by Jack Hayes
In the gloom of the forest, the conical beams of their headlamps glowered out through the trees.
The soldiers plunged out onto the ground – guns at the ready. Maddox smirked. They expected another ambush. It seemed a pity to disappoint. The sergeant hopped down, his chest already filling as his ego enlarged to fill his field commission to leader.
Rifle in hand, gripped to fire, the sergeant’s head jerked – first to the left, then the right.
Clipped orders: ‘He can’t have got far. Search the area.’
“Now!” Maddox yelled.
His voice echoed among the bows.
All German heads spun in different directions trying to gauge his location.
From somewhere else in the forest he heard a familiar Australian voice ring out…
“My name is Sledge McKlenna. Thank you – and goodbye.”
The heads flicked back, weapons moving between the trees for any sign of a target.
A thin trickle of flame wound its way between the trunks. It lit a meagre trail, snake like, writhing through the darkness of the forest floor.
A cacophonous whoosh.
“Mein Gott in Himmel!”
The ground had been doused with petrol in a thirty-yard circle around the half-tracks.
Petrol that, all this time, had been soaking into the highly flammable decades of pine needles and resin that laced the woodland floor.
The sergeant tried to get back in his Hanomag. Some of the Germans tried to run.
No-one was swift enough.
A booming rush of fire ripped up from the land, hell unleashed.
The burling intensity of heat flushed Maddox’s face.
“Okay,” he ducked back into the trench, “this is going to get out of hand quickly…”
Back on all fours he barrelled on.
Crackle and hiss.
The fizzles and pops and screams echoed around the forest.
As Maddox barrelled along the ditch, he heard the submachine guns of Patterson, Fallon and Marlowe open up. It wasn’t maliciousness – Maddox had ordered it. Any German obviously alive should be shot to end their suffering.
He crawled far from the perimeter of the fire and lifted himself back into the forest.
The flames were raging and began to take hold outside the initially doused area.
The conifer resin was catching fire far more strongly than he’d anticipated.
“Fall back,” he yelled. “Fall back.”
The last thing he wanted was to lose his own men to the trap as the entire area turned into an inferno.
CHAPTER 20
Sergeant Kalb raised an eyebrow.
The balling mushroom of flame burst into the sky two miles to his right, well away from the road.
“Shit,” he growled.
The fire ballooned as it rose, black ash casting a dancing shadow across the forest canopy as it spread.
“What is it?” one of his privates asked.
“At a guess?” he replied. “Our relief convoy, literally going up in smoke.”
He slapped his palm firmly on the driver’s compartment of the truck. The driver pulled the lorry to the side of the road and allowed its motor to idle as everyone stared at the rising plume.
“The Russians?” the private asked.
“I doubt it,” Kalb sneered.
“Then the Finns,” another piped up. “We’ve long suspected they’ve been intercepting our supplies.”
Kalb’s tongue flittered across his lips, chapped from the moist air.
“That’s a no as well, I’m afraid,” he replied. “They would hardly be so stupid as to raze one of their own forests to the ground simply to get a few cases of TNT. And attacking a force of that size on their own is also foolhardy beyond even their level.”
“Then who?”
Kalb tapped on the driver’s partition a second time and the truck recommenced its journey.
“If not the Russians or the Finns,” he said, “then it’s a mystery. Let’s go and find out who it was. And then execute every last motherfucking one of them.”
CHAPTER 21
Maddox emerged from the trees coughing, his face dark with soot.
Patterson passed across the Captain’s skis, retrieved from the spot where he’d discarded them.
“What was the final tally?” he asked.
“Every German is dead,” Patterson replied. “Walker says one of the trucks is still usable and contains more food and bandages. I’ve said Aku can take it back to his village.”
“Agreed,” Maddox said, looking across at the Finn.
Aku was sitting next to a fallen stump, leaning over the fallen body of one of his men.
“I’m so, so sorry for your loss,” Maddox said, placing a firm hand on his comrade’s shoulder.
The Finn shook his head. There were tears on his cheeks.
“I grew up with these men,” he said. “In the last two days, I’ve lost friends, distant cousins – even my brother-in-law.”
Maddox nodded grimly. There were no words for occasions like this, only empty platitudes; none of which could stich tight the wounds caused by death.
“And what now?” Aku asked. “The Germans will be gone as soon as they have their blasted diamonds. We’ll be left with no-one to protect us from the oncoming red horde.”
Maddox glanced down at the blood stained white coveralls of Jouhki’s fallen team mate. There was a youthful quality to his features, his eyes stared out blankly.
Aku reached over and gently brushed the lids closed, leaving his friend resting in eternal sleep.
“I meant what I said, earlier,” Maddox proffered. “I’ll take care of this incursion and send them packing on your behalf.”
Jouhki rubbed the sleeve of his jacket across his cheeks, wiping the tears away from his skin.
“And what good will that do?” he asked. “Saved today – but more will come tomorrow. Rumour has it Helsinki will capitulate inside of the month. This land will be forever ceded to the Russians; Petsamo will be lost.”
“You have the truck,” Maddox said. “Take it and the contents. Drive back to your village and evacuate.”
Jouhki leant down and picked up a fistful of snow.
“I was born on this land,” he said. “It has been paid for with blood.”
“The price has been too high,” Maddox replied. “Don’t lose any more and still not be able to keep it. If you stay, you will be a subjugated people for all time – or at least so long as Soviet Russia exists. Go southwest. Escape while you can. We will hold this Russian advance for you, which should buy you a day or so head start.”
Jouhki’s leaden shoulders rose as he inhaled deeply. As he sighed, deep clouds of vapour poured from his nose and mouth.
“I will do what I can,” he said. “I can take my wife and two children. I cannot speak for the others. Many will stay. But, as of today, I am the only Finnish man for a hundred miles around who is younger than 60 and older than fifteen. We have fought. We have died. We have been beaten. I’ll be damned if I let them take my kids, too.”
Maddox offered a weak smile. He still could not find words to express his empathy.
He offered an outstretched handshake.
Then Finn laughed, then caught himself and ran his sleeve again, this time under his nose.
“You are too English,” he grinned.
He gave Maddox a bracing hug. When he let go, he reached across for his skis and backpack. As he put them on, he continued speaking:
“May I make a suggestion?”
“Sure,” Maddox replied.
“If you’re going to stay here,” he said. “You need to understand the land better.”
“In what way?”
“Keep an eye out for bears,” Aku said. “Now is when they fill up on food for the winter. They get bolder and can be vicious if riled. I’ve seen them attack and kill men – particularly if you come between a parent and its cub.”
“Got it,” Maddox said. �
�Avoid the bears.”
“Also, it may be summer but don’t be fooled by the heat,” Aku said. “In this region the weather can turn sharply when you least expect it.”
Maddox shivered and huddled into his coat.
“I think I’d already guessed that,” he smiled.
“Yes,” Aku replied. “But I don’t think you realise just quite how cold it can get or how you should deal with it. If your body temperature gets low enough, you won’t be able to use your fingers – not even to open a box of matches. There are ways to deal with it.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a carton. The end had been closed so that three match heads were caught outside it, able to be clasped and used even with fumbling palms of both hands brought together.
“Here,” he said, passing it across. “Keep it. I have another.”
“Anything else?”
“Many, many things,” the Finn said. “Too many to tell you now. But you know the fog can descend in minutes, right?”
“I did,” Maddox replied.
Aku waved him quiet as one might a petulant child.
“Not like this,” the Finn said. “Your London ‘pea soupers’ have nothing on this. Always keep an emergency flare in your sock. When the fog drops you won’t be able to see your foot, but hopefully you can still find it.”
“You’re joking?” Maddox replied. “A flare in my sock? I’d be likely to blow my own leg off.”
Aku shook his head and lifted the hem of his trouser leg slightly.
A small red cylinder was just visible above the end of the cotton.
“Trust me,” he said. “When you’ve lost your team even though they’re only a few metres away, you’ll be glad of it.”
The Finn clipped his boots into his skis and grabbed his poles.
“I’ll take the tip,” Maddox replied.
“Good hunting!” Aku said, pushing off in the direction of the truck. “I hope we meet again.”
“You too,” Maddox agreed. “And I’m certain we will.”
CHAPTER 22
Kalb jumped down from the truck and surveyed the carnage.
In the distance he saw one of the supply trucks driving away. A soldier next to him – Corporal Gansk – raised his rifle to shoot after it. Kalb tapped the barrel down.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said. “The report from your gun will alert the raiders to our presence.”
“But he’s stealing our supplies.”
“Whoever that opportunist thief is,” Kalb chastened, “they’re the least of our worries. And I very much doubt they were responsible for this on their own.”
He gestured toward the carnage around them.
Kalb let out a silent whistle in appreciation at the strike on the convoy.
The wreckage of the Tiger II tank was still smoking, its nose half sunk into the pit. He cautiously moved around the burnt-out hulk, his eyes taking in the destroyed remains of the other truck behind it.
He shook his head as he examined the placement of the spent shell casings that littered the ground like confetti decaying in the street a day after a wedding.
“What the hell do you think happened?” Gansk asked. “They must have hit it with an entire army.”
Kalb ran his hand across the ground and picked up one of the empty cartridges.
He sniffed it.
It still carried the scent of being recently fired.
“Clever tactics were all that was needed,” he said. “First, they hit the tank at the front – standard Finnish strategy.”
He held up the spent round for Gansk to see.
“But with a British twist,” he sneered.
He flicked the shell casing off into the trees.
Kalb pointed at the tank but he didn’t look at it. His eyes were tracing out the patterns of blood spatter across the churned soil.
“By using local tactics at the start,” he said, “they lulled the Germans into expecting a hit and run operation. But at every turn, the British attackers suckered our men. First: no blockade; instead, they used explosives buried under the road. Clever. Then they purposefully hit the trucks. We can see that from the spent rounds. One was destroyed. The second, we saw driven away just prior to our arrival. They fired from the snow bank over there, but, again, another twist.”
“How many men?” Gansk asked.
“Three there,” he pointed to the drift, and then to the hiding spot used by the Finns. “Four there.”
“They left the Hanomags intact,” Gansk said. “That was the twist. Why do that?”
“Yes,” Kalb grimaced and stalked towards the devastation in the tree line where the armoured vehicles had ploughed through into the forest. “They obviously didn’t have anything left in their arsenal that was capable of punching through the armour. After the initial attack, men on skis acted as decoys, dragging the Hanomags off on a wild goose chase through the wood.”
“And we saw how that ended from the explosion in the forest,” Gansk shook his head.
“Indeed,” Kalb replied. “A second ambush, no doubt. But all this information helps us.”
“How?”
“Aside from knowing the attackers are Allied soldiers,” Kalb said, “we now have an idea of their numbers. We also know they will use unorthodox tactics and take on much bigger forces than their own. That suggests they are SOE commandoes.”
“Then we should retreat,” Gansk said. “We should go back to Nieder and dig in at the mine for an assault.”
Kalb chuckled.
“No, you fool,” he said. “The moment he figures out we’re here, we will become a target. Right now, the element of surprise is on our side.”
He grabbed his MP38 and cocked a round into the chamber.
“Assemble the troops,” he said. “The thing with success is: it leads men to overreach. We can use that to trap and kill them.”
CHAPTER 23
Maddox pushed along between the pines.
The gentle shushing of his skis as he tramped forward were only interrupted by the call of a sparrow hawk as it passed above the tree tops.
He’d ordered Walker, Marlowe, Fallon and Peterson to survey a set of gullies to their west. They hadn’t been marked on his map and he hoped it might provide a smoother route through the rugged terrain ahead. They would rendezvous at agreed coordinates in three hours.
Maddox also had an ulterior motive for sending his three long-time friends off with Walker. It would allow them to make a judgement on the lieutenant’s loyalty. Meanwhile, Maddox would get to spend more time with ‘Sledge’ McKlenna, Conley and Shield. Somewhere among this group of four he still suspected there to be a spy who would report directly back to Carter at the end of the mission.
He pulled to a halt at the edge of a ravine.
“Damn it,” it he muttered, examining the map and staring across in exasperation at yet another obstacle totally unmarked on the chart.
Shield drew alongside.
“Well,” the sergeant said, “there’s no going this way.”
“I think the cartographer drew this region entirely from his imagination,” Maddox replied.
“Didn’t the Finn have anything to say about the map’s accuracy?” Shield asked.
“He said it was correct about the larger features,” Maddox replied. “But said there were one or two minor errors that wouldn’t be visible from the air.”
Shield peered down the jagged rocks to the bottom of the gully. A mountain stream burbled gently, tumbling a path around the rocks. The gentle scent of Valerian wafted sweetly from the pink and white flowers the poked through along the banks.
“It’s only fifteen feet wide,” Shield said. “I suppose, if the cartographers had surveyed the region in winter, it would have been easy to miss.”
“Perhaps,” Maddox agreed, “But it’s still too wide to cross here.”
“We could rig up a commando crossing,” Shield said.
Maddox looked at the gap again. Shield was right – but
across a fifteen foot wide crevasse, it was a risk. The tree line on the far side stood a good ten yards back from the precipice. Even a simple rope bridge was better built with someone on both banks and tossing a grapnel, hoping to hook the trees on the far cliff...
“I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. “But let’s see if there isn’t an easy way first.”
He looked across to Sledge and Conley as they arrived.
The burly Australian lifted his snow goggles from his face and rested them on his forehead. He took a deep sniff of the air and sighed.
“I love it here,” he said. “So tranquil. I could easily see myself romantically settling down in a little log cabin – easing my way through the long winter nights with a wood stove and a beautiful future Mrs McKlenna.”
“You’d better learn to speak Russian, then,” Maddox smirked.
Sledge went to reply but thought better of it.
Maddox tugged on the sleeve of his coat and checked his watch.
“Let’s take an hour’s break,” he said. “You use the time to eat and rest up for the long trek ahead. Meanwhile, I’ll move further along the gully to see if there’s a route across. Sledge, you’re in charge while I’m gone. Shield, you’re with me.”
CHAPTER 24
Kalb shifted quietly through the trees.
Behind him the rest of the squad followed his lead, moving as silently as possible across the forest ground.
“If they’re on skis,” Gansk whispered, shifting alongside his commander, “Surely we have no hope of catching them on foot?”
“That’s why we took the truck back to where the river spring emerges on the road,” Kalb replied.
“I don’t follow,” Gansk said.
“We’ve performed enough missions that we know the area at least marginally better than the Allies,” Kalb said. “We know where they were thirty minutes ago from the explosion. We know where they’re heading: the mine.”
Confusion still sat uneasily about Gansk’s features.
“Where does the spring lead?” Kalb asked, with elaborate patience.
“To a narrow crevice,” Gansk replied.
Realization dawned on his face.
“If the Allies are moving from the explosion toward the mine, they’ll have to cross it,” he said.