In Line of Fire (Secret Soldiers of World War 1 Book 2) Read online

  In Line of Fire

  The Secret Soldiers of World War 1 – Book 2:

  The siege of Antwerp and the First Battle of Ypres

  October 1914

  A Novel

  War is brutal. The best defence is cunning.

  David Hough

  Published by Cloudberry

  www.cloudberrybooks.co.uk

  Published by Cloudberry, an imprint of Luscious Books Ltd, for the Amazon Kindle 2015

  Copyright © David Hough 2015

  Cover photo © Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-75152]

  Cover design © Cloudberry

  David Hough has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and any persons, living or dead, is unintentional and entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  License notes:

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  Copyright

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  PART 2

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Author’s Notes

  About the Author

  More Books by David Hough

  More Books by Cloudberry

  PART ONE

  Siege and Retreat

  2–12 October 1914

  Chapter One

  Captain Victor Wendel rubbed at his ears when the pounding of the German big guns stopped. It was only a brief respite, he guessed, while the front line troops pushed forward. The distant rattle of rifle fire confirmed the fierce battle was undiminished.

  All around him the air stank of smoke, cordite and burnt earth. It penetrated his sinuses and irritated his throat.

  He ducked instinctively when a stray bullet ricocheted off a pock-marked wall in front of him. Crouched low in the shadow of a ruined farmhouse, he gritted his teeth, wishing he were somewhere else. The German army was moving steadily towards him, a behemoth sucking up the lifeblood of the Belgian countryside, relentlessly pushing the defending army back towards Antwerp. It crept closer to the city by the hour, spitting out the chewed-up residue of a once-peaceful nation from between its teeth.

  Wendel stared at a nearby muddy road and sighed, a long exasperated sigh. The way was almost impassable, blocked by the Belgian army’s retreat, a humiliating retreat. Disorder amongst the troops was growing with each passing minute. Motor vehicle drivers shouted and sounded their horns. Wagon drivers cried out as horses reared and dragged their carriages further into the chaotic fray.

  “Get out of the way!” The driver of a horse-drawn ambulance lashed out angrily with his whip. “Don’t you know I’ve got dying men here!” His words were shouted in French but none of the nearby soldiers, whether they spoke French or Dutch, seemed to doubt their meaning.

  Wendel flinched as Lieutenant DeBoise moved in close behind him.

  “I thought I might get married one day, Captain,” the junior officer muttered.

  “So? What’s the problem?”

  “If we stay here much longer, something important is going to get shot off.”

  Wendel glanced back at the junior officer. It irked him that DeBoise had, of late, tried too often to use his wit as a way of covering his fear. Humour, in a place like this? For heaven’s sake!

  DeBoise had unexpectedly shown his mettle in their recent foray behind the enemy lines, but he was clearly anxious now. Those thick-lens glasses couldn’t hide the obvious signs. Neither did that fixed look of concentration, as if he was considering every word before he uttered it.

  Wendel scanned back across the countryside before replying. “There’s no point in us trying to get any closer to the front line. It’s fast coming towards us. And the Hun commanders must know they’ve got the upper hand. Look!” He pointed towards two captive balloons, aerial platforms for German artillery observers.

  The rattle of an aeroplane engine drew his attention back to the immediate vicinity. A German machine was flying towards them, no more than fifty feet above the ground. Away to their right, Belgian soldiers were firing at it haphazardly and ineffectually. It looked like no one had taught them how to sight onto an aeroplane flying laterally across their field of view. Aerial warfare had not figured in their training. The pilot leaned over the side of the fuselage, one hand held out in the slipstream, grasping a small bomb.

  A Belgian foot soldier came running towards the ruined buildings, holding his rifle high in the air with both hands, as if he was taking part in a training exercise. His mouth was wide open, his face contorted by a silent scream. He was barely one hundred yards from the farmhouse when the pilot released the device. Wendel ducked behind the wall until he heard the explosion and felt the thump of it through his boots. When he raised his head again, there was no sign of the Belgian soldier, nothing except a bloody mess spread across the churned-up soil. The aeroplane was clattering away into the distance.

  Wendel gritted his teeth tight enough to send an ache through his jaw. Aerial bombardment was as mindless as the indiscriminate use of siege guns. He hated both. It was desensitised butchery, and no man ought to kill another without knowing exactly what he was doing. Even a machine-gunner saw his targets fall to the ground, saw what his actions did to the enemy. But not the siege gunner or the aerial bomber.

  Wendel was a spy, not a front-line fighter. He had freely chosen to join the British army as a consequence of his German father’s love for his adoptive country. Loyalty wasn’t a matter of where you were born, his father had taught him, it was a matter of where you chose to be. A matter of free will, not an accident of birth. His father’s loyalty brushed off on the son as easily as dust in a dry summer breeze. But problems arose very quickly. He recalled his poorly-concealed anger when informed by his regimental commander that he was barred from normal front-line service.

  “Why, sir?” he had asked.

  “Because of your father’s nationality, Wendel.” The regimental commander had avoided looking him in the eye.

  “You doubt my loyalty, sir?” he had said through gritted teeth.

  “We can’t take any chances. And that’s an end to it.”
>
  But it wasn’t an end to it. The anger stayed with Wendel until he was approached by Commander Cumming with an offer that would put him not just at the front line but beyond it. Cumming needed someone with his background, someone who understood the German psyche. Someone who was not afraid to use his skills inside the German war machine. And Cumming had the power to recruit and use a man others looked on with scepticism.

  But there was little Wendel could do to make use of his special skills here in Antwerp.

  “Time to fall back, Lieutenant!” He’d seen enough.

  He turned and led the way through the stinking mess that had once been a farmyard. A dog barked, chickens squawked and fluttered in confusion. In the fields beyond, cows scattered in alarm. A solitary pig raced away from them.

  They ran at a steady pace until they came to a junction in the road, a scene of yet more chaos. They paused in the shade of a small copse and drew breath. Two congested roads met close to their left. Less than half a mile away to their right, a railway line ran parallel to the main road. An armoured train stood simmering in the open, far from any station.

  DeBoise let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “At this rate, the Huns will be in Antwerp within a few days. Churchill won’t like it when we report what’s happening.”

  “We don’t need to make a report for Winston’s benefit. He can see it for himself.” Wendel pointed to a staff car as it slowed down at the edge of the melee. When it stopped, a passenger jumped out and hoisted himself onto the bonnet. He waved his arms and shouted to the troops in French, seemingly trying to create some sort of order in the commotion around him.

  “Oh, God! It’s him!” DeBoise ducked instinctively as the big guns opened up once again, their thunder muffled only by the continually shortening distance. Moments later a German artillery shell screamed low overhead.

  “Winston’s no stranger to war,” Wendel said.

  “In that case, he should have more sense than to come this far forward.”

  “His choice.” Wendel wondered if he should offer to help the First Lord of the Admiralty. On balance, he decided that the idea was foolish. Sod’s Law would apply here: Churchill would live and he would die.

  DeBoise drew a deep breath. “Maybe he thinks God will protect him because he’s an Englishman.”

  “God’s got other things on his plate at the moment,” Wendel snapped back. “Winston is probably trying to get through to Major-General Paris.” Paris commanded the Royal Naval Brigade which was in action near Lierre.

  Prominent in a dark blue cloak, Churchill continued shouting and gesturing. Surprisingly, his actions slowly took effect. Cars and carts were gradually unlocked from each other, and the traffic sorted into streams.

  “Do you think the Belgian troops know who’s standing there, acting like a traffic policeman with the nine lives of a lucky cat?” DeBoise asked quietly.

  “I doubt it. But I bet Winston’s enjoying himself.” Wendel grinned ruefully and then pulled at DeBoise’s arm. “Come on, Lieutenant. We’ll get back to the city and try to get a report through to C. Not that it will be of much use to him.”

  He doubted that a new reconnaissance report would provide much of value or comfort to Commander Mansfield Smith-Cumming. Known as C, Cumming was Head of the Overseas Section of the infant Secret Intelligence Service.

  The siege guns continued firing, the shells screaming overhead. General Hans von Beseler, the German commander, now had the use of the heavy artillery previously deployed at Namur and Liege. He was using them to good effect, and yet it was rifle fire that Wendel feared most while he was out in the open. You could hear a shell coming and throw yourself flat on the ground before it landed, but you never heard the rifle bullet that was destined to kill you. You heard the constant crack of rifles in the distance, but the oncoming bullet was silent unless it whistled past, and then it was too late to duck.

  Wendel led the way across an adjacent field while the Belgian troops continued to drop back. Dear God, what a bloody mess this war had become! They were now three months into the conflict, and there was no real sign of stopping the German advance towards Antwerp.

  They had been walking no more than ten minutes before Wendel pointed towards the railway line. “Over there, Lieutenant! We’ll hitch a lift back to the city on that thing.”

  That ‘thing’ was the armoured train. It was moving now, steadily steaming back towards Antwerp. Known as le Rapide Leet-le-jaw, it was one of a pair, each bearing naval guns mounted on steel-plated trucks and drawn by two engines.

  As they hurried towards it, the train slowed and then halted. Moments later, the guns fired towards the advancing enemy. The loud explosions caused nearby Belgian soldiers to momentarily rally and fire their rifles indiscriminately, but their comeback did not last. Within a minute the men were again retreating. Wendel doubted anyone could do much to slow the German advance.

  “This is our chance. Get aboard the train!” he shouted. He raced towards a goods van hitched behind one of the magazine trucks. The doors were opened and a Belgian officer helped them aboard. Wendel clapped his hands to his ears as the guns fired again, and then the train continued its retreat towards the city.

  “Do you think Winston will find a solution here?” DeBoise asked as the van door was closed behind him.

  Wendel shook his head and glanced round at a range of sad Belgian faces. “I doubt if anyone will find a solution now, except the Huns. Their plans for Antwerp are working pretty effectively at the moment.”

  *

  Commander Mansfield Smith-Cumming (he didn’t like to use the Smith part of his name) drained the last of his wine. The final drop was the finishing touch to an unexpectedly good lunch in Dunkerque’s Hôtel du Nord. He was surprised that, in time of war, the chef had been able to produce such a pleasant meal, even more surprised that the hotel had a stock of such excellent wines.

  The war news was not good, but Cumming was in a happy mood. The meal was one reason for his good humour. Another was the smooth Channel crossing he had experienced, a blessing to a naval man who had long suffered from seasickness. A third reason lay with his Fiat car. Determined to make the most of his time in the war-torn continent, he had brought the car with him, having it winched on and off the cross-Channel ferry. It was a fast car and he had a passion for motoring at speed.

  Cumming sat with his back to the dining room window to avoid the scene of military activity one floor below. Dunkerque was taking the brunt of the BEF’s constant reinforcement. Those fresh troops were badly needed. The British Expeditionary Force had been pushed back from Mons, mile after blood-soaked mile. The British Tommy, probably the best trained soldier in Europe, equipped with the superb Lee Enfield bolt-action rifle, was struggling to hold his own. A stand had to be made and Cumming was certain it would be made somewhere around Ypres. That was where the German supply lines would start to wear thin. It would be a heavily-fought battle, he thought, a bloody conflict that might win or lose this war.

  For the moment, however, he allowed his good humour to hold sway. He wiped a napkin across his mouth and signalled the waitress to bring his coffee.

  “If you please,” he said graciously. She was a pretty young thing and he had been schooled into treating pretty women with respect.

  “Freshly made, M’sieur.” The pert little French girl glanced at him with a cheeky smile as she poured.

  “Thank you. I’ll call you if I want more.” He leaned back in his seat as the waitress walked away, focussing his mind on his immediate problem. The meal was good, but he had a difficult task ahead of him. More accurately, his top agents were about to face a difficult task and he had yet to decide how much he should reveal to them. His thoughts fixated more firmly upon the war situation as he took another satisfied sip from his cup.

  He looked up when Marie Duval came into the room. He had been expecting her and he gestured towards an empty chair at the opposite side of the table. In the aftermath of the German push through Belgium, he
was having increasing communication problems with his agents. Face-to-face meetings like this were becoming something of a necessity.

  “Has there been any response from Wendel or DeBoise?” he asked as she drew near.

  The young French woman looked around before sitting down, a prim, careful movement in which she delicately tucked her skirt beneath her. Cumming studied her closely, taking in her long flaxen hair, her elfin face and her slender figure. He smiled because he trusted her. Still in her early twenties, she had the maturity and determination of a much older woman and that suited his purposes well. He knew well enough the extraordinary lengths she went to in order to obtain intelligence information from German officers, and he admired her for it.

  She shook her head. “Not as far as I know, Commander. Your last message probably hasn’t even reached them yet. You know what the telegraph communications are like with Antwerp. Sporadic at best. Do you want to see Lieutenant DeBoise as soon as he gets here?” She used the English pronunciation, D’Boys, but there was a sudden hitch in her voice and Cumming picked up on it instantly.

  He had a suspicion about Duval’s feelings towards the young Lieutenant. She had spoken far too gushingly of him in her report after she returned from Antwerp the previous August. He had wondered at the time whether she admired him too much. If his suspicions were right, he would have to keep a wary eye on those two. And yet he was surprised that Duval should show deep feelings towards a man like Charles DeBoise. It was Captain Victor Wendel who was the undoubted ladies’ man. Although still in his twenties, Wendel had a lot of experience with women and he knew how to handle his relationships with some degree of panache.

  DeBoise came from a very different mould.

  Cumming sipped again at his coffee before he replied. “No. I don’t need to see him immediately. When he arrives, keep him on hold.”

  “On hold?”

  “Make sure he stays here, Marie. We can’t afford any loose cannons on this mission, so don’t let him do anything unless and until I decide to send him into the fray.”

  The young French woman sat back in her seat and clasped her hands together in her lap. To anyone else she might look like an innocent maiden about to go to church. How easily she fooled people.