Chenot quickly spooned more soup into his mouth, only to give a muffled yelp of pain as the hot liquid burned his tongue.
“See, I told you,” Marie chided, “not cautious at all.”
Everyone in the circle laughed at Chenot’s blunder. Everyone except Bouchard, who simply stared into the fire pit, lost in his own thoughts. When the laughter died down, he set aside his empty bowl and turned to Chenot.
“When do you think we can move everything back to the cave?” he asked.
Chenot thought for a moment while he blew across his next spoonful of soup. “We will go tomorrow and see if we can steal a pony or an ass, and perhaps find a small cart - that would be best. We have broken down most of the crates and separated out what we will cache here, what we will keep with us, and what we will store there. We were very, very lucky with that ambush.”
Bouchard nodded. “Those medical supplies will be very useful. It is a shame that they are so easy to recognize, though. They would make excellent bartering goods.”
“The Boche would wreak havoc on any community where they found German goods,” Jean-Marc chimed in. “Especially medicine.”
Arnaud, the band’s unofficial cook as well as their explosives expert, leaned forward to stir the coals below the pot. “Well, we certainly do not want a repeat of what happened last month.”
Everyone grew somber for a moment. An attack on a train carrying German troops to Calais resulted in a nearby village being wiped out for their supposed collaboration with the partisans, despite the fact that not only were they innocent, one of the local teenage boys had tried to warn the train of the attack. The boy had been killed by the Germans, who’d thought he was trying to slow the train so it could be ambushed, and the Germans who later found his body used it as evidence of the village’s involvement in the attack.
“Yes, well, that was a tragedy,” Bouchard muttered. “Sacrifices must be made in order for a war to be won...but no more than necessary.”
“That assumes what happened was necessary,” Chenot replied.
Bouchard looked at him for a long moment while the rest of the partisans sat in silence. “I am not proud of what happened. But I would do it again, and again, and a thousand times more if it meant the extermination of the Boche.”
Chenot found himself looking down into his half-empty bowl. “André, I am still here, am I not?”
The little Frenchman grunted. “Oui. I do not doubt your resolve, René. I am sorry. Let us talk of happier things, yes?”
“Perhaps we should discuss,” Jean-Marc said, “what to name the baby?”
“What baby?” Marie asked, her brow furrowed.
Jean-Marc laughed. “The baby you and René keep trying to make, when you think no one notices!”
“We’re not trying to make a baby!” Chenot sputtered.
Jean-Marc’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Then, do you not know how it is done? Poor Marie, most unfortunate for her! You and I need to have a talk, mon ami.”
Even in the dim light, the flush of Chenot’s cheeks was noticeable. The whole camp roared in laughter. Chenot looked up at Marie, and was glad, at least, to see her blushing as well.
Later that night, Chenot felt Marie’s feather-light touch on his arm. She was so quiet moving about the camp at night that he hadn’t realized she was crouching next to him, and he almost gave them both away with a gasp from the unexpected contact. Marie made no sound, but jabbed him in the ribs sharply for his lack of control. He didn’t say anything, just reached out and took her hand, giving it a soft squeeze.
With infinite care, Chenot set his blanket aside and stood up. He glanced around in the near-total darkness, hesitating for a moment on whether to bring his MP-38 with them. But a tug on his sleeve made up his mind, and he left the weapon where it lay, only pausing for a moment to tuck his pistol - a captured German officer’s P-38 - into his coat pocket.
The two lovers made their way towards the edge of the encampment, using all the stealth they might employ stalking a German sentry. Although their liaisons were a very poorly kept secret, they still didn’t want to alert the camp pickets and risk being mistaken for a skulking Boche, with potentially lethal results.
Finally, Marie leaned in close to Chenot’s ear. “I think this is far enough,” she said, giving his earlobe a quick nip. “I promise to be quiet...this time.”
“You always promise to be quiet,” Chenot replied, “but someone seems to always hear us anyway.”
They slowly lowered themselves into a soft bed of leaves at the base of a tree, feeling around in the dark to move a few dead branches out of their way so as to avoid not only the sound of a snapping twig, but the sharp jab of broken wood into bare skin.
Finally, their carnal bedding properly prepared, the two young partisans began the first act in what was now an established routine of covert lovemaking. For long moments, the two lovers were nothing more than a dark, shifting shadow at the base of a tree, silent save for the occasional sounds of a sharply caught breath, a soft sigh, or a barely repressed moan.
Suddenly, some primal survival instinct - honed to razor sharpness over long months of living two steps from the edge of death - caused both of them to become stone-still and completely silent. Several heartbeats passed, with neither of them moving a muscle, despite the awkward postures they found themselves in. Finally, Chenot slowly lowered his head until his lips were brushing Marie’s ear.
“There’s someone out there. In the woods,” he whispered.
“I know,” she replied. “I heard a branch scrape across dead leaves. Someone moved it with their foot. That was no animal.”
Chenot moved his head in a nod, so close Marie could feel his cheek brushing hers. “It can’t be one of the pickets. They would be to my left.”
Marie nodded in agreement. Without another word, the two of them began to slowly - very slowly - extricate themselves from each other’s embrace. After a long minute of careful movements, the two partisans found themselves crouched next to each other in the shadows of the tree. Marie had drawn her little Colt automatic from its shoulder holster, and Chenot was glad he had taken the precaution of bringing his pistol. It was now in his hand, the safety off. His free hand patted his pockets, taking inventory of his possessions: a spare magazine for his pistol, a small clasp knife, a book of matches, and half a bar of German chocolate.
Minutes passed, and there seemed to be no noise or visible movement. A soft breeze rustled the leaves of the trees around them, but the noticeable, irregular sounds of an intruder couldn’t be detected. Chenot and Marie slowly rose to their feet, standing shoulder to shoulder. René’s left hand reached out and pressed itself reassuringly into the small of Marie’s back, and she leaned into his hand in acknowledgement of his gesture.
Finally, Chenot leaned in close. “Perhaps it was a larger animal? A stag, perhaps,” he whispered.
Marie shook her head. “They wouldn’t be moving at night. I tell you, it was a person.”
Chenot was about to offer a rebuke when they both heard another sound: a sentry’s voice, quiet but clear, off towards the edge of the camp. The words were too faint to be discerned, but from their tone, it was an interrogation of someone the sentry had detected.
With an abrupt violence that almost caused them both to exclaim in shock, the roar of an automatic weapon filled the night air. In the direction of the curious sentry, a long tongue of flame lashed out in the dark, briefly illuminating a twisting, jerking body. Just as quickly, the forest was silent for a single heartbeat, before the real slaughter began.
Shouts of surprise and calls to arms came from the camp. Right after the first burst of fire had lit up the night, both Marie and Chenot had tensed and began to gather themselves together for a headlong dash towards the camp, but the same survival instinct that had warned them of a footfall in the woods now caused them to hesitate for a precious second or two and understand what was happening.
From all around, they heard the sounds of men moving quickly through
the forest, men who no longer cared if they were stealthy or not. There were voices speaking German; harsh, guttural words, indecipherable but with clear intent. What little moonlight filtered down through the forest canopy now glinted here and there off the barrels or magazines of weapons, and the occasional click or snick of safeties being released or bolts being drawn back carried distinctly in the dark.
Individual shots rang out from the camp, the cracks of pistol and rifle fire as several partisans made it to their weapons. There was a burst from an MP-38, but just as quickly there was one, then another and another burst of answering fire, the muzzle flashes of the weapons briefly lighting up the camp. The two lovers saw that the German soldiers were firing from several different directions, having neatly wrapped the camp in a crescent, careful not to move into each other’s arcs of fire. Within seconds, at least a score of Germans were firing, and the answering shots were diminishing by the moment.
The Germans had found them at last, and the partisans were being eliminated.
Marie leaned in and whispered frantically in Chenot’s ear. “René, we have to run. We have to go now.”
He turned to her, saw her face illuminated by the moonlight. Her eyes were wide and bright, her pale skin framed by her black hair. I risked my life to save her once, he thought. And she has risked hers to save mine. We cannot throw each other’s lives away now, not when we still have a chance.
Chenot nodded, and the two of them turned and started moving through the woods away from the camp, crouched low and moving slow but smooth, a steady pace that maintained silence but ate up distance. They heard - and occasionally saw - Germans moving through the woods, and they both realized that this was a large body of men, a company at least. With a deep sense of dread, Chenot realized that it must be the SS unit that had been hunting them down since their battles in and around Merlimont.
They were facing an Einsatzkommando. A German death squad.
This realization caused Chenot’s pace to quicken, and he found himself nearly dragging Marie along, his left hand clamped to her wrist.
“Slow down, they’ll hear us!” she whispered at him.
Too late, Chenot heard a twig snap from a couple of metres away, and a pair of voices questioned them in German. Without hesitating, the two partisans stopped and turned, bringing their pistols to bear. Two bulky figures were barely visible in the moonlight. Chenot and Marie both fired three shots, aiming for center mass. The bodies jerked and one of them cried out as he fell.
Before the bodies had finished crumpling to the ground, Chenot and Marie were tearing at the weapons in their hands, the webbing around their belts. Both SS were wearing camouflage smocks, with their webbing buckled over them, making for easy looting of the bodies. Each of the partisans simply stuffed their pockets with ammunition and tucked stick grenades into their belts. Chenot found himself holding an unfamiliar machine pistol, a model with a wooden stock, a pistol grip in front of the trigger guard, and a side-loading magazine. Nevertheless, his soldier’s instincts moved his hands automatically, finding bolt, safety, and magazine catch. Marie’s victim was armed with a Kar-98K, and as she ran her hands over the weapon she discovered a telescopic sight mounted above the bolt. It would make for clumsy shooting at night, but the man also wore a pistol and Marie pulled the holster free. Further investigation of their victims was interrupted by the sounds of running feet coming their way and a challenge shouted in German.
Chenot answered the challenge with a five-round burst from the machine pistol in his hands, and although the muzzle flash from the weapon blinded him, he heard the runner tumble into the brush, blood gurgling from a perforated throat.
“Enough, René! We have to get out of here!” Marie growled at him.
They reached out in the dark and found each other’s hands, and as the last shots rang out from the encampment, the two lovers fled into the night.
André Bouchard managed to slaughter a pair of Boche as they stormed the camp, but within seconds it was clear they were surrounded by a larger and far better-equipped enemy force. Bouchard knew, as much as he loathed the idea, that they had to run if there was the slightest hope of survival. A second after he’d made that decision, a burst of automatic fire caught him with a bullet in the leg, knocking him down, and as he’d tried to stand, another round clipped him across the shoulder, a third cutting a burning trail across his stomach.
Now he lay in the dark, fumbling across the ground, hunting for his MP-38. The weapon had fallen from his hands when the bullet punched through the meat of his thigh. Hands searching for the cold steel, Bouchard could hear the Germans getting closer, and every few seconds there was a single pistol shot; someone was executing wounded partisans. Before he could find his machine pistol, the searching beams of hooded lanterns and electric torches illuminated him. Bouchard turned onto his side, gritting his teeth against the pain, and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare, determined to look into the face of death and show no fear at the moment of his execution.
But instead of gun muzzles blazing death, Bouchard made out a tall figure clad in black, stepping through the circle of camouflaged SS, a long-barreled pistol still smoking in his hand. A gaunt face, close-cropped grey hair, and a shadowy, gaping eye socket revealed the officer’s identity.
“Johann Faust,” Bouchard muttered through gritted teeth.
“Guten Abend, Herr Bouchard,” Faust replied.
With desperate speed, Bouchard snatched the little MAB automatic from his belt, but instead of aiming and firing at Faust, Bouchard tried to bring the pistol up against the side of his own head.
Before Bouchard could complete his suicide, Faust raised his Mauser, and with a brief shake of his head, fired a single shot.
Chapter 2
Largs, Scotland
July 10th, 1400 Hours
The pistol bucked in his hand, the barrel rising up from the target with the recoil. Bringing the weapon level again, he fired two more shots at each of the three targets in front of him, all aimed at center mass. Finally, the weapon’s slide locked back, the magazine spent, a thin curl of smoke rising from the barrel.
Corporal Thomas Lynch, formerly of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, now a member of Britain’s 3 Commando troop, pressed his pistol’s magazine release with the side of his thumb. The magazine dropped out of the pistol’s butt, and Lynch deftly caught it before it could hit the ground.
“Quite the superlative weapon, don’t you agree?”
Lynch turned to see Lieutenant Price, his commanding officer, walking across the grass to stand next to him on the small arms firing range. The range was designed for engaging targets up to fifty yards away, but Lynch had been shooting at silhouettes standing only fifteen yards from the firing line. In his experience, any further away, and either you had time to bring your long arm to bear, or if that wasn’t available, your best chance was to leg it and live to fight another day.
Lynch gave Price a perfunctory salute, which Price returned. Thankfully, Price was not the sort of officer who bawled out his men for the slightest informality, but Lynch knew the lieutenant’s aristocratic upbringing caused him to prickle whenever his authority went unacknowledged. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, Price was tall and slender, always wearing an immaculate, privately tailored uniform, his dashing good looks and a thin, well-groomed moustache making him look every inch the dapper English gentleman playing at war. As Lynch well knew, however, looks could be very deceiving.
In response to Price’s question, Lynch looked down at the pistol in his hand. It was an American Colt M1911A1 self-loading pistol, calibre .45 ACP. It was a simple, rugged weapon, slab-sided and rather inelegant, but there was no denying its suitability for ending the lives of your enemies. Although the pistol had a substantial report and recoil, it was a fast-firing weapon. Lynch found with practice he could empty the seven-round magazine with rapid fire in less than four seconds, and reload the weapon in another four.
“Aye, so it is. The Yanks know how t
o build a pistol,” Lynch replied. “Certainly an improvement over our Enfields.”
Price made a sour face. “Shame, really. I don’t like to see the colonials lording anything over us, but one can’t deny their proficiency with firearms. I hear every man Jack has a rifle over the mantle and a revolver in the nightstand. A bit bloodthirsty if you ask me.”
His practice done for the day, Lynch inserted the empty magazine back into the butt of the pistol, then tapped the slide release and lowered the hammer. He hefted the pistol in his hand and looked at Price.
“I think we’re going to become more and more grateful of American bloody-mindedness in the years to come. We already use their tommy guns, and now their pistols. Soon their rifles, tanks, planes, ships - drinking our lager from cans before long, we will.”
“Perish the thought,” Price muttered. He nodded his head back towards the castle a quarter-mile away. “We have a meeting with the colonel. New assignment. Holster your weapon and come along.”
Lynch nodded and followed orders.
The weather was warm and sunny, with a light breeze that did just enough to evaporate sweat and cool the skin. Although it could be uncomfortably hot on a cloudless summer day here in Scotland, he thanked his lucky stars they weren’t with the lads down in North Africa, those “desert rats” as they were called, battling it out in the scorching heat and blazing sun. With his shock of thick black hair and fair Irish complexion, Lynch feared he’d drop from heat exhaustion long before an Italian or German bullet got him.
As Price and Lynch walked across the grounds of Castle Largs, home of House Boyle for the last few centuries, they passed hundreds of men going about their daily training routines. The crackle of rifles and the rattle of automatic weapons was accompanied by the blast of grenades and the shouts of men battering each other in unarmed combat practice. Elsewhere, Commandos in full kit ran past, led by leather-lunged sergeants keeping cadence.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 15