Code of Combat

by Michael Asher

  ‘Take off your underwear.’ His voice was husky, excited.

  ‘No.’ The word was out before she could stop it, followed with dizzying speed by a punch that crashed into her mouth, sent her sprawling. She found herself face-down on the bed, her lips bleeding, her head spinning, her senses fading. When she came round, she was naked, her face in a blood-streaked pillow, her hands tied to the headboard with strips torn from her own underwear.

  She heard Stengel’s heavy breathing behind her, tried to see what he was doing, found she couldn’t budge.

  His fingers were on her thighs, parting them roughly: one hand groped her crotch: his fingers shoved into her. She whimpered, heard a breathless snigger, felt movement on the bed, smelt the sickening eau de cologne, sensed him crouching over her.

  ‘So you do not know where the Codex is, eh, Countess?’ he chortled. ‘Perhaps this will help you remember.’

  She shrieked as something rigid and cold was thrust deep inside her.

  *

  Later, she realized that her ordeal had lasted under an hour: at the time, though, the pain and humiliation seemed to go on for ever. Stengel raped her with a wine-bottle, sodomized her, croaked in her ear, bit her, raked her flesh. After a short while he seemed to lose interest in the Codex: he gave himself over entirely to tormenting her. The agony became unbearable: as she began to slip away she heard someone whisper: ‘What is sought lies in a room with no doors or windows. I am the door. Another holds the key.’

  With a start, she realized that the whisperer was herself.

  Stengel slapped her buttocks. ‘What was that? What are you saying?’

  Emilia moaned, shook her head. Stengel drove the bottle inside her once more, furiously. He violated her again and again, sneered, slobbered, made a queer grunting sound in his throat. The assault was so violent this time that Emilia thought he was going to kill her. He cast the bottle aside, thrust himself into her, curled tough fingers around her throat, his face slicked in sweat, his eyes popping. He plunged into her harder and harder: she mewled, thrashed, tried to kick at him: just before she passed out she felt his body shudder.

  When she came to again, he was untying her wrists from the bed-head. ‘Still with us?’ he sneered. ‘Getting acquainted has been a great pleasure.’

  Stengel left her sobbing on the bed, found the bathroom, halted in front of the washbasin. He stared into the mirror: What is sought lies in a room with no doors or windows. I am the door. Another holds the key.

  Gibberish, he thought.

  He caught a movement behind him in the mirror: a shadow flitting past, then, just for a fraction of a second, a face staring over his shoulder – a face like parchment drawn taut over a skull: a leering, vacant mouth, glittering jewels for eyes. Stengel froze, broke out in a cold sweat. There’s someone else here – standing right behind me.

  He spun round, saw movement from the corner of his eye, felt his heart bump. There’s nothing. It’s this old house: full of creaks and shadows. He glanced in the mirror again: he’d been certain he’d seen that skeletal face, but now there was just his reflection. He still felt disquieted, though. Ever since he’d had to oversee the preparation of those 105 specimens, he’d been seeing Jew-Bolshevik commissars everywhere – the hidden eyes, the uncanny sounds like dogs howling, the dark presences that stalked him at night, which, when he looked, were never there.

  He picked up a bar of soap, turned on the brass tap, washed and rinsed his hands with surgeon-like precision. He washed them again and again, but they felt as unclean as they had done to start with. He shuddered: it wasn’t just his hands that were filthy but his whole body. He would have to take a shower at Jesi, scrub himself with scouring-powder until he got rid of it.

  Emilia heard running water, heard Stengel whistling, heard him mutter. It seemed hours before he strode back into the bedroom, stood over her. When she didn’t stir, he turned away. ‘I will go back to Jesi now,’ he said, ‘but the SS detachment will stay. If you attempt to leave this villa, you will be shot. I will return in a few days. Perhaps you will have remembered where the Codex is by then. If not, the . . . entertainment . . . will continue.’

  Emilia closed her eyes, heard his vacant whistle recede down the passage, cried to herself, tried to deal with successive waves of agony, shock and nausea. I’m alive, she thought at last. That’s the biggest mistake you’ll ever make, you Nazi cocksucker.’

  Chapter Six

  Near Montefalcone, Le Marche, Italy

  1 October 1943

  The lorry drew up at the edge of the forest: Sipo-SD troops herded the prisoners out at gunpoint: SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Grolsch ticked off their names on a clipboard. Trooper Fred Wallace, a head taller than any of the other POWs, took a dekko around him: it was just after first light, with a splodge of crimson peeking through the foliage: no birds sang.

  Like the other half-dozen prisoners, Wallace was wearing shabby civvies and down-at-heel shoes: his hands were cuffed in front of him. Ever since Grolsch had made the SAS-men hand over their uniforms the previous evening, Wallace had smelt a rat. Grolsch’s story that they were being taken to the Swiss border for a prisoner-exchange didn’t add up. Why, in that case, were they wearing civilian togs? Why had the lorry stopped little more than an hour after they’d started?

  When Grolsch ordered them to march along the forest track, Wallace’s neck-hairs prickled. ‘Where the flamin’ ’ell you takin’ us? This ain’t no Swiss border.’

  A stoat-faced Jerry hit him with a rifle-butt on a shin still tender from the wound he’d taken in Tunisia six months earlier. Wallace jumped. ‘Owwww! You fuckin’ Fritz bastard, I’ll . . .’

  ‘Now, now, settle down there.’ Grolsch sounded like an exasperated schoolmaster. ‘Let’s make this exchange orderly: very soon you’ll be free.’

  ‘A prisoner exchange in a forest?’ Taff Trubman hissed in Wallace’s ear. ‘That’s a good one, boy.’ The stubby Welshman was hobbling from the injuries he’d copped on the Tunisia mission: since then, the Jerries had transferred him and Wallace here to Le Marche, where they’d spent months recuperating in the POW hospital-wing at Jesi. They’d only just been declared fit to work when this prisoner-exchange had come up.

  The five other SAS-men with them had been captured a month earlier, on a drop near Ancona. Their DZ had been compromised: Fritz had been waiting for them. Their stick-leader, Lieutenant Johnny Howard, had been hit in the groin, lost a lot of blood: he’d spent the whole month in hospital. Now, a couple of Krauts were dragging him between them while the rest of his patrol – Morris, Seymour, Yates and Cameron – tramped on, ashen-faced and dull-eyed.

  They arrived in a clearing in the woods: the light through the trees wove the leaf-mould ground into a net of claws, fangs, talons. Wallace saw that half a dozen troopers in Kaiser helmets were waiting for them, noticed with a jolt that they were carrying Sten sub-machine guns. A cold fingernail raked his spine. Why would the Jerries be using British SMGs? They’re gonna smoke us. I knew it. They’re gonna smoke us with our own weapons and make it look like friendly fire.

  Wallace stared at Trubman: the Welshman’s eyes behind his thick lenses were dilated: sweat trickled down his pink cheeks. Come on, Taffy, mate. We’ve got out of scrapes worse than this.

  The Jerries formed the prisoners into line, elbow to elbow, positioned themselves five or six yards away. Propped up by two of his own men now, Howard raised his head. ‘What the Dickens is this?’ he demanded.

  He was an unshaven, dishevelled youth whose features had the outraged innocence of a new-hatched chick: he seemed to have difficulty keeping his head up.

  An apologetic smile curled Grolsch’s lips. He straightened his shoulders, slipped a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it with careful ostentation. Wallace tugged at his handcuffs, swivelled his stone-carved head, searched desperately for a way out. His hands were shackled but not his feet. He could still run. He felt fire seeping through his limbs, caught his breath, shivered. No, I
’m not takin’ it. It ain’t going to end this way.

  Grolsch cleared his throat: he looked like a priest in the pulpit, Wallace thought – dimpled chin, domed forehead, receding hair: he had the same earnest gravity, same sincerity of purpose.

  Fuck you, mate. Fuck all Nazi bastards.

  Grolsch began to read from the paper in a mournful voice. Wallace felt tiny electric shocks spark through his body: he clenched his fists, felt his calf-muscles go taut. He caught Trubman’s eye, gave him a slow, deliberate wink. The signaller flushed: he nodded tightly.

  ‘On the orders of the Führer, all so-called commandos, whether armed or unarmed, in battle or in flight, whether dropped by parachute or other means, whether or not they surrender, are to be subject to special handling, according to the rules of warfare –’

  ‘Which rules of warfare?’ Howard’s slurred voice piped up. ‘I demand a fair trial.’

  Grolsch looked up, irritated, nodded at his men: there came a metallic tattoo as the squad cocked weapons.

  A banshee screamed in Wallace’s head. I’m going. I’m fucking going.

  ‘. . . according to the rules of warfare, all such commandos are to be slaughtered to the last man, and no pardon given . . .’

  ‘My God, we’re all going to be shot!’ Howard cried.

  On the word shot, Wallace let out a blood-curdling roar, bounded straight towards Grolsch in bear-sized leaps: Trubman followed close behind him. The giant reached the Sturmbannführer in two seconds, bulldozed him flat with his sheer cliff of a chest. For an instant the Jerries were too astonished to fire: Wallace and Trubman leapt over the fallen Grolsch, plunged into the dense undergrowth, heard SMGs palpitate behind them, felt 9mm rounds stutter, splice leaves, groove branches, go pwwwhhhhiit on trunks.

  They heard screams: Trubman traileyed back, saw in a single glance Howard’s chest split-ribboned, saw a Kraut nail Seymour and Yates with red craters across the back and abdomen, saw Morris and Cameron running for it, saw Morris’s head kick, burst into a pink floss, saw Cameron disembowelled, saw his intestines whip like jelly-legs around the shot that blipped from his gut.

  Jesus Christ, they really did it.

  Trubman tripped over a dry root, stumbled, hit deck, clocked Wallace crashing through the undergrowth, heard rounds go vwwwwwipppp on tree-wood, saw Jerries coming at him. It was too late to run: he curled up, played possum. The Jerries – two, three of them – went straight over him, cursing in Kraut. As soon as they’d gone, Trubman got up and ran in the opposite direction.

  Wallace crashed through trees, panted: he didn’t look behind, didn’t know that Trubman was no longer with him. He could hear Jerry shouts, though: the enemy seemed to be gaining. The trees were thin, densely packed, interspersed with vines and brambles: he considered stopping, standing dead-still in the shadows. No, they’ll rake the place with SMG-fire. Keep bloody going.

  It was the hardest he’d exerted himself since he’d left the hospital: his heart jackhammered, his calf-muscle telegraphed jolts of agony. Branches whipped his face: thorns ripped at his clothing. Cornfield stubble glinted sun-gold through gaps in the foliage: he considered turning left or right, decided to chance the open. He ran into cornstalks, flopped on his belly, writhed forward using only his legs, realized it wasn’t working. My bloody hands. If only they were free I could find a weapon.

  He staggered to his feet, heard yells, heard the clatterclack of SMGs, heard rounds wheeze past, saw them stove up dirt, scythe grasses. He ran on, wove from side to side, headed for tree-thickets in front of him. Rounds fizzed and grated. Wallace’s legs worked like hydraulics, took him out of the stubble, across an acre of grassland to a stile on a drystone wall. He bowed over the stile, vaulted across it, almost fell, righted himself, found himself on a dirt-track lined with thorn-trees and poplars.

  Two young men were standing in the road, grinning at him: kids, really, still in their teens, one tall, stoop-shouldered, pale, the other dark-eyed and olive-skinned: they wore scuffed farm-boots, baggy corduroy trousers, waistcoats, cloth caps that looked too big for them. They had cigarettes in their mouths: they were holding sub-machine guns.

  Wallace hesitated: at that moment there were shouts from behind him. ‘Bleiben Sie, wo Sie sind!’ A pair of coalscuttle helmets popped up over the wall. Wallace took two steps, tripped, crashed over in the road, so hard that the breath was knocked out of him. He saw Huns on the wall, saw the boys in civvies go down on their knees, let rip with their weapons, cool as sea-slugs. Machine-pistols went tock-tock-tock-tock: rounds blammed hot wind past Wallace’s ears, kicked into field-grey bodies, opened throats, punctured chins, peppered chests with crimson acne. The first Kraut fell against the wall with a grunt: the second wobbled for an instant on top, somersaulted into the road next to his comrade. The boys in the cloth caps pumped a few singles into their bodies for good measure: one of them – the pasty-faced, stoop-shouldered youth – moved forward, hunkered down by Wallace: he was still smoking his cigarette.

  ‘Briddish?’

  Wallace nodded, noted the American accent.

  ‘You American?’

  ‘Half Itie, half Yank.’ He drew the cigarette from his mouth, stuck it into Wallace’s. ‘My name is Ettore Falcone,’ he said. ‘Allora, benvenuto in Italia.’

  Chapter Seven

  Le Marche, Italy

  4 October 1943

  The road north hugged the coast: from the back seat of the Kubelwagen, Caine glimpsed endless vistas of leaden sea and steel-grey sky, watched flotillas of silver cloud cruise like schooners, saw bands of garnet-coloured sunlight strobe through them in gently revolving shafts. His captors had dressed his wounds, given him smokes, even joked with him, but it hadn’t stopped the blighters from nicking everything he had, including his precious Zippo lighter. Now, though, he’d withdrawn into a shell-shocked world of his own, overwhelmed by the prospect of becoming a POW. It wasn’t fear so much as irritation – that feeling of being trapped, of not being able to move at will. He’d been captured twice before, and though he’d escaped both times, neither had been a pleasant experience: he still had the scars to prove it.

  When he closed his eyes he saw a turmoil of images from the battle at the Senarca bridge, replayed scenes of bloody carnage, saw Wade and Slocum blown to bits over and over in his head. His finger was painful where the bullet had grazed it: his face was sore from the fragments of Smith’s jaw. Smith too. And Sarn’t Hardman. I was so jacked up after the first contact, I led them straight into it. That’s more good men I’ve killed through bad judgement and bad leadership.

  He felt exhausted, weighed down by the war – four years of bitter struggle, blood, sweat and bullshit: four years of seeing comrades, young men – and women too – with all the promise of their lives before them cut down like weeds. And the enemy – how many of them had he himself cut down?

  ‘You ain’t Captain Caine, you’re the devil.’

  How had he become like this – a reaper of men? Was it really just the war, or had he gravitated to the army because he was drawn to violence? Did he, in the end, get some sort of pleasure or satisfaction from killing? If that was the case, why had he joined a support-arm like the Sappers, rather than a combat unit? As a child he’d been more interested in making things, in tinkering with engines, in shaping iron at the forge, than in tearing things to pieces. Yet he’d ended up in the Middle East Commando, and as if that hadn’t been enough, he’d gone on to join the sharpest of sharp-end mobs: the SAS. Surely that must say something?

  He closed his eyes again, was transported far away from the hills of Italy, to the desolation of the Lincolnshire fens, to the small village where he’d grown up – a single main street with the church one side and red-brick cottages on the other, with the Black Bull pub, the sub-post office, the smithy’s forge where he’d lived with his parents. The village school lay at the end of that street – an austere institutional building with high windows set in a yard with iron railings – just before you turned right
to go down into the fens. The yard was small, but to young Tommy Caine it had seemed vast, empty and devoid of any hiding place. That yard had been his first field of combat: the site of his greatest humiliations, the place where he’d fought out the days of his early childhood. His schoolmates had teased him mercilessly about being a dirty smithy’s son, had pretended to hold their noses as he walked past, even though his mother made sure that he was turned out perfectly clean and tidy every day.

  Mary Caine was a graceful, dark-haired woman with liquid green eyes and the kind of figure that drew admiring glances from the men she passed in the street. There were rumours about Mary which Tommy hadn’t understood until he got older: that she was the illegitimate daughter of a prominent local landowner named James Weatherby, for whom his grandmother had worked as a housemaid. In the end, they said, she’d had no choice but to accept the dirty smithy: he was the only one who’d have her.

  Even when Tommy had begun to grasp what this meant, he’d laughed or shrugged it off: he hadn’t resorted to punching heads. Or had he? What about that day in the playground, that one day when Micky Smith – a boy with a narrow skull and a chin like a old boot – had drawn attention to the fact that Tommy and Julia Weatherby – James Weatherby’s grand-daughter – were as alike as peas in a pod: more alike, in fact, than Tommy and his own sister, Margery. This was something Tommy couldn’t deny: instead, he’d punched Micky Smith in the face, sent him scuttling to the headmaster. When he’d come back saying the headmaster wanted to see him, Tommy had belted him again for good measure. The headmaster had called him a delinquent, given him five strokes of the stick, told him he was the nasty product of a nasty, dirty, blacksmith family.

  *

  The Kubelwagen had left the coast now: she was climbing up into the mountains on a twisting track like a tunnel through dappled brakes of evergreen. Caine’s eyelids were heavy: he let them droop, fell into a deep sleep. Somewhere an owl hooted: a sickle moon lay above him like a thumbnail poked through the tar-black night. The forest was familiar: he recalled the colonnades of black oaks like pillars, forming the nave of a great cathedral, the arches of mullioned windows, backlit with undersea light.