Hell Harbor Read online

  She removed her hat. “It’s so squalid.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What would you know? You were on your way to Countess Lulu’s.”

  “Countess Lulu’s is supposed to be a first-class joint.”

  “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been there.”

  “I should hope not.” Unknotting his tie, he walked to the window and pulled the shade. “That’s better.”

  She unbuttoned her jacket. “Well, at least it’s a cheaper deal for you here.”

  Frowning, he moved toward her and held her shoulders. “I realize this isn’t much, Shirley, but let’s make the most of it.”

  She looked into his eyes. “But it’s all so ... so sordid in a way, do you know what I mean?”

  “I know it’s not the bridal suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, but the bridal suite at the Waldorf-Astoria never had a bride more beautiful than you.”

  She closed her eyes and kissed his throat. “That was so nice, Mahoney.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “I’m sure the bridal suite at the Waldorf-Astoria never had a groom more gallant than you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said, kissing her forehead.

  “I’m absolutely convinced of it. In fact I’m very happy to be here with you, and I mean it.”

  “I’m glad, because I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs with you during the past few hours.”

  “I’m sorry. Sometimes I get confused.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Put out the light, will you, Mahoney?”

  “Sure.”

  He walked in long strides to the lamp and clicked it off, plunging the room into darkness. His eyes adjusted as he peeled off his shirt, and in the light of the streetlamp he could see Shirley folding her service blouse over a chair. Her skin was white and ghostly, and her face like a marble statue. She stepped out of her skirt and she had a lovely figure in her bra and underpants, with larger breasts than he’d thought. With trembling hands he tore off the clothes he’d stolen, and then his pajamas. She was unhooking her brassiere when he moved to her, touching her shoulders with his hands, and kissing her forehead. She removed the brassiere and pressed against him, and he thrilled at the touch of her nipples against his chest.

  She was soft and warm, yet firm and strong. They found each other’s lips and feasted hungrily. He ran the palms of his hands down her body and gripped the round cheeks of her rump, and she pressed her belly against his big throbbing erection.

  “You’re such a big man,” she whispered into his ear.

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  Awkward and a little embarrassed, she took the few steps across the floor to the bed, got into it, and lay on her back. Naked, he lay on top of her, an artery in his neck throbbing, his heart beating like a tom-tom. He wrapped his arms around her, and she seemed so frail underneath him. He kissed her hairline, her cheek, and her lips. His head was spinning and he wished he had more lips and more hands, because he wanted to do everything, and all at once. He licked her tongue, then kissed her neck and soft white throat. Moving lower, he kissed the warm place between her breasts, and then moved to her nipple, taking it into his mouth and sucking it as she sighed and moved her head from side to side on the pillow. He sucked her other breast, then put both nipples into his mouth and slavered them with his tongue. Her chest heaved and her stomach quivered. He rolled off her and pulled down her underpants; she raised her legs to help him get them off.

  Now she was naked, and so was he. He kissed her again and extended his tongue into her mouth, slurping her up, while burrowing his fingers into the slippery place between her legs. She undulated like the waves of an ocean and he inserted his finger inside, feeling the little fleshy pebbles in her most hidden place. She bit his cheek and then his ear. Her fingernails dug into his shoulder, and she murmured, “Oh my God I can’t believe it.”

  He rolled on top of her and she spread her legs. He took his dick in hand and moved it toward her valley of dreams, but she whispered wait a minute, and touched it with her hand, running her fingers over its tender head, and he thought he’d faint from the gloriousness of it all. Then she took her hand away and he sank it in slowly, savoring every inch of penetration, and whispering into her ear that he loved her.

  She wrapped her long legs around his hips, and he started to work her slowly, because he wanted it to last. She bit his chin gently and made growling feminine sounds in her throat, and he held her cute ass, pushing in and pulling out of her juicy goodness. She scratched her fingernails across his back, but he didn’t mind. He wouldn’t care if she ripped him apart, as long as she let him continue to do what he was doing.

  He moved up her body so the top of his dick ran across her little jellybean whenever he moved in or out. Her eyes rolled into her head when he made contact and she said, “you’re going to kill me.” He replied that he had no such intention.

  They held each other tightly and humped like wild animals. Their gasps and moans echoed around the little room, merging with the sound of an occasional vehicle outside, and a drunken GI strolled past singing:

  Would you like to swing on a star Carry moonbeams home in a jar?

  Mahoney felt himself coming. He wanted to hold it off for a while longer, but he was on fire and far beyond any hope of self-control. It began as a tickle somewhere down in his soul and the movement of his hips became erratic as he raised his face from her neck.

  “Don’t come inside me!” she whispered frantically.

  He yanked it out and she seemed to deflate like a balloon that had been punctured. Dropping onto her, he laid it on her stomach and exploded hot cream all over her. She hugged him tightly against her and they screwed that way as his dam burst again and again, and he wished he’d worn a rubber so he could have come inside her, but no, doing it with a rubber was like washing your feet with your socks on, and he’d wanted to feel her, know her, and love her without anything between them.

  “I think I’m going to drown,” she said, breathing heavily. “My period will be here in just a few days. I probably can’t get pregnant now anyway.”

  “This is a helluva time to tell me that.”

  “I just thought of it.” She pinched his ass. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly a few moments ago.”

  He rolled onto his side, and she touched his dick. It still was hard as a rock.

  “Gee,” she said, “most men get soft after they have an orgasm, but you don’t. You’re really special, Mahoney, you know that?”

  “I’m just an ordinary dogface, baby.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re really not.” She sucked in air through her clenched teeth as she caressed his dick and jerked him off a little. “It feels so good. Let’s do it some more.”

  “Take your hand away.”

  “I can’t.”

  “We can’t do it anymore if you don’t take your hand away.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  She took her hand away and he crawled on top of her, jabbing his dick in again. Sighing, her eyes rolling back into her head, she spread her legs wantonly and worked her hips, while he pumped her and thought of how demure she’d been when they were riding in the bus, and what a passionate little devil she was now. He’d never have guessed it, and he imagined it was that way with most women: they were quite ordinary when you saw them on the street, and you’d never dream that when they were in bed they fucked like wildcats.

  He positioned himself again so that his dick rubbed her jellybean, because he knew that’s the way women liked it best.

  “Oh,” she said, nibbling his lips.

  He moved faster and held her ass for leverage. Her head fell back and she looked up at him, her face contorted in the light of the streetlamp.

  “OH!” she said again.

  He knew he had her coming now, and he loved to make women come. They went out of their minds and lost control of themselves completely, scratching and biting, with all their fancy hoity-toi
ty manners on the floor with their clothes.

  “OH!”

  She kicked her legs in the air and bucked like a bronco. Mahoney wrapped one arm around her shoulders, cradled her fanny with his other arm, and fucked her with a vengeance.

  “OH-OH-OH-OH ...”

  She dug her fingernails into his back and he almost cried out in pain as he kept working her. She pinched her lips together and tried to stop from screaming, but sound erupted anyway as the big electrical current was switched on inside her. She went into sexual convulsions, gasping for air and shaking her ass, and it was so wild that Mahoney felt himself coming again. His dick blasted loose inside her and she writhed and moaned like a forest beast as she reached around and grabbed his hairy ass, sinking her fingernails into it, the bed bouncing up and down so furiously Mahoney thought it might collapse.

  He squirted into her again and again, and she clutched his ass as though she wanted to stuff his entire body into the slit between her legs. He kept humping her until he became dry, but still he kept going. Their movements slowed down and their chests heaved. Finally they lay motionless, he still inside her.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, looking down at her shadowy face.

  “I should feel awful, but I don’t,” she said. “I must be getting jaded.”

  “I don’t know that much about your love life, dearie, so I couldn’t say.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think I’m getting jaded. I really don’t do it that much.”

  “How often do you do it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe one night like this every two or three months.”

  “That’s not much.”

  She dug her knuckles into his ribs. “Maybe it’s not much to you, Mahoney, but it’s a lot to me.”

  “I’m going to get a cigarette,” he said.

  He crossed the room and picked up his jacket. Taking out a package of cigarettes and a book of matches, he returned to the bed and lit one up, dropping the match into the ashtray beside him. He lay on his back with his head on the pillow and she snuggled against him kissing his shoulder.

  “What’s this?” she asked, touching a scar.

  “There’s where a bullet went in.”

  “You poor bastard, Mahoney.”

  “Nobody who’s ever been to bed with you can be called a poor bastard.”

  She kissed the scar. “You always say the right thing.”

  He puffed the cigarette and looked at the ceiling. It was hard for him to believe there was a war going on out there.

  Chapter Six

  A German platoon advanced cautiously up the street of a small coastal village several miles to the northwest of St. Mere Eglise. They were part of an engineer battalion attacking the village and making good progress against a numerically inferior and exhausted American force.

  The platoon leader was Lieutenant Rudolf Schmidt, a stocky black-haired officer who held an engineering degree from the University of Breslau. He excelled at leading troops in demolitions, building bridges, and laying mine fields, and was a good engineering officer, but actual combat was not his forte, and he proceeded with his platoon down the street cautiously, perhaps too cautiously, because troops moving slowly make good targets.

  His platoon turned a corner, looking into the windows of houses for any movement that would indicate the presence of the enemy. Lieutenant Schmidt motioned with his arms for his platoon to spread out, so that one hand grenade or mortar shell wouldn’t kill them all at once. Hunched over, his rifle in his hands and his brown eyes scrutinizing everything, he led his platoon into the new street, poised to move for cover at the first sign of danger.

  He heard the report of a rifle, and a bullet whistled past his ear, striking a soldier behind him.

  ‘Take cover!” Lieutenant Schmidt screamed.

  His soldiers dashed into doorways and behind trees as a barrage of rifle fire erupted in their midst. Schmidt dropped to his belly behind a lamp post and looked around it to see where the fire was coming from. He saw puffs of smoke erupting from a house down the street, and he’d received enough infantry training to realize that the only thing to do was attack.

  He shouted to his squad sergeants and told them what to do. One would take his squad around and attack the house from the rear. Another would attack the house from the right flank. He would lead the remaining two squads on a frontal rush. They’d stay in touch through their field radios, and the two sergeants would notify Schmidt when they were in position.

  Schmidt and his two squads poured fire into the house as the other two squads moved out. He saw one American soldier try to fire back, and the American’s face was ripped apart by bullets as he fell back out of sight. Schmidt saw his two enveloping squads jumping fences and running into alleys and they moved to their positions. In the middle of the street he saw the soldier who’d been hit by the first shot; he was moaning softly but not moving a muscle.

  The calls from the two sergeants came in over the field radio, and Schmidt’s runner reported that they were in position. There was nothing further to wait for, so Schmidt told his runner to order them to attack. Then he raised his rifle in the air and told the two squads with him to charge the house. He scrambled to his feet and led the charge, firing as he went, because junior officers in the German Army were trained to take the initiative and get in front of an attack where their troops could see them.

  Unfortunately, that made him a prime target for the Americans, so his mouth was dry and his teeth chewed the flesh inside his mouth. He ran down the street toward the house. He heard fire coming from the rear and right flank of the house, and American heads appeared in two of the windows but promptly were shot by Schmidt’s advancing squads. Sergeant Hettel darted forward on the right side of the skirmish line and hurled a hand grenade through one of the house’s windows. It exploded and Schmidt lobbed a grenade at the front door, falling to the pavement as it blew apart.

  “CHARGE!” Schmidt yelled.

  He ran through the door and was the first one in the house. An American soldier was huddled behind a table and fired his Colt .45, but the bullet went wide of Schmidt, who fired his rifle from the hip, shooting away the soldier’s jaw. Sergeant Hettel shot down another American soldier by the fireplace, and someone else shot an American behind a wooden chair that really furnished no protection at all.

  Schmidt heard his other squads enter the house from their various angles, and could hear shots and explosions. His men poured into the rooms and corridors adjacent to the room he was in, and he walked cautiously, his rifle at the ready, toward the American he’d shot behind the table, because he thought he’d seen the insignia of an officer on his collar.

  Schmidt moved behind the table and saw the American soldier lying on his side. Sure enough, there was a silver bar of a first lieutenant on his shoulder, and his blond hair was stained by the widening pool of blood that he was lying in. Schmidt stepped closer and saw that the first lieutenant was about his age and looked more like an Aryan German than he himself.

  Then he noticed the leather briefcase lying beside the first lieutenant. Bending to pick it up, he opened the flap and saw a sheaf of papers inside. Taking them out of the briefcase, he noticed that the front page had a military insignia on top and the words: HEADQUARTERS U.S. SEVENTH CORPS

  Schmidt couldn’t read English, but he thought the papers might be important. The first lieutenant might have been a staff courier of some kind who’d happened to be in the village when the surprise attack from Schmidt’s engineer battalion had taken place. Yet on the other hand, maybe the papers weren’t important at all, because surely the first lieutenant would have tried to destroy them. But maybe he hadn’t had time. Maybe he’d thought he could get away.

  The squad sergeant reported to Schmidt, smiling because they’d taken the house with no casualties except for the soldier who’d been wounded in the street. Schmidt told one of the sergeants to have the man evacuated to a field hospital, and the sergeant issued the appropriate
orders to two of his privates. Schmidt told the senior sergeant to take command of the platoon. “I have to take this to battalion headquarters,” he explained, holding the briefcase in the air.

  Chapter Seven

  “Mein Fuehrer!” said Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as he entered Adolf Hitler’s office at Berchtes-gaden, “I have good news!”

  Hitler’s heavy-lidded eyes looked at his top military commander. Could it be that through some miracle the allied armies suddenly had been thrown into the sea? “What is it!”

  Keitel was a tall, elegant man with a gray mustache. He advanced to Hitler’s desk and took a handful of papers out of his briefcase. “This!”

  Hitler furrowed his brow as he looked at the papers. “What are they?”

  “The battle order for the American Seventh Corps!” Keitel said triumphantly.

  Hitler arose unsteadily and looked at the papers. He had a stomachache, a headache, and an hour ago had received an injection of drugs and vitamins from his quack doctor, Theodor Morell. “Let me see them,” he said, holding out his blue-veined hand.

  Keitel handed the papers over and leaned toward Hitler, resting his fists on Hitler’s desk. “There’s very important information in here, mein Fuehrer,” he said.

  Hitler put on his wire-rimmed glasses and leafed through the papers. “Such as?”

  “The American Seventh Corps will make an all-out attack on Cherbourg on June 15, which is tomorrow!”

  Hitler banged his fist on his desk. “I knew it!”

  “You knew it?”

  “Of course I knew it, you fool!” He pointed behind him to the huge map of Europe on the wall. “They need the port of Cherbourg to unload reinforcements, supplies, and oil.”

  “Well,” Keitel said respectfully, “they seem to be doing rather well with the port facilities they’ve improvised. Are you sure they need Cherbourg that badly, mein Fuehrer?”

  Hitler plopped back into his chair and narrowed his eyes at Keitel. “Keitel, you’re a fool,” he said.

  “I am?” Keitel asked, blushing.