Assault on Abbeville

by Jack Badelaire

  “And what do we do if they send that Panhard after us?” Lambert asked. “We’ve nothing that can crack a shell that hard, not in a stand-up fight.”

  Gorski shook his head. “We run, hide, and hope.”

  The truck lurched as Dumond braked and down-shifted, then made a hard turn before putting the transmission into reverse. The truck backed into a narrow alleyway until the front of the truck was several meters inside the alley.

  “Gentlemen, we have arrived,” Dumond announced. “Let us make this quick, no?”

  THIRTEEN

  The five men exited the truck. Gorski turned to Lambert and pointed to the vehicle’s cab. “You stay with the truck. If something goes wrong, if they get us all, you and your rifle are the only chance we’ll have of completing the mission.”

  Lambert nodded, then drew back the bolt of his newly-acquired MP-38. “Pray it doesn’t come to that. Don’t take long, alright?”

  Gorski smiled. “This will take only a moment, I’m sure.”

  Halfway down the alley, a wrought-iron gate blocked their passage. A heavy-looking lock was built into the gate.

  “We should have expected this,” Dumond grunted. “We didn’t bring a pry-bar or a mallet.”

  “We have, I hope, something better,” Gorski told him, holding up the ring of keys he’d taken from the gendarme.

  “Make it quick, then,” Dumond grumbled, peering through the bars and down the length of the alley. He held his cut-down shotgun in both hands, the stock tucked in close to his body, the weapon ready to spray a deadly hail of buckshot at anyone who appeared.

  Gorski flipped through the ring of keys until he found one of the proper size and design, then tested it on the gate’s lock. It wasn’t the right key, but after two more, he found one that turned the tumblers with a reluctant squeak of metal. The gate opened, and Gorski left it closed with the bolt unlocked after they passed through.

  The four men advanced silently down the alleyway, until they came to a T-shaped intersection, with a wide opening to their left. Verhoeven took point, and edged up to the corner, peeking around for a moment before ducking back and using hand signals to communicate what he saw.

  One guard. German. Machine pistol.

  Gorski motioned for Verhoeven to eliminate the guard. The Dutchman performed a quick brass-check on his pistol’s chamber, then took a strong, two-handed grip on his Browning and side-stepped out into the opening. The automatic spat three times in rapid succession and Gorski heard a gurgling, choking cry before a body hit the ground, the machine pistol clattering against the paving bricks.

  The Revenants came around the corner to find a heavily reinforced double door, and sprawled in front of it, a dying German, blood jetting from the man’s throat in little pulses across the bricks. Verhoeven walked up next to the man and shot him once in the back of the head, then changed magazines. Gorski searched through his looted key ring until he found one that unlocked the door, while Dumond relieved the corpse of its weapon and ammunition pouches, as well as another set of keys.

  “It’s going to get loud eventually in here,” Gorski whispered to his men. “Piet can’t kill them all. Keep your groupings tight, and short bursts. I suspect we’ll need all the ammunition we can carry before this is through.”

  With a click, he worked the latch and eased the door open, the iron-bound hardwood at least ten centimeters thick. Inside, there were a pair of benches along each side wall, with rings fitted into the floor, no doubt a place where prisoners were secured before being transported to another location. A single electric bulb flickered slightly inside a metal cage fitted into the ceiling. In front of them, there was a second door, this one also locked, but nowhere near as heavily-built.

  “Where do you think he’s being held?” Dumond asked quietly.

  Gorski shook his head. “I don’t know. I would guess the basement, but maybe their interrogation room is on this level. We’ll have to find a guard and get the information out of him if the answer doesn’t present itself.”

  “How many guards do you think are inside?” Dumond said.

  “With any luck, most of the gendarmerie are out looking for us,” Verhoeven spoke up.

  “Enough talk,” Johansen snapped.

  Gorski nodded. He softly turned the key in the lock until the bolt clicked, then he stood aside, holding the latch, while Verhoeven took up a position in front of the door. On the count of three, Gorski opened the door.

  Two Germans with their rifles in hand stood not a meter from the doorway, one of them reaching for the latch.

  Verhoeven cursed and emptied his pistol into the first soldat, knocking him back into the second man, who pulled the trigger of his Mauser and blew a large chunk out of the brick wall next to Verhoeven’s head. The Dutchman cried out and staggered back, a hand going to the side of his face. Johansen grabbed Verhoeven and pulled him aside, as Dumond leveled his shotgun and pulled both triggers.

  The effect was devastating. Eighteen buckshot punched a fist-sized hole through the mortally-wounded German and shredded the man behind him, who spun from the impact and slid down the wall, leaving a trail of crimson behind him. The noise of the double-barreled blast was like that of a howitzer firing in the confines of the hallway, and the stink of burned gunpowder filled the men’s nostrils. Dumond grunted in satisfaction and stepped aside, breaking open the shotgun’s action and dumping the empty shell casings, then stuffing two more shells into the chambers and snapping the action closed.

  “Well,” Gorski turned to his men, his ears ringing, “I said it would get loud!”

  “Forward!” Johansen shouted, and pushed past Dumond, his MP-38 up and ready. Gorski followed him, with Dumond and finally Verhoeven taking up rear guard.

  They proceeded down a short hallway and emerged into a longer perpendicular corridor. Somewhere an alarm bell was ringing, and the Revenants heard shouting in both French and German. There was no immediate indication of where they should go.

  “Split up,” Gorski said to his men. “Johansen, with me. You two, go that way. And if you find a telephone, make sure to disable it.”

  Gorski and Johansen turned left as Dumond and Verhoeven turned right. A few meters down the corridor, Gorski passed several holding cells, one of which contained a sullen-looking older man in a threadbare suit. The man was clearly drunk, as his only reaction to seeing Gorski and Johansen was to slowly raise a hand in greeting.

  “The interrogation room,” Gorski demanded, “where is it?”

  “Can you spare a few francs for some wine?” the man asked, holding out his palm.

  “I don’t believe this,” Johansen muttered.

  A door further down the corridor slammed open, and a man shouted. Gorski turned and saw a gendarme emerging from an office, fumbling with his buckled holster. Taking deliberate aim, Gorski raked a burst across the man’s legs, dropping him to the floor. The man cried out in pain, and a revolver clattered away, out of the gendarme’s reach.

  Gorski stepped up to the man and put the muzzle of his weapon in the Frenchman’s face. The gendarme - a young fellow in his early 20s - looked up wide-eyed and stared at the smoking muzzle of the MP-38.

  “The prisoner, Paquet,” Gorski asked. “Where is he?”

  A rattle of gunfire erupted down the hall behind them, and a man screamed in agony. The wounded gendarme blinked several times, then swallowed, pointing back down the hallway in the direction they’d been proceeding.

  “The stairs down, on the left,” he said, his voice edged with pain.

  “Thank you,” Gorski replied, then smashed the barrel of his gun against the man’s temple. The gendarme gave a grunt and fell back, senseless. Johansen gave Gorski an unreadable look, then kicked the revolver further down the hall.

  The two proceeded to the end of the hallway, where a staircase presented exits leading up and down. Johansen covering the stairs above them, Gorski led them down to the basement level, where they were greeted by another locked and reinforced doo
r. As Johansen stood guard, Gorski tried the ring of keys until he found one that worked. He opened the door, only to throw his body out of the way as a burst of slugs hammered through the thick wooden door. He’d only gotten a brief glimpse inside, but it had been enough to see a large wooden desk overturned in a corner, with two helmets and a pair of gun barrels visible above. There was another door on the far side of the room, but no other indication of where Paquet might be, or even if this was the right place.

  Another machine pistol burst chewed away at the door frame, and Gorski hand-signalled to Johansen. Two guards. German. Machine Pistols. Cover. Right Corner.

  The tall Norwegian nodded, then reached into his musette bag and produced one of their small supply of Mills bombs. Gorski nodded, and Johansen pulled the pin on the British-made hand grenade, let the arming lever fly, counted off two seconds, then flipped the grenade around the door and into the room. A blast of autofire nearly caught his hand, but Johansen was fast enough to escape losing any fingers, and the two Revenants flattened themselves on either side of the door as a shout was cut off by the crack of the grenade’s detonation.

  A cloud of dust and debris blew out of the room, and with their ears ringing from the grenade and gunfire, both Gorski and Johansen pushed the muzzles of their MP-38s around the doorframe and hammered twin streams of 9mm slugs through the shattered remnants of the overturned table. Gorski saw one man slump sideways, half his face chopped away by gunfire, while the second man attempted to stand and bring his gun to bear, before Johansen stitched him from belt to throat with slugs, knocking him back against the wall. Coughing a froth of blood, the German’s legs collapsed and he fell forward, smashing his head against the overturned table as he dropped.

  Gorski stepped into the room and fired a short burst from his machine pistol into each of the Germans for good measure. He then turned to the door on the other side of the room, saw it was mostly intact save for a few splintered pock-marks where grenade fragments had torn into it. Nothing looked to have penetrated the door, however, so while Johansen stood guard again, Gorski found the key that opened the lock. Above them he heard sporadic gunfire, and he knew they had little time before either reinforcements arrived, or the authorities sealed off Abbeville and denied them any hope of escape.

  The interior door at last swung open, and the room inside was a grim cement cube with a grated drain in the center, a chair bolted to the floor nearby, and a table bolted to the floor in the corner. Sitting in the chair, wearing manacles chained to an eyebolt in the floor, was Paquet - or, at least, someone Gorski assumed to be Paquet, for the man’s face was an unrecognizable pulp, bloodied and swollen. As Gorski stepped into the room, Paquet raised his head and peered through the one eye that wasn’t completely swollen shut.

  “I...I am sorry,” Paquet mumbled through smashed lips and dried blood. His right hand twitched, bound to the arm of the chair, and Gorski saw it was purple and swollen, the fingers crooked. “They...used a hammer on my hand.”

  Gorski approached Paquet and fumbled with the key ring again, finding a key that unlocked the tumbler holding the manacles shut.

  “Never mind that,” he told Paquet. “We’ll get you out of here.”

  His hands free, Gorski got Paquet’s left arm around his shoulders, but as he tried to raise the Frenchman, Paquet groaned and coughed, flecks of bright, fresh blood spraying across the cement floor. Gorski eased him back into the chair and ran his hands along Paquet’s sides, an action that caused Paquet to shudder in agony.

  “When they captured me, one of them...used the butt of his rifle on me. I heard...I heard something break in me.”

  “This is going to hurt, but I need to see how bad it is,” Gorski said. He felt along the battered ribs, noting at least three which were definitely broken. One of them had likely given the lung a small tear or puncture, and Paquet spasmed in pain as Gorski examined him, coughing up more blood.

  Gorski shook his head. “I’m sorry, you have internal injuries. You would need a hospital and a surgeon to survive this.”

  “Would, yes. Would,” Paquet replied. “I am a dead man. If you move me, I’ll die from...from the beating. If I stay, they will kill me.”

  Gorski nodded. “I truly am sorry. We tried to get to you in time.”

  “I told them you were here to sabotage...to blow up the trains,” Paquet said. “I told them you were going to plant bombs.”

  “They don’t know of the real mission?” Gorski asked. “You said nothing of Kohl?”

  Paquet shook his head slowly. “They went to the rail yard, the Germans. They talked of searching the cars, the engines.”

  “What of Helene and Ethan?” Gorski asked.

  “I told them Berger and I were alone,” Paquet said. “The gendarmes, one of them said he knew Berger did business...did business with me.”

  “Helene and Ethan are safe,” Gorski told him. “They have fled outside the city. We will keep them safe, bring them back to England if we can.”

  Paquet nodded. “Good. That is good, thank you. They are good people.”

  “We need to go. Now,” Johansen stated from the doorway.

  “Give me a gun,” Paquet pointed to the MP-38 in Gorski’s hands. “I will do what I can when they return.”

  Gorski nodded and reloaded the machine pistol, then handed it to Paquet. “Fire short bursts, two or three bullets at a time. It has thirty-two in the magazine.” He thought for a moment, then pulled a Mills bomb from his musette bag, pulled the pin, and carefully wedged the grenade in behind Paquet, so the arming lever was held in place by his back.

  “For when you can’t fight any longer,” he said. “Good luck.”

  Gorski stood and turned, moving towards the door. Paquet was racked by another fit of wet, bloody coughing. By the time it subsided, Gorski had collected an undamaged MP-38 and ammunition pouches from the dead guards in the outer room.

  “Make it count!” Paquet croaked out.

  “What?” Gorski asked, nearly at the stairwell.

  “Make all this count,” Paquet told him. “All of this. Make them pay.”

  Gorski nodded, then ascended the stairs.

  FOURTEEN

  Gorski and Johansen reached the three way intersection at the same time Dumond unleashed another double-blast of buckshot towards the other end of the hallway.

  “Get clear!” he shouted back at them as he leaned back into the short hallway, breaking open the shotgun and reloading. “The gendarmes have returned!”

  Pistol fire and the heavier crack of a carbine announced the arrival of the French law enforcement officers. Gorski and Johansen ducked and took the corner as bullets knocked away pieces of brickwork and plaster.

  “Where’s Piet?” Gorski shouted to Dumond.

  “Holding the alleyway!” the big Frenchman replied. “What about Paquet?”

  “Come on, later!” Gorski told him. He took his last Mills’ Bomb from his musette bag and armed it, then threw it around the corner and down the hall.

  The three men passed through the outer holding room and into the small open area before the alleyway. Verhoeven was kneeling at the corner, carefully squeezing off single shots from his MP-38.

  “At least two of them at the end of the alley, they can’t get to the locked gate though,” he reported. “Get to the truck, I’ll cover you.”

  “No, I’ll cover,” Gorski told him. “Go!”

  Verhoeven gave him a cross look, but got up and took off at a run down the alleyway as Gorski stuck the barrel of his machine pistol around the corner and emptied his magazine in three long bursts. He reloaded fast, then fired off another long burst before awkwardly running backwards towards the truck, squeezing off two or three bullets at a time as he did so. The gendarmes, unwilling to face automatic weapons fire, remained content with poking their service weapons around the corners of the alleyway entrance and firing a shot or two, not even bothering to see where they were aiming.

  As Gorski reached the truck, a pa
ir of hands grabbed his coat and lifted him over the tailgate. Dumond set him down, then picked up his shotgun, firing a parting salvo as Lambert drove the truck out of the alleyway and around the corner.

  “What about Paquet?” Dumond asked as the truck accelerated down the street.

  Gorski shifted in the truck’s cargo bed, putting his back against the hard side as he dug another magazine out of his musette bag and reloaded.

  “They’d beaten him so badly, without a doctor, he’d be dead by tomorrow. I left him one of these,” he lifted his MP-38, “and booby-trapped his body.”

  Dumond and Verhoeven seemed to take the news in stride. “What do the Germans know?” Verhoeven asked.

  “He told them we were here to sabotage the trains running to Calais,” Gorski answered. “He says the Germans are there now, at the railyard, searching for bombs.”

  “And the others?” Dumond asked.

  “He didn’t tell them anything,” Gorski replied. “Which means if they weren’t grabbed when they got Paquet, they weren’t suspected. Now, though, who knows. Even if he didn’t tell them, someone might have seen them flee, might put it all together after the fact.”

  Dumond nodded. “So, what now?”

  Gorski shook his head and pulled aside the canvas cover over the tailgate. They were heading towards the edge of town, and Lambert was taking them along a different road, away from where they’d killed the sentries.

  At first he was unsure of what to do next, but an idea, dangerous but intriguing, formed in his mind. He turned to Verhoeven. “Unpack eight of our charges and put them in my rucksack,” he said.

  “What’s the plan?” Verhoeven asked, moving towards the front of the truck, where their gear was piled.

  “Paquet told them we were going to sabotage the trains at the railyard,” Gorski said. “But if they search and find no evidence of that, and then return to what we did back there, they may figure out Paquet lied to cover up our real mission.”