A Good Clean Fight (36 page)

“The pictures taken by our photo-reconnaissance aircraft,” said di Marco, “indicate several sections moving in completely different directions.”

“Maybe they're chasing several different raiders,” said Schramm. Let Jakowski do what he liked. It was too hot and he was too tired. “Why don't you ask him?”

“He won't break radio silence,” Hoffmann said.

“Well, that's up to him, isn't it?”

“The desert gives a man only one chance,” said di Marco.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Schramm's manners were coming apart. He didn't care.

“Has Major Jakowski led an expedition into the Sahara before?” di Marco asked. “Has he any men with him who are experienced in long-range desert travel?”

“Don't know. Probably not. He reckoned that if the British soldier can do it, so can the German.”

“Leadership and determination,” Hoffmann said. “Guts and discipline. That's all it takes. So Jakowski said.”

“And forty trucks,” Schramm added. “Including a mobile bakery.”

“It sounds like a head-on assault on the desert,” di Marco said.

“That's how Jakowski operates,” Hoffmann told him.

“My money is on the desert,” di Marco said. He shook hands, and they watched him walk away.

“He's very full of himself,” Schramm said, “considering what the Italians haven't done to help Jakowski.”

“Well, di Marco knows what he's talking about. He made a lot of expeditions into the Sahara before the war. On camels, in cars, by plane. He's got a pilot's license, you know.”

“Oh!” Schramm said. “I just realized. He's
that
di Marco. Good God. The big explorer. Well, I'm damned. Why didn't he go with Jakowski?”

“Why didn't Jakowski ask him?”

Schramm gave it five seconds' thought. “Because Jakowski wants all the credit. Jakowski knows best, and what he doesn't know he believes he can find out without anybody else's help.”

“That's what he's doing,” Hoffmann said, “dashing off in four directions at once . . . I hear you were in the thick of the action yourself last night.”

“I was very brave,” Schramm said. “Hitler would have been proud of me.”

*   *   *

Some time during the night the bass saxophone quit and a pair of flutes took over. They blew sad, breathy, wandering notes which hunted each other and never came together.

There were nine Arabs in the cave: two women, an old man and six children. During a rare moment when all the pain had left him, Greek George counted them. Later the pain came back and he couldn't even count his own fingers.

All the Arabs were quite small, as brown as walnuts, poorly dressed and very serious. If he smiled, they smiled back; but that was simple courtesy and their smiles quickly vanished.

Later still, when the pain had again drifted away, he wondered if they knew which side he was on. Maybe they thought he was a German. Somewhere sewn into his uniform were five gold sovereigns. Surely they must recognize a British sovereign. He moved an arm to search and ripped the scab of blood that glued his shirt to his damaged ribs. Pain raged. He lay still and tried to pretend it was happening to another person. That worked. He knew it worked because he could hear the other person sobbing.

Before all this, or after it, or both, the Arabs gave him liquid to drink, heavy bowls of stuff which foamed and smelled rancid. That was encouraging: at least his nose still worked. It looked like sweaty cheese and old piss, mixed up to a froth, but he drank it. One of the girls held the bowl to his lips. She was about twelve. She had high cheekbones and clean sweet lips and he fell in love with her. It must be camel's milk. His mouth loathed it, but his body was grateful. He wanted to thank her. “Eff-hah-rees-toh,” he whispered. She smiled. George couldn't believe his amazing good luck. He had been rescued by Arabs who understood Greek. Now nothing was impossible.

One thing was impossible for Butcher Bailey and that was to stretch his legs.

He had been inside his cockpit for over twenty-four hours, with only one brief excursion to empty his bladder and to grab the emergency food from its container near the tail unit. He shoved it inside his shirt, turned to lean
into the howling wind, lost his footing and got blown over. In the end he crawled as far as a wing and dragged himself back into the cockpit. Dust had piled up on everything: the floor, the seat, the compass, the gunsight, everything. It took all his strength to ram the canopy home.

After that there was nothing to do but eat as little as possible, wait for the dust-storm to end, and try to find a comfortable position for his body. Butcher had long legs. The Tomahawk cockpit was not made to live in. Wherever he put his feet, eventually it gave his legs cramp. Meanwhile the storm whined and wailed and rocked the airplane.

There was an easy way to guess the height of a dust-storm. The higher the cloud, the lower the temperature on the ground. This was because the sun could not penetrate the dust. Butcher reckoned the temperature in his cockpit was thirty or forty degrees Fahrenheit below normal.

*   *   *

The sky was clear over the Calanscio Sand Sea. Its early morning periwinkle blue had been slowly baked to a milky white that was painful to the eyes. Down between the dunes the air was so saturated with heat that the sands seemed to swim. There was a pleasant little breeze off the Sahara, but none of Jakowski's men felt it because it blew from west to east while the valleys of the dunes ran from north to south. Looking up at the crest line, they sometimes saw feathers of sand being blown like snow. The only breeze they felt came from the movement of vehicles. Force A was making good time along the valley. Unfortunately it was not making good progress.

The wireless intercept had placed the enemy raiders to the east, deep inside the Calanscio. Late the previous night, the radio truck had picked up another signal from
Benghazi. Reception was poor, but the message seemed to give a new location for the raiders, and it seemed to indicate that they were moving north. The radio operator could not be absolutely sure. Important parts of the message had been distorted beyond understanding.

If the enemy was moving north, Force A was traveling parallel with him. Lieutenant Schneeberger was searching for a gap in the dunes that would give access to the next valley, where he hoped to find another gap, and so on eastward. The only alternative was to climb up the side of this valley, drop down into the next, and then repeat that process over and over again, which was plainly impossible. These dunes were steep. Some rose to five hundred feet. How could anyone drive up such mountains of sand?

Schneeberger found a split in the lines of dunes. It was a dead end. His vehicles turned and trailed back to the main valley. A couple of miles further on, another split appeared. This time Jakowski sent Schneeberger to explore it alone, while everyone else sat and stared at the great bleached billows that soared in silence on either side. After twenty minutes Schneeberger's truck reappeared, not from the direction in which he had gone, but dead ahead, in the same valley. The split had rejoined it.

The troops watched impassively as the truck returned to them.

“Schneeberger's back again,” Bruno said.

“Forgot his handbag, I expect,” Oskar said.

Major Jakowski had a brief conference with Captain Rinkart and Lieutenant Schneeberger. “I'm tired of this,” he said. “We take the direct route from now on. The enemy's over
there
.” He looked eastward. “That's where we go.” His fists were on his hips, his cap was on the back of his head. “Up and over.”

“I've never seen a truck climb anything as steep as that,” Rinkart said. “Not even in bottom gear.”

“Perhaps if the truck were unloaded first, sir,” Schneeberger suggested.

“Then what?” Jakowski asked. “Do we carry the load up to it on our shoulders? Use your tiny brain, man.”

Rinkart focused his binoculars on the upper reaches of the dune. It was as smooth as a snowbank and almost as white. He breathed shallowly, trying to keep the baking heat out of his lungs. There was sweat inside his ears; it slid about as he moved his head. “The conventional way to climb a mountain,” he said, “is to zigzag up.”

“Try it.”

Sergeant Nocken was the best driver. He took a small, powerful truck with good tires and made it climb across the slope from right to left. The lower part of the dune made a gentle rise, so the first leg was easy. He accelerated into the turn. The rear wheels flung out a fantail of sand and the truck swung onto the second leg. Now the climb was steeper and the truck began to drift sideways. Nocken gave it more revs. “Good man,” Jakowski said. “Good man.” The bellow of the engine echoed back and forth across the valley. “It's not going to work,” Rinkart said. “The slope's getting steeper all the time. He won't make the next turn.”

“Shut up!” Jakowski flung his cap at him, and missed.

“Don't fight me, major,” Rinkart said. “Fight the desert.”

Sergeant Nocken could feel the slope getting worse. The truck was leaning hard on its downhill wheels, which left the uphill wheels with little thrust. He launched a long, brave charge at the next turn, made the engine howl, spun the wheel and attacked the gradient, but the sand crumbled and gave no grip. Nocken was defeated. The truck stalled. So much for Rinkart's idea.

Schneeberger dusted the major's cap and returned it to him.

“If we could only get the salvage truck to the top,” Jakowski said, “we could winch all the rest up.”

“Captain Lessing has the salvage truck, sir,” Schneeberger said. “We didn't bring it.”

“I know that, you fool. Spare me your brilliant analysis of the impossible. I need a solution.”

“The dunes might be flatter further on,” Rinkart said. “Or lower. Or both.”

“I'm not going where the desert
prefers
me to go. I'm going where I damn well
want
to go.”

Sergeant Nocken backed, and turned, and let the truck trundle down to where the officers were standing. “Permission to try again, sir?” he said. Jakowski was impressed. He liked the man's spirit. “Granted.” he said.

This time Nocken made no attempt to ease the gradient by zigzagging. He pointed the truck squarely at the dune and drove up it as fast as he could. He surprised the watchers by racing past the point where the truck had stalled; but soon his impetus faded to nothing. The roar sank to a growl. The truck was just a box on wheels, clinging to the face of the dune.

“If they wanted it to fly,” Oskar said, “they should have put wings on it.”

“Go and tell the major that,” Bruno said. “It's the sort of thing he likes to know.”

“Not me,” Oskar said. “Let him work it out for himself.”

Jakowski took the map from Schneeberger. He didn't want to look at it, but he was sick of looking at all this sand. It infuriated him with its conspiracy to force him to drive north (or south) when the enemy was squarely to the east. Rinkart was right, damn him: the desert was the enemy. And all these men were standing around, waiting for their orders. What orders? To retire? Quit? Admit failure? Even the thought brought a bitter taste to his throat. He spat, hard.

“Look, sir,” Schneeberger said.

Sergeant Nocken had brought his truck back, had crossed the floor of the valley and driven far up the opposite dune. Now he turned and came barreling down, the engine whooping and shouting as he slammed through the gears. The valley floor rose to meet him and the truck surged up the lower slopes on the eastern side. Nocken worked the clutch and the gears to preserve every ounce of momentum. He need not have worried. The truck climbed like a bird. It had power to spare when he stopped it on the crest line. He hooted his horn and waved. They waved and cheered. He looked around; to the east there was nothing to be seen but the Sand Sea. Its colossal waves repeated themselves to the horizon, utterly still, mountainous and painfully silent. Sergeant Nocken, who had about as much imagination as an adjustable wrench, was startled. He had never before seen anything so lovely or so frightening.

Dune-driving was a special skill. The big thing was the initial charge: if you could get up enough speed to rush the lower slopes, after that it was all a matter of not losing your nerve as the slope got steeper and threatened to turn the truck on its back. Even on the steepest sections, a dune gave remarkably good driving surface, provided you chose fresh, unbroken sand and got the most out of your engine. Above all, it was a matter of faith. Once Nocken had proved it could be done, the others did it too. it too.

After they got to the top, of course, they used their descent to speed them up the next dune. Compared with grinding along in convoy, this was exciting stuff. The drivers began to challenge each other. The best drivers found that they could hit the top at speed and never need to stop, happy in the knowledge that there were no rocks or trees or obstacles of any kind in the Sand Sea. It was like a colossal, endless roller-coaster.

Only one truck could not be persuaded to climb the dunes, and that was the water-tanker. The men filled every water-bottle and spare container and left the tanker to be collected on the way back.

It was a minor inconvenience. By nightfall they had crossed twenty-seven rows of dunes. Jakowski was very pleased. “We're in striking distance,” he said. “Tomorrow's going to be interesting.” He ordered an issue of rum for everyone, with a double for Sergeant Nocken.

*   *   *

Butcher Bailey hid his water-bottle under his parachute so that he wouldn't be tempted to cheat. He was rationing himself to one sip every four hours. His body resented this decision. It wanted everything now, poured down its throat in one long gurgling, soaking rush; and when he refused, his brain retaliated with tantalizing images of bubbling streams and splashing fountains. Meanwhile the dust-storm was an endless dreary brown-gray blur, slamming against the cockpit canopy, and his legs ached to stretch themselves.