by Damon Alan
Ernst looked down at the desk in front of him.
A Luger sat on the wood surface, grimly reminding him of the reality of what happened at Rotterdam. The safety was off.
Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of the Panzer Divisions assigned to roll through France, sat on the other side of the desk with the fingertips of both hands touching in front of him.
Ernst took that as a sign of contemplation.
Maybe he wasn’t to be shot after all.
“Your device, and the effects, Herr Haufmann, is causing no end of problems to the Führer’s plans for Western Europe.”
“I understand this,” Ernst replied. “The missions to Finland, Nepal, and then the task at Rotterdam were all approved at the highest levels.” He couldn’t say that Hitler himself had not only approved the collection of the artifacts, but the deployment. Blaming the Führer would be the quickest way to the firing squad.
“Because you told the High Command the result would be a weapon usable against the allies,” von Rundstedt replied. The Field Marshall’s voice didn’t have even the slightest edge of anger to it.
Maybe Ernst would be shot.
“Do you believe in the German cause?” the Field Marshall asked Ernst.
“Do I? I have sacrificed everything for it. I am a paragon of loyalty.”
“Then one last sacrifice,” von Rundstedt said, picking the pistol up by the barrel and gesturing for Ernst to take it. “You deserve the dignity of ending your own life, since I believe you were trying to do good for the Fatherland.”
Ernst took the pistol. For a brief moment he considered shooting his superior and running. But there were guards all over the estate house they were in. Even if he killed von Rundstedt, he wouldn’t get far. And the SS would come for his mother, and his brothers and sisters, assuming them to be traitors as well.
He was left with no choice.
He looked at von Rundstedt, smiled, then raised the pistol to his head.
“Heil, Hitler,” Ernst said before pulling the trigger.
The gun clicked, but nothing happened.
“So you are loyal. Good. Then I can trust you will fix the mess you have created,” von Rundstedt said, standing up. “Nobody other than you and Meckler have the knowledge needed. And neither you nor I know where Meckler is.” He shrugged. “I needed to see you were a man of honor for myself.”
Ernst dropped the gun on the desk. “Some would say that to put a man through such a test is not itself honorable, Field Marshall.”
“We’re at war. There is no time for subtlety.”
Ernst understood that at least. “What will you have me do?”
“Whatever it takes. You will select a dozen people for your team. Scientists, theologians, or whatever you need. No more than a dozen. No less. Twenty-four Waffen-SS troops will be assigned to guard, and if need be work for you.”
That was bigger than his old squad, even before most of them didn’t make it out of Rotterdam.
“And, if need be, shoot me I am sure,” Ernst said.
“You are a very bold and outspoken man,” von Rundstedt replied. “I have yet to decide if I like it. Fortunately, your knowledge leaves me no choice but to tolerate it.”
Ernst didn’t answer. Maybe he was antagonizing the officer too much.
“For now,” the Field Marshall finished. He walked to the door, opened it, and barked orders to an attendant. “We’re executing plan B in regard to Herr Haufmann.”
“Why do you not call me Oberstleutnant?” Ernst asked.
“Because you no longer serve in the military ranks,” von Rundstedt said. “A decision I agree with, since you seem naturally insubordinate. You are, until this matter is resolved at the very least, Herr Haufmann, a civilian contractor for the Third Reich, and Director of the Ahnenerbe program.”
That was a shock. He’d spent many years rising to his rank, and while it might be true he questioned authority, it was only because he was so often more intelligent than those who commanded him.
Maybe he would be better off as a civilian.
“But I still command this task force to shut the Intepna Hojarr down?”
“You do.”
“Then I will get started picking my staff,” Ernst said. “With your leave.”
Field Marshall von Rundstedt abruptly walked back toward his desk, an obvious gesture of dismissal. “Goodbye, Herr Haufmann.”
“Good day to you, Field Marshall.”
Ernst walked through the offices to leave, marveling at his good fortune. It was a good thing Meckler disappeared, or the leadership might have considered Ernst more expendable.
That wouldn’t do. Not at all.
He would be careful not to share all the relevant details of his craft with anyone ever again.
Chapter 9 - Churchill
May 23, 1940
Harry’s fire team rested near Arras after retreating from Roeselare.
For several days nothing happened. Britain had a new Prime Minister, and nobody knew what that meant. The German advance had stopped, and nobody knew quite how to deal with that either.
Rumors abounded. Some rumors said the Germans were moving their troops north to fight the undying soldiers of Satan and the End Times War had begun. Still others said that God had sent the monsters to fight on Britain’s side, because He was going to actually save the Queen.
Harry didn’t buy any of that drivel. He’d seen the enemy, and while terrifying in their near invulnerability, his team had killed a few.
The problem was very few believed him. One officer had even accused Harry’s team of cowardice, and only Timothy rapidly grabbing Harry’s arms had saved that officer from a flattening he’d remember.
They hadn’t seen Hans in a day, he was being interrogated by the brass. Harry’d hoped to keep the German a secret, honestly, but there’d been no way to do it. At least the powers that be hadn’t shipped him off immediately to a cell in a prison camp. They wouldn’t as long as they thought Hans had useful information.
Hans had also backed up Harry’s story, and that of all the men in his unit. He owed the German for that, but truth be told he’d probably saved Han’s life back at Roeselare, so maybe they were even.
“The new Prime Minister is on the wireless,” someone yelled from inside a nearby tent.
Harry stopped at the tent and listened from the doorway as two dozen others gathered inside. Even with everyone around, he could have heard a pin drop.
An announcer spoke first. “The Prime Minister was to speak to us all a few days ago, but stories of strange news from the front has pushed back his speech to now according to officials reporting from 10 Downing Street. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Prime Minister.”
A slight delay as the speakers switched in some distant unseen location.
“I speak to you for the first time as Prime Minister in a solemn hour for the life of our country, of our empire, of our allies, and, above all, of the cause of freedom. A tremendous battle is raging in France and Flanders. The Germans, by a remarkable combination of air bombing and heavily armored tanks, have broken through the French defenses north of the Maginot Line, and strong columns of their armored vehicles are ravaging the open country, which for the first day or two was without defenders. They have penetrated deeply and spread alarm and confusion in their track. Behind them there are now appearing infantry in lorries, and behind them, again, the large masses are moving forward. The re-groupment of the French armies to make head against, and also to strike at, this intruding wedge has been proceeding for several days, largely assisted by the magnificent efforts of the Royal Air Force.
“All that said, we do not know where the battle stands at this time. Reports of supernatural events in Belgium have sprung up, although very little has been confirmed by your government. Whether this is as a result of some German atrocity, or whether God himself has decided to punish the wickedness of Man, we do not know. What we hear are mostly rumors so spectacular they are hardly to be
believed.”
“You better believe it, Prime Minister,” Harry whispered.
“Ssshhh,” the man next to him scolded.
Harry shrugged and went back to listening.
“—whatever the state of affairs in Flanders, we, as a people, have the righteous strength of freedom on our side. We have the morality of that righteousness, and as such we will find our way to the correct and just answers in regards to this matter. At this moment, we simply do not know enough to tell you what is happening. Maybe once we rescue more of our boys from the continent, they’ll have a more clear story to tell.”
That fired the men in the tent up a bit. They were more than eager to share the peculiar things they’d seen.
“You blokes shut it!” someone near the radio snapped.
Everyone got quiet again.
“It’s important we remember, today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of truth and justice: Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altars. As the will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.”
A pause, then the original voice. “This has been a public announcement from your Prime Minister. Back to our programming.”
With that the radio returned to playing music.
Harry walked away, heading toward his squad’s tent.
“Did you listen to Churchill, Sergeant?” one of his men asked as he entered.
“I did. He knows less than we do, which is saying a lot about how in the dark that man is.”
A few men laughed.
“More to matters, what is the plan for us?” a different one asked. “We fled our post, never made it to our assigned spot.”
“We’re off the hook, thanks to Hans,” Harry said. “He backed up our story, as he should, it was the bloody truth.”
Mumbles of agreement mixed with a few words of regret for their lost brothers.
“We need to work on picking up more serious guns,” Harry said. “I still have Han’s Karabiner, but only seven rounds for it.”
“What options we got?” Timothy asked. “Lee-Enfields and Bren’s about it, right?”
“There’s a bunch of French guns down at the depot,” Wilkes said. “Hotchkisses, some rifles. All bigger caliber than we got.”
“And how many times have those been dropped?” Timothy asked.
Laughter.
“But they’re like new, they’ve never been fired!” another soldier said.
More laughter.
It was good to see his men feeling brotherhood.
“Did you hear that before this lull in the fighting a French Field Commander was trying to get his government to surrender early?”
“Just a rumor, private, let’s not spread nonsense,” Harry ordered. “We have to work with the Frogs. There’s plenty of them brave as any of us. They just got a history of their generals pissing themselves.”
Laughter again.
“Tell me about those guns, Wilkes,” Harry said.
“Some of the Hotchkisses are 11mm, some are 7.92, which is what the Karabiner is although it’s not the same round. You don’t want to mix them up,” Wilkes said. “The rifles are 7.5mm, so probably almost as good as Han’s gun. Anyone know if the round is high velocity?”
“Better than what we have,” Timothy said. “Can we get our hands on them?”
“They’re for us to use if we want, just nobody wants. We get ours, then after we’re set we explain why. That way we have first pick,” Harry said. “I want ammo for a siege.”
“How much?”
“As much as we can comfortably carry and then a touch past that,” Harry said. “Plus get some cases to put in our lorry. I don’t think we’re going home for a while.”
Groans.
“Did you expect we would? Dragons are eating Spitfires, short men in armor are killing squads of soldiers on both sides of the war, and you thought we’d just pack it up?” Harry said, angry.
Nobody answered him.
He didn’t expect one. “Get the guns, Wilkes. Take a couple of these bell ends with you to carry gear. If you see AP rounds, grab those. Those black iron wearing bastards won’t know what happened if we have some real firepower.”
“On it, Sergeant.”
“Hurry. Something’s going to break soon. I feel it.”
He watched Wilkes head out. As he closed the door, it started to rain. He rushed to the flap and looked up. It had been blue skies when he entered the tent moments before. Now towering thunderheads formed a line heading off into the distance and fat heavy drops hit the dusty soil at his feet.
Lightning crashed not too far away.
Ominous, but maybe a good thing. Could dragons fly during such storms?
He’d know the answer soon, most likely.
Chapter 10 - Hans
May 23, 1940
Somehow being guarded in a tent and questioned a hundred times in a day wasn’t what he’d expected when he surrendered to the British near Roeselare.
They weren’t treating him bad, and honestly, he couldn’t say he had the same hopes for British prisoners taken by the SS or even regular German troops. The Wermacht, particular the Heer, were whipped into a frenzy of conquest by the political propaganda of Goebbels and his Ministry.
Hans, and most intelligent men in the Heer, had never bought into that. The Germans were men, just like the British, the French, or the Americans. When the war started, he’d been every bit as excited for German victory as any other soldier, but for different reasons than many of the Nazi party members.
He wasn’t fighting for German superiority, but for German equality. The Treaty of Versailles had robbed Germany of wealth, of opportunity, and of dignity. It was time to fix that.
He’d had no idea how successful Rommel’s panzers would be in breaking through the Maginot and steamrolling France. Once that had happened, the delusion of German superiority swelled to even greater heights among Han’s peers.
Then something had happened in Rotterdam, although Hans had no idea what that something was. As a result of Rotterdamn, terrible creatures had poured from the city, slaughtering civilians, Belgian troops, German troops, and, as he learned after his surrender, Allied troops.
There was a new enemy on the field, one that he feared would conclusively prove Germany’s superiority was fictional. The price of that proof might be the destruction of humanity.
The flap of his tent opened, and a British officer looked in. “Get ready, Colonel Hamlin will see you in fifteen minutes.”
“What am I to say that I have not already said?” Hans asked.
“Mate, only you know that.”
The officer closed the flap, and Hans reached for his boots. Sergeant Hughes, who he’d surrendered to, had promised him fair treatment. Which he’d gotten. But maybe it was a mistake to surrender. Maybe he should have made his way back to German lines alone and reunited with the Heer. At least German rifles could harm the enemy. The British seemed wholly ineffective.
It was raining, he heard the sound on his tent. He donned his helmet as it was all he had to protect himself from the downpour. It was likely to be a wicked storm judging by the sound of the land covering rumbles from nearby lightning strikes.
Clothed, he opened the flap to see one of the guards outside. “I’m ready,” he announced.
“Come on then,” the guard said, grabbing Hans roughly by the arm. “And hurry. I am already tired of being wet. Where I’m taking you, there is a roof.”
As they left, Hans saw guards all around his tent. A dozen men to keep him locked in, even though he’d willingly surrendered and told the British everything he knew about the real enemy, which was whatever was coming out of Rotterdam. He’d not betrayed the secrets of his own army, but then everything he knew about their positions or intentions was almost certainly outdated by now.
The introducti
on of a new enemy and front in the war would force Herr Hitler to change, or at least delay, his plans for the conquest of Europe.
“Quit stalling,” the guard said, and jerked Hans by the arm although Hans wasn’t stalling at all.
A few meters ahead of them the ground rippled.
The guard stopped, confused by the phenomenon.
Hans did the same, puzzled.
A dozen meters to the right, the ground rippled in a different spot.
“What the damnation?” the guard asked nobody in particular.
Almost simultaneously the ground erupted upward in both spots. Around him he heard other similar disturbances as well.
Then the screams began.
A creature stood before him, one that had once been a man. Skeletal, it had some tissue regrowing over the bones at an unbelievably fast rate. A second creature stood at the other ripple, but it ran into a nearby tent. Sounds of men dying in hideous fashion followed.
An eyeball popped into existence as the remaining creature whipped its head around to face the guard and Hans.
As a trachea formed in front of the bare spine of the neck, a low groan erupted from the skeleton become beast.
It leapt on the guard, who shrieked going down. The bones of the creature’s hands sank into the guard’s flesh, and as Hans stood frozen he saw life blood flow upward from the man’s punctured body onto the bones of the monster.
Where blood flowed over bone, new tissue began to grow.
The plaintive cries of the guard brought Hans back to the moment, and although he’d recoiled a few meters when the attack started, he now ran forward to grab the man’s pistol, which had fallen on the dirt.
Hans put three rounds into the chest of the foul thing, which seemed to have absolutely no effect. As the beast ripped more violently into its victim, bodily fluids were flowing upward onto the bones of the creature with great rapidity. As blood drained from the guard, the creature was using it to repair any damage Hans did faster than the damage could be done.
Hans leveled the pistol at the creature’s brain case and pulled the trigger.
The roar as the gun fired seemed simultaneous with the creature collapsing on top of the guard, partially formed fingers still embedded in the stricken Brit’s mangled torso.