Horea and Closca spent a bottle of wine arguing the benefits/depredations of Communism versus the same for Catholicism, enjoying the discourse as if it were a meal itself. Their sustenance was argument, and it seemed to bring the two men closer than a married couple. In fact, the constant back-and-forth reminded Lucille of many a bickering couple who fought day and night but loved each other to the grave.
When it was suitably dark outside, Lucille ordered everyone into the vehicles and they headed out of Bacau. Lucille drove again. She could hear Renfield humming a jaunty tune in the back of the hearse. His devilish devices were stored in the bed of the following lorry. On the way they ran into a thunderstorm. The rain pelted her windscreen so hard and so fast that Harker had to shout to be heard.
“Rain!” He leaned across the Prince to bellow at her.
“Ever the master of the obvious, Leftenant,” she replied.
“Perhaps we should turn back,” he said. “Try some other evening when the weather clears.”
“The Leftenant doesn’t have the clandestine experience to know that rain is the saboteur’s friend.” She knew she was lecturing him like a proctor would a student and took some pleasure in it. “Rain masks the noise of our approach. If a sentry is awake and alert, the leaves and foliage underfoot will be wet and not crack or snap to betray our movements. Plus visibility is reduced. The guards will seek shelter and reduce or neglect their patrols. Everyone stays inside where it is warm and dry. Unless you think you will be too uncomfortable to participate . . .”
He swallowed any reply. The downpour subsided to a drizzle and she turned down a side road about a half kilometre from the airfield. Lucille parked in a clearing made by woodcutters, trimmed branches and pale piles of woodchips laying about the stumps. The hike through the forest was as expected, wet and uncomfortable. The Prince strode through the rain, past the pine and birch without hesitation, striding tall, never ducking the branches but somehow bypassing them. The rain made everyone else look like a wet cat. But the raindrops cloaked the Prince in a fairy-like sheen. When they reached the airfield perimeter Lucille took Harker aside.
“Tonight you will be required to engage the enemy,” she told him. “The first time for you, I suppose. Man to man, as they say.”
“I am sure I will account myself to your satisfaction,” he said. “As I did the other night. I was shot, you know.”
She turned to the others.
“My friends, are you ready to eliminate the guards?” she asked her three guerillas. “As you know, silence is imperative.”
Crisan pulled a length of wire from his pocket, draped it around his neck. Lucille had watched him make the garrote. They had been camped in the ruins of an old mansion where in one corner leaned the guts of a piano, looking like an ugly harp. The rest of the instrument had been chopped up for firewood. Crisan scavenged the remains of a mahogany leg out of the fireplace, cut himself two fist-long pieces and secured a metre of thin piano wire to each chunk of wood. He had found no reason to use it, thus far.
The other two held up their daggers, the blades painted black for night work. All three men smiled at her, looking more like pirates than partisans. These were times that required pirates.
“Rejoin us when you are done,” she told them. “See you at the rally point.”
They pulled their watch caps down and adjusted them so that they could see through the eyeholes Crisan had stitched into them. He was quite handy with needle and thread, once hand-stitching a leather shoulder bag for Lucille as a birthday gift.
“Good hunting,” she said and they slipped into the woods, disappearing instantly into the shadows. Harker nudged her.
“What was that wire Crisan put about his neck?” He asked.
“Something better seen than described,” she replied. “On second thought, maybe the other way around.” She led them toward the runway. At the edge of the forest, across from the buildings, they set down the heavy satchels of explosives that each carried and waited for the Marx Brothers to return.
“I could have helped them,” Harker said.
“They are excellent at this kind of work,” she replied. “No offence, but you would be a hindrance. As would I.”
He had no answer for that. The four of them waited. Lucille could not help but notice that the Prince was watching her like one studied a creature one has never seen before. As she had first studied him. Surely he was curious about this side of her, an aspect he had never witnessed. She could feel the pressure, mostly fed by her own insecurities. How was it that she felt so vulnerable to his opinions and expectations?
There was a rustle from the shadows, and Lucille’s hand went instinctively to her Luger. She stared off into the trees, trying to separate tree from whatever hid in the black beyond.
“It is our comrades,” the Prince whispered. Lucille could not see what he did and kept alert. Then a whistle pierced the dark, a whippoorwill. Lucille answered in kind. Harker had his own weapon, an American Thomson machine gun, raised and aimed into the woods, his finger on the trigger. Lucille reached out a hand and pushed the barrel down.
The three Marx Brothers emerged from the shadows. There were smiles on their faces and blood on their clothes.
“Whippoorwills are not night birds,” she told Horea. “Use the nightjar, or an owl.”
“I can’t do a nightjar,” Horea answered, somewhat sheepishly.
“And his night owl sounds like a sheep having an orgasm,” Crisan said and everyone laughed, softly. She turned to Renfield, who was standing still and paying no mind to the rain spattering him.
“Are you ready, Renfield?” He smiled, hefted his bag of bombs.
“Ready tae raise a bliddy ruckus,” he said, and she knew he was in enough possession of his faculties to perform.
“Go to it,” she ordered. “Remember, give us enough time for a getaway. A half hour at least.”
“Thirty minutes, on the jot,” he said and gave her a jaunty salute. Then he gathered the satchels of charges everyone had been carrying for him and trotted off toward the line of aircraft. Lucille waited until he was out of sight.
“All right, gather around,” she told the others. “One more time. Here’s how we do this. Horea, you’re with me at the far west barracks. I’ll take the front door, you the back. The middle barracks is for Harker and the Prince, Harker at the back door. Crisan and Closca take the east, Closca at the front. At my signal we in the front toss in a grenade.”
“Or two.” Closca grinned. “Just for grins and giggles.”
“Or three,” she added with her own smile. “Followed by the front man entering and shooting anything that still moves. The man at the back door is there only for any Germans that manage to escape that way. You do not enter the barracks. You’ll just get shot by your own side. Not a way to die. And watch out for bullets and shrapnel going through the walls and windows.”
“What about the Command HQ?” Harker asked. “It appears that the Commanding Officer resides there. Also there is probably a Duty Officer to contend with.”
“There is no back door to the HQ,” Lucille told him. “And I had Renfield fix us up something special for whoever might come out when they hear us at work at the barracks.”
She pulled it out of her own satchel and led the team to the compound. Sprinting across open ground gave her a gut-wrenching moment of nausea, but the crossing went unnoticed. There were lights on inside the HQ hut. Peering through a window, Lucille could see that the place was divided in two; a wall and door separated the front office from a probable billet to the back where the Commanding Officer slept. Harker was right—there was a Duty Officer visible in the front office, sleeping at a desk, his Luftwaffe jacket unbuttoned, a half-empty wine bottle in front of him.
With her foot Lucille drove a wooden stake into the ground in front of the door. She attached Renfield’s device to the stake. It was a chunk of plastique backed by a broken shovel, the front embedded with roofing nails and screws. She planted it
so the hardware faced the door then strung a wire from the explosive detonator to the doorknob. As soon as the door was pulled open the charge would be ignited, launching the various bits of steel at the speed of a few thousand feet per second toward whoever was unlucky enough to be in the doorway.
She tested the tension on the wire and turned to the others watching her. “The bliddy pull switch,” she whispered with an exaggerated brogue, and they all smiled at her, even the Prince.
After setting her booby trap, Lucille led her team toward the barracks. The three buildings were lined up with the usual military precision, each structure as uniform as the next, despite the farmhouse camouflage. The mess hall was an identical building. All were dark.
Lucille checked to confirm that everyone was in position. She knew Harker had taken umbrage at being designated a back-door man and not a front-door attacker, but she had put him there for a reason—exactly to put him in his place.
Taking her own position at the entrance to the eastern barracks she saw Closca and the Prince watching her, each standing in the shadows. The heavy mist hung in the light like a silver cloud.
She pulled a grenade out of her ammo pouch, held it up for them to see. The Prince gave her one of his wolfish smiles. Closca grinned, and she could see a dental glint of gold as he raised his two grenades. She pulled the pin on the grenade, held down the ignition spoon as she turned the doorknob, and slowly eased open the barracks door.
Nodding to the Prince and Closca, she tossed in her grenade, shut the door, and hit the ground prone.
The following explosion blew out the windows, and she could feel the concussion through the mud. It was followed by two more explosions and a ragged, shrill scream. She paid it no mind and stepped inside. As she did so she heard another, duller, bang. The Command HQ. Somebody had opened the door to his own death.
In the barracks a few bunk beds were toppled, feathers floated in the air, the residue from a ripped pillow. Bodies were splayed about the wreckage, but only in the front of the room. With the white fluff wafting in the air it looked like a souvenir snow globe celebrating the seventh level of hell.
In the rear a half-dozen men were rousing themselves from the shock. She shot them. The man going for the gun hanging from his bed was her first target. Then the others as she strode down the middle aisle, shooting the stunned, dazed, and wounded. There was no opposing fire. She opened the back door and Horea stepped inside. He glanced about the room with a nod of appreciation. She reloaded and the two of them shot each of the soldiers in the head.
Stepping outside, into the cleansing rain, she reloaded again. The Prince was just exiting with Harker, Closca, and Crisan coming out of the eastern building.
The Prince quickly went into the HQ building, stepping over the body hanging over the threshold. There was another scream, cut off in mid-howl.
Everyone gathered in front of the HQ. The Prince stepped out to join them, and as usual, he was soaked in blood. Lucille glanced at his newly ruined clothing saturated in crimson.
“Maybe we should provide you with some sort of work clothes that we could toss afterward,” she said to him, then turned to Harker. “Do you want to do a quick search of the HQ for any valuable intel, Leftenant?”
He nodded.
“And be sure to leave a few of Renfield’s presents to destroy any evidence of the Prince’s handiwork,” she added.
Harker reached into his own demolitions satchel and extracted a pair of incendiary devices. Lucille opened the HQ door for him as Crisan and Closca hauled the dead Duty Officer out of the way. Looking inside Harker could not hide his instant revulsion at what he saw. Lucille could see a splash of blood on the wall.
“Do you need any help?” she asked, as she moved to enter behind him.
“You don’t want to see this,” he told her as he blocked her passage.
“Thank you for preserving my fragile sensibilities,” she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster, pushing him aside to enter.
Then the Prince put a restraining hand on her shoulder. It was as if she had been gripped by a rock. He leaned over to speak into her ear. There was no breath, just his voice.
“I would rather you not witness the clutter from my efforts,” he said. She stepped back and Harker proceeded alone.
Lucille turned to the Prince. “Are you also trying to protect my delicate nature?”
“It is more like trying to protect my own discomfort,” he replied.
“We are both too sensitive for these times,” she said and received a smile from him.
Harker stepped out of the HQ. Behind him there was a burst of light as the incendiaries ignited.
“Mission accomplished,” Harker announced as he stuffed a stack of papers into his satchel. “Done and dusted.”
“Congratulations,” she told him, this time without the sarcasm. She surveyed the team, taking a head count. “Where’s Renfield? He should be back by now.”
“I’ll go fetch him,” Harker volunteered.
“No.” Lucille shook her head. “That’s my place. The rest of you go to the vehicles. We’ll meet you there.”
She could see that Harker wanted to protest, but to his credit he swallowed it and joined the others as they jogged away.
Lucille crossed the runway and headed down the aircraft access road, passing the bunkered and camouflaged hangars. The rainfall had ceased, but the mud underfoot was a thick pudding clinging to her boots, making them heavier with every step. Her clothes had become sodden, clinging to her, producing a chill that seeped into her bones. Clearly the adrenaline that had been fueling her so far was abating. At each of the sandbagged hangars she searched for the lost Renfield, calling his name. She thought she saw something behind the fourth hangar down, a movement in the dark.
She raised her pistol, finger on the trigger, trying to make out the moving figure. Then it suddenly burst into view, Renfield on a bicycle. He skidded to a stop next to her, like a kid showing off. He beamed his idiot grin.
“Look what ah found!” he exclaimed proudly.
“We were waiting for you,” she chided.
“Ah found something else,” he said. “Aye, an ammo dump. Big bliddy boom coming.”
At that moment the first airplane blew up. The aircraft must have had a full fuel tank, evidenced by the large orange-and-yellow marigold of flame that blossomed in the air. Wheat-bundle torches and airplane parts flew into the sky.
Then the next one exploded, another blossom of fire equal to the first. The third outdid the previous two, the air conflagration full of leaping barrels, most likely a fuel cache. The ball of fire roiled and climbed into the night sky, sandbags flew like clumsy swallows, wheat sheaves flared and burned, sparks floating to earth in a fiery parody of snowflakes.
Lucille was rooted to the spot, waiting for the next eruption. That was why she did not see the approaching car. It was then that she remembered the vehicle shed. On the reconnaissance the day before there had been six vehicles: three lorries, the fuel and fire trucks, and the staff car. Tonight, as they passed the shed she had noticed only five, the trucks but no car. Her mistake.
And now it occurred to her that she had not gone into the buildings to count heads. She had no idea how many Germans were dead or, more important, missing.
She cursed at herself as the car came into the blazing light cast by the burning planes. Lucille could see Nazi officers hanging out of all four windows, gawking at the billowing flames. Probably returning from a birthday party, a promotion, one of them clearing a case of gonorrhea. It did not matter. She should have checked the local pub the Germans had taken over.
These thoughts raced through her brain and froze her for a few seconds. She remained that way until she saw the flash of gunfire from the car speeding directly at her and Renfield.
If they were drunk before they saw their aircraft blowing up, they had sobered up quickly, and now they were aiming their sidearms at the only targets available—the woman and man standing
before them, brilliantly lit by the burning airfield.
Bullets splashed up mud around Lucille and Renfield. With one hand she shoved Renfield behind her, raised her pistol with the other, and took aim at the car speeding toward her. The three passengers and driver had guns out the windows. And those guns were spitting bullets at her.
FROM THE WAR JOURNAL OF J. HARKER
(transcribed from shorthand)
Good God, man, but she is a stunner. I’ve never seen the like on God’s green earth. She is an astonishing specimen. Of late I have been a bit peeved at her, I admit, for a variety of slights and transgressions on her part. But after witnessing her actions on that blasted airfield my affections for this woman, no, for this WOMAN, have increased manifold.
We were on our way back to our vehicles as suggested by Lucy (I can no longer apply the term dear or sweet to her name; a new appellation must be found). When our hearse and lorry came into sight, my reservations about leaving her alone to find the tardy Renfield built up to the point where I drew myself to a halt.
“I’m going back,” I said to the others. “Renfield is my responsibility.”
“I will accompany you,” Dracula volunteered.
I turned to Horea. “Stay with the vehicles. We’ll be back in two shakes.” He nodded, and I turned back the way we had come.
As we approached the airfield an explosion was heard. The billowing flame put the forest in front of us in stark relief, the black trunks of the trees silhouetted against this premature dawn.
Then another booming blast that was immediately followed by a much larger explosion. There was no cause for alarm thus far, as I expected them, the blasts being the result of Renfield’s craftwork. But then the sound of gunfire erupted. This was enough to spur me on and I began to run. The vampire passed me instantly and I had to press myself to catch him.
He stopped where the woods ended and the land had been cleared for the taxi strip. There was another explosion as a plane blew up and I saw a tail piece tumbling through a cloud of flying sandbags.
Dracula vs. Hitler Page 23
