Read Online Collision of Evil by John Le Beau - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Le Beau
Ads: Link
truck, the implications of the
Scharrfuehrer
’s remarks took root.
This little group of armed, desperate men was sitting on top of the treasure of the entire Third Reich. The gold didn’t alter the fact that the war was irretrievably lost. And who would it be delivered to? Party hacks in Munich who had enough common sense to realize that the ride was over. And who would find a way to vanish with the gold in their own pockets to secure a plush postwar life in Switzerland or South America?
Even more perversely, my comrades and I were supposed to protect this shipment with our lives. It’s funny, I suppose, but men are willing to die for an ideal, a nation, a race, or a leader. They are considerably less willing to have their lifeblood drained out to protect somebody’s economic well-being.
By the time I reached our truck, I had resolved not to say a word about my chat with the Scharrfuehrer, not even to Uwe. Under the circumstances, a rumor that gold was our cargo could be explosively corrosive. And so I kept my mouth shut, but the thought was planted and roiled around in my head.
Minutes later darkness held the terrain, and the gaunt officer with the sling told us to mount our vehicles and move out. A freezing, wind-driven rain had begun, adding to our prevailing depression. Our column of trucks ground through the grasping mire, leaving the village and striking out south. Through the cracked and mud-flecked windshield we saw the local residents observing our departurethrough doorways and weakly illuminated kitchen windows. They were our countrymen. And yet not even one of those solemn faces betrayed a look that wished us well.
We made poor headway that night due to the unrelenting downpour. As a result, the officers decided to keep pushing forward even after dawn broke, violating their own
Verbot
on daytime movement. This proved unwise. It was about seven thirty that morning when we spotted the American Mustang fighters, three of them in tight formation, not too high above the tree line. More to the point, the fighters spotted us, and the resonance of their engines turned angry as they banked for a strafing run.
“Deep fliers! Get off the damned road,” someone yelled. The convoy disintegrated, individual trucks slamming hard across the terrain seeking out cover in the treeline edging the rural road.
Our driver kept muttering “shit” beneath his breath like some mystical incantation, and careened the old vehicle into a maze of scrub pines and brush. A sapling whipped by on my side and decapitated the rearview mirror. Uwe and I were half-under the heavy dashboard, trying to ready our rifles, but they were unwieldy in the confined space of the cab.
I heard the first, long baritone burst of machine gun fire behind us; the fighter planes had found a target and opened up. A few Mauser rifle shots rang out ineffectively in reply. There was the unmistakable sound of metal hitting metal and the chaotic, high-pitched scream of a vehicle crashing on its side and sliding.
Our driver cajoled the truck deeper into the undergrowth and we banged roughly along, rocks and brush slamming the belly of our transport. Still, the driver was good and had found a deer trace and moved along this path of least resistance. We were all breathing hard. Then the truck jolted to a stop, and I noticed that Ruediger, the driver, had pushed down on the foot brake.
“Here is okay,” he mumbled. I looked through the side window and saw only high, yellow reeds and thin birch trunks, like the Pripetmarshes we had encountered in Russia during that first exhilarating advance in 1941.
We heard the fighters swoop away overhead, engines singing. The sound faded and then seconds later intensified as the machines approached again for a second attack. There were panicked shouts and then the thudding impact of more airborne machine-gun rounds. Return fire sounded less ragged this time. And then the aircraft were gone. I caught a fleeting glimpse of them gaining
Scharrfuehrer
’s remarks took root.
This little group of armed, desperate men was sitting on top of the treasure of the entire Third Reich. The gold didn’t alter the fact that the war was irretrievably lost. And who would it be delivered to? Party hacks in Munich who had enough common sense to realize that the ride was over. And who would find a way to vanish with the gold in their own pockets to secure a plush postwar life in Switzerland or South America?
Even more perversely, my comrades and I were supposed to protect this shipment with our lives. It’s funny, I suppose, but men are willing to die for an ideal, a nation, a race, or a leader. They are considerably less willing to have their lifeblood drained out to protect somebody’s economic well-being.
By the time I reached our truck, I had resolved not to say a word about my chat with the Scharrfuehrer, not even to Uwe. Under the circumstances, a rumor that gold was our cargo could be explosively corrosive. And so I kept my mouth shut, but the thought was planted and roiled around in my head.
Minutes later darkness held the terrain, and the gaunt officer with the sling told us to mount our vehicles and move out. A freezing, wind-driven rain had begun, adding to our prevailing depression. Our column of trucks ground through the grasping mire, leaving the village and striking out south. Through the cracked and mud-flecked windshield we saw the local residents observing our departurethrough doorways and weakly illuminated kitchen windows. They were our countrymen. And yet not even one of those solemn faces betrayed a look that wished us well.
We made poor headway that night due to the unrelenting downpour. As a result, the officers decided to keep pushing forward even after dawn broke, violating their own
Verbot
on daytime movement. This proved unwise. It was about seven thirty that morning when we spotted the American Mustang fighters, three of them in tight formation, not too high above the tree line. More to the point, the fighters spotted us, and the resonance of their engines turned angry as they banked for a strafing run.
“Deep fliers! Get off the damned road,” someone yelled. The convoy disintegrated, individual trucks slamming hard across the terrain seeking out cover in the treeline edging the rural road.
Our driver kept muttering “shit” beneath his breath like some mystical incantation, and careened the old vehicle into a maze of scrub pines and brush. A sapling whipped by on my side and decapitated the rearview mirror. Uwe and I were half-under the heavy dashboard, trying to ready our rifles, but they were unwieldy in the confined space of the cab.
I heard the first, long baritone burst of machine gun fire behind us; the fighter planes had found a target and opened up. A few Mauser rifle shots rang out ineffectively in reply. There was the unmistakable sound of metal hitting metal and the chaotic, high-pitched scream of a vehicle crashing on its side and sliding.
Our driver cajoled the truck deeper into the undergrowth and we banged roughly along, rocks and brush slamming the belly of our transport. Still, the driver was good and had found a deer trace and moved along this path of least resistance. We were all breathing hard. Then the truck jolted to a stop, and I noticed that Ruediger, the driver, had pushed down on the foot brake.
“Here is okay,” he mumbled. I looked through the side window and saw only high, yellow reeds and thin birch trunks, like the Pripetmarshes we had encountered in Russia during that first exhilarating advance in 1941.
We heard the fighters swoop away overhead, engines singing. The sound faded and then seconds later intensified as the machines approached again for a second attack. There were panicked shouts and then the thudding impact of more airborne machine-gun rounds. Return fire sounded less ragged this time. And then the aircraft were gone. I caught a fleeting glimpse of them gaining
Similar Books
