Chapter 5. 1943 - The Smatchet (pt.2)

Alesandro didn’t put the Lebel down until Baker’s hands were secured. Iniga snuffed the lamp and the band filed up the hill, splitting up into three-man groups.

She took the point while Alesandro held back behind Baker.  He stepped aside and took a stand on an outcrop to pause and check his watch. The column in pursuit would be almost to the hut by this time. He could see a few lights from farm houses in the valley below from his viewpoint, but the darkness contrasted with the moonlight and hid everything else. He knew the terrain so well that he didn’t have to guess where the hut they’d just left might be. He could hear one of their pursuers loudly complaining that he had to dismount his horse and hike. Amateurs all! Not that he wanted better soldiers coming after him. War wasn’t a sport to Alesandro and to enter into a fair fight meant only that he was unprepared. Unprepared was not an option.

Alesandro left his perch, slinging a British Sten over his shoulder and taking up the rear behind his compliant and strangely complacent prisoner. He puzzled over what to do now. He could have blown the hut with plastique at this time but didn’t want to give the Regulares or Guardia Civil any reason to retaliate with reprisals on the villagers below. After all, the villagers had little or no knowledge of the actions of the maquis. The Regulares were as brutal with reprisals as were the Germans in all occupied countries. Fresh on everyone's mind were the reprisals for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Chzekoslovakia.  Ten thousand were arrested, five thousand of which were shot on the spot, and most of the rest met a similar fate at Mauthhausen-Gusen concentration camp. Because of this, trouble of any kind in the countryside could turn the locals against the Maquis whose survival depended on the support of the villagers. The Guardia Civil had already relocated peasants from entire villages all along the mountain valleys into camps or to various cities.

 The Alférez rode up to the hut, dismounted and started out towards it.

“Sir,” the sergeant called, “That hut might be …”

The Alférez understood and immediately sent two men to check it out.

The Alférez’s patience was tested as the two approached the door with extreme caution… too extreme for him. He drew his Luger, “Kick in that flimsy door, cowards!”

“But, sir! It could be a trap.”

The Cabo was more efficient and casual as he walked to the hut and shoved the two aside, pushed the door open a crack into which he tossed a potato masher and falling back to the side in time for the blast to blow the door off its hinges landing in front of the mount that tossed the Alférez off its back,

Alesandro’s small group of a couple dozen made their way along a path known only to a few; skirting the limestone cliffs that dropped several hundred feet from the barren landscape below the tree-line.

“Here?” Iniga asked, running a finger across her throat, all the while wondering why this American wasn’t pleading for mercy.

Alesandro knew what she meant but he surprised her, Alesandro nodded to Iniga, “Unbind him.”

Indignant, she sneered, “What, you want to give him a chance to escape?” She admired the American but that didn’t mean she trusted him.

Sometimes weary of her taste for blood in what ought to have been the apex of her youth, Alesandro answered, “He could have had that chance a half-dozen times by now. I want him to be able to use his hands on this ledge.” He added, “That patrol will be here soon. You should be a little less eager for blood, amada.”

Alesandro knew full well how bitterly the savagery of oppression etched itself into the lives of what ought to have been the carefree youth of those times. Atrocity had ignited the flames that drove the fiery warrior in her. The orphan (huérfana) had taken her revenge to the front lines in Madrid as a courier, and sometimes double agent, before it fell in '39. And by 1943, she was only nineteen and Alesandro was but twenty-five. They were both hardened Civil War veterans from what seemed to each of them a lifetime ago.

They inched sidelong the ledges too narrow for a horse; down the steep slopes until reaching friendlier slopes thickly forested with firs and beech trees to a maze of an outcrop of stone where they stashed the Typex. All except for the three of them; Iniga, Alesandro and Baker, had dispersed by then: some down into the nearest villages of refuge; Burguete, and Erro, while the rest would go on the seventy odd kilometers to Pamplona; where the maquis were shop keepers, laborers, tradesmen and such. The cave within which the three that were left would bind their fates far beyond the immediate circumstances of that day in the autumn of 1943.

Alesandro returned Baker’s weapons, “Sorry, we can’t be too careful with our trust.” He gestured for her to unstrap the sheath, “Iniga, give him back the smatchet.”

She pouted. “But he said I could have it… Please, can I keep it..." Iniga, batting little girl eyes at Baker, opened her shirt with her free hand, and patting the sheath where it was holstered between her breasts, she pled, "… please, let me keep it?"

“Sure,” Alesandro ceded.

Baker smiled, flashing his straight white teeth.

The group approached an outcrop of limestone and boulders in a grove of birches. Iniga dropped away to a spot above the grove with a perfect view of the now distant ledge while the others went ahead. She, with one eye on Harry, simultaneously watched the ledge while Alesandro placed the Telex behind, and in between, the outcrop and brush. She tossed a pebble between Harry and Alesandro as soon as she spied the first of the troop crossing the ledge.

Careful to make no sound as even a whisper can be carried remarkable distances across the mountain terrain, Alesandro turned his head up the hill and held a hand out, palm down, to signal silence to Harry who was already alert and taking cover. Alesandro took a position to the side between a couple boulders where the entrance of the hiding place for the Typex could be watched. He had mixed feelings about that cypher machine. It was crucial that tactics needed to be coordinated with the Allies gathering forces in England. Otherwise, his efforts would amount to nothing more than bee stings: the bee-stings of a bandito and not a Maquisard of the Resistance.

Ambush tactics were reflexive and had been worked out long before by these hardened guerilla fighters. Harry also had well-honed instincts to take a position in a perfect place where he could observe the approaching column. Iniga was also just as camouflaged in her perch within the scrub and beech trees.

This was an operation with too many problems for Alesandro’s comfort. He preferred quiet operations, a power station or tower blown; a couple of spikes on a mountain railway track derailing into a gulch a supply train headed over the Pourtalet for Southern France; a clean and efficient operation away from reprisals in local villages; a place of his own choosing; before the Civil Guards could respond. That was the kind of field op he preferred. There were no railroads on this pass nearby; only a narrow winding washboard road perfect for ambushes. This operation was compromised from the start with the Guardia Civil already on their tail. Those being his feelings regardless, he would get a chance to gain respect for Baker’s abilities this morning as an ominous mist cast an aura of mystery around the arrival of the squad that had split up, leaving two Guardia Civil and a half dozen Regulars led by a Cabo and Alférez.

The squad approached, Baker let the point pass within feet of his position. He’d been in so many ambushes that he felt calm and focused. He noted the ease of precision and the quickness of combat practice Iniga and Alesandro put into action without hesitation.

The men of the patrol looked tired by the time the squad leader finally ordered a rest. The green recruits were exhausted from the scramble up and down trails far from the warmth and security of their post. Dumping their packs, rolling and lighting up cigarettes, each made a tremendous amount of noise. From Alesandro’s position, he could see Baker's gesture, pointing out that the Cabo, separate from his squad, pulled down his trousers, and squat only a meter from Harry’s position. 

In war, an act as banal as taking a crap can be one’s last. Garrote ready, Baker waited, making sure that the Cabo finished, stood and buttoned up, before Baker deftly looped the garrote, and took him out. 

It looked to Alesandro as though the Bird Dog might have had some compassion by letting the Cabo finish, but, he knew better. The Bird Dog didn’t want to mess himself up in close quarters like that. Baker gave Alesandro another hand signal: wait. The Alférez paced a few meters from Alesandro’s cover. He could see the clouds of breath coming from the Alférez open mouth but whose brow was dripping beads of sweat even though it was cool enough for Alesandro to worry about his own breath’s vapor giving away his position.

“Set up the radio by that birch and call in our position,” the Alférez ordered one of the men.

The exhausted radio operator had the misfortune of resting against the birch where Iniga had the smatchet out and poised to use on him. He happened to be one of the Regulares that wore a German style helmet adorned with the Franco Eagle emblem. He rolled up and lit a cigarette before setting up the awkward radio he had little practice operating. He took off his helmet and set it to the side. Eager to try out the smatchet, Iniga was disappointed.

The Alférez saw the helmet on the ground and ordered, “Put that helmet back on, private.”

Reluctantly, the trooper obeyed, “Yes, sir.”

In spite of her youthful petulance, Iniga was disciplined enough to wait for a signal however eager she was to use the smatchet. Alesandro had a vista and was in the line of sight for both her and Baker. Time in the field had taught her to wait for a signal whether or not she knew why.

“Soldado Aldano,” the Alférez commanded, “Check out that out-crop, it could be a perfect place to hide…” the Alférez looked to the Cabo (Private) and realized how stupid his order sounded. The outcrop would not afford anyone nearly as good of a place for ambush as the underbrush that surrounded them. Regardless, he was in command and it felt good. He continued, “There might be… uh... weapons or anything.”

The boy set aside his new, and hardly ever used, parade-ground Mauser rifle, in order to squeeze between the boulders. He disappeared in the maze where he would be oblivious to what was about to transpire.

One of the men spoke loud enough for all to hear, “They are probably in Burguete by now… having breakfast… eh?” There would be no answer from the Cabo.

These men were green... Franco had to send his more experienced, Blue Divisions to the Russian Front to appease Hitler. The army never recovered from the loss of veteran soldiers. Now Spain, with the exception of a few Moroccans, had nothing but barracks mavens to send out on patrol: they looked good for the parade grounds but were of little use in the field.

The Alférez saw one of his men drop, opened his mouth to give a command to the radioman, “Have you made contact? What’s taking you!” but a single burst from the silencer of Alesandro’s Sten, in synch with Baker’s move, put a couple neat holes in his forehead.

Iniga’s smatchet drove through the radioman’s helmet as promised and she darted down to the boulders where the boy had left his Mauser.

It was over before anyone was able to lift a weapon. Everyone had all moved in such precision that only those muffled bursts; thusss-thusss-thusss… thusss-thuss… thusss! from the Sten, made any sound. Baker had stealthily, as was his preferred fashion, took out three with a knife as Iniga made short work, Thusss! Thuss! Two more with one of the Welrods. The three had moved in unison as though choreographed in a deadly ballet.

In the end, Iniga had a boy Soldado pinned against a boulder by the Mauser she held casually to her side with the business end of the bayonet only inches from the boy’s crotch. He was a kid, younger than Iniga and, as an added insult against his young manhood, she’d held his own rifle against him. The excitement of the dance that had passed… subsided into the quivering of the adrenaline leaving the blood stream. She saw the fear in his eyes. Shit, he couldn’t have been sixteen. She had to hide the urge to piss too. There was something of the order of the moment that had to be attended and bodily functions would have had to wait.

“What are we going to do with him?” she almost pled. Compassion wasn’t her strong suit, and it didn’t bother her to dispatch the radioman or any older Civil Guard, but this was just a boy in an ill-fit, newly issued, man’s uniform.

Alesandro walked straight up to the quivering kid that had tears of fear on his adolescent face, saying calmly, “It’s going to be alright…”

Hearing Alesandro’s calm voice, the boy’s face relaxed and the fear left his eyes... distracted from seeing the Lebel raised to the side of hos head. It was then that Alesandro put a silenced round into the youth’s temple… “thusss!” The boy dropped to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

She turned to catch Alesandro walking away like he’d only delivered a paper. She knew why… no prisoners. A deep ache welled up in her breast with tears of her own. This hadn’t gone unnoticed by Alesandro. She had endeared herself to him years before when she helped him escape Asturias. He caught her wipe away a tear… the sorrow… the loss. Just that little gesture gave him hope for her, that she might still be human: a flash of insight that helped to remind him of his own loose grip on humanity. But, simultaneous to that thought, a quirky crease on the side of her cupid bow lips lifted a bit. She put the boy’s rifle back in his hands.

Baker hadn’t missed her display of bravado and how easily she’d dispatched the radioman before she showed so much empathy for the boy with the rifle.

“See, it is a good knife, yes?”

She returned to the lifeless body of the radioman, and perhaps to thwart her feelings.. to muster courage... to dull the epiphany of sorrow, she proudly exclaimed, “Went through his helmet like a butter knife just like you said it…!” Iniga pulled the knife out like it was Excalibur but the helmet stuck on the knife blade. She lifted the helmet and knife above her head victoriously.

Baker had been busy and, when he saw the boy laying on the ground with Iniga standing over him, he flashed a white row of teeth, “You’d better leave the helmet.”

“I want it as a souvenir,” she answered coyly and grinned broadly.

Harry smiled, knowing she used macabre mirth to mask the sorrow for the boy’s wasted youth. He gave her a pat on the back and the three of them got busy hiding the bodies. When Alesandro began to move the Mauser boy’s body Iniga stopped him. “Let them find a real Soldado... holding his rifle and not like a frightened boy.”

Alesandro understood and was pleased at her show of compassion. He had seen her in action for so many years but he’d never witnessed anthing like empathy coming from Iniga.