by Alan Evans
Tallon gestured and the commandos spread out left and right along the bank. They crouched or knelt, some with their backs to the river so as to keep an all-round watch. Then Albert crossed the wharf, boots thumping hollowly on the timbers, and stepped aboard the barge. Suzanne and David Brent followed him while Tallon waited on the bank, head turning, watching, listening.
As Albert ducked down through the hatch leading to the cabin below, Brent beckoned Dobson, his engineer, and the stoker. He told them, “It’s a petrol engine. Find it and see what you make of it. Got a torch?”
“Yessir.” Dobson held it up.
“Keep it covered so it doesn’t show outside. Use it as little as possible. There might be patrols around here.”
Dobson lifted the engine-room hatch and he and his stoker disappeared below. David and Suzanne waited, staring out over the river, not speaking but each conscious of the other, almost touching. So for a long minute, then Albert came up from below and spoke quietly, rapidly to Suzanne. She translated for David Brent: “He’s told them you want their barge. They don’t mind; it belongs to the company.” She unconsciously imitated their shrugs. “They have offered to come with you, if you want their help, but Albert says they are both married men with families.”
Brent said, “I’ll need one of them as a pilot. I don’t remember that much of this river to be able to follow the deep-water channel.”
The girl looked away then, knowing how he had gained what knowledge he had. But she spoke to Albert, and when he shrugged again and answered, she translated: “He says he has crewed on the barges many times, when they were short of a man and he wanted the extra money. He can pilot you to St. Jean.” Brent hesitated and Albert saw it and nodded definitely.
Brent returned the nod, “All right.” He glanced around and saw Dobson pulling himself up out of the engine-room hatch. David asked, “What about it?”
The engineer wiped his hands on an old rag and answered confidently, “No bother, sir. Ready to go when you give the word.”
“Checked the fuel?”
“‘Course, sir. Better than half a tank.” Dobson’s tone was injured. Did Brent think he was a bloody amateur?
“Start up.” And to Tallon, “Get ‘em all aboard. Cox-swain! Take the helm.”
Dobson dropped down through the engine-room hatch again and Chris Tallon muttered, “About time. We can’t afford to stand around.” He gestured to his men with arms held wide and they rose to their feet, closed in and clambered over the side of the barge. Private Johnson, the Sudetan German interpreter, went aboard at Tallon’s side.
Grundy answered, “Aye, aye, sir!” He went aft to the tiller, cast off the lashing and worked it to get the feel of it in the water. He thought: Be different when she starts to move; won’t handle like a torpedo boat. He looked from one side to the other at the banks of the river with the trees that lined them standing black against the night sky. He muttered aloud, “There won’t be much room for manoeuvring, either. This river looks wide but it’ll shallow near the sides.”
“Still, you won’t need no engine-room telegraph.” Dobson’s voice came from down by Grundy’s feet, out of the open hatch just forward of the tiller.
The coxswain grinned, “That’s a fact.”
There was a churning below and then the engine fired, raced, was throttled back to a steady throb. The crew of the barge came up from the cabin onto the deck. Suzanne had called David Brent’s decision down to them and the two men each carried a small suitcase. They stepped over to the wharf and stood there staring at Brent, Suzanne, Tallon and the armed commandos. “They’ll keep their mouths shut till morning?” David asked Suzanne.
“I told them. They’ve agreed. Albert’s warned them not to go near his village, that the S.S. were there. They know a farmhouse where they can spend the night. They’ll make the excuse that they had a small fire aboard so the cabin wasn’t fit to sleep in.”
Brent wondered whether he should trust the men — or lock them below. Then one of them lifted a hand to his cap in salute and called softly, “Bonne chance!” and Brent remembered he was really trusting Suzanne and Albert, as he had done all night.
He saluted, then made his way aft and ordered, “Cast off. Slow ahead.” Cullen and the other seaman, stationed in bow and stern, untied the lines that secured the barge to the wharf then jumped aboard as she moved ahead. She swung out into the stream as Grundy eased over the tiller.
Suzanne had followed Brent and now she looked at her watch. David saw the gesture and glanced down at his own wrist. He nodded slowly as she said, “We’ve got just one hour and thirty-five minutes.”
Chris Tallon checked that, recalling the briefing in the wardroom, thinking that they had just enough time. And because of that briefing and the knowledge this girl had imparted, he now knew the schedule of the train, that the prisoner was in one of the last two coaches at the end of the train, and even the strength of the escort. More, she had detailed the defences of St. Jean and effectively there was only one weak company of infantry.
This mad scheme, hastily thrown together by Brent and dependent almost totally on surprise, might just have a chance in a million of success. Tallon thought it was like jumping without a parachute. But as Brent had pointed out, there was no other way.
*
Ilse lay awake, propped up on pillows and reading her book, unable to sleep. She had tried and failed, was restless and uneasy. She worried about Rudi, kept remembering the man dragged into S.S. headquarters along the quay, and the Frenchman who had stared up at her window and who frightened her.
When she heard someone arrive at the door she dressed quickly, ran a comb through her hair and hurried down-stairs to find out who it could be. Her father’s servant, an old soldier, was hanging up a greatcoat and hooking an officer’s field cap on top of it. The eagle above the peak was in silver and the cap was soft-crowned because the stiffening had been taken out — for comfort and to give it a rakish look.
The door to the Oberst’s study was open. She went to it as she heard him saying, “This is a quiet area —” He broke off then as he saw his daughter, and smiled at her, “Ah, my dear —” But he was again interrupted, this time by the ringing of the telephone on his desk. He lifted the instrument: “König.”
He recognised the voice of the duty officer at the barracks: “Herr Oberst, we have had a report from the guard commander at post 12 that a sentry has been found dead.”
König did not need to consult his map. Post 12 was ten kilometres north of St. Jean. He had visited it only that morning on his tour of inspection. He also thought he knew the sergeant who would be in command there this night. “You have the Unterfeldwebel on the line? Then put him through.”
A hoarse voice this time, of a man somewhat out of breath: “Herr Oberst!”
König recognised the voice. His memory had not let him down. This N.C.O. was solid and stolid, maybe a little slow but reliable. “Report.”
“An hour ago I heard cannon fire at sea north of the cape and it sounded close inshore. I took two men and went to investigate. Long before I had passed the cape, the firing had stopped and there was nothing to be seen. I looked for the sentry to ask him what he’d seen or heard. I found there was a broken guard-rail on the bridge over the ravine and he was down in the stream.”
König asked, “Who was it?”
“Brunner, Herr Oberst.”
König knew Brunner as he knew every man in his command: brave, a good soldier in action so long as he was told what to do, lazy and untidy in barracks.
The Unterfeldwebel was going on: “He must have leant on the rail and fallen when it gave way; he was a heavy man.”
“An accident.”
“Ja, Herr Oberst. There was no sign of a struggle though there is mud everywhere — the weather — but I went down with my men and pulled him out of the stream. He wasn’t wounded in any way, not shot, stabbed, or clubbed. His pockets hadn’t been touched, his money and papers were still there, h
is rifle was beside him.”
“Any other incidents during your tour of duty?”
There was a breathing pause. König could picture the Unterfeldwebel at the field-telephone in the guard hut on the cliff, reading the notes he had scribbled down. Then: “Forty-five minutes before the firing north of the cape there was a blaze out at sea, about five kilometres south of our position and ten kilometres out, as if a boat was on fire. Then there was some gunfire, machine-guns and cannons. We could just see the tracers. I reported to the duty officer.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nein, Herr Oberst.”
Erwin König thought for a minute, oblivious to his daughter and the other officer waiting in the room, neither speaking nor moving so as not to interrupt him. Then he ordered, “Search the area around the bridge, inland and on the beach. Look for signs of anyone else being there tonight, possibly gone down to the sea. Report anything you find immediately, and to me.”
He put down the receiver and turned to the others, “Excuse me. My dear, this is Major Kurt Ritter. Kurt, my daughter, Ilse.”
The Major wore service dress of grey trousers and grey-green tunic with the silver eagle on his right breast, a holstered pistol on his belt. He took Ilse’s hand, bent his head over it. When he straightened, his blue eyes were level with hers. His fair hair was trimmed neatly short but rumpled where he had run his fingers through it after taking off his cap. Ilse thought he looked fit, energetic, tough.
Erwin König explained, “Kurt served with me in the blitzkrieg advance through France in 1940.”
Ritter smiled at Ilse, “I am a disciple of your father.” Then his smile faded. “I think it is an appalling waste that he should be left in a backwater like this.”
König shook his head. “I had my war as a young man, Kurt, and it ended in 1918. One is enough. As for this being a backwater, I’ll be happy if it stays that way, but —” He paused and gave a jerk of his head towards the telephone, “— that was a report that one of my sentries has been found dead. It appears to have been an accident but I’ve started an investigation. There has been fighting at sea tonight, I think between some of the British Schnellboote and ours. Also, the S.S. reported earlier that an enemy agent was taken off the beach south of here by the British. So it may be that this area will not be so quiet in the future. We will see. However —” he gestured to the armchairs set before the fire, “— please.”
Ilse asked, “Have you been posted here, Major, or are you just visiting?”
Ritter waited until she was seated before he took a chair and answered, “Neither. My battalion, Panzer Grenadiers, is moving north and is bivouacked near a bridge about fifteen kilometres south of here. We entrain there tomorrow. I command an assault company, one hundred and twenty men, powerfully armed, superbly trained and tested in action. They are the cream of the army.” Ritter’s pride was clear.
Ilse frowned and glanced at her father. “Bivouacked. That does not sound very comfortable. We could give you a room here.”
Ritter grinned, “Thank you. But they sent my company ahead to be quartered in the barracks across the river for the night. I have a bed there, only five minutes away.”
Chapter Nine - The Schütze
The blunt stem of the barge threw up a big bow-wave as it thrust downstream with the engine at full throttle. The river was flowing fast and deep in winter spate, adding a knot or two to the hammering top speed of the broad-beamed craft laden low in the water.
Grundy, the tiller tucked under his arm, muttered, “You can almost see her lifting.” Because the barge was being lightened. Tallon’s commandos had unlashed the tarpaulin over the cargo, thrown it back and were now labouring at throwing that cargo over the side. They pulled out pockets of it, sacks and crates, so that those left still held up the tarp, draped like a tent. Most of the cargo hurled overboard sank at once but some of the lighter crates floated only half-submerged and bobbed away on the wake of the barge, leaving a long trail. When each party of three or four men had clawed out enough room for themselves they crawled into the nests thus created, pulled down the tarpaulin again and lay with their Thompson guns trained outboard.
When they were all hidden and the deck clear the barge rode perceptibly higher in the water because of their efforts. Brent nodded, satisfied, and told Tallon, “All right, Chris. First party for briefing.” He went down into the barge’s little cabin and Suzanne went with him. Tallon moved forward along one of the narrow strips of deck running either side of the cargo. He called out names and one by one the men slid out from under the tented tarp and dropped down to the cabin.
Grundy was left at the helm with Cullen and Albert. Cullen glanced sideways at the Frenchman and asked Grundy, “D’you think the old feller knows what he’s doing?”
The coxswain answered grimly, “He’d better, for our sake.”
“That’s a bloody fact.” If the barge ran aground or was wrecked then the operation was aborted. And if it wasn’t? Cullen stared out over the bow at the darkness between the black ranks of trees that flicked steadily past on either side, at the river running oily ahead and humped under the bow. He thought, What are we doing here, in France? What the hell did Grundy bring me for? I’m not one of his mates. He hauls me over the coals every chance he gets. Couldn’t he have found somebody else?
He stood glumly, hands dug deep in his pockets, shoulders slouched. And Grundy growled at him, “Get your hands out of your pockets and stand up straight. You’re standing a watch, not hanging about in some pub.”
Cullen said to himself, “Bullshit,” but complied. Then thought: Still, as we’re here, anything to keep from thinking how we might finish up tonight. He asked, “Want me to take her for a bit?” While thinking: He won’t let go of it, bloody old woman.
But Grundy had suggested to Brent earlier, when Cullen was working forward, “Better have two men able to take the helm, sir, just in case. And better for him to get his hand in now, while it’s still quiet.” Brent had agreed and now Grundy said, “All right. You’ve got her.”
Cullen hesitated a moment, taken by surprise, then moved to the tiller and tucked it under his arm.
Albert noted the change-over without comment and kept his gaze to his front, watching the river ahead. He stood with his arms folded, hugging the old overcoat around him. That gave some comfort to the ache in his wrist and also hid the nervous twitching of his fingers. His face was set in a dour scowl of concentration but behind that stolid front, Albert was afraid. It was no instinctive, unreasoning fear. He knew what Brent intended because Suzanne had told him on the way from the beach, so Albert knew he would almost certainly die before the dawn, along with most of the others aboard the barge.
The cabin below, with its single oil lamp hanging from the deckhead, was meant to house two men, three at the most, in close comfort. Now a dozen commandos were packed in, some perched on the edges of the bunks while others stood, stooped under that low deckhead. They were the first of three parties to be briefed. Each would be given the details of its own part in the overall plan, and then told how the other two groups would fit in.
Tallon and Suzanne were there, to listen or add what they could, answer questions. But David Brent conducted the briefings. He would start by pointing at the sketch map drawn by Suzanne, where it lay on the table: “Memorise that because you won’t see it again. You won’t have light, or time, to map-read your way tonight. But every party will have a guide…”
That first time when he reached the point, “We leave the barge here,” his finger tapped the map but his eyes were on Chris Tallon. At the first briefing, held in the wardroom of the boat now lying on the bottom of the sea, the soldier had objected: “We should go on foot before then.”
He said so again now, stubbornly: “I still think we should leave the barge sooner. The nearer we take it to St. Jean the more likely it is to be reported, because there’ll be more people to see it. Few barges travel at night —” he glanced at Suzanne and saw her nod �
�— and I doubt if any tear along at this speed. If we go ashore and do the last mile or so on foot we’ll get closer without being spotted.”
Brent shook his head, “No. The barge is quicker and it’ll take us right there.”
Tallon said, “Where they could be expecting us. The whole success of this scheme depends on surprise.”
“Exactly. So we go right in.”
“I’m thinking of casualties,” Tallon snapped.
“I know about casualties!” Brent growled that and saw Tallon blink; he went on: “I’m thinking of bringing out the man we were sent for. And of time; we can’t afford to waste it by moving on foot.” Then he saw Tallon about to speak again and forestalled him: “We go right in.” He held Tallon’s cold glare for a moment and then Chris’s eyes went back to the map.
He did not raise the objection again. When all three briefings were done David Brent climbed to the deck and stretched the cramp from his body. He saw Chris Tallon doing the same and the soldier grumbled, “Like a bloody rabbit hutch down there.”
David grunted agreement, his thoughts still on the encounter at the briefing. Chris was wrong. If they tried to cover the last mile at the double they might still run into a patrol that would halt them for precious minutes. David stared at the dark banks of the river sliding past. There could be a watcher on the riverside anywhere between here and St. Jean, more and more likely the closer the barge got to the town, and the watcher might well telephone a report. It would be another matter for the enemy to stop the barge, but discovery on the river would mean the end of this attempt to rescue the prisoner from the train. And of Brent and his command.