“Nuts!” Dunn said. “We got in, we’ll get out again.”
“I think not. When you got in, our minefield was ausgeschaltet.” He frowned for a moment. “Off-switched. Switched off. You see, our mines are activated by electricity. Now the minefield is active since ten minutes. I myself have turned the switch.”
Lampard nudged Dunn. “What d’you think?”
“It’s possible.”
Lampard stared down. The German’s face was nothing in the night, but his voice had been firm. “Why bother?” Lampard asked him. “What’s the point?”
“Two minutes five,” Dunn said.
“I shall require more than two minutes five to explain our system of airfield security,” the major said. He sounded slightly amused.
“Okay, forget it.” Lampard turned away and plucked the car’s radio aerial. It vibrated noisily, so he stopped it. “You said you could get us out of here.”
“I said that I can try.”
“Oh-ho. You can try. Now why would you want to do that?”
“Jesus Christ.” Harris was sheathing his knife. “Who cares?”
“I care, corporal. I’m not accustomed to being helped by the enemy.”
“It is better than death,” the major said. “Even to a German officer, death is not welcome.”
“Those fuses aren’t tremendously accurate, you know,” Dunn said.
“What’s your idea?” Lampard asked.
“We go in this car and depart through the main gate,” the major said. “I drive. The guards never stop my car.”
“No. I’ll drive. You sit beside me. Let’s go.”
“No. Not a good idea.” Davis and Pocock had come in from the flanks and were scrambling into the back seats, but the major did not move. “Better I drive.”
“If you drive we might go anywhere. Straight to the guardroom, for instance.”
“And then you shoot me.”
“Anyway, I can drive faster than you can.”
“I well know the road. Do you well know the road?”
“Fuck my old boots!” Harris muttered. “I’ll drive and you two can stay here and argue.”
“Take that man’s name, sergeant.”
“This car is mine,” the major said. “The guards see you driving and at once they think, hello, something smells of fish.”
Lampard opened the door and helped him get in.
“That is good.” The major started the engine.
Lampard vaulted in and sat beside him, tommy-gun across his legs. “Fishy,” he said. “The word is fishy.” The car moved off.
“You agree, then.”
“Faster,” Lampard told the major. The car swung right and left, found a straight, picked up speed. “I may shoot you anyway when we get out,” Lampard said. “Just to calm my nerves.”
“He’s frightfully nervous,” Dunn said to the major. The major smiled.
He drove fast, on dipped headlights. In much less than a minute they were approaching a pair of striped poles across the road. A guard stood in the soft, yellow light of a hurricane lamp; behind him the guardhouse was dimly visible. The guard had a rifle, but he slung it on his shoulder when he recognized the car, turned away and leaned on the counterweight to raise the pole. The major slowed, gave an economical wave, and accelerated through the gap. “Too easy,” Davis said. “Let’s go back and do it again.” The major worked up through the gears with familiar ease. A mile away, a flash blew a golden hole in the night, and then a bang like a thousand fireworks caught up with the car. The men in the back turned to watch. Lampard watched the major. The major watched the road.
A mile and five explosions later, Lampard said: “This is far enough. Get off the road and drive toward the Jebel.” The night was dancing to the flames of blazing aircraft.
The major slowed, but only slightly. “You wish seriously to walk up the Jebel?” he asked. Two trucks raced past them, sirens screaming, heading for the field. The rapid thumping of anti-aircraft guns began. “Just do it!” Lampard shouted. The major changed down a gear. “I know a track,” he said. “A motor track.” A brilliant flash that exposed all the countryside was followed by a dull boom like the slamming of a castle door. “A good motor track,” he said. The entire castle collapsed and the wallop of its destruction washed over the car so violently that everyone flinched. “Bomb dump,” Pocock said, pleased. Lesser thuds and crumps followed. The major changed down again. “I myself have used this track in daylight,” he said. “But you perhaps will rather climb into the Jebel on foot.” He changed down again. Now they were crawling.
“All right,” Lampard said, “we’ll try this amazing track of yours. No lights. I don’t want the Afrika Korps watching to see where we go.”
“Alternative illumination has been provided,” the major said. The sky over Barce aerodrome pulsed and flickered with a red and yellow glow that grew steadily brighter.
He crossed the plain and found his track. The ruts did not match their wheels, and the potholes were as big as buckets. The major charged the car at the hillside as if it were a challenge. Rocks jumped up and savaged the chassis, and the springs groaned under cruel and unusual punishment. The track twisted as it climbed, twisted as it dipped, twisted as it twisted. Later it got worse. Long before that, Lampard had dropped his tommy-gun and was working hard to protect himself from the rush of shocks.
When they topped the crest of the escarpment he shouted, and the German let the car run to a halt. Lampard reached across and switched off the engine.
Corporal Pocock wiped blood from his nose, mouth and chin. “You tryin’ to start a war or somethin’?” he demanded thickly. Blood continued to flow.
“Stop whimpering,” Dunn said.
“Boots off,” Lampard told the major.
“You tear I will run off?” The major got out and took his boots off and gave them to Lampard. “There is little risk of that.” Lampard looked. The heel of the left boot was built up about three inches.
“Why don’t we let him go?” Corporal Harris said. “Let him walk down the mountain in his socks?”
“Search him,” Lampard told Davis. The sergeant rummaged in the German’s pockets, and a small heap of papers and possessions accumulated on the ground. “Back in the car,” Lampard ordered. He scooped everything up and examined it, piece by piece, in the soft light of the dashboard. “You’re a major in the Luftwaffe,” he said.
“So? I feel like a prisoner of the British army.”
“Schramm. P. D. Schramm. What does the P stand for?”
“Paul.” He slumped in his seat, rested his head and shut his eyes. “And your J stands for Jack, I think.”
Lampard ignored this; he was preoccupied with a sheet of typewritten paper. “What d’you make of that, Mike?” he asked.
Dunn stared where Lampard’s finger was pointing. “Abt 5,” he said. “That’s got to be Abteilung 5, hasn’t it? Luftwaffe Intelligence.”
“Lovely grub. That’s the cream on the strawberries, that is. He goes straight to Egypt.”
“Do you intend to introduce yourself?” Schramm asked. “Captain Lampard?”
“Can’t resist showing off, can you?” Lampard stuffed Schramm’s belongings into a rucksack. “Just for that you can come and watch the show.”
They joined the others, who were looking down at the fires on Barce airfield. Even now, there were occasional explosions. An improbable nursery-pink glow was reflected from immense clouds of oily smoke, and the stink of burned fuel and explosives drifted with the midnight breeze. “What d’you think Abteilung Funf will make of that little lot?” Dunn asked the German.
“Can’t resist showing off, can you?” the German said, which amused the rest of the patrol.