backtick help

I'm pulling my hairs trying to get 'sed' to work in a simple
makefile (under MingW/MSYS/Win32). I have the following in a
makefile:

VERSION = `grep WATTCP_VER_STRING inc/tcp.h | cut -d' ' -f4`
...
show_ver:
         @echo This is version $(VERSION)


and '#define WATTCP_VER_STRING  "2.2.11"' in inc/tcp.h.

This produces the expected ' This is version "2.2.11"'. But I really need
an output w/o the quotes. So I tried:
  VERSION = `grep WATTCP_VER_STRING inc/tcp.h | cut -d' ' -f4 | sed -e /\\"//`

This does not work however. Anybody can explain me why? What should
the proper command be? I'm pretty lost here.

PS. The output from bash is:
  /usr/bin/sh: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``'
  /usr/bin/sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file

-- 
Gisle V.

# rm -vf /bin/laden
/bin/rm: Operation already in progress (EALREADY)