Hunting the Hangman

by Howard Linskey

  Return fire was sporadic at first and confused by the conflicting shouts of shocked troops yet to fully comprehend where their enemy was or how many they faced. Pannwitz crawled desperately for the door, using the heavy wooden seats as cover, for he had retained the presence of mind to work out where the firing was coming from. The parachutists were strung out at three separate points of the choir loft and, by edging his way along the blind side of the seats, he was able to escape the worst of the crossfire. Just as he had crawled to within a few yards of the door all hell broke loose around him. Startled troops outside opened up on the church with everything they possessed, sending massive bursts of machine gun fire raking through the windows, decimating everything in its path; furniture, finery and their own men.

  As Pannwitz ducked his head and ran hell for leather out of the door, someone was screaming, ‘Hold your fire!’

  It may even have been him.

  Good, let the Germans do my job for me, cutting down their own soldiers, thought Kubiš as he ducked while the huge church windows exploded in a shower of crystal. No sooner had he dropped to the floor than machine gun fire sailed over his head, shattering the plaster on the wall behind him, which broke into pieces and floated to the ground like snowflakes.

  Kubiš ducked to keep the debris from his eyes and, cradling the Sten on his forearms, crawled away from danger. The Germans continued to fire at the spot he had occupied. He evaded them simply by moving a few yards to the left or right before popping up above the lip of the choir loft again and sending some more of them to hell. He would repeat this process and kill as many as possible before they could regroup and attempt a more organised assault on his position.

  How had they found him? It didn’t really matter. He had known there would be no way to avoid this fight as soon as he heard the lorries outside and picked up the sounds of the troops disembarking. Jan was certain he had despatched a good number of the SS men already but, as he crawled the length of the choir loft, he realised grimly it was now just a question of numbers and time. There was no other exit from the choir loft so they were completely trapped. How many could he kill before they came to take him? How long could he hold out? Jan already knew this was going to be a last stand.

  41

  ‘Even the brood in the cradle must be crushed like a puffed up toad.

  We are living in an iron time and have to sweep with iron brooms’

  SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler

  Gabčík hefted the Sten gun on one shoulder and threw the bag of spare magazines and grenades on the other. Valčík intercepted him.

  ‘What are you doing, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘What do you think I am doing? I’m going to help them.’ Even as he spoke another burst of machine gun fire was discharged above them.

  ‘Josef, no, you can’t – you won’t get five feet before they cut you down. If you go out through the hatch you will come up among them.’

  ‘Good. They’ll get the shock of their short lives. Let’s see how many we can get before they work out what’s hitting them.’

  ‘No, it’s suicide.’ Valčík seized his arm hard now. ‘You will get us all killed and for nothing. You can’t help them.’

  ‘What would you have me do? Stay here hiding like a coward while they kill my friends? I’m not leaving Jan out there alone.’

  This time it was Hrubý who persuaded him. ‘Valčík’s right, Josef, we can’t help them. Listen to that firepower, there must be a battalion up there. We won’t even be able to get to them and even if we could, what then? There is no way out of the choir loft – you know that. We would all be killed.’

  Gabčík stopped in his tracks, realising the futility of his actions but hating the irrefutable logic they presented to him nonetheless.

  ‘I can’t just stay here while they die.’

  ‘You have to. There is nothing else you can do,’ reasoned Hrubý desperately. ‘The Germans don’t know we are down here. We can hide out here until they leave. That is what Jan would want you to do, Josef, not sacrifice yourself for no reason.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘Either way we have a much better chance if we stay down here. You know I am right, Josef.’

  ‘But what about Jan and the others?’ pleaded Gabčík.

  Valčík gripped his arm once again; this time it was an attempt to calm him. ‘Listen to me, Josef, listen to me, they are already dead and you know it.’

  Outside Pannwitz was still shaken, unable to countenance how close he had just come to death. His uniform was coated with dust and splinters. Frank was unsympathetic. ‘What the hell is happening in there? How many men do we face?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell,’ he answered breathlessly. ‘Could be three, could be six. It might be more.’

  ‘Right, it’s simple. We send in more men to deal with it and flush them out properly. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.’

  ‘But we need them alive. They must be fit enough for interrogation.’

  ‘Alive it is then,’ confirmed Frank and he sent the SS captain to deal with the matter.

  The firing was mostly one sided. When Kubiš was able to fire at all, it had to be done in one swift movement. He would pop up above the stonework, aim at a blur of dark blue tunic and let off some rounds, immediately dropping to the ground before the answering burst of machine gun fire that always followed. His ability to halt the progress of the second wave of troops was limited by the sheer ferocity of the firepower they possessed. Kubiš knew it could not be long now.

  For almost two hours Kubiš, Bublík and Opálka had held hundreds of elite SS men at bay with the judicious use of their limited ammunition and the occasional devastating deployment of a hand grenade. They had certainly acquitted themselves way beyond the expectations of any professional soldier but now the game was almost at an end. Jan could hear German voices at the foot of the staircase. He had no grenades left to roll down and, even if he had, was unable to get close enough. The Germans had managed to set up a heavy machine gun at the foot of the staircase and were now slowly demolishing the area around the stairs with bursts of fire – undoubtedly the prelude to a final assault. The MG 34 stopped firing for a moment to reload and Kubiš called out.

  ‘Bublík, Opálka… are you with me?’

  The answering silence filled him with a sense of absolute loneliness. He had to assume they were both dead; killed by the grenades periodically lobbed into the choir loft or hit by accompanying fire.

  There was a third possibility; that struck by the sheer hopelessness of their cause they had elected to take their own lives, and avoid the brutal certainty of hours of torture followed by execution. This was the one thing they all feared more than a death in combat, which would hopefully be quick and certainly more befitting a soldier.

  Kubiš reached inside his pocket for the cyanide that had not left him since he set out from England six months earlier. He held the capsule in the palm of his hand. He had known the risk. He was a soldier and the possibility of death was with him constantly but it still felt so unreal somehow. That it should come down to this when there was so much to live for, with his mission complete, his obligation to his country fulfilled and Anna awaiting him. It was this simple cruelty that hurt him most.

  Kubiš knew he had no choice. He had merely been buying enough time to resolve himself. The alternative, being captured alive by the Gestapo, was too terrible to imagine. He had hoped for some miracle yet known there was no way out. Kubiš realised his last act on this earth would be to somehow find the strength to take his own life.

  ‘Forgive me, Anna. I tried.’

  He placed the capsule of fast acting poison in his mouth. As he did so an SS corporal reached the top of the staircase and fired a burst from his machine pistol. It tore down the long narrow corridor of the choir loft and more than one of the bullets caught Jan in the
torso, wounding him. There was a moment of searing pain before he collapsed into unconsciousness. The cyanide capsule, still unbitten, lolled uselessly in his mouth.

  42

  ‘I believe today that my conduct is in accordance

  with the will of the Almighty Creator’

  Adolf Hitler

  It took a while before full order was established. Three men were found – two of them apparently dead from a combination of wounds and self-inflicted poisoning once their ammunition had run out. The third, however, was still breathing and the order was quickly given to take Kubiš from the church and get him to a hospital. Here the best surgeons in Prague would treat his wounds, in an effort to keep him alive and make him fit enough to face interrogation.

  ‘Then we’ll prove the British are behind this whole thing,’ sneered Frank as he witnessed Kubiš being lifted on a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. ‘Make sure you keep him alive. Alive!’ he ordered as the doors were closed on the unconscious figure and the vehicle driven off at speed.

  Pannwitz approached Frank. ‘I don’t think it’s over.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The Gestapo man indicated Čurda who was standing to one side of the ambulance ‘He says that none of these men is Gabčík.’

  ‘Then where is he?’ demanded Frank.

  ‘It’s definitely over,’ announced Valčík in a whisper, the absence of firing causing a return to quieter communication.

  ‘God rest them,’ said Hrubý finally.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Jaroslav Švarc.

  ‘We do nothing. They do not know we are down here and there is no reason to look,’ answered Hrubý. ‘They have three men and no idea how many of us have been hiding out. Only the priests, Zelenka and Aunt Marie know that.’

  ‘What if we have been betrayed?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I refuse to believe it. Who would do such a thing and what would they have to gain in return? A reward they could not spend anywhere with half of Prague after them. No, if we stay quiet we will probably be alright. Agreed?’

  Valčík and Švarc muttered their agreement. Gabčík, sitting on his pack, continued to stare silently down at his boots in desolation at the loss of his friend.

  Vladimír Petřek’s bravery was never in doubt. The priest had not wavered for a moment when he was entrusted with the safe keeping of the parachutists, and he had remained steadfast during the weeks of random executions. But now he faced disaster. The Gestapo dragged him from his home, bundled him into the back of a truck and drove him down to the St Cyril and St Methodius church to show him the aftermath of the gun battle. Opálka and Bublík were already dead, their bodies lying uncovered on the path outside the church. A third man had been rushed to hospital with serious injuries and the Nazis knew there were more parachutists hiding in his church. How they were aware of this he could not tell but the sight of a Czech with bruises on his face standing next to a disfigured young man under armed guard gave Petřek all of the clues he needed. The presence of his brave young charges had been cruelly betrayed. Pannwitz came straight to the point.

  ‘We want Gabčík. We know he is in the building somewhere and we will level it brick by brick if we have to. I have field guns and will turn them on your house of God. I’ll consign it to rubble and bury you under it if that is what you want. You can’t help Gabčík. He will be ours before the end of the morning. You know it. If you tell us where he is and he surrenders it will be better for him.’

  Petřek remained entirely unconvinced of that but realised he was left with little room to manoeuvre. The Nazi became more emphatic as his rage grew.

  ‘Tell us where he is hiding, priest, or we will burn him out of there.’ Again Petřek said nothing. ‘You have ten seconds to tell me where he is or I swear I will round up one thousand men, women and children and execute them today in your name and we will still smoke Gabčík out. Think of it, one thousand people will die at your hands and for what? For nothing, because a stupid priest chose to protect an assassin who died anyway.’

  Petřek took a deep breath before answering. ‘No, they will die at your hands and be certain your maker is watching you. Know this Nazi, when you die, as all men must, He will be waiting to punish you for this and every other vile deed you have committed.’ He challenged the Gestapo man defiantly. ‘But if I have to give up one man to save a thousand then so be it. The hero you seek is hiding in the crypt.’

  ‘Show us,’ demanded Pannwitz. The priest reluctantly pointed out the air vent on the exterior wall of the church, then he took Pannwitz inside and showed him the western entrance to the crypt, barricaded from within, and the old blocked up entry way, no longer in use, at the other end of the catacomb’s thin corridor.

  ‘Now we are getting somewhere,’ Pannwitz reported to Frank when he returned to a street still filled with angry, vengeful soldiers.

  The four men sat on the stone floor of the crypt staring at the thin gap in the wall that gave them their only hint of a world outside. The air vent was ten feet above them, covered by a heavy metal grille and not even wide enough for a man to place his head through but it transfixed all of them. Minutes had passed since the firing upstairs ceased. Now Gabčík and Valčík, Hrubý and Švarc waited, in a silence filled with trepidation, for the German soldiers to either disperse or come crashing through the hatch. They held their weapons close to hand and kept the spare ammunition within reach. Each had sworn to the others he would not surrender and promised to take as many Germans with him as possible. They had Sten guns, Colt automatics and hand grenades and they could at least fight and die like soldiers if it came to it.

  But perhaps there would be no need for such heroic gestures after all. Maybe Hrubý was right. If the Germans thought they had caught Heydrich’s assassins they might be content and leave them in peace. Sure it would be many days before anyone would be able to run the risk of visiting them down in the catacombs but they had food and water enough till then. Sitting in silence in the dark crypt would be unpleasant but not such a huge price to pay to survive this ordeal. After all, it was a choice denied to Opálka, Bublík and Kubiš.

  And so they listened together as the sound of soldiers running by the vent and lorries reversing and accelerating along the street drifted down to them. Eventually all was entirely quiet and the silence that reached them became so absolute they found they instinctively held their breaths for fear of disturbing it. The four men exchanged tense glances, straining their ears to hear any sound from outside.

  Finally, as the tension became unbearable the calm was shattered by the harsh grating crackle of a megaphone.

  ‘Parachutists! We know you are in there. Come out and surrender!’

  The harsh guttural sound of a German voice butchering the Czech language cut through the air.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ mumbled Hrubý in terror.

  ‘You down there in the crypt. We know where you are hiding. Come out now and you will not be killed.’

  ‘They know we are here,’ said Valčík uselessly.

  ‘We have been betrayed,’ whispered Gabčík.

  ‘Gab-chik! Jo-Zef Gab-Chik!’ barked the German voice. ‘Surrender now and you will be treated with mercy!… a Prisoner of War… and you will not die like your friends!’

  At the mention of his name Gabčík rose to his feet to call back. Hrubý instinctively tugged at his shirtsleeve to stop him. Before he could say a word Gabčík asked him, ‘What difference does it make now?’ and Hrubý relented, releasing the grip on his comrade’s arm.

  Gabčík walked up to the vent and stood before it. He tilted his head upwards, the better to address his Nazi tormentors through the gap in the brickwork, and when he called out his words echoed round the stone walls of the crypt with a power that startled them all.

  ‘Never!! We are patriots and soldiers of the Free Czech army, loyal to Beneš, Masar
yk and Czechoslovakia! We do not recognise Nazi scum, except as enemies, and will never surrender! Come down here and get us and see how many of you lose your lives on free Czech soil! Down with Adolf Hitler and down with Germany!!’

  ‘There’s your answer, Pannwitz. I told you they would not respond to a German voice,’ said Frank.

  Pannwitz hauled Ata to his feet. ‘You, call out to your friends down there and tell them to give themselves up. Tell them it will be alright if they do.’

  ‘Alright?’ and Ata let out a bitter little laugh at the thought.

  When Ata refused, the SS Captain drew his Luger and pointed it at the boy’s head. Ata did not flinch.

  ‘Do it then – I know you are going to do it anyway.’

  Frank shook his head and the officer holstered his weapon. ‘Yes, we are,’ the Brigadeführer assured Ata, ‘but we will do it when we choose. You have no say in the matter.’

  Frank gestured towards Čurda. ‘Use him instead. He does what he is told.’

  Pannwitz nodded. ‘You know what to do,’ he told Čurda. ‘Go and persuade them to give up.’

  Obediently but very reluctantly Čurda took a step towards the church, treading as if he was heading for the gallows.

  ‘Traitor,’ hissed Ata as Čurda walked towards the vent. Frank did not care enough about Čurda’s state of mind to even have the boy beaten for his insolence.

  43

  ‘The independence of Czechoslovakia was not crushed; it continues, it lives, it exists’

  President Beneš

  ‘Well said, Josef,’ Hrubý told Gabčík weakly. ‘I don’t think I could have done that, not the way you…’ And the rest of his words faded.