Jack Higgins - The Valhalla Exchange

‘I know,’ Hoover said. ‘The kind they give the Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster to.’

The others laughed and Finebaum managed to look injured. ‘Okay – okay. I’ve come this far. I just figure it would look kind of silly to die now.’

‘Everybody dies,’ Hoover said. ‘Sooner or later. Even you.’

‘Okay – but not here. Not now. I mean, after surviving D-Day, Omaha, St-Lo, the Ardennes and a few interesting stopoffs in between, it would look kind of stupid to buy it here, playing wet-nurse to a bunch of Limeys.’

‘We’ve been on the same side for nearly four years now,’ Hoover said. ‘Or hadn’t you noticed?’

‘How can I help it with guys going around dressed like that?’ Finebaum nodded to where the commanding officer of the column, a lieutenant-colonel named Denning, was approaching, his adjutant at his side. They were Highlanders and wore rather dashing Glengarry bonnets.

‘Morning, Howard,’ Denning said as he got close. ‘Damn cold night. Winter’s hung on late up here this year.’

‘I guess so, Colonel.’

‘Let’s have a look at the map, Miller.’ The adjutant spread it against the side of the truck and the colonel ran a finger along the centre. ‘Here’s Innsbruck and here we are. Another five miles to the head of this valley and we hit a junction with the main road to Salzburg. We could have trouble there, wouldn’t you say so?’

‘Very possibly, Colonel.’

‘Good. We’ll move out in thirty minutes. I suggest you take the lead and send your other jeep on ahead to scout out the land.’

‘As you say, sir.’

Denning and the adjutant moved away and Howard turned to Hoover and the rest of the men who had all edged in close enough to hear. ‘You got that, Harry?’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘Good. You take Finebaum and O’Grady. Garland and Anderson stay with me. Report in over your radio every five minutes without fail. Now get moving.’

As they swung into action, Finebaum said plaintively, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, I’m only a Jewish boy, but pray for us sinners in the hour of our need.’

On the radio, the news was good. The Russians had finally encircled Berlin and had made contact with American troops on the Elbe River seventy-five miles south of the capital, cutting Germany in half.

‘The only way in and out of Berlin now is by air, sir,’ Anderson said to Howard. ‘They can’t keep going any longer – they’ve got to give in. It’s the only logical thing to do.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Howard said. ‘I’d say that if your name was Hitler or Goebbels or Himmler and the only prospect offered was a short trial and a long rope, you might think it worth while to go down, taking as many of the other side with you as you possibly could.’

Anderson, who had the wheel, looked worried, as well he might, for unlike Garland he was married with two children, a girl of five and a boy aged six. He gripped the wheel so tightly that the knuckles on his hands turned white.

You shouldn’t have joined, old buddy , Howard thought. You should have found an easier way. Plenty did .

Strange how callous he had become where the suffering of others was concerned, but that was the war. It had left him indifferent where death was concerned, even to its uglier aspects. The time when a body had an emotional effect was long since gone. He had seen too many of them. The fact of death was all that mattered.

The radio crackled into life. Hoover’s voice sounded clearly. ‘Sugar Nan Two to Sugar Nan One. Are you receiving me?’

‘Strength nine,’ Howard said. ‘Where are you, Harry?’

‘We’ve reached the road junction, sir. Not a kraut in sight. What do we do now?’

Howard checked his watch. ‘Stay there.

We’ll be with you in twenty minutes. Over and out.’

He replaced the handmike and turned to Garland. ‘Strange – I would have expected something from them up there. A good place to put up a fight. Still …’

There was a sudden roaring in his ears and a great wind seemed to pick him up and carry him away. The world moved in and out and then somehow he was lying in a ditch, Garland beside him, minus his helmet and most of the top of his skull. The jeep, or what was left of it, was on its side. The Cromwell tank behind was blazing furiously, its ammunition exploding like a firework display. One of the crew scrambled out of the turret, his uniform on fire, and fell to the ground.

There was no reality to it at all – none. And then Howard realized why. He couldn’t hear a damn thing. Something to do with the explosion probably. Things seemed to be happening in slow motion, as if under water, no noise, not even the whisper of a sound. There was blood on his hands, but he got his field-glasses up to his eyes and traversed the trees on the hillside on the other side of the road. Almost immediately a Tiger tank jumped into view, a young man with pale face in the black uniform of a Sturmbannführer of SS-Panzer Troops, standing in the gun turret, quite exposed. As Howard watched helplessly he saw the microphone raised. The lips moved and then the Tiger’s 88 belched flame and smoke.

The man whom Howard had seen in the turret of the lead Tiger was SS-Major Karl Ritter of the 3rd Company, 502nd SS Heavy Tank Battalion, and what was to take place during the ensuing five minutes was probably the single most devastating Tiger action of the Second World War.

Ritter was a Tiger ace with 120 claimed victories on the Russian Front, a man who had learned his business the hard way and knew exactly what he was doing. With only two operational Tigers on the hillside with him, he was hopelessly outnumbered, a fact which a reconnaissance on foot had indicated to him that morning and it was obvious that Denning would expect trouble at the junction with the Salzburg road. Therefore an earlier attack had seemed essential – indeed there was no alternative.

It succeeded magnificently, for on the particular stretch of forest track he had chosen there was no room for any vehicle to reverse or change direction. The first shell from his Tiger’s 88 narrowly missed direct contact with the lead jeep, turning it over and putting Howard and his men into the ditch. The second shell, seconds later, brewed up the leading Cromwell tank. Ritter was already transmitting orders to his gunner, Sergeant-Major Erich Hoffer. The 88 traversed again and, a moment later, scored a direct hit on a Bren-gun carrier bringing up the rear.

The entire column was now at a standstill, hopelessly trapped, unable to move forward or back. Ritter made a hand signal, the other two Tigers moved out of the woods on either side and the carnage began.

In the five minutes which followed, their three 88s and six machine guns left thirty armoured vehicles, including eight Cromwell tanks, ablaze.

The front reconnaissance jeep was out of sight among the trees at the junction with the road to Salzburg. O’Grady was sitting behind the wheel, with Hoover beside him lighting a cigarette. Finebaum was a few yards away, directly above the road, squatting against a tree, his M1 across his knees, eating beans from a can with a knife.

O’Grady was eighteen and a replacement of only a few weeks’ standing. He said, ‘He’s disgusting, you know that, Sarge? He not only acts like a pig, he eats like one. And the way he goes on, never stopping talking – making out everything’s some kind of bad joke.’

‘Maybe it is as far as he’s concerned,’ Hoover said. ‘When we landed at Omaha there were 123 guys in the outfit. Now there are six including you, and you don’t count worth a shit. And don’t ever let Finebaum fool you. He’s got a pocket full of medals somewhere, just for the dead men he’s left around.’