A thousand suns

Buller and his men veered to the right, towards the guard hut and barricade. Scholn bore left, towards the hangar. Koch and his men continued forward, towards the canteen tent, now only a hundred yards away. Most of the Americans there having breakfast seemed half asleep, and it appeared like none of them had spotted anything yet.

My God, can’t they see us?

They were now only thirty feet away and a few of the men sitting down to eat, looked up and seemed to notice the approaching Germans. The initial response didn’t seem to be alarm, it looked like curiosity; he could imagine them lazily wondering, ‘Who are these guys? Some of ours… practising manoeuvres or something?’

Koch sprinted the last few yards and ducked as he entered underneath the awning, MP-40 raised to his shoulder and pointed at the Americans, now it seemed, finally aware that something was amiss.

‘Down! Now!’ Koch shouted using his limited knowledge of English and gesturing towards the ground with the barrel of his gun. The rest of Koch’s squad fanned out around the men in the canteen.

‘Andreas, get those over here in the middle of the floor,’ he called out.

One of his squad approached the men still standing in line, still holding mess trays, motionless and all staring uncomprehendingly at Koch and his men. He pulled them away from the steaming urns and shoved them towards the middle of the canteen.

‘Down!’ he hissed.

They finally seemed to wake up and comprehend the situation that had suddenly altered their day. A few moments later they were all lying compliantly on the floor, Koch’s men hastily shaking them down for any concealed weapons.

So far so good.

In the meantime, Scholn and his men crossed two hundred yards of open field towards the hangar. It was a relatively small structure, only large enough to house a single transport plane. Outside, parked facing away from the building, were the three DC3s and beside them the fuel truck. As he jogged, he pointed at four of his men and indicated the planes and the fuel truck, they peeled off towards them, weapons at the ready. One of them climbed swiftly into the truck and had it immediately rolling across the field towards the grass landing strip. The other three began checking the planes for anyone hiding inside.

Scholn led the rest of them over towards the hangar and they came to a halt outside the sliding corrugated doors. Scholn took a few seconds to catch his breath.

‘Ernst, Dieter, stay here and guard this doorway,’ he whispered between ragged gasps. He took the other three men of his squad with him inside the hangar. They fanned out and quickly circled the plane but found no one.

Scholn nodded at one of his men. ‘Jan, check inside.’

The soldier slung his MP-40 over one shoulder and pulled himself up inside the cargo hold of the plane. Scholn heard a muffled shout of surprise and a moment later a solitary mechanic emerged from the plane with his hands in the air; behind him Jan emerged intently studying a deck of playing cards. He jogged over to Scholn and showed him the deck.

‘Nice… very nice,’ he nodded appreciatively. The women on this deck weren’t just topless. He cast a glance at the American mechanic, who looked as embarrassed as he was frightened. ‘I presume he was playing solitaire?’

Jan grinned.

Scholn looked down at the deck. ‘When we’re done today, I think I’ll have another look through these.’ He passed the deck back to Jan, who pocketed them quickly.

‘Shit,’ said Buller as he studied the men twenty yards away, outside the guard hut. There were two of them that he could see, both had rifles slung over their shoulders. There might possibly be a third inside the hut; one of the men seemed to be having a conversation with someone inside. He turned to face his squad, all of them kneeling with him behind a stack of crates and awaiting instructions.

It looked like they were going to have to go in shooting. Buller wasn’t so much concerned about any bullets that might whistle towards them, but if the guards weren’t taken totally by surprise there was a chance one of them might slip away out of the front entrance and down the dirt track into town.

He cast a glance over his shoulder towards the hangar. He could see several men walking with raised arms away from the parked-up DC3s towards the building, escorted by another, which even at this distance could clearly be seen to be holding a gun. He turned to check out Koch’s progress and saw men being pulled unceremoniously to the floor at gunpoint. If either of the guards were to turn towards them, they would see something was wrong.

‘Buller?’ prompted one of his men. ‘What do we do?’

Whatever it is, it’s got to be quick.

Buller turned back to study the guards just in time to see one of them pace casually along the length of the barricade and turn round to pace back. He saw the guard look up from his feet tiredly towards the hangar and stop. The guard cocked his head, and then they heard him call out to the other one.

Fuck it, decision’s made for me.