Mac wingate 3, p.17
Mac Wingate 3, page 17
Cursing volubly in German, he lifted his Sten and cut down the approaching Italians. Before the three sentries could react, Kowalski and Lubbock had loosed a short but efficient burst on them as well.
“Move!” cried Wingate. “Plant those bombs! I want at least two on each tank, one for sure on each intake valve. I’ll see to the pump station and the tank cars!”
As a result of the silencers, the gunfire did not seem to have alerted any other Italians in the vicinity. Working swiftly, Wingate planted Lewis bombs in all the trucks, not neglecting the tank hatch whenever it was reasonably accessible, then entered the pump station.
Two Italian sailors were asleep, their heads down on a card table, a greasy deck of cards between them. Wingate sighed and clubbed each one swiftly with the butt of his .45, then dragged them from the building into the protection of the bluff. Here, at least, they had a chance of surviving the holocaust about to be visited on this portion of the base.
Back inside the station, he planted three bombs and ducked out in time to meet Lubbock and Kowalski.
“How many bombs have you got left?” Wingate asked.
“Two,” said Lubbock.
“Three,” said Kowalski, almost apologetically.
“Plant them under those pipes near the docks,” Wingate told Kowalski. “Use fifteen-minute fuses. Lubbock and I will meet you in the dinghy. Have it ready to cast off.”
Kowalski vanished toward the docks.
“Let’s go, Lubbock,” Wingate said. “There’s supposed to be a magazine down this way.”
“Captain,” said Lubbock nervously, “those fuses back there were only set for half an hour, and you told Kowalski to use fifteen-minute fuses near the dock.”
“That’s right. We’ve got plenty of time.”
And then Wingate saw the entrance to the magazine, a squat, boxlike concrete structure huddled against the bluff. Wingate had no difficulty imagining the interior, hollowed out of the cliffside with German thoroughness and stacked with torpedoes, deadly fish awaiting their mission in the icy darkness of the Mediterranean. After the destruction of the recently completed sub pens at Kastelli, there were considerably more subs than usual at this naval base, too many to be destroyed individually.
The next best thing would be to destroy their torpedoes. It had not been on Wingate’s agenda for this particular raid, but he could not see how he could pass it up. After all, so far—as Sweeney would have said—this raid had been a piece of cake.
As they approached the entrance, a German—not an Italian—sentry stepped out of the shadows. As Wingate approached the wary sentry, he noticed the door leading into the magazine. It was carbon steel.
Wingate pulled up in front of the sentry. The insignia on Wingate’s greatcoat were those of a lieutenant. The sentry saluted him. Wingate returned the salute.
“The battle in Canea is not going well,” Wingate told the sentry in perfect German. “You must be alert for saboteurs. Some Cretan guerrillas have already infiltrated the base. Have you noticed anything suspicious?”
“Nein, Herr Leutnant!” the sentry barked back.
“I must speak to your comrades inside,” Wingate told the German. “Open the door! Schnell!”
The sentry turned and quickly knocked with the butt of his rifle. A tiny opening appeared in the center of the door. The sentry told the man behind the door what Wingate wanted. There was a slight argument. Something Wingate could not catch entirely, dealing with proper procedure. The Teutonic passion for details might yet stop Wingate.
“Schnell! Schnell!” Wingate cried. “The base is overrun with saboteurs and you are worrying about correct procedures! Idiot!”
The tiny opening vanished and a moment later the ponderous door swung wide and out stepped a German officer, a major. He was at least ten years Wingate’s senior and his pale face was livid as he strode toward Wingate.
“Shit,” Wingate said, as he raised his Sten and cut the major in half. Beside him, Lubbock was also firing on the sentry. As the sentry and the major were flung, lifeless, to the dark ground, Wingate charged through the door and into the magazine.
The gunfire had been muffled, but it had been enough to alert the Germans inside. Four of them, visible by the light of an eerie green bulb screwed into the wall beside the door, were reaching for their rifles as they hurried toward the entrance. Aiming carefully, and doing his best to keep his bullets low, Wingate fired on them. It took three bursts for Lubbock and Wingate to stop them.
“We haven’t time for the Lewis bombs!” Wingate shouted to Lubbock. “Use your grenades! All of them!”
Lubbock gaped in astonishment at Wingate.
“That’s an order, man! Do it!”
With a fatalistic shrug, Lubbock followed Wingate’s example and began tossing live grenades into the darkness beyond the reach of the small green light. Wingate got rid of four, Lubbock three. Before the first fragmentation grenade detonated, Wingate turned and bolted from the place, Lubbock on his heels.
As the two men raced toward the dock through the darkness, the grenades started going off. They sounded like a string of muffled firecrackers. Wingate and Lubbock were almost to the dock when the magazine went. The blast lifted both of them with the strength of a mighty hand and flung them head over heels. Wingate came to rest against one of the fuel pipes leading from the storage depot, his head ringing.
Sprawled on his belly, he glanced back at the magazine. A white pillar of flame was reaching hundreds of feet into the night sky as the titanic detonation blasted the cavern, sending tons of rock and debris skyward. The awesome shock wave, a thunderclap of sound, seemed to have crushed both of his eardrums. Then came the searing heat, followed by the deep-throated rumbling as the tons of rock toppled back down upon the shuddering ground of the naval base.
“Let’s go!” Wingate cried, grabbing the still-cowering Lubbock by the sleeve. “We’ve got to get out of here! This is just the beginning.”
That reminder was enough for Lubbock. He was on his feet in an instant, racing alongside Wingate toward the dinghy bobbing in the water just beyond the dock. A dark form was crouched in it. Not trusting his voice now that he could no longer hear, Wingate waved.
Kowalski waved back.
Fourteen
German soldiers saw Wingate and Lubbock racing down the dock, and by the time the three men had paddled back to the far side of the wire fence, the German soldiers were firing on them with submachine guns, the Italians with their rifles, as they followed along the shoreline parallel to the fence.
That was when the fuel tanks blew, one by one, each blast sending tongues of flame higher than its predecessor into the hellish night sky. Then Kowalski’s bomb detonated. A brilliant arrow of fire swept up the beach from the docks and struck the blazing tanks, adding one more dimension to the roiling clouds of fire and smoke that pumped skyward.
The searing heat caused Wingate to duck behind the gunwales of the dinghy and when he looked up finally, he saw that the Germans and Italians who had been firing on them had simply vanished.
When they reached the narrow dirt road along the bluff east of the naval base, it was 0330. Wingate glanced still further eastward, his eyes searching the night skyline. What he saw disturbed him. Or rather, what he did not see. The airfield at Rethymnon lay in that direction. Stephanos and his men should have attacked the same time Clive began his assault on Canea. By this time, therefore, there should be a brightening glow in the eastern sky—as the Stukas and Junkers began blowing sky-high.
Wingate glanced back at the naval base. It was a blazing beacon lighting the sky and the waters of the bay, causing the Italian cruisers and destroyers anchored there to stand out sharply. The battle in Canea was still raging, despite the fact that Clive had orders to pull out once the Suda Bay naval base went.
Wingate wanted to join Clive’s forces in Canea. He and Alexis might need help.
But when he glanced to the east again, he found no comforting glow in the sky. Even if Stephanos and his men were using half-hour fuses, there had to be some gunfire by this time. The guerrillas had been given the bulk of the Bren machine guns and their major assignment had been to assault the base with the intent of wiping out as many of the German pilots and mechanics as they could find. This was not to be simply a hit-and-run attack, but a planned assault that would take the airfield over completely.
“Damn it,” Wingate muttered to himself as he continued to search the eastern sky.
Wingate glanced at his watch. It was past time, well past time. The assault on the air base could not have been initiated on schedule.
“What’s wrong, Captain?” asked Kowalski nervously. He and Lubbock were obviously not happy to be standing by the side of the road in this fashion. They had expected to be on their way out of this by now. Soon, they were sure, the area would be swarming with German patrols.
“I wish I knew what was wrong, Kowalski,” Wingate replied. “Stephanos and his men do not seem to have attacked the air base at Rethymnon yet.”
“What the hell’s keeping them?”
“I think we might have to go and find out.”
“That’s a long way, isn’t it, Captain?”
“Stay on this road and start walking. There should be German traffic before long, and we’re wearing German greatcoats and helmets, don’t forget.”
Both men shuddered. They knew at once what Wingate intended. He was going to flag down any German vehicle that showed itself and then drive them to the airfield at Rethymnon. Their night’s work had only begun, it seemed.
The German truck roared at them out of the night about fifteen minutes later. It seemed heavily laden and anxious to escape the fires that still lit the skies over Canea. Wingate stepped out into the middle of the road and held up his left arm casually, his Sten resting in the crook of his right arm. It had already been established that Kowalski and Lubbock would remain in the shadows alongside the road, ready to add their fire to Wingate’s if that were needed.
The truck did not seem to want to slow down.
Wingate held his ground, nevertheless, his left arm still outstretched.
At the last minute, the truck driver slammed on his brakes. The truck swerved dangerously, and in order to avoid hitting Wingate, slued off the dirt road and bumped to a halt along the narrow shoulder.
That was when Wingate saw the second truck following just as recklessly after the first one.
“Shit,” muttered Wingate unhappily. Anything they did now to the driver and occupants of this halted truck would be perfectly visible in this second vehicle’s headlights. For a moment, Wingate considered waving the first truck on.
But it was already too late for that. They would simply have to take on the drivers and occupants of both trucks. And the sooner the action began, the sooner it would be over.
Stepping swiftly to the driver’s side of the truck, Wingate yanked back the cocking lever of his Sten and pointed the muzzle up at the driver. “Traitors!” he cried in perfect German. “You are fleeing your comrades! Get out of this truck!”
“I say, Mac,” came Clive’s voice from beside the driver. “I believe you’ve confused us with those ruddy Jerries.”
Astonished, Wingate lowered his Sten. At the same moment Clive’s irregulars poured out of the rear of the truck, weapons at the ready, and swept in a line behind Wingate. The second German truck, its brakes squealing, slammed to a skidding stop behind them. And beyond that truck, further down the road, Wingate glimpsed the headlights of what appeared to be at least three more.
Wingate was surrounded by his allies.
Racing through the night toward Rethymnon, Clive gave Wingate the details of his raid on the two garrisons in Canea, finishing up with superlatives for the courage and audacity of his royalist allies, led by Alexis and the one-legged ancient, Zervas. The guerrillas were in the last truck while Clive talked, two of their Brens aimed at the road behind them, ready for any pursuit.
But none of them were worrying all that much about pursuit, according to Clive. The devastation wrought by Wingate’s marvelous little bombs on the naval base below the city had so thoroughly demoralized both the German and the Italian garrisons that it was a comparatively simple matter for Clive and his men to commandeer these trucks and roar out of the stunned village of Canea.
“The explosions did considerable damage to Canea, then. How much?” Wingate asked. Making use of his German helmet and greatcoat, he was now driving the lead truck so that if they were stopped by a German roadblock, he would have some chance of bluffing his way through.
“Considerable, old boy,” Clive replied, chuckling. “It seems that magazine you blew up had been tunneled out of the cliff directly under the German garrison, and most of the debris that blasted skyward landed on the Italian garrison and its somewhat battered defenders. A divine inspiration, that. I really must congratulate you for a bloody good show. There was nothing in that briefing about blowing up any magazine. Those petrol tanks and the pumping station were supposed to be your sole targets, if I am not mistaken.”
“You aren’t mistaken. But once I was in that base, I couldn’t see leaving without at least a try at blowing up that magazine. Even if all I could use were the few grenades we had left.”
“Grenades? You didn’t use your Lewis bombs?”
“Didn’t have the time.”
“I’m surprised grenades were able to do such a job.”
“Ever hear of sympathetic detonation?”
“I remember hearing of some such thing. But I haven’t the foggiest notion what it means, old boy.”
“Just what it says, Clive. Those exploding grenades Lubbock and I tossed into that magazine set off the vibrations that detonated those tons of waiting explosives.”
“Rather dicey, wasn’t it?”
Wingate glanced at Clive and smiled. “Yes, rather. But I remembered what a job it did for us when Stearns blew the magazine at Kastelli.”
“And now you think Stephanos is not doing his job.”
“That’s putting it mildly, Clive. We’re almost there. Look how quiet and peaceful the sky ahead of us looks. Those Stukas are still on that airfield, their pilots waiting for the order to take off. Can you imagine what that will do to those British ships and any chance they might have of getting us off this island alive?”
“I see what you mean,” replied Clive grimly.
Wingate was manhandling the wheel, cutting sharply to make a curve, when his headlights picked out two telegraph poles flung across the narrow coast road just ahead of him. Wingate swore. His headlights had also illuminated some figures crouching in the rocks alongside the road. A few of the men’s faces were vaguely familiar. Guerrillas. Stephanos’s guerillas!
“What in bloody hell ... !” cried Clive.
“Hang on!” cried Wingate. “We’re going through!”
Stomping on the accelerator, Wingate ducked his head low and drove straight for the middle of the two poles. He was hoping that his first impression, that the poles were a little high to be effective, would prove out. It did. He crashed into the first, then the second pole, flipping them both back into the darkness. As the truck rode on through, the other trucks following at the same pace, gunfire erupted from the rocks on both sides of the road.
But they were soon past the roadblock and the guerrillas. A quarter of a mile further on, Wingate pulled up and got out to inspect the damage. It was light. Clive and Alexis checked on their men. No one had been hit.
“How far are we from Rethymnon, would you say?” Wingate asked Clive grimly as he and Alexis approached him after completing their inspection.
It was Alexis who answered. “It is less than a quarter of a mile further, Captain. The airfield is on the other side of the town.”
“If I didn’t have more important business,” said Wingate, “I’d like to go back after those damn guerrillas.”
“My men would appreciate that assignment, Captain,” said Alexis quickly. “You and Clive can go on to the airfield. Zervas and our men will make sure you have an unobstructed route back to Suda Bay.”
“I was hoping you’d say that, Alexis,” Wingate responded, smiling. “Try not to kill that devil, Stephanos. I’d like to find out just what the hell he is up to, if I could.”
“That will not be easy, Captain,” Alexis replied soberly, “but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Unload your gear then and get back there. Take those Brens and whatever else you think you might need. Expect us after you see the sky light up.”
Alexis nodded, turned and hurried off to get his men and equipment on their way. Wingate glanced at his watch. 0400. They didn’t have much time left.
“Clive,” Wingate said, “assemble the men around this lead truck. I think they should know what we’re going into, and what we’re going to do when we get there. And tell Lubbock and Kowalski I’d like them to come on the double.”
“Certainly,” Clive said, heading for the rear of their truck.
Watching him go, Wingate had a momentary qualm. There was no time now to take the airfield over. They would have to be content with a hit-and-run raid and the destruction of as many German fighters and bombers as they could accomplish under those circumstances. As a result, what he was about to propose to these men might very likely prevent a good many of them from ever greeting those landing parties coming to rescue them this morning. Yet if they didn’t act now and act decisively, there would more than likely be no landing parties for any of them.
Wingate was in the rear of the first truck, crouched down beside Kowalski and Lubbock, the barrel of a Bren almost resting against his cheek as its snout poked out the rear. Clive, wearing Wingate’s German helmet and greatcoat, was driving the truck. The Englishman was driving as fast or faster than Wingate had suggested. The grinding of the transmission under the floorboards was almost deafening. Glancing out at the trucks following, Wingate was pleased to see how close they were keeping to each other.
