Mac wingate 11, p.3
Mac Wingate 11, page 3
“I’ll need ten to twelve men,” Wingate quickly deduced, “with five pack mules to carry our equipment over the rough terrain. On them I’ll need five bazookas with eight shells each. Once I do a quick reconnaissance of the area, I’ll need a five-pound block of gelignite to blow each of the gun’s breeches, then maybe some spare blocks just in case. To supplement those, I’ll need a general assortment of lanyard, ring pin and plunger detonators. And, of course, I’ll need rifles, side arms, ammunition and rations for the men. And, finally, only if you can spare it, a light machine gun—maybe a Browning fifty caliber just in case.”
Patton blinked. Erikson said, “You can’t have it.”
It was Wingate’s turn to blink. “Excuse me, sir?” he said. His worst nightmare was coming true. After all the missions where he had made miracles out of spit, snot and sweat, he was always afraid that Erikson was going to send him into Berlin with a feather and orders to make Himmler laugh himself to death. Or something to that effect. And now, it looked like his time had come.
“We can’t give you that equipment,” Erikson repeated. “I thought you understood.”
“I thought I did too,” Wingate admitted, confused. “What exactly are you telling me, sir?”
“We cannot give you guns, we cannot give you bombs, we can’t even give you the time of day!” Patton exploded, angry not at Wingate, but at Montgomery, the Allied High Command and the war in general. “Headquarters is sending three sergeants to assist you and that’s all. We’re to see to it that you rendezvous with them, then pat you on the butt and wish you a happy holiday.”
Wingate looked disbelievingly from the general to the colonel, then repeated the head movement. When he finally settled his stare on Erikson, the Norwegian had an expression which mixed grave seriousness with sincere sympathy.
“Good luck, Captain,” he said. “You’re going to need it.”
Two
Mac Wingate’s shoulders jerked as if unconnected to the rest of his torso when another PAK 88 thunderclap split the afternoon sky. Time was of such importance that he couldn’t even wait until nightfall to do his initial scouting. No, time was of such essence that he had had to leave Patton’s headquarters as soon as the shock had worn off, jump back into the old Deuce truck with only Patton’s corporal as company and lurch ninety miles back south to the captured and reshaped Comiso airfield to meet the three stooges HQ was sending.
Thankfully, the trio did not get off the plane hitting themselves over the heads and smacking each other in the face with custard pies. Actually the three sergeants looked composed and capable. Wingate had to trust first impressions because he didn’t have time for anything else.
Wesley Thomas Jackson emerged from the craft first, the Sicilian sun shining off his bullet-shaped head and blond crewcut hair. He was about the same height as Wingate, but even wider and more muscular. Essentially he was a human-shaped animal, taking equal parts from a nearly hairless ape—especially his long arms—and a bull.
Dwight Cobb was next, a dark-haired, dour-faced, lanky New Englander, from the tang in his quiet voice when he introduced himself to the practical, precise way he approached everything he did. He was robust in body and spirit, but not in action unless he had to be. He kept up with everyone else, but seemingly in slow motion.
Finally, out bounced Gert Steiner, the very picture of Euro-American good health. His rich flaxen hair was in a short pageboy haircut, his forehead and face were wide and ruddy, and his six foot, one and a half inch body looked modeled from classic Greek sculpture. He could have posed for some of the statues in the piazza, Wingate figured.
It wasn’t a dozen men, the captain continued thinking, but at least it looked like three good ones. He introduced himself even as the group was hustled by the corporal into a Bedford truck. Wingate could guess what the next leg of their journey would be, given that the Bedford was the absolute mainstay of the British Army as far as transport was concerned. It was a four-wheeled monster with a wooden flatbed and an exposed, outside fuel tank.
Wingate decided to stay in the back with his new men rather than sit up front with the corporal. After all, his life was depending on Jackson, Cobb and Steiner, not Patton’s little helper. On the forty-mile trip from the Comiso airfield to the Paterno airfield—just ten miles from the east coast—the quartet had a chance to become better acquainted.
After telling them all he knew about the mission and pumping them for all they knew, Wingate had little choice but to simmer in silence or get more personal information. He decided on the latter. Just because things looked miserable was no reason not to get on the best side of his men.
Besides, he’d have to know what they were capable of if he wasn’t going to make some bad battlefield mistakes.
The bull-like Jackson hailed from the sunny shores of California, where he taught physical education at a small college, which explained his impressive physique. Cobb’s home nestled comfortably on the border between Massachusetts and Maine, where he worked on his family’s farm. Steiner turned out to be of Swiss descent and was the co-owner and trainer at a mountaineering school in Vermont.
Wingate felt a kinship with all three men, since he too took good care of his body, lived on a farm while growing up, and felt comfortable walking, resting or camping in the wild. Each man seemed to be an extension of three individual parts of Wingate’s personality. Each man was an example of what Wingate would have turned out like had he followed any of his other roads besides engineering. He was only sorry that he was getting the three like-inclined men into this particular mission.
“Let me get this straight,” Cobb ruminated slowly. “All we have to do is clear one pass for the British Army.”
“But this pass is the mouth of a valley which is guarded by a mountainside full of Nazi guns,” Jackson reminded him.
“Anyone know how many guns there are?” Steiner asked. Wingate shook his head, with a frown. “Know what kind of perimeter defenses?” the Swiss-American continued. The captain again replied in the negative. “Know what kind of patrols protect it?” Mac had to say no a third time.
With mock horror, Jackson reared back, shouting, “What am I doing here?”
At the same time, Steiner pulled his army knife out of its scabbard on his belt and placed the blade nonchalantly on his wrist. Responding to Cobb’s questioning look, he said, “Might as well get it over with now and save all the time and expense.”
Surprisingly, everyone laughed instead of getting depressed. Each man played his part with a sense of humor rather than any actual fear. It was a very, very good sign. To Wingate, it meant that each man was sure of himself and his own abilities. These guys were joking around because they thought they had a good chance of doing the job right and getting out of it alive.
“OK,” Wingate interrupted the levity, smiling for the first time since hitting the Sicilian shores. “Now we know what we’re up against ...”
“Or now we don’t know what we’re up against,” Steiner quipped, renewing the laughter.
“Point taken,” agreed Mac, “but let’s see what we’ve got on our side. Anybody here know Italian?”
He was answered by silence.
“I ate Italian once,” Jackson offered finally.
“I occasionally use the salad dressing,” Steiner murmured.
“Anybody know the layout of Adrano?” Wingate queried further. Again, no one thought of an affirmative answer. “Anyone know the layout of Sicily?” the captain tried desperately. Same response. “Italy?”
To that he got a general murmur of assent. “It’s shaped like a boot, right?” he heard Steiner say.
“All right, all right,” Wingate interrupted. “I can see this is getting us nowhere. Let’s try something easier. Were you briefed on Field Marshal Montgomery’s position and plans?”
Once more, the trio had nothing to report. “Does anybody have any idea what kind of cooperation we can expect from the British?” Wingate asked with great exasperation.
The only sound was from the truck’s engine and wheels. Finally Cobb looked over at Steiner and put his hand out. “Say, friend,” he said, “could you let me borrow that knife after you’re through with it?”
The subsequent laughter mingled with the rolling rumble of the mountain PAKs in Wingate’s mind. He remembered that they had gotten to where units of the British forces were resting, only to be unable to make contact with anyone of high enough rank or knowledge to help them. Finally, after waiting for almost five hours, Wingate remembered what Erikson had said about the time restrictions. Reminding himself that he was the leader of a special mission team, Mac gave the order for a reconnaissance.
That was what landed him on his haunches at the base of the mountain chain north of Adrano, his shoulders shaking every time the guns blasted out their message of ill will toward men. It wasn’t as if he’d never get used to violent concussions. He had felt, and caused, many of them even before the war started. Wingate was sure that, given time, he could live up to the image of the soldier who didn’t even blink whenever an 88 mm gun went off nearby. He imagined it would only take about five years. A decade at tops.
Pulling his mind off whimsy and onto the matter at hand, Wingate continued to scribble down drawings of the area and information as it entered his mind. He had crawled around the place for more than an hour now, and as far as he could tell, there were about a half dozen guns making themselves heard. And those six were installed just under the summit up close to each other.
Even though it seemed as if a bombing could catch them from the sky or an attack could get them from all sides, the location afforded a criminal superiority. The valley was open before them, making sitting ducks out of anyone or anything that moved closer than where Wingate sat. And the mountainside was structured in such a way that, even if a bomber could get close enough, it would be nearly impossible to score a debilitating hit. And even if the planes could get close enough, these PAKs were originally antiaircraft guns. It was only in North Africa that the krauts discovered that they were versatile enough to blast things much closer to the ground.
The way Wingate figured it, the guns of Adrano could remain where they were indefinitely—pounding the living crap out of the Eighth—until a stronger German force arrived to fall on the British like a second blitz.
Wingate was not at all happy about the circumstances. He now knew where the guns were, how many guns there were, what the guns looked like and the best way to destroy them once he got his hands on them. Now all he had to do was get his hands on them. Only he had no idea how he was going to pull that one off. And he wouldn’t, either, until he got his can off the rocks and around the hill’s base.
Humming a perverted version of “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain When She Comes,” Mac stuffed the papers inside his shirt, pushed himself up to a bent-over stance and ran as quick as he was able back to the section of forest where he had left the others. He had told the men that there was no reason for all of them to risk their skins up close since he would be the only one who understood why they were hanging around within PAK range in the first place.
As he sped from hiding place to hiding place back toward the woods, Wingate pictured clearly in his mind what they were dealing with. The Panzerabwehrkanone 43 was a heavy mother, weighing some eight thousand pounds with a barrel length of two hundred and sixty-one inches—in layman’s terms, more than twenty-one feet. How they got such a thing that high on the mountain under the Eighth’s noses was anyone’s guess.
But once it got there, there was no stopping the deadly device. Because the barrel was so long, the thing had terrific penetrating power, incredible velocity and amazing accuracy. Wingate had heard stories how the PAK could blast enemy vehicles perfectly at a range of two miles. Any closer and the effect was that much more devastating. The thing could blow away the turret of a tank like a shotgun blasting apart a dandelion.
So now he knew what he was dealing with. The only question that remained was what he was going to do about it. He had the front end of some ideas, and he hoped the three others back in the woods would help him find the tail. As Wingate ran in a zigzag pattern from rock to shrub, he thought about the trio of sergeants.
To their credit, they were fine physical specimens. But they were men with talents looking for a use. Besides their natural ability, it seemed as if they were not individually suited for this campaign. They, like Wingate, were being thrown into the deep end of the pool to see if they would sink or swim. Thankfully, they looked like swimmers.
That much was obvious when Mac returned to the patch of forest. Instead of waiting for him or asking questions, the three instantly fanned out when they saw Mac approach—making sure the last leg of his run was “covered.” They were ready to defend him in case someone was dogging his steps. But as soon as he reached the rocky, shrub-covered rise they had been behind, and nothing appeared in his wake, all three returned to his side and waited for his next order.
An immediate camaraderie had bound the four together. They trusted each other because they had to. So far, that trust was validated. Each man had gained the others’ respect from actions and honest words. Suddenly Wingate was glad these men were sent in lieu of some Italian speaking milquetoast who didn’t know his ass from his Sten gun.
“There’s no way we’re walking up this side unless any of you can do an accurate impersonation of a tree, bush or rolling stone,” Wingate said quietly.
“I, for one, gather no moss,” Steiner mumbled.
“We’ve got to make a quick check of the mountain’s circumference,” the captain continued. “Maybe there’s a way up the other side.”
Cobb squinted into the sky. “Sun’s going down,” he said. “We better hurry if we want to see anything today.”
“My words exactly,” Wingate agreed. “Stay down and stay together. Let’s go.”
Wingate knew he didn’t have to say, “Keep your eyes open.” These guys were already looking for anything that might mean trouble. Thankfully, HQ had outfitted them—or they had supplied themselves—to be able to handle most of the problems that came their way. Everyone was dressed in dark green and each man carried an army knife, canteen and .45 automatic on their belts, two grenades on their coats, and a M3 “grease gun” under their arms.
The quartet went smoothly on their way, the mountain-top artillery continuing to supply a shuddering soundtrack to their movements. They continued to move slowly but surely, the enemy seemingly oblivious of their existence. Even though they seemed to be working under the Germans’ noses, Wingate didn’t like it. Not only was he sneaking just under the view of the Nazis, but he was just under the view of the Americans and British as well.
Here they were, supposedly starting an absolutely vital assignment for the Allies, but if something happened, no one would know about it. Patton and Erikson were now in the dark, waiting for HQ to tell them how Wingate was making out, and they had yet to get in touch with Montgomery or any other British contact. They could either be killed or walk out of the war, and no one would be the wiser for days.
Wingate’s thoughts were interrupted by a hand on his arm. From its long, bony structure, he guessed correctly that it was Cobb who had stopped him. Looking up at the New Englander, he saw the man was looking off through the trees. Following his gaze, Mac saw the distant, dim shapes of several figures on a faraway hillside.
Wingate immediately froze in place, seeing that the others had done the same some seconds ago. He had to hand it to them. He had trusted them so much that he had left the forward scouting up to them unconsciously. Jackson, Cobb and Steiner were now pressing themselves against the trunks of three trees, the looks on their intent faces saying that they hoped they were not spotted by whoever was on the distant incline.
Wingate slowly lowered himself to a crouch and watched the faraway figures in the dusk with as much depth as he could get his eyes to muster. Cobb’s spotting of them was just a matter of position and coincidence. They just happened to be standing in his sightlines between some trees. At this distance, they couldn’t have heard anything, but it was possible that they could have seen the Americans’ shadowy forms in the dimming sunshine.
“Can anyone count how many there are?” Wingate whispered from his kneeling position.
“I saw four clearly,” Jackson answered just as softly.
“Could be half a dozen or more,” Steiner said. “Their shapes are moving in and out of each other.”
“Hard to tell in this situation,” Cobb concluded. “Their forms seem to wave and change shape.”
“They’re small,” Wingate mused. “Hardly examples of the ‘perfect Aryan stock’ we’re used to.”
“Italians?” Steiner suggested.
“Could be,” Wingate retorted.
“But Italian what?” Cobb asked. “They could be shepherds tending their flocks just over the rise ... or they could be Nazi sympathizers spotting for the German guns.”
Jackson was rising almost immediately, his M3 submachine gun out in front of him. “We better not take any chances then,” he said, moving forward.
Wingate was beside him just as fast, his hand holding on to the crook of Jackson’s arm. “Exactly,” he said quietly. “No reason to take a chance.”
“But, sir,” Jackson responded, “they might have seen us.”
“They might not have,” Wingate answered him. “The risk of trying to kill them would be worse than just toughing it out. Besides, if they have seen us, we couldn’t sneak up on them without their taking shelter over the hill. And if they haven’t seen us, we’d be giving away our position to the mountain guns by breaking cover.”
“Captain, look,” Steiner interrupted. “They’re moving away.”
Wingate gazed upward again, seeing that the half dozen or so small figures were indeed drifting over the hill’s horizon, seemingly unconcerned.
