Blue madonna, p.30
Blue Madonna, page 30
I glanced at my watch: ten minutes to go. We crawled a few more yards and halted, the sandbagged emplacement about twenty-five yards straight ahead. Moonlight glinted off the long twenty-millimeter gun barrel as the gunner in his bucket seat swiveled back and forth, idly searching the starlit sky. He depressed the barrel and aimed it right along the bridge, and we both instinctively ducked. Seconds later it pointed skyward again, the routine of a bored crew playing out as we closed in around them.
A scrabble of rocks fell to the water to my left. Maurice? I watched the emplacement but saw no reaction, just the lazy movements of the gun above the sandbags. The sandbags we desperately needed.
One minute before two. I’d expected to catch a glimpse of Maurice by now, but he was either well hidden or not in place yet. I scanned the field ahead, watching for signs of an unexpected patrol. It was quiet. Tobacco smoke drifted in the breeze, along with murmurs and a quick, cutting laugh. Peaceful, in an odd sort of way.
The Germans heard the engine as we did. Two of them moved to the side, leaning on the waist-high sandbags to see who was coming. Curious, not alarmed, since it was probably normal for an officer to make the rounds. The smoker flicked his cigarette in the air, the glowing tip arcing toward me before hitting the ground. In the dark, two thin slits of light approached the Germans, demanding attention. It was what we counted on.
We rose, crouching, ready to sprint, knives unsheathed. The vehicle drew closer. I made myself count to three, not wanting to jump the gun. That’s funny, I thought, then tapped Dogbite and launched myself, head down, watching the ground ahead, careful not to trip or give any warning. I ran over the still-smoldering cigarette, my stride lengthening, and saw a figure in the Kübelwagen stand, arm extended. Two figures within the emplacement dropped as I timed my leap, jumping over the sandbags and stabbing the first German I blundered into, my knife going between his ribs as he looked me in the eye before the blade sliced into his heart and stopped everything. Pushing him aside, I scrambled around the gun, grabbing at the gunner’s helmet, trying to pull him off his seat before he could squeeze off a shot and alert every Kraut within a mile.
Too late, I saw it was a waste of time. The bullet hole in his helmet marked him as dead already. Dogbite grabbed a Kraut who had one leg over the sandbags, slit his throat, and pulled him back in. Six down, or maybe all seven, if Dogbite had gotten two. Where was Maurice?
Instinctively I put my arm up as I sensed movement from the side. A shovel hit me and bounced against the gun barrel, and I felt a boot in my gut. I reeled backward as a German vaulted the sandbags, running in the direction of the next emplacement. I bolted after him, barely able to get a lungful of air as I recovered from the kick he’d given me. An officer, judging by his fancy black boots, which didn’t do much for his running style. I was on him as he gasped out a cry, taking him to the ground and falling on top of him, crushing the Achtung or whatever he’d been trying to scream right out of him. He punched at me, trying to throw me off, terror in his eyes as he realized his mistake and went to grab my knife hand instead.
Too late.
With all the force I could muster, I plunged the knife into his chest, once, twice, then a third time. He gasped, one hand still in the air, his fingers fluttering like an injured bird trying to fly away. It hit the ground, and he was dead. I rolled off, pulling the blade from his chest, and noticed something about him.
He looked like me.
Same build, same color hair, even the same color eyes. A mouth and chin I easily recognized.
“You got him, Billy!” Kaz whispered, kneeling at my side. “We did it!”
“Yeah. Help me hide the body, okay?” We rolled him down the riverbank. I didn’t say anything about his looks. I thought maybe I was seeing things. I didn’t know which would be worse, killing my double or imagining my face on a man I stabbed to death.
We ran back to the gun where the sandbags were already being removed and hustled out to the viaduct. Maurice was in the Kübelwagen, one leg up on the rear seat.
“He is sorry,” Christine said, as Maurice grimaced and nodded. “He slipped on the rocks. His leg may be broken.”
“We’ll get him somewhere safe when we’re done,” I said, figuring the Resistance had a friendly doctor or two in the area. I joined the group pulling sandbags and running them to the bridge. The burlap sacks were heavy and clumsy, and the best I could manage was one balanced on each shoulder. I dumped my first load near the rope tied off on the railing, where Topper had climbed to the first chamber, about five feet below. Knapsacks were being lowered by another rope and pulled in by a Maquis assisting Topper in the tight chamber.
“How’s it going?” I asked, keeping my voice as low as possible.
“I’ll need twenty minutes or so,” Topper said, sticking his head out. “I wish we had more cordex. I had no idea how long this damn bridge was.” He went back to work, and I ran for another load of sandbags. Cordex—we Yanks called it detcord—was faster than a fuse; when you set it off, the entire length exploded at once. Topper was running the detcord through blocks of gelignite. When he was done, he’d run it as far as he could along the bridge and connect a blasting cap, which would ignite the whole damn thing.
Being far enough away was pretty important.
I loaded Kaz up with two sandbags and hoisted another pair myself. Back when I’d first met Kaz, in the spring of ’42, he probably couldn’t have lifted one of these, much less run with two. War changed people. I bet both of us would scare the hell out of our former selves. I knew I wouldn’t want to have met this new me in a darkened Boston alleyway.
When I got back for another load, the man we’d left to guard the Chérisy road was driving off with Maurice.
“I told them to wait down the road,” Christine said, running back from the railroad tracks. “We can’t leave Maurice alone in case something happens.”
“Good idea. Anything happening in that direction?” I pointed downriver, where we thought the Hitlerjugend might be boarding a train.
“I felt the tracks vibrate, then stop. It means the train may have halted a mile or so away.”
“Jesus, they could be on us any time,” I said.
“Perhaps we should ready the twenty-millimeter gun?” Kaz said.
“It’s not enough,” I said. “We might stop the engine, but we can’t take on a whole trainload of SS. Let’s get the job done and hope the timing works out.”
Christine eyed the twenty-millimeter and the stacks of ammo, and I knew she wanted to exact more revenge for Coudray. I did, too, but from a safe distance.
At the bridge, I dumped the sandbags and let myself down the rope to check on progress. Topper was bent over in the small circular chamber, a spool of detcord in his hand, a stack of sandbags about a foot high in front of him. “Done,” he said, handing me the detcord as he crawled out. “Let’s get the rest of the sandbags down. The more the better.”
I climbed back up as the Maquis began handing the bags over the rail, fire brigade style. I handed the detcord to Topper, who began running it along the iron railing that ran waist high the length of the viaduct. I ran in the other direction to tell Juliet and Sonya we were almost done.
“Anything?” I whispered when I found them at a curve in the tracks.
“No,” Sonya said, resting her Sten gun on the rock she’d hidden behind. “We can hear the Germans on the hill when the wind is right, but they’re not close.”
I told them about Christine feeling the rails.
“That’s not good,” Juliet said. “The Germans are known to patrol vulnerable stretches of rail when a troop train is due to pass through.”
“Perhaps they think this area well guarded,” Sonya said.
“I hope. Listen, I’ll come get you when we’re done with the sandbags. We’ll have to hurry. We have more bridge than detonating cord, it seems.”
I ran back. Topper wanted even more sandbags. We relayed another thirty, pretty much the last of them, and he thought we might have a chance.
“Damn thing is too well made,” he said, lowering himself down the rope to pack in the last of the bags himself.
“Vibrations,” Christine said, her hand resting on the rail. “We don’t have much time.”
“Pull me up,” Topper said, grasping my hand. “I’ll get the cord set. Toss the rope over.”
I made for Juliet and Sonya, stopping in my tracks at the sound of gunfire. From the direction of the Chérisy road came a volley of rifle fire and repeated bursts of machine guns. German patrols. Had they found Maurice? I raced ahead slouching low as I advanced, Thompson at the ready.
Sonya spotted me. She was hidden behind a rock, pointing down the track. A German patrol, four or five men that I could see, advancing at quickstep in response to the shooting across the bridge.
Things were going to get noisy. And deadly.
We couldn’t pull back across the bridge; they’d be on us before Topper was ready. Shots picked up again across the river, and I began to worry we’d be trapped on this side if the Germans won that fight. Juliet and I were hidden behind the curve of the track, Sonya in the rocks ahead. The Germans entered a narrow cut, their boots echoing on the thick wooden ties. Even in the dark, they were bunched together. Easy targets.
Juliet whispered, “Now?” Sonya looked to me. I nodded, taking out a grenade from my jacket. I pulled the pin, let the safety go, and waited two seconds, then threw it into their midst.
An explosion, screams, and then I stood on the tracks, emptying the Thompson into whoever was left standing. One Kraut was still in business with his submachine gun, and I scrambled to the other side of the tracks as I reloaded. Sonya and Juliet each kept up with bursts from their Stens, forcing him to stay under cover. I crawled forward, looking to get an angle on him. Then I saw the grenade. The German potato masher with its wooden handle, sailing end over end. I yelled a warning, and then dove behind a rock, firing as the Kraut made his run for it, only to get a burst of .45 rounds in his back.
The grenade bounced about ten yards out. I huddled behind the rock as it exploded, the sound deafening in the narrow railway cut.
There were no screams. Only the silence that settled in after a fight, overlaid with the scent of blood, gunpowder, and violence. I checked the Germans to be sure they were dead. It needed to be done, but it gave me a few seconds to prepare.
I turned and saw Juliet standing over the body of Sonya.
“She’s dead,” Juliet said, her voice ready to break. I felt nothing but relief, relief that Juliet—my Diana—was alive. The fact that another person was dead would sink in later, I knew, and I’d be ashamed. But now, I only cared about life. Her life.
“Yes, but we have to go. Now.” I tried to take her by the arm.
“No, Billy. We can’t leave Sonya.”
“There’s no time to worry about the dead.”
“It’s the living I worry about,” she said. “The Germans will try to trace the identities of anyone they find. We don’t carry our papers, but she’s well known in the area.”
Of course. I hadn’t thought of that. I knelt, picking up Sonya’s shattered body, blood oozing from a terrible wound on her back. She’d tried to outrun the grenade, or hadn’t seen it in time. Either way, it didn’t matter. Sonya was gone, as was whoever she had once been.
Her body was slippery, the blood coating my hands and making it hard to keep a grasp on her dead weight as I stumbled along the railroad tracks.
“Here,” Kaz said, gesturing with his hand for us to hurry. He was at the end of the bridge, near the base where Maurice had broken his leg. Topper was busy connecting blasting caps to the end of the detcord.
“Oh, no,” Christine said as I approached, Sonya cradled in my arms. Her face crumpled. Then she recovered, calling for two Maquis, who took the body and headed downstream, leaving me exhausted and with bloodstained hands. “Maurice is dead. They fought off the patrol, but at least one got away. We must hurry.”
“Done here,” Topper said, wrapping waterproof tape around the blasting cap connections. We followed him down the riverbank as he unspooled the last of the detcord, stopping not twenty feet away. “That’s it. I connect the detonator to the caps, and Bob’s your uncle.”
“We’re awfully close,” I said.
“That’s all the wire I have. I’d head back if I were you,” Topper said with a fierce grin. “This place will soon be crawling with Germans, followed by flying debris, I hope.”
“I, for one, would hate to miss the spectacle,” Kaz said. “But perhaps we could move back for a better view.”
“We should wait for the train,” Christine said, and issued a sharp order to her remaining men, who disappeared into the brush. “They will cover our escape. But we must try for the train.”
“Those Hitlerjugend bastards?” Topper said. She nodded. So did Kaz. So did I.
We waited.
Topper had run the detcord under the iron railing. It was pulled taut, looped around the stanchions every yard or so. All the Germans had to do was look in the right place, but they were focused on the railbed, not thinking about the round chambers on the side of the stonework. Two patrols swept up and down the viaduct, flashlight beams on the tracks, looking for dynamite under the steel rails. Shouts and commands echoed from the bridge, the lights fading as the Krauts walked back to where the train had halted. Maybe they thought they’d fought off the Maquis before charges could be set, or that it had been an ambush gone wrong.
“Look, it’s the SS,” Kaz whispered. He was right. Under the bright moon, their dappled camouflage tunics stood out clearly. These patrols were from the Hitlerjugend, not the Luftwaffe flak crews or security troops. Who might have wondered where all the sandbags had gone.
“They must have halted the train when they heard the shooting and taken over the search,” Topper said, connecting the ends of the wire to the detonator.
“And now they will pay,” Christine whispered. No one moved back, but we did take cover behind the boulders and driftwood at the edge of the riverbank. The granite stonework shone in the moonlight like a giant beast straddling the river.
A sound. The scuff of a boot on stone. The snap of a small twig.
A heavier sound—the hissing chug of a locomotive.
From where we were, we couldn’t see the train, but the mechanical sounds of the steam engine and the cars jolting forward told us it was getting closer. Topper grasped the detonator handle.
Shadows moved in front of us. Two, three men, making their way down the riverbank. The last of the patrol, perhaps. One of them turned to look at the bridge and the approaching train, which was picking up speed. He said something in a weary voice, which I imagined to be along the lines of, Let’s get the hell out of here.
Then one of them knelt. He picked up the detcord and tugged at it. Topper grabbed hold of the wire, making sure the connections didn’t come loose. Still no train on the bridge.
Now the three Germans were crouched low, rifles aimed forward, the lead man holding the detcord, letting it trail through his hand, trying not to give any warning of their approach, never thinking the demolition team would be so close.
I saw the flash of a knife. One of the Germans was about to slice the detcord.
A puff of steam close to the bridge, and in a second the train was in view, louder and faster.
Kaz and Christine stood, aiming their Welrod pistols at the three men. They fired.
The train pulled onto the bridge, the locomotive nearly to where the explosives were set.
One man dropped, the only noise the clatter of his rifle on stone. More shots, these audible now, soft pop-pops that felled another German.
Topper twisted the plunger.
The explosion was a blast of jolting sound echoing along the river: a core of flames blindingly bright for a split second, followed by black smoke belching from the hole as bits of stone and showers of burning debris spread out in front of us.
The last German standing looked dully at what was left of his hand, which had been blown apart by the detcord he’d been holding. Dogbite let him have a burst from his Thompson, ending the German’s misery before it even registered.
The viaduct stood. The train started to cross the bridge, sparks flying as the engineer applied the air brake. But there was too much momentum, and as the locomotive continued on, the train seemed to pick up speed as if the engineer was racing to get over before the structure collapsed. As the dust settled, I could see the blast site more clearly. Everything looked intact.
The locomotive reached the center of the bridge, which held. Then, slowly, pieces of stone began to fall from the arch. The locomotive continued forward, the following cars wobbling as their steel wheels clacked over the rails. Finally, a large chunk of granite tumbled from under the railbed and fell into the river. A flatcar with two tanks slipped from the track, twisting and snapping its coupler, beginning a slow slide off the bridge. The wheels on the far side of the car almost caught and held onto the edge until the next car, and the next, smashed into it, starting a chain reaction that left the flatcar and four passenger cars shattered in the riverbed below. Bodies spilled out onto the rocks and were swept away in the water.
The tail end of the train ground to a halt, sparks flying as the emergency brakes were pulled. One more car tumbled over and burst into flames.
It was time to go.
Christine stood, her fists clenched as she shouted, “Coudray!” but the Germans could not hear her above the screams and cries of their injured and dying.
