A Good Clean Fight (67 page)

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The smoke from the burning truck must attract attention. Lampard led Menzies and Smedley down the wadi at a steady jog-trot. They had done this sort of thing in training many times; however, none of them had done it with a smashed jaw. The jolt of each pace caused Menzies mounting waves of pain, pain so great that it swamped his senses. He said nothing, and they were still jogging when he fainted. He fell on his face, and this damaged his injuries even more.

They rolled him onto his back and sat him up. Lampard held his head while Smedley picked bits of dirt out of his
mouth. A tooth looked so loose that they thought Menzies might swallow it and choke, so Smedley plucked it out. That provoked quite a lot of blood, and they sloshed some water in his mouth to rinse it out. After all this, Menzies was still unconscious. Lampard hoisted him carefully and carried him over his shoulder. A steady splatter of blood soaked into Lampard's battledress.

They got out of the wadi and walked fast for a mile. The hillside was thick with boulders. This made good cover but slow going.

It occurred to Lampard that the intelligent thing to have done would have been to shift two of the bodies from Davis's jeep to his own jeep. Then the Germans might think the whole patrol had been killed.

Too late now.

No shufti-kite. That was encouraging.

Smedley had been watching Menzies's upside-down face; he said he thought they should give him water. Lampard walked to the next patch of scrub, which was very spindly but it would have to do, and put him down. The limbs were slack, the eyelids were thick and heavy, the head lay where it flopped. Menzies looked dead. Smedley searched hard before he found a pulse.

What amazed Lampard was the amount of blood Menzies had lost. Lampard's battledress was drenched; it clung to his skin. “That's because his head's hanging down,” Smedley said. “We've got to keep his head up. I don't think he's been breathing right, either.”

Lampard decided to carry him piggyback-fashion. He ripped a long strip from his shirt and tied Menzies's arms in front, at the wrist. He looped the arms over his head and picked him up by the legs. Smedley shifted Menzies's head so that it was not on the same side as Lampard's tattered ear. They walked on.

Smedley was now carrying three weapons and two water bottles. He was a big man; nevertheless there were times
when the pace that Lampard set had him gasping. Lampard had a stride like a plowman's. He saw the obstacles coming and stepped over them. In order to keep Menzies's head in a safe and steady position he had to lean forward slightly and tilt his shoulders to the side. The flies had been bad before; now they were an army of occupation, claiming their tribute of blood and sweat. Menzies did not notice them. Lampard let them wander where they liked, unless it was into his mouth. Then he spat a small bundle of saliva-coated fly into the dust.

They heard the shufti-kite, once, but it was far behind them. They heard the clatter of half-tracks, once, but it was faint and grew fainter. They met an Arab herding a dozen goats. He pointed to the north and said:
“Tedeschi,”
which meant Germans. Lampard and Smedley were going south of west, but they thanked him all the same. He looked sadly at Menzies's shattered face and murmured a Muslim prayer.

Almost twenty-four hours after his patrol had left it, Lampard carried Menzies into the wadi where the base-camp party should have been waiting. It was empty.

Smedley helped him to lift Menzies down and lay him out. Lampard's hands were locked into the shape of hooks: the fingers refused to relax. But his body felt as if it was floating.

“And here I was, looking forward to a brew-up,” Smedley said. “Just goes to show. You never can tell.” His voice sounded thin and husky; nevertheless it brought one of the fitters running down the wadi. He had been keeping look-out from a nearby cliff top, and had somehow missed their approach. Gibbon and Sandiman, he said, had decided to move base camp to another wadi when this one began to attract too many curious Arabs.

The doctor drove a truck around, treated Menzies where he lay, then drove him back to the new camp. Lampard and Smedley rode in the truck. Corky Gibbon had a brew-up
ready for them, “Just the two of you?” he said. He added rum.

“Just the two of us,” Lampard said. “And Menzies, but he's not drinking.”

Gibbon was startled and dismayed, but he hid his feelings and he knew better than to ask questions. There was plenty of tea to go around. Lieutenant Sandiman had an urgent signal for Lampard to read; however, he decided to let him get a good drink inside him first. The day's work was not over yet.

The order came down the chain of command at Desert Air Force, gaining force at every stage like a ball bouncing down a staircase, until it landed at LG 250. Prescott decoded it in two minutes. Barton read it aloud. “Movement order canceled,” he said. “Operation imminent. Bletchley will brief.” He cheered up enormously. “See, Skull? The game's never over till it's over.”

“I'll write that in Kit's book,” Skull said. “I think there's room.”

Baggy Bletchley flew in half an hour later, in the Brute.

“By a remarkable stroke of luck, Fanny,” he said, “you're in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.”

“Luck is very important, sir,” Barton said. “Some have it, some don't. Let me carry those maps.”

They went to the mess tent. Hooper, Prescott and Skull were already there. “I thought you'd gone,” Bletchley said to Skull.

“I do the cooking and some light dusting. My bully fritters are well spoken of.”

Bletchley was not listening. He unrolled a map and said, “The most extraordinary thing happened a few hours ago. A Heinkel 111 flew down to Fort Lamy and cut the Takoradi Trail, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Not only did the rascal destroy a whole lot of brand-new Hurricanes, he also set fire to so much aviation fuel that we shan't be able to get another Hurricane through Lamy for weeks. Very imaginative, thoroughly courageous, and he cannot be allowed to survive. You're nearest. Go and kill him.”

“Where is he, sir?” Barton asked.

“We know where he's going. Or rather, we know where he'd like to get to. Defa.” Bletchley circled it on the map. “Little Luftwaffe airstrip. That's where he refueled on the way out.”

“Defa.” Barton cocked his head and looked from Defa to LG 250 and back again. “Three hundred miles.”

“We have reason to think he will never reach Defa. Two reasons, in fact. One is he simply hasn't got enough fuel. Normal range of a Heinkel 111 is sixteen hundred miles, by which time it's flying on fumes. From Defa to Fort Lamy and back is twenty-two hundred miles. If you put enough fuel in the machine to fly that distance it would be so heavy, it could never take off.”

“Especially with a load of bombs.”

“Exactly.”

“You said there were two reasons, sir.”

“I did indeed. The second is a headwind which the pilot is now facing on his return leg. Out of the northwest, twenty to thirty miles an hour. Just what he doesn't want.”

“Presumably the pilot knows all this,” Skull said. “And presumably the Luftwaffe knows it too.”

“We must assume that,” Bletchley said.

“So they're waiting for him to come down in the desert,” Barton said, “and then they'll go and pick him up.”

“Not if you get there first. Our Signals Intelligence people are listening for his transmissions. The instant they get a map reference they'll flash it to you, here, and you can be on your way.”

Prescott went off to sit beside his wireless set. Barton and Hooper talked to the ground crew. Both fighters were airworthy again: the fuel problem had been solved. The guns were armed, the windscreens cleaned, the radios checked, the entire skin polished with dusters. An unclean aircraft could cost five miles an hour.

“What sort of range has your Kittyhawk got?” Bletchley asked.

“According to the book, nearly six hundred miles. That's at three hundred miles an hour. If we flew slower I suppose we'd go further.”

“You must get there as fast as you can,” Bletchley said. “You must kill the crew of that Heinkel. The Luftwaffe must not get a taste for the Takoradi Trail, or the whole desert war could be in jeopardy.”

“If you put it like that, sir,” Barton said, “I suppose we'd better get weaving.”

But Prescott still sat in his tent. Bletchley had brought some bread: a rare luxury in the blue. They ate jam sandwiches and waited while the shadows lengthened.

“I've been thinking, sir,” Hooper said. “Presumably the map reference locating this Heinkel pilot will apply to a Luftwaffe map. What I mean is, the Luftwaffe grid may not be the same as ours.”

“It's not,” Bletchley said. “I brought Luftwaffe maps.”

“Oh.”

Skull came over with a jug of tea. Barton felt thirsty, but he was worried about drinking just before a long flight. Hooper drank a pint, and Barton worried about that. Then he remembered that the Kittyhawk cockpit equipment included an exit tube for the pilot's relief. Trust the Yanks to think of that. He filled a mug and drank.

“In the circumstances,” Skull said thoughtfully, “it rather looks as if Signals Intelligence has broken the Luftwaffe code, sir.”

“I try not to speculate,” Bletchley said. “That way madness lies.”

“Really, sir? You're missing half the fun.” Skull went away with the empty jug.

“Awkward sod,” Barton said.

“Yes. He makes a good brew-up, though. How does he keep the sand out?”

“Strains it through his socks, I think.”

“Ah.” Bletchley took another sip. “Touched by the foot of God,” he said. “Hello, we're in business.”

Prescott was hurrying toward them with a slip of paper. On it was a six-figure grid reference. When Barton plotted it on the map, his finger ended up a long way south of Defa. “Start up!” he shouted. Hooper was already running to his Kittyhawk. An engine turned over, a propeller jerked. “No, I'm afraid not,” Bletchley said.

Barton turned and stared.

“It's not on, Fanny,” Bletchley said. “We're about fifteen minutes late. Before you get there the sun will have gone down and you'll never find him in the dark. Work it out for yourself.”

“It's worth a try,” Barton argued.

“It's not worth a failure. Forget tonight. Try at dawn tomorrow.”

The engines died. The evening breeze sent the usual colonies of snakes of sand skittering across the landing-ground. The ground crew tied dustsheets around the noses of the Kittyhawks and locked the rudders. Skull began opening tins of bully.

*   *   *

Lampard was sitting on a box, having his ear stitched together by the doctor, when he saw Sandiman watching him. “Any signals come in?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Tell me, then.”

Sandiman took out a piece of paper. “I got this a couple of hours ago. It's marked ‘Most Urgent' but there was nothing we could do until—”

“Just tell me what's in it.”

“It's an order to move immediately and with all speed to a map reference deep in the desert where we'll find a Heinkel bomber that's come down. We're to capture or kill the crew.”

Lampard laughed, hurt his ear severely, apologized to the doctor, and sent for Gibbon. “How soon can we get there?” he asked him.

“It's a hell of a long way, Jack. Halfway to Kufra and off to the west. If we leave now, and if we don't have any tire trouble . . . We might make it some time tomorrow morning. That's provided we don't get Stuka-ed. on the way.”

Lampard thought, while the doctor made the last stitches and knotted the silk and trimmed the ends with his scissors. He looked at the sun: it hung heavily in the west. An hour to dusk. “If we go now,” he said, “you can get us through the Jalo Gap before midnight, can't you?” Gibbon shrugged, but he did not argue. “Then we'll be in the serir,” Lampard said. “The serir's really fast. Maybe we can find this Heinkel before dawn.”

“Maybe. I can try. What's the tearing hurry?”

“Corky, if
we
want the aircrew, that means they're important, so you can bet the Luftwaffe wants them too.”

“Yes.” Gibbon scratched his beard with his usual ferocity. “You've just had two rough nights, and a bloody rough day too, by the look of it. You sure you're up to this?”

“No.” Lampard stood, but his head was twitching and one hand was trembling. Gibbon had never seen that before. “I didn't expect it would be like this, Corky,” he said. “I thought I'd get killed first. This isn't how I expected it at all.” Gibbon shrugged.

The trucks were already loaded. Lampard got into the back of the one where Menzies was lying. Smedley got into the other. Sandiman sat next to him. “What went wrong?” he asked quietly.

“Not for me to say, sir,” Smedley said.

The trucks moved off.

*   *   *

The pilot had not been joking when he said the crusts had been cut off the sandwiches. There was ham, cheese, or egg mayonnaise; also an apple each; and iced coffee. The atmosphere in the cockpit was one of well-earned celebration.

“When did you learn to be a bomb-aimer?” Schramm asked.

“Yesterday,” di Marco said. “If General Schaefer said yes, I wanted to be ready.”

“Very professional.”

“When you can fly low, and there is no wind and no flak, it is not difficult.”

“What about me?” the pilot said.

“You were very professional too,” Schramm said.

“I was, wasn't I? We didn't collide with anything, not even those enormous mountains. That's the first thing they tell you at flying school: don't collide with the mountains.”

“Watch out,” Schramm said. “Here they come again.”