Assault on Abbeville by Jack Badelaire

Author:Jack Badelaire [Badelaire, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Post Modern Pulp Books
Published: 2016-12-30T22:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Gorski and Johansen reached the three way intersection at the same time Dumond unleashed another double-blast of buckshot towards the other end of the hallway.

“Get clear!” he shouted back at them as he leaned back into the short hallway, breaking open the shotgun and reloading. “The gendarmes have returned!”

Pistol fire and the heavier crack of a carbine announced the arrival of the French law enforcement officers. Gorski and Johansen ducked and took the corner as bullets knocked away pieces of brickwork and plaster.

“Where’s Piet?” Gorski shouted to Dumond.

“Holding the alleyway!” the big Frenchman replied. “What about Paquet?”

“Come on, later!” Gorski told him. He took his last Mills’ Bomb from his musette bag and armed it, then threw it around the corner and down the hall.

The three men passed through the outer holding room and into the small open area before the alleyway. Verhoeven was kneeling at the corner, carefully squeezing off single shots from his MP-38.

“At least two of them at the end of the alley, they can’t get to the locked gate though,” he reported. “Get to the truck, I’ll cover you.”

“No, I’ll cover,” Gorski told him. “Go!”

Verhoeven gave him a cross look, but got up and took off at a run down the alleyway as Gorski stuck the barrel of his machine pistol around the corner and emptied his magazine in three long bursts. He reloaded fast, then fired off another long burst before awkwardly running backwards towards the truck, squeezing off two or three bullets at a time as he did so. The gendarmes, unwilling to face automatic weapons fire, remained content with poking their service weapons around the corners of the alleyway entrance and firing a shot or two, not even bothering to see where they were aiming.

As Gorski reached the truck, a pair of hands grabbed his coat and lifted him over the tailgate. Dumond set him down, then picked up his shotgun, firing a parting salvo as Lambert drove the truck out of the alleyway and around the corner.

“What about Paquet?” Dumond asked as the truck accelerated down the street.

Gorski shifted in the truck’s cargo bed, putting his back against the hard side as he dug another magazine out of his musette bag and reloaded.

“They’d beaten him so badly, without a doctor, he’d be dead by tomorrow. I left him one of these,” he lifted his MP-38, “and booby-trapped his body.”

Dumond and Verhoeven seemed to take the news in stride. “What do the Germans know?” Verhoeven asked.

“He told them we were here to sabotage the trains running to Calais,” Gorski answered. “He says the Germans are there now, at the railyard, searching for bombs.”

“And the others?” Dumond asked.

“He didn’t tell them anything,” Gorski replied. “Which means if they weren’t grabbed when they got Paquet, they weren’t suspected. Now, though, who knows. Even if he didn’t tell them, someone might have seen them flee, might put it all together after the fact.”

Dumond nodded. “So, what now?”

Gorski shook his head and pulled aside the canvas cover over the tailgate.

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