The distant rumble of a helicopter reached their ears from somewhere across the river. It was unmistakeably that of a twin-rotor MH-16 and was the sound of one of a number they’d seen patrolling the skies over Strabane and the surrounding area in the last twenty minutes or so.
“And that would be our ‘string’ there, right on cue…” Bryan observed immediately, although the grin dissipated somewhat as the reality of what was about to happen finally hit home.
“Just be happy they sent me up here to take over,” Costello noted with a wry smile as he glanced down at Bryan for the first time. “Like as not, MacNeill might o’ been just as ready to open the bloody gates for those bastards and lay out the welcome mat! Send out word for everyone to come to alert…” he continued, sounding more serious once more “…we want to be ready for ‘em if they try anything.”
Costello’s predecessor as CO of 2nd Division, Lieutenant-General Hugo MacNeill, was well-known as an extreme anti-British sympathiser who’d been so concerned about a British invasion of Ireland that he’d once single-handedly approached the German Legation in Dublin, allegedly with regard to securing possible supplies of German weapons.
All had of course been done without any approval whatsoever from his own government, and it was also rumoured that he had organised for his own men to meet with a Nazi spy, Herman Goertz, prior to the man’s arrest by MacNeill’s Intelligence officers. It had been no surprise to Costello, upon learning of the current plan Dublin had been developing with the United States, that his predecessor had been replaced rather than risk any danger of the mission being compromised, no matter how unlikely.
As Bryan turned and passed on the orders he’d given, Costello searched the skies south of the town and eventually located the Mixgerät as the huge chopper came in low toward the Finn. He couldn’t see any detail from that range, but he faintly heard the ‘pop’ as one of its engines suddenly burst into flame in a shower of smoke and sparks and it immediately began do descend erratically.
The MH-16E began to spiral slowly, unerringly downward as its crew fought a losing battle to maintain control. It disappeared below the line of nearby roofs for a moment, only to reappear quite dramatically as it smashed into the top half of a large townhouse a few hundred yards south on the Castlefin Road and a similar distance south of his position. It came apart instantly, a huge fireball rolling skyward as its tail section exploded with a huge flash, and Michael Costello knew now that there was no turning back.
“Come on then, Jim!” He called to his driver as he ducked down into the rear passenger area of the Bren Carrier and Bryan climbed over the side to join him. “Time to get to cover and let our boys do their jobs… I’ve no doubt they’ll have their hands full soon enough, and they won’t need us getting in their way.”
“Stroke of luck, that…!” Colonel Bryan crowed with elation in his tone as he continued to stare southward at the wreckage and the billowing flames as the carrier lurched forward and turned left onto Butcher street. “All we were wanting was to bring one of the bloody things down over there to start the ball rolling… it was too much to ever hope for that it could possibly come down on our side.”
“And the ‘targets’…?”
“Right there, sir: they were sighted not a quarter of a mile away just before the bloody thing hit…!” Bryan grinned back, almost laughing now with disbelief. “We were betting the Nazis would be ready to violate our border if they believed we’d taken prisoner a couple of uniformed SS… and now we could have what’s left of an entire platoon stuck over here, needing to be rescued!”
“I’ve made sure our best units are positioned in town,” Costello agreed with a nervous nod. “They should be able to lock it down before anything gets too far out of hand. The real question is securing the area around the crash… how long before we get our ‘reinforcements’?”
“Ten minutes out, but we can’t afford them arriving too early and buggering it up: they’ve been ordered into a holding pattern over Raphoe until we call ‘em in… it’s only three minutes’ flying time from here.”
“Three minutes…” Costello repeated as the carrier continued north on Butcher, heading for their primary CP (Command Post). So close… he continued silently within his own mind …and yet still too bloody long to wait, maybe, if your life depended on it.
Consciousness came flooding back to Hauptsturmführer Strauss as he was shaken roughly awake by his NCO. Both he and his 2IC had been travelling up near the nose of the MH-16E as it had come in for approach toward the River Finn. Neither they nor the rest of the twenty-five troopers aboard had expected the sudden warning of engine fire, followed quickly by the impact of multiple slugs passing straight through the cockpit and forward section fuselage. A corporal seated beside him had taken a round to the chest from that salvo, collapsing dead onto the floor of the cargo area as alarm spread through the aircraft and it veered away in a westerly direction, the rest of them clinging for dear life to any handhold or fitting they could find.
Spinning out of control, the impact had been terrible just seconds later as the Mixgerät demolished a two-storey townhouse and snapped into two very uneven pieces. The natural counter-rotation of the forward half after separation had provided at least some protection as the fuel tanks had gone up in the next instant, although enough shattered glass and debris from the shockwave penetrated the skin of the aircraft to cause more deaths and a fair few injuries also.
Strauss had blacked out at that point, and judging by the flaring pain in the back of his skull as he came to, he suspected he’d struck his head on a nearby bulkhead or something similar during the crash. He was awake again now however, and was quickly regaining his senses as the NCO screamed in his face and tried to drag the groggy officer to his feet.
“How many, Oberscharführer…?” He asked croakily, struggling to form the words. “How many do we have…?”
“Six dead when we lost the tail, Mein Herr,” the staff-sergeant replied instantly, having already made a full tally of their losses and the situation in general. “Five more with us, plus four badly wounded, leaving eight men ready. Radio’s had it, but we’ve weapons and ammo enough to form two half-strength squads and a machine gun team…”
The cargo area seemed darker than it should have been, filled with acrid smoke and the cries and moans of the wounded, and Strauss suddenly found himself overcome by an uncontrollable surge of nausea. Somehow instinctively locating his folding-stocked G1A3 carbine, he snatched it up from the floor of the shattered cargo bay and forced his way desperately between stunned and wounded men until he found the open side door. Staggering out into the open air, he covered a hand over his eyes against the sudden, relative brightness and bent double on the roadway, vomiting energetically.
In the background, he could hear his sergeant going about the necessary task of rallying and organising his men back into a coherent fighting force and made a mental note to have the man decorated for it at a later date. Breathing heavily, his body still wracked with shudders and the occasional dry retch, Strauss managed to force his body upright once more and for the first time, he forced his squinting eyes open and took stock of the surrounding carnage.
Three houses on that side of the road were to all intents and purposes completely destroyed, the worse being the central of the three: the one into which the chopper had actually crashed. On the opposite side of the road, the remains of the aircraft’s tail section still burned furiously with towering pillars of red flame roaring into the sky below a rising pillar of thick, oily black smoke. Fire on that side of the road was spreading quickly to the buildings on either side, and it never occurred to Strauss for moment that it might’ve been odd that there appeared to be no residents in any of them – none at least that seemed in any hurry to evacuate.
It was at that moment that his attention was drawn back to the centre of the road, staring southward, where a trio of vehicles had been forced to a halt by the crash. The nearest had suffered the most damage by
far and was currently lying on what was left of its sliced-off roof as a group of men from the halted second vehicle ran across and started trying to free the occupants trapped underneath. The third vehicle was just pulling to a halt as Strauss stared, still trying to clear his vision properly, and he was suddenly struck by the strangeness of the scene as he realised that the front windscreen of that third car was not only shattered but also covered with blood, seemingly on the inside.
It was at that point that the platoon commander had finally managed to gather enough of his wits about him to start wondering about exactly where they were, and as he again cast his eyes about the surrounding environment, he was suddenly struck by an unsettling feeling of unfamiliarity and a rather fearful suspicion that they’d crashed on the wrong side of the river.
He was momentarily reassured then as he turned his gaze back toward the men at the stopped vehicles and realised the at least three of them were wearing Waffen-SS, two of them officers and one lying wounded. Any relief was quickly dissipated however as he also took note of the multitude of armed men surrounding them who were most certainly not German; nor did they appear to be particularly friendly toward his uniformed compatriots, judging by their body language and the aggressive manner in which some were brandishing their weapons. Instinct took over in that moment, and instinct told him that his first thoughts should always be for the safety of his own men and fellow German soldiers.
“Oberscharführer…!” He bellowed loudly. “Fellow soldaten in danger! Gun group on me! Squads deploy; left and right flank!”
As every man either uninjured or well enough to move and shoot began to pile out of the chopper’s wreckage, Strauss cocked his own carbine, quickly unfolded the stock and raised it to his shoulder in a matter of seconds. Sighting straight down the barrel, he took aim at the first green-garbed figure he saw and without hesitation fired three quick controlled shots into the man’s upper body.
An uncomfortable standoff had developed following the rescue of the Ford’s trapped passengers. Three uneven groups had formed, with Kransky, Turner, McCaughey and Michaels all standing together in one while a second comprised the four men that had been the driver and front passenger of the Hillman, the remaining front passenger from the upturned Ford, and the driver, Paddy, from the newly-arrived Austin Seven. Both groups were clearly armed with an assortment of rifles and handguns and both were still standing in the middle of the road as a third group comprising Levi, Evie, Lowenstein and Kelly all knelt off to one side, some distance away, trying desperately to attend to the wounds of a moaning Brendan whose right leg had badly broken and who’d also had both legs viciously slashed by the Ford’s jagged window glass.
All were exhausted from their efforts, and all were also somewhat stunned at that moment by the shock and blast of the crash and subsequent near explosion they’d all just experienced. Neither of the two armed groups were ready to make the first move, and both seemed to come to the mutual, silent agreement that each would allow the members of the other to catch their collective breaths before any decisions or actions were taken regarding who was in charge or what was going to happen next. That unofficial truce ended quite unexpectedly however as Allan from the Hillman Minx was suddenly struck in the back by rifle fire from the crashed helicopter and crumpled to the ground, mortally wounded.
The rest dived headlong for the nearest cover, taking positions wherever it could be found behind stone fences, in front yards and in the ruins of houses that had been damaged by the impact. Reluctant to move their wounded man but recognising they had no choice, Kelly and Lowenstein lifted Brendan by the shoulders as carefully as they were able and began to drag him toward the relative safety of a nearby single-story brick cottage on the river side whose front door had been left wide open as its owners had fled minutes earlier.
“You there…!” Strauss shouted loudly, the rest of his men also taking cover in the ruins and front yards on either side of the asphalt as his gun crew set up their light machine gun nearby, able to fire directly down the line of the road itself, making it a potentially lethal situation for anyone attempting to cross. “You are to release your prisoners immediately or we will attack. You have thirty seconds…”
Caught close to the centre of the Castlefin Road, the three remaining IRA volunteers reacted instinctively and returned fire despite their handguns having no hope of any real accuracy at that range. The gunners beside Strauss immediately opened up with their MG5A SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), churning through half of a hundred-round belt of 5.56mm slugs in extremely short order as streaks of tracer lanced out and cut all three men down within an instant.
“No resistance will be tolerated!” Strauss bellowed again from his position of cover behind one of the shattered engine pods of his own helicopter. “Twenty seconds and no more…!” As he spoke, the squads to his left and right began to make slow, careful advances through the front yards of ruined and abandoned houses on either side of the road, drawing far too close for anyone’s liking.
“‘Prisoners…’…?” Turner asked aloud with a frown, understanding German but still not getting what the officer was yelling about. “What bloody prisoners…?” He and Kransky had taken cover behind a low stone wall at the front of a nearby home, also on the river side of the road. “What the bloody hell’s he on about?”
“Lowenstein and Kelly…” The American answered in sour realisation a few seconds later as he dragged the components of his own huge rifle from its canvas sack and began to desperately assemble them. “They’re still wearin’ Kraut uniforms: that poor, dumb bastard must think we’ve taken ‘em hostage or somethin’.”
“Well that’s going to make things a tad difficult…”
“No shit,” Kransky agreed, considering the remark a mighty understatement as he lifted the assembled rifle and snapped back the cocking handle, loading a .50-inch round into the chamber. “Don’t think they’ll be real pleased about that idea, and tell ya the truth, I don’t reckon I like it much either!”
“Wir kommen… nicht schiessen…!”
The unexpected call came from Lowenstein as both he and Kelly rose from their hiding place to the rear and stepped slowly into the road, hands raised out from their bodies as a clear indication they held no weapons, although Kelly still carried a rifle slung across his back.
“You’re safe now, Meine Herren…” Strauss called with more than a little relief in his tone. “I am Hauptsturmführer Strauss. Bring your wounded man out and we’ll look after you…”
“Are you guys fuckin’ crazy…?” Kransky snarled, readying his huge rifle as if ready to leap to his feet right then and there and start shooting.
“Shut up, y’ mad bastard,” Kelly hissed back in English, hoping it had been soft enough not to carry to the Germans near the crash. “We know what we’re doin’… just be ready to join in when the shootin’ starts!”
“I’m getting’ real sick o’ this shit, buddy…”
“Aye, and this happens to me every week and twice on fookin’ weekends, too…” Kelly snapped back sharply. “Just be ready on the fookin’ trigger when the time comes, fer Jesus’ sake!”
“Hauptsturmführer,” Lowenstein called out in that moment, his voice laden with stress, “we do not have the strength to carry our man alone… are you able to assist…?”
“Second squad… forward to assist with wounded…” Strauss shouted out immediately without hesitation. “First squad… cover second squad, and watch your lines of fire…!”
A moment later, the squad moving up along the western side of the road broke cover and moved forward quickly, keeping low as they headed directly for Kelly and Lowenstein’s position.
“All of you! Hold your fire and you will not be harmed,” Strauss warned as they moved up, oblivious to the fact that most of his supposed enemies did not speak German. “Any offensive move will result in your annihilation…!”
Schmidt’s troop, powering west along Lifford Road as fast as they were able, reached t
he open ground on the approaches to the bridge at around the same time MH-16E Blue-Two turned in for final approach toward the River Finn. At the head of the convoy and standing waist high out of the top hatch of his P-7E command vehicle, the SS major was afforded a reasonably clear view of the open fields on either side of the road, particularly to the south-west where it was possible, with the aid of Zeiss field glasses, to even pick out distant sections of the Lifford – Castlefin Road, six hundred yards away across the other side of the river and the national border that it represented.
What Schmidt wasn’t at all prepared for was that one of Böhm’s engines would unexpectedly explode into flame. He watched in horror as the MH-16E began to spiral out of the sky, heading unerringly for the wrong side of the river. He released a soft cry as the aircraft went in and exploded amid the distant houses, the sounds of his pain carried instantly away in the passing air as they sped on toward the river bank.
“All units deploy, echelon left…!” He bellowed over the radio, forcing back the threat of tears over the realisation he’d just watched the death of a good friend and many others. “Covering positions on the east bank of the Finn. Defensive stance only… repeat: defensive stance only. No one is to fire on any target without my express order.”
His years of training took over in the moments that followed. Concern for his friend and his fellow countrymen acted as a catalyst, galvanising him into action as the rest of his troop began to fan out across the fields south of Lifford Road, heading for the river bank.
“Red-Three, report! Come in, Red-Three, this is Green-Leader… over…!”
“Red-Three standing by, Green -Leader…” the reply came through instantly over his headset.
“What is your… never mind…” he corrected quickly as the Mixgerät’s escorting Seedrache gunship suddenly and quite deafeningly howled past low overhead, banking around just short of the river itself. “I need a status report. Red-Three… I need eyes over the crash site…”
The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3) Page 15