Chapter One THE FALAISE GAP, NOR THERN FR ANCE August 1944 The ground was a carpet of gray corpses. They lay on the hillside in scattered clumps and on the valley floor below like a river flowing in from hell itself. Blasted by shells and bombs, ripped and torn by strafing aircraft, remnants of the once-mighty German army in Normandy were dead or dying in droves as they tried to escape the trap closing in on them. Those desperate enough were struggling to flee the carnage, and the only way to do that was to drive us off this goddamn hill. Hill 262, according to the map. Two hundred and sixty-two meters high, it towered above the eastern road from Falaise and the green meadows littered with German dead, their field-gray uniforms coated in swirling dust and caked crimson with blood. Across the valley, somewhere to the south, General Patton''s Third Army was advancing on a long end run to slam the door on the German escape route. Patton was drawing near, but not fast enough to stop the stream of surviving Krauts from fighting their way out of the slowly closing trap.
The enemy was in a tight spot, backed up on the road for thirty miles or so to the west, stuck in a shrinking pocket enveloped by Allied armies. But the pocket wasn''t zipped up tight, not yet. We were in the right place, but not strong enough to lock it up. Patton''s tanks were strong enough, but too far distant. Even so, the valley was a shooting gallery filled with burning vehicles and men dying as they made their way forward on foot. Everything from long-range artillery to tank shells hit the valley floor with explosive bursts, churning up earth and igniting fuel tanks, plumes of yellow flame and black smoke dotting the roadway for miles. The rancid odor of death rose up on the blisteringly hot winds from the valley below, clawing at the back of my throat. "Anything, Captain Boyle?" Lieutenant Feliks Kanski asked, as I hunched over the radio in the back of my jeep, which was parked next to a shell-shattered tree trunk, camouflaged by tangled limbs and dying leaves.
There were few safe places within the square mile we possessed on this hill, and I was glad of what cover it offered. I shook my head as I gave my call sign over and over again, broadcasting on the frequency we''d been assigned. "Keep at it, we need ammunition," Feliks said. His face was gaunt, his skin pale under the filth of three days on this hilltop. Sweat poured down his temples under the distinctive British tin pot helmet shading his eyes. Feliks was with the Polish 1st Armoured Division, as was everyone else on Hill 262. Well, not everyone. I was here, along with my buddy Kaz.
Lieutenant Piotr Kazimierz, that is. Kaz was a member of the Polish army-in-exile, but he wasn''t with Feliks''s frontline unit. He and I were part of a different outfit. We worked for General Eisenhower and wore the shoulder patch of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. SHAEF. We''d arrived yesterday as part of a Canadian supply column that had run into bad luck in the form of a couple of Panther tanks who got us in their sights and took out all six trucks. We''d been in a jeep, and either they didn''t spot us or felt we weren''t worth a high explosive shell. After that, Hill 262 had been surrounded.
Tanks and German paratroopers attacked on one side, fanatical SS troops on the other. I gave Feliks my canteen. There wasn''t much left, but he needed it more than I did. He took a sip and handed it back as static crackled, and I finally heard a voice. In English, thankfully. It was the 4th Canadian Armoured, and they had good news. I acknowledged the message and signed off. "Supply drop at 0900," I said, which meant the planes were close.
Feliks grinned. "Good," he said. "I will pass the word. It is about time. We''re down to fifty rounds per man. Some of the tanks have only a few shells left." The Poles had been fighting for days. That hadn''t been part of the plan.
By now the northern and southern pincers should have linked up and had the Krauts trapped within a deadly embrace. Instead, Hill 262 was on its own and struggling to hold on. Struggling in more ways than one. Every Polish soldier knew what surrender to the SS meant. Execution. With elements of two SS panzer divisions attacking from the west, trying to pry open an escape route for their pals inside the pocket, there was only one choice--fight to the death. Every Pole on this hill knew about the Warsaw Uprising. The Polish Home Army had revolted and fought the Germans, expecting the Soviet army to liberate the city.
But the Russians had not come to their aid. They halted, allowing SS troops to pour in and put down the rebellion. Tens of thousands of civilians were massacred as the Russians waited for the Nazis to wipe out the Home Army, which they considered a potential threat to Soviet rule. No Polish soldier would expect any mercy from the SS. Or give any, not after Warsaw. Not after five years of ruthless occupation and that last terrible bloodbath. Shells exploded on the hillside, a reminder that the Germans in the valley still had deadly hardware and could use it effectively. Artillery sounded from the north, the 4th Canadian Armored boys trying to fight their way through the Kraut paratroopers to get to us and having a tough time of it.
Small arms fire crackled along the line, but it was impossible to tell who was shooting at whom and with what effect. I dashed over to Kaz, shells falling closer and closer. He was in a trench near an old hunting lodge, the only building on the hill. It had been pressed into service as a hospital and was crammed with wounded, Pole and German alike. Outside the lodge, several hundred prisoners were huddled together, guarded by Polish soldiers who''d been bandaged up but could manage guard duty. "Did you get through?" Kaz asked, removing his steel-rimmed spectacles and cleaning them with the spotless white handkerchief he had managed to produce from one of his pockets. Monogrammed, no less, with his initials and family crest. Kaz may have been a lowly lieutenant in the eyes of the army, but he was a baron of the Augustus clan, and probably one of the few Polish nobles left alive.
"Yeah. Our Canadian pals said an airdrop of supplies is on the way. These guys giving you any trouble?" "None at all," Kaz said, putting on his glasses and gazing out over the sullen prisoners sitting on trampled grass, his Sten gun resting on the lip of the trench. It might have been the submachine gun, or the terrible scar that cut across the side of Kaz''s face. Both were frightening enough. "I think most are glad to be out of the war. Or in shock from the experience in that valley." I unslung my Thompson submachine gun and leaned against the trench wall.
Kaz was right. By the looks on their faces, these Fritzes had had enough. They''d come through the valley of death and been captured by Polish tankers. Lucky to have survived both, few of them saw any percentage in making a run for it. If they weren''t killed outright, all they had to look forward to was more fighting and a high likelihood of dying on the dusty road to Paris. Everybody wanted to get to Paris. GIs dreamt of it, a magical, near-mythical place of life, joy, wine, and women. French Resistance fighters wanted it for everything it meant to their nation still in chains.
Germans wanted it for the safety it promised, or perhaps as a last chance for glamourous living and loot to carry back to the Reich. I had my own reasons for getting to Paris. "Still no SS?" I asked Kaz, after a quick survey of the POWs. "No," Kaz replied. "No SS prisoners. They fight to the end. As do our men. We are in France, but between Poles and the SS, it is still Poland.
It is still Warsaw." "Fine by me," I said. "Last thing we need are die-hard Nazis talking these boys into making a break for it." The POWs were the reason we were here. One of our jobs in the SHAEF Office of Special Investigations was prisoner interrogation. Well, one of Kaz''s jobs, to tell the truth. He was the one who spoke half a dozen languages fluently and a bunch of others passably. When we had nothing that needed actual investigating, our boss put us on this detail.
Which had only extended to receiving the prisoners when they were brought back from the front lines. But Kaz couldn''t wait. He wanted to catch up with his Polish brethren, Feliks in particular. Feliks had intelligence contacts with the Home Army in occupied Poland, and Kaz had recently discovered that his younger sister Angelika was still alive, which was a very good thing. But she was working with the Polish underground, a very dangerous thing. With the Warsaw Uprising and the slaughter of Polish civilians and fighters by the Nazis, Kaz was desperate to obtain whatever information he could. So, we invited ourselves along on that supply run. The brass wanted prisoners, especially officers, to interrogate about Kraut plans to defend Paris.
That was the next stop in this campaign, once we bagged the remnants of the German army in the valley below. Which I''m sure had looked a whole lot easier on paper.