Lynch and the other sergeants looked at Stambridge with bemused expressions on their faces.
“So, what are we supposed to do there?” Lynch asked.
Stambridge smiled, something Lynch had never seen the lieutenant do before.
“We’re going to visit the Germans at their Lustschloss,” Stambridge said. “And then, we’re going to slaughter them to a man.”
Chapter 2
Chateau De Lorieux Estate, Near Crossac, France
March 21st, 2300 Hours
Moving silently through the trees, SS-Sturmscharführer Klaus Kurzmann paused, eyes narrowing as he scanned the woods ahead of him for any sign of movement. He’d been stalking his prey for twenty minutes, and although he’d had glimpses of his quarry in the evening gloom, he’d not been able to get a clear shot.
Slowly, with a smooth, measured pace, Kurzmann moved to just inside the edge of the treeline. Beyond, a field still dotted with patches of old snow extended for several hundred metres. Kurzmann knew his quarry was out there somewhere, trading the concealment of the forest for the ease of covering open ground. But the sky was cloudy, the moonlight fickle. Right now, the field was nothing more than a murky plain dotted here and there with patches of light grey. Even with his keen eyesight, his quarry would be nearly invisible.
Kurzmann leaned against the trunk of a tree, wincing with pain as the still-tender scar tissue near his groin pulled with the movement. He’d been split open by an artillery shell fragment four months ago, and he hadn’t gotten proper medical attention for days afterward. Because of this, the wound had never healed properly, a constant reminder of his last days on the Ostfront. He’d made three kills before the artillery found him, and then his position had been pulverized, his two assistants turned into ragged shreds of meat.
Kurzmann had lain covered in dust and rubble, near-dead and written off by comrades who’d seen his position hammered apart by Soviet heavy artillery shells. After three days, he was revived by the sound of Ivans approaching the German lines, their movements hidden and undetected. Summoning every ounce of his will, Kurzmann had killed four men, two of them officers, and his fire had drawn the attention of the German defenders, who responded by counter-attacking and destroying the battalion-strong Soviet assault.
Kurzmann’s hand moved to his tunic and his fingers touched the fabric of his Ritterkreuz ribbon. He’d been given the notification of the award while still in the hospital, and he’d paid little attention to it at the time. Kurzmann had already been presented with the Eisernes Kreuz - both Second and First Class - for actions in Poland and the Ukraine, respectively. Not one to suffer from Halsschmerzen, Kurzmann never fought with the goal of winning an award, unlike some who suffered from a “sore throat” and sought to receive such an honor.
No, Kurzmann was only interested in one thing - the hunt. He’d been taught how to stalk and kill game with his father, a veteran of the Great War, and the skills of the hunter had evolved naturally into the skills of a battlefield sniper. He’d started out as a mere rifleman before the war, but as his expertise in marksmanship, camouflage, and fieldcraft became evident, his superiors found a more focused use for his talents. By the time of Operation Barbarossa, Kurzmann was completely at peace with his role, roaming the edges of the front lines, finding and eliminating Soviet officers, pinning down heavy weapons teams, killing tank commanders, and gathering intelligence through hidden observation.
But for Kurzmann, all of that was simply an excuse, because once he discovered the thrill of stalking and killing human beings, nothing else was even remotely comparable. He’d been intrigued by the idea ever since, as a young man, he’d read Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” translated into German. The notion of man hunting man stuck with him, and once der Führer came into power, Kurzmann joined the Schutzstaffel, and later the Waffen-SS, not because of political ideology, but more because, deep down, he knew that one day, the party would give him the opportunity to realize his verboten desire.
Just then, the cloud cover over the field opened for a moment, and Kurzmann spotted movement in a low drainage ditch along the southern edge of the field. Without conscious effort, Kurzmann raised his rifle, a well-preserved Scharfschützen Gewehr ‘98 with a 3x Goerz telescopic sight. The weapon had cost him a dozen gold watches acquired during the invasion of Poland, but for Kurzmann, it was practically a holy artifact. He wrapped the rifle’s sling around his arm, aiding him in bracing the weapon, and within moments he’d found his quarry in the scope’s reticle.
Kurzmann tracked his target as it moved along the ditch, the range a hair over two hundred metres. He took in a breath, exhaled a bit to release the pressure on his muscles, and at the perfect moment, his finger squeezed the trigger, which broke smooth and clean, like snapping a thin glass rod. The rifle bucked against his shoulder, and before he even recovered and checked the target through the scope, Kurzmann knew the shot had struck true. He lowered the rifle while working the bolt and pocketing the spent brass cartridge, preferring to not leave it behind.
Keeping his rifle at the ready, just in case, Kurzmann moved to his left and began circling out and around the side of the field, making his way towards his downed quarry. His long legs ate up the distance quickly, and a few minutes later he stood over his target. The young man was face-down in a pile of dirty, ice-crusted snow, a crimson wound in the center of his back. Kurzmann’s bullet had broken the man’s spine, the bullet no doubt fragmenting and tumbling as it shredded the heart and shattered the sternum before exiting the body. Kurzmann turned over the corpse and examined the exit wound, a ragged hole some three centimetres in diameter, flecked with bits of broken bone.
It had been a perfect killing wound. Kurzmann knew that some snipers bragged about making head shots, but Kurzmann rarely bothered, only resorting to one if most of the target’s body was behind cover. The head was small, moved constantly, and was often protected by a helmet, meaning a glancing shot at long range might only stun the target. On the other hand, the torso was big and broad and moved a lot more deliberately, making it far easier to hit, especially at long ranges. Kurzmann also knew that there was little need to make a headshot in order to ensure a target’s demise, for a solid hit from a 7.92mm Spitzer bullet was lethal at more than two kilometres, far beyond the effective range of even his prized Gewehr ‘98.
Kurzmann’s impassive gaze moved to the dead man’s face. A young Soviet rifleman captured back in September, he had wasted precious German resources while held in captivity for months, until a few discreet inquiries by Kurzmann’s commanding officer had the man, along with a number of his fellow prisoners, shipped west to the Schloss de Lorieux. After all, even though he was officially still on medical leave, it wouldn’t do for Kurzmann’s lethal skills to atrophy while away from the front.
The rattle of automatic weapon fire a half-kilometre to the north brought Kurzmann’s head up, his senses alerted for any sign of danger. But after a few moments there was no more gunfire, and Kurzmann smiled, nodding to himself. It was only Brune, finally cornering and dispatching his own quarry for the evening. He noted that he hadn’t heard anything from the south, but of course, Stahl almost never used his sidearm while they were hunting. The Sturmmann preferred...other weapons.
Still, if Brune had dispatched his quarry, it was time to return back to the Schloss. And, like many hunters, Kurzmann wanted to keep a trophy from each of his kills. Slinging his rifle, Kurzmann drew a short, razor-sharp hunting knife from a sheath on his belt. Kneeling, he picked up the dead man’s hand by the thumb so it stuck out, away from the palm.
With a hunter’s precision, Kurzmann began to cut.
Chapter 3
Three Miles West Of Assérac, France
March 26th, 0030 Hours
Lynch came ashore in the frigid, knee-deep surf, wading the last fifty feet in a scuttling crouch, his Thompson at the ready. Every time he made an amphibious landing on a hostile beach, his imagination plagued him with an unseen machin
e gun nest, or a mortar team pre-sighted on the beach, ready to turn them all into offal. His eyes scanned the shoreline for any dangers, but they’d picked a night when the moonlight was at a minimum, and there were no residences within sight. As far as Lynch was able to discern, they were alone.
“Alright lads, secure the beach. Bren teams on the flanks, the rest of you, look sharp now.”
The eleven other members of Lynch’s squad moved forward and away from him, forming a shallow arc some hundred yards across along the beach. As their shadows disappeared into cover to each of his flanks, Lynch waited, counting to sixty silently. When there was no sign of the enemy, Lynch unclipped an electric, red-lensed torch from his belt and pointed it out to sea, flashing it in a particular coded pattern. A few seconds later, he saw a single red flash in reply. Lynch turned from the water and kept watch inland, kneeling in the scrub brush some thirty yards from the water.
They’d come ashore at the southern edge of a shallow, mile-wide cove, which was in turn surrounded by a much larger natural harbour some thirty miles across, between Carnac and Guerande. Navigating these waters had been rather perilous, as the Commandos had been ferried over from England aboard a pair of armoured gunboats modified for nighttime operations. Still, there had always been the possibility that a German air or naval patrol would spot one of the ships outlined against the horizon, or the phosphorescence of their wake. Thankfully, the gunboats sported 20-millimetre automatic cannons and armour plating, and there would have been some hope of being able to fight free if detected - a far cry from the days when Lynch and the other Commandos had come ashore from a militarized fishing trawler.
As he waited for the rest of the Commando troop to arrive, Lynch thought back to that first covert landing, near the small town of Merlimont. Their force had consisted of just twelve men, no more than the squad Lynch now commanded, and along with a force of resistance fighters, they’d defeated the better part of a German motorized company. But it had cost them a number of lives, both French and British, and his second landing, near Calais, had been even more costly to their squad of twelve.
Now, a year later, only seven of them remained in the fight, and only Harry Nelson remained in his squad, serving as his corporal and assistant squad leader. McTeague, White, and Hall were part of the troop’s command section, while Bowen and Johnson were part of the weapons squad. Although they still served together as part of the same troop of fifty-four men, Lynch felt a certain uneasiness at the idea of those who referred to themselves as “the Calais men” not fighting in the same squad anymore.
Lynch turned and looked to his left, towards where Nelson was hidden, serving as leader of the second section. Although the blustering Cockney hid it well, Lynch knew Nelson wished their old squadmates were close at hand. Men who fought together as long and desperately as they came to know how each man moved and sounded, how they reacted to enemy fire and how they fought back. It turned the squad into something far greater than the sum of its parts, and when the squad was broken up, and the synergy was lost, so too was that greatness.
An owl hooted once nearby, and Lynch froze. The sound came again, a few seconds later, and pointing his Thompson towards the direction of the hooting, Lynch did his best imitation of the sound. There was silence for several long seconds before the owl hoot came again, a bit to his right, and much closer. Lynch shifted his aim slightly and kept his finger from the trigger, making the hooting noise again.
“Fish and chips,” an accented voice whispered, no more than twenty feet away.
“Bangers and mash,” Lynch whispered in response, his body tensing in anticipation of an attack, despite his best efforts to remain calm.
A moment passed, and then there was the sound of a twig snapping under a foot, and a dark shape emerged from behind a bush only ten feet from Lynch. The newcomer stepped out into the dim moonlight, and Lynch saw a tall man in civilian clothes, carrying a German Kar 98K rifle.
“Your name?” Lynch asked, his weapon still at the ready.
“I am called Le Chasseur,” the man said in a quiet voice.
“Very well, come closer,” Lynch replied, rising to his feet.
The Frenchman took several more steps, until he was within arm’s reach. Lynch smelled the man’s body odor, strong but not repugnant. This close, Lynch saw that Le Chasseur was of middle age, perhaps in his mid-40s, and over six feet in height, with broad shoulders and a trim waist. His lean, hard-featured face was covered in a thick, dark beard, and a woolen cap sat low across the Frenchman’s brow. The man wore a brown woolen coat, open at the front to reveal German web gear and ammunition pouches, and he carried a haversack slung at his left hip. At his right, the coat was tucked back to reveal an unbuckled pistol holster, of the kind used to carry a German P-38.
Although not privy to the particulars of how the arrangements had been made, Lynch knew that Le Chasseur was one of the Maquis, the French resistance fighters who struggled against all odds to make life difficult for the German occupying forces. The Maquis had seen to it that Le Chasseur would act as their guide on the mission, but he was under no obligation to fight with them - such human assets were too valuable to the resistance to be put in such a dangerous situation, especially since the entire mission was dangerous to begin with.
As Lynch took in the Frenchman’s appearance, he saw that Le Chasseur was doing the same to him. Face and hands blackened with greasepaint, Lynch wore a green woolen beret and khaki battledress, as well as his web gear and a heavy rucksack. He was armed with not only a Thompson submachine gun, but a Browning automatic holstered on his right hip. On the left, Lynch wore a pouch with three spare magazines, as well as his Fairbairn-Sykes dagger. Clipped to his web gear, Lynch carried four No. 36 “Mills bomb” hand grenades. His ammunition pouches were stuffed with six 20-round magazines apiece for his Thompson, and Lynch carried another dozen magazines in his rucksack, as well as a pair of 30-round magazines for the squad’s Bren guns.
“I hope you are strong, mon ami,” the Frenchman said. “You are carrying a great deal, and we have far to travel tonight.”
“Speaking of carrying things, I have something for you,” Lynch replied. He picked up another, lighter rucksack from the ground next to his feet, and handed it to Le Chasseur. “That has everything you requested as part of our bargain.”
The Frenchman did not bother to examine the contents of the pack, but instead slung it over his shoulder, then nodded towards the shoreline.
“The rest of your comrades have arrived,” he said.
Keeping his Thompson pointed in the Frenchman’s general direction, Lynch turned and saw seven inflatable rafts landing along the shore, each of them containing a half-squad of Commandos.
“Captain Eldred and Lieutenant Stambridge will want to meet with you right away,” Lynch said. He turned to a bush immediately to his right. “Nigel, take Gibson and Frost, and push ahead two hundred yards.”
The bush rustled softly, and trooper Nigel Herring emerged, carrying a German MP-38 machine pistol, much to the surprise of Le Chasseur, who took a step back in alarm.
“Evening, guv’ner,” Herring said softly, teeth gleaming in the moonlight as he grinned, knowing the Frenchman hadn’t realized he’d been hiding only a few feet away. With a quick salute to Lynch, Herring moved off to his right, gathering the two nearest riflemen to him before the three Commandos moved soundlessly to the east, soon disappearing into the brush near where Le Chasseur had appeared.
“That man, he is very good, yes?” Le Chasseur asked. “Was he a hunter?”
“Herring? If he hunted anything in his life, it was likely flash toffs stumbling out of pubs in the wee hours of the night,” Lynch replied.
The Frenchman furrowed his brows. “I do not understand what you mean by this.”
Lynch smiled. “Not to worry, Herring knows what he’s about. Come now, off we go to meet the officers.”
And with that, Lynch escorted Le Chasseur back to where the rest of No. 4 Troop was
assembling.
Chapter 4
Chateau De Lorieux Estate
March 26th, 0100 Hours
With a sigh of contentment, Kurzmann tipped the bottle of cognac upside down and watched the last drops fall into his glass. He set the bottle down with an unsteady hand, picked up the glass, and took a long sip of the VSOP-grade liquor. The bottle cost more than he earned in three months, but fortunately he and the men he sat with that evening didn’t have to pay anything to enjoy it, one of the many benefits of their holiday at the Lustschloss.
At the table with him sat Stahl and Brune. The three men had adjoining rooms on the top floor of the chateau, and while Kurzmann had never met them before, they’d all become amiable comrades during their two weeks of leave rotation. Sturmmann Stahl was short-statured and wiry, with a bald pate, the sharp features of a weasel, and long-fingered, dexterous hands. Oberscharführer Brune, on the other hand, was a thick-shouldered beast of a man, taller even than Kurzmann, and built like some kind of great primeval beast, with thick, black hair across his arms and chest, and heavy brows over dark, murderous eyes. A ridge of scar tissue the width of a man’s thumb circled the outer orbit of Brune’s right eye, and it gave that eye a permanent squint that did little to soften Brune’s features.
They were in one of the chateau’s several parlours, the table’s white cloth cluttered with the empty bottle of cognac, two empty bottles of wine, the long-finished remnants of their evening meal, and a silver ashtray piled high with cigarette butts. In addition, Stahl had laid out several different knives, along with a sharpening stone and some oil, and he was meticulously cleaning and honing each weapon while chain-smoking cigarettes. Brune was absentmindedly flipping through a dog-eared deck of pornographic French playing cards and occasionally chuckling to himself. Kurzmann had his feet up on the table, chair tilted back on two legs, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the phonograph in the corner as it played a Handel concerto.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume II Page 32
