Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [55]
The motorcycle belonged to the Wehrmacht, and was painted in camouflage brown and black. After washing himself in a stream — he still smelled faintly of sewage — Cray had liberated the motorcycle from a military checkpoint north of Leipzig. In saddlebags hung over the rear fender were six stick grenades and four satchel charges, all stolen from the armory by Cray.
German countryside passed by Small homes and barns, fenced pastures, wood glades. He crossed a stone bridge over a stream, then paralleled a rail line for several miles. Clouds hid the sun. He sped through a village, nothing more than a train station and a dozen other buildings built around a crossroads.
Just north of the town was a rail siding occupied by a steaming locomotive and six cars. The top of each car was painted in bold white with a red cross. Four wooden buildings had once stood by the siding, but three had been destroyed. Hundreds of German soldiers lingered near the remaining structure, and the neighboring field was filled with soldiers, some standing on crutches some lying on cots and blankets. Bandages were everywhere, and even passing by quickly, Cray could see blood on many of them. This was a staging area for wounded, probably from both eastern and western fronts. Smoke poured from the locomotive's stack. Injured soldiers were being loaded onto the rail cars. Fifteen ambulances—trucks with red crosses painted on top—were parked by the siding, and three more approached the field on the road behind Cray. He accelerated to outdistance them.
Next, Cray passed a train that had been attacked by dive-bombers some time ago: twenty cars and a locomotive, so heavily damaged the field resembled a junkyard. The railcars had been carrying armored scout cars. Apparently unimpeded by enemy fighters or AA fire, the bombers had leisurely made extra runs, and the scout cars had been torn apart and flung all around and burned to black, and were now hardly recognizable. The tons of twisted metal and charred rubber had been pushed aside to let other trains pass, and the line had been repaired.
Cray was wearing a gray greatcoat opened to the midriff button to allow him to ride the BMW. Under the coat was the field uniform of a Wehrmacht major. His eyes were covered with bottle-bottom goggles, and he wore a leather cap with flaps over his ears. He chewed on a raw potato. Three more potatoes were on the seat of the BMW's sidecar, as was a Schmeisser submachine gun. A pistol in a holster was on his belt, and a Wehrmacht service knife in his boot. He passed another farmhouse at the side of the road, then drove alongside another field. He twisted the throttlejust to hear the satisfying rumble of the engine. He might get a motorcycle after the war. Jack Cray hadn't felt this good in months.
Geysers of dirt and stone shot up from the road, so much soil and pebbles and muddy water that the road seemed to turn on its side. The motorcycle bucked. Cray lurched forward over the handlebars, his legs suddenly in the air behind him. The BMW spun left. Then the careening front wheel caught on a stone. The sidecar rotated up and over and the cycle rolled. The gas tank smacked into Cray, launching him into a ditch at the side of the road.
The motorcycle continued a few more yards onto the field. Then its gas tank exploded in an orange plume. Bullets had passed through various parts of the BMW. The motorcycle and sidecar and Cray's new weapons burned furiously. A stick grenade detonated, casting motorcycle parts across the pasture.
Cray pushed himself to his knees in time to see the Thunderbolt bank out of the valley. The fighter skimmed the eastern hill, rising to make another run at the motorcyclist. Cray knew the plane had six 50- caliber Colt-Browning machine guns, and that in a moment they would all be aimed