Mac wingate 2, p.4
Mac Wingate 2, page 4
Wingate heard the others stirring as well and turned his head. McCauley was struggling to his feet, his eyes on the village below them. When he saw Wingate was awake also, he glided silently over, dropping down on one knee beside the captain.
“Just our luck, huh. Captain,” he grumbled unhappily. “There’s our village just beyond that road. We could have slept under sheets last night if we’d gone a little further.” He shook his head in exasperation.
“Maybe we could have and maybe not,” Wingate replied. “We don’t know which village it is, or if the village is loyal or not. Hell, we don’t know where we are in this country. We may be north of Tirana, and then again we could be anywhere in the mountains west or south of Tirana.”
“So what do we do, Captain?”
“Reconnoiter before it gets much lighter. You want to try it?”
“Sure.”
“Watch out for dogs.”
“Anything else?”
“We’re in occupied territory, don’t forget. Watch out for any German or Italian garrisons.” Wingate smiled then. “And try not to scare any young girls.”
McCauley turned toward the ridge and was almost to it when he froze. Wingate paused also, and turned quickly to look at Bruckner and Cappiello. They had heard the sound also: the harsh tramp of jackboots, and mixed with it, the high, chirping sound of tank treads. Beckoning the two men to join him, he moved up beside McCauley and peered down at the road. Two ranks of Waffen SS troops were marching along the center of the road. Wingate estimated there were at least twenty soldiers in each rank. Behind the SS infantrymen came two ancient Panzer III tanks, and behind them four armored cars. The Panzers had seen better days. The first Panzer had lost many of its side skirt panels, and those that remained looked quite bent out of shape. The Panzer had been damaged about the cupola, having lost one of its periscope guards. Both tanks were camouflaged with a dirty yellow undercoat over sprayed with an olive green.
As the Panzers rumbled closer, the ominous tramping of the SS jackboots halted abruptly. The SS turned on command to face the wall. Their officer barked a second command. The SS men scaled the wall, fanned out and filtered through the orchard, heading toward the village. By that time the two tanks were between the village and the ridge where Wingate and his small party were crouching. Both tanks halted and began to swing their turrets toward the village, the snouts of their 50 mm cannons rising ominously. The SS troops had now stopped their advance and were positioning themselves among the trees, waiting for the tanks to open up. The four armored cars had already continued past the tanks and were now out of sight around a sharp bend in the road. They were evidently being positioned on the other side of the village, where they could open up on the fleeing villagers.
Except for the squeak of one of the turrets directly below Wingate, the morning was as silent as death. Wingate fought an irrational impulse to stand up and shout a warning to the inhabitants of the sleeping village.
As both turrets steadied, McCauley looked at Wingate. “We got to do something, Captain!”
“I agree,” said Wingate. “But what, exactly.”
“Open up on those tanks.”
“With Sten guns?”
“It’ll warn the villagers.”
“Yes. I was considering that. But we have a mission, don’t forget. Sten guns against a Panzer’s cannon is pretty foolhardy. Brave and gallant, but foolhardy. And if we buy it here on this ridge, our mission is over before it has begun.”
“I know, Captain, but—”
The sound of hatch covers slamming open came clearly to them. Glancing back down at the road, Wingate saw the two tank commanders, binoculars trained on the village, standing in the turrets.
“We could pick them off,” McCauley said, releasing the safety on his Sten gun.
Wingate nodded without a word and released the safety on his own submachine gun and pulled himself closer to the ridge. As he did so, he turned to Bruckner and Cappiello, motioning them to pick emplacements further down the ridge.
Cappiello nodded obediently, but something in Bruckner’s eyes alerted Wingate. He pretended to direct his attention back down to the two tank commanders below him on the road—then suddenly glanced around at Bruckner.
The man was in the act of pulling up his Sten gun, its muzzle pointed at Wingate and McCauley, a look of pure triumph on his handsome Aryan face. As Wingate swung the muzzle of his own Sten gun around toward Bruckner, he heard McCauley swearing in sudden dismay. The German fired, his Sten gun chattering.
Wingate returned the fire, his first burst catching the German in the chest. Bruckner was blown back against a projecting wall of rock. Wingate’s second blast caught Bruckner higher. The German’s face vanished into a dark smudge against the rock’s surface, and what was left of the man collapsed to the ground. A startled, awestruck Cappiello was on his feet beyond the rock, frozen into immobility.
Wingate motioned him to get down, then turned his attention back to the tank commanders below. They had heard the chatter of Wingate’s submachine gun and were hastily scanning the ridge with their binoculars.
“Fire on them!” Wingate cried.
McCauley did not need a second invitation. His first burst caught the farthest tank commander, causing him to slump backward, then hang over the cupola ring like a bloody flag. Wingate’s burst whanged off the other Panzer’s armor, but he was certain he had hit the commander, even though the man was able to drop down into the hatch opening and pull the hatch cover shut behind him.
“That’s enough!” cried Wingate to McCauley. “We’ve alerted the village! Let’s get our asses out of here!”
Swiftly, they stripped the German of his equipment, the explosives especially. Wingate had purposely aimed high when he cut the Nazi down; otherwise, they might have all been blown sky-high. Helping Wingate strip the German, McCauley muttered unhappily at the Nazi’s perfidy, and the fact that now he had to lug the Bren light machine gun. When he picked up the German’s Sten gun, Wingate told him to let Cappiello carry it.
“But why, Captain? Shouldn’t we disarm the wop? How can we trust him now?”
“Because,” Wingate replied, snatching up the last grenade from the German’s belt, “both Stens are loaded with blanks.”
“Blanks!”
“You heard me.”
McCauley grinned suddenly and flipped the Sten at Cappiello.
Wingate knew the Italian understood what he had just told the corporal. As Cappiello stared wide-eyed at him, Wingate nodded curtly at the man. “That’s right, Cappiello. Your Sten is also loaded with blanks. Colonel Holloway agreed to my switching the ammo before we took off.”
“But ... but I am defenseless!” cried Cappiello.
“No, you aren’t,” said McCauley. “Not as long as you stick with us.”
Muttering unhappily and shaking his head, Cappiello argued no further. As Wingate led the way deeper into the rocks, the Italian, carrying the two useless Stens, shifted his load higher onto his shoulders and followed Wingate. McCauley, watching him like a hawk, kept close on his heels.
“You were taking a hell of a risk, weren’t you, Captain?” he called out to Wingate, a grim smile on his face. “How come you knew that without any bullets there’d be enough pressure to trigger the automatic mechanism?”
“I didn’t,” said Wingate. “But I figured the front end wadding would do the same job. I was right, wasn’t I?”
McCauley shrugged. “Thank Christ it worked. I was wondering how come that Nazi was such a lousy shot.”
Before the ridge disappeared behind them, a sudden rattle of gunfire erupted beyond it. The three kept moving, their heads down, only occasionally glancing back at the ridge. Wingate was almost certain the SS troopers were too busy with the villagers to bother going after them—until close German submachine gun fire made them both drop to the ground and crawl for cover among the rocks. The hot lead poured down on them in long, ripping burps typical of the German MP-40s.
The sun was up by this time, burning off the mist. Wingate searched the rocks above them and caught a movement. Watching carefully, he saw light glinting off a steel helmet. A short burst from Wingate’s Sten caused the helmet to vanish. Wingate plucked the pin from one of his grenades and lofted it toward the German.
The explosion silenced the German burp gun, but immediately thereafter fire from two other positions high above them kept them pinned to the ground. As the bullets slammed into the ground around them, Wingate motioned McCauley and the Italian to move out—fast.
“I’ll cover you,” Wingate told the corporal. “Now get moving. Head for that timber on the slope. Then keep right on going through. We’ve got to lose these bastards!”
McCauley nodded. Wingate turned his attention back to the rocks above him and poured a steady fire at the two German positions. The corporal, keeping his ass low, backed out of the narrow defile under Wingate’s covering fire. Cappiello was sticking close beside him. Once Wingate saw them heading up the slope, he moved steadily backward after them, still pouring a steady stream of fire at the two Germans.
He had finished a clip when a German stielgranate shot through the air toward him. Wingate flung himself behind a boulder. The potato masher struck the boulder and bounced beyond it. A second later the ground shook under Wingate. He slapped another clip into his Sten, scrambled to his feet and raced out of the defile and up the slope, German fire tracking him, digging closely at his heels. Covering fire from the timber was what saved him, and as he reached the protection of the timber, he found it was McCauley crouched behind a tree who had been providing it.
Flopping down beside the corporal, Wingate said, “Thanks. But I told you two to keep moving!”
“Aw, hell, Captain. I couldn’t leave you like that. You was as naked as a jaybird coming up that slope. Besides, we’ve already been surrounded. These krauts must’ve known we were coming!”
Wingate saw the German troops filtering through the rocks below. The rough ground seemed lousy with them. He heard distant, sharp, guttural commands.
“Where’s the Italian?” Wingate asked.
“ Covering our rear.”
“You know that for a fact, do you?”
“That’s what I told him to do, Captain. The other side of this small patch of timber offers no cover at all. It’s just a long field with Germans on the other side. The poor wop was sweating some when I left him.”
“Hell, he’s still shooting blanks, isn’t he?”
“No, sir. I gave him live clips.”
“You trust him—after what that Nazi did?”
“Do we have any choice, Captain?”
Wingate laughed shortly. “No,” he said emphatically. “We don’t.”
Wingate took McCauley’s explosives, along with the extra guns and ammunition, and lugged them over to a soft spot beneath a scrub pine and cached them beside his own explosives and gear. There was no sense in giving this materiel to the Nazis, and now McCauley and he could move a lot more freely—and a whole hell of a lot faster. If they got out of this, they could always return for it.
Heading back to McCauley, Wingate heard the Italian’s Sten gun open up. The Germans in the rocks below heard the gunfire as well. Assuming Wingate and his party were pinned on the far side of the timber, they left the rocks and began to swarm up the slope.
“Hold your fire until they get close enough,” Wingate told McCauley. “If this mission ends here, we might as well take as many Nazis with us as we can.”
McCauley, sweating some, released the safety on his Sten, placed a fresh clip on the ground beside him—and nodded. “Yes, sir, Captain.”
Moving swiftly through the timber, Wingate found an emplacement behind a gnarled pine and shoved a fresh clip into his Sten. Then he waited for the Nazis to get closer. Soon enough he was able to pick out the bright braid of the double-lightning SS badge on the collars of the advancing Germans. A tough-looking squad leader, a Luger in his right hand was leading the advance up the slope. Wingate began to track the closest Germans.
They were better than three-quarters of the way up the hill when McCauley opened up. Wingate would have preferred to wait a bit longer, but he did not hesitate to join in, expending half a clip at the squad leader and those Germans close behind him. The squad leader was sent spinning backward down the slope. He slammed into a trooper behind him. The rest of the Germans were cut to ribbons by the full force of the Stens’ 9 mm slugs. A few Germans tried gallantly to hurl their grenades as they were hit, but the grenades exploded harmlessly, well in front of the timber.
And then the slope was empty, as all those who could raced back down and found cover once again in the rocks. Only those who had been cut down remained. Some lay silently; others were still moving and twisting slowly. A few called out in German. But not for long. Soon, all movement on the slope had ceased. Wingate looked away from the carnage. The corporal waved through the trees at him. Like Wingate, he was unscathed.
In the silence Wingate heard the Italian’s Sten open up again behind them. He motioned to McCauley to stay where he was and hurried through the timber, heading toward the growing rattle of the Italian’s Sten gun. McCauley had given the man only two clips, which meant the poor son of a bitch should be pretty low by this time. Coming up behind the Italian, Wingate saw the man had dumped the explosives he was carrying and the rest of his gear in a heap behind him. At the moment the Italian was sending short bursts at a small squad of Germans who were attempting to cross the open field. At each burst, the Germans would drop to the ground out of sight.
Wingate dropped beside the fellow and clapped him on the back. “You’re doing fine, looks like,” Wingate said. “But you must be pretty low on ammunition.”
Momentarily startled by Wingate’s sudden appearance, the Italian smiled brilliantly. “It is not low, I think, Captain. It is all gone. Now I just frighten the SS with the noise of this Sten. There is, how you Americans say, no lead in the pencil!”
Wingate grinned. Sergio was using the blank clips!
“Here,” said Wingate, handing the Italian a fresh clip.
As Sergio slapped it home, Wingate caught sight of a long line of SS troopers scaling a distant stone wall. Crouching low, they swept closer. As they advanced, they drifted wide to cover both flanks.
Wingate wondered where the hell they were all coming from. There had not appeared to be that many troops on the road. Not on the road they had been looking down on, that is. But of course there were other roads. In that instant Wingate realized what must have happened: he and his men had stumbled upon a major German push against a guerrilla stronghold.
Glancing swiftly around, Wingate spotted a depression behind a boulder well out in front of the timber. Handing Sergio two more clips, he left the Italian and raced from the timber to take cover behind the boulder, then stripped back the safety and waited.
Nervously.
The line of SS became separate troopers now, the distinguishing spotted pattern of their combat smocks and helmet covers clearly visible. There were at least twenty of them—and behind them, Wingate noted unhappily, came a second line of SS troopers. He took a grim satisfaction in the fact that he and his two men were pinning down a considerable body of German troops. Suddenly, the faint rattle of gunfire came from behind Wingate, and he knew that the expected attack from the rocks below the timber had been launched. They were about to get squeezed between the jaws of a furious SS assault. Evidently the guerrillas, despite the warning Wingate had managed, had been wiped out completely. Either that or the warning had allowed them to flee to safety, leaving Wingate and his two men to entertain a very frustrated SS contingent.
The SS troopers were close enough now for Wingate to make out their faces. He caught sight of a tough-looking SS Rottenführer. The fellow was heading almost directly for the boulder, a grim look on his youthful, yet scarred face. A cigarette dangled casually from his lips. His collar was worn open, revealing a brilliant red sweat-rag he’d knotted about his neck. He was not wearing a cap; it was tucked under his belt alongside a stick-grenade. He was carrying a Beretta submachine gun at the ready, and as Wingate watched him, the German corporal raised the Beretta over his head to wave on those advancing behind him. He seemed cocky, eager for battle, his reddish hair tugging in the wind.
So far, he hadn’t caught sight of Wingate crouched behind the boulder. Wingate kept himself as low as possible, hugging the rounded depression. As the corporal got closer, Wingate removed his helmet and peeked out, then shoved his Sten out ahead of him, keeping it flat on the ground.
He heard the corporal shouting, “Schnell! Schnell!” to those laggards behind him; and even as he cried out, he increased his pace to a sudden run. The man was obviously encouraged by the lack of fire from the timber. At that moment Sergio opened up with his Sten, and two SS spun to the ground behind the corporal. Furious, the fellow turned his attention to Sergio, dropped swiftly to one knee and got off a short burst. That was all he was able to manage as Wingate opened up. The heavy slugs tore into the German corporal’s side with such force that it blew him over, tearing away half the man’s face as well. In an instant, it seemed, the man’s open neck was as red as his sweat-rag.
Wingate looked away and opened up on the other SS troopers bearing down on him. The incoming fire was heavy, causing the boulder to sing continuously as the slugs ricocheted off it. He managed to cut down many, but the sight of their dead SS Rottenführer had aroused them. One of the SS men snatched up the dead corporal’s Beretta, and charging the boulder with it tucked into his side, got off a steady, murderous barrage that forced Wingate to keep his head down.
