The captain shrugged irritably. “We can load them on the wagon and take them with us, if you insist. Quickly-we have only two hours of daylight left.”
Now that he was closer, Anse could see the children were both boys, about five or six years old. He called to Rau, who was still mounted. “Jochen, ride ahead and see if there are any refugees on the road. These boys have gotten lost from their family.”
“Nein,” Wili called, “they live over there.” He pointed toward a path that could barely be seen joining the road, about a half mile down. “They say men come and hurt their Grossvater this morning. They ran off.”
“Jochen, check it out quietly,” Anse ordered. Rau dismounted and headed for the woods beside the road.
Wili and Gaylynn had managed to get the boys to the wagon when Rau returned. “It looks like there are eight of them, all on foot, in a charcoal burner’s cabin. They left the old man tied to a tree outside. He looks dead. They have two men keeping watch in front of the house and the rest are in the house.”
Before Anse could say anything, von Dantz spoke up. “If you will permit me to make a suggestion”-the words practically dripped sarcasm-“I think we should leave Frau Reardon and Fraulein Murphy here to watch the boys and the wagon. Private Schultz will take my spare horse, and we will ride to the house and demand to know what these men are doing.”
Anse was not surprised by the captain’s “plan.” He didn’t doubt the man’s courage, but he had about as few brains as a rabbit.
“Well, that might work, but Wili doesn’t ride. And if the bandits decide to make a fight of it, we’ll be out in the open with no cover.”
“Herr Hatfield, these are bandits, not trained troops.”
In Anse’s experience, the distinction in the seventeenth century between “bandits” and “trained troops” was a lot fuzzier than von Dantz made it out to be. “It never hurts to have an edge, Captain. Jochen, Wili and I will sneak up on the house through the woods. Then you and Lt. Ivarsson ride in with the wagon, with Gaylynn driving, to where the path from the house comes to the road before you ride up to the house. Noelle and the boys can stay in the wagon bed, where they’ll have some shelter if the stuff hits the fan. Gaylynn can cover the front of the house and give you some support. The three of us in hiding can give the bandits a nasty surprise if they try to attack you. And it gives us six guns instead of four.”
After a moment, von Dantz nodded. “Do not fire until we arrive.”
“Give us ten minutes to get in position.” Anse handed the captain his pocket watch.
Rau went to the rear of the wagon and started digging in his pack. Anse was not surprised to see him pull out two hand grenades. Rau had developed a positive love for grenades since he discovered you could fish with them.
As the three entered the woods, Anse asked, “How are you going to light those?”
Rau held up a Zippo lighter. “Chief Schwartz gave it to me. He likes fish.”
When they arrived at the house, it was much like Rau had described it: a simple one-room structure with one door and only two windows, one on each side. Not much more than a big hut, really. Definitely a charcoal-burner’s place, from the nature of the tools scattered around.
The window panes appeared to be made from thin leather and were partially open. There were two out-buildings, a simple privy and a small shed. The shed, which was open on the front, was the home of a large donkey, which was inside. The privy was on the opposite side of the house from the shed and looked in need of repair. From the woods they could see the body of an old man tied to a tree close to the shed. Two bandits were standing guard outside the front door to the house.
While they were still some distance away, Anse laid out his plan. “Jochen, work your way up to the far side of the house. If they start shooting, toss a grenade through the window. Wili, you and me will crawl up on the near side. You take the window and after the grenade goes, off bust open the window and cover the inside of the house. I’ll move on to the corner and take the two men out front. Understood?”
When the two others nodded, Anse continued. “Now don’t do anything until someone takes a shot at the captain. They might surrender.” From the looks on Wili and Jochen’s faces, they doubted that as much as Anse did.
Everything went as planned, up to a point. Anse and Wili had just gotten into position on either side of the window when they heard a shot from the other side of the house. That shot was followed by two more, and then some shouting.
“Wili, watch the window. Don’t fire until I do.”
Anse stepped to the corner of the house. A quick glance around it made immediately clear what had happened. Of the two men who had been watching the front of the house, one had gone to the privy. Either going to or coming back, he had seen Jochen near the house and taken a shot at him. He’d missed, Jochen hadn’t, and the man was down near the privy. His partner was kneeling by the door of the house readying his match lock and yelling at the top of his lungs.
Anse stepped out and called, “Throw down your gun. Geben oben.” Either the man didn’t want to give up or Anse’s German wasn’t understandable, because he turned and raised his weapon. Before he could get it halfway up, he took two twenty gauge slugs in the chest. He was wearing a breast plate, but at a range of less than six feet it made very little difference.
As Anse shifted his aim to cover the door he heard the familiar clackity-boom that told him Wili was unloading his shotgun through the window. Jochen’s warning call of “Grenade!” was almost covered up by the sound of Anse’s shotgun taking out a man trying to flee the pocket hell that Wili had made of the inside of the house.
After the grenade exploded, there was nothing but silence.
When his ears quit ringing, Anse called out, “Wili, Jochen! Are you all right?”
“Ja,” the two responded, almost in unison.
Captain von Dantz and Lieutenant Ivarsson were coming at a gallop. The two were just turning off the road. Gaylynn was close behind, driving the wagon.
“Herr Hatfield, I told you to wait!” were the first words out of the captain’s mouth, as he slid from his horse. “We needed prisoners to question, not just bodies.”
Just then a shot rang out from inside the house. The bullet made a wheeting sound as it passed between Anse and the captain. Anse and the captain both turned and fired at almost the same time. The wounded man standing in the doorway of the house, trying to reload his pistol, was driven back inside by the force of both shots hitting him dead center.
“Sorry, Captain, but I don’t think they want to surrender.”
“It seems not. So be it, then.” He drew his sword and stepped toward the house.
Seeing the captain about to enter with only his sword as a weapon, Anse said. “Wait a second, captain. Take my shotgun. Just point it and pull the trigger. There’s still two shells in it.”
Von Dantz took the shotgun. Anse drew his pistol and the two moved to the door. Once they looked through the door, however, it was obvious that the shooting was over. The bodies of the bandits were scattered around the one room of the house. Wili and Jochen were looking through the two windows of the house, their guns pointing inside, but nothing was moving.
“Lieutenant Ivarsson,” the captain called. “If you and Herr Hatfield’s men can clean the bodies out of the house, we can get the women and the boys out of the weather. We will have to camp here tonight.”
Anse rolled his eyes. It was typical of the captain, that he didn’t give a thought to the reaction of the two boys or the women-or the men, for that matter-at the prospect of spending the night in a cabin that was splattered all over with blood and gore. Jochen’s grenade had practically shredded at least one of the bandits.
“I think not, Captain,” he said firmly. “As I told you, we have perfectly serviceable tents with us.” Jabbing a finger at the inside of the cabin, he added: “That’s a charnel house in there. Even in winter, the stench will be unbearable.”
Fortunately, von Dantz didn’t argue the matter. He simply stalked off, in a huff.
Lieutenant Ivarsson came up.
“Herr Hatfield, I think we should dig a grave for the old man. But what do you want to do with the bandits?”
Anse made a face. “Well, I’m damned if I feel like digging any bigger hole than we need to, in this frozen ground.”
The big Swedish lieutenant smiled coldly. “Why bother?” He nodded toward the privy. “There is already a big hole dug under that. For such as these, a fitting resting place.”
Anse smiled back, just as coldly. The idea was certainly tempting, but . . .
Leaving aside everything else, a poor charcoal-burner’s privy in the rocky soil of the Thueringerwald probably wouldn’t be big enough to hold all the corpses.
“No, we’ll give them a grave.”
* * *
Wili and Jochen took turns and soon had the shallow graves dug, while Anse and Ivarsson gathered some rocks to cover them. Once they realized that the bedrock was less than a foot below the surface, they ended up piling the rocks into cairns. A respectable one, near the house, over the old man’s body; a make-shift one, a bit further off, for the corpses of the bandits. Meanwhile, in a small clearing a quarter of a mile down the road, Gaylynn and Noelle set up the tents.
Once the old man’s grave was ready, Anse went over to the campsite. “Gaylynn, do you want to bring the boys out to say goodbye to their grandfather?”
Somewhat dubiously, she looked at the tent where Noelle was keeping the children.