Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series) (34 page)

“And obviously she is smitten with you for reasons that presently escape me,” stated Uhlmann enquiringly.

“I rather suspect she fancied having a genuine military hero in the family for a change,” which riposte was accompanied by a huge grin as the point was scored.

“Asshole NCO’s. My life has been ruined by asshole NCO’s,” and Uhlmann aimed a playful swipe at Braun’s head careful to miss the still dressed site of his most recent wound.

“Seriously Johan, where will you both live once this mess is all resolved?”

“I rather suspect England, Rolf”

“England?”

“I have family there and it may be that Germany will not be a place for us in the years ahead.”

“Yes but England? Near your sister, I suppose. And yet you take my sister away from me?”

“Whoa friend! Don’t imagine that it is me imposing my will on your Krystal will you? You know she knows her own damn mind and if she wanted to go to the South Pole it would be me following her like an obedient dog!”

A nodding Uhlmann saw the opening and went for it, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I’ve often thought of you that way myself Johan”

The draw acknowledged with a shared smile, a second cigarette was brought forth and passed between the two.

Their comfortable silence was interrupted by Braun who held up his hand, obviously listening hard above the sound of rain and wind that relentlessly buffeted the lean-to in which they had secreted themselves.

Very quickly Rolf too became aware of the sound of a low-flying aircraft, and became uncomfortably aware that it was certainly very low and getting a lot closer.

“Aircraft, and damnably low at that,” Rolf confirmed to Braun.

Before either man could really react, the sounds of the aircraft became more urgent and loud, and then quickly changed into the recognisable sounds of destruction and death that accompany crashes at speed.

‘Schiesse! Its hit the camp” shouted Rolf and they sprang forward into the driving rain.

As both men ran in the general direction of the noise, they were too late to witness the demolition of the guard hut and swift unheralded death of its occupants. They did manage to see the aircraft flipping over and the subsequent destruction of over one hundred and fifty metres of fence before the wreckage ground to a halt and started to incinerate the hapless occupant.

Neither man was ever slow to act but the enormity of the possibility presented to them took a few seconds to sink in.

“The fence is gone Rolf”

“The guard hut is too. What do we have to lose? Let’s do it!”

It was an opportunity to seize and they both ran and shouted for all they were worth, desperate to rouse their comrades to the risky, yet tantalising possibility that had literally fallen from heaven.

Prisoners magically appeared, running hard, the spectre of freedom driving every man. Some brave souls strangely attempted to rescue the pilot although they quickly realised it was a fool’s mission.

Still others overpowered the two guards that remained transfixed by shock at the main gate, missed by about two metres when the Yak drove in.

Other guards were elsewhere in the towers and shots cracked out, immediately dropping two men in their tracks. But by now the chance of escape drove every German there, and they surged towards the huge rent in the wire and beyond.

Their headlong flight was accompanied by an impressive display of thunder and lightning, which gave the whole scene a Wagnerian aspect.

As the group with Rolf and Braun in it crossed the destroyed fence, Rolf shouted to them.

“Grab anything you can comrades but don’t dawdle, food and weapons, anything of use.”

Rolf, Braun and a few others slowed sufficiently to claw and grab at various items scattered from the guard hut as they ran by but no one stopped to admire the handiwork of the Russian fighter or lament the red grease that had once been the readiness guard detachment.

As the Germans tumbled out of the compound some were dropped by rifle fire and a belatedly employed DP28 light machine gun. By the end of the break out, some twenty-three POW’s had paid the ultimate price for their attempt at escape. Those not killed outright were subsequently dispatched either with a bullet in the brain or by a bayonet. In all about one hundred and fifty Germans made it out of the killing zone and fanned out into the surrounding woods, forming small groups and starting to disperse in all directions without command. Rolf and his faithful NCO struck out to the north, in company with fifteen others. After five minutes of frantic scrambling, a quick halt was called to establish where they thought they were and how best to make it back to their homeland. As the group struggled to gain their breath, the constant sound of gunfire punctuated the night.

“I don’t know this area at all. Anyone here have local knowledge?” panted Uhlmann. Shandruk was in the group and could obviously contribute nothing, but two Austrian Gebirgsjager spoke up and felt able to take the group forward with their knowledge, and that the nearby railway to the north offered the best chance of escape, or at least the best chance of clearing the area at speed. Certainly of late, the prisoners had become aware of trains at all hours, so they reasoned there was a good chance of getting away from Edelbach onboard one before the Soviets became too organised.

A quick inventory of their possessions yielded some surprising items. Shandruk had the prize with a Tokarev pistol and belt that he had grabbed as he ran. Others brought forth two bread bags stuffed with various foods, none of which were the regulation bread, which made Rolf smile. An SS Kavellerie Untersturmfuhrer had recovered a canteen that was full to the brim with vodka. Rolf had managed to snatch a binocular case, only to find it contained only cigarettes.

“Not what I had hoped for menschen, but with good value none the less” he ventured and received the odd grin and nod.

“Just you then Braun, What delights have you brought to the party?”

Braun looked exceptionally smug, for he had lifted what he thought was a map case. A cursory examination showed it was in fact just a mail bag containing the camp guards personal mail, with not even a single official envelope in sight to ease Braun’s obvious pain. Braun, upset that his contribution had yielded nothing of value, loudly determined to hang on to the letters for no other reason than to wipe his good German ass on, much to the amusement of the others.

“Don’t worry Braun, we didn’t have much time to select the sweetest items, and at least you will have a clean arse for a few days.” None the less, despite the obvious humour of it, Braun was less than happy that his efforts had been fruitless. That he had the only cigarette lighter in the group was his salvation as he saw it.

“Ok Kameraden, Untersturmfuhrer, one nip each of vodka, you will oversee this please.” A quick ‘jawohl’ and the process started. “The food will be divided into three amounts, one for each of the next three days. We will eat now so we have strength before we run further, but quickly comrades, quickly.” So, with a decent yet small and hastily consumed supper and a warming nip of vodka in their bellies, they started out north-west for the nearest rail line as the Austrians suggested. The tobacco would be saved for later.

As they accelerated away from the camp that had housed them, they were unaware that many of their former comrades were dying; both those who had made the bid for freedom and those who had failed to act upon the opportunity and remained within the camp, probably more from fear than sloth.

Those caught in flight were mown down without mercy or thought for recapture as the Bulgarians flooded back to the camp. Those remaining inside the camp fared no better. Their guilt established, all forty-four were dragged outside and swiftly executed, their bodies being arranged around the broken fence in order to show how well the guards had behaved in stemming the flow of escapees.

It served little purpose, for within the next hour the surviving Bulgarian guards were also being rounded up and summarily liquidated by a detachment of NKVD stationed at NeuPolla, which had eventually responded to the garbled radio summons from the camp commandant. His Major’s rank didn’t save him either, for despite his protestations, the recently returned NKVD Captain Skryabin blew the man’s brains all over the wall to save on the time and expense of a mock trial, and probably to cover his own complicity in events.

The telephone lines had been brought down by the first contact of the Yak, and their destruction did much to inhibit the immediate organisation but, even so, resources were slowly brought to bear to contain the escapees.

NKVD and regular army units were mobilised and by the end of the night, some thirty-five hundred Soviet troops were involved in the search. Ninety-seven Germans had already been apprehended outside of the camp and all but three of them were summarily dispatched with a bullet in the head or a bayonet. Those unlucky three were nailed to telegraph poles in Zwinzen to die a lingering death as examples to the local community.

2302 hrs Friday, 3rd August 1945, Gopfritz am der Wild. Soviet Occupied Lower Austria.

As the Russian search effort was still in its infancy, Rolf’s group continued to strike out for the possible safety of the railway line, both helped and hindered by the hammering rain and winds. Speed was of the essence, as it was decided to put as much distance as possible between the camp and the group before Soviet security efforts were fully organised. The two Austrians constantly consulted about direction but the trail was blazed by a young officer of the Brandenburgers whose field craft in such matters made him the obvious choice for the role.

They stumbled across the line and followed it northwards, hugging its eastern side as they progressed further away from the camp. There was a narrow escape at a crossing point when the group unfortunately timed their sprint across the road with the passing of three trucks full of Soviet infantry. That they were not seen was probably more due to the driving rain dampening the spirits of the Russians than anything else.

The group made speedy progress, following the rail line around in a long curve until it finally ran almost southeast and disappeared into a village.

Rolf made the decision to cross to the north at a point where rail line and road were most adjacent and the group swiftly made their way over.

Not a moment too soon, as more Soviet infantry and some of the hated NKVD arrived from the north-west and started to drop off sections of soldiers to form a physical barrier against anyone coming from the direction of the camp.

Immediately the blocking deployment bore fruit.

South of the railway line, two German prisoners, one of them an old comrade of Rolf’s, were caught in a vehicle searchlight. Shouts and rifles rang out simultaneously and one man dropped like a stone, obviously shot in the head. Rolf’s comrade tried to drag the wounded man to cover but both were shot at point blank range by a young submachine gunner, eager to be able to tell his family that he had killed his Germans.

Whilst it was unfortunate on both slain prisoners, it was extremely fortunate for Rolf and his men, as the young officer in charge of the group oriented his troops all to the south on the supposition that his men had killed the first arrivals.

Rolf’s group moved silently away in the opposite direction, crossing swiftly over another railway line that snaked northwest, its rails picked out by the increasingly frequent lightning.

Silently but swiftly the group moved through the gardens and back ways of Hauptstra²e and Nordrandweg, the good Austrian people staying firmly in their homes as gunfire mixed with thunder in the night.

The escapees gathered together in an overgrown walled area between Nordrandweg and the rail line, right opposite a junction spot where the single line became three and a small rail yard was formed.

It was immediately apparent that there was little military presence in the area. With the exception of a GAZ jeep and Studebaker truck parked up outside an obvious headquarters building in Bahnhofstra²e, no signs of danger were apparent, so it might be that the driving rain had been more in their favour than they first thought.