By the Blood of Heroes

by Joseph Nassise

  Just two men.

  Richthofen wanted to rip the bodies apart with his bare hands in frustration. Somewhere between here and the gates of the base, the rest of the infiltration team had disappeared, taking President Harper’s son with them. Finding them now would be the equivalent of searching for a needle in a haystack.

  Richthofen stood over the driver, pistol in hand, considering whether he was going to shoot the man outright and be done with it, or wait, see if he lived, and then get what he could from the heavyset American.

  In the end, the lure of the unknown won out.

  He beckoned several men over. “Do whatever you need to do to keep this man alive. If he dies, you’ll be next.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  TRAIN DEPOT

  An hour later, Burke and what was left of his team were huddled in a ditch next to the station house, staring at a black steel behemoth. The train had started life as a standard steam-powered locomotive, but he could see that it had been through some extensive modifications, not the least of which was a thick set of armor that covered all but a small viewing slit in the front of the cab. A battering ram had been welded to the front of the engine, and two heavy machine-gun emplacements could be seen atop two of the cars. The armor told Burke that Freeman was right—the train most likely made regular visits to the front, which was just what they were looking for. If they could commandeer the train, they might be able to ride it all the way to the rail station on the enemy side of the lines at Nogent. Burke had no idea how he was going to get across the lines once they arrived there, but he’d worry about that later.

  “What do you think, Professor? Can you handle a train that large?”

  Graves seemed offended by the question. “It’s powered by steam, isn’t it?” he replied, as if that was answer enough.

  And maybe it was.

  Burke scooted up a little higher against the embankment and took a long look down the tracks, letting the plan formulate in his head.

  From his position opposite the train’s engine, he could see a pair of guards, ostensibly guarding the locomotive and keeping unauthorized individuals from getting close enough to do it any harm.

  He inched up even higher and chanced a quick look down the length of the train. He could see only one other guard, who stood about four cars from the front, near another boarding point. The guard had his gun slung over his shoulder and his hands in his pockets.

  No threat there.

  Burke slid back down into the cover of the ditch and motioned the others closer.

  “That train is our ticket out of here. If we get lucky, we might even be able to ride it all the way to the front, but first we need to make sure it’s fully under our control.”

  He pointed at Compton and Williams. “I want the two of you to make your way around the station house and into the ditch on the other side. When you hear us start the attack, you’re to neutralize the guard and get aboard the closest car as quickly as possible. Understand?”

  They nodded, excitement warring with fear on their faces.

  “We’re going to be waiting until the last possible second, so don’t be late. Take out that guard and get onboard that train. Now get going.”

  The two men slipped out of the ditch and faded into the trees.

  Burke watched them for a moment and then turned his attention to the others. “We have to get inside that cab before the engineers figure out what’s going on. If they do, we’re dead in the water, understand?”

  Jones, Graves, and Freeman all nodded.

  “When I give the signal, here’s what we’re going to do . . .”

  Knowing Compton and Williams would give the station a wide berth, Burke gave the two of them ten minutes to get into position. That was, unfortunately, all he could give them, for right about that time the engineers boarded the locomotive and began their preparations for leaving.

  “Let’s get ’em!” Jones whispered and started to get to his feet, only to have Burke grab him and haul him back down.

  “We go when I say we do!” he hissed, his face just inches from Jones’s. “We want that engine up and running before we make our move, you idiot.”

  Burke knew that their best opportunity was to wait until the last moment and then seize control of the cab. Doing so would reduce the opportunity for anyone inside the train station to respond to the crisis.

  The seconds ticked past.

  Smoke began to drift out of the chimney atop the locomotive as the engine built up a head of steam powerful enough to move it along the track.

  “Get ready,” Burke whispered to the men beside him, his gaze on the guards outside the cab. In his peripheral vision he saw Jones settling the stock of his Enfield against his shoulder.

  The shriek of a whistle split the night air as the motorman signaled their readiness for departure. The pair of guards that were standing near the door to the engineer’s cab threw away their cigarettes and got ready to board the train.

  “Now!” Burke cried and launched himself out of the ditch, hitting the ground running and heading straight for the cab and the engineers inside. The guards were slow to respond to his sudden appearance, unable to reconcile the conflict posed by the fact that he was wearing a German uniform and yet was running toward them with his gun at the ready and pointed in their direction. Their hesitation cost them their lives; Jones fired over Burke’s shoulder, taking each of them down with a single shot to the head. Their bodies hadn’t yet hit the ground as Burke rushed past them, his attention focused on the door of the train, knowing that if the engineers managed to close it before he got inside, there was no way to breach the cab.

  A figure appeared in the doorway before him, a gun in hand, and Burke felt the passage of the bullet as it screamed past him only inches from his ear before he even realized that a shot had been fired. He responded with a quick squeeze of the trigger of his own weapon, the chatter of the Tommy gun filling the air with its rat-a-tat-tat sound as the bullets stitched their way across the man’s chest, flinging him away from the door and into the depths of the compartment behind him. Off to Burke’s right, farther down the length of the train, he heard more gunfire and knew that Compton and Williams had joined the fight.

  Burke had no time to worry about them, however, for the door to the engineer’s cab loomed before him and he bounded through it, taking it all in with a sweeping glance. The body of the man he’d shot lay crumpled on the floor in front of him. Motion to his left told him there was another man, possibly two, waiting there. He spun in that direction while still moving forward, unable to stop his momentum that quickly, and his foot landed squarely in the pool of blood spilling across the floor from the first man he’d shot.

  Burke’s foot went out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor.

  The fall saved his life.

  The coal shovel the fireman swung at Burke’s head passed harmlessly overhead, missing him by inches.

  Burke wasn’t waiting around to give him another shot either. He was already pulling the trigger as he crashed to the floor; his first few bullets obliterated the man’s face, the rest of them ricocheting around the small compartment as they bounced off the iron doors of the firebox.

  Silence fell as the Tommy gun ran dry.

  Burke scrambled to his feet, knowing that reinforcements could be only seconds away. They didn’t have any time to waste. He stuck his head out the door and was relieved to see Jones running toward him with Graves and Freeman at his heels. A glance down the length of the train showed Williams and Compton climbing unhindered aboard, four cars back.

  They’d taken the train!

  Graves went straight to the control station as soon as he was aboard, with Freeman at his heels. Burke and Jones took up positions on either side of the door, their gaze on the station house.

  No sooner had they settled into position than several gray-clad German soldiers rushed out of the building, weapons in hand.

  “We need to leave, Graves!” Burke call
ed out, risking a glance in his direction. “And I mean NOW!”

  “Working on it, Captain,” the professor shouted back, as he rushed from control panel to control panel, pushing buttons and pulling levers, while telling Freeman to shovel coal into the furnace.

  The German soldiers sent a flurry of shots toward the train, forcing Burke to flatten himself against the side of the car to avoid getting hit. The small space was soon filled with the sounds of bullets striking metal and ricocheting away in different directions. Thankfully the armor on the train was more than up to the task of protecting them against small-arms fire. Burke grabbed the engineer’s pistol and sent a few shots of his own winging toward the enemy. He wasn’t really trying to hit anyone, just encourage them to keep their heads down. His philosophy was that they couldn’t shoot if they couldn’t see, and every minute that passed brought them one minute closer to departure.

  The train lurched a few feet, nearly throwing Burke off balance. As he steadied himself, he realized they were picking up speed.

  “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted toward the men in the cab, and Freeman shot him a weary but wide smile in return.

  It was when he turned back again, not wanting to let the enemy out of sight for too long, that he saw the 18 mm mortar.

  A team of three was hustling it into position on a clear spot just outside the doors of the station. While one man secured the legs, another stockpiled a dozen or more shells beside it. The mortar crew was going to stop the train one way or another, it seemed, and blowing it up didn’t seem to be a problem.

  Burke couldn’t let that happen.

  He caught Jones’s attention, pointed toward the mortar crew, then showed him the grenade in his hand. The corporal stole a quick look and then pulled his head in before it could get shot off by one of the industrious soldiers providing cover for the mortar crew.

  “On the count of three,” he shouted, over the din of the gunfire.

  Burke nodded.

  Jones counted it down and as he reached three, the two of them spun into the doorway. While Jones laid down some covering fire, Burke leaned out the door and heaved the German stick grenade toward the mortar crew. It flipped end over end and struck the ground a few feet in front of them. The resulting blast lifted the soldiers up and tossed them like rag dolls into the outer wall of the station.

  As the train picked up speed, Burke whooped in satisfaction!

  Several of the defenders scrambled to their feet and began to run toward the nearest car, hoping to jump onboard, but they were quickly cut down by shots from Williams and Compton.

  The train gathered momentum, and within moments they had the station and its defenders behind. Soon they were rolling across occupied France at a rate many times what they would have been able to do on foot. Burke started to think they might have a prayer of surviving after all.

  Chapter Forty-five

  RICHTHOFEN’S QUARTERS

  Richthofen managed to make it back to his office before the rage that had been building since leaving the crash site got the better of him. The next ten, maybe even fifteen minutes vanished as he lost himself in his fury, only coming back to himself when someone began pounding urgently on his office door.

  He shook his head, clearing the red mist from his vision, and found that he was standing amid the wreckage of his office with the half-eaten corpse of a sentry in one hand. He turned in a slow circle, taking it all in.

  His bookshelves had been pulled from the walls, the volumes they had contained now shredded and strewn about the floor. The chess set had been ground underfoot. The top of his desk had even been smashed in half.

  Not one of his calmer rages.

  Richthofen tossed the corpse aside and kicked his way through the wreckage and over to the door. He paused a moment to wipe some of the blood and uneaten tissue off his face with the back of his hand and then opened the door.

  The messenger who stood on the other side managed to hand him the telegram before losing control of his nerve and falling to his knees, pleading for his life.

  Ignoring him, Richthofen shut the door and read the hastily jotted message. It informed him that one of their troop transport trains was acting erratically, bypassing scheduled stops and ignoring attempts to flag it down.

  He stalked back across the room to where a map of the region still hung on the wall and traced the route of the train forward from its last known position all the way to the end of the line, marking its path with the blood that stained his finger.

  The route ended at Nogent, a small town very close to the front.

  The missing fugitives were on that train!

  He hunted through the mess he’d made until he found the phone and put in a call to his headquarters at Jasta 11, one of the few locations that were currently set up to use the new communication device.

  When Adler answered the phone, Richthofen said, “There is a train currently running on track 89, bound for the front. I want it stopped.”

  “Of course, Herr Richthofen. I will have the conductor contacted and . . .”

  Richthofen cut him off. “The train is no longer under our control and may, in fact, be in the hands of the enemy. I want that train stopped, intact if possible, but do what you have to do to keep it from reaching the front lines. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Herr Richthofen!”

  “Good. I am returning to base and will join you in your efforts from the air as soon as I am able.”

  Richthofen left the phone hanging as he rushed out of the office, headed for the airfield and the aircraft waiting there.

  Chapter Forty-six

  ABOARD THE TRAIN

  How are we doing, Professor?” Burke asked as they labored to climb up another hill.

  Graves shrugged. “As good as can be expected, I’d think. We’d move a bit faster if we could get rid of some of these extra cars though.”

  Burke wanted to hit himself for not thinking of that sooner. The train consisted of about a dozen cars, if you counted the locomotive and the tender car. By jettisoning the majority of them, they could save on fuel consumption while at the same time reducing the danger of derailment. The machine-gun emplacements were on cars three and eight, so he figured he would keep the first three and get rid of the rest.

  He listened carefully as Graves told him how to release the clamp that held the cars together and then headed aft to do the job.

  “Need help?” Compton asked.

  “Nah, I should be all right. I want you and Williams to come with me and check out the machine-gun emplacement atop car number three, though, in case we need it.”

  “Right.”

  The three of them moved aft. The cars were connected by a small wooden platform at either end with about two feet of space between them, which granted the engineers access to the coupler arms. Burke could see the thick pin that held the couplers together, which blocked the switch from being set to the release position accidentally. To release the coupler between cars three and four, he would have to climb down between the cars, balance on the couplers, and pull the pin with the help of an engineer’s wrench before he could throw the switch. For now though, he just jumped lightly across the gap between the cars and hauled down on the handle that opened the door to the next.

  Behind him, Compton and Williams followed suit.

  About half the passenger seats in the third car had been torn out to make room for the machine-gun crew. A ladder had been welded into place in the center of the railcar, giving access to a small platform that hung down from the hole that had been cut in the ceiling. Above the platform on a swivel mounted to the top of the train was a Hotchkiss machine gun. To operate it the gunner stood on the platform with his head and shoulders outside the top of the train so that he could swivel the gun into whatever position was necessary to fire on the target.

  Burke left his subordinates to check out the condition of the machine gun and continued aft, intent on uncoupling the cars. When he arrived at the junction of cars three an
d four, however, he happened to glance inside and discovered that he was looking at a private kitchen/dining car all rolled into one. The men hadn’t had a decent meal in a while, so dumping the dining car before they had a chance to raid it for anything edible just didn’t seem right. Having come to that conclusion, Burke decided to check out the other cars, just in case there was something usable there as well.

  He made his way through the dining car, out onto the platform, and then stepped over the gap to the opposite platform and the door leading into car five. He pulled down on the handle and slid the door open.

  A shambler stood on the other side, so close it must have been pressed right up against the door. Behind it, a horde of others filled the car, packed in so tightly that they had no room to move. At the sound of the door’s opening they all turned and looked in Burke’s direction.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Burke went for his .45.

  The lead shambler went for Burke.

  It fell upon him, slamming him backward, its weight carrying them both off the platform as the door slid shut. They fell down into the space between the railroad cars, the .45 spinning out of Burke’s hand and disappearing.

  Burke let out a sharp yelp of pain as they landed hard on the coupler arms, the shambler atop him struggling to get close enough to take a bite out of his flesh while he worked to keep it from doing so. The wind whipped past, buffeting them on their precarious perch.

  With his right arm between them like a brace, holding the shambler back, Burke began to beat at the shambler with his left. The heavy, mechanical arm smashed repeatedly into the creature’s face and head with savage force, causing blood and flesh to fly. At the same time, Burke wrapped his legs around the coupler arm and squeezed them tight, not wanting the momentum of his own movements to accidentally knock him free of the train. He prayed there wasn’t anything sticking up from the tracks ahead of them that might snag his foot and tear him free, then promptly forgot about the danger as he focused all his attention on the problem in front of him.