Then darkness exploded into blinding, thundering light.
In their rush to escape, everyone - including the meticulous sniper - had forgotten about the anti-aircraft armoured half-track posted at the end of town. The gun crew, awake and alert, had seen the distant armoured car machine-gunning Germans by the motor pool, and made the only logical conclusion; partisans had somehow taken over the vehicle, and were using it to escape town. As the car closed in, the half-track crewmen lowered the muzzle of its 20mm anti-aircraft cannon and swiveled it around to point down the road. Having almost no time to react, the gunner pressed the firing lever just as the car rushed through the line of fire.
A six-foot long tongue of flame lit up the armoured hull like a searchlight, and over a dozen 20mm cannon shells riddled the car from one end to the other. The car roared past, and the gun crew, disappointed that they had seemingly hit nothing vital, jumped down onto the road and fired a few parting shots from their rifles as the captured vehicle disappeared into the night.
Inside the car, all was blood and chaos. Bowen and Lynch up in the front of the vehicle emerged unscathed, but as Lynch turned around in the car’s command hatch, he saw the remains of Henri sprayed across the top of the armoured hull. Several 20mm shells had glanced off the sloping hull, but instead of penetrating, they had exploded and sent their deadly, scything fragments across the roof of the car, mangling the Frenchman almost beyond recognition.
Lynch dropped down inside the car. There were a number of holes punched through the hull, each as big around as a shilling piece, and there was blood all through the crew compartment. The interior of the car was lit by a single, weak red bulb in a protective wire cage mounted on the inner roof of the compartment, and the red light, coupled with the gleaming shreds of flesh and sprayed gore, turned the inside of the car into a slaughterhouse nightmare. Lynch saw Pierre seemed to have been dismembered, the Frenchman blown apart by several shells, and Nelson was, if anything, even more badly wounded. Chenot had been peppered by shrapnel and slumped against the armoured hull, while Marie was almost completely coated in a sheet of blood. The girl simply sat and stared ahead, trembling in shock.
Lynch’s blood ran cold. Bloody hell, they’re all cut to pieces. He climbed over his seat and into the main compartment.
Bowen shouted back at him. “How bad is it?”
“Bad! Don’t stop, just keep driving!”
“Bollocks!” Bowen swore, but kept the car tearing down the road.
Ruthlessly shoving aside what remained of Pierre, Lynch grabbed Nelson by the shoulders and shook him. “Nelson, you cack! You still with me?”
The Englishman grunted and wiped gore from his face. Running hands across the man’s body, Lynch found a half dozen superficial shrapnel injuries, but the four gunshot wounds looked far more serious. Nelson had been perforated from thigh to shoulder, one bullet through the leg, two wounds in the side, and one bullet had clipped the top of his shoulder. Thankfully there was no spurting artery, and both of the chest wounds seemed to have done no more than skirt across Nelson’s ribs.
Nelson looked up at Lynch. “I’m all done in, aren’t I?”
Lynch shook his head. “You’re a mess, but you’ll live. The Jerry couldn’t shoot worth a damn.”
Nelson grinned, and slumped back against the hull. “Bloody wankers, all of ‘em.”
Lynch turned to Chenot. A shell fragment had creased his skull, and several others had peppered his arms and legs, but although the wounds were bleeding freely, the Frenchman seemed all right. The most troublesome was the head wound. Although the bleeding was bad, Chenot kept blinking and staring off into space, stunned and unresponsive. Lynch tore open a field compress and bound Chenot’s wound, tying the ends under the Frenchman’s chin like a child’s bonnet.
Finally he turned to Marie. Lynch carefully examined the girl, but miraculously, none of the blood seemed to be hers. Pierre must have taken the brunt of the onslaught and Marie had been drenched in the Frenchman’s blood. Still, the girl simply huddled in the corner, fending off Lynch’s attempts to wipe her face clean, and she whimpered incessantly.
“Anyone left alive back there?” Bowen shouted back.
“The dead are dead, the living will live. Just get us back to the rendezvous.”
18
Merlimont-Plage
Krieger sat in a chair on his balcony, booted feet propped on the railing, a glass of brandy in one hand, a cigarette dangling from the other. Although it was only perhaps an hour or two before dawn, he could not sleep. Anxiety over Bieber’s mission to the south coupled with excitement over how he would watch the French slut die in the morning kept him from his bed.
Eventually deciding that he would not be able to sleep, Krieger had dressed and settled into a chair with a bottle and some cigarettes, staring out over the starlit ocean. Fatigue had finally taken hold, and while his eyes drooped closed, his chin had just touched his chest when Krieger suddenly snapped awake at the sound of gunfire, dimly heard but unmistakable. He stood up, turning his head in an attempt to tell where it was coming from. He expected the firing to be more distant and further to the south, but it finally occurred to him that the gunfire was coming directly from the east, towards Merlimont proper.
The partisans were attacking the town, Krieger realized. The brandy glass slipped through his fingers, shattering on the balcony.
Krieger dashed into his suite, snatched his pistol belt from the arm of a chair, and buckled it on while he ran down the staircase, bellowing at the men sleeping in the inn’s common room below.
“Up, up, you lazy asses! The partisans are attacking the town!” He lashed out with a boot and kicked his driver in the thigh, knocking the man onto the floor with a yelp. Krieger burst out the front door and nearly collided with another man about to run inside.
“Hauptmann! There is gunfire coming from the town!”
Krieger slapped the sentry across the face. “Why do you think I’m running, you imbecile? Get the car started!”
The Gefreiter saluted and ran towards the armoured car parked nearby. While Bieber’s car was a hastily field-repaired armoured scout car, Krieger used a vehicle of substantially greater size and armament. The eight-wheeled behemoth - a Sd.Kfz. 232 - boasted a turret-mounted 20mm cannon as well as an MG-34 machine gun. As he stepped into the driveway, he heard the growl of a motor approaching, and a scout motorcycle roared into view. The driver skidded to a halt and saluted Krieger, but before he could open his mouth, Krieger raised a hand to stop him.
“I know, I can hear it just fine. How big a force?” he asked.
“Unknown, but they are fighting near the motor pool and the town hall,” the scout reported.
The rest of the men had finally pulled on their boots and grabbed their weapons, and all of them ran to Krieger’s car as the engine rumbled to life.
Krieger turned to the scout. “Lead us back into town.”
The eight-wheeled car followed the motorcycle back into Merlimont. Krieger had climbed into the belly of his armoured steed, checking to make sure his Browning was loaded. The men around him likewise checked their MP-38s, tucked grenades into their belts, and peered out vision slits. One of the men stood in the command cupola with an MP-38, while another was standing in the turret, manning the 20mm cannon. This will truly be a night to strike fear into the partisan’s hearts, Krieger thought.
By the time the armoured car pulled into Merlimont, Krieger could hear no more firing. For a second there had been a massive burst of gunfire at the southern edge of town. It had almost sounded like an anti-aircraft cannon, but Krieger heard no aircraft engines, and could not believe the partisans had coordinated their assault with British air power.
Krieger instructed his driver to take them to the town hall. Stepping out, Krieger found dead soldiers sprawled everywhere, spilling out of alleyways, across the hall’s steps, and as he stalked inside the building, he was greeted by blood, sprayed ink, and an explosion of shredded wood and paper e
verywhere he looked.
Krieger turned to a nearby soldier. “The girl?” he asked.
The Gefreiter shook his head. “They took her, Hauptmann. It appears they shot their way into the building, killed all the guards, destroyed the wireless set, and escaped. Patrols went after them, but they either found nothing, or they were killed. There are documents missing as well, including the code books for the wireless.”
Krieger raged inside. The fucking peasants have gone too far!
A thought occurred to him. “Before the attack, was there any word from Bieber?”
The soldier shook his head. “None that we know of. It was assumed that he was still busy hunting down the British.”
Krieger glanced around the room, then bent down and picked something up off the floor. He held it in front of the soldier. It was a fat, expended pistol cartridge.
“Do you recognize this?” he asked the young man.
“It is a spent casing, sir.”
“Do you notice anything specific about it?” He handed the casing to the soldier, who looked it over carefully, turning it in his fingers to read the stamp.
“Point four-five A-C-P?”
“Ja,” Krieger answered. “The ammunition used by the American Thompson machine pistols carried by British Commandos. This was not the work of armed peasants, this was a Commando operation.”
The soldier stared at Krieger, mouth agape. “That means Leutnant Bieber...?”
“More than likely, he is already dead,” Krieger replied.
“Then what do we do now?” the soldier asked.
Krieger turned and began to walk out of the building. “We mobilize the rest of the men and go after the Commandos.”
An explosion erupted near the southern edge of town. It was followed in short order by another, and another. Krieger turned to one of his men and gestured towards his armoured car.
“Get on the wireless set and send a report. It looks like we will need additional troop transports.”
The man saluted. “Jawohl, Hauptmann.”
“And contact the nearest airfield,” Krieger added. “As we hunt them from the ground, I want the Luftwaffe ready to strike from the air.”
Another explosion tore through the night, sending a ball of fire rolling into the pre-dawn sky.
19
South Of Merlimont
Price, McTeague, and the rest of the Commando squad had not been idle after Lynch and the others departed. Of the three German lorries, one had been damaged too badly to use, and another had several tyres shot out, but after cannibalizing tyres from the disabled vehicle and a lot of hard work, two functioning transports were now at the partisan’s disposal. Fuel, weapons, ammunition, and any other supplies that could be gathered together from the stripping of Bieber’s armoured car and the incapacitated lorry were loaded onto the two transports.
In addition, the Soulieres were offered refuge with the partisans. As much as the old couple regretted leaving their farmstead, they understood that the Nazis would condemn them as collaborators and have them shot. The partisans and Commandos helped the couple strip the farm of anything that might be useful: food, clothing, tools, and even an ancient pheasant shotgun. The couple wanted to bring along their hens from the chicken coop, but the space needed to feed and care for the birds wouldn’t be guaranteed. Tearfully, madame instead opened the cage, spilled as much feed as she could around the yard, and said a prayer for her feathered friends as she set them free.
Along with the supplies brought by the Commandos, and all the looted war goods, the partisans also packed three of the four inflatable rafts. The remaining raft had been shredded by machine gun bullets during the firefight, and was hopelessly beyond repair. The Commandos had a scheduled rendezvous with their trawler two nights from now, but if needed they could attempt wireless contact and arrange for an earlier pickup. However, there would be no rescue beyond the hours of midnight and three in the morning, because anything else did not leave enough time for the trawler to make the journey out and back in complete darkness.
Eventually, the two heavily burdened lorries had departed the farm, but only after Bouchard insisted on permanently disabling the third transport by pouring kerosene all over the engine block and setting the vehicle on fire. As for the German dead, their bodies were arranged in a neat row along the side of the road, all thirty-six men. The traitor Laurent was tossed into the cab of the lorry before it was set on fire. Lieutenant Price protested this last act, but Bouchard waved him away.
“A traitor such as him does not deserve a proper burial. Let his body be cleansed by fire, and perhaps his soul will learn its lesson,” the Frenchman stated.
The two vehicles departed for a new encampment further to the south of Merlimont, not a farmhouse but instead a thick copse of trees a few hundred yards off of the road. The lorries moved slowly and without headlights, relying on stealth rather than speed to avoid detection. Still, every Commando and partisan kept a hand on their weapon throughout the journey, and both of the mounted MG-34s were manned and ready to fire at the first sign of German traffic on the road.
But the trip was without incident, and the lorries pulled into their new encampment at almost the same time Lynch, Bowen, and the others began their mission in Merlimont. As the transports pulled into the woods, other partisans emerged from hiding. Price could count two dozen or more men and women, and even a few teenage children. They were all lean, with faces pinched from the hunger of a long winter and a hard spring, but they were all adequately clothed, and each of them carried some manner of long arm, usually a French MAS-36 or a captured German rifle, although a few carried MP-38s, older rifles, and even some Italian arms. Here and there, Price saw a pistol or hand grenade tucked into a belt, and even a couple of machine guns ready to be manned at a moment’s notice.
As soon as the transports ground to a halt, the partisans immediately began camouflaging the lorries with netting and cut branches, distributing captured weapons and ammunition, and handing out the supplies of medicine, explosives, and other goods that the British had brought with them.
Price wasn’t sure what to expect when he agreed to undertake what was, essentially, a goodwill mission to support the fledgling alliance between the British and the French resistance. He had assumed Bouchard possessed a handful of desperate fighters, and the Frenchman had set his cap out on the sidewalk, as it were, in request for aid because he had nothing to use against the Germans. Now, Price could see Bouchard’s resistance cell consisted of at least forty partisan fighters, all armed and apparently very determined. In Price’s mind, the possibilities of what he might do with such a force, properly fielded, had expanded considerably.
It also appeared to Price that the partisans had been considering what they might accomplish with the aid of a British Commando squad. From the moment that they arrived in camp, the British were greeted with open arms, offers of wine and bread, hearty handshakes and a few comradely embraces. After a number of introductions, so rapidly delivered that Price could barely remember one in ten names, Bouchard heartily recounted to everyone the fight at the barn, and more solemnly, the discovery of Laurent as a traitor. Price noticed a number of partisans scowling as they were informed of Laurent’s execution, but the overall reaction seemed grimly accepting of the traitor’s fate.
Price turned and whispered to McTeague. “I daresay, perhaps Laurent was not the first fellow to be left for the worms because of bad behavior?”
The Scotsman nodded. “Aye, a rough lot, to be sure. Cannae fight the Jerries on your own without turnin’ tough as an old boot.”
The most emotional reaction came when Bouchard informed the camp of the rescue mission sent to save the young girl. Women wept and the men shouted curses, many gesturing with their guns, as if the whole camp should pile into the lorries and drive to Merlimont immediately. Monsieur Souliere, who had been standing nearby, stepped over to Price and McTeague. His English was heavily accented, but the old Frenchman had learned it durin
g the years of the Great War, and had kept it up by speaking to English tourists after the war.
“You heard earlier that the girl is not the first to be taken by this Krieger, the garrison commander. Some of the girls, they do not come back when they go to him. If a family protests, they are declared spies and shot. Several of the people here, they have lost daughters to this man, or their families have been killed, accused of collaboration.”
Price’s face turned grim. “So they decided to become partisans in fact, if they were already going to be labeled as such in fiction.”
Souliere nodded. “He has, I hope, sown the seeds of his own destruction.”
After Bouchard finished explaining the current state of affairs to the camp, the Commandos were formally introduced. Although none of them could follow Bouchard’s French, Souliere was kind enough to mutter a translation. The speech explained how the British had sent their finest, most battle-hardened warriors back to French soil to once again do battle against the Nazis. Bouchard then explained how Price and his men had pledged to help the partisans by fighting with them against the Merlimont garrison.
Price looked to Souliere. “He does realize that we are here for only a couple of days? It is too perilous for us to remain here any longer.”
Souliere shrugged. “Better to warm their hearts with fire now and let it cool over the course of the next day, than disappoint them just as you are introduced.”
After Bouchard’s speech, Price divided his men among the partisans, with orders to do whatever they could to help determine the readiness and combat effectiveness of the resistance forces. Trooper Hall, the Commandos’ medic, had some of the most important jobs. He performed a detailed inventory of the partisan’s medical supplies, looked over the people themselves and assessed their overall health, and created a list of the most urgent supplies needed in anticipation of airdrops and other squad landings in the future.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 10
