Cold Lonely Courage

by Soren Petrek

  “Is there much Resistance activity in the area?”

  “Not much that I’ve heard about. But once the invasion begins, everyone will claim to be a Resistance fighter. Many may actually join the fight.”

  Willi was quiet for a moment and then quietly said, “Think she’ll be there, Horst?”

  Stenger was surprised by Willi’s shift from his usual carefree attitude to the serious way he asked the question. The episode with the beautiful assassin had more of an affect than Willi let on.

  “I don’t know, Willi. I don’t know what to say. She is not what she seems. Granted, she is a killer of the highest skill. But she is not a murderer. These Nazis are bad. Although we try not to speak about it, we have both always known that to be true.”

  “I know it’s best not to talk about it, even when we’re alone, but we have interfered with the Gestapo and the French Vichy Milice police squads and their wholesale internment of Jews. Anyone finds out and we get shot,” Willi said with a hint of uncharacteristic concern.

  “So we redirected a few trains and took custody of some Jewish “criminals” out of their hands. Anyone with any compassion at all would have done the same thing.”

  “There’s that and warning Jewish families ahead of time. But I guess we got away with it, Horsty. Just like I avoided the Angel’s bullet. That was undoubtedly the strangest experience of my life. I was completely helpless. It felt like I was being judged and I passed the test.”

  “I think that was exactly what happened. I guess you’re not such a bad man after all. Besides, I have always said, any man whose cousins own a brewery can’t be all bad.”

  “I hope it’s all there after the war.”

  “Pilots don’t bomb breweries. That is a known fact.”

  Willi laughed and smiled, happy as always to be with Stenger. He was as smart as they came. Horst would see the two of them through this war as well. He had been happy to participate in Stenger’s humanitarian efforts. They had tacitly agreed that saving one innocent life was more important than catching a thousand criminals. Stenger was a policeman through and through. He truly believed his responsibility was to protect and serve the people, all people.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Madeleine sat next to a radio in a small weathered shack. The building barely held together as the bleached boards of the walls settled with the incessant beating of the sun and the winter snows. It was probably an old shepherd’s hut, working its way into a pile of useless lumber. She rarely came to this location. She knew it was the impending invasion that drew her away from the south and towards the north. Still, the location was remote and the countryside beautiful in spring. This was her favorite time of the year. It was the time of the rebirth and renewal of the land and a reminder that all things change.

  Madeleine had been directed to the region. It was within striking point of numerous reserve German troop divisions. Only a very few among the Allied command knew the exact location of the invasion. She had her own ideas but tried to stay as close to the middle of the country as possible so that she could react and go towards the main invasion wherever it came. It could happen on any of the coasts, but logistics favored the north. She already knew her orders. They were to create as much chaos as possible. She would target the movement of troops and supplies.

  She turned the dial to the appropriate setting and listened. Her attention to her orders was always intense, but now she was waiting for an announcement of the impending invasion. Thousands in the Resistance waited anxiously for the coded messages specific to their individual groups. Only she knew her code. She listened at the same time each day and grew increasingly tense when the message didn’t come. Madeleine realized that a great part of her frustration came from knowing that the invasion would mark the beginning of the end of the exile between her and Jack. She reminded herself that others were in greater need than she for the arrival of the allied troops. There were untold numbers of civilians, Jews and ‘undesirables’ waiting in concentration camps of unspeakable horror, along with anyone the Nazis deemed inferior, including homosexuals, gypsies, communists, and so many others from the far reaches of Europe. Their suffering was beyond description. The romantic needs of those that remained free were insignificant. But yet she couldn’t help but feel entitled to some happiness. She had done her duty and beyond. She had silently killed so many who had tried to capture Jewish families hidden in France. She’d killed French collaborators who had denounced or exposed them for personal gain. The traitors wailed the most, begging for their lives as Madeleine came down on them with vengeance. She afforded them their pleas and then executed them for their crimes. Evil knows no nationality. Harm the innocent and suffer the consequences.

  Madeleine stood up and paced as much as her cramped surroundings allowed. She would have been happy to sit in the sunshine and wait for the broadcast but couldn’t stand being more than a few feet from the radio. Its antennae were already set and she didn’t want to have to move them. She knew that once the invasion came, news would travel in an unstoppable wave. She knew France would then come alive again. The warriors of France would rise up and fight in one last desperate surge to drive the enemy from their soil and regain their independence from tyranny once again.

  Madeleine froze as the crackle of the radio signal broke into words.

  “The dog ate the cheese, the dog ate the cheese.” She lurched towards the radio, her face inches from the speaker, “the dog ate the cheese.” She did not have to hear it a third time, she leaped to her feet, laughing and crying at the same time. That was her signal. The one she had chosen, remembering a little dog that she and her brother had brought home from the beach one day, begging their parents to let them keep him. He could not have been a worse pet for a restaurant family. The damn thing ate everything he could find. She smiled, remembering her father’s response, which was to feed the dog so that he got so fat he couldn’t jump up on the counter or tables anymore. It all hit her at once. She would see her parents and Jack again.

  Madeleine laughed. “Don’t spend all your energy on the Germans, Jack Teach,” she whispered as she sat down to control the roar of her emotions. She needed time to think.

  Madeleine walked out of the little shed and into the late afternoon sunshine. It would be time to move soon. Word would come when the allies landed. She would stop as many Germans as she could from getting to the fighting. In the confusion she could operate with greater speed. Now they would see what the Angel of Death could do out of the shadows and into the light. Her hands shook as she fumbled with a packet of cigarettes and lit one in celebration. She knew that if she survived the fighting she would remember this day her whole life. She hoped that was a long time. She wanted nothing more to do with excitement and danger. She wanted love, family, and a home, all of the things that she had been fighting for. She wished that she could share her joy with her parents. It would help bring closure to the endless nightmare that had begun with the death of her brother. Her promise to him would be fulfilled when France was free, and that day was coming.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  In the basement of a nondescript home in the town of Nieul, a small group of Maquis fighters listened to their instructions via the BBC. Their leader, a man known only to his men as Richard, listened intently to the broadcast. He nodded his head as he committed the information to memory. It confirmed what he already knew. A huge convoy of SS trucks was moving north towards the invasion area and he was to proceed to a site north of the town of Siorac along the Limoge River and delay them with explosives.

  He looked at his group of men. Few of them were even close to manhood. Most of them looked to be boys of sixteen or so, and much too anxious to get into the fight against the enemy. Hell, these ‘men’ had barely been out of short pants when the Germans first came. He was originally German, but also a Jew. His own parents had been denounced even though they had successfully hidden in the city of Toulouse. A neighbor and supposed friend had alerted the authorities t
o their location and religious heritage. Richard’s revenge had been swift. He had taken action quickly but he killed the bastard slowly. He took no joy in it but revenge needed to be carried out in a manner that ensured the traitor understood his crime. The man would denounce no others. As Richard had slowly tortured him to death, his screams had given him little solace. Perhaps getting the Nazis out of France would help. Then he could turn his attention to finding his parents who had been sent to concentration camps in Germany, torn from the life of affluence they had enjoyed in Germany prior to the rise of anti-Semitism.

  Richard looked around the room and tried to formulate a plan to attack the convoy. He was extensively trained in sabotage and had access to a large cache of explosives. Unfortunately, the boys clustered around him had no training, nor the time for it. He decided that their role would be a supportive one, not offensive. They would follow his orders eagerly, without question, but he was not going to send these green kids into the jaws of the Das Reich division. They truly were animals and would burn these kids alive if they took them prisoner. Das Reich was regrouping near Toulouse and it was known that when the invasion came they would be activated, charging into battle as fresh and seasoned troops. They were tough fighters who would chew up and spit out his boys without breaking stride. Regardless, he planned to blow as many of the bastards to hell as he could. The Nazis had taken so much from his family. First his sister had disappeared, and then his parents. He prayed that the invasion was the beginning of the end. It had to be. His goal was to defeat the Nazis and end their crimes. He relished the opportunity to strike at the SS. They were the embodiment of Nazi beliefs.

  Richard lit a cigarette and listened to the banter of the boys. Resources must have been thin for him to be saddled with this lot. He wasn’t even sure they knew why they hated the Germans, and that was a dangerous thing. Had they personally suffered at the hands of the soldiers out here, away from anything of great strategic importance? He was confident that they had been schooled in hating the Germans as an occupying force, but personal experience was the best and cruelest teacher. He had no way of knowing how they would react under fire if it came to that. Caution was the only antidote for his concern. Nothing would be done in the open; he would use them as observers and execute his plan carefully.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  John Trunce sat in a large airplane hanger among his buddies as they listened to their platoon leaders explain the situation. The atmosphere in the room was charged with a mixture of excitement and resignation. Most of the men had seen combat in Italy. They were over questioning their personal courage in combat but were apprehensive. This was going to be the most important operation of the war. Everyone knew it. General Eisenhower had delivered a personal written message to each and every man concerning the importance of his mission. There was no mistaking it.

  “This is it. No more false alarms; we go. Get together with your stick and remember your drop zone. If you get separated, find friends and we’ll regroup later. Good luck, boys. We finally get to get into this thing and get it over with,” a young airborne officer explained. He seemed barely older than they were, a boy leading boys. To an outsider it might have seemed that way but their confidence and long months of training gave them an air of confidence in themselves and their units. A blade any more finely honed might start to crumble and break. They were ready.

  John felt relieved and anxious at the same time. He looked around as his friends readied their gear. Nobody was goofing around now. They were all business. They had long ago stopped being kids, when they were barely out of high school. They had been molded into professional soldiers.

  John felt more like a pack mule than a deadly fighting man as he waddled towards the door of the transport plane. At the last second some idiot deciding that they needed to carry more gear strapped to their bodies in leg bags. He moved towards the metal steps descending from the side of the plane and heaved himself up into the doorway. A guy behind him gave him a push helping him through. His gear weighed more than he did. What a relief it would be to get that stuff off him once he hit the ground. They didn’t expect him to hump that crap all over France, did they? Once in the doorway he picked up his static cord clip and slid it down to his position in line and found a seat along the side. Every face reflected the emotions that were spinning through their minds. The one thing that was missing was banter among the guys. A subtle change had come over everyone. This was the real thing.

  He’d been in going on two years. It seemed like forever since he’d seen his family. He reminded himself that he had volunteered for the paratroops. He was with the best and that helped him calm his anxieties. He knew he and his buddies were the best of the best. Nobody messed with them. He relished the memory, remembering how they had literally run their regular army physical training instructors into the ground. He was hard and as fully trained as he could be. He knew better than to believe the rumors that they would be fighting anything less than Hitler’s best. The Germans had been at war for five years. Those boys wouldn’t break and run. He expected to be going up against hardened veterans fighting to protect the honor of their homeland.

  It didn’t seem like they had been in the air that long when John started to hear the flack exploding in the distance. His real fear was getting hit by it and going down without getting out. They would be jumping pretty low, which meant they made an excellent target. The plane started to get buffeted about and was pitching around as the pilot tried to avoid the worst of it. He kept his eyes focused on the jump light. Soon it would turn green and they’d be out. As much as he liked flying, with this much antiaircraft fire, it would be best to be on the ground as soon as possible.

  The first signal light came up, telling the men to assemble into their stick. As one the men stood, turning to check the gear of the man in front of them. The plane heaved and dropped altitude as a shell burst nearby. Men held on to whatever was at hand. The urge to move forward and jump was palpable; the open doorway looking like it was a mile away to the men in the back of the line. The green light snapped on and the men moved to the door without hesitation, jumping out one by one. John went out and was caught in the prop blast, propelled out and down. His chute opened up immediately and he oriented himself. As he looked up he saw countless planes dropping men. He winced when a shell hit one, exploding into pieces. The poor bastards. Tracers from the ground flew all around. He wrestled his rifle from where he had strapped it to his body. Every direction he looked he saw explosions and ground fire. He felt like he was in the middle of a fireworks display of gigantic proportions. The display of firepower was overwhelming. He looked down and saw darkness directly below him. Maybe he would get lucky and not land in front of a German machine gun nest, he thought ruefully.

  Ready to shoot back at anything on the ground he twisted around as far as his harness would allow, trying to get at least a glance in every direction. He drifted down and away from where he saw ground fire. He tried to see if he could make anything out that looked remotely like his drop zone. All he saw was a swamp. Just like he’d been told, the Germans had flooded the low areas once the invasion began. They had plenty of time to train and prepare for this, John reminded himself.

  “Shit, I’m going to get wet,” he said aloud and came to a sloppy stop, his parachute billowing out in front of him as it came to rest in the muck.

  “Welcome to France, Johnny,” he murmured, shaking his head. This was not his drop zone. He detached himself and looked around for any friendly faces. He rolled and crawled his way towards the nearest solid ground, staying low in the mess of mud and decaying vegetation. Swamps are for duck hunting, he thought, careful to keep the muzzle of his rifle covered and out of the muck. He didn’t much care if he was muddy, but his weapon was everything. He couldn’t do much damage to the enemy with a plugged up rifle. He made it to the edge and crouched down, looking around for movement. He saw a couple more chutes that landed on what looked like solid ground. He adjusted his helmet and
moved towards them and the war.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Normandy, not Bordeaux? I see. I will move my men in the direction of Caen immediately, Field Marshal. We should bring all Panzers to bear and push the enemy back into the sea. I must admit, sir, that you were correct,” General Lammerding said into his phone. He listed to Field Marshal Rommel’s instructions. A great deal of what the Field Marshal demanded depended on Hitler’s permission. Hitler had taken it upon himself to require his personal consent regarding a broad range of tactical decisions. The time it took for Hitler to authorize an order could cripple counter attacks and create indecision. Many in the German High Command were paralyzed by the need to seek his permission.

  “Yes, Field Marshal, I understand,” Lammerding said, placing his phone back onto the cradle. “Well, it has come,” he whispered, picking the phone back up.

  “Kampfe, Lammerding. Invasion in Normandy. Yes, Normandy. Prepare the shipment and see to it immediately. I have a division to move.“ Without waiting for a reply, he dropped the phone back down and called his orderly.

  “Klein! Get my officers together and coordinate a rail movement of our equipment. We must be ready to move now with all dispatch.”

  Klein responded instantly, leaving the room for the phone on his own desk.

  Lammerding paced back towards the windows of his ornate office. The first of the morning light was coming in through the windows. He now knew where to send his men and armor. He had been preparing to do so for weeks. The trains had been readied for some time. He planned to be able to move as quickly as possible once the word came through. All he needed was a destination. The long guessing game was now over. He had his orders and his own priorities. He could afford no more time to think about his gold. He trusted Kampfe and knew that the gold was in the best hands possible. He turned and strode purposely from his office, wondering whether he or some allied general would be calling it home in the next few weeks.