MORE PRAISE FOR W.E.B. GRIFFIN’S ALL-TIME CLASSIC SERIES,
BROTHERHOOD OF WAR
A sweeping military epic of the United States Army that
became a New York Times bestselling phenomenon.
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author of The Betrayal and The Armies of Ignorance
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—Publishers Weekly
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“LARGE, EXCITING, FAST-MOVING.”
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THE CORPS
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BADGE OF HONOR
W.E.B. Griffin’s electrifying epic series
of a big-city police force…
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TITLES BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN
HONOR BOUND
HONOR BOUND
BLOOD AND HONOR
SECRET HONOR
BROTHERHOOD
OF WAR
BOOK I: THE LIEUTENANTS
BOOK II: THE CAPTAINS
BOOK III: THE MAJORS
BOOK IV: THE COLONELS
BOOK V: THE BERETS
BOOK VI: THE GENERALS
BOOK VII: THE NEW BREED
BOOK VIII: THE AVIATORS
BOOK IX: SPECIAL OPS
THE CORPS
BOOK I: SEMPER FI
BOOK II: CALL TO ARMS
BOOK III: COUNTERATTACK
BOOK IV: BATTLEGROUND
BOOK V: LINE OF FIRE
BOOK VI: CLOSE COMBAT
BOOK VII: BEHIND THE LINES
BOOK VIII: IN DANGER’S PATH
BOOK IX: UNDER FIRE
BOOK X: RETREAT, HELL!
BADGE OF HONOR
BOOK I: MEN IN BLUE
BOOK II: SPECIAL OPERATIONS
BOOK III: THE VICTIM
BOOK IV: THE WITNESS
BOOK V: THE ASSASSIN
BOOK VI: THE MURDERERS
BOOK VII: THE INVESTIGATORS
BOOK VIII: FINAL JUSTICE
MEN AT WAR
BOOK I: THE LAST HEROES
BOOK II: THE SECRET WARRIORS
BOOK III: THE SOLDIER SPIES
BOOK IV: THE FIGHTING AGENTS
BOOK V: THE SABOTEURS
BOOK VI: THE DOUBLE AGENTS
PRESIDENTIAL AGENT
BOOK I: BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT
BOOK II: THE HOSTAGE
BOOK III: THE HUNTERS
The Lieutenants
BROTHERHOOD
OF
WAR BOOK I
BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN
JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
THE LIEUTENANTS
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 1982 by W.E.B. Griffin.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-4406-3752-0
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For Uncle Charley and The Bull
RIP October 1979
And for Donn.
Who would have ever believed four stars?
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
I
On 14 February 1943, strong German armored units sallied forth from passes in south-central Tunisia on the front of the II U.S. Corps, commanded by Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall, in an attempt to turn the flank of the British First Army (Lt. Gen. Kenneth A. N. Anderson) and capture the base of operations that the Allies had set up around Tebessa. In a series of sharp armored actions, the Germans defeated the Allies and forced a withdrawal by American troops all the way back through Kasserine Pass and the valley beyond.
American Military History 1607–1953
Department of the Army, July 1956
(One)
Near Sidi-Bou-Zid, Tunisia
17 February 1943
Two tanks, American, which showed signs of hard use, moved slowly down a path. The terrain was undulating desert. Not sand dunes, but arid, gritty soil, with crumbling, fist-sized rocks and sparse vegetation. The dips in the land were just deep enough to conceal a tank. The high spots did not provide for much visibility. You could see for a mile, perhaps more, but a tank could be concealed in a dip a hundred yards away.
Major Robert Bellmon, riding in the open turret of the lead M4A2 “Sherman” tank, his tanned body outside the hatch, was a tall and rangy young man who had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1939. He wore the Academy ring, a simple gold wedding band, and an issue Hamilton watch. The issue band had rotted, and had been replaced by a band stitched from the tail of a khaki shirt by the battalion tailor.
Bellmon wore a khaki shirt, a cotton tanker’s jacket with a zipper front and knit cuffs and collar, wool olive-drab trousers, and a pair of nonregulation tanker’s boots, which looked like a combination of dress low quarters, field shoes, and combat boots; their uppers reached ten inches up his calves. He also wore an old style tanker’s helmet, which was like a football helmet to which earphones had been riveted. A Colt Model 1911A1 pistol was suspended half under his arm in a shoulder holster, and a pair of Zeiss binoculars, inherited from his father, hung around his neck.
Although he had stopped the tank and carefully searched the desert three minutes before, and only thirty seconds before had ordered Sergeant Pete Fortin, the driver, to get moving, he did not see the Afrika Korps Panzerkampfwagen IV until the muzzle blast of its 75 mm turret cannon caught his eye. A half-second later the tungsten-steel projectile slammed into the hull of his M4A2.
The Sherman shuddered. There was an awesome roar, followed immediately by the horrible screeching sound of tearing metal, lasting no more than a second. The M4A2 turned to the right, halfway off the track it had been following, and stopped dead. It had moved no more than eight feet after being struck.
The impact of the armor-piercing shell threw Bellmon against the edge of the commander’s hatch, catching him in the rib cage. It bruised him severely, knocking the breath out of him, and almost throwing him out of the commander’s turret.
He heard a groan, which sounded somewhat surprised, from inside the tank, but couldn’t tell who it was. When he looked down, dense black smoke had already begun to fill the tank’s interior. Without really thinking about what he was doing, acting in pure animal reflex, he hoisted himself out of the turret. There was a wave of pain.
He just had time to curse himself for getting out of the turret—his duty clearly was to have gone into the hull to help the others—when an intensely hot spurt of flame erupted upward from the turret. He knew what had caused it. Pieces of metal from the projectile, and pieces torn from the hull itself, had ripped into the brass cases of the 75 mm cannon ammunition, slicing them open and spilling their powder. Then the powder had caught fire. When unconfined powder burns, it does not explode. The explosion came a moment later, as intact shell cases and gasoline fumes detonated.
Bellmon felt himself flying through the air. He landed on his back upon the rocky ground, his shoulders striking the ground first, throwing him into a backward somersault, and knocking what was left of the wind in his lungs out of him. When he came to rest, he was conscious, but was incapable of movement.
He was dimly aware of a second shot from a tank cannon, a sharp cracking noise, followed immediately by a heavier thump. Despite the pain in his ribs, he tried to get control of himself. He forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another. And another.
Finally he was able to roll onto his side to see what had happened to the second M4A2, the other tank which had come out with him “to locate and assist the 705th Field Artillery Battalion.” It was immobile. There was no one in the turret, and oily smoke oozed out around the fuel tanks and the turret ring. No one had gotten out of that one.
He heard the sound of a tank engine. He let himself fall slowly onto his face. He would play dead, though it was a slim chance at best. The crew of the German tank would more than likely give him a burst with the 7.93 mm machine gun. Prisoners were a nuisance in fast-moving tank warfare.
He closed his eyes, and tried to breathe very slowly. His only hope was to make them think that he had been killed when his tank blew up. If he tried to surrender, all he would do would be to give them a better target.
The PzKwIV ground to a halt near him. It was now the standard German medium tank, an efficient killing machine, into which had been incorporated all the lessons the German Panzertruppen had learned in France and Russia and here in Africa. Bellmon would have been willing to admit, privately, that it was a better tank than the Sherman.
He knew the German tank commander was watching him. Then he heard the crunch of footsteps on the gritty soil.
“Was ist er?”
“Ein Offizier, Herr Leutnant. Mit einen gelben Blatt.”
“Ein Major?” the first voice said. “Is he dead?”
“No,” the self-confident voice above him said, matter-of-factly. “He’s breathing. Playing dead.”
Good God, is my pretense that transparent?
There was the sound of more booted feet on the gritty soil.
“Please do not make it necessary for me to kill you, Herr Major,” the first voice said.
A hand grabbed his shoulder, and rolled him onto his back. Bellmon opened his eyes and found himself looking into the muzzle of a .45 Colt automatic. It was in the hands of a young, blond, good-looking lieutenant of the Afrika Korps. He wore the black tunic of the Panzertruppen above standard gray Wehrmacht trousers. He smiled at Bellmon. Then he reached down with his free hand and took Bellmon’s .45 from his shoulder holster.
“You may sit up, please, Major,” he said. His English was British accented. “Are you injured?”
Bellmon sat up. The lieutenant handed Bellmon’s .45 to the soldier with him. Another nice-looking, clean-cut, blond-headed boy, Bellmon thought.
“Will you also give me, please, the holster?” the lieutenant asked. Bellmon pulled it over his head and held it out. The soldier held his Schmeisser 9 mm machine-pistol between his knees, took Bellmon’s shoulder holster, and put it over his head.
“Make sure that isn’t loaded,” the lieutenant cautioned. The soldier took the magazine from the butt of the .45, saw that it was full, emptied it, and then put it back in the pistol, and then slipped the pistol into the holster.
“The Colt is a very fine pistol, Major,” the lieutenant said.
Bellmon didn’t reply.
“Hel
p the major to his feet,” the lieutenant said.
“Are you going to see to my men?” Bellmon asked, getting painfully to his feet unaided.
The lieutenant actually looked unhappy as he made a sad gesture toward the two American tanks. They were both burning steadily. There was the smell of burned flesh. Bellmon willed back a spasm of nausea. He would not, he vowed, show weakness before his captors.
The soldier took his arm and led him to the PzKwIV.
“Please to get inside, Herr Major,” the lieutenant said.
Bellmon climbed over the bogies, the wheels around which the track of the tank moved, and by which it was supported. A two-piece hatch in the side of the turret was open. The sweat-soaked face of an older man—probably the platoon sergeant, Bellmon judged, because there was something about him that told him he wasn’t an officer—looked out at him. Bellmon lowered his head and started to crawl into the turret.
“Nein,” the face said to him. “Fuss vorwärts.”
Bellmon pulled his head back out, turned around, and backed into the turret hatch.
Inside the hull, which was more cramped than the hull of an M4A2, he was motioned to sit down on the floor. One of the crewmen (the driver, probably, he thought) came up with a length of field telephone wire. He looped it around Bellmon’s ankles, and then around his wrists, and tied his wrists to his ankles.
Then he climbed out of sight. In a moment, there was the clash of gears, and the PzKwIV turned on one track, then went back in the direction from which it had come, to the east, toward the German lines.
I am alive, Bellmon told himself. Bruised, a little groggy, but not really injured. This is where I am supposed to think that I will live to fight another day.
He became aware that tears were blurring his vision and running down his cheeks. Was it shock? Was he weeping for Sergeant Pete Fortin and all the others? Or because the worst thing that could happen to an officer, capture, had happened to him? Did it matter? He lowered his head on his knees so that his captors would not see him crying.
The Lieutenants Page 1