by Nick Vellis
“I’ll meet you in two, maybe three days,” he said, and waved. He watched them leave and after a few minutes, all he could see was dust rising from the trail. He had one more job to do.
He checked his Sten gun and put it on the seat next to him as he climbed into the German half-track.
Christos looked over the controls, trying to remember what John had told him. The open vehicle weighed several tons. It had wheels on the front for steering and tank tracks in the rear to propel the vehicle. It had the cross-country capabilities of a tank with the handling of a truck.
“How did John show me how to do this?” he mumbled to himself. He pumped the gas pedal, pushed in the clutch, and then hit the starter button. The diesel roared to life. Christos smiled. Yes, all things are possible. He was not much of a driver, but John had taught him the basics. He gunned the heavy vehicle, ground the gears, and tore off toward the site of the battle.
The behemoth bounced and banged across the rough terrain. Christos guided the machine through a gap between the hills toward the still smoking ruins of the train. His progress along the hill’s edge was bone jarring as he crashed over the loose rocks that regularly fell from the hills.
Once away from the hills, though, the ride smoothed out and his forward progress quickened along with the pounding of his heart. Christos approached the wreckage of one of the German reconnaissance planes. He had never seen one up close, so he slowed to look at the pitiful collection of canvas and wood spars. He had expected it to explode or burn when it crashed, but it just sat there, another pile of debris on a forgotten trail.
The Storch had crashed nose first and lurched to the left. It rested on its bent prop and smashed left wing. One man was slumped over the seat. Another man, held tight at the waist, hung like a rag doll pushed through the closed canvas door. These things are just cloth. I have feared them, hidden like a child. He slowly moved away, closer to the wrecked train.
As he approached the smoking carnage, Christos thought of George’s words, ‘We searched for John everywhere, but couldn’t move the wreckage of the locomotive.’ That’s where he should start, Christos thought. He angled his big machine toward the front of the line of smoldering debris.
When he reached his journey’s end, Christos’ heart sank. The Americans had done a thorough job of it. A gut-wrenching stench of burning wood, heated metal, oil, and burned flesh assaulted him. The ground had turned to glass in places from the intense heat. Not a stick of the dozen or so railcars remained standing. Bodies littered both sides of the tracks. Christos choked on the smell of death and fire. He slipped a bandanna over his mouth and nose.
Arriving at the head of the death train, Christos left his engine running as he jumped out. Forlorn, lying completely on its side, the locomotive was barely recognizable. Huge chunks were missing from the immense tube that once had been the boiler. Wheels, the largest nearly as tall as the half-track, shared the rocky ground with dozens of dead men.
Gears, levers, gauges, and twisted sheets of steel decorated the landscape. Where should he look? There was so much debris scattered about.
Christos shook off the weight of his dread and sprang to work. The locomotive. Start with the locomotive. He dropped heavy steel towing cables from the sides of the half-track. Working quickly, he slipped one cable through each of the half-track’s rear tow points. He fed out the steel lines, metal splinters shredding his hands. He pulled both cables through the cab window, then climbed the overturned monster, pulled the cables out the opposite cab window and then back to the rear of the half-track.
He jumped behind the steering wheel and slowly, gears grinding in the lowest gear, eased forward. The cable’s slack disappeared until the motor protested against the overturned locomotive.
The half-track groaned, straining against the massive weight. Its tracks ground into the hard earth, chuttered and slipped then pulled again.
The hot exhaust billowed and choked him. The front of the half-track slowly rose off the ground as the weight behind him refused to budge. Christos eased off the accelerator. Slowly, he reminded to himself as he turned in the steel seat to watch behind. The sharp sound of tearing metal shrieked against his ears. Suddenly, one cable then the other snapped. They rebounded into the locomotive cab cleaving the window supports.
The cab collapsed in a cloud of black dust. The steel cables, twisting around one another, snaked toward Christos’ head. He threw himself to the floor, smacking his head against the seat to his right. The twisted steel hissed over his head. The flying knife sliced off the windscreen covering him in shattered glass and bits of metal. When the clattering subsided, Christos rose tentatively.
The windscreen was gone, sheared off only inches above his head.
He looked back at the locomotive. The cab had collapsed, but the black metal hulk remained rooted in the ground.
Christos smashed his fist into the back of the seat. “I’ll never move that,” he roared. Jumping down from his seat, Christos looked about. The shredded end of one of the cables lay on top of a huge curved piece of black steel. Perhaps I can move that, Christos thought.
He looked for an anchoring point, but the scorched and pitted surface offered no purchase. He went to the side furthest from the half-track pulling the cable behind him. Maybe I can slide the cable under the edge, he thought. Christos put the cable down by end of the huge curved piece of steel. He decided he would need to dig under the edge and retrieved a shovel from the half-track. Running back to the steel plate, shovel in hand, Christos caught a glimpse of something, a depression in the ground with a pointed black object in it. There was something familiar about it.
He looked more carefully then dropped to his knees and dug carefully with his hands. It’s John’s knife, he thought staring at the tapered diamond shape.
Christos dug with his shovel and found that the hollow led to a hole. He dug in the dry dirt until he saw a hand. “Oh God,” he said. “Let it be him. Let him be alive.”
His labor soaked him, sweat burning his eyes. The hole was about a foot deep and four feet wide. He dug carefully around the exposed arm to remove enough soil to reach the torso. When at last he scooped out one more shovelful John’s head fell out.
Christos reached and checked for a pulse. John was alive but barely breathing. He poured a canteen of water over his face. John sputtered, choked, and with a huge intake of air, shuddered. His eyes fluttered open and he looked into Christos’ smiling face.
“It’s about time,” John said weakly. “Where am I?”
“You’re trapped under this piece of the metal. I found you here,” Christos said.
“It took you long enough. I almost suffocated in there. What the hell happened?”
“When you opened fire, so did your men. Something hit the locomotive and it blew up.”
“Must have been the bazooka. This looks like a piece of the boiler. Its curved like the boiler was.” John said.
“I have to dig to get you out. Rest while I work. Here take some water,” Christos said, pouring water from his canteen onto John’s lips.
It took another hour to free John and Christos tried to fill John in while he worked.
“What happened to me?” John said.
“I don’t know. I guess when the beast exploded that covered you.” Christos said nodding toward the huge curved black steel plate behind them.
“Did the men get away?”
“Who?”
“My men, did they get away?” he said.
“Yes. They left hours ago,” Christos replied.
“Good. How about Solaris and the major?”
“Major?”
“The second man, the short one with the baby face. He wore a Greek Provincial uniform with oak leaves. Did you see him?” John said grabbing Christos’ shirt. “What happened to them?”
“I saw both men but couldn’t make out their faces. The man with Solaris was familiar, but I can’t say who he was. What name did he use?”
John sc
rewed his eyes shut, dropped his head, and let out a sigh. “He didn’t say his name. Solaris almost said it but the major cut him off. He’s the one behind the prisoner exchange though. He has the crates of gold we’ve sent back and he wants the rest.”
“I saw Solaris go down. The other man ran and went down, too. You shot them?
“Yeah, both of them, where are their bodies?”
“We didn’t find them, John,” Christos replied as he eased his friend out of the hole.
“What?” John said between clinched teeth.
“One thing at a time my friend, right now let me get you out of here,” Christos said.
Christos eased John out of the pit he had dug. His friend was weak. Christos pulled John free of the steel plate, and his friend cried out in pain. Once John was free of the pit, Christos saw the lower third of John’s shirt was blood soaked.
“Let me check your wound,” Christos said.
“You didn’t find them? I hit them both. I know I did. We have to look again. I’m not letting those sons of bitches get away,” John said as he tried to stand. He got to his knees before he collapsed onto Christos, who caught him and put him on the ground.
“Don’t be stubborn. Let me look at this,” Christos said as he pulled John’s shirttail out. Three jagged pieces of shrapnel protruded from John’s lower back, the largest the size of Christos’ finger. Blood oozed around the edges but the serious bleeding had stopped.
“I’ll get some water and bandages,” Christos said as he rose.
He sprinted to the half-track and quickly returned with a medical kit and an extra canteen.
“Here,” he said thrusting a canteen into John’s hand, “Drink. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Christos broke open the German medical kit. Inside were gauze, field dressings, antiseptic sulfa powder, and even some forceps. He had what he needed to tend to his friend. Christos ripped open the back of John’s shirt then tore open the sulfa powder with his teeth. He sprinkled the yellow grey powder over John’s lower back.
“You’ve got to tell me what happened,” John said.
“Shut up,” Christos replied. “I’m trying to save your life.”
John winced as Christos pulled metal fragments from his back. Christos pulled out piece after piece of steel. As John’s flesh released a piece, Christos tossed it on the ground and went to work on another.
Through clinched teeth John said, “How did they get away?”
“Many German planes came and the little American planes went up to fight them.” Christos replied.
“What happened?”
“Two little German planes, the ones that look for us, landed.”
“The observation planes?” John asked.
“Yes. They landed and two men got in one of them,” Christos said.
“Please tell me our fighters shot them down,” John said.
“The American planes killed all but one of the Germans. They don’t know which one escaped,” Christos answered. “I passed one of them on the way here. There were only two men in it. Both were dead.”
“Oh no!” John said.
“I get the big one now, John. This will hurt. Stay still,” Christos said.
Christos grasped the largest fragment with the bloody forceps. The shrapnel was at a steep angle and resisted Christos’ efforts. It was big and it was deep. Christos’ digging went on and John passed out.
That’s a good thing, Christos thought.
Working quickly, Christos eased the jagged metal from Johns back. He packed the wound with gauze to stem the bleeding then put more gauze over the smaller wounds and bound all of them with a large field dressing he tied off in the front. Pouring some water on a gauze pad, Christos gently wiped the caked on dirt from John’s face and he slowly regained consciousness. John reached out and touched Christos’ arm.
“Thank you, my friend,” John whispered.
The Wehrmacht doctor came to attention, clicked the heels of his polished shoes together, and raised is right hand in a traditional salute as SS Oberst Dorn entered the hospital ward.
“You have news, Herr Doctor?” SS Oberst Dorn said.
“Yes, Herr Oberst. Both men lost a great deal of blood,” the Wehrmacht doctor replied. “I have amputated Captain Solaris’ left arm. He was hit twice in the shoulder resulting in massive damage.”
“And the major, what is his condition?”
“The major’s condition is much worse. He has wounds to the left chest, the right leg, and the right side of the skull. His head wound is serious, but while the surgery was delicate, it was successful. The chest wound is another matter. He has a bullet lodged next to his heart. The wound is inoperable. He may live or he….”
I didn’t think he had a heart, Dorn thought.
“When will I be able to talk to them?” Dorn said.
“Not for some time, Herr Oberst. Both men are lucky to be alive.” The doctor replied.
“Yes… lucky,” Dorn said.
Christos and a weak John struggled to load the crates into the half-track.
“That’s the last of them,” John said as he dropped to the ground, exhausted.
“Why are you so obsessed with these cursed boxes?” Christos asked as he dropped down on the ground next to the American.
“Good question,” John replied, taking a long swig of water from his canteen, “I guess I see what those boxes represent, the lives and wealth of an entire people stolen. I want to try to get something back for them,” John said.
“There is nothing to be done. They are doomed, dead when they get on the German’s trains,” Christos said.
“You may be right, but I want to know I’ve done all I can to help,” John said. “As for the crates, well, let’s just say I don’t want to see those bastards get away with stealing all that dough. Someday that money might be used to help the Greek Jews or maybe Greece itself.”
“I never saw you as an idealist, John, but I suppose a man has to stand for something,” Christos replied.
John clapped his big friend on the shoulder and laughed. “I could tell you I have some grand idea of how things should be, but I’m just a guy who doesn’t want the bad guys to win,” John said with a smile.
“Come on. Let’s get going. We have a lot to do. Help me with a couple of these planks,” John said, nodding toward a pile of burned debris.
He winced as he stood. The American’s bandaged wounds hurt like hell. The Greek and the American pulled two long, thick boards from the charred wreckage of one of the boxcars.
“We can use these,” John said.
The two men pulled two the ten-foot boards from the smoldering debris.
“What for?”
“They’ll make the unloading easier,” John replied.
The two men heaved the boards into the back of the half-track.
“Lash ‘em down good. We have a rough ride ahead of us.”
Their valuable cargo and the two planks securely stowed, Christos helped John into the half-track’s front passenger seat. He slid into the driver’s seat and smiling at John, cranked up the big German vehicle.
“Very good. You learn fast,” John said.
“It wasn’t so easy when I did it by myself,” Christos laughed.
“Which way?”
“Head northeast through the gap,” John said, pointing toward the distant hills. “We have a stop to make, and then it’s back to your base camp.”
Christos headed the half-track toward the mountains. After a few minutes, they came up on the crashed Storch observation plane.
“Stop here a minute,” John said. “I want to look inside.”
Christos skidded to a halt next to wreck. John eased himself out of the seat then peered inside the plane. The pilot was slumped over in his seat, his Luftwaffe flying jacket riddled with bloody bullet holes. The observer hung from the door like a rag doll. John’s heart skipped a couple beats.
“You said only one of the observation planes was shot down,�
� John shouted to Christos.
“That’s what they told me.”
John had seen enough, so he walked back to the half-track. Climbing back in John said. “There are only the two guys in that plane and both are flyers. I’m afraid Solaris and the Greek major have escaped. “Do you have any idea who the major could have been?”
Christos put the half-track in gear and said, “He seemed familiar but I couldn’t see him clearly. He wore his hat down over his eyes almost like he was trying to ... I don’t know… maybe…”
“What are you thinking?” John said as they bounced over a small boulder.
The half-track banged down hard. “Whoa. Watch those big ones,” John said. “Who are you thinking it could be?”
“From his small build and the way he carried himself it could have been … but no, he was killed,” Christos said.
“Who came to mind? These days, anything is possible,” John said.
“Never mind, I’m sure I’m wrong.”
The two men drove on in silence. Each man was lost is his own troubling thoughts.
After nearly an hour, Christos broke the icy silence and asked, “John have you thought about keeping some part, a small part, of the stuff back there?” He pointed over his shoulder to the dozen crates of gold in the seats behind them.
“Is that what you’ve been brooding about for the last hour?”
“It’s a lot of money, John. I’ve never had anything but a flock of sheep and stone house on a hillside.”
“I made a promise to the rabbi to get his people out of the country. That gold is the only way to do that. I’ve got to find a way to make contact with the German military government, maybe Dorn himself.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“I am, and you’re going to help me. My men are safe in Italy. This is something that has to be done.”
“If you want to commit suicide, you go ahead. I won’t help.”
They drove along under the hot sun as silence again overtook them.
CHAPTER 23 OCCUPIED GREECE 31 OCTOBER 1944