Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 6

  Once outside the barn and in the open, Lynch’s senses opened up. No longer impaired by the visual confines of the barn or the deafening blasts of the enclosed gunfire, he could peer around the corner of the building, staying low in the grass, and see the German deployment as a whole. As he suspected, there were men moving through the fields on both sides of the barn, about fifty yards away, and as Lynch watched, the remaining Germans were slowly leapfrogging forward. Once they were close enough, the Germans would storm the structure with hand grenades and MP-38s, and that would be the end of it.

  “Alright laddies, ‘tis time to bring the fight to Jerry. We’ll rip ‘em to pieces, we will. Get ready!”

  McTeague was reloading his Thompson, and Lynch, along with the other two lance corporals, followed suit. Hall slung his rifle and drew his Enfield, and when Chenot started to reload his MAS-36, Nelson stopped him and handed over his own pistol.

  “All right Froggie, time to get up close and personal with the Jerries. Six shots - make them count!” Nelson said.

  Ignoring the insult, Chenot nodded. “Bonne chance, gentlemen.”

  The six men in McTeague’s assault party circled low and to their left, out away from the barn, to come in on the German’s right flank and catch them with enfilading fire. The Germans, blinded as they were by the muzzle flashes of their own weapons and focusing entirely on the barn, were oblivious to the Commandos’ counter-flank.

  The first sign that the British had out-maneuvered the Germans was when one soldier, pausing to load his Mauser with a charging clip, heard a roaring blast of automatic fire from his right at the same instant he felt his body torn apart by lead. Sprawling into the grass, the German dazedly looked up just in time to see a huge booted foot crash into his face. It was the last thing he ever saw.

  McTeague stomped down several more times for good measure, and Lynch sprinted past him, Thompson tucked in under his arm, firing short bursts. All their recent training at Boxhill paid off; between Lynch, Nelson, and White, the three men sprayed a half dozen German soldiers with submachine gun fire while on the move, cutting them apart and destroying the German’s right flank in seconds. As the three men stopped and crouched down to reload, McTeague and the two pistol-wielding riflemen ran past. Chenot stuffed the borrowed Enfield in his belt, drew out the German grenade he carried, and armed it a dozen yards from the German’s right-hand transport. Throwing the grenade with fortuitous aim, the missile landed in the back of the transport’s passenger bed, and before the machine gunner knew what was happening, the blast catapulted him out of the transport, both legs severed at the knees. Chenot ran up to the wounded German, drew his borrowed revolver, and put the man out of his misery with a bullet through the skull.

  McTeague, Lynch, and the other men in the flanking party now hunkered down behind the sheltering bulk of the smouldering transport. Their assault had been so fast that in the darkness and confusion of the firefight, none of them had apparently been noticed by the other German troops on the opposite flank.

  Lynch turned to McTeague. “Do you think we’ve enough luck to clear the other flank?”

  The sergeant grunted and checked the bolt of his Thompson. “If we don’t get shot by our own men, we may have a wee chance.”

  Lynch cocked an ear. “I don’t hear firing from the barn anymore!” he said.

  It was true. Price and the others took Chenot’s grenade blast as the signal to escape the barn. The remaining men had fled out the back and circled around in the same direction as Lynch and the others, hoping to reinforce that side of the battlefield. The Germans, not yet realizing that the barn was undefended, continued to fire and advance towards the building.

  Before McTeague could reply, a new sound erupted from the other side of the German line; rifle fire, shouted commands, and the crump of grenades. Lynch risked a peek around the bullet-riddled fender of the troop transport, and saw what appeared to be a firefight between the remaining Germans and another force closing in from the left.

  “Listen,” he told McTeague, “those aren’t Enfields or Price’s Lanchester, that’s a whole other ruddy circus.”

  The Scotsman listened and nodded. To men who’ve been repeatedly exposed to enemy gunfire and knew the sound of a friend or foe’s weapons by instinct, the various reports were an unfamiliar mix of calibres and types. The two men looked at each other, and McTeague voiced their mutual conclusion.

  “Ach, the Frenchies have come to crash the party.”

  10

  Leutnant Bieber stood in the cupola of his armoured car for several heartbeats, his face and uniform covered in a fine mist of blood and shredded tissue, watching his machine-gunner tumble, headless, into the belly of the car. It was a ruse, he thought, the British knew we were coming! But a moment later, he realized it had nothing to do with treachery, and everything to do with the roar of four diesel engines as the convoy had sped down a rural French road. Scheisse, what a stupid mistake! The Commandos had been given ample warning, and first blood had gone to his enemy.

  But all was not lost. Bieber still outnumbered them at least two to one. Ducking down into his car, Bieber slammed down the hatch, then climbed into the back. His informant, Laurent, was curled into a ball in a corner of the car’s interior, covered in the dead gunner’s blood. The body had fallen into the crew compartment and toppled partially onto the Frenchman, who had shoved the corpse away with a hoarse shriek. Bieber maneuvered his way to Laurent and grabbed the man’s collar, drawing his Walther with the other hand and ramming the barrel into the man’s cheek.

  “Herr Laurent, you told me the partisans would be gone from here!” Bieber growled.

  The stink of Laurent’s bladder emptying itself in terror added nothing pleasant to the already foul smells coming from the machine gunner’s corpse and the usual odors of diesel fuel and hot metal inside the armoured car.

  “Non! They should all be gone. Bouchard and the others were going to assemble the rest of the fighters tomorrow before the raid. They were not supposed to be here!”

  Bieber figured as much, but wanted to make sure Laurent was still on edge and not feeling complacent about his predicament. Bieber holstered his pistol and leaned forward towards the driver.

  “What do you see? What is going on outside?” he demanded.

  “The British are trapped inside the barn,” the driver shouted over the din of the firefight. “It appears our men are flanking them now.”

  “Excellent. Get up above and man the MG-34. Cut the barn apart.”

  “Jawohl, mein Leutnant!”

  The driver crawled back over his seat, kicked the former gunner’s corpse out of the way, and stood up into the cupola. Bieber peered through the forward observation slits, watching the firefight. From above, he heard the brrrrraaapp of the MG-34 firing a long burst, then another, accompanied by the tinkle of brass bouncing and rolling off the car’s armoured hull.

  As quickly as it started, the firing stopped with a sharp cry from above. The driver dropped down into the car compartment, blood soaking through his uniform. A bullet had punched through the right side of his chest, shattering his collarbone and shoulder blade. Bieber muttered a curse and ripped a field dressing from the man’s web gear, taking a minute to bind the driver’s wound as best he could.

  “I think the bullet missed the artery,” he said. “Rest and you should be all right until we return to the town.”

  The driver nodded, too weak with shock and blood loss to speak. Bieber glanced up at the machine gun cupola, shaking his head. He wasn’t going to be the third man sticking his head out of that hatch, only to receive a bullet a moment later, but neither could he command the battle locked up inside the armoured car like a coward; he needed to be leading and inspiring his men. With a needless gesture to Laurent to stay inside the car, Bieber took a loaded MP-38 and an ammunition satchel from the car’s weapons rack, then undogged the car’s side hatch and jumped out of the vehicle.

  The full effect of the battle hit him lik
e a wave. The crack of Mausers and the chatter of Maschinenpistolen accompanied the sounds of MG-34s ripping out bursts of full-powered 7.92mm rounds only a few metres away. The Commandos were also putting up a strong resistance; their own rifle, submachine gun, and Bren fire was crackling back at the Germans, and bullets were peening off the lorries and the hull of the armoured car like lethal hailstones. Bieber had been in combat during the blitz across Belgium and France, but he had never been right in the center of a full-throated firefight before.

  Slinging the ammunition satchel across his chest, Bieber racked the bolt on the MP-38, checked for the gleam of brass in the chamber, then ran to the nearest cluster of men. Of the ten Panzerschützen in the squad, seven were still alive, lying on their bellies or kneeling in the grass, firing their Kar-98Ks as fast as they could cycle the bolts and load chargers. Bieber sought out the squad’s Feldwebel, a big, bearlike man whose name Bieber momentarily forgot.

  “Push your men out further! We want to envelop the barn on two fronts, then storm and slaughter them all!”

  “Jawohl!” The sergeant barked, shouting orders to his men. They began to peel off to the right, one at a time, scurrying low across the grass. One man grunted and fell back, shot through the heart, but the remainder got themselves into a skirmish line some thirty feet long.

  Bieber then scurried back around behind his armoured car, and repeated the same command to the other two squads. He needed to envelop and close with the Commandos soon, because his men were taking a surprising number of casualties. Any man who tried to climb up onto the back of a transport and man the pintle MG was shot dead or badly wounded in moments. The British must have assigned a marksman to watch the lorries and pick off anyone who tried for the machine guns.

  Despite their losses, the Germans must have been causing many casualties, because Bieber noticed the fire coming from inside the barn had dropped sharply within the last few moments. Either the Commandos were running low on ammunition, or a number of Englishmen had met their end. Either way, now was the time to push forward and strike. As if reading his mind, Bieber heard the squad over on his far right cut loose with a heavy barrage, and for a moment, Bieber wondered why there was so much automatic fire. Didn’t that squad have just one MP-38?

  His answer came a moment later, when a grenade detonated in the back of the transport on his far right flank, and a cold rush of fear poured through Bieber’s veins.

  The British have counter-flanked his position. They were in his lines with automatic weapons and grenades, butchering his men.

  Bieber turned to his left, about to run to the nearest squad and turn them to face the British counter-attack, when the man nearest to him pitched over dead at Bieber’s feet, shot through the skull. Another bullet whined past his cheek, and it came not from the right or the front, but from his left flank. Another bullet passed by, and then a third, and suddenly Bieber saw a ragged pattern of muzzle flashes delivering enfilading fire against his men. Bieber heard the first words shouted in French, and he knew what had happened.

  He was pinned between the British on one flank and the partisans on the other, and his men were being cut to pieces. Bieber turned around completely in a circle, clutching his weapon, unsure of what to do.

  The young Leutnant’s indecision was ended by a burst of automatic fire tearing through both his legs. Bieber screamed as he fell to the ground, feeling the shattered bones of his femurs grind together.

  Footsteps approached, and Bieber turned his head to see a pair of German combat boots coming towards him through the grass.

  “Bonjour, homme mort.”

  11

  The battle was over in less than a minute. Completely distracted by the firefight with the Commandos remaining in the barn, the Germans had neglected their flanks, and while McTeague’s assault team rolled up the right flank, the partisans had assaulted from the left, cutting down the remaining Panzerschützen with only two Frenchmen wounded.

  The two allied forces policed the battlefield. Price posted two Commandos by the road in case the Germans had signalled for reinforcements. The remaining British soldiers aided the partisans in gathering German arms, inspecting the vehicles, and treating their own wounded. In addition to two Frenchmen, Lance Corporal White and Trooper Lewis, Bowen’s spotter, had suffered minor grazes that needed to be dressed. The bodies of Smith and Green were removed and covered with their ponchos, but not before the necessary task of collecting their arms and equipment had been completed.

  “They were good lads, and both would understand the need for every rifle and cartridge,” Price said.

  As a courtesy, when the bodies of both men were buried at the edge of the Souliere’s farm, each was interned with his beret and Fairbairn dagger.

  While courtesy was extended to the British dead, it was not given to the German wounded. When Trooper Hall moved to treat the German casualties, Bouchard intercepted him.

  “We will handle the wounded Nazis ourselves, Englishman.”

  Hall complained to Price. “Sir, I think the Frenchies mean to execute the wounded Jerries.”

  Price frowned and confronted the partisan leader. “Now see here, Bouchard, I do not approve of harming wounded men, even if they are Germans. It goes against our military code of conduct and the rules of war.”

  Bouchard sneered at the lieutenant and spat in the general direction of his prisoners. “The Nazi filth deserve to die. We are defending our homeland, and these men have invaded France, plundered her treasures, raped her women, and butchered her sons. They cannot be allowed to live.”

  Price opened his mouth to object, but Chenot stepped forward. “Mon ami, please understand. If these men are left alive, they can identify our resistance fighters when we move in secret through Merlimont. We cannot allow their survival to lead to partisans being captured and tortured for information. It is regrettable, this is true, but it must be done.”

  Lynch could see that Price wasn’t about to let the issue die. He approached the lieutenant and leaned in close to murmur in his commander’s ear. “Sir, this is not our country, and although I may agree with your protest, you have no authority over these men. We are dependent on the guerrillas for our survival, so I respectfully suggest you don’t make a stand on this right now.”

  Price looked Lynch in the eye. Lynch could tell he was furious, but the Irishman’s argument was sinking in. With lips drawn together tight as a line, Price turned to Bouchard, who waited nearby with a look of mild disinterest.

  “Mister Bouchard, I cannot and will not attempt to stop you. But I will refuse to help you further if you stoop to torture or any other form of barbarity. Do what you feel must be done, but do it quickly and cleanly.”

  Bouchard inclined his head in a brief nod. “Certainement.”

  Price turned to Lynch. “Corporal, keep an eye on that man.”

  Lynch gave Price a salute and moved away to follow Bouchard, who was already striding over to where the partisans had assembled the half-dozen Germans who still lived. The wounded had been stripped of weapons and equipment, as well as any pieces of their uniforms that remained intact and mostly free of bloodstains. The partisan leader drew a pistol from under his coat - a French army MAB automatic - and racked the slide to chamber a round. Wordlessly, Bouchard stopped in front of each of the prisoners and executed each man with a single bullet to the brain.

  Most of the men were too far gone to realize what was happening, but the last of the Germans, a young officer riddled with bullets across both legs, was still conscious enough to offer protest as Bouchard stopped in front of him.

  “Nein, ich bin dein Gefangener! Als Soldat, müssen Sie behandeln-”

  Bouchard seemed to understand the young officer’s protest, and Lynch saw the Frenchman’s haggard face grow furious. Bouchard pointed the pistol at the German’s face.

  “Je ne suis pas un soldat. Je suis un patriote de la France.”

  Bouchard fired once, the bullet punching into the young man’s face right
between the eyes. The body twitched several times, then went still.

  Lynch turned to Chenot, who stood nearby watching. “What did Bouchard say?”

  “He said, ‘I am not a soldier. I am a patriot of France.’”

  When he was done, Bouchard ejected the magazine of his little pistol, and nonchalantly reloaded using a handful of loose cartridges taken from his coat pocket.

  Chenot looked from Bouchard to Lynch. “Now you see why he is called ‘The Butcher of Calais’.”

  Before he could reply, Lynch was interrupted by a shout from behind them. Turning, his hand already moving to the pistol at his hip, Lynch saw several partisans dragging another civilian from the armoured car. Upon moving closer, Lynch saw the man was blood-spattered, and appeared to have wet his trousers. The two partisans who found him were interrogating the man in rapid, angry French, and the fellow was pleading and begging in a choked voice.

  With a shout Bouchard strode over, and thrusting the two interrogators aside, he stepped up to the man and slapped him with a backhanded blow hard enough to spin the man to the ground. Bouchard kicked him once, twice, and the two partisans had to pull him away, apparently insisting their leader hold off on his abuse.

  Lynch turned to find Bowen standing next to him. “Bloody hell, Rhys. Frenchies aren’t too happy with that fellow.”

  Bowen nodded. “I think we found the reason why Jerry sniffed us out so quickly. Looks like there was a rat swimming about in the frog pond.”

  Lynch thought the Welshman’s reasoning sound. After checking his watch, he figured only an hour had passed between the time he fell asleep and when the Germans had arrived. This was surely no random patrol; someone in the resistance must have known where Bouchard was taking the Commandos, and had run to the Germans with the information. Hoping to catch them asleep and unprepared, the Germans had sent out a raiding party. Of course, the Nazis had brought along their pet rat to ensure they were not, in fact, the ones being duped into an ambush.