Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (27 page)

“
If that boat’s up to the job, we’re all getting in it and heading up river... quietly and with no fuss. I need you to find things we can use as oars, anything that’ll shift water, ok? Understand?”

The Italian officer
did not bother to tell Haines that he had studied at Cambridge so understood him perfectly, he just acknowledged and got on with the job.

Killer sidled up to his commander and sought silent permission to light a cigarette.

“Makes you wonder, dun it boss.”

Haines knew exactly what his loader was on about.

“The Eyeties’ve done well today. Some bloody hard fightin’ men there, eh? Why didn’t they do it up the blue, eh?”

“
Beats me, Killer... but thank fuck they were up to it today... or we’d all be dead... and that’s a fact.”

His statement
was accompanied by a smile as the young Irish Fusilier gave him the thumbs up from the river bank.

“
Ok, Killer, we’re leaving. Organise Stumpy and get him in the middle of the boat. I’m going to make sure the bus won’t be of any use to the bastards.”

Killer remonstrated immediately.

“Hang on boss. You can’t do that. It’ll bring the Reds down on us like a ton of bricks.”

Haines slapped the loader
’s shoulder, part in annoyance that his man should think him that stupid.

“
Give me some sodding credit, Killer! Now, get Stumpy away.”

With the help of three of the Italians, Stumpy was carried gently to the boat, a fully intact and larger than it looked rowing boat.

Haines slipped inside the turret, having first placed a can of petrol on the top.

Opening the breech, he slipped the unfired HVAP round out and placed it on the floor, replacing it with an HE round that he only partially inserted into the weapon. He then added a few more HE rounds to the pile on the floor and slipped a pair of primed grenades into the pile.

Killer returned and stuck his head in through the turret hatch.

“
We’re ready to go boss. The Eyeties are very keen. You ready?”

“
Soon. How we off for rowing stuff?”

“
There’s four oars and the infantry have scared up some planks.”

“
Take my Thompson, grab the shovel off the bus, and get that boat moving. I’ll be quick as I can and I’ll swim out to you... but what I’m doing probably won’t buy us too much time.”

“
Ok, boss. Just hurry up.”

Alone again, Haines paused to pay one last moment of respect to the remains of Sparkle before he exited the tank.

He dipped the ties he had salvaged in the petrol can, tying them together to make something long enough to hang inside to the floor and have enough left to tie to the MG pintel.

Fishing in his pocket, he extracted three Woodbines from his pack and pushed them together, making one long cigarette.

The contents of the fuel can were then added to the interior, although the Lancer was very careful not to disturb the lethal pile in the middle of the floor.

His final act was to slip one end of the
‘cigarette’ under the knotted section of the ties and light the other end.

The boat was already moving southwards, the men working up a sweat in the cold night, moving against the flow of the river.

Haines plunged into the icy water and his testicles immediately protested at the new indignation, albeit only for a moment, as the chilled water provided an anaesthetic effect for his aches and pains, and the cold in general provided the greater distraction for the exhausted officer.

The burning head of the super cigarette came close enough to the petrol soaked tie that the heat it brought to the process was sufficient to start combustion.

The tie burned, slowly for a moment but then, almost as if fanned into life, flared and made the journey to the end of the edge of the cupola in two seconds.

It did not need to go further.

The interior of the tank was rich with fuel vapours, actually too rich to burn, but the hatch area provided the perfect area for the vapours to ignite.

Orange flames danced eagerly, burning up the fuel greedily, dropping lower into the turret until the perfect point of air-fuel mix was present.

Half a kilometre away, Lieutenant Colonel Kozlov was on the radio, receiving the accolades offered freely by his army commander, Zhumachenko.

His immediate promotion to command of the 75th Rifle Division was announced, part of his mind controlled his mouth and delivered the expected thanks, the other part
directed his thoughts to consider how much of the division was left to command.

He watched absent-mindedly, as the orange glow transformed the distant area in quite an entertaining fashion, flames shooting skywards as if confined by a cylinder fifty feet high.

Then it exploded.

Haines, dripping and shivering, watched as
‘Biffo’s Bus’ came apart, unsure of which of the possible mechanisms had claimed her.

The flames died down almost as quickly as they started and the night was returned to relative darkness, a safe darkness
that swallowed the boat and its seventeen souls headed south in search of safety.

Makarenko had made an excellent recovery, especially as he was in the hands of Stefka Kolybareva, her own hideous injuries healing well and permitting her to do light duties to help ease her mental anguish.

Two beds down from Makarenko lay Rispan, the valiant Major
’s injuries more severe than first thought.

Today was
the General’s first time out of bed, and he was revelling in the freedom that the stiff backed chair offered.

A number of men from the Zilant attack force had survived to be nurtured in the
hospital facilities of the former concentration camp, now prison camp, to be passed into the detention area when medical science had put them back together.

Next to Makarenko was
Egon Nakhimov, still recovering from his ordeal and one of the last of the survivors to surrender to the recorded announcements from Makarenko, pleading with his men to turn themselves in, and guaranteeing them fair treatment.

Only one man from Makarenko
’s last command remained out in the forests.

Thus far, Nikitin had not surrendered.

Intelligence officers had swept down upon the Soviet General, keen to extract as much information from him as possible, seeking him out at all hours and without the niceties of medical permission, most being unceremoniously ejected by the hospital staff, who feared for their patient’s life.

Over time, they relented, permitting short sessions
, which were sufficient for a picture of the Zilant operation to be completed, adding new detail to their own existing knowledge.

Makarenko
’s own views and attitudes initially made the margins of debriefing reports but, as they seemed to become stronger and more personal, interviewers started to record a tantalising possibility, one that was eventually discussed by men with higher responsibility.

De Walle, one of those who took control of the exploratory operation, selected his man very carefully.

The hospital ward, in fact, most of the camp, was bugged, and listeners had reported back that Makarenko had been fully apprised of the massacre of his wounded men, good treatment of the prisoners, and subsequent events.

Colonel Albrecht
Haefali, temporarily transferred from his infantry command at De Walle’s request, was greeted like a hero by both Rispan and Kolybareva, who introduced the Legion officer to Makarenko.

Although he could not understand a word of what the two said, Haefali knew he should be embarrassed.

Makarenko extended his hand.

“
Thank you for the lives of my officers... and friends, Colonel. Thank you.”

Releasing his grip and
wearily dropping back into the chair, Makarenko accepted the drinking cup from Kolybareva’s hand.

“
So, how may I help you, Colonel Haefali? As a soldier, I have said all that I can say already.”

Looking at the other wounded Russians and at the Doctor, Haefali gestured at the audience.

“You may say whatever you have to say in front of these soldiers. I trust them with my life, Colonel.”

With a smile, the Legion officer nodded in understanding.

Haefali remembered what he had been told to say, briefed at length by Allied intelligence officers. Immediately, he rejected it all and went his own way.

“
Sir, I believe that I am here because your officers would introduce me to you in a positive fashion and, with that, you might look upon what I have to say without some of the normal reservations.”

Those wearing headsets in the nearby monitoring shed started voicing their anger
, fearing the legionnaire had blown the mission at the first moment. De Walle cut them short immediately, despite his own similar concerns.

“
Shut up and listen!”

The three men settled back down, two writing in shorthand, recording the conversation, one each in English and French.

“Very open of you, Colonel. Why do you tell me this?”

“
General Makarenko, I’m doing this openly so that you can understand that I’m doing what I believe to be right, not at the bidding of some... shadow with no name.”

He waited whilst Kolybareva offered up another cup of water.

“I have been given information to present to you and I will do so... but I will do so because I think you should know, not because of it being part of some grand intelligence trick.”

“
Colonel, please go on.”

Three hundred metres away, in a warm monitoring hut, De Walle smiled.

‘Nicely done, Albrecht. Very nicely done.’

Haefali was undoubtedly a man of honour, but he was an Allied officer first and foremost
, so more than happy to use his situation for the cause.

De Walle
’s joy increased as the Legion Officer delivered the information received from the Soviet contact, covering the way that the Soviet leadership had misrepresented so much to sway the Military through to the damming suggestion that an informer’s report on a less than complimentary exchange regarding the Soviet leader, between Makarenko and Erasov, had directly contributed to the massacre of Makarenko’s men. Personal revenge against the paratrooper General, as well as hubris, played a part in the fool’s errands that were the Zilant missions.

The suggestion that the accident to his friend might have been more by design than happenstance and that the liquidation of Colonel Erasov
’s entire family had taken place as Makarenko was in the air, returning from the funeral, brought noises of horror from all those present.

In the monitoring shed, a hand picked up a phone and a voice commanded an immediate connection.

“Sir...De Walle here... Yes, it went well, very well. We mustn’t rush it, but I think we can consider the next phases likely and plan accordingly, Sir.”

The grin was permanently stuck to the Deux officer
’s face.

“
Thank you, Sir. Haefali was superb, of course,” unashamedly pointing out that the man he had chosen had done the job, “And if this goes as we hope... well, we know what could happen.”

Replacing the silent receiver, De Walle took his leave and went to meet up with Haefali in the old SS camp commander
’s house nearby.

Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come, nor care beyond today.

Thomas Gray

Twenty minutes beforehand, Submarine B-29 had dropped beneath the agitated surface of the Atlantic, ready to spend the daylight hours on the bottom, resting in silence.

She had arrived the previous night, her patrol cut short by a close encounter with the growing anti-submarine forces that the Allies were deploying.

Twenty-two hours after her rendezvous with the ‘Golden Quest’, a patrolling B24 Liberator spotted the schnorkel, and that began an intense hunt, with the B-29 as the prey.

Whilst relatively undamaged, the bashing that the vessel had taken whilst evading the
depth charges and hedgehogs of the hounding anti-submarine group, over a period of nearly thirty-six hours, had reduced her crew to virtual wrecks, and nine men to actual ones.

Those nine were now being cared for in the small but reasonably
well equipped facility in the Glenlara base, their broken bones set and wounds stitched. Those men that could be spared from the crew were recuperating in a barracks set aside for the sub crews, finding the sound of the growing wind unsettling but, once sleep came, nothing else mattered and they could enjoy the safety of their dreams.