“Can we outpace those guys? I don’t see how.”
“They’ve still got to come up, they’ve still got to decide which way to go, they’re city boys, probably in eight-thousand-dollar silk suits and Gucci loafers.”
“I can’t believe you know what a Gucci loafer is.”
“If it turns out they’re closing on us, I will try and figure out some way to hold them back and let you get to the clearing.”
The path was not treacherous, but neither was it a sidewalk. Gnarly roots protruded, rocks bulged upward demanding detours, the earth itself was not only uneven but uneven randomly, so a sudden misstep could put a hurtful strain on already stressed ankles.
Reilly’s satellite phone rang again.
“It’s for you,” she said, handing it over, and Swagger looked at the number and saw that it was Jimmy Guthrie.
CHAPTER 40
Deneker the explosives genius plotted it out very carefully. He would place three 10-pound units of Cyclonite at one-third intervals about the base of the northern cliff. He would run det cords of equal length from each No. 8 detonating cap, so that when ignited, the det cord would ignite each chunk of explosive simultaneously. The cliff would topple and block the passage of any vehicle, at least until the Russians managed to get heavy construction equipment to the canyon, which he doubted they’d bother with.
“And I’ll plant Tellers beyond the fallen-rock zone. So if men come over the rocks, one will trip off a Teller, and kaboom, his legs are on the way to Moscow.”
“The Russians don’t care about mines,” said Wili Bober.
“Think of the psychology,” said Deneker, also the unit intellectual. “You have to consider psychology in all things. Russian peasants who are being driven by NKVD troops don’t care about mines, on the theory that the mines are uncertain death, depending only on random footfall, while defying the NKVD is certain death, of the Mosin-Nagant 7.62-millimeter kind. If boys get up here, they’ll be elite troops, parachutists, some sort of commando or special group of Ivan prima donnas. They’re already heroes, they value themselves highly, they have many tales to tell if they survive, as well as a happy postwar experience to look forward to. They do not want to get blown up crossing a mountain gap when they’ve already won the battle as well as the war. They’ll hold back and go round up some peasants to frog-march through the minefield. That’ll take hours.”
“I think he has a point,” said Karl.
“All right, then. Mines here but not in front of our positions,” said Wili.
“Hmm,” said Karl. “And he has a point.”
“Karl, you’re the boss. You have to decide.”
“I hate to decide,” said Karl. “That’s why I joined the parachutists. So I wouldn’t have to decide things.”
“Split the mines?” said Deneker.
“Sounds fine to me,” said Wili.
“There, see, you didn’t need me at all,” said Karl.
There weren’t many other decisions to be made. Sandbags were filled, mines planted, trenches with firing notches dug and connected by crawl alleys so the men could fall back out of sight, trees that interfered with the lanes of fire felled, water collected, the radio monitored. Log frames were built and strung with K-wire. The machine gunners found the best natural points to put the two MG-42s on tripods, then broke down the ammunition for quick use, being sure to set up several shorter belts for the drum-shaped belt carriers, lighter and easier to manipulate, so that if the gunners fell back, they could take the guns off the tripod, grab the drums, and use them in fire and movement situations, say, covering the other men as they retreated beyond the site of Deneker’s big explosion. Other men broke down the typically overengineered cardboard crates that each contained twenty boxes of twenty 7.92mm cartridges, and inserted each cartridge into the FG-42 mags, until all were filled; the surplus went into a pile contained in the emptied crate, so that men could dip in and help themselves to handfuls if the fight went on too long. The Panzerschrecks were loaded and spare rockets placed next to them. Grenades also were laid out, their screwcaps half unscrewed, all oriented uniformly so the man grabbing one could flick off the cap, pull the fuse cord, ignite the fuse, and toss the thing with no wasted motion. Bandages, splints, wound wrappings, sulfa, morphine needles, miles of gauze and tape, anything to save a man from bleeding out, it was all there in easy reach. Karl didn’t have to say a word. Someone even erected a sign in exquisite Gothic calligraphy: “Die Gebärmutter des Gingers”—Ginger’s Womb.
As far as the scouting duties, they, too, took care of themselves. Wili had drawn up a master rotation way back in Italy, and though much reduced of manpower, it still governed turns by which, at any given moment, six men were on sentry duty. They moved to places beyond the northern outskirts of the position, on the assumption that if this mythical Red-White Witch were to come, she would come from that direction. If she cut lower, good for her and too bad for her stalkers, as she’d evade. But the betting was that she’d head to the Womb if on the run, for the simple reason that beyond it would be safety, since any Germans would be interested only in fleeing to Uzhgorod far below that side of the Carpathians and wouldn’t be looking about for snipers. She could go to ground for a few days, wait till the situation had calmed, then sneak over the crest and link up with Red Army units.
Pipes were smoked, as were Effekt, Ring, and Select cigarettes; uniform regs were ignored; some genius really put in a hard day’s labor making the latrine as pleasant as possible and built a shower out of a six-gallon water can; schnapps was drunk; candy and cookies and Ukrainian bread were eaten; and generally it was not a bad little excursion. Jokes were told, card games with penny-ante stakes were played, memories were recalled, masturbation ignored, there was a whole pile of Der Signal magazines to use for clean-up duties.
All preparations done, all duties fulfilled, there was not much left to do but the eternal ordeal, waiting for action that might or might not come. However, the next morning, after an eventless evening, the odor of burning trees drifted up, carrying the information that the SS Police Brigade was back.
“Wili,” said Karl, “they must be close to done with those damned things. Take the Kübel down with Deneker and see if you can pry our Flammenwerfer loose. Get two if you can. They’ll buy us extra time if it comes to that.”
“Be back in a couple of hours.”
“Bring some Ukraine gals and beer back, too, Wili, if you can,” one of the parachute infantrymen hollered, to the delight of all.
The run to Yaremche was easy enough, just a few kilometers, especially now that the cart had been detached from the Kübel. Wili and Deneker arrived in an hour and a half, sighting nothing on the long crank down the road. They found the village shielded in smoke, though not as densely as before, and could see crews deploying Flammenwerfers on a last stand of trees, which blazed almost colorlessly in the hot sun, sending out waves of heat. But where there had been ten or so, now only two of the fire-spurting units were in play. In fact, six of them lay in the shade of the hut that Wili saw was Salid’s command location on the Yaremche road, for he noted that a hole had been punched in the roof and the triangular wire unit that formed the aerial of a radio transmitter extended through it. A panzerwagen and a truck also denoted the spot as important.