Young Lions (29 page)

Alarm bells started ringing in Lowe’s head as he broke out in a cold sweat.

“Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.”

“Bishop…Bishop Rathdowne?” Lowe asked in disbelief.

“Yes, Lowe.” Rathdowne smiled. “Luke Chapter twenty two verse sixty one. Peter denies Christ. See how your ‘friends’ desert you?” Rathdowne pointed to Lowe’s companions. They had completely abandoned Lowe and they were backing away from him at a rapid rate of knots as if he was a leper.

“Business first,” Rathdowne said. “Gentlemen?”

MacDonald and Smith, a newly recruited Resistance member, fired their silencer pistols at the three remaining S.S. officers. They fell backwards and collapsed in a heap to the floor. Smith and MacDonald exchanged their empty magazines for full ones and turned to face Lowe. Sam and Alan kept guard at the door. Sam covered Lowe with his Schmeisser. Alan kept the door to Schuster’s office slightly open so that he could see along the corridor that ran either side of the door. He could also see up and down the stairs.

“Then pleasure.” Rathdowne said. He turned with a wolfish grin towards Lowe.

Smith and MacDonald quickly tied Lowe’s hands behind his back and slipped a noose over his head. They propelled him through the open windows onto the balcony where they picked him up and dumped him on top of the balcony fence. Rathdowne leaned close to Lowe until they were eyeball to eyeball. He was so close that he could feel the German’s rancid breath on his face and smell his urine soaked trousers.

“Pray for your Fuhrer to save you, Lowe. He’s no use to you and you’re no use to anyone.”

“But…but I’m a German officer,” Lowe pleaded. “I demand to be treated according to the Geneva Convention.”

“You were a German officer, Lowe and this is what I think of the Geneva Convention.” Rathdowne spat once between Lowe’s eyes and then shoved him over the side.

Chapter Twenty-Three
 

The sentries stood gaping and gawping at the sight of the hanging man swaying gently above them. They heard a loud bang and an explosion. A light burned bright red in the black night sky and floated lazily towards the ground.

“A flare.” The rottnefuhrer said. “What the hells going-?”

The rottnefuhrer didn’t get the chance to finish his question.

A machine gun opened up and cut down the rottenfuhrer, the sentries and the MG 42 crew where they stood.

The soldiers in the guardroom on the ground floor tumbled out of their beds and their chairs.

“Quick!” The obersturmfuhrer in charge of the guard commanded. “Grab your weapons! We’re under attack! Everyone outside on the double!” He ran outside the room, frantically buckling on his webbing belt and drawing and cocking his Luger. His men piled out after him in a mad panic, scrambling to load and make ready their weapons.

“Where’s the machine gun crew?” The obersturmfuhrer asked. “Christ! They’re outside!” He saw the mound of murdered men lying at the top of the steps. Steam was rising from their still warm bodies.

The machine gun rounds raced through the open double doors and drilled a neat line of holes from the center of the obersturmfuhrer’s forehead to his groin, nearly tearing him in half.

The scharfuhrer, who was second-in-command, arrived on the scene just in time to see his platoon commander cut down. “Get down!” He bawled. “Keep away from the door!” his men didn’t need to be told twice. They huddled behind the scharfuhrer at the side of the door. They were scared but they knew that as long as they kept out of sight of the machine gunner outside they would be safe.

“Scharfuhrer, what’s going on here?”

The voice startled the scharfuhrer. He turned towards the source of the sound and saw a sturmbannfuhrer and a small group of officers and men hurrying down the stairs. “Partisan attack, sir,” the scharfuhrer answered. “They killed the sentries, wiped out the machine gun crew and shot the obersturmfuhrer.” He pointed to the mangled mess of blood and bones that used to be living breathing men.

“I see,” the sturmbannfuhrer answered.

“Thank God that we’re in here, sir.” The scharfuhrer took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “We’re safe inside.”

Rathdowne and his Resistance group cut the scharfuhrer and his storm troopers down. The S.S. guards didn’t stand a chance. Most of them had their backs towards their attackers and they collapsed onto their fronts and lay side by side in a tangled mess of arms and legs.

Rathdowne fired his Verey signal pistol out of the door straight up into the air. Alan watched as the flare exploded in the air, sending bright green sparks flying through the sky.

“Alright. Let’s go,” Rathdowne said. He stepped out of the door with his arms stretched out in a horizontal position. No machine gun rounds greeted his appearance. Rathdowne let out a sigh of relief. “Alright,” he said over his shoulder. “The coast is clear. Follow me.” He stepped over the pile of dead storm troopers outside the door and started walking down the stairs. Rathdowne’s Resistance group followed him outside and disappeared into the night.

Schuster arrived in time to watch a medic being bodily blown out of his fourth floor office balcony. The man only stopped screaming when he impacted rather heavily with the ground. His body left an ugly red smear on the cobblestones. Schuster issued urgent orders that no one was to check the bodies. They would wait for the Bomb Disposal Team to arrive from Cambridge.

When the Bomb Squad arrived they cut the rope holding the hanging body. Everyone took shelter inside the building before the body was sent hurtling to the ground. Schuster examined the body. It was Lowe, as he had feared. He was the only one of his regimental commanders who had not been accounted for. All of his other standartenfuhrers had been shot. Their corpses had then been shredded by grenade booby traps attached to their bodies. Schuster ripped off the message tied to Lowe’s tunic with trembling hands. It was written in English. He asked for another officer to translate. The message read: ‘an eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.’

During the confusion following the partisan attack no one noticed that the plans which the standartenfuhrers had prepared concerning the forthcoming royal visit which they were going to use to brief Schuster had disappeared. In fact, no one knew of the plans at all, since the men who had devised them were dead and the men who had taken them were not likely to inform Schuster that they had captured them.

In response to the partisan attack on headquarters and to the previous attack on the Police station, Schuster asked Reichsstatthalter Scheimann for permission to equip the Police and Specials with Infantry weapons since it would be the Police and Specials who would largely be responsible for guarding Mosley and the Royals during their visit to Hereward. A few days after the event that became known, not very originally, as “Bloody Sunday” Sam and Alan reported for duty to be issued with Schmeisser machine guns. The boys could not stop smiling at the irony of the situation as they already had their own Schmeissers. In fact, they had several and an MG 42 as well. Schuster tried to convince himself that the tooling up of the Police and the Specials compensated for the fact that members of both Forces were resigning in droves. Some were not resigning, they were simply disappearing. Vanishing into the Fens countryside, complete with their weapons and uniforms, to join the swelling ranks of the Resistance. Schuster rationalized that he was better off without them, the fence sitters and the fair weather Fascists. What remained was a hard-core group of committed collaborators, traitors and pro-New Order British Nazis who knew which side their bread was buttered on. The Winning Side.

Hauptsturmfuhrer Ulrich reported back for duty at the beginning of April. He had been in hospital for two weeks where he had received treatment for a punctured lung, broken ribs and severe lacerations to his legs, stomach, chest and face. The doctors told him that he was lucky not to have lost an eye. Or both eyes. He was lucky not to have lost his life. When Ulrich finally had the chance to look at himself in the mirror he gave himself a fright. He didn’t recognize himself. A stranger stared back at him. And an ugly stranger at that. His face was a mosaic of deep purple, dull yellow, bright red and pale white. Scars criss crossed his face like railway tracks on a map. When Schuster had seen him, he had laughed. He had assured Ulrich that he would be a hit with the girls. The ladies liked war wounds, he said. Schuster also told Ulrich that following the recent attack on headquarters and the Police station several vacancies had arisen for senior officers in the Triple S Brigade and it was his pleasure and privilege to promote Ulrich to sturmbannfuhrer. Not only was he officially the youngest sturmbannfuhrer in the S.S. but Reichsstatthalter Scheimann would also present sturmbannfuhrer Ulrich with an Iron Cross on St. George’s Day.

“Will your men be ready?” Brigadier Daylesford sat on a rock at the water’s edge on the banks of Loch Torridon. The Alligin Hotel, temporary training centre for the Special Operations Executive, appeared in the background through a break in the fog.

The captain sidestepped the question. “You haven’t given us much time,” he protested.

“I know,” Daylesford admitted. “But unfortunately, it couldn’t be helped.”

“How is the shopping going?”

“They’re doing alright. They should have everything that you want by the time that you arrive.”

“Bon,” the captain grunted. “Then my men will be ready.”

“What’s this? Roadblock?” The driver of the lorry saw the soldier standing beside the motorcycle combination. He was waving for the lorry to pull over at the side of the road beside another lorry. “Bloody S.S.” The oberleutnant in the passenger seat swore. “I don’t need this. We’re late enough as it is.”

The lorry slowed down and parked just beyond the other lorry. The driver could see that it was a Police lorry. Two policemen sat in the cab. It was obviously a joint S.S.-Police patrol.

A hand slapped the side of the oberleutnant’s door. “Alright, Oberleutnant. Everybody out. Identification check,” the voice said. “Get your men out of the lorry at the double,” The S.S. sturmbannfuhrer ordered.

“Yes, sir!” The oberleutnant saluted, opened the door and jumped down from the cab. He quick marched to the back of the lorry. “Alright, men. Everybody out!”

There were muffled moans and groans of protest. Most of the men had been sleeping after wasting yet another unsuccessful day hunting partisans in the Cambridge shire countryside.

“Line them up, side-by-side facing the road, Oberleutnant,” the sturmbannfuhrer ordered.

“Very good, sir.”

The tailgate banged open and the tired and hungry soldiers piled out of the lorry. The oberleutnant and the platoon scharfuhrer chivvied their charges like shepherds herding their flock. At last the physically and emotionally exhausted soldiers stood in an approximately straight line facing the sturmbannfuhrer.

The oberleutnant snapped to attention. “All present and correct, sir.”

“Take out your Pay Books ready for inspection,” the sturmbannfuhrer ordered.

Several of the soldiers unslinged their weapons, took them off their shoulders and placed them on the ground beside their boots in order to allow them easier access to their Pay Books which were buried deep within their inside tunic pockets.

The sturmbannfuhrer took off his hat and rubbed his itchy scalp.

The machine guns tore into the Germans bowling them over like tenpins. MacDonald, Smith and Robinson appeared beside Rathdowne and also poured their Schmeisser rounds into the dead and dying soldiers.

“Cease fire!” Rathdowne ordered.

Sam and Alan appeared from further down the road and started walking towards them. Sam was holding the MG 42 that he had looted after the attack on headquarters. Alan followed carrying an ammunition box.

Rathdowne turned to face the others. “Jock and Grant, finish off the wounded. Right lads,” he turned back to Alan and Sam. “Let’s strip the Jerries of any uniforms and weapons that we can use and pile them into the back of the Hun lorry.”

Chapter Twenty-Four
 

“I don’t like it, sir.” The S.S. scharfuhrer leaned down from the main compartment of the Sd Kfz 251 armoured personnel carrier and spoke to his platoon commander.

“Why, Heinz?” The obersturmfuhrer asked.

“Think about it, sir,” Scharfuhrer Heinz Hirschfeld replied. “We took two of their half tracks, now they want to take two of ours.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to the second A.P.C. traveling in convoy behind them. “The Army thinks that it’s payback time.”

“That’s if they are Army,” Obersturmfuhrer Kaltenbranner said.

The Army oberleutnant lowered his binoculars to his chest. “Feldwebel Johst?” Oberleutnant Warlimont said over his shoulder.

“Yes, sir?”

“The A.P.C. s aren’t going to stop. They’re going to try and ram through the roadblock. Action stations. Get the boys ready. Tell them that we’re going to let these bastards now whose boss. We’re going to stop them.”

“Here we go.” Kaltenbranner tightened his helmet chinstrap. “Gunner. Heinz, tell the men: open fire on my command.”

“Now, Beck!” Warlimont ordered. A soldier quickly drove the platoon’s lorry onto the road and swung it around until it completely blocked the road through to Hereward.

“Obersturmfuhrer?” The half-track driver said nervously.

“Straight through, Schlageter! Straight through! Don’t stop!” Kaltenbranner ordered. “Heinz! Prepare to open fire!”

“They’re not stopping, sir!” Johst said.

“Open fire!” Warlimont ordered.

Rounds raced from the weapons of the Army platoon hiding in concealed positions amongst the trees and bushes that ran along both sides of the road. Most of the bullets ricocheted off the A.P.C.’s armour plating and failed to find their targets. Many of the occupants of the half-tracks wisely kept their heads down and contrary to their platoon commander’s orders did not return fire, believing that discretion was the better part of valour. Kaltenbranner’s A.P.C. hit the rear left wheel or the lorry and battered it to the side. The half-track skidded across the road until Schlagater, the driver, regained control.