by Thomas Wood
I had spent many more hours poring over maps of the local area, as well as Tours itself, in case we were ever required to go back there again. I hoped not, as I was convinced that the German soldier who had seen me when we had first arrived there, would have recognised me as the same man that he had chased through the woods that night. But I had no way of truly being certain.
The picture of the non-uniformed young man that sat atop Alfred’s fireplace, had stared at me for so long that I felt as though I had got to know him in those lonely few hours, as if he had been sat in the room with me the whole time. There was something about that boy, that face that was still bewildering me, that drew me to him every morning that I entered the room, and every evening when I retired for the night.
I stared down at the road, just poking a finger through the bundle of twigs that lay in front of me to get a clearer view.
The forest in which we lay, just inside its perimeter, slowly sloped downwards, towards the road, which had been carved straight through the middle of the forest. The road, which bent and weaved through the forest, had been constructed deliberately for one man. According to Alfred, it had been built when he was a boy, by an eccentric businessman from Lyon who wished to escape the hustle and bustle of city life.
He must have been an eccentric, as he had only built his reclusive getaway about ten miles from another city; Tours.
Even still, had it not been for him, then the Germans would not have had a grand house in which to house some of their staff officers. But there was one officer in particular that we were interested in, the very same one that had been communicated to us from London a few days before.
There had been no time to engage in a coherent conversation with London, but a couple of messages on either side had been received and decoded in the short window that we had. During our next transmission, if we lived long enough, would be the time that we could reply to London’s messages, and they to ours.
We had informed them that we had landed safely and had been to Tours, only to have been compromised soon after. We were now back in Restigné.
In return, we had received news of the grand house that we now sat near, as well as the name of a German officer. Generalfeldmarschall Hugo Sperrle, Luftwaffe.
He was due to visit the area in the next couple of days, London did not know when, only that he was arriving. It was our task to find and eliminate him.
Subsequent enquiries had found that he was in command of Luftflotte 3, the fleet of aircraft that had swept from Germany and into mainland Europe during the Blitzkrieg back in the previous year. He was an influential man, one who would have met with Hitler on numerous occasions it seemed, and one whose head would become a trophy if we managed to take him down.
We had had no opportunity to turn the operation down, or suggest any kind of amendments, and so we subsequently got to work, armed only with a sharpened stick, to take down one of the most heavily guarded men in the whole of the Luftwaffe.
I took a deep breath in, the warm air clinging to the inside of my mouth like some sort of glue, as I prepared to finally acknowledge Mike’s question with some sort of an answer.
But, as I went to speak, I was interrupted this time. Not by Mike’s voice, but by the growl of an approaching vehicle. As the noise matured, into a throbbing rumble, I realised that the motorcycle was not approaching alone. There were at least four other vehicles behind it from what I could make out.
Then, as we both peered through the cracks in our hide, the first tyre of the motorcycle came into view down on the road. There were two occupants, one on the bike itself, the other manning the obligatory machine gun in the sidecar. Neither seemed all that interested in what might be going on in the forest that towered either side of them, complacent enough to assume that no one would dare to strike in this part of France.
As the bike drew level with us, the open-topped Mercedes suddenly chugged into view, with another following close behind. Each vehicle had another three uniformed men inside, each one with more golden embroidery on his shoulder than the last, we could see it even from the distance at which we sat.
“That has to be him,” Mike muttered his voice crackled and parched. We had run out of water at some time around five o’clock in the morning, and its effects were beginning to make themselves aware by now.
“Got to be,” I replied, surprising him with the sound of my voice.
We watched as the other vehicles passed by, each one chugging along louder than those that went before, with every occupant completely disinterested in the trees that surrounded them, high on every side. Within seconds, they had reached the bend in the road at the northernmost point of our vision and had turned it without much drama.
“Well, that’s that then, old fruit.”
“One thirty-three. Now we wait to see what time he leaves again.”
“Hopefully he leaves with less of an escort than that. Otherwise, there’s no way that we will be able to get close at all.”
“True.”
As I finished my uttering, I looked across at Mike. His wide-eyed glare that seemed to want to swallow me down told me everything that I needed to know. He had heard something.
For whatever reason, I had not heard it the first time, but the second time there was no mistaking it. Someone was approaching us from the rear.
We lay there for what felt like hours, not daring to move for fear of making far more noise in the process.
My eyes were locked onto Mike’s, which stayed as wide as they could go. There was so much eyeball showing that I marvelled how they were even staying inside his skull.
As I risked my first breath in what felt like an eternity, another noise began to waft to my ears. An even worse one.
Whoever it was that was approaching us, was doing so with a heavily-panting dog. Either that or the person was incredibly ill.
20
Mike’s eyes widened to the point where I thought that they might just roll out onto the ground in front of him at any second.
We were going to need to move at some point, the footsteps and panting were getting closer to us. Soon they would be tripping over the legs that stretched out behind us.
The small gaps that were still present behind Mike’s bulging eyes, suddenly filled with water as he began to panic. I did too but could only feel my heart intensifying as an indicator of my fear.
Thoughts began to flood my mind of what would happen if we were caught, from being interrogated about what I knew, to facing down a firing squad in a dingy courtyard somewhere.
Neither prospect really appealed to me, and so I found myself slowly rotating, to lie on my side and look back at what was approaching us.
It was just after one o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun was just over halfway through its day. It was good news for us, as it meant that the approaching figure would have to battle with the falling sunlight before he could make out what was in front of him. That too and the fact that the thick canopy of trees above us was enough to give off the impression that we were sitting in the middle of a solar eclipse.
My stomach gave off a dull ache, as the numbness that had accrued over the last few hours, slowly gave way to the rush of blood that I had allowed into the front of my body. It felt warm, to finally have some of the scarlet liquid rushing through me once more, but I became acutely aware that it felt like I had relieved myself into my own trousers. I did not have time to check whether the sensation was real or not.
We were covered by a series of trees to our rear, but even through them I could see the occasional flash, as a uniformed body made its way over to greet us. I cursed the dog that was at the end of its leash, as I was certain that without it, the handler would never have wandered this far towards the perimeter of the wood.
It was too late to try and make a run for it now. The figure was close, close enough to make out the rifle that he had slung over his left shoulder. If we were to up and run, with numb limbs and panicked hearts, there was no way that we would
get much further than thirty yards or so.
I strained my eyes for a moment, trying to see past the figure and his hound, in the hope that I could push them from my consciousness, just for half a second.
I desperately wanted to see if anyone else was with the man, maybe staying back on the track so that the dog could relieve himself with a relative peace and quiet, but I could not see anyone. It struck me as odd that a dog and his handler would be out here alone. There must have been a second figure out there, somewhere.
The figure began to whistle, just as the crunch of his boots began to be heard without the trees to soak up the noise. He was now practically on top of us. The dog’s saliva would dribble onto my head any moment.
Then, I caught sight of the man, his nostrils flared, cheeks puffed out as he breathed out his tune. He was ugly, not the kind of man that I figured would be pictured on any of Herr Hitler’s posters anytime soon.
He was tall, but from where I was laying, I figured that even a mouse would seem tall at this point. He continued to stare straight ahead, ignoring almost everything that his dog was doing, even oblivious to the fact that it had just been rugby tackled by St John’s college’s finest scrum-half.
I leapt up, coming almost face to face with the man straight away. The horror in his eyes was a little delayed in appearing, as I imagined the questioning thoughts that barrelled through his head.
How had he missed us? How had he allowed himself to be so stupid?
I slammed my forearm into the bridge of his nose, as I felt it crumple under the force, the blood taking a little longer to rush to it than I had anticipated. His head lolled backwards for a second, before shooting forward again, as my knee connected with the inside of his groin.
The head was the subject of my attention again as my knee connected with his face somewhere, which returned him, for a second, back to his normal, upright position.
He staggered backwards, pulling me with him and, as he fell, he managed to move himself out of the way of my falling body. My face connected with the ground first, landing on a dried log that disintegrated as I fell on it. A splinter must have embedded itself just above my eye, as a warm liquid began trickling into my eyebrow over the next few minutes.
I rolled over to one side, coming face to face with the barrel of a German Karabiner 98 rifle. I stared down it, marvelling at the preciseness and flatness of the barleycorn sight at the front of the rifle. I knew that these rifles were impressive, I had fired some captured ones back in training, but I had never truly been this close to the end of one.
It was only from this point of view that one could truly marvel at the ingenuity behind one of the most spectacular killing utensils that man had ever created. I could only hope and pray that this one had somehow developed a fault, that would prevent around becoming lodged in my brain. I was hoping for some kind of human error. The man behind the rifle looked too scared to pull the trigger.
I gripped the barrel of the rifle with such force that I surprised even myself. I was suddenly filled with such strength that I believed for a second that I would be able to bend the barrel upwards, if that was what I had wanted to do. But I couldn’t.
Instead, I began heaving at the rifle, pulling it into me and trying to wrench it from the German’s grip. He began to grunt as he fought back. I too let unnatural noises pass over my lips.
I roared as I pulled the rifle into me, rotating my body around as much as I could in the process. But still, the German clung on.
My hands suddenly lurched upwards for a moment. The gunshot felt as though it had ruptured my eardrums. I felt the round just whisper past my cheek as I lay there, boring itself into the nearest tree trunk that it could find.
It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I knew that, as long as I kept a firm enough grip on the rifle, jostling it around as much as I could, the German would not be able to slide the bolt back and home again to make the rifle ready. It was one of the major downsides to a single-shot, bolt-action rifle.
With as much force as I could muster, I pushed the rifle back towards him, the butt connecting with his lower jaw with a sickening crack. I repeated the procedure two or three times before I was satisfied that he was dazed enough.
I sprung to my feet, my legs burning under the duress that I had put them under. Still, the young German tried to pull the bolt backwards, but my influence continued to make him incapable of doing so.
The gunshot may have alerted everyone else to a situation going on in the woodland, but it had almost certainly saved my life.
I continued to jostle for the rifle for a few moments longer, pondering what my next move would be. I could not stay like this forever. One of us would have to give up eventually. One of us would have to die.
It was a strange feeling, to be fighting for one’s life. It has an urgency to it that you do not get in any other situation in life. An almost super-human strength suddenly comes to the fore, taking even you by surprise as you fight off the threat.
But it also stops you from thinking too much. You do not think about dying, you do not think about what happens next. But you also do not think about how you will end it.
Thankfully, Mike was doing that bit for me.
As if from nowhere, he lunged at the German, bundling on top of his head like an overexcited child. He lay on the man for a few seconds, as I felt the resistance at the other end of the rifle slowly growing weaker, until there was nothing left. The rifle was mine.
Mike lay atop of him for a few moments more, panting harder than the dog had done, and far harder than I was. I was still in fight mode; my body was not yet crying out for the nutrients that it so needed to recover.
Finally, Mike slid himself off the German, leaving his body crumpled in a heap next to the unfortunate man who had stumbled upon us.
I felt sorry for him, as I stared at his lifeless corpse. It was just bad luck that he had ended up dead. It was just good fortune that had dictated that there would be two of us against one of him. If it hadn’t been for his dog, then I did not suppose that he would have found us at all.
At the thought, I looked at Mike, whose eyes were now so full of tears that they had begun drowning, returning to their normal size once again. His pupils, however, were wide, as if they had been painted on by an over-exuberant artist.
“The dog?” I panted, my body finally catching up to the exertion that I had just been through.
He stared at me, as if I had lost my mind, and that the hound that had come panting through the trees was merely a figment of my imagination.
“Down there,” he said, pointing back towards the road below. Sure enough, the dog was there, charging his way back up the hill towards us, never faltering in his impressive display of power and stamina.
“He’s coming back. We need to get going.”
“Of course, he’s coming back.”
“What do you mean?”
“I threw him a stick. He’s bringing it back again.”
“You’re pulling my leg?”
“Straight up…old fruit.”
Sure enough, as the dog got closer to us, a stick was duly hanging out of his mouth, ready to be thrown again. It was having the time of his life.
“We better clear up. Someone somewhere would have heard the gunshot. And we can’t guarantee that the person will be friendly to us.”
“Are there any of those around here?” Mike questioned, with a smirk on his face.
I ignored him, as I slung my rifle proudly over my shoulder, and got to work.
It was the first time that I had really taken note of the fate that had befallen the German soldier. Until that point, I did not know what it was that I thought had killed the man. But now, I could see it, as clear as day, and as proud as a mother of her new-born baby.
The sharpened twig, the one that Mike had spent hour upon hour sharpening with a stone throughout the night, was firmly placed into the neck of the German. The dried, brown leaves that became his falling p
lace were quickly soaking up the scarlet liquid that leaked from the single wound in his neck. It was a deep red, a mesmerising pigment that would have been quite beautiful had it not been for the tragic circumstances that it denoted.
“I told you it would come in useful,” Mike announced, as he tried to wrench it from the German’s fleshy grasp, to no avail.
We began to strip the body of anything that might be useful to us; a small hunting knife, a pistol and a single hand grenade that had been hastily tucked into his leather belt.
Hurriedly, as we heard the screams of engines beginning to fire up from the mansion, we decided it was our time to leave. We were going to have to abandon the rest of our reconnoitre and try and take out the Generalfeldmarschall with a handicap.
It was what we had become good at, after all.
21
The atmosphere was frosty, to say the least. It was the first time that we had seen Suzanne since we had been forced to run from the safehouse in Tours, and she had not even expressed any regret over how it hindered us so far.
She seemed far more concerned with the fact that we could have led the Germans straight back to her.
There were a thousand and one questions swimming about somewhere in the silence, but it seemed like each one of us was as stubborn as the other, as nobody even uttered a syllable for what felt like hours.
Only Alfred, the elderly gentleman, in whose house we resided, had any kind of confidence to talk, offering cups of substandard coffee, or a biscuit that seemed to have been buried in his cupboards for generations.
The picture of the young man refused to take his glare off me, and I wondered if I would ever find out who he was, and why he had decided to latch onto my memory as he had done. It was one of the questions that burned within me, more than the ones that I had prepared for Suzanne, but there was something holding me back, as if I already knew the answer, but was not quite prepared for it.
“So,” Suzanne began, making me jump in my seat. It had been so long since someone had spoken that I had begun to forget what a human voice even sounded like. She stopped for a moment, as a truck passed by the windows of the house, her eyes tracing its movements, even when it was obscured from view.