The two hours they spent waiting for the convoy to finish clearing the oak and reach them was a delicate torture. Nancy wanted it done, needed to move, to fight, but every moment the Germans spent looking for further booby traps was another moment for Gaspard to prepare his defense and start getting his men off the plateau. She glanced at her watch. Only four hours of daylight left. If they could keep the Germans from overrunning Mont Mouchet till dark, most of Gaspard’s fighters might make it off the mountain.
She put her head back, leaning against the back wall of the ditch, counting her breaths, then her head snapped up as she heard a rattle of machine-gun fire to the west. Minutes later came the throaty detonations of mortars and the snap of rifle fire. It was the second part of the plan. As soon as the road was cleared, Juan was ordered to fire into the convoy then run. With any luck, the Germans would waste another hour looking for him.
Juan dropped panting into the ditch beside them twenty minutes later. Mateo embraced him, a brief fluttering sigh the only sign he’d found the waiting for him hard.
“Well?” Nancy asked.
“Kid was right,” Juan replied. “Thousand-odd infantry with artillery in support. Your mine took the track off the tank they sent up to clear the tree; they had to repair it before they could move. All very orderly. When they looked like they were nearly done, I gave them a little blast.” He mimed spraying his machine gun. “They had mortars on my position within two minutes. So I scarpered.” He sounded grudgingly impressed. “They’re Waffen-SS. Haven’t seen troops that good in this area before. Only the best for Gaspard.”
Nancy cursed fluently under her breath. That was all they needed. Crack troops and plenty of them. She could smell wild garlic, gun oil, the mineral tang of the soil, sweat. They would be coming soon. She twisted round in the ditch and put her hand on Jean-Clair’s arm.
“Kid, our job is not to stop these guys, it’s just to slow them down. We want them to waste time chasing us. We’re going to make some noise, then disappear like smoke, OK?” She spoke low enough so only Jean-Clair could hear her.
“OK,” he said.
The minutes crawled by until Nancy heard the rumble of engines in the distance, then lifted her voice. “Anybody fires a shot before I give the order, and I’ll kill you my goddamn self. Clear?”
“Yes, my captain…” they murmured.
The throaty roar of the diesel trucks grew distinct. Nancy peered through the long grasses which lined the ditch. A light tank upfront was followed by two half-track vehicles towing howitzers. Damn it. The grenades wouldn’t make a dent. She watched the heavy vehicles pass, shaking the valley as they went, then saw the mass of infantry coming up behind them, four abreast. As they passed below her, less than thirty yards away, she could see the individual faces. Men, not boys. Fit, well-fed masters of the universe, their lines orderly, marching in time. Farther west along the road they became a green snake crawling up the valley. Her valley.
She gripped her Bren, feeling its metal, warm from the spring sun against her fingers and prayed, not to God, but to whoever back in Britain had made that pair of grenades and hoping they had managed to get some extra magic in there; or that the breeze, the moisture in the air, the million little movements of the world would mean one of them would roll under one of the half-tracks before it exploded. Knock out an engine, force the Germans to leave one of those howitzers useless on the road rather than drag it up the mountain and train it on the boys in Gaspard’s camp.
The first grenade went off, a short vicious explosion, which shivered up the valley and sent a flock of game birds into startled flight behind them. Then the second one went half a minute later. The sound was different—a muffled, doubled explosion which shook the ground, not the air. Nancy pressed herself against the ditch, watching for the smoke. Yes. A column of it, black and unctuous with engine oil from the first half-track.
She felt Jean-Clair move beside her.
“Wait your turn, Jean-Clair.”
A clatter of machine-gun fire, echo tripled by the high slopes above them, poured down on the Germans from the woods opposite Nancy’s position as Rodrigo and his squad engaged. The rattle of the light machine guns and the thud of the bullets into the scudding gravel mixed with the sharp urgent orders shouted in German, the cries of men already injured, then a hollow boom as the fuel tank on the injured half-track went up, the stink of it washing over them. The SS-men reacted fast, taking firing positions behind the remaining vehicles. Nancy’s knuckles whitened on the stock of her Bren as she watched four groups of three infantry set up mortar positions on the northern verge, where the low stone walls edging the road gave them cover, and began finding the range on Rodrigo’s position. Nancy could taste the adrenaline, bitter in the back of her throat.
“Captain,” Jean-Clair said, his voice desperate.
“Wait!” she hissed.
More orders, swiftly given in German and small groups of men, rifles held across their chests, began to run up the northern slope to the west of Rodrigo’s position, ready to flank him and his squad from above.
Time to mess things up.
“Now!”
Mateo and Juan sprang to their feet and hurled grenades from the ditch across the pasture and into the road among the rifle men behind the half-track, as Nancy, Jean-Clair and Jules concentrated their fire on the mortar teams. Time moved very slowly and way too fast. She could feel each bullet from the Bren as if on her own body as it pierced the heavy tunic of the corporal steadying the mortar, one two three across his back in a diagonal from shoulder blade, spine, kidneys, throwing him forward. The tube went over sideways sending its charge into the slope and a great plume of earth and rock was driven up into the air.
That shook them.
“Go! Go! Go!” Nancy screamed, and followed Mateo and Juan west along the ditch in a low crouch while the Germans were still trying to work out where the new attack was coming from.
She grabbed another grenade from her belt as she ran, pulled the pin with her teeth and threw it underarm across the field. It exploded against the wall, sending a blast of rock fragments spinning into the troops.
Rodrigo’s men had stopped firing, melting into the depths of the woods the second Nancy’s squad had piled in. Jules turned back and fired his Bren again, then staggered back, his arm over his eyes as a mortar round exploded at his feet. Jean-Clair grabbed hold of his jacket and dragged him, blind and shrieking along the drainage way. It was deeper here, better cover but muddy as hell, and Nancy’s boots began to stick. The bullets whipped past her head, then they were in cover again, a thin copse between them and the woods.
“Break for the trees!” she shouted. Jean-Clair was trying to lift Jules in his arms. Mateo shoved him aside and lifted the blinded boy over his shoulder.
“Captain! To the west!” Mateo yelled as he turned.
Nancy spun round to see a squad of Germans clambering over the wall on the far side of the copse, trying to outflank her now.
She fired short controlled bursts as Juan threw the last of his grenades and it exploded in a haze of earth and blood in the first team.
“Go on!” She shoved Jean-Clair hard in the back until his stupor broke, and he and Juan dashed up the slope to the tree line. She followed them at a sprint. As they threw themselves into the shelter of the dense foliage, Nancy heard the sound of the first German bombers rumbling overhead toward Gaspard’s camp.