by Jack Hayes
“Any of that any use?” Patterson asked.
“Oh yes,” Maddox grinned. “That’ll do nicely.”
CHAPTER 17
Maddox popped his head over the crest of the snow bank.
The Königstiger was an awesome beast, in the way that a shark charging through the water towards you, jaws gaping, was a beautiful spectacle to behold even as it terrified and signalled a near certain impending death.
The cannon barrel was big enough that you could stick your fist inside and still have room around the sides.
Maddox noticed his fingers twitching with nerves as he saw the tracks rumble hypnotically toward him, churning through the dirt and frost.
It was by far the biggest of the main German battle-tanks and designed specifically to overcome the improved Allied and Russian tanks that the Nazis now faced.
Worse, Maddox had never been up against one before. If he’d had experience destroying them, he might have felt a little less trepidation.
“If we die doing this,” Jouhki said, “you have to promise me one thing.”
“What?” Maddox asked.
“You’ll take care of the Russians,” Jouhki replied. “You don’t need to kill them, I understand they’re technically your allies – but make sure they don’t make it any further into our land. My village isn’t far from here. Without me to protect them – well, I don’t want to die fighting Germans, the last thought on my mind being whether it’ll lead to the raping of my wife and the burning of my kids.”
Maddox stared deep into the Finn’s eyes. He knew the comments weren’t idle paranoia. He’d spent enough time around Russians, even billeting a few days helping their soldiers defeat the Nazis at Stalingrad. He knew that the Red Army didn’t worry too much about the boundary between civilians and military when it overran towns that had shown resistance.
“Agreed,” Maddox said. “But it won’t come to that.”
Jouhki’s eyes narrowed as he explored Maddox’s face. He nodded slowly. In that moment the vows between them were truly sealed. Jouhki climbed up onto his skis and ran them back and forth through the snow to prepare himself.
“Ready?” he asked.
Maddox stared back across at the advancing German convoy. Three Hanomags, two trucks, 40 or so troops… and a Königstiger tank.
“Go!” he hissed.
***
Ten of Nieder’s soldiers were lined up in the mine camp and ready to climb into his one working truck.
Kalb marched along the men, checking they were ready for combat.
Nieder liked the way Kalb the handled the MP38. His hands were carefully placed around the weapon, marking him out as a veteran of the war. Although the gun was generally reliable, Nieder knew well from experience that the long magazine on its underside was a weakness.
Raw recruits could often be lulled into gripping the sub machine gun there, using the magazine as a handhold. The increased pressure, over time, knocked the ammunition out of alignment with the MP 38’s single-feed insert.
That led the gun to jam.
Nieder knew his men well. There were no raw recruits left in his squad. They’d all been weeded out early in the hellish conflicts they’d experienced fighting in the Ukraine and Poland.
Nieder reached into his pocket and pulled out a small lapel pin, just slightly larger than a jacket button. It was a symbol of membership, the gift of an organization he’d joined earlier in the year.
He twisted it around in the light.
The sun dazzled as it sparkled around the ivory inlaid pattern – an angled swastika, set against a faded pink maze as a background.
“Labyrinth,” he muttered. “I hope to god you bastards are right and this war can be turned around and won.”
His attention was brought back to the present as Kalb began shouting orders.
“Right,” the sergeant bellowed. “Everyone in the truck.”
Kalb approached Nieder and, uncharacteristically, seemed almost contrite.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You’ll be dividing your forces – and we know the Russians are on the way.”
“Have I not told you exactly what I want?” Nieder finally snapped.
“You have,” Kalb replied, instantly stiffening.
“Then do it,” Nieder said. “Find the convoy. Protect it. Any problems with Russians or Finns and you kill them. All of them.”
CHAPTER 18
The Königstiger tank rumbled towards Maddox’s position with relentless intensity.
It was 100 yards away.
A single blast of its almighty cannon could punch through one side of a brick house and go straight out the other. Its awesome noise startled a stag and his does, foraging along the edge of the trees. The deer herded three young calves and pelted into the woods.
90 yards.
Behind the tank, the drivers of the Hanomags had their gazes firmly fixed ahead, their faces obscured by the metal plate armour guarding the driving compartment. Even with the Tiger II tank destroyed any one of them, on their own, could take out all his men with their armoured machine guns.
80 yards.
And there were three of them to contend with.
Never mind whatever the Germans had stashed in the trucks.
Maddox could feel the muscles in his shoulder blades tighten. He flicked his neck from side to side and felt the relief as the bones cracked all the way to the base of his skull.
70 yards.
Mild, palliative relief.
But the stress would only end when the war was finally over.
And perhaps not even then.
Maddox shouldered his Sten gun and took aim along its sight.
“But if there’s fifty fewer Germans in the world,” he thought, “that day draws ever nearer…”
60 yards.
Maddox swallowed hard. His mouth was dry. As he lay the barrel of the Sten along the snow the soft coldness prickled against his skin. He couldn’t see the rest of his men but he knew they were in place and awaiting the first signal.
55 yards.
If these Germans were veterans, they knew Finnish tactics. 54 yards. First, block the road with a tree, then hit the back vehicle. 53 yards. They’d have a response in mind after so many previous attacks.
52 yards.
“So let’s see how you respond to an SOE spanner in your works,” he muttered.
51 yards.
The explosion was deafening.
Two boxes of dynamite, buried under the road.
The tank tracks shuddered. A brilliant, orange flash erupted from its underside. Smoke plumed from the chassis. But the damn thing was so heavy, it bulk stuck fast to the road. The lieutenant, seconds before proudly erected, gripped at the sides of his position. He bent through and shouted.
His men were dead – hot metal would have spattered through and ricocheted around the inside until they’d mashed everyone inside.
Walker, Conley and Shield opened fire from the side. They shot through the canvas walls of the trucks. Maddox didn’t know how many soldiers the vehicles contained – but he needed them dead before they could leap out onto the ground.
Bullets ripped through the fabric.
Screams and shots from those inside.
A second almighty explosion.
One of the trucks was blasted from its wheels. A stray slug from Walker had hit TNT inside destined to help the mining operation extract their diamonds. Steel fragments pinged off the Hanomag in front and behind.
Five seconds had passed.
But the Germans were quick to recover.
Those inside the Hanomags were already on their feet, readying rifles over the sides.
The lieutenant leapt from the tank.
Maddox, already primed, unleashed a burst from his Sten.
The lieutenant’s boots hit the earth. Rough lead ripped through his body. His back arched. Another burst barked from the Sten. The German collapsed.
Jouhki’s Finns opened fire
from hidden positions, filling the truck cabs with bullets. Windscreens shattered, raining glass tears onto the world. The drivers inside jiggered as their torsos stiffened then went limp.
Ten seconds had elapsed.
The Nazis were without their tank, leaderless and their procession already devastated.
A third explosion – this one Sledge’s well placed charges around the conifers behind the convoy. Giant trunks severed at their bases and tumbled across the road, crashing to blockade the Germans in.
The veterans of the Heer inside the three Hanomags were responding though. Withering fire was directed toward Walker’s position. The lead half-track driver was trying to find a way around the Tiger II, blocking his path. The second and third, were up on the banks of the road, the soldiers within also launching round after round to keep the Allies pinned, as they began to snake their way passed the stalled trucks.
Twelve seconds.
“Come on,” Maddox hissed. “We’re taking too long. They’re going to get it together if we don’t move it.”
There was a thunderous clap and groan. The ground underneath the tank, weakened by the explosion of the dynamite, gave way. The beast tipped upward and nosed into the pit that opened.
The Germans were trapped. The natural route out was to reverse. And that escape was blocked by the felled pines.
The Finns started firing from their separate position, further along the convoy.
Fifteen seconds.
The Germans began to respond in force. They shifted men within the armoured half-tracks to shut down this second assault.
Slugs clanged as they ricocheted off the Hanomags’ steel plate.
The Hanomag machine guns raked the snow banks. Walker and his team were utterly suppressed; their fire stopped as they hunkered in, close as they could to the ground, trying to withstand the withering counter attack. The German soldiers unleashed volley after volley.
Twenty seconds.
Empty shell casings flicked into the air, clattering onto the ground like hail stones. Steam rose from the snow as white-hot lead impacted and melted it as it pounded its way through.
The third Hanomag eased past the stalled back truck, allowing it to support the second and protect its rear. That allowed soldiers in the second to refocus on the Finns. With their weapons joining those in the first, now the Finns were pinned down too.
The front two half-tracks rotated their heavy machine guns on the Finnish position.
Twenty five seconds.
The attack was devastating.
Shells powerful enough to fell an elephant punched into the snow banks around the Finns.
Thirty seconds.
It was all over.
The Finns broke ranks.
Up on their skis, they launched across the road.
Typical tactics.
Hit and run.
The Germans were expecting it.
Maddox heard the shout of the sergeant in the lead Hanomag as he took command: “Wir sie jetzt haben!”
‘We have them, now!’
The grinding whirr as machine guns rotated.
The Finns struggled with their skis on the road’s ice, churned to slurry by the Tiger II’s bulky tracks.
“Faster,” Maddox muttered. “You need to be faster…”
The Finns, so quick on their skis over their normal ground, grew faster as they reached the path’s edge and darted through the gaps in the trees.
But the Germans were quicker.
The Hanomag machine guns muzzles spat forth.
Jouhki was first to into the pines.
He made it. His second was caught in the back.
The machine gun rounds were so big they blew a plate-sized hole in his body. His chest exploded as the shell exited. Arms asunder, he was thrown to the earth. The third Finn weaved. He reached the trees and nipped through. Bark on the tree trunks splintered into the air as the German soldiers missed him.
The fourth Finn was caught in the side.
The force of the German rifles lifted and span his body.
For a brief moment he moved in slow motion – a ballet dancer in mid turn as he rotated through the air.
A whelp issued from his lips.
His body smacked into a tree stump and was riddled with more machine gun fire.
Another report from the Germans and he was silenced.
Maddox was already moving. The Finns needed cover. The Hanomags veered off the road, the lead driver directed by his sergeant to push through the trees in pursuit of them fleeing commandos.
They ploughed through the first row of conifers. The forest here was less dense than in other places and wide enough between the boughs to support their bulk. Even so, the skiers had the advantage of being able to duck around the pines, even as the heavy German rounds, punched their way through the wood.
Maddox pushed himself on.
He was behind the Germans, but gaining on their right flank.
Jouhki’s remaining squad member flittered between the pines. A shell cracked into the soil next to him. The Finn swerved. A slight jump. More bullets rattled. He bobbed. A German machine gun clipped his shoulder.
He upended.
He tried to stand.
The lead Hanomag caught up to him.
A face full of terror.
Maddox averted his eyes. He heard the chilling crunch as the man was crushed beneath the half-track.
A scream that was cut all too short.
Only one Finn remained – Jouhki himself.
Maddox raced on.
A trample to his side – his eyes flicked instinctively toward the source – the reindeer from earlier, disturbed from their new haven, bounded away, seeking greater safety from the whipping bullets that thickened the air.
His breathing was heavy. The muscles in his thighs ached from the exertion. Fit though he was, the tiny stabilizers required for cross-country skiing weren’t those he normally used. He could feel the lactic burn with every pound of his poles into the ground.
He was nearly level with the half-tracks, now.
They rattled and clawed at the earth, Rottweilers chasing a fleeing rabbit.
Jouhki had the edge on distance.
But the Germans were gaining.
CHAPTER 19
A shout from the third Hanomag.
They’d seen Maddox.
There was a crack and a boom.
The third half-track’s machine gun swivelled in the Englishman’s direction and rattled off slug after slug.
The driver swerved and began to head in his direction.
Barked shouts of ‘Schnell!’ and ‘Dort drüben!’ intermittently hit his ears.
“No, no,” Maddox said.
He was racing so fast, he couldn’t afford to drop his stance and return fire.
Against the half-track’s armour, his Sten would be useless anyway.
Jouhki was barely 60 yards ahead now – bobbing and winding away to his left.
A new rally of fire.
The second Hanomag joined the third in aiming at Maddox. The first, scenting blood in the water, continued its focus on the Finn.
A tree next to Maddox received a dizzying volley to its trunk.
Its trunk disintegrated, reduced to a pulp.
Another, ahead, was ripped from the ground by the rain of fire.
Maddox leapt, soil smattering around his skis as he vaulted the fallen branches.
He was nudging in front of the leading Hanomag.
The half-tracks roared on, forever closing the gap to the Finn. Ahead, the forest thickened. The trees knitted together so that their high canopy prevented the snow from reaching the woodland floor.
Jouhki unclipped his skis and sprinted into the blackness between their branches.
More slugs as the first Hanomags joined the others and focused on Maddox.
He reached the thicker tree line and darted through, twisting his boots free of the straps that held them tight to the skis. Although the high cei
ling of the forest meshed the trees almost seamlessly into a roof above, at their base they were far enough apart to still allow the half-tracks through.
Maddox, his lungs bursting, cast his skis aside and ran after his Finnish friend.
He was barely ahead of the Germans now – but still 50 yards to their right...
He heard the crash as the lead vehicle plunged into the woods – the thin pines at the forest’s edge no match for the Reich’s finest in heavy engineering. With a growl from its 6-cylinder Maybach engine, the 8 ton monster changed course and charged after the only target in sight: Maddox.
There was no hope of outrunning them on foot.
40 yards.
It would chase him down in less than thirty seconds.
35 yards.
He pelted onward.
30 yards.
His hamstrings screamed as his legs pounded away.
25 yards.
He could hear the trees being pulverized as the massive half-tracks ripped them aside and hunted him down.
20 yards.
He saw it.
The ditch.
Maddox grinned sardonically.
“I’ve got you now, you bastards.”
He dropped into hollow.
With a heavy ‘oomph’, he dropped onto his front and began to crawl.
Mud and sticks and pine cones and needles jabbed through the earth, slashing at his forearms and knees.
This deep into the dense forest, the light was cut to a permanent dusk. With luck, the Germans hadn’t seen him vanish.
The engines of the Hanomags grew louder.
Elbow over elbow, he scrabbled along the trench.
He could feel the jabbing twigs ripping away beneath the leather of his gloves.
The motors were drowning out all other sound.
They had to be nearly on top of him…
“Please, please, keep going…”
The Hanomags roared.
They reached the ditch Maddox had tumbled into.
“Please… please…”
Tank tracks growled, lashing at thin air as they span over the narrow trench.
The Germans raced on, ripping across the ditch as though it wasn’t there, the unstoppable bluster of the chase flaring in their nostrils.
Maddox chanced a peek over the earthen edge.
The lead sergeant in the first Hanomag must have realised something was wrong. Its half-track wheels seized as it skidded to a halt 50 yards on from the hollow. Its body juddered as it idled. The second closed in behind it, swerving to miss its new commander. It, too, came to a standstill. The third, almost jack-knifed against the others as it slammed on the brakes.