The 34th Degree

90

A ndros was still a bit blurry-eyed when he stepped out of his kaliva and made his way to the edge of the encampment wearing his Special Forces uniform. Doughty was sitting on a log, thoroughly enjoying a smoke from his pipe, now that he had real tobacco from the latest supply drop instead of cut-up leaves.

“There you go, a real American operative,” the New Zealander observed.

Andros shrugged and sat down next to Doughty. “I’ll be gone with tonight’s submarine pickup, so I don’t see the point.”

Doughty smiled. “Had enough of us already, have you?”

“Some of you.”

“Oh, don’t mind Stavros. I suspect he considers the presence of Colonel Kalos and the arrival of General Andros’s son a threat to his authority.” Doughty puffed on his pipe. “You still have the roll of film?”

“Taped to my chest,” Andros replied. “Along with that film negative. What I can’t find is Captain Whyte.”

“She’s on a patrol with Stavros and Kalos.” Doughty looked at his watch. “Hmm,” he murmured. “They were supposed to be back by now.” The New Zealander tilted his head as if his ears had picked something up. A frown crossed his face as he looked over Andros’s shoulder.

Then Andros heard the high-pitched whine and swung around. A swarm of Stuka dive-bombers appeared over the trees like black vultures, sweeping down the hillside toward them. There must have been at least two dozen of them. The planes passed over in an instant, followed by a turbulent wind and a thunderclap that shook the trees.

“Dear God!” said Doughty, the pipe falling out of his gaping mouth as he and Andros jumped to their feet. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

He pushed Andros toward the wireless tent. The wireless operator Dimitrios was breaking down the set when they burst inside. “Bad news: our escape routes are cut,” he said, furiously cramming the components into a suitcase. “One of our patrols reported a column of SS paratroopers closing in from the north before their transmission went dead.”

Andros looked to Doughty, who was clearly doing his best to remain calm. “What about the pickup for Andros here?”

“I haven’t been able to raise the submarine on the set, sir.”

There was a tremendous crash outside as the Stukas let go of their first load of bombs. Then another, this one louder, rocking the ground beneath them.

“How did they find us?” Doughty muttered, then turned to Andros. “We’ve got to assume the pickup is on and get you out of here with the film.”

Andros nodded but realized that if they were cut off from the sea and a German column was advancing from the north, their prospects for escape were limited, if not nonexistent.

“Over the gorge,” Doughty said. “But we have to hurry, before they blow the bridge.” He lifted the flap of the tent to reveal the chaos outside. Most of the andartes were running after their guns and horses as great orange balls of fire blossomed around them. The Stukas circled back for another run.

“See the woods on the far side of the clearing, Andros? On the other side are the amphitheater and the bridge. Think you can make it?”

Andros nodded and followed Doughty outside. They cut across the open encampment toward the trees. Andros was halfway across when he stumbled. The Stukas thundered in, lower than before, shattering the air and making the earth reverberate. Andros could feel the vibration in his bones as he looked up in time to see Doughty reach the edge of the woods.

“Come on, Andros! This way!”

The Stuka engines crescendoed into a shrill scream that lifted the hair on the back of Andros’s neck as he got to his feet and scrambled toward the woods. He plunged into the pine trees just as the first Stuka let go of its second load of bombs. The explosion crashed across the encampment, the force hammering at Andros’s back.

Andros looked toward the wireless tent, where he and Doughty had stood with the communications officer only a moment before. A hot orange ball of fire expanded rapidly, ripened, and burst into an ugly black pall of smoke. When it lifted, the tent had vanished. The next moment he was following Doughty through the woods.

The musty smell of cordite filled the air as they ran wildly through the trees, Stukas shrieking overhead. More bombs plowed into the kalivas, tents, toolsheds, latrines, and ammunition dumps, exploding bits of broken metal that cut down every andarte in their radius.

The gorge was coming up. Andros could make it out beyond the trees. Then there was an explosion of light. A fir tree, struck by a bomb, came crashing down nearly on top of them, blocking the path.

“This way,” said Doughty with a poise and speed that awed Andros.

They emerged from the woods into the clearing that served as the camp’s amphitheater, the gorge to their right and the bridge up ahead. Then a low-flying Stuka let go of its payload. A flash of light was followed by the thunderous clap of an explosion. Flames gushed up in its wake, and charred pieces of wood rained down around Andros.

The bridge was gone, just like that, and with it, thought Andros, any chance of escape.

When Andros looked back to Doughty, he wasn’t there. Then, a moment later, he heard the voice calling him. “Andros…over here.”

It was Doughty, his face splattered with blood, dragging himself over with his arms, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His chest was one red mass. “You’ve got to make it out of here with that film,” he said, his speech garbled by the blood he was spitting up. “You’ve got to get to Sparta. There’s a taverna in the square called Theo’s. Ask for the Yankee Clipper…escape route to submarine…the barman knows…Tell…”

Then there was a flash of recognition. He opened his mouth to say something more but closed his eyes instead. His face plopped into the dirt.

Again the ground shook. Andros looked up to see a stampede of horses coming his way, andartes on their backs, three Stukas buzzing overhead, chasing them toward the abyss. Andros could barely move himself out of the way of the stampede, leaving Doughty’s body to be trampled beneath a hundred hooves.

Andros watched as one horse after the other leaped into the air, hovering over the gorge for a few seconds before plummeting out of sight. Andros was aware of screams and shouts, but they were strangely muted as he watched what seemed like a silent slow-motion dream. He couldn’t tell whether they were actually trying to make the impossible leap over the gorge or purposely killing themselves before the Germans got them. And yet a few of them almost made it, the front hooves of their horses barely scratching the other side, clawing madly before both horse and rider tumbled backward into the mouth of the insatiable abyss.

All Andros knew was that somehow he had to make it over.

It took another explosion to shake him to his senses. He snapped into action. Inching his way along the ground under the flying shrapnel, he made it to a fallen tree. There he found Doughty’s field glasses and crept toward the edge of the gorge to take a look.

The bridge was gone, blown to bits. And still the horses and andartes shot into view, jumping into the inferno like lemmings.

Andros put down the field glasses. There was no way to cross the gorge, and it was nine hundred feet to the rocky bottom. But the andartes were right, there was no other way of escape.

He spun around, frantically searching the chaos for another way out. He spotted a mare without a rider. She was a big one, probably the biggest he’d seen at the camp.

With each explosion, the mare ran in an opposite direction until the sound of fire was so close that she simply stopped in her tracks in terror. Andros grabbed her loose reins and, after two failed tries, mounted her. Somehow he would get out of here, he resolved, somehow. There had to be a way.

Andros was alone in the middle of the clearing, the dumbstruck mare turning in circles in the wide-open area even as the explosions began to close in. A great flash of light flickered across the sky, and a tremendous explosion shook the ground. The mare bucked as Andros looked up to see a great shadow falling upon him. He covered his face and heard a thud. When he lowered his arms, another fir tree that had stood before him was gone, just like the tree that had almost crushed him and Doughty.

Then something sharp clipped him in the leg, and Andros fell forward. He would have slipped off his saddle had he not clung to the mare’s mane. Pain shot up Andros’s spine. Where he had been hit, he couldn’t tell. All around him, the sounds and explosions were growing louder.

This was the end. The Baron had won. All was lost. He remembered the words of the archbishop at his father’s memorial service: “Into your hands I commit my spirit…”

And then there was silence. Choking on dust, the taste of oil in his mouth, Andros wiped the grime from his teary eyes. The Stukas were gone, and he was alone in the clearing, the smoke rising around him in black columns and the stench of scorched metal, oil, and flesh in the air.

Straight ahead, the gorge was clouded in ugly vapors that seemed to bubble up from the depths and roll across the clearing like dark death clouds. When the black fog lifted, the gaping chasm became clear in the light. Andros blinked, his eyes blurred again by the smoke, his mind blurred by the impossible hurdle before him.

He had little choice. The mane of the mare seemed to prickle with electricity, and the hair on the back of his neck lifted at the sound of the hum. The Stukas were closing in again.

He grabbed the reins and tried to get the horse to move, but she wouldn’t. He had lost all feeling in his legs, so he struck the mare’s rump as hard as he could with his fist. Again nothing.

With one last effort, he pulled his father’s dagger from its sheath and jabbed the horse’s rump. She shot off toward the black gorge, which glowed mysteriously beneath the dark shadows of the dust clouds on the surface. Andros pressed his head down against the mare’s mane as she picked up speed.

The horse and rider hurled themselves across the open gorge. Just when he expected them to plunge to the bottom, they seemed to float over the gorge. Andros heard the sharp clap of hooves beating against rocky soil. He glanced back to see the half-moon sliver of the gorge fall behind them like a reaper that had barely missed its prey.

Death behind him, darkness before him, the last thing Andros remembered was clinging to the horse as if she were life itself, hurtling into space.