A thousand suns

Koch tore another mouthful from the loaf of bread. It was good; the dough was dense and chewy, almost rubbery, while the crust crumbled in a brittle, flaky way, like pastry. It was so different from the bread he was used to, it amazed him how much a basic food substance, such as bread, could vary so much from place to place.

‘Good bread,’ he managed to say with a full mouth. ‘Almost like cake, sponge, you know?’

Buller nodded.

‘You want some?’ Koch held the mauled loaf out to him.

‘No, sir, I’m not too hungry.’

Koch patted Buller’s shoulder; he understood.

He checked his watch; the radio signal had been due for a while now. They had received one in the early hours confirming the planes had departed and they would be signalling again when they were half an hour away from the airfield. It had been stressed that Koch and his men should secure the airfield as close as possible to the time of arrival of the planes. Too early and news of the surprise attack might filter to some nearby forces in time for them to respond and take it back before the approaching planes could make their stop for fuel. Timing was going to be everything with this raid.

Koch had sent some of his men out to reconnoitre the airfield at first light. They had come back with good news. It was a small supply strip, mostly occupied by ground crew, there to maintain the occasional Dakotas passing through. A handful of American soldiers guarded the road in, manning a hut and a barricade. These men were just counting the days until they were sent home and certainly not spoiling for a fight. Koch didn’t anticipate losing any of his twenty-seven men taking the airfield. In fact, he could see this being done without even a solitary shot being fired. If they were lucky, and everything went to plan, the planes would land, refuel and be gone in a matter of half an hour. However, if it came to it, he knew his men were ready for a scrap. The orders for this mission, which had come directly from Hitler himself, had demanded he and his men fight to the last protecting those planes while they were on the ground; but it looked like it wasn’t going to come to that.

Koch decided once the planes were in the air again he would order his men to surrender promptly. There would be no need for heroic sacrifices today if things went smoothly.

He wondered what was so important about these planes… a dozen Me-109s and a larger plane he presumed would be a Condor. He’d seen this before, generals appropriating crucial resources to whisk them from some hot spot away to safety. He could imagine, hiding away inside the larger plane, Goring or one of the other stooges that surrounded Hitler. He couldn’t envisage Hitler himself scurrying out from Berlin.

Karl, the radio operator, waved his arm, and the men crowded inside the kitchen stirred and looked anxiously to Koch.

‘Is it the signal?’ Koch asked.

‘Yes, sir. They’re twenty-five minutes away.’

He nodded and placed the crust of the loaf down on the kitchen table. ‘Time to go to work,’ he muttered.

He cast a glance at the French couple tied up and gagged, sitting at the kitchen table. They couldn’t be left here on their own. If either of them were to wriggle free, they’d most likely raise the alarm. They couldn’t be left like this. With some reluctance he had begun to reach for his field knife, when Obergefreiter Scholn gently tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Sir, the two wounded men, Paul and Felix… what are your orders?’

The two men that had been badly cut during the beach landing last night had been attended to, but neither of them were fit enough to fight. They would be more of a hindrance than a help.

He looked across the kitchen at them. One of them, Paul, had lost a lot of blood, and was weak and tired. 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.