by Thomas Wood
If I had heard correctly, then it would change things.
The rest of those who were with me, wherever they were in the ditches or up on the ledge of the forest, would have to adapt. And they would need to adapt, pronto. Otherwise I would end up dead.
“Steig in das erste Auto. Wir bringen Sie zurück.”
I had heard correctly. Things were about to change. They would have to adapt, pronto.
Get in the first car. We will take you back.
I breathed out gently, trying to compose myself for what was about to happen. Timing was now everything. I would have to kick this whole thing off, as close to the Generalfeldmarschall as I could dare, but not so late that the convoy would be moving again. If that happened, I really was in it, up to my neck.
Another voice called out to me, with words along the lines of, “Hurry! We haven’t got all night,” just with a lot more profanity. It was fair enough; the night was beginning to chill and this much inactivity always led to the night time air beginning to bite at your skin.
I grabbed the MP40, passing the sling over my head so that it dangled at my waist. I let it hang there, bashing against my thighs as I gingerly walked over to them. I wanted to be as unthreatening as I possibly could.
They had no reason to believe that I was an enemy, but if I approached them with my finger on the trigger, then it was bound to ring alarm bells. It was akin to a dog approaching his master, head bowed in submission.
I scuffled my way towards the vehicles, trying to take short, slow strides, without them cottoning onto the fact that I was trying to buy some time. I needed Mike and Suzanne to come up with an alternative plan, one that would mean that I wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire. But right now, it seemed impossible that I would avoid it.
There was an almost inhuman urge to want to look to my left and right, to find the heads bobbing around there that would tell me that I was not alone. But, knew that even if I did look, I would not see them. Their heads would be pressed firmly into the ditch that they lay in, listening to what was going on above them.
It was only when Mike gave the command that they would make themselves known, and I hoped in the most dramatic of fashions possible.
I nodded to the two motorcyclists who led the column, their engines idling and itching to move on. They seemed nervous, anxious almost to get back and, if I had not been mistaken, wary that something was about to happen.
But they were both young and, I supposed, that the prospect of looking after a Generalfeldmarschall was not one that was at the top of every new recruit’s to-do list.
Everything in the forest suddenly went quite still. The column of vehicles was stationary, but so too were the occupants. I could not sense any kind of movement from my left or my right, and it felt like even the wildlife in the forest had come to a standstill, all so that I could get a better look at Generalfeldmarschall Sperrle.
He was a rotund man, with a face that seemed to sag downwards under the weight. As the headlights behind him continued to shine, it was difficult to pick out too many features of his, but I could see that where he should have eyes, there was nothing more than two black holes. It was as if he was some spectral being.
The gold braiding on his shoulders told me that, even if he wasn’t our man, he would be a jolly good replacement. The royal blue uniform was smart, presentable, with another pair of eagles on his collars, to denote how important he truly was.
Medal ribbons seemed to drip from his chest and the Iron Cross that adorned his breast pocket took pride of place over the rest of his uniform. It was impossible to have accrued so many gallantry medals in this war alone, so I concluded that he must have been some kind of flying ace during the last war. Either that or all of the medal ribbons were fabricated, to make it seem that anyone with an ounce of power in the Reich, were also true heroes of the Fatherland.
Either possibility seemed plausible.
“Steig ein. Steig ein,” he muttered, motioning me to get into his vehicle and sit where his leather briefcase had been placed.
I did as I was told and swallowed hard. I was sitting directly next to the very man that we had been told to kill.
There was, all of a sudden, a thickness to the air around me, quite unlike anything that I had experienced before. It was difficult to take anything in, as if the oxygen had turned into some kind of thick soup.
My heart quickened further. My palms perspired more. But my breathing remained controlled. I knew what was about to happen, and there was nothing I could do about it at all.
Suddenly, my consciousness seemed to fade, the visions that overtook me grabbing a hold of my attention like never before.
Henry was cradled in my arms again, as the search party in Peldon Avenue had continued.
Grace’s face came into view, powdered by the brick dust that she had caked on her face. Her face still looked as pretty as it had been five years’ before, when I had met her for the first time.
Never would I have imagined that so soon I would be attending her funeral service.
I was fortunate. I had a body, bodies, to bury.
When I died, as I inevitably would do on that night, my parents would have nothing to bury. I would be slung in a heap, with the others who would die with me, with little time for pomp or ceremony.
But there was a part of me that quite liked the idea. At least I wouldn’t be alone for eternity. At least I would have died trying to make things right.
As I looked at the rat-faced man sitting next to me, his questions going straight over my head, I imagined how he could have been the one to order the parachute mines to have been dropped on Richmond that night.
“Peldon Avenue,” I suddenly heard him shout, smacking the map next to him with his polished oak stick. “Make sure you get Peldon Avenue.”
There was a sickness to my stomach as I came to. The Generalfeldmarschall continued to stare at me, as he awaited an answer, which he was never going to get. It was almost as if he knew that something was about to happen, as I felt his whole body tense as if hardening himself to attempt to repel any rounds.
I kept my hands firmly away from the MP40, and I toyed with the idea of throttling the man. He had killed my wife. He had killed my son.
Our eyes connected for the first time, his head turned slightly towards me and away from the headlights. I could see into his eyes, which seemed to have no colour. They were simply black little holes, that saw everything.
He began to breathe deeply, his hot breath warming a small part of my face, which made the rest of it burn with a chill. I could smell what he had had for dinner. Some kind of fish, I was sure of it. But I could also taste the wine that he had consumed, bottle after bottle of it, to the point where his bulbous, grotesque nose had begun to redden.
Slowly, deliberately, I reached into my jacket pocket, and I watched as his beady little eyes grew wide at what I was doing. But still, he did not call out to any of his men, he did not scream for his life.
Why would he? I was only a German soldier with a punctured tyre after all.
I gripped my hand around it, firmly, but not too firmly, and withdrew it.
I shook the little cardboard box underneath his nose, as I watched him relax into his seat. I flicked the box open and let him draw a cigarette.
Putting one into my own mouth, I slid the box back into my pocket and reached for the heavier, more robust item that I had in there.
Unfortunately for the Generalfeldmarschall, I did not have a light for him. But what I did have was an 1892 Modele revolver, six eight-millimetre rounds all sitting in the chamber, just itching to get out.
His eyes traced my movements as I pulled it out fully and aimed it towards his chest. He knew what that meant. One wrong move now and he would have his insides splattered all over the lovely upholstery of the Mercedes-Benz.
I slid the loading gate forward and felt a soft clink as the hammer was reengaged. Now, all I had to do, was squeeze the trigger. Just once should do it.
To my right, I heard one of the motorcycle engines begin to scream, ready to move off. But then, a shout. A clamour of urgent bodies. And a gunshot.
28
The gunshot rippled through the air, as a stone does when it plonks into a pond.
There was a thump, as the first motorcycle rider went down, landing in a heap on the floor.
For a second or two, nobody dared to move. It felt like maybe the motorcycle rider was faking it or had some sort of a seizure.
But there had definitely been a gunshot.
Then, there was a roar of engines, as the car behind us, as well as the two remaining motorcycles, closed ranks around the one that they were meant to be protecting with their lives.
Everyone in my car though, had frozen. No one did a thing. But, if they did, they were doing it incredibly slowly.
I eased my breathing back down to normal, as I turned to face Sperrle, pulling the hammer back on the revolver as I did so. Thumbing back the hammer allowed the trigger to tilt back slightly, ready to fire.
All that it would take now would be a slight squeeze on the curved steel and the hammer would be free to fall onto the round, ejecting it and sending it straight into the ugly man's chest.
The need to thumb the hammer backwards in this situation was not all that necessary, but it made the rotund man aware that my intentions were very much real. Lightening the load with which I would have to pull the trigger, meant that I would be able to fire with a greater accuracy, as the moving parts and pressure involved was less. But, when you’re sitting inches from your target, if you miss, then you deserve to die. It was as simple as that.
So, I wasn’t taking any chances.
Behind the Generalfeldmarschall’s head, I caught sight of the final motorcycle, making its way to the front of the column, the occupant of the sidecar readying the MG34 that he had at his disposal. Things were about to get very noisy indeed.
I saw that he had a Patronentrommel, feeding his weapon, which meant that he would be able to fire seventy-five rounds before he would have to reload. I wondered if he would need to at all, and whether or not they carried spare ammunition in these convoys.
A few flashes from the ditches on either side of the motorcycles told me everything that I needed to know. I wasn’t on my own. And it was showtime.
As if the curtain had been lifted on the most uproarious encore of all time, weapons seemed to burst from all around the tree line, some mixed with flaring tracer rounds, that carved the sky like fireflies.
I had the most important job of all. I was to execute this man who was now sitting in front of me, his terrified eyes bulging like snooker balls.
I squeezed the trigger, waiting for the kickback in my hand and the splattering of blood over my face. But it didn’t come. It wouldn’t come.
There was something stopping me, as I stared into his bulging eyes, that told me not yet, but maybe not at all.
I was frightened about what I would become if I pulled the trigger. If I killed him, bits of his body would be on me, seeping into the pores of my skin and the fabric of my being.
If I pulled the trigger, then I would be no better than the wolves that he sent over in bombers to decimate and carve the city of London. If I pulled the trigger, I would be no better than him.
There was movement to my right. I turned just in time to see the passenger in the front of the car swivel round to his superior, pistol drawn and ready to throw his body in the way of harm.
He caught sight of the revolver that was pressed into Sperrle’s body and shouted.
“Hey!”
I reacted. I spun in my chair and squeezed the trigger, lightly, but enough. The hammer fell and the man’s neck suddenly seemed to explode at the artery, as if the pressure had been building for some time.
Warm, sticky liquid showered itself over my face, just as I caught sight of the driver, himself showered in blood, turn to face me, totally weapon-less.
I watched his head, veins throbbing against the side of his skull, as he reached for his comrade’s weapon. It was the last thing that he ever did.
I squeezed the trigger, twice, quickly, the driver’s head obliterated by two rapid rounds; one to the cheek, the other around his temple. Clumps of smashed skull and bloody tissue clung to the windscreen in front of him, his hand still reaching for the pistol that his friend had drawn out not ten seconds ago.
I had no time to think about what was happening, as suddenly there was a great weight on top of my shoulders, pushing me down towards the footwell of the car.
Sperrle’s snarling lips reminded me of a hungry bear, that had been starved for days and was finally getting a hint of sustenance. The man was heavy, but not exactly agile, and he struggled to manoeuvre his mammoth hands around my neck, but wriggling around, he eventually got them there.
He pressed down hard on my throat, as if every inch of his energy had been focused on my windpipe.
Stars began appearing in my eyes, as I realised, I was slowly losing this battle. His upper body pressed down hard on mine, as I tried to manoeuvre my finger back onto the trigger. Even if I had been able to get my finger there, there was no guarantee that the round I managed to fire would harm him at all. It was just as likely to bury itself into my guts as it was into his.
But, alas, my fingers were completely immobile, as the numbness began to set in. My limbs, had they been able to, would have flopped, as my body’s only focus became about keeping me alive, keeping me conscious.
My head was now pounding in pain, as my brain screamed out for oxygen, from anywhere that it could get some. My nostrils were flared and mouth wide, as saliva and phlegm fought to keep me from dragging in anything that I could use.
All I could see now was his blackened, rat-like eyes, as they began to light up at the prospect of taking me off the earth.
But the man was impatient and, as he tried to finish me off with one final, almighty squeeze, he lifted off my legs to get even more of his plentiful bodyweight behind it.
I didn’t need a second chance. With all my might and allowing part of my brain to shut down in the process, I lifted my heavy leg up, into his groin, fast.
It had the desired effect.
He did not lose his grip entirely, but it loosened enough for me to be able to fight back.
Taking a leaf out of the German’s book, I launched my head up, into his face, not really caring where I connected with Sperrle’s. He howled out in pain as I felt my skull crack onto a tooth, splitting my head and filling his with blood. The headache intensified, to an almost intolerable level, but I knew that if I stopped now, there would be no hope for me whatsoever. It was now or never. He had to be finished off at that moment.
As he leant back, howling like a wounded animal, I fumbled around for the revolver, which I thought had been sandwiched between my chest and his. But it was nowhere to be found.
For half a second, I panicked. But then, I managed to compose myself and remembered the plethora of other ways that we had been taught to kill a man.
I had no time to search for my own weapon, so realised that I would have to improvise.
“Use whatever method you can, to kill your target,” the vague Scottish tones reminded me as I sat in the footwell of the car. “But my recommendation would be to use whatever weapon they might be pointing at you.”
The Scottish instructor’s advice had been sound. But not totally relevant in my case. The Generalfeldmarschall had no weapon to speak of, not from what I could see anyway, but his adjutant had.
Kicking his giant weight off me for a moment, using the remaining energy that I had, I hoisted myself up and lunged into the front seat.
I grabbed the pistol, an FN 1910, which the adjutant gladly gave up.
I flicked the safety down and away from the top of the weapon, pulling back the receiver as I did so. I didn’t like to waste rounds, but right now I needed to know that there was something in there and ready to fire.
It was a small wea
pon, almost like a toy gun, and I knew that I would need to place quite a few rounds into Sperlle’s body to bring him down, especially as he was such a large figure.
But, as I went to turn, I felt something grip me on the ankles, clamping onto and dragging me back down.
I fell onto the backseat of the car, just as the MG34 began to spark up ahead of us. It didn’t seem that any of the other soldiers were aware of what was happening in the car. They were far too preoccupied with all the other figures who had suddenly emerged from the shadows.
I scrabbled around, hoisting myself up to lean on my elbows, to make sure that I watched the man die as I pulled the trigger. But there was a problem. There was already a weapon in front of me. It was the Modele 1892 revolver.
Part of me was entertained by the thought of being killed by the very weapon that had been mine. But the other part of me was distraught that I was going to die in this way; shot on the back seat of a German staff car, having had more than ample opportunity to pull the trigger on the man who was now bearing down on me.
There was no hope. There was no chance of the 1892 failing to fire. It had three rounds left in the cylinder and I could practically see one of the rounds lining up with the barrel, I was that close to it.
From behind the weapon, the snarling face of the Generalfeldmarschall returned, blood pouring from his mouth, and a nice bruise forming on his swollen face.
There was nothing I could do, apart from point the meagre looking weapon at his chest, so we were at a stand-off.
The world around me seemed to go quite still, as if every creature had ceased to do anything, out of amazement at what was happening in the car.
The first one to squeeze the trigger would be the winner, but both of us seemed reluctant to do so.
I could see the cogs whirring behind his eyes. He was going to try and ride this one out. If he could, then there was a chance that he could take me in, interrogate me and bleed as much information from my brain as he could, before disposing of me.
But it was all wishful thinking. He clearly hadn’t seen how many we outnumbered him by.