The Heights of Zervos (36 page)

'It didn't go off,' said Prentice bitterly.

'No. It must have been a dud. Let's hope the whole batch isn't. I hear there's a lot of sabotage in German factories.' He looked over his shoulder at Macomber who stood ready with a fresh bomb, gave a brief order. 'Fire!' The second bomb was away, vanishing to a pinhead. It landed close to the dud, followed by the sound of detonation, a burst of snow. Prentice swore out loud. The ice had remained intact. Was it too solid for penetration? The fear was in all their minds and Prentice's hopes hadn't been high from the beginning. 'Fire!' Ford had rushed to the mortar to make a fractional adjustment before returning to the wall and giving the order. The third bomb soared through its parabola, curved to its descent. It landed close to the leading half-tracks and the distant thump echoed back to the tower as snow flew in the air with the burst of the bomb. An area of black shadow fissured the lake as ice cracked and disintegrated and water opened up under three half-tracks. 'Fire!' The fourth bomb spread the fracturing process as the three half-tracks disappeared almost simultaneously. One moment they were there and then they were gone, swallowed up as a new lake spread, a lake of ice-cold water. Over fifty metres deep, Grapos had said. So the half-tracks were now settling one hundred and fifty feet below the lake's surface. Fire!' Ford had made a further minor adjustment before he rushed back to the wall, his head thrust forward as he scanned the whole lake and Macomber, already drenched in sweat, fed in a fresh bomb. At this stage even Prentice, who could see everything happening, had not grasped the magnitude of the plan the precise Ford had devised for the destruction of the entire German force.

The fifth bomb sped out over the wall, almost too fast for the eye to follow, descended, struck the lake in the middle of the three surviving half-tracks closest to Zervos. Another spray of snow flashed upwards, another thump reached the distant tower, and then a huge area of ice cracked. Prentice gazed in astonishment as a sheet of ice became a temporary island separated from the rest of the frozen lake, a sheet supporting the three half-tracks and a group of Alpenkorps gathered behind them. The island's existence was momentary. The sheet fissured in all directions, broke up and sank. With the Monokular screwed hard against his eye, Prentice saw one half-track at the outer edge of the ice go down, wheels first, the tracks tilting upwards into the air, and then the whole vehicle slid out of sight under the ink-dark water which had appeared. The chances of a single man surviving in those sub-zero waters was nil. 'Fire!' The next bomb landed farther to the right, just reaching the ragged rim of the still-intact ice, detonating while still above the water-line. Figures beyond the rim were thrown into confusion, some falling and some scattering in a hopeless search for safety. The whole ordered array on the lake was beginning to change, to falter, to break up into a vast disorganized chaos as Ford increased the rate of attack, frequently adjusting direction or angle or both as Macomber, the pain in his back now stabbing at him non-stop, his clothes sodden with sweat, his bruised body protesting with growing aches, worked away methodically stooping, grasping, lifting, feeding the barrel.

'Fire!' This bomb travelled much farther, the zenith of its parabola far higher above the lake, the descent point more distant. Prentice pressed the Monokular into his eye, focusing it on the Kubelwagen. He heard the thump and saw the snow dust at almost the same moment - dust which immediately rose behind Burckhardt's vehicle. The whiteness surrounding the car dissolved, became pitch-black water, and as the vehicle went straight down Prentice saw there were still four people inside. Burckhardt was drowning, surrounded by his own men. The fresh area of sinking ice stretched out towards the monastery road, tilting as men on top of it ran in all directions trying to escape. Prentice saw one man run straight off the edge into the water and as he took the glass away from his eye the ice sheet went under. A huge channel of dark water, perhaps a hundred yards wide, separated the frozen area of the lake from the road on the western shore leading up to the monastery.

'Fire!'

Ford had again made an adjustment and Prentice saw that the mortar's barrel was pointing at an extreme angle, saw also the bomb cradled in Macomber's arms nearly slip as the Scot forced his wearied body to further effort. The bomb coursed out over the lake, became a tiny dark speck against the whiteness below, and landed close to the distant eastern shore on the far side of the scattering troops. The thump was fainter. A fresh channel of water opened up, starting at the shoreline and spreading inwards towards the centre as three more bombs landed and black dots scurried over the diminishing white surface. Two mountain guns vanished. A half-track driving to the rear to escape the cannonade drove straight over the edge. More than a third of the attacking force on the frozen lake had disappeared and for the first time Prentice grasped the painstaking cleverness of Ford's plan. He had quartered the lake systematically in his mind and was destroying it section by section in such a way that he inflicted the maximum amount of damage, commencing with the vital section near the road up to the monastery, working backwards, and then over-leaping to destroy the ice near the far shore. His ultimate objective was to compress the surviving Wehrmacht force on a huge island of ice caught between water to east and west, the snow-drifted road to the north, and the sheer wall of the bluff to the south.

'Fire!' The bomb landed uselessly in clear water. Fire!' Prentice's glass was focused just beyond the most recent dropping point and he saw two puffs of snow as the bomb bounced across the ice and detonated in the midst of a crowd of German troops fleeing towards the bluff. At this point some of the more quick-witted Alpenkorps were escaping. Using their climbing ropes, they had begun to scale the precipitous bluff face, realizing that only suspended in air would they be safe from the rain of missiles pouring down on them. Ford now turned his attention to the section of frozen lake which bordered the snow-drifted road. A large number of troops and a mountain gun were heading for the drift zone when the falling bombs began to shatter their escape route, driving them back on the huge remaining sheet of ice which covered perhaps a third of the lake. 'Fire!' Prentice removed the Monokular, dropped it into his pocket. The fatigue of staring through the glass made him rub his eyes and then dab them with his handkerchief, and all the time the bombardment was continuing as Ford concentrated on the huge island of ice covered with marooned Germans. 'Fire!' 'Fire!' 'Fire... !' Prentice lost count of the number of bombs Macomber slipped down the barrel, and the rate was increasing as Ford built up the barrage and Macomber, wiping his hands frequently on his trousers for fear of dropping a bomb, summoned up his last reserves of energy and went on feeding the mortar with fresh ammunition.

When Prentice looked out across the lake again he was astounded at the changed scene. The lake, which had so recently been a white plain, was now a dark sheet spattered with what, from that height, looked like slivers of snow, but which were really large spars of floating ice. The central island had almost disappeared and there was only a handful of men still marooned on a small patch of whiteness. Macomber fed in more bombs, surrounded the ice islet with five fountainheads of spurting water. Five misses. The next bomb landed dead centre on the remaining floe, fragmented it, tipped the survivors choking, drowning, sinking into the chill water. Perhaps a dozen Alpenkorps men still clung to the bluff which they were ascending slowly, but the invasion force on the lake had been annihilated.

'Like a target range,' Ford said. 'Unique.'

'Not quite,' Macomber reminded him. 'There was also Austerlitz.'* In response to the shake of the sergeant's head, he replaced the bomb he was holding on the near-empty canvas and went stiffly over to the parapet. 'And now we've got to face that lot.'

There were three bombs left on the tower roof when Macomber made his grim remark and pointed out over the wall. Unlike the others, whose whole attention had been concentrated on the lake below, the Scot had been observing with increasing anxiety the ski troops' progress. They had now climbed the slope to an altitude well above the bluff and were coming forward in a line which curled over the flank of the mountain. The leading man was less than a quarter of a mile away as he sped closer towards the monastery. Grapos hobbled out from bis corner and gripped Macomber's arm.

'You make avalanche,' Grapos said urgently. 'Where the dark hole is...'

'He means that hollow in shadow,' Prentice interjected. 'Why there?' Macomber had already gone back to the mortar, was helping Ford to shift the weapon's position, then waiting, cradling another bomb in his arms as the staff-sergeant checked the mountain slope and changed the angle of fire.

'Because,' Grapos explained, 'that is where the Austrian ski man started the avalanche. We had warned him not to go - but he laughed at us. I was standing on this roof watching him. He comes down over the hole and the avalanche begins. The mountain comes alive.'

'We'd better try it, Ford,' Macomber said quickly. 'It's a gamble, but it's the only one we've got. A hundred bombs could miss them all considering the speed they're moving at.'

He waited, still cradling the bomb, while Ford reconsidered the angle of fire and made a further adjustment. The reaction was setting in, his arms and legs felt like jelly, and he knew he might collapse on the roof at any moment. For God's sake stop fiddling with that mortar, man, and let's get on with it! Ford nodded - to indicate he was satisfied - and Macomber let the first one go. Because the mountain slope rose above the tower he was now able to see what was happening and he saw the bomb hit the snow some distance above the hollow.

*
At Austerlitz Napoleon destroyed a Russian army by firing at a frozen lake and drowning the enemy crossing the ice.

'Damn!' It was the first display of emotion Ford had shown since they had begun firing the mortar. The shot was wide and he knew it was his fault - not enough care taken over the initial preparation. And there were no bombs to waste this time on ranging shots. He adjusted the angle of fire as Macomber picked up the second bomb. The missile went away. Macomber saw this one land below the hollow, close enough to the Alpenkorps column to provoke a sudden swerve in the well-spread line - the section leader had not overlooked the lesson of what had happened on the lake - but no more than a swerve. Ford bit his lip as Macomber encouraged him. Third time lucky.' The staff-sergeant looked dubious - too high last time, too low this time. And only one more to go. But he kept his nerve: the first two shots had bracketed the target above and below, so now they must drop one mid-way between the two points. He took a deep breath, adjusted the barrel very carefully, then nodded to Macomber. The final bomb burst on the mountain a short way above the hollow.

It was very quiet on the tower and the four men stood perfectly still while they waited. Behind them the sea was empty, the destroyer had disappeared; below them the lake was still and lifeless; above them rose the peak of Zervos, crisp-edged against the palest of skies. The mortar barrel gaped upwards, as harmless now as a piece of old scrap iron, something they might as well tip over the wall so that at least the Alpenkorps would never use it. Probably it was imagination, but the Scot fancied he heard the swish of oncoming skis as he stood with his eyes fixed on Mount Zervos. He blinked and looked again, unsure whether his eyes had played him a trick. He had been watching the hollow but now he transferred his gaze higher up the mountain to a point near the summit where something had attracted his attention. Was there a gentle ripple of movement, so gentle that his eye might never have noticed it but for his fading hope? There seemed to be a trembling, a hazy wobble close to the peak. Slowly, like the rolling back of a sheet, the snow began to move in a long wave, the wave stretching the full width of the slope as it surged downwards, gathering height as it swallowed up more snow. And now Macomber heard something - a faint growl which gradually swelled and deepened to a sinister rumble as he saw fresh signs of something terrible happening. The slope was shifting downwards at increasing velocity, a moving slope at least a mile wide as the wave mounted higher, picked up momentum and thundered down on the Germans like a tidal wave. The mountain had come alive.

The slope seemed like a living thing as it seethed and rolled towards the lake far below, a whole mountain erupting sideways, the wave curling at the crest, the snow-slide roaring down, the rumble a tremendous sound in their dazed ears, a sound like the eruption of a major volcano, blowing its lava flow up from the interior of the earth. The Alpenkorps tried to scatter at the last moment - some skiing downhill, some whipping across the slope, all trying to race the wave which bore down on them and for a brief moment in time they were like a disturbed nest of ants scurrying away from catastrophe. Then the wave arrived, swept over the broken line, engulfing them, burying them, carrying them down the slope and over the bluff face where it cascaded down the precipice like a vast waterfall and washed away the men still ascending it before it plunged down into the depths of the lake. Prentice shouted his frantic warning as the wave reached the bluff's brink - the leading skier, not yet overwhelmed by the avalanche, had stopped, unlooped his rifle from his back, was taking aim at the roof of the tower. Macomber, his gaze fixed on the bluff, heard the shout too late. He was dropping to the floor when the bullet thudded into him and he was unconscious before he sprawled over the stones.