“Get us out of here, Dennis!” He ordered the driver, making that quick decision in a moment. “Take us back out the way we’ve come: as soon as we’re past the cutting and out in the open, the rest of you can ‘jump ship’. I’ll take the train back into the tunnel myself and secure the gun if Jerry gives me enough time…”
“Oi reckon you’ll need some ‘elp driving her back in, major,” the driver replied with a shrug and a matter-of-fact grin. “Might as well come back for the ride with you…”
As Pruitt gave a nod of thanks and appreciation of the man’s offered help, the driver turned back to his controls and began to reverse the train back out in the same direction from which they’d originally entered. It was difficult to see clearly past the ammo wagons and the bulk of the gun itself, and as a result the train moved a good deal slower than it had on the way into the tunnel with the shunter at the front and the view ahead completely clear.
They were perhaps three hundred metres from daylight at the northern end of the tunnel as Gustav’s next VRRD shell hit. The roof of the tunnel was a dozen metres or more beneath the earth at that point, and in most cases that would’ve been considered more than enough protection from even the biggest bombs. The armour-piercing shell however, capable of penetrating better than six metres of reinforced concrete, punched through the layers of earth and flint-streaked chalk as if it were soft as butter.
A delayed fuse detonated its 250kg explosive charge as it broke through the ceiling of the tunnel and struck the tracks below, almost exactly halfway along. In such a confined space, the blast was concentrated and significantly magnified as it was channelled along the length of the tunnel in either direction, with smoke and flame bursting into the open air from each end simultaneously and sending twin black clouds rolling skyward. What was left of the train, gun carriage and attendant wagons was crushed as the already-weakened tunnel collapsed completely on itself. Everyone was already dead in any case; killed instantly by the blast from an explosion they never saw coming.
General Sir John Dill died with the rest of the men inside the OP atop Shakespeare Cliff a few minutes later. The German radio direction-finding unit at Wissant on the French coast had managed to narrow down the location of their radio transmissions enough for the airborne FAC and its fighter escort to carry out a visual search of the cliff tops in the area, and the sharp-eyed artillery spotter had quickly picked out a pair of armoured cars in the trees behind the OP that clearly indicated their presence. Dill had feared the worst the moment they’d lost contact with Piecemaker, and was devastated by the loss of so many men in such a futile and one-sided exchange. His entourage of aides and escorts were so preoccupied with packing their equipment and preparing to leave that no one spotted another two gigantic muzzle flashes from across The Channel through their viewing scopes.
Shakespeare Cliff rose ninety metres above the surface of the water below, and the pair of high explosive shells stuck simultaneously roughly halfway up the cliff face — which had been exactly their point of aim. The cliffs weren’t particularly solid in geological terms, being comprised almost entirely of white chalk streaked with black flint, and the area of Shakespeare Cliff had historically been prone to infrequent landslides already, at times causing the closure of the railway line between Folkestone and Dover that ran along the coast below their heights.
The combined force of 1,400kg of explosive in close proximity was more than enough to shatter the integrity of a huge section of cliff face and bring it tumbling down into The Channel below in a billowing white cloud of chalk and rubble. As the dust settled once more over the area, and the guns of SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E) finally fell silent, no evidence of the observation post remained. It and everyone inside it were now crushed and buried beneath thousands of tonnes of chalk that had also closed the rail tunnel below and obliterated the Shakespeare Cliff Railway Halt nearby into the bargain. Now much closer to the edge of the White Cliffs than they’d bargained for, the crews of the pair of armoured cars parked on the road behind where the OP had been were now the only survivors, and they could only look on in stunned horror at the destruction below them.
Strasser lowered his field glasses and placed them on a nearby workbench before turning to congratulate the gun laying crew on a fine job. The mission had been a sterling success, and he fully intended to recommend both gun crews and the gunlayers for the Iron Cross, with the Knight’s Cross for the commanding officers. All radio traffic between the OP and the guns had ceased, and although it was no guarantee they’d annihilated the opposition, the general’s gut feeling was that this had certainly come to pass.
He turned to leave the observation bunker and head off to a rest area in the rear where he could get a cup of coffee. Above the bulkhead doorway to the exit tunnel, the unit’s motto had been fixed on a plaque for all to see. Flanked by the Nazi Reichsadler coat-of-arms on either side (a black eagle with spread wings and head turned to the right grasping a swastika in its claws), the Latin phrase Ultima Ratio Regum was printed in large, stencilled black lettering against a white background.
Ultima Ratio Regum: The Final Argument of Kings. The phrase had been famously cast on the French cannon during the reign of Louis XIV by his decree, and was a shortened variation on the metaphor ‘the Last Resort of Kings and Common Men’ in reference to the issuance of a declaration of war. It was Strasser, a keen student of history and an artilleryman in the Great War, who’d chosen the motto for SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E). By his own reasoning, what greater embodiment of the phrase could there be in any artillery weapon than the pair of incredible guns under his command.
As Reuters hung up the phone he was almost smiling: the first operational use of Gustav and Dora had been an unqualified success. The incident had shown up some deficiencies in the alertness of the air defence units in place, but no real harm had come of it and there’d be constant fighter patrols over the area as well from that day on, with extra radar units posted to the area to provide better early warning. The guns’ existence had been revealed a little earlier than they’d have preferred, but the British would certainly have found out about them eventually, and the success of the mission had been so absolute that it was difficult to find anything negative in the outcome at all.
“We can forget any reservations regarding the capabilities of Battery 672(E).” He stated with a wry grin as Albert Schiller entered through the briefing room’s main doors.
Sitting at the main map table that had almost become his office desk by proxy, a bottle of fine French brandy was already sitting beside the Reichsmarschall along with a pair of filled snifters. Lifting both glasses, he offered one to Schiller as he approached.
“Here’s to taking out the British Chief-of-General Staff and to turning the County of Kent into a moonscape in the process!” Reuters raised the toast, beaming all the while, before raising the glass to his lips.
“Cheery fellow…!” Schiller observed, chuckling as he lowered his glass once more. “Good to see you in such a good mood. I take it, however, that I wasn’t called in this afternoon to discuss the use and subsequent success of our ‘popguns’, heartening as the news is, of course?”