Code of Combat by Michael Asher

Author:Michael Asher [Asher, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Angostina led them through the moonlit dapples of the trees, around the base of a gnarled black cliff where moonshine caught the inked-out waters of a brook, to a rock overhang concealed in a deep thorn thicket. It wasn’t much of a shelter – just a shallow recess where fallen slabs of volcanic rock had poised themselves in precarious positions. The place smelt of goats: it had a smooth, sandy floor scattered with loose boulders, bone fragments and the black pearls of animal droppings. They sat on their heels, while Angostina gave them water and the leftovers of food from Caine’s knapsack – bread, cheese and olives – washed down with slugs of wine from the bottle. Afterwards Caine handed Emilia a cigarette, took one himself: Angostina waved them away. He lit both cigarettes with a match, wondered how far away from the villa they were. It couldn’t be more than half a mile, he guessed. Smoking wasn’t tactical: the Germans would almost certainly be searching this area soon. Caine decided that morale required a cigarette, though: right now, morale was more important than tactics.

Emilia coughed, removed the cigarette from her mouth, studied it. Even in the overhang, there was enough moonlight to turn the place into a weft of silvery shadows. ‘Do you think we’re safe here?’ she said.

Caine took a deep drag of his cigarette, held the smoke in his lungs, let it out slowly. ‘For a while, maybe – unless they found that tunnel. Even then they’d have a problem getting through that door after we locked it from the outside.’

Emilia shook her head, took a tentative pull on her cigarette, coughed again, patted her chest. ‘God, what do they put in these things – donkey crap?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Those catacombs are a maze. I wouldn’t mind betting that the Krauts who followed us are already lost.’

‘They’ll start searching these woods come daylight, though. We’d better get moving soon.’

‘Ma dove sono i miei vestiti?’ Angostina wailed suddenly ‘Where are my clothes? You say you bring them back.’

Caine noticed that the old woman was shivering under the poncho: he remembered guiltily that he’d sacrificed her garments for greater freedom of movement. ‘I’m sorry, I had to leave them. They were covered in blood – Kraut blood. You wouldn’t have wanted to wear them, believe me.’

‘Ma erano i miei vestiti?’ Angostina complained. ‘How I go back home without my clothes? Now Cabbage-Heads find them and know I help you, no? They take me to Jesi and shoot me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We could leave you tied up so the Krauts think I stole them. I’m not sure they’d even believe it, though. And they’d know we came this way. You’ll just have to go home like that.’

‘Ma cosa dici? Non posso tornare a casa senza vestiti . . .’

She launched into a long and plaintive dialogue in Italian with Emilia. Caine drifted off for a moment, found himself wondering whether Stengel had been killed in the grenade attack, whether Bunny Butterfield had survived.

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