by Nick Cook
It was the positions given for the Red Army that bothered him. They were different on each map, even though both charts showed the same date in their top right-hand corners, clearly indicating that they were both still current. But were they valid? What was confusing was the fact that one showed the huge concentrations of tanks and troops ringing Chrudim that he had just witnessed with his own eyes one hour before, while the other did not, having instead an almost identical armoured build-up depicted around Branodz. Herries would have dismissed it altogether had not the route back to his own lines depended on whether Branodz was heavily fortified or not. If the Red Army was there in the same strength as it was at Chrudim then he would have to give it a wide berth and that would add at least another day’s march to the trip. One thing was quite obvious whichever of the two maps told the truth: Ivan had close on half a million troops in the area and Herries wanted to be as far away as possible when the tanks rolled towards Germany.
There was one other small difference between the maps. The one which showed Branodz as the centre of the buildup had been given the title “Archangel”. The simple word, scrawled in a shaky hand along the northern edge of the map, provided the best clue so far to unravelling the mystery. Herries delved into the Red Army-issue despatch case looking for some text that he had noticed earlier with the maps.
He found some soggy and crumpled pages in the bottom of the bag. They were typed and barely legible, but he leafed through them, searching for the information he required.
The words on the pages seemed strangely unfamiliar. Herries had spoken plenty of Russian over the last few years, mainly interrogating prisoners or beating information out of local civilians, but this was almost the first time since Oxford that he had picked up Cyrillic. There was just not enough time to go over the whole of the twenty-page document so he scoured down the lines for “Archangel”, his index finger weaving a precarious course through words and sentences which gradually built up a picture of a pending Russian assault. At the back of his mind Herries wondered what a lowly major in the Red Army was doing with such sensitive items of strategy. Ivan must be getting complacent.
Archangel jumped out at him from the middle of the fifth page. He picked up the text from the top of the sheet, praying that there had been some mistake and that Branodz was an insignificant and poorly garrisoned town which did not require them to make a massive detour. That way, they could be back behind their own lines by the day after tomorrow. Picking a path through both sides’ front lines would be a nightmare he would worry about when the German positions were in sight.
It should have taken Herries five minutes to absorb the details about Archangel, but instead he reread the account twice, at first thinking that his grasp of the Russian language had left him, then that the lack of food and sleep over the last few days had caused him to lose a grip on reality. When he had finished, he rolled onto his back and let the rain fall on his face. Herries was past feeling the freezing cold droplets and the dampness of his clothes. His mind raced at the information that he now knew he had interpreted correctly.
Herries sprang to his feet. He started to break into a run, but slowed as he passed the two men on watch. When he had left McCowan and Dyer out of sight further up the hill, Herries charged through the trees, ignoring the pine branches that whipped and stung his face, until he reached the spot on the edge of the forest where they had first spotted Chrudim. Just before he approached the clearing he slowed to draw breath, cursing himself for the way he had breached one of the most elementary rules for survival behind enemy lines. So often the insurgent who momentarily took his eyes off his surroundings wound up dead, taken by surprise by a Soviet patrol for failing to look and listen.
Herries crouched behind a tree trunk and watched the dark interior of the wood for signs of life. It was still, apart from the sounds of the raindrops which had managed to penetrate the foliage, splattering the leaves on the forest floor around him. Satisfied he was on his own, he unslung his Zeisses and turned his attention to Chrudim, nestling in the middle of the valley floor almost a kilometre away. Nothing much had changed in the past hour. There were no tanks on the move, only a few jeeps scuttling in and out of the square in the centre of the town. Eventually Herries found what he wanted, a line of T-34s several hundred metres from his position, which unlike all the other tanks in the area, had not yet been covered with camouflaged netting.
He raised the binoculars.
He had seen hundreds of T-34s on the Eastern Front, and they had never failed to chill his soul. But there was something strange and unmenacing about this one. It was too clean, even for a vehicle that had left the factory that morning. It had none of the trappings that made up a fully functional and operational tank. Usually they brimmed with oil cans, spades, pickaxes, spare pieces of track, but this one was bare. There wasn’t even the customary slogan painted on the side of the driver’s cupola. “For Moscow”, “Long live Stalin”, “To the Front from the Kolkhoz Workers of Novosibirsk District”, or some other such crap was usually daubed on tanks by workers before they left the factories for the front.
Then there was the gun. It was far too big for a T-34, unless the Russians had suddenly equipped the type with a long-barrel 90mm instead of the standard 76mm. After Herries had focused on the length of the barrel he knew that what he had read about Chrudim was valid. The T-34s gun had not been forged in a factory, but sculpted from wood. Ivan had done a good job with the telegraph pole; it was hard to tell that it had been lashed to the front of the turret with rope. Herries went down the rest of the line before he was satisfied. They were fakes, all of them. Impossible to identify as such from the air, but unmistakable at close range. He picked out other armoured vehicles at random, but it was the same story. None of the tanks in or around Chrudim was going anywhere, just as the documents had said.
So he could trust them. And that meant he could use them.
Two maps. One showing a mythical assault against the German positions, the other all too real.
He sat back against the nearest tree and scarcely moved for the next half-hour. When he got up and started to move back towards the camp, every nerve-end in Obersturmführer Christian Herries’ body was tingling.
Archangel was not a plan to feint the Germans towards Chrudim and then outflank them from Branodz. Archangel wasn’t aimed at the Germans at all.
Ivan was poised to launch a pre-emptive strike on the West - against their own allies the British and the Americans, for God’s sake! The Red Army was going to bulldoze its way through the crumbling Reich to Paris and, if the momentum was still there, push on to the Channel ports, driving the British and the Americans into the sea.
Herries felt a smile crease his face.
Archangel was his ticket home.
* * * * * * * *
Just before he re-entered the clearing where most of his men were asleep, his jacket caught a branch, snapping it with the noise of a gun shot. Before he could even curse, Herries heard two machine-pistol bolts being drawn back as McCowan and Dyer prepared themselves for ambush from a Russian patrol.
He threw himself flat.
“It’s Herries,” he said through clenched teeth.
When he heard two more clicks and knew that the MP40S had been made safe, Herries picked himself up and walked into the clearing that housed their makeshift camp.
The two men on watch were standing with guns at the ready on each side of the open patch of forest. The other four, who had been huddled around a small fire, were also prepared for a fight. Dietz, Herries observed wryly, still held a bead on him with his rifle.
“All of you get some sleep, and that includes you two.” Herries looked at McCowan and Dyer. “We’re all edgy, but we must be rested when we break out of Chrudim later tonight. Any nervous behaviour like that could bring a whole Siberian division down on us. In the meantime, I’ll take over the watch.”
Herries felt the tension ease. He was satisfied that his voice had not faltered. If the p
lan was to work, he had to maintain their respect. Even Dietz, at any time a moment away from insurrection, had lowered his rifle and was settling down to rest again.
“Do the maps show a way out of here, sir?” It was Gunnersby, the Freikorp’s youngest and last recruit.
Herries grunted. “I’ve seen a way.”
Gunnersby’s mouth twitched at the edges then broke into a thin, faltering smile. Herries watched him as he lay down between Berry and Wood, the three of them drawing close to each other for warmth. They were joined by the two sentries who unfurled their groundsheets close to their fellow Englishmen, shunning the open space next to the leprous Dietz.
Herries chose a spot on the edge of the clearing and sat back against a pine, cradling his MP40 in his lap. Darkness was falling rapidly and it was now possible to see the faint glow of the fire, its intensity checked by the rain that still fell lightly over the central Czechoslovak foothills.
He had to be sure before he made his move.
The main thing was that work was continuing on Archangel at Chrudim, that he’d seen with his own eyes. Yet it was over forty-eight hours ago that they’d carried out the ambush and Ivan must have found the jeep and its Hanomag escort by now. It had to mean that they were satisfied the documents had been destroyed. The slightest hint of trouble and the dummy armour at Chrudim would have been dismantled by now.
Herries glanced back at the six forms hunched round the dying fire. It would be difficult negotiating his way back without them, especially without the skills of the master predator Dietz, but there was no other way. Archangel’s value was that it was his, and his alone. There was no room for anyone else.
Herries checked off everything he would need for the march ahead. He had three grenades, four clips for the MP40, his compass in his pocket and he had the maps - accurate German maps, as well as the Soviet charts they had found in the jeep. Food would be a problem, but the SS training school at Bad Tolz and three Russian winters had taught him how to live off the land.
Another long look at his men told him that they were asleep. It was time to go.
* * * * * * * *
Dietz’s eyelids flickered open when he heard the slight rustle. The cold grey eyes followed Herries as he slipped from his post into the impenetrable gloom of the surrounding forest. The sergeant’s upper lip curled in a sneer at the thought of Herries’ discomfort as he squatted in the dark forest. If the officer’s dysentery kept up like this, it would kill him. Then he, Dietz, could lead the others back to their own lines and get the promotion that was long overdue to him.
The last embers from the fire threw out just enough light for him to catch a glimpse of the stick that tumbled and spun as it arced through the night air towards him. Dietz knew what it was even before it landed in the middle of the group of bodies on the other side of the fire. It was too far for him to reach it and hurl to safety, so he rolled away, trying to scramble to his feet so that he could launch his body that few extra metres from the centre of the blast. But his feet caught in the blanket and he was trying to pull it free when the stick grenade exploded.
The flash momentarily turned night into day, but Dietz did not feel the shrapnel that tore through his shoulder. His mouth gaped as he tried to refill his lungs with air that had been squeezed from his body by the vice-like pressure wave that accompanied the explosion. Something heavy fell across his body, pinning his back to ground; and then all was still.
When Dietz came to, Dyer’s headless body was still twitching on top of him as the blood pumped from the neck and coursed over his face. Then with one last spasm it writhed and rolled onto the ground beside him. The warm stickiness that covered his face made him want to get up and run forever from that place, but his survival instincts told him to stay down.
Despite the ringing in his ears, he heard the figure draw near, he felt the breath on his cheek and he wanted to scream as the boot lashed into his ribcage. But still he made no sound or movement.
Soon all he could hear was the ringing again. Then he knew that Herries had gone.
Herries moved swiftly down the hillside, trying to put as much distance as he could between him and the camp before the Russians arrived on the scene.
Not that it really mattered. To Ivan it would just be a case of another faulty grenade going off and six fewer SS terrorists to worry about.
And they were all dead, there was no doubt about that. It wasn’t even necessary to put a bullet into Dietz just to make sure. The bastard must have lost half his bodyweight in blood judging by the mess that covered his face and body.
* * * * * * * *
Almost seven kilometres away, Malenkoy heard the distant rumble of the pressure wave as it rolled through the valleys towards his position.
His first concern was that one of the Siberian platoons had been ambushed in the same way that he had been earlier that afternoon.
He flicked the radio on for clarification from his men in the field, but the airwaves were jammed with the excited cries of his officers as they reported the explosion and, more importantly, the direction from which it came.
Malenkoy dipped the transmit button and bellowed for silence.
“Malenkoy to patrol leaders. Turn back and head for the source of that explosion. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but it has to be them. There are no other patrols reported in the area.”
The three officers acknowledged that they were proceeding in the direction of the sound of the detonation.
Then he was out through the back of the lorry and making for the nearest of the patrols. The trouble was, if he could pick out his own troops by the light of their torches, so could the SS.
CHAPTER NINE
They stopped by the lake on their way to the Underground station at St James’s Park. A group of boys were sailing their homemade boats by the water’s edge and she paused to watch. Penny seemed lost at the sight of the toy yachts with their delicate paper sails as they bobbed precariously among the geese and ducks.
“They’re coming home,” she said.
“The birds? It’s still winter. Feels like it, anyway.” Kruze turned to face her.
She laughed. “The children. They’re returning to London. Perhaps it really will all be over soon.”
The youngest boy, a scruffy child, with dirty hands and a face that had not seen soap in days, splashed his friends with muddy pondwater and ran off laughing as they chased him across the park.
“You mean you’ve missed all that noise?” The Rhodesian asked. “I thought you English frowned on kids who misbehaved in public.”
“Don’t be so stuffy,” she smiled. “This hardly sounds like the man who was sitting anxiously at Billy’s bedside this morning.”
“We were just talking.”
“No you weren’t.” She smiled.
Kruze shuffled, as if to get some circulation back into his frozen feet. “He was just a frightened kid responding to a friendly face. As you said, it could have been anybody. We just happened to be there.”
She touched his arm. “A good try, Piet. It’s not against the law in this country to show emotion, you know.”
“I thought you’d probably seen quite enough of that already.”
“That was something quite different.” She took his hand and moved towards the path that led to the station on the other side of the park.
The late afternoon sun was slipping behind the trees. Despite the cold, they walked slowly, her hand resting lightly on the crook of his arm.
“What was she like?” Penny asked, suddenly.
“Who?”
“The girl you told Billy about.”
He laughed. “I never said she was my girl.”
“I’m afraid you didn’t cover your tracks very well, my darling.”
Kruze lit a cigarette. “We were very different. I was young and so was she. End of story.”
Penny shook his arm lightly. “She hurt you. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “A little. I hurt him
more.”
“Your grandfather? He meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, I suppose he did, the stupid old so-and-so. After my parents died, he raised me as his son - and that’s not easy for an old man. My father had no brothers or sisters and his own wife had been long gone, way before I was born. It was just him and me, from my early teens to the day I left the farm in Mateke. Looking back, they were good years.”
They reached the edge of the park and paused to get their bearings, before plunging down a darkened side street that led to the station.
She said: “Don’t you think they were for him too? If he was the man I think he was, he would have understood.”
“Penny, how can you know? He was a Rhodesian, born on the family homestead and buried there seventy-six years later. A tough, sinewy old man who’d seen three-quarters of a century filled with nothing but heat, a business that just about broke even and a social life that consisted of having the neighbours over for a drink at Christmas, so long as they could be bothered to make the two-hundred-and-fifty mile round trip. You don’t find people like that in the towns and villages of Kent or Gloucestershire.”
Her eyes flashed. “I know what he was like. He was honest, professional, sometimes moody, proud, arrogant even. He’d be awkward, a fish out of water with people of his own kind, but he would enjoy a drink with the boys after a day’s work. He’d be hard with anyone who didn’t pull his weight, but he’d walk through hell to save a man who was good and true.”
He had not seen her this angry, even on the Ministry steps the day before. The memory of it made him smile.
“Damn you, Piet. I’m right, aren’t I?”
When he spoke the smile was gone. “I take it all back. How did you know?”
“Somehow I knew he would have been just like you.”
