Assault on Abbeville

by Jack Badelaire

  As they ate their noonday meal, Gorski mulled over their situation in his mind. With only five men, their tactical options were limited, and even carrying machine pistols and grenades, against superior numbers they had little chance of winning a firefight. As he played out every scenario in his mind, at the end such imaginings ended with all five men dead or dying, riddled with bullets and grenade shrapnel. No matter how hard they’d fight, the Germans could always come up with more men and more bullets. It was a simple matter of attrition, and in such matters, the Germans would never be exhausted.

  Gorski sighed and scrubbed his fingers through his short black hair. He was tired, he was sore, and even after two brief dips in the Somme, he felt like he needed a bath. Dragging a dirty finger across his chin, Gorski noted that he needed a shave, as well. He wanted hot food, a glass of whiskey, and clean sheets. He also wanted the company of a woman, he realized, because Helene had been the first woman he’d spent any real time conversing with in over a year. Now and then during their time in Scotland, Gorski and the others would venture into town, but they didn’t interact much with the locals. Aside from ordering a drink or two, or purchasing something from a store, he’d had no female companionship of any kind since bedding a young woman shortly before the Germans invaded France.

  Gorski forked out the last bit of canned bully beef from his tin and ate it, thinking of the evening ahead. He did not hate Kohl, aside from the fact the man was German. He didn’t know if Kohl was a devout National Socialist, if he hated Poles and Jews, or if he was simply a soldier, doing a soldier’s duty to his country. But the one thing Gorski did know was that Kohl was dangerous in the cockpit of a fighter plane, a man with a talent for slaughter. If he wasn’t killed, Kohl would be in the air over France every chance he could get, killing British airmen. Gorski thought back to the doomed bomber they’d seen last night, plummeting to earth with its engine on fire. As long as Kohl lived, that’d happen again and again, five men dead every time.

  Looking around their encampment, Gorski watched Dumond hold a wine bottle upside down over his upturned, open mouth, thumping the bottle to catch the last couple of drops. Next to him, Verhoeven cleaned and oiled his Browning 1922 automatic, checking every part and ensuring all was in good working order. Lambert sat across from Gorski, the German stick grenade in his hand. Lambert had two of the dual-purpose charges and he was carefully forming them around the grenade’s explosive cylinder, using a length of wire to fasten the charges to the grenade, fragmentation side outward. Once primed and thrown, the modified grenade would be shockingly potent.

  Of Johansen, there was no sign. The Norwegian was taking his turn standing guard, and Gorski knew he was somewhere to the south-west of their position, in the direction of the town. Although he was still nearly impossible to read, Gorski thought Johansen was handling the stresses of the mission surprisingly well, a real relief after the man’s violent behavior on the first day. Gorski wasn’t going to forget what happened or stop keeping a close eye on Johansen, but for the time being, he was content to believe the man wasn’t an immediate problem.

  They were five men, men who’d already been written off as dead by their respective governments. Gorski did not want to die, nor did any of his companions. But, he reflected, they were not men who would otherwise serve in any great capacity towards continuing the war effort. He would do his best to ensure they made it out of this situation alive, but if they did not, he decided he would spend their lives to ensure Kohl died.

  Five men who were already dead, balanced against the five men aboard every bomber Kohl would shoot down? Gorski decided that would be more than a fair exchange.

  TWENTY

  Although it was a risk, the Revenants left their position an hour before sunset, and began moving towards the town. Each man wore his rucksack and carried a machine pistol, although Dumond and Lambert wore their MP-38s slung, their own personal long guns in hand and ready. Gorski had decided the looted Mauser rifles weren’t worth bringing along, and so they’d left them behind, buried under a tree along with their ammunition.

  The five men proceeded at a slow, steady pace, spread out ten meters between each man. Lambert took point twenty meters ahead of everyone else, the Belgian’s superior woodcraft making him the natural choice to guide them into Abbeville. Gorski led the rest of them, his machine pistol in hand, the bolt locked back and ready to fire. It’d been two days since their attack on the gendarmerie, and although Gorski was sure the Germans were still on alert, he had no idea if they still thought the saboteurs were in the area or not. Either way, Gorski didn’t want to enter town until after dark, so they proceeded slowly, carefully, and silently, until they were on the opposite side of a backyard hedge on the outskirts of town.

  The sun had dipped below the horizon a quarter-hour before, and the sky to the west was growing darker by the minute. Using only hand gestures, Gorski directed his men to move south along the hedge, passing one backyard after another, until they came to a gap a few meters across where a narrow path gave them a way into town. At this point, Gorski moved Verhoeven up to take point. The Dutchman slung his machine pistol, then drew his suppressed automatic. The five men moved along the path, then at a signal from Verhoeven, waited until a pair of bicyclists passed them by. One by one, they crossed the road and moved into an alley, each man ducking into shadow, eyes scanning for any sign of movement, any hint of their discovery.

  When there was no alarm, Gorski gave the signal for them to continue. Over the course of an hour, the five men moved from one end of town to the other, one alleyway at a time. It was clear that a curfew was in effect, because aside from the bicyclists they’d seen before crossing the first street, the only other people moving about Abbeville were German soldiers and French gendarmes on patrol. As they’d seen two days before, the Germans moved in half-squads of five men, four Soldaten carrying rifles, and one junior non-commissioned officer, a Gefreiter or a Feldwebel, carrying a machine pistol. In each group there were several men carrying stick grenades as well. One more than one occasion, a motorized patrol passed by, either a truck or a Kübelwagen, equipped with a pintle-mounted machine gun, a German soldier manning the weapon and ready to put it to use at the first hint of trouble. Gorski knew that even if they were detected by a patrol, and they wiped it out with a hail of bullets, there was little hope of them escaping the area. They’d be surrounded, cut off, and butchered in an alley or doorway.

  When they reached the ruined store, it was clear no one had performed any further work on it in the time since Gorski and Verhoeven had been there. After circling the block to make sure there were no Germans lying in wait for them, Gorski performed a brief reconnaissance of the ground floor and the cellar. The ginger-furred tomcat was gone, either out prowling for mice, or possibly scared away by Helene’s visit. Beyond the cat’s absence, Gorski found nothing suspicious, and so he signaled for the others to come inside, while Verhoeven stayed in the shadows of the ground floor to serve as a lookout. Once the three other Revenants were in the cellar, Gorski lit a candle, and they searched for the information and supplies Helene was supposed to have left for them.

  Helene had been clever. She’d dug a shallow hole in one corner, and after placing her cache there, simply placed a few pieces of wooden debris on top. Along with the glass jugs of water, bread, cheese, and cold chicken, she had left an envelope containing several roughly handwritten pages of information. Bringing them over to the table with the candle, Gorski sat down and began to read.

  According to Helene, Kohl had, indeed, landed at the aerodrome that afternoon. The owner of The Red Hen, a local tavern, had contacted Helene asking for some specific vintages of wine, as well as cognac and several bottles of champagne. When Helene asked the owner what prompted such a delivery, he’d told her that a dozen Luftwaffe pilots had arrived that day, and were looking to celebrate their return to the aerodrome. There was no doubt in Helene’s mind that the pilots were Kohl and his fellow aviators. She wrote that they
had delivered the spirits and overheard the reservations were for nine o’clock that evening, and the staff at The Red Hen knew these particular patrons, and expected to stay and work well into the small hours of the night. In fact, they’d even been granted curfew passes by the gendarmes, because the staff wouldn’t likely be sent home until hours after the curfew deadline.

  Gorski checked his watch and saw it was 2130 hours, or a half hour after Kohl and his fellow pilots should have arrived at the tavern. Along with the note giving Kohl’s plans for the evening, Helene had included a hand-drawn sketch map of where The Red Hen was located in relation to where Gorski was now. In addition, she’d included in the sketch where the German garrison was stationed, noting that both the armored car and the Hotchkiss tank were, as of that afternoon, parked near the garrison, which happened to be Abbeville’s largest hotel.

  After having read it once, Gorski had the three other men not on watch gather around the candle-lit table and examine Helene’s map, while he read aloud the notes she had left. Johansen, Dumond, and Lambert digested the information in silence, while each of them memorized the sketch map, noting their position, the location of The Red Hen, and the German garrison’s headquarters. Although the town was not particularly large, even the modest distances in between the locations would take time to cover and remain undetected by the patrols moving around Abbeville that night.

  “So, now we know,” Dumond said after Gorski was finished. “We must strike tonight, if we are to be successful. But if we attack Kohl at The Red Hen, the Boche will swarm us like angry hornets. We will never make it out of town.”

  “We’ll find a way,” Gorski said. “Remember, we must never give the Germans a fair fight. Our way must always be to strike where they are the weakest, or where they least expect it. We use surprise and firepower to our advantage, and escape before they know what’s happened.”

  “How?” Johansen asked.

  Gorski stared at the map on the table for a minute. Finally, a smile grew on his lips.

  “Henri, please prepare the food Helene left for us. While we eat, I will explain.”

  The other Revenants gave Gorski quizzical looks, but as they ate, they listened to his plan, and by the time he was finished, they were smiling as well.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The five men lurked in the shadowed alleyway opposite the hotel used by the Germans as their garrison in Abbeville. Two men stood as guards outside the building, rifles in hand, and although there were no lights visible through the blackout curtains, the faint sounds of a radio came from the top floor of the three-story building. Out front, the dark shapes of the Hotchkiss tank and the Panhard armored car sat silent and unattended. A Kübelwagen was parked close to the hotel’s front door, but there were no other military vehicles in sight. Gorski figured the rest of the garrison’s transportation was being used to patrol the town.

  After everyone had gotten a good look at the front of the hotel, the Revenants slipped away to the other end of the alley before turning to Gorski, who used hand signals to give his orders. The others nodded, and without a word spoken, Lambert and Verhoeven disappeared around the corner of the alley. Gorski watched the two men depart and wondered if this was the last time he’d see his comrades. A tap on the shoulder from Dumond reminded Gorski that time was of the essence, and so he led them out of the alley in the direction opposite from where the other two Revenants had traveled.

  The three men made their way to The Red Hen, and even a block away, they heard laughter and voices raised in drunken merriment. When they finally emerged from a narrow side-street, the Revenants saw a trio of civilian vehicles - all sedans of one variety or another - parked bumper to bumper in front of the tavern, each of them attended by a soldier with a slung rifle or machine pistol. The three men outside seemed bored, each of them leaning against the bonnet of their respective vehicle, two of them smoking cigarettes while the third kicked idly at one of his sedan’s tires.

  Moving with care, Gorski led Dumond and Johansen towards the rear of the tavern. From there, a sliver of light was visible, spilling out from a the rear entrance, the door slightly ajar. Gorski stepped closer and peered inside through the narrow opening, and saw someone, a man carrying a tray piled with empty plates, walk past the door. The clatter of flatware and the splash of water was audible.

  “Two more bottles of wine!” a man said beyond the door. “A good thing they’ve got drivers, because none of them would make it home alive, pilots or no!”

  “Would that we would all be so lucky,” a woman muttered angrily.

  “Shhhhhh!” the man replied. “Watch your tongue!”

  Gorski heard the woman answer with a derisive snort. “They’re making such a noise, they can’t hear anything we say.”

  “That’s not a bet worth risking your life on,” the man admonished. “Nor mine as well. Just fetch the bottles for them, and be quick about it. We don’t want them making any trouble.”

  Gorski turned to Dumond and Johansen, and letting his machine pistol hang from its sling, communicated with them using gestures and hand signals.

  Two civilians. We get them out. Dumond and I attack from here. Johansen to the front. When we attack, kill the drivers.

  The two other men nodded, and Johansen moved away, his machine pistol at the ready. Gorski looked at the luminous dial of his wristwatch, then he met Dumond’s gaze and nodded, holding up one finger.

  One minute.

  The seconds passed. Inside, Gorski heard footsteps as someone returned from the front of the room, and glassware clinked together. The woman muttered something unintelligible, and the man chuckled, but said nothing in return. A cabinet door closed with a hard clacking sound, and a chair moved across a hardwood floor.

  Gorski glanced again at his watch, then nodded. He drew his pistol and let his MP-38 hang from its strap. Taking a deep breath, he let it out, then slowly opened the door, stepping inside.

  The tavern’s kitchen was tidy and well-maintained. Glassware and dishes were stacked near a large porcelain sink, and an icebox stood in one corner. Wine racks lined an entire wall, and at least a dozen bottles stood on a counter-top along the interior wall. There was no window open to the sitting room, but there was a three-quarter door opposite him that evidently led to the room beyond, where he heard several men speaking loudly in German, apparently having a spirited argument.

  In the kitchen, two people sat at a table, the man and woman Gorski heard earlier. They were middle-aged, both slightly overweight, and both wore aprons. They turned as he entered, and their eyes grew wide when they saw his weapon. Gorski pointed his pistol at the woman’s face, then brought his finger to his lips and shook his head, The man froze, while the woman made an almost-silent, high-pitched whining sound, before Gorski took a step forward and shook his head again, then gestured towards the sitting room with his pistol. The woman closed her eyes and clapped her hand across her mouth, shaking her own head in terror, but the man looked Gorski in the eye, otherwise remaining stock still.

  Gorski stepped to the side, then pointed towards the outside door. After a moment’s incomprehension, the color drained from the man’s face, and he shook his head vehemently, but Gorski replied by cocking back the hammer of his pistol and putting the muzzle against the woman’s head. This caused her to shudder in fear, but it got the point across, for the man put up his hands in surrender, then took the woman’s hand. Gorski again gestured for the two of them to move through the back door, and he followed them outside. As soon as they entered the alleyway behind the tavern, Gorski pulled the door shut to the point just before the latch caught, then turned to the man, who was facing away from him and blinded by the sudden darkness. Gorski used the de-cocking lever of his pistol to safely drop its hammer, then whipped the barrel of the pistol across the back of the tavern-keeper’s head. The man grunted and his knees folded, dropping him to the ground just as Gorski heard the sound of a fist connecting with the woman’s skull. She let out a soft moan and fell ne
xt to her husband, knocked senseless by Dumond.

  The civilians out of the way, Gorski stepped up to the door again and opened it a few centimeters, peeking through to make sure no one was investigating the couple’s absence. When he saw nothing and heard the same unconcerned babble of voices coming from the room beyond, he stepped inside, followed by Dumond. Gorski looked to his watch again, then frowned, but as he turned to his companion, the sound of several distant explosions in rapid succession came from the east, the direction of the German garrison. All conversation in the next room halted, and raising his machine pistol, Gorski shouldered aside the door and stepped into the sitting room.

  The Luftwaffe pilots occupied three of the room's five tables, four men sitting at each table. None of them were looking in the direction of the kitchen door when Gorski walked into the room, as several men were standing and pulling back the edges of blackout curtains, trying to see where the explosions had come from. One man, a young Leutnant by the insignia on his uniform, turned and saw Gorski and Dumond raising their weapons, but he only had time to open his mouth, eyes wide as saucers, before Gorski’s finger found the trigger of his machine pistol.

  The MP-38 roared, and the first burst of slugs tore away the top half of the young officer’s skull, spraying the wall behind him with blood, bone, and brains. Finger clamped to the trigger, Gorski walked the torrent of nine-millimeter bullets across the three other men at the table, emptying the thirty-two round magazine. Uniformed bodies jerked and twitched, arms flailing spasmodically as the slugs ripped through bodies and shredded flesh, spraying blood across the white tablecloth. One man kicked out and fell backwards, his chair hitting another pilot seated at the table next to him, while the two others shuddered in death, slumping in their chairs, bits of broken glass and porcelain decorating their blood-soaked uniforms.