The other was grimacing from the agony of a broken shinbone; at least he was alert.
‘They can stay here to watch over our friends.’ Koch nodded towards the man holding his leg and wincing. ‘Tell Felix, if either of them look like they’re going to give him some trouble…’ Koch tapped the hilt of his knife. ‘Understand?’
Scholn nodded and turned to pass the orders on while the rest of Koch’s platoon grabbed their weapons and made ready to exit the kitchen and head swiftly towards the cover of the apple orchard nearby.
The orchard was small, perhaps only a couple of acres, but the spring blossoms and sprouting leaves would provide a dense enough cover for them to make their way unseen to the perimeter of the airfield.
Koch kneeled down beside Felix. ‘Did Scholn tell you… they give you any grief — ?’
‘Yes, sir. I don’t think they’ll be any trouble.’
He turned to look at the French farmer and his wife. Their wide eyes were rolling with fear as they silently watched the men getting ready to move out.
‘I’m sorry you couldn’t make it along for this one, Felix. Listen, it’ll all be over in an hour and a half, so let them both go round about ten o’clock. They’ll run into town screaming blue murder, but they’ll be back with American soldiers, and hopefully you’ll both get some treatment then.’
‘Yes, sir, an hour and a half.’
‘I’ll see you both later,’ he said. He nodded towards the farmer. ‘Oh, and thank him for the food.’
Koch watched the last few men slip out of the kitchen one after the other.
The last man darted out quietly into the garden, and Koch followed, slipping on wet paving stones just outside the kitchen door.
It was drizzling. Not rain, just a fine mist of moisture descending from a sky as bland and featureless as a sheet of writing paper. He followed the man in front of him into the orchard, and despite his best efforts, made a lot of noise swishing through the tall, wet grass under the trees. He heard several men stumble on concealed roots and the cracking of disconcertingly noisy twigs; but within a minute they were all lying in a ditch at the edge of the orchard, breathing hard from the exertion and looking out onto the small airstrip.
Koch didn’t need field glasses, the cluster of tents and huts were only a few hundred yards away. A single hangar was the only building. Inside the hangar was a Dakota DC3, and outside, parked facing the tarmac runway, were three more; beside them was a fuel truck. He could only see a few men milling between the tents, puffs of steam from their mouths drifting up to the cold, wet, grey sky. He watched the men move lethargically around the camp. A canteen was still serving breakfast by the look of it; he could see a queue of men standing in line holding mess trays.
Koch turned to smile at one of the men beside him. ‘I can’t see these lads giving us much trouble.’
‘No, sir.’
It struck him, all of a sudden, how peaceful it was here. After the last few days of being trapped within the noisy confines of the U-boat with the ever-present whine of the electric motors or the chug of the diesel engines, listening to the pattering of drizzle on the leaves, and the occasional rustle of feathered wings amongst the branches around them, he was reluctant to disturb the peace and quiet. It would be nice if this morning’s little endeavour could be pulled off without a shot. It really would be a shame to disturb the day’s tranquillity with the brittle crack of gunfire.
Koch whistled softly to attract the attention of Feldwebel Buller and Obergefreiter Scholn. The two men immediately recognised their CO’s calling sound and shuffled across to join him.
‘Okay, Buller, take nine men and head straight for the guard hut. I reckon the lads over there are probably the only ones even close to putting up a fight. Scholn, you take nine and check out the hangar and get the truck and fuel to the side of the airstrip. I’ll take whoever’s left and do the canteen. We’ll rally the prisoners in the hangar. We should do this quietly and quickly; hopefully we can do it with no shots fired. But if any of them look like doing a runner, bring them down. No one is to leave the airfield, you understand?’
Both men nodded.
‘Right… pick your men and wait for my command.’
Buller and Scholn shuffled off across the ground, wordlessly tapping the shoulders of those men they wanted as they moved down the line. There was little deliberation in their selection; all of the men here were handpicked from Koch’s company, all of them good men. He watched as both men gathered their squads in little clusters away from the edge of the orchard and briefly relayed the objectives to them. Koch summoned the men still lying in the ditch, and they gathered around him.
‘Lads, this should be easy. We’re taking the canteen. I see about thirty men there. None of them is carrying a weapon.’ He looked up at the queue of men under the canteen awning waiting tiredly in line for their breakfast. ‘Fuck it, some of them aren’t even fully dressed!’
The men laughed under their breath.
‘We go in, quietly, no shots if you can help it. Once we’ve got them all, we’ll take them to the hangar. Any questions?’
None of his squad could think of any, and they all shook their heads in silence.
‘Right, on my command, we’re all moving out.’
Koch looked up at his two other squad leaders; they were finished with their briefings and looking at him for the signal.
Here we go.
He nodded, and instantly they were off their knees en masse and sprinting through the long, wet grass of the orchard, out from under the small, squat apple trees and across the shorter grass of the airfield. As they ran the only sound was the grass-softened rustle of boots on the ground and the metallic chatter of buckles and ammo.
Buller and his men veered to the right, towards the guard hut and barricade. Scholn bore left, towards the hangar. Koch and his men continued forward, towards the canteen tent, now only a hundred yards away. Most of the Americans there having breakfast seemed half asleep, and it appeared like none of them had spotted anything yet.
My God, can’t they see us?
They were now only thirty feet away and a few of the men sitting down to eat, looked up and seemed to notice the approaching Germans. The initial response didn’t seem to be alarm, it looked like curiosity; he could imagine them lazily wondering, ‘Who are these guys? Some of ours… practising manoeuvres or something?’
Koch sprinted the last few yards and ducked as he entered underneath the awning, MP-40 raised to his shoulder and pointed at the Americans, now it seemed, finally aware that something was amiss.
‘Down! Now!’ Koch shouted using his limited knowledge of English and gesturing towards the ground with the barrel of his gun. The rest of Koch’s squad fanned out around the men in the canteen.
‘Andreas, get those over here in the middle of the floor,’ he called out.
One of his squad approached the men still standing in line, still holding mess trays, motionless and all staring uncomprehendingly at Koch and his men. He pulled them away from the steaming urns and shoved them towards the middle of the canteen.
‘Down!’ he hissed.
They finally seemed to wake up and comprehend the situation that had suddenly altered their day. A few moments later they were all lying compliantly on the floor, Koch’s men hastily shaking them down for any concealed weapons.
So far so good.
In the meantime, Scholn and his men crossed two hundred yards of open field towards the hangar. It was a relatively small structure, only large enough to house a single transport plane. Outside, parked facing away from the building, were the three DC3s and beside them the fuel truck. As he jogged, he pointed at four of his men and indicated the planes and the fuel truck, they peeled off towards them, weapons at the ready. One of them climbed swiftly into the truck and had it immediately rolling across the field towards the grass landing strip. The other three began checking the planes for anyone hiding inside.
Scholn led the rest of them over towards the hangar and they came to a halt outside the sliding corrugated doors. Scholn took a few seconds to catch his breath.
‘Ernst, Dieter, stay here and guard this doorway,’ he whispered between ragged gasps. He took the other three men of his squad with him inside the hangar. They fanned out and quickly circled the plane but found no
