Kurzmann looked at Knopf sitting next to him, the officer attempting - but failing - to pour the contents of the wine bottle into his canteen. The uneven roadway meant that much of the wine was ending up all over Knopf’s trousers and the floorboards of the Kübelwagen, rather than in the man’s canteen. As they hit a particularly rough patch of ground, Knopf splashed the wine all over the sleeve of his uniform. Cursing, he looked to Kurzmann, then offered the bottle.
“Care to finish it off, SS-Sturmscharführer? It’s just going to wind up all over my-.”
The bottle exploded, spraying slivers of broken glass and wine everywhere. The crackle of disciplined rifle fire to the west was drowned out by the roar of machine guns, and the driver’s head blew apart in a shower of blood and brains. An explosion rocked the Kübelwagen, sending the vehicle careening off the road and plowing into a ditch.
Something hit Kurzmann in the head, and there was only darkness.
Chapter 21
1230 Hours
“Focus on that armoured car!” Lynch screamed over the roar of automatic weapons fire.
Lance-Corporal Higgins shifted the muzzle of his Bren and began raking the Morris CS9 with short, disciplined bursts of .303 calibre bullets. The car’s driver, responding to the attack with a degree of intelligence, turned the front of the Morris into the brunt of the incoming fire, presenting the vehicle’s heavier - and much more sloped - frontal armor towards the ambush. He then put the Morris into reverse, backing up to the edge of the road, while the gunner in the Morris’ turret, now ducked down well out of sight, brought the car’s heavy machine gun around and began sweeping the ambush site with long bursts of fire.
Lynch ducked as several bullets cracked overhead. His Thompson useless against the Morris car, he turned to Herring, who was prone next to him, firing short bursts from his MP-40 at the underside of the Kübelwagen stuck on its side in the opposite ditch.
“Run back and bring up the Boys rifle team!” Lynch shouted at Herring.
The trooper nodded and scooted back, still prone, before rolling up into a low crouch and moving back towards the Commandos’ reserve position. Off to his left, Lynch heard the sound of the MG-34 firing several quick bursts, the 7.92mm bullets glancing away from the Morris’ armoured hull. The car’s driver shifted the vehicle slightly, angling against both Higgins’ Bren and the MG-34, and the Vickers gunner rotated the turret to engage the other machine gun, which went silent soon after. Lynch didn’t know if they’d been killed, or simply went to ground. The Vickers swung back towards Lynch’s position, as the driver continued to back the vehicle up slowly.
“Keep fire on the Morris!” Lynch ordered Higgins, but the man knew what he was about, splitting his fire between the driver’s vision block and the front of the Morris’ turret.
To his right, the other two troopers in his section were putting accurate fire into the covered cargo bed of the closest lorry. Lynch saw German soldiers climbing over the far side of the bed and falling into the ditch, and the Commandos’ rifle fire was answered by a couple of Mausers, their muzzle flashes visible under the lorry’s chassis. Lynch brought up his Thompson and emptied a 20-round magazine under the vehicle, seeing gouts of dirt and grass kick up along the edge of the opposite ditch. He didn’t know if he’d hit anything, but the fire from the Germans slackened.
As he reloaded, Lynch wondered who’d fired the first shot. From his position, it didn’t appear as if the Germans had seen anything unusual, or indeed, if they were even going to stop and search the area. But someone off to his right had fired, and immediately, both squads of Commandos had engaged the German convoy. Someone from Nelson’s section had thrown a grenade at the Kübelwagen, and since Lynch hadn’t seen any movement from the wreck, he hoped at least that the convoy’s leadership was either dead or wounded. It would make their job a lot easier if there was no one directing the actions of the German infantry.
But after a quick count of the lorries in the convoy, Lynch was concerned. Even if the Germans had taken significant casualties, by now the survivors were in cover on the other side of the road, and they were regrouping under the command of squad and section leaders. The sound of Mauser rifle fire was punctuated by the unmistakable rattle of machine pistols, and Lynch heard the heavier sound of a LMG he didn’t immediately recognize - perhaps a captured French design.
The engine of the Morris car snarled with acceleration, and Lynch turned in time to see the vehicle back into, and climb out of, the ditch on the other side of the road. It was a risky manoeuvre, he was sure, as the older armoured car design lacked a lot of ground clearance, but the driver was careful and there was likely someone watching the ground behind the car from the vehicle’s rear hatch, because the Morris made it to the other side of the ditch, and from there, continued to back away from the road, moving deeper into the brush to the east.
“Keep him busy, Higgins!” Lynch ordered. The other Commando fired off the last of the Bren’s 30-round magazine, and Higgins’ loader moved to begin the reloading process. Sensing the lull in the incoming fire, the Vickers gunner in the Morris’ turret took the opportunity to sweep the Commandos’ position with a fan of heavy .50 calibre slugs. Gouts of earth raced across the front of their position, and Lynch heard one of his riflemen grunt in pain. He turned to see Gibson, face down in the grass, his hands unmoving around the stock of his Lee-Enfield. Lynch saw the bloom of blood soaking through Gibson’s battledress around a large bullet hole near his collar. Pushing himself along his belly, Lynch moved backwards and towards Gibson. He reached the wounded man and felt over Gibson’s back, searching for an exit wound. Lynch’s hand encountered a wet, jagged cavity as wide as his clenched fist, low on Gibson’s back just above his belt. Lynch surmised that the bullet had come in above the clavicle and ripped down through the length of Gibson’s torso before leaving the massive exit wound in its wake. He grabbed Gibson’s jaw and looked at the man’s face, but Gibson’s eyes were already still and glassy, his body limp and motionless in death. The enormous .50 calibre bullet had killed the rifleman instantly.
“Is he hit bad?” Frost, the other trooper, called out to Lynch.
“He’s had it, so he has,” Lynch replied. “Keep your eyes front and your head down, damn you! Or you’ll be joining him for sure.”
“Bloody Jerry bastards!” Frost cursed, snapping open the bolt of his SMLE and ejecting his last spent cartridge. Frost reloaded his rifle with two five-round chargers, and Lynch hesitated a moment before opening the magazine pouches on Gibson’s webbing, pulling free a handful of charging clips and the two Bren magazines the trooper carried. His hands too full for the Mills bombs on Gibson’s belt, he nevertheless crawled forward, giving the clips to Frost and the Bren magazines to Higgins’ loader.
“What happened?” Higgins shouted over the sound of his Bren.
“Gibson’s dead,” Lynch shouted back. “Keep the pressure on that damn Vickers!”
The Morris continued to back away, and was now more than a hundred yards distant. Lynch saw Germans moving from cover to cover and falling back, the enemy working in disciplined teams to fire and move by sections. They didn’t act with the speed and precision of combat veterans, but even these rear echelon troops were trained Heer infantry, making them opponents that Lynch and the other Commandos would do well to not underestimate.
Lynch sensed movement to his rear, and turned to see Herring crawling towards him, passing Gibson’s corpse with little more than a curious glance. Behind Herring, two men crawled, dragging the massive Boys anti-tank rifle between them.
“There she is, lads,” Lynch told the anti-tank rifle team. “Morris car, straight ahead.”
“Right, we’ll knock it out, Tommy,” the lead gunner assured Lynch, as he unfolded the Boys’ bipod, the loader pulling free a five-round magazine from an ammo satchel.
Lynch turned to Herring. “Make sure they stay low, you hear? I’m going to go check on the MG-34 team. They haven’t fired since the shooting start
ed.”
Herring shook his head. “No need, they fell back. Two killed, and the gun’s out of action, so we’re the flank now!”
“Bloody hell,” Lynch muttered.
“Rifle is ready!” shouted the Boys gunner, bracing the weapon’s stock against his shoulder.
Lynch brought up his Thompson. “Everyone fire! Pin down the gunner!”
Lynch, Herring, Frost, Higgins, and the Boys gunner all opened fire on the Morris car. While none of their small arms had any real chance of taking out the vehicle, Lynch hoped to keep the gunner’s head down long enough for the Boys rifle to do its work. The big rifle fired with an enormous report, the muzzle brake throwing dirt and shredded grass up into the air. As fast as its massive bolt-action was cycled, the gunner fired four more times. By the time the weapon ran dry, and the loader replaced the empty magazine with a fresh one, Lynch saw a wisp of smoke rising from the front of the Morris, where he knew the engine was located. Despite the car’s heavily sloped armour, at least one of the .55 calibre armour-piercing rounds had found something vital.
“Put another five rounds into it!” Lynch shouted. “We need to make sure it isn’t going anywhere.”
The gunner threw Lynch an evil look, massaging his battered shoulder before settling in behind the rifle again. Lynch sympathized with the man - he’d used a Boys rifle against an Italian armoured car in North Africa last year, and knew the Boys had a savage recoil. Still, one glance at Gibson’s body convinced him that the Morris car needed to be taken out of action.
Of course, as his gaze moved towards their right flank, and he again counted the number of lorries abandoned along the road, and saw all the muzzle flashes in the undergrowth to the east, he knew that the Morris was only one of their troubles.
Chapter 22
1245 Hours
Kurzmann awoke to the sounds of gunfire and the smell of wine, blood, and spilled petrol. Someone was shaking his leg, and he focused his gaze on Stahl, lying on the ground next to him, half his face a sheet of drying blood.
“You look awful,” Kurzmann mumbled.
“None of it is mine,” Stahl replied. “The poor bastard next to me took one in the throat. But I think most of the blood on your face does belong to you.”
Kurzmann raised an unsteady hand and brushed it across his brow, feeling a three-centimetre gash near his hairline and a bloody lump above his right ear.
“How long have I been out?” he asked.
“Long enough. The Tommies hurt us, badly, but they haven’t pushed us after we made it to cover. We’ve formed up about a hundred metres back from the road,” Stahl pointed to the east, over the outer rim of the ditch. “Haas is alive, as is Vogt. Taube is wounded, but he’ll live. We’ve lost more than a dozen dead, at least as many wounded. The Morris car is burning, but they got the Vickers off before that went, too.”
Kurzmann sat up slowly, careful to not expose himself to enemy fire. His back was to the Kübelwagen, which loomed above him, its fuel tank drained all over the ditch, along with the blood of the dead driver, who still hung half-out of his seat, arms dangling. The soldier who’d manned the machine gun was prone next to Kurzmann, peering out at the British from a gap in the lip of the ditch he’d dug out underneath the Kübelwagen. The soldat was carefully slipping the barrel of the Reibel machine gun through the gap without getting any dirt in the muzzle.
“Never mind that,” Kurzmann told him. “One burst, and the Tommies will shred this car and us along with it. Gather up what you can before we move out.”
It was then he noticed Knopf, sprawled out at his feet, motionless. Several bullet holes were stitched across his back, the uniform around them soaked dark with blood.
“He tried to get to the radio,” the gunner answered, noticing where Kurzmann was looking.
“And the radio?” Kurzmann asked.
The gunner shook his head. “Shot through and useless. Probably the same burst that killed the Oberleutnant.”
A sudden thought struck Kurzmann. “What about Brune?” he asked Stahl.
The other SS man shrugged and grinned. “You don’t think another bullet wound is going to slow him down, do you? He led a section to retrieve the MG-08s, and now he’s working with Vogt to firm up our left flank.”
Kurzmann looked around and found the butt of his rifle sticking out from underneath Knopf’s legs. He carefully extracted the rifle, breathing a sigh of relief to see that the scope hadn’t suffered any damage.
“Are we the only ones left along the ditch?” Kurzmann asked.
“There are a couple of wounded men too exposed to retrieve,” Stahl replied. “A few others are spread thin along the ditch. If the Tommies try to rush us, these men will slow them down.”
“They’ll be slaughtered,” Kurzmann pointed out.
“They volunteered. I think some of these rear echelon dishrags have a spine, after all,” Stahl said.
“Piss off,” the Reibel gunner muttered, as he finished looting the Kübelwagen for anything useful, stuffing magazines and other items into a bulging rucksack.
“Can you move?” Stahl asked Kurzmann. The sniper moved his head and neck experimentally, wincing from the pain. He stretched his arms and legs, rotating joints and testing his muscles. Nothing seemed broken or sprained. His hand went to his abdomen, where his old wound ached, but Kurzmann was sure that was just scar tissue pulling, and not a fresh injury.
“I think so,” Kurzmann replied, “but we don’t have enough cover. As soon as we leave the ditch, the Tommies will tear us to pieces.”
“We light the petrol and fall back under the cover of the smoke,” Stahl suggested. “The wind is in our favor.”
Kurzmann nodded, and the three men moved to the edge of the ditch, readying themselves for the dash away from the road. Stahl dug around in his pocket and retrieved a matchbook. He lit one, set the rest of the matches in the book alight, then threw the small, blazing packet towards the petrol soaking the ground next to the wreck. The fuel caught, flames licking up towards the wreck, and the three men squirmed over the lip of the ditch on their bellies as black smoke rose up from the Kübelwagen, the vehicle shuddering as what little fuel and vapor left in its tank ignited with a muffled whump, sending even more smoke into the air. The breeze, coming from the west, pushed the smoke over the men, and although they choked and coughed, they were able to crawl back into cover, obscured from the Tommies, who did little other than fire a couple bursts of machine gun fire at the smoke cloud, the rounds passing well over the Germans’ heads.
Eventually, they made their way back to a makeshift headquarters, consisting of little more than a dip in the ground obscured by a cluster of thick scrub brush a couple of metres wide. Haas, Vogt, and Taube were there, the Leutnant giving orders to a runner with a heavily-bandaged hand. Vogt was examining the feed lips on one of his machine pistol magazines, and he gave Kurzmann a nod in greeting as the three men arrived.
“Good to see you’re still among the living,” Vogt said to Kurzmann.
“The matter was open to debate,” Kurzmann replied. “But my skull survived its argument with a large rock.”
“And Knopf?” Vogt asked.
“As dead as the wireless set,” Kurzmann told him. “He died trying to send out a report, no doubt the only act of heroism he’d performed in his entire military career, and it got him killed.”
“For the best,” Vogt said, seating the magazine in his machine pistol and peering into the open bolt, before pulling the magazine, letting the bolt move forward, and reseating the magazine again.
Hass finished relaying his orders to the runner, who saluted, rose to a crouch, glanced at Kurzmann and Vogt, then took off, heading towards the south-east. Haas turned and looked over Kurzmann, Stahl, and the Reibel gunner.
“I heard what you said about Knopf,” Haas said. “Keep such thoughts to yourself when in the presence of the lower ranks. We don’t need such opinions circulating among the soldaten right now.”
“
Jawohl,” Kurzmann replied. “You are right.”
Kurzmann didn’t add that the men likely thought Knopf to have been a buffoon and a shirker, and they were likely far better off without him, but the Reibel gunner was crouching a metre from him, and he didn’t want to annoy Haas just when he needed the man’s compliance the most.
Instead, he looked around their position, then turned to Haas. “What are your orders, Leutnant?”
The younger man let out a long breath and scratched a thumb against the stubble along his chin. “With the volunteers along the ditch, we have sufficient warning of any attack by the Tommies. Our firepower comes from the two MG-08s, as well as the dismounted heavy Vickers. In addition, we have the French MGs, and of course, plenty of rifles and several machine pistols. That should be enough to hold this position unless the Tommies are feeling suicidal, but I doubt that they will attack us. Instead, I believe they will remain concealed, perhaps even fall back, and come nightfall, they will attempt extraction from the coast via a fast motor boat of sufficient size.”
Kurzmann processed all of this for a moment. “Well then, what should we do?”
Haas gestured towards the road to the west. “Without the radio, we’ll have to rely on runners to get word back to battalion that we are in contact with the enemy. Then, while waiting for reinforcements, we need to ensure they do not outflank us and escape this peninsula to attempt extraction somewhere else along the coast. If they cannot cross the road in front of us and escape to either the north or south, they are stuck here, and once we have sufficient numbers and firepower, we can shove them right into the ocean.”
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume II Page 43
