Strauss!
Manning gestured for his attention, and Burke hurried over to him.
“It’s coming from over there,” Manning said, and Burke took him at his word. The man had been hunting big game for years and was the most experienced in the squad for this kind of thing.
“Lead on,” Burke told him.
Moving as quickly and as quietly as they could, the squad followed Manning as he made his way closer to the source. They hadn’t gone more than another dozen feet before the scream came again, louder, and this time it continued, a long ululating wail that made the hair on the back of Burke’s neck stand up straight.
Manning led them around a series of bomb craters to where some low hills rose ahead of them. The screaming seemed to be coming from the far side, so Manning led them up the low-grade slope toward the top. Near the top he frantically motioned them down to the ground and waited for Burke to crawl forward to meet him.
“It’s definitely Strauss,” Manning told him quietly.
With the man’s screams ringing in his ears, Burke lifted his head up over the edge of the ridge and looked down into the hollow on the other side.
That one glance was enough to sear the horror of what he was seeing into his memory forever.
Corporal Strauss was stretched out on the dirt in the center of the hollow, surrounded by shamblers and screaming in pain as they feasted on his body. Even as Burke looked on, one of the creatures reached inside a large hole in Strauss’s abdomen and pulled out a stretch of intestine before sinking its teeth into the ropelike organ to more of Strauss’s screams.
Burke had to turn away lest he lose what little was in his stomach. Jones came up beside, took a look for himself, and then whispered a horrified “Sweet Mother Mary!” as he, too, saw what was going on.
It was a bitch of a situation, and Burke didn’t immediately know what to do about it. On one hand Strauss was as good as dead already. Even if he survived the feeding, which at this point didn’t look likely, he’d be dead from the infection that often followed a shambler bite in less than a day. It was not a pleasant way to go.
Neither is being eaten alive, his subconscious reminded him.
Which was precisely the reason that they couldn’t let Strauss continue to suffer.
The problem was the shamblers.
There were at least six of them, maybe more; it was hard to tell with them bunched up around Strauss the way they were. The minute Burke and his men took action to deliver Strauss from his painful misery, they would be alerting the shamblers to their presence. Despite the horror of what he’d been looking at, Burke hadn’t missed a vital fact.
These were no ordinary shamblers.
Their motions while feeding were too controlled, their balance and coordination too fine for them to be average run-of-the-mill shamblers. If they had been, they’d have ripped Strauss’s throat out the moment they’d dragged him to the ground. The way these creatures were intentionally feeding on the nonvital parts of his body, thereby keeping him alive in the process, was evidence in Burke’s eyes that they possessed a rudimentary level of intelligence at the very least, and perhaps one considerably more advanced than that.
Taking action would put the men in danger from the shamblers in the hollow ahead of them, but walking away would earn him the enmity and disrespect of his men, which would probably do more to derail the success of their mission than anything short of getting killed.
Never mind that the shamblers would probably hunt them down if they didn’t deal with them here and now.
When he opened his eyes, he found the men watching him closely. He quickly explained what was happening.
“We can’t just leave him like that,” Compton said, voicing what the others must have been thinking as they watched Burke wrestle with the decision.
“I don’t intend to,” Burke replied, and he felt rather than saw the collective sigh of relief that went up from the men in the group. They knew the potential consequences and still they were willing to take the risk to help one of their own, even if it was just to put him out of his misery.
It was a good sign.
Burke beckoned them all in closer, so he could keep his voice down while he explained what they were going to do. He had no idea how good the creatures’ hearing might be, so he wasn’t taking any chances.
“I’m going to take care of Strauss,” he told them. “But when I do so, we’re going to attract the attention of those shamblers. It can’t be helped; we can’t leave one of our own out there like that.”
There were grunts of agreement from around the circle.
“So here’s what I want you all to do . . .”
It took a few moments for them all to get into position. Burke remained where he was, with Jones on one side and Manning on the other. The other four split into pairs of two—Compton and Williams, Moore and Graves—and circled around the outer edges of the hollow, one set to the left and one to the right. They settled down along the rim, slightly downslope so they couldn’t be seen, and took aim, waiting for the signal to fire.
Burke had swapped his Thompson submachine gun for Compton’s Lee Enfield, as he needed a precision weapon for what he was about to do and the trench sweeper was anything but. Resting the butt of the weapon against his shoulder, Burke eased the muzzle over the lip of the hill and carefully lined up the sight at the end of the barrel with a spot in the center of Strauss’s forehead.
He felt Jones and Manning adjust their positions on either side of him.
Strauss was thrashing around, screaming and wailing in pain as the creatures continued to tear into his flesh, and Burke was amazed that he hadn’t passed out from the pain. What Burke had to do would have been much easier if Strauss had been immobile, and for a second Burke thought about asking one of the other two men beside him to take the shot. Their marksmanship, particularly with the Lee Enfield, was far more accurate than his own and they’d have a better chance of succeeding with just the single shot he wanted to take, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. As commanding officer, Strauss was his responsibility.
“Steady,” he said softly.
One of the shamblers feeding on Strauss must have struck a nerve bundle, for Strauss suddenly raised his head, shrieking at the top of his lungs, and Burke saw his chance. For just a moment, he had an unobstructed view of his target.
“Now!”
Burke squeezed the Lee Enfield’s trigger, sending a .303-inch cartridge whistling toward its target at a muzzle velocity of 2,441 meters per second. In the blink of an eye, a round red hole appeared in the center of Strauss’s forehead and he abruptly stopped screaming.
The crack of Burke’s rifle was still expanding into the open air when Jones and Manning joined the fray. A well-trained soldier could fire up to thirty rounds per minute, a practice commonly known as the “mad minute,” with a Lee Enfield rifle, and consummate marksmen that they were, Burke’s two companions were no exception. They poured shot after well-placed shot down onto the creatures in that hollow, targeting the creatures’ skulls to be certain they didn’t get back up at a later time. Bone exploded and blood flew in the wake of their accuracy. When the rest of the squad joined in, it became a veritable free-for-all.
The shamblers reacted just as Burke suspected they would, scattering in every direction quicker than he thought possible and charging the men’s positions at the rim of the crater. Thankfully none of the shamblers made it past the first ten feet.
In seconds it was over.
The stink of blood and cordite filled the air as they cautiously made their way down toward the bodies. The corpses of the shamblers were cautiously checked to be certain that they were well and truly dead. Two quick shots finished off the ones that were discovered to be still moving.
Burke advanced on Strauss’s body and took care of the business of removing one of the young man’s identification tags, small metal disks worn around the neck that contained the surname and serial number of the soldier in question, leaving the othe
r to be buried with the body. He had no idea if anyone would ever come to recover the man’s remains, but if they did, Burke wanted them to know exactly whose remains they were looking at. He looked for Strauss’s gun but didn’t see it. Probably lost it when he was first attacked, he thought. He went through Strauss’s pockets, removing a pocket watch, a rosary, and a half-written letter on a piece of folded stationery, all of which would be sent back to his family. He took the ammo from Strauss’s ammo belt and distributed it among the men.
With the necessary tasks handled, the men picked up Strauss’s body and carried it out of the crater and away from the sight of the attack. They found a nice spot a hundred yards away in the shade of a tree where they laid him down on the grass. In unspoken agreement, the men pulled out their entrenching tools and began to dig a grave deep enough to keep his remains out of the hands of roving animals, including shamblers. When they were finished, they laid him in the depths of the hole and gently covered him up, stacking a pile of loose rocks over the earth to provide a further layer of protection.
Corporal Compton pulled his Bible out of his uniform pocket and read from it in a clear, calm voice.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven,” he began, his voice growing strong with every passing word. “A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them; a time to embrace and a time to refrain; a time to search and a time to give up; a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time to tear and a time to mend; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate,” he said, then paused just slightly before stating the last line, “a time for war and a time for peace.”
Ain’t that the truth, Burke thought as he turned away from the grave and got the team marching forward once more. They still had a long way to go to make the rendezvous with the partisans, and time wasn’t about to wait for them.
Chapter Twenty-seven
KAISER WILHELM’S ESTATE
Richthofen stalked down the hallway, the heels of his flight boots knocking against the marble floor. The scowl on his face had the servants scurrying out of his way the moment they laid eyes on him, leaving him to find his way to the grand hall on his own. He barely noticed, his thoughts elsewhere.
He’d had been plagued with an odd sense of restlessness since his duel with the American ace, Freeman, three days before. He’d tried to drown the feeling in activity, going out on patrol at all hours of the day and night, a routine made easier by the fact that he no longer had need of sleep since arising as a revenant, but even that was unsatisfying. Where before he’d met each new combat patrol with an air of expectation, hoping each time that he would meet a pilot worthy of his opposition, now he simply went through the motions, racking up an impressive number of kills, eleven in two days, but without the satisfaction that usually came along with them. Even the massive British airship he’d taken down that morning had not buoyed his spirits the way it normally would have.
Part of the problem, he knew, was the lack of closure with regard to Freeman’s death.
Adler’s search teams had located the wreckage of the American’s airplane, but they had been unable to locate the body. Richthofen knew this wasn’t all that unusual; the twists and turns that a dying aircraft went through as it plummeted toward the ground had a tendency to separate the pilot from his aircraft, particularly if the pilot chose not to use his safety belt.
Still, it nagged at him.
He’d visited the crash site just yesterday. He’d recovered what was left of the propeller, had an aide carve Freeman’s name onto the blade, and then arranged to have it sent to the commanding officer over at the 94th Squadron by way of the Red Cross. Letting them know that their favorite ace had fallen at the hands of the Baron was simply good psychological warfare and needed to be done, despite his own personal unease with the lack of a corpse.
He’d even gone so far as to check wind levels and scheduled gas attacks. He’d felt foolish when the idea first occurred to him, but he had reminded himself that stranger things had happened in this war and done it anyway. As it turned out, there simply was no way for an effective dose of T-Leiche to have drifted that far behind the lines and thus no way for Freeman to have risen anew as a result.
There was, of course, the possibility that Freeman had somehow survived the crash and abandoned the scene under his own power. It was that possibility, however small, that was the source of Richthofen’s unrest. It would not do to proclaim to the world that he’d killed the American ace, only to have him show up alive and well at some point in the future.
He ordered more search teams into the field, but the size of the territory they had to cover prevented them from completing the task with any real speed and as of that moment, they were still looking.
To get his mind off the problem, he’d decided to attend a strategy session being held at the kaiser’s summer estate outside of Berlin. He’d received word that both Field Marshal Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff were going to be in attendance, and he made a point of trying to limit their influence on the kaiser whenever he could. Wilhelm had been taking too much of a hands-off approach lately, content to hide in his palaces and make the social rounds while letting his generals manage the war, and that was a recipe for disaster if he ever saw one.
A pair of double doors loomed ahead, two of the kaiser’s personal guards standing outside them. They snapped to attention as Richthofen approached, saluting the Blue Max he wore at his throat as much as the man who wore it. The Baron knew he was well liked among the Imperial staff and now, as always, he took a moment to speak to the guards, man to man, to ensure that he maintained that relationship. There would come a time, in the not too distant future, when he was going to need friends among those surrounding the kaiser . . .
He slipped through the door to find the meeting already under way. A large table had been set up in the middle of the room, a map of both the Eastern and Western Fronts tacked down on its surface. Wooden models representing the forces currently in theater were arranged there and could be moved around to illustrate the results of various battles or proposed strategies. For months now there had been little change in the positions of the various armies, and Richthofen barely glanced at the map as he approached.
The kaiser sat on a wooden throne on a raised dais next to the table, his legs crossed in front of him and his left arm resting on the hilt of his sword, as if he might draw it at any moment. Richthofen knew it for the sham it was; the kaiser’s withered limb didn’t have enough strength to draw the sword, never mind wield it. The fact that Wilhelm did all he could to hide the infirmity was a constant source of annoyance for the German ace. Hiding the injury was a clear sign that the kaiser cared how others saw him and that, in Richthofen’s eyes, was a weakness that no leader should exhibit. It was why he never covered the wound along his jaw except to keep food or drink from falling out. The opinions of other, lesser men meant nothing to Richthofen, and he despised the kaiser for showing his personal vanity and weakness to the world in such a fashion.
No matter, he thought, calming himself before his temper could flare up. If his plan went well, there would soon be another on the Iron Throne anyway. He could be patient.
His resolve to do so, however, was severely tested when he saw Field Marshal Hindenburg and General Ludendorff standing at the foot of the throne, wide beaming smiles on both their faces. A servant was in the act of pouring a glass of champagne for the kaiser and his guests, which was another bad sign.
Wilhelm looked up as Richthofen moved across the room to join them.
“Ah, Manfred! So good of you to come! You’re just in time to celebrate with us.”
“Celebrate?” he asked, as he accepted a glass of champagne of his own.
“Yes, yes!” Wilhelm
said, beaming with nervous energy. “I’ve just appointed Field Marshal Hindenburg to the position of chief of the general staff and General Ludendorff to the role of first quartermaster-general. The future of the war, and of the German Empire, is now assured!”
Richthofen’s grip tightened on his glass, and it took considerable effort not to crush it in his fist.
Easy, Manfred, easy . . .
He turned and nodded politely to the other two men, holding up his glass in salute.
“Congratulations. Is it too early to ask what your plans might be to break the stalemate at the front?”
Von Hindenburg looked at him with an expression of superiority and disdain, there being no love lost between the two men, but at the kaiser’s urging he moved over to the map to illustrate the plans he and Ludendorff had developed for the next offensive.
As he followed the newly appointed chief of staff over to the map, Richthofen had to restrain himself from ripping the pompous fool’s head clear off his shoulders. He could picture himself putting his hands on either side of the man’s head and twisting sharply, could almost feel the fountain of blood as it sprayed upward, and he had to shake his head to clear the red haze that was starting to creep over his vision as his control began to slip away.
Von Hindenburg picked up a pointer and began indicating several units arranged a short distance from the front. “The Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Armies are here, near Mons. As soon as we have resupplied, we will swing north past Lens and break the back of the British’s positions along the river Somme with our new tank divisions. Having done so, we should quickly roll over what is left of the French Army and take Paris from Allied hands with minimal difficulty.”
He stepped back, nodding to himself as if the effort had already been made and the objective accomplished.
“And how long do you expect this offensive to take?” Richthofen asked in a carefully controlled voice.
This time it was Ludendorff who answered. “With twelve new battalions of Tottensoldat being brought to Mons by rail as we speak, we expect to launch the offensive in the next week. Once begun, I anticipate that it will take no more than four weeks to seize the French capital.”
By the Blood of Heroes Page 19
