Dark Full of Enemies(67)

Petersen slung his Sten and grabbed the man’s ankles. He gurgled softly as Petersen dragged him through the alley into the darkness behind the barracks. When Petersen stopped, the sailor looked at him. He had brown hair smashed down by his pillow on one side and standing on the other, with the outline of his cap traced across the side of his head, a greasy slob. He tried to sit up. He had one hand at his chest, trying to bring it to his throat. Blood ran from his mouth. In the death throes and the cold, his face had already blanched white. Petersen watched him. The sailor worried his brow, trying to keep his eyelids open like a drowsing student. His other hand rose toward Petersen.

Petersen’s chest tightened. He gritted his teeth. He knelt over the sailor’s body, pulled him up to a sitting position, and pressed the muzzle of the Sten to his face. The sailor choked out red droplets. Petersen fired two rounds and shattered his skull.

Petersen did not enjoy his revenge. He heard the bullets, after passing through the German’s face and brain, rap into the side of the building, as clear as a neighbor knocking. Something stirred on the other side.

Petersen looked at the German, at the collapsed mess of bone under the greasy hair. The cap, he thought, and Shit.

He jumped up and ran into the alley as the door of the barracks opened again. Two men stepped out into the lane and looked around. Petersen ducked behind the next barracks and watched with one eye around the corner.

“Damned fool,” one German said. “What the devil does he think he’s playing at?”

“I don’t care—he’s always been worthless. He’s probably in the shitter asleep with Rottmann.”

“If we weren’t getting ready I’d just say piss off again and let the skipper—what’s this?”

Petersen watched the German cross in front of the alley and bend down.

“Rottmann’s cap?” the first said.

“Or Dieter’s, the little shit. That must have been him tapping on the walls. Come on.”

They started down the alley.

Petersen decided not to wait until they had seen the body. He stepped around the corner with the Sten at his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The shots caught the first German in the stomach and chest as the barrel rose. The German fell to the side with his hands on his stomach and Petersen steadied and aimed for the second.

The man had not even watched his friend fall—he turned to run and slipped in the snow. Petersen fired and the bullets cleft empty air. He stepped forward and aimed at the man’s back, but he scrambled up and ran out into the bright barracks lane.

“Help!” the man screamed, and Petersen killed him.





Ollila watched it. The German, struck in the hip and back, fell forward onto his face and started crawling. He raised his head to shout once more and Petersen, standing full in the open space between the barracks, stepped up behind him and shot him in the back of the head. The German twitched and lay still.

Ollila swore. He thumbed down the Mauser’s safety. He pressed his finger against the cold steel trigger guard until the knuckle ached.

Petersen reached for the dead man’s body but stopped and backed into the alley and out of sight. He reappeared behind the building where he had ambushed the pair of Germans. Petersen watched him reload on one side of the barracks, while on the other doors opened and the E-boat’s crew stepped out into the night. Ollila counted—seven at first, crowding immediately around the dead man. Three more lingered in the doorways. One man stood and rushed to another of the buildings and knocked. Ollila saw him shouting to be heard through the door. A moment later, an officer came out. At the same time the Germans spotted the man who, Ollila assumed, Petersen had shot in the alley.

The cluster of Germans surrounding the body in the lane broke apart and a few of them rushed into the alley. Ollila looked at Petersen. He stood with his back pressed against the building. He seemed to have just finished changing the magazine in his Sten.

Ollila lowered his finger to the trigger and breathed.

Petersen put the Sten to his shoulder and wheeled into the alley. The Germans in the lane looked up, startled. Ollila sighted on the officer and fired. Something plucked at the man’s coat and he fell over.

Poor first shot, Ollila thought.

The sound of the shot reached the rest of the Germans and they jumped and began to scatter. Shouts of surprise and terror drifted up to him and he worked the Mauser’s bolt. German sailors dropped or clutched themselves and staggered out of the alley. The officer tried to leverage himself up on an elbow and collapsed. One sailor ran to the open door of the officers’ barracks and hid. Ollila followed him and waited. The sailor ran out, followed by an officer. Ollila fired and struck the officer in the head.

“Bullseye.”

Petersen appeared in the lane, changing magazines again. He looked left and right. From both directions, the sailors came out of their barracks with pistols and submachine guns, frantically seating magazines in them as they ran. Ollila glanced up to the dam and saw the guards there staring, uncertain. He wondered how far Graves had gotten in mining the dam.

Gunshots popped in the E-boat compound. Ollila swung down into the barracks, where Petersen was dashing between the buildings, shooting from the hip, found a German sailor raising his submachine gun, sighted, breathed, and fired.





McKay leaned into the gallery door, shouted, “How long?”