Chapter 131: To Kill the Mockingbird
One week later, two freighters cut across the Baltic Sea at full speed beneath the cover of night.
Their hulls rolled heavily with the waves, their engines groaning like iron beasts beneath the deck. From the outside, they were ordinary cargo ships, the kind that had become common in the newly revived German shipping trade. Their flags, manifests, and route papers were all clean.
But inside the half-open containers stacked across the deck, men in field-gray uniforms waited in silence.
A few soldiers huddled together in the dimness, smoking cigarettes and speaking in low voices to keep their nerves steady.
"I never imagined my first time on a ship would be like this."
The muscular soldier who spoke pulled off his steel helmet and used it to fan himself. Beside his boots lay a vomit bag filled with the proof of his suffering, its sour stench making the others wrinkle their noses.
The soldier beside him laughed.
"Try not to wet yourself, Pippen. Soon enough we'll find out whether that miraculous marksmanship you bragged about during the Russian campaign works just as well on Polish helmets."
Then he glanced at him with curiosity.
"Speaking of which, didn't you pass the first screening for the Armored Division? Weren't you supposed to become a tank driver?"
Pippen put his helmet back on and adjusted the G43 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. He smiled helplessly, clearly having no intention of answering directly.
Across from them, Squad Leader Katz Sitora sat with his back against a wooden crate, calmly wiping a Zeiss scope with a dust cloth. The stock of his Mauser 98k reflected a dark red sheen beneath the faint moonlight leaking through the gap in the container door.
"Don't bring it up," Sitora said without raising his head. "His physical fitness was good enough, but the boy couldn't understand circuits or control systems to save his life. I wasted a recommendation slot on him."
He glanced at Pippen and gave a thin smile.
"Listen well, kid. Once you take a bullet, you'll understand that hiding inside an iron beast is much safer than trusting flesh and bone."
Pippen scratched the back of his head, somewhat embarrassed.
"I still trust my rifle more."
The words had barely left his mouth when the ship suddenly slowed.
The hull swayed. The low vibration of the engine changed pitch.
The laughter inside the container vanished at once.
The brief ease brought by jokes and cigarette smoke was swept away as if by a cold wind. The men who had been lounging against crates straightened almost simultaneously. Their expressions changed, but there was no panic in them.
Every soldier here had been chosen from among veterans and elite troops. They had seen battle. They knew fear. More importantly, they knew how to bury it.
Click.
Click.
Magazines were seated. Rounds were chambered. Helmet brims were lowered.
One by one, the men rose in silence and waited for the signal.
At the dock, the night patrol stared at the two enormous freighters looming before them with obvious confusion. Beside them, the harbor pilot who had just climbed ashore from his small boat spoke quietly with the night manager.
"Aren't Robin One and Robin Two scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning at eight?"
"That's right," the manager replied, frowning. "A few hours early would be one thing, but it's only half past one in the morning. They are six and a half hours ahead of schedule."
As soon as he finished speaking, two men who looked like captains walked down the gangway toward them.
The patrolmen exchanged glances.
They did not recognize these captains.
More importantly, they did not recognize the sailors behind them either.
It was the first time any of them had ever seen sailors walk in such orderly steps.
The dock police sensed something was wrong. Almost by instinct, their left hands moved toward their holsters.
The moment their hands shifted, gunfire cracked through the harbor night.
Bang!
Bang!
The bullets punched through their eye sockets and burst out the backs of their skulls, scattering blood and bone across the dock stones.
The pilot and the night manager were so frightened that their legs gave way. They collapsed to the ground, staring in horror at the bodies beside them.
Then they saw something even more terrifying.
The container doors opened one after another.
Soldiers in dark field uniforms poured out like a tide of iron, leaping down from the containers and forming ranks across the dock with practiced speed.
"This..." The pilot's face went bloodless. "This is the Army? The German Army?"
He only managed two more stunned glances before a rifle butt swept through the air and struck him across the head.
The night manager fell beside him a heartbeat later.
After studying Danzig's defense maps again and again for the past week, each squad already knew its task. No one needed additional orders.
One battalion rushed toward the city center to seize the administrative core. The other two battalions moved quickly toward the Polish garrison.
Although it was already past one in the morning, Polish patrols still moved through the streets. The recent clearance of the German districts had left the city tense, and patrols had been increased accordingly.
Pippen moved at the rear of his squad, panting as he followed the machine gun team. The weight of his equipment bit into his shoulders, but his eyes remained sharp.
The squad turned a corner and ran straight into a Polish patrol.
For half a second, both sides froze.
Then the two riflemen at the front of the German squad fired first.
The two Polish patrolmen in front dropped before they could even understand what had happened. The others reacted a moment later, frantically pulling their triggers and shouting into the night.
"The Germans! The Germans are attacking!"
Sitora's eyes swept across the street.
In the same instant, he understood the terrain.
The church tower.
If they could seize the tower, they could dominate the intersection and prevent reinforcements from moving freely through this district. If they failed, the crossroads would become a killing ground.
He ducked behind cover as bullets cracked against the stonework beside him.
Ding!
A round struck the seam between two bricks, spraying dust across his face.
Sitora wiped it away with the back of his glove. He knew that dragging this out would be fatal. This was the first place in the city where gunshots had erupted. Other patrols would come running. If they did not take the tower now, they might never take it.
"Pippen! Karl!" he barked. "Suppress them! We take the tower before the next Polish unit arrives!"
Tat-tat-tat.
The two G43 rifles spat bright muzzle flashes into the night. Their rapid fire crossed over the street and pinned the Polish patrol behind the stone wall. Bullets hammered the masonry, kicking up smoke and chips of brick until the entire corner was choked with dust.
Under that cover, Sitora moved.
Two lightly armed riflemen followed him, low and quick, crawling along the wall until they reached the enemy's flank. Sitora pulled a stick grenade from his belt, yanked the cord, and silently counted.
Seven.
Five.
Four.
Three grenades arced over the cover and landed behind the Polish patrol.
Bang!
White light tore through the darkness.
The blast threw bodies against the wall. Two Polish soldiers who had been farther from the center of the explosion survived the initial blast, but their legs were torn apart. Their screams cut through the ringing in the air, shrill and raw.
Sitora stepped forward, drew the pistol from his waist, and fired twice.
The screams stopped.
There was no triumph in his expression. Only efficiency.
Before the squad could even breathe, the growl of truck engines approached from the distance.
"Onda! John! Take the tower!"
Sitora pointed with two fingers.
"You two, with me. We find a sniper position. Pippen! Karl! Secondary fire points. Move, you crawling snails!"
The heavy machine gunner shouldered the MG 34 and charged toward the church. He kicked the door open and thundered up the stairs with his assistant close behind him. Within moments, the machine gun was braced on the tower window ledge.
The assistant gunner opened the ammunition tray and fed in the belt.
The first Polish trucks appeared below almost at the same instant.
Tat-tat-tat-tat.
The MG 34 began its song.
The fragile glass of the truck cabs shattered under the storm of fire. Drivers jerked and spasmed as bullets tore through them, their bodies becoming bloody sieves before they slumped over the wheels.
The vehicles swerved and crashed into one another.
In the back of the trucks, Polish soldiers scrambled for cover, but by then Sitora had already found his position. One after another, figures entered his scope.
He exhaled.
A shot cracked.
A soldier fell.
He worked the bolt.
Another shot.
Another fell.
During the machine gun's brief reload, several Polish soldiers tried to flee into the two side streets, hoping to use the buildings for cover. They did not know those streets had already been occupied by Pippen and Karl.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Rifle fire flashed from both alleys.
The men who tried to escape dropped almost instantly, cut down before they could even dive behind walls.
The leading Polish officer stared up at the fire flashing from the church tower. His face twisted with fury.
"Barricades! Build barricades! Take out that high firing point! Move!"
The order had barely left his mouth when a bullet punched through his steel helmet.
A dark red line spilled from the hole in his forehead. His body stiffened, then collapsed backward into the street.
At the same time, gunfire erupted across Danzig.
From the harbor to the garrison district, from the old German streets to the roads leading toward the city hall, the night was torn apart by rifles, grenades, and machine guns.
Residents woke in terror, but none dared open their windows.
In that hour, Danzig belonged not to the city council, nor to the Polish garrison, nor to the sleeping crowds who trembled behind locked doors.
It belonged to the men moving through the darkness with German rifles in their hands.
.....
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