50.
No Time to Waste
The Austrian Alps
Thursday, 11 June 1931
THE three autogiros landed softly on a grassy bank on the right side of the stream. Murphy hopped out of his passenger‘s seat and marched off to inspect the hillside as Sullivan followed. Cockran couldn‘t bear to go with them and began to top off the fuel tanks of each autogiro to keep busy while he waited for their return.
As Cockran topped off the last plane, his foot sunk into a soft hole in the grass and he stumbled to his knees. He lifted his shoe out of the hole with a curse and looked back at the grass where he fell. Slowly, he became aware of several small depressions in the earth trailing away from the spot where he had fallen. He followed them with his eyes and saw that they trailed away in a path towards the tree cover at the base of the hillside.
He put the fuel container down and got to his feet. “Rankin!” he shouted. “Get over here!” Cockran followed the trail towards the trees as Rankin came over from the stream‘s edge.
“What is it?”
“Take a look at these.” Cockran said. “Tell me what you think they are.”
Rankin walked up beside Cockran and followed his eyes. He dropped his giant frame close to the ground. “Animal tracks. A hoofed animal, like a horse. Smaller. Maybe a mule.”
Cockran moved forward, following the tracks to the edge of the forest. He stepped between trees and into a small clearing beneath a canopy of leaves. Hoof prints were joined by boot prints on the forest floor, most of them clustered by a circle of stones. Rankin touched the black and gray ashes that remained from a dead fire. “Still warm,” he said, letting his hands dip into the ashes. “Whoever was here left this morning. Either they‘re not mountain men, or they didn‘t have time to dismantle the campfire and spread the ashes.”
“Could this have been the SS campsite?” Cockran asked.
Rankin slapped his hands together, wiping off the ashes. “No. The farmhand said the SS were on horseback. None of these tracks are large enough for mounted horses.”
They searched the surrounding area and found the assorted debris left behind—broken stakes, emptied food provisions, discarded gun clips. Rankin emerged from behind another tree carrying a small khaki blouse and held it out for Cockran to see.
“Is this Mattie‘s?” he asked softly. Cockran knew that it was and nodded. Rankin turned the blouse around before handing it to Cockran, revealing blood stains surrounding a few tears along the back of the shirt. Cockran looked at them closely, fingering the torn threads of the cloth and counting the number of holes. “She‘s been hurt, then,” Rankin said. “But I don‘t think she‘s been badly hurt unless that was….” Rankin stopped, unable to finish the sentence
Something stuck in Cockran‘s throat and he voiced the obvious. “Unless she‘s the one Murphy saw up on that ridge.”
Cockran moved back out of the trees quickly in search of Sullivan, but only found Harmony waiting for them back at the autogiros, her face a mask of concern over their sudden disappearance into the woods. “What is it?” she asked.
“Sullivan. Murphy.” Cockran said. “Have they come back yet?”
“No,” she said in a small voice. “But Bobby‘s coming back. I can see him.”
Cockran turned without a word and picked up his pace, running across the grass towards the hillside. Sullivan was walking along a wide, stone strewn bank of the stream. “Bobby!” he shouted, short on breath. “Bobby! Was she there?”
“What?” Sullivan said.
“Mattie!” Cockran shouted again. “Was that her up there? Tell me!” Sullivan looked confused. “No,” he said. “No, it wasn‘t.”
Cockran closed his eyes and let his shoulders sag for a moment. She was alive. He let his breath catch up with him and looked at Sullivan. “We found her campsite,” Cockran said. “She left her shirt behind. It was torn and bloody. I wanted to be sure she wasn‘t the body on that ridge.” Sullivan nodded in understanding. “What did you find?”
“They weren‘t SS,” Sullivan said. “There were two bodies. Dressed for hiking. Basic supplies and two sleeping sacks. One killed long range, the other shot just behind his left temple.”
“An execution?” Cockran asked.
“Probably,” Sullivan said. “But he‘d been shot in the shoulder from a distance with a rifle. No powder burns on that wound. It wasn‘t fatal. The shot to the head was. The boyo had a funny tattoo on the inside of his wrist, like an old fashioned Gaelic cross. Though I‘d bet the farm he wasn‘t Irish.”
“What about the second body?” Cockran asked.
“Same tattoo,” Sullivan replied. “Probably the other bodies too.”
“There were other bodies?” Cockran asked.
Sullivan nodded. “In the trees on the other side. I sent Murphy over to check it out.” They turned and saw Murphy a little further up stream, climbing back down between the trees.
Sullivan shouted to him, “Murph! Did you find them?”
“Yes, I found the buggers!” Murphy shouted back. “They‘re both dead!”
“Did they have tattoos?”
“Same!” Murphy replied. “They were wearing a different tunic and few more bullet holes, but both sportin‘ the same cross inside their left wrist!”
“An ambush by the SS?” Sullivan suggested.
“Certainly a firefight of some kind,” Cockran said. “We don‘t have time to find out. Mattie may be alive, and we don‘t have any more time to waste.”
Back in the air again, Cockran felt energized. Flying close to the ground, near the right bank of the stream, he kept an eye on the terrain for further signs of Mattie‘s trail. They had scanned the maps again, searching for the pass that would take them northwest and over the hills on their right. The stream itself wound deeper into the mountain range, but turned to the southwest, away from the castle. He figured there were at least four more peaks to cross.
They reached a gentle slope in the hills on their right that rose between two of the lesser peaks and began their ascent. The pass between the rising mountains climbed slowly north, making small bends back and forth as it wound its way higher into the sky. Up ahead, Cockran could see the top of the pass make a sharp bend towards the west before disappearing from sight beyond the horizon. Cockran pulled back on the stick to gain altitude, and glancing at his altimeter, he saw that they were over 7,000 feet and climbing. The air was discernably thinner and the horizon widened as he climbed so that he had a clear view beyond the ridge to the next pass, a mile in the distance and considerably higher.
Cockran tilted his head over the side to look below and saw a narrow clearing between the trees. His eyes followed it up the hill until—there was movement! One, two, three—a host of figures, moving up the path just as the pass reached its summit and turned west. “Down below!” Cockran said. “Ten o‘clock!” He increased their altitude to stay above the rising terrain. He arched his neck to the left again and looked below. There were eighteen of them, on horseback, and they were all dressed in black. The SS! Cockran‘s autogiro drifted close enough to the pass that he could see several of the men on horseback strain their necks to look up at the aircraft as they soared overhead, passing over the ridge and dropping into the next valley below.
They cleared the second pass at just under 9,000 feet and glided back into the final valley before the ascent to the castle. The majestic granite peak loomed over the forested dale which rose gently to meet the steeper inclines of the summit. The castle should be somewhere around a bend on the western face of the mountain, off to their left. They were cruising closer to the ground at around 3,000 feet as they banked towards the western face, Cockran saw something like dust rising up above the tree level. He kept his eyes on the source of dust and saw a train of figures moving slowly on an exposed pass leading up the hillside. Mattie! It had to be her! There was no way, even on horseback, that more SS could have gotten this far.
Cockran alerted the others to Mattie�
��s expedition and led the autogiro squadron in a rapid ascent, aiming for 10,000 feet. He had wanted to do the same when they had flown over the SS outfit, but they were so high in the pass at that time, nearly 8,000 feet, that Cockran wasn‘t going to risk the autogiro‘s rated 15,000 foot ceiling capacity, certainly not without oxygen. As a consequence, the SS men below had gotten a good look at the three flying windmills as they passed by. He wasn‘t about to give the Kaiser‘s man, Kurt von Sturm, the same advantage.
Thirty minutes later, with Mattie‘s expedition safely behind them, they returned to a lower altitude just under 4,000 feet—only a thousand feet above the rolling contours of the mountain meadow below. Small elevated lakes rested in a chain of plateaus along the hillside, rising up to the final pass that wound around the eastern face of the peak. Within minutes, Rankin‘s voice came over the radio. They were nearing the area Joey Thomas had identified on the rough map he had been given.
Shortly after, a rigid structure emerged from around the bend as though it grew out of the mountain itself. The forbidding battlements of a medieval castle glowing in the afternoon sun.
51.
Sturm’s Apology
The Austrian Alps
Thursday, 11 June 1931
TO Mattie‘s surprise, Sturm apologized right after a lunch where silence had been the rule. Taking her away from the others, he looked into her eyes with the same expression she had seen that first time on the zeppelin as well as the first night they made love.
“My actions last night were inexcusable. I was concerned for your safety and angry about what could have happened to you. But that is no excuse. Forgive me. Please accept my apology.”
Sturm was clearly embarrassed, ashamed even. Her immediate reaction was to coldly ignore him. After all, she could have stopped him last night had she really wanted to, but his apology made him all the more dangerous. She knew now she had been wrong about him last night. She could see it in his eyes. He cared for her. He was in love with her. Being alone again with this man would tempt fate, a triumph of hope over experience. Last night proved that. What she needed was to find Cockran, win him back and start over again. Away from Kurt von Sturm.
“Accepted,” she said with no trace of emotion “How long will our trek be today?”
“That depends. How are your knee and ankle holding up?”
“They‘re still tender but if it becomes too painful, I‘ll hitch a ride on a pack horse.”
“In that case, my best estimate is no more than four hours at a steady pace. We ought to be able to see the castle once we clear this next ridge.”
They were on a winding path approximately half way up the ridge when Mattie saw movement from the corner of her eye and looked up. They were too high to hear, specks in the sky, but overhead she could make out three aircraft flying in a single-file formation. She pointed them out to Sturm who nodded. “Yes, I saw them too. Unusual to see aircraft in the Alps. But they must be over 10,000 feet. I can‘t make out what type of aircraft they are.”
Mattie‘s knee was throbbing when they crested the top of the ridge in early afternoon. Sturm took out his field glasses. “It‘s there,” he announced matter-of-factly. “For castle ruins, it looks remarkably intact.” He handed the binoculars to Mattie. “Here, take a look.”
Mattie looked through the field glasses in the direction Sturm pointed.
“Another two hours and we‘ll set up camp at that lake just below the castle,” Sturm said.
The castle loomed large above them as the Austrians began to unpack the horses and set up camp beside the lake. As they finished setting up camp, Sturm continued to treat Mattie solicitously, explaining his actions, inviting her comments, still trying to make up for last night. Kurt being kind and thoughtful rather than brisk and efficient was a side of him rarely glimpsed.
“I considered setting up camp inside the castle wall itself,” Sturm said, “but it is unlikely the water supply is still working.”
Mattie nodded. “We have two or three hours of daylight. Do we begin a preliminary exploration of the castle now or wait and get a fresh start in the morning?”
“What is your preference?”
Mattie grinned. “Now.”
Sturm instructed Hoch to take two men and establish a perimeter guard.
Sturm turned to Mattie. “We‘ll take my other man with us. I‘ll be on point. He‘ll bring up the rear. Would you prefer to be armed with something more than your automatic pistol?”
Mattie was momentarily taken aback. “Armed with what?”
“One of the assault rifles, like the one you had yesterday.”
“You weren‘t too pleased with that, as I recall.”
Sturm‘s anger of the day before did not show, his voice low and even. “I sent you with Professor Campbell and the Austrians to keep them safe, not to take you away from the action. You were the rear guard to protect them, our horses and supplies in the event we failed to contain the enemy. Instead, you left them defenseless and yourself exposed to danger, which is why I sent Willi to come to your aid.” There was no hint of rebuke in his voice.
Mattie nodded. “I understand that now. I‘m sorry.”
“If you understand, no apology is necessary. All I expect once I give you a weapon is that you will do what I say when I say and trust me enough to believe I have a good reason for each of my orders. Units in combat can function no other way and those men who have tried to stop us from reaching this castle may well be waiting inside.”
Mattie nodded again, her expression serious, her eyes scanning the terrain along with Sturm. She had been shot at before without result but only as a journalist, not as a soldier. Now she was a member of a unit, a combat team, and her life depended now as it had earlier on the skill of the unit‘s leader, a man she had taken for a lover. A man who loved her. A man she trusted implicitly with her life. She turned to look into his blue eyes. “You can count on me.”
52.
Keep Mattie Safe
Castle Lanz
Thursday, 11 June 1931
THE castle looked like a giant trapezoid from the air, rising out of the 3,000 foot high mountain ridge, the stone of the structure blending into the mountain below so that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. The autogiros circled the castle and Cockran noted the sheer sides on the eastern and western walls and the massive nature of the northern wall. He saw that the castle could only be approached on foot from the south.
After circling the castle twice and noting no signs of its being inhabited, the autogiros flew on into the next valley upon which the western wall of the castle looked down. After landing, Cockran could see that someone standing high on the castle‘s western wall could easily spot the aircraft below. He helped Sullivan, Rankin and the other two Apostles drape all three planes with camouflage netting where they placed green leafy branches and wild flowers.
Cockran caught the eyes of Sullivan and Rankin and motioned them to join him. “We don‘t have much time. Mattie‘s group will set up camp at the small lake we flew over. We need to get up over the ridge and into position so that we can intercept anyone going from the camp to the castle. If there‘s a chance, we have to try to rescue her before they make it to the castle.”
The ridge climb was rough, a steep and steady incline which took them more than two hours, 30 minutes more than Cockran had anticipated. His hip was still bothering him. Once they reached the top of the ridge, Cockran signaled them to keep low. Their silhouettes would be backlit by the late afternoon sun. He paused behind a tree and raised his field glasses to look at the small mountain lake below the castle‘s eastern wall. Mattie‘s group had arrived. There were six tents in all, four small and two large, roughly 20 yards apart. Good, Cockran thought. Too late to visit the castle but time to set up an ambush and rescue Mattie.
Cockran saw that two men, each with a side arm and an assault rifle, had set up a perimeter, patrolling on a regular basis. He watched three Austrians preparing for
dinner, surprised at how lavish it was. Four canvas and wood camp chairs around a campaign table with two wine glasses and china at each setting on a white tablecloth with two large candles.
Cockran focused his field glasses on the castle. He spotted movement in the trees above the campsite. A small group of four people was making its way up from the campsite to the castle. Cockran‘s anger rose. He knew Sullivan had seen it too—Mattie‘s unmistakable red hair.
Moments later, Sullivan was by his side. “There‘s no way to intercept them, Bobby?”
Sullivan shook his head. “We‘d have to cross open ground.” Cockran raised his binoculars, his heart aching as he saw Mattie‘s profile. The man on the point and the man at the rear had assault rifles. While he could not reach the castle undetected, he could circle below them and reach the campsite‘s perimeter without being seen
“You three wait here,” Cockran said to Sullivan. “I‘m going to head down the tree line and get as close as I can to the camp, hole up there and wait for dark.” Cockran picked up his Enfield carbine with a telescopic sight and slung it over his shoulder. “Wait here until they come out. If Mattie and Campbell aren‘t with them, kill them both. Got that?”
“No problem,” Sullivan said.
“But if Mattie is with them, hold your fire even if Campbell isn‘t. Keep your weapons trained on them all the way down. Keep her safe. Just keep Mattie safe.”
“How long will you be?” Sullivan asked.
“As long as it takes. I‘ve got to talk to Mattie. If I‘m not here by midnight, you three head back to our camp. I‘ll join you before dawn.”
53.
The Castle
Castle Lanz
Thursday, 11 June 1931
THE castle is remarkable,” Geoffrey Campbell said as they began the trek up the steep slope. “It obviously was built by the Hohenstaufens but it shows a clear Cistercian influence.”
The Parsifal Pursuit Page 35