Hell Harbor

by Len Levinson

  “Are we the first ones here?” Boynton asked.

  “Yes. Come with me, please.”

  He led them through the back door into a kitchen, and then down a flight of stairs to a dark corridor. They entered a room and Lousteau lit a candle on a big round table.

  “I’ll get you something to eat,” Lousteau said. “You must be hungry.”

  “We certainly are,” Boynton said.

  Lousteau left the room. Mahoney took out a cigarette and lit it up. He thought that the room with its table and chairs was a good set-up for a poker game. The three of them sat silently, for they were tired after being up for most of the night. Mahoney’s mouth tasted like shit and there was a dull ache in his stomach. He looked at Boynton, whose bulldog jowls appeared to be hanging even lower than usual. Cranepool was most awake, he was field-stripping his Colt .45 on the table and wiping the parts with his handkerchief. The kid’s really a good soldier, Mahoney thought. That’s what I should be doing. But Mahoney didn’t feel like cleaning his .45. It might be dirty, but he knew it still could fire.

  Lousteau returned with bread, cheese, and coffee that was mostly chicory. The three Rangers dined hungrily, not saying a word, while Lousteau watched them through heavy-lidded eyes and smoked a cigarette.

  “You probably would like to sleep,” he said when they were finished.

  “Maybe we should speak to the person in charge here first,” Boynton said.

  “He’s still sleeping,” Lousteau replied. “He was out all night and probably will be up around noon. You can see him then, and he will show you whatever you want to see.”

  Lousteau led them into the corridor again and down another flight of stairs to the subbasement. Cots were jammed in side by side around the furnace and coal bin.

  “This is the best we could do,” Lousteau said.

  Boynton assured him that the accommodations were fine. Lousteau wished them a good night, although it was six-thirty in the morning, and left the subbasement room. Without a word to each other, Boynton, Mahoney, and Cranepool dropped onto the cots and fell asleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mahoney fell into a deep black sleep devoid of dreams. Shells and bombs landed on Cherbourg with increasing frequency, but he didn’t hear them. The troops of General Lightning Joe Collins’ VII Corps advanced steadily, pushing back the exhausted and hungry German soldiers toward the city limits of Cherbourg. The American armored divisions tore huge holes in the German lines, and the Germans fought back as best they could with dwindling ammunition and supplies. It was clear to all that the fate of Cherbourg would be decided within the next few days.

  During the course of the morning, Lousteau brought Private Gomez and Buck Sergeant George Newell to the furnace room, where both promptly dropped off to sleep. At two in the afternoon, Lousteau came in again and woke up Boynton.

  “Our commander is here, and would like to speak with you,” Lousteau said.

  Boynton raised his head from the pillow and saw that two more bodies were on the cots. Lousteau told him they’d arrived a short while ago. Boynton got up and looked at the two newcomers to see who they were. Then he woke up Mahoney and Cranepool and told them to come with him to the meeting with the Frenchman.

  Mahoney rolled out of bed, and his head felt like it was filled with cement. He reached for a cigarette and looked at Cranepool, who was tousle-haired and sleepy-eyed, lacing up his combat boots. The three pulled themselves together and followed Lousteau upstairs to the room with the round table and chairs.

  They entered the room and two Frenchmen were sitting at the table, eating bread and cheese and drinking wine. Lousteau made introductions, and the Frenchmen were named Carpentier and Soulanges. Carpentier was the commander, a burly man with a barrel chest; he hadn’t shaved for several days. Soulanges was his right-hand man, of average height and build, quite handsome and unshaven also. The rangers sat down and were invited to share the food and wine.

  “What would you like to do first?” Carpentier asked in French, gnawing a crust of bread.

  Boynton’s French was limited, so Mahoney answered: “I guess we should see the fortress, so we can try to figure a way to break in.”

  Carpentier looked at Soulanges and smiled sardonically. Then he turned to Mahoney again. “You’ll never break into the fortress.”

  “We’ll decide that after we see it.”

  “If you’ve got any sense, you’ll agree with me. I’m afraid that there’s no way to stop the Germans from destroying this harbor.”

  “Do you know if they have their torpedoes all in place yet?”

  “We know that they do. They’ll set them off when American troops are near the harbor.”

  “Well,” Boynton said. “There must be some way to stop them.”

  “No, I don’t think there is,” Carpentier replied. “The control room is in the fortress, and it would take at least two regiments to storm the fortress. Entrances and exits are carefully guarded, with numerous checkpoints inside. I think it’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” Cranepool said.

  “Well, you Americans are a very optimistic people. It will be interesting to see whether or not you can get in. I hope you prove me wrong, because I was born and raised in Cherbourg, and I would hate to see it destroyed.”

  After the meal, Carpentier took Boynton and Mahoney to the fortress. They passed large numbers of German troops; shells were falling with greater frequency than in the morning. Soon they came to the waterfront, where gulls skipped over the waves and the smell of salt hung heavily in the moist air.

  “There it is,” Carpentier said, pointing to a tall, sprawling yellow stone structure a few blocks from the bay. It looked medieval and impregnable, with walls that were stripped bare of vines and too high to climb.

  Carpentier took them closer to the fortress. There was a huge metal gate in front, and while they were there it opened to admit a few marching platoons of German soldiers. Mahoney and the others walked around it, and at the rear was another gate, also of steel. Mahoney estimated that it would take a lot of explosives to rip through the gate, and even if they got through, they’d probably be shot down soon thereafter. Armed soldiers could be seen atop the walls of the fortress and in the turrets.

  Mahoney thought the only way to get in would be to masquerade as German soldiers and march up to the gate, requesting entrance. The maquis had spies and presumably could find out the procedure for gaining entrance. But once inside they’d have to gain entrance to the room where the controls for the torpedo net were located. Mahoney had serious doubts that he and the others could get through. Maybe the time had come for him to go AWOL in Cherbourg, but how could he get away from Bulldog Boynton?

  Boynton scratched his grizzled jowl and looked glumly at the fortress. “It’s going to be a tough nut to crack,” he said to Mahoney.

  “I think it’s just about impossible.”

  “Tell your friend there that we want to go back to the cafe and have a planning session.”

  Mahoney told Carpentier, and they returned to the cafe. When they arrived in the basement room, three other Frenchmen were there, listening to a BBC news broadcast in French. The announcer was saying that General Montgomery had made no progress in his efforts to take Caen. Cranepool had gone back to bed, and the other two Americans were still sleeping. Mahoney wondered if the others had been captured or killed.

  Carpentier told the other Frenchmen to leave, and they took their radio with them. Boynton, Mahoney, and Carpentier sat at the table, and Boynton wanted Mahoney to ask Carpentier how they would fare if they somehow got into the fortress through one of the gates. Mahoney asked Carpentier, who replied that the fortress was the headquarters of Lieutenant-General Carl Wilhelm von Schlieben, and it would be very difficult to get through the gates. If someone was fortunate enough to get in, he’d enter a courtyard that led to several doors and passageways. These also were guarded, and another check would be made of identification papers. At each ch
eckpoint, the papers would be checked more carefully, and Carpentier thought it was impossible to get to the office next to von Schlieben’s with false identification and stolen uniforms. The security was too tight.

  Mahoney conveyed this information back to Boynton, who took a swig from his hip flask and then passed it to Carpentier, who brought the metal bottle to his lips and had a taste, made a face, and handed it to Mahoney, who had a swallow, warming up his innards.

  The flask came back to Boynton, who took another drink and placed it on the table. “What do you think?” he asked Mahoney.

  “I think we should forget about the whole thing,” Mahoney replied. “There’s no way we can carry out this mission. We should just relax until the Army takes the city, and then we’ll go back to the Twenty-Third Rangers.”

  “No,” Boynton said. “We’ve got our orders and we’ve got to carry them out.”

  “How?” Mahoney asked.

  “I don’t know, but we’ll have to think of something.”

  “When you come up with it, let me know,” Mahoney said. He turned to Carpentier and asked in French. “Is there anywhere around here that I can take a bath?”

  “Upstairs, but you won’t be able to heat up any water because the gas mains have been closed down. By the way, what decision has your captain made about the torpedoes?”

  “He hasn’t made one yet. Where’s the bathtub?”

  “I’ll have someone take you to one.”

  Carpentier went out into the hall and called Lousteau. The fat old waiter came down the stairs and Carpentier told him to take Mahoney to one of the rooms upstairs so Mahoney could take a bath.

  Lousteau led Mahoney upstairs to a vacant apartment and showed him the bathtub.

  “What happened to the people who used to live here?” Mahoney said, looking around at towels and bottles of perfume.

  “They have fled the city, as have many people.”

  Lousteau left the apartment, and Mahoney put the plug in the tub and turned on the faucets. Cold water came out, but it wasn’t icy and he thought he could handle it. He took off his filthy, smelly clothes and wished he had clean things to put on after the bath, but you can’t have everything. When the tub was half-full of water, he stepped in. It took willpower and fortitude to lie down in the cold water, but once he was there his body adjusted to it and it didn’t feel so bad.

  He scrubbed himself down with soap and one of the washcloths hanging on the side of the tub, wondering who had lived in the apartment before it was vacated. The soap was perfumey and he figured it was a woman. He imagined what she looked like: tall and blonde with lips like strawberries. Then he thought of Shirley, although he knew he shouldn’t. There was no future in that. He’d never see her again and he might as well get used to it.

  He closed his eyes lazily and looked at his two knees rising out of the water like fleshy mountains. He imagined that the German fortress was on one of his knees, and the water around it was the bay of Cherbourg. The Germans had mined the harbor and were blowing up the docks, but underneath the pilings were torpedoes that would utterly destroy the harbor and keep the Allies from using it for months. Mahoney looked back and forth from the top of his knee to the dirty water in the bathtub, and suddenly a startling thought occurred to him.

  He jumped out of the bathtub, wrapped himself in a towel, and jammed his wet feet into his shoes. Running out of the apartment, he descended the stairs until he reached the basement, and then burst into the room where Bulldog Boynton was sitting with Carpentier and Lousteau. They looked at him in alarm, as he dripped onto the floor. Carpentier’s hand moved instinctively toward the pistol in his shoulder holster.

  “I figured it out!” Mahoney said triumphantly.

  “Figured what out?” Boynton asked.

  “How to stop the Germans from detonating the torpedoes!” There was a bottle of wine on the table, and Mahoney moved it to the center. “Look!” he said, pointing to the cork in the bottle. “The fortress with the control room is up here, right?” He pointed to the table. “And the water of the bay is down here, right?” He looked at Boynton questioningly.

  “I don’t follow you,” Boynton said.

  “Think about it, Bulldog. There have to be wires connecting the detonation mechanisms in the control room with the torpedoes in the bay. This means that at one point the wires have to leave the fortress and travel the three blocks to the bay. So in other words, we don’t have to break into the fortress at all. We only have to find out where those wires are, and sabotage them.”

  Boynton knitted together his eyebrows, then his face broke into a gruesome bulldog smile. “Good thinking, Mahoney! You may have solved the problem!”

  Mahoney turned to Carpentier and told him the information in French.

  “Very interesting,” Carpentier said, rubbing his chin with his fingers.

  “Is there any way that we can find out the location of those wires?”

  Carpentier thought for a few moments. “There is a possibility,” he said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lieutenant-General Carl Wilhem von Schlieben sat behind the desk in his office deep inside the Cherbourg fortress, and sipped a snifter of fine French cognac while calmly contemplating his prospects for survival. He was a haughty and aristocratic man, accustomed to playing polo and riding to hounds, and never dreamed that his career would come to its present sorry pass. Even through the thick walls of the fortress he could hear the American bombardment. His troops were moving back to Cherbourg now to make their last stand. Field Marshal Keitel had called him a few days ago and relayed the message from Adolf Hitler that von Schlieben should hold Cherbourg the way Field Marshal August Graf Neithardt von Gneisenau defended Kolberg during the Napoleonic Wars.

  Von Schlieben sipped the brandy, feeling morose. He did not want to die and did not see the point of putting his life on the line for Cherbourg, a French city. If Cherbourg were in Germany it would be quite another matter, but it wasn’t in Germany, so to hell with it.

  On his desk was his last message from Field Marshal Rommel. It ordered him to defend Cherbourg “to the last bullet.” Von Schlieben thought that was more like it. Better to the last bullet than to the last man. He’d fight until he was out of ammunition, and then put up the white flag. Of course he’d drag out the situation as long as he could, because he wouldn’t want the SS to throw his wife and children into a concentration camp. He’d have to put up a good show to satisfy Hitler. It might be necessary to lie a little.

  He raised the snifter of cognac to his nostrils, smelling its full-bodied aroma. As he was bringing the snifter to his lips, there was a terrific explosion somewhere in the fortress, and it shook as though an earthquake were taking place. Von Schlieben was startled, and spilled some of the cognac onto his tunic. He set the snifter on his desk and took out his white handkerchief, proceeding to wipe the stain away. While he was doing that, several more explosions rocked the fortress.

  There was an urgent knock on his door.

  Von Schlieben looked up. “Come in.”

  Lieutenant Weber, who was one of von Schlieben’s staff aides, burst into the office and saluted wildly. “Herr Field Marshal, we have come under direct bombardment from enemy guns!” he reported.

  “I know that,” von Schlieben replied. “I have ears.”

  Lieutenant Weber stood trembling before von Schlieben, dots of perspiration on his face, not knowing what else to say.

  “Don’t be afraid, Lieutenant Weber,” von Schlieben said gently. “ We’ll be safe here.”

  “I was not worried about my safety!” Weber replied bravely, in a quavering voice.

  “Of course not. Return to your post. Be sure to report any other drastic changes in circumstances.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant Weber saluted and left the office. Von Schlieben sipped some cognac as the fortress continued to shake with explosions. The situation is becoming serious, Schlieben thought. I wonder if they’ll ask me to surrender
? If they do, I’ll turn them down, of course. And then I’ll notify my engineers to blow up the harbor. If the Americans don’t ask me to surrender, I’ll blow it as soon as they near this fortress. Then I’ll surrender.

  Von Schlieben sipped his cognac and told himself to relax while he was still able, because he’d probably be in an American POW camp soon, and there’d certainly be no good cognac there. He hoped that the Americans would treat a Lieutenant General in the German Army with the proper respect, but doubted whether they would. America was a nation of mongrels, and you couldn’t expect very much from people like that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A mile from the fortress, Lieutenant Helmut Keller of the Wehrmacht Engineers was having sexual intercourse with Francine Langlois in the bedroom of her little apartment on the Rue Crecy. They could hear artillery shells exploding in the distance, and that heightened their sexual pleasure. Curiously, although Francine was a spy for the maquis, she had come to love Keller. He was such a decent fellow, so affectionate, and so good-looking. She hoped that after the war was over they could get married, and was enough of a romantic to believe everything would work out all right in the end.

  He started gulping and snorting as he always did when he was approaching orgasm, and she cupped her little hands on his ass to hold him close to her. She spread her legs wider, pointing her knees at the ceiling and shaking her fanny from side to side. Keller said a few garbled words of endearment to her throat and kissed her, as his balls exploded. He clicked his teeth and jerked his hips spasmodically, completely out of control, and his excitement set off her depth charges. The bed squeaked as they bounced around on top of it, clawing at each other like wild animals, drooling, slobbering, and grunting. If they could have seen themselves they would have been horrified.

  All good things come to an end eventually, and so did their little bout of love. They lay exhausted in each other’s arms for a while, as the window let in cool breezes, and they thought of how fortunate they were to be with each other.