On Desperate Ground (37 page)

Rose’s leg was bleeding. He looked up at Mack. “Miller’s dead. I got some splinters in my leg from the floorboards. Check the other men.” He took out Miller’s first aid kit from his pack and began to bandage his wounds.

Sergeant Kowalski spoke up from the rear of the plane. “Everybody’s okay back here. What about up front?” He pointed toward the cockpit and Mack could clearly see how the line of bullets had arced towards the co-pilots seat. He rushed forward as quickly as his pack and parachute would allow. He looked inside. The co-pilot’s window was shattered and blood was splattered on the instruments in front of him.

Dinsdale looked up at him and smiled wanly. He was very pale. Hank was fighting to keep the plane on an even course, and trying to assess the damage.
 

“I think it actually looks worse than it is, old bean,” Dinsdale said, trying to sound confident. “Hank did a splendid job evading that Jerry, but he managed to send a few rounds my way. The arm’s cut up a bit and I’m bleeding like a stuck pig from this scalp wound, but it could be worse, what?”
 

Dinsdale grimaced in pain and Mack knew it was worse than he was letting on. He decided there was no reason to tell them about the dead man in the cabin.

“Is the plane okay?” Mack asked.
 

“Some cables must’ve been cut. I don’t know how long I can hold her up,” Hank answered, not taking his eyes off the controls except for quick glances at his co-pilot. “If Treve can manage it, we may have to jump with you. This crate might not make it back.”
 

Rose limped forward and saw Dinsdale, covered in blood.
 

“What the hell happened?”
 

“Not to worry, Rosie. Just a few scratches,” Dinsdale answered as he poured powder from a sulfa pack onto his right arm. He looked faint, and perspiration broke out on his brow.

“Hank,” he said, “something’s wrong with the right rudder. I’m not getting any response. I can push it all the way to the floor.”
 

Rose pushed Mack aside and stepped forward. He looked down at Dinsdale’s right leg, which he was using to push down on the rudder. Below the calf, the leg was cleanly severed. Rose pulled a morphine syringe from his pack and jabbed it into Dinsdale’s left thigh. Startled, he looked up at him with surprise and a hint of fear in his eyes.

“Take it easy, buddy. We’ll take care of you.” Rose said. “Don’t worry about a thing, you’ll be home in no time.” Dinsdale looked startled and confused. Finally he looked down at his right leg.
 

“Oh dear me. Hank, never mind about the right rudder.” He tried to smile, but fainted instead. Rose applied a tourniquet below his knee and covered Dinsdale with a blanket.
 

“Hank, you gotta drop us now,” he said, looking at the Englishman with concern.

“No!” Mack announced firmly, “and that’s an order.”

Rose turned to Mack in a fury. “Are you nuts? He can’t jump with us, not with that leg. He could bleed to death before Hank gets him home. If he turns back now, there’s a chance!”

“This mission is more important than one man.”

“Now I know you’re nuts,” Rose said, his voice getting louder as he got angrier. “You didn’t give a rat’s ass about this mission until you heard about this Faust guy. Now you’re gung ho and ready to sacrifice Treve and probably all of us. Well, Captain, it don’t wash with me. We’re not here to settle your personal score with this Nazi.”

“If Faust is involved, then it’s big, and important.”

“Yeah, next you’ll tell me it could affect the outcome of the war. Guess how many times I heard that one from the brass sending us out on their pet projects.”

Mack didn’t know what to say. Rose sounded like him talking about Prescott. He couldn’t believe it had come to this, couldn’t believe who he had become. But it was too late to turn back now.

“This time, Lieutenant, you may really have a ringside seat to the outcome of the war.” He looked at Hank. “How much farther?”

“See that tiny patch of light on the horizon? That should be Hill 182. About a half hour out.” Hank glanced at Trevor. He looked sick at heart, but he had been in the business too long to question his orders.

“I’ll get you there.” He stopped and exhaled deeply. “I really thought we’d both make it, after all these years. Hang on, you little English twit!” Tears welled in his eyes as he grimly flew on.
 

The radio squawked. Hank listened and turned to Rose and Mack.

“You might want to decide now. One Ju-88 got away and they think he’s patrolling out ahead of us. One of the Black Widows got hit in the dogfight and is losing altitude and airspeed. We effectively have only one escort.”

“Can’t you evade again and let our escort hit him?”

“Not with the hits we’ve taken. I think I can keep her steady, but that’s it. We can’t maneuver or climb.”

“Why doesn’t the Black Widow go after him?” Mack was getting frantic now.

“Because if he does, and misses him, then we’re sitting ducks. One pass is all it takes.”

Mack looked down at the ground. There were no lights, nothing to mark where they were. He looked at the map Mac had been marking to show their progress. “Can you get us over the Mulde?” he asked Hank.
 

“Sure! There’s a partial moon, so rivers and lakes show up fine.”

“Okay, drop us across the Mulde, then get out of here. We avoid the night fighter and you get Trevor back as quick as possible.”

“Glad to oblige, Captain.”
 

Rose picked up the flight map and studied it for a minute. “Adjust your course 20 degrees west. We want to come down in the
Dübener Heide
, outside of
Bad Düben
, not in it.”

Hank caught a sliver of light reflected off water in the distance.
 

“Coming about 20 degrees. That’s it. Get ready. I’ll punch out the equipment canisters and then hit the jump light.”
 

Rose looked at Hank. “I’ll buy you guys a beer when we get back, after the docs patch Treve up, OK?”

“Sure, Rosie. Catch you later. Get the hell outta here now.”
 

“Good luck, Hank,” Mack offered, feeling like a heel.

“Yeah, sure. You too.”

As Mack left to take his place at the end of the line, he saw Hank lay a hand gently on Dinsdale’s arm, then quickly pull it back to regain control of the plane. Rose brushed past him to take his place at the front. He was the jumpmaster, and would give the signal to go and be the last to jump. He stopped and looked at Mack with grim determination. “You’re very lucky, Mackenzie. Damn lucky.” He moved up.

“Ready!” Rose shouted to the men. The ten remaining soldiers lined up, Miller still in his seat, his equipment keeping him upright, mute testimony to the uncertainty of what lay ahead. No one looked at him. Rose watched the green jump light. He heard the clunk of the canisters being detached from the undercarriage, and then the green light turned red.

“Go!” Rose slapped Corporal Mandelbaum on the shoulder as he turned to leap out into the night. Kowalski followed and then the rest of the men. Willard and Mack brought up the end of the line, since the radio man and the officer in charge were deemed the most important. Rose watched Mack go and followed him out.

In an instant the cabin was empty. A dead man sat lifelessly as wind whipped through from the open door, blowing chewing gum wrappers, wood splinters from the bullet holes, cigarette butts and other debris around his feet. There was no sound other than the roar of engines as Hank put the Skytrooper into a 180-degree turn, flying full throttle and straining the aircraft to get his friend back to the nearest airbase. He put his hand gently on Trevor’s arm again, only taking it away when the yoke in his left hand began to shake. He swore to himself, then prayed. He didn’t glance down to watch the parachutes behind him float gently to earth, landing on the dark, rolling meadowland, deep in enemy territory, between three powerful armies.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

15 April 1945

Operation Gambit Field Headquarters

Eutzsch, Germany

A three-story farmhouse and attached barns stood at the end of a narrow valley, the final destination on a dirt road which wound several kilometers from the main thoroughfare to Wittenberg. To the rear of the farm buildings, the hills rose steeply on both sides, patches of green working their way up the slopes, blending into thick stands of pine reaching to the sky. It was a wet morning, the dew thick on clumps of green grass growing wild. A stream gushed down the hillside in back of the house, its clear water bubbling over moss-encrusted rocks. The cows plodded along the hillside, lazily inspecting the two people trudging up the hill on the narrow packed earth path that followed the stream. Elsa held tightly onto Dieter’s arm, allowing him to pull her along as the path grew steeper.

“Oh, Dieter,” she said, gasping for air. “I didn’t realize how weak I was.”
 

They stopped and looked at the farm and valley below them. Dieter stood quietly next to Elsa, holding her arm as she took in deep breaths.
 

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes, just a minute.” She patted his arm reassuringly. “Isn’t it beautiful, even with all this?” She gestured with her hand to the sight below them, then rested it on her chest as if to calm her breathlessness.

Camouflage netting was strung from the barn and other buildings to trees on both slopes. Trucks, halftracks, armored cars and anti-aircraft vehicles were parked tightly together underneath. The buildings housed over a hundred of the men, the remainder spread out in farmhouses along the rough road stretching the length of the valley. Faust had hidden his force very carefully. Allied aircraft flying overhead would see nothing more than a quiet dead-end valley with farms and houses dotting a road that led nowhere.
 

A squad of Benedikt’s paratroopers was stationed near the intersection with the main road, hidden in a small glade of trees. Their lookouts could spot trouble headed their way. If any SS troops turned down the dirt road, they would be cut off and surrounded in minutes. As a further precaution, Faust had stationed other men outside the Wittenberg
Schloss
, the castle complex where he was supposed to have quartered his men. If the SS were going to hunt them down, they would probably head there first.
 

These were not the thoughts in Dieter’s mind now. He drank in the green beauty before him, the rich fertile smells of the farm merging with the clean pine-scented air. He held Elsa’s hand even tighter.

“I can’t even believe we’re together, much less taking a walk on a spring day,” he said.
 

In the two days since they arrived here from Berlin, Dieter had hardly left Elsa’s side. She was tired and weak, and for a while had been in shock after her time in the Gestapo cell. He was overjoyed to have her back, and incredibly frightened at the prospect of losing her again, either to the SS or to the unknown but looming future of Operation Gambit.
 

“This seems so far from Berlin and the war,” Elsa answered wistfully. “Even with all the soldiers, it seems a different world. Quiet.”

“That’s because we’re hiding, remember?”

“It sounds wonderful to me. Can we hide here forever?”
 

Dieter thought how she sounded like the young girl he had first met, full of questions, hopes, and joy. He avoided this question, even though he knew she didn’t expect a real answer. It was a question of the moment, as unreal as this peaceful walk was.
 

“Let’s go. It’s just a little further.” He took her by the arm and they climbed up the path to the crest of the hill, where it leveled out in a thin stand of pines amid slabs of granite. A rough-hewn bench perched near the edge of an overlook. The sun was high in the sky, warming the early spring air. They sat on the bench and Elsa rested her head on Dieter’s shoulder. Silence passed between them, the sights, smells, and sounds of the forest filling the space around them.
 

“What’s going to happen now?” she asked.

“If the SS doesn’t find us, if the Allies don’t bomb us, then we wait. Wait for the Americans and the Russians. It could be any day now, or it might never happen. If Berlin falls quickly, it will be all over before we can do anything.”

“Is that what you hope?”

“I have no hope other than to spend the rest of my life with you. Perhaps right here, on a nice farm, tending to our milk cows.”

“Dieter, the world is going to come crashing down around us at any moment. What are you going to do? Or rather, what are
we
going to do?”

Even on top of this hill, alone above the valley, Dieter looked furtively around and lowered his voice, leaning in closer to Elsa. “We must warn the Americans when they get closer. They must know that this attack is not real. At the right moment, I will give the order to my men to move west, and surrender to the
Amis
. I will go out ahead of them and warn the Americans.”