Watch On The Rhine

by John Ringo

  For the word had come down, from the Kanzler through his chief of staff, Generalfeldmarschall Kurt Seydlitz, that the former CiNC–West was deposed and that he, Mühlenkampf, was to relinquish command to his own exec and assume control of the battle in the west.

  Mühlenkampf, personally, thought this unfair. The former commander had held the Siegfried line inviolate for longer than anyone should have expected. That this defensive belt had ultimately fallen was due to nothing more than the sheer weight of numbers the alien enemy had thrown against it. Further, the new field marshal doubted he—or anyone—could have done any better.

  In deference to his new position, Mühlenkampf had relinquished his SS uniform and donned the less ornate but more traditional field gray of the Bundeswehr. Gone were his Sigrunen, gone his black dress.

  Well, no matter. My old comrades have their symbols back; their pride, traditions and dignity restored. What does it matter to me? I wore the field gray for many years before I joined das Schwarze Korps.

  Rolf, the aide de camp, interrupted Mühlenkampf's reveries. "Field Marshal, you have an appointment in half an hour, at the field hospital for Charlemagne."

  * * *

  There were no longer enough French soldiers left to keep the hospital filled. Instead, German wounded were being sent for what care and restoration could be provided. Some wore field gray, others the black of the SS. Isabelle found she did not much see a difference. They bled the same color, the same color as had the French soldiers she had cared for. Some wept with pain while others bit through their own tongues to keep from crying out. Perhaps the black-clad ones wept a tiny bit less, but if so she could not perceive much difference.

  The sufferer was the age of her own son, Thomas—fifteen or perhaps sixteen at most. Black clad he was, with a black-and-silver Iron Cross already glittering by his pillow. Below that pillow the boy's body stopped about two feet short of where it should have.

  Some Boche high muckity muck had come by that morning and pinned it by the legless boy. Isabelle had understood not one word that had been spoken, though she had seen the beginnings of tears in the too-young Boche general's eyes.

  She barely understood the semi-intelligible moans of the boy now. Only, "Mutti, Mutti," came through clearly.

  Well, so what if he wears black? My own son does now, too. Am I to hate him for that?

  The boy was by far the worst on the ward. None of the doctors expected him to live. And his cries for his mother touched the Frenchwoman's heart. She picked up a stool and sat down beside him, taking his hand in her own.

  Once or twice during the night the boy's eyes opened. Yet the eyes were unfocused, he knew not where he was. He only knew he was in pain and that he wanted his mother to stop it. She whispered to him what little German she knew, stroking his fever-wracked face.

  Just before sunrise the boy's eyes opened for a final time. This last time they focused. Clearly, though in high school French, he said, "Thank you, madame. Thank you for taking my own mother's place."

  In Isabelle's hand the boy's hand went limp as the eyes lost their focus for the final time.

  * * *

  Weary with fatigue, Thomas De Gaullejac found it difficult to keep his eyes open, let alone in focus. Tracers flying over Mainz still scarred the night, leaving further imprints on his retinae and making focus more difficult still. Lack of sleep and catch-as-catch-can rations did not help matters.

  Across the river, as Thomas knew from Sergeant Gribeauval, Mainz' last defenders were preparing to cross before their last line of retreat, the sole remaining bridge, was cut. Already, all the wounded practical to carry had been brought back by bridge or ferry. What would happen to the others, those too badly hurt to move, he did not care to think about.

  But his own possible futures the boy had to consider. "Sergeant?"

  "Yes, boy," Gribeauval answered without taking his night vision goggles away from the firing port from which he scanned the river below and the air above that.

  "Sergeant . . . if I am hit . . . and you must leave me behind . . . ?"

  "Don't worry about it, son," said the sergeant, understanding immediately. "We'll leave nothing behind for the aliens."

  Thomas felt a little rush of relief. At least his body would not become mere food. "Thank you. One other thing?"

  "Yes?"

  "My mother, Isabelle De Gaullejac? Could you let her know? At least try to find her?"

  Gribeauval answered honestly. "Son, I can't promise to be alive to promise that."

  The frigid bunker congealed for a while in silence, while Gribeauval continued to scan.

  "Sergeant?"

  "Yes, Volunteer De Gaullejac?" answered Gribeauval, just a trace of irritation tainting his voice.

  "I thought I should let you know; if it falls to me to do so, I am not sure I can drop the bridge with people on it."

  "Son, if you don't drop that bridge at the first sign of aliens on it, I'll shoot you myself," Gribeauval said. Then, relenting a bit, he continued, "Do you think that any people that might be on the bridge would not prefer a clean quick death to blast, fall or frozen river to being turned into a snack?"

  "I honestly don't know, Sergeant. I doubt I can speak for all of them."

  * * *

  Tiger Anna, Oder-Niesse Line

  1 February 2008

  Hans had moved his command vehicle forward to the water's edge to ensure that Benjamin and his charges made it across the river in safety. He had also moved a battalion of self-propelled 155-millimeter guns to a position far enough forward to provide support for Benjamin for the last part of the trip back. He was unwilling to order men to cross over, given the fate that had befallen most of the patrols sent forward. Nonetheless, a company of the Brigade Michael Wittmann had volunteered to cross over with rubber boats to help the Poles back.

  Though the artillery battalion had been in almost constant employment, Benjamin had managed to bring out better than four fifths of the civilians he had rescued. These were even now heading for a safe place in the rear. Benjamin, naturally, and his three remaining men—Tal had bought it to a random railgun round—were the last to leave. Exhausted, filthy and starved, they were simply carried to the waiting boats by the company that covered the retrieval. The SS men rowed the Jews back.

  Of the four remaining Jews, Benjamin was the first one out of the water. He was met at the shore by Brasche and Sergeant Rosenblum, the two taking turns slapping the major's back and shaking his hand.

  "Oh, excellent job, David!" Hans exclaimed, pumping the Israeli's hand. The Jew was too worn to do more than nod his head in thanks and submit to the fierce handshake. Some corner of his mind perhaps found amusement in the scene, the SS and the Mogen David meeting in friendship at the front. Mostly though, Benjamin's mind and body wanted only a warm, soft bed, some decent food, and perhaps a stiff drink.

  He might have added to that wish list, "And a woman," but little Maria's mother had made it clear enough, without words, that one woman, at least, was his for the asking. He thought he might just take her up on the offer made by her soft brown eyes, perhaps at some time in the not too distant future.

  He managed to croak out his wish list to Brasche.

  With a smirk Brasche brushed aside Benjamin's immediate concerns. "Soon enough, my friend, soon enough. But you are a hero to three nations today and so, before you get to trundle off to your bed a little ceremony is in order."

  Benjamin raised a hand in protest but that too Brasche brushed off. "Achtung," he ordered to the two dozen smiling men assembled. "Yes, you too, Major."

  Reluctantly, and maybe a bit shyly too, Benjamin stood to attention.

  Conversationally, Hans mentioned, in German for all those assembled to hear, "It is not well known, you know, but the first Iron Cross won in the First World War was won by a German Jew. Sergeant Rosenblum, publish the orders."

  Rosenblum spoke just enough German to struggle through the recital, "In the name of the Kanzler of the German Re
public, and by order of the Commander in Chief, Eastern Front, for conspicuous gallantry in action, and for the saving of human life . . . the Iron Cross, First Class, is presented to Major David Benjamin, Brigade Judas Maccabeus, German Federal Armed Forces."

  As Hans, smiling broadly, hung the simple, traditional medal around the Israeli's neck, he spoke quietly, in Hebrew, "I could have given you the Second Class on my own authority . . . but I thought what you have done deserved a bit more. And, with the information you sent back, the Field Marshal agreed."

  David whispered back, "What are we going to do about the enemy's plans?"

  Still smiling, for what else was there to do, Hans answered, "My friend, we have not the first fucking clue."

  * * *

  Watching on Anna's forward view-screen, and listening with her electronic ears, Krueger simply could not believe his commander's heresy. Stupid, clueless, Yid-loving bastard, he fumed. Traitor to the Fatherland and the Führer's memory. Bad enough you saved the kike, but decorating him? For saving some fucking Untermensch Slavs? It reeks.

  The world would be a better place without either of them, the Pollocks or the Yids. And if it cost the lives of nine out of ten Germans to make the world so, the price would be fair.

  Krueger would have been appalled to learn that, at the level of core philosophy, he, the Nazi fanatic, and Günter Stössel, the Reddish Green fanatic, were not so far apart after all.

  * * *

  Berlin, Germany

  1 February 2008

  Everyone in Germany, from the chancellor on down, was pale with the weak winter sun. Even so, thought the chancellor, Günter looks palest of all.

  "Prison life does not agree with you, I see," commented the chancellor.

  "Life as dictator seems to agree with you fully," retorted his former aide.

  The chancellor merely grinned and answered, "Let me see; I am a dictator because I would not let you and yours have your very undemocratic way with the fate of the German people? But you, and they, were not dictatorial even though you wished to flaunt the will of that people and wished to turn most of them over to an alien food processing machine? I must admit that I am at a loss to follow your logic, my former associate."

  To that Günter had no answer that did not sound hollow. Instead he retreated into an argument against the hated symbols. "You brought back the SS. That makes you nothing but another Nazi."

  "Bah! I resurrected a body of fighting men that we needed to survive, my doctrinaire friend. And good service they have done, too. If giving them their symbols back helps them fight one iota better, that it offends such as you seems a very small price to pay."

  The chancellor held up a hand to stifle further argument. "In any case, I did not call you here to bicker. I called you here to tell you that although your sentence was death, and a damned just sentence I deem it too, I have decided to commute your sentence to life in prison. But you will live out your days in Spandau Prison, Herr Stössel, you and the other four hundred and forty-seven seriously implicated traitors."

  Günter asked simply, "Why?"

  "Because I think you are less dangerous, locked away and forgotten, than you might have been as martyrs."

  * * *

  Headquarters

  Commander in Chief–West

  Wiesbaden, Germany

  2 February 2008

  Mühlenkampf could not drive the image of the martyred, legless boy from his mind. Small recompense it must have been to the lad, even had he been able to understand, that I pinned a medal to his pillow. Small recompense too, to the girl he left behind him or the mother who bore him. Jesus, that is the part that I hate, the broken, crippled, dead and dying innocents that war takes.

  I wish I didn't love it so much, or feel like such a damned cheat that it is always the poor boys who suffer and die while I get away scot-free.

  Still thinking upon the dying boy, Mühlenkampf mused upon a different kind of world, a different kind of war. Wouldn't it be nice if only the real professionals, people like me, were the ones who fought and died? Ah, but would the politicians abide by the battlefield's decision? Hah! Not a chance. As soon as they saw their own oh-so-precious hides at stake they'd be grabbing young ones like Gefreiter47 Webber off the street and tossing them into the meat grinder.

  The general shrugged. He hadn't made the world the way it was. And it would not be one whit better for his dreams or for his pretending it was other than it was, either.

  * * *

  In his dream Thomas was little again. But little seemed no bad thing, not when one was warm and safe and pressed to his mother's breasts. He had a full belly and the rosy glow of a glass of wine coursing through his veins. Life was good.

  Outside of Thomas' dream, however, life was one continuous nightmare of deprivation, hardship, and mind-numbing terror. The rare dreams now, stolen when he was able to catch some even more rare uninterrupted sleep, were all that remained to him of the lost world of . . . before.

  The world of "now," however, intruded on Thomas' pleasant foray into the past. Stealthy as a cat, a new level of cold crept through his thin blanket, nibbling and biting at his consciousness, gnawing at his dream.

  Thomas awakened with a shivering start.

  * * *

  Mühlenkampf, despite his heated headquarters, shivered himself.

  Before him stood his staff meteorologist and his intelligence officer. Both looked as serious as they might have at their mother's own funeral.

  "We still have stations in Scandinavia," explained the meteorologist. "And the Americans are still sending us data from Greenland. Iceland, too, reports confirming data. We are going into a deep freeze like we haven't seen in fifty years."

  The general nodded, calmly, even tried to keep a confident gleam in his eye. "Will the Rhein freeze over?"

  "Yes, likely, sir," answered the meteorologist. "Within ten days at most. And yes, sir, it will freeze solid enough to support the weight of enemy bodies."

  "On the plus side, sir, the cold will not support either fog or snow, so if the aliens attack we will have clear fields of fire."

  "And that was what I wanted to talk to you about, sir," said the intelligence man. "Clear fields of fire are all well and good, but we have this rather frightening report from CInC East. . . ."

  * * *

  Tiger Anna

  Oder-Niesse Line

  2 February 2008

  Hans still maintained, as he so often did, his lonely vigil atop Anna's turret. This night was lonelier than most.

  No fog today, so the reports say. No fog and the enemy on the other side is just waiting for daylight. Scheisse!

  But cursing fate did Hans no good. Fate was as it was, he knew. In the dim mists of time some meddlers at godhood had played genetic games with a subordinate species. That species had resisted in time and been driven forth. Eventually it had reemerged into the Galaxy, spreading death and destruction across a path that the meddling had made inevitable.

  The path had led that enemy species here. Here they had been thrashed enough, and badly enough, that they were forced to think for a change. They had thought upon their problems; they had seen a possible answer.

  And now, inevitably . . . by fate, that answer was massing on the other side

  Some part of Hans accepted fate. Some other part rejected it. A large part just wondered at his own.

  Am I then doomed? Is my soul forfeit for the part I once played in a great crime? Are my comrades'? Are those of the men I command?

  And tomorrow? What will be the better part, to take the burden of evil upon myself by acting alone or to share it out among those who have no guilt for any past crimes?

  Unconsciously, Hans spoke aloud, "Anna, I wish you were here to guide me."

  "I am here, Herr Oberst," answered the tank.

  For some inexplicable reason, Hans didn't want to answer in any way that might offend the tank. Yes, he knew it was just a machine. Yes, he knew it was not so sophisticated as the Galactics'
AIDs. Yet, Anna the tank had been home all the long months of this war. He felt she had a spirit of her own, even if she could not articulate it. He had felt as much for the panzers that had carried him though so much of the last war, and they not only couldn't talk, they couldn't even heat coffee.

  "Anna," he asked, "what am I to do tomorrow?"

  The tank answered, "My programmers would have called that one a 'no-brainer,' Herr Oberst. As you always have, you must do your best."

  * * *

  Down below, in the battle cocoon, a jubilant Krueger poured schnapps for the rest of the crew. "A great day coming tomorrow, my boys, a great day."

  The crew accepted the schnapps. Facing what they soon must, how could they not? But not one of them shared the sergeant major's plain elation.

  "How can you do it, Sergeant Major? How can you just . . ." Harz turned away in disgust.

  Krueger answered, "Ask Schultz here if it is so hard. Ask him what he felt kicking the barrel out from under that coward at Giessen. It is nothing, boys, nothing. Why I remember a place called 'Babi Yar' . . . in the Ukraine, by Kiev, that was . . ."

  * * *

  The setting sun illuminated the golden onion domes of the great city to the southeast. Kiev, once home to one hundred and seventy-five thousand Jews, would see that population reduced by over thirty-three thousand in the course of two days.

  Little seven-year-old Manya Halef, holding her mother's hand, turned around from time to time as they walked. The golden domes looked very pretty, very wonderful in a little girl's eyes.

  Manya wasn't sure why she and her mother had to leave their cramped Kiev flat. But she had seen the Germans and—much like her stern-faced teacher in school—they looked like men who had to be obeyed.

  Sometimes, as they walked, Manya's mother would pull the girl to her and cover her eyes. At first Manya resisted but, once she had seen what her mother was shielding her from, she sought her mother's shelter. The road to the Jewish cemetery at the junction of Melnikovsky and Dokhturov Streets was lined with bodies of the dead.

  Manya had been along this road before, twice. The first time she didn't remember very well. But the last time had been to bury her ancient grandmother, here in Kiev's old Jewish cemetery.