Worse, the closer they got to Germany, the more armor and artillery the Germans seemed to possess. It made a kind of sense since German supply lines were shortening, but there were rumors of German troop pullbacks from the Russian fronts and that made no sense to Morgan or anyone else in the 74th. Of course, what the hell did they know about grand strategy in the first place?
With the presidential election only days away, there was a lot of talk about whether Roosevelt would be reelected for the fourth time. He’d been President for twelve years and many younger soldiers really couldn’t recall anybody else in the White House, while older ones recalled Hoover and the other idiots who preceded him and, in their opinion, caused not only the Great Depression but this fucking war.
For his part, Jack recalled the anxiety his parents felt during the Depression and remembered the sight of people waiting in long lines for free bread. At first people they knew seemed embarrassed to be seen getting handouts, but they soon got over it. Handouts beat the hell out of starving.
Jack’s family had come through the Depression poorer and possibly wiser, but not economically destroyed like so many others had. Some meals had been sparse and he’d gone a long time wearing worn out and patched clothes, but they’d never been bankrupt and never had to stand in lines for handouts.
Another halt and they piled out of their vehicles. Levin walked up. “You voted, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Helluva strange question to ask while standing alongside a column of military vehicles, Jack thought.
“Didn’t it feel funny, filling out a ballot in the middle of combat? It was almost like what the Union soldiers did during the Civil War with McClellan running against Lincoln.”
“And the soldiers overwhelmingly voted for Lincoln even though it meant more war,” Jack said thoughtfully.
Most of the guys who’d been willing to admit their preferences said they were voting in favor of FDR. If the 74th was an example, Roosevelt would carry the soldiers’ vote and the war would go on. FDR had said there would have to be unconditional surrender on the part of the Germans and the Japanese, and Dewey hadn’t said much that Jack could remember on the topic.
Stick with the devil you know, dance with the girl you brought, and ride the horse you rode in on were some of the sayings and they all made a kind of sense to Jack. It was not time to change direction. Replace the President, and you had to replace the Cabinet and many other people in leadership positions, which might cause chaos in the short run, and chaos could result in people dying unnecessarily.
Whiteside’s voice came over the radio. “Morgan, Levin, get up here now. This is nasty.”
* * *
“Jesus,” Morgan said and covered his mouth so he wouldn’t puke. The bodies had been dead for several days and, despite the cooling weather, the stench was bad. A couple of them looked like they’d been chewed on by birds and animals. Levin looked like he would throw up as well.
Men, women, and children, some just infants, had all been shot. Some of the men looked like they’d been bayoneted as well and he wondered if the knife work had been performed before or after the shootings.
Jack moved down the rows of bodies and counted a little more than a hundred and they all looked like they were French.
“They weren’t Jewish,” Whiteside said. He used stick to show where some wore religious medals around their necks. Many of the women were naked, clearly signaling that they’d been raped, and some were mutilated. Maybe they’d pleaded with the Germans for their lives? Maybe they’d offered sex to protect themselves, their children, or their men? If they had, it hadn’t worked.
Colonel Stoddard had gone to the other side of the field of death and he looked as grim as they all did. “You’re bright, Morgan, who did it?”
“My money’s on the SS, sir.”
“Mine too. Okay, now why?”
Jack shuddered. “Because they’re a bunch of sadistic murdering mother-fucking lunatics who did it because Hitler told them they were a master race and then gave them guns to go and prove it.”
In the distance, a machine gun chattered. Nobody moved. It was just too normal and too far away. “Your dispassionate scientific analysis sounds about right,” Whiteside said.
“Over here!” a GI yelled and they trotted over to an area obscured by bushes. A dozen more bodies were lying on the ground, only this time they were GI’s. They’d been bound hand and foot and been shot in the back of the head. Jack remembered the time when the sniper POW at the roadblock had been shot by the friend of man he’d killed. But that had been an immediate act of passion and anger. This was cold-blooded. Surrender was futile was the lesson.
The firing in the distance picked up in intensity. It sounded like someone had found another German strong point. The crack of an eighty-eight followed.
Levin shook his head, despair etched on his face. “If this is what they do to Christians, what the hell are they doing to my Jews?” He looked at Jack and at Whiteside. “Tell me, should we negotiate with these fucking animals?”
Jack couldn’t find an answer and Whiteside turned away.
* * *
Otto Skorzeny drove the truck slowly on the wet and slippery dirt roads. A light snow had fallen and the last thing he needed was an accident, especially with this valuable and fragile cargo. As a colonel he could have let someone else drive, but this was too important to leave to another.
As agreed, a kubelwagen preceded the truck and it flew a white flag. He wondered if the Russians could see it and would they honor it if they did. It was strange to be driving towards the enemy without any sound of battle. Normally, artillery would be crashing even if the fighting was considered light. The truce was holding, but he wondered for how long.
A mile behind him a long column of trucks followed. These were filled with unarmed German soldiers who were doubtless fearful as they entered their enemy’s territory. It occurred to Skorzeny that the Soviets could win a decent prize by breaking their word and snatching up him and his cargo.
A Russian soldier emerged from the darkness. He waved a white flag and Skorzeny slowed. An American-made Jeep came into view and the soldier made the obvious signal that Skorzeny and his column were to follow.
They drove on for a couple of miles and stopped by a large field. Skorzeny grinned when he saw the neat rows of T34 tanks. A Soviet colonel appeared. He was wearing the insignia of the NKVD, which was the Russian government’s instrument of enforcement, state security, and terror. In Skorzeny’s opinion, they were the equivalent of Himmler’s Gestapo and SS.
The stone-faced colonel identified himself as Pyotr Orlofski. He looked in the back of the truck and grunted. Sergei Bunyachenko, Vlasov’s second in command, glared at him in feral fury. The others jammed in the truck either moaned or wept when they saw the Russian who grinned at them. Orlofski had metal teeth that made him look monstrous. Skorzeny thought he smelled urine. Maybe one of the prisoners had pissed himself, or maybe it was just too a long drive to hold one’s bladder. He didn’t care.
“Ah, if it isn’t Bunyachenko, my old comrade,” the Russian colonel said and spat in the man’s face. He pulled his Tokarev pistol from his holster and stuck under Bunyachenkov’s nose. Skorzeny thought the Russian was going to kill the traitor right then and there. “We have so much planned for you. The rest of your life will be quite dramatic, just not very long.” The Russian laughed and brought the butt of the Tokarev down on Bunyahenko’s nose, crunching it. Bunyachenko groaned and blood poured down his face.
Skorzeny understood what the colonel had said, but didn’t let on. He’d been improving his Russian skills but preferred to keep that fact his little secret. He did, however, agree with what Orlofski had just done. He had no sympathy for traitors.
Orlofski switched to German. “We will identify them, if you don’t mind.”
“They’re your toys now. Do whatever you want.”
The colonel thought that calling them toys was hilarious. He signaled and
a squad of NKVD troops emerged. They opened the back of the truck and dragged the captives out and onto the ground. The soldiers were armed with the virtually indestructible Shpagin machine pistol that was so popular with the Red Army.
The colonel made a fuss of identifying the prisoners, comparing each prisoner with a photo, sometimes kicking them when he felt like it. Finally, he was satisfied. “Your new toys are there in the field. When you hand over Vlasov and the other traitors, the rest of the tanks will be delivered to you.”
Skorzeny nodded. He knew the terms of the agreement and didn’t need to be reminded. His drivers would pick up five hundred tanks today, another five hundred in a week, and a thousand more when Vlasov was delivered a week after that. They were the older model T34/76 and not the newer version with the 85mm gun. No matter, the T34’s would be upgraded by German technicians and driven by skilled drivers who would make mincemeat of the American army. It galled him that the German military machine could not any longer make tanks in sufficient quantities because the Yanks and Brits were so efficient at bombing the factories that made them. Still, two thousand T34 tanks would be a nasty surprise for the Allies. He’d been told that the original request for five thousand had been whittled down.
Germany had captured a number of T34’s and had turned them against the Soviets with impressive results. Unfortunately, many had been destroyed by German soldiers who only saw the Soviet-made tank and ignored the German markings. Pitting these and the remaining earlier ones against the Americans would solve that little problem.
The trucks had arrived and German soldiers, all tank drivers spilled out. They and the Russians glared at each other with mutual and undisguised hatred. Skorzeny was glad he’d insisted on their being unarmed. They formed up and moved out to the field where the tanks were parked. A few moments later the first of them rumbled down the road and soon a long column of what had been Soviet armor rolled down the dirt road towards Germany.
The Russian shook his head. “I still don’t believe it, Skorzeny. Yesterday we were killing each other and today we do business.”
“And tomorrow we’ll be killing each other again.”
Orlofski laughed savagely. “I look forward to it.”
* * *
With the Piper still grounded, Jack was assigned scouting and flank support by Whiteside. He didn’t mind. Even though it was much more dangerous, it was better than being a glorified clerk in Stoddard’s headquarters. At least he’d think that way until somebody took a shot at him. Levin told him he was nuts for putting himself in harm’s way.
Jack and the long-suffering Snyder led a small column of vehicles that, along with Morgan’s Jeep, consisted of a pair of half-tracks each carrying a squad of infantry. There was concern that the fighting would intensify once they finally reached the German border, now only a couple of miles away. They drove slowly and kept their eyes open for anything unusual. The last thing they wanted was to run into a German ambush or a mine. The area was densely forested in spots, leading some to wonder if they were driving into more bocage territory. There was a lot of forest in this area and intelligence said it extended well into Germany.
The distinctive sound of German machine-gun fire erupted to their left and from behind a line of thick shrubs. There was a pause and they could hear screams, then more shooting. Snyder radioed in their situation. Jack paused. He had a terrible premonition.
“Snyder, drive towards the shooting.”
Morgan stood and grabbed the .30 caliber machine gun mounted on the Jeep, cursing that they didn’t have a separate gunner. The Jeep erupted onto a field. A score of German soldiers were methodically shooting at a crowd of civilians who were trapped by fences. The Germans were laughing as they used their machine pistols to casually slaughter their helpless victims, which, like the previous massacre they’d found, included women and children. The Germans turned in shock as the Jeep roared down on them from less than a hundred yards away at more than forty miles an hour.
Jack was nearly thrown from the Jeep as it crossed the uneven ground, but he held onto the machine gun and managed to opened fire, raking the nearest Germans and hurling a couple of them to the ground in bloody heaps. Other Germans turned to fire at him, while a few started to run away. Bullets slammed against the unarmored Jeep. One hit the engine and the vehicle came to a sudden halt. Jack fought for control and somehow managed to spray bullets and drop a pair of Nazis who were running towards him. The half-tracks appeared behind him, their machine guns and the infantry inside shooting down more of the enemy.
It was enough. Most of the surviving Germans threw down their weapons and raised their hands, while a handful managed to run off into the bushes. Jack jumped off the Jeep and took control of the situation. There would be no repeat of the killing of the sniper if he could do anything about it, although executing these murderers seemed like a great idea.
Some of the survivors of the massacre ran up to the Americans, hugging and kissing them, while others moaned and wailed beside their dead and wounded. Medics quickly appeared and began to treat them as best they could. An old French woman picked up a German machine pistol and was about to kill a Nazi prisoner when she was stopped.
“Tell her we’ll see the fucker hanged,” Jack told one of his men who spoke fairly fluent French. “But not until after a trial.”
The French woman began to weep. She said the Nazis had killed her husband and daughter. “Maybe we can let her pull the rope,” Snyder suggested.
“Not a bad idea.” Jack noticed the Germans’ insignia was different. They were SS, but not the usual ones. “Who the hell are these guys?”
“We are Germanic-SS,” a stone-faced enemy sergeant replied in decent English. “We are volunteers come from the Netherlands who’ve come to France to protect the Reich.”
Jack was incredulous. “You mean you guys are foreigners whose land was conquered by the krauts, and you actually volunteered to join the SS and kill innocent people?”
The Nazi stiffened. “They are enemies of the Reich and are racially impure. Their deaths are of no consequence.”
“Then yours won’t be either, you fucking prick,” Jack said.
* * *
Margarete had become an expert on airplanes. From the sound alone, she could tell what country it came from, and what model fighter or bomber it might be. She could also tell whether it was in distress or running normally, and this one was in great distress.
It was also flying very low. She jumped out of bed and put a coat over her nightgown and some boots on her bare feet. Her mother and the others had heard the sound of the laboring, lumbering bomber as well. As they ran outside, Margarete told them it was an American B17.
It roared overhead, missing the house and the barns by what seemed like only a matter of feet. They could see that one engine was blown away and another was on fire. The plane fought for altitude or a place to land safely. She wondered why the crew hadn’t bailed out. Perhaps they had. Perhaps the bomber was out of control and flying dead.
But then it lifted up and she knew there were living hands at the controls. The plane staggered one last time and dropped, tail first, into the ground at the end of their field and erupted in flames.
The explosion swept over them, staggering them. They covered their faces with their arms as the heat hit them. Small amounts of debris landed all around them.
“No bombs,” her uncle said. “Thank God.”
The explosion, however devastating, wasn’t large enough to have included bombs. Probably the bombs had already been dropped and only fuel was burning. And maybe the crew, they thought. Aunt Bertha shrieked and said there was a hand on the ground near her. Uncle Otto pulled her away, sobbing. Margarete swallowed and looked. It was indeed a hand, a left hand, and there was a wedding ring.
They ran to the wreckage, or at least as close as the flames would permit. Uncle Eric muttered a prayer. He hated the Americans but watching someone possibly burn to death was too much.
“
There is nothing we can do,” he said. “Anyone in there is beyond help. We must let the fire burn itself out and then we will see about burying the dead.”
Margarete hugged her mother. The smell of burning fuel and scorching flesh emanated from the plane. Why hadn’t the pilot jumped? Perhaps he couldn’t. Maybe he’d been injured and couldn’t leave his post and was trying desperately to land it in the field? She wondered if it was the pilot’s hand she’d seen. It brought back too many memories of bombings in Berlin, memories she’d just about blocked out of her mind. Somewhere there must be a land where fourteen-year-old girls didn’t have to live with the sight of death and the stench of decaying corpses, but these were everyday occurrences in Germany. She wondered if this was what it was like in England or France. Somehow, she knew it was even worse in Russia.
“Mama, I want this to end.”
Magda hugged her fiercely. “We all do, Magpie,” she said using Margarete’s now forbidden childhood name. This time her daughter didn’t seem to mind. She just wanted to be a little girl again.
A few hundred yards away and back at the farm buildings, Victor Mastny prepared to slip back into the barn. He’d dashed out in the night afraid that the plane would come down on top of him and trap him inside. He was concerned that the Mullers and the two Varner women would see how easy it was for him to slip in and out of the barn, which might cause them to have second thoughts about confining him more securely.
The girl was looking in his direction, but he was certain that the shadows and the flickering flames would not betray him as long as he didn’t move. When the women turned, he slid back into the barn.
Himmler's War-ARC Page 23