“I guess you are trying to say that tastes better than my chocolate then. Ah well I didn’t want it anyway.”
Not far away an adult dog began barking and the puppy got up and bounded off in the direction of its mother’s voice.
“Goodbye little one! For I won’t be here this time tomorrow.”
He took another cigarette from his jacket and lit it. Gunther wouldn’t miss him for a few more minutes.
‘Perhaps I should have named the puppy Gunther!’
Willi chuckled but he knew Gunther would have seen the funny side of it.
‘Gunther would have probably called him Adolf! Secretly of course. No one would dare say that out loud. No one would dare question the final victory.’
But tonight the final victory for Germany was a long way away as her forces were planning to flee Tunisia.
Willi stood staring at the night sky enjoying his second cigarette. Occasionally he could see glimpses of the moon and stars through the breaks in the clouds. From afar came the sound of boat engines as they chugged backwards and forwards from the harbour. They were several streets away. The puppy’s mother was still barking. She was now joined by other dogs. Rushton and his men approaching the Medina stopped.
“Why the hell are those dogs barking?”
His men waited in silence. With signs he told them to stay still and he moved through some bushes for a better view from cover. The walls of the Medina were fifty feet high in places and crenelated. All was quiet. Of the guards he could see none seemed agitated. In one of the four gateways he could see a machine gun nest surrounded by sandbags. Two German soldiers lolling around nearby. Rushton watched for a further minute then backtracked to his men. Clearly the barking dogs a sign that they’d not been given away. Then the dogs stopped and it was only one that could be heard. Finally this one fell quiet as well. Rushton made his way back to his men.
“Move out,” he whispered.
They followed him in silence.
Willi took a last drag on his second cigarette and flicked it away to join the other. He checked that he had everything. His tin helmet he’d left in the tower.
’I’d better get back’ he told himself.
He adjusted his rifle over his shoulder and climbed the ladder to the tower. At the top he instantly saw that Gunther had fallen asleep in the chair.
“I’m back,” he called softly.
No reaction. Willi smiled.
’How long should I let him sleep? He can’t have been asleep for more than ten minutes. It’s lucky an officer hasn’t climbed the tower or we’d both be for it.’
“Hey sleepyhead at least you didn’t finish my sardines.”
Willi picked up the unfinished can of fish, wiped the fork on his trousers and got stuck in. They were strong tasting and oily. The way he liked them.
“I saw a really cute puppy while I was gone. You would have loved him. I know how you love dogs. He had a broad head and big feet. He’s going to be huge when he’s grown up. I wish we could have adopted him. Take him back to Germany. Poor mite. He can’t have much of a life here. Probably scrounging for scraps to eat everyday and never a decent meal. Perhaps we could take his mother as well or why not the whole litter. They could grow up with me in my village in the mountains.
Willi began daydreaming of his home in the village of Altenahr, near the Rhine, near Cologne and Aachen. His family growing grapes on the slopes of the hills surrounding the black knights castle, the Borg Ahre. He could see in his mind his parents and both sisters working to produce the wine that they made, the family business. He, also working, his dogs running freely, chasing birds, bees and butterflies in the summer months. Both his sisters beautiful. Neither yet taken by a man to be their husband. His father as strong as an ox. His mother as tough as a nut. One day they would inherit the vineyard and in their turn his son or sons.
“I will have at least four,” he said out loud “I miss them,” he said to Gunther. The ache of being away from them so strong, so painful.
Gunther’s right arm slipped off his lap and dangled down by his side. Willi waited to see if he would wake up. He didn’t. He just sat motionless, with his helmet pushed down over his head, obscuring most of his face. Willi could only see his mouth.
Motionless.
Too motionless!
Willi moved a step closer and called his friends name.
Then he noticed the thin trickle of blood in the corner of Gunther’s mouth. He felt a fear of dread sweep through him. He picked up a lamp and held it towards his companion, shielding his own face with his free hand from the light.
“Gunther!” he called again much louder.
Then he saw the wet patch on his friends jacket. Just below his left breast. Willi shakily moved forward almost trance like and reached out with shaking fingers and touched the damp. He turned his hand and brought it up to his face.
It was covered in blood.
Gunther’s blood!
Panic overtook him. He was shaking Gunther’s lifeless body. Afraid now of being left on his own. Then in the next instant he was scrabbling to get to the big, red, alarm button mounted on top of the electric box. He reached it and smacked it down with all his might.
Rushton and his men were in place ready to storm the first of the machine gun nests. The scoped Enfield trained on the guard on the left. Tosh Wilkes the man behind the sight.
“Could you guarantee killing them with the silenced pistol Tosh?” Rushton asked.
“Not at this distance.”
Rushton and all knew that the scoped rifle would make enough noise to alert the whole garrison but they had no choice. The sentries needed to be taken out quickly. Tosh the best marksman any of them had ever seen. The three Germans were lolling about near their post. Two of them were craftily smoking. The third was clearly telling them a story. Tosh sighted on the man talking. He was the closest to the MG42. Tosh would have just seconds to get off three shots. Two of which would be on, undoubtedly, moving targets. He took two deep breaths and held it on the third. He trained the scope on the German’s midriff and slowly brought it up past his chest, his neck, his face and settled it on the forehead. Tosh pulled his finger back on the trigger. It reached its zenith. Then he released at the same time his eyes widened. The Germans had suddenly sprung into life. The two smokers throwing down their cigarettes and rushing for their weapons. The man Tosh had been about to kill lunging for the MG42.
“What the hell….?” Rushton stopped in mid sentence as the sound of the far away alarm reached them.
The German guards were randomly pointing their weapons, unsure as to where the threat lay. One of them ran over and pushed a red button. Their alarm now began sounding, accompanied by a red flashing light. Tosh took careful aim and sent two bullets into the electrical box silencing the alarm. The noise of his rifle wicked. A third bullet took out the red flashing light smashing it. The German MG42 suddenly burst into life. Its gunner sending red hot deadly bullets to all sides as he moved it to and fro strafing the area just ahead of the British. Rushton and his men lay flat on their faces, their hands covering their features until the bullets stopped.
Rushton and Tosh looked up. The two German guards with the rifles were running, keeping close to the wall. Inside the fortress German Wehrmacht soldiers were rushing out of the main building to take up the fight. Rushton fired a burst from his Sten into the chest of the first German running along the fifty foot high Medina wall. Tosh brought the second one down with a shot from the Enfield. It took the German in the throat and he collapsed in a spray of blood. The MG42 began spitting its deadly projectiles in all directions until another bullet from Tosh punctured the gunner’s steel helmet. The force of the impact spun him around and he collapsed, sprawled over the sandbags surrounding the machine gun, dead.