Уильям Макгиверн - Soldiers of ’44

The remark put Kroll in a better humor. “Yes, and I shouldn’t imagine any of the Americans on that hill have similar credentials.” Abruptly his mood changed; he sighed and looked at Jaeger. “This isn’t the time for exhortations. The banners, the torchlight parades, the voice from Berlin sounding from the loudspeakers, that’s all over for now. But we’re depending on you, Karl. The terrain is so difficult we couldn’t risk paratroops or infantry without compromising security. Your mission is truly vital. The Luftwaffe has eighteen hundred fully operational ME-262S, and with Christrose, they represent the last hope for our future. If we lose the element of surprise, this final throw of the dice will come to nothing. So remember what I told you when we left Adlerhorst, Karl. My command car is available when you need it.”

When Kroll left the room, Jaeger studied a large-scale map of the Ardennes, making careful estimates of the distance and terrain between Salmchâteau and the peaks of Mont Reynard. It was a straight run to Vielsalm, from where he could travel north to Stavelot, swinging west into the Salm Valley and the village of Lepont.

When a lance corporal advised him he had raised Battalion, Jaeger spoke into the headset. “Major Bok, Jaeger here. Please record. You will detach the lead tank from Third Sturm and Sergeant Trakl’s crew from our reserve.” Trakl had been with Jaeger in Russia at Kursk, as had the sergeant’s crew — corporals Elbert, Henze, Wesse and Gratz. Jaeger told Bok where he wanted the tank to rendezvous, a crossroads near Salmchâteau, and then ordered a vehicle for his own use with extra supplies of petrol and ammunition.

At Adlerhorst Kroll had said to him... “Think and speak and act as if you were under surveillance by generations of unborn Germans... what you speak will be heard, what you do will be seen...” And with the memory Jaeger was suddenly aware that confusion was once again maddeningly reducing his convictions to impotence... Broken, as in the death of Cornet Rilke, the rose broken as one would break a host, the foreign petal under his tunic, rising and falling on the waves of his heart... be proud, I carry the flag...

When he received the confirmation of his orders from Bok, Jaeger took a deep breath, buttoned the lapels of his greatcoat and strode out into the sleet of the courtyard, where a driver waited for him at General Kroll’s command car.

December 21, 1944. Lepont, Belgium. Thursday, 1630 Hours.

Darkness came early to the towns on the Salm and Amblève. By midafternoon gray stone bridges were merging with the heavy cover of snow and clouds. Docker turned on headlights when he and Trankic drove down the narrow road from Mont Reynard, twisting through stands of trees and underbrush, following the river into the village.

Stopping at the square in front of the church, chains noisy on the cobblestones, Trankic went into Jocko Berthier’s café and Docker got out of the jeep to check the darkness and listen to the wind in the trees. Blackout curtains of the houses on the square were drawn. Nothing moved in the narrow streets but occasional flurries of snow.

Docker had left Schmitzer in charge of the section, no longer feeling he could trust Larkin; something seemed to have gone dead inside the Irishman. It was more than the dark whiskey, it was some kind of insidious anger eating at his sense and energies. Larkin had, though, told him what he’d learned from Paul Bonnard. About the schoolteacher, a Jewish child and Berthier’s transmitter... he had a theory that people confided in Larkin because the pain in his eyes convinced them they had at least that in common...

After the gun section shot down the German plane, Docker had sent Trankic with a detail into the peaks above their position to find it. The men had climbed to a point where they could see the plane in a ravine packed with snow and ice. By then only a few streamers of black smoke drifted from the wreckage. The sides of the gorge had been too steep to risk a closer inspection, but even at that distance Trankic had seen that the aircraft was constructed without conventional motors and propellers, only long jets under each wing, rent and battered now by the crash.

Docker had sent out a signal on the X-42, with a description of the plane and the grid coordinates of the crash site, but after twenty-four hours without acknowledgment, he and Trankic had decided to check out the Lepont transmitter.

When the corporal returned from the café, his cheeks were flushed with something more than the cold wind and his breath smelled of brandy.

“She lives just a couple of hundred yards from here,” he said. “You make a left turn at the river, it’s the last house.”

“What about the radio?”

“They got one all right, but it’s dead as Kelsey’s nuts.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know. Jocko says the wires are broken on the lead to...” Trankic shrugged. “It’s the audio rectifier or the transformer, near as I can figure this Walloon talk.”

“Will he help you?”

“He’s crippled as hell, Bull. It happened when the Heinies were sending guys from here to Poland. Some drunken Krauts didn’t want to lose their bartender so they busted him up one night. He fought back, and they put the boots to him. So to answer your question, fucking-A he’ll help.”

At a junction of secondary roads between Trois-Ponts and Stavelot, Colonel Karl Jaeger braked his command car and signaled to Sergeant Trakl, who was traveling directly behind him, standing high in the turret of a Panzerkampfwagen Mark VI.

Jaeger turned his vehicle into a logging trail between a row of fir trees. Glancing at the map clipped to his dashboard, he saw that there were still three more hills between them and the valley leading to the slopes of Mont Reynard.

He had stopped because in the light of his blackout beams he had seen a small boy walking near the woods on the side of the trail, bundled up against the weather in a wool jacket and ragged leggings. Trailing from one of his hands was a pair of small-game snares made of polished sticks and thin leather straps. The boy, who was about ten or eleven, smiled tentatively, his teeth white in the subdued beams from Jaeger’s car, then scrambled over a ridge of snow and ran into the trees.

Jaeger signaled to Sergeant Trakl and pointed after the running boy, whose small figure was already indistinct in the snow-spin of the forests.

Followed by two corporals, Trakl ran into the woods after the boy, and within minutes they had collared and marched him back to Jaeger’s command car.

“We’re not going to hurt you, stop struggling,” Jaeger said.

“You’ll get me in trouble.” The youngster spoke in French. “My mother expects me home for supper.”

“Do you have a father or brothers?”

“No, sir, just my mother.”

The boy’s face was pinched with the cold, his cheeks chapped and raw, but he didn’t seem frightened; there was a lively curiosity in his bright eyes as he stared up at the huge tank.

“Do you know who we are?” Jaeger asked him.

“Yes. You’re Germans.”

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Simon Coutreau, sir.”

Jaeger wondered if it had been only his own nerves that had alerted him. No, there was the business of the snares and the darkness...

He took the briar pipe from his pocket and put it between his teeth. He smiled at the boy and said, “Are you afraid of us, Simon?”

The boy shook his head. “I’ve done nothing to be afraid of, sir.”

“Did someone tell you to watch for us? You might as well tell us the truth.”

“No, I came to the woods to set snares. I come every day. There are rabbits here.”