They drove into the pine forest, searching for 2nd Armor, and they didn’t find them, not at first. But 2nd Armor found them.

  “They’re not here,” Harry shouted over the noise of the engine, “They must’ve found a way out.”

  “Or the Germans found them.”

  He was peering through the trees, searching for the bulky shapes of American armor, Shermans and M10s. They just weren’t there, and he was about to give up and turn back when he saw the trunk of a fallen tree. Except it wasn’t the trunk of a fallen tree. It was the 75mm main gun of a Panther tank.

  He glanced aside at Harry. “Germans. We’re in trouble.”

  Chapter Four

  Obersturmführer Hans Reitz’s eyes were everywhere, searching for the enemy he knew must be close. His depleted unit still had the firepower to defeat whatever they encountered, and if it happened to be American Shermans, that suited him just fine. The medium tanks were no match for the heavy panzers, and if he met them in battle they’d blast them into so much scrap. The movement in the nearby wood caught his attention. A Kubelwagen jeep with two men inside, and at first he thought they were German soldiers, Wehrmacht. When he focused his binoculars, he recognized the iconic shapes of American helmets riding in the vehicle.

  He grabbed for the microphone. “Driver, target at two o’clock, a Kubelwagen with two enemy soldiers. They could be scouting for the armored unit we’re searching for. All vehicles. Close up, follow that vehicle, and look for enemy tanks.”

  The Panther surged forward, and he cocked the MG34 7.9mm machine gun mounted in the turret. But he held his fire in case there were Shermans lurking inside the wood, and he wanted to get closer before he spooked them and they ran.

  Of course they would run, what else would they do? The Americans are not fools, and after several bruising encounters with Panthers they know they’re no match for the German heavies.

  The forty-five ton tank raced forward into the trees, and the driver smashed over the slender trunks of the new grown pines. The Americans and the captured jeep had disappeared, but they couldn’t be far away, and neither could the armored unit they were hunting.

  They were two hundred yards inside the forest and still there was no sign of them. No sign of those two soldiers riding in the German jeep, and no sign of enemy armor. He grabbed the microphone.

  “We’ll halt here and stay out of sight. They can’t be far away, and we’re sure to hear their engines. Switch off.”

  The powerful Daimler-Benz engines went silent, and the commanders of the seven Panthers stayed outside the turrets. Watching, listening. Waiting for targets to destroy.

  * * *

  “Do you see them?”

  They’d parked the vehicle behind a thick stand of trees, hoping the enemy wouldn’t see them. But the enemy tanks had disappeared. Or they’d switched off their engines and were still inside the forest. Either way, they couldn’t have gone far, and Cassidy decided they couldn’t wait any longer.

  “We haven’t found our guys yet. We have to keep going.”

  “What if those Jerries are still out there?”

  “They are out there, no question. There’s not a damn thing we can do about that, except find 2nd Armored and show them the way back.”

  “You think it’ll work?”

  “It has to work, Harry. We’re out of ideas. We don’t have anything else.”

  Cassidy switched the engine back on and drove back to the place where they’d encountered the Panthers. The countryside was empty. No tanks, no soldiers, nothing. He drove on across fields, bumping onto a narrow farm track, and still there was nothing. No German tanks, and more importantly, no American tanks.

  “We’re wasting our time,” Byrd grumbled, “They’re not here. They must’ve found a way out.”

  Cassidy was beginning to have the same idea, although turning back didn’t seem like the right thing to do. “Tell you what, we’ll give it another half-hour. We can’t go driving around enemy territory any longer, even if we do have one of their jeeps. If we run into any more Germans, I doubt we’ll be lucky next time round.”

  Their luck ran out sooner than expected. The narrow farm track ended abruptly, and they were facing a river about twenty yards across, with lines of willow trees growing on either bank. Tracks either side suggested it had been possible for certain vehicles to get across, but not now. Recent heavy rains had turned the normally shallow stream into a torrent, and although a farm tractor would probably make it, the Kubelwagen didn’t stand a chance.

  They halted on the bank, and both men took a moment to climb out and stretch their legs to remove the tension of the close brush with the enemy. Ray took a sip of water from his canteen as he stared across to the other side of the river at a cluster of huge farm buildings. Whatever they’d farmed in this place it was big business. There was space in those buildings for hundreds of animals, maybe pigs or cattle. He imagined the barns stacked from floor to ceiling with bales of hay and straw, sacks of animal feed. Except now it was abandoned, like many farms in France, their owners unwilling or unable to continue after the Nazi occupation.

  “We’ll have to turn around and go back,” he said to Harry, “There’s no way to cross that river.”

  He nodded. “You know those German tanks are somewhere behind us. They could be following us.”

  He chuckled. “Forget it. If they wanted to kill us they’d have done it when they first saw us. I reckon they’ve left the area. We’re in the clear. There’re no tanks for several miles. If we…” He stopped talking. He’d seen the doors of a huge barn open on the opposite side of the river, and the main gun of an armored vehicle poked out through the gap. The roar of powerful engines seemed to shake the ground, and a second later the gun began to move as the tank started forward, “Shit, they’re here.”

  He leapt into the jeep, started the engine, and almost tore the teeth from the cogs in the gearbox as he rammed it into gear and started to turn around. It took a half-dozen attempts in the narrow track before he was pointing away from the threat behind them, and he stomped on the gas pedal. And stopped.

  In front of them, a line of tanks was approaching down the track, and a second later a machine gun started pouring bullets at them.

  “Get off the track!” Harry shouted.

  He didn’t need telling, but he needed to get over the steep bank on each side of the track, and at the first attempt the Kubelwagen stalled halfway up. He restarted the engine, backed down, and took another run at it. Once again the engine stalled. He backed away and didn’t make a third attempt. A line of machine gun bullets stitched across the ground in front of the hood, another volley tore past the rear, and he didn’t need telling it was a warning. The next time they fired, they wouldn’t aim to miss.

  The engine was still running, but he switched it off, and both men sat motionless with their hands in the air. Waiting for the Germans to approach, and with luck they’d take them prisoner. The alternative was they’d kill them out of hand. The Nazis had a harsh way of dealing with enemy soldiers. The word was Adolf Hitler had issued an order for Special Forces to be executed on the spot. Known as the ‘Commando Order,’ nobody knew if it applied to airborne troops. Nobody wanted to find out.

  They heard the tramp of boots coming up behind them, and he waited, his back tensed for the bullet that he was convinced would come. Instead, a voice shouted, “Get out of the vehicle, Krauts. Try anything funny, and we’ll fill you full of lead.”

  Krauts? And the accent is American.

  Slowly, Ray turned his head to look behind at the soldier who’d almost reached them. The helmets were as American as the accent. The man called back to someone on the opposite side of the river.

  “They’re just in American uniforms, Sir. I reckon they’re spies. Do you want me to put a bullet in them?”

  “Not yet, Charlie, check them out first.”

  He felt the hand grab his shoulder and swing him around. “You have any more weapons?”

  Cassidy was almost choked up with relief, tinged with a degree of fear if they couldn’t convince these men they were on their side. “Soldier, we don’t have any more weapons. No wait, I took a pistol from a German officer. It’s in the left pocket of my jacket.”

  He snatched it out. “Luger, huh? In my book that makes you a Kraut, unless Uncle Sam is supplying Lugers to our men.”

  “Check the top pocket. You’ll see my identity documents. We’re 82nd Airborne.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Airborne? We’ll soon see about that.”

  He took his time, thumbing through his ID and checking Harry’s. He still wasn’t convinced whether to shoot them or not, until an officer approached from further up the track and ordered him not to.

  “What do we have here?”

  “They say they’re 82nd Airborne, Sir.”

  He looked puzzled. “What’re two men from the 82nd doing in this neck of the woods? You know we’re behind enemy lines.”

  He explained about the mission. “We’re looking for the 2nd Armored Division to lead them back to friendly territory.”

  A pause. “We’re 2nd Armored, or at least a part of it. We got separated from the rest of our tanks, and we’ve been trying to get back.” The officer, a captain, smiled, “Do you have a way to get back to our own lines?”

  “Yessir, we believe we do.”

  “You know there’re Nazi tanks in the area. They’re SS, and they have Panzergrenadiers along with them. We’d have fought our way past them, but we have eleven Shermans, and that’s not enough to take on seven Panthers and Panzergrenadiers armed with panzerfausts and anti-tank artillery. Private, back that piece of tin out of the way. You two men can ride on top of the lead tank, that’ll be Sergeant Cornwell’s M10. You were lucky. My men were about to start shooting when we recognized the American helmets. At first we thought you were spies dressed in American uniform, so we had some questions for you. Otherwise, you’d have been dead.”

  Ray nodded. “That’s good to know.”

  He smiled. “It’s as well we did. If you can get us out of this mess, we may yet survive. By the way, I’m Captain Feldman. I’ve seen your names in your ID, so that gets the formalities out of the way. Now for the hard bit, find us a way out.”

  They ditched the Kubelwagen while the rest of the tanks forded the river to join them. They lined up, eleven medium tanks, including the M10 tank destroyer, along with troops from units scattered when they got lost. Ray and Harry climbed onto the M10, and the Sergeant introduced himself as Scott Cornwell. “This is my gunner, Manuel Morales.”

  He was a typical Hispanic, short, swarthy and carrying more weight than was healthy. He also wore a worried frown, permanently plastered on his face. They afterward explained Morales supported a pregnant wife and four kids back home in the States, and his wife’s mother had recently gone to live in his household. He had plenty to worry about. If he bought the farm, his family would be penniless.

  The roar of the engine starting drowned the introductions out, and a moment later the M10 lurched forward. Riding in the open turret felt strange, and Cornwell assured them that if that felt strange, wait until they came under fire.

  “Up here we have no protection from shrapnel, snipers, and grenades, you name it. About the only protection we have is from the Lord Almighty, and believe you me, the crews of these tank destroyers are expert as saying their prayers.”

  “Sarge, you know what we’re up against?”

  “Panthers, I know.”

  “What happens if we run into them?”

  A shrug. “Theoretically, this three-inch gun is enough to take out a Panther, but it’s not easy. A hit on the rear armor might penetrate the hull, but when one of those bastards is coming straight at you, your rear armor is a long way away. In which case you need to look for a vulnerable place to hit them from the front, and there ain’t many of those.”

  “There’s no other way?”

  “We turn and run. As fast as this thing can go.”

  Both troopers surveyed the surrounding countryside. There was no sign of the enemy, yet. But they knew they were there, and they could run into them at any moment. Cassidy worked out how to get back using the route they’d used to get through, and he began to feel more confident. Eleven Sherman engines sounded reassuring, a thunderous roar, shaking the ground beneath their steel tracks, and the crews were all on alert. Main guns moving from side to side, and inside the armored hulls he could picture men crouched behind machine guns, ready to start blasting the moment they saw a German.

  He was beginning to relax a little, and he leaned against the butt of the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the front of the turret. Glancing around, he met the Sergeant’s eyes, and Cornwell grunted, “We’re looking good. There’s no sign of the Jerries.”

  Cassidy grunted. “Sarge, they’re out there somewhere. We saw them, the bastards nearly had us.”

  “You sure you know the way back to our lines? I mean, without fighting our way through a bunch of Nazi tanks.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. We go out the way we came in, slip through the middle of them, and they won’t even see us.”

  He was about to reply, mouth half open when his eyes went as big as saucers, and he pointed across the fields. Dark shapes, stationary on the edge of a stand of trees. He sucked in his breath. “Panthers!”

  He grabbed for the microphone and broadcast a warning, but they’d seen them, and the Shermans picked up speed. Behind them, the Germans had started to move, and a second later the first shell whistled toward them. Cornwell was already rotating the turret to face the enemy, and a moment later Manuel Morales fired, sending a three-inch shell whistling toward the nearest enemy. He was good, damn good. Better than the German gunner whose shell missed. Manuel’s shell scored a direct hit on the frontal armor of the racing Panther. They saw it explode, and when the smoke cleared, it was still coming. Maybe if they’d used binoculars they’d have seen some scratches on the paintwork, but that was the total extent of the damage.

  “Cassidy, you said you knew a way out?”

  “We’re nearly at the turn. In two hundred yards, leave the track and drive across two fields. When we reach the third field, things will get a tad tricky, so I’ll show you the way through.”

  “You’d better,” he growled.

  The eleven vehicles rattled and bounced along the track until he pointed to where they needed to leave the roadway and head cross-country. More shells whistled around them, but the field was lower than the track, and they were briefly out of sight of the Germans. Not for long, and they reached the edge of the field. Cassidy looked back. He was in time to see seven gun barrels pointed at the American column, and they fired seven high velocity armor-piercing shells that hammered toward them. He’d miscalculated. There was no way they could survive that terrible barrage. He’d made a fatal error of judgment, and there was no way to put things right, except for a miracle. He recalled the words of Sergeant Cornwell and said a quick prayer, knowing it was useless. On this day and in this place, there would be no miracles.

  Chapter Five

  Obersturmführer Reitz bared his teeth in a savage grin. He’d told them this would happen, told them they’d have an opportunity to destroy the Americans, and his prophecy had come true. They had them trapped. The new 75mm guns fitted to the Panther were a match for anything, and vastly superior to the puny popgun fitted in the Sherman. In addition, the German tank was faster with better cross-country performance. Now they’d left the road, they were sitting ducks. The Panzergrenadiers rode in their half-tracks, keeping pace. When they’d destroyed the Shermans, they’d dismount and finish off the survivors.

  He grabbed the microphone. “All units, stay closed up and follow them across that field. Hold your fire until we get close enough to make every shot count. Ammunition is short, and we can’t afford to waste it.”

  They raced across the field, rolled over a thick hedge, and on the other side they saw the Americans disappearing into the next field. He smiled. In minutes they’d be close enough to pound them into scrap metal, and there was no way they could escape. He was thinking of that false rumor of an attempt on the life of the Führer, and he grinned to himself.

  It is preposterous. The Führer lives, and soon he will present us all with medals for stemming the tide of the Allied advance. Today will be the start of the German fightback, and when we’ve destroyed these tanks, we’ll continue north to find more targets, and deal with them in the same way.

  He was dreaming of wearing the Knight’s Cross on a ribbon around his neck, of the admiring glances of attractive women, of men fighting to buy him drinks when he entered a bar. When the voice of the driver sounded in his headphones. “Sir, they’ve disappeared into the next field.”

  “So what? Keep following them until we get close.”

  “But, Sir, wasn’t that the field…”

  “Dammit, it’s a French field. They all look the same.”

  “Obersturmführer, at the last briefing they said they planned to plant anti-tank mines, and I’m sure it was in the next field.”

  “Driver, if they’ve planted mines, the Shermans will drive over them and do our work for us. If they make it across, we’ll know they never planted the mines, and we can follow. Is that clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  They smashed through into the next field, and the Shermans were halfway across. None had hit any mines, and he was thankful he and his men would have the honor of destroying them.

  “Follow them, quickly. Don’t let them get away.”

  Leading the charge, his tank entered the field as the Shermans past the halfway mark. There were no mines. Beside him, a half-track started to overtake, and he waved him back. Afterward they could pick over the bones, but the glory would be his.

 

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