1945 (20 page)

"Let's go," he said quietly as he swung himself over the side and started down the ladder. The dizziness from the twelve days of battling seasickness troubled him and he moved cautiously, gauging the relative motions of himself and the boat below, which was bobbing up and down on the eight-foot swells. He waited for the boat to start coming back up and—at not quite the right instant he let go of the rope ladder and jumped down, striking the deck hard. Almost before he had his breath back he became aware of the new, more emphatic, motions of the small boat; within seconds he was leaning over the side, cursing his weakness.

Emptied now, gasping for breath, he turned and straightened to watch his men, one after the other, come down. Even though they were all trained paratroopers, this type of landing was different from what they were used to, and for a seasick landsman, just as treacherous as parachuting into gusty winds.

When the rest had all landed successfully, Hans finally eased himself over the freighter's railing and started down. He hesitated for a moment, obviously in the throes of yet another spasm. Gunther muttered a curse when he was hit by some of the spume. The men around him chuckled softly.

Skorzeny lost patience. "Move it, Hans!"

His friend looked down at him, nodded bleakly, and continued his descent. At the final rung he stopped again, waited, and then stepped off the ladder, releasing his hold as he did so. Had he been more alert he might have detected the particularly heavy swell that raised the trawler up on a crest and simultaneously pushed it away from the side of the freighter. In that case he would have turned the step into a leap, or perhaps managed to snatch the ladder again. Instead, an aborted grab at the ladder caused the heel still on the rung to catch, and he slammed transversely along the trawler's gunnel.

Stunned, he began to slide headfirst toward the sea, but as he did so Gunther, lunging from several feet away, | snagged an ankle, and Hans managed a shallow one-handed grab onto the gunnel's edge. Still all might have been well, but then the trawler dropped into the trough, Hans's grip gave way, and he recommenced his slide, Gunther still clinging to his foot. Cursing, Otto staggered across the heaving deck to Gunther's side, reached out, and—the trawler surged back.

The sound of two ships slapping against each other was muffled by the human body between them. "Hang on to him!" Otto roared over Hans's screams as he leaned over and tried to add his grip to Gunther's. Hans continued to scream as the trawler scraped its way up the side of the freighter. Gunther, still clinging to his doomed comrade, was being dragged over as well.

Otto could see he was about to lose another man. He gave up on Hans to grab Gunther around the waist and pull him back aboard. As he did so, Gunther finally lost his grip on Hans's ankle. The sound of two hulls scraping ceased to be muffled by intervening flesh.

"We've got to get the body!" Skorzeny roared over at the trawler captain, who of course had been observing all of this. The captain, still at the wheel, shouted for his crew to cast loose from the ladder. Backing the trawler away from the freighter, his crew positioned themselves with boat hooks as Otto and his men lined the sides, straining to catch sight of Hans.

"I couldn't hold him," Gunther said quietly, coming to Skorzeny's side. I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," Skorzeny replied in a dead voice, knowing too well whose fault it was. He continued to scan the dark waters.

"Do you want some light?" the captain asked. After a pause he added, "Even with lights we'll never spot him on a night like this."

Skorzeny balanced the dangers in his mind. Hans was dead—that he had known from the moment his friend had stopped screaming—and there was precious little chance of spotting his floating body, if it floated, in the failing light. Contrariwise, every minute they spent here would increase their chances of being spotted. Any one of the ships currently in the harbor or approaching the channel could be a Coast Guard vessel, and floodlights trained on the water's surface would certainly draw attention. "His rib cage must have been crushed; with his lungs collapsed maybe he went straight down," Skorzeny finally said. "Just get us out of here."

The captain, obviously relieved, swung the trawler around and throttled the engine up.

Skorzeny looked over at his men, who stood silent, dejected.

"Listen. Probably our comrade is sinking toward the bottom as we speak. But even if he washes up, the chance of anyone linking him to our operation is almost nonexistent. As for his dying, well, we all knew this operation would be the riskiest we'd ever done, Hans included. So now we carry on."

"But to die like that," Gunther replied sadly, "falling off a stinking fishing boat."

"Nonsense, Gunther. Even for us, death seldom comes before some stupid accident has rendered us vulnerable to the enemy. This was no different, and Hans would know that too." But it
was
different; in this little grotesquerie there had been no enemy.

With Hans gone, Gunther would have to be their primary radio operator. But Gunther wasn't Hans, a man who had been with him from the beginning. And Gunther was right: Hans had survived all the missions into Russia only to die senselessly because of being seasick and losing his footing. A sad, bad way to go.

The trawler turned into the main channel of Charleston Harbor, clearing Moultrie and Morris islands. Directly ahead, the lights of the city were now clearly in view, and in the middle of the harbor the dark foreboding bulk of Fort Sumter was silhouetted by the glare of the city.

The trawler turned out of the main channel, heading in behind Morris Island. Skorzeny watched intendy as it weaved its way through the maze of channel markers and headed toward a labyrinth of broken-down wharves. He went back to join the captain.

"Should we get below?"

"No one's there. We bought the marina a couple of years back. Our rents tended to be a little too high and the maintenance a little too sloppy, so folks moved elsewhere. It's nice and private now."

"You've run other teams in?"

Perhaps realizing that he had been overly talkative, the captain looked at him coldly. "Look. I don't ask your business and you don't ask mine. Do we understand each other?"

Smiling inwardly, Skorzeny nodded solemnly at the rebuke.

Breaking off the conversation, the captain slowed the boat and weaved his way through the final needle-thin inlet, and cut the engine as the trawler drifted up to bump gently into its slip. As it did so the crew, waiting poised on the gunnel, leaped to the wharf and tied the boat off.

"You've got a truck waiting for you at the end of the wharf. You'd best get your men and gear the hell out of here."

"Thank you, Captain."

The man simply nodded and turned to bark orders at his crew. Skorzeny wanted to suggest that a slightly reduced crispness might constitute better tradecraft, but resisted the temptation, and instead motioned for his men to grab their gear. A gangplank was thrown across the railing and the men started off.

The captain turned back to Otto.

"I don't normally pass out free advice, but you should let someone else—anyone else—do the talking."

"Thanks for the free advice," Skorzeny replied with a grin. "I was planning to."

"Good luck."

Skorzeny shook the captain's hand, and then turned to follow his men to the waiting truck. As he did so, to his immense delight he realized that he was no longer seasick.

It was a joy to be alive.

April 14

Bergen, Norway

As the He-177 transport plane drifted to a stop, the door swung open and the strains of
Deutschland Ober Alles
entered along with the crisp northern air. To Field Marshal Erwin Rommel such ceremonies were one of the more annoying aspects of high command: No matter where he went, the local commander had to put on a show, and Rommel in turn had to pretend appreciation of the tinny band and the troops drawn up in review.

"It's not every day that our old commander, hero of North Africa, comes to visit us," Major General Hans Bayerling commented in response to Rommel's muttered complaint as they walked along the front rank, pretending to inspect it.

Yes, there had to be the brass band and its tinny music, and yes, there had to be the honor guard. But the inspection? That was gratuitous. Having at last reached the end of the interminable rank of soldiers, Rommel nodded curtly and stepped into the waiting black Mercedes, first having motioned for one of his aides to replace the driver. Once seated he beckoned for the man who had been one of his staff officers and later a divisional commander to join him.

When they were both settled, Rommel unbent a little. "It is good to see you again, Hans."

Bayerling smiled. "Nearly two years now since you left Africa. A long time, my friend."

In response, Rommel looked over to his Afrika Korps comrade and patted him on the shoulder.

Americans would be startled to discover the degree of camaraderie that existed not just between different ranks within the German officer corps, but between officers and rankers. Though the practice had its roots in the mutinous conditions prevalent in the German military at the end of the Great War, perhaps Germans could afford the informality because German society was so thoroughly status conscious —whereas Americans, so unready to grant superiority to anybody, needed the outward manifestations of rank because otherwise they would lose track of who issued orders and who took them. Whatever it said about the intrinsic merit of the two cultures, certainly the resulting increased unit cohesion, unanticipated side benefit or not, was a major advantage for the German side—

"Those were great days." Rommel laughed, breaking his own train of thought. '"Fun in the sun,' as the Americans might say. How have your men acclimated to this very different climate? Are they fit?"

After a silent moment spent contemplating the incongruity of that "fun" appellation as applied to the experience, Bayerling replied: "We are fit enough. And eager to go home. You know, that is where we thought we were headed when they pulled us out of the line in North Africa. Instead, they sent us up to this icebox to freeze our stones off. We fought the Brits in Africa for three years, then we spent eighteen months on the armistice line—and now here. Do I sound bitter? I promise you the men are bitter."

Bayerling shook his head, then continued. "It just doesn't add up. My men gave good service in Africa—and then they get shipped from that hellhole to this godforsaken place. Morale is at rock bottom, and I don't blame the men for that one bit."

"Perhaps there was a reason for sending you here."

"Punishment is all I can think of. But what could it have been? We were the best. I keep coming back to that. It must have been sheer bad luck."

Rommel smiled. "No my friend, it wasn't luck, good or bad, and it wasn't because you or your men screwed up in some special way."

"Why then?'

"Because you
are
the best. And because you are mine."

His major general looked at him incredulously, too sure Rommel was leading up to something to be angry at his drollery.

"Don't you like it here?" Rommel asked innocendy, exacting a small revenge for the pointless ceremonials.

"Like it here? We fought the Brits for three years on a shoestring. If we'd gotten just ten percent of what they were pouring into Russia we would have been on the Suez. But we didn't get piss, and we didn't get Suez. So the Heroes of Russia are cycled back home and we get sent off to this ice cube as ... as what? Honorary Italians?-Now I find out you did it, and you ask me if I like it here! Would you mind telling—"

Rommel held up his hand. "Because I wanted a unit in this location that I knew I could depend on absolutely."

"Depend on for what? In two weeks we go home!" A flicker of doubt passed over Bayerling's face.

Sure enough, Rommel's next words were, "Not directly home. You have a little side trip first."

"Where to, Madagascar?"

"No. Scotland."

Bayerling looked speechlessly at his old commander.

"Last fall the Führer decided to knock England out once and for all. This time we won't be playing games out on the flanks. It will be a drive straight into their island. Your division will be part of the landing force that strikes near Edinburgh. That's why I wanted you and the men conditioned to this abominable climate and, more importantly, positioned for the strike without drawing notice."

Rommel ordered his driver to pull the car over to the side of the road. When it had stopped he got out and his once and present division commander perforce followed. Though it was late afternoon, below them the city and its harbor basked in the light reflected from the high mountains to the west.

"Your men will load onto their transports as planned.

The ships, however, are to be combat-loaded — and I expect all equipment to be operational."

Bayerling nodded phlegmatically. One of the reasons Rommel had chosen him and his division was that he could be sure that however bitter they might be, as a killing machine they would be in perfect working order.

"With the exception of your own staff, with whom you may discuss matters on the eve of embarkation, you will brief no one,
no one
, until the fleet clears the harbor on the nineteenth. The 6th Mountain Division will ship out of Trondheim the day before and rendezvous with your flotilla. Together you'll proceed down the coast as if heading for Hamburg. On the evening of the twentieth, just after dusk, the fleet will turn and make a high-speed run across the North Sea to arrive off Edinburgh at dawn. The 196th out of Oslo will come in as the second wave behind us."