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VII. The Welcoming Party

 

1

Arakal, by his own estimate, had four thousand men ashore, a number of machine guns, half-a-dozen small rocket launchers, and two one-pounder cannon. The sea, so calm last night, was now rough; the tide had come in, and a triple line of bright-yellow marker buoys bobbed on the churning waters of the bay. Each buoy was held by a long slender cord, its far end attached to some artillery piece that now rested on the bottom, where its raft had overturned. From his height above the beach, Arakal could look to north or south along the shore, and see the painted snouts of Russ big guns looking out to sea from turrets disguised to match the surrounding rock of the bluffs.

In both directions, Arakal could make out little groups of his men looking up at the guns, wondering perhaps how quickly the sand and rock they had fed into the snouts of the guns could be cleared out from inside if enemy gunners were in there. So far, nothing had happened. But Arakal had word of more Russ guns, these still out of his reach to north and south, but probably well able to smash ships landing troops here.

Slagiron had gone out to Bullinger, the troops already ashore were moving inland rapidly, the weather was still getting worse, fewer and fewer reinforcements were reaching the beach, and Arakal, looking down at the surf, at the sand and pebbles below, at the men staggering ashore from an overturned boat, and seeing in his mind the map and what was further inland, groped for the next unpleasant surprise.

Just then, a strongly built sergeant ran down a path from behind a clump of small trees bending in the wind. He raised his hand in a quick salute.

"Sir, we've found a way into one of the turrets!"

"Good! Where?"

"Just above here. It's a kind of vent shaft or escape hatch, planted around with brush. A steel ladder runs part way down the shaft. At the bottom of the ladder, there's a room cut in the cliff. From there, you can fire the gun."

"Any sign of the Russ?"

"No, sir. The place was empty."

"Let's get a look at this."

 

2

S-Two bowed very slightly. "The deception plan is activated, sir."

S-One sighed in relief. "Good."

 

3

Arakal squirmed feet-first under the upraised rock, found the ladder, eased down into the vertical shaft, and then, from below him, the sergeant called, "The gear-wheel, sir! Watch out, or you'll get caught in it."

Arakal freed his sword from the ladder rungs, twisted sidewise, and pulled his cloak loose from the geared mechanism that raised the rock at the top of the shaft. He paused to consider this mechanism, which was free of rust, and freshly greased. Then he made his way down the ladder, to step carefully off the last rung into a sort of wide recessed archway, where the sergeant pushed open a heavy door, and then Arakal found himself amongst several of his men, in a dimly lit room perhaps forty feet across.

To the right, at the far end of the room was the gun. The breech, the massive wheeled mounting, and the tracks for the wheels, took up most of that end of the room.

To the left, in the middle of the rear wall, was an open door into what appeared to be a kind of large dumbwaiter. Several low massive tables stood nearby, and a low, heavy, wheeled cart.

Directly across from Arakal, on the opposite wall, was a detailed map of the shorefront, and, above the map, several dark grilled openings. From the high ceiling, two shiny brass tubes reached down, bearing near the lower end of each, a pair of outthrust handgrips and a set of eyepieces. Through one of these, a frowning corporal with five campaign stripes was now looking, his hands tense on the grips. Beside each of the tubes padded headsets hung down on thick black wires.

Arakal glanced across the room at the gun, to see another dangling headset, its cord hanging from an overhead bar that appeared to pivot in unison with the traverse of the gun.

Arakal's glance met the gaze of one of his soldiers, standing to the side of the gun, with a look of baffled curiosity.

Arakal took hold of the free set of handgrips, and pulled down. The shiny tube with its eyepieces slid easily down, and suddenly he was looking out at two separate views of a ship riding at anchor on a rough gray sea. He twisted the handgrips, and the images separated further. He twisted in the opposite direction, and the images merged. With a sense of shock, he recognized one of his bombardment ships, a faint slender cross superimposed on its center. As he moved the grips, changing numerals came into view below the view of the ship. With each turn of the tube or twist of the grips, came a low heavy rumble from across the room.

He tore his gaze from the eyepieces.

Across the room, the gun was now more elevated than when he had first seen it. The bar holding the upper end of the dangling headphones had swung slightly to the left.

Outside the room, in the shaft, the ladder rattled.

Near the gun, a soldier cleared his throat.

"Sir, this gun follows every move you make with that tube."

Carefully, Arakal turned the handles until he saw nothing but an unfocused view of a large-numbered buoy floating in otherwise empty water. He stepped over to the gun, examined the mechanism intently, then straightened, frowning.

At the other tube, the corporal said soberly, "This scope also controls that gun, sir. But the scope you used overrode it. There's a red button on the handle of each of these scopes."

Arakal nodded. "Don't touch it, or we could get a nasty shock. The barrel is plugged with pebbles and dirt."

"It looks as if one man could aim and fire this thing."

Arakal nodded. As he looked around, it also appeared to him that a part of the gun that he hadn't understood was an automatic loading mechanism.

From the doorway leading to the shaft, a voice called out, "Sir, we've got a funny kind of prisoner up there. You might want to see him."

Arakal went up the ladder, crawled out at the top, and found two men and a bemused corporal standing beside a slight dark figure with a large moustache, face smeared with charcoal, wearing a camouflage suit, leather boots, and a narrow red-white-and-blue armband.

The corporal said, "Listen to him a minute, sir."

Arakal nodded to the slight mustached figure, to be rewarded by a quick grin displaying a mouthful of stained teeth. The figure spoke briefly and rapidly, in French. After a moment's uncertainty, Arakal pieced together what he had said:

"Moi, je suis Pierrot. J'ai detruit les russes."

Arakal took a hard look at the slight figure. The two sentences rang in Arakal's head. "I am Pierrot. I have destroyed the Russ." Arakal thought of the gun, and of his bombardment ship in its sights. With an effort, he framed in French the question, "How did you do that?"

"It was very simple," came the answer, and, listening intently, Arakal followed as the words poured out. "Follow me and I will reveal to you the means. I am Pierrot. It is I who command the Striking Force for Independence. The Russ here are no more. You will join me in the march on Paris."

Arakal glanced around.

His men were streaming up the path from the beach, and heading inland. Dark clouds were rushing past low overhead. The trees swayed in the wind.

Arakal spoke slowly as he groped for the words:

"When you say the Russ are destroyed here, do you mean on this beach?"

Pierrot made a wide sweep of the hand.

"Throughout the Normandy Citadel."

"And Cherbourg?"

"Cherbourg is mine."

"You say you have destroyed all the Russ in this peninsula?"

"It is as true as that I stand before you."

Arakal strained to get the slight figure into focus.

"You personally destroyed them?"

Pierrot looked startled.

"Personally? But no. I am the brain of the Striking Force for Independence. I am the spirit which controls the Striking Force for Independence. The Striking Force for Independence is, as it were, my body, and in that sense, yes, I destroyed the Russ personally. But not with my own hands. No. And those of them who are not destroyed physically are destroyed militarily. They are in desperate flight, the Russ. It is I, Pierrot, who tell you this. Throughout the Normandy Citadel, from Cherbourg to Saint Lo, from the Bay of the Seine to the Bay of Biscay, the Russ are dead or in flight."

Arakal glanced from Pierrot to the corporal, at whose collar was the small blue diamond-shaped emblem signifying that he could speak the tongue of the Kebeckers.

"Do you understand this?"

"Yes, sir. That is, I understand the words."

"You don't believe him?"

"Not the way he tells it."

"Why?"

The corporal smiled, man-to-man. "Just look at him, sir. I'll believe he's beat the Russ when I see a mouse chase a panther up a tree."

Arakal turned intently to Pierrot.

"Do you have means of transportation?"

"Everything the Russ have not fled in belongs to me. Have you need of transportation for your troops?"

"Yes."

"I, Pierrot, can provide it."

"Good. And you say you can prove the Russ are beaten here?"

"Follow me and I will show you."

"How far?"

"Down this ladder and down a hallway."

"That ladder goes down to a room, not a hallway."

"It goes to a room and then to a hallway. I know the Russ fortifications here as I know my own hand. I saw to it that the Russ could not fire upon our allies as you approached. It is I, Pierrot, who have struck the sword from the hand of the Russ in their Normandy Citadel."

"Show me."

The corporal said earnestly, "Let a few of us go along, sir. Don't trust yourself to this hero."

Arakal nodded. He glanced around, to see a colonel crouched with a captain at the head of the path from the beach, frowning over a map. It was, if anything, even darker than it had been. Not far away, thunder rumbled, as a patter of rain swept along through the trees. Arakal turned back, to see that the corporal had already got half-a-dozen men together.

Arakal turned to Pierrot. "Lead the way."

Pierrot inclined his head, slid under the inclined cover, and swung easily onto the ladder. Arakal followed, then the corporal and his men. Below Arakal, Pierrot stepped off the ladder, and pushed into the room.

Arakal and the rest filed in.

Pierrot reached out, took hold of the ladder, lifted, and pulled down. The ladder ran down with a clicking noise, to come to a sudden stop. Pierrot stepped onto the ladder and climbed quickly down.

Arakal followed. Pierrot stepped off, and pushed open a heavy sliding door that led into a wide dimly lighted corridor, which ran in a long gradual zigzag past another door like the one they had just stepped through.

"These doors to the right," said Pierrot, "each lead up to a shaft coming down from a gun. Each gun had a commander and a crew of five. The gun could be aimed, fired, and reloaded by power, under the control of one man. Or, if the power should be lost during an attack, the guns could be worked by hand. Both methods were practiced on a regular schedule. All this fortification was planned in advance, before the occupation that followed the Russ attack on America, and the American abandonment of Europe. When, several months ago, your fleet stood well off the shore, and examined this coast, these guns were registered on a few of your ships. But whoever commanded the ships was wary, stayed well out, and the Russ did not fire. That silent confrontation was our notice that once again America was interested in Europe, and if Europe wished to free herself, Europe must prepare to help the Americans when they returned. We have kept a watch ever since, especially along this coast. Last night, when your ships anchored in the bay, the Russ sentinels were overpowered, and our plan was put in action throughout the Citadel."

To their left were double doors, and Pierrot pushed them open.

"The mess hall for this unit of coast artillery is just down this hall."

Arakal glanced back.

Behind him, his men looked suspiciously around, their guns at the ready.

Pierrot shoved open a second set of double doors, and gave a sort of solemn bow, his expression grave.

Arakal stopped abruptly. Ahead was a large room, where at tables and on benches, green-uniformed men sprawled unmoving. The smell of vomit was overpowering. As Arakal slowly turned his head, he saw men outstretched on the floor, men who had fallen over backwards from benches and lay partly on the floor. Here and there others had dropped to the floor while carrying trays. The eyes of most of the men were open, and their expressions fixed.

Pierrot said, "Underground, here, there is protection against nearly everything—except a poisoned air supply. We considered poisoning the food, but that involves too many uncertainties. This was quick."

Arakal stepped aside, to let his men come in.

Pierrot said quietly, "Other situations in other places required other measures. Most of the Russ fled. You may, since we are nearby, care to see one more point of interest down here—the obstacle store room."

He led the way back down the hall, took out a set of keys, and opened a wide sliding door. He led the way along a corridor that seemed to run straight back into the cliff. He slid open another door.

Arakal looked into a chamber that extended back for possibly a hundred feet, and that appeared to be forty feet or so deep, vertically.

This chamber extended to the right, buttressed at intervals by thick pillars. From the ceiling dangled large hooks on chains that hung down from traveling hoists. The room was packed with stacked pyramids of welded iron, some painted a dark red, others the color of wet sand. The sharp points and edges glittered like oiled blades.

Pierrot said, "There are enough obstacles packed in these storerooms to block this whole sector of beach. These devices would force you to come at high tide and risk having the bottoms of your landing boats ripped out, or else to come at low tide and cross a wide flat beach on foot under fire." He pointed to sliding doors in the back wall of the chamber. "Back there they have elevators, to carry these obstacles up to the loading point. From there, they go down on tracked transporters to the beach. They also had mines with multiples trip-wires to plant amongst the obstacles."

Arakal said carefully, "Did they also have aircraft?"

"Aircraft? No. It is rumored that they had a helicopter stored here somewhere. We have never seen it."

Arakal cast a last look at the stacked obstacles, and stepped back.

Pierrot said, "Now, you need transport?"

"We do. The sooner we can get ashore in Cherbourg, the better."

 

The next few hours passed in a blur, compounded of thunder and lightning, pouring rain, countermanded orders, missing units, and bad tempers—to end finally with the men who had started inland from the beach settled instead on flatcars moving through a tunnel lighted at intervals, dropping deeper and deeper, then crawling upward to settle finally into a steady run at some twenty to twenty-five miles an hour, with a cool wind in their faces, and an occasional glowing white light that appeared out of the darkness, allowing them a brief glimpse of a white concrete pillar and curved brackets supporting conduits of varied sizes, and then passed and faded swiftly to a dot behind them, while, far ahead, another dim white glow appeared.

At last, a brighter glow appeared ahead, the repeated click of the wheels on the tracks came at more and more widely spaced intervals, and then a long lighted platform pulled into view as the track leveled out. The train moved past this platform slowly, passed through a dimly lighted place where the tunnel widened, and swung around to the right where the light reflected from a dizzying pattern of tracks, and then again they were moving at twenty-five miles an hour down a tunnel lit at intervals, and then a second lighted platform pulled into view. The train of flatcars slowed and stopped.

Pierrot let go the lever in the lead flatcar, swung off a low stool, and waved to the beaming camouflage-suited men who appeared on the platform, carrying rifles and submachine guns. Here and there amongst the rapid exchange of comments that passed, Arakal caught a word or two. Then Pierrot turned to him, and spoke a little more slowly:

"This is East Fort, near St. Pierre Eglise. From here, you can contact your ships by radio. They will have to enter Cherbourg Harbor, and it would be prudent to send our pilots to bring the ships in. I trust you have interpreters?"

"Yes, we have interpreters."

"Then we must waste no time. The sooner we are on the track of the Russ, the less chance that they might recover and give serious resistance."

That same afternoon, Arakal stood on a dock in the brilliant sunlight that had followed the storm, as the main body of his troops marched in to the cheers of a crowd wild with enthusiasm.

 

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