Mac wingate 11, p.4
Mac Wingate 11, page 4
“They certainly don’t look as if they’re rushing off to tell the Germans of our whereabouts,” Cobb said slowly.
“But what if they are?” Jackson asked with intensity.
“Then let’s change our position,” Wingate suggested. “Even if they pound this spot with all the fury they have up there, we won’t be around.”
“Let’s go,” Steiner added, moving off in the lead.
The plan seemed to relieve Jackson somewhat. Wingate had seen the man’s back, neck and shoulder muscles bunch impressively when he was about to go into action, but now the lumpy knots began to untie themselves.
Wingate’s mental knots, however, remained securely bound. The sight of anyone roaming the hills in the Adrano area was enough to give him pause. It meant either there were some Italians the Nazis would not rain their firepower on, or the Germans themselves had foot patrols encircling the perimeter of their position, just in case the Eighth Army tried something like Wingate was trying to do. Either way, the quartet would have to tread quickly and softly.
That’s exactly what they did, moving through the woods to the northwest around the German’s PAK post. All Mac wanted to do was see what was on the other side of the mountain, not do close-up work down the barrel of an 88. So the group was able to stay in the protecting cover of the trees, foliage and other hills—effectively blocking them from the Nazis’ wrath.
The only problem that caused was one of time. Taking such a long, circuitous route meant that the sunlight weakened severely before they were all the way around the mountain’s base. And with the coming of night, there came a renewed concentration of Nazi shelling. The enemy in the hills started their nightly shower of fire, pelting the stalled British Army with everything they could throw at them.
The moment the concentrated attack started, Wingate stopped—his hand out, stopping his men, and his head cocked in the direction of the mountain. The only good that came out of the blasting was that Wingate could better gauge the Nazi defenses. In addition to the PAKs, he heard heavy and light machine gun fire, tank blasts, grenades and mortar shells. What would simply be a dangerous din to other ears was specific information for the captain’s practiced senses.
Wingate smiled to himself, pleased at his ability. He lowered his hand and turned away from the Adrano gun site and was about to wave the men forward when he stiffened again. For the first time in the mission, the trio of sergeants misread their superior. Thinking that he was just giving the bombardment a relisten because he missed something, they continued to move forward. But it only took a few steps before they too heard the whirring buzz which seemed to be above the rest of the noise like a parachute above an air corpsman.
The sound seemed to reverberate through the woods like a horde of invisible bees. Steiner looked down in surprise, feeling the vibrations of something coming through the ground, across his feet and up his legs. Wingate’s head snapped up to look between the others at the gathering darkness beyond. As soon as the rustle became obvious amid all the other din, he reacted immediately.
“Take cover!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Follow my lead!”
Wingate raced over to his right, charging for the east edge of the woods. The others had just begun to follow when the gray machine burst between the trunks of two small trees. It was an eleven-foot-high tank. Wingate recognized it instantaneously as the German Panzer 1, the first tank Germany produced after their defeat in the First World War.
Although it was little more than an armored gun carrier, it was a lot more than four running men. The machine tore the small trees across their trunks, splitting open a path with its metal treads. It had taken the mission group almost completely by surprise. Its only mistake was trying to mow down everyone at once.
It hadn’t fired before, because it knew the trees would have gotten in the way. As soon as it broke into the clearing the men were standing in, however, the gunner aimed first at Steiner, who sped off to the left, then twisted his aim at Jackson, who bounded off to the right. By trying to bite off more than he could chew, the gunner wound up hitting only the forest floor.
Cobb, in the meantime, had raced to join Wingate, his long legs making him fleet when he had to be. The two men ran as fast as they could toward the east edge, hearing the tumult behind them while knowing the bullets had yet to center on them.
Wingate suddenly pivoted to his right, slapping his back against a broad tree, whose trunk was between him and the Panzer. Following his commander’s example, Cobb did the same with a tree to his left. Both men looked around the wood and bark to see what had become of their fellows.
They were just in time to witness Steiner leaping over a maze of bushes in his way, somersault and roll back to his feet, still running as the tank ate up the distance between them. The Panzer barreled over the line of shrubbery, burying it under its treads like a lawnmower mulching a yard of cheap paper.
As it crumbled up the foliage, the gunner tried to peg its initial victim again, tearing up the surrounding trees and rocks with 7.92 mm bullets. As Steiner sped across the ground, the bullets all but nipped at his heels, sending up gouts of dirt, bark, leaves and wood shrapnel. Tiny pieces of the blasted trees and rocks seared his face as he desperately drove himself forward. The same thing that kept the Panzer from finding its mark kept Wingate and Cobb from trying to protect their fellow—the obstructions of trees and stones.
Finally, Steiner used those things to his advantage. Feeling the Panzer getting closer, he altered his running pattern so the gunner couldn’t get a clear shot at him. Like a football player, he pivoted and feinted while maintaining an uneven zigzag pattern. While he was running one way, the gunner was trying to aim at where he had just been. Then, when the German compensated by pulling the gun back in the other direction, the Swiss changed again. It seemed as if the Panzer was always shooting where he wasn’t.
Knowing that this strategy would only work for a couple of seconds, Steiner sped for a patch of wood where the trees were thickest. Straightening out his run, he poured on all his speed. The tank kept rolling toward him, knocking over the small trees it had already perforated with its machine-gun bullets. These little things would then collapse forward, almost as if they were the tank’s arms, which were trying to crash down on Steiner’s head.
Avoiding their blows, Steiner kept pushing his legs until he practically felt the machine-gun barrel pressing into his back. Inside the tank, the Nazi gunner let up on his trigger, moving the sights until he thought he had the American dead to rights. But just as he pulled the trigger, Steiner dove forward, looking like he suddenly thought he could fly.
And fly he did, over a large boulder which rested between two huge trees. Steiner dropped on the other side, just as the bullets made a chaotic “connect-the-dots” pattern on the stone’s face. A second after that, the Panzer slammed into the two trees, pushing them forward. But these trees were no pushovers. They bent a bit, then stood firm, their roots deep in the earth. The tank was held in position, its treads spinning.
Steiner had chosen his spot well. Not only couldn’t the Panzer move any further forward, the thing would also have to use an incredible finesse of movement to get a clear shot at the Swiss. But the other three Americans knew that Steiner’s position was not permanently secure. Given the time, the tank could peg him. Jackson wasn’t about to let that happen.
With incredible courage, the bull-headed man approached the Panzer’s rear, trying to find a weak spot in its armament with his grease gun. The .45 caliber bullets flattened and ricocheted off its metal hide like kamikaze mosquitoes on a rhinoceros’s hide. And the Panzer paid as much mind as a rhino would to bugs.
Not taking indifference as an answer, Jackson moved quickly forward, taking a grenade from his jacket as he went. Pulling out the pin, he hurled it at the tank, then dove behind a grassy bluff. The grenade flew through the air, looking to all as if it was going to hit the Panzer’s rear, bounce off and explode harmlessly some feet away.
But just as it was reaching the three-quarter point in its flight, the Mark 11A1 grenade started to dip, like a baseball thrown in the “sinker” style. From his vantage point, Wingate realized that if anyone could throw a grenade with finesse, it would be a California physical education teacher. He had probably been hurling baseballs, footballs and basketballs with the best of them for years. Mac had little doubt that when Jackson threw something, it went where he wanted it to.
Jackson wanted the grenade to drop beneath the tank’s rear, and that’s exactly what it did. Hitting the ground just below the Panzer’s rear lip, the explosive bounced and detonated. Because it was in midair, the shrapnel spread in all directions, rather than just fanning up, so the power of the blast was lessened a little. The ground beneath received as much damage as the tank’s underside. And while the destruction was not enough to incapacitate the tank, it was more than enough to get its attention.
Now it was Jackson’s turn to run as the tank whirled about like an angry lion and charged at the grenade thrower. Wingate knew that while Jackson was in great shape, he wouldn’t have the speed of Steiner. It wouldn’t be long before the Panzer either caught up with Jackson or cut him down.
But even while he was thinking that, an outlandish but workable plan formed in his brain. Jackson’s grenade had given him the idea. Even as the tank started turning, Wingate had pulled the spool of wire and the spool of black tape from his inside jacket pockets.
Taking all of his grenades, he tied wire around their ring pins. Then he taped all three of them together, being careful to leave the “spoons” untied. Spotting a tree that would do the trick, he ran to it, quickly taping the bunch of grenades near its base. This tree was strong and tall enough to hold Mac, but not strong enough to withstand the blast of three Marks.
“Throw me your grenades,” he called to Cobb, who followed the command without question. Wingate nimbly caught the two bombs and started tying them together, with the sticky part of the tape facing out.
“Call Jackson in this direction when I give you ‘thumbs-up,’” Mac went on, while tying wire to Cobb’s ring pins. Putting the whole sticky mess in his pocket, Wingate started climbing the tree like a seasoned lumberjack, while holding the wire attached to the three grenades on the trunk.
Once he got firmly planted in the upper limbs of what he recognized as a hazel tree, he gave Cobb the high sign. The New Englander immediately broke cover and started screaming for Jackson to come in his direction. The brawny man needed no other encouragement. He twisted in his escape path and tried to tear up the forest floor toward his fellow sergeant.
Wingate had just a few seconds to gauge the speed, distance and length of the tank. Working mostly on instinct, he jerked up on the wire attached to the three ring pins taped to the tree trunk, while pulling the other two grenades from his pocket. The pins slid out and the grenade spoons flipped away from the body of the explosives.
Mac watched Jackson approaching as he secured himself among the branches in the few seconds he had left. Cobb saw what Wingate was planning, and could scarcely believe it. Steiner was just coming out from his makeshift fort to try and return Jackson’s favor. Jackson himself was taken completely by surprise when Mac’s three grenades exploded at about the same time, ripping apart the tree trunk.
The tree began to tip lazily over, first to the left of Jackson and the pursuing tank. Wingate hastily lurched to the right, twisting the weakened tree as hard as he could. It was enough to send the thing falling right at the Californian and the Panzer.
The moment the bombs had detonated, Jackson had unavoidably slowed and covered his face. At the same moment the tank’s gunner had aimed at the man, but the blast had diverted his attention. Jackson raced forward and slipped under the falling trunk, so it was between him and the Nazi machine. The gunner and driver looked up just as the tree, with Wingate hidden among the branches, fell on top of them.
Mac survived the fall with teeth-gritting strength, letting the direct hit throw him out of the wooden limbs and across the top of the Panzer—blessedly behind the machine gun slit. Mac fell and rolled across the tank’s side, the ends of the branches ripping at his uniform and flesh. Still he managed to hold on to the grenade pack of two taped explosives with both hands, as he dropped to the ground on his shoulder. To his knowledge, the men in the tank didn’t even know he was there.
Flat on his back, Mac looked up at the treads on the left side of the Panzer. Without waiting, he slammed the two grenades against the undersides of the tread, letting the still-sticky tape adhere to the linked metal. While still holding them there, Mac pulled on the wire, which in turn pulled out the two ring pins. The grenades’ spoons fell onto Wingate’s torso.
Mac sat up quickly, continued the motion and found himself on his feet. So far the plan had worked. He had dropped down on the tank without being seen. Running from the rear of the Panzer, he sweated out the seconds before the second part of the plan would either take effect or fail. He heard the tank begin to pull itself away from the tree, then hurled himself forward as his mental counting reached “four.”
As he hit the dirt, there was the sound of a rending, whistling, cracking blast behind him, then the tortured noise of grinding machinery breaking itself. Wingate somersaulted to land on his back, then rolled onto his stomach to see that the grenades had done their job. They had blasted open a section of the tread, causing the Panzer’s wheels to dig ineffectually into the soft summer ground. The tank was trapped.
That only made the thing crippled, not helpless. With the men inside still alive, the Panzer was still dangerous. Quickly, Mac jumped to his feet and called for the others to attack out of the machine gun’s range. While moving forward, Wingate listened carefully for any sound of the turret opening or commands in German coming from within.
All noise was drowned in the sound of the machine gunner making one last desperate effort to hit the Americans. The Maschinengewehr 34 gun was wrenched from side to side, trying to hit either Cobb or Jackson, who were moving in from the sides, while Mac and Steiner were coming from the back.
In that raucous firing, the turret was wrenched open. Wingate didn’t hear it, but he was expecting it. Both he and Steiner ducked at the same time when the first thing to emerge from the hole was not a white flag or raised hands, but the barrel of a Schmeisser submachine gun. Whoever was on the other end tried to splatter the whole rear area with 9 mm bullets without looking to aim. Between the heavy machine gun and the Schmeisser, it seemed clear that the men inside still hoped to kill everyone.
They just weren’t counting on the Americans’ fast reflexes and athletic ability. While Mac and Steiner avoided the shooting, Jackson instantly took advantage of a “blind spot” between the aims of both German gunners. He ran forward and bounded up on the tank’s side. The machine gunner tried to warn the man in the turret, but the Californian was too quick. Just as the German had done, Jackson stuck the barrel of his M3 over the turret’s lip and pulled the trigger. Whoever was there was scrambled by the point-blank bullets.
Cobb hastily moved forward to back up his compatriot, blasting away at the heavy machine gun slit. The gunner was caught between the two men, and between them, the heavy gun was suddenly stilled.
Wingate let the thankful forest quiet last only for a second. “Check the interior fast and then let’s get out of here,” he commanded. “There may be more of these guys.”
The others needed no more urging. Jackson stood and fired directly down the turret opening, just in case someone was playing possum. Cobb stuck his gun barrel through the front viewfinder and did the same. Nothing could survive their thorough cross fire. As they finished the job, Steiner approached the captain. “Don’t you think it might have been better to try and capture one for interrogation, sir?” he asked civilly.
“Not at the risk of getting one of us killed,” Wingate replied. “Besides we don’t have the time or the energy to shepherd a prisoner or play twenty questions.” That reminded him about the small figures they had seen on the hillside. Although he didn’t deem it likely, they could have reported the Americans’ position to the enemy. If that were the case, the way might be fraught with many more perils.
Wingate looked to the darkening sky, the edges lined in sunset colors of dark blue, purple and red, then decided to bring this initial reconnaissance mission to a quick close. More than anything else, he wanted to get back to the Eighth’s camp and have some light shed on what they wanted him to do and what they could give him to do it with.
“To tell you the truth, Steiner,” he finished up, “I don’t think any German would tell me anything I’d want to know or hear at this point. Let’s move out. Fast.”
As usual, the men responded promptly. All were soon positioned around the captain as he walked quickly toward the east side of the forest. “Anything inside?” Mac asked Jackson.
“Nothing but two dead bodies, lots of ammo and a couple of guns,” the bull-like man reported.
“How about you, Cobb?” Wingate asked lightly, turning to the lanky New Englander. “Got anything to say?”
In reply, Sergeant Dwight Cobb turned his head toward Mac, opened his mouth and suddenly coughed up a fistful of blood. Then he fell forward, a red, drooling hole right between his shoulder blades.
Three
Wingate reacted even before Cobb hit the ground. His sudden turn, while bringing his Sten up, saved his life. He felt a bullet smash into his submachine gun, and then ricochet between his arm and his side. The Sten gun heaved in his hands, almost wrenching itself out of his grasp—a spark shooting up from the weapon’s body. Less than a second after he felt it, he reached out with his left hand and pushed Jackson over. That action saved the Californian’s life.
The bullet meant for the sergeant zipped over Wingate’s arm and splattered against a tree beyond. Jackson, in turn, stumbled against Steiner, knocking him out of sniper aim. That, after all, was what it had to be. Mac had heard no gun concussion, no bullet report. Cobb had been standing right next to him on the right, so the killer must have aimed his silenced rifle at the New Englander first, planning to shoot each man in succession.
