Whiteside looked solemnly at the tankers and infantry gathered around him. “It was an accident, men, a damn tragic accident and nobody’s responsible for it because everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing. If you do want to find somebody to blame, try the Germans. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be here and none of this would have happened.”
Whiteside turned and walked away quickly so no one would see the look of anguish on his face.
An infantry corporal looked at the tanker. “We’re getting back on, you know.”
The sergeant nodded sadly. “Yeah, I know.” They climbed up and the column began to move again.
Levin looked at Jack and shook his head. “I got a letter from my mother today. She’s complaining about the shortage of butter. Maybe I’ll write her and tell her about what happens when a tank runs over you. I took a picture. Maybe I should send it to her.”
Morgan managed a bitter laugh. The rain had grounded him. “It’s fun to think about doing, but you know you won’t write about anything like that. Censors don’t like any of that nasty but accurate stuff in letters to the home folks. Might make them think that war is actually dangerous and we can’t have that, now can we?”
Levin lit a cigarette. “Right. I’ll save it for my memoirs. By the way, hear anything from your girlfriend?”
Morgan flushed. “Once more, how can she be my girlfriend if I’ve never met her in person?”
“Maybe it’s better that way. If she met you and really got to know you, I’m certain she wouldn’t like you.”
“Screw you, Roy.”
“You do know that obscenities are the refuge of the small-minded, intellectually shallow and illiterate people.”
“Fuck you, Roy.”
Jessica had sent a letter saying she’d received the photo of him beside the Piper Cub. She said she’d like to take a ride in it. It sounded like a great idea, but he somehow knew that Whiteside and Stoddard would put the kibosh on it. Still, it was great to think about.
***
Margarete was constantly amazed at the amount of equipment and manpower brought to the defensive construction sites. Heavy artillery, including enormous fifteen-inch naval cannon that she was told could hurl a shell weighing almost a ton for more than twenty miles, were being dug in. Men from Germany’s navy, the Kriegsmarine, cheerfully told her that the guns had come from now useless warships and would be a nasty surprise for the Yanks. They said the casements housing the great guns and many others of smaller caliber would be impregnable and impervious to bombing.
Underground barracks for thousands of men were being constructed along with deep trenches and tunnels to enable reinforcements to be sent from one spot to another. It was a shortcoming that had led in part to the swift collapse of the Seine River defenses. No one wanted to say that the massive American assaults were the main reason.
Margarete no longer worked with a shovel. Both she and her mother had better jobs and she suspected her father’s hand in it. Magda worked in an office trying to make sense out of the project’s records while Margarete, to her delight, was assigned as a driver. Her learning to drive a car on the journey from Berlin and a tractor on the farm had paid dividends. The only downside of driving a staff car or a truck was that they were fair game for American fighters, while groups of civilians digging holes were generally left alone. Thus and regardless of the weather, she always drove with the windows open so she could listen for the sound of enemy planes. On a couple of occasions, she’d thought she’d heard fighters, stopped the car, and jumped into a ditch leaving whoever she was driving still in the car. She’d been scolded for doing that, but she didn’t care.
Most disturbing to Margarete were the hordes of men coming to help work on and man the defenses. Some were the pathetically thin men who, she was told, came from the various prisoner of war camps. She suspected that a number of them were really Jews and other undesirables taken from death camps. Since their alternative was to go to places like Auschwitz, whose existence she no longer doubted, she thought they were the lucky ones.
A second group was the “Volkssturm,” literally the “people’s storm,” or the people’s army. To her dismay, the consisted of the old and the very young. There were no uniforms and rank was designated by armbands. Their weapons were sparse. Some had old rifles that a few joked had seen service against France in 1871, while others carried captured weapons, and many had antitank Panzerfausts slung over their shoulders.
That a number of those men had seen service in the First World War was fairly obvious. Some men limped, many had scars, and a few were missing arms or hands. She suspected that a few had artificial legs. Was this what the Reich was coming to? Were these all that was left?
A few younger men were included in the ranks of the Volkssturm and she wondered why. Her mother told her they were men who had physical ailments that eliminated them from being in the regular army.
As a group of about fifty Volkssturm walked by-they didn’t even pretend to march-she was startled by a familiar face. “Volkmar Detloff,” she called out and a young man turned awkwardly. He smiled tentatively.
“Is that you, Margarete, I didn’t recognize you. You’ve changed.”
Yes, she thought. I’m no longer weak, plump and vulnerable. “And you as well, and what are you doing in the Volkssturm? I thought you’d be an officer in the Waffen-SS by now.”
He winced. “I hurt my knee in the training and now neither the army nor the SS want me. I am still considered a lieutenant, but now I’m stuck commanding old men and misfits.”
Several of he old men and misfits turned and glared at Detloff. “Don’t you think you should be a little more tactful?” she said.
“Why? These so-called soldiers are scum and won’t fight unless they are forced to,” he said and patted the Luger on his hip. “This will remind them who’s in charge and what happens to cowards.”
Margarete smiled inwardly as she heard one of the misfits, an old man who might have fought in a dozen earlier battles, say “arrogant little shit” just loud enough to be heard. Detloff wheeled and stared at his platoon, all of whom were looking innocently at the sky.
“Good luck with your command and your knee,” she said and left him. Volkmar hadn’t grown up. He hadn’t learned a thing. She waved at the old man who’d insulted Volkmar and he grinned.
Later that evening she was back at the farm and recounted the meeting to her mother. “Just think. Once upon a time I had a crush on that lout. God, how young and stupid I must have been.”
Magda chuckled. “I believe it’s called being young and growing up. I do wonder if young Lieutenant Volkmar will ever realize what a fool he is and grow up.”
Margarete nodded. “I wonder if the war will let him grow up.”
***
Alfie Swann had twice jumped into combat with England’s First Airborne Division. First had been in Normandy where things had worked out relatively well. They’d accomplished most of their D-Day objectives and had stayed together as a cohesive unit, unlike America’s two airborne divisions, the 82nd and 101st, which had been scattered all over by a number of factors beyond their control, and had suffered enormous casualties. The paras of Britain’s First were sad that it happened to the Yanks, but happy it hadn’t happened to them.
However, their turn for disaster came when they jumped east of the mouth of the Seine. The krauts had been ready for them and antiaircraft tracers and machine guns had lit up the skies. Telephone poles and other obstructions had been planted in fields and connected by wires to impale and hang up paratroops or cause gliders to crash with appalling loss of life.
Alfie had been lucky. He’d made it to the ground unscathed. So many of his mates had been killed or wounded. He’d connected with some other lucky ones and fought on for days until they’d been forced to surrender. He’d heard that a few men had made it north to the sea and he hoped his fighting had helped their escape.
Except for some bruises, Alfie was unh
urt. He was twenty-five and had enlisted when the war first started in 1939. Alfie’d been brought up in the slums of London’s west end, now a funeral pyre thanks to Nazi bombers. He’d lost an uncle and a couple of cousins in the bombings and subsequent conflagrations, and wanted nothing more than to take out the Germans. He’d killed a few in the fighting but not enough to satisfy him.
Alfie and a half dozen other captured paras, accompanied by three SS guards, had been marching along a road heading towards a prison camp east of the Rhine when an American fighter mistook them for a squad of German infantry. Bullets had plowed through the group, shredding prisoner and guard alike. When the dust settled, he was the only man alive except for a badly injured guard whom he promptly stabbed with the guard’s own bayonet.
“That’s for my family,” he’d muttered. The guards had been overweight garrison types, but they were Germans and SS, and the particular German he’d stabbed had taken delight in beating and harassing the prisoners.
After pushing the bodies of friend and foe into a ditch, Alfie had headed south, hoping to find a place to hide out until the Americans crossed the great river. He didn’t go north, as that was where he’d been captured.
In his opinion, the British army was through, fought out, and there weren’t any more young men left at home to flesh out the depleted ranks. He liked to think that the men in charge of Great Britain’s war effort, Churchill and Montgomery, knew that. However, he did doubt and wonder.
He was able to pilfer enough food at night to stay fed, and he traveled only during the darkness. He also had a Mauser rifle and two Luger pistols for protection, along with one slightly used bayonet, courtesy of his guards. Alfie was a damned good shot and it felt good to have a rifle again, even if it was a German Mauser and not a proper Enfield.
This early evening he’d found a fairly large but dilapidated shed with its door unlocked, a clear signal that it was empty. That was fine by him. He just wanted a place to hide and sleep. He slipped in backwards and immediately felt there was something wrong. He wasn’t alone.
“Shit,” he muttered. No sense being still. Even though it was getting dark, anyone in the shed would have seen him silhouetted against the open door. He carefully turned around, the rifle pointed into the gloom. “Okay, who the hell’s in here?”
There was a shuffling and two shapes stood up and held out their hands to show they were unarmed. They were men, thin beyond gaunt, and they were dressed in striped rags. He recognized the garb from pictures he’d seen. They’d been in a concentration camp and were less of a threat to him than two field mice. He lowered his rifle.
“Either of you speak English?” Alfie asked.
“We both do,” the taller one said, “just not very well.”
Alfie thought the man spoke well enough indeed.
“Do you have any food?” the second man asked. “We haven’t eaten in days.”
Alfie handed them some bread and vegetables he had in a sack. “Just eat slowly. Too fast and you’ll cramp up and die.”
Like dogs they did as told and ate with restraint. In between bites, they told him that their names were Aaron Rosenfeld and Saul Blum and that they’d escaped from a work camp a few miles away. “We were all going to be shipped to Auschwitz and nobody returns from there. It’s a death camp.”
Alfie wasn’t certain what they were talking about, but accepted that they were afraid they’d be killed outright rather than simply beaten to death or starved. They further told him that they had once been university professors and had taught English literature. They had families but hadn’t heard from them since being taken by the Gestapo a year earlier. They quite candidly told him they thought their loved ones were dead.
Shit, Alfie thought, what kind of a fucking war was this? He’d heard of Nazi atrocities of course, but this was his first direct experience with them. What the hell danger were two English literature teachers to Hitler and his fucking Reich?
Aaron spoke. “How far away is the rest of your army?”
Alfie laughed harshly. “Plenty far away. It might as well be on the moon. They’re on the other side of the Rhine and nowhere near it for that matter. The krauts are getting real smart and holding us at bay.”
Saul broke down and sobbed. “Then we’re lost. We can’t hide out forever.”
“Why the hell not?” Alfie said angrily. “I don’t plan on surrendering to the fucking SS or the Gestapo or any other fucking Nazi.”
“Then you’ll protect us?” asked Aaron.
Alfie took a deep breath. What the hell was he getting himself into? It was trouble enough for one man to stay alive, but to be saddled with a pair of useless Jews? Christ on a crutch.
“Yeah,” he said.
***
Whiteside was livid. “Morgan, just who the hell do you think you are and just how the hell did you think you could get away with such a jackass stunt as buzzing the Eiffel Tower? Thousands of people saw you and your plane was easily identifiable. Somebody even took pictures for the French papers and your ugly face is clearly visible.”
Jack stood at attention and took the butt-chewing he knew he deserved. At least Levin wasn’t involved. Whiteside was only interested in the idiot pilot and that was Jack.
“Sir, it was a dumb thing to do and I apologize for it.”
“And let me guess, you think you can’t get punished because you’re already in combat. Well, you’re wrong. I could drop your worthless ass down to second lieutenant in a heartbeat, or I could court-martial you down to buck private and put you in an infantry platoon. However, since you would likely last less than thirty seconds in the infantry that would be tantamount to murder so I am only going to seriously consider dropping your rank.”
Whiteside took a sip of cold coffee, winced, and glared at Jack. “The French are pissed off because the touchy bastards think you insulted them, which you did. Would you have buzzed the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument? Or maybe St. Peter’s in Rome?”
“No, sir.”
“And Ike’s joined the list of pissed off people because the French are spending a lot of time complaining to him about stupid, insensitive Americans, and now he has to spend valuable time solving the problem you created.”
Oh Jesus, Jack thought. It’s gone all the way to Ike? Jack swallowed. That was not what he’d had in mind. “Sir, it was a sophomoric prank. It won’t happen again.”
“Morgan, you are going to get one chance to survive and keep your rank. Do you have a class-A uniform?”
“No, sir,” Jack answered, puzzled. “When the LST got sunk my stuff was ruined. They didn’t give me anything other than fatigues as reissue.”
“Damn. Okay, we’ll scrounge up something for you, because you are going to SHAEF, where you’ll grovel and whimper and kiss Ike’s ass, and then you’ll plant a big wet one on de Gaulle’s ass if you have to, and then you’ll ask him if he’d like you to kiss it again. If the weather clears up and permits flying, Snyder will take over as pilot while you’re gone, and Rolfe will be his spotter, so we’ll survive quite nicely without you.
“And don’t think for one second that you’re going to have a good time in Paris. Levin will be with you and he’ll have strict orders to keep you under wraps.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wonderful.” He handed Jack an envelope. “Here are your orders. You are to meet a Captain Grayson at SHAEF who will tell you when and where to drop your shorts so you can get your ass kicked, not kissed. Now get the hell out of here.”
***
Another day in Sweden and another dingy hotel, thought von Papen as he looked around at the tawdry room that said that the Swedes penchant for neatness was vastly overrated. At least this one had a private bath and a toilet which he’d already used, however reluctantly, because of the grime. It occurred to him that he was getting soft as he grew older.
This time both he and Molotov had flown in planes with Swedish markings. The Swedes were too cowed by the presence of both Rus
sia and Germany to make any protest whatsoever. Sweden was terrified about the future. The opportunistic Swedes had allowed themselves to be bullied into supplying Germany with vast amounts of war materiel. Now they were far too concerned about what might befall them when the fighting inevitably ended to worry about two planes making unauthorized flights. Their fear was that Russia would overrun them and make Sweden another satellite country.
Von Papen had arrived first and checked the room for recording devices. He’d found them, of course, and his men had then planted their own, even though he suspected he’d found the bugs he’d been expected to find. Both sides would have a transcript of the discussions so neither could be blackmailed. Or perhaps both could, he thought.
Molotov entered, looked around the room in mild disgust, shrugged, and took a seat on the chair opposite von Papen. Their respective translators took up station.
Von Papen began. “My government is very interested in your proposal, but you already know that. We propose a one year truce, to be renewed annually if both sides concur.”
Molotov nodded. “We would prefer two years.”
The German shrugged. “Then two it is.”
That both men managed to say it with a straight face was a tribute to their diplomatic skills. The two nations had and would disregard truces or treaties at will. The truce would last for as long as either or both wished it.
“How will you explain this to the Americans?” von Papen asked.
Molotov shrugged dismissively. “We will tell them much of the truth, which is that our armies are exhausted and need to rest and refit. I would suggest that our two forces periodically nibble at each other in order to maintain the fiction that we are still at war.”
Von Papen managed to conceal the fact that he was shocked, even disgusted. Such “nibbling” would result in numerous dead and wounded, a fact that didn’t dismay the Soviets in any way. A point to remember about Stalin was that he didn’t care about the piles of dead and wounded.
Himmler's war Page 18