Fox from His Lair

by John Harris

  There was a jumpiness in the air. There were no rear areas on the Omaha bridgehead and no more than a hundred tons of supplies had been landed; men, thankful to be alive, were writing to relatives to tell them so from the backs of trucks, slit trenches and former enemy strongpoints. Field kitchens were moving up and latrines were being dug. A few civilians stood in their doorways, staring at the river of men and machines moving ashore.

  Despite the horror of Omaha, it had been easier than had been expected, but the Germans usually had an ace up their sleeve and no one wanted to be where the ace was played. Some men slept the sleep of the exhausted, but there were as many awake, staring nervously into the darkness, their ears cocked for the sound of panzers, because no one knew what the Germans were up to. The last of the wounded were being removed, their faces composed and serene as nuns under their bandages.

  Pargeter and Iremonger crouched in a shell-smashed farm-house in the village. There had been several French civilians there when they’d arrived, mostly women and children, and a knitted tricolour and a bottle of wine had been produced.

  ‘Is it le D-jour?’ one of the women had asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Iremonger had said. ‘It sure is.’

  The civilians were now poking among the wreckage of houses smashed into rubble by shells. They looked like fruit-pickers, taking a dusty item of clothing here, an old chair there, a cooking pot or an unbroken plate, oblivious of the gunfire behind them and the occasional rattle of a machine-gun in front; indifferent even to the possibility of snipers as they struggled to bring some order to the torrents of stone and timber which had been their homes.

  The sky in the west showed red, silhouetting the damaged buildings, and nearby a haystack and a house crackled in flames. The place was full of men, yet somehow in the semi-darkness it seemed deserted, weird and unearthly, like a picture by Hieronymus Bosch. Somewhere a church bell tolled. To Pargeter, who hadn’t heard a church bell in England since they’d been reserved for invasion warnings in 1940, it sounded strange. The village was silent but alive, almost as if its breathing could be heard.

  He was toying with his K-ration and his smooth round face was calm. Iremonger frowned at him, puzzled as always to have found him a reliable comrade and a useful friend. His views on human beings were changing a lot. Hitherto, he’d always set store by bold, active men willing to take risks, but now he realised he’d been over-conditioned by Hollywood’s version of courage. Too many times during the past day he’d seen big men with strong arms and strong jaws cowering with their heads down while smaller, frailer ones, with no pretensions to heroic looks, had done their duty without flinching. Courage didn’t come in properly labelled packages. Brave men could be any shape, any size – like the soldier they’d made into a sergeant; like Lieutenant Cuddy; Deery, the medical orderly; Pargeter himself. If anyone failed to fit the established picture of a brave man Pargeter did. Yet he’d never flinched during the whole dreadful day and his experience had more than once saved their lives.

  The night was dark, windy, wet and cold. In the next room a man was snoring and another muttered in his sleep. Then Iremonger heard an aeroplane overhead and the guns of the ships lying offshore and the anti-aircraft weapons, which had been dragged up the beach, started to crash. The battered buildings shook and Pargeter raised his head. As the splinters began to clink and clatter on the tiles, his mouth lifted in a smile.

  Occasionally there was a solitary shot in the darkness or the short stutter of a machine gun as some nervous sentry saw shadows in the night. Because he was hungry and over-tired, Iremonger felt half-frozen and began to wonder if there would ever be a time again when he wouldn’t be in danger of his life, cold, damp, worried and sickened by the thought of failure.

  With no real knowledge of the Fox’s whereabouts or what he was up to, they’d spent the whole of the evening moving among the forward units looking for him. Nobody was interested. Nobody wanted to know. They were all far more concerned with eating, sleeping or making sure they were safe from a snap attack.

  ‘For Christ’s sake–’ the answer had come a dozen and one times ‘–you guys think we’ve nothing better to do than search around for some guy who’s got lost?’

  It had taken all their patience, sometimes a lot of anger, sometimes even Iremonger’s rank and the letter he carried in his pocket signed by Eisenhower himself, before anyone would listen to them. Nobody had willingly believed their story. They were ashore, weren’t they? That was all that mattered.

  Just before dark they had thought they were close to where the Fox was hiding. He was somewhere just in front of the village where they now waited. Nobody knew who he was but his photograph had been identified several times – not with distaste but with admiration.

  ‘That’s the guy,’ one sergeant had said. ‘Jesus, his face was black with bruising, and he was dragging a game leg, but, hell, that guy was sure determined to get forward!’

  ‘He looked like death,’ a young lieutenant, the sole unwounded officer of his regiment, had told them. ‘Gaunt, battered and covered with blood, and with his trouser leg slit up to the waist. But he sure as hell refused to give up. If we win this war, it’ll be because of guys like him.’

  They hadn’t bothered to enlighten them. It would have taken too long and they probably wouldn’t have believed them, anyway. With the image of a hero in their minds, they just wouldn’t have seen things the same way.

  Trucks and jeeps loaded with ammunition bumped and skidded into the village and a few tanks clattered up, deploying to stop any sudden counter-attack by the panzers. Further back, in the ruined square, MPs were waving the traffic forward, and engineers were pushing aside the wreckage of houses with bulldozers and filling in the shell-holes. Jeep ambulances, with wounded strapped across the top, jolted back between the taped-off minefields towards the beach; and in the fields just off the beach, graves registration troops were burying the dead.

  Iremonger stared around him. Like so many French farmhouses, this one looked as though it had been built to withstand a siege. It had thick stone walls, narrow windows, slate roofs that were holed here and there, a pump in the kitchen, and a deep safe cellar that was crammed at the moment with sleeping men. On the wall there was a photograph of three men in uniform, with French flags in the corners and the dates, 1914–1918, and the words, Morts pour la patrie, underneath. A machine-gun burst coming through the window had shattered the glass and riddled the picture, pinning it to the plaster and killing the dead men all over again.

  Iremonger shifted uncomfortably. The floor was hard and his backside was sore.

  ‘Cuthbert,’ he said, ‘are you sure we’ve done everything we can?’

  ‘I think so,’ Pargeter answered in his old-maidish way. ‘There isn’t a thing we can do now until daylight.’

  ‘Suppose he makes a break for it in the dark?’

  ‘With that leg of his, he’ll not make any breaks,’ Pargeter said confidently. ‘And we’ve asked everyone to report if they’ve got him. They’ll be sending runners any time now.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Iremonger tossed a cigarette across. ‘He can’t move fast. That’s one thing.’ He paused, frowning. ‘It’s a goddam funny thing, Cuth,’ he went on in puzzled tones. ‘When this thing started, I hated this guy’s guts. Now I’d like to capture him alive. I’d even speak up for him when he was tried.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll give us that pleasure, Linus.’

  As they talked, a soldier pushed into the kitchen. ‘Colonel Iremonger, sir?’ he asked.

  Iremonger sat up. ‘Sure, that’s me. What have you got, son?’

  ‘The captain said to tell you that this guy you’re looking for isn’t with us, Colonel.’

  ‘He was sure of that?’

  ‘He checked every man, sir. There were a few of the 116th mixed in with us but this guy wasn’t one of ’em.’

  ‘Thanks, son. What’s your unit?’

  As the soldier disappeared, Iremonger sighed and
ticked off a name in the written list in the notebook alongside him. Next door a field telephone jangled and a dirty face appeared round the door.

  ‘Colonel, sir. For you.’

  Iremonger disappeared to the other room and Pargeter heard him talking. When he came back, he shook his head and placed another tick alongside the list.

  ‘That guy’s going to slip through our fingers, Cuthbert,’ he said.

  During the next hour, the telephone jangled several times and the ticks increased on Iremonger’s list. One or two messengers also appeared but there was little joy in the messages they brought.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Iremonger said. ‘Where is the goddam guy? We’re going through them with a fine-toothed comb. Every goddam outfit – engineers, signallers, infantry, artillery, mortar men, Rangers, tankmen, cavalry, medical corps; even the outfits setting up signalling stations and dressing stations and refuelling posts. He must be somewhere. He’s been seen in this village. He’s been identified.’

  While he was still talking, a soldier pushed into the candlelight.

  ‘Colonel Iremonger, Intelligence?’

  ‘That’s me, son.’

  ‘Lieutenant Doss. Jim Doss, Colonel. 18th Infantry. I think we’ve got your Colonel Cornelow.’

  Iremonger glanced at Pargeter. ‘Colonel Cornelow?’ he said.

  ‘That’s what he is, sir.’

  Iremonger frowned. ‘Show him the pictures, Cuthbert,’ he said.

  Pargeter produced the photographs and Lieutenant Doss stared at them by the light of a pressure lamp on the table.

  ‘That’s the guy, sir. Colonel Cornelow.’

  ‘Last time we heard of him, he was Captain Cornelow.’

  ‘Well, he sure as hell isn’t now, sir.’

  Iremonger thought for a moment then his eyes lifted. ‘You holding him, Lieutenant?’

  Lieutenant Doss shook his head. ‘Colonel, sir, my commanding officer, Major Dallas, said he wasn’t going to arrest him. It would have to be done by you. That guy, sir, arrived up with us, wounded and all – twice, mebbe three times – and all he wanted was to get forward.’

  ‘He sure as hell did,’ Iremonger growled. ‘So far forward he could join the Germans. Where is he?’

  ‘Right in front of us, sir. We pushed forward an observation post and he offered to go. We’d run out of officers, Colonel, and he said he’d take the job. He’d been with us all evening, sir. And, being wounded and all, the major thought he was a great guy. He didn’t want him to go but the guy said, hell, he couldn’t run much with his leg but he could sure as hell sit down behind a few sandbags and watch for us; if only to let the rest of the guys get some sleep. We thought he was sure some soldier, sir. That leg of his looks bad. He ought to be evacuated by rights and he probably will be tomorrow. The major didn’t believe what you said about him.’

  ‘Nobody does,’ Iremonger growled. ‘Can you pick this guy up for us?’

  ‘No, sir, we can’t.’ Doss shrugged, as weary as them all. ‘There’s a fixed machine gun playing on the ground between us and where he is. There are three of them: this guy, a sergeant and a private first class. Nobody’s getting across that patch of ground. Not even in the dark.’

  Iremonger looked at Pargeter who nodded.

  ‘It looks as though it’ll have to be us, Linus,’ he said.

  Eleven

  They found Major Dallas sitting at a table in what had once been a farmworker’s cottage. Part of the roof had gone and there was no glass left in the window frames where blankets had been hung to provide a blackout.

  He was a gaunt, lean-faced Kentuckian and he looked as exhausted as everybody else. On the floor around him men were sleeping, huddled with their weapons round the walls. His eyes were red-rimmed and he didn’t bother to rise as they appeared behind Lieutenant Doss.

  Pargeter produced his pictures, rather like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat. ‘Colonel Cornelow?’ he asked.

  Dallas stared at them and nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s the guy all right.’

  ‘I want him,’ Iremonger said.

  ‘What’s the guy done? He ought to be recommended for a medal.’

  ‘If we don’t get him,’ Iremonger said, ‘he’ll probably get one. But it won’t be a Congressional Medal of Honour. It’ll be an Iron Cross, with palms, oak leaves, daggers and what the hell else they give them. The guy’s a German.’

  ‘He can’t be!’

  ‘Major,’ Iremonger said, ‘you aren’t telling me. I’m telling you. His name’s Reinecke. Lieutenant-Colonel Ebert Klaus Reinecke of the Wehrmacht. Also Hans-Heinrich Müller. Also Taddeus Kechinski, 20th Polish Recce Regiment, and Lieutenant Jack Kechinski, 113th Infantry, US Army, and a few others as well. Now, it seems, known also as Colonel Cornelow, of no known outfit, temporarily attached to you.’ He looked at Pargeter. ‘Show him the one Hardee gave us, Cuthbert.’

  Pargeter pushed forward the photograph showing the Fox in German uniform with high-peaked cap, flyaway breeches and polished boots.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Dallas said.

  ‘You heard what happened to Exercise Tiger in Lyme Bay?’ Iremonger asked.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  Pargeter tapped the photograph with his finger.

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘Son,’ Iremonger said, ‘I wish we were. If we were, we sure as hell shouldn’t be here, and we shouldn’t have been on Omaha yesterday. We’d have been somewhere a goddam sight safer.’

  ‘But this guy went forward,’ Dallas said. ‘I saw him using an automatic rifle with my own eyes. He’s out there now.’

  ‘Sure he is, because the first chance he has, he’s going to make a break for the German lines. He’s got plenty of reason. In addition to his Iron Cross, they’ll probably make him a general for what he’s got in his pocket.’

  ‘What the hell has he got?’

  ‘Every goddam detail of our moves from here on in. If he could have, he’d have got them to the Krauts long before now and, if he had, you wouldn’t be here. You’d probably be floating face-down in the sea, together with a lot of other guys. At least we stopped him doing that. Now we have to stop him letting Rommel know what our next move is and where we’re heading. That’s why he’s here and why we’re here. There was no other way of doing it. That’s why he’s out there in front. Because the only way he can get what he’s got across will be to let himself be captured or something. It wouldn’t matter much if he were killed, so long as he were killed getting into the German lines so they could find the papers we know he’s carrying.’

  ‘Which is why he’s promoted himself to field rank,’ Pargeter said.

  Dallas was staring at Iremonger. ‘Jesus, Colonel, I sure hope you don’t think I didn’t check enough on him.’

  ‘Don’t worry, son,’ Iremonger said. ‘He’s bluffed plenty of other people. If you’d asked to see his papers, he’d have produced them okay. He’s got ’em, I guess.’

  ‘But the guy seemed to have so much guts!’

  ‘That’s what everybody says. Even I’ve got to grant him that. But it’s still our job to nail him.’

  Dallas stared at Lieutenant Doss. ‘I guess I can’t leave here,’ he said. ‘We’re too thinly spread and orders are to wait for the armour. But I’ll send someone with you to show you the way. He’s in front of Max Schneider’s section and there’s a sniper out there. He’ll tell you where to keep your heads down.’

  Lieutenant Schneider’s men were dug in round another cottage a hundred yards further forward. The living room smelled of sweat and gunpowder and there were hundreds of spent cartridges lying on the floor, crushed out of shape by the feet of the men in the room. The furniture was piled against the windows, the wooden chairs splintered and broken by bullets, and the men were sitting on the floor against the walls.

  Dawn was breaking, and, all along the fringe of the perimeter, men were waking, cold and stiff and dirty from a night of fitful sleep in shallow scraped holes, pinching the
mselves to reassure themselves that they were still alive. Behind them they could hear the grind and clatter of tanks and bulldozers trying to drag wreckage aside. They were still desperately in need of supplies and, because they couldn’t discharge at sea into smaller ships, the British had started beaching the heavy LSTs. When they didn’t break their backs, the Americans had begun to do the same.

  As the sky lightened, they could see the shape and curves of the countryside. This would probably be the most important day of the invasion. This would be the day when the counter-attacks would come and, at the end of this day, they would either be in the sea again or know they were in France to stay. The men in the cottage looked nervous, and Lieutenant Schneider had the air of a gun dog which had just seen a bird; tense and still, his face against the wall, his eye peering round the corner of the window into the growing daylight.

  ‘There’s a tank out there,’ he was saying over his shoulder. ‘If they bring up tanks, we’re French fried, with ketchup.’

  ‘We still got a bazooka and two shells, sir,’ a corporal said from the back of the room.

  Iremonger glanced at Pargeter. The tension in the cottage was like a coiled cobra.

  Schneider withdrew his eye from the window frame and saw Iremonger, Pargeter and the man who had led them forward.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘You brought reinforcements?’

  ‘No,’ Iremonger said. ‘We want to get forward.’

  Schneider’s teeth bared in a grimace. ‘That’s a laugh, Colonel. Nobody’s going forward from here.’

  ‘We have to reach your observation post.’

  ‘Not even there. Those guys’ll be lucky if they get back.’ The tired eyes clouded. ‘I’d be sorry about that. They’ve got guts, all three of them. But at the moment we can’t do a damn thing because there’s an 88 in the far corner of the field and about three goddam heavy machine-guns.’ He indicated two or three huddled shapes lying in front of the cottage. ‘That was last night. They caught us as we tried to move forward. That’s Ufford, Smith and Cohn. Lieutenant Howard’s somewhere out there, too. We could hear him crying out for a long time. I guess he’d dead now.’