“Yes sir, Sergeant Muller saw to it personally,” replied Beckers.
Stengel said, “The sergeant’s a good man. He’s a veteran of the campaigns in Poland and the Low Countries.”
At least someone may know their duties around here, thought Vogel. Looking down at his watch, Vogel asked, “Lieutenant, have the men been fed?”
“I don’t know Herr Major,” said Beckers.
“Wrong bloody answer lieutenant,” snapped Vogel. “Get the men inside and fed a hearty meal right away. It might be their last for several days. Also, I want to meet Sergeant Muller so that I can brief him on exactly how I want things to go from now on. Be quick about things Beckers, I want to be on the road in the next thirty minutes. Do you understand precisely what I want done?”
A look of fear and confusion flooded Beckers’ eyes. He had never been spoken to so abruptly by a superior officer since joining the army. Coming sharply to attention, he saluted Vogel, turned about, and then fled the room.
“You’re being a bit hard on the young lad. He’s a new officer,” said Stengel.
Vogel spun on his heels until he looked Stengel in the eyes. Anger was etched all over Vogel’s face. “Major, your junior officer needs to learn his job. He has duties and responsibilities that go beyond what he was taught at officer’s school. Without a good mentor to show him how things are done in the field Beckers will become a lazy officer, and lazy officers get their men killed when the bullets start flying. I have no doubt that he all he would ever learn from you is how not be a good officer.”
“Now see here,” stammered Stengel. “There is no need to talk to me that way.”
Poking Stengel hard in the chest with his right index finger, Vogel said, “Shut your mouth you incompetent fool. I suggest you get your affairs in order. When I get back to Oslo and inform General Reckow of your gross incompetence, I will personally draft the orders for you to be court-martialed. If you are not jailed for the rest of your miserable life, I suspect that you will find yourself leading a penal battalion on the Russian Front.”
With that, Vogel left the room to find Beckers.
Stengel stood there staring out the doorway. The color had drained from his face; his heart was racing away in his chest. His guts felt like water. A penal battalion would be used in the first wave of any assault; he knew that he if he were sent to Russia that he would never see his home again. The only thing he could hope for was that Vogel met with his death out there in the snow. For the first time in his life, Stengel prayed for the death of a fellow German officer.
10
Crash site
January 19th, 1942
The sound of snow crunching underfoot filled the air as the slender column walked down the forest trail towards the downed German plane.
After eating a breakfast of bacon, toasted bread, coffee and some day-old cheese, Wahlberg called his people together, introduced Shaw and Bruce and then told them what they were here to do. Setting out just after nine in the morning, the snow had thankfully stopped falling, but dark-gray clouds sill hung ominously low in the sky. Another storm was probably only hours off, explained Anna to Shaw as they walked along behind Wahlberg.
Before they arrived at the crash site, a powerful smell wafted in the wind. Several men, including Bruce, gagged noisily and had to fight the urge to vomit. To Shaw, it smelt like a mix of rotten eggs and meat that had been hung out in the summer sun for days. Whatever it was, it left a horrible taste in his mouth.
“What the hell died out here?” said Bruce, pinching his nose to block out the horrid smell.
“Wish I knew,” replied Shaw. “Whatever it is its mighty pungent.”
“I’ve never smelt anything so bad in my life,” added Anna. “It’s worse than burning sulfur.”
“It wasn’t here yesterday. I can assure you of that,” said Wahlberg over his shoulder.
A minute later, they came out into another small clearing. Wahlberg stepped aside and let Shaw step in front of him. Stopping in his tracks, Shaw was amazed at what he saw. A deep furrow had been dug in the ground from the plane’s impact. Following it along, Shaw saw the craft sitting against a tall pine tree. He hadn’t known what to expect when he arrived, but the plane that had crashed was unlike any he had ever seen. It was at least ten yards in circumference. There were no wings, no discernible fuselage, or cockpit. It didn’t even look the slightest bit aerodynamic. To Shaw, it looked like a large shiny metal ball that, like an egg, had cracked open upon impact. Staring at it, what struck him as odd was the fact that there was no snow on it at all. It was as if the surface was too smooth for the snow to stick onto.
“Start taking pictures Duncan,” said Shaw as he edged towards the craft.
Behind him, Bruce was already snapping away with his camera.
Warily Shaw made his way over to the craft. His mind was awhirl with questions. If the Germans had built it, how did it fly, where was its propeller?
Wahlberg saw the look on Shaw’s face. With a smile he said, “Remove your glove and place your hand on it.”
“Why?”
“Trust me…just do it.”
Removing his glove, Shaw carefully placed his hand on the metal outer body. A second later, Shaw felt his hand begin to sink into the metal. Startled, he pulled back his hand and looked down at his handprint as it slowly faded and the metal resumed to its previous smooth shape.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” said Wahlberg. “All of the metal is like that. You can twist and bend it any way you want, and it always returns to the shape it was before. I doubt that the whole thing weighs more than a few hundred pounds.”
“Where did the Germans come up with his kind of technology?” said Shaw to himself. Leaning over, he poked his head inside the open hatch. Inside he saw a seat that looked as if was molded into the floor of the craft. The seat looked far larger than the ones he had previously seen in other aircraft. Whoever was flying this craft was tall, thought Shaw. In front of the seat was a curved panel that was covered in multi-colored buttons. He couldn’t see a joystick or foot pedals normally used to control the plane in flight anywhere inside the craft. Puzzled, Shaw pulled his head out and looked over at Wahlberg. “Have you or any of your men touched the plane since you found it?”
Wahlberg shook his head. “No, it’s just as we found it.”
“This can’t be all of it. There has to be more. Did you and your men search the surrounding area?”
“We thought the same thing. We looked for miles around. The only thing we found was this and the other ball.”
“Show me,” said Shaw as he stepped aside so Bruce could get a better view of the craft’s interior. “Photograph every inch of this thing. No one back home is going to believe us without those pictures,” he told Bruce, before following Wahlberg deeper into the forest.
They had barely gone twenty yards when Wahlberg stopped. Anna was already there examining the other ball. To Shaw, it looked more like a massive egg, one that by the looks and the smell of it had just hatched. He could see that it had split open into two roughly equal segments. He guessed that if you put the two pieces back together that the egg, or whatever it was, would be about three yards in circumference. The surface of the egg was dark-gray and appeared to be about a half an inch thick.
“My God,” said Wahlberg, looking down at the shattered egg. “Yesterday, it was a bright silvery color and only a quarter of that size.”
Anna reached inside with a gloved hand and pulled out a handful of red sinewy tissue. The smell was so overpowering that she had to turn her head away. Looking up at Shaw and Wahlberg, she said, “There are two empty embryo sacs inside this egg. Whatever was in here is very large and has only just hatched; the tissue inside here is still warm to the touch.”
Both men turned and apprehensively looked into the woods. Shaw flipped his Thompson’s selector to automatic and pulled it in close to his body.
Anna flicked the red tissue on her glove back inside the egg and then wiped
her goop-covered glove in the snow, trying to clean it.
“Look,” said Wahlberg, pointing at the ground. “There are two pairs of tracks leading into the woods.”
Bending down, Shaw examined the tracks. They looked like a cat…a very large cat had made them. But that didn’t make any sense. Cats don’t come from eggs. Shaking his head, Shaw stood up and saw a look of unease in Wahlberg’s eyes. He had thought the same thing as Shaw, and it had shaken him to his core. Whatever they were, both men hoped that they would quickly freeze to death in the snow.
“Come on, let’s rejoin the others,” Shaw said as he stepped back from the egg. Neither Anna nor Wahlberg objected to the suggestion. Just moving away from the unearthly-looking egg brought an instant feeling of relief to everyone.
Turning their backs, they had no way of knowing that they were being watched. Silently, the creatures moved off in search of food. They had to eat, to grow. They had to stay alive. Instinctively, they knew what they had to do to survive.
They would be back.
11
German Weather Station
January 19th, 1942
Major Vogel stood outside of his jeep, brought his binoculars up to his eyes and looked up the road leading into the weather station. He could see that the front gate was closed. Where two men should have been standing guard, there was nothing. In the bitter cold, smoke should have been coming from every chimney in the camp; instead the buildings stood cold and uninviting. Instantly he knew that something had gone terribly wrong. Calling over Beckers, Vogel ordered him to send a heavily armed squad under his best corporal up the road to investigate. He stressed that the men weren’t to touch anything they found inside.
Aside from Vogel’s jeep, there were four other trucks and an armored half-track with two MG-42 machine guns mounted on top waiting at the base of the hill. Sergeant Muller jumped down from the cab of the half-track, took one look around and then bellowed at the men in the trucks to get down. He had been in an ambush in Poland where his platoon had nearly been wiped out. The experience had left an indelible impression on him. Muller didn’t want to be surprised by partisans who could be lurking in the thick woods running along the side of the road. Quickly a cordon was established around the vehicles while they waited for word.
After a short while, Vogel began to grow restless. Pacing back and forth in front of his jeep, he kept looking up at the camp as if expecting something to happen. All the soldiers had to do was enter the camp and determine what was going on inside. Looking down at his watch, Vogel swore to himself. They had been gone far longer than he had anticipated. Unable to wait any longer, he climbed back into his jeep and told his driver, a young soldier from Bavaria, to take him up to the camp.
Less than a minute later the jeep halted outside the gates to the camp. Vogel helped himself out of the vehicle and looked past the open gate into the camp. He could see several wooden buildings, all of which seemed to be without power. Making a mental note to have the generators fuelled up right away, Vogel pushed the hanging gates open and stepped inside the camp. Looking about, he was surprised how deathly quiet the camp seemed. Instinctively, he reached down and placed his hand on his pistol holster.
“Herr Major,” a voice called put to Vogel.
Turning his head, Vogel saw it was the corporal sent to investigate the camp. His face was ashen white. His hands wrapped tightly around his rifle trembled.
Seeing the distress in the man’s eyes, Vogel walked over to the corporal and calmly said, “What is it Corporal? What is wrong?”
The soldier struggled to speak but found that his mouth had grown dry. Forcing himself to control his fear, the corporal said, “Sir, we have searched every building. There are no survivors. The entire camp is dead. I have posted my men around the camp and as per your orders sir; no one has touched a thing.”
“Dead,” said Vogel, repeating the word as if he did not believe what he had heard.
The corporal nodded his head. “Every last one of them, sir.”
“Very well Corporal, see to your men. I want the entire perimeter of the camp inspected. I want to know if someone found a way in through the camp’s fence.”
With a quick nod, the corporal hurried back to his men to implement his new orders. For once he wouldn’t mind being outside in the biting cold rather than inside the buildings packed with the frozen corpses of his countrymen.
Walking back to his jeep, Vogel told the driver to head back down the hill and tell Lieutenant Beckers to bring the rest of the men up the hill right away.
Ten minutes later, with a cordon inside and outside of the weather station established, Vogel, Beckers and Sergeant Muller began a room-by-room search of the camp. The first building they entered was the camp’s offices. It took them only a few seconds to find the ice-cold corpse of the lieutenant with the slit wrists lying dead slumped over on his snow-covered desk.
“Partisans?” said Beckers to Vogel.
Vogel ignored Beckers; his mind was fixed on the room. Like a detective, he studied the dead body and the man’s surroundings. He hadn’t been killed, that much was obvious. He had committed suicide. Why, he did not know, but he intended to get to the bottom of what happened in the camp and fast.
Turning to face Beckers, Vogel said, “Lieutenant, do you see anything amiss in the room?”
Beckers looked from the floor to the ceiling but saw nothing that seemed out of place other than the dead officer. “No, sir, I am sorry, but I do not,” said the young officer.
Vogel tapped the desk with his fingers. “There was a book or journal on the desk. You can see the outline in the snow where it once rested. Someone has been in here and removed it.”
Leaving the office, Vogel stepped outside and looked up at the leaden sky. Cursing the weather, it was clear that it was going to snow again. If there were tracks, they would have to be found and followed without delay. Calling over Sergeant Muller, Vogel asked him if there was an accomplished tracker or hunter amongst his men. The sergeant nodded his head and called out for Corporal Zach. A few seconds later, a short skinny soldier with sharp brown eyes ran over and reported to Muller.
Vogel saw that the man had an Iron Cross on his uniform and looked like a professional soldier, unlike many of the other men under his command. “Corporal, I’ve been told that you are good at tracking.”
“Yes sir, I was a hunter before the war. I can track anything that walks on four or two legs for that matter,” replied Zach confidently.
“Can you track in the snow?”
“It’s harder to do but I can do it, sir.”
“Very well, Corporal someone has infiltrated this camp and perhaps murdered everyone in here. I want you to find their tracks and to follow them wherever they may lead. Take whomever you need with you but find where the people who committed this atrocity are hiding. Start your search in that room back there,” said Vogel pointing back towards the dead lieutenant’s office.
With a quick nod of his head, Zach took off, his scoped rifle held tight in his hands.
With that dealt with, Vogel continued his examination of the camp. He showed no emotion whatsoever when they discovered the dead bodies in the radio relay and weather station buildings. He had seen his fair share of dead men and had grown hardened to the sight. Coming across the men asphyxiated in the cab of their truck, Vogel saw the pale look on Beckers’ face turn a shade of green. He thought about making the young officer stay with him to learn his trade, to see what death looks like, but decided that the lieutenant had probably seen enough for one day. Vogel called Beckers to his side and then told him to check on his men while he and Sergeant Muller continued the search for answers.
Stepping inside the mess hall, even Vogel was shocked at the scale of the horror contained within the walls of the building. Moving carefully around the room, Vogel stopped occasionally to examine the bodies tied to the chair. Not all the men were dressed the same. Some were in their uniforms, some in their bedclothes while other
s looked like they had been changing when they had been brought in and tied to the chair to be executed. Even for Vogel’s analytical mind, it was all too much to comprehend. He had heard of men going insane and killing their friends or their officers when placed under enormous stress, but the men here had lived comfortably, with little or no threat to their existence, yet they all seem to have gone insane.
Shaking his head, Vogel told Muller to lead the way to the last building in the complex still unexplored, the men’s barracks. Opening the door to the barracks, Vogel was relieved not to see another macabre scene of mass-murder; instead, the room seemed oddly normal and calm. That was until they arrived at the end of the room and found the four bodies lying on the floor covered by blood-soaked blankets. Muller got down on one knee beside the nearest body and then carefully pulled the blanket back. The sight of a soldier lying there with his tunic undone and his chest cavity pulled open made Vogel turn his head away for a moment. Disgust and horror raced throughout his body. Something unnatural and horrible had befallen the garrison. Just what it was eluded Vogel. He knew he had to find out what had happened and fast before any more men died.
“Herr Major,” said Muller, trying to get Vogel’s attention as he stood up. “What are your orders? What would you like me to do with all of the bodies?”
Vogel took a deep breath through his nostrils and tried to focus his mind. He had a job to do. Turning to face Muller, he said, “Have the men place all the bodies in the mess hall and then bar the doors to the building. Make sure you use a good soldier to record in a journal where the bodies were prior to moving them. After that, I don’t want anyone going near the bodies. We will need to contact battalion headquarters right away. They need to send the military police here as soon as they can. They need to conduct a thorough investigation into what has happened here.”
Incursion Page 7
