Shadows in the Mist, page 13
Fallon shook his head. “We’re not sure how it happened. He just kept attacking from the darkness with that…”
“I only saw the aftermath,” Chambers said. “The entire squad was sliced all to hell.”
Wolf frowned. “There had to be more than one German.”
“We only saw the one,” Fallon said.
“Chambers, what was your squad doing while my men were getting slaughtered?”
“Defending the road in case reinforcements arrived.”
“And did they?”
“No.”
Wolf shook his head. “Eight X-2 soldiers dead and one missing. Well, men, this is a real mess. You were not supposed to split up.” The captain pinched the bridge of his nose.
Chambers’s jaw tightened. He scooped a ball of muddy clay from the escarpment and rolled it between his hands. “How many men do we have?”
“I brought thirty,” LeBlanc answered. “With your platoon that makes a little over forty.”
Chambers sighed. “The plan was to attack the town with two solid platoons.”
“We’ll just have to be efficient, won’t we?” Fallon half-grinned, the scarred side of his face remaining stiff.
“There is definitely something different about Richelskaul,” Captain Wolf said. “By your descriptions, it sounds like the Germans have already pulled out. Maybe they left a few guards and snipers, but I doubt there’s a full company. Otherwise they would have retaliated by now.”
“My gut tells me different,” Chambers said. “I think they’re nestled in there, waiting for us to enter the town.”
“Like a trap?” LeBlanc asked.
“Yeah, the unmanned guard posts are just to lure us in.”
Fallon said, “Thank you for that insightful report, Chambers, but we make decisions based on gathered intelligence, not gut feelings.”
“Yeah, your decision to go into that warehouse was really intelligent.”
“Fuck you.”
“Enough, both of you!” Wolf pulled out an aerial photo of Richelskaul. “We need to find out if this town is still occupied. Chambers, I’m sending your platoon in to recon.”
Fallon’s brow furrowed. “I’m going with him, aren’t I?”
“No, all X-2 soldiers are staying back here with me.”
The mud ball oozed between Chambers’s fingers. “Sir, I thought we were all supposed to patrol together.”
“The plan has changed. You can take one of Lieutenant LeBlanc’s squads with you. Lieutenants Hawk, LeBlanc, round up another eight men.”
LeBlanc patted Chambers on the shoulder. “I’ll send my best squad.”
Left alone in the spider’s den with Wolf, Chambers leaned back against the muddy escarpment and lit up a cigarette. “So what’s in this for you, Captain?”
Wolf looked up from the aerial photo. “What do you mean?”
“This love affair you got going with Fallon. I know what gives him a hard-on, but why are you so damned eager to capture Richelskaul?”
“Just doing my duty.”
“Duty, my ass.”
Wolf’s face shifted from a determined captain to a man on the verge of rage. “Chambers, you know all that is necessary to carry out this mission.” He glanced down at the map, unable to hold eye contact. “Now, your men will follow the main stree—”
Chambers grabbed his wrist. “At least answer me this, Captain, why is a Czech mercenary from Prague working with the OSS?”
“My reasons are classified. If you’re not willing to work with me, then say the word, and I will send Lieutenant LeBlanc in your place.”
Chambers took a long drag from his cigarette. “All right, Wolf. I’m in.” He pressed his cigarette into the muddy wall and leaned over the aerial photo of Richelskaul.
Chapter 23
“Best of luck to you, padna,” whispered Paul LeBlanc at the front gate bunkers as Chambers’s platoon set off into the mist. “We got your backs.” The sentries staying behind looked clearly relieved they hadn’t been chosen.
Chambers’s reconnaissance platoon of sixteen GIs walked single file down the main street. The buildings loomed overhead, dark, gutted-out hulks in the storm. Rain streamed off shingled roofs, turning the road into a muddy river. Chambers gave hand signals for two privates to take point. His squad, wide-eyed and wary, crept with their backs against the buildings. Soldiers jerked rifles into broken windows and open doorways. They reached the town square, where buildings bordered a park. The mist closed in around them. Pools of smoke eddied around their boots. Rumbles echoed in the distance.
Finch nudged Chambers. “Did you hear that?”
He strained to hear beyond the din of the storm. “Could be thunder.”
“No, sir, that was a gunshot.”
“I heard it, too,” Garcia whispered. “Came from behind us.”
Lieutenant LeBlanc’s platoon?
From the town’s entrance, gunshots grew in number, sounding like a fireworks show.
“There goes our surprise,” Garcia muttered to Buck. The rancher nodded and spat tobacco.
“Any votes for coming back when it’s sunny?” Deuce chuckled.
“Quiet. Everybody stay focused.” With visibility reduced to a matter of feet, Chambers led his unit through the gauze-thick haze, keeping close to the building facades. His bandaged hand tingled again with a thousand tiny pinpricks. Jesus, what’s going on? A kid yelped somewhere down the chain of soldiers.
“Papa Bear, take lead.” Chambers moved down the column, each man appearing and disappearing in the fog as he passed. At the end of the line a private mumbled frantically to a sergeant.
“What’s all the commotion?” Chambers asked.
“Reese disappeared.” The kid’s teeth chattered as if the damp air had dropped to subzero.
Chambers stared back into the mist. It swallowed up the street behind them. “Where to?”
“Don’t know, sir. Reese was bringing up the tail. I heard him grunt. When I looked back he was gone.”
Chambers herded his platoon around him. He had come in here with sixteen. Only thirteen were present. “Who else is missing?”
“I don’t see Davis,” one of LeBlanc’s men said.
“Jonesy is missing, too,” said another.
The gathered soldiers eyed the surrounding fog like lost lambs wary of circling wolves. Chambers looked to a stocky soldier from LeBlanc’s platoon. “Sergeant, take two men, backtrack twenty paces. See if our missing boys are still on the main road. Remember the code word so you don’t get mistaken for Germans. Find them and hustle back.”
The sergeant grabbed two privates and disappeared into the fog.
The rest of the platoon pushed forward and soon reached an area where German military vehicles were parked haphazardly along the square. Bullet holes riddled the windshields. One car had crashed through a store window. Chambers’s men peered into the vehicles as they passed. No signs of anyone dead or alive. It looked as if every inhabitant had simply vanished. The fog cleared a few yards ahead, and several large water-filled craters came into view. Aerial bombs had wreaked havoc on the main street. What looked to be an arm was jutting up from the water of one crater, stiff fingers raking at the mottled gray sky.
The men eased up to the crater. Raindrops rippled the dark murky water. Chambers glanced in every direction, then back down at the red face floating just beneath the surface.
“Another dead Kraut?” Mahoney asked.
“Naw, one of our boys.” Buck dipped his hand into the water and pulled out a helmet labeled OTTER.
“No way,” Garcia said.
“Pull him out,” Chambers barked.
Buck and Mahoney hauled out the corpse. Corporal Otter’s face and chest had been hacked away to an unrecognizable pulp. The eyes were missing.
“Jesus…” Garcia kissed the cross around his neck.
Goldstein stepped forward, putting a hand on Garcia’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”
The chaplain gave Chambers a suspicious look. “What do you make of this, Lieutenant?”
“We’re not alone.” It felt like insects were burrowing into his scarred hand. He gathered the platoon. “Everybody listen up. Apparently we got Krauts hiding in here. So keep tight to the man in front of you. Nobody wanders off.”
More shots fired in the distance, pop, pop, pop-pop-pop, closer this time, just beyond the barbed wire at the edge of town.
Deuce looked back, whispered, “That’s LeBlanc’s platoon.”
“We’re under attack!” a soldier’s voice cracked.
Sergeant Mahoney shook him. “Keep quiet.”
“Screw this recon shit,” Deuce whispered, gripping his BAR.
Small-arms fire continued to echo at the outskirts of town.
Chambers grabbed the radio receiver from Garcia and called Wolf. “Spearhead calling Spear, what’s happening? Over.”
Wolf’s voice crackled, “Meeting resistance. Over.”
“This town is a deathtrap. We’re coming back to help you. Copy?”
“Negative, situation under control. Maintain reconnaissance. Find a refuge. We will rendezvous there. Copy?”
“Roger.”
“We heading back?” Deuce asked.
Chambers shook his head. “We’re doing what we came here to do. Stay focused.” A sudden hunger overtook his body with an intense shudder. Stay focused yourself, Chambers. He searched the dark, shattered windows of a hotel. “In there.” He followed Deuce and Garcia into the ruins. Dust-coated rubble littered the lobby. A ceiling had fallen through, and he could see up into the second floor. They checked the first-floor rooms for Krauts.
Chambers ordered, “Fan out.” Half the platoon moved into the kitchen, while Chambers led another group through the lobby and dining room. Every downstairs room came up empty. He started up the winding wood staircase, the stairs creaking beneath his boots. His hand tingled again, the pinpricks growing more intense with each step. Chambers paused midway, observing the darkness at the top of the stairs.
“Sir, I’m feeling something,” Goldstein said from the bottom of the stairs. “Dear God, you have to see this.”
Chambers backed down the stairs, the tingles fading as he reached the bottom. “What?”
Goldstein looked up from his palm. “When you climbed up those stairs, the cross on my hand began to glow.”
“Chaplain, I don’t have time for religious bull—”
From inside the kitchen came screams of gut-wrenching terror. Gunfire sounded throughout the hotel.
Heart hammering, Chambers glanced around. Several men raced out the door into the thick fog. Shots cracked along the street. Men yelled at phantom soldiers.
At the top of the stairs, muzzle flashes lit up the darkness, shredding the walls above Chambers and Goldstein. A chandelier crashed to the floor behind them.
“Move, move, move!” Chambers shoved the medic out a busted window. Outside, the storm concealed all but three men. Garcia, Deuce, and a kid from LeBlanc’s platoon shot wildly. The others vanished into the smoke, including Goldstein. A man screamed and was cut off. More screams echoed from somewhere. Chambers grabbed his three visible soldiers and charged toward the battle cries. Dropped rifles and helmets littered the pavement.
Garcia stumbled over a severed arm. “Oh, Jesus.”
Deuce picked up a baseball floating in a red puddle. “Buck!”
“Quiet.” Chambers pulled Deuce and Garcia behind the blackened remains of a car. The blood-stained road seemed to be spinning, spinning, rain falling, choking, clotted gray air swirling around him, blinding him. The platoon’s falling apart. Just like North Africa.
Deuce pressed up against him. He flinched with every distant explosion. “They’re slaughtering us!”
The mist eddied around them.
The kid from LeBlanc’s platoon sobbed. “I don’t see anybody.”
Garcia whispered, “What do we do, sir?”
“Follow me.” The four soldiers darted across the sidewalk, crouching in a half-open doorway. Chambers nudged open the door with his rifle. It creaked on rusty hinges. Shadows draped the ruins of a tavern. Long tables with benches filled the room. A long bar with stools stretched across one wall. “Inside.”
Deuce and LeBlanc’s soldier entered first, followed by Garcia. The other members of the Lucky Seven were nowhere to be seen.
The fog pressed against Chambers. He jerked his rifle in every direction. His palm erupted with a burning sensation, and he ripped off the bandage. The cross-shaped scar was glowing. He watched incredulously as another letter, V, mysteriously formed on the bottom edge of the cross.
A baritone voice screamed behind the wall of smoke.
“Mahoney!” Chambers started to look for him when an unearthly shriek echoed from inside the tavern. Deuce and Garcia screamed. Bullets shattered the windows above Chambers’s head. He hit the ground. Heart slamming against his chest, he aimed his Thompson through the doorway. Halfway inside, blood began streaking the wood floor. The bloody trail led to a large German shadow dragging a body into the darkness.
Chapter 24
Chambers fired his Thompson, hitting the German silhouette dead center. The enemy stumbled back against the bar, releasing a banshee scream. His machine-gun fire arced wildly, shattering a mirror. Chambers pounded his chest with lead, and the German dropped to the floor, dead, with a heavy thud.
No, not dead!
Incredibly, the shadow rose from the ground, sweeping the room with glowing silver eyes. He shrieked and raised his machine gun. Muzzle flashes lit up the darkness in short bursts. A chain of bullets sprayed across the tavern.
Chambers flattened against the floor as slugs punched holes into the table above him.
Move your ass! He elbow-crawled between the bench tables, heart smacking his sternum. He could see only parts of the Kraut’s silhouette now—knee-high jackboots, ammo belt, large gray hands gripping the gun. Muzzle flashes reflected in the German’s eyes. Not eyes. Goggles. A gas mask covered his broad face. A steel-kettle helmet crowned his enormous head. A Nazi Frankenstein. His submachine gun sprayed a chain of fury across the tavern. Ceiling tiles and glass rained down. Lanterns crashed onto tables. Somewhere in the darkness, Chambers’s soldiers wailed and returned fire. The storm of hot metal shredded tables and benches into splinters. He pulled his helmet down over his eyes.
The submachine gun clicked empty, then clacked to the wood floor. The German drew a saber from a scabbard, metal swishing the air. Chambers’s skin prickled as he heard a growl that sounded like an enraged Rottweiler.
He searched the shadows for his rifle. The jackboots marched toward him, weaving between the tables. The blade tapped across the tabletops. Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Chambers scurried on hands and knees. He skidded across a slippery puddle. Froze. Ahead lay the boots of the GI dragged into the gloom. Gray slime that smelled of swamp mud covered his ankles. The ooze blotched his uniform and the bloody stump where his head should have been.
Christ! Chambers scurried backward, gagging. Is that Deuce? An unearthly scream echoed behind him. The saber chopped at the tables. Wood splinters shot into his neck like tiny darts. He found his Thompson beneath a bench. He leaped up and shot the German point blank in the stomach, chest, and throat. His broad body stumbled backward. He dropped his sword, arms spinning like a windmill, and crashed through a swinging back-room door. Chambers let go the trigger and caught his breath. The door swung on rusty hinges. Squeak-squeak. Squeak-squeak. He searched the gloom. No other Krauts in the tavern. Just the bastard who took out three of my men. Something growled inside the back room.
Chambers eased toward the door. Behind it came a rustling. Pots clanged. The thump of boots. A door slammed. Pushing the door inward with the barrel of his Thompson, Chambers expected to catch the boot of the dead Kraut. But the door swung open fully. The body was gone. The back door hung open. A dark, rain-drenched alley lay beyond.
At the front end of the tavern, Garcia cried, “Jesus, man! Somebody get me a medic!”
Chambers followed the moans and spotted his man leaning against a front wall. He knelt in front of Garcia. “Where were you hit?”
“Leg and hand. Bastard blew my middle finger off!” He cradled a shattered hand. “Christ, it hurts.”
“Garcia, stay put. I’m getting help.”
“Did ya waste him?” Deuce crawled out of the shadows. Relief flooded Chambers.
“Yeah. You hit?”
“No, got lucky.”
“Stay with Garcia.” Chambers ran to the door. “Medic!”
Outside gunshots ruptured the steady din of the rain. Windows shattered. Wood splintered. Rock dust rose and merged with the fog. Soldiers ran through the mist. A baritone voice yelled, “Find cover!”
“In the tavern!” Chambers hollered.
“Lieutenant!” Buck and Mahoney emerged alive from the smoke curtain to Chambers’s surprise. They fired at an unseen enemy across the street. German bullets sprayed the road, whizzing by their heads, pinging off walls and doors. Mahoney zigzagged across the road.
“Get in here!”
Buck and Mahoney dashed into the tavern.
Lead hail pocked the walls.
“We stirred up a Kraut’s nest!” Mahoney busted out a window, firing back.
“They’re advancing from behind us.”
Buck stabbed his gun barrel through a window. “They’ve blocked the entrance.”
“Keep a steady base fire. I’ll find others.” Chambers peered out the entrance. A stick grenade exploded in the street. A running GI rolled flat on his back. The kid cried, squirming in a puddle of his own blood. Goldstein flew to his aid.
B-r-r-r-r-p-p-p. A burp gun’s rapid burst sparked the pavement around them. Goldstein ducked while hoisting the wounded soldier off the ground.
Chambers fired at the opposite building. “In here!”
The medic lugged his human cargo across the street. Muzzle flashes lit up in the windows behind them. Bullets snaked across the pavement and punctured red holes along the injured soldier’s back and chest. He slumped against Goldstein.
