Operation Iraq

by Leo Kessler

  "What do you make of them, Singh?" he had asked the Indian, noting that the second group looked pretty fearsome. There was murder and treachery written all over their tanned leathery faces. They were definitely killers.

  "Hill people," he had answered. "Nomads from both sides of the border. They owe allegiance to no one, only their tribal chiefs, I've been told."

  A little way behind the officers, Schulze commented, "They've got mugs only a mother would trust. Look at that arsehole, Matz. The one with the lance, that knife on a stick." He indicated a skinny rider with a knife scar down the side of his swarthy face. The wound had twisted his right eye so it looked in that direction, as if he were permanently watching for an attack from that quarter. "Wouldn't like to meet that shite-heel on a dark night."

  Matz agreed solemnly. Unfortunately they were all fated to meet the scar-faced killer on a dark night: that same one, to be exact. It had been an hour after the nomads had seemingly gone their own way, having trailed von Dodenburg's survivors for most of that long day. Von Dodenburg had decided that the time had come to let his weary men rest and enjoy what little food they had left, near a small watercourse they had found, which von Dodenburg had thought was a sign of luck, for they had already exhausted the water they had brought with them from the wreck. They had begun to settle down for the night when it happened.

  Suddenly, startlingly, there had been the thunder of many hoofs, interspersed by wild cries and oaths. Out of the evening gloom, the nomads had come charging, ancient rifles blazing, the scar-faced giant waving his lance at the head of the attack. One of the reinforcements on sentry duty had brought up his carbine to fire at him. The boy hadn't a chance. Next moment the giant had skewered him with his lance, lifting him right off his feet before he slid to the ground, dead before he had hit it.

  A moment later, the attackers were right in among the surprised Wotan troopers, kicking over their stacked rifles, aiming blows at the uncovered heads of those who attempted to fight back with their bayonets. Here and there troopers tried to run for it, while the mass were pressed back against the rocks, surrendering now, for they had nothing to fight with. They didn't get far. The nomads raced after the fugitives, laughing crazily, waving their weapons about their heads, as if this was the greatest of sports – hunting their fellow humans.

  Von Dodenburg got off a last shot before his pistol was smashed from his hand. One of the riders' mounts reared up in the air, its front hoofs flailing wildly in its death agonies. It rolled to one side and crashed to the ground, smashing into the animal behind, so that it, too, went to the ground in a crazy melee of hoofs and dust and a dying rider. A moment afterwards, Lieutenant Singh commanded, "Cease firing... cease firing... It's no use. They've got us. No more bloodshed. I'll take care of this, men... Cease firing!"

  That had been three days before, and although Singh had explained to an angry von Dodenburg, consumed with impatience to get back to the Wotan, that the nomads lived by raiding and kidnapping, selling their captives to the highest bidder, neither the French, the Iraqi rebels nor their own people in Baghdad seemed inclined to pay for their release. As he stated, "But you must have patience, Captain von Dodenburg. These are a nomadic people who are not in a hurry. Their way of life doesn't encourage it."

  Just as von Dodenburg's patience was running thin, neither Sergeant Schulze nor his running mate, the 'Bavarian barnshitter' Corporal Matz, was too happy with the situation either. It wasn't that they wanted to get back into action. They were more interested in the old hare's main interests in life: firewater and fornication. As Schulze complained to Matz on the morning of the third day, when Fatima, the fat cook who attended to their culinary needs, dumped the usual mutton and peppermint tea in their food bowls, "Cast yer glassy optic on it, will yer, Matz. Frigging sheep's arse and Tommy piss again. What I'd give for a nice bowl of fart soup with a fat turd inside it." He meant the typical German Army pea soup, complete with sausage.

  Obviously believing the big sergeant was praising her food, Fatima smiled winningly at him with the one eye she could reveal from beneath her black hood.

  Schulze shook his head at her. "It's no use looking at me like that, Fatima – all goo-goo eyes and the like. I'll never be able to pleasure you in a month o' Sundays. Your lot'd dock my dick in zero-comma-nothing seconds, old girl."

  Fatima's smile, hidden as it was, must have broadened, for that single eye, outlined by kohl, beamed even more brightly.

  Next to Matz, Schulze fiddled with his mutton stew, pulling out the usual eye and staring at it with disgust, while Matz ventured: "Why do you think they dress their women up like that? You can't see their tits or pins or anything. It ain't natural, is it, Schulze?"

  Schulze, who regarded himself as an authority on most things foreign, let the eye drop back into his stew with a plop, and pontificated, "It's their religion, Matzi. If they can't see the women's bits and pieces, they don't got randy like yer normal white man. It's a kind of contra – con – Scheisse, you know what I mean, Matzi."

  "But they do have kids," Matz objected. "Lots of the little nipple-nippers."

  "Perhaps they're only allowed to do it on their holy days," Schulze suggested, "like it's written in their Bible."

  "Bible!" Matz puffed out his lips in contempt at such ignorance. "Didn't you ever go to school? The Bible's for Christians like us, not for heathens. They're Muslims, you know. They have what they call the Talmud. It's a big thing their priests carry around, chanting all the time. I've seen it somewhere or other."

  "Oh," Schulze said. "Well, you Catholic Bavarian barnshitters'll know all about that sort o' stuff. Up north where I come from, Matzi, we don't go in for religion much. We're more into beer and schnapps."

  "Sergeant Schulze!" Von Dodenburg's incisive voice brought the high-level theological discussion to an abrupt end. "I want your opinion."

  "Sir." Schulze came to his feet, dropping his spoon back into his mutton stew, causing one of the sheep's eyes to pop and fall to the ground to stare up at him, as if in mild surprise at this sudden transportation from water to earth. "On what, sir?"

  "Our chances of making a break for it from this dump," von Dodenburg answered. "We've been here long enough. Lieutenant Singh is getting us nowhere with these savages."

  Schulze frowned. "We've not got our weapons, sir," he said. "They're either using them themselves or they've got them tucked away somewhere in one of those filthy huts of theirs. And I don't fancy our chances if we've got no weapons against them."

  "Yessir," Matz chimed in. "That wall-eyed bugger o' theirs'd dearly like to stick that lance of his up one of our arses."

  Now it was von Dodenburg's turn to frown. "I take your point. But we can't stay here for ever."

  "I know, sir. I'm with yer. What wouldn't I give for some decent German fodder and, with luck, a good glass of Munich suds." He licked his parched lips, as if he could already taste a litre of Bavarian beer about to take the delightful voyage to his stomach. "A poor stubble-hopper like me could die happy if he could sink one of those behind his collar stud."

  Von Dodenburg forced a smile. "All right, see if you can discover where they're hiding the rest of our weapons, especially the machine pistols. A couple of those in our hands and we'd soon settle the beggars' hash for them."

  "You can say that again, sir," Matz said heartily, as Schulze tossed the rest of his mutton stew over his shoulder with a, "We'll do it, and I'm not going to swallow no more of Fatima's frigging sheep's arse either."

  Von Dodenburg could see that his two old hares were determined enough, though he hadn't the faintest idea who Fatima was. Knowing Matz and Schulze, he guessed that if she was a woman, they'd soon use her to their own advantage – and then some.

  It was later that same morning that Lieutenant Singh, watched suspiciously by the giant Iraqi with the twisted eye, disclosed the latest stage of his talks with the nomads. "Von Dodenburg, sir," he said, a smile on his handsome face. "Things are moving at last."

&nbs
p; "How?"

  "They're going to get us to Baghdad."

  "What did you say?" von Dodenburg queried, with a sense of mounting excitement.

  "They've been in contact with the representatives of this chap Raschid Ali who raised the flag of revolt against the English colonialist swine last week. The people in Baghdad are apparently prepared to pay a ransom for us when we're brought to the nearest road-head, some thirty or so kilometres away from here. From thence we'll be forwarded to Baghdad and in due course returned to SS Assault Battalion Wotan. Now, what do you say to that, eh?" he added enthusiastically.

  "I'd say splendid, Lieutenant Singh. You've done a fine job. Save for one thing."

  "And what's that?"

  "Can we trust them?" Von Dodenburg looked at the wall-eyed Iraqi's face over Singh's shoulder. If he'd ever seen murder written across a man's face, it was on his.

  "But why shouldn't we trust him and his fellows? I mean, they have everything to gain, haven't they, sir, by handing us back to the authorities."

  "Have they?"

  "How do you mean, sir?"

  Von Dodenburg lowered his voice, though he knew the wall-eyed chief didn't understand. "We've been subjected to his blackmail ever since they captured us, haven't we, Singh?"

  "I suppose you could call it that, sir."

  "I do. Now, why should he give up the goose that lays the golden egg just like that? He could take us to the road-head to meet the Baghdad people, collect his ransom money and then refuse to give us up to them. I wouldn't put it past the big bastard for one moment."

  Singh frowned. "But do you think he'd do that, sir?"

  "Of course I do. This whole operation is a mess, totally messed up and badly planned. To my way of thinking, the only people who are going to profit from it are those like that wall-eyed scum. He has no loyalty to any cause but his own."

  Singh absorbed the information for a moment or two before saying, "Well, if you're right, Captain von Dodenburg, what are we going to be able to do about it?"

  Von Dodenburg had his answer ready. "This!" he snapped, his lean face hard and arrogant. "Shaft him, before he shafts us." And the young SS officer made his point quite clear with a gesture, as if he were thrusting a knife into the guts of an enemy, right up to the hilt. Twenty metres away, the wall-eyed giant looked suddenly very grim, as if, though he didn't understand von Dodenburg's words, he certainly understood his intentions.

  CHAPTER 14

  McLeod prepared well for his escape. He wanted the Germans to regard him as a broken-down old man whose injuries made it virtually impossible for him to think of escaping. Twice when the guards had brought food to his tent he had coughed blood before he could eat it, and then rejected the meal, though he was hungry enough. The blood had come from biting his lips just as he had heard the guards approaching. That last night, he had coughed a great deal, interspersed with moaning, so that twice the sentry had come to tell him to shut his moaning up and ask what was the matter with him. His reply had been in German: "Meine Rippen – die sind kaputt." Thereafter there had been a noticeable lessening of the guards' interest in him, and one of the younger ones had offered him a Bayer aspirin to lessen the supposed pain.

  Still, McLeod had been very surprised when the Indian sergeant who had done the translating had made an appearance, and with a doleful face had moaned, "I am a bad man, Sahib. I have betrayed the King Emperor – I, a sergeant in the 1st Bengal Rifles." For a moment McLeod had thought the middle-aged Indian NCO might well begin to cry. Instead the Indian had looked furtively from left to right, and then from beneath his tunic he had produced, first a small Italian pistol, then a water bottle and a bar of chocolate. Hastily he had pressed the gifts into a surprised McLeod's hands, whispering, "You go, Sahib – it is all I can give you. God go with you." And with that he was gone, leaving McLeod again to wonder at the strangeness of the Indian character.

  That pre-dawn he made his break. The tented camp was sunk in a heavy sleep. Even the Iraqi dogs were silent, something for which McLeod was very grateful. The only sounds were the snores of the enemy and the soft rustle of the wind in the camel scrub. Moving with exaggerated slowness, he crept by the sentry who was asleep on a box, head on his chest, rifle propped against the side of the box. McLeod told himself the poor young bugger was in for a real rollicking in the morning when it was discovered that his prisoner had done a bunk while he had snored.

  He moved on. Here and there in the Iraqi horse lines, a nervous animal tossed its mane and whinnied. But the movement of the horses caused no reaction in the camp. The camp slept on and McLeod reasoned anyone hearing agitation of the animals would attribute it to the storm which was clearly brewing. For the dawn sky was starting to flush an ugly white, and the wind was rising steadily. Under other circumstances, McLeod would have cursed. For, old Iraq hand that he was, he knew what was on its way: a sandstorm. But now the storm would come at an ideal time for him. It would be one devil of a job working against it, but at least it would cover his tracks and make it virtually impossible for any pursuers to follow him with any accuracy.

  Half an hour later, the storm had still not come, but the air was now virtually impossible to breathe. It was furnace-hot, with the sky the colour of wood smoke. Not a breath of wind stirred, the dawn breeze had vanished altogether and the sun itself was like a copper penny glimpsed at the bottom of a green-scummed pond.

  The going was hell. Still McLeod knew he couldn't let up. By now his departure would have been noticed, and he knew well that the ugly CO of the German SS troops would try his damnedest to find him – he couldn't afford to let his position be revealed to the British, in case the fugitive managed to contact his own troops.

  Now the hot air seared his lungs like a flame from a blowtorch. His uniform was black with sweat. Beads of perspiration streamed down his forehead and stung and blinded his faded blue eyes. Still he staggered on, that tremendous heat wringing the sweat out of his lean body like a washerwoman squeezing out a wet sponge. Even the sand was against him. It rose in small powdery clouds about his boots, the fine particles stinging his bare knees like sharp painful nicks from a thousand razors.

  Time and time again, he cursed angrily, knowing that anger against these cruel elements would keep him going. Anger would make him refuse to submit, for once he sat down, he knew he'd be doomed. He wouldn't get up again. Cursing and carefully rationing himself to one sip of water from the bottle the Indian sergeant had given him, staggering now and again like a drunk, he kept on going, knowing that the worst was still to come.

  But when that worst came, it came just in time. Just as he had become dimly aware of the faint shouts behind him which indicated that his pursuers had caught up with him, there was a strange humming sound. He had heard it before, but, numb as he was, and almost at the end of his tether, he couldn't identify it immediately. He turned, his head working slowly, as if on rusty springs. He saw the tiny black dots behind him which were the enemy. But it was the great whirling spinning top of sand and dust reaching right up to the sky that really caught his attention.

  Moments later, the tornado of sand struck him at a speed of fifty miles per hour. In a flash, all was dirty yellow, whirling, choking sand. Its particles were razor sharp. They slashed and cut the skin. They penetrated his worn khaki uniform. They ripped cruelly at his flesh, making him yelp with pain. Frantically he attempted to stay upright in that howling, whirling darkness, everything else blackened out. He knew he had to stay stable. If he let go, he'd be blown for miles into the desert, perhaps never to be found again.

  He sank to his knees and, groping blindly, found a patch of firm camel scrub. He clutched at it desperately. It held and then he began what seemed an interminable fight with Nature itself. Time and time again that tremendous wind, howling like ten thousand banshees, buffeted his old skinny body. It slammed into him with all its fury, as if it were determined to wipe him off the face of the earth. He cried out for mercy.

  None came. "Will it never en
d?" he called, mouth filling instantly with choking sand. Desperately, he clung to the camel thorn as that terrible wind tried to sweep him away. God, it was impossible!

  Then it was over. As abruptly as the sandstorm had started, it ended. One moment the world was all chaos. The next the obscene howling of that awful wind had been replaced by a soft dirge-like moan which, in its turn, was replaced a few seconds afterwards by a gossamer-light breeze which gave way to nothing, leaving behind a kind of loud echoing silence.

  For what seemed ages, McLeod didn't react. He continued to cling to the camel thorn, covered in sand, as if he were already interred in some kind of desert grave. Then, finally, he started to stir. His free hand broke through the sand. With its help he clawed the sand from his eyes and mouth, coughing and spluttering. He licked his lips. They looked like bloody slashes across his sand-caked face. Finally he was ready. He looked behind him. His pursuers had vanished. In their place was a lone figure in khaki, his rifle aimed right at McLeod's chest. Slowly, very slowly, he started to raise his hands...

  Ten kilometres away, an angry Vulture made his decision. He faced up to Dietz, who he held responsible for the escape of their prisoner, and barked, "We have no other alternative, Dietz. We're moving."

  The unhappy adjutant, who knew the Vulture of old, and how he could make things decidedly unpleasant for those who had offended him, said, "It will be difficult, sir. We have no transport, for a start."

  "Get some," the Vulture snapped. "I have waited long enough for our people in Baghdad to make a decision. This whole damned operation is ill-conceived, but I'm not going to go along with it any longer. I am not risking my battalion any longer. Baghdad must supply us with wheels to get us away from this hell hole – and, Dietz, I don't give a damn about what these Arabs – " he meant the Iraqis – "think. We are German soldiers, soldiers of the Führer himself. I don't think he would be happy if he knew how we were being wasted in this godforsaken wilderness, do you, Dietz?"