Mac wingate 2, p.6
Mac Wingate 2, page 6
“Maybe you’ve got a better idea, Corporal?”
“Afraid I haven’t.”
“Just keep an eye on things.”
“Mind if I keep my eye—most of the time—on Ruza. That’s some woman.”
“Just your eyes, Corporal. And that’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Wingate moved down the steep mountainside, heading back to the timber, he found himself evolving a plan that went somewhat beyond swiping a pair of boots from a dead Nazi.
More than a pair of boots for him, they needed transportation for his party and for the equipment they were hauling. Ruza’s laughter was genuine—and deserved—when she considered his request for a cart. A cart would not do. But a German staff car would do nicely.
It was much later when Wingate returned to the three. He was wearing a fine pair of German boots that were only a trifle too large for him, and over his regular army uniform he wore the uniform of a Waffen SS Rottenführer, complete with helmet. The experience of moving through that grim woodland, searching and then stripping still-intact bodies, had left him somewhat bleak about the eyes, so that he dropped the two German uniforms in front of McCauley and Sergio with the briefest possible comment.
“Pull these on over your other uniforms. We’re going looking for a German staff car. We’ll drive to Zogu’s stronghold in proper style.”
Watching the two men pull on the pants and struggle into the tunics of the dead soldiers, Wingate reminded himself that if any of them were caught by the Germans with these uniforms on, they would most likely be shot as spies. Sergio and McCauley undoubtedly knew this. Wingate was pleased, therefore, that neither man complained of this additional risk.
Sergio had just about finished struggling into his snug-fitting German uniform when Ruza hushed them and peered over a boulder, gazing down at the village far below. Wingate moved up beside her and peered down also.
The ruins of the village were alive with fresh SS troops. They were poking through the rubble like lice through a dead carcass. Wingate glanced back down the mountainside at the timber he had just left. Germans were pouring through it now, as well.
Ruza looked at him. “I think you lucky when you strip dead Germans. Hurry! Soon the SS will be climbing up here. They are very complete, the butchers.”
Wingate nodded. Ruza was right. The Germans were very complete. Soon this entire countryside would be swarming with Waffen SS looking for Albanian guerrillas to shoot or string up on meat hooks.
“We’ll move out now,” he told her. “We’ll go north, into the mountains.”
That night, under a quarter-moon that gave precious little light, they continued northward through the mountains. It was close to midnight when they came upon a narrow road threading its way through the rocky tableland. Wingate pulled up gratefully and told the others to take a break. Ruza, without a word from him, had taken up a heavy load of explosives on her back. Now, exhausted, she dropped silently to the rocky ground. Sergio and McCauley joined her, the three speaking softly. McCauley passed out cigarettes. As the three lit up, their talk was warm and friendly. The men spoke to Ruza in voices filled with concern for her welfare.
Slipping out of his harness and lowering his pack to the ground, Wingate addressed McCauley. “Corporal, I’m going to reconnoiter this road. Stay loose up here.”
“Sure, Captain.”
Wingate found the road to be quite narrow. In some spots it was barely wide enough to allow one vehicle to pass, let alone two. The surface was not paved, but was reasonably hard-packed. It evidently got plenty of hard usage. At last he found a narrow hairpin turn that wound through a ravine. It was just what he was looking for, and he hurried back to the others to outline his plan to them.
By the early hours of the morning, Wingate’s small force was poised over the road, waiting for a German staff car. McCauley and Ruza were in the rocks above the ravine and had a clear view of the road’s approaches. Sergio was with Wingate in the rocks beside the road. Day broke and Wingate was astonished at how hungry he was. The morning passed without event.
It was the middle of the afternoon before traffic appeared on the road. Two German troop carriers, crammed with SS, all of them singing what sounded like a ribald German drinking song, swept through the ravine. The trucks were forced to slow almost to a complete halt as they negotiated the turn. Not long afterward, a German on a motorcycle sped into the pass and almost collided with the rocky walls before slowing down. He recovered quickly, however, and sped on. After that, nothing.
Wingate was about to give up and break out the rations when Sergio grabbed Wingate’s sleeve and pointed to McCauley high in the rocks. The corporal was standing, with both hands holding his Sten over his head. A staff car, finally. Wingate pulled back the cocking lever on his Sten and nodded curtly to Sergio. The Italian darted across the road and into a cluster of rocks.
Wingate heard the powerful engine, then the clash of gears as its driver shifted down on entering the hairpin turn. The car swept into view. It was a high, open car with its top neatly folded down. In addition to the driver, there were two occupants—German officers. Both of them appeared to be immersed in a genial conversation and paid little heed as their driver slowed almost to a complete halt in order to negotiate the turn.
Wingate strode from cover, his right hand held up stiffly in the Nazi salute. At the same moment, he cried out, “Halten!”
The driver slammed on his brakes and the two officers leaned forward anxiously, sudden frowns on their cold, Teutonic faces. The nearest one spoke sharply, asking Wingate what in hell the delay was. But Wingate had no time for explanations.
Still striding toward the staff car, he lifted his Sten and sprayed the two German officers. There was a sudden unpleasant distortion to both their features. They were flung back violently, as if a bloody wind had caught them, the nearest German slamming back hard against his companion. Jammed into the corner of the seat, they stayed upright, staring sightlessly at Wingate, a thin red trickle of blood creeping down from the corner of the nearest German’s mouth.
The driver had leaped to his feet at once and flung both hands into the air. As Wingate swung his Sten around to cover him, he cried, “Kamerad! Kamerad!”
Sergio opened fire on the German from the other side. His fire cut the man down with brutal suddenness and flung him toward Wingate, his upper torso draping over the car door, his dark blood puddling the dusty road.
McCauley and Ruza clambered down from the rocks. McCauley shouted, “Hurry it up, Captain! There are two trucks coming!”
Wingate dragged out the nearest German, and as he dropped the body down behind some rocks, McCauley and Sergio dragged out the other two and hid them on the far side of the road. Then they all joined Ruza in lugging their equipment into the car and dumping it onto the floor of the back seat. They worked quickly, silently. As had been decided earlier, Sergio and Ruza got in the front seat. Sergio would be their Italian chauffeur. As Sergio settled himself down behind the wheel, he complained about the blood on the seat.
Wingate snapped, “Drive, Sergio! What the hell do you think the corporal and I are sitting in back here? Spaghetti sauce?”
Sergio drove the rest of the way through the hairpin curve, and once out of the ravine, accelerated sharply. Wingate looked back. For a considerable time he saw nothing. Then the two trucks appeared. Their drivers had apparently noticed nothing unusual in the pass and kept right on. Wingate looked back at Sergio.
“Faster, Sergio,” he told the Italian. “Get well ahead of those trucks. As soon as they are out of sight, look for a place to turn off the road. We’ll keep hidden until its dark, then move out.”
“Captain,” said McCauley, “we’re all pretty hungry. Maybe we could break out some of those GI rations.”
“I think I’d rather stay hungry.”
McCauley shrugged and settled back in the gore.
But they did not have to settle for the GI rations, after all. A little after dark that night, they drove into a village familiar to Ruza and pulled to a stop beside a darkened bakery. Ruza got out with Sergio, went to the rear of the bakery and returned soon after with a large wicker basket of rolls and butter and cheese, and three bottles of wine. They drove off, gorging themselves, swept across a narrow bridge just north of Tirana, passed an Albanian peasant leading his mule cart, with a perfunctory toot on their horn, and kept on into the mountains.
Wingate was ready to lean back and congratulate himself on the ease with which they had negotiated the fifty miles when the staff car swept around a sharp curve in the mountain road, and they found themselves pulling up behind what appeared to be a sizable German convoy. Sergio swore softly in Italian and slammed on his brakes.
“Don’t slow too swiftly,” Wingate warned him sharply. “Just pull back gradually until they are well ahead of us. Then we’ll pull off the road and give them plenty of distance.” But then Wingate saw a German in the last armored car waving them on, urging them to pass.
“Now what?” McCauley muttered.
“Pass them, Sergio,” said Wingate. “And tell Ruza to look her prettiest and smile as provocatively as she can at each German we pass.”
“Si,” Sergio said unhappily as he began to accelerate. “And if any of these krauts shout any questions, you answer, Sergio, in Italian. Say we’re on our way to Yugoslavia for a holiday. Got that?”
The Italian nodded without enthusiasm and began instructing Ruza.
“Ruza hear what captain say,” she snapped. “I know how to look at Germans!”
When they first climbed into the car, McCauley had started to throw out the blood-stained officer’s cap he had found on the seat. Wingate had restrained him, telling the corporal they would soon find use for it, blood and all.
Now, as he reached down for one of the caps, he said, “Put on that officer’s cap, corporal, and keep your eyes straight ahead. In the darkness we just might pass for German officers, and they pay little attention to their inferiors, especially when they are on their way to a well-deserved vacation in Belgrade.”
“Yes, sir, Captain,” McCauley said unhappily, as he clapped on the officer’s cap and kept his head rigidly straight.
“But keep your finger on the Sten’s trigger.”
“You didn’t have to tell me that, Captain.”
They pulled up closer to the last armored car, then Sergio swung out and moved slowly past three more armored cars. Soon after, he overtook the first of four large German lorries, the impassive Germans sitting on their bench seats inside glancing stolidly down at them as they crept past. After the trucks came two German staff cars. Well ahead of these Wingate saw two more armored cars.
They passed the first staff car without a hail. But the next staff car had curious German officers in the back seat. As Sergio pulled abreast of them, the German in the nearest seat leaned over and shouted at them in German.
Sergio shouted back at them, while Wingate and McCauley swung their faces stiffly toward the Germans. Evidently Sergio told them what Wingate had suggested, since approving laughter erupted from the staff car. Ruza turned to face the Nazis and smiled, then waved. The Germans waved back—enviously, Wingate thought—then leaned back in their seats. Sergio pulled ahead of the staff car and began to overtake the first of the armored cars.
“I think we made it,” said McCauley tightly.
Wingate heard Sergio swear suddenly, fervently.
“What is it, Sergio?” Wingate demanded, leaning forward in his seat.
“Look to our right, Captain,” Sergio said, his voice tight.
Wingate did so. He saw only black nothingness and then realized he was looking down into an enormous gorge. The mountain road was clinging to the side of an almost perpendicular wall of rock. The moon was out of sight beyond the mountains, but there was enough light for Wingate to be able to glimpse, after a moment or so, the tiny fingers of pine trees silhouetted against the flat white gleam of a placid lake far below.
“Jesus,” said McCauley, as he joined Wingate in looking over the edge.
“Drive carefully, Sergio,” Wingate said, leaning back in his seat. “Especially when you pass.”
Sergio muttered something unintelligible as he guided the car carefully past the first of the two armored cars. The Germans in the car waved casually. Wingate and McCauley ignored this breach of Germanic discipline, but Ruza waved and smiled. As they swept past the armored car, it seemed to Wingate that the Germans appreciated Ruza’s kindness.
It was a while before they overtook the lead German armored car. As they drew abreast of it, someone in the German car shone a brilliant light into the staff car, playing it first upon Wingate and McCauley, then upon Ruza and Sergio. While it was fastened upon Ruza, Wingate lifted his Sten. Then a second light stabbed into the car, this time fastening its gleam upon the Sten in Wingate’s hands. A moment later it shifted to Wingate’s head and shoulders. Wingate swore. The German wielding the light was about to catch the discrepancy between a German officer’s cap and an SS Rottenführer’s arm patch.
“Fire!” Wingate cried to McCauley. “Let them have it!” Both men opened up on the armored car. The German standing in the open turret flung his flashlight into the sky and disappeared from sight. The rest of his fire Wingate poured into the wide slotted windows of the car and at once the second torch winked out. The armored car swerved away from them. A shower of sparks erupted as its left fender struck the wall of rock on the other side of the road.
“Faster, Sergio!” Wingate shouted. “Get past him before he takes us over with him!”
The staff car surged forward. And not a moment too soon. The combined fire from Wingate and McCauley had evidently taken out not only the curious German with the searchlight, but the driver as well. As Sergio pulled ahead of it, the armored car, still traveling at a good clip, sheared away from the rocks and swung violently to the right. Looking back, Wingate watched as the car shot off the road and into the black void. Tipping slowly to the accompaniment of fading screams, it plunged out of sight. A few moments later there was a dim explosion from far below—and a sudden, leaping halo of light.
“Get ready to slow down, Sergio!” Wingate cried.
“Captain!” shrieked Sergio. “We must go faster! Now the Germans know!”
“You heard me, Sergio. Don’t speed up. And when I tell you to slow down, do it, and do it fast. No questions. That’s an order. Did you hear me?”
“Yes, Captain,” Sergio responded miserably. He shook his head despairingly. “And I thought the Nazis were crazy!”
“What’ve you got in mind, Captain?” McCauley asked.
“That second armored car is gaining on us now. Those Germans are pretty damn anxious to overtake us and blow us off the road.”
McCauley glanced nervously back at the gaining German car. “I can see that, Captain,” he said.
“And right now they’re out of range of our guns. At the moment they’re probably readying their long gun. I figure we’ll have to slow down to get in range. If we slow fast enough, it’ll raise hell with their aim. By the time they adjust, we’ll be spraying them with our Stens.”
“All we’ve got is 9 mm slugs, Captain.”
“It’ll have to do.”
“Let me get a grenade out of this sack,” McCauley said. “You stick to the Sten. I’ll show you what kind of an arm I got.”
“Good idea.”
Wingate had been looking back during this conversation. The armored car was gradually overtaking them, but it was still more than two hundred yards back, well out of range of Wingate’s Sten—and McCauley’s arm.
“Slow down, Sergio!” Wingate cried. “Fast.”
Wingate felt the car’s brakes take hold suddenly. At once the armored car appeared to rush upon them out of the night. Wingate heard the rattle of the German’s machine gun. Hot lead whipped through the night air past them, and some of the rounds punched into the rear of the staff car.
“Get down, Ruza!” Wingate cried, his eyes on the fast approaching armored car. “And keep down!”
“He’s getting pretty damn close, Captain!” said McCauley. Wingate nodded. The corporal was right. “Now!” he cried, opening up with his Sten. “Pull away, Sergio! Floor it!”
The armored car’s small cannon bellowed, sending murderous traceries of flame into the night sky. But though their machine gun fire was close—too close for comfort—their cannon fire was too long. Exhausting a clip, Wingate slammed another one home. As he did so, McCauley stood suddenly and threw the grenade. Caught in the armored car’s lights, it bounced on the road, then vanished as the German car swept over it. At almost the same instant the grenade went off.
The car appeared to lift, as if a giant hand had flicked its rear into the air. The headlights winked out. There was a sudden explosion of sparks. Wingate caught sight of something dark and untidy tumbling in darkness—and then it followed the first armored car off the road and into the void. Its gas tank blew while it was still falling through the night.
“All right, Sergio! Slow down.”
Sergio cursed, loudly, but the staff car slowed obediently.
“I don’t blame Sergio,” said McCauley. “Now what, Captain?”
“We might as well finish what we started. Here come those staff cars. Get out another grenade.”
As the first German staff car roared closer, Wingate could hear the Germans inside firing at them with handguns. He grinned and waited. Sergio slowed still more. The German car loomed swiftly out of the night. Gunfire winked in the blackness as the officers continued to fire at them. McCauley stood up and heaved his second grenade. It was a fine shot, but the grenade bounced off the staff car’s right fender and exploded harmlessly in the air behind it.
Sergio swept around a corner. Wingate felt the tires skidding slightly on the gravel road. But the Italian corrected smartly, and the staff car clung to the narrow highway. It was now beginning to drop swiftly, Wingate noted. He heard Sergio suddenly shift down. The pursuing German staff car’s headlights appeared suddenly from around the bend. The car was now much closer. McCauley was fumbling in the sack for another grenade.
