The Red Patch Private by Darrell Duthie

Author:Darrell Duthie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Esdorn Editions

CHAPTER 17

22 July, 1943

Leonforte, Sicily

First-Lieutenant Weyers heard the MGs go silent as he tucked the whistle back into his breast pocket. Pistol in hand, he lifted his arm and began waving the waiting lines of men forward. He knew there was a risk to the tactic; on the other hand there couldn’t have been more than a dozen of the enemy, and all told he had nearly thirty Panzer grenadiers amongst his two squads. So it seemed a risk worth taking. He certainly didn’t want to allow this group the time to settle in properly, sight their weapons, and turn the place into a redoubt – not when the counter-attack was progressing so well. No, it was a question of hitting hard and fast. A short rush and they would have them.

He motioned to the last men to hurry, and when they thumped past, Weyers went in pursuit. An enemy machine gun sounded from ahead

Without warning there was a flash of light and a muted BANG in the square.

The fall of the grenade couldn’t have been more than twenty metres from him. Weyers recoiled from the sheer surprise of it as much as the sight or sound. Surely they were too far from the houses for the enemy to be tossing grenades?

One of the first men in the formation went down in a sickening clatter of gear. A second grenadier grasped at his leg, cursing, and the entire squad behind slackened their pace. Seeing this hesitation the second prong of the attack, coming from the street to the right, slowed and began to spread out, sudden uncertainty setting in.

Then the throaty rattle of a machine gun burst sounded on their flank, almost behind them, the MG unmistakeably a Bren gun. He’d heard them often these past days in the hills.

Weyers felt the sour bile of fear rising up in his throat. He glanced about. What the devil was going on? They’d been tricked. From the building ahead he now heard another MG join in. Rifles were cracking. Damnit!

Like any experienced warrior, Weyers’s eyes took instruction from his ears. He snapped his head around to the left from where he had first heard the MG. And sure enough, leaning against the corner of a building abutting the square and half hidden in its shadows, a single man in a bowl helmet was visible with an LMG gripped in his hands. Most unusually he was shooting from the hip, at almost point blank range, enfilading the long file of Weyers’s men. One man, two… then a third went down. The machine gun barked and flashed. Their own MGs crews were impotent, cloaked as they were by their own men in the square. The platoon was being cut down – his platoon!

Angrily Weyers turned towards the soldier and thrust out his arm, the Walther extended. His index finger pulled furiously at the trigger. Too furiously it was to prove, for the trio of 9mm bullets buried themselves in Leonforte’s extensive stonework. And the enemy soldier still stood, a half silhouette, sheltered by the building.

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