A Good Clean Fight (14 page)

“Once a week,” di Marco told him. “Fresh laurels are flown in from Italy every Friday, without fail.”

“Victory through air power,” Schramm said. Jakowski gave a bleak smile. He could afford it. He knew he was right.

*   *   *

Lampard involved himself as little as possible with the administrative side of the SAS. He realized that it performed an essential job—men had to be paid, promotions approved, casualties treated, supplies organized, vehicles replaced, records kept—and he was grateful that competent, conscientious officers took care of all that dreadful boring routine stuff. For himself, Lampard wanted none
of it. He wanted to return to the desert as soon as possible and start causing more havoc.

However, although he wanted none of it he recognized that he must have some. On his second day back in Cairo he handed his written report on the Barce raid to Captain Kerr. One of Kerr's jobs was to debrief the incoming patrol leaders. Lampard rather liked Kerr. He was a Scot who seemed always to be half-smiling, or on the point of doing so. You felt Kerr was glad to see you again.

It took Kerr two minutes to read Lampard's report and five minutes to reread it. Meanwhile Lampard sat in a corner and flicked bits of broken matchstick at the flies.

“Twenty-seven aircraft destroyed,” Kerr said. “That's a fine figure.”

“Glad you like it.”

“The old man was very pleased. He's away in the desert again, otherwise . . . And you got an Italian motor-car to boot. A great big Alfa-Romeo. Tell me more about that.”

“What's to tell? We found it, so we snaffled it. Better than walking home.”

A bit of matchstick had landed on Kerr's desk. He poked at it with his pencil, cautiously. “Keys in the dash, I suppose,” he said.

“What? Oh no. No fear. Corporal Harris fiddled some wires. One of his civilian skills.”

“Of course.” Kerr squeezed down hard on the end of the bit of matchstick and made it hop. “Too bad about Harris. Was there no warning sign?”

“Well, with hindsight maybe he did look a bit knackered, but then I suppose we all looked a bit knackered.”

“Odd that he didn't tell anyone. Knife wound in the stomach, you'd think he'd say something.”

Lampard shrugged. “Maybe he didn't want to slow us down. Heart like a lion, Harris. Bags of pride.”

“Yes.” Kerr sat back. Lampard got up and perched one
buttock on a three-drawer filing cabinet and folded his arms. “Presumably Harris was on his own when he got the wound,” Kerr said.

“Seems likely. I reckon he went hunting for Jerry sentries in the dark.”

“Ah.” Kerr made a note.

“You remember what Harris was like. Extremely fond of blood sports.”

“So he was. You don't mention any sentries here.”

Lampard yawned and covered his mouth. “Excuse me. Cairo always feels a bit sluggish after the desert . . . Sentries. No, I don't mention sentries because I didn't see sentries, probably because Corporal Harris found them first, for which I am very, very grateful.”

“Ah.” Kerr scribbled. “And you're in no doubt about the cause of death.”

“Tony Waterman confirmed it.” Lampard rubbed a finger along his jaw. Being clean-shaven still felt strange. “No doctor. Bloody ass of a doctor fell ill at Kufra on the way out. Tony knew a bit of first aid, so I asked him to take a look.”

“And where was the wound?”

“Oh . . . about here.” Lampard pressed his stomach to the right of where a belt-buckle would have been. “Does it matter?”

“It might, it might. You're recommending a decoration, after all. They'll want to know what killed him.”

Outside, the endless racket of crowds and traffic and street-selling rose above Cairo in a fog of noise. Inside, a distant telephone rang and rang with the maddening persistence of an idiot child. Nearer, a man coughed.

“Too bad about Waterman,” Kerr said.

“Bloody Stukas,” Lampard said. “Once they find you it's all a matter of luck. Tony was unlucky.”

“The fortunes of war.” Kerr never lost his half-smile. Sometimes it was sad, sometimes not, but it was always
there. “Tell me about the Stukas. How did they attack you?”

“Normal way. They fell on us from a great height.” Now Lampard had found a rubber band and was playing with it like a catapult. “We got dive-bombed by the pilot and when he pulled out we got strafed by his rear gunner. Standard practice. Remember?”

“Happy days,” Kerr said. He too had been a patrol leader until severe jaundice put him in hospital. He flicked through the pages of the report again. “Only the wireless truck was hit, I see. That was lucky, wasn't it?”

Lampard stretched the rubber band too far and it snapped. “Sorry,” he said. “Don't know my own strength.”

“It matters not.” Kerr reached in a drawer and tossed a small handful of bands onto his desk. “How many Stukas were there?”

“Oh . . . several. If you can count the flies in this room while I chase you with a club, you've got your answer. I had other things on my mind.”

“So Jerry hammered you pretty hard,” Kerr said. Lampard grunted. “But he only got the wireless truck,” Kerr said again.

“Everybody else found some cover. They jumped us in the open and we ran like hell. Went tearing up this wadi and got inside some little cliffs. Under the overhangs. Tony was a bit slow, I suppose.”

Kerr straightened the pages and banged a staple through the corner. “Twenty-seven kites,” he said. “Bloody good show.”

Lampard placed two letters on the desk. “Next-of-kin,” he said. “Will you forward them?”

“I'll forward one,” Kerr said. “Harris's family is in London. The other you can deliver yourself, if you wouldn't mind. Mrs. Waterman lives quite near here.” He wrote on the envelope and handed it back. “Nice lady, so I'm told. Rotten luck for her.”

Lampard read the address and nodded sombrely. He picked up his cap and spun it on his finger. “No fun for me, either,” he said.

*   *   *

Even in North Africa little children like to play in the sand, which was why the infants' school on the outskirts of Derna had a sandbox. The building had lost half its roof, and two walls were ventilated by shell-holes big enough to drive a tank through. This was proved by the remains of a burned-out British tank inside a classroom. But the remains of the infants' school suited General Schaefer's staff. They kicked out an Italian signals unit and took over. A few tarpaulins made a discreet tent over the sandbox, and the sandbox—fifteen feet by six—was perfect for a multicolored sand-map of seven hundred miles of coastline, with Derna more or less in the middle.

The sand-map was a work of art. It began with Alexandria (big black blob) on the extreme right and traced the coastline westward through El Alamein and all the old familiar battle honors, Mersa Matruh, Sidi Barrani, Sollum, Bardia, Tobruk and Gazala, which marked the line that separated the opposing armies. West of Gazala came the most populated part of Libya, the Jebel el Akhdar, which means Green Mountain. It was peppered with bases and aerodromes and landing-grounds: Bomba and Tmimi, Martuba and Derna, Slonta and Barce, all across the Jebel to Benghazi with the airfields of Benina and Regima and Berka clustered around it; then southward down the bulge, past Beda Fomm and Antelat to Agedabia, which was about as far as the British got on their last offensive, until Rommel caught them off balance and shoved them back to Gazala. (Tripoli, Rommel's big supply port, was a further four hundred miles westward.) The Mediterranean was blue sand, the Jebel was a bump of green sand, and
all along the coastal strip there were more red stars and blue squares and silver circles than you could count, each telling part of the recent history of Rommel's Afrika Armee. It was a hell of a good sand-map.

General Schaefer had ordered this conference on behind-the-line security, which everyone knew meant insecurity. He had summoned the officers responsible for protecting sections of the seven-hundred-mile stretch of coastline. They numbered thirty-seven, and they sat on ammunition boxes while Schaefer stood beside the sand-map and put them in the picture.

“It's simple, gentlemen,” he said. “While we are preparing to win at the front, we are losing at the rear.”

That got their full attention. Schaefer was a hard, unsmiling man. He had a small silver plate in his skull, compliments of a French artillery attack at Verdun in 1916, and his work-rate occasionally drove his staff officers to a state of collapse. It was said that he had been transferred here from Russia because of a row with Hitler. Schaefer had won the debate but (inevitably) lost the argument. Now he was telling them they were losing in Africa! Major Jakowski (third row, second from left) was impressed.

“Losing does not mean lost,” Schaefer said. “It means the enemy is doing far better than he should. And that must stop.” An aide handed him a clipboard. “I am aware that the enemy has been raiding behind our lines for a long time. But this year the raiding has intensified.” He handed the clipboard back. “I won't waste time with statistics. Aircraft destroyed. Fuel-dumps destroyed. Vehicle parks destroyed.
Men
destroyed. Look down here. Each red star is an airfield raid. Each blue square is a fuel-dump raid or, worse still, a fuel-tanker destroyed. Each silver circle is a raid on an ammunition-dump. Of course the enemy raiders have suffered losses too. But
they
are losing a few jeeps and a handful of men while
we
lose a squadron of fighters.
So it must stop. And you are here today to help me find a way to stop it.”

It turned out to be a long day.

Many officers had prepared proposals in advance and they submitted these ideas along with plans, maps, charts and graphs to support them.

The first man up proposed a total sunset-to-dawn curfew all along the coast road; during curfew, heavily armed motor patrols would be free to shoot anything that moved. At first this appealed to many, but then the questions began. What happens when something is needed urgently at the front? What about our Italian allies, notorious nightbirds? How many motor patrols would you need to be sure of catching every raid? Enthusiasm faded. The next suggestion was for the floodlighting of all aerodromes and similar targets. It was pointed out that the RAF would enjoy bombing illuminated targets. Yes, the officer agreed, that was a factor; but on radar warning of incoming bombers the lights would of course be switched off until . . .

Until the SAS coordinated its raids with RAF attacks?

“I never claimed it was perfect,” the officer said.

“Very wise,” General Schaefer said. “Thank you.”

Next up was a newly-arrived officer with a plan to recruit all the Senussi Arabs as a well-paid corps of observers and informers. Imagine the effect of two hundred thousand informers and bounty-hunters, and all for what? A couple of million marks?

He stopped because Schaefer had raised his hand. “Butcher Graziani conquered these people in the twenties by slaughtering them. The Arabs loathe the Italians and they hate us because if we win the Italians will stay here. The Arabs will take your money and still help the British. So would I, if I were an Arab. Next?”

Next came electrified barbed wire plus packs of Rottweiler guard dogs. After that, a proposal to build a string of big, raid-proof compounds for all Axis forces in
the coastal strip. Then a plan for standing patrols by the Luftwaffe, dusk to dawn. Someone asked: “How can the Luftwaffe find a raiding party in the dark, let alone identify it?” This led to a discussion of airborne searchlights and the use of paratroops. The idea died.

Slump. Only the flies remained brisk.

Jakowski had ignored all this chatter and concentrated on the sand-map. He had never liked it. The thing was perfect, but it was all wrong.

There were a couple of buckets of sand on the floor behind General Schaefer, left over from the map-making. Jakowski had always been impetuous; it was one reason he was still only a major among these colonels and brigadiers. He walked behind Schaefer and grabbed a bucket. “With your permission, sir?”

Schaefer waved him on. Jakowski stepped into the Mediterranean. “We've all been looking in the wrong place!” he declared.
“That's
where the trouble comes from!” He swung the bucket and shot the sand over the top of the Jebel el Akhdar and out of the sand box. It spread wide and fan-like, lapping the boots of the front row. There was silence as he got the second bucket and flung out a further forty thousand square miles of Sahara. “The way to stop these raids is to hunt them down in the desert
before
they can do any damage. Give me five hundred men and fifty vehicles, sir, and I guarantee results.”

General Schaefer almost smiled. “What is your name, major?” he asked.

An hour later Jakowski flew back to Barce. In the mess he met Schramm, propped up on his new crutches. Jakowski described the conference. “Don't say he's given you five hundred men,” Schramm said.

“No, that wasn't possible,” Jakowski said, “but he's given me a hundred and fifty, plus thirty desert vehicles. It's a start. In fact we start tomorrow. Into the desert.”

“Would you like some advice?” Schramm asked.

“No.” It was an impulsive reply, but now Jakowski couldn't take it back.

“No,” Schramm said. “I didn't think you would.”

Jakowski linked his fingers behind his back, squared his shoulders, pulled in his stomach and made his knuckles crack. “Schaefer asked me who would be in charge of airfield security here while I'm away. I recommended you.”

“What a kind thought,” Schramm said. “Hurry back, won't you?”

*   *   *

Captain Kerr could smell the presence of a serious lie; literally smell it. It smelled to him like bad fish, like fish that had begun to rot. This is a foul and disgusting smell and he had learned to control and conceal his instant revulsion. Nevertheless, the smell was indisputable.