He clicked the fresh mag in place, raced round to the other side of the jeep, dragged Lombard out of the driving-seat: he was sure the man was dead, but he wanted to get the body out. He slung his rifle, drew his Colt .45, hauled the driver by his webbing towards the other jeep. A Jerry ducked out of a doorway on his right, fired at him. Cope lobbed pistol rounds straight-armed, felt the .45 jump, thunk, thunk, thunk, saw the bullets kick into the Hun’s gullet, gnash flesh, open his throat, saw him drift backwards, saw gore gush in thick rivers down his neck. He kept on lugging Lombard: Jerry fire pooped dust, punted spouts.
‘Watchit, sir!’ Griffen’s voice cracked. ‘Eleven o’clock.’
Huns were advancing through the orchard to his left, behind a raft of Schmeisser fire: Cope saw a Jerry jump over the wall, squibbed a low double-tap, ripped off the backend of his thigh, saw the Jerry go down on one knee, pumped two slugs into his chest. More Jerries were coming through the trees. Keep bloody shooting. Copeland raised the pistol, tugged iron, heard the chamber clack, heard a Jerry rifle go spammfff, felt a round skid his knuckles, felt the Colt whipped out of his hand.
Cope swore, heard rounds chirr, swung his rifle off his shoulder, eased the safety with a blood-slicked thumb. He drew a bead on the next Jerry over the wall, heard a jeep engine rev.
‘Get out of it, boss!’ Griffen’s voice chimed. ‘Leave Lombard.’
Copeland hipfired, hit the Kraut in the guts at ten yards, clocked the red-mouthed entry wound, clocked the gore spray out behind, saw the Jerry’s face crumple, saw him double over. He left Lombard’s body, loped towards the jeep, legs going like pistons. Slugs bulled and snorted around him. He made the jeep, clocked Griffen bending over wide-legged in the bed, one hand on the rim, the other reaching out for him: he grasped the hand with his bloody fingers, hurdled into the bed, fell on top of Griffen, felt the jeep careen forward, heard the engine scream, felt the wheels spin.
A single figure stood in the middle of the road outside the square: a great pillar of a Jerry NCO in full battle-rig, with a face like raw steak and a Schmeisser in his hands. As he raised his weapon, Harris jabbed the throttle: the Jeep lurched forward, hit the Hun a glancing blow in the legs, sent him flying with his weapon zipping long splits of fire into the sky. ‘Stop!’ Copeland yelled from the back. ‘I want to snatch this chap.’
Harris exchanged a dubious glance with Griffen, slammed on the brakes. Copeland jumped out of the back, sprinted over to the big Kraut: the man lay face upwards in the road, great chest heaving, breath coming in rattling sobs. Cope crouched by him, saw tree-trunk legs twisted at odd angles, saw a trickle of blood from the gash of a mouth, set in a mottled, scarred, mutilated face. The NCO wore para wings on his chest, and a Crete wristband: his eyes were open and full of tarnished green steel. Copeland realized with a shock that he’d seen the man before – through his telescopic sights. It was the big buffalo of a Kraut who’d led the charge at the bridge – the one Cope had been a split second from whacking out. ‘I saw you at the Senarca bridge,’ he grunted.
The glass-green eyes blinked at him. ‘Vas a gute pattle, no? Your men was very brave.’ The voice was a rasping whisper, hoarse and faint.
‘You captured an officer, a captain. Where is he?’
The big NCO gasped with pain, tried to move a chip-pan hand, gave up.
‘Caine,’ he whispered. ‘He was a brave man: an Airborne brother: one of us.’ His eyes drifted to Copeland’s chest, took in the SAS wings over the breast pocket. ‘Is wrong ve are on different sides, no?’
‘Yes,’ Cope said. ‘What happened to him?’
A Hun bullet flipped lazily out of the sky, snicked past Cope’s ear: he flinched.
‘Come on, boss!’ Griffen bawled. ‘Snatch ’im or dump the bugger. ’Is mates’ll ’ave us for dinner.’
‘Feel . . . in my chest . . . pocket,’ the big Kraut moaned.
Copeland hesitated an instant, dug into the Jerry’s pocket, brought out something small and metallic. It was a scratched and battered Zippo lighter: the initials TEC were etched on the base. TEC – Thomas Edward Caine. Tom’s Zippo: the one that saved his life.
Cope felt a frisson pass down his spine: the lighter seemed like a sacred object. He stuffed it into his battledress.
‘Where is he?’ he asked.
The NCO’s lips worked soundlessly for a moment: bloody drool ran from the side of his mouth. ‘We take him . . . take him . . . to Jesi prison-camp.’ He tried to focus his glazed eyes on Copeland. ‘Now you . . . shoot me . . . one Airborne brother . . . to another.’
A salvo of machine-gun rounds hit the road surface, flicked up tiny parachutes of dust. Cope heard the jeep engine rev. ‘We’re goin’, boss!’ Griffen roared.
Copeland stood up, swung the muzzle of his weapon at the wounded Hun. His thumb lingered on the safety catch: he cast a last glance at the bottle-glass eyes, the heaving chest, turned and ran for the jeep.
Chapter Seventeen
Jesi, Le Marche, Italy
7 October 1943
They came for Butterfield at midnight: the door crashed open, torch-beams strobed darkness, dark figures dragged the major from his palliasse. Caine heard a sharp whack: Butterfield yelled. ‘Caine. Wake up. If I don’t get out of this . . . Remember what you promised.’
Caine didn’t answer: he watched the play of light, the knot of dark bodies struggling through the doorway, waited for the door to close. It didn’t. He tensed, listened to the scutter of boots receding down the corridor, saw the flame of a lamp leap up, saw the soft yellow glow press into the cell. The light was broken by two knotted shadows that seemed to worm silently into the room like snakes. Caine gazed up, saw Amray standing there holding an oil lamp. Next to him was a girl, slim and cute, with a dark fringe of hair framing a heart-shaped face: she was carrying an enamel tray with a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread. She knelt down gracefully, placed the tray on the floor in front of Caine. The soup was steaming and smelt good: Caine forced himself not to look at it.
Amray was still wearing his SS uniform: Caine saw lamplight reflected in the shine of his riding boots. The seams of his face were cross-hatched with dark rivets: the coal-tinctured eyes, switchblade jaws, prominent nose, weak chin and feminine smile lent him a quality that was almost clownishly sinister. The girl was dressed in a dark skirt and a white blouse: her hair was a rich and deep black, cut page-boy style: her features were even and demure. She was evidently nervous, though: she held her hands loosely by her sides: her fingers twitched.
‘To what do I owe the honour?’ Caine said. ‘You didn’t come just to bring me soup.’
Amray crouched in front of him, set the lamp down on the floor, changed the configuration of shadows: the girl remained standing.
Amray slipped out the same cigarette case Caine had seen earlier, opened it, offered it to Caine. ‘Have a gasper, old man.’
Caine shook his head. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Still not ready to dance with the devil, eh? Well, I can understand that, but I think it’s the wrong move. They’re slamming Butterfield in solitary now: he’s had three days to think about it and come up with the right answers. If he doesn’t give Stengel what he wants by tomorrow, he’ll be scragged.’
Caine balled his fists in the darkness, longed to punch Amray’s lights out.
Amray stuck a cigarette in his mouth, left it unlit. ‘Butterfield didn’t quite come up to our standards, so we never invited him,’ he said. ‘You, however – we’d be proud to have a man like you with us.’
He lit the cigarette with his lighter; the sudden whoosh of fire chased the dark rivets from his face. Caine saw a naked intensity there. He really believes all this, he thought. Amray blew smoke, removed the cigarette, waved it around between two fingers.
‘The British Free Corps is a volunteer unit, Caine. Conceived and created by British subjects from all parts of the empire. We have pledged our lives to the common European struggle against Soviet Russia.’
‘Spare
me the bullshit.’
Amray took a drag of his cigarette, watched Caine with moonish, bovine eyes. ‘We’d like to have you on board, but the invitation won’t last for ever. Just say you’ll come over to us, you get out of this cell, get a shower, a good meal and a drink, a soft bed, and . . .’ He glanced slyly up at the girl. ‘You get Lucia here. She’s a civilian prisoner, arrested for partisan activity, but she’s agreed to become your companion in return for certain considerations. You can do what you like with her, old man. Shag her front and behind, all the way till morning.’
He took a toke of his cigarette, grinned at the girl. ‘Isn’t that right, Lucia? He can fuck you all the way through till morning, can’t he?’
The girl nodded, smiled, joined her hands bashfully at the waist. Caine guessed that she’d understood, but was feigning ignorance to save face. He felt angry at the way Amray was humiliating her.
‘No, thanks,’ he said again. ‘I’ve told you already. I’m not interested in betraying my country.’
Amray tittered. ‘And I’ve told you already: fighting the Russians is not betraying your country.’
‘Isn’t it? What about swearing an oath of allegiance to Hitler and putting on an SS uniform?’
Amray took another puff of smoke: his eyes were boreholes in dark stone. ‘Your country never loved you, Caine. Your country is a conspiracy run by the king and Winston Churchill, a mob of gangsters born with silver spoons – the bankers and the money-men, taking advantage of those like you and me for their own benefit. Blood-suckers who drain you dry and throw aside your empty husk. They’ve never done anything but used you. A means to an end, Caine – that’s all you are. You’re an object, a fighting-cock, whose life they are willing to throw away, as long as they stay on top.’
Caine swallowed. There was nothing in what Amray had just said that he hadn’t told himself. But Britain was still his country, his home. Was he going to aid and abet people whose object was to help the enemy take it over?
‘I’ve heard it before,’ he said. ‘Even if what you say were true –’
‘Ah . . . so you admit it, then?’
‘I said, even if it were true, we’ll put it right after the war. For now, though, I’m not ready to risk my life for people who change sides for their own advantage. I’ll stick it out with my own lot for better or for worse.’
Amray’s face never lost its frowzy smile. He put the cigarette in his mouth, shifted the lamp, stood up. Diamond-patterns of light and shadow raced across the walls.
‘That’s what they all say at first. Then, when they think about it, they realize that the Nazis are no worse than those people – the toffs – who’ve been exploiting them and others for centuries, stealing land, stealing resources, massacring anyone who objects, controlling everything, turning everyone into zombies. You’re here because of them.’
He paused for breath. ‘Think about it, old man. Wouldn’t it be better to be out there, fighting the Russians, than stuck here in a box? Or, worse still . . .’ He gave a hollow chuckle. ‘I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to take your answer as a definite no. Why not sleep on it, consider your options? You’re tired, mentally exhausted. Perhaps things will look different in the morning.’
Caine didn’t answer. Amray turned to the girl. ‘Andiamo!’ he said. He glanced back at Caine. ‘Don’t waste the soup, old chap. You might not get any more.’
Caine couldn’t keep his eyes off the soup and bread: he fell on it ravenously the moment the door was closed.
The food made him feel drowsy: despite everything, a deep sense of ease and well-being flooded through him. He lay back on his palliasse, thinking about Butterfield, about his dream – the girl in the white dress, the sad parade of sacred ibises. He didn’t doubt that Butterfield’s five SAS-men had been shot, nor that the plum-shaped major was next in line. He didn’t doubt that he and his 2nd SAS team had come for the Codex, nor that the countess who knew of its whereabouts was in mortal danger. And he didn’t doubt that the Nazis would eventually execute him, too. The only way to dodge it was to escape, but that would take time: he couldn’t do it from this cell. He’d have to be outside, to learn the layout of the camp, the procedures, the routines. Yet escape was always easier within forty-eight hours of capture. After that, you got accustomed to imprisonment: the inertia set in.
He thought about Harry Copeland, wondered if he’d made it back to Termoli with the survivors of his section. The SRS would soon be sailing for Algeria en route for Blighty. He’d have given anything to be sailing with them: that wasn’t going to happen now. He lay in the darkness for a long time, letting these gusts of thought spiral through him, and no matter how hard he tried to deflect them, they kept coming back and back to a single thought: SS-Hauptsturmführer John Amray, of the British Free Corps.
At last he fell asleep, and dreamed that he was facing a gigantic gilt-framed mirror that covered most of the cell wall. A dark figure was staring back at him. It was a Nazi, dressed in a field-grey serge tunic with three lions passant guardant in scarlet and gold on the lapel: there was a Union Jack armshield on the left sleeve and a Waffen-SS eagle and swastika above. He wore a leather belt with a shiny square buckle, a German field cap with a death’s head badge on the crown. The man was unusually broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a squarish head, a freckled, blunt face, a snub nose and the polished quartz eyes of a stranger. Caine strained to look more closely, realized that the face didn’t belong to a stranger, after all. Its landmarks were familiar. ‘You ain’t Captain Caine, you’re the devil.’ Caine felt a hoarse scream rising up from his gorge: the Nazi in the mirror was himself.
Chapter Eighteen
Jesi, Le Marche, Italy
8 October 1943
What had begun as a scream emerged as a chuckle. He peered into the mirror, grinned sardonically, tugged down the peak of the field cap, tilted it over his eyes at a more acute angle. He examined the death’s head badge on the crown, recalled the insignia from the battle he and his section had fought against the Totenkopf battalion in Tunisia earlier that year. He’d lost almost the entire unit: good men, killed holding a bridge that need not have been held. That was the story of almost every mission he’d undertaken since he’d been recruited for the SAS: the brass had set him up, knocked him down every time.
He squinted in the mirror at the bed behind him where Lucia lay naked under white sheets, her slim brown shoulders and half-moon breasts with their broad nipples peeking out of the draperies, her swirl of black hair fanned out across the pillow. He wondered if she was awake.
He glanced around the hut: daylight came in splints and pin-pricks through the curtains. Compared with the cell he’d been in before, this was luxury: clean sheets, windows, an armchair, a table, a stove, even a rug. On the wall was a poster showing an androgynous figure watching a parade of marching soldiers in German uniform, flying the black, red and white Nazi banner over a fluttering Union Jack. Our flag is going forward too, ran the caption.
Caine couldn’t remember having moved into this hut. The events of the previous day were foggy: he had vague memories of shaving, taking a hot shower, of a medical orderly treating his face, his head, his bruised hands, dressing his wounded finger, of being brought a lunch of bully beef, pasta, potatoes, red wine, of being measured for his new uniform. From what he recalled, though, the uniform had turned up almost immediately, as if the measuring had been a mere ritual. He stared at the field-grey suit in the mirror for a long time, examined the Waffen-SS eagle, the lion passant guardant lapel-flash, the Union Jack armshield.
From what he remembered, he’d put on the uniform at Amray’s prompting: he’d attended a swearing-in ceremony in Grolsch’s office. Once again, the images were indistinct: he had a notion that the blonde woman, Maria, had been there, that Grolsch had delivered a speech of welcome, standing under a portrait of Hitler, that there’d been a lot of clicking of heels and Heil Hitler salutes, that everything had gone silent as he’d sworn allegiance to the F�
�hrer, that the blonde woman had clapped. Afterwards, he thought he recalled schnapps and cigars and slaps on the back.
The problem was that the events of the entire day felt remote, as if he’d been watching them from afar. He knew he’d donned the Nazi uniform, sworn fealty to Hitler; he recalled odd details, but when he tried to focus on the memories, he couldn’t remember having actually been there. It was almost as if someone had described them to him second-hand. He gazed at his reflection in the mirror, realized he’d taken an irreversible step. Whatever happened now, he’d joined the Nazis: there was no turning back.
Lucia stirred, sat up, draped the sheet around her, posed on the side of the bed. ‘Buongiorno,’ she said.
Caine turned to her: her eyes were sleepy, and when she drew her hand through the fringe of her hair, he found it so alluring that he had to fight the temptation to touch her.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘How do you feel?’
She shrugged. ‘I did what the pigs wanted. Now I will be fine.’
Caine wondered if she included him in the category of pigs: he had only the dimmest memories of having spent the night with her: he knew that they must have had sex but, oddly, he couldn’t remember it, couldn’t recall having even kissed her.
A few moments after she’d left, Amray bustled in carrying a pick-helve. He gave Caine a sly wink. ‘Some pretty intense shagging going on last night then, eh? Heard it through the walls. Needn’t ask if she was any good, need I?’
‘I wouldn’t tell you anyway,’ Caine said.
‘After that gala performance? Should think the whole camp heard it. Was she a fitting reward for your conversion?’
Caine smiled quietly. ‘Thank you.’
‘First of many, old man, first of many. We’re not short of a bint or two in the BFC. Your life with us will be roses after the other side, I’ll tell you.’
Code of Combat Page 10