The Front: Red Devils Read online

  Wilkins held his position – uncomfortably close – and watched as the increasingly frenzied movement continued. He heard voices yelling. ‘Schnell, schnell! Holen sie sich das haubitze in Position!’

  It looked like they were the remnants of one of the Volksartilleriekorps. Field reports Wilkins had heard had intimated that they’d proved to be ill-equipped and had been left behind as the German front had advanced as part of Hitler’s surprise offensive across the Ardennes.

  ‘Schnell! Die monster kommen!’

  Wilkins couldn’t risk going backwards or forwards, and instead he went up. He swiftly hauled himself up into the branches of the first tree he found with boughs low enough and strong enough to support his weight. He hugged the trunk of a tired old oak for all he was worth. A distinctly British tree in unfamiliar surroundings. Memories of home gave him the slightest crumb of comfort. And in the same way this lone oak stood proud amongst the spruce, he quickly realised how his survival out here was due in no small part to the fact he was on his own. The old adage of there being safety in numbers usually held true, but not today.

  From his precarious perch, Wilkins watched another bloody battle quickly unfold. The Nazis, he deduced, had indeed been retreating, for their actions appeared frantic and uncoordinated; not cold, ruthless and clinical as he’d come to expect from the enemy. The ragtag convoy moved through the forest, but then ground to a halt when a stormtrooper lookout spotted that they were running towards as many ghouls as they were running from. Caught out by the openness of this part of the wood, they had been all but surrounded and their noise was doing nothing to help hide their position.

  The Germans began to dig in, ready for the inevitable.

  Wilkins was distracted by the movement of more of the dead near the base of the tree in which he was hiding. They were moving in a pack, almost in formation, and for a moment his heart leapt. They were allied troops. Americans, by the looks of things. He felt a momentary surge of relief when he recognised their uniforms, then utter despair.

  Dead.

  All of them.

  But still fighting.

  There must have been almost thirty of them all told, maybe half as many again. They came towards the German position with a chilling lack of fear, advancing with almost arrogant slowness.

  ‘Feuer!’

  A howitzer was fired into the advancing undead at close range. Wilkins tasted bile at the back of his throat as bodies were blown to pieces, a smoky haze of gore and dismembered limbs sent flying in all directions. Trees and fauna exploded outwards. A disembodied head landed in the leaf-litter and burst like an over-ripe melon. Wilkins gagged and forced himself to look up, not down.

  He peered around the side of his tree – still standing, thankfully – and witnessed several members of the Volksartilleriekorps desperately trying to regroup and reload, but they were far too slow and far too late. They concentrated their fire on the dead coming at them from ahead, but there were twice as many more approaching from behind. The undead army surged through and left no survivors in their wake.

  Several of the few remaining Germans began to run, scarpering in all directions. One of them, a young lad with an unruly mop of white-blond hair, tripped and fell over the roots of the tree in which Wilkins was hiding. He rolled onto his back and looked up. Sworn enemies caught sight of each other, but their uniformed distinctions were immediately forgotten. Wilkins felt genuinely sorry for the kraut. His face was streaked with tears. Wide-eyed and helpless, he didn’t look old enough to be fighting. ‘Hilf mir. Bitte . . .’

  Before Wilkins could react, two dead Americans grabbed the boy and killed him with brutal savagery. The expressions on the dead soldiers’ faces chilled him to the core. No flicker of emotion. Relentless. Remorseless. One of them dug deep into the German’s exposed torso and pulled out a handful of steaming, bloody innards. The soldier was still alive as he was eviscerated. He screamed with pain as his insides were emptied out like streamers.

  The all-conquering wave of dead figures continued through the forest, heading after the handful of Nazis who’d somehow managed to evade them. Wilkins held his breath so as not to make the slightest sound, and prayed they’d pass him by unnoticed.

  It was more than an hour before the last of the undead had disappeared from view.

  Wilkins crept through the forest as quickly as he dared, balancing speed with the need to stay alive. The dead seemed to always be close: he’d evade one cluster, only to find himself heading straight for another. He was desperate to reach Liege, but still wasn’t completely sure that he was heading in the right direction. The longer he was out here, the more his cancerous self-doubt grew. He was tired, living on his nerves... and now the already dull light in this heavily forested area was beginning to fade.

  And then, finally, after hours alone, he saw it. An inconspicuous-looking cottage. Isolated. Unkempt and shabby. Its dilapidation was hidden by a light covering of snow which was continuing to fall. He checked over his shoulder, conscious that his footprints were visible and would lead straight to him. He walked on for a short while longer then doubled-back on himself in a half-hearted attempt to throw anyone who was following him off-guard.

  Back at the front of the cottage again now, he knocked the door. She took a long time to answer. Too long. He thought she’d gone and cleared out and that he’d be stuck out here tonight with just the dead for company. She eventually opened the door and scowled at him, the yellow light from her oil lamp making her appear haggard, even older than her clearly advanced years. She screwed up her face to get a better look at him. ‘Quelle?’

  ‘Madam Van Pruisen?’

  ‘Quelle?’ she barked at him again.

  ‘Savez-vous à quelle heure le départ du train du village voisin?’

  His French pronunciation was less than perfect, but it was adequate. Wilkins didn’t care what time the train was leaving. Heck, he didn’t even know if there was a train here at all. He wasn’t interested in the next village, and Madam Van Pruisen knew it. At his mention of the designated phrase she roughly grabbed the collar of his tunic and pulled him inside, checking the road in either direction – both for the living and the dead – then shut and bolted the door behind him.

  ‘Merci madame,’ he started to say, but she wasn’t interested.

  ‘Il est sous le lit dan la chambre à l’étage. Être rapide. Vous risquez de ma vie en étant ici.’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Vive le résistance,’ she mumbled, almost sarcastically.

  He climbed the creaking staircase she pushed him towards. His translation of her words might not have been expert, but the intent of what she’d said was clear. Madam Van Pruisen was in collusion with British Intelligence, and for that he was eternally grateful. The risks she took were equal to, if not greater than, his own. He knew exactly what Jerry would do to her if they found him here.

  Wilkins found the radio exactly where she said it would be, and did what he had to do.

  Within minutes he was back out in the freezing cold, exposed and vulnerable again. But it didn’t matter. He knew that soon, God willing, he’d be on his way back to Blighty.

  12

  AT THE FRONT

  EN ROUTE FROM BASTOGNE

  Lieutenants Parker and Coley, along with Gunderson and Escobedo, had escaped Bastogne by the skin of their teeth. Swarms of dead civilians and soldiers pursued them through the ruins and out into the surrounding countryside, but had been distracted en masse by another engagement further north. It must have been a big fight, Coley thought to himself. He could feel the detonations shaking the ground they moved over, felt the dull roar of battle in his belly.

  It was cold and unforgiving out here, enough to make Escobedo almost wish he was back in Bastogne again in their hideout on high, shielded from the wind. ‘Reckon we should hole up somewhere soon, sirs? Can’t feel my feet...’

  ‘Quit complaining, Escobedo,’ Parker told him.

  Coley held his arm up to stop them all.
‘Movement. In the trees due east,’ he hissed. It didn’t look like much – no more than a couple of men at most – but they weren’t about to take any chances. ‘You and Gunderson follow the tree-line,’ he said to Parker. ‘Me and Escobedo will loop round through the forest, try and come up from behind them.’

  Parker nodded. He held way back with Gunderson then moved slowly forward, giving the other pair time to take up position.

  The closer they got, the less concerned they were of attack. There was a jeep wedged up against the upended root of a recently felled tree. And the movement Coley had seen from a distance? It looked like there was a man down. An American at that. Coley ran to his fellow serviceman’s aid, but pulled up fast. The poor bastard wasn’t lying on the ground alongside the jeep, he was under it. His pelvis had been crushed under its wheels and it was clear that he’d been deliberately mowed down. He’d been there a while (they could tell from the dried blood and his unnatural pallor) but when he became aware of the others approaching, the trapped GI began to thrash furiously.

  Gunderson took him out with a knife to the back of his head, affording him what little dignity he could.

  The jeep – once they’d disentangled it from the tree roots and the remains of the American soldier – gave them an unexpected boost. The area of countryside through which they travelled was quiet. There was a moment of concern when they spied the outline of a Panzer up ahead, but it was a wreck. Burned out and full of corpses.

  They came across another couple of GIs on the road to the front. They looked exhausted and beaten; barely able to keep their heads up, it seemed to take all the effort they could muster for them to just keep breathing and keep moving. ‘Give you boys a lift somewhere?’ Lieutenant Parker asked as they drew level.

  ‘Much appreciated, sir,’ the older of the two replied. ‘Guess we’re all heading in the same direction. I’m Hooper, and this here is Stacey. Stacey don’t say much at the moment. He’s seen too much if you ask me. Though I’m guessing we probably all have by now.’

  ‘Hop in,’ said Parker, and they did. Escobedo hung off the back of the jeep, allowing Hooper and Stacey to sit, squeezed up alongside Gunderson’s bulk.

  For half an hour or more the drive was deceptively peaceful. Six men, none of them with much to say to the others, grateful for a little rest and relaxation before the inevitable onslaught. Conversation was sparse. It was just good to have a little headspace. They all knew it wouldn’t last long.

  Frost and snow obscured much of the things they knew were there but didn’t want to see. Bodies frozen solid were all but hidden in drifts. The wreck of an overturned Howitzer looked almost like a piece of sculpted ice in the fading light.

  They heard the front before they saw it. Smelt it. Felt it, even.

  The jeep was dumped when it ran out of fuel, leaving them with a short march to the battle-lines. The chaos and killing they’d briefly escaped, the destruction and devastation, the pain and suffering ...all returned in a heartbeat.

  Wave after wave after wave of the undead.

  Fearless.

  Unstoppable.

  Tens of thousands of them.

  The chatter in the ranks was rife:

  ‘There ain’t barely anything left of the 106th.’

  ‘I heard they was attacking us ten to a man out west. Those damn things were fighting with each other to get a piece of our boys.’

  ‘There was a whole host of them trapped under the Sherman, and they were still trying to come at us.’

  ‘I ain’t never seen so many krauts in one place, and all of them were coming at us. Don’t know how the hell we got out of there alive. Plenty of guys didn’t.’

  Coley stopped by the stores to refresh and reload, then headed back out to war.

  13

  POCKLINGTON HALL

  TWENTY MILES NORTH-EAST OF LEICESTER, UNITED KINGDOM

  When Isambard Gray, seventh Earl of Pocklington, had commissioned the building of this extravagant stately home in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, he could hardly have envisaged what he’d find there today. His grand yet idyllic country retreat, constructed well off the beaten track, was alive with activity. The grounds of the manor, beautifully tended and immaculately coiffured during peacetime, were now fulfilling a far more practical purpose. Several of the vast lawns had been dug over for the cultivation of vegetables on an almost industrial scale. Others now resembled great tented villages; makeshift barracks and temporary field hospitals and training grounds. There were aircraft and other military vehicles hidden in the shadows, draped with tarpaulins which, every so often, would be hurriedly pulled back to allow a swift launch from an improvised airfield. A squad of new recruits jogged through the middle of the organised chaos in their mid-splattered PE kit; shirt and shorts, pale white legs redraw with cold.

  Wilkins had mixed feelings whenever he returned here. It was good to be back in England, that much was certain, but Pocklington Hall was only ever a staging point – a place where he was debriefed, then re-briefed (although he’d already been questioned at length by a fellow agent on the way here). It was hard at times, but everyone had to do their bit. Wilkins forced himself to focus on the end-game to keep him going. He imagined a future time when this damn war would be over. A future he could share with Jocelyn. Maybe they’d settle down somewhere and bring up a couple of children together. Strange that such a seemingly normal plan felt out of reach today, like a naïve fantasy. There was much work to be done before then. Many mountains to climb. It was also funny, he thought, how nervous he felt when he knew Jocelyn was near. More anxious, sometimes, than when he’d been in battle.

  The jeep he’d been travelling in for the last hour or so was a tired old jalopy. Damn noisy, too. The track along which they were now driving was pot-holed and uneven, worn away as a result of the heavy military equipment which had been dragged up and down here so many times in recent months. The din and his nerves and his lack of sleep combined to leave him feeling uncomfortably nauseous. What he’d have given for a few more hours sleep before having to face the colonel. There was little chance he’d get even another five minutes shuteye today.

  The winter morning sun was beginning to climb over the treeline, bathing the English countryside in a warm yellow-orange glow, long shadows stretching. The jeep came to an abrupt halt outside the ornate entrance to the manor house, wheels crunching in gravel. The driver – Teddy Jones, an unfailingly cheerful Brummie chap – let him out. Wilkins looked to see if he could risk disappearing around the back of the building for a quick cigarette first, but no such luck. Wilberforce, that lily-livered fool, was already waiting for him at the top of the steps. ‘Wilkins,’ he shouted down. ‘Good to see you, old boy. The colonel’s waiting.’

  ‘Now there’s a surprise,’ Wilkins mumbled as he smoothed his hair then brushed dirt from his sleeve before begrudgingly saluting. ‘And how’s the war been treating you, Wilberforce? Not caught any enemy troops hiding in your filing cabinet?’

  ‘Ease off, old boy. Not my fault I’ve got a dicky ticker. Now let’s not dawdle, you know what Colonel Adams is like if he’s kept waiting.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Wilkins overtook Wilberforce and marched through the manor. He’d no time for the nervous, cowardly little man. That speck of Belgian mud I’ve just flicked from my sleeve has seen more action than you, he thought but didn’t say. Wilberforce, an infuriating pen-pusher, was a mummy’s boy. And when mummy was as well-connected socially as Lady Brenda Wilberforce, getting yourself diagnosed with a plausible medical excuse so you could stay safe in middle-England, far from the front line, was a cinch.

  The manor was heaving with people. A veritable hive of activity. A grand, wide, sweeping oak-carved staircase went up, but Wilkins and Wilberforce went down, taking a dingier and far narrower staircase tucked away in one corner instead. At the foot of the stairs was a grey metal door, guarded on either side. Two stony-faced privates saluted and stepped aside, one of them opening the door to allow the
officers through.

  For all that was happening above ground level, there seemed to be ten-times that activity unfolding underground. The space below the manor house was immense: a vast, cavernous room filled with the low chatter of hundreds of people hard at work. Artificial yellow light barely filled the place, the fug of cigarette smoke limiting visibility even further.

  In the very centre of the room, under the largest, brightest light, was a table-top map of the unfolding war in Europe. Several Wrens pushed markers representing troops, tanks and supplies around the map, informed by others with notes taken from the most recent radioed reports from around the world. Wilkins’ attention was automatically drawn to the area around the Ardennes. The German offensive was marked out in a large bulge coming from the east. The allies clearly had a huge task ahead of them. As well as the Nazi army, they were also having to contend with the ever-increasing forces of the undead, which were represented on the map by the same model tanks and soldiers, daubed with bright yellow paint. Wilkins found it disconcerting just how much yellow paint he could see. It wouldn’t be long before there was more yellow than anything.

  Colonel Adams’ distinctive, bellicose voice boomed across the operations room. ‘Lieutenant Wilkins.’

  Wilkins turned and saluted the colonel, then followed him into his office.

  No time for niceties. ‘Shut the door,’ the colonel ordered.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Wilberforce said.

  ‘And do me a favour, Wilberforce?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Be on the other side of it when it closes, there’s a good chap.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Wilberforce said again, sounding crestfallen, and he obediently shut himself out.

  ‘I really can’t abide that man,’ the colonel said. He gestured for Wilkins to sit down on a desperately uncomfortable wooden chair, then poured him a tumbler of whiskey and slid it across the desk.