Mac wingate 5, p.4
Mac Wingate 5, page 4
“It will be simpler, Morrell, if you’ll just tell them I have already decided to go after Stern.”
“Ah, yes. A fait accompli. London will have no choice but to go along. Is that your plan?”
“I just want to make it easier for them. They need this physicist badly. I saw the signatures that sent this team of mine into Poland, Morrell. Colonel Erikson showed them to me. Those orders authorizing this mission were signed by the Joint Chiefs and the President of the United States.”
Morrell whistled softly. “Roosevelt, himself? And you have no idea what’s up?”
“Whatever it is, it’s big, Morrell. Very big.”
Wingate got up then and left the kitchen to find his men. His decision to stay behind the German lines until they found Stern would be a surprise to them. They had assumed that when Stern vanished, the mission would have to be aborted. They would not be happy to learn differently.
Wingate was having one of his nightmares. He was back in Crete, pinned down by the Germans beneath a bluff, and Sergeant McCauley was racing across the beach toward him, a wild, crazy grin on his face. No matter how many times McCauley was cut down by the German gunners on the bluff behind Wingate, it did not stop him. Each time he would lurch to his feet and continue his mad plunge up the beach toward Wingate.
In an agony of frustration, Wingate shouted at McCauley to go back. Then, as McCauley was sent spinning to the sand once more, Wingate attempted to climb to his feet and go after him; but powerful German hands held him firmly as McCauley—a bloody apparition by this time—lurched back onto his feet and started to plunge once more through the murderous fire toward him ...
But the hands that were restraining Wingate were not German hands. Pulling himself out of the nightmare, Wingate shook them off and found himself staring up into Guy Morrell’s face. There was a concerned frown on the British agent’s face. “Are you all right, Captain?”
Wingate sat up, bracing himself on his elbows. “Yeah, I’m fine. What is it?”
“We found Stern.”
“Found him? Where?”
Guy Morrell’s face was glowing in the flashlight’s reflected beam. “Kutno. He’s in Kutno.”
Wingate threw back his blanket and sat up. “How the hell do you like that,” he said, pleased.
“It makes all kinds of sense, old boy. Once London told us where Stern was born, the rest was easy.”
Wingate nodded. He was not entirely surprised. London had sent them the information that Stern had family in Kutno a couple of days ago and they had sent one of Botnowski’s men to Kutno to check it out. “It’s about time those bastards in London earned their keep.”
It was four days since Morrell had radioed London for more weapons and ammunition for Botnowski and his men. The weapons were due to be dropped in a couple of days, but meanwhile, there had been no word from the rest of the underground on the whereabouts of Aaron Stern. And there might not have been now if London had not come through with that bit of intelligence on Stern.
What this meant, Wingate realized, was that London was working overtime in its effort to help Wingate find Stern. This Jewish physicist was important, all right. There could no longer be the slightest doubt about that.
“Let’s have some details,” Wingate said, running his hand through his hair and trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes.
“Botnowski’s man just telephoned from a garage outside Kutno. One of the garage’s customers mentioned seeing Stern, in terrible condition, reeling through the streets one morning this week. Stern was looking for his mother’s people. It seems no one had the heart to tell him the SS death squads had long since taken them and every other Jew in Kutno into the fields outside of town and shot them.”
Wingate shuddered. “What time is it?” he asked, reaching down for his shoes.
“A few hours before dawn.”
“Good. We’ll head for Kutno at dawn. Tell Botnowski’s man we’ll meet him at the garage.” Straightening up, Wingate glanced at Morrell. “Which means I’ll need transportation.”
“I’m way ahead of you. Do you think you’d mind a hayride?”
“A what?” Wingate asked, reaching for his shirt.
“It’s the best Botnowski can do. A hay wagon. For you and your men. He’ll be sending Henryk and Stefan along.”
Wingate was impressed. Until he thought it over. “What’s he trying to do, get rid of his two rivals?”
“Looks like it. But at the same time, these men are fierce fighters. They might come in handy. The countryside between here and Kutno is filled with German patrols.”
“Do you have an explanation for that?”
“I do. The Germans are just as anxious to get hold of Stern as we are. By now they must have figured out what happened during that air raid.”
Wingate nodded. That made sense, all right. “Well, I don’t care how the hell you get us to Kutno, as long as we don’t waste any more time here.”
Morrell nodded. “I’ll go downstairs and see about breakfast for you and your men.”
As soon as Morrell left, Wingate finished dressing and left his room to arouse the others. Kutno, was it? Wingate knew of it as a town further east, close to Warsaw. With luck they would find Stern and bring him back to this place in a couple of days.
With luck.
It was an unseasonably hot, muggy day, and by the time they reached the outskirts of Kutno, Wingate and his men—huddled out of sight under the load of loose hay—had been driven almost mad by the chaff that had worked its way down their necks, up their sleeves, and even up their pants legs. During the interminable journey, they had passed three German check points, the third one less than an hour before. During this last one, the search had been so dangerously thorough that a German bayonet had twice narrowly missed Wingate as it had been thrust repeatedly into the load of hay.
It was close to sundown now. Wingate poked his head up through the hay and began scratching the back of his neck. The air was blessedly cool, and the sound of the two workhorses’ patiently plodding hoofs almost lulled him. The war seemed suddenly very far away.
Without warning Henryk hauled back on the reins. The horses reared slightly in their traces and shook their heads unhappily. Henryk began talking excitedly to Stefan. Wingate groaned. Though he could not see through the two men sitting on the plank seat in front of him, he recognized the sound of trouble when he heard it.
On the road ahead of them, he knew, there must be another German checkpoint.
Wingate heard Regnais and the others poke up through the hay behind him and begin to curse. In a sleepy voice Aldini asked why they’d stopped. Wingate leaned over the wagon’s high, wooden side so he could see up the road. He saw no German patrol, but what he saw instead was an ominous glow on the horizon. Kutno, or a city further east, was burning briskly from a bombing raid.
Yet they had heard no planes going over.
Henryk stood up on the wagon and turned to Wingate. “The SS!” he cried. “They burn Kutno—and now they come for us! Give us our weapons!”
Wingate saw at once what Henryk meant. A full patrol of SS was sweeping along the highway toward them. In the swiftly falling dusk their headlights had been turned on and Wingate was able to make out a German staff car in the lead, an armored car and a lorry racing along behind it. There was no question that any search initiated by this oncoming patrol would be a far cry from the less-than-thorough searches they had survived throughout the day.
Wingate told his men to dig out their weapons and then handed up to Henryk and Stefan their ancient Stens. He looked back at his men. “Let’s go. We’ll take cover in those woods over there! Move it!”
Jumping down from the rear of the wagon, Wingate led the way over a fieldstone wall and across a rocky stretch of pasture toward the inviting cover of a thick stand of timber.
“We will slow them!” Stefan cried, jumping down behind the wall.
Wingate held up and looked back at the two partisans. “Come on,” he told them. “There’s too many for you!”
“We will cut the odds, Captain,” cried Henryk, as he raced along behind the wall to find a good emplacement.
“Captain!” cried Regnais. “You coming?”
Wingate turned and hurried after his men. A moment later he plunged into the cool trees, then pulled up to look back at the highway. The Germans were just reaching the abandoned hay wagon. In a moment the German vehicles had boxed in the wagon and the two horses, as the SS leaped from their truck and swarmed up onto the hay wagon. In a matter of minutes they had swept the hay off the wagon, then jumped down.
The German officer with them directed the entire operation with an automatic pistol in his hand. His sharp commands could be heard all the way into the timber. He seemed especially angry. Wingate could not help noticing how even his own men seemed to cower when near him.
Obviously infuriated at finding no one in the wagon, the German officer strode up to the horses and shot both of them in the back of the head, then stepped hastily back. Amid a sudden gory fountain of blood, the two brutes crashed to the road without a cry. Wingate looked away.
“That sonofabitch,” said Aldini softly.
“He is that, Corporal,” said Regnais.
Standing beside Wingate, Martens stirred unhappily and spat.
The German officer jumped up onto the wall, his eyes on the timber. Then, with a wave to his men, he led them over the wall.
“Here they come,” said Regnais.
“You know what?” said Aldini, as he pulled back the cocking lever on his Sten. “Seems to me them Germans were pretty damn certain they’d find someone on that wagon.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Wingate.
The Germans were beyond the fieldstone wall by this time, moving swiftly across the field in a well-disciplined line, at least a dozen of them all told, including the officer. He was on the far wing, and after they had gone a few more yards, he barked an order to one of his men, motioning him to catch up with the others.
He was a stickler, that fellow, Wingate told himself, as he began to wonder what had happened to Botnowski’s two lieutenants.
He needn’t have wondered. As the German soldier hurried forward to obey the command, the two partisans opened up on the SS from behind. Somehow, they had managed to stay out of sight as the SS climbed the wall. The gathering dusk must have helped considerably.
Four SS crumpled to the ground. The rest scattered. Caught in the open, they made excellent targets. Two more Germans fell. The rest flattened themselves to make less tempting targets and began to return Stefan and Henryk’s fire.
“I’m going out there to help them!” Martens muttered, starting past Wingate.
Wingate reached out swiftly and caught the man by the elbow. “You’ll wait for my order, Martens!” he told him angrily, flinging him back into the trees.
“Then give it, Captain!”
Wingate took a deep breath. He would have to deal with Martens later. Looking about at the others, he said, “Spread out and keep low. Don’t bunch up. And remember to keep the Germans in our cross fire.” He looked at Martens. “You stay with me.”
The Belgian shrugged.
“Let’s go!” Wingate said.
They charged from the woods, spreading out rapidly, and were halfway across the field before the Germans caught sight of them. Wingate heard the Germans calling out a warning to their comrades and saw a few of them get to their feet to meet this new threat. They were immediately cut down by the partisans’ fire from the fieldstone wall behind them.
That was when Wingate opened up on the demoralized Germans, Martens and the others letting loose also. The cross fire was devastating. Before Wingate and his men had covered another ten yards, the Germans who were not hit, now numbering four in all including the officer, flung down their weapons and raised their arms over their heads.
“Bitte! Bitte!” they cried.
“Almost too easy,” muttered Regnais, as he disarmed the SS captain and stuck the man’s big Walther HP into his belt. Then he and the others swiftly disarmed the remaining Germans, while the two partisans, unscathed, worked their way over the bloody ground where the German dead and wounded lay, taking from the bodies what weapons and valuables they could find.
Wingate turned back to the German officer. “I am Captain Wingate, Captain. You and your men are my prisoners of war.”
With cold correctness, the officer said, in meticulous English, “I am Captain Hans Reitsch.”
When Wingate offered to shake his hand, the German looked at the extended palm as if it were a contagion. Fixing Wingate with a withering glance, he said, “If I am not mistaken, Captain, you are the fools who have come for that Jew.”
“We have come for Aaron Stern, yes,” Wingate replied.
“Your mission is over, Captain. We found him in Kutno and left our mark on that foolish town for harboring him.” He glanced back with some satisfaction at the glowing skyline. With the coming of night, the glow from the fires had become even brighter. “The Jew is dead, Captain. We have killed him,” the SS captain boasted insolently. “All your efforts have come to nothing. You will not take that Jew back with you.”
“You are a liar.”
The captain squared his shoulders. He was not used to being addressed in this fashion, especially by sub humans. There was about him the unmistakable aroma of death. On the crown of his officer’s cap, he wore the death’s head insignia, indicating he was a member of the 3rd SS Panzer Division, the dreaded Totenkopf, a division formed from the ranks of former concentration camp personnel. There had been some dark, alarming talk in London about these concentration camps, most of which Wingate found difficult to believe—and yet disturbingly difficult to dismiss out of hand.
“So I am a liar, Amerikaner,” the captain said, smiling. “What do you intend to do with me and my men now? German soldiers are everywhere this night. You would do well to surrender to me and my men. I will guarantee your safety. You will be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention, I assure you.”
“Now I know you’re a liar,” Wingate told him.
Wingate turned to Aldini. “You and Martens load our prisoners onto that truck. Bind them and gag them. We’ll take the truck into Kutno.” He beckoned to Regnais. “You like to drive German transport so much, Regnais, drive that armored car and the staff car deep into the woods. Lose them. The Jerries will find out soon enough what happened here, but let’s not make it easy for them.”
Regnais nodded and started on a trot across the field toward the German transport.
Henryk and Stefan had finished picking over the dead and wounded, Wingate noticed. He called them over and asked if they wanted to go back or go on into Kutno with him and his men.
“We go with you to Kutno,” Stefan replied quickly.
Henryk nodded grimly. “Maybe we find more SS to kill.”
Both men were heavily laden with assorted German machine pistols and submachine guns. Over their shoulders each had slung a crushing load of ammo belts.
“And more weapons?” Wingate asked.
“Yes,” said Henryk, without smiling. “More weapons for the underground.”
Wingate saw no harm in that. Pushing Captain Reitsch before him, he started for the truck.
Most of the fires had burned themselves out by the time Wingate and his men drove into Kutno. It was pitch dark by then, and thick smoke hung heavily in the gloom, shrouding what streetlamps were still lit. The sidewalks were crowded with suddenly destitute townspeople. Some turned away as the German truck roared past them. Others raised clenched fists defiantly.
Wingate was sitting between Regnais, who was at the wheel, and Aldini. They were wearing SS tunics and hats they had borrowed from their prisoners. Martens and the two partisans were in the back of the truck with the prisoners.
Wingate glanced at Regnais. The man’s face was somber, and had been the moment they started driving through the ravaged town. The devastation was truly awesome—Germanic, Wingate noted grimly to himself. The SS had put the torch to entire blocks. The stench of burned things filled the air, and the thick acrid smoke that continued to hug the ground made visibility so poor that Regnais was forced to hit the brakes constantly.
At last Kutno fell away behind them. It had not taken long for them to drive through the town.
“The garage is on this road, not far from Kutno,” Wingate reminded Regnais. “If we don’t get there soon, we may be in trouble.”
“You think that officer was telling it straight, Captain?” Aldini asked. “That he’s already got Stern?”
“No, I don’t. The way they torched this town, then swarmed over that wagon of ours, tells me they must be angry and desperate. If they had what they wanted, they wouldn’t have acted this stupidly. As it is, they must have turned the entire population of Kutno against them.”
“They are Germans, Captain,” said Regnais. “It really doesn’t take much for them to show their fangs. What does a town such as Kutno mean to these SS?”
“Perhaps you are right. But I don’t think they’ve got Stern.”
“There it is,” said Aldini, pointing. “The garage. It’s on the right side of the road.”
“And still intact,” said Regnais.
As Regnais drove up to the garage and slammed on the brakes, Aldini piled out, Wingate on his heels.
“Stay behind the wheel, Regnais,” Wingate told the Frenchman. “We may have to leave here in a hurry.”
Wingate turned then to look over the gas station. It was a converted farmhouse with the garage and offices on the ground floor, the living quarters above it. The place appeared to be deserted. Wingate didn’t like that. The partisan who had called Botnowski was supposed to have remained here until their arrival.
Walking to the rear of the truck, Wingate saw that everything was under control. The German prisoners, their hands tied behind their backs and gags stuffed into their mouths, were sitting on one bench, while Martens and the two partisans sat on the opposite bench, watching them closely. Wingate told Martens that he and Aldini would check out the garage before they unloaded their prisoners. The man nodded grimly, and Wingate hurried toward the gas station, Aldini at his side.
