by Colin Gee
“I think it is high time that the Legion was withdrawn from frontline service and given the opportunity to rest. Given the latest deployment of our Allies, I think that High Command would agree to give their finest soldiers a break, eh?”
“Agreed. Now, to Weiss.”
De Valois rose slowly.
“I have an idea of how we can turn this to our advantage, Sir, but it will take fast work.”
The three men listened to her hastily hatched plan and, despite their objections to the part she chose to play, saw opportunity raise its head.
The plan was agreed.
Anne-Marie de Valois decided on a simple approach. No suspicious adjustment to her make-up or clothing, deciding, quite rightly, that the looks the swine Weiss had shot her so often were enough indication that he desired her.
Time was of the essence, in as much as she needed to buy as much as possible, whilst a convincing alternative folder containing fake information on the Spectrum plans was acquired.
If the misleading folder and the bullets could be replaced without Weiss’ knowledge, then an opportunity to mislead the Soviets would exist.
The senior Deus officer knew that such maskirovka already existed, a subterfuge prepared and constructed for when or if an opportunity knocked.
De Walle was already on the phone, establishing what could be done in the time available.
Anne-Marie de Valois paused outside the bedroom.
Such acts as she was prepared to commit herself to now had previously been unthinkable, but her new experience of the sacrifices that others were prepared to make made her more amenable to the idea of using all her womanly charms for the common cause.
Had she walked into his quarters naked she would have not got any more reaction from Weiss.
The man was clearly extremely ill and in a place where her distraction plan was not needed.
She called for the doctor and sat with the German until he arrived.
“According to the Doctor, he probably has a severe chest onfection, but there’s a suspicion of something more serious and life-threatening.”
She delivered the information matter-of-factly, and it was received in a way that indicated that neither of the listeners cared.
Knocke, tired after a full day spent organising Camerone’s withdrawal, had turned in some time beforehand, but De Walle and St.Clair had waited for Anne-Marie’s report.
They also waited for the arrival of a file, product of De Walle’s enquiries, one to satisfy their hatching of a false information scam on Weiss, one that outlined a deception, a maskirovka, a subterfuge, part of the planning of Spectrum, which was now to be delivered into the enemy’s hands…
…always providing that the ‘enemy’ in the equation recovered.
The Camerone and Tannenberg withdrew over the next two days, moving back into a second line position, permitting two Spanish units to take over their former lines.
On 12th December 1945, the deserted headquarters, for some reason, left unused by the relieving Spanish troops, caught fire.
Much of the building was damaged, certainly enough to prevent its use as a headquarters, or to offer decent shelter in the prevalent weather conditions.
1854 hrs, Tuesday, 21st January 1946, Former Headquarters of ‘Camerone’, Gougenheim, Alsace.
Against doctor’s orders, Weiss had managed to get himself out of the new medical facility at Luneville.
The Legion transport officer proved to be made of sterner stuff than the Medical Officer who had vainly tried to keep Weiss on the ward.
The TO insisted that his valuable jeep would go with a driver and that was that, leaving Weiss no choice but to acquiesce or create a scene that might cause him some problems.
In truth, he was still weak and welcomed the journey without the effort of driving, although he didn’t welcome the additional company of the driver, although the driving skills exhibited drew his grudging respect, as the jeep was expertly propelled through snow and ice.
At least the man had the common sense to stay quiet, allowing Weiss to close his eyes and allow his mind to drift to the possibilities.
He had heard of the fire whilst in his sick bed, but hoped that something salvageable would be left for his cause to use against the Allied scum.
Just before seven in the evening, the jeep pulled up outside the darkened shell of the old Legion Headquarters and the driver tapped the sleeping Weiss’ leg.
“We’re here, Sir.”
Orienting himself quickly, Weiss checked the torch’s light against the palm of his hand and pulled the side panel back, allowing the snow to float in and melt in the slightly warmer interior air.
“Keep the engine running. I won’t be long. I just hope my gear survived the fire.”
It was his excuse for making the journey.
Entering the freezing building, he made his way towards his room, checking the integrity of the charred stairs as he went.
They creaked but held firm, permitting him to gain the landing in good time.
He barely cast a glance at the door of the room where he had terminated two lives, intent on recovering his possessions as soon as possible.
His room was badly affected by the fire, and to his horror, part of the floor had burned through.
The wardrobe had come apart, and therefore the nail was lost.
Opening his penknife, he prised at the charred board, fearing the worst.
“Scheisse!”
The folder was there, but damaged, although not as much as it could have been, given the severity of the fire that had embraced it.
Edges were black and brown, pages were wrinkled and stained by the water that had saved its contents from fire. He slid it inside an innocuous paper bag and followed it with the rest of the contents of his cache.
The suddenly flickering of the torch encouraged his haste, and he was back in the jeep within three minutes, the warm interior in contrast to the gathering cold of yet another European winter night.
The sound of the jeep’s engine faded to nothing before the watcher allowed himself some small movement, his frozen and aching limbs reminding him of their disgust at over an hour and a half of immobility. Laid out on the floor above, and with a line of sight through a fire ravaged ceiling, De Walle’s man had seen all he needed to see.
0310 hrs, Wednesday, 22nd January 1946, the Cemetery, La Petite Pierre, Alsace.
They had found two more dead Soviet soldiers the previous evening, concealed by displaced earth and the constant stream of snow, until once again exposed to the air by the spades of a working party.
It had been too cold for either cadaver to decompose, so the torture of each man’s death was clear to see upon the corpses, the end clearly wrought by exposure to the high-explosives and shrapnel of grenades.
Both were buried in a shell hole and earth from the freshly dug foxholes used to cover them over, the frozen soil itself only loosened and shifted by yet more grenades, sunk in hard-worked holes in solid earth mass.
Pedro Oscales had been too young to march with the blue-shirted fascists of the Azul on their mission to rid the world of communism, but now he bore his country’s uniform proudly in what some in his homeland were calling the Second Crusade.
Ensign, or Alférez Oscales, akin to 2nd Lieutenant in rank, had overseen the final repositioning of his platoon, the order to adjust 3rd Company’s positions closer to the shattered village of la Petite Pierre universally greeted with anguish by the Spanish soldiery, who had reluctantly turned out of their comparatively warm positions into the freezing cold air.
The final works had only been completed two hours beforehand, but the men had made themselves at home in quick order, and stoves warmed the hastily constructed bunkers in which they sheltered.
Oscales moved through his lines seeking out the men of his command, laughing with them, sharing a coffee or a cigarette, the energy of youth and the enthusiasm of his cause keeping him going when other officers had already retreated to
their own bunks for the night.
He took his leave of Sargento Velasquez and his section, receiving a grunt of satisfaction from the old veteran as he closed one eye to receive a light for his cigarette, maintaining his night vision.
Cupping the glowing end, Oscales drew the warm smoke into his lungs and felt the chill of his surroundings momentarily expelled, although, in truth, the knowledge of what had happened in this small Alsatian village meant that his god-fearing men believed that the chills would never go away, even in the height of summer.
A different chill visited itself upon him, one born of fear and sudden awareness, as the snow gently flowed across his vision and the weak waning moon provided a sudden and unexpected insight into the area that his platoon had vacated the day beforehand.
At first the words froze in his throat, the prospect of action taking his ability to speak as it knotted his throat.
He tried again.
Nothing but a meaningless squeak.
He fumbled for his sidearm and pointed the Astra 600 in the general direction of the white ants that were swarming in his direction.
Three shots loosened his nervous vocal chords.
“Alarma! Alarma Ombres!”
He fired off the remaining five 9mm parabellum bullets before moving to reload.
Around him, the Spanish positions came to life as his soldiers burst from their bunkers to repel the Soviet assault.
It was too late, and had been long before Oscales had spotted the swarms of white-clad Soviet soldiers.
The outlying posts were filled with blood already icing, spilt from throats slit from ear to ear.
Men rushing to their positions were cut down in the communications trenches; yet others perished as satchel charges were thrown inside their shelters.
One MG34 stuttered into life, putting four enemy soldiers down before a grenade took the life of the three men manning the weapon, and ended the sum total of the resistance offered by Oscales’ platoon.
Still fumbling with a new magazine, the young ensign found his voice at the last, if only to scream as an entrenching tool swept down from the snowy night, cleaving deep into the join between neck and shoulder.
And then he was silent once more.
0413 hrs, Wednesday, 22nd January 1946, Headquarters, 16th US Armored Brigade, Fénétrange, France.
Edwin Greiner was not a man given to either panic or exaggeration.
None the less, his arrival in Pierce’s quarters unannounced at stupid o’clock in the morning bore all the hallmarks of a man suffering from both, at least to the until recently fast-asleep commander of the 16th US Armored Brigade.
Still waking up, Pierce shook his head dramatically, interrupting the flow of words.
“Whoa Ed, for Christ’s sake, whoa there.”
Suffering from neither panic nor exaggeration, Greiner realised he had made a mistake trying to lay everything on his commander before he was suitably awake and got out of bed.
As ordered, coffee arrived and Pierce consumed the full measure before he focussed on his CoS.
Swinging his legs out and dropping his bare feet to the cold wooden floor, Pierce prepared himself.
Holding out his mug for a refill, the General snapped fully awake.
“Now, what about the Spanish?”
Four minutes before Greiner had burst in on Pierce, the duty officer had similarly roused the CoS, providing him with an urgent order, straight from De Lattre himself.
The contents of that order fell before Pierce’s gaze, causing him to splutter in alarm.
“What the goddamned hell? Intel said nothing was happening… going to happen either. Overrun he says,” he angled the paper towards Greiner by way of confirmation.
Then the mind of a General kicked in.
“Ok, get the people up. Get the staff in the office ten minutes ago. Get movement warning orders out to the commands. Have someone liaise with 2nd Infantry and Group Lorraine on anticipated operational boundaries.”
He finished up his second mug full.
“And make sure we got plenty of this to hand.”
“I’m on it,”
And Greiner was gone.
Pierce stared at the message again, almost hoping he had read it wrong.
‘Spanish 22nd Infantry Division overrun by Red Army units of unknown type and strength. 16th Armored is ordered to immediately advance and hold the Gungweiler – Siewiller – Vescheim line, maintaining the road communications to the north and south. US 2nd Infantry Division will be on northern flank, Group Lorraine on the southern flank. 16th now under command of Lorraine, effective immediately. De Lattre.’
He had read it correctly the first time.
‘Goddamned shit.’
A few minutes later, Pierce was stood before his staff organising the emergency forward movement of his Brigade, to block God knew what enemy force from doing God knew whatever it was that they intended.
Fig# 125 - Town of Drulingen, 22nd January 1946.
0418 hrs, Wednesday, 22nd January 1946, Drulingen, France.
“Not even remotely funny, Al.”
The commander of B Company rolled over under his blankets, seeking further sleep.
“Not joking, Lukas. The commies are coming. Get your ass outta bed. Move it soldier!”
By rights, Gesualdo shouldn’t be here, his injuries not yet healed, but he was, hobbling around the guest house which represented the headquarters for B, D, and F Companies, 2nd Ranger Battalion, licking their wounds in the small French village of Drulingen, Bas-Rhin, France.
As senior officer, the newly-promoted Captain Barkmann suddenly found himself in command of three battered companies of Rangers, clearly now sat in harm’s way.
“Ok, ok, ok. Rouse the boys. Officers group in five. Senior NCO’s to do the rounds and get us firmed up a-sap.”
Both men paused as the sound of distant rumbling reached their ears.
Actually, not so distant rumbling.
The two friends exchanged looks, knowing that the day ahead would bring new horrors.
The meeting had broken up quite quickly once the order to hold had been received.
Whilst the instruction itself was precise, there was scant little information on what was coming down the roads and tracks leading from the woods to the East, although the constant use of star shells and parachute flares indicated that whatever it was, it was coming closer.
Establishing contact with the rest of the Ranger Battalion positioned north at Bettwiller and establishing the boundaries at the Hagelbach, Barkmann had made his dispositions as best he could, pushing his forward positions up to cover the line of the L’Isch watercourse, a small frozen stream that ran east from Drulingen, before splitting north and south-east on the edge of the woods.
Two wayward 3” AT guns on their way as replacements for the 16th Armored, whose lost crews had spent the night with the Rangers, found themselves under new management and tasked with defending the approaches to Drulingen, watching Routes 309 and 13.
No contact had yet been made with any friendly unit to the south, so a small patrol was sent south-east in three jeeps with the express need for information.
Barkmann pushed D Company out to Route 13 and had them dig in on a curved line from the edge of the Sittertwald to the junction of Routes 13 and 15, and on to Rue Ottwiller.
B Company took over at that point and sat astride Route 309, all the way to just short of the engineers of B/254th Combat Engineer Battalion, with whom, he entrusted the defence of the Hagelbach and any approach down Route 15/182.
F Company formed in the village, split into four groups. One fortified the eastern edge of Drulingen, a second did the same to cover the south-eastern approach up Route 15.
The remaining two groups were fully mobile and held in reserve, ready to be committed to where they were needed at a moment’s notice.
The defence was also boosted, although somewhat worryingly, by the speedy arrival of Spanish troops withdrawing at speed down th
e 309.
A fully-equipped Spanish mortar company was welcome, although they seemed less than content to remain in Drulingen. Some of Gesualdo’s men moved in alongside them for ‘support’, as the US officer tactfully put it, although his men understood that they were there to stop the spooked soldiers from running further back.
Immediately on their heels was a headquarters group from a Spanish infantry unit. It was so intent on self-preservation that there was no chance of stopping their flight without the use of force.
The four vehicles sped away into the distance, carrying the Spanish commanders to safety and abandoning their men to their fate.
Fig# 126 – Allied forces at Drulingen.
Barkmann moved forward to B Company lines and scanned the terrain with his binoculars, after sending up a magnesium flare to add his own illumination to the eerie battlefield.
Immediately his gaze fell upon a group of infantry, clearly struggling under the burden of wounded men, moving back as swiftly as they could whilst other smaller groups fell back, fired, fell back, all the time providing cover for their comrades.
Walter Ford, B Company’s senior surviving NCO, heard the whistle and looked around, seeing his company commander trying to attract his attention.
Barkmann’s hand gestures were easily understood and Ford quickly detailed every other man to move forward and assist the retiring wounded as best they could.
These Spanish soldiers were clearly made of sterner stuff, their retreat conducted on a swift organised fashion.
As the Rangers of B Company leapt forward in an instant, led by their First Sergeant, unwelcome flares rose into the sky.
0502 hrs, Wednesday, 22nd January 1946, Drulingen, France.
Fig# 127 - Drulingen - positions and assaults.