They trekked eastward, destroying bridges and cutting telegraph and telephone lines. The weather was getting steadily worse. Large wet flakes of snow covered the ground, and collected on their hats and coats. Walking was becoming difficult, and the horses were struggling through the deep slop. They were running out of time. Soon they would have to concern themselves with their own survival, and not about any rail lines.
Wulflram was a man with a sense of duty. He needed to make sure he’d done his part in isolating California from the rest of the United States. Before the inevitable happened and they had to give in to the weather, he hoped for a target that would really cripple this particular line through the mountains.
And there it was. He gazed in wonder at a cut made in the side of a mountain to accommodate the tracks and realized the potential for long-term destruction. Where a bridge could be rebuilt, a mountain could not. A new cut would have to be made, carved like this one into the living rock. Certainly not impossible, since the Americans had done it, but definitely an awesome project that would take a considerable amount of time and resources. If the cut was destroyed, it would be a long time before trains came through this section of the mountains.
He placed a good deal of his remaining supply of dynamite into holes drilled below the tracks and into the mountainside. They connected the wiring and retreated to the other side of the steep valley. This would be their last demolition. They would head east and out of the mountains, hopefully to warmer places. His men deserved a respite and so did he.
Wulfram pushed the plunger and a number of explosions erupted in a line along the cut. For a second, nothing seemed to happen; then the entire side of the mountain slide down into the valley. Two hundred yards of track and earth had simply disappeared into the valley below.
He and his men were congratulating themselves when they heard the whistle of a train coming from the east. They stared at each other in surprise and dismay. For safety’s sake they were a couple of hundred yards away from the demolished cut and the intervening terrain was extremely rugged. There was no way they could get to the other side and warn the oncoming train.
The train’s whistle sounded again and this time dramatically closer. Wulfram prayed that it was a freight train, which would lessen the number of innocent lives lost if the engineer couldn’t stop.
It wasn’t. As it rounded the last bend, he saw four passenger cars connected to the coal burning engine and coal car. He was close enough to see people looking out the windows and he swore they were staring at him, damning and accusing him as if they already knew their fate. At nearly the last instant, the engineer saw the danger and slammed on the brakes which let out an obscene screech.
The train shuddered and slowed, and the Germans held their breath, hoping it would stop in time. It almost did. But, slowly, horribly, it reached the break and fell with majestic slowness down into the valley, with the cars tumbling over and over like toys thrown by a demonic child. The sound of the cars crashing and disintegrating was covered by the roar of the of the engine’s boiler exploding. Clouds of white steam and brown clouds of dust surged skyward. Moments later, flames began to flicker from the now silent wreckage.
Wulfram and his men ran down into the valley to rescue as many of the passengers as they could. What they found, however, was a valley strewn with wreckage and mangled corpses. Only a literal handful had survived, and two of those were small children. Wulfram wept as did several of his men.
He gave orders to tap into the telegraph lines and report the “accidental train wreck,” but the lines to the West Coast had already been severed by his men. They sent the message eastward and got a response. Rescuers were on the way, but it would be a long while.
Wulfram made a decision. They would stay with the wreck and the badly injured survivors until rescuers came close enough, then they would head south and try to escape. He didn’t think it would take the Americans very long at all to realize that this was all part of a plan, a pattern.
Wulfram recalled reading that war was hell. He looked at one of the children who stared vacantly at the sky as her life ebbed away. Hell was not the proper word.
CHAPTER 4
Charley and Fred had worked together as customs agents for several years on the border between California and Mexico. Their customs station was slightly east of Tijuana and was lightly used. It was just too easy to bypass. Sometimes, not even the tourists coming back from wild forays into the sin centers of Mexico bothered to stop.
Still, this night had proven even quieter than others. It was as if a curtain had been drawn down, covering Mexico. Nothing unusual in that, they thought. The presence of German soldiers and the simmering fighting south of the border meant that nothing was normal anymore.
Regardless, Charley and Fred didn’t mind the quiet. Although decent guys, they were nearing retirement and weren’t too interested in working hard and generally spent the night reading magazines or playing checkers. Occasionally, one or both would walk outside of their small, kerosene-lamplit shack. Nor was it unknown for them to bring in a bucket of beer to make the night more congenial, as they had this time.
Charley nodded to his friend and stepped outside. As a matter of decency, he strode several yards away from the shack to relieve himself, which he did hugely and with a contented sigh.
He was buttoning up when the night sky was split by the insane chatter. Charley quickly recognized it from his days in the National Guard as machine-gun fire. He watched in horror as scores of bullets ripped through the thin wooden walls of the guard shack. What the hell was going on? he wondered. Had Villa’s raiders moved to California? Jesus, and what about poor Fred? A widower, he had recently remarried and had a wife and two kids.
Another burst of gunfire hit the shack, sending splinters of wood flying into the starry sky. The kerosene lamp had tipped over and the wooden building was burning. Charley dropped to the ground and began to crawl towards where his friend was trapped and likely badly hurt.
The sound of horses’ hooves froze him and, a moment later, a long column of horsemen came into view. He recognized them as German Uhlans from the pictures he’d seen. They trooped past the shack in a column of fours, trotting insolently past and into California.
“No,” Charley yelled.
Fred had staggered out of the shack. His clothing was smoldering. He was heading with agonizing slowness towards the riders. Two of the Germans broke out of the column and looked down on Fred, who had raised a bloody arm in supplication.
Charley watched in horror as the two Uhlans ran their lances through Fred’s body. They shook him off like a rag and left him lying by the road. Charley groaned. It didn’t take a genius to realize that his friend and coworker was dead.
More cavalry trotted by, and they were soon followed by quickly marching infantry. Charley wiped tears from his eyes as he wondered what to do. The glow of the fire was protecting him from being seen by the Germans. He took a deep breath and decided he would move a mile or so farther east and then north. He had to find a working telephone or maybe a radio. Somebody must be told what was happening and somebody must know what to do.