Order of Battle (36 page)

The mine!

Only a few kilometers. He knew exactly how to get there. He’d passed the place on the way back from the gold delivery to Ratten-dorf. With that SS major. Kratzer. More than two weeks ago. They were just finishing construction then. They’d be ready.

It was one of the hidden Redoubt approach fortifications. Built into an abandoned graphite mine in the mountains. He could get help there. The Americans would follow him, that was certain.

It would be the last damned thing they would ever do!

He turned on his single headlight.

Now it was only a matter of speed. . . .

The heavy wire fence topped by a forbidding barrier of angled barbed wire looked rusty and run-down in the glare from Willi’s single headlight. The big wire gates on massive iron frames hung open, one of them askew, the huge top hinge broken.

There was no sign of life. The old mine area had the desolate look of a long abandoned site.

Willi slowed down only a little. He followed the black-gray dirt road toward the drift mine entrance blasted into the rocky side of the mountain.

His headlight swept across a scene of disuse and decay. A few shacks, their rusty corrugated iron sheets sprung and buckled; a wooden shed, the weathered boards broken and rotted on one side; a paint-peeling barracks, its doors and windows missing. At the mine entrance the weird shapes of a conglomerate collection of abandoned mining equipment seemed to take on a baleful life of their own as the black shadows cast by the probing headlight moved and meshed grotesquely. Crushers, drillers, pumps, Willi guessed. A good touch.

He brought the jeep to a halt close to the entrance and jumped out. The two huge iron doors to the tunnel gaped open. Silent. Dark.

Willi was tense. Everything depended upon how he handled himself.

He was impressed by the camouflage of the fortification. He had seen no sign of recent improvements. It was exactly as it should be. They had been careful. . . .

Quickly he started for the entrance. He looked down to avoid tripping over the ore-cart rails running into the mine. He cursed.

Careful, but not careful enough. In the dirt he saw the unmistakable tire tracks of heavy German military trucks. Looked like Büssings. And a few footprints made by hobnailed boots. Recently made. It was an inexcusable oversight. He felt outraged. He would have to have it cleaned up.

He was suddenly conscious of the grinding roar of the pursuing jeep. It sounded close. The Americans would be just about to enter the mine area.

He ran the last few feet to the tunnel mouth. He was not concerned that he was not challenged. The defenders of the fortification must have the same orders as the Werewolves: Don’t give yourself away until discovery is certain.

He stopped in the gaping hole that led into the mine interior. He took a deep breath.

“
Hier Sonderkampfgruppe Karl!
” he shouted into the waiting darkness. His voice sounded abnormally shrill to his own ears. He suddenly wished it had more timbre. “
Die Amis sind hinter mir her!
The Americans are behind me! I am alone! I am coming in!”

At once he started to run into the dark tunnel. He was aware of his heart beating heavily. A chilling feeling of anticipation crawled over his whole body.

Would they believe him? . . . Would they shoot? . . .

There was no shot.

He was safe.

Erik motioned for Don to stop the jeep at the broken wire gate to the mine area and to kill the motor.

The black letters on the peeling white paint of the sign hanging crookedly on the fence next to the gate spelled out:

ZUTRITT VERBOTEN!

KREIS PASSAU GRAPHIT A/G

Grubekennkarte Vorzeigen

“What’s the sign say?” asked one of the GIs.

“It’s a graphite mine,” Erik answered him. “It says: ‘Entry forbidden. Mine pass must be shown.’ ”

“Boy, that’s real Kraut,” the GI cracked. “With them everything’s either forbidden or compulsory.”

For a moment they sat in silence, listening. The night forest was quiet. There was no sound of the fleeing jeep ahead of them. It had stopped.

The old graphite mine had been the destination of the escaping Werewolf.

Why?

Erik studied the deserted installation lying starkly revealed before him in the cold glare from the jeep headlights.

The place looked utterly forsaken, crumbling away with disuse. The picture of abandonment.

But there was something wrong with the picture. Some little thing that made him uneasy. What was it? He had the uncanny feeling he was looking right at it but didn’t see it.

He scanned the scene before him. Neglect. Disintegration. Decay. Weeds growing all through the debris and around the ruined structures. Everywhere, except—

He stared. He suddenly felt a surge of excitement. Except on the dirt road itself.

If the area
were
abandoned, if it were not used at all, wouldn’t the road as well be overgrown with weeds? Or was it the hard-packed graphite-and-dirt compound that prevented it?

He gave a brief order. The two GIs climbed from the jeep and quickly took up positions on either side of the road, weapons at port arms. Erik drew his own gun. He turned to Don. He nodded.

Slowly they all began to advance along the empty road, the headlights knifing ahead of them into the darkness. . . .

The stolen jeep looked oddly out of place standing near the gaping black tunnel mouth, its cyclops eye dead and dark.

Don pulled up before the entrance. The twin headlight beams stabbed into the gloom of the mine, revealing only a long, wide, empty tunnel drilled into the mountain bedrock itself. In the distant shadows it appeared to make a bend.

Erik looked around quickly. He at once noticed the truck tire tracks. He studied the broken pieces of mining equipment left outside the tunnel, and the ore-cart rails leading into the mine, disappearing in the distant darkness, running along wooden ties laid on top of the hard ground. The ties were badly cracked and split, but a few of them, although discolored and scarred, looked new.

The two men stared soberly at one another. They spoke in taut, hushed voices.

“What do you think? Is he in there?”

“Got to be.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.” Erik nodded toward the rails. “This damned place isn’t as innocent as it looks.”

“Well? What do we do? Go get help?”

Erik looked earnestly at his friend.

“Who stays behind?” he asked quietly. “You? Me? Both of us? I’ll tell you something, Don. I for one have had my belly full of waiting for one day.” He gestured toward the mine. “And what about that guy in there? We’ve got to get him.”

“I suppose so. But—”

“Don. Have you ever heard of a major operation that didn’t have an alternative plan?”

“You got a point.”

“I figure that guy is all set to pull something. He’s sure proved himself to be a resourceful bastard. Can we be sure there isn’t another way out of here? Can we be sure he doesn’t take off while we sit around on our collective fat ass, waiting? He can’t be too damned far ahead of us. Not with that jeep sitting over there. Can we afford to wait?” Erik paused for a moment. Then he said firmly, “I say we find out what we’re up against before we holler help.”

Don made a wry face.

“So we stick our necks out again, right? This time on a different block.” He shrugged, “Okay. I’m with you.”

“You stay here. Cover our rear. We’ll go on in. See what we can find.”

Don climbed out of the jeep. Erik slid over behind the wheel. Don looked at him, his eyes grim.

“Hey! If you do run into something, old buddy, don’t be a fucking hero, okay?”

“Okay, old buddy.”

They moved out.

Within seconds they were swallowed in the murky gloom of the mine. . . .

Erik drove slowly down the middle of the tunnel, following the rails. He had engaged the four-wheel drive for maximum traction. In the shadows on either side of the jeep he could make out the ghostly figures of the two GIs. The wide horizontal bore of the drift mine ahead of him, clearly revealed in the beams from the jeep’s headlights, was empty. Affixed to the rough, drill-scarred ceiling he could see a heavy electric cable running the length of the tunnel. Evenly spaced light bulbs hung from it. They were dark. The black-gray walls of the mine tunnel absorbed an amazing amount of the reflected light; his headlight beams were like twin lances of white brilliance spearing the gloom ahead of him. In the distance the drift made a bend to the right.

Erik felt intolerably exposed. Every nerve end, every sense was at peak intentness, alert to the faintest sound of danger, the slightest movement in the darkness ahead.

There was nothing. . . .

Don crouched just inside the tunnel. He had a clear view of the area outside. His eyes never left it. Gun in hand, he listened tensely to the receding sound of Erik’s jeep going deeper into the mine.

He wished
he
could be the one in there. For once. But, dammit, it had to be Erik. He knew it. They both knew it. When a personal confrontation was probable, Erik’s knowledge of German had to be the deciding factor. He never questioned it. Neither of them did. Shit!

He strained to listen for that first sign of trouble—that first shot—hoping he would not hear it, yet knowing he would, anxious for it to happen so the unbearable forebodings would end.

Like waiting for that goddamned other shoe to fall, he thought.

But the muffled drone of the jeep continued undisturbed, growing ever fainter. . . .

Erik reached the bend. Cautiously he guided the jeep around it, hugging the rails. His world was filled with the grinding rumble of the jeep in low gear, with tenseness and with tormenting anticipation as his eyes followed the twin circles of brilliance cast by his headlights slowly moving across the tunnel wall before reaching into the blackness around the turn. . . .

Suddenly, over the laboring motor noise, he heard the sharp clang of metal striking metal in the gloom ahead.

At once he switched off the headlights and drowned in darkness. He killed the motor. He stopped breathing. He listened.

He could hear the fast surging of his own blood in his ears; the small noises of the jeep engine quieting; the heavy breathing of one of the GIs. Nothing else. The metallic clang was not repeated.

For a moment he sat in blackness, a blackness as absolute as nonexistence. He was loath to turn on the lights again and offer himself as a target impossible to miss. There was nothing he could do about it. Or was there?

He again started up the jeep. He switched on the headbeams. The light was suddenly blinding. He slid over to the passenger side and put his left foot on the gas pedal. Steering with his left hand, gripping his gun in the right, he slowly continued around the tunnel bend. Anyone in the darkness before him would not be able to see him because of the dazzling headlights; they would assume he sat behind the wheel. This way he might cut down the chance of being hit in the first blast. . . .

He was almost through. He suddenly gave a hard pull on the wheel. The jeep spun around the last few feet and poured its light over the scene before him.

In a flash the entire unbelievable sight etched itself on Erik’s mind.

The vast mine cavern lost in distant darkness, stacked, piled, heaped with an incredible array of stuff.

Mounds of rusty old ore carts and mining equipment pushed against the rock walls to make room for neat stacks of crates and cases, stenciled legends specifying shop machinery and a profusion of military stores and supplies, all unopened . . .

Rows of gun racks—empty. Stacks of lumber, logs and beams, and military barracks bunks—unassembled. A row of freshly painted signs leaning against boxes and chests piled next to the black mouth of a side stope, reading:
LAZARETT
—Hospital . . .
LAGER
—Storeroom . . .
RüSTKAMMER
—Armory . . . and Communications, Motor Pool, Mess Hall . . .

Piles of wooden chairs and stools; boxes of tools, hardware and electrical equipment—all still sealed . . . Everything necessary to equip a military installation completely . . .

All of it untouched.

His mind raced to understand the sight that assailed his eyes. He saw all of it at once.

All of it—and the lone figure of a man crouched dangerously at the center rails, imprisoned in the bright headlight beams. . . .

Willi was shocked into a moment of immobility as the blackness was ripped away and he could see.

His conscious mind refused to accept the evidence of his senses. He half expected the enemy jeep to be blasted out of existence by his hidden comrades. But the thought died instantly in the stark glare of reality.

The redoubt stronghold was uncompleted. Unoccupied. Dead.

He was alone.

He had denied the doubts that had begun to gnaw at the edges of his faith as he groped his way along the tunnel rails into the darkness of the mine, inexorably pursued by the deep-throated grinding sound of the enemy jeep. But now?

He stared at the vacant bastion.

Useless. Impotent.

He shivered as the full weight of his doubts struck him.

The
Alpenfestung?

With a small cry of disillusion and rage he dropped to one knee, facing the hated, blinding enemy.

He fired.

His first shot crashed through the windshield on the driver’s side, shattering it. The second one shot out one of the glaring headlights.

At once the GIs returned the fire.

Willi felt a tap on the outside of his arm. He instantly appraised the situation. There were too many of them. He hurled his gun away.

“
Kamerad!
” he shouted. “
Kamerad! Nicht schiessen!
Don’t shoot!”

He stood up. He raised his hands over his head. He was surprised at the sudden twinge of pain in one of them. Had he been hit? He dismissed it. His mind whirled. The next few moments were crucial.

Intently he watched the three men walking up to him, silhouetted against the headlight. He took their measure. Two of them were Ami infantry. Enlisted men only. The third? An officer perhaps. Three of them . . .