by Len Levinson
They came to another sewer intersection, and Carpentier led them to the right. ‘The fortress should be directly overhead,” Carpentier said. “Keep your eyes peeled for trouble.” They followed Carpentier in the new direction, the sounds of their movements echoing all around them. After fifty yards they came to another intersection, where a pipe angled into the one they were in. “That’s the pipe from the fortress,” Carpentier told them. “The wires for the demolitions should be coming right through here. Roll up your sleeves and look for it.”
Mahoney frowned as he took off his watch and put it in his pocket. He rolled up his sleeves, bent over, and reached into the warm slime, feeling for the wires. His fingers touched chicken bones, orange peels and an old shoe swimming in the muck, but no wires.
“I’ve got something!” said Langeais.
He took a grip onto something and pulled it up. They shone their flashlights on it, and it was a rubber-sheathed cable about six inches thick.
“That must be it,” Carpentier said. “Get the explosives ready.”
They took off their packs and unloaded the sticks of TNT, laying them on and around the cable. Mahoney had a special blasting cap that would work underwater and give them thirty seconds to get away before it blew. He jammed it into the end of the topmost stick of TNT and looked up at Carpentier. “Ready?”
“Yes,” said Carpentier. He looked at Boynton. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it,” Boynton replied.
“Okay,” Mahoney said, “the rest of you might as well go back and get behind that last intersection we passed. When you’re all there, give me three dots from a flashlight, and I’ll trip the cap. Then I’ll join you.”
Carpentier and Boynton nodded. The men picked up their empty knapsacks and splashed back to the intersection, while Mahoney watched them go, wondering why he’d volunteered to be the one who stayed behind. What an asshole I’m turning out to be, he thought, but he realized that he’d volunteered because the only way to make sure a job was done right was to do it himself. He watched the others recede down the sewer tunnel, their flashlights blazing a path before them. Taking his watch out of his pocket, he saw that it was a few minutes after nine o’clock. He hoped the cable beneath his feet indeed contained the wires that ran to the network of torpedoes in the harbor, and he hoped the TNT and blasting cap would work the way they were supposed to. He felt a little ill at ease, because the sewer job had gone too smoothly. It seemed as though the Germans should have had some guards or something in the sewer to make sure the cable remained secure, but maybe they had been overconfident, never dreaming that a ragged bunch of maquis and American troopers would be able to sabotage it.
The tunnel went dark ahead of him as Carpentier and the others rounded the corner. Then Mahoney saw three quick flashes from one of their flashlights. It was time to blow up the tunnel. He made sure his pack was adjusted tightly on his back, worked the muscles in his shoulders, then bent over and pulled the little string on the blasting cap. The cap made a snap sound, and now it was activated. It would blow in thirty seconds, and Mahoney started running to the bend ahead, stretching his long legs out underneath him, slicing the fetid air with the blades of his hands while counting off the seconds. His big feet splashed through the muck and sent it flying in all directions. A frightened rat squeaked loudly and fled back toward the TNT, and Mahoney kept on going, hoping he’d reach the bend before the count of thirty, because he didn’t want to drop down onto his stomach in the muck of the sewer. His exertion caused him to breathe heavily, filling his lungs with the smelly air, and he felt like vomiting. At the count of twenty-three he made it to the bend and ducked behind it with the others.
They pressed their backs to the wall of the tunnel and he huddled in with them. The TNT would go off any second now, and he had the mad thought that it might weaken the entire sewer system and bring the fortress crashing down on their heads. Sweat dripped down his forehead to the bandana over his mouth and nose, and he told himself to calm down.
The TNT detonated with a violent ear-splitting sound, and the shock wave was like a slap against Mahoney’s face. Hunks of metal and rock came flying past the tunnel they were sheltering themselves in, carrying clumps of shit and gunk with it. They pressed their backs against the wall of the sewer and heard debris falling everywhere. Clouds of smoke furled back toward them, and they remained still for a few moments, waiting for everything to settle down.
At a signal from Carpentier they came out from their hiding place and shined their flashlights in the direction of the explosion. They saw smoke and a huge pile of rubble that made the sewer impassable. Mahoney smiled with satisfaction. It was a tremendous mess and the Germans wouldn’t be able to get through it for a couple of days and maybe longer because they were under attack and probably short on manpower. It would take them several days to repair the cable, but Lightning Joe Collins would have Cherbourg in his back pocket by then, and all the Germans would be POWs or dead.
Carpentier motioned with his hand, “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the control room, Colonel Max Feldheim sat in a comfortable leather chair and read the latest issue of Schwarz Corps, the weekly newspaper of the SS. Around him sat the men of his detachment, talking softly, playing cards, and reading books obtained earlier in the day from the library.
At the control panel, Private Wilhelm Haufholz was jolted by the sight of all the emergency lights going on at once. Simultaneously, the faint sound of an explosion could he heard far beneath them.
“Sir!” shouted Private Haufholz. “All the lights are on!”
“All the lights are on?” Feldheim asked incredulously, standing and walking toward the control panel. He blinked his eyes and saw that all the lights were indeed on. He stood next to the control panel and wrinkled his brow. “Could there be a short circuit in the wires?” he asked Private Haufholz, who had been an electrician in civilian life.
“A short circuit couldn’t do this, sir. A short circuit would blow a fuse.” He pointed to the fuse panel. “As you can see, sir, none of the fuses are blown.”
“Hmmm,” said Colonel Feldheim. “I wonder what it is?”
“I thought I heard an explosion at the same time the lights went on, sir.”
“An explosion? That shouldn’t be considered unusual,” Feldheim said. “Explosions are taking place around here all the time.”
“But not underneath the fortress, sir.”
“Underneath the fortress, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
An SS sergeant stepped forward. “I thought I heard an explosion from underneath the fortress too, sir.”
“So did I,” said a corporal.
Feldheim straightened up and set his jaw. Could saboteurs have blown up the cable? “Klopper!” he shouted to one of his sergeants. “Take five men down to the sewer and see if anything’s happened down there!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hurry!”
“Yes, sir.”
Sergeant Klopper selected five volunteers and ran out one of the doors with them. Feldheim paced back and forth hoping that the tunnel was intact, because if the maquis had sabotaged it, his career would take a nosedive and perhaps his life would come to a sudden horrible end. He clicked his teeth together and tried to figure out what to do.
He turned to another of his sergeants. “I’m going to see General von Schlieben,” he said. “If Klopper returns before I come back, send him in to me in General von Schlieben’s office.”
“Yes, sir!”
Colonel Feldheim adjusted his hat and marched out of the control room. He headed toward von Schlieben’s office and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said von Schlieben.
Feldheim charged into the office and saw von Schlieben sitting behind his desk writing something. “Heil Hitler!” Feldheim cried, throwing out his hand in the Hitler salute.
Von Schlieben looked up from his desk. “Heil Hitler,” he
said without much enthusiasm. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“General von Schlieben!” Feldheim announced. “All the lights on the control panel are on!”
Von Schlieben’s jaw dropped open like the bottom of a steam shovel. “All of them, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
Von Schlieben thought about it for a few moments, and then smiled. “How very interesting,” he said.
“Interesting!” Feldheim screamed. “You call it interesting! Is that all you can think of saying!”
“But my dear colonel,” von Schlieben said suavely, “the control panel is no longer my responsibility, it’s yours now, remember? Isn’t that what you told me earlier today? All I can say is that you have my deepest sympathy if the cable should happen to have been cut by the maquis, because the Fuehrer won’t be very happy about that, I assure you. It’s too bad that you didn’t throw the switch while you had the chance, but I’m afraid it’s probably too late for that now, eh?”
“Too late?” Feldheim asked. The thought occurred to him that maybe some kind of strange electrical malfunction had taken place, but that the torpedoes still could be blown. Perhaps he should go back and throw the switch to make sure. He cursed himself for not throwing the switch earlier when he had the chance.
“Did you say something?” von Schlieben asked pleasantly.
“Farlington speak with you about this matter later,” Feldheim replied. ‘That is all for now, General von Schlieben. Heil Hitler!”
Feldheim dashed out of von Schlieben’s office and returned to the control room, where the SS men were crowded around the panel, watching the lights.
“Get out of my way you fools!” Feldheim shouted, pushing them out of his way. He dived at the control panel, grabbed the four-inch black wood handle of the master switch and slammed it into the copper clips that made the complete electrical connection.
Nothing happened, and his heart sank. If the cable was working properly, he would have heard a huge explosion that would have rocked the fortress like an earthquake, but there was nothing, not even a little pop, not even the slightest tremor. Feldheim saw a vision of himself standing before a firing squad.
Sergeant Klopper burst into the control room and threw the Hitler salute. “My Colonel,” he shouted. “There has been a major explosion in the sewer tunnel!”
Feldheim closed his eyes and the blood drained from his face. The maquis had sabotaged the sewer tunnel. He wished this was a nightmare from which he’d soon awaken. “How extensive is the damage?” he asked, opening his eyes.
“It looks pretty bad, sir. The tunnel’s completely blocked off. A great deal of explosive material must have been used.”
Feldheim smashed his fist into the palm of his hand. He should have posted guards in the sewer, but he hadn’t thought it necessary. He’d never dreamed that the maquis would find out about the demolition operation, and wondered exactly how they did find out.
“Perhaps we can catch them, sir,” said Sergeant Klopper.
“Catch who?”
“The maquis. They still might be down in the sewer system.”
“You think so?” Feldheim asked.
“It’s possible, sir. Of course, they might have planted the explosives earlier in the day and left a time delay fuse, but I doubt if they’d take the chance of waiting that long. I think they’d blow it on the spot and then try to get away.”
Feldheim clicked his teeth. “Yes, of course. You’re completely right. They’re probably down there right now and if we move fast we can catch them. Follow me!”
Feldheim drew his service revolver and dashed out of the room. The SS detachment followed him as he pushed chairs out of his way in the conference room and ran down the corridor outside. They hopped down three flights of stairs, sped down another hall, through a door, and ran into the courtyard just as an artillery shell made a direct hit on the front gate, filling the air with flying debris.
Feldheim and his detachment dropped behind the low stone wall that lined the courtyard, and when the smoke cleared, Feldheim jumped to his feet and yelled: “Follow me!”
They ran across the courtyard and jumped over the smoking chunks of concrete and twisted steel that once had been the gate. Charging into the cobblestoned street, Feldheim looked both ways, wondering where there was a manhole that would give them entrance to the sewer system. He paused in the middle of the street wondering which way to go.
“What are you looking for, sir?” asked Sergeant Klopper.
“A manhole, you idiot!”
“That’s what I thought, sir. There’s one this way.” The sergeant pointed to the right.
They ran to the right and fifty yards beyond the first intersection they came upon a manhole cover. Feldheim looked down at it excitedly, his lips flecked with spittle. “Open it up!” he screamed.
“I think we should be quiet, sir,” said Sergeant Klopper, “so that maybe we can take them by surprise.”
“Of course. Be quiet all of you. We must try to ambush them.”
Sergeant Klopper drew his bayonet from his scabbard and told three of his men to do likewise. They got on their knees beside the manhole cover and stuck their bayonets around the edge, prying it up slowly. An artillery shell landed on the roof of a building across the street, and a split second later, another landed near the front gate of the fortress. The air was filled with smoke and the sky flickered with the light of explosions all around them. The sound of continual bombardment was almost deafening.
When the manhole cover was pried up a few inches, Klopper caught it with his fingers and uncovered the manhole carefully so that he wouldn’t make much noise. Feldheim was the first one in the hole, descending the iron rungs with his service revolver still in his hand. Klopper was next, and then the others. The odor was horrible, and when Feldheim got to the bottom he pinched his nose with his fingers. The detachment descended the iron rungs and stood silently around Feldham, listening to sounds in the tunnel.
“I think I hear them.” Feldheim whispered.
“Yes, that way,” Klopper replied, pointing.
“I knew they couldn’t be far away. Everybody be still.”
They froze and listened to the sound of footsteps and splashing somewhere in the distance. Feldheim smiled. If he could kill them all, maybe he could redeem himself. Maybe he could blame the blow-up of the tunnel on von Schlieben and the engineers. Maybe his future wasn’t so bleak after all.
“This way,” he said, advancing gingerly toward the sound of the footsteps. “I think we might be able to trap them.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Not far away, Mahoney and the others were trudging through a sewer tunnel. They were on their way to a certain manhole cover near which the bread truck was supposed to be parked.
The stink of the tunnel was driving Mahoney nuts. He was hallucinating a movie of himself crawling up through a manhole cover into the sweet night air of Cherbourg. What a wonderful moment that would be. He had made the firm decision that as soon as he got back to the Twenty-Third Rangers, he’d put in for a transfer to an ordinary infantry regiment in an ordinary line division, and spend the rest of the war fighting above ground like a human being, instead of in these strange situations behind enemy lines. He thought he’d have a better chance of surviving the war that way, and he wouldn’t have to go down into any more damned sewers.
He paused for a cigar, hoping that the smoke would cancel out some of the sewer’s smell. Taking the cigar out of his shirt pocket, he peeled off the wrapper and lit it with his trusty old Zippo. He puffed the cigar greedily and was pleased to notice that it did cut the stink of the sewer a little. He wished he’d had the idea before. He might have saved himself some discomfort.
Puffing the cigar and taking long strides to catch up with the rest, he wondered how close they were to the manhole cover. He decided to catch up with Carpentier and ask him, when suddenly a barrage of light weapons fire opened up in front of them.
The SS men had submachine guns and rifles, and their opening burst cut down Carpentier and Bulldog Boynton, who’d been leading the men through the sewer. It also brought down two of the Frenchmen and Sergeant Newell, who had been close by.
At the first sound of the fire, Mahoney dropped to his stomach in the muck and shit. Looking over the other men who’d either been hit or were taking cover also, he saw flashes of light coming from both sides of the tunnel not more than twenty feet away. The Germans or whoever was there had positioned themselves on either side of an intersection and were firing from behind the walls of the tunnel.
Thinking and moving quickly, Mahoney took a hand grenade from his pocket, pulled the pin, and lobbed it into the center of the intersection. Then he held his breath and ducked his head into the filth of the sewer, because that was preferable to getting it blown off.
The hand grenade exploded, filling the air with smoke and shrapnel. Mahoney raised himself from the muck, took out another hand grenade, pulled the pin, and hurled it forward. It exploded like the first one, and Mahoney jumped up with his submachine gun. “CHARGE!” he screamed.
A few other bodies got up and followed him as he ran the final twenty feet to the intersection, spraying both sides of the tunnel with submachine gun fire. When he reached the intersection he put his back against the wall on one side of it and fired into the other side, while across from him, another member of his demolition party did the same thing, firing into the opening beside Mahoney.
Mahoney emptied a clip into the dark morass of the sewer, then ejected it and rammed a fresh clip in. “Hold your fire,” he said to the person opposite him, and Cranepool stepped out of the dark shadows, his submachine gun smoking.
Mahoney stepped into the tunnel that entered the intersection from the left, and saw German meat and bones. Bending down, he noticed that they were wearing SS uniforms. It had been a clumsy ambush, doomed to failure, Mahoney thought. The SS had the element of surprise but they didn’t have enough men and they weren’t positioned right. They should have attacked from the front and the back but they hadn’t and it was tough shit for them. Mahoney stomped around the legs and torsos no longer connected to each other, until he was satisfied they all were dead. There were about five of them but it was difficult to tell because the hand grenades had ripped them to shreds. Mahoney turned around and walked toward Cranepool.