Dore shed the empty flamethrower and snagged a discarded rifle. He didn’t enter the stronghold. The napalm would burn for several more minutes before exhausting the last of the bunker’s oxygen pockets. It was a toss-up whether the troops deepest in the compound would suffocate or be incinerated first.
“You okay, big guy?” Kat bumped his shoulder. A squealing German Officer on fire from head to toe rushed out of the bunker. She never took her eyes off Dore while splattering the NAZI’s brains against the sandbag wall. “I was always taught to put my fires out if I was going to leave the area. Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.”
“Let’s just get this over with.” Capson, Atkins and a hyperventilating Trufflefoot dropped over the wall and formed a defensive circle around them. The three surviving rebels slid down and jogged around the courtyard, mopping up every stunned and scorched NAZI as they ran. All without a word.
Nor a shred of mercy.
Dore plopped down on a crate of .50 Caliber ammo by the gate and studied the oncoming steel monster. Kat wandered up to him, turning her back on the shrieking, flaming ghouls plunging out of the bunker and the potshots from the rebels as they finished them off.
“So much sacrifice for what? It’s the end of the road, Kat. Even you don’t have an extra life to spare this time.” He pried a body from a heavy machine gun mounted on the wall. Capson dashed up and fed a fresh belt into the gun. He stuck out his chest at the Ratte rumbling their way and raised his fist.
“King and country!”
Trufflefoot stood parade-ground straight at the boy’s side while the mega tank dipped its 11” guns, leveling right on his forehead.
Only Atkins skittered about, climbing the rear wall and studying the base behind them. “God, I hate heroes! Can’t you bloody fools think like a coward for once?”
Capson winced. “Go out like a man. This is our finest hour.”
“Have fun with that. I’m going to live forever or die trying!” Atkins clutched at Dore’s sleeve. “Why aren’t they firing yet? Think about it, Sarge. They don’t want to hurt whatever’s in there.”
Kat spun around, following his outstretched arm to the warehouse less than twenty meters past the fort. The giant sandbags shook out a dust cloud as the Ratte crawled ever closer.
“You sneaky devil. That must be the ammo dump. Let’s blow it up!” Kat lunged out the back gate, the whole gang nipping at her heels. Atkins groaned and shouted after them.
“That’s not what I meant!”
Kat caved in the small side aluminum door with a flying kick. Inside, two mechanics in gray overalls took cover behind a pallet of giant shells and raised their machine pistols at the chuckling banshee.
“Really, fellas?”
Both shaky weapons lowered while the mechanics slunk backward. Neither put their hands up. The remaining Jewish rebels slid inside and fired controlled pairs in each of their faces without pause.
Atkins charged in, pulling out his hair at all the shooting inches above the stacked 300kg cannon rounds. “Help me help you crazy bastards! I spotted a small motorboat down at the river. With all the smoke and dust, I bet we could get at least two or three clicks downriver before the assholes spot us. Follow me!”
No one budged as he ran out the door by himself and gulped at the massive Landkreuzer throwing a shadow over the burning fort. Cussing under his breath, the skinny boy stormed back in the warehouse. The team fanned out and threw open crates while Trufflefoot scanned a clipboard and squeezed his temple.
“Not a single strip of detonation cord or satchel charge in the inventory. Ten tons of high explosive goodness, with no bloody way to remote detonate. Shall we draw lots for who gets a school named after them?”
Capson pushed through Sergeant Dore and the rebels. He snatched the crate of grenades Kat popped open and ran to the nearest pallet of 280mm cannon rounds. “It would be the greatest honor of my life to take this Wunderwaffe out. Just like Horatius at the bridge!”
Atkins groaned and ripped a huge spool of field telephone wire off the wall. “Ain’t nothing scarier than a true believer. Quit being an idiot and give me those.”
Capson deflated as Atkins wedge several incendiary grenades deep in the pallet. He looped the loose end of the telephone wire through the pins and torqued down a quick knot. Then he dashed over to a pallet of 20-kilo powder charges and lumped a small mountain on top of the bomb pile.
“That should be enough to blow the whole warehouse to the moon.” He wagged the wire spool, “this thing is two kilometers long. We can set it off at a safe distance. Does that satisfy your damn boom fantasies?”
He dragged the spool backward, unrolling plenty of slack as he headed to the riverbank. “Well, are you coming or what?”
Kat pouted and juggled a grenade. “I’d rather do this right. I guarantee you Pernass is on board that thing.”
“Perhaps discretion is the better part of valor, my dear.” Trufflefoot shoved her out the door as the warehouse walls rattled.
Dore pried the oversized telephone spool out of Atkins’s struggling hands and clapped it over his shoulder with one arm. “You get that boat in gear. I’ll take this. Get us out of here, and I’ll take back half the things I ever said about your monkey ass!”
Capson and Atkins charged headfirst into the motorboat beached on the riverbank, shoving it out into the shallow water in one stroke. Dore leaped aboard and hooked the telephone wire spool on a rear cleat. The last survivor was still splashing through the waist-deep water when Atkins dropped the motor blade down and yanked the crank, keeping the throttle wide open.
Kat shouted through the spray blasting her eyes. “Keep quiet. No wake until we’re farther out.”
“We need more speed!” Atkins gaped in horror while throwing everything that wasn’t bolted down overboard. Kat snapped her head around as the fort crumbled less than two hundred meters behind them. The Ratte barreled through the compound, pausing only to swivel the giant turret, and trained the epic guns slightly ahead of the boat fleeing into the setting sun.
Kat closed her eyes as the speeding boat bounced, tipping the front-end high in the air. “We should have stayed put and finished the—”
The spinning wire spool jerked to a halt for a brief second as the line snagged on the bow of a beached cruiser. The wheel ripped clear of the ship, something popping in the warehouse before it hit the water. Seconds later, another blast tore off the roof. Moments after that, a second sun came out.
Kat whooped at the portal to hell opening behind them. She hugged Atkins as the shockwave hammered the boat five hundred meters downriver and sent them spinning. She was still grinning as the shrapnel rained around them.
“I couldn’t have timed it any better myself.”
Atkins sagged and clutched his head in his hands. “Does it ever end?”
Everyone aboard snapped their heads around as something clanked out of the mushroom cloud. Two of the flak gun mounts were gone. The Landkreuzer poured on the speed and clawed out of the crater.
Then kept moving west, towards the American Bridgehead 150 kilometers away.
Capson took the engine throttle and clapped Atkins’s knee. “It’s all right. With God’s help, we’ll make it to the beach before that thing does. Then we’ll be waiting for him.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Atkins fumbled out a wet cigarette from his coat. “If God’s on our side, then who’s on theirs?”
CHAPTER 11
Port Lyautey
Ten hours later, Kat jerked awake when the powerless boat bounced off a pier and slipped back into the raging current. Dore shoved his paddle deep in the blackness. “Put your backs into it. Last chance
!”
Atkins, deep in dreamland ever since the gas ran out hours ago, didn’t even stir as everyone gasped and paddled the ship back to a standstill. Dore chucked a lasso at the dock, catching a pylon as the crew hit muscle failure and surrendered to the constant current. The boat snapped around as the rope strained tight, tossing the ragdolls onboard every which way over the pounding waves.
“Wake up and help, Sleeping Beauty!” Kat hauled on the line with everyone else, fighting the raging current where the river met the Atlantic. Atkins’s eyes fluttered open only when the vessel swung around and slammed into the dock, tipping 30 degrees in the process.
“What’s all the commotion about?” With a yawn, he looped the stern rope around a dock cleat above his head and cranked down, righting the ship and locking it in place.
“What would you guys ever do without me?”
Kat heaved herself up on the wooden pier and stretched her tight legs for the first time all night. Something boomed in the distant eastern horizon. She shielded her eyes from the blazing sun rising fast over the far mountains.
“How fast can that Ratte possibly go? We should have had a much longer head start.”
“I’m not so worried about one tank. I’m more curious where a whole army went.” Trufflefoot darted across the private fishing wharf outside of the city. He jogged across the abandoned fishing port, not a soul in sight. At the two-lane highway straddling the river, he skidded to a halt and waved his hands.
A stream of five-ton trucks bulging with troops kept rambling by. None stopped, nor even slowed as they roared past. Trufflefoot slanted his swollen nose up as one of the men flicked a hand under his chin and mimed a beard.
Dore bounded up and snorted at the blue-white-red shields sewn on the passing arms. “Damn Vichies! At least they’re finally making a stand. These poor doffers don’t know what they’re getting into.” He cupped his hands and whooped. “Give ‘em hell, you brave bastards!”
In response, a machine gunner on the rear of the last truck snarled and dropped his hammer.
“Finger off the trigger, you dumb shit!” Dore hit the dirt as a wild burst shot over his head and sprayed the road they’d drove down. Kat snagged his shoulder as the convoy picked up the pace and rounded a bend, hauling ass towards the cannon fire on the eastern horizon.
“Oh, they’ve toughened up, all right. Looks like the Germans made a better offer.”
A British Matilda light tank raced around the corner and past the team, while a small train of Willy jeeps circled the dusty strangers on the side of the road. A bespectacled UK Captain in one of the jeeps hollered in terribly mangled French.
“How many of those rotten traitors did you see passing through?”
Trufflefoot hopped in the Officer’s jeep on reflex, plucking the man’s map out of his hands while barking orders in the Queen’s English. “I’d estimate nearly battalion strength. Is this our defensive line? No, no, that won’t do. Too far back. Captain, send my compliments to the quartermaster and request—”
“Get the bloody hell out of my jeep!” The Captain cracked the holster open on his sidearm while Trufflefoot blinked.
“Of course, introductions are in order. My apologies. I’m Colonel Trufflefoot. Moroccan station chief for the Special Operations Executive. Now, there’s no time to waste…”
“And I’m the blasted Duke of Wellington. You have some identification?”
Kat slapped the jeep’s hood with both hands. “Wouldn’t be much of a secret outfit if we carried around ID cards, eh? Perhaps our rebel friends could vouch for us. Just ask your headquarters to contact…” Kat waved her hand at the empty space where the surviving Jewish guerrillas were hovering a moment before. Only a faint whine responded as their freshly refueled boat cast off from the pier and raced upriver.
“Spies, rebels, traitors…” The newcomer twisted up his nose. “We were told to expect zero resistance from the Vichies. Then we got hammered from every direction as soon as we hit the beach. Then they magically surrender without explanation, only to flip sides again the next day. So pardon me if I don’t trust anyone in this damn country. First Sergeant!”
A graying NCO bounded out of the last jeep, charging forward with his sub-machine gun high.
“Take these wannabe Commandos into custody.” The Captain glanced up at the hairy mountain of a man glaring down on him. “If they give you any trouble, throw their bodies in the river.”
“Dore?” The First Sergeant punched the stranger’s barrel chest. “Ya wanky bambot! We’s ta’ yer deed a’ter Tobruk!”
“Eachann! Come here, ya black-h’arted knobdobber!” Dore clapped the man’s back and guffawed.
The Captain rolled his eyes and draped his arm over the jeep’s door. “Smashing. Well, how could this day get any stranger? Whoever you are, I don’t suppose you have any hard intel on what’s coming our way? From what we can intercept over the net, the Huns call this thing heading our way a land cruiser, whatever that means. I sent some scouts out. I haven’t heard a peep from them in an hour.”
“Mount up!” Trufflefoot tugged the map back and folded it over. “You have to see it for yourself. Safe to say this beast can’t scale all these mountains… so you’ll have to find it somewhere here.” He tapped a couple of grid squares of open land only a few clicks away. The Captain puckered his lips.
“Rather a large haystack to search for one needle. I’ve got air support coming on station in minutes. We need a better target than that for them to destroy.”
Trufflefoot grinned and rapped the driver’s shoulder. “Trust me, finding the target isn’t the hard part.”
Ten minutes down the road, the convoy grounded to a halt in front of a small stone bridge. The Sebou River took a sharp bend and cut south through the valley, stretching back east only at the base of a steep hill nearby.
Not that anyone in the patrol appreciated the terrain. All eyes locked on the massive steel apparition crouched in a farm field in the distance.
Trufflefoot tsked at all the French trucks and armored cars clustered around the Ratte. A couple of Vichy men scaled a 20-meter ladder on the side of the land ship while dragging a hose from a fuel truck.
“Is there anything worse than a turncoat that doesn’t stay bought? Is there no honor among thieves anymore?”
While everyone else glared or gaped at the distant horizon, Capson skipped to the highest point of the bridge. “Hey, we got company!”
Capson notched his MG42 tight in the shoulder and trained it upriver. He dropped the barrel after a second and sighed at the dozen logs floating their way. Each with a few arms or legs still attached.
“At least we found my missing scouts.” The Captain ground his teeth as several Privates splashed in the water and lugged the bodies back to shore. “No French bodies? They had a platoon of former Vichy troops as guides. Double-crossing rat bastards!”
The Captain spun back east and clutched his binoculars tight. Even at 20 kilometers, the Ratte filled his entire field glass and spilled out over the mil range markers. He gave up ranging the target and called in his ace in the hole.
“Airman!”
Two American Forward Air Controllers sprinted up. Without a word, the spotter began marking his map while the radioman tossed a metal ball with several antennae spiking out high in a bushy Argan tree nearby. Dropping his bulky rucksack radio, he snapped a cable dangling from the tree into a connection port and muttered call signs into the mic.
The second he finished, the spotter pointed to a six-digit grid on his map and took the handset. In seconds, he stood tall and flashed a thumbs-up. “Made contact, sir. Bringing them in now. Time on target, three and a half mics.”
Ka
t wedged in between them and crossed her arms. “I hope you have a ton of planes, because this didn’t work so well last time.”
“No worries.” The Captain curled and opened his fists non-stop. “The strike package was redirected from a planned raid on the enemy fleet in Tunis. So this land cruiser is just as safe as a lone cruiser at sea.” He cocked his head at the sky. “Speaking of which, the Yanks are right on time for once.”
A faint buzz droned in from the south, growing into a deafening roar as a flock of four-engine heavy bombers flashed over their position. The US airman set his rifle down and leveled his radio handset.
“I’m bringing the birds down to 8,000 feet. High enough to stay out of flak range, low enough to drop their payloads with pinpoint accuracy. We’ve got 30 total bombs aboard, each with a 1,000lb warhead — more than enough to kill a real battleship. I’ll send them in by waves though. No point in wasting too much ordinance. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
“Yeah, and so does that thing. Just what the hell do they think they’re doing?”
Even at 20 kilometers out, Kat didn’t need binoculars to spot the mammoth turret swiveling a few degrees. Both battleship guns elevated a tad. The left barrel flashed after only the slightest pause.
“Oh, now these poor bastards must be desperate. Not even David Crockett could make that shot. If they’re so panicked, maybe we could talk them into surrender…”
No one said a word as the first shell detonated half a click above and almost a full click ahead of the lead flight of B-24s. A clear miss for any other weapon.
Or dead on the money for a 300-kilogram flak round. Instead of an epic blast, the shell popped apart in mid-air.
With a cone of death stretching in a 20-degree circle out to 1,000 meters, most of the 10,000 fragmentation shards fell well clear of the first three-plane flight of Liberators. Though the few hundred that hit were more than enough to devastate every one of the planes.
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