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Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

Page 102

by Charles S. Jackson


  The rifle bucked against his shoulder as two staccato 3-round bursts issued forth, both striking Pearse in the chest and head. He fell away from the running board, his lifeless body rent with multiple gunshot wounds as it rolled away to the edge of the kerb. It was at that point that the soft but somehow quite sinister sound of metal tinkling along the road caught Bauer’s attention and caused him to look down.

  It had been an excellent throw from McCaughey. He’d been an athletic man his entire life and was in the peak of condition. He also took his weapons training very seriously and had managed to toss that grenade close to sixty metres, with it rolling innocently to a halt not two metres in front of Bauer. It took but a fraction of a second to recognise the deadly little device for what it was, and it was the man’s saving grace that instinct and reflex drove his actions in the moment that followed rather than any appeal to rational thought. Gathering all his beloved football training to hand, the one-time goalie for TSV München 1860 (substitute) rose to his feet in one fluid movement and kicked the cursed thing with as much force as he could muster.

  At just 220 grams, the German Model 39 Eihandgranate (Lit. ‘egg hand grenade’) was quite small and indeed looked very much like an grey-painted version of its farmyard namesake. It was also no great feat for Bauer to lift it with his heavy-soled army boot and send it looping back the way it had come as he dived back into the doorway for cover. It didn’t carry far enough backward to cause the approaching cars any trouble, but it was fortunate indeed for Stahl that he was already lying in agony behind a stone wall at that point as it trundled up to within five or six metres of his position.

  It was also fortunate that the Model 39 was an ‘offensive’ or concussion-type grenade rather than a ‘defensive’ or fragmentation type. As it detonated a second later, the blast indeed left the injured Stahl even more stunned than before, but there was at least no fragmentation, which might have proven lethal for him even in his position of partial cover.

  Bauer of course knew nothing of his partner’s condition other than that he wasn’t firing back at the approaching fugitives, and he feared that Stahl might already be dead, possibly from his own inopportune placement of that grenade as any earlier fire from the enemy. With renewed resolve, the SS standartenführer steeled himself and again raised the rifle to his shoulder, this time only halted from firing at the last moment by the absolutely wonderful sound of trucks approaching from behind him up the street.

  “Trucks coming in from the north…!” Michaels howled a warning, best positioned to see what was approaching from the front passenger seat of the lead car. “At least two… maybe more…!”

  “South…!” Kransky bellowed in return, making the decision in an instant. “Take ‘em south instead…!”

  “It’s a fookin’ dead end to the south…!” McCaughey snarled, the tension clearly showing. “There’s another fookin’ border crossing five hundred yards down the bloody road!”

  “Then take ‘em as far as you can and then across the fields on foot!” The American shouted back, positioning himself on the southern side of the intersection with a clear view of the northern approach of Urney Road. “I’ll hold ‘em off as long as I can.”

  “Michaels and Kelly can take the rest,” McCaughey snarled as he came to a halt beside Kransky, reloading his Webley. “I’ll stand here with ye…”

  “Bullshit…!” Kransky shot back, the glint in his eye indicating he’d accept no argument. “They’ll need you all down the road, and if the IRA loses you like this, the whole Goddamn movement in Northern Ireland might just collapse.” He clapped a hand on the Irishman’s shoulder. “As soon as I’ve taken the lead truck out I’ll head back toward the bridge and lead em a merry dance… I’ll buy you all some time, don’t worry!”

  “You Yanks are fookin’ crazy…!” McCaughey said with a forced grin, shoving his grenade belt into Kransky’s hands and patting the man on the arm in return. “Just make sure you get yerself outta here too!” He turned back toward the cars and the rest of his men. “Come on fellas… time’s a wastin’ – let’s get the fook outta here…!”

  McCaughey hauled himself up onto the back of the Opel as it began to power away, perched precariously on the rear bumper and clinging to the roof and open window frame for dear life as both vehicles began to accelerate away south down Urney Road. A muzzle flash caught them all by surprise as it reached out for them from the darkened doorway of the nearby inn. The tension had become too great for the inexperienced Blatter, and as Stahl had warned Bauer earlier, he’d also forgotten to take the weapon off automatic prior to firing. Just as Stahl had predicted, the first two shots whined off the left fender of the Austin while the subsequent rounds of that uncontrolled burst sizzled straight over their heads as the rifle rose against Blatter’s shoulder in recoil.

  Seán Michaels was better-trained and had far more exposure to combat. He couldn’t actually see Blatter against the dark background of the doorway, but he could see the muzzle flash well enough and that was all he needed. He fired two quick, triple-bursts directly at the source of the flash as the motorcade roared past the inn at better than thirty kilometres per hour, still accelerating as it continued south. That there was no further fire directed at them in return was proof enough for Michaels that his aim had been true. He hadn’t needed the second burst.

  Kransky wasted no time pulling free two grenades from the belt he hoped were smoke and heaving each in turn toward the approaching trucks to the north before slipping the looped belt over his head and loping off back the way he’d come, pausing by that same driveway and readying himself as the hissing crump of white phosphorous began to fill the street not far from Bauer’s positon. The SS officer instantly forgot all thought of attack as the white clouds reached out for him and bolted for cover down the side of the building, not in any hurry to be either suffocated or burned alive.

  Kransky meanwhile took his time carefully switching off and removing the thermal sight before replacing it with a far more conventional, variable-power telescopic unit. He was prepared now and once more working alone… something he’d become quite accustomed to over the years. His weapon was ready and more importantly, he was ready, and as he raised the rifle to his shoulder and waited to see what might appear beyond the rising clouds of white smoke, Richard Kransky was at peace and ready to kill Nazis.

  In that moment of relative silence and meditation, thoughts of Eileen Donelson flashed into his mind from somewhere in his long lost memory, although the recollection of more pleasant times in her company for some reason didn’t fill him with happiness as they usually did. In that fleeting split-second, a single kernel of doubt germinated in his mind, its origin completely unknown and unexpected. A sudden chill shuddered through his body as if someone had just ‘walked over his grave’, as old Grandma Johns might’ve said back when he was just a kid.

  The most disconcerting piece of the sensation was the uncanny feeling, completely inexplicable, that in that moment, some part of his subconscious was absolutely and unequivocally certain that he would never live to see Eileen Donelson again. He cursed his own ridiculous fears and petty sentimentality and pushed it all from his mind, focussing once more on the task at hand.

  The first of three trucks – a big Brussig 8-tonner – trundled carefully through the hissing clouds of smoke and burst free on the other side, forced to slow to a crawl to avoid the danger of colliding with anything coming through. Kransky put his first round into the head of the driver, firing straight through the glass of the side window and incidentally killing the passenger beside him in the front seat at the same time. He put the next two into the engine as it trundled to a halt, knowing each one was powerful enough to crack the block but giving it two just to be safe.

  The second truck in line, the three-tonne Opel that had passed them earlier that day as they’d hidden in the church, tried to squeeze past the stalled vehicle directly ahead by pushing its way into the wider part of the intersection to the Brussig’s
right, rather unfortunately leaving Kransky with a clear shot on that vehicle also. As he disabled that truck and despatched the driver in similar fashion, troops began piling out of the rear of both and spread out into the street finding cover where they could, well aware now that they were under direct attack.

  With his clip now empty and facing multiple enemies, Kransky reloaded as he ran, making off across the muddy field toward the River Finn. He intended to keep their attention long enough to allow the others time to escape but fully intended to keep his own options open in that regard also, and the closer he stayed to the river, the better those chances would be. Starshells continued to burst at random overhead, but their frequency was now far less than it had been, and they were now centred more over the village itself than the fields beyond. As such, Kransky was often in relative darkness while his pursuers were perfectly bathed in clear, white light. He stopped every moment or two to turn, kneel and drop another target before running on, with automatic gunfire spraying his general area in return but never coming close. For a moment, as he stopped to reload for a second time, he began to truly believe he might really make it to safety after all.

  It was then that he first heard the helicopter. The sound was distant – muted by the rain that continued to fall – but it was unmistakeable all the same. He saw it then, appearing low on the horizon and coming in from the east. As it paused, hovering over the Urney Road south of the village, he could now see with dismay that it was one of their insect-like Drache gunships, an aircraft completely impervious to any of the weapons the Irishmen were carrying.

  Flying must’ve been difficult in such awful weather, but the pilot was making a good enough job of it all the same and as the accusing beam of a searchlight stabbed downward in the distance, accompanied by a short, sharp flash from the muzzle of the cannon in a turret mounted beneath the aircraft’s chin, Kransky had no doubt that it had the rest of them exactly where the pilot wanted.

  Without a second thought, he immediately pushed all thoughts of the approaching soldiers from his mind and turned his huge rifle toward the hovering chopper, shouldering the weapon and quickly bringing it into focus in his sights. A distance of only four hundred metres or so was no test for his abilities and neither was it the first Drache to suffer the misfortune of Richard Kransky’s wrath.

  With methodical precision, he emptied his entire magazine into the aircraft, starting with the fuselage beneath the cockpit and working his way back toward the tail. The gunship began to lose control almost immediately, starting a slow spiral as it slewed away to the east losing altitude the whole time. It struck the ground a few seconds later, a huge fireball blossoming into the sky as fuel and ammunition went up as one.

  It was only as roar of the explosion died down and he reached into his pack for his last magazine that the sound of the second helicopter reached his ears. Even as he desperately dragged the clip free and raised the weapon to reload it, a spotlight was already spearing downward and ‘impaling’ it with its stark, white light. The aircraft above him now was one of their Schpect utility helicopters, with machine guns fitted to flexible mounts on either side of the main doors.

  He thought about going for it, just for a moment, but the hammering of its port side gun made it clear how that course of action might end with 7.92mm slugs smashing into the ground close enough off to his left to spray him with muddy earth and make him flinch. Some of the closer troopers were now less than two hundred metres away, and bathed in that bright light as he was, even a ten-year-old could’ve hit him easily with a rifle at that range.

  “Throw your weapon to the ground…!” The accented order boomed out from a loudspeaker mounted somewhere beneath the aircraft’s belly. These particular choppers, working in pairs, were specially equipped to deal with refugees trying to escape across the border, and as such their crews were both well-trained and experienced at countering such excursions. “Thrown down your weapon or we will open fire…!

  Kransky took one last, searching glance in the direction of the Urney Road and the burning wreck of the other helicopter and gave a faint shrug. At least the Lowenstein and those kids still had a chance, and that was all that mattered, really.

  “Throw your weapon to the ground and you will not be killed…!”

  Kransky almost laughed at that.

  They used t’ say ‘give up and ya won’t get hurt’… He thought with as much irony as he could manage. At least they’re bein’ more honest these days.

  As he tossed the Barrett’s rifle into the mud and raised both hands above his head, that dark, foreboding thought that he’d never see Eileen Donelson again rose unsettlingly in his mind, and this time he was unable to shake it off. He had no way of knowing how right he was, although admittedly for reasons completely unrelated to the situation in which he currently found himself.

  Two hundred and fifty metres away on the other side of the River Finn, near the intersection with the Lifford Road heading into Castlefin and well out of sight of the Irish border post, IRA Chief of Staff Stephen Hayes waited silently in the front passenger seat of a darkened car with three other men, a small two-way radio resting in his lap. He’d been there most of the evening, stepping out just once to relieve himself behind a bush, and he’s so far been listening intently to observations relayed back from a Volunteer hidden near the river bank a few hundred metres or so south of the bridge.

  The man had been forced to leave of course after the firing of the recoilless rifles, as Irish police and soldiers would almost certainly be converging on the river from their side to carry out a thorough search and try to piece together what had occurred. The Germans might lodge a complaint with Dublin but he doubted it, and even if they did, that would only serve their purpose in any case.

  There’d been sporadic gunfire for some time now along with the unexpected advent of starshells floating over the village beyond the trees and river, but no further news had been forthcoming since their observer had been forced to decamp.

  “None of ‘em have made it across the bridge.” That simple, petulant statement came from an American seated in the back seat, looking rather dishevelled in a wrinkled but otherwise quite expensive suite he’d been wearing all day. “Not a single Goddamned one’s made it across…!”

  “It’s too remote for what we want anyway,” Hayes said dismissively, giving a faint shrug. “I’ve told Mister Bruce many times; we need an incident that the world will notice for this to work…”

  “The only issue I am concerned about at the present time is that of securing the safe delivery of Samuel Lowenstein to the United States Government,” the American sniffed disdainfully, unimpressed by the repetitive theme of an IRA mission of which he had no interest.

  “Well, this bloody Jew yer after is in the custody of the Irish Republican Army, Agent Bremner, so I’d suggest y’ start lettin’ it concern ye if y’ want our ongoin’ support in this.”

  Any response Bremner might’ve given was stillborn however as a German helicopter howled past low overhead, clearly in violation of Irish airspace as it shook the vehicle violently with the downwash of its rotors. Even as it barrelled on, heading back to the east and occupied territory, the deep boom of another explosion rumbled through ground and they were all able to see the fireball that rose in the distance a moment later above the treeline, facing east.

  “I think somebody just hit one o’ them there choppers,” Hayes observed conversationally. “That fucker that just buzzed us deserved it, too, but I can still see the bugger hovering near the river there, so it musta been some other poor bastard.” He gave a nod of recognition as he continued to watch the hovering gunship. “Looks like he’s caught someone, too…”

  “Jesus Christ!” Bremner exclaimed in dismayed frustration, dragging a cigarette from a crumpled packet with shaking hands.

  “Keep your knickers on there, mate,” Hayes reassured, finding the American almost comical in his accentuated mannerisms. “We might lose a few men tonight, but if this Lowe
nstein fella’s all you’ve said he is, they’ll want to keep him alive right enough if he is caught…” Hayes drew a Camel of his own from a cigarette case inside his shirt pocket and raised it to his lips as his driver produced a Zippo and flicked it alight.

  “If he’s caught then there’s only one place they’ll take him – Belfast – and there’s a lot ‘o miles between here and there, sure enough…” he continued after a thoughtful puff. “And if he’s not caught, then we’ve still got him…” he paused again, allowing a long stream of exhaled smoke to stream from his lips, only to be whipped instantly away by the draught, out through the narrow opening at the very top of his door window. “Either way, Agent Bremner… either way… we can still give y’ what y’ want.”

  He let Bremner chew on that thought as he took another drag of the cigarette, deep in his own thoughts of the kind of incidental damage a rescue attempt in the heart of Belfast could do and hoping fervently that Samuel Lowenstein had indeed been captured.

  22. Jedem das Seine

  Home of Bruce and Maude Morris

  Tocumwal, New South Wales

  October 4, 1942

  Sunday

  It was a hot morning for October, with temperatures expected to reach into the low thirties centigrade. By nine it was already into the twenties and building, with few clouds to lessen the impact of uncomfortably warm sunshine. Maude Morris was perspiring heavily by the time she’d parked the Singer sedan out front of her house and carried in her morning’s shopping. She’d still received no word from her husband regarding the hotel fire, although she knew it could often take weeks for military mail going in either direction.

 

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