W. IV - Honor Bound 05 - The Honor of Spies

Stein could hear movement on the lower floor, and watched the stairwell opening for a head to pop up. None came.

"Nobody's been in here in years," a voice said in German.

A moment later, Stein rolled back onto his stomach and saw that the soldiers were trotting back to the trucks and to the sergeant. He tried and finally got a shot of that.

And then he saw that something else was being off-loaded from the trucks.

I know what that is. That's a Maxim Maschinengewehr. Poppa showed me one in the Krieg museum in Kassel. He told me that he'd been an ammunition bearer for a Maxim in France.

My God, there's two of them! And there's the ammunition bearers!

Four soldiers trotted through the gate carrying a heavy water-cooled machine gun mounted on a sort of sled. The sled had handles like a stretcher. They were followed by two soldiers, each carrying two oblong olive-drab metal cans looking very much like those used by the U.S. Army.

There's probably two hundred rounds in each can.

But they're in a cloth belt, not metal-linked, like ours.

What the hell are they going to do with all that ammo?

And then another Maxim crew ran through the gate with another machine gun on its sled, followed by two more ammo bearers.

Who the hell do they think is in Casa Chica? The 40th Infantry Division?

No. If they knew where to look for us, then they'd know there's no more than a dozen men. What they are going to do with this show of force is make the point that they're irresistible, get us to surrender without a fight.

And aren't they going to be surprised when they go in the house and find there's nobody there at all.

Stein had trouble with the film-advance mechanism and looked at the Leica and saw why. He'd used all of the twenty-four frames in the film cartridge.

I will be damned! I was not paralyzed by fear!

When he had changed film--which required great care so that he did not get any dust-grease inside--and rolled back into place again, he saw something else had happened. The Maxims were set up and ready to fire, but they were now each manned by a two-man crew. The four men who had carried the weapons into place and the two ammo bearers for each were now trotting back to the trucks. As Stein watched--and took their picture--they took rifles from the trucks and formed loosely into ranks.

Ah-ha. The reserve. To be thrown into the breach when the 40th Infantry valiantly refuses to surrender.

Not to worry, guys. There's nobody in that house to surrender, much less shoot back at you.

The sergeant now trotted up to Colonel Peron and the two officers, came to attention, and saluted.

They had a brief conversation, duly recorded on film, and then saluted one another. One of them gave a crisp straight-armed Nazi salute.

Click.

Got you, you Nazi sonofabitch!

The Nazi sonofabitch now trotted through the gate, past the machine guns, and started up the hill.

Click.

Colonel Peron went to his staff car and leaned on the fender. The other officer and the sergeant went to the Chevrolet and leaned against its side.

Click.

The Nazi sonofabitch was no longer in sight as he made his way up the hill.

Shouldn't you be holding up a white flag of truce?

For three minutes, which seemed much longer, Stein tried in vain to see the man moving up the hill.

There came the sound of a shot.

Oh, shit! Rodriguez couldn't resist the temptation!

I should have thought about that, and tried to talk him out of it. Not that it would have done any good.

But that wasn't loud enough for a shotgun; it was a different sound, like a pistol.

What the hell? And what happens now?

The answer to that came immediately, as Stein looked at Colonel Peron to see what, if anything, he was going to do.

First one of the Maxims and then the other began to fire.

Colonel Peron screamed something but was drowned out by the sound of the firing weapons. He ran to the officer leaning on the Chevrolet. Almost immediately, the sergeant ran--not trotted--toward the firing machine guns.

Peron walked very quickly--almost ran--back to his Mercedes.

Click.

Peron got in and the car, wheels screeching, started heading east.

Click.

Stein saw--click, click, click--the walls and windows of Casa Chica literally disintegrate as the machine-gun fire struck.

The sergeant was now at the closest Maxim. He was excitedly waving his arms, obviously trying to make them stop firing. They didn't.

Click.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the firing stopped.

The crews of both machine guns stood up and pulled something from their ears. Then the crew of one shook hands.

Click.

When the crew of the other saw this, they shook hands.

Click.

The officer who had gone up the hill now came down it, apparently unhurt.

Click.

The soldiers who had been fanned out on both sides of the road were now summoned to the guns. Some of them picked up the sleds and ran with them to the trucks. Others began picking up the fired cartridge cases and putting them into the now empty ammunition cans. When the cans were full, the soldiers started stuffing their pockets with the empties that didn't fit in the cans.

Click.

Casa Chica did not seem to be on fire, but what looked like smoke was coming out of where the windows had been and from the holes in the tile roof.

The soldiers who had manned the Maxims came to attention and rendered the Nazi salute when the officer who had come down the hill walked up to them.

Click.

He returned the salute and then offered them cigarettes from a silver case and finally shook hands with each of them.

Click.

The officer who had been at the Chevrolet came up to them and again salutes were exchanged.

Click.

The officer went to one of the soldiers picking up brass and said something to him, whereupon the soldier and another soldier ran to the trucks. They ran back a moment later, this time carrying Schmeisser MP38 machine pistols, which they gave to the soldiers who had manned the Maxims.

Click.

The sergeant and others were now urging all the soldiers to move more quickly back to the road and onto the trucks. This was accomplished in a very short time, and then the trucks and the Chevrolet started to drive away.

Click.

This left the officer, the four men who had manned the Maxims, and another man who had appeared from somewhere standing alone by the side of the road.

Click.

Now what?

They started walking up the hill and soon disappeared from sight.

Stein changed film, just to be sure.

Five minutes later, there came the sound of more gunfire. Not much. A ragged burst of shots, as if weapons had been fired simultaneously on command, and one or two of the shooters had been a little late in complying. And then another shot, and a moment later, another.

"We go now," one of the old Husares said.

They lowered Stein first out the window to the ground, one on each arm, and then used his shoulders as a ladder to climb down themselves.

They walked toward the gate. They were almost there when the gray Ford with the Frigorifico Moron corporate insignia on its doors appeared.

That's right, I forgot. Rodriguez told them to hide it across the street.

They got in that and rode up the hill.

Four bodies were sprawled close together in just about the center of the la nding strip. Two were on their stomachs, one on his back, and the fourth on his side. A fifth body was on its stomach halfway up the stairs leading to the verandah of Casa Chica, and the sixth on his stomach on the runway twenty meters from the others, as if he had been shot in the back trying to run away.