A Good Clean Fight (52 page)

“It's about air superiority,” Schramm said. “The British are using SAS patrols and now, so I hear, dive-bombing raids to destroy our fighters before they even get into battle. Well, I have a plan to destroy
their
fighters before they even get into battle. My plan is to attack the Takoradi Trail.”

“Let us go into the map room,” von Mansdorf said.

He found a large map of Northeast Africa and unrolled it, placing glass ashtrays on the corners. “Refresh my memory,” he said.

“The port of Takoradi is actually just off this map,” Schramm said. “It's on the coast of Nigeria. That's where they assemble their Hurricanes. First stop is Kano.” He found Kano. “Then they fly them virtually due east, right across Africa, to Khartoum. Then down the Nile, to Cairo. The vulnerable stretch of the route is here, in
the middle, between Kano and Khartoum. The Hurricanes must land to refuel at Maiduguri, Fort Lamy, Geneina and El Fasher. All those landing-grounds are remote and exposed, and easily attacked. I doubt if they are even defended.”

“Except by Hurricanes, of course,” von Mansdorf said.

“No, sir. The Hurricanes are assembled at Takoradi without guns, to save weight. Their guns are fitted in Cairo.”

“That makes sense.”

“Cut the Takoradi Trail and—”

“And you would get several large medals,” von Mansdorf said. “Now explain how it can be done.”

“The same way the SAS operates. They've been raiding north against us. We raid south against them.”

Von Mansdorf looked at him, expecting more. Then he looked at the map. “It has the merit of simplicity,” he said. “From Benghazi to the Takoradi Trail is about two thousand kilometers.” He measured it with a series of hand-spans, just to be sure. “That's in a direct line. It's like driving from Paris to Moscow without roads, and with nowhere to get fuel or food, in fact with nothing but sand, heat and flies. Isn't that something of a tall order?”

“Normally yes, sir. But there's an Italian officer called di Marco who led expeditions across the Sahara before the war—”

“Have you consulted him?”

“Not yet.”

“Excuse me.”

When von Mansdorf came back, he said, “I've had a talk with Captain di Marco and he says it can't be done.”

Schramm was bewildered. “Just like that?” he said.

“It's three times as far as the longest unbroken journey the SAS patrols make. Below Kufra the going is bad, very bad. To carry enough fuel and water you would need a huge column of vehicles. The operation would be highly
visible. The Takoradi Trail runs through Chad, which is French. The French would be hostile.”

Colonel von Mansdorf walked with Schramm to his car. “Be kind to yourself,” he advised. “Don't try to see General Schaefer again. You'll find yourself on the Russian Front, honestly you will.”

Schramm drove back to Barce. There was a message on his desk. It said that a signal had been received from a stay-behind agent the Italians had left at Kufra. Captain Lampard's patrol had come and gone.

*   *   *

When the patrol stopped for a midday meal, Lampard opened his sealed orders. He read them twice and called for the other officers: Dunn, Gibbon and Sandiman. “Primary target is Beda Fomm,” he told them.

Gibbon had his maps ready. “Ninety-odd kilometers south of Benghazi, just east of the coast road.”

“Beda Fomm is a big airfield,” Lampard said. “Very juicy.”

“German or Italian?” Dunn asked.

“German. Two squadrons of 109s, so I'm told. Don't tell the men anything. I'll brief them later. And certainly don't tell our distinguished passengers.”

Lester and Malplacket were relatively content. They had escaped from Kufra; unknown adventures lay over the horizon; and in the meanwhile everything was holiday. All their decisions were made for them. Food was rich and plentiful. Travel was not too uncomfortable, and when it stopped there were amusing soldiers to talk to.

By the end of the first day the patrol had maneuvered its way across the narrow neck of the Calanscio Sand Sea. It would have made more progress if one truck had not lost its steering. There was tinned steak and fresh eggs from Kufra for supper, with fried potatoes and tinned carrots,
followed by tinned pineapple. The sunset was as spectacular as ever. Lester lay in his blankets and watched the staggering display put on by the stars until he felt giddy. He closed his eyes and began writing in his head.
Deep in the merciless Sahara we advanced stealthily
. . . Soon he fell asleep.

*   *   *

“Is it a good idea? I don't know whether it's a good idea, Paul. Did you talk it over with di Marco? After von Whats-hisname?”

“No.”

“Well, that's brilliant, isn't it? You nominate di Marco to lead your astonishing expedition, but you don't discuss it with him.”

“It's pointless now. He killed it.”

Hoffmann grunted, and the top of his cigar glowed in the night. “Sounds like it was dead to start with.” They were strolling around the airfield. Strictly speaking he was breaking his own blackout regulations, but in his opinion any British bomber pilot who could see a cigar two miles below him deserved a direct hit.

“Schaefer's got no imagination,” Schramm said. “He can't see the possibilities. Takoradi is the Achilles' heel of the Desert Air Force.”

“Two thousand kilometers away.”

“Ever heard of fuel dumps?”

“Over some of the worst terrain in Africa. Keep your voice down.”

They were a couple of hundred yards from a row of 109s. The night was so black that the fighters were lost in its darkness, but Hoffmann knew where he was. He and Schramm stepped slowly and cautiously. Their approach seemed to take an age. Toward the end, Schramm felt ill with the tension of expectation. The sentries were armed.
At any instant the night might be ripped apart. So might he. Ripped and smashed. He remembered what the bodies of the deserters had looked like.

Hoffmann tripped the alarm first: he felt a tiny pressure on his leg and immediately called out: “Don't shoot! Station commander.”

Three spotlights dazzled them. Nobody spoke. The spotlights went out. Schramm relaxed his fists.

As they walked back to their quarters, he said, “I don't know why I suggested doing that. Ludicrously dangerous.”

“See what happens when you fall in love? All of a sudden you want to live forever. Fatal, old chap, fatal.”

Schramm didn't want to think about love, or women, or anything that suggested Italian lady doctors, life, death, or waltzes on the accordion. “What went wrong at Benina?” he asked.

“Oh, sheer bad luck. Endless trouble with the radar. All night long it kept producing phantom aircraft until finally everyone just ignored it. So inevitably five genuine plots appeared, dive-bombed the field and departed. We lost five or six machines on the ground, plus ten dead and twenty wounded. Flak got one of theirs.”

“Yes? What type?”

“Nobody knows. The pilot's thirty feet underground, splashed all over his engine. Flak gunners reckon they were P-40s. Tomahawks or Kittyhawks.”

“That's not possible. They haven't got the range.”

“Tell Benina. They'll be very relieved.”

*   *   *

LG 250 was even more austere than LG 181. A few tents; a couple of packing-cases where spares and tools were kept; a canvas cover under which people ate; and a latrine screen: that was it, all bleached white by the sun and
scoured by the endless wind, and lost in a rippling infinity of sand. The adjutant came out from behind the latrine screen, late in the morning, and squinted into the glare. Tents floated like fishing boats on lakes of trembling heat. An airplane distorted and shrank until it seemed that nothing connected the tail unit to the fuselage. A man walked, but his limbs were blobs. Kellaway found the whole scene thoroughly unsatisfactory.

He set off for the orderly room and could not find it. It seemed to have been removed. This was getting worse and worse.

A corporal-armorer walked by, dressed in boots and shorts and with belted ammunition draped around his neck. “Not Wednesday, is it?” Kellaway asked.

“Beats me, sir. Dunno the month, let alone the day.”

“In this squadron, sports afternoon is Wednesday, corporal. If this isn't Wednesday then you're improperly dressed.”

“Sir.” The corporal looked around for help.

“If I had my way, you'd be on a 252 and inside the guardroom in double-quick time,” Kellaway said. “Trouble is, all the 252s are kept in the orderly room and somebody's moved it.” He looked everywhere. “Don't tell me they've taken the guardroom too!” he exclaimed.

“Sir, I think the doctor wants you.”

“Where?” The doctor was not in sight. “By God, have they taken the bloody doctor?” Kellaway was indignant. He stamped up and down, shaking his head. “Turn your back for five minutes,” he muttered, “this is what happens.”

The corporal saw Skull, and waved. “I expect Mr. Skelton knows all about it, sir,” he said.

“He'd better. Don't see how we can carry on like this.”

Skull opened his golf umbrella and came over. “Something troubling you, Uncle?”

“No, no. Nothing of any consequence,” the adjutant
said with heavy sarcasm. “It's just that I don't see how we can possibly have a CO's parade without a flagpole, do you?” He folded his arms and tightened his jaw: the very picture of a hardworking staff officer who has done his utmost and got absolutely no cooperation from anyone.

“A flagpole,” Skull said. “Where did you see it last, Uncle?” He nodded to the corporal, who marched off, ammo belts swinging.

“Where it always was: right there, in front of the admin block. Where I had my orderly room. Don't suppose I shall see
that
again. Guardroom's gone, too. And the camp cinema. Airmen's ablutions. Sickbay. Cookhouse. All gone.”

“Not the cookhouse, Uncle,” Skull said. “We still have a sort of a cookhouse.” He pointed.

“Nonsense. Cookhouse should be over
there
, next to the airmen's mess. Then the NAAFI, stores, transport section, squash court, officers' mess. Now we haven't even got a flagpole. The whole squadron's gone to pot.”

The doctor came hurrying across the sand. “Didn't I tell him to stay out of the sun?” he complained.

“He thinks he's back at Kingsmere,” Skull told him. “That's where the squadron was based before the war. It's in Essex.”

“Are you going on leave?” Kellaway demanded.

“No, Uncle,” Skull said sadly. “I'm not going on leave.”

“Then why aren't you in uniform? Customs of the Service say that an officer wears mufti only when he's outside the camp. And mufti means a dark suit with a tie. That's not a dark suit.”

“No, Uncle. It's a rowing blazer.”

“But today isn't Wednesday.” By now the adjutant was trembling with distress. “In this squadron, sports afternoon is on a Wednesday!”

“Come with me, Uncle.” The doctor took his arm and
led him away. “Customs of the Service,” Kellaway said. “That chap's wearing
suede boots.
An officer does not appear in public in suede boots, for God's sake . . .”

*   *   *

Half an hour later, Barton briefed the three pilots. Skull listened. The target was a Luftwaffe landing-ground at the eastern end of the Jebel, called Bir Dagnish. They would make a high approach, taking advantage of the poor visibility at midday, bomb the place and beat it for home. Barton was giving them radio frequencies and compass bearings in case anyone got lost, when the adjutant could be heard, shouting. Then they saw him attacking the doctor with a folding canvas chair. A wild swing made the doctor jump and stumble. A lucky thrust caught him in the stomach and he went down. The adjutant trod on him firmly, folded up the canvas chair, went back and trod on him again, and finally set off for Barton and the pilots.

“He's got to go,” Barton said.

“No, no. He's only winded,” Skull said. “He'll recover.” Kellaway marched over to them.

“Jolly good,” he said. “Just wanted half a minute with the chaps before you all toddled off, if I may, sir.” Barton nodded.

They all watched carefully. Uncle, in this state, was like an elderly dog that could wag its tail and bite simultaneously.

“That fool of a doctor wanted me to drink his rum,” he said. “I told him, an officer does not ‘stand drinks' to a brother officer in the mess. Just not done. Customs of the Service. He wouldn't listen. Kept insisting. Not the sort of thing a chap can take sitting down.” He opened the canvas chair, shook it, closed it, and looked at Skull. “What?” he said.

“Of course you know he's Irish,” Skull said.

“Yes? Drink a lot of rum in Ireland, do they? Anyway . . . That's not the point. The point is Takoradi. Now I know you chaps think you're here to hammer the Hun and thus avoid getting sent to Takoradi, wherever that is. But such is not the case. You can forget Takoradi.”

“Yeah? Who says?” Barton asked.

“Baggy Bletchley. He told me they don't need ferry pilots for Takoradi any more. Someone found a bunch of ferry pilots. They fell down the back of a filing cabinet. Typical HQ cock-up. Anyway, that's not the point.” He did his trick with the folding chair again.

“I don't want to hurry you, Uncle,” Pip Patterson said, “but we've got an airfield to blow up.”

“Exactly,” Uncle said. “That's the thing. That's what all this strafing and bombing's been about. Fanny was going to get the chop.”

“Oh, shit,” Barton said wearily.

“You mean sacked?” Skull said. “Fired? Posted?”

“Another cock-up, obviously,” Uncle said. “But Fanny foxed 'em, didn't you, Fanny?” Loyalty and friendship shone in his eyes. “We all knew the squadron would die without Fanny, so Fanny fixed it with Group that he could stay if we strafed like billy-ho, and . . . and . . .” Uncle looked at the little group. “And here we are.”