A Good Clean Fight Read Free Page A

joined in, until they were all thundering out the Toreador song from
Carmen.
Lampard planted his last two bombs, one on a mobile generator and one on a tractor, and strolled back through the shadows to the door, pom-pomming along with the singers because he didn’t know the words.
    Dunn had the door open, ready for him. “Jerry’s getting jumpy. He had a searchlight on, sweeping the field.”
    â€œWe might as well leave, I suppose.”
    â€œThrough the gap?”
    â€œWhere else?”
    â€œWe’ve only got eight minutes.”
    â€œAmple.”
    â€œThey’ll see us when the bombs go off.”
    â€œThey’ll panic when the bombs go off.”
    â€œYou know best, Jack.”
    The rest of the men began moving as soon as they saw the officers coming. Lampard used a luminous compass tofind a bearing to the gap in the wire. After a hundred yards they reached a tarmac road. “Good,” Lampard said. “This is faster.” His eyes were feeling the strain of looking five ways at once, but his legs and lungs were strong, and he enjoyed marching fast on the smooth surface. He could scarcely hear the faint tread of boots, but he knew exactly where his men were. They were spread behind him in a loose arrowhead. Dunn was on the far left, Davis the far right, Pocock at the rear. Harris was nearest. High time Harris got made sergeant, he decided. A decoration would be wasted on Harris, but he’d like the extra stripe. And the pay. That thought flickered through Lampard’s mind while he glanced at his compass. He reckoned the time remaining on the fuses. He pictured the gap waiting ahead and the steep escarpment of the Jebel. At that point he strode into a dazzle of headlights that stopped him like a blinding brick wall.
    For a few seconds the only sound was the panting and heaving of the patrol. Sergeant Davis spat. Faint shreds of mist drifted across the dazzle. Lampard squinted hard and began to make out three sources: probably headlamps and a spotlight. “Good evening, gentlemen,” said someone in a voice that was urbane and confident, like the head waiter at Claridge’s. “Weapons on the ground immediately, please. Then take two paces forward and lie flat.” Nobody moved. Lampard cocked his head. Five hundred miles away an orchestra was playing Mozart. Very faint, but quite unmistakable.
    â€œNaturally you are surrounded.” A tiny click, and Mozart died. “Unless you surrender, I regret that you must be shot where you stand.” The regret sounded formal but genuine, like Claridge’s turning away a gentleman without a necktie.
    Still nobody moved. The initial blindness had gone, but the dazzle was painful and it made the surrounding darkness twice as dense.
    â€œI’m going forward,” Lampard announced without turning to the patrol. “If I am fired upon, you will blow this vehicle to bits. Understand? Never mind me. One shot, and you destroy the vehicle totally and immediately.” He had the sensation of being outside himself, watching and hearing these orders being given. He stepped forward and the sensation vanished.
    It was an Alfa-Romeo open tourer, very big. A Luftwaffe major sat behind the wheel. Nobody else was in the car. Lampard stood on the running board and looked around. Empty ground. “You don’t half tell whoppers,” he said. “Now kill the lights and jump out.”
    The major pressed switches and the night flooded back. “I may take my stick?” he asked.
    Lampard opened the door. The major had some difficulty getting out. By now Sergeant Davis and Corporal Pocock had moved out wide to guard the flanks. Harris searched the German for weapons: none. Dunn said: “I make it three minutes, Jack.”
    â€œMore than ample. We’ll take this splendid car.”
    â€œWe can’t leave
him
,” Dunn said.
    â€œLet me kill him,” Harris said.
    Lampard said: “Yes, why