A Thousand Suns (26 page)

Keeping a low profile, it seemed, was pretty high up the agenda for these sons of bitches.

Screw this.

‘Guys, we’re getting the hell out of here,’ he muttered into the radio. ‘I don’t think they want anyone crying wolf.’

‘Yes sir,’ replied Jake and Joe simultaneously.

‘When we hit the clouds, we’ll head north . . . let’s go.’

Ferrelli pulled his stick hard and rolled over into a steep dive towards the clouds below and the last two men of his squadron swiftly followed suit.

Pieter watched the Mustangs disappear below them. ‘You know, I think our bloody cover’s blown now,’ he said to Max.

Max nodded.

It had been a relatively easy victory for them. Veterans versus raw recruits. Schröder’s boys had made a short and ruthless job of them and they’d done well to prevent all but three escaping. But that would be enough to raise the alarm. He wondered how quickly the information would filter back. If the Americans and British were already on some kind of high alert, the news would travel fast. It would all be down to how many planes they had deployed in this part of France as to whether they would have another run-in. Surely, there were very few planes in the area that could respond at short notice to look for them?

Right now, Max decided, they needed to concentrate on making for the airfield outside Nantes. The 109s would be on the last of their fuel by then and, having seen how effective they had been, he didn’t want to contemplate flying for long without them close by.

Max switched to radio. ‘Schröder, what’s your status?’

‘We lost one, Jonas. Everyone else is fighting fit.’

They’ll have burned a lot of fuel during that dogfight.

‘What are you all showing for fuel?’

It was a few seconds before Schröder responded, clearly conferring with his men first. ‘We’ll make it. It might be a close-run thing, though.’

Max consulted briefly with Stefan on their position; they were about ninety minutes away from the west coast of France. They would arrive sometime around eight in the morning. He hoped those snow soldiers on the ground were in position and ready to go.

Chapter 39

Mission Time: 5 Hours, 25 Minutes Elapsed

7.30 a.m., an airfield outside Nantes

Koch tore another mouthful from the loaf of bread. It was good; the dough was dense and chewy, almost rubbery, while the crust crumbled in a brittle, flaky way, like pastry. It was so different from the bread he was used to, it amazed him how much a basic food substance, such as bread, could vary so much from place to place.

‘Good bread,’ he managed to say with a full mouth. ‘Almost like cake, sponge, you know?’

Büller nodded.

‘You want some?’ Koch held the mauled loaf out to him.

‘No, sir, I’m not too hungry.’

Koch patted Büller’s shoulder; he understood.

He checked his watch; the radio signal had been due for a while now. They had received one in the early hours confirming the planes had departed and they would be signalling again when they were half an hour away from the airfield. It had been stressed that Koch and his men should secure the airfield as close as possible to the time of arrival of the planes. Too early and news of the surprise attack might filter to some nearby forces in time for them to respond and take it back before the approaching planes could make their stop for fuel. Timing was going to be everything with this raid.

Koch had sent some of his men out to reconnoitre the airfield at first light. They had come back with good news. It was a small supply strip, mostly occupied by ground crew, there to maintain the occasional Dakotas passing through. A handful of American soldiers guarded the road in, manning a hut and a barricade. These men were just counting the days until they were sent home and certainly not spoiling for a fight. Koch didn’t anticipate losing any of his twenty-seven men taking the airfield. In fact, he could see this being done without even a solitary shot being fired. If they were lucky, and everything went to plan, the planes would land, refuel and be gone in a matter of half an hour. However, if it came to it, he knew his men were ready for a scrap. The orders for this mission, which had come directly from Hitler himself, had demanded he and his men fight to the last protecting those planes while they were on the ground; but it looked like it wasn’t going to come to that.

Koch decided once the planes were in the air again he would order his men to surrender promptly. There would be no need for heroic sacrifices today if things went smoothly.

He wondered what was so important about these planes . . . a dozen Me-109s and a larger plane he presumed would be a Condor. He’d seen this before, generals appropriating crucial resources to whisk them from some hot spot away to safety. He could imagine, hiding away inside the larger plane, Göring or one of the other stooges that surrounded Hitler. He couldn’t envisage Hitler himself scurrying out from Berlin.

Karl, the radio operator, waved his arm, and the men crowded inside the kitchen stirred and looked anxiously to Koch.

‘Is it the signal?’ Koch asked.

‘Yes, sir. They’re twenty-five minutes away.’

He nodded and placed the crust of the loaf down on the kitchen table. ‘Time to go to work,’ he muttered.

He cast a glance at the French couple tied up and gagged, sitting at the kitchen table. They couldn’t be left here on their own. If either of them were to wriggle free, they’d most likely raise the alarm. They couldn’t be left like this. With some reluctance he had begun to reach for his field knife, when Obergefreiter Schöln gently tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Sir, the two wounded men, Paul and Felix . . . what are your orders?’

The two men that had been badly cut during the beach landing last night had been attended to, but neither of them were fit enough to fight. They would be more of a hindrance than a help.

He looked across the kitchen at them. One of them, Paul, had lost a lot of blood, and was weak and tired. The other was grimacing from the agony of a broken shinbone; at least he was alert.

‘They can stay here to watch over our friends.’ Koch nodded towards the man holding his leg and wincing. ‘Tell Felix, if either of them look like they’re going to give him some trouble . . .’ Koch tapped the hilt of his knife. ‘Understand?’

Schöln nodded and turned to pass the orders on while the rest of Koch’s platoon grabbed their weapons and made ready to exit the kitchen and head swiftly towards the cover of the apple orchard nearby.

The orchard was small, perhaps only a couple of acres, but the spring blossoms and sprouting leaves would provide a dense enough cover for them to make their way unseen to the perimeter of the airfield.

Koch kneeled down beside Felix. ‘Did Schöln tell you . . . they give you any grief -?’

‘Yes, sir. I don’t think they’ll be any trouble.’

He turned to look at the French farmer and his wife. Their wide eyes were rolling with fear as they silently watched the men getting ready to move out.

‘I’m sorry you couldn’t make it along for this one, Felix. Listen, it’ll all be over in an hour and a half, so let them both go round about ten o’clock. They’ll run into town screaming blue murder, but they’ll be back with American soldiers, and hopefully you’ll both get some treatment then.’

‘Yes, sir, an hour and a half.’

‘I’ll see you both later,’ he said. He nodded towards the farmer. ‘Oh, and thank him for the food.’

Koch watched the last few men slip out of the kitchen one after the other.

The last man darted out quietly into the garden, and Koch followed, slipping on wet paving stones just outside the kitchen door.

It was drizzling. Not rain, just a fine mist of moisture descending from a sky as bland and featureless as a sheet of writing paper. He followed the man in front of him into the orchard, and despite his best efforts, made a lot of noise swishing through the tall, wet grass under the trees. He heard several men stumble on concealed roots and the cracking of disconcertingly noisy twigs; but within a minute they were all lying in a ditch at the edge of the orchard, breathing hard from the exertion and looking out onto the small airstrip.

Koch didn’t need field glasses, the cluster of tents and huts were only a few hundred yards away. A single hangar was the only building. Inside the hangar was a Dakota DC3, and outside, parked facing the tarmac runway, were three more; beside them was a fuel truck. He could only see a few men milling between the tents, puffs of steam from their mouths drifting up to the cold, wet, grey sky. He watched the men move lethargically around the camp. A canteen was still serving breakfast by the look of it; he could see a queue of men standing in line holding mess trays.

Koch turned to smile at one of the men beside him. ‘I can’t see these lads giving us much trouble.’

‘No, sir.’

It struck him, all of a sudden, how peaceful it was here. After the last few days of being trapped within the noisy confines of the U-boat with the ever-present whine of the electric motors or the chug of the diesel engines, listening to the pattering of drizzle on the leaves, and the occasional rustle of feathered wings amongst the branches around them, he was reluctant to disturb the peace and quiet. It would be nice if this morning’s little endeavour could be pulled off without a shot. It really would be a shame to disturb the day’s tranquillity with the brittle crack of gunfire.

Koch whistled softly to attract the attention of Feldwebel Büller and Obergefreiter Schöln. The two men immediately recognised their CO’s calling sound and shuffled across to join him.

‘Okay, Büller, take nine men and head straight for the guard hut. I reckon the lads over there are probably the only ones even close to putting up a fight. Schöln, you take nine and check out the hangar and get the truck and fuel to the side of the airstrip. I’ll take whoever’s left and do the canteen. We’ll rally the prisoners in the hangar. We should do this quietly and quickly; hopefully we can do it with no shots fired. But if any of them look like doing a runner, bring them down. No one is to leave the airfield, you understand?’

Both men nodded.

‘Right . . . pick your men and wait for my command.’

Büller and Schöln shuffled off across the ground, wordlessly tapping the shoulders of those men they wanted as they moved down the line. There was little deliberation in their selection; all of the men here were handpicked from Koch’s company, all of them good men. He watched as both men gathered their squads in little clusters away from the edge of the orchard and briefly relayed the objectives to them. Koch summoned the men still lying in the ditch, and they gathered around him.

‘Lads, this should be easy. We’re taking the canteen. I see about thirty men there. None of them is carrying a weapon.’ He looked up at the queue of men under the canteen awning waiting tiredly in line for their breakfast. ‘Fuck it, some of them aren’t even fully dressed!’

The men laughed under their breath.

‘We go in,
quietly
, no shots if you can help it. Once we’ve got them all, we’ll take them to the hangar. Any questions?’

None of his squad could think of any, and they all shook their heads in silence.

‘Right, on my command, we’re all moving out.’

Koch looked up at his two other squad leaders; they were finished with their briefings and looking at him for the signal.

Here we go
.

He nodded, and instantly they were off their knees en masse and sprinting through the long, wet grass of the orchard, out from under the small, squat apple trees and across the shorter grass of the airfield. As they ran the only sound was the grass-softened rustle of boots on the ground and the metallic chatter of buckles and ammo.

Büller and his men veered to the right, towards the guard hut and barricade. Schöln bore left, towards the hangar. Koch and his men continued forward, towards the canteen tent, now only a hundred yards away. Most of the Americans there having breakfast seemed half asleep, and it appeared like none of them had spotted anything yet.

My God, can’t they see us?

They were now only thirty feet away and a few of the men sitting down to eat, looked up and seemed to notice the approaching Germans. The initial response didn’t seem to be alarm, it looked like curiosity; he could imagine them lazily wondering, ‘Who are these guys? Some of ours . . . practising manoeuvres or something?’

Koch sprinted the last few yards and ducked as he entered underneath the awning, MP-40 raised to his shoulder and pointed at the Americans, now it seemed, finally aware that something was amiss.

‘Down! Now!’ Koch shouted using his limited knowledge of English and gesturing towards the ground with the barrel of his gun. The rest of Koch’s squad fanned out around the men in the canteen.

‘Andreas, get those over here in the middle of the floor,’ he called out.

One of his squad approached the men still standing in line, still holding mess trays, motionless and all staring uncomprehendingly at Koch and his men. He pulled them away from the steaming urns and shoved them towards the middle of the canteen.

‘Down!’ he hissed.

They finally seemed to wake up and comprehend the situation that had suddenly altered their day. A few moments later they were all lying compliantly on the floor, Koch’s men hastily shaking them down for any concealed weapons.

So far so good
.

In the meantime, Schöln and his men crossed two hundred yards of open field towards the hangar. It was a relatively small structure, only large enough to house a single transport plane. Outside, parked facing away from the building, were the three DC3s and beside them the fuel truck. As he jogged, he pointed at four of his men and indicated the planes and the fuel truck, they peeled off towards them, weapons at the ready. One of them climbed swiftly into the truck and had it immediately rolling across the field towards the grass landing strip. The other three began checking the planes for anyone hiding inside.

Schöln led the rest of them over towards the hangar and they came to a halt outside the sliding corrugated doors. Schöln took a few seconds to catch his breath.

‘Ernst, Dieter, stay here and guard this doorway,’ he whispered between ragged gasps. He took the other three men of his squad with him inside the hangar. They fanned out and quickly circled the plane but found no one.

Schöln nodded at one of his men. ‘Jan, check inside.’

The soldier slung his MP-40 over one shoulder and pulled himself up inside the cargo hold of the plane. Schöln heard a muffled shout of surprise and a moment later a solitary mechanic emerged from the plane with his hands in the air; behind him Jan emerged intently studying a deck of playing cards. He jogged over to Schöln and showed him the deck.

‘Nice . . . very nice,’ he nodded appreciatively. The women on this deck weren’t just topless. He cast a glance at the American mechanic, who looked as embarrassed as he was frightened. ‘I presume he was playing solitaire?’

Jan grinned.

Schöln looked down at the deck. ‘When we’re done today, I think I’ll have another look through these.’ He passed the deck back to Jan, who pocketed them quickly.

‘Shit,’ said Büller as he studied the men twenty yards away, outside the guard hut. There were two of them that he could see, both had rifles slung over their shoulders. There might possibly be a third inside the hut; one of the men seemed to be having a conversation with someone inside. He turned to face his squad, all of them kneeling with him behind a stack of crates and awaiting instructions.

It looked like they were going to have to go in shooting. Büller wasn’t so much concerned about any bullets that might whistle towards them, but if the guards weren’t taken totally by surprise there was a chance one of them might slip away out of the front entrance and down the dirt track into town.

He cast a glance over his shoulder towards the hangar. He could see several men walking with raised arms away from the parked-up DC3s towards the building, escorted by another, which even at this distance could clearly be seen to be holding a gun. He turned to check out Koch’s progress and saw men being pulled unceremoniously to the floor at gunpoint. If either of the guards were to turn towards them, they would see something was wrong.