Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6)

by Colin Gee

  It was the rally point that Lenz had originally selected, and it proved an excellent spot for him and his men to hide up, although the lack of a close water supply was not in the location’s favour. However, there was one only five hundred metres to the southeast, which made the site almost perfect.

  Well-concealed by the thick canopy of trees, the undergrowth was lush and welcoming and, despite the numerous small paths used by forest workers, a large area away from the beaten track proved perfect for the Kommando to rest and recuperate.

  The report from Weiss regarding the military presence in the camp, and the subsequent foray precisely to the position the Kommando had occupied was met with silence, although every man was aware that their commander’s decision had undoubtedly saved them from a difficult situation.

  “Thank you, Unterscharfuhrer. I’ve set the guard… now get some sleep. We’ll move to the southeast when it’s dark.”

  Weiss’ men needed no second bidding, and they soon joined the lucky ones from the main body, curled up on soft vegetation, and dreaming of a time when they could sleep in a bed with sheets and pillows.

  The old man carrying the saw and axe stumbled and cursed.

  “Verdammt!”

  Lenz, having taken himself off to one side, had fallen into a deep sleep, from which the man’s shout had swiftly dragged him.

  Gripping his PPSh tightly, he tried to orient himself, seeking the source of the noise, trying to establish the level of threat to his well-being.

  Despite his years of service, his heart pounded, making a tangible sound in his throat.

  Something broke underfoot, immediately jerking his head off to the right, where a man emerged from behind a large trunk.

  He eased the Russian sub-machine gun out of the way and found the handle of his combat knife, a wide flat-bladed and double-edged weapon he had taken from a dead hand in Yugoslavia.

  Silence was a key requirement of the Kommando, and he planned to kill the man without a single murmur.

  The German woodsman stopped and examined a lofty trunk, clearly assessing everything about the tree.

  Finally, he lit up a cigarette, and looked around to choose a felling path.

  The man did a double take, noticing Lenz lying in the undergrowth.

  Lenz placed a finger to his lips, and stood up, trying to appear as unthreatening as a man wearing a camouflaged jacket and holding a large knife can appear unthreatening.

  The woodsman’s eyes widened at the SS insignia apparent on Lenz’s camouflage jacket, and the other insignia and medals clearly in display where he had opened the jacket up before falling asleep.

  Lenz walked forward, looking around in case there was more than one.

  “Kamerad, you are local?”

  “Yes, yes, Herr Offizier… Bruno Weber… I live just back there…”

  The woodsman turned his torso to point at his hamlet, less than a kilometre to the south, his eyes seeking something else in the undergrowth.

  Sharp metal protruded from the side of his neck before the woodsman even suspected that Lenz had covered the three metres between them.

  The entire blade had made the journey through the man’s flesh, the metal buried guard-deep from one side of his neck to the other.

  Taking the dead man’s weight, Lenz carefully lowered the corpse to the ground as he continued to survey the area.

  A figure rose out of nowhere, then another, then there were four.

  The last one still kept his rifle lined on his target.

  Unterscharfuhrer Uwe Weiss gestured at his men, and they spread out around the killing area, protecting their commander.

  The rifleman relaxed and turned outwards, keeping his eyes focussed and his senses alert.

  Weiss did not salute; the Kommando was well past such things.

  “Hauptsturmfuhrer, you’re unhurt?”

  Lenz recovered the blade from the woodsman’s neck, having to put a steadying foot on the head to get enough purchase to wrench it free.

  “I’m unhurt, thank you, Unterscharfuhrer. Explain?”

  “We didn’t know you were there. We watched him… thought he was walking past, so I decided to let him go… then he didn’t, and spotted you.”

  Weiss shrugged his shoulders.

  “He made a bad decision.”

  Sliding the blade into its scabbard, Lenz could only agree.

  Taking a last look at the corpse, he posed the real question.

  “Bad luck for him… but will he be missed?”

  It was a rhetorical question, his mind already made up to move the Kommando as soon as possible. That would depend on the balance of their physical needs against his interpretation of the likelihood of discovery.

  There was also another factor to consider.

  “How’s Jensen?”

  “He’s feverish and the leg is undoubtedly infected, Hauptsturmfuhrer. Emmering’s had to gag the poor bastard to keep him quiet.”

  Lenz took a moment to himself.

  ‘He needs medical help… but what can I do…’

  His face set.

  ‘You will do what you must, of course!’

  “Let’s get back and get the boys moving. I want distance between us and this place as quickly as possible. Get your men to hide the body.”

  Lenz moved away, leaving Weiss to organise the disappearance of the evidence.

  The three men made a reasonable scrape in the ground and dragged the corpse into it, shovelling the earth back again, and adding rocks and undergrowth for good measure.

  Weiss admired the men’s handiwork and decided that the body would not easily be found, at least not until they were well away from the area.

  On the verge of leaving the site, he decided on one last look.

  Immediately, his senses lit off, the senses of a combat veteran, honed in the hardest schools that war can offer.

  He dropped to his knee, bringing his ST44 up in readiness, his eyes searching for some clue to the presence that he felt.

  His men responded in kind.

  Eyes moved from left to right, ears strained to catch the tiniest sounds, and bodies tensed, ready for immediate action.

  There was nothing.

  No sound.

  No movement.

  Nothing.

  Weiss rose up and relaxed his grip on the assault rifle.

  “I thought I heard something… obviously not. Let’s go.”

  The small group moved off in military fashion, leaving the small space to the trees and the dead.

  Peter Weber hardly dared breathe, the tears streaming down his face, but the grief he felt at watching his father murdered controlled, simply to preserve his own life.

  He waited for what seemed like a lifetime before heading away, as best as his one leg and crutches would allow, heading to warn his family that the SS were back.

  The Kommando was up and ready to move.

  Lenz and Emmering finished a private conversation, and Emmering quietly called for the SS soldiers to listen, and detailed an order of march.

  Weiss’ men were given a few moments to police up their belongings and check their areas for giveaways of their presence, before Emmering ordered the move.

  Lenz double-checked the area, finding nothing to betray their recent presence, and quickly moved on to catch-up.

  He had debated killing Jensen. Indeed, most men in his position would undoubtedly have advised it, but something had softened inside of him, even if only towards his soldiers, and he had decided on another course of action.

  He had sold it to Emmering with ease.

  “They simply wouldn’t expect it, Oberscharfuhrer.”

  Kommando Lenz headed north.

  All except two men, who, with different orders, moved south.

  1831 hrs, Saturday, 15th June 1946, St. Jakob’s Kirche, Lonsee-Sinabronn, Germany.

  Hanebury watched on as the pathetic attempts of the villagers failed to prevent the fire ripping through the heart of the fifteenth century chu
rch.

  There was no point in detailing any of his men to assist.

  The structure was as good as destroyed before he and his men had arrived, although he understood why the handful of men and women tried so hard to preserve the already damaged structure.

  It was a community thing, something he could fully identify with.

  Something drew his attention to a different sort of fuss, a one-legged man and a woman, grabbing people, shouting, apparently oblivious to the fire.

  Clearly, the two had something serious on their minds, and Hanebury’s curiosity was piqued.

  During their sweep of the countryside, Jim Hanebury had engaged the veteran Heinrich Raubach in conversation, and had struck up quite a rapport with the old man.

  He caught Raubach’s eye and inclined his head towards the gathering.

  Raubach understood immediately and strode off confidently. He was soon embroiled in a flurry of shouts and gesticulation, which mainly consisted of finger pointing at the woods to the north.

  He returned quickly, his excitement lending him wings.

  “The SS have been spotted.”

  He grabbed Hanebury’s shoulder and pointed to the northern woods.

  “In there, about a kilometre… they killed the young man’s father… five of them… moved off heading north.”

  The First Sergeant grabbed his own jaw and looked at the woods, then back at the agitated gathering.

  “We sure on this, Heinrich?”

  “Certain sure. The boy’s a Luftwaffe veteran… lost his leg in Normandy… he knows what an SS man looks like. They’ve gone back north.”

  Hanebury suddenly realised something he should have thought of previously.

  ‘The ambulance… the hospital… they’re desperate for medical stuff… shit! I’ve fucked up!’

  “They’re going back to the hospital.”

  It was simply a statement, requiring no response.

  “Round the boys up, Corporal. Pronto.”

  Collier called the MPs back to their vehicles as Lucifer grabbed the radio.

  “Pennsylvania-six-tw…” he started into a coughing fit as a change in wind direction ensured that the command vehicle was engulfed in rich smoke, “Pennsylvania-six-two, Pennsylvania-six, over.”

  Stradley responded immediately and took onboard the new information, and Hanebury’s instructions.

  To the northeast, his unit accelerated back down the road they had come, intent on resuming their over watch positions as quickly as possible.

  After a quick exchange with Raubach, one of the Germans was dropped off to bring the villagers into some semblance of order, the man Raubach selected being an ex-Kriegsmarine Petty Officer with a level-head and a loud voice.

  Within two minutes, Hanebury’s men were back in the saddle and racing north.

  The two SS troopers who had set fire to the church had long since vanished back into the woods.

  1907 hrs, Saturday, 15th June 1946, 74th Surgical Hospital, Bräunisheim, Germany.

  The radio had alerted the hospital defenders to the possibility… actually, the probability that the enemy was coming back their way.

  The additional information that this was possibly an old SS unit left over from the last war caused a lot of concern.

  Throughout the hospital complex, the defenders came alive and wished the sun to hang in the sky for a bit longer.

  Most gripped their weapons more tightly, and they were right to worry.

  SS Kommando Lenz had plunged back through the forest, determined to take advantage of any distraction started by the detachment sent south, and determined to get the medicines they needed, for the group, and for Jensen in particular.

  During the march, Emmering and Lenz had discussed the possibilities of leaving the delirious soldier for Allied doctors to tend, but their ingrained comradeship, SS code, and lack of faith in any Allied good treatment, dictated that Jensen would be with them until the end, whichever end that would be.

  Stealing a medic became a priority and, as they had moved back towards the hospital, they discussed how best to do the job.

  Allowing his men to take a rest, Lenz and his two senior NCOs moved to a position from which they could observe the site, but avoided the position that they had occupied before.

  Their previous plan had been to use the terrain and sweep around to the west, and it still looked good, although the obvious presence of alert armed men on the hospital’s perimeter was an unwelcome change to cater for.

  None the less, they were sure that whatever distraction Birtles and Kellerman had enacted in Lonsee-Sinabronn would keep any other elements looking in the other direction, at least long enough to do what they needed to do in Bräunisheim.

  Lenz, Emmering, and Weiss had forgotten a couple of the simple lessons of war.

  It is not a good idea for you to supply the answers to your own questions.

  Things are not always what they seem.

  Perhaps it was understandable, as the SS soldiers had been fighting everyone they came across since May 1945, killing Americans, Russians, and Americans again, as the armies see-sawed back and forth.

  The Kommando had moved many kilometres from its starting point, and seen men lost throughout the fields and woods of Southern Germany.

  Regardless of how tired they were, they were bad mistakes to make.

  Time played its part in what happened next.

  Speed was an issue, as in all military operations, but Lenz also wanted to be away as quickly as possible.

  The attack would be timed for the initial hours of darkness, to allow them the maximum amount of time to escape the locale before enemy security units arrived.

  Therefore Lenz elected to move his men to the assault point in the evening light; not ideal, but necessary.

  From their final position, and with the twilight, they would be able to better assess the target and the approaches to it.

  Using the terrain, he considered that he could move unseen, certainly by the defenders of the hospital complex.

  Having let his men recover from the speedy move north, Lenz harried them into order and sent them scurrying up a roadside ditch, led by Weiss, with the rearguard commanded by Emmering.

  Everything went smoothly until the ditch petered out at the junction of the lane and Route 7312.

  The whole Kommando simply melted into the ditch, as hand signals made their way from man to man.

  Lenz made his way forward, sliding in beside Weiss.

  In whispers and using signals, Weiss showed his commander the problem.

  Sat on the edge of the wood ahead, set into the rising slope, was a ‘something’ that had attracted Weiss’ experienced eye.

  Carefully, Lenz accepted the binoculars and homed in on the unusual construction, just in time to see a small movement, betraying the presence of an enemy.

  Closer examination brought the sight of a .30cal machine-gun barrel… and a waft of cigarette smoke.

  Lenz handed the binoculars back, and gently gripped his NCO’s shoulder.

  “Good work, Unterscharfuhrer.”

  Sparing a quick look at his map, and checking that his view of the terrain supported the printed information, Lenz laid a quick plan.

  SS troopers Schipper and Zimmerman were given a quick brief and, having divested themselves of anything remotely military, disappeared back down the ditch.

  The remainder of the Kommando stayed alert, eyes fixed on their surroundings… watching… waiting…

  To the second, Schipper and Zimmerman emerged from the woods to the south of the US position, draped over each other, laughing and giggling, staggering like men who had enjoyed a little too much of what the local hostelry had to offer.

  Lenz switched his attention to the enemy position, where three heads were now clearly defined, and all focused on the noisy new arrivals.

  SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Lenz clicked his fingers once and, with a simple palm movement, sent death on its way.

  Four killers
rose and ran at top speed, reducing the distance between them and their targets rapidly, their crouched run less defined with each step forwards, their weapons held tightly, ready for immediate use.

  The lead figure, Emmering, threw himself forward as a head appeared to turn, the American’s mouth opening to shout a warning.

  The rest of the murder squad fell upon the distracted GIs, and two seconds later, four beating hearts were forever stilled.

  Like the professionals they were, the four SS soldiers took station in the position, scanning the countryside for threats.

  The two drunks had ‘sobered up’ and met up with a comrade laden with their kit, the whole Kommando moving forward, across the road, heading for the relative safety of the woods.

  The sound of the heavy engine reached all ears simultaneously, and the SS soldiers hit the ground, disappeared into whatever cover they could find, or continued to run for a distant position of safety.

  It mattered not, and the annihilation of SS Kommando Lenz began.

  1944 hrs, Saturday, 15th June 1946, Route 7312, southwest of Bräunisheim, Germany.

  “Shit! They’re the krauts! Let ‘em have it!”

  Hanebury grabbed the firing handles of the .30cal and let rip, the area around the bunker throwing up grass and earth as the bullets ripped through the air, and occasionally, flesh.

  One of the four killers flopped to the floor, the top of his head waving like a bin lid over an empty skull cavity, the impact of three bullets sufficient to empty his head of anything remotely brain-like.

  Emmering flew backwards, his left shoulder ruined by the passage of two more of Hanebury’s bullets.

  The M3 halftrack’s heavier .50cal was working, and the SS Kommandos started to fall, as the gunner concentrated on those still running for cover.

  Lenz screamed orders at his men, and then screamed in pain, as a heavy bullet blew his left hand off at the wrist.

  A number of his men were down hard, but the others were starting to fight back, and the .30cal in the bunker position lashed out at the speeding vehicles.