by Jack Hayes
“Exactly,” Kalb said. “And if they’re not planning to do it at the road, we know the only reasonable spot to make the trip across. We can lie in wait.”
***
Maddox followed the line of the ravine.
The sun was on its descent toward the horizon. Hard to believe they’d been in the country almost sixteen hours and they’d experience their first brief night in a short while. He had agreed to make the rendezvous with Walker and the others four miles to the north before the light went but even though the gully was narrowing, it was still too wide to cross.
If he didn’t find a route over soon, they’d miss their meeting time.
“But why stop them?” Shield asked. “Just let the Germans do their thing. So they have a few of these devices, so what? Blue diamonds are rare, that’ll limit the scope for any damage.”
“Seriously?” Maddox asked. “This again?”
“Look – you have family in London, I have family in London,” Shield said. “Night after night they’ve been at risk from bombing raids. Hundreds of thousands of tons of explosive blanketing entire districts – sometimes entire cities. Imagine a world where you could precision pin-point attack anything you wanted to. And since they only have a few – they’d be really selective in how they used them. Wouldn’t that save countless lives?”
Maddox pushed onward.
His pace on the skis was slower than he’d have liked. He couldn’t be sure if it was Shield’s incessant blathering that was making him tired or the fact that his body was beginning to ache; he might have been fitter than the average man but moving across the snow was using muscles that weren’t used to exercise.
“Not if the Germans could accurately land one of Churchill’s nose, no,” Maddox said. “In that circumstance, we would have lost the war long ago and Britain would be under the Nazi jackboot. If that didn’t actually lead to more lives lost – it would at least lower the quality of the lives of the survivors.”
“Maybe,” Shield concurred. “But these leaders start these wars. Surely if they knew that they could be precision hit with a bomb at any time and it wouldn’t affect the general population it might cause them to think twice before engaging in so much destruction?”
“I doubt it,” Maddox said. “The technology for such targeted kills has been in existence ever since the invention of the assassin. Did the sniper rifle lessen the desire of warmongers to wage war? I see no reason to suppose that a targeted missile should somehow make war cleaner or neater or less likely than blanket bombing.”
Maddox glanced ahead, along the gully.
There was an outcrop of rocks that narrowed the gap between the two sides. If they were lucky, it might be a route across.
“Come on,” Shield said. “If you could pick your targets, surely that would make warfare, well, almost surgically precise.”
“Assuming your intelligence on locations of enemy installations is perfect,” Maddox said. “Assuming your enemy doesn’t adapt to your new tactics. Assuming they don’t build bigger and better fortifications. And then, to break those bunkers you’ll fit bigger and bigger warheads on your rockets or larger bombs on your planes until they’ve dug themselves so deep and you’re so desperate to get them that your rockets deliver a payload big enough to wipe out a city again.”
“A bomb that could destroy an entire city?” Shield laughed. “You’ve been reading too much Flash Gordon.”
“Let’s hope so,” Maddox replied.
They reached the outcrop and Maddox unclipped himself from the skis. Leaning them against a fallen stump, he dropped his backpack on the ground beside them.
The overhang cantilevered out of the cliff face, extending to a similar formation on the far side. The two didn’t quite connect but the narrowest distance between them was around two and a half feet.
Maddox wasn’t usually prone to vertigo, but an initial peek down still caused his mouth to dry. He rolled his tongue around his teeth and was careful to avoid staring down at the bubbling stream and long fall a second time.
Although he had the sensation of a swimmer shifting out across the highest diving board at a lido for the first time, the ground remained surprisingly firm beneath his boots.
“I think we’ve found our spot,” he said.
“Better test it cautiously, to make sure,” Shield replied.
Maddox tapped heavily with his foot, then tried a small jump.
There was a slight spring as he landed. His hands instinctively spread slightly to his sides to ensure his balance. The reverberation quickly subsided.
“That confirms it,” he said.
There was a sudden itch just above his ankle and reached down to scratch it. Running his fingers across his skin he frowned.
“Hey,” he said. “Have you got a spare flare in your bag?”
“Yes of course,” Shield replied.
The young man reached into his backpack and took out one of the small cylindrical sticks. He passed it across to Maddox, who examined the printed instructions on the side. It was a new design produced by the boffins in the SOE’s technical services department. It fired a small rocket like a firework into the air without the need for a flare pistol.
“That wasn’t quite what I wanted,” Maddox said. “I’m after a standard one that burns on the device, so that we can find one another if visibility drops.”
“Oh,” Shield said. “I think Sledge has those. Ask him when we get back.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll take this one for now.”
Maddox took the baton-sized stick and stuffed it into his sock.
And then the shot rang out.
CHAPTER 25
Kalb rested his submachine gun against the rocks and grabbed a sniper rifle from a squad member. A Karabiner 98k. It had been a few years since he felt its smooth bulk in his palms. It was like falling into the arms of an old lover. The sleek curves of the butt fit neatly into his grip as he rested the barrel on the top of a boulder and lined his sight up on the Allied soldiers.
One, a captain, was out jumping up and down on the crevice ledge, testing its safety. The other stood on watching, fat and lazy, leaning against a tree.
They were arguing about something.
It didn’t matter.
In a moment they would both be dead and Kalb could get on with eradicating the rest of their team.
“I’ll take the Captain,” he whispered to Gansk. “When he’s down, you and the others open up with your machine guns. Mow down the one still standing.”
“From this range?” Gansk replied. “All nine of us shooting will just spray bullets into the air. We’re over hundred and fifty metres away. We might get lucky and hit him in the hail but it seems like a ridiculous risk.”
Kalb raised his eyes to heaven.
“Not from here, you idiot,” he said. “You will sneak closer in a flanking movement and open fire upon hearing my shot. I’ll give you two minutes to move into permission.”
“What about Petrag?” Gansk asked. “You have his gun. He’s the trained shot. Would we not be better…?”
Kalb lifted his head from the sniper sight and stared at Gansk.
The corporal fell silent and gestured to the rest of the men. He pointed through the trees. The platoon began to head into position.
Kalb shook his head and rested his cheek down into the gun again.
It had been so long since he’d taken a ranged shot at an enemy soldier – too much time up in this godforsaken wasteland, playing nursemaid to that sociopath Nieder.
It would feel good to pull the trigger once again.
The skill.
The power.
One shot. One kill.
How it should be.
“I hesitate to offer another question, sir,” Gansk replied as the soldiers laced their way through the shrubbery.
“I’m not a sir,” Kalb glowered. “I’m a sergeant. I work for a living.”
“Apologies,” Gansk said hurriedly. “But th
ese are clearly scouts looking for a way to cross the ravine. Would we not be better served waiting for them to fetch the others?”
Kalb aligned the weapon on the captain’s head.
“No,” he replied. “We do not know the size of their force. Better to take them out one small group at a time. When these two do not return, the rest will come looking. Our ambush will then have additional bait in the bodies. Now, get into position. Once I fire, you and the men open up.”
Kalb ignored Gansk as the corporal disappeared through the undergrowth to join the rest of the squad. He focused entirely on the English captain. His rhythm, his flow, the bobbing of his body as he kept his target’s head firmly fixed in the crosshairs.
He counted down time for the squad to reach the correct position.
“My dear English captain,” Kalb muttered, “for you, the war is over now.”
He pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 26
Maddox ducked to stuff the flare into his sock.
The bullet thumped as it spattered into the bark to the right of Maddox’s head. The loud crack of the rifle report followed a fraction of a second later.
Maddox dropped flat on his belly. His hands grabbing the Sten, conditioned reflex.
“If I hadn’t chosen that second to bend down…”
He just had time to see Shield’s face spin the direction of the bullet’s landing sight, then flick back – lips open and eyes widening with horror.
Then the machine guns opened up from the bushes, twenty yards away.
How the hell had they got so close?
Bullet after bullet ripped through leaves and bark and tree. Shield was cut to pieces. Blood frothed from his mouth. Eyes, already wide, grew larger still. Horror turned to terror. Half dead hands, lifted bloody into his vision as he realised just what had happened. Still more gunfire tore holes in his coat.
His body slumped forward and tumbled into the ravine.
With a clatter of equipment, it bounced off the rock walls.
There was a muted splash as it slammed into the stream below.
Maddox returned fire, scrabbling forward from the exposed ledge. Snow mounted around his body as he crawled forward.
Another sniper shot.
Hidden by the snow channel he was creating, he saw the slug tear into the ground barely inches form his nose.
He quickened his crawl.
All the while, his finger kept the trigger depressed.
There were only 32 bullets in the Sten magazine.
But their noise and random shooting pattern as he barrelled onward on his belly kept flicking through the bushes in the direction of the machine gunners.
“Eight or ten men,” he thought, “Off to the left, to the front. One sniper, behind me, also on the left.”
Empty clicks.
He reached the bushes.
Soft cover. Good for hiding, only. If only nature had invented a bulletproof leaf…
The machine gunners, also reloading, could be heard crashing the shrubbery toward him.
He lifted to one knee and grabbed a grenade from his belt.
He chucked it through the branches in the direction of the trampling feet.
His hand reached for a second.
Pandemonium.
He threw it.
Two loud explosions.
A chunk of the tree he was hidden behind disintegrated. He face twisted away as wood chippings spat across his neck and head.
The damn sniper was still taking pot shots.
He rammed a fresh magazine into the breach and tossed the old one through the leaves. It rattled as it bounced through the twigs.
Raking machine gun fire followed its path.
“Thanks for giving me your position,” he snarled and threw another grenade.
On his toes, Maddox darted back through the bushes.
Slugs pounded into the spot where he’d last been.
A third explosion.
Maddox dived through another set of branches.
He lay motionless for a few seconds, his ears straining for any sign of his attackers.
He shuffled forward once more on his belly.
He’d left his pack back at the ledge across the ravine.
“Pluses and minuses,” he thought, scrambling on. “With it, I wouldn’t be able to fit through all these gaps. Without it, I’m down to a fresh ammo clip in the Sten and a last one in my pocket. Then there’s my pistol, a last grenade and my Fairbairn-Sykes knife.”
With more distance between himself and the attackers, he had a chance to take stock of how much damage he’d done.
Through the fickle spaces in the pines and saplings, shifting on the breeze that whipped along the gully, he counted four visible bodies face down on the ground. Allowing for perhaps one other out of sight, he might be lucky and have four men left and the sniper.
“Who am I kidding? I don’t have that kind of luck.”
So: five men left chasing him and one out of condition sniper who couldn’t hit a lone man, exposed over a ravine.
Maddox raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe I am that kind of lucky…”
Movement.
Maddox loosened his coat so that he could reach in for his knife as he shifted silently back through the trees. The snow was shallower here, the ground protected by the boughs overhead, making his movement easier.
He glanced up to the sky, hoping to get his bearings. The sun was hanging lower in the air, lengthening the shadows in the forest. It was just possible he might be able to sneak back to Sledge and Conley. He’d stand a better chance with them than on his own.
But tramping through the snow was also leaving tracks…
Two shapes flickered through the trees to his right.
He was being flanked!
“Definitely five men,” Maddox thought. “How the hell can I take down five men plus the sniper?”
CHAPTER 27
“Damn it,” Kalb spat.
He was shifting through the forest to catch his men. He’d cast aside the sniper rifle in favour of his submachine gun.
“Two years ago, I’d have made that shot,” he berated himself. “You’ve become soft, you old fool.”
He dropped to one knee as he neared the ledge overhanging the ravine. The bodies of four of his men lay scattered across the snow. If the Englishman had managed to take down so many with the grenades, he’d either been monumentally lucky or was a hardened veteran.
But the fight had moved on from here.
Kalb heard a burst of gunfire further into the wood.
Good.
As the trees got thicker, the chances were that they were heading away from the snow. Stalking the British officer would be easier. Kalb knew he had to catch up with his men.
He weaved back between the trees.
He’d failed his soldiers once already.
He might be rusty as a sniper – but his hunting skills were still first rate.
***
A hundred yards further into the forest, the snow line petered out completely.
If Maddox could make it there, he’d stop leaving so many obvious tracks. But to break out of the pincer movement he was now facing.
He estimated two on both sides of him – the fifth soldier probably being joined by the sniper behind him – a herding action.
“Two in each location,” he thought. “I need a distraction.”
His hand reached into his pocket for the last grenade. The silhouettes of the Germans were skulking cautiously on all sides. Maddox had to assume his white Arctic camouflage coat and the long shadows meant they hadn’t spotted him yet – or else, they’d simply have opened fire and taken him down.
He crawled through the thinning snow, heading into the forest, towards one of the set of Nazis. He’d lost sight of their exact location – they’d probably hunkered down.
He peeked behind.
Fifty yards back, two outlines were visible against the brighter light near the ravine’s e
dge.
He lifted to a crouch, hidden by a low set of bushes ringing an aging spruce.
Which group to throw it at?
“Diversions first…”
A glimmer of movement to his left.
“Damn it…”
The fifth German, drawing a bead along his rifle.
Maddox dropped the grenade to the floor, pin still in it. It patted softly in the snow. Fluid motion, his palm clasped the Fairbairn-Sykes and hurled it at the young private.
The clap of a shot.
The knife thudded home.
Maddox dropped.
Another thump as the bullet ricocheted off the trunk.
Rustling leaves.
He’d been spotted.
Shouts. He grabbed the grenade.
Gunfire.
Pin pulled.
Maddox tossed the Mills bomb through the branches and dodged to use the trunk as cover. Slugs rebounded through the brush. Sten in hand he launched toward the depth of the forest. The grenade exploded. Screams of agony. No time to see the damage, he dodged left, three bounces to his pace.
More trees for cover.
He dived.
Withering rounds of machine gun fire rippled through the trees.
He landed.
He rolled.
Up on his toes.
The Sten barked in his hand as he shot blind.
More bushes.
He hurdled them.
A second claw of slugs. Another position.
The sniper?
He was well past the snow line now, sprinting deeper into the woods, heart thumping and breath heavy, the tail of his open coat billowed behind him as he continued running.
But which way?
He darted to the right, then zigzagged between some rocks.
Another tree.
He dropped to his knees on its far side. The barrel of his weapon whipped this way, then that as he stared through the branches.
Somewhere back there, he’d left the remaining Germans. Based on the salvos as he’d run, there were three remaining.
Would they fall back, having sustained such heavy losses or push on to take him out?
Either way, he could expect them to be more cautious as they advanced.
Balancing the nose of the Sten on a knot in the trunk so that he could keep it ready to shoot, he hastily tugged at his coat. He swapped hands around the trigger and yanked the other sleeve loose.
The garment slunk to the ground.