Young Lions by Andrew Mackay Page A

away from the shots and the shouting. Zorn cautiously started heading towards the Square, keeping an eye out for any stray German soldiers. He hoped to reach Wurst’s body and either retrieve the Report or blow up the Report together with Wurst’s body. Zorn found the entrance to the Square and slowly peeked around the corner. The Square was a scene of utter carnage and chaos. Isolated corpses and bodies lay all over the place and a particularly large cluster was grouped around the War Memorial. Zorn grinned wickedly at his own handiwork. However, he had always considered himself to be a fair man. Credit where credit was due. It was not all his own work. Some of it was the handiwork of his British partners in crime. He could see officers and N.C.O.s barking orders and trying to gain command and control of the situation. Dying soldiers tried to crawl out of the killing zone and wounded civilians sheltered in door ways and begged to be rescued.
    Tenth bell. Germans were running up the stairs to the fourth floor.
    “Time to leave,” Alan said, turning around and heading for the door.
    “Let’s go.” Sam stood up to follow him.
    S.S. storm troopers pounded up the stairs to the top floor but stopped when they saw two paratroopers emerge from a flat door. The S.S. Scharfuhrer paused. He was confused. He hesitated. “I didn’t know that you boys were supposed to be in charge of security on this side of the Square.”
    “We’re not, Adolf.” Sam said as opened fire. The S.S. Scharfuhrer was going down and the next man was falling as Alan emptied a full magazine into the pack of storm troopers. Sam threw two grenades down the stairs which exploded, ripped apart the weakened banister and sent half a dozen S.S. men screaming over the side to meet their sudden deaths on the foyer flagstones at the foot of the stairs. The boys stepped over the smoking, broken and bloodied bodies and rapidly proceeded down the stairs with their weapons held at the ready with the butts pulled tight into their shoulders.
    Zorn took a Red Cross armband out of his pocket and slipped it on as he ran to the War Memorial “Move out of the way. I’m a doctor!” he shouted as he reached Wurth. He felt the back of Wurth’s head and his fingers came away dripping blood, bone and gore. “It’s no use. He’s dead.” Zorn spotted the attaché brief case, which Wurth had been carrying, swapped it with the one that he had left earlier by the Cathedral door and joined a group of S.S. soldiers entering a block of flats before anyone could stop him. I must make sure that people remember that I was no where near the Cathedral. Zorn worked his way through to the front of the section and took command.
    Eleventh bell. “Al, there’s another group of stromtroopers coming up the stairs,” Sam warned. “There’s too many of them. They’ll have heard the firing and the grenade blasts. The same trick won’t work twice. They’ll be on guard. They’ll shoot first and ask questions later. We’re trapped.”
    “No we’re not, Sam,” Alan replied. “Quickly! Back upstairs to the dead Germans!”
    The S.S. men raced up the stairs. They had heard the shooting and the explosions and they were ready to kill anything with a pulse. The lead scout saw two shadowy figures at the third floor landing and opened fire with his Schmessier. Zorn knocked the man’s barrel to the side and the bullets veered off target and drilled a neat set of holes into the wall. “You stupid bastard, they’re paras!” He shouted angrily in the shooter’s ear.
    “Kamerad!” One of the paras shouted.
    The two paras slowly limped down the stairs with one supporting the other. They were covered in blood and the crippled one was obviously badly wounded.
    Zorn stepped to the side as the two paras limped by. “Are you boys alright?” He asked, tenderly placing a hand on the shoulder of the walking man.
    The para tapped the side of his head with the palm of his right hand and shook his