Opening Moves

The wound was immense, unusually removing everything from the lower jaw upwards. It was later discovered that the gun’s former commando owner, against orders and all conventions, had converted his bullets into dum-dums with quartered heads. The destructive impact of Rispan’s shot had put the Goumier down immediately and given no possibility of him fulfilling his act of revenge.

More men were sent to tend to the man who had saved Lavalle’s life.

“A close call Mon Colonel, a close call for sure.”

Even the brave and the bold can be shaken by such things, and Lavalle was no exception. He knew how close to death he had just been.

“Yes Albrecht. I was very lucky.”

Composing himself, Lavalle got his thought processes back on track.

Both men’s eyes locked and silent communication took place.

“Yes. We will deal with these bastards later Albi.” Lavalle did not mean the Russians.

“Now, let’s get some information out to our superiors and find out what the hell is going on here eh?”

Nodding, Haefeli summoned a radioman.

“You do it Albrecht. I think I will take some of the men and go on up.”

He indicated the ramp that led up into the Château, the signs of battle evident, blood and bodies leading up into unseen places beyond.

0657 hrs Monday, 6th August 1945, Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg, French Alsace.

Within half an hour, the Château was declared safe, although armed legionnaires patrolled everywhere in case some hitherto unsuspected hiding place disgorged enemy paratroopers.

2e Compagnie was still off pursuing the Russians, without much success according to the reports filtering back via radio.

A senior French officer, a Brigadier-General no less, had arrived with the rest of the Goumier Tabor, gathered up the survivors and promised to keep the tribesmen employed in the pursuit of the enemy, as well as ensuring investigation and retribution in equal measure, horrified at the excesses his men visited on the Lower Courtyard.

Lavalle had ensured he understood that the matter would not be left dormant for long.

The commando barracks was now a makeshift field hospital, staffed by a group of doctors and nurses on their way back from a detachment to the Red Cross in Geneva. They made no distinction between their charges, each man or woman receiving appropriate treatment regardless of the uniform, although, unsurprisingly, Stefka Kolybareva received more personal attention than most, the women nurses drawn into her personal suffering by loyalty to their gender as well as their natural caring natures.

Lavalle took a close interest in the Russian officer who saved his life, slipping a note into the man’s ID book and briefing the medical team on the man’s actions.

Much as Ramsey had done a few hours beforehand, Lavalle reflected on the Château around him, fresh with signs of battle, and how a battle here would be fought or, at this particular moment, had been fought.

No less a bloodbath than it would have been in the days of boiling oil and broadswords was his sanguine conclusion.

Already the butcher’s bill was revealing itself in all its true horror. The 2e had lost nearly 20% of its men dead and wounded, the 3e twice as many, with more than two-thirds of them killed outright.

The Goumiers had lost forty men, including those who had not fallen in battle.

A groggy commando officer, sporting countless stitches in his head, was unable to confirm his unit strength, but the strangely familiar Général de Brigade seemed to think it was one hundred and twenty before the firing started, making the commandos roughly one hundred casualties, also mainly dead.

Lavalle was trying to make sense of everything when a figure clad in black walked in carefully, a figure he recognised and who also recognised him.

Without intent to drop into cliché, Lavalle extended his hand.

“Herr Knocke, we meet again.”

The slightly groggy German took the Legion officer’s hand warmly.

“Oberst Lavalle. It is good to see you. Excuse me.”

Wretching violently, Knocke spilled the contents of his stomach onto the floor of the Kaisers Hall.

Lavalle swept up some napkins from the table, passing one to Knocke, and covering the sick with the others.

“My apologies Herr Oberst. I took a blow in the stomach and I can’t stop doing it.”

Steering Knocke to a chair, Lavalle acknowledged a new arrival, a man he now recognised as the shadowy intelligence officer he had once seen at Army Headquarters.

“Thank you for your timely arrival Colonel Lavalle. I fear we would have all perished had you and your legionnaires not got here so quickly.”

Lavalle could do no more than shrug at De Walle, as it was undoubtedly true.

Given that the senior officers were now all within the Kaiser’s Hall, it became the focus of activity, the place where reports went and people came in search of information.