“I bet the Krauts called off the night raid after that,” Adam said.
“Assuming the other two groups engaged, I’m sure they were not expecting to be attacked on that ridge, that far away from the Battalion,” Dale concluded.
“They lost the advantage of surprise. The Battalion was sure to have heard the shots. After that, the Krauts would assume we notified the battalion of their location,” Tom added.
“So, what now?” asked Adam.
“Mission failed. We can’t find a way off this ridge, now that the Nazis have spotted us. We focus on the second objective,” Dale said, as he slid a magazine full of .45 caliber rounds into his Thompson machine gun until he heard a metallic click.
“What’s the second objective?” asked Tom.
“You heard the lieutenant. We need to discover weaknesses in the German position. Something the battalion can exploit,” Dale replied.
“How are we going to do that? While in this hole?”
“It’s not a hole; it’s a tunnel. And we are going to follow it,” Dale said.
“What? Why? We know where it leads. It leads directly into an army full of pissed off Nazis!” Steve exclaimed.
“That’s what we assume, but we won’t know for sure until we check it out. This could be a way off the mountain” Dale explained.
Adam stood to his feet, brought the automatic rifle to his hip and said, “Let’s do it.”
The men turned on their newly issued military flashlights. The red lenses were a useful feature that, hopefully, would not alert the Nazis of their presence.
“Flashlights pointed to the ground,” Dale whispered. They followed the winding, dark tunnel for about 300 yards until they could see a glimmer of light in the distance.
“Flashlights off,” Dale hissed. The four men cautiously approached the light. The air grew colder as the light grew brighter. The tunnel was about four feet wide and seven feet high. As they approached the mouth of the tunnel they could hear voices.
The encroaching light was not like familiar electric bulbs, nor was it sun light. No, the flickering on the tunnel walls was dim, like flames dancing in the dark. Matthews slowly approached the end of the tunnel. He could see the tunnel open into a large space.
Six feet from the tunnel entrance, there were rows of large wooden boxes stacked three and four high, which obscured his view of the rest of the chamber. He waived his hand, indicating to Adam that he was advancing forward.
“What now?” Adam asked.
“I’m going to move up to those wooden crates and see if I can peek around them,” Dale whispered.
Matthews signaled to the others to stay behind while he ran forward to the first row of stacked crates. Down on one knee, he peered around the box and further into cave-like chamber. There were crates and equipment placed all around the perimeter of the chamber, leaving the center open. On the other side of the chamber stood what appeared to be a large machine, not like one he had ever seen before. It was about 40 feet across and 20 feet tall. It was made of a gray metal, steel perhaps. It was disc shaped, taller and wider in the middle and tapered to the edges. At first, he thought it might be a new German tank, but then he realized it had no wheels or tracks. It wasn’t a plane because it had no wings. It was sitting on two concrete pillars that held it up in the same way a dry dock would hold up a ship. The pillars were spaced twenty feet apart, and there appeared to be a hatch open at the bottom of the machine where a ladder extended down toward the chamber’s cold stone floor.
Between the strange machine and the stacked crates Dale was hiding behind, were 50 chairs, all lined up in rows facing the machine. Standing between the chairs and the machine was an elevated wooden platform from where, presumably, a speaker would stand and address the audience. On either side of the rows of chairs, large Nazi flags were hanging from metal scaffolding.
Something about the scene was off, not just the unidentifiable machine and the make-shift pulpit. No, it was stranger than that. On the stage were six absurdly large chairs, suitable for giants. The six chairs were lined up along the back of the stage, facing the 50 chairs.
On the stage, in front of the six chairs was a six-foot-long, wooden table. Was it an alter? The table had a white marble top. Both alter and chairs were lavishly carved with symbols that Dale did not recognize. The entire concrete floor and wooden platform were covered with a red carpet that extended behind the platform and to the hatch on the bottom side of the disc-like machine. Atop the platform, were two shallow boxes of dirt.
Unlike the underground passage, the large chamber was lit by a combination of burning fire barrels, torches, and electric lights powered by the hum of local generators. “Why use fire-barrels if you have electricity?” Dale wondered. He knew that he had stumbled onto something important, but what was it?
Glancing around the room, he saw he was alone; then he looked up and noticed the chamber’s ceiling. As expected, it was a concrete dome. Except, above the machine, there was an opening to the night sky. While the machine was about 40 feet in diameter, the circular hole in the chamber’s ceiling was about 50 feet in diameter. Dale realized that the Nazis planned to fly the machine through the hole in the ceiling.
Knowing that he was well-concealed from view, he walked back to the tunnel and told the others what he had found.
“You said the room is not guarded; we can just steal the machine and fly away,” Steve blurted out.
“None of us have been trained to fly our own planes. How are we going to fly that thing, whatever it is?” Adam asked.
“Adam is right, that’s not an option,” Dale insisted.
“We could destroy it with the stovepipe, we got six rockets,” Steve said.
“Maybe, but we know the German’s armor can stand up to the M-9,” Dale objected.
“Their tanks can stand up to it. This is a flying machine. It can’t be as heavy as a Panzer,” Steve said, “I bet we can light her up from here.”
“Then what?” Adam demanded.
“Adam is right, what then? Then the Krauts know where we are, and we may not even destroy the flying machine. I say we find good cover and see what happens,” Dale said.
Suddenly, they heard a blood curdling scream. It was a woman’s scream. Dale ran back to the box and peeked around the corner. Two hundred yards away, near the platform, he could see two guards carrying a woman towards the alter. Even from this distance Dale could tell it was a young woman. She could not be more than 25 years old. She was beautiful and wearing a flowing, ceremonial-looking, nearly see-through, white dress. She was struggling with the two Nazi soldiers, but they just kept dragging her towards the stage. Once on the stage, one of the soldiers held her still, while the other chained her to the platform as she screamed. The one that had been holding, released her, smacked her across the face and spat some German words at her. Dale did not understand what the German said, but he assumed it was a threat, because she stopped screaming. The two guards walked away laughing, then disappeared into a corridor behind the flying machine. The woman was alone on the stage, crying. Dale guessed she was French but could not be sure.
After discussing the situation with his men, they decided that rescuing the woman would most likely reveal their position. They needed to wait and see more.
It seemed like all the Nazi activities were centered on the other side of the large underground chamber, and it was unlikely that they would be discovered among the rows of wooden, swastika-emblazoned boxes. The men took positions where they could see the chamber, the stage, and the flying saucer.
A few minutes later, a German officer walked in and took a seat among the chairs lined up facing the saucer. Dale remembered people discussing ‘foo fighters’ and wondered if this flying saucer was what they were talking about. According to some, foo fighters were highly advanced enemy aircraft that could outmaneuver any American plane.