‘Ah … that is what Kostic says, yes. We have not heard her side of the story yet.’
‘But we will, no doubt.’
‘When the major returns, Fräulein.’
Another glance. ‘I can assure you, Herr Captain, that the major and I think with one mind.’ His nervousness grew. He was entering totally uncharted waters.
They drove beneath the arched entry to the Gestapo courtyard, and the car stopped. The guards stood to attention, eyes rolling as they recognised the governor-general’s daughter. Only the night staff were on duty inside the building, but these also sprang to attention as Angela swept past them with a rustle of taffeta and descended the stairs, almost as if she were in her own home. However used they were to seeing her in this building, she had never before come here except in the company of Wassermann. A snap from the sergeant, and the people in the tram hastily stood to attention. Angela ignored them, and turned down the corridor, Ulrich scurrying at her heels. ‘Which number?’ she asked over her shoulder.
‘Thirty-one. Anke has the key.’ The wardress was hurrying towards them at that moment, keys jangling. She asked no questions, but raised her eyebrows at Ulrich. ‘Open it,’ he said. ‘But stay with us.’
The door swung in, and Angela stepped through, Ulrich and Anke close behind. The light was on in the cell, and Sandrine was seated at a table against the wall, eating her supper. She looked up at the sudden entry, but kept her face expressionless while swallowing her mouthful and wiping her lips with a napkin.
‘Why is she being treated like this?’ Angela demanded, speaking German. ‘Why has she not been stripped?’
‘These are Major Wassermann’s orders, Fräulein.’
Angela stared at Sandrine, and Sandrine returned the look, her face remaining expressionless. ‘Why is she not afraid?’
‘I do not think she knows the meaning of the word, Fräulein,’ Ulrich said.
Angela stared at Sandrine for a few more seconds, and Sandrine took another mouthful of food. Then Angela turned and left the cell.
Sasha had been lying on Tony’s chest. He rolled her off, and sat up to watch the aircraft wheeling above him, and listen to the chorus of excited alarm as the women also awoke from their exhausted slumber. But there were also cries of pain. The first stick of bombs had been dropped at the far end of the bivouac. Now there were more explosions through the length of the shallow valley as each of the six planes discharged its load.
Tony dragged on his pants as he reached his feet. ‘Scatter!’ he bawled. ‘Scatter and take cover. Lie down.’ Screaming and chattering, the women obeyed, some naked, others only half dressed, some carrying a weapon, others too terrified to do anything except run and then throw themselves headlong into the shelter of the first bush they could reach.
Hitherto, in their very limited experience, they had been in control. Because Tony had been in control. This was the unexpected. Which he should have expected, because Tito had warned of its likelihood. Though he did not suppose, even had he posted sentries, that it would have done much good; even if the women had managed to stay awake, they would not have seen the aircraft coming in low over the hilltops in time to sound the alarm before the first bombs fell.
He ran towards the stream, and came across the craters and the scattered, lifeless bodies, the more disturbing because several of these were naked. He turned to find Sasha beside him. ‘What must we do?’ she asked.
‘There is nothing we can do,’ he told her. ‘Except shelter ourselves.’
As he spoke, they heard the roar of the engines as the fighter-bombers came back for another run. They fell together, lying on their stomachs beside a clump of bushes, listening to the chatter of machine guns rising above the sound of the engines; having expended their bombs, the aircraft were coming low to strafe their victims. Again there was a chorus of screams and shrieks. Tony raised his head, and to his horror saw Anja rise to her feet, holding a tommy-gun, and spray the approaching planes with bullets. He did not suppose any of her shots reached them. Instead she seemed to explode as she was struck a dozen times. She flew back into the bushes, arms flung wide, tommy-gun flying through the air. Then the aircraft were gone, vanished behind the hills.
Sasha sat up. ‘Will they come again?’
‘Probably.’ He ran to where Anja had fallen, looked down on her shattered body. At least she had died instantly. Others had not been so fortunate. They lay dead or dying in grotesque postures, or they sat or knelt hugging their bleedings arms and legs and bodies. Many of those who had not been hit were weeping, some even wailing out loud. ‘Have them get dressed and collect their weapons,’ he said. ‘Then dig a grave.’
‘That is all they do,’ she complained. ‘Dig their own graves. How many graves do you wish?’ She was close to hysterics.
Tony held her shoulders, and shook her. ‘Pull yourself together. They will dig just the one grave. A big one. We do not have the time for anything better.’
Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked as if she would have said more, but instead she turned and went amongst the women, chivvying them to their feet, making them move. Tony followed, in order to discover just what the situation was. The casualties were surprisingly light, because the women had bivouacked over a wide area, but there were still five dead and a score wounded. Four of these were quite serious, and two were bleeding from their legs. He set a squad to work binding them up, giving them sips of morphine where necessary. ‘Do we abandon these?’ Sasha asked. ‘Like the others?’
Everyone stopped work to await his decision. He knew that morale was at its lowest, that there was no guarantee his command was not going to just melt away; a good number of them, including Sasha herself, were Bosnians, and were thus about to re-enter their homeland, where they would be sure of a welcome from their families. Against that there were Tito’s orders. But if ever there was a time to disobey orders, this was it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We carry them with us.’
***
It was desperately hard work, and progress was very slow, while in the middle of the afternoon the planes were back, re-armed and searching for them. But Tony had expected this, and got them into shelter in time. Now they turned away from the direct route to Foca, heading more to the west, in the direction of Wicz.
Next day they were overtaken by the remnants of Asztalos’s regiment, some three hundred men. The men and women fell on each other’s necks while Asztalos and Tony embraced. ‘We may have a problem,’ Tony suggested, looking at the fraternising that was going on.
‘Oh, let them enjoy themselves,’ Asztalos said. ‘With what time they have left.’
‘And when half of my people are pregnant?’
‘The problem is several months away, my friend. Do you suppose many of them will be alive in three months’ time?’ Tony couldn’t really rebuke him for his pessimism; the facts were obvious. Apart from the aircraft, the German ground forces were also pushing hard, and the Partisans were handicapped by having to carry their wounded.
The next day they suddenly discovered a squadron of tanks and several truckloads of troops only a mile behind them. The pursuit was reported by the rearguard, and Tony and Asztalos went back to inspect the situation from a convenient hillside. ‘We are going to have to take them on,’ Tony said.
‘We are done,’ Asztalos said.
‘For God’s sake,’ Tony said. ‘We have more than six hundred men and women, every one armed. There cannot be more than a battalion of troops down there; I make that not more than a thousand men, probably less.’
‘That is still nearly double our strength. They will have machine guns; we have rifles. And they have those tanks. And they will be able to call up air support.’
‘So we must act quickly, give them a bloody nose, and get out again.’
‘But why must we fight them? Our business is to get away.’
‘We must fight them, old fellow, because we are on foot and they are motorised. That is why they have caught us up in the first place. If we can hit them hard,
they will check long enough for us to get ahead of them again. And while we are, hopefully, moving into friendly territory, that territory becomes unfriendlier to them with every mile.’ He hoped.
Asztalos chewed his lip, but his men were spoiling for a fight, and the women even more so. All grumbling stopped, exhaustion was thrown away, and morale visibly climbed. Tony and Sasha had their wounded placed together at a hopefully safe distance from the coming fighting, and deployed their people amidst the trees and rocks to either side of the road.
‘No one shoots until I fire my Verey pistol,’ Tony told them.
Sasha crouched beside him. ‘Are we going to win?’
‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘Just like the last time.’
A moment later two motorcyclists came into view, riding slowly. The roar of the trucks could clearly be heard. And then someone fired. One of the cyclists fell, his machine crashing down the slight parapet beside the road. ‘Shit!’ Tony said.
‘I will coat her cunt with pepper,’ Sasha said. But Tony was quite sure it had not been one of the women; they were far better disciplined than the men.
The other motorcyclist wheeled his bike, and raced back down the road; no one fired after him. Asztalos crawled through the bushes. ‘We must retreat. The element of surprise is gone.’
‘It has not. A single shot was fired. They can have no idea of our strength.’
‘I will pull my men out.’
‘Do that, and I will have you shot,’ Tony told him. Asztalos looked as if he would have argued, but changed his mind, and crawled away again.
‘He is a coward,’ Sasha growled.
‘I don’t think so,’ Tony said. ‘Just a pessimist.’
***
Wassermann was lounging, half asleep, in his command car when he heard the sound of the shot. He sat bolt upright, as did Ulrich, who had finally caught up with him the previous day.
Wassermann had asked him if Sandrine had been safely delivered, and he had said yes. Wassermann had then asked him if he had seen Angela, and Ulrich again had said yes. ‘And did she give you a message for me?’
‘She sent you her love,’ Ulrich said. Angela hadn’t, though. She had been too preoccupied, and perhaps upset, he thought, at actually having come face to face with the famous Fouquet. But he knew that was what his boss wanted to hear.
So Wassermann had dozed contentedly, until being so rudely awakened. Now Captain Rimmer came running back to the car. ‘One of the scouts has been hit, Herr Major. There must be guerillas up ahead.’
‘But only one shot was fired.’
‘That is correct, Herr Major.’
‘Therefore there cannot be more than a few of them. We will drive through them,’ Wassermann said. ‘But prepare your men for action.’
‘They may shoot out our tyres …’
‘Then we will disembark, and clear them. Go.’ Rimmer saluted, and hurried off. ‘You will follow the trucks,’ Wassermann told Albrecht.
‘Yes, Herr Major,’ the orderly said. But he was looking anxious; even at the rear of the column the command car was exposed.
The squadron of tanks rolled forward. ‘Sweep the slopes to either side,’ Wassermann said into his radio, and put on his steel helmet.
‘Tanks!’ Sasha said.
‘Tell your people to let them through,’ Tony said. ‘We cannot stop them. It is the infantry we must beat. There is to be no firing until my signal goes up.’ She nodded, and hurried away. ‘That goes for your people as well,’ Tony told Asztalos, who had rejoined them, and seemed content to leave the command of the operation to the Englishman.
Slowly the tanks clanked up the road. As each vehicle reached the abandoned motorcycle, its cupola traversed either left or right, and a shot was sent screaming into the trees, exploding to scatter twigs and foliage in every direction, as well as shrapnel, and invariably starting little fires, as they had done outside Kragujevac. Tony had no doubt that some of his people were hit, but with superb discipline they kept their heads down and obeyed his orders not to return fire. The tanks moved on.
‘No enemy activity observed,’ the radio said.
‘What did I tell you?’ Wassermann told Ulrich. ‘That was some cowardly sniper who has made himself scarce. Proceed, Major Reustaffel,’ he said into his mike.
The trucks – whose canvas walls were rolled back from the rear to expose their machine guns – rolled forward, emerging from the hills into the valley, looking up the roadway to where the last of the tanks were still visible. The sound of the engines drowned all other noise, but both Wassermann and Ulrich swept the hillsides with their binoculars. They had travelled for half a mile along the valley when Ulrich said, ‘I see metal.’
‘Where?’ As Wassermann turned, a rocket soared into the air above them, and all hell broke loose. They were assailed by several hundred bullets, all fired at once. Men screamed and shouted as the flying lead slashed through the remaining canvas and into the machine-gunners. Tyres exploded and vehicles slewed to and fro, several coming right off the road, their discomfort accompanied by cheers from the Partisans.
‘It is Kragujevac all over again!’ Sasha shouted, rising to her feet in her exuberance. Tony grabbed her belt, and pulled her down again. For the Germans were disembarking from their vehicles, firing as they did so, and the dead and wounded machine-gunners were being replaced, and were sending streams of metal into the trees. Some of the cheers turned to shrieks. This was a much more serious conflict than Kragujevac. And now the tanks were turning to come back into the fray. Tony drew his Verey pistol, and fired another rocket, sending the bright light soaring above the brief battle.
‘We can kill them all,’ Sasha objected.
‘How many cartridges do you have left?’
‘Well, a dozen rounds.’
‘So we get out. We can’t stop the tanks. Go, go, go. Be sure to take your wounded.’
‘And you?’
‘I will be right behind you.’ But he waited to make sure everyone had seen his signal, and watched German officers running up and down the line of trucks, shouting orders, directing fire. And frowned. Two of the men wore black uniforms, and seemed to be in general command. And one of them had the insignia of a major. It had to be. He holstered the glasses, and picked up the rifle by his side. It was payback time for Sandrine’s death.
‘Deploy!’ Wassermann shouted as he ran along the road, pistol in hand. ‘Into the trees. Kill the bastards. Into the—’
He found himself lying by the side of the road. He had no idea how he had got there, only that he was curiously breathless, as if he had just run half a mile. And that his helmet had come off, and thus he was improperly dressed.
He looked at Ulrich, who was kneeling above him, face contorted. Ulrich was speaking, but Wassermann could not hear him. And now, without warning, he was struck by a searing pain which seemed to have taken hold of his entire body. Before he could stop himself he had screamed in agony, at once to his embarrassment and shame. Now there were other people crowding round, and medics were tearing at his uniform, seeking to bandage him. Someone held something to his mouth, and he swallowed the liquid before he knew what he was doing. It tasted foul, and he wanted to vomit. But he could do nothing save lie there, and a few minutes later the valley began to rotate about his head. His eyes drooped shut.
Rimmer joined Ulrich. ‘They are retreating. Do we follow? My God!’ He noticed Wassermann for the first time. ‘Is he dead?’
‘Not yet. We must get him back to Belgrade.’
‘But … what are we to do here? We have them on the run.’
‘Until the next time they ambush us,’ Ulrich said grimly. ‘We will ask Belgrade for instructions. Meanwhile, we will camp here, and hold our ground. See what prisoners you can take. But only in this neighbourhood. Ah, Major Reustaffel.’ He stood up as the tank commander approached. ‘Major Wassermann has been hit.’
Reustaffel looked at Wassermann, who was being loaded on to a stretcher; both his uniform and th
e ground where he had fallen were a mass of blood. ‘He’s not dead?’
‘No, sir. But he is very badly hurt. I consider it of the greatest importance to get him back to Belgrade. And the other wounded, of course. You will have to take command.’
Reustaffel pulled his rather long nose. He was a tactical tank officer, and had never commanded any large body of men. ‘What do you consider we should do?’
‘I have already called in my men, sir. I consider we should halt here until we receive orders from Belgrade on how to proceed.’
‘Yes. Yes, that is a sound idea. You don’t suppose those Partisans will come back?’
‘If they do, sir, and attempt to attack us in an established defensive position, I think we should be able to deal with them.’
‘Yes. Yes, you are right. I will see to it. Will you call Belgrade?’ He was obviously in a very nervous state.
‘Yes, Herr Major,’ Ulrich said. ‘And then I must see about evacuating Major Wassermann.’
Nine
Women
There was less immediate reaction to this battle than after Kragujevac. Casualties had actually been higher, but no one had any doubt that they had inflicted more on the Germans, and they had certainly checked the pursuit; even the wounded were reasonably happy. But Tony was well aware that there were troubles ahead, even if he could feel a personal sense of satisfaction that it had been his shot that had both halted the pursuit and avenged Sandrine – if the SS officer had indeed been Wassermann.
Foca, their rendezvous, was only just over a hundred miles south-west of Uzice, but it was a long hundred miles as they climbed into the high country, with peaks of several thousand feet to either side, carrying their wounded. Moreover, it was now well into November and the temperature was dropping sharply at night, with frequent snowfalls.
They were now almost out of both ammunition and food, although thanks to the ever-present mountain streams, and the now fairly incessant rain, they had no shortage of water, even if on more than one occasion it was necessary to break a thin layer of ice to get at it. But as they climbed out of the valleys, the increasing cold went hard on empty bellies. Yet for the first couple of days after the battle, spirits stayed high. This was principally the work of Sasha. ‘Now we are across the border,’ she told them. ‘We are in Bosnia. And my village, Wicz, is only a few miles away. There we will find food and shelter. And medicines for the wounded.’ They were all out of morphine.
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