A Good Clean Fight (51 page)

“Good luck,” Barton said. “Have fun.” They were the first words he had spoken since takeoff. The formation, already loose, fanned out. The dive steepened to sixty degrees.

Benina was a big field, one of the biggest Luftwaffe bases in Libya. Aircraft were parked all around it, some in anti-blast pens, most not. Kit Carson chose a target, aimed the four sleek tons of Kittyhawk at it and began counting the seconds aloud.
Pointless
, he told himself.
Why do it?
But he kept counting until he released his pair of two-hundred-and-fifty-pound bombs and enjoyed the lightness of the kite now she was free of her luggage. Then he was pulling
out of the dive, reversing the trim-tabs with his left hand to combat the roll, trying to force his brain to stay awake as blood drained to his legs and centrifugal force tried to drag his stomach into his bowels and turn it into quick-setting concrete. Strings of bright beads crisscrossed his foggy vision. A control tower rushed at him, fell away, and now he could see again. Three other fighters were visible. Something exploded on the fringe of his vision and sent out jagged streaks of orange flame like cartoon electricity. By then the four Kittyhawks were wheeling away and sprinting for safety.

The explosion was Sneezy's fighter plunging into a line of German aircraft. He had been holding it in a perfect dive, sixty degrees, no roll, no wobble, target exactly where he wanted it, when a line of flak rippled across his path and hacked open the fuselage below his feet. Shrapnel slashed the control cables, and the stick was loose and useless: it flopped about as if he were stirring paint. There was nothing to do. He folded his arms and wondered why he did, and then sneered at himself for wasting his last few seconds on something so meaningless. In the final instant before the airplane destroyed itself and its bombs and its pilot and two or three 110s, his eyes were wide open. Ostanisczkowski had bought his ticket. He was entitled to see all of the show.

If there was any pursuit, the 109s were scrambled too late and sent the wrong way. The 110 had vanished, frightened by flak. Barton led the Kittyhawks up into the Jebel and flew down a series of wadis until they emerged into the desert. They returned to LG 250 at zero feet in a formation so loose that it was spread over half a mile.

Skull debriefed them. At the end, he added up their claims. “Ten probables,” he said. “Which, being translated, means ten possibles.” He sounded like a schoolteacher announcing poor exam results.

“Possibles?” Hick Hooper had landed happy. Now he
was hot with anger. “We hit the bastards! Bombed 'em between the eyes! We fly five hundred miles and you give us
possibles?”

“Nobody saw a bomb-strike,” Skull said. “Everyone was pulling out of the dive, facing up and away. You didn't see it, I can't give it.”

“I saw my explosion,” Pip said. “I told you that.”

“You told me you saw a great cloud of dust and smoke.”

They all stood around and hated Skull. He was fireproof. He had been hated by many pilots before.

*   *   *

The Arabs constantly moved. Greek George never knew why. They never stayed in one place more than two days. If it was a difficult journey they put him on a camel, but he was getting stronger now; he could usually walk. He made himself useful when they reached a new campsite, helped put up the goatskin tent, gathered twigs for the fire, even helped to make tea. This became his special job. He was first assistant tea-maker to the serious little girl.

Arab tea-making, she taught him, was an important ceremony, and he had to watch her do it several times before she would let him touch anything. A small enamel teapot was heated on the fire until the water—with a fistful of tea already in it—boiled over. She filled the tea glasses, which were as small as egg-cups, and emptied them back into the teapot, then boiled the tea again and repeated the process with the tea glasses twice more; tasted it; gave it a final boil, and served it. George saw that froth was considered a desirable part of Arab tea. He became skilled at holding the teapot high above the glasses when he poured. Everyone approved.

In return he tried to teach the little girl how to make a cat's-cradle. Very graciously, she refused to learn; and he
realized that to learn the trick would be to destroy the magic. She preferred to keep him as the magician in her life. He liked her even more after that.

Early one morning everyone was sitting on a hillside, watching the animals graze, when four Kittyhawks in line astern came racing down the wadi, twisting and bending to stay inside it. George jumped up and waved. It was a wonderful sight. Then they were gone. The Arabs, all grins and shouts, applauded and congratulated him. All he could do was nod and smile.

From then on he was always planning how to get back to his squadron. He was as dark as an Arab, and his feet were so hard he could walk without shoes. Maybe he could walk home. Others had. They were given a little silver lapel-badge, a winged flying-boot. He thought hard about it.

*   *   *

She was not in the hospital. She was in an Italian cellar-bar around the corner, eating a second breakfast. As soon as he limped through the doorway she called to the owner to make more coffee. Half a dozen civilians, regulars by the look of them, were sitting around her, enjoying her conversation, but she sent them away with a long stage-whisper in husky Italian that made them laugh and glance at him sideways. “What was that about?” he asked.

“I said you are the most demanding lover I have ever known and if your lusts are not satisfied at least three times a day you become uncontrollable and shoot a British prisoner-of-war.”

“I don't know how to be uncontrollable,” he said. “I never learned.”

He sat opposite her. They watched each other while she ate. She spread butter on a fresh bread roll and slid the plate across the table. “You look tired,” she said. “You
look as if you made love seventeen times last night and didn't like any of it.”

He chewed on the roll. “It was a bad night, but not for that reason.” Fresh coffee arrived, and two thimble-glasses of brandy. They drank a silent toast to each other. “Why are you so pleased with yourself?” he asked.

“Two amputations before breakfast. Look what I found hiding in the kidneys.” She fished in her pocket and tossed a ragged little chunk of shrapnel onto the table. “And the day has scarcely begun.”

Schramm put the shrapnel on his palm and rolled it about. Its tiny spikes prickled his skin. “Business is brisk,” he said. It was the ugliest thing he had seen all year. “What caused the amputations? Gangrene?” He didn't really care. It was just conversation.

“No, not gangrene. Something far more rapid. High explosive. At Benina.” She could see from his face that he didn't understand. “Benina got dive-bombed this morning, at dawn. Hadn't you heard? Obviously not. Luftwaffe Intelligence knows nothing.”

“Dive-bombed? The enemy hasn't got a dive-bomber. At least not one with enough range to hit Benina.”

“Not my problem, Paul. All I know is ambulances, wounded, cut, stitch, dressing, next patient please. The last time we spoke, you sounded troubled. Is there a problem? I noticed when you came in, your foot—”

“My foot is fine.” He was still thinking of the raid on Benina. To rid his mind of it, he took her hand. “I'm in great shape,” he said. “Would you like to dance?” Foolish question, in a bar, at breakfast. So what? He had a right to be foolish too. She kept his hand and linked fingers. “Alfredo!” she called, and spoke in Italian. After a moment, a hidden accordion wheezed as someone picked it up and began to play that familiar, quirky little waltz. They got up and danced. Sometimes a customer unhurriedly used a foot to hook a stool out of their way. The
old man emerged from a back room and stood playing until the barman gave him a chair to sit on. He hadn't shaved in a month, his flies were undone and he weighed slightly less than the accordion.

The waltz ended. “Give him some money,” she said. Schramm tucked a note into one hand and shook the other. The skin felt like parchment.

In the street, she took his arm; his confidence took another leap upward. “How about dinner tonight?” he said. “We should make the most of the Garibaldi while we can. Yes?” It would be a good place to ask her to marry him, which was still a preposterous idea, but he was growing more accustomed to it all the time. “Can you get us a table?”

“Not tonight. General Schaefer's coming back today.”

“Oh.” That was a blow. “Oh dear.”

“Don't you know
anything
in Intelligence? No wonder you're losing the war.”

“Are we?”

“You mean nobody told you?” That was a joke, and they both knew it. They walked in silence as far as the hospital entrance. “One day someone's going to bomb this place,” she said. “And then all our worries will be over.” She checked her watch. “If you're desperate for entertainment, you could come with me while I do wards. Lots of new blood this morning.”

Schramm hesitated. He had slept badly, he really didn't feel like looking at smashed bodies. “I don't think so,” he said. “If I see that poor bloody Gefreiter from Barce once more I might resign.”

“You needn't worry. Gefreiter Debratz has gone.”

“Oh.” Schramm was ashamed of his relief and therefore felt the need to cover it with words. “Just a boy, wasn't he? What a waste . . . What was the cause of death, in the end?”

She looked at him, soberly and seriously. “If it is important for you to know, I killed him, in the end.”

That made no sense. His mind could not accept it. “Something went wrong?” he said. “You made a mistake?”

“No. It was no mistake. His body had failed to recover, but it was also refusing to die. Life was of no value. So I killed him.”

“No value?” Schramm's heart was suddenly thumping. “Who says? Who says no value?”

“I do. I could see in his eyes that he was sick of hanging on. His life was agony and filth and despair.” She spoke calmly. “Struggling to keep him alive was a cruel waste, so I killed him last night at ten-thirty with an injection. He slipped away like that.” She clenched her fist and slowly opened it.

“You've done this before,” Schramm said. The back of his neck crawled.

“Yes. You should not imagine Debratz was the only hopeless case the hospital ever had.”

“How many?”

She didn't even try to think. “Twenty, thirty. Does it matter?”

“Christ, no, of course not. You're only a doctor, you've only been killing off your patients, why should it matter? Jesus . . .”

His anger and sarcasm failed to touch her. “Now I've spoiled your day,” she said. “Now you've really got somebody to hate.”

“You know what you're doing?” he demanded. “You're playing God.”

“Well,” she said, “somebody's got to.” Before he could stop her, she kissed him on the cheek and went into the hospital.

Schramm spent the rest of the morning walking around Benghazi. His shoulders were slumped and his head was down. He made no attempt to disguise his limp. The image that kept recurring was Maria Grandinetti's face, sober
and serious, as she looked straight at him and said
If it is important for you to know, I killed him.
None of it could be forgotten. His mind might drift sideways into another subject, something unimportant, a memory of Germany, perhaps, or a comment di Marco had made, and abruptly her statement would shoulder everything aside and give him an almost physical jolt.
I killed him.
Well, he would have died sooner or later, Schramm tried to tell himself, and got the answer: We're all going to die sooner or later but nobody has the right to . . .

To
what? To kill? You killed Corporal Harris. Remember?

That was duty. No choice. Him or me.

But you got a kick out of it, didn't you?

That's war.

She's in the same war, isn't she?

“I don't care,” Schramm said aloud. “I don't care, I don't care, I don't care.”

He left the main streets for the back alleys, where he could put his hands in his pockets and he wouldn't have to keep returning salutes. He walked until he was weary and he thought he had exhausted his anger. Max had been right: love is a form of madness, what the army calls a self-inflicted wound. Open your heart to someone and they stick a knife in it.

Schramm saw a glint of turquoise blue and walked down to the harbor. He sat on a block of masonry that had fallen from a bombed building and he enjoyed the breeze off the sea. Two freighters were being unloaded, very fast, before the enemy could bomb them. It was pleasant to rest the body and brain while others worked so hard.

Schramm dozed. His mind was let loose. It could wander where it wished. Nothing was banned. Eventually it strayed into an area so rich with excitement that his head jerked and his eyes opened wide.

It was midafternoon when he parked his car at the Hotel
Garibaldi. General Schaefer, they told him, was in a meeting. After that? Another meeting. When that ended he was due to leave for a tour of inspection. His schedule was very tight and he was running thirty minutes late. Major Schramm could wait if he wished, but . . .

Schramm waited.

After an hour someone brought him iced tea.

After another hour a white-haired colonel came in and introduced himself: von Mansdorf, the general's left-hand man. “Awfully sorry to keep you hanging about,” he said. “Um . . . You wouldn't be the Major Schramm who telephoned the general rather early this morning?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Well, full marks for courage, Major. The Jakowski operation is really none of your business, is it? Is that what you want to see him about?”

“No.”

“Ah. In that case I suggest you tell me, and when I get a chance I'll tell him. Otherwise you could be here for a week.”