Page 32 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm (An Isaac Bell Adventure #15)
Knowing how quickly he could load and fire the tank’s cannon as a rank amateur, Bell assumed a trained German gun crew could get another round into the tank in a handful of seconds.
He and Holmes jumped free of the vulnerable Mark II just as the door in the left sponson was thrown open and the men came out in a diving rush.
The field gun spat once more, and this time the shell tore through the half-inch armor and slammed into the engine block with enough kinetic energy to tear it from its mounts.
Gasoline gushed from the ruptured line, igniting seconds later, so the last man out of the tank was chased by a roiling ball of flame.
Fire and smoke billowed from the hatch the Germans had installed to swap out the engine and very soon the buildup of heat caused the ammunition to reach a critical temperature.
Fifty-seven-millimeter rounds started going off, their propellant charges and warheads detonating with enough force to rip the tank’s armor like paper.
Bell and the Allied flyers raced for a ditch along the side of the road and hunkered down as the tank lit off like some nightmare fireworks show.
Two hundred yards down the road, the German gun crew sheltered behind their cannon’s splinter shield until the last of the ammunition had gone off and the tank sat quiet save the flames still eating away the paint and the last of the engine oil.
Bell looked at the woods a hundred yards off and thought about making a run for it.
It was still dark enough to give him some cover, but it was too much of an obvious plan.
The Germans would be on him like a pack of dogs before he got halfway.
Better to wait for a better opportunity in whatever chaos the night still held.
The escapees rose to their feet and raised their arms when six armed guards rushed past the tank and surrounded them. They were then marched to the gun emplacement.
While the FK 96 needed a five-man crew, the sandbagged defensive position was big enough for a ten-man complement to guard the road leading to the castle.
They had gotten word from the German headquarters about the renegade tank before the telephone wires came down because the field cannon usually pointed up the road and not back at the castle, as it was now.
With a rifle barrel, one of the guards told them where to sit and he and another guard stood over them while the crew returned their gun to its proper position and swabbed out the barrel and lubricated the breach.
Bell could tell they were unsure and apprehensive without direct contact with their superiors back in the castle.
Holmes noticed it, too, and whispered, “There is opportunity in disarray.”
Bell nodded and watched.
After a few minutes with nothing to do, the squad sergeant, who looked young enough for this to be his first command, sent a private and a corporal back to the castle to assess the situation there and possibly receive fresh orders concerning the recaptured airmen.
A couple of the gunners ate an early breakfast of slightly molded bread and cheese. Bell wasn’t particularly hungry, but the water sloshing in their canteens worsened his thirst. He pointed to a canteen, but was ignored.
A truck arriving from the main road at the bottom of the valley started lumbering up the access road, its engine struggling with the gradient. They couldn’t yet see the vehicle, nor its headlights in the darkness, but they could follow its progress by the sound of its overtaxed motor.
When it finally hove into view around a final bend in the road, the young sergeant was on his feet to greet the newcomers.
The truck was a typical three-ton Daimler with a four-cylinder engine and solid rubber tires that made riding in one a bone-jarring experience.
It braked to a stop. The sergeant approached the driver’s door, saw the rank of the man behind the wheel, and snapped a crisp salute.
They spoke for a few moments, the officer in the truck pointing to Bell and his group of captives and asking about them.
The sergeant gave him an answer that somehow displeased the driver.
He stepped out of the truck. Bell could see he was a large man, a commanding presence that made the sergeant take an involuntary step back.
The light from the sentries’ fire was erratic, but it looked to Bell that the man’s face was scarred, and he had a patch covering a missing right eye.
What happened next took Bell several seconds to process.
The big driver pulled a gun from his hip holster and shot the sergeant in the chest as four men leapt from the back of the truck and began gunning down the rest of the soldiers.
Bell felt bullets passing over his head as he sat under the watch of the two guards.
They were the next to die, struck multiple times and collapsing in formless heaps.
The remainder of the gun crew weren’t armed, so they put up no resistance.
Raised hands and pleas for mercy were ignored.
It was over in seconds, and in its aftermath, the echoes of gunfire faded just as quickly.
Bell and his companions remained where they were, struck dumb by the surprise and savagery of the massacre.
It was then that Bell saw blood seeping through John Fox’s shirt and that his boyish face had gone as white as marble.
He managed only ragged sips of air. Bell scrambled over to check on the young pilot.
The bullet had hit his shoulder, and when he peeled back Fox’s flight jacket, he could see the joint looked like it had been smashed with a hammer.
The truck’s driver, seeing that one of the captives had been wounded in the melee, glared at the men who’d killed the two guards until one couldn’t meet his malevolent stare.
The driver crossed over to the guilt-ridden killer and pistol-whipped him across the face hard enough to open a gash in his cheek so deep the bone was briefly visible before the wound filled with blood.
The driver approached the captives. Bell and Holmes got to their feet, letting the former tankers tend to Fox as best they could with no medical supplies.
The approaching driver was several inches taller than Bell’s six feet.
He was broad across the chest and thick-necked.
Not as big as Schmidt, but a formidable opponent if it ever came to that.
He wore an eyepatch and the upper right side of his face was made shiny and tight by an old burn scar.
Bell noticed the ear on that side was a gnarled stub.
“You are the pilots?” he asked in English. His accent wasn’t German.
“For the most part,” Holmes said. He gave a salute. “Liam Holmes. Captain, British Royal Flying Corps. Despite the uniform you’re wearing, I take it you are not part of the German army.”
“My name is Karl Rath. We are partisans trying to bring an end to this war. We were on our way to Falkennest to rescue you.”
“Falkennest is the castle?” Holmes asked.
“Yes, where the German intelligence is headquartered in this sector. We also know it is where newly crashed pilots are interrogated.”
“Can we hurry this along?” Bell said. “There are two more men from this gun crew who could be back with reinforcements at any time and we have a wounded man here who needs a doctor.”
“Yes, we must.” Rath hesitated. “I have a man in the prison who was to help us. His name is Schmidt. He was to come with us.”
“He had an accident,” Bell said without a lick of guilt. “He won’t be going anywhere.”
Rath caught his drift and nodded.
Two of the Brits helped Fox up into the back of the truck. The bleeding had slowed, but he was growing more unresponsive as he sank deeper into shock. Rath got behind the wheel, while the rest of his men packed themselves into the covered bed. Bell understood how sardines felt.
The ride over the dirt roads was spine-crushing and every deep rut made Fox moan in his delirium.
They motored for hours, stopping once to fill the gas tank from one-gallon tins stored in a compartment between the front and rear tires.
Bell suspected they were on an old smugglers’ route and had crossed out of France and into occupied Belgium.
The sun was beginning to pink the horizon when they approached the outskirts of a large town, or perhaps small city. Traffic was light at the early hour, mostly delivery drivers in one-horse carts.
With no firm plans on how to escape German-occupied lands once they’d gotten out of the castle, Bell was content to let events unfold rather than try to control them. He was wary, of course, but had no better option than to allow Rath and his guerrilla band take them where they were headed.
With an eye pressed to a small tear in the canvas side of the Mercedes truck, Bell saw they passed through the town’s medieval central square.
There was a large bronze fountain at one end and encircling buildings that looked unchanged for hundreds of years.
Past the old town, they entered a more industrial area that was built along wharves that fronted a broad river.
The truck finally came to a warehouse made of brick with a metal roof that looked to be a hundred years old.
A guard swung open the fence gate surrounding the structure and another was there to open one of the big doors.
Bell joined the others, jumping down from the truck on knees that had gone stiff over the long ride.
Rath was already out of the truck, issuing orders in a language Bell didn’t recognize. By the speed with which his men moved, his authority was absolute.