Chapter 15

Holland.

Sunday, December 7, 1941
Japan attacks the United States by bombing Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.
Reported by the New York Times, December 8, 1941.
Japan declares a state of war with the United States and Great
Britain.

Monday, December 8, 1941
Britain declares war against Japan.
United States declares a state of war with Japan by joint resolution.

Japan invades Thailand.

Mexico, Colombia, Belgium, and Egypt sever diplomatic relations with Japan.

December 9
Declarations of war against Japan announced by Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and China.

December 11
Germany and Italy declare a state of war with the United States. The United States declares that a state of war exists with Germany and Italy.

In the days following the bombing of Pearl Harbour: Cuba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, the Free French, Mexico, Poland, and Panama declare war against Japan, Germany, and Italy.

Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria declare a state of war against the United States and the United Kingdom.

The noise of pots banging in the kitchen awakened Gerry. He remembered falling asleep on the dining-room floor of Dieter Schmidt's farm with his arms around Karla. Half awake he felt for her but her sleeping bag had been removed and he reasoned that she was in the kitchen with Freda preparing breakfast.

He looked around from his sleeping bag on the floor; most people were still asleep including Manfred who was on the other side of the room. Quickly he crawled from under the table and roughly folding his sleeping bag, he placed it near the back door. He shook Manfred who was quickly on his feet.

"Give me your sleeping bag and I'll put them both in the car," Gerry said.

He opened the back door; snow was piled against the door and along the back wall. It was still lightly snowing and the cold wind bit into him as he trotted quickly to the barn. Inside the barn, out of the wind, he felt warmer. He packed the sleeping bags into the back of the car and taking a towel from his backpack, he walked to a water trough on the sidewall. He screwed one end of the towel into a rough point, dabbed it into the water, and was surprised when it remained dry.

A thin skin of ice covered the water which he cracked open with his fist. He sponged the sleep from his eyes and washed his ears, the cold causing his teeth to chatter. He dropped his trousers and tried to warm the moist towel with his hands, and then he sponged himself clean removing the traces of last nights encounter with Karla. The cold towel seemed to burn him and he knew that he should dress quickly before he became frostbitten.

Back inside the house, breakfast of chunks of bread, cheese, and sausage were arrayed on platters on the table and a large coffee pot sat on a candle warmer.

Karla saw him returning from the barn and taking a plate, she gathered up food for him.

"Manfred tells me that you're only nineteen," Karla said smiling.

"Yes, I'm nineteen, and you're thirty."

"I'm sorry I behaved badly last night. I have many problems and maybe I've become a bit neurotic."

"You don't need to tell me this. I think that you're a beautiful woman. Somewhat unusual perhaps but that's what I find attractive."

"Is that a compliment?"

He pulled her closer and was about to kiss her when he realised that they had an audience. He eased her away and filled his mouth with food all the while locking eyes with her.

"God, you're such a fascinating man. And so young too."

Their attention was drawn to a tall stout Dutchman who was loudly clearing his throat, "When you've finished eating I want all of you to proceed to the barn so that we can get organised and finalise our plans for tonight."

Twenty minutes later, they were in the barn, standing on the earthen floor or sitting on bales of hay listening to the stout Dutchman who had identified himself as Wim de Vries.

The smells of the barn, the hay, and the smells of animal manure and urine from the pigs and the cows penned in stalls at the far end of the barn were now very familiar to Gerry. 'My place of work, ' he thought fleetingly as he focussed on Wim.

"First here is my understanding of how we will be working together, our French friends are the core group who will be responsible for placing the explosives in vital places where they will cause the most destruction."

A Frenchman tapped Wim on the arm and in French asked him to interpret what he had just said, and then he continued in German.

"Manfred and his men are our rearguard and will be responsible for ensuring that we can get away safely after the explosives have been placed. They will be detonated by timers and because of the magnitude of the explosion we need to be at least one to two kilometres away from the refinery when they time out."

He translated to the Frenchmen who started smiling and nodding.

"Our unit is responsible for establishing entry to the refinery. It's Karla task to enter the stormwater tunnel and to determine that the Frenchmen can exit from it through a hatch that we know originally existed. She's small but strong and will initially have to navigate about seven hundred metres of tunnel before she gets to the hatch. We've estimated that it will take about thirty minutes for her to find the hatch and explore the immediate surroundings and return to us so we can escort our French unit inside the refinery," Wim said.

"What if she doesn't find the hatch," Gerry asked.

"We've studied the original plans and we're reasonably certain that the position of the hatch hasn't changed. But there are many drains with grated covers that we'll use if necessary. The hatch is a service entry and is located between two major holding tanks. We want to use it if we can because it gives us more cover than a drain opening will."

Wim used his heel to draw a map on the earthen floor of the barn, showing the river headland on which the refinery stood. He scratched north in the earth to orient the headland that pointed due west. Then at the neck of the headland he crudely marked the effluent outlet and close to it, the stormwater tunnel.

"Our calculations, after we discussed this with our French experts, means that we will have about fifteen minutes after we return through the stormwater tunnel to get to our base camp, get into our cars, and drive at least a kilometre away," Wim said.

Manfred stood and walked to the crude map on the ground, "That means that the base camp should be about four hundred metres away from the stormwater tunnel and upstream from the refinery. We'll be taking four cars with us. And that means three people per car..."

"I agree so far Manfred," Wim interrupted, "we have six cars in the barn and that means we need a place to rendezvous so that we can use our own cars to journey back home. We can't return here and risk Dieter and Frieda's life."

Manfred continued, "I had roughly planned on that and the other cars will be driven to this point here three kilometres further upstream where the river bends sharply. We drive away from the refinery, collect our own cars, and go our separate ways."

"On the way here I surveyed this area and there's a sparse stand of trees at that point in the river; it will help us hide the cars. We have a problem with the access roads. They're bush trails and with the amount of snow on the ground it's going to be tough to find our way," Wim added.

"I had a close look at that on the maps, When we leave you must keep driving south to south west, you'll quickly find your way onto usable roads. There's one irrigation canal that you'll have to go around if you stay too close to the river but that's the only obstacle," Manfred said.

"The quicker we disperse from that point the safer we'll be. After the Dutch and French units clear the immediate area, we'll be travelling southeast, and we expect to cross the border into Holland near Nordhorn or further south, we won't be driving in convoy. Let me translate that," Wim said turning to the Frenchmen.

Gerry saw that everyone was closely following the discussions and when Wim had finished his translation, the Frenchmen were nodding and animatedly talking about the plan.

Manfred went to his car, took the four cartons of mines, and passed them to Wim and the Frenchmen. He squatted with them as they examined them.

"They know this mine, they've used them before," Wim said to Manfred.

"The impact grenades won't be of any use to them inside the refinery, unless they want to commit suicide, but you might want to use them as you exit the tunnel. It will buy us more time to escape," Manfred said.

It stopped snowing late in the afternoon. Manfred had hoped that it would continue and so hide their tracks when they were near the refinery.

Freda had prepared a substantial meal of stewed beef and butter sautéed vegetables. Everyone ate heartily, despite their anxiety; most of them knew that their next meal might be more than a day away.

After eating Manfred took Chris, Otto, and Gerry aside, "Otto, I want you to take the caltrops with you and deploy them if we're followed when we leave the refinery. That means I want you to drive the last car as we evacuate from the refinery. Gerry I want you to man the portable communications set, you'll be driving our car, Chris you'll drive your own car and I'll drive Wim's car."

"I need to tune the transmitter, I don't want to be trying to get it on frequency when we're moving around the refinery." Gerry said. The communications set was their lifeline, a link back to Richard's house should they encounter unforeseen circumstances. At the very least, they could enlist Alex or Anna to come to their aid with transport.

In the barn, he switched on the communications set and idly tuned across the dial waiting for it to warm up and stabilise.

When he tuned across a strong station he listened before moving on to the next station. He fine-tuned the strong signal and the music that was playing suddenly stopped.

"This is the BBC news. The time is 1800 hours, Greenwich Mean Time. Japanese aircraft have attacked Pearl Harbour in Hawaii today killing hundreds of service personnel and civilians and sinking many American warships. A joint American communiqué has been issued declaring a state of war on Japan." The newsreader spoke slowly with no hint of emotion and this allowed Gerry with his limited knowledge of English to follow him. "A news release just to hand states that Germany has just declared war on the United States."

Gerry left the set switched on and raced back to the house, "Germany has just declared war on the United States and Japanese aircraft have attacked Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, killing many American serviceman and civilians and destroying many warships," Gerry yelled loudly.

Everyone in the room went quiet the only voice was Wim's who was excitedly translating the news to the Frenchmen.

Gerry raced back to the barn followed by the rest of the raiding party. They continued to listen for a few minutes until the announcer began talking nonsense.

"They're coded messages for the resistance in France and Belgium," Wim explained as people left the barn and hurried back to the house.

Gerry tuned the transmitter to the three-megahertz band and listened.

It was then that he remembered that he had promised to communicate with Anna at 2100 last night.

He was about to transmit 'ANNA' because he knew that he would not get an opportunity later tonight. He decided against it as it was only 1800 hours and he knew that Anna would not hear it.

He tuned the receiver across the bands, hearing many distant broadcasts about the bombing of Pearl harbour and Germany's declaration of war on the United States.

He switched the set off and packed it securely in the trunk.

He was thinking of Anna and his wild time with Karla, slowly he realised that he didn't love Anna. She was his most intimate friend and confidante but he could not visualise being with her for the rest of his life.

'I just don't feel the excitement that I had with Lien, ' he thought sadly.

He quickly dismissed these thoughts from his mind deciding that he was not sure of anything anymore as, dejected, he trudged slowly back to the house.

Inside the house, there were many conversations, all excitedly discussing the changes to the war and what it might mean for all of them.

Gerry was tying the white tarpaulin over their car.

Karla moved close to Gerry and whispered, "Would you kiss me?"

He looked around and saw most of the men moving away towards the refinery.

He took Karla by the shoulders, pulled her roughly against his chest, and mashed his mouth against hers. She dropped her torch and her pistol, threw her arms around his neck, and continued kissing him with abandon. She drew back from him and recovering her torch and pistol, she ran towards the refinery, disappearing into the darkness ahead.

Gerry finished tying the white tarpaulin to the wheel spokes, and then hid the tyres by kicking snow against them.

He picked up his submachine gun where he had leaned it against the car, pulled his white cape over the machine gun, tapping his coat pocket he was reassured that his pistol was still there, then he pulled the hood of his poncho over his head.

Moving stealthily, he caught up with Manfred and Otto. Chris was further away and most of the others could not be seen, their white capes and hoods blending them with the snow.

Manfred caught up with Chris, "This is as close as we should go, we need to watch from here and provide support if they need it when they return."

They sat on their haunches, preparing for a long wait. The wind blew a little stronger from the north and the snow seemed thicker as it slanted into their faces. They turned side on to the wind and faced the river. Occasionally, one of them would stand and stamp his feet, trying to kick some feeling back into their feet. Despite their heavy clothing, heavy boots and thick socks the cold penetrated to the skin. It was more comfortable to huddle down with the edge of their capes trailing in the snow keeping the wind at bay.

An hour later, "They should be back soon," Manfred said impatiently to the others.

"They'll need another thirty minutes at least," Otto said.

Fifteen minutes later, it stopped snowing and the wind abated.

Twenty minutes later, in the cold, quiet air they heard the sharp report of a rifle shot.

A siren started wailing deep inside the refinery. It usually warned the staff and workers that there had been an accident.

Halfway up the tall fractional distilling tower the steel ladder that ran up the side of the tower, terminated onto a landing. Two refinery workers were manning a searchlight mounted on the landing. Its beam pierced the darkness roving over the refinery looking for the problem.

Manfred leaned to Chris and Gerry, "Give me your car keys."

"Go and warm the cars up," Manfred said as he passed the keys to Otto.

They heard more rifle shots and they thought that they heard return fire as Otto departed for the cars.

Otto quickly pulled the tarpaulins from the cars, leaving them where they fell beside the cars. With the cars started, he returned to Chris's car and pulled a bag of caltrops and six impact grenades, from the trunk. In the drivers' seat, he placed the bag on the bench seat beside him, and then he sat and waited for the men to return.

In the distance, he heard more rifle fire and thought anxiously about the dangers of rifle fire. 'Rifle fire inside a refinery is... ' his attention was diverted when the sky lit up.

A small tank hit by rifle fire exploded, the ball of fire climbed rapidly to five hundred metres, the noise of the explosion was deafening, and Gerry, Manfred and Chris felt the shockwave and the heat front as it travelled over them.

Shocked and reacting instinctively they ploughed headfirst into the snow.

The flames were reaching high into the atmosphere as Gerry recovered and looking in the direction of the refinery, he could see flames reaching from the ground to high in the night sky. He saw the silhouettes of some of the raiding party emerging from the storm water tunnel; he saw one of them turning and throwing an impact grenade into the tunnel and as it exploded he hunched up. He threw another into the tunnel and ran to the person he had been assisting.

Manfred and Gerry ran towards them and as they drew closer, he saw that it was Wim assisting Karla. She had been shot through the arm, the bullet emerging through her shoulder. As he drew closer Wim yelled, "It's going to blow any minute. Get out of here, quick!"

"Where are the others?" Manfred yelled.

"Only one Frenchman survived and two of us..."

Gerry ran to Wim wanting to assist him, he was half dragging Karla through the snow. Manfred hurriedly led the remaining Frenchman in the direction of the cars.

When Gerry was forty metres from Wim, he heard a series of small explosions; the sound of the mines exploding against the large holding tanks.

And when he was twenty metres from Wim, the main holding tanks of the refinery exploded.

The fireball rose to a thousand metres, the shock wave, and the searing heat front toppled Wim and Karla face first into the snow. Gerry fell backwards as the explosive shock wave hit him. He turned his face into the snow and felt the texture of the snow's surface changing as the intense heat radiated down.

As Gerry rolled onto his side, he heard motorcycles, their sirens blaring as they emerged from the refinery entrance five hundred metres away. The wind blew soot-laden smoke across them and Gerry felt relieved as the motorcycles disappeared into the dense smoke.

Raising his head from the snow he saw Wim looking around wildly, he was in a confused state, and his whole body seemed to be shaking, disoriented he stood and ran blindly toward the cars.

Gerry grabbed Karla around the waist and set her on her feet.

"We have to move quickly can you do it?" Gerry asked.

"I'll try," she said weakly.

He ran with her, sideways away from the cars to a stand of trees knowing that Karla was now incapable of making it to the cars. The smoke was causing them breathing difficulties and they were coughing as they ran to the trees. They stopped at a drift of snow on the southern side of the trees. Quickly he scraped a channel and placed Karla deep inside it, he pulled her cape over her legs and pushed snow over her up to her shoulders.

A hundred metres away, he saw Wim and further away the tail end of the raiding party running towards the cars as he scraped a deep trench beside her and then he sat, placing his submachine gun on his lap, he covered himself with snow.

"Please be quiet, no matter how much you hurt don't make a sound."

He could see the pain she was suffering as she screwed her face up, "I know what to do. Thanks for helping me."

Another explosion from the refinery lit the scenery around them. The motorcycles came closer but in the snow, they were travelling slowly. Gerry felt relieved when he heard the cars roaring away and the motorcycles changed direction to follow them. They passed Gerry and Karla further south and minutes later they heard continuous rifle fire and the returning fire from submachine guns.

Many minutes later, he wasn't sure how long because he was becoming drowsy with the cold; he heard some of the motorcycles returning to the refinery.

Quickly he hauled Karla from the snowdrift and slowly they started walking south.

"Where are we going?" she asked, her teeth chattering.

"I thought that we should try and make it to the rendezvous site. Do you think you can make it?"

"I'll make it!" she said with determination but she was clenching her teeth in pain.

Karla was close to losing consciousness; he picked her up with her right shoulder facing forward, his submachine gun slung over his shoulder. He staggered through the snow, reaching the rendezvous but the cars had departed and Gerry was angry that they had been abandoned. He lowered Karla onto her feet.

"What are we going to do?"

Karla's pain and the loss of blood were causing her body to shake with shock.

"We wait here. Someone will come back for us," he said more to comfort her; he knew that it was unlikely that someone would double back for them but he needed time to think.

He led her to a tree growing over a flat rock. It gave them a seat to rest on. When he settled her down with her back against the tree, he smiled at her.

"I'm going to open the front of your cape then I'll put mine on you, it's just like our sleeping bags we'll be warmer under two capes," he chuckled trying to buoy her.

Huddled together they were warmer and Karla seemed better when her shaking and shivering had stopped.

Twenty minutes later they heard a car approaching. He heard Karla's frightened, sharp intake of air but in their cold fatigued state, they were unable to run and hide so they sat and waited.

From the eastern side of the stand of trees a car turned in to the clearing. The engine stopped and the stout figure of Wim de Vries emerged from the car, his left arm hanging oddly at his side.

"Wim here, over here," Gerry shouted.

"Can you walk to the car?" Gerry asked Karla.

She stood and unsteadily she walked with Gerry's assistance to the car.

"Your arm is covered in blood, Wim," Gerry said as he opened the rear door and helped Karla into the car.

"What happened?"

"I was trying to fire at a motorcycle and sidecar that had overtaken me. I gripped the steering wheel with my left hand and with my pistol in my right hand across my body I aimed out of the window. As I squeezed the trigger I ran over a fallen branch hidden in the snow, the car jumped up and I shot myself. The motorcycle and sidecar hit the larger end of the same branch as they were firing at me. The two of them were flung into the air. I didn't stop to see how they were," he said as he laughed sarcastically.