The Commandos and partisans crossed the field together, the British spread out in a long patrol line in case of machine gun attack. They reached the barn in a few minutes; it was a large structure, not quite as big as the barn they called home in Boxhill, and not as well maintained. Many of the boards had cracked and warped, leaving gaps between them, some wide enough to pass a hand through.
Inside, however, the barn had been cleared of old straw and other debris. Baskets of bread, cheese, butter, and hard-boiled eggs were waiting for them, along with jugs of water and a couple of wine bottles. At the sight of the wine, Price gave McTeague a pointed look, and the big Scotsman moved so he could keep an eye on anyone looking to have a bit of a tightener. The rest of the Commandos picked the most comfortable spots in the shadowy gloom of the barn, setting their packs down but keeping their weapons within arms-reach. The food and water was quickly portioned out, and Lynch tucked in with gusto.
Bouchard observed the Commandos while standing next to Price. “Your men look well enough, monsieur, but can they fight?”
Price turned to the little Frenchman. “If they couldn’t, my dear fellow, they would not be here. All these men volunteered to come to your shores despite the risks, because they were eager for action. You won’t find a more belligerent squad of chaps in all of England.”
Bouchard adjusted the MP-38 hanging from his shoulder. “That is good, because before they go back to your island, they will have their fill of fighting. The garrison at Merlimont is ripe for the slaughter, and tomorrow we will harvest many German souls.”
Price was somewhat taken aback by this. “Well...I’m sure it will be a lively battle. Tell me, when should we next expect you? Or are we to be left to our own devices?”
Bouchard gestured across the farmyard to the house, fifty yards distant. “The owners of this farm are asleep now; we thought it best not to wake them. The Soulieres are a brave couple; Monsieur fought in the Great War, and supports our struggle. They left the food here for you. They will check on you over the course of the day. Please do not leave the barn under any circumstances, lest a neighbor or German patrol sees you in the yard. A large bucket with a lid has been left in the back of the barn for you to make toilet, and the Soulieres will bring you food during the day.”
“So you’ll be leaving us to their care alone?” Price asked.
Bouchard grunted. “I will ask René to stay with you. He was a soldier, and will no doubt enjoy telling war tales with your men.”
Price nodded and gave a glance towards the other partisans, who were patiently waiting for their leader. “It appears as if you run a very tight ship, Mister Bouchard.”
“Of course. To do otherwise would mean death. Bonne nuit, Lieutenant Price.”
Without further ado, Bouchard walked over to his men, and after a brief conversation, only René Chenot stayed behind, while the rest walked back into the woods.
Watching the rest of the partisans disappear, Lynch turned to Chenot. “Thank you for staying with us. It is much appreciated.”
Chenot just nodded. “We should rest. Tomorrow will be a long day, without any sleep.”
Bowen overheard the comment. “Spoken like a true soldier.”
Price stepped over to the rest of his men. “Alright lads, you’ve all had a bit to eat. We will break down into four-man shifts. McTeague, Smith, White, and Johnson, you’re on first watch. In four hours, you’ll swap with Bowen, Nelson, Harris, and Green. Those of you not on watch, get some sleep.”
Lynch needed no further encouragement. After his dinner of half a French baguette, a hunk of cheese, and two eggs, he was already exhausted and drowsy. Leaving his web gear buckled on, Lynch pillowed his head on his pack, and propped his Thompson against the wall. Before he knew it, he was sound asleep.
What seemed like mere moments later, Lynch bolted upright, awoken by the deafening roar of the Bren firing a few feet from where he was sleeping.
The Germans had found them.
8
South Of Merlimont
Leutnant Hans Bieber was invincible. Too excited to sit, he instead stood on the seat and steadied himself in the commander’s cupola of his armoured car. Although the steel behemoth had originally sported a 20mm cannon and a co-axial 7.92mm machine gun in a turret where Bieber stood, during the invasion of France the turret had been wrecked by a British anti-tank gun. Although the turret was beyond repair, the rest of the car was fully functional, and a few hours of work with blowtorch and toolbox had seen the turret cut away, then replaced with a pintle-mounted MG-34 and a couple of simple steel hatches. Although much reduced in firepower, the fact that it was given to Bieber as his personal transport made his chest swell with pride. As the car raced down the southern road at full speed, the wheels sent a plume of dust back along the road to choke and blind the three troop transports that followed. No matter, Bieber thought; the drivers were combat veterans, used to handling their vehicles in poor visibility. Right now, he believed speed was the most vital thing, their greatest ally.
When Hauptmann Krieger had given Bieber this assignment, this chance to lead men into battle against their old enemy, the British, Bieber had nearly fainted. Only the iron discipline of the Wehrmacht officer had kept him on his feet. Although Krieger had some regrettable weaknesses - his willingness to ignore his many other duties in favor of sating his baser appetites among them - Bieber had known that, if he had continued to serve Krieger to the utmost of his ability, sooner or later the hauptmann would recognize his leadership qualities and give him his own battlefield command.
And that day had finally come. Thirty men, all battle-tested Panzerschützen, rode in the three troop lorries. Nine out of every ten carried a Kar-98K rifle, and the tenth, the squad’s Feldwebel, or sergeant, carried an MP-38 submachine gun. Each man carried a full load of ammunition and one or two grenades. Bieber himself was only armed with a Walther P-38, holstered at his belt. He was not concerned; the role of an officer was to inspire his men and direct them in battle, not to get distracted and focus only on killing the enemy with his own weapon. Bieber would feel foolish if he even drew the pistol tonight, unless it was to execute some wounded partisan.
Or, he thought, to execute their mole if the information provided had been incorrect. Bieber looked down into the crew compartment of his armoured car; sitting huddled on the right-hand seat was the middle-aged Frenchman named Laurent who had turned traitor to his people. Bieber had decided to bring the man along for two reasons. The first was that, in case they made a legitimately wrong turn, or found the farm abandoned but recently, the partisan might be able to provide information that could set them on the right trail again. The other reason, of course, was to prevent the man from having second thoughts and running to his comrades, in order to warn them and ambush the Germans. As long as the man was with Bieber, the filthy traitor knew he was always a moment away from a nine-millimetre hole through his skull.
“How much further, peasant?” Bieber shouted down at the man.
Laurent leaned forward for a moment, looking through one of the car’s view-slits. “Another kilometre or so. The farm is on the left.”
Bieber turned to the other soldier standing up in the cupola, manning the pintle-mounted MG-34 machine gun. “The moment we turn in to the farm, open fire. Focus on the barn - that’s where the British are supposed to be hiding.”
The soldier nodded, snapping back the bolt and chambering a round.
Before they had left Merlimont, Bieber had outlined his plan to his three Feldwebelen, as he knew there would be no time once they arrived. Bieber’s armoured car would form an anchor point in the center of the farm’s lane and focus all its fire on the barn, pinning the British inside. One of the three squads would support and surround the armoured car, while the other two would flank his position. The squads were to disembark immediately, moving up the left and right flanks. Once they had the barn covered on two sides, the jaws would close, and the British would be annihilated.
&
nbsp; And with the destruction of the British, Bieber knew his military career would be unstoppable.
Laurent suddenly shouted from the belly of the armoured car. “Here, at this turn! This is the farm!”
Bieber slapped the armoured roof of the vehicle over the driver’s head, the signal they had arrived. The driver executed the turn as fast as he was able; for a moment Bieber could actually feel the armoured bulk sliding sideways as it skidded on the dirt road. But the driver knew what he was doing, and with a roar, the vehicle’s six wheels dug in, the car barrelling onto the farm property, sideswiping a section of wooden fence and turning it into so much splintered kindling.
Bieber turned to the MG-34 gunner while screaming, “Offenes feuer!”
But a burst of .303 calibre bullets had just torn the gunner apart.
9
The Souliere Farm
Lance Corporal William Smith saved the entire mission that night. The four men on watch heard the lorries racing up the dirt road, and were each turning to alert or wake up the nearest man, but Smith kept peeking through the wide gap in the open barn wall, his eye on the farm’s dirt lane, and the moment Bieber’s armoured car turned in, Smith opened fire. A more cautious man might have waited for an order to engage the vehicle, worrying that they shouldn’t reveal their position to the Germans.
But Smith knew that was hogwash. The moment the car slewed around and drove onto the property at full speed, there was only one thing to conclude; they had been ratted out, and Jerry was coming to collect their heads. As the vehicle lined up in his sights, Smith sighted along the top of the vehicle, where he knew there was a command hatch, and he sawed the Bren back and forth in a tight arc, emptying the thirty-round magazine in a couple of heartbeats.
The effect on both parties, British and German, was immediate and effective. The armoured car slewed to a halt, German voices shouting and hollering. Behind Smith the other Commandos scrambled to their feet, snatching weapons and calling to each other. Smith snatched the empty magazine from the top of his Bren and slapped in a fresh one, racking back the bolt and chambering a round. Harris, his loader, had come awake as soon as the Bren began to fire, and he now had an extra magazine in his hand, ready to swap out.
Smith raked the armoured car again, and when the three lorries swerved into the yard on either side of the car, Smith shifted fire to engage the one on the right. In moments, his magazine ran dry.
“C’mon Harris! Let’s pour it on the bloody bast-”
Lynch was kneeling on the dirt floor of the barn, Thompson cocked and ready in his hand, about to peek through a crack in the barn’s outer wall, when he saw Lance Corporal Smith’s head fly apart like an overripe fruit. MG-34 fire had come from one of the newly arrived lorries, and the astute gunner, seeing the tongue of flame spewing from the Bren, sighted and fired just as Smith’s gun had run dry. A raking burst of 7.92mm rounds had torn through the wall and shredded Smith’s head in the blink of an eye, spraying his brains back over his prone form and across Harris, his loader. Harris was stunned for a moment before, horrified, he let out a banshee wail.
Without that goddamn Bren, we’re all bloody done for! Lynch reached over and grabbed Harris, shaking him by the collar like a terrier shakes a rat in its jaws.
“Harris, you bloody idiot! Stop screaming like a bint and get on that Bren or we’ll all be like Smith!”
Harris managed to compose himself a little, and tried to shove Smith’s corpse off the stock of the Bren, but the gunner had been a big man, and Harris was reluctant to touch the gore-splattered corpse. Lynch scooted closer, and with a hard shove to Smith’s ribs with a booted foot, he rolled the body away.
“Now load and fire you damn fool!” Lynch shouted.
Turning from Harris, Lynch pushed the muzzle of his Thompson through another crack in the wall and triggered a burst of slugs. Germans were dismounting from the three transports, the squads on the flanks making for either side, and Lynch knew the commander was ordering them to envelop the barn in a crossfire, so they could pour bullets into the barn from three angles without fear of hitting each other. Once they were in position, Lynch knew, everyone in the barn was a dead man.
By now, the rest of the men were awake, armed, and returning fire. For long moments, the sound was almost overwhelming; the four Thompsons roaring together over the deeper hammering of the Bren, with Price’s sharper-sounding Lanchester tearing out bursts in between shouted orders. There was also the irregular crack of the SMLEs and the even longer pauses between Bowen’s P-1914. The sniper was up in the barn’s hayloft, and every time the Welshman pulled the trigger, one of the MG-34s stopped firing for a few seconds, as the Germans dragged away the corpse of the gunner and someone else took over.
If Bowen wasn’t slowing down the machine guns, those MG-34s would tear the bloody barn down around our heads. Lynch concentrated his fire along the enemy flanks, trying to keep the Germans pinned down behind their transports, but in the dark it was difficult to make out the hunched figures as they ran for cover, and the muzzle blast from his Thompson had completely ruined his night-vision.
Harris’ Bren had run dry again, and the former loader was nervously struggling to strip out the empty magazine and reload. Lynch looked around and saw Chenot firing his rifle through the barn slats at the German’s left flank. The young man aimed, fired, and reloaded with great efficiency.
“Chenot, come over here! I need you to reload for Harris!” Lynch shouted.
The Frenchman glanced over and nodded. Scurrying on all fours to avoid the bullets slicing through the barn, Chenot reached Lynch and Harris.
“Oui, what do you need?” Chenot asked.
“When Harris runs out of ammunition, switch out his magazines. If this Bren isn’t keeping Jerry’s head down, we’re all done for!”
Chenot nodded again and crouched to assist Harris. Lynch looked around the barn, which now resembled a very large wooden sieve. Mauser fire and bursts from the German submachine guns were zipping right through the wooden planks, no protection from gunfire at all. In fact, the only reason they hadn’t been shot to pieces already was that the Commandos were smart enough to fire and move to another spot. With their muzzle flashes the only target for the Germans, the return fire was largely wasted.
But the volume of fire was keeping the Commando’s heads down, and more and more Germans were spreading out onto their flanks. It was only a matter of time before they were enveloped and assaulted. Lynch crawled to Price, who was changing magazines on his Lanchester.
“Sir, the Jerries are well into our flanks. We need to get out of this barn before we’re stormed and cut to pieces!” Lynch shouted over the din.
Price slapped home the Lanchester’s fresh fifty-round magazine. “Of all the men in this barn at the moment, Corporal Lynch, you are talking to the one man most keenly aware of that fact. But the barn has only one door, and it is covered by no less than three German machine guns.”
“Then we need to cut our way out the back and get into the fields!”
Price glanced about in the darkness of the barn. “Trooper Green! Find an axe or a pick and get us a hole through that back wall!”
Green slung his rifle and scrambled through the dirt, searching for something to cut the squad free from the confines of the barn. Lynch brought his Thompson back into play again, hammering out slugs through a ragged, bullet-chopped hole in the plank in front of him. The movements of the Panzerschützen were visible only for the instant the men were illuminated by their muzzle flashes, giving the battle an eerie, stuttering, flickering feel, like a badly-timed reel of film where you only got to see one out of every half-dozen frames. A soldier was visible for an instant as his Mauser spat fire, but a few seconds later, when a comrade nearby fired his own rifle, the first man was visible down in the grass, squirming and dying. Another German, a sergeant by the looks of him, was moving through the field firing his MP-38 from the hip, and every time he was lit up by the muzzle flash, his mouth was open in a
n unheard bellow. Lynch sighted on the man over his Thompson and stitched him with a four-round burst, watching him tumble into the grass.
“Lieutenant Price, I found an axe!” Green shouted from the back of the barn. Lynch looked over his shoulder as the dim figure of the trooper brought the axe up and about, the blade sinking into the barn’s plank wall. Green pulled the axe free, brought it around, and jerked once, then again, as two Mauser slugs found him, one blowing out his heart, the other punching deep into his gut. Green, mouth open, dropped his axe and sat down hard on his backside before leaning against the barn wall, dead.
“Lieutenant Price, Green is dead!” Lynch shouted. The lieutenant glanced into the back of the barn and saw the dark form of Green slumped against the wall. His face turned even more grim, his lips a thin line. He knows we’ve had it, Lynch thought.
“Enough of this shite! Out of me way!”
Dougal McTeague, all six feet six inches of him, stood up and strode towards the back of the barn. The sergeant brought up his Thompson and, with German lead flying all around him, the furious Scotsman emptied his magazine into two planks along the back wall, his brawn more than enough to control the bucking submachine gun, allowing him to draw his fire across the boards in an almost horizontal line. His ammunition spent, McTeague lowered his head and charged the wooden wall.
The wooden planks shattered like kindling, and the sergeant tumbled out into the field behind the barn.
Price turned to Lynch. “Corporal, you and McTeague take four other men and break free. We’ll lay down suppressing fire. Once you’re clear of the barn, use a grenade to let us know, and we’ll make our run while you cover us.”
Lynch gave a brief salute. “Nelson, White, Hall, and Chenot, with me!”
The four men scrambled for the break in the wall. No one bothered to bring their packs, just their weapons and ammunition; their supplies would be pointless if they couldn’t move fast enough to escape the withering German fire.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 5
