Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) (25 page)

“What
about the other key. What was it to be used for?”

“The
key we found in the Elgin Marbles? We never discovered that, because it was
lost, in May of 1941, the 27th of May, to be precise.”

“You
know the exact day it was lost? How is that?”

“Because
at that time some of the Elgin Marbles were being moved to safety in the United
States, along with a considerable amount of gold bullion. They were loaded onto
the battleship
Rodney
, which was scheduled to sail for an American port
to have an extensive refit. She had boiler tubes crated all over her decks at that
time. Well, then the Germans got in the back door with the sortie of the
battleship
Bismarck
. The urgency of that chase forced the Admiralty to
pull old
Rodney
off its leave and get the ship into the hunt. It
eventually joined with
King George V
in that final battle that stopped
the
Bismarck
for good. But when those 16-inch guns fire they have quite
a kick, or so I’m told. I suppose Admiral Tovey could tell us more, but the
fact is that when the
Rodney
eventually did reach her port berthing at
Boston, it was discovered that the key embedded in the Selene Horse had gone
missing.”

“Missing?
Then we were trying to get the key to a safe port, and it was filched en
route?”

“We
aren’t sure what happened to it. We only know it was there, imbedded in the
base of the Selene Horse when
Rodney
set off from the Clyde, but it was
missing when the ship reached Boston. Things were jostled around quite a bit in
the course of that battle with
Bismarck
. Several of the crates were
tossed about, and some broken. A chink came off the Selene Horse, right where
that key was hidden. Oh, they searched the ship from top to bottom, very
discretely, and we had people interviewing the whole crew, but it was never
found. There are things about that incident that history does not record, but
we knew about them. It’s a nice little mystery, isn’t it? So there are other
keys out there, Gordon, and yes, they may open other hidden doors, or even
other little boxes like the one we found at Delphi. And they may lead to some
very unexpected places. This is all we know.”

“Interesting,”
said MacRae.

“Yes,
and now that I’ve got your curiosity up with my own, I was wondering
something—whether that chamber under Delphi is still there.”

“You
mean you don’t know when it was built?”

“Not
at all. In fact, I’m not even sure it exists in this go round—in this world
where we find ourselves now. But this damn key of mine exists, and for every
key there’s a locked door out there somewhere. I wonder…”

“Well
you could satisfy yourself,” said MacRae. “Delphi isn’t very far away.”

Part IX

Stalemate

“
Courage is in the air in bracing
whiffs

 Better
than all the stalemate an's and ifs.”

—
Robert Frost

Chapter 25

King
Column approached
along a road scouted by Glubb Pasha’s men, arriving at the outskirts of Palmyra
from the southeast, with the Arab Legion screening their left flank. There was
a dry, desiccated basin south of the town, but very sandy in places, and it was
deemed unsuitable for the heavier British trucks. The lighter Fords used by
Glubb Pasha’s men could get through, and the Bedu scouts had a keen sense of
the ground. They found the way through, tangled briefly with the Germans, and
then withdrew to a position just south of the sprawling Palm groves.

King
Column came up, with the three squadrons of the Composite Cavalry Regiment
leading the way in their swift lorries. They still retained their old names,
the Royals, Lifeguards, Blues, and Grays, the latter being with Colonel J.S.
Nichols and the main column, still designated ‘Habforce.’ Behind the cavalry,
the full Essex Battalion was deploying from their lorries, taking up positions
in the farm country and lighter groves to the southeast of the town, four
companies in all.

They
would soon be joined by Habforce, with two full battalions of motorized infantry,
the Wiltshires and Warwick. It also had another two batteries of 25-pounders,
an AT troop, and the Number 2 RAF Armored Car Company from the airfield
garrison. The battalion of the King’s Own Rifles was still gathering necessary
transport and awaiting elements of the 21st Indian Brigade to relieve them at
the airfield, but they had received Somerset’s urgent message asking for
additional support, and they were getting ready to move.

 Habforce
had been angling down on another road from the northeast that passed through a
lonesome village named Arak. A telephone line connected this hamlet to the T3
facility, and Brigadier Joe Kingstone was pleased to hear Nichols on the phone
with news that the lead elements of his column were in Arak. But both men were still
none too happy to hear about the sudden appearance of German troops at Palmyra.

“Looks
like we’ll have a fight on our hands,” said Kingstone. “We aren’t sure just
what we’re looking at, but the Russians there seem to think Jerry has a full
regiment.”

“The Russians?”
came
Nichol’s voice.
“What in blazes would they know about it?”

“It’s
a long story,” Kingstone explained, “and not one for the telly. We have an
advanced force there now holed up in the fortress overlooking the town.”

“A good position. They can clue us in on Jerry’s movements and
deployments, but I expect they’ll need our help soon.”

“That
they will. Glubb Pasha is somewhere south of the town, but I don’t think his
force is any match for the Germans.” Kingstone didn’t say what he was really
thinking, that his own force might be no match for the Germans either, even
with all of Habforce thrown in.

“Better
if we all get sorted out and go in together,” said Nichols.

“That’s
my thinking,” Kingstone agreed. “We’ll meet soon.”

Nichols
pushed his men hard, and Habforce came rumbling up the long road to the T3 pump
station on the 20th of March. The Number 2 Armored Car Company led the way,
followed closely by the Warwick Battalion. By mid day they had passed an
undefended blockhouse outside a fringe of the town, and deployed to attack. The
riflemen hunched low as they worked their way across some cultivated land just
outside the town. Then the BAR fire from the French Foreign Legion began, and
the fighting was on.

The
British went to ground, immediately answering with their Bren guns, and brisk
rifle fire. The French had the advantage of better positions in the town, with
stone and mud walls, but the British had greater numbers. The typical British
Infantry battalion had four companies instead of only three, and soon they were
deploying their heavier Vickers MGs to put down good suppressive fire while the
infantry made a steady advance into the town. It was house to house fighting,
but weight of numbers eventually forced the Legionnaires back, particularly
after the Wiltshire Battalion came up and also deployed to attack this sector.

While
this was going on King Column had pushed the Essex Battalion up a road skirting
the east edge of the palm groves, to a position between the groves and the town.
It led directly to the ruins of the Temple of Bel near Wolff’s headquarters in
the Amphitheatre, and  here the fighting was give and take. The four companies
of the Essex Battalion pressed forward against Wolff’s III Battalion, only to
be counterattacked by the German reserve Schwere Company.

The
Household Cavalry, three Squadrons in all, came up on the left and got
embroiled in a bitter fight, again finding the Germans made sharp, local
counterattacks backed by the reserve Schwere or Heavy company that had been
detached from the 1st Battalion watching the airfield. At one point the Royals
came under heavy fire from the MG-34s and fell back, but many men retreated the
wrong direction into the thick palm groves, and soon found themselves cut off
behind German lines.

“It’s
those damn heavy weapons teams,” said a Sergeant. “We’ve nothing to match them,
and not nearly enough artillery with us to settle the matter.”

The
Germans Schwere Company fielded the heavier 81cm mortars, many more
machineguns, and 7.5cm recoilless rifles that were proving very effective on
both attack and defense. The British would press doggedly forward with their
rifle teams as the Vickers MGs put in supporting fire, then they would be hit by
four or five well directed MG-34s, and well aimed fire from those recoilless
rifles. The Germans had only two batteries of artillery, pooling all the guns
that had survived the KA-40 attack the previous night, but they still had
plenty of mortars. With numbers equal on this front, it was the greater
firepower inherent in the German TO&E per company that was making the
difference.

By
dusk, after a hard day of fighting, King Column had made little headway, and
they had also lost contact with a company of the Cavalry Regiment, the Royals.

Near dusk on the 22nd of March
Troyak called for Fedorov, leading them up to the south tower for a look at the
road to the west. “Look there,” he pointed. “That looks like a motorized
column, and a big one.” It was.

They were seeing the last
elements of the 22nd Luftland Division, the troops of the 16th Regiment that
had been held in reserve at Homs. The attack made by
Kazan
on the rail
station at Istanbul had gone off without a hitch, but it had come too late to
stop the rapid deployment of German troops into Turkey. The 9th Panzer Division
had arrived at Rayak, along with other Korps level units, and von Wietersheim
decided to send a reinforcement to Palmyra at Wolff’s request. If the British
thought they were having trouble with just one regiment of German troops there,
this new development would make it all but impossible for Brigadier Kingstone
and Habforce to take the place as planned.

“Life is what happens to you
after you make your plans,” said Fedorov in a low voice. His mission had
sounded exciting in the beginning, just a little Spec Ops icing on the cake he
thought the British already had in the oven. Now he realized his foreknowledge
of the history had led him to be overconfident. Yes, Kingstone’s force should
have been more than enough to take Palmyra against the single weak battalion of
the French Foreign Legion. Yet even against that small force, it took them
twelve days. He should have realized that victory here would come at a much
greater price, or be beyond their grasp the instant he saw those German troops
appear.

“This changes everything,” he
said darkly. “I don’t think the British can win this now, and it may even come
down to a question of whether or not they could hold off a German
counterattack. We had better get word to Kinlan at once, but I don’t think we
can discuss things on the radio.”

“We still have the KA-40 standing
by in those hills,” said Troyak. “They’ve enough ammo on the minigun to cover
an extraction and get you safely aboard, sir.”

“Not just me, Sergeant. I think
we had better get the entire team out of here. Our ammunition is already
running low, and I don’t think we can hold on here much longer. They have
numbers to take this place by storm if they press the issue. Our firepower is
the only thing that has held them at bay—that and the appearance of the British
to the east.”

“What about the X-3s?”

“They’re coming, but there was a
delay pulling the Argonauts out of the line back west. Things have been hot on
that flank, and they were waiting for British reserves to come up. Let’s at least
warn Kingstone by radio. Then I’ll arrange a meeting, but we’d best plan for an
extraction operation tonight.

The
news was not well received.

“This
is a damn sight more than we bargained for,” said Kingstone on the radio, angry
with the day’s developments, and over the losses they had sustained. Habforce
had made some progress, forcing the French back into the main town, but the
battle was far from decided. The only good news that night was word that an
additional battalion, The Kings Own Rifles, had left Habbaniyah that afternoon
and might arrive the following day.

“But
one more battalion on our side won’t match another regiment, if that’s what
they have on the road out west. I agree. We’ll have to conference and decide
what to do.”

Popski
got on the radio and urged Kingstone to make one more try before the enemy
reinforcements arrived. He asked if Nichols column might jog to his right and
try to swing down on the airfield from the north.

“Look
here,” he said. “We’ve been watching Jerry for days now, and he’s shifted most
of his strength south against your column. There’s no more than a company or
two holding the field and points west. Don’t beat your head against the
Legionnaires in the town when you can swing right around them. There’s nothing
on that northern flank but the Desert Camel Company.”

It
was good advice, and could only be given because Fedorov’s move to occupy that
high fortress put them in an ideal position to monitor the German troop
movements. So now, with the imminent arrival of the Kings Own Rifle Battalion
under Colonel Roberts, the British might have enough strength building up northeast
of the town to take that advice, and Nichols agreed. The lead was handed off to
the eight Fordson Armored Cars of No. 2 Company, RAF. They swung north of the hospital,
between the Desert Camel Company that was mostly positioned along a narrow wadi
as a flank guard. Yet the news of the strange sounds in the sky had unnerved
these men, and they were less than diligent.

The
armored cars reported they had made it around the northern edge of the town,
and the signal was given to send in the Warwick Battalion, which found only a
single German platoon defending that segment of the line. Yet the tough men of
the 22nd Luftland were in a well fortified old school house, and they fought
tenaciously, forcing the British to send the support company around the
position to reinforce the advance on the airfield by the armored cars. The
Germans were also reacting with mortar fire, and a wild scene ensued when a line
of eight armored cars dashed forward through the fire, their machine guns
rattling away as the Bren carriers of the support company followed.

The
airfield itself was held by the remainder of the same company, and a second
company was further west with platoons investing the fortress. Chastened by
their ill fated attempt to assault the place, the Germans had pulled back their
pioneers and supporting forces behind Hadrian’s wall, and into positions in the
Roman Ruins. Wolff was alerted to the sudden danger to his north, and he
immediately sent word to move that second company back to establish a perimeter
defense around the field. At the same time he gave orders that the two Heavy
Companies that had put so much hurt on King Column the previous day, should be
recalled to the north and stand as a ready reserve for the defense of the
airfield. The Germans had a tightly concentrated force, and the advantage of
interior lines where they could easily shift troops from one threatened place
to another, and Wolff was reacting with cool efficiency under fire. He soon
redirected his mortar teams to the north, and a battle for the airfield was
raging.

The
German heavy companies were engaged at the northern perimeter of the airfield,
having made a successful counterattack that drove back the rifle squads of the
Warwick Battalion and the armored cars. As the sun rose on the 21st, it was
clear that the attempt to take the airfield by storm had failed. The British
had fallen back to the segments of the town north of the airfield, and they had
also cleared the fortified barracks east of the town, but the Legionnaires of
Colonel Barre were still in the heart of the city, holding their posts in a
tenacious defense. To the south, it was also clear that King Column was not
going to be able to push on up the road to the Temple of Bel and Amphitheater,
where Wolff was directing the defense.

Kingstone
met with Nichols in a captured blockhouse near the main road on the northeast
quadrant of the town. There the two men discussed the situation.

“It
seems we’ve bitten off more here than we can chew,” said Nichols, and it was a
fitting metaphor. The British battalions were stretched in a wide arc all about
Palmyra, from Glubb Pasha’s Arab Legion in the south near the palm groves, and
up around the town to the north where the troops of the Warwick Battalion and
the armored cars were licking their wounds after their failed attack on the
airfield. They had taken a good bite out of the apple, controlling most of the
northeast quadrant of the town now, but it was clear the hard core of the
German defense here would not be easily overcome.