Authors: Leo Kessler
Guns At Cassino (25 page)
The
two men faced each other tensely.
`Well?'
the Vulture demanded, iron in his voice. 'Your last chance.
`I
wouldn't care if refusal meant condemnation to hell,' von Dodenburg retorted contemptuously. 'I want no part of your treacherous schemes - '
`Treacherous
schemes?' Schwarz interrupted.
But
neither of the two men facing each other in this final confrontation paid any attention to him. Both knew that this was the parting of the ways after four long years of war together. They had come far: the capture of the great fort of Eben Emael in forty; the glorious push through France; the first day of Barbarossa in forty-one; Russia; the last great armoured push against the Ivans at Kursk in forty-three; and this. Slowly von Dodenburg began to draw his pistol.
`What
are you going to do, Major?' the Vulture asked slowly.
`You
are a traitor, Colonel Geier,' he replied, no rage in his heart, only the knowledge that he must carry out his duty. 'You are prepared to betray our folk-comrades for your own petty safety.'
`But,
you damn young fool, von Dodenburg!' the Vulture cried exasperatedly, his eyes fixed on the pistol in the other officer's hand. 'I'm doing this for Germany ... I'm trying to save her from those men who will sacrifice her without compunction. When they go down, they will drag the rest down with them. Don't you understand - what I am trying to do is for our Homeland!'
Coldly
von Dodenburg cocked his pistol, his face expressionless. The Vulture backed away. His hand fell to his belt. But before he could reach his holster, von Dodenburg had jerked up his pistol threateningly. His knuckle whitened as it slid around the trigger of the pistol and took the pressure. The Vulture's adam's apple moved back and forth as he swallowed painfully.
`Von
Dodenburg!!'
Von
Dodenburg began to raise his pistol. The Vulture's face seemed to shrink. His hands flew to his chin, as if he hoped to ward off the bullets with the naked flesh.
`Colonel,
I'll help, if you'll take me with you.'
It
was Kriecher. With a grunt of rage he flung himself at von Dodenburg. Automatically von Dodenburg pressed the trigger. The Vulture was thrown off his feet. His body smashed against the dirt wall. His eyes filled with disbelief as he looked down at the gaping wound amidst the decorations which he had sacrificed so many good men's lives to gain.
The
Creeper scrambled forward and clutched the Vulture's boots.
`It
was a mistake, Colonel,' he whispered, his face contorted with fear. 'You must believe me - a mistake!'
Schwarz
hit the Creeper with his wooden arm. Blood gushed from his nose and ears as he fell backwards. Schwarz kicked him in the crotch. He gave a thin scream, stifled by the vomit which flooded his, throat. The next instant, Schwarz's slug smashed his skull. The Vulture looked down at the mangled face and at his boots splashed with the dead Kriecher's brains and blood. As the sounds of the Tommy mortar barrage started to be drowned by the roar of an airplane motor, Colonel Geier of the Wotan slid to the dirt floor, twitched once and lay still. The Vulture was dead.
We
don't
want
you
...
Wotan
does
not
need
you
.
We
fight
on
!
'
Major
von
Dodenburg
to
Captain
Wagner
.
`Holy shit,' Wagner breathed in awe. 'Is the front always like this?'
Ertz,
the pilot nodded.
`Yes,
Captain. No fancy uniforms out here - and another glass of champus, General? This is how the front swine live.'
As
the little observation plane began to lose height over the embattled peak, Schellenberg's fellow plotter could see the dead bodies piled high, their limbs twisted grotesquely. Everywhere there were the charred, shattered wrecks of tanks and vehicles, trails of abandoned weapons up the mountainside, and always bodies - bodies without heads, bodies without arms, bodies without legs. The yellow Italian soil was soaked red with their blood. Wagner licked his lips.
`Do
you think you can make it, Ertz?' he asked, as the plane seemed to hover over the peak, while the pilot sized up the situation. Ertz held up his gloved thumb confidently.
`Sure.
I've tackled worse as pissed as ten naked niggers. come in with that peak on my tail. At least it'll keep the Tommies from shooting me up the arse and it might slow my landing speed. I'll have no tail wind, you see.' He peered at the perimeter some four hundred feet below. 'I might just be able to catch the bitch before we roll into the Tommy lines - in time for China tea, eh?'
Wagner
gulped as the pilot pulled back the stick and soared upwards towards the peak. Behind them, Smiling Albert's other plane followed suit.
The
big SS Captain was scared, very scared; but he knew how vital it was for the success of their plot to get the Vulture and his key - and loyal - officers out now. Adolf Hitler had been so impressed by their stand on the Peak and the tremendous propaganda success of the bombing of Monte Cassino by the Amis that he had fully approved the scheme to get the Vulture off the mountain-top. Indeed he had ordered that the Vulture should reform his Battle Group in Berlin itself. Based at Spandau with some three thousand idealistic youngsters under his command, the Vulture would play a decisive role in their seizure of power in the capital. Wagner fought back his fear. They had to get down.
The
first Storch came in low to their rear. Ertz had cut the engine and was gliding in silently. The Tommies dug in behind the peak heard him only when it was too late. He was over their heads and gone before they could open fire. When they did, their tracer missed the German plane by metres.
Schulze
spotted the little plane first.
`Sir,'
he yelled, 'the Storch!' Von Dodenburg swung round and focused his eyes against the slanting rays of the sun. There it was - a stark black silhouette against the red ball of the sun. The rest of the traitors had arrived.
Something
snapped in the young Major's brain. He was seized by a burning rage. As the little plane came closer and closer, he unslung his machine-pistol. Legs set wide apart, he fired a furious burst at the plane. The slugs were wide of the mark. But they had their effect. The Storch's motor burst into life suddenly and with an abrupt turn of speed, it zoomed up into the sky above their heads.
`Great
crap on the Christmas Tree!' Wagner gasped, the sweat standing out on his brow in heavy beads. 'What the hell are they firing on us for? Can't they see the black crosses?'
Ertz
breathed out a sigh of relief as he gained control of the bucking plane, caught in one of the peak's thermals. 'I always thought those stubble-hoppers were a bit thick - perhaps they're so front-happy, they don't know what side they're on!'
Wagner's
brain was racing. He was damned scared. But he knew he had to go through with the mission. If he didn't, Schellenberg would have no compunction about sending him to the front - or worse.
`Listen,'
he said urgently, 'go in again, Ertz. Under power this time.' He opened the flap of the side window. A blast of icy air gushed in. Wagner seized one of the grenades which all the planes carried to destroy vital or secret equipment in case they had to force-land behind enemy lines, and held it out of the window in readiness.
`I'm
going to clear that stupid turd out of the way - even if I have to kill the bastard.'
Ertz
shrugged carelessly.
`Why
not? Let's kill a few of our own stubble-hoppers and put them out of their misery. Anything for a change, eh?' He gave the little wooden plane full power and they came zooming down once more.
Von
Dodenburg waited, while Schulze stared at him aghast. He had never seen the Major like this: he seemed to have gone temporarily
meschugge
. (1)
`Sir,'
he cried, 'let's get our arses out of here smartish! The Tommies'll be zeroing in on us in a minute!
Sir
!
'
The
Major did not hear. His eyes, red with fury, were fixed on the plane roaring down at 180 km.p.h. Ertz pulled up the nose and dropped the flaps. The Storch seemed to hover momentarily in mid-air. It was Wagner's opportunity. Desperately he lobbed his grenade at the tattered, battle-worn figure standing there with the dead sprawled out extravagantly around him.
`Get
out of the way, you crazy fool!' he yelled.
The
grenade came sailing down - a deadly little black egg from the hovering bird. It exploded with a harsh cramp. Chunks of metal hissed through the air. Schulze yelped with pain as a fragment hit him in the shoulder. But von Dodenburg did not falter. The air was filled with the stink of petrol. The plane was almost on them now. He could see the two white faces behind the gleam of the perspex quite clearly. He raised his Schmeisser.
`
We
don't
want
you
!
'
he screamed.
'Wotan
does
not
need
you
-
we
fight
on
!
'
The
plane seemed about to crash directly into him. The roar was ear-splitting. Schulze ducked. And in that instant, von Dodenburg fired a full burst. The vicious red tracers stitched a line of deadly holes across the fuselage. They struck the perspex. It smashed at once. The two white faces disappeared behind a spider web of cracked gleaming perspex. The pilot threw up his hands in front of his face in horror.
`Holy
Christ, you've shot him down!' Schulze yelled.
At
two hundred kilometres an hour, the blinded plane careened over the perimeter, thick white smoke pouring from its punctured engine. Desperately Ertz tried to fight it down. The port tyre hit the rock first. It burst like an 88 shell exploding. The Storch lurched violently. Its port wing hit the ground. There was a rending sound. The Storch shimmied crazily. Ertz battled with the controls. Great clouds of dust shot up on both sides. With Wagner screaming hysterically at his side, they crashed into one of the abandoned tanks. The next instant they were crushed to death as the plane folded like a concertina.
On
the perimeter the awe-struck German and Allied watchers ducked as a solitary wheel flew, still revolving, through the air. A moment later the Storch exploded and the two SS men were running wildly for the Twin Tits bunker before the Allies came out of their trance and started firing at them.
Schulze
cast a curious glance at the blood-stained bodies of the Creeper and the Vulture bundled into the corner of the littered bunker. But he said nothing. Instead he turned his attention to von Dodenburg, who was now apparently recovering from the red-eyed rage which had overcome him outside.
`They've
gone - the planes,' he said to Schwarz, slumped wearily at the table, heaped high with open ration cans and boxes of ammunition. 'We're on our own, Schwarz.'
‘I
see,' the one-armed Captain said tonelessly. 'And now?'
`There
are going to be no privileged persons in Wotan,' von Dodenburg snapped. 'We all take the same chances now. We are going to break out, Schwarz - at the earliest possible opportunity. We won't last another day here and' - he hesitated. `Germany has need of the Wotan.'
`But
how are we going to do it, sir?' Schulze asked. 'The Tommies have got us by the short and curlies - that's for sure.'
Von
Dodenburg swept a pile of empty cans of 'Old Man' off the rough table made of ration cases and spread out his dirty map.
‘
The perimeter,' he jabbed a forefinger at the centre of the map. 'Now reduced to perhaps a hundred odd square metres. The Tommies dug in in force - here, here and here. Our last defensible position - here. The Twin Tits, some seventy metres from the thinnest section of the Tommy line.' Schulze, always quick to react, blurted it out:
`So
that's the way out, sir?'
`Right
in one, Schulze.'
`But
it is still too strongly held for our men - lions that they are - to break through,' Schwarz objected, his face as impassive as ever, utterly unafraid. For him the breakout was not a matter of life and death. His sole concern was whether or not the breakout was militarily feasible.