Death Train

by Levinson, Len

  Louise crawled across the coal car to the side of Cranepool. She looked at his boyish face and wrinkled brows, and her heart expanded with love. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He twitched and opened his eyes. “Huh?”

  “I asked if you were all right.”

  He looked around. “You mean me?”

  “Of course, silly. Who else would I mean? You look uncomfortable. Is there anything I can do?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “What seems to be the trouble? The coal too hard for you?”

  “It’s not the coal—it’s the filth.”

  “Ah, you sweet boy. You don’t like dirty places.”

  “As a matter of fact I don’t. It’s disgusting.”

  She moved closer to him. “You poor child. You’re used to the finer things of life—I can see that.”

  He became cross. “What do you mean—child! You’re no older than I am!”

  “Yes I am, but not much older.”

  “I’m not a child!”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. No, you’re not a child.” She placed her hand on his cheek. “You’re a man.”

  “That’s right, and don’t you forget it!”

  “I won’t, but I’ll bet there are things that I know that you don’t.”

  “Like what?”

  She moved closer to him. “You want me to show you?”

  “Yeah.”

  She reached over and grabbed his joint, caressing it through the material of his pants.

  “Hey!”

  He pulled back, but she held onto him.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered, trying to push her hand away.

  But she wouldn’t let go. “You don’t like this?”

  “What if somebody sees you!”

  “So what if they do?”

  “But …”

  She smiled, because she could feel him getting harder and stiffer. “Nobody can see us.”

  “I ... ah ... ”

  “You act as though nobody ever played with your little doodle before.”

  “But I ... but I’m ...” He wanted to protest that he was getting married, but he’d just got that Dear John letter from Betsy so that wasn’t a legitimate excuse anymore.

  “You want me to stop?” Louise asked innocently.

  “Um . . . ah . . . I’m ...” Cranepool said, his head spinning with fatigue, lust, and general confusion.

  “I know,” she whispered into his ear, as she unbuttoned his fly.

  “What do you know?” he asked weakly.

  “This,” she replied, as she moved down and touched her tongue to the tip of his doodle.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The operations center of the St. Jean-de-Daye railroad center was located in a two-story wooden building not far from the main gate. The control center was on the second floor, where wide windows permitted a long overview of the activities in the yard. On the first floor were various administrative offices including the office of Lieutenant-Colonel Niekish, a diminutive man with a Hitler-style mustache, who was commandant of the railway complex.

  Niekish was sitting at his desk, smoking a cigarette in an ebony holder, when the door was flung open and Major Richter stormed in, Private Piecke close behind.

  “Why did you move those bodies!” Richter screamed.

  “Who are you?” Niekish asked calmly.

  “I am Major Richter of the Gestapo! Why did you move those bodies without authority?”

  “But my dear Major,” Niekish said, “I am the authority in this railway yards and I do as I see fit.”

  “Not with unusual crimes, you don’t! You should have left those bodies there until an official from the Gestapo came here to finish conducting the investigation!”

  “What was there to investigate? Two of my guards were knifed by terrorists. That’s all. Things like that happen all the time, as I’m sure you’re aware. If the Gestapo was more effective, things like this wouldn’t happen at all, but well, we have to do the best we can.”

  “I see,” said Richter, taking out his notebook. He wrote a few remarks about Lieutenant-Colonel Niekish, then returned the notebook to his shirt pocket. “Where are the bodies, please?”

  “At the hospital.”

  “You should have not removed them without authorization.”

  “I told you that I am the authority here. I saw no point in leaving the bodies in the guardhouse. They would have been demoralizing to the other guards who occupied it. It is, in case you didn’t know it, a very small guardhouse.”

  “I see.” Richter sat in a chair in front of the desk, while Piecke stood behind him. “Who found the bodies?”

  “The guards on the next shift.”

  “Bring them to me immediately!”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know where they are.”

  “You don’t know where they are!”

  “That is correct. They’ve gone off duty.”

  “You should not have let them go off duty, because I would like to question them.”

  “What for?” Niekish asked, for he was becoming perturbed by this arrogant SS officer. Like many Wehrmacht officers, Niekish loathed the SS. “The guards filed their report. I have it here. You may look at it if you like.”

  Richter accepted the report. “Evidently you are not aware that a clever and spirited interrogation often can elicit facts that do not show up in routine reports.”

  “Evidently,” Niekish said drily.

  Richter read the report. The guards were found with their throats slashed, just like the guards at the bridge. Was it possible that the same terrorists had committed these heinous deeds? It was possible, but not probable. All terrorists used knives and slashed throats when they were afraid of making noise. But was there an overall connection between both crimes? Were terrorists planning to sabotage the railroad?

  Richter handed the report to Piecke, then leveled his gaze at Niekish. “Has anything else occurred at this yard that you know of?”

  “No,” replied Niekish. “Not that I know of.”

  “Were you here when the dead guards were found?”

  “No. I didn’t arrive until eight-thirty.”

  “Who was in charge here then?”

  “The Officer of the Day was Lieutenant Boehm.”

  “Get him for me, please.”

  “I imagine he’s asleep.”

  “Wake him up.”

  Flashing a look of hatred toward Richter, Niekish picked up his telephone and called the Bachelor Officer Quarters in St. Jean-de-Daye. He told the person who answered that he wanted to speak with Lieutenant Boehm. The person said he’d go get him. After an interval, during which Major Richter and Lieutenant-Colonel Niekish glowered at each other, the person returned to the telephone and said that Lieutenant Boehm was not in his room. Niekish asked where he was, and the person said he didn’t know.

  Niekish hung up the phone. “Lieutenant Boehm is not in his quarters, I’m afraid.”

  “Hmmm,” said Richter. “It appears that nobody around here is where he should be.”

  “If we’d known you were coming,” Niekish said sarcastically, “I’m sure everyone would have made himself available.”

  The sarcasm was not lost on Richter, but he didn’t let it show. “Is there anyone in this headquarters right now who was on duty then?”

  “I believe there may be somebody upstairs. I’ll take you there if you like, and you can make the inquiry yourself.”

  “That would be most helpful.”

  “Follow me please, Major—what did you say your name was?”

  “Richter. Kurt Richter.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  Niekish arose from his desk and took his jacket from a hanger in the closet. He put it on and walked to the door, opened it, and entered the hall. Richter and Piecke followed him down the corridor and up a flight of stairs to the control room of the railway yard. There
technicians and engineers, some in the Wehrmacht and some of them French civilians who were collaborating with the German occupation authorities, sat at consoles where little red lights were blinking, or talked on telephones.

  They all became extremely self-conscious when they perceived that an officer of the SS had descended upon them.

  “Excuse me gentlemen,” Niekish said, “but I’d like all of you to meet Major Kurt Richter.”

  Richter nodded to them, while they shifted uneasily in their chairs and tried to smile.

  “Major Richter would like to ask you all a few questions,” Niekish said.

  All eyes focused on Major Richter. Little red lights flashed on the consoles. Outside the windows you could see the rain falling on the bleak railroad yard.

  Major Richter cleared his throat. “Were any of you on duty here at six o’clock this morning?”

  Three hands went up into the air. Two belonged to German soldiers, the other to a French civilian.

  “Hmmm,” Richter said. “You are aware of course that two guards were found murdered by French terrorists at approximately that time. Those guards went on duty at around four o’clock in the morning, so that means they were killed during those two hours. I would like to know if any of you perceived anything unusual in this yard during that period, or during the hours afterwards.”

  The two soldiers and the Frenchman looked at each other, then turned to Richter and shook their heads, murmuring no.

  “Are you quite sure?”

  They nodded that they were.

  “I find that most strange,” Richter said. “It must be assumed that the terrorists killed those guards to gain entrance to the yard. It must further be assumed that they gained entrance to the yard in order to do something. Are you sure you don’t know of anything unusual that happened?”

  The Frenchman spoke up. He had a black mustache, wore a shirt and necktie, and had on a sleeveless sweater because it was a bit chilly in the building. “Only routine things happen in this yard, Major. Trains come and trains go. Lately we’ve had engineers here repairing tracks and buildings that have been bombed. Fortunately this building hasn’t been hit yet, but who knows what might happen in the next bombing raid?”

  “No unusual movements of trains?” Richter asked. “No peculiar groups of men moving through the yard?”

  “No, Major.”

  Richter looked at Niekish. ‘These yards should be searched from one end to the other. Explosives might have been planted at crucial places. We must find them before they go off.”

  Niekish smiled thinly. “It would be awfully difficult to ask men to search the yard for explosives if they might explode at any moment.”

  ‘Then use Frenchmen. I don’t care how you get it done, but do it.”

  Niekish’s cheeks were turning red. “Yes, Major Richter.”

  Richter looked at the German soldiers and the Frenchman again. “Are you sure you don’t recall anything unusual happening here this morning?”

  The soldiers and the Frenchman looked at each other, then turned to Richter and shook their heads slowly.

  “Nothing important happened,” said the Frenchman.

  Richter’s ears perked up like those of a fox. “Nothing important happened?” he asked. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of what is important and what is not. To what are you referring?”

  The Frenchman smiled and shrugged in a self-effacing way. “Well, there was the business about the old locomotive that left the yard this morning.”

  “Old locomotive? What old locomotive?”

  “No one seemed to know where it came from or where it was going, but there were two German soldiers on board and we figured it was being used for some military purpose, and that the military had neglected to inform us.”

  Richter recalled that the two guards at the bridge between St. Lo and St. Jean-de-Daye had been stripped of their uniforms. Could it be that the two soldiers on this locomotive were really terrorists wearing the uniforms of those guards?

  Richter turned to Niekish. “Do you mean to tell me that locomotives can leave this yard without your authorization and you don’t do anything about it?”

  Niekish knew he was on the spot now, and he wished the Frenchman had kept his big mouth shut, but he’d take care of him later. “Under normal circumstances that would not have happened,” he explained, “but lately, with all the bombing and repair work, it’s been difficult to keep track of things.”

  Richter narrowed his eyes. “You are an officer in the German Army, are you not?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Then bombing and the other circumstances of war should be normal to you, should they not?”

  “They are normal to me,” Niekish replied heatedly, “just as chaos is normal in war. And besides, you’re behaving as though there was something sinister about that old locomotive when in fact you have nothing to substantiate that belief.”

  Richter narrowed his eyes even more. “Lieutenant-Colonel Niekish—let me remind you that between the hours of four and six o’clock this morning, two guards were killed at this railroad complex. It must be assumed that they were killed by French terrorists. It must further be assumed that the terrorists gained entrance to the yard for some illegal and anti-German purpose. Who knows, Lieutenant-Colonel Niekish, whether that old locomotive was part of that illegal and anti-German purpose?”

  Niekish thought Richter was a thoroughly absurd human being. “Well, Major,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t know and can’t imagine what that purpose could be. Do you?”

  A muscle in Richter’s jaw twitched. “No,” he said, “but I intend to find out.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Colonel Bruce Fairbairn of the OSS was sitting in his office at Bletchley mansion when the phone on his desk began to ring. He picked up the receiver and said, “Fairbairn here.”

  “General Bradley wishes to speak with you, sir,” said his secretary.

  “Put him through.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was a click and then the deep voice of General Omar Bradley could be heard. “Fairbairn, do we have any word on that bridge yet?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “General Eisenhower just called me about it, and he’s very concerned. Do you think you can find out anything?”

  “I can try.”

  “Get back to me as soon as you can on this, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fairbairn hung up the phone and left his office. He walked quickly down a corridor and then descended a flight of stairs to the huge radio room complex. Men and women sat at radio transmitters, sending and receiving messages. At another end of the room technicians were monitoring German messages and decoding them with the top-secret Ultra Machine. The room was particularly busy now that the invasion had definitely been scheduled for 0600 hours tomorrow morning.

  Fairbairn stopped next to the transmitter of Ruth Buchanan, who sent and received messages from the part of occupied France that included the stronghold at St. Pierre. She was a twenty-six-year-old brunette from Manchester, New Hampshire, and she held a master’s degree in electronics from the University of Michigan.

  “Ruth,” Fairbairn said to her, “have you heard anything from the Parrot yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’d like you to put through an emergency call to St. Pierre right now, and inquire about the status of that bridge. I’ll wait here for the answer.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ruth replugged some wires and put on her headphones. She turned the dial of the transmitter to the. frequency that St. Pierre was supposed to listen to, and began tapping her key. Fairbairn leaned his shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms. He knew that the Parrot was Master Sergeant Clarence Mahoney of the 15th Ranger Battalion. In fact, he had given Mahoney some of his training here at Bletchley, which might have accounted for the fact he didn’t like Mahoney very much. He thought Mahoney was nothing more than a gangster who might be goo
d for missions requiring daring and ruthlessness, such as clearing a beach of booby traps, or staging a surprise attack on a small German military unit, but he didn’t think Mahoney was suited for action behind enemy lines, despite Mahoney’s skill at languages. He thought Mahoney was too unstable, and that he might someday make a mistake that would cost many lives. But Fairbairn had to admit that Mahoney had successfully completed every mission assigned him so far, astonishing though that was. Mahoney had received the assignment to blow up the bridge because he was the closest U.S. Ranger to it. Though Fairbairn hoped Mahoney would be able to carry this mission through, he still had serious doubts about Mahoney’s effectiveness.

  Ruth finished transmitting the message and sat listening to the airwaves, her pencil poised over a notepad. Fairbairn watched her intently, hoping St. Pierre would say that the mission had been successful and the bridge was no more. Then he proudly could report that fact to General Bradley, who would report it to Ike.

  Ruth began writing on the pad. Fairbairn looked over her shoulder and read:

  Bridge still there. No word from Parrot.

  Fairbairn bit his lower lip. He looked at his watch.

  It was almost two o’clock in the afternoon; the airborne landings were scheduled to take place in only eleven hours, and the seaborne invasion five hours later. Where the hell was Mahoney?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mahoney opened his eyes in the coal car. The rainstorm had soaked him to his skin because he’d become uncovered while he was asleep. He looked at his watch and realized he’d only been out for a little more than a half hour. Then he glanced across the coal car and saw a very strange thing.

  It looked as though two people were humping underneath a poncho. He recalled that Cranepool had laid himself down to sleep over there when they’d both climbed up from the locomotive. Mahoney had fallen asleep instantly, but Cranepool was getting laid. The big question was who was he getting laid with?