Germany had captured a number of T34’s and had turned them against the Soviets with impressive results. Unfortunately, many had been destroyed by German soldiers who only saw the Soviet-made tank and ignored the German markings. Pitting these and the remaining earlier ones against the Americans would solve that little problem.
The trucks had arrived and German soldiers, all tank drivers spilled out. They and the Russians glared at each other with mutual and undisguised hatred. Skorzeny was glad he’d insisted on their being unarmed. They formed up and moved out to the field where the tanks were parked. A few moments later the first of them rumbled down the road and soon a long column of what had been Soviet armor rolled down the dirt road towards Germany.
The Russian shook his head. “I still don’t believe it, Skorzeny. Yesterday we were killing each other and today we do business.”
“And tomorrow we’ll be killing each other again.”
Orlofski laughed savagely. “I look forward to it.”
With the Piper still grounded, Jack was assigned scouting and flank support by Whiteside. He didn’t mind. Even though it was much more dangerous, it was better than being a glorified clerk in Stoddard’s headquarters. At least he’d think that way until somebody took a shot at him. Levin told him he was nuts for putting himself in harm’s way.
Jack and the long-suffering Snyder led a small column of vehicles that, along with Morgan’s Jeep, consisted of a pair of half-tracks each carrying a squad of infantry. There was concern that the fighting would intensify once they finally reached the German border, now only a couple of miles away. They drove slowly and kept their eyes open for anything unusual. The last thing they wanted was to run into a German ambush or a mine. The area was densely forested in spots, leading some to wonder if they were driving into more bocage territory. There was a lot of forest in this area and intelligence said it extended well into Germany.
The distinctive sound of German machine-gun fire erupted to their left and from behind a line of thick shrubs. There was a pause and they could hear screams, then more shooting. Snyder radioed in their situation. Jack paused. He had a terrible premonition.
“Snyder, drive towards the shooting.”
Morgan stood and grabbed the. 30 caliber machine gun mounted on the Jeep, cursing that they didn’t have a separate gunner. The Jeep erupted onto a field. A score of German soldiers were methodically shooting at a crowd of civilians who were trapped by fences. The Germans were laughing as they used their machine pistols to casually slaughter their helpless victims, which, like the previous massacre they’d found, included women and children. The Germans turned in shock as the Jeep roared down on them from less than a hundred yards away at more than forty miles an hour.
Jack was nearly thrown from the Jeep as it crossed the uneven ground, but he held onto the machine gun and managed to opened fire, raking the nearest Germans and hurling a couple of them to the ground in bloody heaps. Other Germans turned to fire at him, while a few started to run away. Bullets slammed against the unarmored Jeep. One hit the engine and the vehicle came to a sudden halt. Jack fought for control and somehow managed to spray bullets and drop a pair of Nazis who were running towards him. The half-tracks appeared behind him, their machine guns and the infantry inside shooting down more of the enemy.
It was enough. Most of the surviving Germans threw down their weapons and raised their hands, while a handful managed to run off into the bushes. Jack jumped off the Jeep and took control of the situation. There would be no repeat of the killing of the sniper if he could do anything about it, although executing these murderers seemed like a great idea.
Some of the survivors of the massacre ran up to the Americans, hugging and kissing them, while others moaned and wailed beside their dead and wounded. Medics quickly appeared and began to treat them as best they could. An old French woman picked up a German machine pistol and was about to kill a Nazi prisoner when she was stopped.
“Tell her we’ll see the fucker hanged,” Jack told one of his men who spoke fairly fluent French. “But not until after a trial.”
The French woman began to weep. She said the Nazis had killed her husband and daughter. “Maybe we can let her pull the rope,” Snyder suggested.
“Not a bad idea.” Jack noticed the Germans’ insignia was different. They were SS, but not the usual ones. “Who the hell are these guys?”
“We are Germanic-SS,” a stone-faced enemy sergeant replied in decent English. “We are volunteers come from the Netherlands who’ve come to France to protect the Reich.”
Jack was incredulous. “You mean you guys are foreigners whose land was conquered by the krauts, and you actually volunteered to join the SS and kill innocent people?”
The Nazi stiffened. “They are enemies of the Reich and are racially impure. Their deaths are of no consequence.”
“Then yours won’t be either, you fucking prick,” Jack said.
Margarete had become an expert on airplanes. From the sound alone, she could tell what country it came from, and what model fighter or bomber it might be. She could also tell whether it was in distress or running normally, and this one was in great distress.
It was also flying very low. She jumped out of bed and put a coat over her nightgown and some boots on her bare feet. Her mother and the others had heard the sound of the laboring, lumbering bomber as well. As they ran outside, Margarete told them it was an American B17.
It roared overhead, missing the house and the barns by what seemed like only a matter of feet. They could see that one engine was blown away and another was on fire. The plane fought for altitude or a place to land safely. She wondered why the crew hadn’t bailed out. Perhaps they had. Perhaps the bomber was out of control and flying dead.
But then it lifted up and she knew there were living hands at the controls. The plane staggered one last time and dropped, tail first, into the ground at the end of their field and erupted in flames.
The explosion swept over them, staggering them. They covered their faces with their arms as the heat hit them. Small amounts of debris landed all around them.
“No bombs,” her uncle said. “Thank God.”
The explosion, however devastating, wasn’t large enough to have included bombs. Probably the bombs had already been dropped and only fuel was burning. And maybe the crew, they thought. Aunt Bertha shrieked and said there was a hand on the ground near her. Uncle Otto pulled her away, sobbing. Margarete swallowed and looked. It was indeed a hand, a left hand, and there was a wedding ring.
They ran to the wreckage, or at least as close as the flames would permit. Uncle Eric muttered a prayer. He hated the Americans but watching someone possibly burn to death was too much.
“There is nothing we can do,” he said. “Anyone in there is beyond help. We must let the fire burn itself out and then we will see about burying the dead.”
Margarete hugged her mother. The smell of burning fuel and scorching flesh emanated from the plane. Why hadn’t the pilot jumped? Perhaps he couldn’t. Maybe he’d been injured and couldn’t leave his post and was trying desperately to land it in the field? She wondered if it was the pilot’s hand she’d seen. It brought back too many memories of bombings in Berlin, memories she’d just about blocked out of her mind. Somewhere there must be a land where fourteen-year-old girls didn’t have to live with the sight of death and the stench of decaying corpses, but these were everyday occurrences in Germany. She wondered if this was what it was like in England or France. Somehow, she knew it was even worse in Russia.