He thought about his sweetheart, Angela Brunetto: the Italian girl he’d met in Libya. She would be waiting for him in Blighty. He felt a sudden craving for her, wondered if he’d ever see her, touch her, hold her again. He hadn’t been home in four years. I need a rest, for God’s sake. I don’t want to be gallivanting about behind Jerry lines, while the rest of the squadron leaves without me. Apart from seeing Brunetto, he’d been looking forward to that first pint of English ale he and Caine had always promised themselves. Without Tom, though, it wouldn’t be the same, not after all they’d been through. I can’t go back without trying to find him. Tom would do the same for me.
He looked at Mayne. ‘With your permission, sir, I’d like to go with Captain Cavanaugh.’
Mayne scratched his nose. ‘Even if Caine and these other men are in the Jesi camp, how the bejaysus will you break them out? That’s a job for a squadron, not a patrol.’
Cavanaugh and Copeland exchanged glances. Cavanaugh stood up, put the map away. ‘We’ll have to work it out when we get there, sir. Improvization – isn’t that what it’s called? Our intrep. suggests that POWs from Jesi are taken out in working parties every day, doing maintenance on the roads. That might be a better bet than trying to bump the prison-camp, but one can’t really say until one’s on the ground.’
In the next room, the gramophone music had stopped: the crowd was thinning. The two drunken subalterns had been abandoned by their partners and were now supporting each other, singing ‘When the Troop-Ship Leaves Bombay’ in raucous voices.
Mayne let out a long breath. ‘All right, Harry. I’m giving you green on for this. It’s a long shot, but I admire your loyalty. There’s one condition, though.’
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘That you help me finish this sodding game.’
Chapter Fifteen
Jesi, Le Marche, Italy
4 October 1943
‘A book?’ Caine repeated. ‘You dropped behind Jerry lines for a book? Wouldn’t it have been easier to order it by post?’
Butterfield’s bruised eye was closed, forming a ‘C’ shape in the puffy skin of his eyelids. He was sitting cross-legged on a palliasse: his head, transfixed by the beam of light from the single high window, looked like a wide oval topped by a smooth dome. His good eye blinked.
‘Keep your voice down, will you, old boy. I don’t think Jerry’s got the place wired, but you never know.’
He shuffled nearer to Caine, spoke through teeth like corn niblets. ‘This isn’t Mrs Beeton we’re talking about. This is the Codex Aesinias, the only extant manuscript of the Germania.’
Caine stared round the cell, took in the crumbling walls: lumps of plaster gouged out in pale craters, scratch-marks, the splatters of squashed insects, traces of what might have been blood. He pulled at the skin on his chin, winced at the sudden pain from his swollen hands and bandaged finger. He turned his gaze back on the major: Butterfield looked like a statue he’d once seen of the Buddha, he thought: boulder-headed, full-bellied – despite thirty days in a Jerry glasshouse.
‘None the wiser, sir,’ he said.
Butterfield drew air noisily through splayed nostrils. ‘It’s a manuscript written in medieval times. A copy of an ancient Roman text going back two thousand years. It contains the earliest known description of the Jerries – noble savages, honest, honourable, brave, handsome, generous – blah, blah, blah. Just the sort of blokes Himmler wants to think of as his ancestors. He’s got his heart set on finding the Codex for the Führer: they want to use it as a model for the new German society they reckon they’re going to create after the war.’
Caine sighed. ‘But a book. Words on paper. Surely it can’t be as important as all that.’
‘Think of it like, say, the Crown Jewels. Can you imagine the brouhaha if Hitler were to appear in public with the British crown on, conducting the choir with the orb and the royal sceptre? Well, if he gets his hands on the Codex, it’ll be something like that – a huge boost to German propaganda. What a coup for us if we get in there first.’
Caine thought about it. It was still hard to imagine that a book, no matter how old, could have a major effect on the war. But he could certainly picture Himmler’s chagrin on discovering that the object of his desire had been snatched away. It would be worth grabbing this . . . Codex . . . just for that.
‘So you were sent to nab it before the Nazis?’
‘That’s about the size of it. It wasn’t my plan: it came down from “A” Force, the Deception Service.’
Caine nodded. ‘Why did you have to go in, then? An assault-team would have been fine, wouldn’t it?’
Butterfield drew up his sagging head. ‘It wasn’t my first choice, believe me. When I thought about it, though, I realized that the whole bally thing would come apart without someone who knew what we were looking for. As it happens, old books and objets d’art are what I do. My main job is collecting paintings, statues and manuscripts from Itie churches on behalf of the Vatican. To make sure they don’t get looted, you see. Nazis are buggers for looting. Half the art treasures of Europe have already gone into their vaults.’
Caine mulled it over. ‘So Stengel wants this Codex, but doesn’t know where it is. He thinks you know, and is threatening to kill you if you don’t talk?’
Butterfield nodded. ‘There’s only one person who knows where it is. I was supposed to contact her.’
‘Her? A woman?’
‘Countess Emilia Falcone. Lives at Villa Montefalcone – a castle in the mountains about twenty miles from here. Family goes back to the Ark – kept the Codex hidden for centuries. Our “A” Force bloke with the partisans was supposed to guide me to her: chap named Savarin. Then, of course, it all went for a burton when we found Fritz waiting on the DZ. Stengel is on to the countess – he let that slip. That means she’s in for some rough handling: it can only be a matter of time till she talks.’
‘How do you know she hasn’t already?’
‘Stengel would hardly be bothering with me, would he? He’d already have the Codex. Problem is, if I tell him I don’t know where it is, he’ll think I’m stalling, and I’ll be for the high-jump. I need to get out of here, find the countess, snaffle that manuscript.’
Caine was impressed. ‘So you’re not giving up on your mission?’
‘I can’t stand the thought of Himmler getting it.’ He glared at Caine: his closed eye struggled to open. ‘Of course, there may be no way out for me. Ironical, really – my first action is my last –’
‘Steady on. You’re not dead yet.’
‘I reckon you’d have more chance of getting out of here alive than me: more chance than anyone, maybe, given your record. And you have to get out, Caine: they’re not going to let you off the hook. If you can help me get out, spiffing. If not, do the best you can for yourself. But if you do escape, I want you to promise me one thing. That you’ll find Countess Emilia and get the Codex.’
‘Aren’t you pushing the boat out a bit?’ Caine said. ‘The chances of escaping from this dump look about as good as those for winning the pools.’
Butterfield blew air. ‘Maybe it’s a long shot, but if the impossible happens, I want you to promise as an SAS officer that you’ll do your best to carry out the mission. I’m in no position to give you an order, Caine, but I’d feel a lot happier going to the firing-squad if I knew that a man like yourself had undertaken the mission.’
Caine knew it was a request he couldn’t refuse: he’d had a few of those in his career, and they’d usually turned out badly. But this amounted almost to a plea from a condemned man, a fellow officer, wearing the same cap-badge.
‘If I see a chance, I’ll get you out,’ he said. ‘If not, and I do manage to get out myself, I’ll do my best to complete your mission. I’ll find the countess and the Codex for you, if it’s the last thing I do.’
Chapter Sixteen
Santa Lucia, Abruzzo, Italy
7 October 1943
They parted company an
hour before dawn: Cavanaugh took two jeeps and headed north-west, while Copeland took the other two, drove north-east across the mountains: his orders were to recce the Jesi prison camp. He was to RV with Cavanaugh in three days.
Staying away from the main coast roads, hugging hills and forests, they drew no attention from the Hun: in the sleepy hamlets the locals hardly seemed to notice them. Copeland felt unexpectedly buoyant: it was good to be in action with his own patrol. That hadn’t happened since the Western Desert, when Caine had copped a shrapnel wound, and Cope had taken over his troop. He’d been a sergeant then: Mayne had commissioned him in the field. Now he was a decorated lieutenant with a mission to liberate SAS prisoners. It was the stuff of legends: there might be another medal in it, certainly promotion. The rumour was that the SAS was due to be expanded for the invasion of Europe: Mayne would be looking for squadron commanders. If Copeland played his cards right he could end up a major – even a half-colonel. That depended on his surviving, though: and it wouldn’t be worth much to him, anyway, unless he managed to snatch Tom Caine.
The road wound through woodland, emerged into a valley, descended to a crossroads. Copeland halted the patrol, dekkoed the map spread across his knees, stood up to scan the distant vista of blue hills, farmland rolling in waves around peaks and corries, patchwork-pattern lands with soil so rich it looked almost purple, interspersed with oblongs of the brightest green, white stucco homesteads wreathed in orchards, red-roofed villages in circlets of trees. He noticed a dense smudge of blue-black smoke hanging over a village about a mile away, smelt carbon and fire-ash. He waved the second jeep alongside: she was commanded by Sergeant Tony Griffen, ex-Royal Tank Regiment, a pugnacious Yorkshireman whose mouth seemed to be set in a permanent ‘O’ of objection.
Apart from Copeland and Griffen, there were two drivers: Trooper Bill Harris, a beet-faced, straw-haired youth from Maidstone, and Lance-Corporal Carlo Lombard, a swarthy, hook-nosed man from Cardiff who had an Itie father and spoke Italian. Lombard was at the wheel in Cope’s jeep: Harris drove for Griffen. Both jeeps had twin Vickers mounted on the co-driver’s side and on the back: they each carried a Bren, and between them enough carbines, pistols, grenades and ammunition to take on a small army.
Copeland pointed out the pall of smoke over the village. ‘Something going on there, Sarn’t,’ he said.
Griffen stood up, peered through narrowed eye-slits. ‘Ities prob’ly havin’ a cook-up.’
There came a crude ruckle of gunfire.
‘That ain’t no cook-up,’ Bill Harris said. ‘That’s Jerry.’
‘Someone’s comin’,’ warned Lombard. ‘Old bat on a pushbike.’
Copeland sat down, tweaked the Vickers, peered over his sights, saw an old lady in a faded black dress and a headscarf pedalling a bicycle full tilt towards them. She stopped when she saw the jeeps: Lombard called to her in Italian, waved her over. She pushed the bike closer: Copeland saw tears streaking a wrinkled walnut face. Lombard jumped down from the driver’s seat, went to talk to her. They chatted, gesticulating, then Lombard sauntered back. ‘It’s Jerry all right, sir. She says they’ve set fire to houses in her village. They’re lining up the men to be shot.’
Copeland’s forehead puckered. ‘How many Jerries are there?’
‘From what she says, there could be over a hundred. She’s on her way to the local partisans to get help.’
‘Good, let the Ities sort it out ’emselves,’ Griffen said.
Lombard caught Copeland’s eye. ‘We ought to do something, sir. By the time the partisans get here, it’ll be too late. All they’ll find’ll be burnt-out shells and dead bodies.’
Copeland swallowed. His first instinct was to agree with Griffen. He’d been in a situation like this once before, in Libya, when Tom Caine had insisted on rescuing the inhabitants of an Arab village from a Brandenburger company. He’d argued against it at the time: in the event, they’d suffered casualties, but it was through that intervention that he’d eventually met Angela Brunetto.
‘Tony’s right,’ he said. ‘It’s not our concern. We’re on a mission and we have orders. There are only four of us: that makes odds of twenty-five to one. If we get scragged, it won’t look good.’
‘Have a heart, sir,’ Lombard pleaded. ‘If we leave, those civvies’ll be dead.’
The old lady shook her head sadly, spoke to Lombard.
‘What’d she say?’ Cope enquired.
‘She said there’s too many of ’em for the likes of us. They’re Airborne, she reckons – special troops.’
‘Special what?’ Griffen gasped. ‘She don’t know who she’s talkin’ to. We’re SAS, ain’t we?’
It was the kind of thing Fred Wallace might have said, Copeland thought. And it was true. Liberating Itie villagers wasn’t in their brief, perhaps, but Copeland knew which way Caine would jump. If he ever saw Caine again, and admitted that he’d dipped out, his mate would never forgive him. These 2nd SAS boys consider me a decorated desert-vet. If I pull out of a fight now, it’ll go back to the Regiment. No, he wanted to be able to tell Caine that his crew had at least lived up to the motto Who Dares Wins.
‘I mean, it’s only twenty-five to one, innit?’ Harris commented. ‘You must of seen much worse in the desert, sir. Those ain’t much odds for the SAS.’
Copeland’s Adam’s apple worked. ‘We’ve got the element of surprise,’ he said slowly, ‘and we’ve got the firepower. We’ll steam in there, hit ’em with all we’ve got, liberate the Ities, beat it before the Hun knows what’s happened.’ He only realized after he’d said it that he’d sounded exactly like Tom Caine.
Griffen stuck a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, took a long drag. He pulled it, blew smoke. ‘All right, sir. You’re the DSO, after all. Let’s go for it.’
Lombard said something to the old lady: she smiled thinly. He sent her on her way. Copeland groped behind him in the jeep’s bed, came up with a Union Jack furled on its pole. ‘We go in with colours flying,’ he said. ‘Let them know who we are.’
He gave the flag to Lombard: the driver unfurled it, stuck it in the socket behind his seat. A breeze caught it, sent it fluttering – a blaze of red, white and blue against the olive-drab uniforms.
Two crisp rifle-shots rang out from the village.
‘Christ!’ Griffen said. ‘They’re killing the flamin’ hostages.’
Copeland braced the twin Vickers, cocked the handles, rammed them forward with a metallic snap.
‘Let’s see the buggers off.’
Engines roared, wheels spun, rubber flayed, dust blew: the jeeps bounced down the track with Union Jack streaming. The village was an ‘L’-shaped constellation of three-storey, red-tiled houses with balconies around a village square with a church on one side and an orchard on the other – thin trees behind a dry-stone wall. In the square were two 3-tonners and two Kubelwagen, a mob of Jerry soldiers milling around the burning houses, others herding Itie civvies in a cluster.
A lone figure stood at the entrance to the square – a barrel-chested officer in field-grey uniform wearing a peaked cap. Cope raised the elevation of the Vickers a tad, pressed himself back in the seat, saw the Jerry’s eyes go wide, saw him fumble for his pistol, yanked iron, let rip with a burst, klatta-klatta-klatta-klat. He saw the Jerry snap back like a released spring, saw blood-spurts blister the field-grey chest, saw him hit the wall, saw his pistol skitter.
The jeeps screamed into the square with machine-guns whomping, bowling bright skeeters of fire, hacking down Huns, slamming into truck-bodies, bursting petrol-tanks. The lorries went up in waves of fire, shot out cones of molten steel: one Kubelwagen leapt up on a cushion of flame, flipped over on top of the other, exploded in a blinding fireball.
Cope traversed the Vickers, fingered iron, steamdrilled rounds, saw Jerries scatter, clutch at ruptured flesh, saw them twitch, jump, pitch, roll, dry-swim dust. Itie civvies ran in all directions: Krauts clawed out of the firestorm, staggered through smoke, wormed into doorways. Copeland c
locked star-flash from the church portal, heard Schmeissers lawnmower, heard rounds blip, heard slugs spatter the bonnet like hail on a tin roof. The jeep was racing pell-mell at the church. ‘Ease off the throttle, mate!’ Cope yodelled at Lombard. ‘Put her in reverse!’ The vehicle swerved: Copeland traileyed the driver, saw him convulse at the wheel, saw him vomit blood in quick lurching throws, saw brain tissue ooze from his skull like black gravy. He made a grab for the steering wheel: the jeep stalled, rolled to a halt in the dead centre of the square.
Schmeisser rounds went wheeeeeeeeuwww past Cope’s ear: he shoved Lombard’s legs out of the way, smacked the starter. Not a whisper. The engine’s hit. He clocked Huns on balconies to his right, skinched back in his seat, swung the Vickers, squeezed steel. Nothing happened. Fucking jammed. Kraut rounds spoinged off ammo-drums, heeched over his head, ripped the flag to tatters.
Copeland jumped into the back, grabbed the other Vickers, fired one-handed, heard it burp twice, die. Jesus, another dud. He heisted the Bren from its brace, levelled it from the shoulder, snatched the trigger, felt the gun jigger, saw the muzzle blear fire rack-tack-tack, felt the working parts stick. I don’t fucking believe it. Engine dead and three guns down.
Rounds went ka-chunk on the jeep’s body-work: Copeland gripped his SMLE by the forward stock, vaulted out of the vehicle, crouched behind it, breathed deep, worked the chamber. Not you, please. He aimed at the figures in the church doorway, fired, cocked, fired, cocked, saw field-grey bodies tipple, sprawl: he switched to the balconies, saw Krauts pop up, spray rounds, duck back down, saw Jerries hang out of windows, fire, dip back in. He scoped in on a window, waited for a coalscuttle to pop up, spiked the Kraut with an AP round, saw his head burst apart like a red cantaloupe. He emptied his mag in a steady blitz, groped in his pouch for another, flashed a glance over his shoulder, clocked Griffen’s jeep halted near the orchard. He saw Griffen’s forward twin Vickers blazing, saw Harris yawing fire from the back.
Code of Combat Page 9