Mac wingate 7, p.17
Mac Wingate 7, page 17
He crawled back to Manganaro. “I need a grenade. Look after the Schmeisser, I don’t want anything holding me up.”
He began to lighten himself, unbuckling his belt to get rid of his pistol and ammunition pouch. There was a sudden vibration of the ground underneath him and at the same time the air just above their heads screamed with noise. Wingate looked up. There was nothing to see. A moment later, an explosion way behind them indicated an exploding shell. The tank had fired a single round of 75 millimeter at some target it had spotted a thousand yards away. It came to Wingate as a timely reminder of the situation. He’d picked the wrong target. Even with the strongpoint out of action, Giuseppe still had to come the length of the street with eight or nine heavily laden mules before he turned the corner. With that gun still operational, he didn’t have a prayer.
“I’ve changed my mind,” said Wingate. “We’re hitting the tank.”
“Jesus,” Manganaro muttered. It was simply an observation on his part. There was no surprise in his voice. Where Mac Wingate was concerned, Manganaro had given up being surprised by anything.
“Any gasoline in this thing?” Wingate asked, trying to figure out where the gas tank was located on the personnel carrier.
“How much do you need?” said Manganaro, reaching up and unfastening a five-gallon jerry can from the rack along the vehicle’s side. He had been crouched there staring at the stuff all the time Wingate had been scouting the strongpoint.
“Get me a couple cans,” said Wingate, buckling up his belt again. “D’you reckon they have a Very pistol and a couple of double-reds?”
“They have everything,” said Manganaro, crawling carefully into the driver’s seat and groping into the storage locker under the dash. “What else do you want—map of Berlin, picture of Lili Marlene ...?”
He slid back to the ground and handed Wingate the signal pistol and two cartridges. Wingate put one round into the gun and the other in his pocket, then pushed the gun into his belt.
“OK,” said Wingate, picking up one of the two jerry cans. “Let’s go!”
“You mean I’m part of this?” Manganaro quipped, trying to slough off some of the tension that was building in his gut. “You disappoint me, Mac. I figured you were gonna win this war all by yourself.”
They slid forward, jerry cans in one hand, weapons in the other, moving from deep shadow to deep shadow, taking advantage of every shred of cover. Somewhere over to the right, a dog howled continuously. Occasional bursts of automatic fire rang out and the howls of ricochets hummed through the air. All the time, the dull crump of the harbor demolition formed a backdrop of sound.
They covered twenty yards, fifty, a hundred. Wingate paused. Manganaro came up to him, breathing heavily. Ahead, the desolation was more complete. Rubble lay in piles right across the street. Not a single building was left untouched. Doors, window frames, pianos, beds, tables, every treasured human possession lay smashed and shattered ahead of them.
“Oh, my God ...!” breathed Manganaro. It was like seeing his own parents’ house desecrated. The tension in his gut turned to anger. He wanted revenge. Personal revenge.
“Save your sympathy,” said Wingate. “Figure it this way—the more damage these krauts do, the more cover they give us. Without this lot, we’d never get near that tank. I reckon the Italians have finally come into the war on the right side. The locals must have taken on the Wehrmacht. It’s the only thing to explain the firing and the roadblocks. It’s not our guys they’re fighting—” He pointed toward the direction of the artillery barrage still pounding the southern approaches to the city. “We’d hardly be shelling ourselves.”
They moved forward again, now more cautiously, securing one position before moving on to the next. Ahead, the gun had now swiveled at right angles to them and a moment later began firing at some target over to their left. It was a temptation to increase speed and get the damn thing over with in a single final dash. Wingate resisted it. Whatever the krauts were firing at, they would still have a guy with his eyes down the street. They were too experienced at this stage in the war not to cover every approach.
They were within twenty yards of the tank when Wingate came to a halt, crouching behind the remains of a stoop that led up to a demolished row house. Manganaro joined him and very slowly they raised their heads and checked their target. The tank had been buried four or five feet below pavement level, right in the middle of the road. Only its turret and machine gun ports were in the clear.
Wingate slowly unloaded himself, handing the Schmeisser and his belt and the Very pistol to Manganaro. “If I make it—OK. If they hit me after I get the cans open, use the Very—if not, you’re going to have to open them yourself with the Schmeisser. OK?”
Manganaro nodded. He didn’t like it, but it had to be done. If anyone had a chance of getting away with it, his money was on Mac. He took Wingate’s hand and gripped it, then he cocked the Schmeisser.
Wingate picked up the two cans of gas and slowly eased himself forward. Again, the temptation to make a single mad dash to get under the guns was almost irresistible. He forced himself to resist it. In the end, it was planning and stealth that always paid off. The 75 millimeter didn’t bother him anymore. The gunners on that were too busy firing to notice him. If they did, they’d never move the turret fast enough to beat him to the tank. The machine guns were something else. He tried to remember their positions from the Panthers he’s seen in other actions. He tried to remember the exact arc of fire that each of them covered. Every tank had its blind spots. He needed to approach along one of those. He finally made up his mind. He would go in just behind the right forward drive wheel.
He left the shadow of the rubble heap that was shielding Manganaro and moved forward. He moved crouched low, the cans of gas just clearing the broken pavement. He moved directly toward his target. If anyone took a shot at him at this range, a little dodging wasn’t going to save him. What mattered was to reach the tank before he was spotted. He almost succeeded. He was within five yards of the vehicle when the right forward gunner caught sight of him. The machine gun muzzle poking out of the gun port swung toward him and opened fire. He flung himself forward, praying that one of the cans wouldn’t burst open and turn him into a flaming torch. Bullets whined past his right shoulder. Something snatched at his elbow, but he felt no pain. A second later he was beyond the angle of the gun, crouched on hands and knees right up against the tank skirting.
He paused, flipped back the spring-loaded caps on top of the cans, then climbed onto the skirting and from there onto the turret. He had to work quickly. There was no hiding his presence now. Apart from having spotted him, they would be able to hear the metal studs in his boots against the metal of the turret. He poured from both cans at once, one in each hand. He let the gasoline slop out and find its way into the junction between turret and main tank body. He poured around the upper hatch seal and into the articulations of the main gun mounting. He could imagine the panic inside as the smell first reached them, as they realized what was happening outside—and what was going to happen. Still he poured.
He poured until every last drop of gasoline was gone, then he tossed the cans aside, slid to the ground, and raced toward Manganaro. They wouldn’t open fire, he was certain of that. They wouldn’t want to risk igniting the gas. But still he ran, finally flinging himself behind the protection of the rubble. In war, he’d learned that nothing was ever certain.
Manganaro grabbed him and pulled him clear of any immediate danger, then lifted an eye above the rubble to check that no one was escaping from the turret hatch.
“Give it a second,” Wingate spluttered, trying to clear his lungs of gasoline fumes.
Manganaro waited. Finally he fired the Very pistol. The two red balls of flaming phosphorous flew in a high, slow arc into the air, hung for a moment, then dropped back toward the tank. A second later, a tremendous whoosh of red-hot air and flame shot across the top of the rubble pile and Wingate smelled his own eyebrows and hair scorching. He turned and beckoned Manganaro to follow him, then ran back to where Giuseppe had been waiting for them. As the pair of them reached the main group, the heat inside the tank triggered the ammunition supply. The whole vehicle exploded like a gigantic hand grenade, throwing slabs of armor plating high into the air.
“So,” said Giuseppe, as the flames enveloping the tank began to subside. “Now we begin to fight!”
Chapter Nine
In took an hour to reach the convent. A couple of Giuseppe’s scouts went ahead of the main body, checking cross streets, signaling back to Giuseppe with flashlights. From time to time they hit a pocket of tough German resistance, where a bunch of krauts were holed up and armed bands of townsfolk were trying to blast them out. Occasionally, one or another of Giuseppe’s supporters wanted to join in. Giuseppe refused. He knew what his priority was. First his daughter—then the rest of the war.
Finally it came in sight. It stood on a rising piece of land overlooking the harbor, backed by a section of blazing buildings beyond it. It was a large, square building, built of stone as far as Wingate could tell. It looked old—the kind of place that might have been built as a fortress, with dungeons below and walls ten feet thick.
“Jesus,” Manganaro muttered. As far as he could judge, it would take a direct hit with a 500 pounder to crack that thing open.
Wingate took a look at it carefully. It was sixty or seventy feet away, standing on its own grounds behind a low brick wall. The SS had made a good choice. There was no approach over rooftops, no dodging through piles of rubble. It was one of the few buildings he’d seen in the past hour that still looked completely intact. It would have been tough even without kids inside to consider. There was no cover at all between the garden wall and the main building. It meant a dash for some poor bastard of thirty open yards. It meant carrying 500 pounds of amatol blocks, packing it tight to the wall, fitting blasting caps and running wire back to the blasting box—and all while some guy tossed grenades down from an upstairs window. It meant—quite frankly—somebody committing suicide. It wasn’t possible. And when it had to be done without hurting a single kid inside—the idea wasn’t even worth considering.
Giuseppe had already unyoked the two mules from the gun limber and three of his men were manhandling it into position.
“For Christ’s sake!” snapped Wingate. “What the hell are you going to do with that?”
“Blow a hole in the wall,” Giuseppe bellowed. “Then we go through!”
“What about the kids?” Wingate yelled back. “You forgotten you’ve got a daughter in there?”
“The kids! The kids are upstairs!” thundered Giuseppe. Wingate had demolished the tank—fine! But when it came to real action, Giuseppe was in charge. “Take a look for yourself! Look at the windows!”
It was true. There were kids’ faces pressed against some of the upstairs windows, dark red moons in the glow from the flames.
“And look, Weengate,” Giuseppe continued, grabbing Wingate by the elbow and pointing toward one of the first-floor windows. “The Tedeschi are downstairs! See the gun in the window? See—see?”
“You put a round in that breech and we’ll walk out on you,” said Wingate, nodding to indicate that that included Manganaro. “What d’you imagine those krauts will do if you start shelling them? They’re going to pitch those kids through the windows one by one!”
Giuseppe hesitated. He was half mad with anxiety over his daughter. He wanted to act right away. But Wingate was right. The Tedeschi weren’t playing. Giuseppe had seen the way they’d acted in some of the mountain villages when they were hunting for partisans. “But what do we do?” he screamed. “We can’t stand here and watch them—all those kids with those animals!”
“No,” said Wingate. “But we take it slowly. We don’t want the krauts getting nervous.” He was turning over an earlier idea that had struck him the first time he’d caught sight of the place. He turned to Manganaro and said, “We’ve got to get inside.”
“Smart thinking,” said Manganaro, voice heavy with sarcasm. “I see how you made captain while I’m still carrying one bar.”
“Let’s take a look,” said Wingate.
He moved out of sight of the convent, jogging down an alleyway to his left. The artillery fire to the south had lifted. The final advance must be underway. If the opposition was smashed at last, he could expect to run into the first Allied patrols within a matter of hours. The Italians were whopping the shit out of the last kraut strongholds all over the city, to judge from the constant outbreaks of firing. It couldn’t be long before the last resistance broke.
The alley led to the waterfront. Ships burned at their moorings and the flames from blazing harbor installations scorched his face and made the air painful to breathe. Smoke and fumes billowed everywhere. They jogged, single file, along the embankment, Wingate stopping every now and then to check his bearings or examine some culvert opening out from the higher ground to his right. He was pushed forward with a growing sense of urgency. How long could Giuseppe control himself? The poor bastard was beside himself with anxiety about his kid. He was the kind of guy who couldn’t function without action. He’d never experienced the long periods of inaction that a regular soldier has to live with. For Giuseppe, inaction was cowardice, backsliding. Could he force himself to accept patience for just another ten or fifteen minutes?
There was another problem buzzing in Wingate’s head, as he made his way along the collapsed remains of the old harbor wall that had suffered badly from the earlier bombing. That transmitter was still in Kenny’s tote bag. Right this minute, some kraut would be monitoring its signals, plotting its position, planning an attack in its direction. When the attack came, Giuseppe would have to defend himself. And when the guys inside the convent heard the firing outside, that would be more than enough to persuade them to dump the kids.
Manganaro called, “Mac! Hold it!
He was twenty or thirty yards behind Wingate and way below him. Wingate could make out the bulk of his body in the glow of the fires. By the look of it, Manganaro had slipped off the broken harbor wall and down to the water’s edge and he needed help getting back.
“Hang on!” Wingate called, making his way back along the wall and glancing toward the moored boats to his right. “I’ll get a rope.”
“Forget it!” Manganaro cried. “Get down here! Come take a look!”
Wingate dropped to his ass and half slid, half clambered down the rough stone wall to where Manganaro was standing.
Manganaro grabbed his shoulder to steady Wingate. “That what we’re looking for, Mac?” he asked.
Manganaro was standing beside a tunnel entrance, built of brick with an arched opening. It had been some little private landing stage, long since abandoned, where a merchant could land goods by lighter directly from his vessel in the harbor and have them carried right into his personal stores on land.
It was exactly what Wingate had been hoping to find. “How the hell did you spot it?” he asked. He had walked right past it himself.
“I didn’t,” said Manganaro. “It spotted me. I hit some shit up top and slid right into it. But I’d figure if it still leads anywhere, we’re right in line with that convent.”
“Fingers crossed,” said Wingate, snapping on the flashlight that he was carrying and turning into the tunnel.
The stench hit him like a solid wave. There had been no air through the place since it had been built, and the damp sewage that seeped through the crumbling walls must go back to the Borgias. A couple of rats the size of cottontails stared with red eyes into the light before scuttering away into the darkness ahead. Water dripped on his face and he got the sensation that every kind of leech and crawling bit of slime on earth was working at his skin.
“Can you—hold it, Mac?” said Manganaro’s voice from behind Wingate.
When Wingate turned and threw the light beam back toward the entrance, he saw Manganaro bent double. He had his feet apart and he was throwing up the whole contents of his gut.
“You going to make it, Brad?”
Manganaro nodded, ran the back of his sleeve across his mouth, and mumbled, “I’ll—make it. But, Jesus! This stink!”
“You want to go back—wait outside?” Wingate asked. “I just want to be sure. I won’t be long.”
Manganaro waved him on. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll get used to it.”
Nobody would ever get used to it, Wingate knew that. It wasn’t that kind of smell. There was some kind of gas mixed with it—maybe naturally produced carbon dioxide or commercial gas from a fractured supply pipe. Either way, they couldn’t stick it indefinitely.
The silt on the tunnel floor grew deeper. It slowed progress and made it tougher to maintain balance. The thought of slipping headfirst into that shit made Wingate very careful where he put his feet. He began to lose hope. It was too much to expect that something that had been constructed four or five hundred years earlier would still be functioning. Then suddenly he caught it, the sound of movement ahead of them. He put up his hand and stopped. He could hear Manganaro’s heavy breathing behind him, but somewhere in front and above there were noises.
“You hear that, Brad?” asked Wingate, excitement coloring his voice.
“Yeah,” said Manganaro.
Wingate threw the light ahead. Ten yards away there was the exit. At one time it had been closed by a heavy wooden door, but it had rotted years ago and the decayed remains hung half open on broken hinges. Beyond the doorway, broken stone steps led upward.
They went forward slowly, Wingate checking each foothold on the silted floor, and finally stood at the bottom of the steps. He turned and handed the flashlight and the submachine gun to Manganaro. The sounds above were clearer now, dull clatters and rhythmic footsteps over to the right. Wingate turned to the steps again and began to climb.
