The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  Upon the driver’s call and the removal of the canvas, all three opened fire in a deafening, hammering thunder, streams of tracer spearing out into the darkness at whatever targets of opportunity were presented. Parked vehicles and aircraft exploded in flames as they were shredded by the withering barrage of fire; shattered glass and jagged chunks of wood and stone sprayed in all directions as they passed the main administration buildings on their right, with random patrols of guards and on-duty staff cut down where they stood as more sirens and alarms began to wail all about the base.

  The time-synchronised devices in the trucks left by the hangars and the tank farm also detonated at that moment, both as powerful as the first huge blast. Encased in scrap metal and thousands of bullet-sized ball bearings, each bomb possessed the explosive force of more than two tons of TNT, and the effect of each was equally devastating. Most of the larger hangar buildings surrounding the truck were destroyed in the blast, disintegrating along with aircraft, and machinery and anyone with the misfortune of being present so early in the morning. Debris was thrown hundreds of feet into the air, spiralling away in all directions ahead of a huge cloud of flame and smoke.

  On the other side of the main runway, most of Aldergrove’s fuel supplies had become a monstrous inferno, the initial explosion – large as it was – becoming little more than a trigger for a far larger blast as thousands of gallons of diesel, gasoline and avgas were instantly turned into an expanding tsunami of fire spraying in all directions, starting many more smaller but equally ferocious spot fires wherever the burning liquids fell.

  Even after the alarm had been raised, the few precious minutes it took to mobilise any effective armed units to combat the attack meant that the last remaining Bedford QLD had already reached the Antrim Road and coasted through beneath the raised boom gate, slowing down just long enough to collect the two men they’d left to pose as guards. Indiscriminate firing was breaking out around the base as secondary explosions of varying size continued to go off here and there, adding to the hysteria and confusion.

  Although it was true there’d been the occasional outbreak of localised unrest or rioting, no credible, organised attack had been made upon any Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS installation anywhere in the Six Counties in almost two years of occupation. Security and the general level of alert had been almost non-existent as a result, and the speed and surprise of the attack had been such that the men in that fleeing Bedford had gotten away unharmed as a result. It was the first such attack of that Sunday morning, and it would be the only one to suffer no serious casualties.

  Lisahally docks

  Derry, County Londonderry

  Reich-Protektorat Nordirland

  The Albert Schlageter had docked before dawn on that chilly October morning. She was one of dozens of Kriegsmarine vessels present at what had formerly been the RN Naval Base, HMS Ferret prior to the German invasion of September 11, 1940, however at almost 40,000 tons displacement, the huge Waffen-SS assault ship dwarfed them all with her sheer bulk, towering over the schnellboote, frigates and destroyers normally berthed there.

  The vessel had spent a large part of the preceding week anchored off the island of Hirta in the St Kilda Archipelago, 300 miles north of the Scottish Outer Hebrides. As the test site for a new Nazi secret weapon, the erstwhile uninhabited island chain had for a number of weeks become the temporary home of hundreds of Wehrmacht scientists and engineers, along with a significant number of Allied POWs used as forced labour.

  Albert Schlageter had originally been enroute to North Africa for deployment as relief for SS units already ‘in country’, but had been diverted in support for that testing at the request of Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters, commanding officer of the entire Wehrmacht and second-only to Adolf Hitler himself in terms of power and influence across the Greater German Reich.

  She was a huge ship, with the same length and displacement as a full-sized fleet carrier, although she carried just third the number of aircraft as might an American or Japanese counterpart. Most of the thirty aircraft she carried were heavy-lift helicopters, with just a few fighters and attack bombers for air support.

  Inside her cavernous holds she carried an 1800-man heavy battalion of combat troops along with six main battle tanks and a variety of other armoured and non-armoured vehicles in support. She was home to the 3rd SS Schweres Amphibisch Sturmbann (SS Heavy Amphibious Battalion), a renowned and battle-hardened unit that had once been known of simply by the dark and sinister title that remained its unofficial nickname: Totenkopf’– the infamous ‘Death’s Head’.

  In his late twenties, Sturmbannführer Berndt Schmidt was a man of medium height and the type of athletic build common to front line officers. Clean-shaven and with dark hair cut regulation short, he was an intelligent young man who’d worked his way up through the ranks of the Waffen-SS, his progress aided substantially by three years of war in Europe. As was standard with all armoured units, either Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS, he and the rest of his men wore generic, black tank suits while he, as unit commander, also wore a light headset over one ear that carried a small microphone positioned by the corner of his mouth on a flexible stalk.

  He was currently standing inside the hull of his P-7E command vehicle with his head and torso projecting through one of the large observation hatches in its roof, directly behind the 8x8 wheeled reconnaissance vehicles’ small, machine gun-armed turret. They waited impatiently halfway up a shallow rise on the Port Road, leading away from the docks with the huge assault ship dominating the background and the River Foyle directly to his right. The sun was barely showing above the eastern horizon as Port Road continued up the hill ahead of him to Temple Road, which in turn followed on up to Clooney, the main carriageway into Derry heading south. Behind him, a troop of armoured vehicles also waited that included three Panther tanks, four Marder infantry fighting vehicles loaded with troops and a single Wirbelwind self-propelled flak vehicle.

  “Any sign, Mein Herr…?” The query crackled across Schmidt’s headset, the tone clearly laced with the same irritation he also felt. He recognised that voice immediately and turned his head to glance back toward the P-4A Panther positioned at the very rear of the small convoy, raising a hand of acknowledgement to the young officer who’s head and torso he could see rising out of the tank’s commander’s hatch.

  “None yet, Milo,” he answered quickly, his own words filled with sarcasm. “It appears our importance isn’t sufficient to make us worthy of keeping to schedule.” He made a show of consulting his wristwatch. “We’ll give them another five before I follow up with headquarters…”

  The vehicle they were waiting on appeared over the crest at the top of Port Road perhaps two minutes later; a battered old P-5 Fennec armoured car that had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland and France at the beginning of the war and had served Germanische-SS Occupation forces in Northern Ireland just as effectively since. Its original dark paint scheme of an a plain, overall panzer grey was worn and stained, and combined with its bent and missing fenders and generally tattered appearance gave evidence of its heavy use on several combat fronts.

  The Fennec came to a halt directly beside Schmidt’s tank, a hatch directly ahead of the small, machine-gun-armed turret flipping back to reveal a tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed officer of the Germanische-SS, the quasi-military arm of the larger Schutzstaffeln that operated as security forces in occupied countries and generally concerned itself with such tasks as the rounding up of Jews and other ‘undesirable elements’. Looking to be in his early thirties, the man rising from the vehicle at that moment wore the standard grey uniform of an SS Standartenführer – a full colonel – and looked for all the world to be a perfect poster-boy for the ‘purity’ of the Aryan race.

  “Sturmbannführer Schmidt, I presume,” he called out genially, with a very informal attempt at a Nazi salute. “Franz Bauer… I am in charge of this little soirée for my sins. I believe your units have been ‘volunteered’ for this little outing today.”
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br />   None of the words were spoken as questions, yet Schmidt clearly heard the inverted commas Bauer had intentionally used around the term ‘volunteered’, and he got the impression that the officer felt at least some sympathy for the disruption of their voyage and this diversion to Northern Ireland.

  “We’ve been given little by way explanation, Mein Herr,” Schmidt responded with a similarly casual tone, although his returned salute was far more crisp and adherent to regulations. “Some request for our assistance as an escort? Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles are a rather extreme measure, I should’ve thought.”

  “A severe measure, certainly,” Bauer replied with a faint, wry smile, “and one we shall hopefully find unnecessary, however you may not have been fully appraised of the situation here in Nordirland as it currently stands. Last week we apprehended the most wanted fugitive in Grossbritannien; an American sniper and resistance fighter who has been evading capture since the war began. He’s currently being held at a local command headquarters at Strabane, thirty kilometres south of here, and was only taken into custody after inflicting significant losses. We’ll be transporting him to Belfast this afternoon, and we have reason to believe his IRA compatriots may be foolish enough to make an attempt at effecting his escape during the journey.”

  “Surely a helicopter would have sufficed, Mein Herr?” Schmidt suggested, thinking that a logical alternative and not sure why men and resources – particularly his men and resources – were being wasted in such a fashion.

  “Indeed,” Bauer agreed wholeheartedly, “however our local commander, Gruppenführer Barkmann would in fact be very pleased if such an attempt were made, thus presenting us with the opportunity to inflict further casualties on these rebels.”

  Bauer felt it unnecessary at that point to mention that the earlier action that had resulted in their prisoner’s capture had also left Ernst Barkmann’s prized motor vehicle a shattered wreck, and that the high-ranking SS officer was an incredibly vindictive fellow who now welcomed any chance to exact revenge on those who’d done something so petty as to ruin his favourite car.

  “If we could get on then, Mein Herr,” Schmidt suggested, mostly covering up the testiness he inwardly felt. “We’re still expected in North Africa, and I’d much prefer if that were to happen before the end of the year.”

  “Of course, Herr Sturmbannführer, of course… there’s no need for us to –”

  The rest of his sentence was rather dramatically cut off by the thud of an explosion, perhaps a thousand yards or so off to the north-west, somewhere on the far side of the naval base, followed by several more in quick succession that sounded far larger. The eyes of ever man in the immediate area instantly turned toward the sounds as thick clouds of black smoke and flame rolled skyward close to what appeared to be the upperworks of a Type 1936-class destroyer.

  “Scheisse…!” Schmidt breathed softly as another hatch was thrown back above the Fennec’s rear hull to reveal a younger SS officer holding a large, portable radio handset. He too looked on in horror and surprise as another, smaller explosion erupted from somewhere near the vessel’s bow and an alarm siren began to sound.

  “Franz…!” The younger man called across, the walkie-talkie held up to one ear as he spoke. “Reports from Belfast that there’s been a number of attacks across Nordirland: Aldergrove’s been hit badly, along with Lisburn and a number of others. Fighting is continuing as we speak… No word of any unrest at Strabane so far, fortunately…”

  Both unit commanders turned as one to stare in shock at that news, and the sight of Obersturmbannführer Pieter Stahl caused Schmidt no small amount of added surprise. A tall man of similar Aryan appearance to that of Bauer, Stahl was perhaps a year or two younger and was instantly recognisable for the livid scar that ran from beneath his right eye to the corner of his lip, a mark that marred his otherwise quite chiselled features.

  A mere lieutenant at the time, Schmidt had been present two years earlier when Stahl had received that scar, the wound inflicted upon him by a Luftwaffe officer by the name of Ritter. Stahl had also been a Waffen-SS junior officer at the time and had been in command of the raid of a farmhouse bordering the airfield at St. Omer in Northern France. There’d been murder done that night at Stahl’s hand and by his order… murder and far worse acts committed against a twelve year old French girl and her widowed mother.

  Schmidt had never forgotten the horror and disgust he’d felt that night – sentiments he shared with his platoon commander, Milo Wisch, who’d also been present – and it would’ve been a great understatement indeed to say that there was definitely no love lost between the pair and the SS officer standing before them in the middle of the road at that moment.

  The sneer of displeasure that began to form on the tank commander’s face faded immediately as an emergency broadcast from his shipboard command suddenly crackled over his headset, completely focussing his attention. He listened intently for a moment before acknowledging his reaffirmed orders and switching over to his unit frequency to pass the information on.

  “All units…” he began tersely, his voice measured and professional and showing none of the disapproval he inwardly felt regarding what he’d just been advised. “We have reports of co-ordinated attacks against Wehrmacht and SS installations coming in from all over Nordirland. Schlageter is putting to sea and will stand to in the lough until the area has been secured. Our air-mobile units are preparing for take-off and will be deployed here and to other nearby flashpoints to assist with security and crush any ongoing resistance.” He paused for a brief moment, allowing himself the barest sigh of displeasure.

  “Our immediate orders are to continue with our mission as originally planned, providing convoy escort between Strabane and Belfast. In light of these unexpected enemy actions, two Drache will be provided for air cover and will join our detachment as soon as they’ve been armed and prepared for flight.”

  He turned his attention back toward Bauer and Stahl, removing his headset before he could hear the grumbles of protest he knew would be forthcoming from his troop commanders. By this time, Stahl had also taken the time to note Schmidt’s presence, although he reciprocated none of the younger man’s unpleasant feelings as he vaguely recalled a quite competent junior officer with whom he’d once served.

  “It appears you still have our undivided attention, Mein Herr,” he growled, ignoring Stahl now completely as he addressed Bauer and found himself in no mood to hide his misgivings.

  “Merely for an afternoon, Sturmbannführer,” Bauer assured genially, choosing to assume the man’s attitude was borne of a desire to get back to active duty rather than any more disrespectful motive. “You’ll all soon be back to your original deployment, I promise you.” He glanced back at Stahl. “Pieter; radio back to Strabane if you would and advise them we will be returning forthwith...” He paused for a moment, then added: “…And have them prepare the prisoner for transport immediately… it concerns me, considering what appears to be happening at the moment, that it may only be a matter of time before some kind of attack does take place, and perhaps it might be best to be away from urban areas and out on the road before anything of the sort occurs.”

  “If you’ll follow us,” he directed back toward Schmidt as Stahl began speaking into the radio, “we’ve a leisurely hour’s drive ahead of us through some quite picturesque countryside to reach our destination…”

  “Hochnäsiger kleiner furz…!” Schmidt’s heard muttered softly from below, inside the hull of the Puma. Stifling a snort of derision for the ‘snooty little fart’, as his communications officer had so eloquently put it, the commander of 1e Kompanie of the 3rd SS Schweres Amphibisch Sturmbann deftly kicked the man in the knee while showing no movement whatsoever above the line of the vehicle’s roof, determining to make at least some effort to discipline the fellow at a later date.

  “Lead on, standartenführer…” he requested instead. “The sooner we depart, the sooner all of this is over with and we can all g
et back to normal operations.”

  “I couldn’t agree more on that point,” Bauer conceded with a wan smile. “We’ve all got better things to do with our time than –!”

  “We’ve lost contact with Strabane, Franz!” Stahl called out suddenly, again securing their undivided attention in an instant. “Last report was they’d deployed the majority of the garrison south to Omagh to assist against an attack on St Lucia Barracks, and now I can’t raise Zimmer or anyone else…!”

  They stared at each other for a matter of seconds, the moment lasting an age in each man’s mind as a cold shudder of fear rippled through both simultaneously.

  “Button up, Pieter: we’ve a hard drive ahead of us. Kindly get in contact with the CO of the Totenkopf and request a platoon of fliegertruppen be despatched for Strabane immediately… We’ll need someone on the ground there as soon as possible to engage and delay until we can get there with our reinforcements. No time now for that sightseeing, Schmidt – it appears we may have all been ‘taken for a ride’, as the American’s are fond of saying. Perhaps those fools in the IRA are not so stupid as we’ve been led to believe…”

  Germanische-SS local command HQ

  Strabane, County Tyrone

  Reich-Protektorat Nordirland

  Lowenstein’s face felt so tender it was almost raw, and he felt every whisper of a breeze in the chill of the morning air. He’d never felt so completely and utterly exposed as he did at that moment, and a large part of the nervousness he felt as he and two other men walked south from Church Street toward the Bowling Green early that morning was directly due to the fact that beneath the long, leather coat he wore, he was a Jew, wearing the uniform of an officer of the Waffen-SS, about to willingly walk right into the heart of Strabane’s local SS headquarters … if the term ‘willingly’ could truly be applied to a concept so terrifying. It helped very little that the entire thing had ultimately been a mission of his own devising.