine-rags flew: charred torsos plopped open like waterbags, showered fried tissue, rolled over, spewed flame.

  Still Caine's squad held fire, ingested the scene with awe. Caine saw smoke clear, clocked the 231 half on her side with her wheels in meltdown, her turret still intact. He saw her gun pivot, saw the muzzle sunflower, blowpipe flame. He saw the shell bazooka the rear of the still-retreating Dingo, saw the little scout-car's armour-plating buckle, saw her wheels spin off. The Dingo careened, struck a mine, receded into dust-smoke soufflé. A second later Caine clocked Padstowe legging it out of the dust nebula, sprinting towards the cover of rocks, carrying a Colt .45, his body blackened, blood-blistered, slapping at smouldering shorts as he ran.

  Caine didn't see what happened to him next. He was focused on the Jerries, who had pulled themselves into some kind of order, and who were advancing to contact off the minefield. He saw smoke wafting, saw the crackling hulls of wrecked vehicles, the archipelagoes of dead and wounded. He saw more motor-vehicles shearing round the bend in the wadi behind the fires – six or seven soft-skinners, pulling up, disgorging yet more troops. He heard the cymbal clap of Murray's 20mm cannon from the hull-down Daimler, sniffed the propellant, heard the two-pound shell craunch, observed a hawk-eye hit on a soft-skin truck almost a thousand yards away. He saw her flashbulb up in yellow and black. He saw Huns slipping like liquid shades through the pea-soup on the defunct minefield, firing as they came. He marvelled at their grit.

  He zeroed-in the Vickers, yelled, ‘Watch my tracer’, squeezed iron. The Vickers clappered five shots and jammed. Cursing, Caine fell down behind his Bren, tromboned working-parts, curveballed tracer down on the Huns. He heard Brens and Vickers squelching fire from the hidden sangars across the ridge: Copeland, Rose, Wallace, Trubman, Temple, Graveman, Raker and Pickney, all opening up at the same time. A firewind of tracer arched down the ravine, stitching sand, snapping bodies: the German ranks split, dodged, crisscrossed, used fire and movement. Dozens of them made the foot of the ridge, skirmished up the hill, used cover, laid down fire. A burst hit Caine's Vickers, chewed up the barrel, knocked it on top of him, gashed his face. He kicked it away, jerked metal, flugelhorned fire. Another slug whiplashed his shoulder, missed bone, cleavered flesh.

  Jerries came uphill in scores, beefy shapes, bare-chested or clad in khakis, wearing coal-scuttle helmets and peaked caps. They advanced behind a forest of supporting machine-gun spritz and mortar shrapnel, kicking up pustules of dust, yoicking up exclamation marks of fire, all the way across the ridge. Caine left his shoulder to bleed, sighted-up Jerries, hauled metal. To his right, Wallace and Cope ditched their Vickers, switched to their Brens: they squeezed triggers, jack-knifed tracer at the Boche. They pumped slugs until their barrels cooked, swapped barrels, pumped again.

  Copeland heard his breech-block clack on a void chamber, ripped off the mag, clipped another. A 7.92mm lead-jacket harpooned his hand, shrilled through his palm. Cope screamed, dropped the mag, saw blood soapsudding. He jerked out a field dressing. A round ploughed a furrow through his straw-thatched scalp. He ducked, fixed his hand with the dressin
g, and thanked thunder it wasn't his shooting hand. He felt warm serum blubbing his face. He touched the bloody groove in his head, gasped at how close it'd come to his skull, wiped the blood away with his neckscarf. He clocked Brandenburgers hobnailing towards his sangar. He grabbed his SMLE sniper's rifle. He scoped in. He cross-haired a Jerry in a coal-scuttle helmet, shot the helmet off. The Jerry stooped, reached for the helmet. Cope cracker-jacked him through the forehead, saw the head fricassee in roseate shreds.

  Rose, sangared up five yards from Copeland, felt Hun rounds squinch air, heard them chirring, squibbing off her makeshift parapet. She saw five Huns ranging her. She drew a bead, pulled iron, traversed the muzzle, hand-wove Jerry chests with a pattern of .303 ball. The group shattered. A Boche went to ground behind a rock, rimfired her from twenty paces. A slug frizzled air, lumped her flesh where the neck met the shoulder, drilled through muscle, grazed bone, whiplashed out the other side. Rose teetered in shock, smelt blood, swore through gritted teeth. She waited for the Hun to pop up again, pom-pommed a tight burst, saw his head splat like a watermelon.

  She shuftied Boche regrouping. She groped for a grenade, pinned it, lobbed it overarm. A round ribbed her wrist, fried skin. She snapped her arm back, sopranoed fuck you, skulked for cover in the shell-scrape. She heard her grenade ding and burst, spattering fragments: she heard a German scream as the blast hacked off his foot. Rose whimpered, grovelled in gore, felt her head spindling. She fought to keep herself from passing out. She fumbled with field dressings, sucked in air, hyperventilated till the world stopped waltzing. She heard Goth voices, heard boots gallomping: she shimmied into firing pose. She clutched the Bren's pistol grip, chinned the stock, cocked the works, clocked Jerries, pazazzed fire, scythed them down.

  Ten yards right, Fred Wallace saw Huns crashing to earth round Rose's sangar, saw a Jerry mortar-team setting up a tube at the base of the ridge. He stopped shooting, braced a two-inch mortar, found the elevation too high, used his elephant-sized legs as a base-plate. He sighted the tube, he slipped a bomb, he tricked metal, he heard the blat, he took the recoil. He heard the bomb hoick air: he pitched another and another and another. He heard the bombs wheeze, saw them strafe the enemy mortar, saw Hun bodies pinwheel in smoke. He saw a phalanx of five Brandenburgers coming at him from ten paces. He tossed the tube aside, braced his Bren, whamped it into the hip, slotted the working-parts. He let rip a spliff of fire, watched Huns thrashing. A handgun round blimped the same shoulder in which he'd been bayoneted. Wallace roared, dropped the Bren, flailed his arms, tottered, windpumped air. He clocked a Squarehead bee-lining him with a Mauser pistol. He planted size-thirteen boots, drew his sawn-off from its sheath. He heard the Mauser crack, felt the bullet hopscotch his knuckles: he pulled both handles, smoothbored the Jerry.

  Further right, Taffy Trubman fumbled a mag-change, felt a ton-weight candlebomb his chest. He sailed back a yard: his glasses flew. He wheezed out snot, spit, blood. He saw gore blubbing, smelt scorched dogmeat. He blinked, wailed, made out fuzzball shapes looming.

  Wallace clocked the three Germans closing in on Trubman's sangar from thirty paces. He pulled out a No. 36 pineapple, bit out the pin and tossed it underarm. He crouched, panting, his shoulder foaming gore. He drew his .45 Colt, saw the Jerries wide-eye the bomb and back off. He saw the welt of flame and dirt, heard the grenade cannon-crack, saw Jerries pitchfork. He opened up on the survivors with his pistol, left-handed, watched them go down. He heard Jerry mortar-bombs croak, saw the shells smack the slope. Firehorses reared, gravel spats lufted, shrapnel blew: three of the four sangars turned into smoking wrecks.

  Furthest right, the Daimler's gun blowtorched: a shell drubbed, fried oxygen, stonked the enemy mortar five hundred yards away. Inside the turret, Murray wiped sweat and soot, loaded, pumped HE shells like a coolie. He sighted muzzle-flash from a Hun MG30 nest down on the wadi side three hundred yards away. He breeched a shell, swivelled the barrel, pulled the igniter, blitzed the machine-gunners. He saw fire-claws blow, smoke-horses erupt, legs and arms ripped off

  Murray's two-pounder HE shells had cleared most Jerry supporting fire, but the Huns were still charging. Murray switched fire back to the soft-skins a thousand yards away, ramped shells. The gun's muzzle bellowed: HE ordnance whizzed and whined. Three trucks became funeral pyres: the rest withdrew out of range. Murray was so focused on loading and firing he didn't notice that defensive fire on his left had faltered. The three positions hit by Hun mortar fire had created a gap in the line, and the Brandenburgers had broken through. The first Murray knew about it was when a No. 24 stick grenade sailed through the open hatch and landed in his lap. Murray went for the hatch just as the bomb geysered fire. The blast tore out the turret's guts, fractured the cannon's breech, blew off Murray's legs, sent him reaming to the deck, maimed and on fire. Murray rolled in the sand, blubbered, writhed. The Daimler backlashed flame. Half a dozen Jerries moved in from five paces, strafed the screaming lance sergeant with fire. Murray felt the slugs sledgehammer, swallowed smoke, felt his lungs melting, felt his life-force sluicing away. Maurice Pickney popped up from nowhere, a medical bag swinging off his shoulder, his prune-like face a demon-mask. He ripped off .45-calibre round-nose bullets from a Thompson. He hit Jerries. The Tommy-gun's breech jammed: Pickney dumped it, drew his Colt. A Jerry Schmeissered him. Pickney took rounds, dropped without a sound. The Germans moved past him, past the burning Daimler, found the White hidden behind a ridge. They lobbed No. 24s at her, blew her to shreds.

  On the left, Caine had seen Pickney spudsack, had seen the Daimler burning, had seen the White go up. The enemy had broken through the line on the right flank and were fast closing in on the left. Where the fuck was Turner? What had happened to the daisy-chain? The Jerries were getting nearer and nearer: in a few moments the left flank would be overrun and they'd be done for. Caine sucked in fire-gas, breathed in dust: he changed mags furiously, he throbbed fire.

  Two hundred feet below him, Turner's position was empty. A few minutes earlier, the RAOC man had seen his mate George Padstowe emerge from cover further down the wadi, with half a dozen Squareheads on his tail. Padstowe had been wounded in the back and right thigh when the Dingo was hit, and had hidden himself in some rocks in the wadi. He'd been spotted and flushed out by Brandenburgers as they advanced. Not knowing what else to do, he'd started limping towards Turner's sangar, thirty yards away. Rounds creased up the surface around him: he dekkoed over his shoulder, saw Brandenburgers skipping out of the sand-dust behind.

  Padstowe kept running, wheezing, straining. A bullet chugged his shoulder, snapped him round, frothed up blood. He fell on one knee, brought up his Colt .45, snapshotted rounds. He hit the first Jerry in the chest, the second in the mouth. They went down. Then the rest were on him, bayonets slicking. Padstowe shot a Jerry point-blank, saw mashed tissue where his face had been, saw him with no nose.

  A bayonet sliced Padstowe through the solar plexus, missed his heart by a beat. Another jagged his kidney. Padstowe reeled, choked up blood, felt the earth rear up before him in yellow shrouds. He saw his mate Turner, who had just run thirty yards from his sangar, blunderbussing Jerries with a Bren from the hip. Jerries jitterbugged, gurgled gore, fell back, tippled over in the sand. Two Huns worked behind Turner, blasted him with rounds, semi-automatic. Turner felt the hits, lurched backwards, went numb, saw Padstowe fall in a heap. He squeezed metal, steam-shovelled .303 tracer, fire-gutted Jerries, wiped them out. He took in dead Huns, he swayed, he boked blood, he jettisoned the Bren. He crouched by his mate, tried to drag him, gave up the attempt.

  Turner saw Germans swarming above him on the slope and realized that they were about to overrun Caine's line. He remembered the daisy-chain. His heart sank. He'd left his post: he'd let down the whole unit: he'd betrayed Caine's trust. He saw more Jerries advancing up the wadi behind him. He crawled back towards his position, trailing gore. Rounds whipped sand in his eyes. He kept on crawling. A slug scourged his buttock: another jugged his thigh. Turner felt t
he earth reel, saw his sangar through blood-mist, felt life draining. He set his teeth. He had to reach the daisy-chain igniter, or the battle would be lost. Bullets spattered around him, but he kept going. He was in the sangar: he was dragging himself to the switch. Blood spurted from his thigh in yard slashes. He summoned his last energy, scrabbled for the mechanism with blood-thick fingers. He took a raking breath: he pressed the igniter.

  Two hundred feet up, Caine felt the daisy-chain shock-wave. He saw detonations sandspurt all the way across the slope, right in the midst of the advancing hordes. Jerries skittled over: sawn-off bodies spun and flew. There was an instant loss of momentum in the assault. Caine saw two Brandenburgers ten yards away stagger, shell-shocked by the blast. He aimed his Bren, blimped rounds, knocked them down. Bodies and body-parts littered the lower slopes. Everywhere, Germans were turning tail, picking up their wounded, racing back down the scarp. Caine held fire, knowing the daisy-chain had gutted the attack. He switched right, observed a last band of Jerries around the burning Daimler. He picked up his Tommy-gun, shimmied out of his sangar.

  Directly below, Turner's position was swamped by retreating Jerries. The dying RAOC man saw Hun faces five yards away, heard the chatter of Gewehr 41s grapeshotting him. He palmed a Mills grenade from the box, pulled the pin, paused, let go the handle. His timing was perfect. Brandenburgers came over his parapet with semi-autos burping: the last thing they saw was a thin man with large ears, his narrow face lit up with a beatific smile.

  On the far right of Caine's line, the Jerries who had just whacked Murray and Pickney, heard the daisy-chain shuttlebang like fireworks behind them. They felt the blast, saw their comrades going down, saw their mates retreating. The group leader opened his mouth to order a withdrawal. A .303 dum-dum scrunched his chest, mangled up spare rib, splintered bone, tore muscle, collapsed a lung. The corporal fell, arms gimballing, taking in his comrades doing the turkey-trot, saw a flashwork of bullets nailing them. Three Tommies pitched at them from different angles: one a giant, another a tall, lean soldier with gore-smeared blond hair, the third a tight, muscular man with unusually broad chest and shoulders. Their lips were drawn back in berserker grins: they were covered in blood: they were coming on fearlessly in nebular blurs of fire.