Code of Combat

by Michael Asher

  Caine wasn’t surprised. Cope could be the most patronizing blighter in the world, yet his loyalty had never wavered, not even when Caine had gone against the brass, not even when his plans had been barking mad. It was the old code of combat: no one dipped out on his mate. Caine had never forgiven himself for Wallace and Trubman.

  He lowered his voice. ‘This is my damn’ fault for being so cocky. I led us into it.’

  ‘They shouldn’t have deployed us like infantry, Tom. It’s not SAS. Our role’s strategic.’

  Christ! Caine thought. Here we are facing the big dark and he’s talking strategy.

  ‘Make sure and tell Paddy that,’ he said. ‘Now bugger off. I’m going to put down smoke. The Bren group will stay with me till you’re clear.’

  A weave of fire-spurts danced along the dyke-edge. They heard a feral roar like a football-crowd: Caine peered over the brink, observed a horde of Kraut infantry moving towards them – field-grey matchstick-men in Kaiser hats hefting sub-machine guns, rifles with gleaming bayonets. They must have outnumbered his section four to one. Copeland shuftied the advancing horde through telescopic sights, clocked the pointman, a giant soldier in full battlekit, chamber-pot helmet pulled down over a face as raw as a pound of steak: broken nose, eyes like polished flint, wearing NCO’s rank, bronze para wings, Crete band on his sleeve. He was about to squeeze the trigger when Caine nudged him again, thrust his Thompson at him. ‘Take this. Leave me a carbine, Harry.’

  Copeland took the weapon one-handed, glanced at it, tried to work out whether it was a memento or a promise. Then he slung it over his shoulder, gave Caine a long look, turned away. ‘Prepare to withdraw!’ he bawled.

  ‘Wait for my order,’ Caine said.

  He monkey-ran along the dyke through gore, viscera, spent cases: he grabbed the Mi the speared trooper had dropped, took a quick dekko at him. He was face-down with his head propped at an odd angle by the bent weapon, drooling brown mucus. Alfred John Weaver from Bolton, twenty-one, tile fitter in Civvy Street, unmarried, dead as a fucking doornail.

  Caine slipped a couple of smoke-canisters from his webbing, took one in each hand, pinned them with his teeth. He tossed them over the parapet, waited five seconds until the smoke was wufting along the edge in thick billows.

  ‘Go!’ he yapped.

  Copeland and the others scrambled over the rear parapet: Caine didn’t watch them pull out. In a second he was back with Wade and Slocum, waiting for the smoke to clear, for the Krauts to come ramping through. He fired a couple of rounds blind just to keep their heads down: Wade’s carbine snapped in his ears. Slocum kept up a trickle of edgy taps.

  The smoke thinned: Caine peered over his sights, saw field-grey forms shunting towards them – maybe forty men – coming on with precision-drill determination: jogging, rolling, firing. Schmeissers razzled, rifles clacked, bullets whooped, thunked into the dyke-edge, squawked insanely past his ears.

  Caine willed the tremor out of his fingers, zeroed in on a tall Jerry brandishing a rifle and bayonet like a spear. He fired, opened up the Kraut’s chest in berry-red bursts. He clocked a coalscuttle pop up from behind a wild olive tree, swivelled, stilettoed a slim .30 needle splack through the Jerry’s eye. Slocum raked double-taps – rat-TAT, rat-TAT, rat-TAT: Wade spliffed carbine rounds, directed the Bren. ‘Right a bit, bit more. See yon Kraut by the tree, looks like a pig in a bonnet? Smoke ’im, mate.’

  Rat-TAT, rat-TAT, rat-TAT!

  ‘On’y winged ’im, you useless bugger.’

  ‘You wanna do it?’

  ‘No, I’m jus’sayin’.’

  ‘Shut yer trap, then.’

  ‘See that bloke there, eleven o’clock, rat-faced sod with a moustache? Get ’im . . .’

  Rat-TAT, rat-TAT!

  ‘Gawd, coulda done better blowin’ peas out me arse.’

  Kraut bullets wellied, droned, ground off stones: Caine didn’t even hear them. He was in a cotton-wool fuzz, in a place where all actions were happening in slow-time and nothing seemed real except reaction. He saw helmets bob up, squeezed metal: saw Jerries lurch forward, spouted rounds. It didn’t feel as if he was doing the shooting: he was somewhere above it all, looking down, and the weapon in his hands was doing it for him. A Jerry slug went thwick on his stock, brought him back to earth with a sting of pain. He yawped, let go of the carbine, saw blood oozing between his knuckles. He dekkoed his hand: a bullet had skinned his middle finger.

  He gripped the weapon again, wiped blood off the stock, picked a Kraut, lined up his sights, hauled steel: the hammer clacked on an empty chamber. He swore, released the mag, checked it, found it empty. You bloody great clot. Why didn’t you get spare ammo when you had the chance? He thought of pulling his pistol: the enemy weren’t in pistol-range yet. He glanced sideways, spied Hardman’s gore-soaked ammo pouches lying a few yards away by the mutilated wreck of his body. There must be ammo in there.

  He ducked down, darted for the pouches, grabbed at them, paused, realized Slocum had stopped firing. He glanced back at the Bren-group, saw Slocum flip the empty magazine sideways, saw Wade reach in his haversack, come up with a fresh one. ‘This is the last,’ he growled. ‘Now, can yer try an’ hit a Jerry this time, mate? Ain’t that what we’re being paid for?’

  ‘’Ere, my tally’s nine so far. Now stick that flamin’ mag on and stop rattlin’.’

  Wade chuckled: as he leaned over to clip on the fresh mag, a rocket squealed out of the air like a harpy on a smoke-trail, chumped his helmet, detonated with a flash of heat, a blur of light, a gut-curdling kavvvrrrrooooommmmppp: Caine felt the air unzip, felt the ground go bow-shaped, clocked a five-point starburst of matter, dirt, shrapnel, saw Wade’s head guillotined off his shoulders. His big body convulsed, became a spiral of scarlet tissue, shattered bone, scorched sinew: Caine saw his leg-sockets unhinge, saw the burning remnants of his frame blown across the dyke. At the same instant, Slocum pitched sideways, the skin blasted off his skull: his eyes popped, his battledress shredded, his body became a bag of burning skin and fractured bone: his left hand flipped in one direction, his right arm in another.

  The shockwave knocked Caine off his feet, threw him on top of Hardman’s body. He rolled over, sat up, felt his head pendulum, felt the world breathe him in and out like a bubble. He extended a hand to steady himself: getting to his feet was like climbing a mountain. He blinked, rubbed gore out of his eyes, stood there quivering with shock. He didn’t even know the Jerries were watching him until a voice crouped.

  ‘Hände hoch!’

  There they were, in a huddle above him, pointing their weapons in his direction. They could have shot him then, but they didn’t.

  A walking block of a man in a Kaiser hat and full battle-rig jumped down, surveyed the carnage in the dyke, the crushed and smouldering bodies, the smelted tissue hanging off the sides, the severed limbs, the puddles of blood-slush. He levelled his Schmeisser at Caine, peered at him out of a pug-face riddled with old shrapnel-scars, a broken nose, glassy green eyes. He wore NCO’s rank, and the Crete armband on his sleeve: Caine recognized him suddenly as the giant NCO who’d led the Hun charge. His gaze fell on the bronze parachute insignia on the man’s chest. The Kraut’s eyes narrowed, peered at the SAS wings still visible through the blood on Caine’s battledress.

  ‘Such a pattle,’ the Jerry said in broken English. It sounded almost as if he’d enjoyed it. ‘I vas going to shoot you, but I see you are one of our airborne brothers, so I vill not.’

  He glanced at the smoking remains of the corpses that only moments ago had been Slocum and Wade, let out a bitter laugh.

  ‘Put up your hands and gif me your weapons,’ he said. ‘You are now a prisoner of Chermany.’

  Chapter Five

  Villa Montefalcone, Le Marche, Italy

  2 October 1943

  The Waffen-SS detachment moved in on the Villa Montefalcone an hour after first light: jackboots crunched along the gravel drive, the men broke up into squads, cleared the gardens, set up a
Spandau near the steps leading to the front door. Reichsgeschäftsführer Wolfram Stengel stood by a gleaming Horsch staff-car, twirled his moustache, whistled the ‘Radetzky March’.

  Although equivalent in rank to SS colonel, Stengel never wore uniform: this morning, he was dressed in a black leather trench-coat and broad-brimmed hat. His only insignia was a lapel pin in the shape of a sword through an inverted omega – the logo of the Ahnenerbe.

  The villa looked more like a fortress than a house: a central mass of stone oblongs with arched windows, external staircases, verandahs, walkways: a mosaic of roofs at various angles, a forest of stone towers, perforated by arrow-slits, capped by red-tiled roofs that looked like oddly shaped, exotic hats. Part of the ground floor was obscured by a ruined girdle-wall with crumbling stone buttresses which was obviously much older than the rest of the building. Set into the wall, on one side, was a stone chapel with a bell-tower and a low-pitched, ochre-tiled roof. He’d been told that the villa was constructed on the ruins of a medieval monastery, some of which had been incorporated into its structure. It had a neglected air, though: fallen edgings, decaying stonework, dark stains of rain-damage on its walls. Grass grew through cracks in the stones: the grounds were a gone-to-seed jungle, hemmed in by deep brakes of forest. Yet it was impressive: standing against the heroic backdrop of the Apennine mountains, it had the brooding Gothic feel of a castle out of the Brothers Grimm.

  There was certainly German influence, Stengel thought. There was always German influence – you could find it as far afield as Tibet, Brazil and Iraq. In the past few years, expeditions the Ahnenerbe had sent out to such places had returned with irrefutable evidence of the worldwide diffusion of ancient German culture. Stengel had enjoyed those expeditions. Now, as Ahnenerbe director, he was burdened with more mundane matters, mainly the medical experiments being run in the Reich’s concentration camps, and the 105 Bolshevik-Jew commissars he’d had liquidated to provide skeletons for the Anatomical Institute of Strasbourg.

  From the window of her suite, Countess Emilia Falcone heard the voices, saw Krauts scatter through the grounds, saw the staff-car sweep round the bend in the drive, saw it pull up, saw the man who got out – bearded, wearing a black coat and hat. She bit her knuckles, hoped that this wasn’t about Ettore. Her brother had been working with the Giappisti – the partisans: she’d heard rumours that he’d been involved in a bombing in Ancona. She wasn’t against the Resistance, but Ettore was only sixteen, and he was all she had left.

  Her father, Count Giuseppe Falcone, and her American mother had been killed in an air-crash before the war. The count had left instructions in his will charging Emilia with the care of the family estates, including the Villa Montefalcone and its treasures. She was to act as Ettore’s legal guardian until he came of age. She’d been reluctant to give up her life in New York to return to an Italy under Mussolini, but the Falconi were one of the oldest families in the country, and family duty came first.

  Now, she lived in the rambling villa alone but for her housekeeper, Angostina: there had been a girl called Lucia, who’d come up every day from a local farm, until the Hun had arrested her on suspicion of being a runner – a staffetta – for the partisans. Emilia’s small suite stood like an island among the house’s great galleries: the staircases that linked the labyrinth of rooms were dusty and uncared for: furniture lay under acres of sheeting, books and art-treasures had been moved to the warren of cellars.

  She heard a commotion by the door, craned her neck, saw that the Krauts had seized Angostina – a dough-faced old lady in a dark shawl and a widow’s black dress. Emilia caught her breath, watched the bearded German as he strutted over to the group, saw the old woman struggle, saw the Kraut soldiers twist her arms. She saw the bearded man slap her across the jaw with an open hand, saw Angostina raise her chin, saw the man slap her again.

  Emilia ran out of her quarters, dashed along the corridor, down the main stairs into the hall, along the passage to the open front door. She stepped into the sunlight, took in the tableau of figures below.

  ‘Don’t hurt her,’ she said in English. ‘Please let her go.’

  Stengel looked up to see the girl coming slowly down the steps. She was young – twenty-one or -two perhaps – with a slender figure, slim hips and ample breasts. Her skin was milky brown, her hair jet-black, combed from a centre parting to fall over trim shoulders in lush, wayward tangles. She had a broad face, with high cheekbones and a proud nose: her amber-coloured eyes were very slightly slanted at the corners, giving her an almost oriental look. Her chin was strong and dimpled, her mouth wide, with full lips that held a hint of mockery. Her simple black dress, short enough to display smoothly tanned calves, emphasized an almost feline flexibility. Altogether, Stengel thought, she conveyed a thoroughbred assurance: she looked very Italian, though her US-accented English reminded him that she was half-Yank.

  ‘Countess Emilia Falcone?’

  ‘Yes. Who are you?’

  ‘I am Dr Wolfram Stengel. I have come to collect the Codex.’

  The countess blinked eyelashes as delicate as a butterfly-wing, ran elegant fingers through her wealth of dark hair: Stengel noted that her right eyelid drooped very slightly over the iris, so that only half of it showed: it gave her a hint of sleepiness, he thought.

  ‘Which Codex?’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I mean the Codex Aesinias, a manuscript of Tacitus’s Germania possessed by your family for generations. Herr Mussolini promised it to our Führer before the war: I am here to see that promise fulfilled.’

  Emilia dropped her eyes, partly to hide her relief. It’s not about Ettore. It’s about the Codex. Ever since she’d been a schoolgirl the Nazis had made periodic demands for the book: they seemed to think it was rightfully theirs. Her father had refused to give it up, though: not only was the Codex a priceless heirloom, it was also an Italian national treasure. In the end, even Mussolini had baulked at the idea of allowing it out of the country. The Falconi had never been Mussolini supporters: Emilia would have been overjoyed to see the back of that Fascist stronzo, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the Codex was no longer under his protection.

  She batted her eyelids: Stengel was a tall man in his thirties, rather handsome, she thought, in a clinical sort of way – high cheekbones, a firm chin, a thick, black beard and moustache. His nose was long and sharp, his mouth thin, his eyes coal-black, with a coldness that was disturbing.

  At first she’d thought she might get away with it by acting the dumb brunette. Not with this one, though.

  ‘Oh, you mean the Germania?’ she said. ‘It’s not in the house. My father had it moved to another location.’

  Stengel’s eyes never seemed to look at her directly. ‘Which location?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She smiled. ‘He never told me.’

  It lies in a room with no doors or windows. I am the door. Another holds the key.

  Stengel gripped her arm suddenly: his fingers dug into her bare flesh. She winced, held herself rigid. Don’t scream. Don’t struggle. Now’s not the time to do anything.

  Over his shoulder, she saw that the SS-men had let Angostina go: six or seven of them were standing expectantly behind Stengel. He snapped orders: the men filed in through the open door, tramped down the passage. ‘You and I will have a talk,’ he said, ‘while my men search this house from top to bottom.’

  He frogmarched her upstairs to her private quarters, pushed her down on the sofa. He surveyed the room: mountain views and seascapes on the walls, empty wine-bottles, framed photographs. He took off his hat, brushed it, laid it on the table, folded his coat, draped it over a chair. His head was broad and cat-shaped, his hair a dense black mat, his eyebrows topped the deadman’s eyes with circumflex accents. He picked up a photo of a lean, pasty-faced youth, studied it.

  ‘I am guessing that this is your brother,’ he said. ‘Where is he now?’

  Emilia sensed a trap. Could this be about Ettore after all?


  She swallowed. ‘He’s still in America, where I left him.’

  Stengel nodded, put the photo down. He marched over to the door, locked it.

  The sound made Emilia jump: her nipples went taut: her legs tremored. Stengel leaned over her, his face expressionless. ‘I don’t think we yet understand each other, Countess,’ he said. ‘But, of course, we will change that.’

  He hit her across the face with an open hand. ‘Where is the Codex?’

  She touched her stinging cheek, glared at him. ‘I don’t know.’

  He hit her again. She gasped, felt tears creeping down her face.

  Stengel leaned further: she flinched, gagged at the smell of his eau de cologne. He grabbed her right breast, pinched it until the nipple stood up.

  No. Please. Not this.

  Her eyes fell on the wine-bottles. They were the only available weapons, but they were too far away. Don’t do anything. The house is full of Krauts. They’ll kill you.

  He grasped her left hand, lifted it: his finger and thumb closed on the ring she wore on her middle finger. ‘What’s this?’

  My ring. He wants my ring.

  It was a signet ring of the Falconi, bearing their crest: a shield with a double-headed hawk in a laurel wreath. ‘It’s one of an identical pair,’ she said hoarsely. ‘It’s been in my family for generations.’

  Stengel dropped her hand, jerked her to her feet, hustled her through the open door of the bedroom, halted her by a double bed with a carved headboard.

  ‘Take off your clothes.’

  She hung her head: felt a claw close on her throat, felt cold fingers creep across her belly. The word please formed on her tongue: she bit her lips, felt surging cramps in her stomach.

  She brushed back strands of hair, took a deep breath, drew the dress over her head, dropped it on the carpet. She stood trembling before him in her underclothes, head bowed, hands over her breasts, thick tresses falling across her face.