Order of Battle

by Ib Melchior

  He kept his eyes averted from the two dead men on the floor as he followed Krueger and Evans to the ladder.

  Topside Don came up to him.

  “We’ve got forty-eight enlisted men and seven officers,” he announced happily. “I think it’s the lot.”

  He gestured expansively around the clearing. A large group of Werewolves, some in uniform, some not, stood facing an officer. The man was calling off the names from a roster in his hand. Grimly the Germans were responding. Don turned to Erik. He looked closely at his friend. He suddenly grew sober.

  “Hey, what happened down there?”

  “Never mind that now,” Erik countered urgently. He was watching Evans reenter the command dugout with a couple of men. Tearing his attention away, he showed one of the documents from Krueger’s table to Don.

  Take a look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  Don took the paper.

  “The Werewolves have a mission. Unit C. A big one. Laid on for tonight!”

  “What’s the target?

  Erik looked at him, his eyes grave.

  “The jackpot, Don. The priority mission.”

  “Ike!”

  Don stared at the document in his hand.

  “How?”

  His eyes flew over the words on the paper.

  “Save it. There are no details.” Erik went on rapidly. “The task force will be mounted from Unit C. The location of the unit is given. About seventy-five miles from here, still in Corps area. In the woods east of Grafenheim. But not where in the goddamned woods! They mention a rendezvous, but not where it’s to be. Transportation. They refer to a previous order, but it’s not here either.” He looked solemnly at Don.

  “Don. They sound so damned positive they can pull it off!”

  “We’ve got to get this back to Corps! But right now!”

  “Let Evans do it.”

  “Evans?”

  “He and his MPs. They can take Krueger and the other prisoners back, too.” He went on with quiet urgency. “We don’t have the time, Don. We don’t have the time to persuade the brass that we need another two companies. We don’t have the time to set up an operation through Corps. And we can’t even warn anyone. We don’t know against what! No; you and I are going with Lieutenant James and his platoon. To Grafenheim. It says here that’s their jump-off point.”

  Grimly Don surveyed the area before them.

  “We thought this was it,” he said. “We thought we’d put the lid on this damned case.”

  He looked soberly at Erik.

  “It’s just been blown wide open!”

  Grafenheim

  Werewolf Unit C

  1519 hrs

  Never in his life had Willi been so keyed up.

  It was wild!

  It would work!

  And he would be part of it. He, Untersturmführer Wilhelm Richter, would have a hand in changing history!

  The briefing, just finished, had been perfect. Absolutely perfect. Clear, concise, straight to the point. He was vastly impressed with the leadership of the mission. And the men. Krueger had known exactly what he was doing when he selected the special para-commandos from Unit C for the mission. It wasn’t only because it was the unit nearest the jump-off point. It was the men. A couple of them were even veterans from Colonel Skorzeny’s fantastic rescue of Mussolini from that Alpine mountaintop. The best!

  With a glow of pride and confidence he remembered how he and all his comrades had felt the day they learned about Skorzeny’s fabulous exploit. . . .

  It had been impossible. They’d told Skorzeny it couldn’t be done. But he’d done it anyway, despite their predictions of disaster. He’d crash-landed gliders on a postage-stamp shelf sloping from the top of Gran Sasso mountain, snatched the Duce from the Italian garrison with a handful of men, and escaped with him by literally pushing a small plane, a Storch it was, off the cliff into a ravine, diving until the plane became airborne!

  It had been a gallant, an inspiring feat. He remembered the elation, the tremendous lift he’d felt; he, every soldier—all of Germany! It had put new heart into the whole war effort.

  It had been big. Real big.

  This time it would be bigger. . . .

  Everything was going like clockwork. The CO of Unit C had not been in contact with the Führer’s representative, that pompous little ass from Berlin, Reichsamtsleiter von Eckdorf, for the last couple of days. No last-minute orders or changes had been received from Krueger via the Munich radio relay station.

  The mission was on.

  The mission that would change the course of the war. The mission that would rally the defenders of the Alpenfestung, the invincible Alpine Fortress: the Werewolves, the Hitler Youth, the SS troops—all of them!

  He savored the brilliant operational plans as he would a great wine, letting it wash over his awareness. . . .

  H Hour was after dark. The commandos, a small, hard-hitting force of trained Fallschirmjäger, paratroopers, would exfiltrate the unit area and make their way to German-held territory only a few kilometers away. From personal experience he knew how simple that would be. On the Salzburg road just south of Passau they would rendezvous with the waiting trucks.

  Password: Feuerkampf! Countersign: Siegreich!

  From there it was a two-hour ride to the underground airfield at the edge of the Redoubt area just north of Salzburg.

  Three airplanes would be waiting for them. Three U.S. transports. C-47s. Reconstructed from planes shot down, repaired with cannibalized parts from other crashes. Simple. Ingenious.

  Then takeoff.

  It would be the darkest time of night when they’d be over the drop zone and their target. . . .

  He took his Luger from its holster. For the tenth time in the last hour he inspected it. He cleaned off an imaginary speck of dust.

  Topside the shadows would be lengthening.

  Soon . . .

  They’d make it

  Skorzeny made it.

  It would be the same kind of action. In reverse.

  For rescue substitute assassination!

  Munich

  1603 hrs

  Oberrechtsrat Dr. Meister of the Munich Städtischen Ernäh-rungs und Wirtschaftsamt stood on the steps of the Town Hall on Marienplatz, waiting.

  To him had fallen the burden of surrendering this historic town, the capital of Bavaria, to the invading American troops.

  Munich had already suffered severe damage from repeated air raids, and the streets were all but deserted.

  Since early morning of this Monday, April 30, the ominous thunder of heavy guns had rolled across the inner city from the suburbs, which were undergoing terrifying artillery barrages.

  Now all was quiet.

  Several vehicles from the U.S. Seventh Army wheeled into the square and came to a halt in front of the Town Hall. A major stepped from one of them and approached Dr. Meister.

  The German glanced up at the tower clock. It was exactly five minutes past four o’clock in the afternoon.

  Munich surrendered.

  Fighting had been unusually heavy right up to the city outskirts. SS units had been massed before the city in an all-out effort to stay the advance of the American troops. In the city itself executions of civilian and military leaders who advocated nonresistance had been summarily carried out by firing squads. Destruction was to be seen everywhere, on every road leading to the town, much of it the result of field artillery fire.

  On the shoulder of the road from Heidendorf, at the edge of a crater-pitted field, lay the shattered remains of a wagon still hitched to the mangled corpses of two horses.

  The passing troops gave it a wide berth. The stench was overpowering. The wagon had been a liquid manure tank. No one had the slightest desire to investigate what—or who—might be lying in the wetly glistening, stinking mess. The strange torn and twisted bits of metal and glass that mingled with the splintered wood had been undisturbed since the wagon took a direct hit at exactly twenty-e
ight minutes past one o’clock that afternoon. . . .

  Grafenheim

  1952 hrs

  The night was clear. Darkness had drawn its shroud over the countryside so gradually that he hardly had been aware of it. He found that his night vision was astoundingly good. It was important. They were counting on just that.

  He glanced at his watch. Almost eight. Where the hell were they? Had he figured it wrong? He didn’t like the incertitude nagging his mind.

  Again he studied the terrain before him, so damned familiar to him by now. The fork in the dirt road leading from the forest lay clearly exposed, one branch leading to the village of Grafenheim, the other bypassing it to the north; the open fields on either side of the road, the little copse of trees off the north branch, the broken farm wagon in the ditch just before the road forked . . . And the men? He knew they were all there, though he couldn’t see any but Don and Lieutenant James, lying next to him on the ground. Both men were staring silently at the quiet, empty road.

  He looked at his watch again. He was surprised to see it was still a few minutes before eight. What if they were in the wrong place?

  They had arrived at Grafenheim just as the sun was dipping down behind the low mountains of the Bayrischer Wald to the west, gilding their crowns of evergreen with crimson. They had studied the terrain and picked the spot for the ambush carefully. It was the only action they could take. It would have been hopeless folly to try to ferret out the Werewolves from their unit installation somewhere in the forest beyond. Especially in the dark. He knew that only too well. They would have to wait for them to make their move.

  The road before him was the only one coming from the forest area where the map showed the unit to be located. They would have to come that way. Unless . . .

  Again he glanced at his watch. Eight—not quite. They’d been in position, waiting for close to two hours.

  The plan was sound. It was simple. It would work.

  If the Werewolves showed up.

  They had to, dammit! Their alternative would be to cross into Czechoslovakia. That wouldn’t make sense. Not with the jump-off point shown as Grafenheim. But if they did? . . .

  Corps had been ordered not to cross the Czech border in strength and run the risk of barging headlong into the Russian forces pressing on from the east. With Germany cut in two by the Americans, several German armies intended to garrison the Alpine Fortress were bottled up in the Bohemian bastion. They had little choice but to stay there, unless something happened to uncork the bottle.

  He looked at his watch. He knew what he would see. He couldn’t help it. Eight.

  Come on, dammit!

  He felt Don tense beside him. Quickly he looked up.

  From the woods two shadowy figures had emerged. They walked on the dirt road partway to the fork. They stopped. For a while they stood still. Listening. Watching . . .

  Erik hardly breathed. He prayed that no one would make a move. He knew how far and how clearly sound carries at night.

  One of the men, carrying what appeared to be a rifle, turned toward the forest. Then he lifted the rifle above his head pointing straight up at the starry night sky.

  Erik let out his breath. The man had made the signal: Area free of enemy.

  And from the forest behind him they came. Two along the road. Two more. Dark, shadowy figures moving silently, cautiously. From the woods into the fields paralleling the road they came. Erik automatically began to count them. Ten. Fourteen . . .

  A couple of the men were pushing bicycles along the dirt road, loaded with bundles. Or packs. Eighteen. Twenty-one . . .

  Some of them looked oddly humpbacked. Rucksacks. All of them seemed to carry farm implements. Or weapons. Thirty-two. Four . . .

  They could have been farmers. But their walk was different. Sure. Alert. Somehow feline. It gave them away.

  Like night-marauding predators, Erik thought. Like a pack of—wolves.

  Forty . . .

  He stopped counting. He looked grim. The Werewolves were mounting their mission in force.

  He was aware of Lieutenant James slowly raising his gun, aiming it toward the oncoming Werewolves. A few more seconds . . .

  Suddenly a shot rang out!

  Goddammit! Erik thought in a flare of anger. Too soon!

  Even as the echo of the shot billowed across the fields the lights flashed on. Six. Ten. A dozen vehicles placed in a semicircle before the advancing Werewolves all at once poured the dazzling light from their headlights over the men. Blazing, blinding, the light bathed the nightscape in glaring white. In the split second before he clamped his eyes shut Erik saw the Werewolves, caught in the searing light like accursed pillars of gleaming salt stand frozen, then hit the ground. They had them! Eyes screwed tightly shut, he turned his head aside. As he had been told to do. It was his protection. His carefully built up night vision had to be preserved. It was the ace in the hole that would give them the upper hand.

  For a few confused seconds the thunderstruck Werewolves were assailed by the eye-scorching light beams. There was sporadic shooting; scattered bursts of automatic fire. Then Erik heard an authoritative voice shout:

  “Licht ausschiessen! Shoot out the lights!”

  Immediately he heard a volley of shots, the sharp tinkle of shattering glass, and then he felt the lights turn off on all the vehicles.

  He opened his eyes.

  His night vision was still intact. He could see.

  Not so the Werewolves.

  Blinded by the sudden, dazzling light, they now found themselves isolated in the darkness enveloping them, unable to discern anything but the most exposed muzzle flashes from the guns of the ambushers. They hugged the ground. A few of them sprang to their feet and ran for the protection of the forest. They were plainly seen by the GIs who had protected their eyes from the light. They were cut down.

  Erik was dimly aware of a single streak of light cutting across the field on his far right. The headlights on the flanking vehicle were still on. That is, one of them was. He knew the position was held by Lieutenant James’s jeep, manned by his driver. Part of his mind realized that the driver must have been hit before he could extinguish his light.

  The shooting had become heavier. The GIs had made their flanking moves to cut off the Werewolves from retreating into the woods. They were pocketed.

  Suddenly Erik froze. He snapped his head toward the jeep with its glaring cyclops eye.

  A figure came hurtling from the shadowy cover of the broken farm wagon straight toward the jeep. For a split second the man froze in a crouch, a black silhouette against the blazing headlamp. He fired a single shot, then he leaped for the vehicle. A formless shape tumbled from the jeep. Erik heard the motor roar to life, and he saw the jeep spurt dirt as it slewed around and shot down the road toward the village.

  Erik was on his feet.

  “Don!” he shouted. “Get our jeep!”

  He whirled toward Lieutenant James.

  “We’ll go after him. Get the rest. All of them! I want two men. With us.”

  James did not take time to answer. He at once motioned to his two nearest men.

  Don came skidding to a halt on the road. Erik and the two GIs jumped in, and the jeep took off, wheeling around the road fork in pursuit of the stolen vehicle which was just entering the dark village ahead, its single headlight sweeping wildly across the squat farm buildings.

  Don pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The jeep raced along the dirt road. They had to catch the fleeing Werewolf. They could not let anyone get away. Not a single man.

  Ahead the one headlight on the stolen jeep was suddenly turned off. . . .

  Willi’s jeep jolted along the cobblestoned pavement of the deserted village street. He drove as fast as he dared without lights. It was a calculated risk. He was hoping his pursuers would not know in which direction he traveled when he left Grafenheim. He might be able to throw them off.

  He had to make it!

  Unit C had been betrayed. Ho
w? By whom? Unimportant now. But the mission could still be mounted. Still be successful. It was of the utmost importance. To his fatherland. To his Führer . . .

  He must reach the rendezvous point. He had been thoroughly briefed. He could activate an emergency plan. Get substitute troops from the Redoubt garrison. He could still pull it off!

  He reached the turnoff to Passau, almost missing it in the dark. He stopped. He drove a few yards down the wrong road and stopped again. In the distance he could hear the pursuing jeep roaring toward him.

  He stomped with all his might on the brake and gunned the engine. The wheels spun, churning the ground, raising clouds of dust.

  Quickly he backed up and drove down the Passau road, picking up speed as he raced away. He hoped the headlights of his pursuers would pick up the settling dust, and that they would take the wrong turn.

  The hand grenade hanging from his belt interfered with his driving. He unclipped it and placed it on the floor.

  He was suddenly acutely aware of being wet. He was puzzled. Had he pissed in his pants? Then suddenly it hit him. He gagged.

  It was the seat. The driver’s seat of the jeep. It was saturated with blood. It was soaking through his pants. The American must have bled extravagantly, might have been dead before he shot him. He was sickened by the slimy, moist feel of a dead map’s blood on his skin. His whole body cringed in revulsion, straining to get away from the loathsome spot.

  But he stayed.

  He forced himself to dismiss it from his mind. Damn it! He wasn’t a squeamish bitch!

  He glanced back over his shoulder.

  The headlights of the pursuing jeep were still there.

  They were gaining. . . .

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  He compelled himself to look at the situation in the cold, uncompromising light of reality. No wishful thinking.

  He still had a sizable lead. The Americans were gaining on him, but slowly. However, he would have to abandon the jeep before he reached the front lines. No matter how fluid the situation was, he was bound to be stopped if he came barreling along like this. Especially with another jeep in pursuit. He would have to make it across on foot, but he wouldn’t have the time. Not with that verfluchte jeep steadily closing on him.