by Aeryn Leigh
The moved forward, again at walking pace, to at a range no less than sixty yards, where they halted. Beyond the open castle gate, a long, deep courtyard. On top of the battlement walls, nothing.
He whistled.
The two machine gun crews setup next to a shattered wall, covering the battlements, as the half-track and the remaining two companies poked their nose into the courtyard. The Hanomag's rear tracks fought for purchase as they traversed over it, the bars of the gate bent apart as if a great force and taken hold and pulled them straight off. Or a tank ripped it off, thought Wolfgang. One hell of a tank, though.
The courtyard opened into a wide oval, as the half-track passed underneath the thick masonry, they all held their breath involuntarily, for the open-topped Hanomag was critically vulnerable right now, for any man to drop a grenade or Molotov cocktail right into the rectangular metal bucket.
They made it through, and directly ahead, tendrils of smoke wafted up from ground level metal grates.
Wolfgang halted them. You didn't need binoculars to notice fresh gashes in the stone where a main cannon or artillery piece, maybe a flak battery, had once sat, being dragged off the battlement, scraping down the interior wall as it did so. The courtyard stones and odd stretched of dirt held a few tracks. Horse waggons by the look of it, that carried off the artillery.
Sergeant Bismarck moved to their left, Wolfgang jumping down, joining them. The stonework was old, but well-constructed.
Stonemasons had taken particular, especially in the edging work. He stopped halfway up the stairs, as B Company matched A Company’s progress on the opposite stairs, moving up and onto the top of the battlement walls.
He heard a raven's bird call. The signal that the immediate vicinity was clear. Wolfgang legged up the remaining steps, and in the vacant gun pit, found Sergeant Bismarck.
"I don't like this Mouse," said the captain, "I don't like this one bit." Sergeant Bismarck moved over to a patch of twisted iron framework, then something caught his eye. He reached down, and picked up a brass shell casing. He held it to his nose, and sniffed. He flicked it to Wolfgang, who inspected it. A 9mm parabellum casing for a MP 40. But on the bottom of the casing, no stamping whatsoever. The gunpowder smelled slightly sweet.
"These bolts have been sheared off, a crane of some kind has lifted it straight up and over, without even unbolting it."
"Any blood splatter?"
"No Major."
Wolfgang walked over to the chest-high wall, and peered over. Far below, the landing operation seemed to be going as well as one could expect. The other company swept around, encircling the battlement. "Sergeant, check what you can. I want this fort secured, and I want it yesterday."
IT WAS the same story on the opposite castle. The gun torn from its housings. Completely abandoned, and burnt. In the mansion shell directly opposite the main junction next to the beach road, Wolfgang established the Seventh's command post. In the large room, on an informal table comprised of German army supply crates, laid the damning sum collection of any and all evidence and clues.
It was standing room only. All five ship captains, every squad sergeant and company leader, every tank battalion commander, and what remained of the sevenths junior command staff, kept their elbows in tight.
"The men are already starting to panic," said the battalion commander of the Fourth Mechanised Infantry, his hair long gone grey with stress of the Eastern Front.
"We're managing so far," said Wolfgang. "It'll take a while to undergo a triple inventory check of what survived, that should keep them occupied for a little while yet."
Spread out on the supply crates, Wolfgang picked up a partially burnt newspaper, the entire edition compromising of just a single page. The newspaper was something straight from the Gutterburg press era. "Loyal Patriots of Newe Spain, Holde Fast", read the headline. The rest of the newspaper was in Olde English. Wolfgang forced himself to learn English in his mid-thirties, but his grasp of the language was quite average.
"Sergeant Bismarck, if you could?" said Wolfgang.
The scar-faced German took the pale-yellow print, squinting. "Seems to be all religious gibberish about some Emperor and Day of Judgement. Religious scriptures from Old Testament, but changed, Major. In the year of our righteous Holy Emperor, the year five-hundred and thirty-three After Deliverance." He put the newspaper back down.
Wolfgang picked up the other only piece of intelligence found, but these papers were far worse condition, only fragment scraps remaining, the documents found in one of the southern rooms of the castle. "It's in Latin," said the Major. "Does anyone know of the Allies using Latin as their ciphers?"
No one spoke. Verpiss dich. Mysteries. He looked down at the seven 9mm cartridges. All seven had been found in crevices, in crooks and hard to reach places. No identification marks, origin of manufacture. One could only guess that most of the rounds had been collected, the bodies taken as well. Leaving only splatters of dried blood.
Anything of strategic military value had been removed with great care, or ripped away with brute force. All tracks however, led straight away from the coastal fort, leading inland.
He turned to his aide. "How long until inventory is complete?" The youth consulted his clipboard.
"Another two hours at least, Major."
They'd already been on the beachhead for five hours, twenty minutes. Leapfrogging the battalions off the ships via alternating cranes was slow progress, but at least the motors were working reliably now.
"This is obviously some trick from the Allies. Designed to make us go mad." If it was an Allied ruse, they were doing a marvellous job at it. "Remember your training. Remember your comrades. Spread the news your men. This cunning ploy of Churchill or Stalin will not work. Let's show them what the Seventh is capable of. We were first across the fields of France, the Ghosts that could not be found. Let's give these klugsheissen bastards nothing to smile about. Inform the men. The reconnaissance battalion leaves at dawn. Ship captains, make what repairs you can. Dismissed."
Wolfgang filed outside with the others, then met Sergeant Bismarck a few minutes later, in a burnt-out garage a few houses down the main road. "What was it you wanted to show me, that couldn't involve the others?"
Sergeant Bismarck prodded the canvas-shrouded shape by his feet. "Go on." Wolfgang lifted the canvas. Underneath, the unmistakable barrel of a Maxim machine gun, stretched and twisted into a perfect pretzel.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
GOOD OLD DAYS
"SOME TRICK," said Haplo, pointing at the twin suns rising in the cloudless blue sky.
"Probably just group hallucinations," said Hans. "Heard rumours the Russians are big into that."
Haplo peered into his water canteen with one eye closed, swirling it around. "Real reassuring." He sighed. They sat on the side of their new Tiger II, legs over the side, at the edge of the coastal port. Behind them, around them, the entire mechanised force of the 501st deployed, led by the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. Stretching out as far as the eye can see, the main paved road, mostly straight, winding here and there, surrounded on both sides by thick, tall forest. "Mouse should love this," said Haplo. "Cover from air attacks in all directions."
Even sitting on the biggest tank deployed in WWII, a monster seventy tonnes, they'd seen what a RAF Lancaster dropping three-thousand-pound bombs could do, detonating with enough force that even a bare miss flipped a Königstiger over. From pure survival habit, they all looked up and scanned the skies for the tenth time that minute.
It cut both ways. Being able to seek immediate cover from air attack meant the main assets, the long-barrel 88mm guns would not be fully utilised, the ability to seek out and destroy enemy targets up to three km away. As with all things in life, if not war, everything was a compromise, a trade-off.
Haplo glanced down, the wireless set squawking bursts of static. The signal given, their Tiger II rumbled into life, the 501st moved down the long winding, to meet their commander and the 1st Reconnai
ssance five kilometres down.
WOLFGANG HALTED the Opel 3.5 tonne truck, the motor died. The quad 20mm half-track cut its motor too. He clambered onto the truck's cabin. Lifted up his binoculars and scanned the area.
Contrary to German war propaganda and that klugscheisser Goebbel, which showed the entirety of Germany's tank divisions and mechanised infantry outfitted with Hanomag half-tracks of all variants, types, and sizes. In reality, even with Wolfgang's influence on his 501st, getting mechanised battalions to field more than 20 percent halftracks was a major feat by itself. The vast workload of carrying troops and equipment was undertaken by the trusty Opel 3.5 and 5 tonnes, and a mixed bag of every other truck, built in Germany or captured in Russia, some of those even built in America thanks to that verdammt Lend Lease agreement.
But, he reflected, as he eased back down into the main bed of the Opel, who said these things had to remain stock standard? Six years of grim warfare had taught Wolfgang and those original survivors of the Seventh and 501st many lessons. One of them, adapt, or die.
The 37mm Pak gun mounted right in the middle of the cargo tray. This truck of the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion was a survivor of Stalingrad, and that nightmare winter, he noticed. And not just because of the slew of Russian white light tanks painted on the driver's door. Ahhh, thought Wolfgang, the good old days when a 37mm tank gun could penetrate and kill a Soviet tank head on.
All around them, thick, dark forest. Visibility reduced to 150 yards either side of the highway, the undergrowth rich, lush ferns of dark green. The trees themselves were majestic, reminding him of the Black Forest, soaring canopies overhead, but much larger.
Older.
There was space enough between the grand trees he could not recognise to park even company of Tiger II's hidden from aerial observation.
At least out here, out in the forest, Wolfgang heard the sounds of wildlife. The death tomb of the coastal town now replaced with insects and bird calls.
He flicked the truck's wireless set on, another unofficial modification. He sent three bursts of static. The road ahead continued for another two km before it vanished around a bend.
He needed to get higher.
He looked up at the tree canopy. Wolfgang grinned.
He clapped the recon sergeant on the shoulder, pointing upwards. The short, stocky man gestured to a foot locker at the rear. Wolfgang opened it, next to a crate full of 37mm armour-piercing shells and pulled out the tree-climbing stirrups. He handed the sergeant his assault rifle, unhooked a coiled rope from the wooden sides of the truck, and whistling to himself went looking for the biggest tree nearby.
Tree-climbing, without a doubt, was one of Wolfgang's favourite activities. If there were no trees, he settled for rock-climbing, yet clambering up trees had been his second-favourite pastime as a kid, and did so every chance he could.
The metal spikes on the outsides of his boot speared the soft, lush undergrowth. Gott knew how many feet of leaf compost was down there.
There was something about climbing trees. The magnificent specimen had to seventeen feet diameter at the ground, yet ran as straight as a telegraph pole all the way up to over one-hundred feet in the air before it branched out into wide canopies.
Wolfgang made one final check of his weapons, his 9mm Luger in his quick-draw shoulder harness, a present from Rommel on his twenty-eighth birthday, the handle inlaid with ivory, with a hair-trigger too. On his calf, a Walter PK, chambered for the same 9mm round as the Luger. And a regular issue Luger, strapped on his waist belt. Not to mention the half-dozen knives strapped around his body. The Zeiss optical sight tucked in his top pocket.
Satisfies, he began the climb up the tree. He apologised to the tree as he climbed up it, from the puncture marks. That, and he didn't like leaving tracks.
The physical, strenuous effort was welcome relief after the last few months. Rays of sunlight poked through the leafy canopy here and there, the air pregnant with oxygen, so intoxicating, that fresh, feeling so alive, Wolfgang kept fighting the impression he was sixteen all over again.
As he made progress, stopping every few feet to lift up the rope on the opposite side of the trunk, Wolfgang got the chance to have a clear think about their tactical situation. Seven thousand, three hundred and six men left the Polish seaport. Plus, that inn held family and a few dozen seamstresses and general hangers-on. Twelve hundred and eighty-three had been lost when the destroyer collided with the Regimental HQ ship. That by itself wasn't great, the entire Seventh's command decapitated, definitely not good, his 501st losing men and material on the lost ship as well, but the decision to spread their forces over the six ships as to spread and minimise losses, coming home to roost.
Two precious Tiger II's, a Panther, and fifteen Panzer IV's slipped beneath the waves, along with their crews, just from the 501st alone. Verdammt.
He paused one-third the way up, wiped the seat from his brow with his sleeve. Focus, Wolfgang, focus on what have, not what you lost.
What do we have, 7th and 501st combined?
Twelve working Tiger II's, sixty-five Panzer IV's in various configurations, short and long barrels. Five Panthers. Twenty-eight Hanomag's of all sorts. Plenty of StuGs and self-propelled artillery. One Nebelwerfer rocket artillery company, with a full ammunition complement, and two Vampyr IR units miraculously intact. Armoured cars, trucks and motorcycles.
And enough fuel remained to get the entire Seventh and 501st another five-hundred kilometres, if the terrain remained reasonably flat and dry.
By and large, they still held their operational strength. The logistical situation was also good. For a 1945 definition of good, certainly not compared to even two years ago. Being resupplied and refitted, back at the Baltic port seemed fortuitous. Too fortuitous.
The snake constricted just a fraction more.
He reached the part of the tree where the trunk became slender, right at the tree's fork. He chose the one up at his right, the sturdier of the two, and hoisted himself into the fork, allowing himself a break, taking a sip of water and eating a ration bar.
For the hell of it, he looked down. It's a hell long way. Smiling, he tightened the lid back on the canteen, refastened it on his webbing pouch, and bear-hugged the branch. His wiry muscles wrapped around it, and jimmied along it.
Wolfgang edged forward, until his hair brushed leaves. The final burst of effort, he pushed through the foliage. Brilliant light burst upon his freckled face. It took a few moments for his vision to adjust, and Major Wolfgang Mauss tried to take in this new intelligence.
The forest ended, in two kilometres or so, giving way to farmland as far as the eye can see in all directions. The main road continued as straight as an arrow line heading right for and disappearing over the horizon. 30° left of the highway, the tip of a giant volcano shimmied in the morning heat of the suns. He took out the Zeiss optical sight, intended for a Kar 98 bolt-action rifle, and peered through to double-check what his 20/20 vision could also see. Scattered here and there, the unmistakable shape of tall, girder-laced oil pumps, a refinery to the far west.
A rich, fertile land, abundant in food and petrochemicals.
We shall call this land – The Land.
He removed the scope, pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking hard. Well they wouldn't starve or run out of petrol out here. He resumed the reconnaissance, a few minutes later, still saw no signs of intelligent life. A few eagles or like circled high overhead, soaring on the morning thermals. Big eagles, too.
Behind, in the direction of the landing cove, nothing but forests before turning into the faintest hint of ocean at the horizon.
With the thick tree canopy, he couldn't see the ground below.
Wolfgang was putting the sniper scope back in his pocket when he froze. Primal survival instincts stopped all further movement. His right hand was already diving for his chest Luger, and with practised motion withdrew a hair-trigger Luger and he spun around, fingers mere fractions from pulling the trigger.
&n
bsp; Nothing there.
But the primal fear of realising one was near imminent death reaped its effect. Wolfgang fell out of the tree.
Wolfgang fell fifteen feet before the rope snapped tight, jerking him to a halt, 140 feet above the ground. The gun fired, mid-fall, Wolfgang committed to killing the ancient, primal horror stalking him. The rope coiled around his waist burned his skin, as Wolfgang swung like a pendulum, heart hammering.
With great care, he forced himself to swallow, and upside down, put the Luger back in the holster and snapped the clasp shut.
With a dint of effort, swung himself upright, hands clasping the rope, palms encased in thin goatskin leather, a present from his Mother, Gott-rest her soul, and hand over hand pulled himself up the rope and onto the branch.
He looked down, and gave the all okay signal to the 1st Reconnaissance below. Adrenalin flooded his veins. Never had Wolfgang felt mortally afraid. As he climbed back down the tree, he knew one thing for certain.
They were not alone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
MOVING OUT
FORTIFIED as the coastal ports may be, somewhat defensible from ground and sea attack, the safest place for the Seventh and 501st laid inside that forest.
German Panzer divisions now had a healthy paranoia about airpower, bombing and strafing attacks killing many a fine comrade. At least on this issue, thought Wolfgang, he didn't have to argue the point. All the remaining command staff feared what Allied air power could achieve. The human instinct to bunker down, burrow in tight, would be their undoing, Wolfgang knew in his gut, wherever here was.
The current argument raging was about who would be left behind. A small contingent had to stay behind and secure the ships, and guard their rear. Two of the transport ships daisy-chaining managed to drop anchor without running aground. In an absolute worst-case scenario, they could once more evacuate, although leaving all their equipment behind.