David Gibbins - The Mask of Troy

He peered past his driver, Corporal Lewes, taking in every ditch, every undulation in the fields around them, every place a sniper might be concealed, looking at the landscape as five years of war had taught him. He glanced at the American M1 carbine slung over the dashboard, and felt the Webley in the holster at his hip. He had reason to feel uneasy. They were almost eight kilometres behind enemy lines. Eight kilometres. The German area commander had arranged a truce, and had assured them of the safety of the road. Behind them the invisible bulk of British 2nd Army was rumbling inexorably forward, village by bloody village, fighting on German soil against men defending their homeland. Soon organized resistance would crumble. That was where the danger lay. Orders from area commanders would become meaningless. The enemy could be out there in the ditches now: old men with Panzerfaust rockets still fighting the First World War, boys of the Hitlerjugende in outsized uniforms who thought they were immortal, a few battle-hardened remnants of the Wehrmacht and the SS who had somehow survived all the carnage since Normandy. Soldiers who would react reflexively, just as he would, who were beyond orders, whose only thought would be to kill their enemy.

A hand nudged his shoulder. He twisted back, hearing the American accent but not making out the words. ‘You’ll have to speak up,’ he shouted over the roar of the jeep. ‘I’m deaf in my right ear. Shell concussion.’

‘I said out here it looks like the war’s over already.’

‘Don’t count on it,’ Mayne shouted. He turned back, peering ahead. They had come up behind a lumbering lorry with Red Cross markings, and were now travelling at an excruciating ten miles an hour. He rapped his fingers impatiently against the door. They were more vulnerable to sniping at low speed. Lewes glanced at him. ‘I’ll overtake in a moment, sir. The road widens a few hundred yards ahead.’

Mayne grunted, took a deep breath and twisted back again to look at the occupant of the rear seat. They had picked him up at the checkpoint twenty minutes earlier, and he had immediately asked to see the drawing Mayne was carrying, the reason they were here. He had scrutinized it for a few seconds and handed it back without a word. Mayne knew better than to ask questions at this stage. He had done intel ops for long enough to know how to play the game, and he had his own agenda too. Colonel Woolley back at HQ was always drumming it into them. They were all on the same side, all with the same objectives, but all operating in different patches of light and darkness, and sometimes it was best to feel your own way forward before asking others to shine a spotlight for you. He would feel the ground first. The American was an older man, middle-aged, wearing the uniform of a US army lieutenant colonel. Apart from his sidearm he looked as if he had walked straight out of a London tailor’s. ‘You seen much action?’ Mayne asked sceptically.

The man had shrewd eyes. ‘I’m just an honorary officer. Flew in from England yesterday. Before the war I was at the Courtauld Institute teaching art history, on sabbatical from Yale. But my family background is German and I volunteered to work for the BBC German Service Workers’ Programme, the Psychological Warfare Department. After the Americans joined the war I transferred to the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section, the MFAA. They decided we should be commissioned into the army to give us clout. We’ve been preparing for this since before D-Day. The name’s Stein, by the way. David Stein.’ He extended a hand over the front seat, but Howard only nodded. It was too painful to twist his right arm around. And his eyes were fixed on a pair of RAF Typhoon fighter-bombers that had appeared at tree level down the road behind them. For a terrible moment it looked as if they were about to be strafed. The white star on the bonnet of the jeep would be invisible, but he hoped to God the pilots would see the red cross painted on the back door of the lorry. Their operations behind enemy lines were top secret, and Tactical Air Command was never given any information. It was one of the risks. Then the two aircraft roared overhead, the huge air intakes under their engine cowlings gaping like hungry lions, and banked sharply east, their rocket racks still full. Mayne shut his eyes for a moment, and clenched his hands to stop them shaking. It was getting worse each time. He had managed to keep it from Hugh, when he had seen him at HQ. But how much longer could he control it? Stein withdrew his arm and shaded his eyes, following the aircraft as they disappeared towards a distant pall of smoke where the battle was raging. ‘Good to have air cover,’ he shouted. He turned back and leaned forward, pointing at the ribbons on Mayne’s battledress tunic. ‘And you? Don’t often see a boffin with a Military Cross.’

‘I’m not a boffin. I’m a soldier.’ Mayne braced himself again as the jeep lurched forward and sped around the lorry, just squeezing past as the road widened. Lewes floored the accelerator and they hurtled down the open road, by now free of bomb damage. ‘I was at Oxford before the war, reading classics,’ he shouted. ‘Joined the infantry, went to France in time for Dunkirk. Then North Africa with 8th Army, El Alamein to Tunis, then Italy. By the time a shell got me at Cassino I was the last surviving officer of my original battalion. Lewes here was my batman. After I was passed fit, we both volunteered for attachment to the Intelligence Corps, Field Security Operations. They needed experienced soldiers, not boffins.’

‘Thirty Commando.’ Stein read out Mayne’s shoulder flashes. ‘Sounds like a combat outfit.’

‘Thirty Commando Assault Unit. We’re a multi-force unit, army, navy, marines. We operate ahead of the advancing army in search of technical intelligence. It used to be anything of tactical value – codes, ciphers, order books, that kind of thing. Now with the battlefield mostly in Allied hands it’s more general, scientific and technical intelligence. Basically anything we can get our hands on. Anything the Germans might try to destroy, or which might fall into the wrong hands.’

‘What’s your brief for this operation?’

‘We’re looking for the girl in the camp who made that drawing. The op’s top secret, as usual. All I know about it comes from a chance encounter with an old friend at VIII Corps HQ this morning, an officer in the British Special Air Service. The SAS have been doing forward recon ops as well, and we bump into them. My friend was leaving Intelligence HQ in a hurry just as I was going in, and we only had a minute. He knew I was about to be briefed for the follow-up. He was the one who took the drawing from the girl. He wasn’t supposed to say anything, but he told me there was something in it that might interest me.’ Mayne paused. It was more than that. It was something they had both recognized. Something that set their hearts pounding with excitement. But he was not going to tell this unknown American officer, yet. ‘We’d both been involved in archaeology before the war, and I could only imagine it was something to do with that, maybe stolen antiquities. Once I knew we were going to be joined by an officer from the MFAA, namely yourself, that seemed to clinch it. That’s all I know.’

‘I was told we’ve only got a small window. Today, this morning.’

‘I was briefed about it at Corps HQ, just before we picked you up. Once the local ceasefire’s over, HQ thinks the remnant German 2nd Marine Division will form up behind the forest and make a last stand. They’re only remustered Kriegsmarine sailors, but they’ve given 11th Armoured Division a few knocks south of Bremen. Shows how good basic infantry training was, even in the navy. They’ll be overrun, but they could give us hell if they get into cover. We don’t want any repeat of what we went through in February in the Reichswald, and what the Americans went through in the Hurtgen Forest. So the plan calls for an RAF heavy bomber raid to smash the whole western sector of the forest. Unless we have very good reason to stall them, Bomber Command have it scheduled for thirty-six hours from now. The camp will be safe, but not the forest. But any new intelligence about German troop movements could alter that. The SAS are keeping an eye out. If German troops have already infiltrated the forest, then everything gets evacuated pronto, the camp included. The RAF will destroy the entire place. We have to be ready for that possibility.’