Alex Scarrow - A thousand suns

The German soldiers tentatively lowered their weapons but none of them moved from their covered positions. Bosch realised he’d have to go first. He loosened the strap of his helmet and then slid it off, he held it one hand by the rim and slowly, very slowly, he eased it out into the open.

Several shots splintered the slender tree trunk still further and it creaked alarmingly as if preparing to topple over. He heard an American call out a ceasefire and the gunfire stopped.

He eased himself out from behind what was left of the tree with both hands raised fully above his head. He called out the only English phrase he knew, one that he and most of his men had taken time to learn in recent months.

‘Geneva convention… Surrendering!’ he announced loudly and clearly. He walked cautiously into the middle of the cobbled street, beckoning with one raised hand for his men to do likewise. One by one the seven remaining men of his platoon emerged and joined him.

The American soldiers remained in their positions, guns aimed, ready at a moment’s notice to resume firing. One of them, Bosch recognised the stripes of a sergeant, pointed towards the Germans and shouted. ‘Levy! Round ’em up and shake ’em down!’

From one of the warehouse doorways a young man emerged, and he trotted at the double towards them, his kit rattling like so many pots and pans in a bag. As Levy passed the Jew’s body, the prone form moved and they heard a faint moaning.

‘Sir! We got a live one here!’

Amongst the Americans the call for a medic rippled down the street, and moments later a medic appeared through one of the arches and slid to a halt beside Schenkelmann. Levy continued towards the Germans with his rifle raised at them, while the medic began his work.

Bosch watched the medic; he was fumbling with a compress applied to the wound to slow down the blood loss.

The Jew mustn’t fall into enemy hands alive.

Hauser had muttered this a countless number of times to him over the last few days, every time he’d heard the sound of artillery, or been spooked by the crack of gunfire.

The young American soldier now stood only feet away from them. ‘Okay, you shitheads, get down on the road!’ he shouted at them, pointing to the ground.

Bosch and his men stared defiantly at the young man; their eyes drawn to the Star of David pinned prominently on his uniform. Levy jerked his rifle to the ground repeatedly and jabbed one of the prisoners in the ribs to make the point.

‘Yeah, that’s right, you Nazi shit-holes, I’m Jewish. Now get the fuck down!’ he yelled angrily.

Bosch looked anxiously towards Schenkelmann. The medic treating him seemed satisfied that the compress was working and was now applying a bandage to hold it in place. Bosch nodded to his men, and they began to kneel obediently, albeit slowly. Another futile gesture of angry defiance.

The Jew can’t fall into their hands alive.

He gritted his teeth and gave one of his men a hard push to the side. The man fell awkwardly to the ground. The young American swung his rifle towards the prone man and Bosch reached for it, yanking hard at the barrel and freeing the gun easily from his hands. He grabbed the waist of the rifle with his other hand and shoved the weapon backwards, the butt smashing into the young man’s face with a sickening thud.

Levy dropped to the ground unconscious as Bosch spun the rifle round, aiming it squarely at Schenkelmann.

He had only a fleeting half-second, as he racked the weapon, to register the look of surprise and alarm on the faces of his own men and realise his rash action had doomed them all.

The gunfire from the entire platoon of Americans lasted a little more than fifteen seconds, and many of the young men who emptied their weapons that morning would vividly recall in years to come the bloody mess that was left of the eight German soldiers.

As the smoke cleared, the medic raised himself up off Schenkelmann, whom he’d almost crushed with his own body weight.

‘You okay, fella?’ he asked.

Schenkelmann nodded in response. His mouth opened and he tried to speak.

‘Don’t… just relax. We’ll have you out of here shortly, buddy.’

Schenkelmann tried to speak again, but suddenly he felt light-headed and passed out.

4 p.m., 28 April 1945, an airfield south of Stuttgart

The map was spread out on the floor of the hangar and around it sat the fighter pilots, Max and his men and Major Rall. Rall had a length of wood that served adequately as a pointer and was currently indicating the planned route for the bomber and its escort.

‘… across Lyon, towards the north-west coast of France.’

‘Unless my maths is hopelessly inadequate, that’s a long way beyond the range of our Me-109s,’ announced Schroder, backed up by murmurs of agreement from his squadron.

‘It is just over one thousand, one hundred and fifty miles, gentlemen. The drop tanks that are being fitted to your planes right now will give you enough fuel to get there.’

As if to confirm his assurance, one of the mechanics fired up a welding torch and a stream of white-hot sparks emerged from among the tightly parked fighter planes.

Schroder nodded. ‘So that gets us to the Atlantic, Major. But from the coast out to sea for the first three hundred miles, Max and his men will be on their own. I’m sure the Americans and British must have planes stationed in France now… it will only take one unlucky encounter and they will be in trouble.’

Rall’s smile caused the burn tissue on the side of his face to wrinkle like parchment. ‘Ahh, but you see, you boys will still be with the bomber.’

Schroder looked confused. ‘I don’t understand how. By the time we hit the coast, that’s us done. We’ll be empty. Perhaps if we’re lucky and fly at a low altitude we can push a few extra miles out to sea, but not the distance we’ll need to exceed their fighter range. Not unless we find somewhere to refuel.’

It was clear to Max now why the Major had specifically instructed him to put together a route across France to Nantes on the north-west coastline, instead of taking some other way.

‘That’s why we’re flying across northern France, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘What?’ said Schroder.

Rall smiled. ‘That’s correct. We could have picked a more remote route. An alternative might have been across Norway, and a refill on Bear Island, and then over the North Pole to Greenland, and then down their east coastline. But that would have taken us up through northern Germany, and right now that’s not a wise place to be. We’re going this way. It’s the long way round, but it’s safer, and more importantly, we have a place on the north-west coast of France where you and your men can refill your tanks.’

Schroder looked astounded. ‘We’re landing on a French airfield?’

‘A small airfield outside Nantes, it’s two miles outside the city and less than one mile from the coast. Our intelligence suggests this airfield has only a custodial presence of Americans. These are mostly support personnel, mechanics, ground crew.’

‘Even so, Major, we can’t just land there and refill if it’s not in our hands. Or am I missing something obvious here?’ asked Schroder.

‘Probably,’ grumbled Pieter quietly.

‘For a short time, the airfield will be in German hands.’

Rall paused for effect. He observed the look of confusion on the faces of the men around him.

‘A U-boat is presently five miles off shore from Nantes. Tomorrow, before dawn, a platoon of our boys will be dropped ashore. Their instructions are to take up discreet positions just outside the airfield, and while you are less than ten minutes away from your final approach, they will secure it and ready the air fuel for you. Obviously, this is only a narrow window of time. It won’t take long before any troops encamped nearby are alerted and attempt to retake the field, but this should buy you enough time to put down and fill up.’