You shouldn't have joined, old buddy, Howard thought. You should have found an easier way. Plenty did.
Strange how callous he had become where the suffering of others was concerned, but that was the war. It had left him indifferent where death was concerned, even to its uglier aspects. The time when a body had an emotional effect was long since gone. He had seen too many of them. The fact of death was all that mattered.
The radio crackled into life. Hoover's voice sounded clearly. 'Sugar Nan Two to Sugar Nan One. Are you receiving me?'
'Strength nine,' Howard said. 'Where are you, Harry?'
'We've reached the road junction, sir. Not a kraut in sight. What do we do now?'
Howard checked his watch. 'Stay there. We'll be with you in twenty minutes. Over and out.'
He replaced the handmike and turned to Garland. 'Strange — I would have expected something from them up there. A good place to put up a fight. Still…'
There was a sudden roaring in his ears and a great wind seemed to pick him up and carry him away. The world moved in and out and then somehow he was lying in a ditch, Garland beside him, minus his helmet and most of the top of his skull. The jeep, or what was left of it, was on its side. The Cromwell tank behind was blazing furiously, its ammunition exploding like a firework display. One of the crew scrambled out of the turret, his uniform on fire, and fell to the ground.
There was no reality to it at all — none. And then Howard realized why. He couldn't hear a damn thing. Something to do with the explosion probably. Things seemed to be happening in slow motion, as if under water, no noise, not even the whisper of a sound. There was blood on his hands, but he got his field-glasses up to his eyes and traversed the trees on the hillside on the other side of the road. Almost immediately a Tiger tank jumped into view, a young man with pale face in the black uniform of a Sturmbannfuhrer of SS-Panzer Troops, standing in the gun turret, quite exposed. As Howard watched helplessly he saw the microphone raised. The lips moved and then the Tiger's 88 belched flame and smoke.
The man whom Howard had seen in the turret of the lead Tiger was SS-Major Karl Ritter of the 3rd Company, 502nd SS Heavy Tank Battalion, and what was to take place during the ensuing five minutes was probably the single most devastating Tiger action of the Second World War.
Ritter was a Tiger ace with 120 claimed victories on the Russian Front, a man who had learned his business the hard way and knew exactly what he was doing. With only two operational Tigers on the hillside with him, he was hopelessly outnumbered, a fact which a reconnaissance on foot had indicated to him that morning and it was obvious that Denning would expect trouble at the junction with the Salzburg road. Therefore an earlier attack had seemed essential — indeed there was no alternative.
It succeeded magnificently, for on the particular stretch of forest track he had chosen there was no room for any vehicle to reverse or change direction. The first shell from his Tiger's 88 narrowly missed direct contact with the lead jeep, turning it over and putting Howard and his men into the ditch. The second shell, seconds later, brewed up the leading Cromwell tank. Ritter was already transmitting orders to his gunner, Sergeant-Major Erich Hoffer. The 88 traversed again and, a moment later, scored a direct hit on a Bren-gun carrier bringing up the rear.
The entire column was now at a standstill, hopelessly trapped, unable to move forward or back. Ritter made a hand signal, the other two Tigers moved out of the woods on either side and the carnage began.
In the five minutes which followed, their three 88s and six machine guns left thirty armoured vehicles, including eight Cromwell tanks, ablaze.
The front reconnaissance jeep was out of sight among the trees at the junction with the road to Salzburg. O'Grady was sitting behind the wheel, with Hoover beside him lighting a cigarette. Finebaum was a few yards away, directly above the road, squatting against a tree, his M1 across his knees, eating beans from a can with a knife.
O'Grady was eighteen and a replacement of only a few weeks' standing. He said, 'He's disgusting, you know that, Sarge? He not only acts like a pig, he eats like one. And the way he goes on, never stopping talking — making out everything's some kind of bad joke.'
'Maybe it is as far as he's concerned,' Hoover said. 'When we landed at Omaha there were 123 guys in the outfit. Now there are six including you, and you don't count worth a shit. And don't ever let Finebaum fool you. He's got a pocket full of medals somewhere, just for the dead men he's left around.'
There was the sudden dull thunder of heavy gunfire down in the valley below, the rattle of a machine gun.
Finebaum hurried towards the jeep, rifle in hand. 'Hey, Harry, that don't sound too good to me. What you make of it?'
'I think maybe somebody just made a bad mistake.' Hoover slapped O'Grady on the shoulder. 'Okay, kid, let's get the hell out of here.'
Finebaum scrambled into the rear and positioned himself behind the Browning heavy machine gun as O'Grady reversed quickly and started back down the track to the valley road. The sound of firing was continuous now, interspersed with one heavy explosion after another, and then they rounded a bend and found a Tiger tank moving up the road towards them.
Finebaum's hands tightened on the handles of the machine gun, but they were too close for any positive action and there was nowhere to run, the pine trees pressing in on either side of the road at that point.
O'Grady screamed at the last moment, releasing the wheel and flinging up his arms as if to protect himself, and then they were close enough for Finebaum to see the death's-head badge in the cap of the SS-major in the turret of the Tiger. A moment later, the collision took place and he was thrown head-first into the brush. The Tiger moved on relentlessly, crushing the jeep beneath it, and disappeared round the bend in the road.
Howard had lost consciousness for a while and came back to life to the sound of repeated explosions from the ammunition in another burning Cromwell. It was a scene from hell, smoke everywhere, the cries of the dying, the stench of burning flesh. He could see Colonel Denning lying in the middle of the road on his back a few yards away, revolver still clutched firmly in one hand, and beyond him a Bren-gun carrier was tilted on its side against a tree, bodies spilling out, tumbled one on top of another.
Howard tried to get to his feet, started to fall and was caught as he went down. Hoover said, 'Easy, sir. I've got you.'
Howard turned in a daze and found Finebaum there also.
'You all right, Harry?'
'We lost O'Grady. Ran head-on into a Tiger up the road. Where are you hit?'
'Nothing serious. Most of the blood's Garland's. He and Anderson bought it.'
Finebaum stood, holding his M1 ready. 'Heh, this must have been a real turkey shoot.'
'I just met Death,' Howard said dully. 'A nice-looking guy in a black uniform, with a silver skull and cross-bones in his cap.'
'Is that so?' Finebaum said. 'I think maybe we had a brush with the same guy.' He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and shook his head. 'This is bad. Bad. I mean to say, the way I had it figured, this stinking war was over and here some bastards are still trying to get me.'
The 502nd SS Heavy Tank Battalion, or what was left of it, had temporary headquarters in the village of Lindorf, just off the main Salzburg Road, and the battalion commander, Standartenfuhrer Max Jager, had set up his command post in the local inn.
Karl Ritter had been lucky enough to get possession of one of the first-floor bedrooms and was sleeping, for the first time in thirty-six hours, the sleep of total exhaustion. He lay on top of the bed in full uniform, having been too tired even to remove his boots.