Lynch saw Chenot standing near the circle of partisans surrounding the traitor, and he and Bowen walked over to the Frenchman.
“Did this man give us up to the Germans?” Lynch asked.
Chenot nodded, his face grim. “His name is Laurent. He is a clerk in town, working for the Mayor’s office. He had been passing us information for the last couple of weeks, and although Bouchard had not trusted him, the man seemed earnest. It sounds like he had gleaned our plan from another who talked too much, and so Laurent went to the Nazis and told them where to find you tonight. He is begging Bouchard for his life, but the Butcher will kill him for this. Two of your men are dead, and I fear he feels unless he makes an example of the man-”
Chenot stopped and turned to listen to Laurent as he gibbered away in rapid French. Several of the partisans looked at each other with especially concerned faces, and quiet arguments sprang up among them.
“What is it?” Lynch asked.
“A girl,” Chenot explained. “The Nazi captain of the garrison claimed tonight he was attacked by a girl sent to seduce and assassinate him. It is of course a lie; the man is a pervert, and rapes young women all the time. But this girl must have fought back, and so she has been arrested as a spy, and the Germans are going to execute her in the street tomorrow morning.”
Bowen and Lynch looked at each other. “Rotten bastards!” Lynch exclaimed.
The argument between Bouchard and Laurent grew more intense. The traitor was groveling, squirming now on the ground, clutching at Bouchard’s feet, but the little partisan captain kicked the man in the face and took out his pistol again.
“Pour vos crimes contre la France, je vous condamne à mort.”
Laurent let out an anguished wail, silenced a moment later by a single gunshot. The man pitched over onto his back, mouth and eyes open, staring up into the night sky.
Bouchard turned to several of his men, and a low, urgent conversation began to take place. Chenot left the two Commandos and joined in the discussion. Lynch and Bowen walked over to where the rest of their squad was congregated. Price looked even more agitated than ever.
“What has that bloodthirsty little chap done now? Did he shoot one of his own?” Price asked the two men.
Lynch shook his head. “The man gave us up to the Germans. Bouchard shot him as a traitor. But now it sounds like the Germans have taken a woman captive and claim she tried to assassinate the garrison commander. Chenot says the Jerry captain is a rapist who abuses the local women.”
“Dear God!” Price exclaimed. “The Jerries are just a pack of brutes!”
McTeague gestured towards the rest of the partisans, who were stirring themselves into something of a frenzy. “Looks to me like the Froggies are plannin’ on breaking the lass outta the Jerrie’s prison.”
Indeed, Chenot was walking over to the Commandos with a determined look in his eye. “Mon amis,” he said, “we cannot allow the Nazis to execute an innocent girl, whose only crime was to be selected as a plaything by the garrison captain.”
Price stepped forward. “You are planning a rescue, I presume?”
Chenot nodded. “Immediately. The execution is to happen in the morning, so we have only a few hours to strike. If we do so now, before the Germans realize what happened here, we may have a chance of catching them unaware.”
Price turned to his men. “I want volunteers to accompany the French. A young lady is in peril, and we cannot sit by and allow her to be harmed.”
Without a thought, Lynch stepped forward. Looking around, he realized every man in the unit had done the same. What a noble lot we are!
Price beamed. “Excellent, lads! I expected nothing less. Lynch, I’m putting you in charge. Pick two men and form up with the Frenchies.”
And that is what you get for volunteering, you bloody fool.
“Yes Lieutenant!” Lynch exclaimed. Turning to the rest of the men, he thought for a moment. Bowen raised an eyebrow and gave him a brief nod. None of the other men gave him any indication they were for or against being chosen.
“I’d like Bowen to accompany me,” he said, “as well as Nelson. Sorry old son, but I think your knack for blowing things all to rubbish will come in handy.”
Lance Corporal Nelson was a big, boisterous fellow with an especially filthy tongue. “No worries mate. I’ve been looking for a chance to shove a charge up Jerry’s arse and give ‘em a nitro enema, so now’s me chance.”
Price turned to Chenot. “There you have it, sir. Three Commandos willing to accompany you on this mission.”
Chenot nodded. “C’est bien. The English show themselves to be true gentlemen.”
Lynch chuckled and jerked a thumb towards Bowen. “I’m Irish, he’s Welsh, and Nelson’s no gentlemen. But we didn’t sign up with His Majesty’s finest just to take a trip across the Channel and drink wine all day.”
“Speak for your own bloody self,” Nelson growled.
12
South Of Merlimont
The rescue plan was either the height of genius or rank stupidity, and Lynch vacillated between the two on a minute-by-minute basis. The six men who volunteered for the rescue detail - three Commandos and three partisans - were packed into the captured armoured car. One of the partisans was standing in the machine-gunner’s cupola, the MG-34 loaded and ready. Bowen was driving the vehicle, while Chenot stood in the commander’s hatch, directing Bowen. Lynch, Nelson, and the remaining partisan were tucked into the passenger compartment, peering out the vision slits with weapons at the ready.
A veritable rolling arsenal, we are. Lynch mused. The partisans had traded in their personal arms for captured MP-38s, as well as changing out of their civilian clothes in exchange for Panzerschützen uniforms. The Commandos had left all their extraneous kit behind, taking with them only weapons, grenades, and ammunition. Trooper Hall had divvied out a portion of his medical supplies in the event that the rescued girl or one of the men was wounded, and Nelson was bringing along a considerable portion of his demolitions kit to wreck havoc amongst the Germans.
Lynch heard the thump of Chenot’s fist on the roof, and a muffled command to Bowen, who slowed the armoured car and turned off the road onto what appeared to be a narrow cart track. The car slowly crept into the wooded underbrush, and perhaps fifty yards off the main road, Bowen stopped the car while Chenot’s legs disappeared out the top of the hatch. The Frenchman was going back to the turn and concealing the evidence of the car’s heavy wheels in the soft dirt and leaves. Minutes later, Lynch heard the man climb back up the armoured hull and his legs reappeared inside the crew compartment.
Softly goosing the engine, Bowen continued along the path, peering through the driver’s vision slit into the night-shrouded forest. Lynch knew the Welshman had the night-sight of a cat, but maneuvering the heavy car through unfamiliar woods like these must have been a difficult task regardless. Because of their proximity to Merlimont, and the chance of encountering a German patrol along the road, the entire journey had been taken without the use of the blackout headlights. Lynch had waited anxiously in the belly of the armoured car, hoping they didn’t run into some obstacle or another. But luck was with them, and thanks to the partisans and their knowledge of the area, several back roads and shortcuts had been employed to ensure they weren't going to run into any more German convoys.
There was another thump from above, and as Bowen stopped the car, Chenot dropped down into the crew compartment. “Mon amis, we have arrived.”
The six men climbed out of the car and emerged into the French wilderness. Chenot and the other two Frenchmen buckled on their helmets and double-checked their submachine guns and ammunition pouches, while the Commandos gave their own kit a last-minute inspection. Before departing, the partisans had ransacked the armoured car, stripping the radio, the arms locker, and any other gear from the vehicle. The extra room had helped the cramped conditions somewhat, but every man found himself stretching and pacing to ease the aches and pains of the journey.
/> Lynch made sure the bolt of his Thompson was locked back, and a round was properly seated in the magazine well, ready for firing. He safed the weapon and slung it over his shoulder, double checking the two magazine pouches he carried, each with four twenty-round magazines. He broke open his revolver, making sure it was loaded for the tenth time, and finally checked the little Colt automatic in his jacket pocket. Along with his firearms, Lynch carried three Mills Bombs, a smoke grenade, and a flare pistol, plus his Fairbairn dagger. Nelson carried a similar combat load, along with his explosive “presents”.
Bowen and one of the Frenchmen were going to stay behind. The partisan would keep watch over the armoured car, while Bowen would make his way to the edge of the woods and set himself up to provide cover for the rescue team. They had parked the armoured car fifty yards back from the treeline, within a patch of forest running along the north-eastern edge of the town. There was perhaps two hundred yards of open ground between the treeline and the town’s outlying buildings, a dangerous expanse of ground to cover. However, the two partisans who were accompanying Lynch and Nelson claimed they knew of a drainage ditch near the road, where the four men could slip to the edge of town undetected.
From their position in the woods, the town itself looked peaceful enough. Most windows were covered by blackout curtains, but a few glimpses of light were seen here or there. According to Chenot and the other Frenchmen, the bulk of the German garrison resided in the town’s schoolhouse, while the garrison commander lived near the coast, in a small outlying village a short distance away known as Merlimont-Plage. His Oberleutnant, or senior lieutenant, was in charge of operations within the town itself, guarded by a full company of the Panzerschützen. There were also several coastal defense guns and anti-aircraft half-tracks, the cannons set up down near the beach, the half-tracks on the outskirts of town. With his rifle scope, Bowen was just able to make out the dark bulk of one half-track on the southern edge of Merlimont.
The troop transport lorries used by the German mechanized infantry platoons were located on the other side of town, near the edge of the main road leading north and south. The rescue plan called for Nelson and one of the partisans to break off and head for the motor pool, where Nelson would plant charges under several transports. The time pencils he would use were designed for a twenty-minute delay, which would hopefully be enough time for Lynch and Chenot to rescue the girl and escape.
In the event that things didn’t go as planned (which seemed likely), Lynch carried a flare pistol. If the flare was discharged, Bowen and his French guard were supposed to mount up in the armoured car and charge into town at full speed while machine-gunning anyone who opposed them. Lynch and Chenot would then bundle the girl aboard, and the car would shoot its way to the motor pool, where it would pick up Nelson and his teammate like a trolley making its rounds. Hopefully, with enough automatic fire and the throwing of smoke grenades, the car could escape the town and flee south, to hook up once more with the partisans and the rest of Price’s men.
Of course, that plan had many “ifs” worked into its construction, and Lynch knew there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip. Bowen had agreed to not break cover and come to the rescue if all he heard was gunfire, but if he heard grenades, he should mount up and charge into town. Lynch’s flare pistol was new and seemed in good working order, but he had known flares to be unreliable. He was dreading the moment when he pointed the flare pistol skyward and pulled the trigger, only to hear the fizzle of a bad charge damn him to the Jerries.
There was also the worry that the girl had been moved from where Laurent claimed she was being held. The more sinister thought, one Lynch had kept to himself, was that Laurent had concocted the story as a spiteful means to avenge himself on Bouchard and the other partisans, by sending men to their deaths rescuing a damsel who wasn’t there. Lynch imagined kicking open a Jerry jail cell, only to find himself staring down the muzzles of several MP-38s for the split second it took for the Germans to pull their triggers.
Too much worry, not enough hurry, old bean! Lynch thought to himself. The cover of darkness was ticking away minute by minute, and with its disappearance would come the execution of a young woman whose only crime was to be terrorized by a degenerate Hun. Lynch looked around at the five other men, British soldiers and French patriots fighting together against a common enemy. He hoped it was a portent of many a successful mission to come during the war against the Third Reich.
“Alright chaps, time to take a piss in Jerry’s early morning porridge.”
13
Merlimont
Panzerschützen Gefreiter Werner Roth was exhausted by boredom. He walked his patrol up and down dark, empty streets, his Mauser slung over his shoulder, an electric torch hanging from his belt. Roth’s sentry duty continued tonight for another two hours, at which point he could go back to his bunk, drink some wine, and sift through some battered pornography he kept hidden in his personal effects bag. Later, he would fall asleep dreaming of long-legged, large-bosomed blonde women from his homeland.
It wasn’t that Roth hated France, he was simply tired. Tired of the war, tired of sentry pickets, tired of harassing the locals, tired of being lectured on the dangers of fraternization with the “enemy”...tired of the state of constant vigilance he was supposed to be maintaining in this tiny coastal town. The rush of the blitzkrieg had been exciting, a military adventure of the grandest sort, and Roth, who had grown up in the sad aftermath of Germany’s humiliation at the end of the Great War, saw nothing wrong in striking back at the decadent French, the worthless Poles, and the rest of the weaklings that made up most of Europe. Germany was strong now, and that strength meant his nation should be able to take what it wanted, like all great nations had done from time immemorial.
But at the same time, Roth did not condone rampant cruelty, or barbarism, or the rumors he’d heard of internment camps for Jews. There was a difference, he believed, between subjugating a weaker people and treating them like baser creatures. Some of the French peasants he encountered were industrious, hard-working people, their wives and daughters often comely, their sons strong and proud. Such a nation would make an excellent vassal-state.
But that wouldn’t happen until the war was over, and the war wouldn’t be over until Britain was defeated. Some evenings, when Roth wandered aimlessly through Merlimont during his sentry rounds, he imagined what it would be like to storm the shores of England, to see London burning to the ground, to watch that fat alcoholic they all worshipped whipped through the streets of Berlin while bound in chains. That final campaign would be the greatest adventure yet, and Roth wondered when, if ever, it would happen. He hoped it was soon, because being stuck in this pathetic little town was not what he imagined when he volunteered to join the Wehrmacht.
To make matters worse, not being chosen as part of the force sent to round up the bumbling partisans and Commandos was another blow to his morale. He had urged his squad’s Feldwebel to volunteer for the mission, but the sergeant, a lazy brute of a man, didn’t want to miss out on garrison duty tonight because it would allow him more time to salivate over the French whore they had locked up deep inside town hall, which served as the garrison’s command post. So instead of pumping Mauser bullets into British bodies, he wandered through Merlimont without glory.
Gefreiter Roth’s sullen thoughts were interrupted by a sound coming from down a nearby alley. Merlimont was under a nighttime curfew, and any local who was found to be in violation of that curfew could be shot on sight. Most of the time, anyone caught after dark turned out to be a young man travelling to or from a romantic interlude. Roth, a young man of twenty-two himself, could sympathize with such behavior. He usually just informed the young man that he should go home immediately, and if he was caught again, he faced imprisonment or being shot. Roth sometimes imagined he would instead find a young French Fraulein breaking curfew, and then he might be able to...
The prurient thoughts died as Roth stepped into the alleyway an
d looked around. He saw no one, but there were small sounds coming from several rubbish bins nearby. Roth removed the electric torch from his belt and turned it on, shining the light around the alley. He again saw nothing, but the sounds continued, no doubt a rat or perhaps a cat. He stepped closer to the rubbish bins, toeing one with his boot. The sounds continued. He grabbed the edge of one bin and pulled it away from the other, trying to catch the animal in his torchlight.
Instead of an animal, what he found was a small scrap of wood with a string tied to the end. Curious, Roth bent over and tugged at the wood scrap. There was a gentle return tug. Is it caught on a branch, or a loose board? Roth wondered.
The young soldier would never find out. A hand clamped across his mouth, jerking his head back, while a knee smashed into the base of his spine. Roth attempted to draw in a breath, hoping to scream a warning, but before he could make a sound, a white-hot lance of flame seared into his right kidney. Every muscle in Roth’s body went rigid with shock and pain, and he felt the same searing agony stab into his back again and again. His vision blurred, blood roared in his ears, and a curious numbness spread through his limbs. Gefreiter Werner Roth sank to the ground and fell through death’s door, never understanding what happened.
Lynch stood up from the corpse after wiping his Fairbairn dagger clean on the man’s uniform. This was the second sentry he had killed in the last half hour. The first man had almost blundered right into Lynch and Chenot moments after they had slipped into town, the German unbuttoning his fly behind a building before taking a piss. Lynch had slapped a hand firmly across the man’s mouth and buried his dagger to the hilt in the Nazi’s heart. It had been his first hand-to-hand kill, and he expected to feel awful, perhaps throw up, but none of that happened. He simply felt glad the man lying on the ground with a hole in his heart hadn’t been him.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 7
