McTeague grinned. “I’m Scottish, not English, but I’ll forgive you.”
It was Madame’s turn to be embarrassed. “Mon dieu, I am sorry! If I were Belgian, I would not wish to be called French because I spoke in that tongue.”
She was interrupted by White, who had returned from his trip outside the cave, lugging in the wireless set with the aid of another Commando. He stepped over and crouched down next to McTeague, nodding apologetically to the Frenchwoman.
“Sergeant, ma’am. Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve received our orders from headquarters in reply to our transmission.”
McTeague sat up. “What’d they say?”
White made a sour face. “We’ve been ordered, under no uncertain terms, to head for the coast and rendezvous with our transport back to Blighty tonight. The boat should be offshore and ready for our signal no later than 0200 hours.”
“Price and the others? What about them?” McTeague asked.
White just shrugged and looked down at his feet. “I asked them twice, making like the message wasn’t getting through. You know the game, Sergeant. But they were very clear. No risking our lives to see what’s happened. Strict orders, Sergeant.”
McTeague nodded and gestured to White that he was done. The lance corporal walked back and huddled down with the rest of the Commandos as someone handed him some porridge. The Scotsman leaned his head back against the cold stone of the cavern wall, softly bumping his head against the rock several times, in the way a frustrated man often does when there’s nothing else he can do.
Chapter 15
The Ruins Of Calais
0700 Hours
For more than two hours, Bowen, Johnson, and Marie watched the Germans clean up the aftermath of the rescue attempt. Bodies were collected and taken away, and a heavy-duty recovery vehicle was brought in to flip over and haul away the wreckage of the lorry. With the aid of their telescopic sights, the three watched the hotel as uniformed men, both SS and Wehrmacht, came and went constantly.
As with all security breaches, the Germans immediately set up roadblocks and marched patrols up and down the streets, closing the figurative barn door after the horse had run off. SS and Wehrmacht troops postured with their weapons, coal-scuttle helmets pushed low over their brows to give them a glowering, dangerous look. Unlike any accident in a peacetime city, none of the watchers in the ruined building saw a single curious civilian come by, angling for a look at the show. Given the mood the Germans were in that morning, any French citizen who dared show a curious face could expect to catch a bullet with it.
As the sun rose above the rooftops, the reality of their situation became impossible to avoid any longer. They were two uniformed British soldiers and one French partisan alone and without most of the supplies necessary to sustain any kind of prolonged clandestine operation in the heart of an occupied city. They had no food beyond a couple of chocolate bars stuffed in their trouser pockets, no potable water, only one set of batteries for their torches, and their arms consisted of three bolt-action rifles with a standard ammunition load of 100 rounds apiece, their pistols, and six grenades.
If they were discovered, even with the vaunted British rifleman’s high rate of disciplined fire, the best they could hope to accomplish would be a short firefight before being overrun, with the last pistol bullets saved for themselves. A female partisan, especially one as young and attractive as Marie, could only expect rape, torture, and death at the hands of the Nazis. As for Bowen and Johnson, snipers were not typically shown any shred of compassion or mercy by their enemies. As Bowen had made a pact months before with Lynch when they’d departed for their first mission to Merlimont, so too had he made one with Johnson, to take each other’s lives if the alternative meant capture and a painful death. Right now, each of them was considering that fate somewhere between a dangerous reality and a grim inevitability.
“So,” Bowen finally said, “what are we going to do?”
“One of us must reach the rally-point,” Marie answered. “I should go.”
Johnson looked at her in disbelief, his ruddy features obvious in the light of dawn, even with the burnt cork smeared all over his face. “Naw, Miss. You can’t go all that distance. It’s far too dangerous. There’s Jerries all over this city.”
Bowen shook his head and pointed at Marie. “You dumb berk, she’s the only one of us who has a hope of moving around in the daytime, and she’s bloody French. None of the Jerries are going to know she’s anything other than another citizen, going about her business.”
“If I get stopped and questioned, I do not have the papers necessary for living in this city,” Marie replied. “They would know my true nature in a moment. But it is better than nothing.”
“Alright then, what is our plan? Assuming you make it to the rally-point,” Bowen asked.
“I will wait 24 hours, and if there is no sign of the others, I will make my way back here over the course of tomorrow. Then, tomorrow night, we will escape the city and try to make our way back to the cave,” Marie replied.
“Rhys, you don’t think they’d leave without trying to get us out of the city, do you?” Johnson asked, a tone of worry in his voice.
Bowen shrugged, his expression phlegmatic. “Sorry mate, but we’re expendable. Comes with the job, you know. Getting Bouchard back to Blighty is important to General de Gaulle, and that makes him more important than any or all of us. Orders is orders, Johnny boy.”
It took a few minutes to prepare for Marie’s departure. She wore the .32 Colt in her shoulder holster under her coat, but she also carried a P-38 in her shoulder bag. She exchanged the two German stick-grenades she’d brought with her for a pair of Mills bombs, the British grenades being smaller and more easily concealed. They then proceeded to search the apartment, eventually finding an old flour sack and some bedding. Marie made herself a makeshift bundle out of their findings, to give the impression she was just another Calais citizen, going about her daily chores. Hopefully the ruse would be enough to avoid attracting attention.
Marie completed her disguise with a frayed curtain, transforming it with the help of a safety pin into a long, ragged skirt. A quick application of brick dust brushed into her hair added a little grey, while some coal and brick dust mixed with saliva and applied to her features drained the youth from her face. Finally, she produced a plain woolen scarf from her handbag and wrapped it around her head in the manner of some of the older women. In a few minutes’ time, with the bulging sack balanced over her shoulder and onto her back, Marie went from a young, strong girl to a hunched, destitute, middle-aged woman.
Not knowing how to properly bid her farewell, Bowen simply offered her his hand. She shook it warmly, and did the same for Johnson.
“Wait for me if you can, and if you have to leave this place, leave some sign by the doorway. I will be back for you in a day if I do not find the others.”
“And if you do find them?” Johnson asked.
Marie smiled. “Well, I will be back, but I might bring some help with me.”
And with that, she was gone. The two Commandos watched her leave the building from a broken window along the western side of the apartment. Marie walked hunched over under her burden, a hint of a faked limp in her stride, possibly representative of a wound received when the Germans took the city a year ago.
After she disappeared from view, Bowen and Johnson looked at each other, and Bowen gave his spotter another small shrug. “Looks like it’s just the two of us, then.”
“And not even a Primus stove to make a cup of char,” Johnson replied glumly.
Bowen looked around the battered apartment for a long moment. “All right, we’re going to be holed up here for at least another full day, maybe longer. We’re still on the job, and we can’t forget about Lieutenant Price, Tommy, and poor Pritchard.”
This seemed to bring Johnson out of his poor mood. “What do you want me to do, Rhys?” he asked, standing up a little straighter.
“First things fi
rst, get back on the glass and keep an eye on the hotel and the streets below. I think for the moment we’re actually pretty safe here. None of the Jerries seemed to realize they were taking fire from this building, so as long as we aren’t noticed, I think there’s nothing to fear.”
“I’ve got the first watch then,” Johnson said, and nodded, moving to his spotting scope. He made a few adjustments to his position, covering the floor where he would lay with some more of the ragged bedding they’d found in the apartment earlier, and he made sure his rifle was close at hand.
Bowen decided to do a little exploring. After telling Johnson of his intentions, Bowen drew his .45 automatic and chambered a round. Although his specialty was the sniper rifle, Bowen had excellent reflexes and superb hand-eye coordination, making him a natural close-quarters gunfighter. In addition to his usual sniper training, Bowen and those members of the Commando team who didn’t carry Thompsons trained doubly hard with their pistols, expecting to use them rather than their Lee-Enfields within buildings or other confined spaces, where the fighting would be up close and personal. Bowen had made sure that both he and Johnson carried four spare magazines for the .45s, rather than the two everyone else normally carried. But even carrying twice the ammunition, thirty-five rounds apiece wasn’t much at all, given how fast the automatics could be fired and reloaded in the heat of a firefight.
Still, Bowen reflected, it was better than a stern look and some coarse language.
He stepped outside the apartment and paused in the hallway, listening for any sounds coming from inside the building. The apartment complex had been picked solely on its third-floor view of the hotel, and a brief description by the partisan boy Édouard. None of them knew if any of the other rooms were occupied, although Bowen imagined that after last night’s shooting, if there were other occupants, they had no intention of contacting the Germans. Still, after his encouraging speech to Johnson about how safe and secure their position was, he wanted to be sure fate wouldn’t make a liar out of him.
More importantly, Bowen needed something to occupy his mind, because he knew that no matter the short term, their position here in Calais was very, very far from safe and secure. Sooner or later they would have to move from the apartment building, and as any good hunter knows, prey is easiest to spot when it’s on the move. It didn’t matter if they had to escape on their own, or if Marie managed to bring back the rest of the squad. Sooner or later they’d be in a fight for their lives, twelve men against an entire city full of Germans no doubt spoiling for a fight.
Bowen fought to push such morbid thoughts from his mind and focus on the task at hand. The apartment he and Johnson occupied was on the western side of the third floor. Each floor of the building only had two apartments, and the door across from him was blown off its hinges, lying shattered into several pieces inside the doorway. Bowen imagined there wouldn’t be anyone occupying an apartment that lacked at least a functioning front door, but nevertheless, he crept inside slowly and quietly, his pistol in hand, finger well away from the trigger. He didn’t want to accidently shoot an innocent French citizen or give away their position if startled.
This apartment looked even more destitute than theirs. Ragged lines of bullet holes tore the plaster and wood interior walls apart, and one room appeared to have suffered a grenade blast. Most of the furniture was broken and splintered, and old, tarnished shell casings littered the floor. Moving carefully so as to not cause any creaking floorboards, Bowen investigated the apartment’s pantry. The cabinets and shelves had been completely ransacked, but he did find a couple of intact, albeit empty, wine bottles. Bowen tried the kitchen water tap, and to his surprise, after much burbling and sputtering, he received a trickle of rusty water. Cringing at the sound the pipes made, but willing to risk it for some cold drinking water, Bowen let the tap run for a couple of minutes until the water felt cold and tasted relatively clean. He then filled the wine bottles, rinsing out each of them before filling them up and bringing them back across the hall.
After the success of finding potable water, Bowen decided he’d explore downstairs. The stairwell hadn’t fared much better than the apartments during the siege. The space was badly riddled with bullet holes, and tarnished brass casings lay scattered over the landings and steps. Proceeding to the second floor, Bowen remembered a few slightly creaky stairs on his way up earlier this morning, and so descended while keeping near to one side of the stairs, where the edge of the boards would bear his weight best. On the second floor, one door was open, the other shut. Bowen listened at the closed door for a minute, but heard nothing. Deciding to save that room for later, he went through the open door, finding it similarly ransacked, although lacking a lot of the battle damage found in the rooms on the third floor. Several minutes of searching through the apartment won him a pair of candle stubs and a half-used book of matches, hidden in the depths of a kitchen drawer. Bowen struck one of the matches and found it still caught, so he quickly blew out the match and stuffed the book into his pocket, along with the stubs. The rest of the apartment was stripped of anything worthwhile; no doubt the citizens who remained in the city were now quite proficient at plundering the homes of their deceased or missing neighbors.
Curious now about the closed door across the hall, Bowen tip-toed across the landing and examined it. He could see that the door was cracked and the paint gouged and chipped below the doorknob, and the doorframe near the lock was splintered. During the fight for this apartment building or sometime thereafter, it appeared someone had kicked the door open. After listening at the door again for several minutes, Bowen gingerly tested the doorknob. The door appeared unlocked, and with a gentle shove, the door popped free of its doorframe and swung open.
Unlike the other two apartments he’d explored, Bowen immediately noticed there was something slightly off about the smell of this place. There was little air moving through the rooms, and the walls and windows seemed intact, indicating there hadn’t been any firefights in this apartment. Nevertheless, something - some animal instinct - caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. He quietly stepped to the right and peered around in the kitchen, which seemed relatively undisturbed. Opening a closed cabinet, Bowen found several tins of canned sardines and a large jar of big, green olives. Opening a few other cabinets, he saw other foodstuffs, most of it long since rotted away. Bowen pocketed the tins and the jar, curious as to why they hadn’t been plundered already, and stepped into the living room.
With an involuntary gasp, Bowen discovered why no one had pilfered from this apartment yet.
The tenants were still here. At least, what was left of them.
It was a family of four: a husband, wife, an older daughter and a young boy. At least, that was Bowen’s best guess. The skeletal remains gave him few clues other than their relative sizes and clothing. At first, Bowen wondered if they’d been killed when someone stormed the apartment, but after looking around for a moment, Bowen spotted the cause of death; a section of the floor in front of the bodies was torn and splintered by gunfire, and a quick examination of the bullet holes showed the shots had come from the apartment below.
Bowen could picture in his mind’s eye what must have happened. As the Germans cleared the building room by room, someone - probably a Feldwebel - had burst through the front door of the apartment below, and had been shot for his troubles. Machine pistol in hand, finger on the trigger, the German must have jerked his arms up and squeezed the trigger in his death throes, riddling the ceiling in front of him. The bullets would have easily punched through the plaster, lathe, and thin wooden boards that separated the two floors. The unseen fusillade had butchered this family, huddled together against the far wall of their living room. They’d been killed still hoping that, if they stayed down and presented no threat to whoever came through their front door, they would live through the horror taking place around them.
Bowen stood in the living room motionless for a long while, his mind playing out the tragedy, imagin
ing the look on the face of the soldier who’d kicked open the door to the apartment only to be met by the blank stares of the dead. For some unknown reason, no one had removed the bodies from the apartment, and they’d sat here, food for the rats and other crawling things until nothing edible remained. By now, it was entirely possible that no one left alive even knew they were here.
Muttering a short prayer, Bowen backed out of the room, stepped into the kitchen, and put the food back in the cupboards where he’d found it. He then stepped out of the apartment and softly pulled the broken door shut behind him. He made his way back upstairs, whispering the all-clear to Johnson.
“Well,” Johnson asked his partner, “did you find anything useful?”
“Aside from the water?” Bowen tapped his shirt pocket. “I only found a couple of candle stubs and some matches. This place has been picked clean.”
“So we’re all alone in the building?”
Bowen glanced back towards the apartment door and suppressed a shudder.
“I suppose you could say that. Here now, I’ll take a turn on the glass, you try and get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day.”
Chapter 16
Hotel Du Chevalier
1600 Hours
Tommy Lynch’s head snapped back from the impact of the gloved fist hammering into his cheek. Before he could recover, the SS thug followed up with a vicious backhanded blow that rocked his head in the other direction. Reeling with the one-two impact, his chin finally dropped and rested on his chest for a moment, as a thin line of bloody drool ran from his mouth onto his shirt.
The torture seemed to be for no other reason than the sadistic, voyeuristic pleasure of Faust, who leaned against the wall of the cellar room, arms crossed, head cocked, watching his bodyguards abuse Lynch and Price. No questions were asked, and the pummeling wasn’t even that severe; it was more akin to a schoolboy’s physical bullying of an unfortunate weakling. Lynch could only guess, as he took another fist to the gut, that his tormentor was merely softening him up, and didn’t want to do too much damage early on in the interrogation process.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 24
