German give the signal that
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would bring the Alpine troops out of the forest. With rifles leveled.
But the Gestapo man had made a mistake. He had accepted too readily –
without comment – Spaulding’s statement about the field and the wind and
the suggestion that he relieve himself in the woods.
They had reached the field during late daylight; it was barren, the grass
was sour, the slope rocky. Nothing would graze here, not even goats.
And there was no wind at all. The night air was cold, but dead.
An experienced runner would have objected, no doubt humorously, and say
he’d be damned if he’d take a crap in the pitch-black woods. But the
Gestapo agent could not resist the gratuitous opportunity to make his own
contact.
If there was such a contact to be made, thought Spaulding. He would know in
a few minutes.
David waited thirty seconds after the man had disappeared into the forest.
Then he swiftly, silently threw himself to the ground and began rolling his
body over and over again, away from the rock, at a sharp angle from the
point where the runner had entered the forest.
When he had progressed thirty-five to forty feet into the grass, he stood
up, crouching, and raced to the border of the woods, judging himself to be
about sixty yards away from the German.
He entered the dense foliage and noiselessly closed the distance between
them., He could not see the man but he knew he would soon find him.
Then he saw it. The German’s signal. A match was struck, cupped, and
extinguished swiftly.
Another. This one allowed to bum for several seconds, then snuffed out with
a short spit of breath.
From deep in the woods came two separate, brief replies. Two matches
struck. In opposite directions.
David estimated the distance to be, perhaps, a hundred feet. The German,
unfamiliar with the Basque forest, stayed close to the edge of the field.
The men he had signaled were approaching. Spaulding – making no sound that
disturbed the hum of the woods – crawled closer.
He heard the voices whispering. Only isolated words were distinguishable.
But they were enough.
He made his way rapidly back through the overgrowth to his
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original point of entry. He raced to his sentry post, the rock. He removed
a small flashlight from his field jacket, clamped separated fingers over the
glass and aimed it southwest. He pressed the switch five times in rapid
succession. He then replaced the instrument in his pocket and waited.
It wouldn’t be long now.
It wasn’t.
The German came out of the woods carrying the shovel, smoking a cigarette.
The night was black, the moon breaking only intermittently through the
thick cover of clouds; the darkness was nearly total. David got up from the
rock and signaled the German with a short whistle. He approached him.
‘What is it, LisbonT
Spaulding spoke quietly. Two words.
‘Heil Hitler.’
And plunged his short bayonet into the Nazi’s stomach, ripping it downward,
killing the man instantly.
The body fell to the ground, the face contorted; the only sound was a
swallow of air, the start of a scream, blocked by rigid fingers thrust into
the dead man’s mouth, yanked downward, as the knife had been, shorting out
the passage of breath.
David raced across the grass to the edge of the woods, to the left of his
previous entry. Nearer, but not much, to the point where the Nazi had
spoken in whispers to his two confederates. He dove into a cluster of
winter fem as the moon suddenly broke through the clouds. He remained
immobile for several seconds, listening for sounds of alarm.
There were none. The moon was hidden again, the darkness returned. The
corpse in the field had not been spotted in the brief illumination. And
that fact revealed to David a very important bit of knowledge.
Whatever Alpine troops were in the woods, they were not on the edge of the
woods. Or if they were, they were not concentrating on the field.
They were waiting. Concentrating in other directions.
Or just waiting.
He rose to his knees and scrambled rapidly west through the dense
underbrush, flexing his body and limbs to every bend in the foliage, making
sounds compatible to the forest’s tones. He reached the point where the
three men had conferred but minutes ago, feeling no presence, seeing
nothing.
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He took out a box of waterproof matches from his pocket and removed two. He
struck the first one, and the instant it flared, he blew it out. He then
struck the second match and allowed it to bum for a moment or two before he
extinguished it.
About forty feet into the woods there was a responding flash of a match.
Directly north.
Almost simultaneously came a second response. This one to the west, perhaps
fifty or sixty feet away.
No more.
But enough.
Spaulding quickly crawled into the forest at an angle. Northeast. He went
no more than fifteen feet and crouched against the trunk of an ant-ridden
ceiba tree.
He waited. And while he waited, he removed a thin, short, flexible coil of
wire from his field jacket pocket. At each end of the wire was a wooden
handle, notched for the human hand.
The German soldier made too much noise for an Alpiner, thought David. He
was actually hurrying, anxious to accommodate the unexpected command for
rendezvous. That told Spaulding something else: the Gestapo agent he had
killed was a demanding man. That meant the remaining troops would stay in
position, awaiting orders. There would be a minimum of individual
initiative.
There was no time to think of them now. The German soldier was passing the
ceiba tree.
David sprang up silently, the coil held high with both hands. The loop fell
over the soldier’s helmet, the reverse -pull so swift and brutally sudden
that the wire sliced into the flesh of the neck with complete finality.
There was no sound but the expunging of air again.
David Spaulding had heard that sound so often it no longer mesmerized him.
As it once had done.
Silence.
And then the unmistakable breaking of branches; footsteps crushing the
ground cover of an unfamiliar path. Rushing, impatient, as the dead man at
his feet had been impatient.
Spaulding put the bloody coil of wire back into his pocket and removed the
shortened carbine bayonet from the scabbard on his belt. He knew there was
no reason to hurry; the third man would be waiting. Confused, frightened
perhaps … but probably not, if he was an Alpiner. The Alpine troops were
rougher than the
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Gestapo. The rumors were that the Alpiners were chosen primarily for streaks
of sadism. Robots who could live in mountain passes and nurture their
hostilities in freezing isolation until the order for attack were given.
There was no question about it, thought David. There was a certain pleasure
in killing Alpiners.
The treadmill.
He edged his way forward, his knife leveled.
‘Wer? … Wer ist dort?’The figure in darkness whispered in agitation.
‘Hier, mein Soldat,’replied David. His carbine bayonet slashed into the
German’s chest.
The partisans came down from the hills. There were five men, four Basque
and one Catalonian. The leader was a Basque, heavyset and blunt.
‘You gave us a wild trip, Lisbon. There were times we thought you were
loco. Mother of God! We’ve traveled a hundred mfles.’
‘The Germans will travel many times that, I assure you. What’s north?’
‘A string of Alpiners. Perhaps twenty. Every six kilometers, right to the
border. Shall we let them sit in their wastes?’
‘No,’ said Spaulding thoughtfully. ‘Kill them…. All but the last three;
harass them back. They’ll confirm what we want the Gestapo to believe.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t have to.’ David walked to the dying fire and kicked at the
coals. He had to get to Ortegal. It was all he could think about.
Suddenly he realized that the heavyset Basque had followed him. The man
stood across the diminished campfire; he wanted to say something. He looked
hard at David and spoke over the glow.
‘We thought you should know now. We learned how the pigs made the contact.
Eight days ago.’
‘What are you talking abouff Spaulding was irritated. Chains of command in
the north country were at best a calculated risk. He would get the written
reports; he did not want conversation. He wanted to sleep, wake up, and get
to Ortegal. But the Basque seemed hurt; there was no point in that. ‘Go on,
amigo.’
‘We did not tell you before. We thought your anger would cause you to act
rashly.’
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‘How so? Why?’
‘It was Bergeron.’
‘I don’t believe that. . .
‘It is so. They took him in San Sebastidn. He did not break easily, but
they broke him. Ten days of torture … wires in the genitals, among other
devices, including hypodermics of the drug. We are told he died spitting at