Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 19

  “While I was in the hospital, recovering from this,” Faust gestured to his empty eye socket, “my young wife was dying in another hospital, hundreds of miles away. She was a victim of the Spanish flu. You see, I know something about what can happen when you suffer such a loss.”

  Bouchard’s face twisted in anger. “Your wife died from a disease, tended by doctors and nurses. My family...their deaths were the acts of monsters.”

  Faust merely shrugged in reply. He stared into the space slightly above Bouchard’s head, as small curls of smoke rose from the bowl of his pipe.

  “Your kind of tragedy,” Faust continued, “it can do things to a man. It can break something, up here.” Faust tapped a finger against his own temple. “It causes a kind of madness, a fanatical intensity that cannot be reasoned against. I could torture you endlessly, strip the skin from your body, burn you, torment your bones and organs. But you wouldn’t break. You would laugh in my face. You would spit up your life’s blood onto my boots and grin as your heart stopped beating. No, Monsieur Bouchard, torture wouldn’t break you.”

  Bouchard finally looked away and stared instead at the ceiling. “So why am I still alive? If you won’t get any information from me, why let me live?”

  Faust stood up with a grunt, his left knee creaking slightly. He put his cap back on his head and looked out the window. The sun was bright outside, the sky without clouds. Perhaps he would take a walk along the waterfront and enjoy the view.

  Faust looked down at Bouchard. “Who says I won’t get any information from you?”

  Bouchard’s mouth opened and shut, he didn’t say anything. Faust smiled.

  “This is going to be a long war. I have no doubt that until its conclusion, and perhaps long after that, I will be hunting and killing men such as yourself. You see sir, the information I want isn’t the usual nonsense about resistance cells, meeting places, flowerpots in windowsills and other dreary cloak and dagger theatre. No, I want to learn the minds of the creatures I hunt, and you, my good man, are a prized trophy. I intend to learn what makes you tick, as they say. I might even write a scholarly paper on you, maybe present it for study by young SS officers.”

  “I feel embarrassed by your words of praise. You make me into such a dashing figure,” Bouchard replied with a sneer.

  “When your campaign of violence first came to light, I took little notice. I sent a zealous underling and a squad of men to hunt you down. But as my butcher’s bill of casualties began to grow, I saw you were not some purposeless idiot with a gun, taking potshots at Nazis. You were an assassin of sorts, a man who planned and executed his kills with surprising cunning. I had to dedicate more and more men to tracking down this ‘Butcher of Calais’.”

  “Such troubles I caused you,” Bouchard said.

  “After several months,” Faust continued, “you seemed to disappear from the city. Although a body was never found, I assumed ‘The Butcher’ had either died from some unrelated incident, or had been driven out of the city, forced to hide in the wilds and pout while concealed in some peasant’s haystack.”

  Bouchard’s lips drew into a thin line, his eyes hardening. Faust smiled at him again, a wicked, anticipatory smile, and turned to walk out of the room. Bouchard called after him.

  “How did you finally find us?” he asked. “You managed to get one or two of us at a time over the last few months, but such things are inevitable. How did you finally find me and the rest of my men?”

  Faust stopped. He turned slightly and looked over his shoulder. “Tracking dogs. We simply tracked your scent after your ambush. When we got close enough, the rest was easy.”

  Bouchard stared at Faust for a moment, then he simply nodded and looked away. Faust turned back and walked through the hotel room door.

  “Get well soon, monsieur,” he said, not looking back. “We have a great deal to talk about.”

  The door shut behind Faust. Bouchard turned and looked at the elderly doctor next to him. The doctor paused from tidying up before he left and gave Bouchard a soft smile and a shrug.

  “Merde,” the doctor said.

  Bouchard nodded and closed his eyes, resting his head on his pillow.

  Chapter 7

  Ferques, France

  July 12th, 0100 Hours

  “Harry, you sodding lunatic, now where’d you get that bloody murderous pig-sticker?”

  Lynch looked down at the knife tucked into Nelson’s belt. Instead of the Fairbairn-Sykes dagger every man carried, Nelson was wearing a rather brutal-looking trench knife, with a built-in set of brass knuckles, each finger guard raised to a blunt triangular tip.

  “Was pokin’ about in a flea market last time we were on leave. Had a bit o’ loose coin in me pocket and found this sittin’ on a shelf with some uvver bits n’ pieces from the last great unpleasantness. The price was right, so I bought it, even got a discount on account of bein’ in the service an’ all.”

  Lynch just shook his head. “Harry me boyo, I just don’t know what to do with you sometimes.”

  “Sure you do, Tommy. That’s why you brought me along for this bit o’ ruckus,” Nelson replied with a grin.

  “Will the two a ye shut it? We’re supposed to be doin’ this quiet like!” McTeague hissed.

  The three men lay in an ancient graveyard just outside the tiny village of Ferques. A few dozen homes and businesses lined the streets, and all seemed quiet as could be. But it wasn’t the quiet that interested them that night. It was the one place where light could be seen and noises could be heard, a small tavern in the middle of the village, where light leaked out from behind heavy curtains, just enough light to illuminate the two canvas-covered Opel Blitz cargo transports and the Kübelwagen personnel carrier parked out front.

  Lynch, Nelson, and McTeague were stripped of most of their kit, carrying only their pistols and knives. Nelson and Lynch wore their Colt .45s, while McTeague, citing that it “feels more sturdy in me hand”, still carried his Webley revolver. The Scotsman also wore his long-bladed dirk, while Lynch carried his Fairbairn-Sykes dagger. In addition to the Colt, Lynch had stuffed a second pistol into his battledress pocket; the Browning 9mm Price had handed him, taken from the mortally-wounded Wehrmacht captain they’d fought against last time they’d been in France. Although possession of the pistol - which clearly bore German army stampings - might earn him a particularly harsh treatment if he was captured and the pistol was found on him, Lynch liked the feel of the Belgian-made automatic, and its thirteen-round magazine didn’t hurt matters, either.

  They had spent the better part of an hour slowly making their way out from the treeline and through the old cemetery, each of them careful not to step on any graves or make any noise. Lynch had been surprised to catch a glimpse of Nelson crossing himself as they’d entered the burial ground; he’d not thought the blustering Englishman to be so superstitious. But in fact, after a few minutes, he realized the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, and the jittery rush of fear and excitement wasn’t entirely due to their mission. Looking around, as the silver crescent of the moon above peeked out from behind the curtain of clouds now and then, Lynch could see that the grave markers around them were truly ancient, certainly centuries old, if not even older. Most of the markers had been worn down to the point of illegibility, some of them little more than a rectangular stump of stone peeking a few inches out of the ground.

  A morbid thought suddenly crossed Lynch’s mind. Will I even have a marked grave? What if my fate is to be dumped in a ditch somewhere, perhaps with some of my mates, and a few shovelfuls of dirt thrown over us? Ain’t that been the fate of most soldiers down through the ages? A violent death and an anonymous grave. Lucky bastards, this lot. Probably been a thousand years or more, and still we know they’re here.

  A nudge from McTeague brought Lynch out of his dark thoughts and back to the situation at hand. Looking towards the village, he saw a pair of helmeted Germans step out of the tavern, weaving a bit unsteadily towards their vehi
cles. Another pair of soldiers were standing watch over the Blitzes, and after a brief exchange of words, unheard at this distance, the two sentries walked into the tavern, slapping each other on the back, while the newcomers yawned, stretched, and began walking a drunken patrol.

  “Alright laddies, up and at ‘em,” McTeague grumbled.

  “Thought you’d never bloody say so!” Nelson whispered with excitement.

  The three men crawled towards the closest buildings, and in minutes they were alongside the walls of a dark, silent home. The Commandos slipped from building to building, swift and quiet as shadows. It would surprise an ordinary person to see such large, powerful men move so quickly and yet make so little noise, but it was a skill honed by countless nights of training, coupled with the natural grace that born fighting men possess.

  Within short order, the German sentries were only a handful of yards away, around the corner of a nearby building. Too close to risk words, a series of hand gestures and nods cemented the plan of attack. Moving at a swift crouch, McTeague and Nelson slipped around the corner of the building and covered the distance to the two men in seconds. Lynch stood on overwatch, Colt in his left hand, Browning in his right.

  Harry Nelson claimed the mission’s first kill. As one of the sentries stepped around the back of a Blitz, Nelson delivered a full-powered punch to the man’s throat using the trench knife’s brass knuckle guard. The sentry’s rifle was slung over his shoulder, and he didn’t have time to do anything other than clutch at his crushed windpipe before Nelson drew back the knife and thrust it once, then again, into the German’s heart. The sentry died making no more noise than an alarmed gurgle, and Nelson lowered him to the ground, holding the man’s rifle by the barrel to avoid it making a clatter.

  McTeague stepped up behind the other sentry, and with a show of surprising efficiency, grabbed the man’s head between his two massive hands and broke the German’s neck with a swift, brutal twist. Like Nelson, he lowered the corpse slowly, almost gently, to avoid any noise that might give them away.

  Lynch stepped out from around the building’s corner and walked up to the two other Commandos. Nelson cleaned his knife on the German’s coat and sheathed it, then drew his pistol as McTeague unholstered his Webley.

  “Well lads, the quiet part’s over. Time to make some noise,” McTeague said.

  “Aye, that it is,” Lynch replied.

  The only guests in the tavern at this hour were four other Germans. Every other patron had left, concerned that with too much drink, the Boche would become agitated and violent. The proprietor had even sent his wife home. She was terrified of what might happen to her poor husband, but the tavern’s owner was an old hand at dealing with drunken men, and felt that if he was careful and stayed alert for any signs of trouble, he could avoid the worst of possibilities, something that would be more difficult with his wife around. She was still a handsome woman, and he knew drunken soldiers had no sense beyond that which hung between their legs.

  But all the tavern owner’s best laid plans were for naught, when he stepped into his back room to fetch another bottle of wine, only to feel a huge, calloused hand clamp across his mouth. A shadowy, menacing figure loomed before him, a cruel-looking brute with the craggy face of a barroom brawler. The intruder held a finger up before his lips.

  “Shhhhh, mon-sewer. See voo play.”

  Ten seconds later, Tommy Lynch came through the tavern’s front door, a pistol in each hand. He brought up the Browning, and with a perfectly calm expression, put a nine-millimetre bullet through the laughing face of a young Wehrmacht soldier about to tip a bottle of wine down his gullet. The man’s feet were up on the edge of the table, his chair tilted back, and when the bullet punched through his upper lip and blew out the back of his head, the man’s death spasm flipped him over backwards, the chair slamming into the floor, the wine bottle shattering and spreading a dark stain across the wooden planks.

  The single shot was the signal Nelson and McTeague were waiting for. The two men burst through the pantry door, Nelson coming in fast and low, the giant Scotsman towering above him. Each man picked one of the Germans and fired three shots apiece, their targets twitching and jerking from the bullets’ impacts. The only man to even touch a weapon was the convoy’s Feldwebel, who never drank as much as his men, feeling some responsibility as the senior man in the unit. He managed to get his MP-38 off the table next to him before Lynch shot him twice through the chest with his .45 automatic. The German sergeant dropped the machine pistol and let out a bloody, unintelligible curse before sliding out of his chair and onto the floor. Lynch stepped up to him, kicked away the MP-38, and shot the man through the head.

  There was a moment’s silence before all three men spun towards movement at the door. René Chenot crossed the threshold slowly, hands up. He looked around the room, surveying the bloody scene.

  “Mon dieu,” he said. “It is a good thing we’ve kept some stolen German uniforms. These appear to be soiled.”

  Chapter 8

  Outside Of Calais, France

  0400 Hours

  John Robert Smythe was not, of course, his real name. After fifteen years working for His Majesty’s government as an international spy, he had used so many names, worn the guise of so many false identities, that it was only with difficulty that he could remember his original name, his date of birth, or his home town. He made it a practice, when taking on a new personae, to only ever think of himself in terms of his new identity, and that meant blocking out his true self.

  Since being given his Smythe identity a week ago, he made sure his only identity was Smythe. He only thought of himself as Smythe, Pembroke and Durnford-Slater knew him only as Smythe, and the Commandos he traveled with now only knew him as Smythe. If he was captured and tortured for information, he honestly doubted he could even conjure up the details his tormentors would want, because Smythe did not know them. He believed this because it had happened once before, in Cairo, and even after two months of abuse and interrogation, he had given them nothing - not one shred of his true self.

  The man now known as John Robert Smythe rode in the passenger seat of the Kübelwagen staff car while Corporal Lynch drove. Lieutenant Price and the Frenchman Chenot sat in the back seat, weapons at hand, keeping watch out the windows. All of them were wearing captured German uniforms and carrying German weapons, although their own arms were tucked under the back seat. Smythe wore the uniform of a Wehrmacht Feldwebel, while Price wore the insignia of a Gefreiter. Each of them had an automatic weapon of some kind, as well as grenades, knives, and pistols.

  Behind their car, the two Blitz transports trundled down the road, the slits of their blackout-lidded headlights appearing as squinted eyes in the rear-view mirror. It was four o’clock in the morning, and the small convoy was approaching the heavily armed checkpoint blocking the road leading into Calais. Smythe reached down and opened the black leather shoulder satchel at his feet. He ran his fingers along one seam, and pulling it back, revealed a hidden compartment. From this hiding place, he pulled out a small pistol and a metal tube, about six inches long. Both tube and pistol wore a flat black matte finish, as if they were fashioned from a block of charcoal.

  Smythe took the tube, a finely-crafted sound suppressor, and screwed it onto the barrel of the pistol. He pulled back the pistol’s slide and snapped it home, chambering a round. Tapping the magazine release, Smythe pulled the magazine free and thumbed in a .32 calibre cartridge he pulled from his pocket. He slid the now-full magazine back in place, then tucked the pistol into the open satchel in such a way that, with one fluid movement, he could draw the weapon and fire. As he did all this, Smythe saw the Irishman watching out of the corner of his eye.

  “That be an odd-looking duck you’ve tucked into your kit now,” Lynch said.

  Smythe smiled. “Browning Model 1900, thirty-two calibre automatic. The barrel sits below the recoil spring housing, allowing the sights to stand clear of the suppressor. Seven shots, eight loaded as i
t is now, and as loud as punching a fist into a seat cushion.”

  “Oh aye, recoil spring housings. Seat cushions. Makes perfect sense, it does.” Lynch cast Smythe a shrewd sidelong glance.

  “In the clandestine pursuit of knowledge,” Smythe replied, “one sometimes has to employ more direct measures to ensure the outcome of one’s mission.”

  “So you really mean shooting some poor Jerry bastard between the eyes with that wee little gun of yours.”

  Smythe gave Lynch a mirthless smile. “All for King and Country, good sir. Look alive now, we’re on stage.”

  The Kübelwagen rolled up to the checkpoint and came to a stop ten feet from the barrier. The roadblock consisted of a machinegun nest manned by three men behind an MG-34 on one side, and a sandbagged 37mm anti-tank gun with a similar crew on the other side of the road. A spartan-looking guardhouse of wooden planking sat a few feet behind the machine gun nest, a curl of smoke rising from the chimney. The barrier itself was made of several telephone poles bolted together, anchored with hinges on one side of the road to a fourth, truncated pole hammered into the ground, while the other end stood on a single, crudely-attached wagon wheel that moved in a rut it had cut into the roadway.

  A yawning soldier, his rifle slung over his shoulder, approached the Kübelwagen, the beam of the electric torch in his hand playing over the four men in the car. He stepped up to Smythe’s open window.

  “Ihre Papiere, bitte,” he said.

  Smythe held out the shipment manifest in a gloved hand. "Irgend was los?" he asked in flawless German.

  The guard shrugged and took the papers, illuminating them with the torch as he looked them over. “Der übliche Unsinn. Warum bist du so früh heute?”

  “Gebrochener Kühlerschlauch,” Smythe replied, casually gesturing with his thumb back at the Blitz behind them. “Wir haben beschlossen, weiter zu fahren. Es war schon zu spät, die Nacht hier zu bleiben.”