by Jack Higgins
‘My God!’ Brandt said. ‘Where do they think they are? The Somme?’
He put a long, almost leisurely burst into Mallory and killed him instantly. Three more went down as the Germans all fired at once. One of them picked himself up and staggered back to the safety of the first hedge as the survivors retreated.
In the quiet which followed, Brandt reached for a cigarette. ‘I make that seven. Eight if you count the one who dragged himself back.’
‘Crazy,’ Walther said. ‘Suicide. I mean, why are they in such a hurry? All they have to do is wait.’
Kane and Colonel Corcoran sat in a jeep two hundred yards down the road from the main gate at Meltham House and looked up at the shattered telephone pole. ‘Good God!’ Corcoran said. ‘It’s really quite incredible. What on earth was he thinking of?’
Kane could have told him, but refrained. He said, ‘I don’t know, Colonel. Maybe some notion he had about security. He sure was anxious to get to grips with those paratroopers.’
A jeep turned out of the main gate and moved towards them. Garvey was at the wheel and when he braked, his face was serious. ‘We just got a message in the radio room.’
‘From Shafto?’
Garvey shook his head. ‘Krukowski, of all people. He asked for you, Major, personally. It’s a mess down there. He says they walked right into it. Dead men all over the place.’
‘And Shafto?’
‘Krukowski was pretty hysterical. Kept saying the Colonel was acting like a crazy man. Some of it didn’t make much sense.’
Dear God, Kane thought, he’s gone riding straight in, guidons fluttering in the breeze. He said to Corcoran, ‘I think I should get down there, Colonel.’
‘So do I,’ Corcoran said. ‘Naturally, you’ll leave adequate protection for the Prime Minister.’
Kane turned to Garvey. ‘What have we got left in the motor pool?’
‘A White Scout car and three jeeps.’
‘All right, we’ll take them plus a detail of twenty men. Ready to move out in five minutes if you please, Sergeant.’
Garvey swung the jeep in a tight circle and drove away fast. ‘That leaves twenty-five for you, sir,’ Kane told Corcoran. ‘Will that be all right?’
‘Twenty-six with me,’ Corcoran said. ‘Perfectly adequate, especially as I shall naturally assume command. Time someone licked you colonials into shape.’
‘I know, sir,’ Harvey Kane said as he switched on the engine. ‘Nothing but a mass of complexes since Bunker Hill.’ He let in the clutch and drove away.
Eighteen
THE VILLAGE WAS still a good mile and a half away when Steiner first became aware of the persistent electronic buzz from the Grauman field phone. Someone was on channel, but too far away to be heard. ‘Put your foot down,’ he told Klugl. ‘Something’s wrong.’
When they were a mile away, the rattle of small arms fire in the distance confirmed his worst fears. He cocked his Sten gun and looked up at Werner. ‘Be ready to use that thing. You might have to.’
Klugl had the jeep pushed right up to its limit, his foot flat on the boards. ‘Come on, damn you! Come on!’ Steiner cried.
The Grauman had ceased the buzz and as they drew closer to the village, he tried to make voice contact. ‘This is Eagle One, Come in, Eagle Two.’
There was no reply. He tried again, but with no better success. Klugl said, ‘Maybe they’re too busy, Herr Oberst.’
A moment later they topped the rise at Garrowby Heath three hundred yards west of the church at the top of the hill and the whole panorama was spread below. Steiner raised his field glasses, took in the mill and Mallory’s detail in the field beyond. He moved on, noting the Rangers behind the hedges at the rear of the Post Office and the Studley Arms and Ritter, young Hagl beside him, pinned down behind the bridge by the heavy concentration of machine-gun fire from the Brownings of Shafto’s two remaining jeeps. One of them had been sited alongside Joanna Grey’s garden wall from where the gun crew were able to fire over the top and yet remain in good cover. The other employed the same technique against the wall of the next cottage.
Steiner tried the Grauman again. ‘This is Eagle One. Do you read me?’
On the first floor of the mill, his voice crackled in the ear of Riedel, who had just switched on during a lull in the fighting. ‘It’s the Colonel,’ he cried to Brandt and said into the phone. ‘This is Eagle Three, in the water mill. Where are you?’
‘On the hill above the church,’ Steiner said. ‘What is your situation?’
Several bullets passed through the glassless windows and ricocheted from the wall. ‘Give it to me!’ Brandt called from his position flat on the floor behind the Bren.
‘He’s on the hill,’ Riedel said. ‘Trust Steiner to turn up to pull us out of the shit.’ He crawled along to the loft door above the water-wheel and kicked it open.
‘Come back here,’ Brandt called.
Riedel crouched to peer outside. He laughed excitedly and raised the Grauman to his mouth. ‘I can see you, Herr Oberst, we’re…’
There was a heavy burst of automatic fire from outside, blood and brains sprayed across the wall as the back of Riedel’s skull disintegrated and he went head-first out of the loft, still clutching the field phone.
Brandt flung himself across the room and peered over the edge. Riedel had fallen on top of the waterwheel. It kept on turning, carrying him with it, down into the churning waters. When it came round again, he was gone.
On the hill, Werner tapped Steiner on the shoulder. ‘Below, Herr Oberst, in the wood on the right. Soldiers.’
Steiner swung his field glasses. With the height advantage the hill gave him it was just possible to see down into one section of the sunken track through Hawks Wood about half-way along. Sergeant Hustler and his men were passing through.
Steiner made his decision and acted on it. ‘It seems we’re Fallschirmjäger again, boys.’
He tossed his red beret away, unbuckled his webbing belt and the Browning in its holster and took off his jump jacket. Underneath he was wearing his Fliegerbluse, the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves at his throat. He took a Schiff from his pocket and jammed it down on his head. Klugl and Werner followed his example.
Steiner said, ‘Right, boys, the grand tour. Straight down that track through the wood, across the footbridge for a few words with those jeeps. I think you can make it, Klugl, if you go fast enough, then on to Oberleutnant Neumann.’ He looked up at Werner. ‘And don’t stop firing. Not for anything.’
The jeep was doing fifty as they went down the final stretch towards the church. Corporal Becker was outside the porch. He crouched in alarm, Steiner waved, then Klugl swung the wheel and turned the jeep into the Hawks Wood track.
They bounced over a slight rise, hurtled round a bend between the steep walls and there was Hustler with his men, no more than twenty yards away, strung out on either side of the track. Werner started to fire at point blank range, had no more than a few seconds in which to take aim because by then, the jeep was into them. Men were jumping for their lives, trying to scramble up the steep banks. The offside front wheel bounced over a body and then they were through, leaving Sergeant Horace Hustler and seven of his men dead or dying behind them.
The jeep emerged from the end of the track like a thunderbolt. Klugl kept right on going as ordered, straight across the four-foot wide footbridge over the stream, snapping the rustic pole handrails like matchsticks, and shot up the bank to the road, all four wheels clear of the ground as they bounced over the rise.
The two men comprising the machine-gun crew of the jeep sheltering behind Joanna Grey’s garden wall swung their Browning frantically, already too late as Werner raked the wall with a sustained burst that knocked them both off their feet.
But the fact of their dying gave the crew of the second jeep, positioned at the side of the next garden wall, the two or three precious seconds to react—the seconds that meant the difference between life and death. They had their Browning
round and were already firing as Klugl swung the wheel and drove back towards the bridge.
It was the Rangers’ turn now. Werner got in a quick burst as they flashed past that caught one of the machine-gun crew, but the other kept on firing his Browning, bullets hammering into the Germans’ jeep, shattering the windscreen. Klugl gave a sudden sharp cry and fell forward across the steering wheel, the jeep swerved wildly and smashed into the parapet at the end of the bridge. It seemed to hang there for a moment, then tipped over on to its side very slowly.
Klugl lay huddled in the shelter of the jeep and Werner crouched over him, blood on his face where flying glass had cut him. He looked up at Steiner. ‘He’s dead, Herr Oberst,’ he said and his eyes were wild.
He reached for a Sten gun and started to stand. Steiner dragged him down. ‘Pull yourself together, boy. He’s dead, you’re alive.’
Werner nodded dully. ‘Yes, Herr Oberst.’
‘Now get this Browning set up and keep them busy down there.’
As Steiner turned, Ritter Neumann crawled out from behind the parapet carrying a Bren gun. ‘You certainly created hell back there.’
‘They had a section moving up through the wood to the church,’ Steiner said. ‘We didn’t do them any good either. What about Hagl?’
‘Done for, I’m afraid.’ Neumann nodded to where Hagl’s boots protruded from behind the parapet.
Werner had the Browning set up at the side of the jeep now and started to fire in short bursts. Steiner said, ‘All right, Herr Oberleutnant, and what exactly did you have in mind?’
‘It should be dark in an hour,’ Ritter said. ‘I thought if we could hold on till then and slip away in twos and threes. We could lie low in the marsh at Hobs End under cover of darkness. Still make that boat if Koenig arrives as arranged. After all, we’ll never get near the old man now.’ He hesitated and added rather awkwardly. ‘It gives us some sort of chance.’
‘The only one,’ Steiner said. ‘But not here. I think it’s time we re-grouped again. Where is everybody?’
Ritter gave him a quick run-down on the general situation and when he was finished, Steiner nodded. ‘I managed to raise them in the mill on the way in. Got Riedel on the Grauman plus a lot of machine-gun fire. You get Altmann and his boys and I’ll see if I can get through to Brandt.’
Werner gave Ritter covering fire as the Oberleutnant darted across the road and Steiner tried to raise Brandt on the Grauman. He had no success at all and as Neumann emerged from the door of the Post Office with Altmann, Dinter and Berg, there was an outbreak of heavy firing up at the mill.
They all crouched behind the parapet and Steiner said, ‘I can’t raise Brandt. God knows what’s happening. I want the rest of you to make a run for it to the church. You’ve good cover for most of the way if you keep to the hedge. You’re in charge, Ritter.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll keep them occupied with the Browning for a while then I’ll follow on.’
‘But Herr Oberst,’ Ritter began.
Steiner cut him off short. ‘No buts about it. Today’s my day for playing hero. Now get to hell out of it, all of you and that’s an order.’
Ritter hesitated, but only fractionally. He nodded to Altmann then slipped past the jeep and ran across the bridge, crouching behind the parapet. Steiner got down to the Browning and started to fire.
At the other end of the bridge there was a stretch of open ground, no more than twenty-five feet before the safety of the hedge. Ritter, crouching on one knee, said, ‘Taking it one by one is no good because after he’s seen the first, that joker on the machine-gun will be ready and waiting for whoever comes next. When I give the word, we all go together.’
A moment later he was out of cover and dashing across the road, vaulting the stile and dropping into the safety of the hedge, Altmann right on his heels and followed by the others. The Ranger on the Browning at the other end of the village was a corporal named Bleeker, a Cape Cod fisherman in happier times. Just now, he was nearly out of his mind with pain, a piece of glass having buried itself just beneath his right eye. More than anything else in the world he hated Shafto for bringing him to this, but right now any target would do. He saw the Germans crossing the road and swung the Browning, too late. In his rage and frustration he raked the hedge anyway.
On the other side Berg tripped and fell and Dinter turned to help him. ‘Give me your hand, you daft bastard,’ he said. ‘Two left feet as usual.’
Berg stood up to die with him as bullets shredded the hedge, hammering into them, driving them both back across the meadow in a last frenzied dance. Werner turned with a cry and Altmann grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him after Ritter.
From the loft entrance above the waterwheel, Brandt and Meyer saw what had happened in the meadow. ‘So now we know,’ Meyer said. ‘From the looks of things I’d say we’ve taken up permanent residence here.’
Brandt watched Ritter, Altmann and Briegel toil up the long run of the hedge and scramble over the wall into the churchyard. ‘They made it,’ he said. ‘Wonders will never cease.’
He moved across to Meyer, who was propped against a box in the middle of the floor. He’d been shot in the stomach. His blouse was open and there was an obscene hole with swollen purple lips just below his navel. ‘Look at that,’ he said, sweat on his face. ‘At least I’m not losing any blood. My mother always did say I had the luck of the Devil.’
‘So I’ve observed.’ Brandt put a cigarette in Meyer’s mouth, but before he could light it, heavy firing started again from outside.
Shafto crouched in the shelter of the wall in Joanna Grey’s front garden, stunned by the enormity of the news one of the survivors of Hustler’s section had just brought him. The catastrophe seemed complete. In a little over half-an-hour he had lost at least twenty-two men dead or wounded. More than half his command. The consequences now were too appalling to contemplate.
Krukowski, crouching behind him with the field telephone, said,
‘What are you going to do, Colonel?’
‘What do you mean, what am I going to do?’ Shafto demanded. ‘It’s always me when it comes right down to it. Leave things to other people, people with no conception of discipline or duty, and see what happens.’
He slumped against the wall and looked up. At that exact moment Joanna Grey peered from behind the bedroom curtain. She drew back instantly, too late. Shafto growled deep in his throat. ‘My God, Krukowski, that Goddamned, double-dealing bitch is still in the house.’
He pointed up at the window as he scrambled to his feet. Krukowski said, ‘I can’t see anyone, sir.’
‘You soon will, boy!’ Shafto cried, drawing his pearl-handled Colt.
‘Come on!’ and he ran up the path to the front door.
Joanna Grey locked the secret door and went up the stairs quickly to the cubbyhole loft. She sat down at the radio and started to transmit on the Landsvoort channel. She could hear noise downstairs. Doors were flung open and furniture knocked over as Shafto ransacked the house. He was very close now, stamping about in the study. She heard his cry of rage quite clearly as he went out on the stairs.
‘She’s got to be in here someplace.’
A voice echoed up the stairs. ‘Heh, Colonel, there was this dog locked in the cellar. He’s on his way up to you now like a bat out of hell.’
Joanna Grey reached for the Luger and cocked it, continuing to transmit without faltering. On the landing, Shafto stood to one side as Patch scurried past him. He followed the retriever into the study and found him scratching at the panelling in the corner.
Shafto examined it quickly and found the tiny keyhole almost at once. ‘She’s here, Krukowski!’ There was a savage, almost insane joy in his voice. ‘I’ve got her!’
He fired three shots point blank in the general area of the keyhole. The wood splintered as the lock disintegrated and the door swung open of its own accord, just as Krukowski entered the room, his Ml ready.
‘Tak
e it easy, sir.’
‘Like hell I will.’ Shafto started up the stairs, the Colt held out in front of him as Patch flashed past. ‘Come down out of there, you bitch!’
As his head rose above floor level, Joanna Grey shot him between the eyes. He tumbled back down into the study. Krukowski poked the barrel of his Ml round the corner and loosed off an eight-round clip so fast that it sounded like one continuous burst. The dog howled, there was the sound of a body falling, and then silence.
Devlin arrived outside the church as Ritter, Altmann and Werner Briegel ran through the tombstones towards the porch. They veered towards him as Devlin braked to a halt at the lychgate. ‘It’s a mess,’ Ritter said. ‘And the Colonel’s still down there by the bridge.’
Devlin looked down to the village where Steiner continued to fire the Browning from behind the damaged jeep and Ritter grabbed his arm and pointed. ‘My God, look what’s coming!’
Devlin turned and saw, on the other side of the bend in the road beyond Joanna Grey’s cottage, a White Scout car and three jeeps. He revved his motor and grinned. ‘Sure and if I don’t go now I might think better of it and that would never do.’
He went straight down the hill and skidded broadside on into the entrance to Old Woman’s Meadow, leaving the track within a few yards and taking the direct route straight across the field to the footbridge above the weir. He seemed to take off again and again as the machine bounced over the tussocky grass and Ritter watched from the lychgate, marvelling that he remained in the saddle.
The Oberleutnant ducked suddenly as a bullet chipped the woodwork beside his head. He dropped into the shelter of the wall with Werner and Altmann and started to return the fire as the survivors of Hustler’s section, finally re-grouped, reached the fringe of the wood opposite the church.
Devlin shot across the footbridge and followed the track through the wood on the other side. There were men up there by the road, he was sure of it. He pulled one of the grenades from inside his coat and yanked the pin with his teeth. And then he was through the trees and there was a jeep on the grass verge, men turning in alarm.