“Top of the morning to you, Sam.”
“Merry Christmas to you, Dan.”
The two shook hands and moved off to the warmth of the staff car, the RAF marked Hudson already on its way to a hangar where its doubtful parentage could not be noticed.
“So, what brings you all the way here on Christmas Eve?”
“I’ll save it for the group, Sam. But it’s a bloody can of worms and no mistake.”
The car arrived at Rossahilly House, the normal venue for the clandestine meetings of the shadier arms of the Allied forces
Percy Hollander was away in Cambridgeshire with family but, as always, he placed the house at the disposal of the Intelligence services.
Major Generals Colin Gubbins and Kenneth Strong were absent, but Sir David Petrie was there on behalf of MI5.
Colonel Valentine Vivian of the SIS had made it, although his vehicle had been involved in an accident en route from RAF Belfast.
Only Bertram Leonard had made it on time, the rest of the normal attendees either away on leave or unable to answer Bryan’s call in time
The smells of their dinner pervaded the smoky atmosphere, making them hungry, although the greater hunger was to find out what had so exercised the head of the Irish Army’s Intelligence Service that he had summoned the group to a meeting this close to Christmas.
Bryan stood on cue and walked to a board and easel, producing a map and pinning it in place.
The four pairs of eyes took it in, the roads, the sea and the buildings.
Bryan walked to the map that had been positioned on the wall long before he arrived.
Selecting the target carefully, he pressed the pointer to the north-west part of Éire and spoke but one word.
“Glenlara.”
They all got it immediately.
“You’ve confirmed it. We’ve found the bastards!”
He nodded at Vivian in acknowledgement.
“Indeed we have. Your submarine base… and more besides, I think… it’s all here…at Glenlara.”
The rest of the meeting and the luncheon that followed was occupied by the nature of the response, the timing of the response and the depth of the response.
By the time the cigars were lit, the answers had been found.
Land forces, as soon as practicable, and total annihilation.
Sam Rossiter, USMC, came up with the solution on all three counts, with the assistance of some underhand thinking by Dan Bryan, and the expectation of some assistance from a Squadron Leader who had recently lost a brother.
To Leander, it must have seemed like a lifetime since his platoon had been butchered by silent Soviet ski troopers.
For many soldiers on both sides it had indeed been a lifetime, terminated in blood and darkness, as their commanders, keen to appear active and full of fight, ordered their frozen men to cross the no man’s land and kill, sometimes seize, occasionally destroy, but always kill.
The boy had become a man in those handful of days, going from the platoon’s worst soldier, to the platoon’s only soldier, and finally to the platoon’s Sergeant. All in seven weeks of enduring the unendurable.
And for what?
King Company’s position was the same one he had been in that night. Third battalion had not advanced one yard; nor had it conceded one either.
The 370th Regiment sat on the same line it had occupied seven weeks ago, as did the entire 92nd Colored Infantry Division.
The only things that had changed were the faces.
Men came and went, sometimes alive, often dead. After the incursions, snipers started to play their part, claiming the unwary and the unlucky.
Mortars joined in, adding their tree bursts to the litany of exciting ways to die during an Austrian winter.
And then the cold decided to make its presence felt, making all that had gone before a walk in the park.
The Sergeant’s eyes were fixed on the tree line ahead, watching, waiting, and prepared, his Garand on the trench parapet in front of him, covered with a white blanket, two grenades placed ready for use to the right of the rifle.
His eyes saw nothing and his ears detected no sounds.
The forest was silent.
No mortars came, no artillery, and no snipers.
The enemy had attacked stealthily, just after 2000hrs, and the work had been hot but brief. They went as quickly as they came, leaving a dozen bodies behind in the crimson snow.
Leander had done the rounds, organized the removal of their five dead and the evacuation of the eight wounded.
His work done, he returned to his position, now occupied by him alone, his terrified partner shot down as he turned and ran during the attack.
The blood had stopped flowing from his own wounds; wood splinters in his shoulder and back, the slightest graze from a rifle bullet across his arm.
He did not complain, just maintained his silent vigil whilst his men, boys like he had been but a few weeks beforehand, nestled low in their holes and did all they could to keep the chill from their bones.
Leander had no greatcoat, just a padded jacket, a thick jumper, and a scarf round his neck, but he stood to his post, defying the cold.
The company commander, Captain Forbes, moved carefully through his positions, surprising some who had fallen asleep, welcomed by others who had managed a small triumph over winter in the form of a warm coffee.
To the left of Leander’s position one such victory had brought forth coffee for the four men in the hole, plus enough for more besides.
Accepting a cup for himself and Sergeant Leander, Forbes worked his way round to the front of the Sergeant’s position, making sure he could be seen by the veteran NCO.
Holding the two mugs, Forbes moved forward and then stopped.
The coffee makers watched, wondering why until Forbes sat on the parapet to drink the hot liquid, merely setting the metal mug in front of the ever-vigilant Leander.
The answer to that was simple.
Frederick Lincoln Leander had long since frozen to death.
He had spent fifty-two days in the front line, seen combat on twenty-nine of those, during which time he had metamorphosed from boy to man. Promotions had come, from Pfc to Platoon Sergeant, mostly via dead men’s shoes. Conservatively, it was estimated that he had killed twenty Soviet troopers, taken five prisoners and wounded countless more. For his troubles, his superiors had sent back recommendations for both the Bronze and Silver Stars, as yet to be confirmed or rejected.
On New Year’s Day 1946, the Leander family was celebrating until the news was delivered by a family friend… and then they celebrated no more.
Artur Wilders had not always been a farmer. Indeed, the absence of his left ear, the eye patch and stiffened left arm would give away that once he had been a soldier; a German soldier.
He had been a member of the 320th Infanterie Division, fighting on the steppes of Russia. Accidentally wounded by a German grenade, he risked being swept up in the Soviet advance, but the SS had come to the rescue and extracted his division, leading them to the comparative safety of the German front line.
Wilders owed the Schutzstaffel his life.
Hiding the ex-SS legionnaires came easy to him, an honour debt to be repaid.
He hid the two men in plain sight, as farm hands on the large estate. That both were wounded gave them the limps necessary to make their presence believable, as relics from the Patriotic War, as the hated Russians called it.
It had not occurred to the occasional Soviet visitor that the wounds were more recent and still healing.
The large hall that Wilders had added to the main building was filled with his staff and their families, all good Germans first and foremost.