Chapter Six.

Master Sergeant Tyler McNeal of the U.S. 30th Infantry Division sat in the roadside ditch and took a deep drag on the bent Lucky Strike clamped between his lips as he carefully re-wrapped the dressing on his upper left arm. It was only a flesh wound but it stung like hell. He looked around. Just the four of them, out of the original patrol of twelve men; and on the wrong side of the Elbe. The patrol had been sent out to try to prevent the Kraut defenders from blowing the road bridge at Rothensee to the north of Magdeburg. They had been caught in a fire fight with a bunch of fucking crazy SS Panzergrenadiers defending the eastern bank of the Elbe, and eight of his squad had been killed or badly wounded. The wounded had retired back across the Elbe, and he, and his remaining men were now stranded a little to the east of the village of Hohenwarthe after the Krauts had finally blown all the rail and road bridges.

A little further along the ditch was his fire-support specialist, SPC Jefferson "Dootes" Bailey. This, in itself was something of a rarity. Bailey was a Georgia Negro... the same Southern State as McNeal. In the segregated U.S. Army, most black troops held menial positions... drivers, labourers and the like. Most "Jim Crows" never made it above Private - let alone to Specialist. "Dootes" Bailey had landed on Omaha with McNeal, and they had fought their way across France and Germany side by side. Even with his inbred Southern discrimination; McNeal relied upon and respected "Dootes." He had seen him wounded and bleeding. They were both the same colour beneath the skin.

His concentration on fixing the bandage was broken by the distant sound of a vehicle engine. He stared up the road… nothing. The engine sound faded, and disappeared. It had to be a Kraut. The Russians were coming down from the north, but it had sounded like a motorcycle, and a big twin at that. He looked around. Stuck out here in the goddamned countryside full of mean, prowling Krauts. How in the hell they were supposed to get back to their unit was a complete brain-twister. He glanced ruefully at the other two survivors. Both were typical, dirt-poor country boys who couldn't manage to find their butts if they were using both hands. How they'd succeeded in getting this far without having their heads blown off was surely one of life's little mysteries.

Dootes Bailey slowly clambered out of the ditch and casually sauntered up the road, swinging the seventeen and a half-pound, thirty-caliber Browning automatic rifle as easily as if it were a squirrel gun. McNeal shouted back to him.

'Get down you dumb, Jigaboo bastard. You're standing out like a goddamned tomcat's nuts! Every friggin' Kraut between here and Berlin can't help but spot yuh!'

Dootes Bailey... Six foot five, and two-hundred-and forty-pounds of muscled ebony, grinned. His teeth were blinding white.

'Sheee-it, man. Quit hollering, yuh flat-ass Honky. I ain't some dumb-ass ground-pounder. Gimme some respect!'

He jumped down into the ditch beside McNeal. His face became serious.

'How in the hell are we going to get out of this goddamned jumping-off point, Tyler?

McNeal sighed.

'Sure as hell beats me, Dootes. I guess we just scrawl "Kilroy Was Here" on the first wall we get to, and scoot back down to the river.'

He turned to the two young GIs crouching in the ditch a little way back down the road.

'Now, listen up! I'm fixing to lie low in that tree belt yonder. When I say Go! High-tail it across; take cover, keep your lips buttoned and your carbines on lock and load.'

He shook his head sadly as the two young GIs scrambled out of the ditch, and the youngest one... Casey Lynch; just eighteen, and from Morgan County, Georgia; dropped his M1 carbine with a resounding clatter. Jeezus-H-Christ! Those two kids should be back on the farm. Thank the Good Lord he had Dootes to help him get these baby dogfaces out of this bag of dicks. Jefferson "Dootes" Bailey might be the wrong colour for Uncle Sam; but he was a friggin' surgeon with the Browning Automatic Rifle.

Karyn had made good time across country from Ziesar; using only the country lanes and byroads. She hadn't seen another living soul on her journey. As she passed to the south of Burg; under the Reichsautobahn bridge, the BMW engine had stuttered and then picked up again. She was obviously beginning to run low on petrol. Ahead was another forested area. If the BMW ran out of petrol, that would be as good a place as any to abandon it. As she rode down through the forest, she heard the distant sound of what could only be tanks; but were they German or Russian? The BMW engine was beginning to surge. She wouldn't get much further. The motorcycle combination managed three more kilometres before the tank reserve ran dry. As the engine faded, Karyn pulled in the clutch lever and coasted off the road in amongst the trees. Time to walk.

About three-hundred-metres ahead, at the end of the dead straight avenue cut through the forest, she saw the telltale chaos of the Reichsautobahn. Not a place to be for a lone woman without proper papers. She began walking down the road looking for another route west. Twenty metres ahead; a narrow lane forked off to the right, between the enveloping trees; and about six- hundred-metres ahead, there were signs of civilisation... one or two scattered houses. She reached into her coveralls breast pocket and removed the SD and GUGB Identity passes she had carried since her Tunguska expedition back in 1937-8. It was probably wiser to throw them away now; rather than run into any Allied troops whilst they were still in her possession.

Pulling a matchbook from her pocket, she tore off a match, struck it, and held the flame to the Identity cards. They burned quickly; almost singeing her fingers. She dropped the charred remnants and ground them out under her boot on the roadway. Pulling out the silenced Mauser Bolo; she ejected the rounds and threw them, and the weapon out into the forest. Now, there was nothing to identify her, except for her "Ace in the Hole," that she had kept successfully concealed for the past five years. Taking a deep breath, she began her walk to the west.

Tyler McNeal saw the lone figure appear from the tree line, some three-hundred-yards from his concealed position in the little wood to the north of the road. As the figure came closer, he saw it was a woman dressed in blue military-style coveralls. She was blonde, and looked to be young. She didn't appear to be armed. Another refugee? A Kraut saboteur? Should he chance stepping out and challenging her, or just shoot her? He decided on the challenge... but, with back-up. Stepping out into the road, he shouted,

'Dootes! Get your scrawny nigguh butt over here, toot-sweet, and bead her in with the B.A.R.'

Dootes Bailey stepped into the road and casually raised the B.A.R. The blonde kept coming. McNeal shouted to her,

'Hande Hoch, Frollein!'

The blonde dutifully raised her hands and kept walking. She stopped in front of the two GIs and waited. McNeal knew almost no German, apart from a few phrases. For want of anything better, he decided to try English.

'Who are you? Where d'you come from?

The blonde gave McNeal a tiny smile and answered in perfect English.

'My name is Karyn Seringen. My identity card is in my left boot.'

McNeal studied this pretty blonde. Her English was flawless; without any trace of accent. There was something very goddamned strange going on here. Motioning to Dootes Bailey to cover her; he reached down and withdrew the card from her boot. It was a small buff card, printed in red; that opened like a book. The words on the cover leapt out at him...

British Military Identity Document.

Beneath this was a Serial number. Inside, on the left page, was her photograph, stamped with an embossed seal bearing the British War Office Crest. Below that, were her hair, and eye colour; and her signature. The facing page held her details. Her name was Karyn Seringen. She held the rank of Captain. The next entry, marked "Reg't or Corps" caused McNeal to take an inadvertent sharp intake of breath... S.O.E... Special Operations Executive; the Limey equivalent of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services... the shadowy O.S.S. After this revelation; the remainder of the entries were irrelevant; Her Birth date... 1912; etc.

McNeal looked askance at her.

'You got dog-tags?'

She smiled, and reached down to her other boot. Dootes Bailey imperceptibly raised the B.A.R a couple of inches. McNeal waved his hand in a downward motion. Dootes lowered the muzzle of the B.A.R again. The girl drew out two compressed fibre discs from the top of her right boot; a red circular one and a brownish-green octagonal one, both suspended from a leather bootlace; and handed them to McNeal. He saw that both were obversely impressed with her name, number, and unit, matching the details in the identity document.

He pushed his helmet back and stared at her.

'What'n the hell you doing here, Girl?'

The girl smiled.

The Russians are about to overrun Berlin. This War isn't going to last much longer. Hitler is trapped in his Führer Bunker, and most of his Generals have abandoned him. It's time for me to come in from the cold.'

McNeal stared at her.

'You telling me you just high-tailed it out of Berlin? How long you been there?'

She gave him a wry grin.

'For a while before the War; and then, since '39. I am German... well, actually, East Prussian. I am an archaeologist, and have been attached to the Ahnenerbe research organisation. That's how I came to be recruited. I was involved in Himmler's secret mission in 1940; investigating the Catalan Monastery of Montserrat, near Barcelona; where he hoped that there would be clues to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail. This belief was instilled in Himmler's cranky mind, by a book written by Otto Rahn, a German SS officer who had lived in Southern France, and who was convinced that the Grail was not simply the figment of the medieval authors' imagination; but was a real, physical artefact hidden somewhere in or near the Pyrenees. It was Rahn who set Himmler on his Grail Quest.

The Ahnenerbe Direktor specifically requested that I accompany the party, because of my expertise in ancient languages. When nothing was found; our party crossed to Casablanca in French Morocco; which was still unoccupied Vichy French territory; and where we could get a safe flight across Italy back to the Reich.

Casablanca had become a link in the chain for those fleeing occupied Europe... especially the expelled Jewish community; from where they might obtain exit visas... at a price; to travel to America. Here, I met with one of my fellow students from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main, whom I hadn't seen since I obtained my Doctorate. He was Jewish, and had been expelled when the Nazis purged the universities for racist and, or political reasons. He had come down the escape chain, and was recruited in Casablanca by the British Intelligence Services in 1937.

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He told me of what was happening back home, and eventually recruited me to the German and Austrian section of S.O.E. I was a "sleeper" at first, and later, an "Agent of Influence"; moving in some of the highest circles in Berlin; mainly involved with black propaganda and administrative sabotage in collaboration with the German section of the British Political Warfare Executive. This came about by my being invited, one evening in February '42 to a reception at the Villa Marlier Am Grossen Wannsee as an established member of the Ahnenerbe.

Villa Marlier was the centre for comradely contacts of out-of-town SS leaders, Security Police and SD in Berlin, and I mingled with some of the most influential Nazis in the Third Reich... Himmler, Heydrich, Kaltenbrunner; Müller, and Ohlendorf, to name but a few. As they became more intoxicated, their masks slipped, and they began laughing about their proposed "Final Solution" for the Jews of Europe, and the successes of the Einsatzgruppen... the "Special Units" in the east. It was then that I decided to become operational. Since then; I have been passing intelligence to the Allies through the Swedish Legation in Berlin. They passed the intelligence on in Diplomatic pouches because no private telegrams could be sent across the border. I must tell you that this information is classified, and must not be repeated. I must reach the Allied lines to report in and be de-briefed.'

McNeal whistled quietly between his teeth. How in the hell she'd managed to remain undiscovered in the heart of the monstrous Third Reich was almost beyond belief; but here she was. He'd known many brave men; but this pretty little gal was somethin' else. He was about to say something, when, from somewhere back down the road, came the throbbing of heavy motors, the familiar ugly squealing and grinding sound of tank tracks; the thunderous crash of cannon fire, followed by the rapid typewriter clacking of machine guns. He grabbed Karyn and began to run for the cover of the trees, followed closely by Dootes Bailey. As he ran, McNeal shouted to his two young GIs.

'Sonofabitch! Get your dumb-ass butts down. We got fuckin' Krauts coming up the road slicker'n snail snot on a doorknob!'

As they dived into cover, McNeal glanced at Karyn.

'Sorry, Ma'am; No offence meant.'

She smiled;

'None taken, Master Sergeant.'

Five German Panther tanks were nosing up the road from the village of Hohenwarthe towards where they were lying in cover behind a grass knoll at the edge of the wood. With luck, they would not be spotted; all the tank turret hatches were closed. When the lead Panther was no more than fifty yards from their concealed position; the top hatch on the lead tank was banged open, and the head and shoulders of its commander appeared. McNeal cursed under his breath,

'Oh, Shit!'…

… As he recognised the infrared searchlight and scope mounted on the commander's cupola of each tank; and the SS collar tabs of the commander. These were some of the night-fighting Panthers of the rapidly thrown-together SS Panzer Division "Clausewitz" that had created mayhem amongst the U.S. XIX Corps anti-tank-gun positions at the Weser-Elbe Canal, to the north of Magdeburg at two o'clock in the morning, a few nights ago.

As the Panthers approached, McNeal and Bailey pressed themselves and Karyn down into the sweet smelling grass of the knoll. The air was filled with the thunder of powerful Maybach V12 motors in low gear and the screaming, clanging tracks scouring the surface of the road; while the ground shook and rumbled beneath the Panthers as they waddled past. The commander of the first tank shouted something into his radio handset and black smoke from unburned petrol burst from the glowing exhausts as the motors roared in unison and the Panthers gathered speed. When they were halfway up the road towards the tree line, McNeal rose, and glanced back towards the village.

'Let's get the fuck outta here, and don't let the door hitcha in the ass on the way out!'

Skirting around the north side of the wood, they ran back towards the village under cover of the hedgerow. McNeal led the way, followed by Karyn and the two young GIs; with Dootes Bailey bringing up the rear. As they came towards the first house, suddenly, an old man came out and waved his arms frantically at them, shouting, "Minen! Minen!"

They stopped dead; desperately casting around for any sign of... what? There were no tell-tale signs of anything having been disturbed in the field.

Karyn called to him.

'Was ist los, Mein Herr?'

He replied with a stream of German in which McNeal could make out only one word... "Glasmine." He then turned, and scuttled back into the house.

Karyn listened, and nodded. Turning to McNeal, she explained.

'He says that the SS Panzergrenadiers sowed this field with Anti-personnel Glasminen when they thought your forces were coming across the Elbe. These are basically a toughened glass bowl, about six-inches-across, with a thick, moulded glass pressure plate, which, when stepped upon, will break a thin glass shear disc beneath it and set off the detonator. They can take a leg off, but worse; the glass bowl is toughened so that it will shatter into jagged shards that will rip into the lower body, and will be almost certainly lethal. They only need about forty pounds of pressure to set them off; so look for anything that appears to be the bottom of a bottle, or a glass pot lid about four-and-a half-inche- across.'

McNeal stared at her.

'How in the hell d'you know all this?'

She smiled softly.

'I didn't lead the life of a Nun back in Berlin. I had a friend... Johann, who was an ordnance officer with the Wehrmacht development centre for future weapons at Kummersdorf, near Luckenwalde, around 25 kilometres south of Berlin. He told me all about these mines. He said they were the most evil things he had ever seen.

'A sad look flitted across her pretty face.

'He was killed at Stalingrad... clearing Russian booby-traps.'

McNeal nodded. He turned, and shouted to the squad what they should watch out for. Then carefully, they began to move in single file back towards the hedgerow; scouring the ground for signs of any slight change in the vegetation growth pattern, any small mound, or any slight settling of the earth... anything to show where there might be one of these mines buried. Suddenly, Dootes Bailey froze. He shouted to McNeal,

'Tyler! I'm surely fucked! There's something under my foot!'

McNeal began to move carefully towards him. Karyn called out that he should stay where he was. He glanced at her and made to move on. She shouted again. This time her tone of voice was commanding.

'Sergeant, stay right where you are. I know what these things are like, and my friend Johann showed me how to deal with them.'

She turned to McNeal.

'Dootes is OK for the moment. If it is a Glasmine and he had really put any weight on it, he would almost certainly be maimed or dead by now.'

McNeal nodded. Very carefully, she began to move to where Bailey was frozen as if he was in suspended animation. She reached him and knelt by his foot. Very gently, with her fingertips, she began to ease the blades of grass aside. There! A pale green glass disc beneath the toe of his combat boot. A Glasmine 43 pressure plate. She glanced up at him.

'Soldier; don't move. Don't you even breathe. If you'd gone half-an-inch further you'd have had your leg blown off. As it is; you didn't put enough weight on it to break the pressure plate. I can make this safe; but don't you dare go moving a muscle.'

She picked up a couple of sturdy twigs, and, with infinite delicacy, slipped them into the two parallel grooves moulded into the underside of the glass disc so that they projected out on either side of the disc and rested on the rim of the bowl... She looked up at him.

'OK, it's safe. Lift your toe, and step back very, very carefully.'

Dootes followed her instructions; the sweat was pouring down his face and dripping off his chin.

'Thank you Ma'am. I was just fixin' to say a last bysi-bye to the boys in the basement!'

She smiled.

'No fear of that now, soldier. Now, let's get the hell out of here.'

She shouted back to McNeal and the other two.

'They will have buried these mines with the glass pressure discs slightly above-ground. Don't lift your feet. Shuffle them along the ground. That way, you'll knock the pressure discs away from the shear plates so that they won't break and set off the detonators.'

Very slowly, the five of them shuffled in line across the field to the hedge. It looked comical, but it was deadly serious. Three Glasmine 43 pressure discs were knocked aside during their apprehensive progress, but no mines detonated. At last, they reached the relative safety of the hedgerow.

Back out on the road, McNeal turned to Karyn.

'Ain't I God's own fool? I should have known that this field wasn't safe. Those goddamned Krauts are meaner than a wet coyote.'

He glanced back at Dootes, who was still a noticeably paler shade of ebony after his experience with the mine.

'Dootes! Take point! I'm fixin' to get down the road a piece for a nose around, so stay sharp.'

He cocked his M3 submachine gun, and began walking cautiously down the road towards Hohenwarthe; followed by the two young GIs. Dootes waited for a couple of minutes, and then motioned to Karyn that they should follow a little way behind. He smiled.

'OK, Ma'am; let's go; but stay close... I owe you one.'

As they approached the first few houses; suddenly, McNeal crouched, and raised his "grease gun" in the direction of the first house. The old man who had shouted the warning appeared at the door; with his hands raised. In a brave voice, he spoke.

"Endlich seid Ihr gekommen. Seit Jahren haben wir auf Euch gewartet."... 'At last, you have come. We have waited years for you.'

Karyn ran to where McNeal crouched, and pushed the muzzle of his weapon aside. She looked at the old man.

"Warum hast du uns warnen?"... 'Why did you warn us?'

The old man smiled.

"Ich bin ein Jude. Sie haben uns vor dem sicheren Tod gerettet.'

McNeal stared hard at the old German.

'What did he say?'

As Karyn was about to translate, the old man spoke up, in perfect English.

'I am Günther Reicher. I told the young Lady that I am a Jew, and that you have saved us from certain death by driving the Nazis out of our once-beautiful city. That is why I warned you of the minefield.'

McNeal stared at him.

'How in the hell d'you speak such good English? And how have you managed to escape not being shipped out and killed?'

The old man smiled.

'I am a chemist by profession. I earned my degree before the war, at Cambridge University in England... which is where I learned English by necessity. I worked for Polte Fabrik Munitions, here in Magdeburg before the Nazis rose to power. I suppose I should have been thrown into the Stadfeld slave labour camp with the rest of the concentration camp Jews who were sent to slave at Polte Fabrik Werke; but no one ever questioned me, and my documents were destroyed in the air raid a year ago, last January. The works manager took me down to Gestapo headquarters in Klosterkirchhof, and confirmed my identity. I suppose the Nazis just couldn't bring themselves to believe that, with a surname like mine; that I was Jewish.

The Magdeburg Gestapo Chief, SS-Sturmbannführer Mohr issued me with new papers and I simply went back to work in the laboratories.'

McNeal pushed his helmet back on his head, and gave the old man an incredulous stare.

'Well. I'll be damned!'

His voice became serious.

'Tell me, Herr Reicher; are there any more Krauts in the village? We have to get back across the river.'

The old man grinned wryly.

'The village is full of "Krauts"... but there are no soldiers. Those tanks were the last ones. You'll need to be careful. Your Americans have consolidated a defensive zone along the west bank. Now, come and have a drink. I've been saving my last bottle of Asbach Uralt brandy for just such an occasion as this.'

The house was white with pebble-dashed walls and a deep roof. A short wall separated it from the pavement, behind which was a patchy lawn. The windows were shrouded with net curtains. The old man invited them into the main room with carved wainscoting and a beamed ceiling; heated by a tall, tiled stove. He sat them around a long table, and brought out the bottle of Asbach and six ancient crystal glasses. He then disappeared into the kitchen to fetch them some food. McNeal felt uncomfortable. They were always being told that all Germans were evil; and now, an old man was about to share his rations with them.

When he returned, he was carrying a large tray upon which was precariously balanced a thick block of butter; platters of smoked Westphalian ham and assorted sausages, with piles of rye bread and pumpernickel. There was even a plate of hard-boiled eggs. The one thing lacking was coffee, for as Herr Reicher explained; no one in Germany had coffee except invalides, wounded men in hospital, and front-line soldiers; and he would not insult them by offering Ersatzkaffee... the beverage made from roasted acorns, that most Germans had to endure.

As they sat and ate, and drank the Asbach; Karyn asked about his family. Herr Reicher smiled sadly, and the look in his eyes became distant.

'My wife Hannah, was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 because of her domestic celebrity in the arts. She was a music teacher and musician of some distinction. I have no idea what became of her; whether she has survived; has died in the Ghetto, or was transported on to one of the camps. My son Rolf, was a soldier. He went to join the ranks of the Wehrmacht to prove his loyalty to the German people as a faithful German; not to escape the fate of being Jewish. He was killed on the Eastern Front in '43.'

With Herr Reicher's Asbach brandy warming their bellies; McNeal, Karyn, and his men bid goodbye to Herr Reicher and set out to make their way through the village towards the Elbe. Now that the German troops had retreated, the villagers; mostly elderly men, women, and children; were hard at work gathering dislodged slates, piling up scattered bricks, and gathering the few dead German soldiers and the scattered debris of war from the damaged buildings at the western end of Hohenwarthe.