Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 17

  As the sky to the east revealed the coming dawn, Lynch could see they were approaching a low, rolling hill spotted with clumps of trees and scrub brush. The hill wasn’t terribly high, perhaps two hundred feet at its summit, and its slopes were so modest it appeared only as a swell of green bulging out of the farmland and forests around it. As the Commandos drew closer, Chenot and Marie urged them on, sacrificing quiet for speed as they raced the rising sun.

  With enough light to finally see everyone clearly, Lynch looked around and found Smythe, near the end of the column. The spy was dressed as one of the Commandos, wearing a pack and carrying a rifle. Lynch figured that although the man looked to be fit, the sort who played polo or a game of football now and then, he’d not have the endurance for a march of several miles under full kit. However, if anything, Smythe looked to be enjoying himself immensely, and seemed less tired than most of the men.

  The same couldn’t be said for Corporal Nelson. Harry had received a promotion after the Merlimont raid for his incredibly successful attack on the German motor pool. Although Lynch knew the foul-mouthed Englishman skirted the edge of acceptable discipline in a Commando unit far too often, his eagerness to take risks and get stuck in with the enemy made him a valuable asset. There was no denying his skill at close-in fighting and explosives, either.

  However, the wounds Nelson had taken during the escape from Merlimont now worried Lynch. He was convinced that Nelson had either bribed or intimidated the Medical Officer into declaring him fit for duty again, and as Lynch glanced his way, he could see Nelson’s face shining with sweat, his features twisted into a face that gave away the pain of his exertions. Over six feet tall and built like a warhorse, Nelson shouldn’t look nearly so haggard, even carrying his usual heavy load of explosives and other weaponry. Lunch’s mouth tightened into a thin line. Nelson would have to be looked after.

  Turning away from studying his companions, Lynch saw they were much closer to the hill. It was clearly a knob of stone covered in a thin layer of topsoil and some modest foliage. There were rocky outcroppings where the soil had eroded away completely, leaving only the bare stone behind, cracking and weathering now that it was exposed to the elements. Lynch imagined that such a hill would have made an excellent defensive position in antiquity, before men could hurl explosives from the mouths of cannons and mortars, or drop bombs from thousands of feet in the air. The stony surface of the hill would make it almost impossible to entrench anywhere, meaning the defender would be exposed to any kind of plunging fire or air attack. He could even imagine Napoleonic cannons skipping shot up the hill, the deadly iron missiles crushing and tearing apart men who found it impossible to find a place to hide.

  The procession stopped just inside the treeline, with a large field between them and the hill. Chenot spoke to the Commandos. “We will have to cross out in the open. A short distance from here, there is a drainage ditch, almost a metre deep. We will crawl to the ditch, then move at a crouch as fast as we can to the base of the hill. Once we are there, we will be safe.”

  “All right, you lot,” McTeague growled, “on yer bellies, and follow Mister Chenot.”

  The men crossed the field at a rapid crawl, quickly soaking their battledress in the early morning dew. Lynch privately thought the partisans were being too cautious; as best as he could tell, the nearest farmhouse was over five hundred yards distant. But he knew farm folk rose early, often before the dawn, and the partisans - those that survived - were only alive today because they made every effort at concealment.

  Within a few minutes they were in the ditch, and from this point, the Commandos moved at double-time in a crouch, keeping their heads below the top of the wheat growing in the fields to either side of them. They would be invisible to any farmer, but there was still the remote possibility that an early morning air patrol might spot them. If that happened, Lynch had no doubt in his mind that they’d all be dead within minutes.

  Bent over and moving at a fast trot, Lynch nearly ran face-first into Pritchard’s backside when the man suddenly stopped. Lynch was about to curse Pritchard out before he realized everyone had stopped, and he looked up to see the side of the hill rising up in front of him. The base of the hill was surrounded by trees and some fairly thick underbrush, and at Chenot’s signal, everyone emerged from the ditch and moved into the woods. Once they were under cover, Chenot murmured something to Price that Lynch couldn’t hear, and then the partisan moved off on his own.

  “He’s going to take a dekko,” Price informed the men. “Make sure Jerry hasn’t laid a trap for us. If it’s all clear, he’ll be back to bring us in.”

  Minutes passed, and Lynch looked out past their wooded cover to watch the sun’s first rays set the tip-tops of nearby trees alight. He remembered crossing the French countryside with the BEF over a year ago, and once again marveled at its simple beauty. England had plenty of farmland that looked just as pretty, but none of it, he believed, could compare to his homeland. Lynch wondered when he would see Ireland again, and the thought reminded him that he may very well never return home. In truth, although he longed to be there once more, he didn’t even know if Ireland was home anymore.

  Lynch turned as he heard the rest of the Commandos stir, and saw Chenot emerge through the woods. With a nod of his head, everyone resumed following him, and Lynch noted they were circling around the hill, and taking the first steps up the gentlest parts of its slope. A minute later, Chenot stopped them again. Before them was a thicket at the base of a large crack in the hill’s stony base. Pushing a branch aside, Chenot disappeared into the thicket. One by one, the rest of them followed.

  Lynch and the others emerged in the shadow of the split, and he could see that the crack was deep, and wide enough that a man shuffling sideways could step inside. As the thought crossed Lynch’s mind, Chenot did just that, disappearing from view in the blink of an eye. Lynch looked at Price, and with a moment’s hesitation, the lieutenant followed their partisan ally into the cave, also vanishing within a few steps. Lynch shrugged, and followed his commanding officer.

  A few feet inside the opening, Lynch discovered that the crack in the hill took a sharp dogleg and opened up considerably, allowing him to turn and walk normally as he progressed deeper. Although only a hair-thin crack above his head let in light, Lynch found a battered old wrought-iron candle holder had been hammered into a smaller crack in the side of the tunnel. A fat, homemade taper sat on the holder, casting a flickering illumination into the tunnel. Lynch continued on, moving further into the hillside, and found the tunnel twisted and curved, growing broader and narrower in turns, for at least thirty feet. Several other candles lit the passage, and in the near-total darkness even their weak light was enough to show him the way.

  Eventually Lynch emerged into a triangular cave lit by a single mirror-backed oil lamp fitted to the far wall. There were a half-dozen cots along the side of the cave, and opposite them were piles of stores: wooden boxes and crates of various sizes, with several small casks and a number of dark glass bottles and ceramic jars. A fire pit made from piled rocks occupied a far corner, with a pair of wrought-iron stakes and a metal spit holding a cooking pot hanging from a chain.

  Along with Price and Chenot, there were three other people in the cave. Two of them Lynch recognized; Monsieur and Madame Souliere. The old married couple looked thinner and more haggard since Lynch had last seen them three months ago, but both husband and wife wore broad cartridge belts and pistols, and Monsieur wore a bandolier across his chest half-filled with rifle cartridges. Both of the Soulieres nodded to Lynch and gave him a warm welcome, and Lynch gladly returned their greetings.

  Back in April, when the Commandos first came ashore south of Merlimont, the Soulieres had volunteered their barn as the squad’s hiding place for the night. Unfortunately, a traitor among the partisans had revealed their farm to be the Commando’s hiding place, and there had been a vicious firefight when three squads of Panzerschützen arrived to kill or capture the British sol
diers. Thankfully the Germans were wiped out with the assistance of the partisans, but there was no hiding the Souliere’s involvement. Faced with flight or certain execution, the couple had packed a few small possessions and abandoned their farm, choosing to tie their fate to the resistance.

  The last person in the cave was a young man, probably seventeen or eighteen years of age. He was standing at the back of the cave, his cap in hand, watching wide-eyed as the remaining Commandos filed inside. The boy appeared unarmed, and Lynch didn’t remember seeing him before, so he could only presume the boy was a newcomer, perhaps like Marie another helpless victim of the German occupying forces.

  But as Marie entered the cave, following McTeague as he squeezed his bulk out of the tunnel, Lynch reflected that she certainly didn’t look helpless now. Her long brown hair had been cut short, now barely reaching the collar of her coat, and her feminine curves had been worn away by the abrasives of hard living and little food. In her hands, Marie carried a German sniper rifle, and the holster of a P-38 hung from her belt. Rather than a cartridge bandolier, she wore a set of German infantry braces, the ammunition pouches half-filled. There was a look about her now, a feline, predatory aura that had replaced her youthful innocence, making a determined, dangerous woman out of the terrified young girl Lynch had rescued three months ago. The transformation was both unsettling and attractive in equal measures. Marie caught him looking at her, and she gave Lynch a soft smile before moving into the room and standing next to Chenot. Lynch saw the way the serious young Frenchman’s dark features lit up when she came near him. Aye, so it’s like that, it is. Good for them.

  Price made the introductions between the three new Commandos and the partisans. Along with Pritchard, there was Trooper Miller, who’d taken on the duty of Bren loader after the team’s original loader, Harris, was promoted to Lance Corporal and given the job of Bren gunner. Miller was small-statured and bandy-legged, easily the shortest man in the unit. When he walked around next to Harris, who was the second-tallest man in the squad after McTeague, the difference between the two men always elicited a chuckle from the rest of the squad. The third man, Thatcher, was a serious-minded fellow from Derbyshire. A smile rarely graced Thatcher’s dark, brooding features; his face was usually turned down with a sour, irritated expression, despite the fact that Thatcher always went about his duties without any complaint. Although all three men were new to the squad, they’d all been through Commando training at roughly the same time as Lynch and the others, and each had seen combat with the BEF the previous year. They were all tough and professional; each was determined to do his part to prove their worth to the rest of the men.

  After Price had done his part, Chenot introduced the young man as Édouard. The boy was pale and emaciated, his sandy brown hair sticking out from under his cap like a bird’s-nest. He appeared nervous almost to the point of fainting, and Chenot explained that Édouard was an information gatherer for the resistance, recently operating out of Calais. Two days ago, Édouard had fled the city, travelling south on foot and trying to make contact with the partisans. Last night, nearly starving and long without sleep, Édouard had finally reached them with a piece of vital information.

  Price’s brow had furrowed over the course of Chenot’s explanation. “This young fellow sounds quite remarkable. I can only imagine his report is equally impressive. What could be so important?”

  Chenot glanced at Marie. “When we fled the attack, we believed everyone was killed. There was firing from both sides, but it quickly died out, and we had all agreed amongst ourselves that if faced with capture by the Boche, we would not let ourselves be taken alive.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” Price replied, “given the circumstances. But what are you saying, did they capture someone?”

  “Oui, they did.” Chenot replied. “The Butcher of Calais is imprisoned in the belly of his own city. And you, gentlemen, are going to help us free him.”

  Chapter 4

  Hotel Du Chevalier, Calais, France

  0500 Hours

  Standartenführer Johann Faust awoke an hour before the dawn. Fifty-one years of age, Faust felt more alive, with more energy and endurance, than he’d felt in his twenties during the Great War. Then, he had been a lowly Hauptmann slogging through the trenches and across no man’s land, every footfall landing in a mixture of mud and putrefied human tissue. That war had been a reenactment of Hell, and after the treaty had been signed in 1918, Faust had given up on war, the exhaustion of battle wearying him down to his very soul.

  Unfortunately, when Faust returned to his home city of Braunschweig, almost immediately he found the city caught in a civil revolt between the communists and the imperials. Faust was a strong anti-communist, but didn’t want to become involved in the fighting, preferring to sit back and see what transpired. When he saw the formation of the Freikorps and the subsequent takeover of the city by the forces of the Weimar Republic in 1919, Faust made a few tentative inquiries among some old army contacts, and soon found himself employed as a low-level government official, eking out a modest existence shuffling papers, writing reports, and returning from home each night to an empty flat and a bottle of Korn.

  During the interwar years, Faust lived as a ghost of a man, slowly passing into middle age alone, with few friends aside from a handful of amicable co-workers and an occasional visit with an old war comrade. It was this state of purposelessness that eventually drew him to pay more and more attention to the rise of the Nazi party through the late twenties and early thirties. Like so many others, Faust had watched as his once-proud German empire slowly descended into a morass of communism, strife, unemployment, and a general malaise. And again, like so many others, Faust was beguiled by the promises offered by Adolf Hitler and the return of a German state that was strong, united, and driven towards a powerful purpose.

  Once more, Faust reached out to former commanding officers and other war veterans, men who now found themselves in positions of influence throughout the Nazi party. By 1934 Faust was in uniform again, this time wearing the black of the Schutzstaffel. Faust’s first prominent act as a member of the SS was his participation in the Night of the Long Knives, acting as a trigger-man for the party and killing four members of the SA. From that moment onward, Faust discovered that he had a new purpose in life. He was given the rank of Sturmbannführer, a position he held until the invasion of Poland in 1939.

  It was during the last days of the Polish campaign that Faust’s talents came into their own. He found himself leading a growing body of SS infantry tasked with hunting down and eliminating partisans and troublesome political or military figures who were trying to coax the last few flickers of resistance from the smouldering embers of Poland’s ruins. As his unit was transferred back to Germany in preparation for the invasion of Belgium, Faust was given command of an Einsatzkommando, then tasked with following the invading Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS divisions, performing “mop-up operations” wherever the locals seemed less than pleased with the new state of affairs in their communities.

  After the fall of France, Faust found himself promoted to Standartenführer. He was given his own Einsatzgruppe and stationed in Calais, his elite cadre of partisan-hunters prepared and ready to attend to any uprising throughout the Pas-de-Calais region. At first it had been a quiet posting, hunting down the occasional band of outlaws or political dissidents hiding in the ruins of the shattered city. Eventually though, Faust and his men eliminated any signs of organized, armed resistance in the area.

  Or so they had thought.

  Faust finished the last of his breakfast as the first rays of sunlight crept over the jagged, battered rooftops of Calais. The meal had consisted of several thick slices of hearty black bread slathered with butter, a large wedge of sharp-smelling French cheese, and a platter of roasted chicken, cold from the icebox but still delicious. He only ate one meal a day, finding there was never enough time for two repasts, let alone three. Faust washed it all down with several cups of strong coffee,
the last doctored with a slug of Korn.

  Before he left his room, he dressed in his uniform. Although the infamous black of the SS had been replaced a few years ago by the field-grey worn by most German military units, Faust’s rank and his independent command left him sufficient freedom to be a little eccentric in the fashion of his uniform. He wore the black garment as much to show his zealous dedication to the Nazi party as the air of menace and intimidation it gave him. In the same vein, Faust refused to cover his empty eye socket. Although in his civilian life Faust had worn an eyepatch to hide the gaping wound, since the war began, he’d decided to go without.

  After dressing, Faust buckled on his weapons. On his left hip, Faust wore his ceremonial SS dagger, given to him in 1936. Next to it hung an ammunition pouch, containing several stripper clips of 7.63mm Mauser pistol ammunition. On Faust’s right hip, he wore a custom-made holster carrying his Mauser C96. Before going to war in 1914, his father had presented the weapon to him, privately purchased and expertly customized. The wooden grips were decorated with an inlay of polished bone, his family crest scrimshawed and stained into the surface. One night in 1917, while drinking with several younger officers, he’d told the other men the inlaid bone was taken from the pistol’s first victim. The story quickly spread among the other men of his regiment, giving Faust a diabolical reputation. When he entered the SS, the story somehow resurfaced, and Faust was more than willing to let it circulate among the ranks. While during the Great War he’d carried the pistol in its standard wooden holster, these days he carried it in a holster that left the butt exposed, showing off the inlay.