A Good Clean Fight (3 page)

The rest of the men began moving as soon as they saw the officers coming. Lampard used a luminous compass to
find a bearing to the gap in the wire. After a hundred yards they reached a tarmac road. “Good,” Lampard said. “This is faster.” His eyes were feeling the strain of looking five ways at once, but his legs and lungs were strong, and he enjoyed marching fast on the smooth surface. He could scarcely hear the faint tread of boots, but he knew exactly where his men were. They were spread behind him in a loose arrowhead. Dunn was on the far left, Davis the far right, Pocock at the rear. Harris was nearest. High time Harris got made sergeant, he decided. A decoration would be wasted on Harris, but he'd like the extra stripe. And the pay. That thought flickered through Lampard's mind while he glanced at his compass. He reckoned the time remaining on the fuses. He pictured the gap waiting ahead and the steep escarpment of the Jebel. At that point he strode into a dazzle of headlights that stopped him like a blinding brick wall.

For a few seconds the only sound was the panting and heaving of the patrol. Sergeant Davis spat. Faint shreds of mist drifted across the dazzle. Lampard squinted hard and began to make out three sources: probably headlamps and a spotlight. “Good evening, gentlemen,” said someone in a voice that was urbane and confident, like the head waiter at Claridge's. “Weapons on the ground immediately, please. Then take two paces forward and lie flat.” Nobody moved. Lampard cocked his head. Five hundred miles away an orchestra was playing Mozart. Very faint, but quite unmistakable.

“Naturally you are surrounded.” A tiny click, and Mozart died. “Unless you surrender, I regret that you must be shot where you stand.” The regret sounded formal but genuine, like Claridge's turning away a gentleman without a necktie.

Still nobody moved. The initial blindness had gone, but the dazzle was painful and it made the surrounding darkness twice as dense.

“I'm going forward,” Lampard announced without turning to the patrol. “If I am fired upon, you will blow this vehicle to bits. Understand? Never mind me. One shot, and you destroy the vehicle totally and immediately.” He had the sensation of being outside himself, watching and hearing these orders being given. He stepped forward and the sensation vanished.

It was an Alfa-Romeo open tourer, very big. A Luftwaffe major sat behind the wheel. Nobody else was in the car. Lampard stood on the running board and looked around. Empty ground. “You don't half tell whoppers,” he said. “Now kill the lights and jump out.”

The major pressed switches and the night flooded back. “I may take my stick?” he asked.

Lampard opened the door. The major had some difficulty getting out. By now Sergeant Davis and Corporal Pocock had moved out wide to guard the flanks. Harris searched the German for weapons: none. Dunn said: “I make it three minutes, Jack.”

“More than ample. We'll take this splendid car.”

“We can't leave
him
,” Dunn said.

“Let me kill him,” Harris said.

Lampard said: “Yes, why not? Silly sod's no use to anyone. Completely unreliable.”

“To escape, you need me,” the German said. Harris had his fighting knife ready, its point denting the man's tunic just below the ribs. “Go without me,” the major said, “and all will be killed by the mines.” His voice was calm and steady, as if to say: Take it or leave it.

“Nuts!” Dunn said. “We got in, we'll get out again.”

“I think not. When you got in, our minefield was
ausgeschaltet
.” He frowned for a moment. “Off-switched. Switched off. You see, our mines are activated by electricity. Now the minefield is active since ten minutes. I myself have turned the switch.”

Lampard nudged Dunn. “What d'you think?”

“It's possible.”

Lampard stared down. The German's face was nothing in the night, but his voice had been firm. “Why bother?” Lampard asked him. “What's the point?”

“Two minutes five,” Dunn said.

“I shall require more than two minutes five to explain our system of airfield security,” the major said. He sounded slightly amused.

“Okay, forget it.” Lampard turned away and plucked the car's radio aerial. It vibrated noisily, so he stopped it. “You said you could get us out of here.”

“I said that I can try.”

“Oh-ho. You can try. Now why would you want to do that?”

“Jesus Christ.” Harris was sheathing his knife. “Who cares?”

“I care, corporal. I'm not accustomed to being helped by the enemy.”

“It is better than death,” the major said. “Even to a German officer, death is not welcome.”

“Those fuses aren't tremendously accurate, you know,” Dunn said.

“What's your idea?” Lampard asked.

“We go in this car and depart through the main gate,” the major said. “I drive. The guards never stop my car.”

“No. I'll drive. You sit beside me. Let's go.”

“No. Not a good idea.” Davis and Pocock had come in from the flanks and were scrambling into the back seats, but the major did not move. “Better I drive.”

“If you drive we might go anywhere. Straight to the guardroom, for instance.”

“And then you shoot me.”

“Anyway, I can drive faster than you can.”

“I well know the road. Do you well know the road?”

“Fuck my old boots!” Harris muttered. “
I
'
ll
drive and you two can stay here and argue.”

“Take that man's name, sergeant.”

“This car is mine,” the major said. “The guards see you driving and at once they think, hello, something smells of fish.”

Lampard opened the door and helped him get in.

“That is good.” The major started the engine.

Lampard vaulted in and sat beside him, tommy-gun across his legs. “Fishy,” he said. “The word is fishy.” The car moved off.

“You agree, then.”

“Faster,” Lampard told the major. The car swung right and left, found a straight, picked up speed. “I may shoot you anyway when we get out,” Lampard said. “Just to calm my nerves.”

“He's frightfully nervous,” Dunn said to the major. The major smiled.

He drove fast, on dipped headlights. In much less than a minute they were approaching a pair of striped poles across the road. A guard stood in the soft, yellow light of a hurricane lamp; behind him the guardhouse was dimly visible. The guard had a rifle, but he slung it on his shoulder when he recognized the car, turned away and leaned on the counterweight to raise the pole. The major slowed, gave an economical wave, and accelerated through the gap. “Too easy,” Davis said. “Let's go back and do it again.” The major worked up through the gears with familiar ease. A mile away, a flash blew a golden hole in the night, and then a bang like a thousand fireworks caught up with the car. The men in the back turned to watch. Lampard watched the major. The major watched the road.

A mile and five explosions later, Lampard said: “This is far enough. Get off the road and drive toward the Jebel.” The night was dancing to the flames of blazing aircraft.

The major slowed, but only slightly. “You wish seriously to walk up the Jebel?” he asked. Two trucks raced past them, sirens screaming, heading for the field. The rapid
thumping of anti-aircraft guns began. “Just do it!” Lampard shouted. The major changed down a gear. “I know a track,” he said. “A motor track.” A brilliant flash that exposed all the countryside was followed by a dull boom like the slamming of a castle door. “A good motor track,” he said. The entire castle collapsed and the wallop of its destruction washed over the car so violently that everyone flinched. “Bomb dump,” Pocock said, pleased. Lesser thuds and crumps followed. The major changed down again. “I myself have used this track in daylight,” he said. “But you perhaps will rather climb into the Jebel on foot.” He changed down again. Now they were crawling.

“All right,” Lampard said, “we'll try this amazing track of yours. No lights. I don't want the Afrika Korps watching to see where we go.”

“Alternative illumination has been provided,” the major said. The sky over Barce aerodrome pulsed and flickered with a red and yellow glow that grew steadily brighter.

He crossed the plain and found his track. The ruts did not match their wheels, and the potholes were as big as buckets. The major charged the car at the hillside as if it were a challenge. Rocks jumped up and savaged the chassis, and the springs groaned under cruel and unusual punishment. The track twisted as it climbed, twisted as it dipped, twisted as it twisted. Later it got worse. Long before that, Lampard had dropped his tommy-gun and was working hard to protect himself from the rush of shocks.

When they topped the crest of the escarpment he shouted, and the German let the car run to a halt. Lampard reached across and switched off the engine.

Corporal Pocock wiped blood from his nose, mouth and chin. “You tryin' to start a war or somethin'?” he demanded thickly. Blood continued to flow.

“Stop whimpering,” Dunn said.

“Boots off,” Lampard told the major.

“You tear I will run off?” The major got out and took his boots off and gave them to Lampard. “There is little risk of that.” Lampard looked. The heel of the left boot was built up about three inches.

“Why don't we let him go?” Corporal Harris said. “Let him walk down the mountain in his socks?”

“Search him,” Lampard told Davis. The sergeant rummaged in the German's pockets, and a small heap of papers and possessions accumulated on the ground. “Back in the car,” Lampard ordered. He scooped everything up and examined it, piece by piece, in the soft light of the dashboard. “You're a major in the Luftwaffe,” he said.

“So? I feel like a prisoner of the British army.”

“Schramm. P. D. Schramm. What does the P stand for?”

“Paul.” He slumped in his seat, rested his head and shut his eyes. “And your J stands for Jack, I think.”

Lampard ignored this; he was preoccupied with a sheet of typewritten paper. “What d'you make of that, Mike?” he asked.

Dunn stared where Lampard's finger was pointing.
“Abt 5
,” he said. “That's got to be Abteilung 5, hasn't it? Luftwaffe Intelligence.”

“Lovely grub. That's the cream on the strawberries, that is. He goes straight to Egypt.”

“Do you intend to introduce yourself?” Schramm asked. “Captain Lampard?”

“Can't resist showing off, can you?” Lampard stuffed Schramm's belongings into a rucksack. “Just for that you can come and watch the show.”

They joined the others, who were looking down at the fires on Barce airfield. Even now, there were occasional explosions. An improbable nursery-pink glow was reflected from immense clouds of oily smoke, and the stink of burned fuel and explosives drifted with the midnight breeze. “What d'you think Abteilung Funf will make of that little lot?” Dunn asked the German.

“Can't resist showing off, can you?” the German said, which amused the rest of the patrol.

*   *   *

The top of the Jebel was rolling hillside. It rolled for about a hundred and twenty miles from west to east, and twenty or thirty miles from south to north. Sometimes it rolled vigorously and the terrain became rugged, with deep valleys and steep cliffs. It was a blend of the Cotswold hills and the Scottish Highlands; not so green, but plentifully supplied with stunted trees and shrubs, wandering Arabs and herds of goats, and just right for hiding in.

Sergeant Davis drove the Alfa. In half an hour he found the dry wadi where they had left the jeep. Corporal Harris drove the jeep. At one a.m. they reached the main camp, five miles further south in the Jebel. Three vehicles were waiting there: an armed jeep, a wireless truck, and an armed Chevrolet truck, all loaded and ready to move.

The rear party—six men—had started a brew-up as soon as they heard the engines. Everyone got a pint mug of thick, sweet tea with a tot of rum in it while they discussed the raid. Schramm too was given a mug. He tasted the drink and asked if he might have the rum without the tea. “Don't mind him,” Davis told the soldier who had made the brew-up, “he's foreign, he doesn't know any better.”

“You'd better get used to it,” Dunn told Schramm.

Schramm took another sip, and winced. “I have only one cousin and he lives in Leipzig,” he said.

“Yes? So what?”

Schramm sipped his tea, and recoiled fractionally. “Next of kin,” he said.

“Cheeky bastard!” Pocock said.

“Take that man's name, sergeant,” Schramm said.

“You're very frisky,” Lampard said, “for a prisoner-of-war with a gammy leg and no boots.” The German smiled. He had a very broad smile which bunched up the skin over his cheekbones and, despite all the arrowhead wrinkles, made his eyes look quite boyish. Lampard smiled back.
What a nice chap
, he thought.
Just waiting for a chance to kill us all and do a bunk.

*   *   *

By daybreak the patrol had moved ten miles further south and the vehicles were tucked away in the curve of a winding valley, beneath an overhang of tall limestone cliffs. The shape of the trucks was lost under camouflage nets, spread wide and held down with rocks. Schramm watched while pretending not to watch. He knew that even the most low-flying aircraft would never find them. It was difficult enough to find somebody who
wanted
to be found in the Jebel.

The sun rose with its usual abruptness: from gray-green dawn to full daylight in fifteen minutes. Schramm could feel the temperature start to climb, baking the dew-damp out of his clothes. He sat, resting his back against the cliff, and admired the way they worked. Nobody gave orders, each man knew his job. Nobody hurried, but nobody stood and scratched himself and waited to be told what to do. A bit of quiet joking went on, not much. Lampard ducked under the camouflage netting and came out with a jerrican of water, carrying it as lightly as a briefcase. Someone was whistling. Bacon was frying. Schramm thought:
They are three hundred kilometers behind our lines and they are at home.