TIGER ATTACK

  By Todd McLeod & Eric Meyer

  BOOK 1 OF THE HEROES OF THE 82ND AIRBORNE SERIES

  SHORT FICTION

  Copyright 2020 by Todd McLeod & Eric Meyer

  Published by Swordworks Books

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Chapter One

  Multiple flak shells exploded too close for comfort, and the C-47 pitched and rolled like a ship tossed in a violent storm. The pilot put the nose down in a desperate maneuver to avoid the flak and the searchlights.

  “We’re over the French coast,” 2nd Lieutenant Frank Bond shouted into the din of the cabin. Bond was short and slight like a successful long distance runner. Pale-skinned, his dark, sharp eyes were constantly looking everywhere, as if to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He took pride in taking care of his unit.

  Every space inside the fuselage was crammed with paratroopers. Men festooned with the tools of their trade, parachute harnesses, chutes tucked behind them. Webbing, canteen, supplies, weapons, spare ammo, every man helmeted. And every man saying a silent prayer inside his head.

  PFC Ray Cassidy was sandwiched between his buddy PFC Harry Byrd and the Company Commander, Captain John Pryce. A stand-up guy for an officer, Pryce had been an accountant in civilian life. Despite his sedentary occupation, he was anything but soft. He’d taken to Airborne like a duck to water, worked out, trained hard, and studied every military manual he could lay hands on. By the time they took off from the English airfield he was prepared to take on anything, especially the Nazis. Pryce was a warrior. He was Airborne.

  Ray thanked his lucky stars for his short and wiry stature. Squashed between the two men the journey would’ve been even more excruciating for a bigger man. Crammed inside a metal tube, flying through the night sky with nothing to see but exploding flak shells. Unlike his normal environment, the outdoors, where he was in his element searching the woods for game, and he’d frequently tracked an animal for hours. Enjoying the admiring glances when he got to his girlfriend’s house and handed her Mom enough meat to feed the family for a week.

  His girl was Patsy Roberts. Her younger sister Jessica, had told him he was the most handsome man she’d ever known and one day she was going to marry him. At all of four-years-old he didn’t take too much notice. Patsy loved him, and when he left for Europe, she made him promise not to get killed. “Ray Cassidy, I’ll never find another man like you as long as I live.”

  Okay, when a girl tells that to a guy it gives him a warm feeling. Even though the truth was he was just Mr. Average. He glanced at the bench seat opposite, and in the flash of an exploding shell saw several men’s lips moving. Who knew what they were praying to?

  Bond saw them and grunted they had one thing in common. “They’re praying to whatever God they believe in.”

  “I think we get that, Lieutenant,” Pryce smiled.

  A couple of men chuckled, but there was little to chuckle about. The date was June 6th, 1944. D-Day. The invasion of Normandy, and the 82nd would arrive ahead of the vast sea-born armada. Their task was to seize key strategic points, like the small town of Sainte Mere Eglise. A few miles from the town lay another key target, the strategic crossing of La Fiere, across the River Merderet. If they failed to secure the bridge, the Germans could rush reinforcements across, and Allied troops in the area would be in danger of annihilation.

  The aircraft rocked again to a fresh salvo of shells. This time the Lieutenant kept quiet when men renewed their prayers. Moments later the jumpmaster emerged from the cockpit. “Two minutes, time to hook up.”

  They clipped their static lines to the cable that ran from one end of the cabin to the other, the static lines that would open the chutes when they jumped. At least, that was the theory. He shouted above the roar of the engines, the rattle of the aluminum fuselage and the flak. “Red light on, one minute. Stand by.”

  He opened the door, and a gale force wind rushed in from the night. Captain Pryce was first, and he went to the door and stood there waiting, one hand gripping the frame. He was that kind of guy, when the shooting started he’d be first in line, out in front. The kind of officer who made men feel confident about parachuting into a nest of enemy soldiers. Nazis, Tiger tanks, MG42 machine guns, stick grenades, and that blind fanaticism to a crazed lunatic perched on a mountain somewhere in Bavaria. Berchtesgaden, they called it, the lair of the beast.

  Ray had been thinking about the life he’d left back home in Caribou, Maine. Thinking of the time he’d spent carving lures to pursue his love of hunting flights of wild geese that flew down from New Brunswick, Canada. Thinking of days spent fishing in the nearby lakes and rivers, and evenings with his girl.

  Another flak shell exploded close to the aircraft, and he recalled his long held ambition. To reach Berchtesgaden, find the half mad Nazi leader, and put a bullet in his head. But they had a long way to travel. Across France and all the way down through Germany to the Austrian border. He wasn’t sure how many thousands of miles they had to fight their way through, and he wasn’t counting. At this moment, his sole ambition was to hit the ground alive, find that damned bridge, and hold it until the main force arrived from the beaches. He wasn’t under any illusions. It was going to be tough. Afterward he could think again about kicking Hitler’s ass.

  His buddy Harry Byrd was staring at him. He was as different from Ray as chalk from cheese. A city boy, he was more at home in a snooker parlor than a forest or a mountain, never happier than when watching a drive-in movie from the back seat of his Chevy convertible, his arm around his latest squeeze. Unlike Ray, whose lifestyle turned his skin the color of buckskin, Harry was pale, and he looked flabby for an Airborne trooper. Yet underneath the flab lay solid muscle. At nearly six feet, he was tall, with blonde hair, a throwback to his Scandinavian ancestors, and piercing blue eyes, always ready to smile at a joke.

  Ray nudged him. “Time to party, pal.”

  “Yeah, I can’t wait.”

  “Green light. Go!”

  Pryce threw himself out the door, and the next man stepped forward like they’d been trained, so they’d follow in a long, continuous stick. It didn’t go to plan. An enormous shell, probably fired from a 88mm gun, exploded mere yards from the aircraft. It lurched to starboard and the nose pitched up. The violent movement threw the paratroopers backward and into chaos, and the pilot had to fight against the corkscrewing motion that threatened to plunge the aircraft into the ground. The jumpmaster pulled himself to his feet and raced into the cockpit. Seconds later he was back.

  “The aircraft is mortally damaged. You have to get out now! The standard engine is on fire, and the fuel’s likely to explode at any moment.”

  Ray was close to the door, and he didn’t wait any longer. He dived through the opening and out into the night sky, falling, falling. A moment later the canopy opened with a jerk that pulled him up hard. He used the shroud lines to correct the spinning motion, and as he went round, he saw the stricken aircraft bank away to the west, losing height and lit up by the flaming engine, making it a sitting duck for the flak. Occasionally, he saw the shadows of other paratroopers silhouetted against the blaze, and he opined they’d all got out. Another spin took him around again, and a bank of searchlights had caught a man, pinned him with the powerful beam.

  It had to be Captain Pryce, who’d jumped before the shell damaged the plane. He estimated he was going to land about two miles away, and he did his best to take a fix on nearby landmarks. To the east was the church steeple at Sainte Mere Eglise, and to the west, the small town of Amfreville, about where he expected the Captain to land. He glanced around, looking for the rest of his platoon, but they were hidden in the night sky. Next he looked down, just in time, and saw the ground rushing up to meet him.

  Cassidy performed a near perfect landing, rolled to absorb the shock, and bundled up his parachute. Harry Byrd had landed a few yards away, similarly bundling his chute and unstrapping his weapon. They each carried the U.S. Army standard issue M1 Garand slung across their chests, fully assembled and ready to fire. Unlike many paratroopers who carried their weapons disassembled in quilted bags to make the drop easier. Which meant when they landed they were as good as defenseless. Making the drop anything but easy if they landed too close to the enemy.

  “Where in hell are we?” Harry murmured in the darkness.

  Ray knelt on one knee, keeping a low profile while he looked around. Close by he saw a high wall and behind it several buildings. A number of trucks were parked next to a building in a neat formation, and he had a bad feeling. They were military trucks, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, the truth struck him.

  “We’ve landed in a military installation.” He glimpsed movement coming closer, soldiers, “Aren’t they…shit, they’re SS. We’re screwed.”

  Chapter Two

  They dropped flat and watched as two soldiers approached, their first glimpse of the Nazis. So far they hadn’t seen them, and it looked like they were about to walk past no more than two yards away. They might miss them, but they couldn’t take the chance. He nodded to Harry, and both men snatched out their combat knives. The SS men almost walked past when they leapt up behind them, and Ray struck. He slashed a deep cut into his victim’s neck, clamping a hand over his mouth to stop him from crying out. Harry wasn’t so lucky. He kicked over a stone and his target heard the noise. The soldier whirled and started to unsling his rifle. A cumbersome KAR 98 German infantry rifle, and had it been shorter he may have made it.

  He didn’t make it. In desperation Byrd stabbed the knife into the soldier’s chest, but the point of the blade merely pierced his shoulder. When he tried to withdraw the knife, it became entangled in the man’s shoulder straps, and Harry struggled to free it. The soldier’s mouth opened about to shout a warning, but Ray came to his rescue and charged. He hit him with a flying tackle that threw him to the ground. He clutched the knife he’d used to kill the first soldier in his right hand and brought it down in a hard strike, aiming at the heart. The man still struggled, and in his wild desperation he managed to block the blow. Once again his mouth opened, but Cassidy stabbed again. This time he put the point of the blade into the open mouth. Blood spurted from the wound, but still the man struggled. Cassidy clamped a hand around the back of his head to hold him still while he screwed the blade even deeper, up through the roof of the mouth until the point pierced his brain.

  He waited without making a sound in case someone had heard the commotion, but the place was quiet. Outside the noise of the flak guns still thundered enough to cover the advance of a regiment of heavy tanks. To add to the cacophony, bombs were falling from high-flying aircraft, and massive battleship guns pounded the shore defenses. Distant machine gun fire told of the beach landings underway, and they both knew time was running out to reach the bridge.

  He tensed, hearing footsteps approaching, and prepared to strike again. But as the man came nearer, he recognized the silhouette of an American helmet. A friendly, and it was the platoon commander, Lieutenant Frank Bond, who’d also landed in the wrong place. He arrived with more men, eight in all including the platoon sergeant, John Logan. It was hard to miss the menacing figure of the Sarge. Rumor had it he’d been a nightclub doorman in civilian life, tough and broad-shouldered with a broken nose on his scarred face. He may have looked forbidding, but he was a decent enough guy, and every man in the platoon knew they could look to him for help when needed. And God help any Jerry who picked a stand-up fight with him.

  Cassidy hissed at them to get down. Bond took the hint, dropped low, and crawled over to him. “What’s up?”

  “Lt, we’re in a military installation of some kind. Right here I’d say we’re on the parade ground.”

  He heard a sharp intake of breath. “Shit. How do we get out?”

  “We’d better take a look at the perimeter wall, see if we can climb over.”

  Bond nodded. “That makes sense. Men, get over to the wall.”

  They raced across the open ground until they were standing in the deep shadow cast by the wall. It was around fifteen feet high and getting over was going to be difficult.

  “We’ll try somewhere else,” the Lieutenant murmured.

  He led the way along the base of the wall, and he was about to say something to Cassidy, who was right behind him, when a match flared close in front.

  “Down!” he murmured, but it was too late. The soldier had seen them, and he stared at them in astonishment.

  Ray did the first thing that came to mind. Raced forward, snatching out his bloody Fairbairn Sykes dagger, and he had it at the soldier’s throat almost before the man realized he was in danger.

  “Wer ist da?”

  He put the blade closer to the man’s throat, just in case he didn’t get the message. “Shut your mouth or I’ll slit your throat.”

  He looked young, maybe eighteen or nineteen. Fresh-faced, innocent-looking, and the kid should’ve been playing football in his hometown instead of playing soldiers in some alien country. “Nyet. I not your enemy.”

  Nyet? What the hell?

  The uniform looked like the pictures they’d showed them back in England while they trained for the invasion, leopard pattern camouflage, with the twin lightings on the collar tabs. The most hated and feared uniform in the European theatre of war. He kept his grip on the soldier and looked at Bond. “Lt, this guy is SS. I think we’ve landed in an SS barracks.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope. We ought to get out of here right now. One thing, I thought ‘nyet’ was a Russian word, not German. That’s weird.”

  The guy moved a fraction, and he pushed the blade closer, so blood trickled down his neck. “Germans no, we are Russians.”

  “Russians? In the SS?”

  “Da, yes. Waffen SS RONA Brigade. They brought us here to reinforce the troops on the Atlantic Wall, but it was against our will. We joined the SS because we wanted to fight Stalin. To fight Communism, not the Americans.”

  He looked like a Russian, pale skin and pale, watery eyes. He was also emaciated, as if they didn’t give them enough to eat. His face looked like a weasel, even his uniform was shabby and almost threadbare. If the SS was an elite unit, this was no poster boy.

  “How many men do you have here?”

  “About fifty. There were more, but after the rumors of imminent Allied landings half our men deserted.”

  “And the rest? How do they feel about fighting the Allies?”

  “Some are Nazis, and some want to fight Stalin.”

  He looked at Lieutenant Bond. “Sir, what we do with this guy?”

  “Only one thing for it. We’ll take him with us.” He moved closer to the Russian. “Mister, we’re heading for La Fiere, the crossing over the River Merderet. We’re off course, so can you get us there?”

  “I will take you there. And I will show you how to get out of this place so the guards don’t hear.”

  “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  “Ivanov, SS-Scharfuhrer Sergey Ivanov.

  “Cassidy, stay with him. You, too, Private Byrd, and watch him like a hawk.”

  Ray gestured for him to lead the way, and he kept his knife close to the man’s throat. Harry attached the bayonet to his rifle and prodded him along, in case he had any ideas about trying to escape. He didn’t, and fifty yards further along the wall they came to a small gate. He turned the handle and it opened.

  “We use this entrance to go to the village after curfew. They have the only bar for fifty miles that serves good vodka. You should go there.” A pause, “When the war is over.”

  “We’ll bear it in mind.”

  They were walking on an unpaved, narrow lane, and ahead lay a tiny cluster of cottages. No lights showed, despite the incessant noise of the bombardment. Constant aircraft engines, salvos of shells, and the continuous roar of the flak guns as they attempted to bring down the aircraft and gliders laden with paratroopers. Some were successful, and twice Ray saw a brief flare as a shell scored a direct hit, and he prayed the men inside got out.

  He looked at Ivanov. “Is that where you’re leading us, Amfreville?”

  “We won’t go as far as Amfreville. The crossing is not far away, maybe three miles. The town is two miles further.”

  He asked Ivanov about numbers of German troops.

 

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