Red Devils

17

Several hours later, and hundreds of miles away, and Wilkins could still taste Jocelyn’s last kiss on his lips.

They baled out south of Polonezköy as planned, the men dropping from a relatively low height in quick succession, their rapid descent camouflaged by two Hawker Typhoons which circled and dived in the air well away from the landing site, putting on a firework show to distract the enemy and divert their attention away from Polonezköy.

It was a low altitude drop where time played tricks on the mind, slowing down and speeding up at the same time. The ground – unremittingly dark here, disorientating – rushed towards Wilkins and the others. There was a huge amount to do to arrest and control their descent: checking body position, deploying the canopy, turning into the wind and preparing to land, and – most importantly – keeping a look-out. Lieutenant Henshaw scanned the area beneath his dangling feet, watching out for signs of enemy movement whilst planning where he was going to touch down and which way he’d run and lead his men. It was almost completely black and devoid of life. Nothing to be seen anywhere.

It was all over in seconds, barely enough time.

He looked up and saw the outline of the Douglas from which they’d just baled; a dark silhouette climbing away through the black-purple night. Beyond it one of the Typhoons, drawing distant enemy fire. And, just for a second, over the tops of the trees he saw the outline of Polonezköy camp. It was a severe, gothic-looking place, and it unnerved him more than the prospect of a difficult landing or engagement with enemy troops.

Focus.

No time left.

Lieutenant Henshaw hit the ground and immediately executed a textbook parachute landing fall, transferring the force of impact from his feet and ankles and rolling away. He was up again in a heartbeat, detaching himself from his chute and swiftly rolling up the nylon material, acutely aware how prone a target it made him to any watching eyes.

The others.

He looked around the vast field where he’d touched down. He could see Harris and Barton doing the same thing as him, both of them no more than fifty yards from his position. Sergeant Steele was touching down the same distance away again, whilst Jones still had a little distance left to descend. All around them, Americans came down like rain.

One missing. A single member of the British task force so far unaccounted for. He span around.

‘Looking for me, Lieutenant?’

Wilkins was standing directly behind him, parachute already dealt with and safely stashed away. Henshaw wasn’t yet sure what he thought about Wilkins. He was an unknown quantity. ‘Let’s go,’ he said abruptly, avoiding conversation.

The tundra-like field in which they’d landed was empty, but it was also deceptively hard to navigate because of the layer of fine, powder-like snow which hid the unpredictable undulations of the frozen ground. A myriad of tracks and grooves had been worn into the mud and had frozen hard as concrete. Henshaw gestured for his men to follow the Americans’ lead and head for the trees to the north. Although pitch-black at this late hour, the moon was high in the sky and it frequently peeked out from behind the clouds and filled the world with unwanted glimmers of light, picking out the definition the soldiers preferred to hide, illuminating the edges of everything.

The first of the dead came towards them with a flagrant disregard for its own safety. It had been a local man once, a farmer perhaps. Unarmed. ‘Think this guy needs help?’ a GI innocently asked. He was puzzled by the fact the man wore only casual clothing, no protection against the bitter cold. Wilkins broke ranks and ran forward to intercept him, and dealt with him swiftly with his clasp knife before returning to the others. Several Americans looked at him in confusion, not having faced the undead on the battlefield previously. ‘It’s the only way,’ he explained. ‘No gunfire, you’ll just draw them to us quicker. There are several villages nearby, all as quiet as the camp by all accounts. I’ll wager they’re all like this. I’ll bet there’s no one left alive here tonight.’

Captain Hunter nodded. ‘You heard the lieutenant,’ he said to his troops. ‘Keep your eyes open for these things, and do what he just did if and when you have to. Now keep the noise to a minimum and move.’

The soldiers set off in the direction of the airfield. Captain Hunter dispatched scouts deeper into the forest, and the rest of the men moved as a pack. They encountered another couple of dead Poles, but they were dealt with quickly and easily.

‘It’s somewhat easier when you’re on the move,’ Wilkins said to the captain. ‘The real concern is when you stop. They’ll group around you, gravitate to your noise. Be careful when you reach the airfield, sir. They’re capable of moving in herds like cattle.’

‘Appreciate the advice, Lieutenant Wilkins, but my men and I have this covered.’ Captain Hunter stopped and turned to face the rest of the Brits. ‘We’ll get you close to the outer fence, and you’re on your own from there. We’ll be waiting at the rendezvous point at dawn, understand?’

‘Understood, Captain,’ Lieutenant Henshaw replied. ‘Your support and the support of your men is very much appreciated.’

‘Show us your gratitude by being ready and being on time. First light and we’re out of here. We’ll be gone by eight, no later.’

‘We’ll be there.’

‘Whether you’re there or not isn’t my concern, lieutenant. I’ll say it again, we’ll be gone. This place don’t feel right to me. Too quiet…’

The captain returned his attention to his men, giving out more orders in hushed tones as they continued through the trees.

The six British men were grouped together. Wilkins was the odd man out, and his unease was clear. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Harris asked, his voice just loud enough for him to hear. Wilkins thought his cockney accent sounded unexpectedly abrasive and out of place here.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me, as it happens,’ Wilkins said, decidedly unimpressed at being spoken about as if he wasn’t there. ‘You’d do well to keep your mouth shut and listen out.’

‘What, for more dead men walking?’

Wilkins was angered by his mocking tone. ‘You’ll not be laughing when you’re facing your first one.’

‘All of us, fully armed, and you still think the dead’ll be a match for us, Lieutenant? I saw the way you killed that last one.’

‘One is easy to deal with, but these things can come in vast numbers.’

‘We’ll cross that particular bridge when we come to it.’

‘Let’s have this conversation again when we get home, Lance Corporal. If we get home. I’ll remind you of your comments.’

‘You do that, sir.’

‘Cut it out,’ Henshaw warned, already tired of the bickering. It was down to nerves, he was sure. He was prepared to give his men the benefit of the doubt. For now.

‘Awful quiet here,’ Lance Corporal Harris observed. ‘I thought Fritz would have been all over this place.’

‘It’s a dead zone,’ Lieutenant Henshaw explained. ‘Isn’t that right, Lieutenant Wilkins?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘What, dead as in them dead things walking about?’ Barton asked, nervously looking over his shoulder.

‘No, dead as in completely empty,’ Wilkins corrected him. ‘Ever been to Australia, soldier?’

‘I hadn’t been out of Blighty until a few months back,’ Barton replied. ‘Why?’

‘Because they have an enormous problem with bushfires in Australia, and this is how they try and keep the problem under control.’

‘You’ve completely lost me now.’

‘They call it a fire-break. They get ahead of the fire and burn away a strip of land, sometimes more than a mile wide. Then when the bushfire reaches the strip that’s already been burned, there’s no fuel left to keep the flames burning and it extinguishes itself.’

‘I still don’t follow…’

‘Come on, Barton, don’t be such a dolt,’ Henshaw sighed. ‘He can’t make it any plainer. We’ve a problem with the undead attacking other folks and adding to their number, so what’s the best way of stopping them doing that right now?’

Barton shrugged his shoulders.

‘Get rid of their prey,’ Harris answered on behalf of his slow-to-catch-on colleague. ‘Crikey, Barton, you ain’t the brightest spark.’

‘Gentlemen,’ Henshaw warned, ‘this is neither the time nor the place for bickering. Let us stay focused on the task at hand, shall we.’

Sufficiently rebuffed, the men became quiet and continued to move forward.

‘First people ever to try and break into a bloody Nazi concentration camp…’ Harris mumbled to himself.

The border of Polonezköy reared up out of the forest, ominous and apparently impenetrable. A tall electrified outer fence and an equally tall wall beyond. The Brits had pored over low-quality aerial photographs and best-guess schematics before leaving Pocklington Hall, trying to piece together the ground plans to this unspeakably horrific place. The boundary of the camp, still a distance beyond the trees, appeared featureless and unending from here, as if there was nothing beyond it, literally the end of the world.

Captain Hunter called over to Lieutenant Henshaw. ‘This is where we split. You’re on your own from here. See you at the rendezvous in about seven hours.’

Before Henshaw could reply, the captain and his men were gone. Henshaw gathered the rest of his crew around. ‘We’re going in from the rear of the camp. We need to dig under the electrified fence, then find the best spot to try and get over the wall.’

He had been wondering how operational the camp would still be. After all, the intelligence reports they’d heard back at base had indicated that very little, if any activity had been observed here. Lance Corporal Barton, a quiet, reflective man at the best of times, had barely spoken since they’d touched down in Poland. He too had been considering the condition of the camp. ‘So what do you reckon, lieutenant? Are they all dead in there? Is this going to be easier than we thought?’

‘Nothing’s easy in war, you know that.’

‘And dead doesn’t mean dead anymore, either,’ Wilkins added ominously.

‘Fact is, we don’t know what we’ll find until we’re inside. What we do know is that this is the place where the Nazis created and tested their serum, so there’s a strong possibility that many of the current occupants of Polonezköy might already have acceded to the undead condition. I’ll wager the place has been tightly locked down to prevent the germ from spreading.’

‘Remember what I said about the fire-break?’ Wilkins added. ‘We have to remember, the effects of the serum do not respect side, rank, or any other difference. It’s highly likely that if the infection has run wild in there, the entire populations of both prisoners and guards of the camp will be infected now.’

‘I’ve got to admit,’ Barton said, ‘despite what we heard in the briefing, I still expected searchlights and sirens and all the usual bells and whistles.’

‘The silence is somehow more concerning, isn’t it?’

‘So if they’re all dead—’ Sergeant Steele said.

‘Or undead,’ Jones muttered.

‘—then what about this scientist chap we’re here for?’

‘Yes, he may already be dead too,’ Henshaw admitted. ‘But we still need to find him. One way or another, we have to locate Egil Månsson.’

‘And if he’s one of them?’ Jones asked. ‘They said the best way to deal with them was to damage their brains. How’s this scientist gonna be any good to anyone if his brain don’t work?’

‘Well you seem to manage all right, Jones,’ Henshaw said, rapidly losing patience. ‘Right, we’re wasting time. Let’s move.’

A crackle of noise. Blue static flashes. Flames.

The men held their collective breath and watched the fence around Polonezköy intently. Something had just collided with the electrified wire-mesh and proved beyond doubt that, in spite of the ominous darkness everywhere, the power was still running. Henshaw used his binoculars to try and see what it was that had hit the fence. ‘What is it, sir?’ asked Harris. Henshaw didn’t answer, he just passed his field-glasses across.

Harris found it hard to comprehend what he was seeing. It was a Nazi guard, already almost completely consumed by flames, and he was gripping the fence tight, oblivious to the agonising pain he should have been feeling. Harris watched in disbelief as the soldier simply let go and walked away, managing to make it another twenty yards or so before the flames overtook him and he dropped to the ground, muscle and sinew burned away to nothing.