Read Online The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page A

dusted with
snow, and it looked more abandoned than ever. But we all knew what was waiting
inside it, and as we got out of the Citroen and collected together the torch
and the tools, none of us could keep our eyes off it.
    Father Anton walked across the road, and took a large silver
crucifix from inside his coat. In his other hand, he held a Bible, and he began
to say prayers in Latin and French as he stood in the sifting snowflakes, his’
wide hat already white, with the low cold wind blowing the tails of his cape.
    He then recited the dismissal of demons, holding the
crucifix aloft as he did so, and making endless invisible crosses in the air.
    ‘I adjure thee, O vile spirit, to go out. God the Father, in
His name, leave my presence. God the Son, in His name, make thy departure. God
the Holy Ghost, in His name, quit this place. Tremble and flee, O impious one,
for it is God who commands thee, for it is I who command thee. Yield to me, to
my desire by Jesus of Nazareth who gave His soul. To my desire by sacred Virgin
Mary who gave Her womb, by the blessed Angels from
whom thou fell. I demand thee be on thy way.
    Adieu O spirit, Amen.’
    We waited for a while, shivering in the cold, while Father
Anton stood with his head bowed. Then he turned to us, and said, ‘You may
begin.’
    Hefting the canvas bag of tools, I climbed up on to the
tank’s hull. I reached back and helped Madeleine to scramble after me. Father
Anton waited where he was, with the crucifix raised in one hand, and the Bible
pressed to his breast.
    I stepped carefully across to the turret. The maggots that
I’d vomited yesterday had completely disappeared, as if they’d been nothing
more than a rancid illusion. I knelt down and opened the canvas bag, and took
out a long steel chisel and a mallet.
    Madeleine, kneeling beside me, said, ‘We can still turn
back.’
    I looked at her for a moment, and then I reached forward and
kissed her. ‘If you have to face this demon, you have to face it. Even if we
turn back today, we’ll have to do it sometime.’
    I turned to the tank’s turret, and with five or six ringing
blows, drove the edge of the chisel under the crucifix that was riveted on to
the hatch. Thirty years of corrosion had weakened the bolts, and after five
minutes of sweaty, noisy work, the cross was off. Then, just to make sure, I
hammered the last few legible words of the holy adjuration into obscurity.
    Breathing hard, I stood still for a while and listened.
There was no sound except for my own panting, and the soft whispery fall of the
snow. In the distance, it was almost impossible to see the trees and the farm
rooftops any more , because the snow was thickening
and closing in; but Father Anton stood alert with his white hat and white
shoulders, still holding the silver crucifix up in his mittened hand.
    I tapped on the turret, and said, ‘Is anyone there? Is
anyone inside?’
    There was no answer. Just the dull echo of
my cautious knock.
    I wiped my chilled, perspiring forehead. Madeleine, her hair
crowned in snowflakes, tried to give me a confident smile.
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘this is the big one.’
    With a wide steel chisel, I banged all the way round the
hatch of the turret, breaking the rough welding wherever I could, but mostly
knocking dents in the rusted armour plating. I was
making my seventh circle of the hatch when the blade of the chisel went right
through a deeply corroded part of the metal, and made a hole the size of a
dime.
    Even in the freezing cold, even in the blanketing snow, we
heard the sour whistle of fetid air escaping from the inside of the tank, and a
smell came out of that Sherman like I’d never smelled anywhere before. It had
the stomach-turning sickliness of rotten food, mingled with an odour that reminded me of the reptile houses at zoos. I
couldn’t help retching, and Madame Saurice’s rough
red wine came swilling back up into my mouth. Madeleine turned away and said: ‘Mon Dieu !’
    I tried to hold